AM ERICAN ROMANCE by mike taylor It came upon me in a dream not long ago that the Ramones should call their fourth album "American Romance." But alas, they've opted for "Road to Ruin" instead, so I decided to name this column, being an inquiry into one of America's favorite pastimes - rock 'n'roll, "American Romance." A LL MY FELLOW punkoids say it's their favorite song of the year, beating out even "Because the Night" and "Badlands." Just listen to it as the guitars roar, the bass throbs, the drums explode with fire. The melody surges and reaches a peak. The hook comes with the chorus, and you're singing along : Mommy's all right, Daddy's all right They just seem a little weird Surrender, surrender But don't give yourself away It's "Surrender," from Cheap Trick's third album in a year-and-a-half, Heaven Tonight. I'm in ecstasy every time I hear it, and that's what rock 'n' roll is about, right? THERE'S A SONG on The Cars, the first album from the most promising band to emerge from Boston since the original Modern Lovers, that has a similarly intoxicating effect. "My Best Friend's Girl" is the kind of classic pop song Bruce Springsteen will be covering in his stage shows twenty years from now. Starting with a super-lean guitar riff, the tune builds into a great love/bitterness combo, highlighted by instrumentation borrowed from hard rock bands and Roxy Music, and vocals borrowed from Ray Davies and David Byrne: I Here she comes again When she's dancing 'neath the starry sky You kinda like the way she dips She's my best friend's girl And she used to be mine ... Though their approaches differ radically, Cheap Trick and The Cars produce simple, highly tuneful rock; the lyrics don't pretend to say anything important, but the music carries you to rush after hook-laden rush. THOUGH THE Beatles have been dead for eight years, critics and fans persist in comparing their new finds to those melodic ghosts. With Cheap Trick, however., a comparison is not out of order. They sounded eerily like the Beatles on some songs on their first two albums, including a Len- nonesque vocal intro to "The Ballad of T.V. Violence (I'm Not the Only - -flo ai With decadent display, Zappa molests U.S.A. By ANNE SHARP Frank Zappa strolled onstage at Cobo Hall thirty-five minutes late Thursday night, due to a delay in setting up some xylophones. No one complained; they- just shook their fists happily on high, lustily yelling "ZAPPA!" Their idol, the moustached, raven-locked Salvador Dali of contemporary music, could do no wrong. And he knew it. Casually dressed in Levis,sa simple blue cotton shirt, and red sneakers, Zappa nonchalantly joined his band for the opening instrumental, then laun- ched into a medley of tunes centered around the singles-bar scene, including "Dancing Fool" and "Easy Meat". FRANK ZAPPA, the performer, is cool, urbane, scornful of television, disco, and the bourgeois way of life. This outlook is typified in the lyric he sang, "I am a moron and this is my wife/She's frosting a cake with a paper knife." He also possesses a scatological streak a mile wide, epitomized in a tune he performed about anal sex, complete with meaningful grimaces at the audience and appropriate gestures at parts of his own anatomy. Zappa can be so gross! And yet, with screaming feedback and xylophones scurrying through the melody like car- toon mice from outer space, his music is always innovative and technically well-done. He is also a comedian with a gift for improvisation. Plucking a stray Frisbee from the stage, he clapped a baseball cap onto it, and held it like Hamlet contemplating Yorick's skull. "Not only are you intelligent," he told the Frisbee, "but you have a very nice complexion." "This is the romantic part of our program," Zappa announced, He went on to criticize mass-market love songs like Peter