The University of Michigan The Michigan Daily-Wednesday, April 5, 1978-Page 5 NOISE~ by mike taylor NE OF THE MORE delightful side-effects of the New Wave has been the return to 45 r.p.m. singles and extended play discs (EP's) as a popular recording format. Since it is cheaper to record, produce, and market singles and EP's than albums, many new bands have released singles or EP's as preludes to LP's. Until the mid-sixties, when Bob Dylan and the Beatles popularized the LP, most new music came out as singles or EP's. Artists would think of making singles rather than albums, and there was always plenty of ex- citement when the latest single from a favorite artist came out. The Sex Pistols released four singles before Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols was released, and scores of new bands have followed the same pattern. The market is now flooded with singles and EP's, many containing songs not included on albums and packaged in creative picture sleeves. UNFORTUNATELY FOR the consumer, these new singles and EP's are generally not cheap. Since most are imported or home-made, they usually cost two to three times as much as the traditional 99 single. However, a growing number of groups are signing with major labels, making mass- * distributed, domestic singles by New Wave artists increasingly available for the old-fashioned price of 99. And like the higher-priced imported and home- made singles and EP's, most feature songs not available on LP's and have nice picture covers. Ever since Patti Smith signed with Arista, it's been impossible to find a 4 copy of her first single, "Hey Joe (Version)" b/w "Piss Factory," originally on Mer. Now that Sire has re-released it, however, there's no excuse for any Patti Smith fan to be without it. Recorded in 1974, before Smith had formed her band, it shows two sides of her raw, original rock poetry at its best. "Hey Joe (Version)," a re-make, re-model of the old Hendrix tune, star- ts out with a spoken monologuel about Patti Hearst. Richard Sohl's piano en- ters, and Smith begins a slow, mournful dirge. Lenny Kaye's rhythm guitar is fine, but Tom Verlaine's stinging lead guitar makes the tune great. By the end of the song, Smith has turned it into her own, just as she later did with "Gloria" and "Land of a Thousand Dances." THE B-SIDE, "Piss Factory," is a masterpiece. Backed only by Sohl's jazz-tinged, up-tempo piano and Kaye's fluid guitar, Smith speaks a socialist manifesto against repression-repression in the factory, repression in day- to-day life, repression of the soul. At the end of her stream-of-consciousness flow of words, Smith promises she'll escape to something better: Im going to be big. I'm going to be a star. Oh watch me now Smith's new single, "Because the Night" b/w "God Speed," on Arista, which came out a few weeks before her new album, Easter, shows her promise has come true. She's a rok'n'roll star now, and "Because the Night," co-written by Bruce Springsteen, is just the latest in a stream of dynamic rock'n'roll songs from Smith like "Ask the Angels" and "Pumping (My Heart)." Luckily, it's also on the LP. "God Speed" is a throwback to the Smith of "Hey Joe (Version)" and "Birdland." Backed just by piano and guitar, it's the nightmare other side of "Because of Night." While that song is a buoyant tribute to the joys of love, this time Smith sounds like she's singing it in the middle of the night just af- ter another unscuccessful attempt to make love. Her voice starts out lethargic, but becomes very angry by the end. It's a gem, and isn't on Easter, one good reason'to buy the single. Another reason: an outrageous cover shot. COLUMBIA HAS released two singles from Elvis Costello's remarkable My Aim Is True, "Alison" b/w "Miracle Man" and "Watching the Detec- tives" b/w "Blame It On Caine" and "Mystery Dance." t The single version of "Alison" is slightly different from the LP version: it's shorter, strings and back-up vocals have been added, and Costellos's voice has been mixed down somewhat. The end result is considerably softer than the original; though interesting, it lacks the devastating anger and im- pact of the LP cut.W The B-side, a live version of "Miracle Man," is a real treat however. In- *;stead of the studio version's sparse instrumentation, there's gutsy guitar rif- fs and roller-rink keyboard exhuberance. Costello sings it faster, but again his voice seems more subdued than the original take. Nevetheless, it's still lots of fun. "WATCHING THE Detectives" is the same one on the LP, so it's not worth much unless you happened to buy the English version of the LP, which doesn't include it. On the