Frampton's "I'm In You" ("And they complain about me with songs like 'Dinah Moe Humm' and stuff ! That's soft core porn!") He then sailed into "I Have Been In You," a lecherous reprise to Frampton's tune. THE AUDIENCE lapped it up, and tried to show their appreciation by throwing things and crowding round the platform. Onstage, however, Joe Cool looked blankly at them and told them not to hassle the T-shirted goons (he called them "ushers") Cobo supplies to keep order during rock concerts. On the second curtain call, the strangest thing happened. Rather than work the audience into a frenzy (as any red-blooded rock and roll star would have done) by playing a few beloved, rowdy numbers like, say, "Dinah Moe" or "Camarillo Brillo", as he did for the first encore, he performed two long, esoteric instrumentals, "Strictly Gen- teel" and "Black Napkins." Dozens of fans who had clustered in the near aisles, ready to rush the stage, drifted back to their seats, bewildered. Unmoved, Frank continued playing his guitar. He wanted none of their love and adoration; how else could he have remained so cool and sardonic, under such circumstances? The Michigan Daily-Saturday, September 30, 1978-Page 5 DAILY EARLY BIRD MATINEES -- Adults $1.25 DISCOUNT IS FOR SHOWS STARTING BEFORE 1:30 MON. ttwu SAT. 10 A.M. til 1.3 P.M. SUN. s HOLS.12 Noon tii 1;30 P.M. EVENING ADMISSIONS AFTER 5:00, $3.50 ADULTS Monday-Saturday 1:30-5:00, Admission $2.50 Adult and Students Sundays and Holidays 1:30 to Close, $3.50 Adults, $2.50 Students Sunday-Thursday Evenings Student & Senior Citizen Discounts Children 12 And Under, Admissions $1.25 TICKET SALES 1. Tickets sold no sooner than 30 minutes prior to showtine. 2. No tickets sold later than 15 minutes after showtime. It was the Deltas agaiast the es.. Fri. & Sat. Late Shows against the rules...1:onSale the rules lost! Following 9:00 AATIx" ACRNAMPOON A JACK ROLLINS-CHARLES H. JOFFE PRODUCION1 _;k '-Jr t 1AlrL S s . ISSY SPACEK as CARR6 as CARRIE JOHN TRAVOLTA and PIPER LAURIE join in the fun as Carrie blossoms into a poisonous flower on Prom night. A withdrawn but sweet High School senior who is neglected and made fun of by friends because of her over-zealous religious mother, Carrie in turn claims r'evenge upon her entire graduation class prom--turning it into the most horrifying nightmarish scene that the devil can possibly imagine. Five stunning climaxes in blazing glory! SUN.: Fassbinder's THE AMERICAN SOLDIER INTRl]AIORS"' 10:40 1:00 3:30 6:30 9:00 10:30 1:15 3:45 6:45 9:15 Heaven Tonight Cheap Trick Epi JE 35312 CINEMA GUILD TONIGHT at 7:00 & 9:05 OLD ARCH. AuD. $1.50 The Cars lektra 6F-135 Boy)," "Taxman, Mr. Thief," and "I Want You to Want Me." Their new album has Abbey Road overtones all over the place; sometimes they sound like the Electric Light Orchestra, another band that often sounds like an ex- tension of the Beatles. But most of all they sound like Cheap Trick; a vibrant wall-of-guitars L sound tht comes close to the intensity of the Ramones from Rick Nielson, ho also writes most of the songs; solid, playful bass from Tom Petersson, persistent drumming from Bun E. Carlos; and light, yet confident vocals from Robin Zander. Together, these four guys produce a tight, dense in- strumental mix that's the perfect base for Nielson's hard-edged pop songs. HEAVEN TONIGHT is filled with great songs. Besides "Surrender," there's "On Top of the World," a find dance tune that breaks into a com- pletely different melody towards the end; "Taking Me Back," a lovely num- ber that has nothing to do with the A&W Root Beer "Taking Me Back" jingle; "On The Radio," a delightful,.albeit' ironic celebration of the radio (for some unknown reason Cheap Trick has yet to hit AM radio); and the haunting title track, the record's only ballad. There's also a likeable version of Roy Wood's "California Man." The Cars take the components of a song apart, and then put it all back together into something that resembles rock 'n' roll, much as Brian Eno does. Roy Thomas Baker was a great pick for producer, because as anyone knows from his work with Queen, he's a master of stereo separtion. Take the opening number, "Good Times Roll," for example. The guitar enters on the right, the drums on the left. Bass, synthesizer, and vocals come next, and the song's complete. But the parts never completely merge into a solid unit; you've always got the feeling that one wrong note would send all the parts flying apart again. It's difficult to become involved in music as programmed as this, but the Cars pull it off through the sheer elegance of their melodies. How can you resist humming along and tapping your feet to tunes like "Just What I Needed," a rather heavy guitar rocker; "You're All I've Got Tonight," an urgent rock ballad; and "All Mixed Up," a shining tune highlighted by a warm saxophone solo. I suspect The Cars has a little something for everyone. Boston fans will love the harmonies in "Just What I Needed," pop purists will love the sim- plicity of "My Best Friend's Girl," and Roxy Music/Talking Heads fans will love the distorted melodies and chaotic instrumentation of "Good Times Roll," "I'm In Touch With Your World," "Bye Bye Love," and "Moving in Stereo." This summer, I sat in the Providence Civic Center and watched 12,000 rock 'n' roll fans, whose last show might have been Kiss, the Beach Boys, Aerosmith, or Shaun Cassidy, crowd in to watch the Cars. That's right, 12,000 people. For a band that grew out of the Boston New Wave, I'd say that's pret- ty good. They were a smash, lighting the horde ablaze and coming back (or two encores. And I bet the kids would have liked Cheap Trick too. MANNTHEATRES WED. MATINEES VILLAGET' ALL SEATS $1.50 MAPtE VILLAGE SHOPPING CENTER A 769.1300 UNTIL 4:30 Mediatrics presents I NEVER PROMISED YOU A ROSE GARDEN (Anthony Page, 1977) Many things make a movie but KATH- LEEN QUINLAN'S portrayal of an emotionally disturbed young woman makes this good film exceptional. With BIBI ANDER- SON as the psychiatrist. KRISTIN GRIFFITH MARYBETH HURT RICHARD JORDAN DIANE KEATON E.G. MARSHALL GERALDINE. PAGE MAUREEN STAPLETON SAM WATERSTON Director of Photography GORDON WILLIS Executive Producer ROBERT GREEN HUT Produced by CHARLES H. JOFFE Sept. 30 Nat. Sci. Aud. 7, 8:40, & 10:20- The Ann Arbor Film Cooperafive ,presentsat MLB 3 SATURDAY, 5EPTEMBER 30 JAMES DEAN NIGHT EAST OF EDEN (Elia Kazan, 1955) 7 only-MLB 3 Kazan's adaptation of Steinbeck's novel was the film that turned a talented stage-TV actor named James Dean into a superstar. Dean ploys Col Trask, a confused adolescent searching desperately for lost love and tenderness, with a gut-wrenching sensitivity that prompted his director to say "Dean didn't play cal, he sCal." The youth of that period immediately recognized the honesty of his performance and flocked to the film, making Dean the hottest star on the Warners lot. "In James Dean, today's youth discovers itself." -Francois Truffout. REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (Nicholas Ray, 1955) 9 only MLB 3 A teenager gets into trouble in school and runs away with his girlfriend. There are many reasons to see REBEL, but JAMES DEAN overshadows them all with his best screen performance. You'll probably never see acting this good again. With NATALIE WOOD. NICK ADAMS, DENNIS HOPPER, SAL MINEO, JIM BACKUS. Monday: Joseph H. Lewis night. GUN CRAZY. The director will speak following the show. FREE The Ann Arbor Film Cooperative is looking for new members. Ask for details at our showings. I I Written and Directed by WOODY ALLEN 1 i I mmommoI SHOWTIMES SUN-WED-SAT 1:15 3:45 6:45 9:20 Mon-Tues-Thurs-Sat 6:45 9:20 -~ - -. ~ ."