flip side, however, are live versions of 'Blame It On Cain" and "Mystery Dance." The first has the same colorful keyboard/guitar instrumentation as the live "Miracle Man," making it wor- th quite a few spins, but Costello sings "Mystery Dance" a little too fast for its own good. His timing is off, leaving the tune not quite as danceable as the LP version. Still, the excitement of the live performance comes through. The new single by Talking Heads on Sire is rather bizarre: both sides feature "Psycho Killer"! The A-side is straight off Talking Heads: 77, but the B-side is a hitherto unreleased "acoustic" version. It's a relaxed take, featuring low-key vocals, acoustic guitar, electric bass, viola, and drums. It has a more mysterious ambiance than the electric version, and, perhaps, more sincerity. The most promising single in recent weeks is the Tom Robinson Band's "2-4-6-8 Motorway" b/w "I Shall Be Released," on Harvest. Although both sides are likely to be included on Robinson's first LP, the single is worth picking up today for instant gratification. Robinson is a rising English rocker unafraid to take strong political stands or hide his gayness. In fact, one of his best songs is a happy sing-a- long called "Glad to Be Gay." "2-4-6-8 Motorway," on the other hand, is an apolitical pop tune about the road. The instrumentation is tight and attrac- tive, the vocals honest and appealing, and the melody a knock-out. Apparen- tly Robinson's holding the politics for later. The flip side, Dyland's "I Shall Be Released," takes on a new meaning as Robinson sings it. His version is clearly dedicated to the struggle against oppression, whether the oppressors be homophobes, racists, or capitalist in general. Robinson's quiet singing and playing barely conceal his "' ,ridled anger. When Tom Robinson sings "I Shall Be Released," you I ,w he means it. All the above singles can be found in Ann Arbor record stores for 99t or so. But be careful; one local merchant has tried selling the domestic items at imported prices. Don't be fooled ! Film festivalfocuses The University of Michigan Gilbert and Sullivan Society THE GONDOLIERS April 12-15, 1978 Mendelssohn Theatre, Michigan League University of Michigan on search By KATHE GEIST, T HE WIM WENDERS Film Festival culminates Thursday with a screening of the director's 1976 film, Kings of the Road, and a talk by Wenders himself. The purpose of the Festival has been to introduce another prominent director from the New GermaneCinemato this campus, where the enthusiastic response to the films of Werner Herzog indicates a keen in- terest in the German New Wave. Opposite to the films of Herzog in both theme and content, the films of Wenders equal Herzog's in the freshness of their vision. Wenders whose films always include a child, has said that for him children signify the fresh, unvarnished view of the , world that he hopes to capture in his films.. Born in 1945, Wenders makes films about his generation of Germans, children who grew up in an occupied country under a cloud not of their own creation. The three films being shown inthe Festival, Alice in the Cities, False Movement and Kings of the Road, con- stitute a loose trilogy whose main character, Wenders' alter ego, is always played by Ruediger Vogler. A paen to a restless generation whose roots were blown away by Nazi propaganda and allied bombs, each film centers on a search for identity growing out of an alienation from home. In Alice, Philip, a journalist, seeks his own roots while hunting for a little girl's grandmother. The house in which the grandmother once lived turns out to be occupied by strangers (a situation frequently encountered by returning German war veterans). When Bruno, a movie projector repairman in Kings of the Road, visits his childhood home, he finds it closed up and deserted. In False Movement, Wilhelm, an aspiring author, is sent off on his journey by his mother. Philip spins a yarn for Alice telling of a boy who leaves his mother in the forest and after many adventures reaches the sea where he at last remembers his mother. FOR THE YOUNG, Wenders, rock'n'roll was a forbidden pleasure ob tained by listening to the Armed Forces Radio network. Wenders' characters share this devotion, humming old tunes, playing and even owning jukeboxed which. are fast becoming Wenders' trademark. Wenders' am- bivalence toward American culture is 'Seaguall'. By DAVID VICTOR T HE RESIDENTIAL College Players' coming performance of Anton Chekov's The Seagull promises to be a special event. The production, which will be presented April 6, 7, and 8, "lends itself to RC Players' approach," according to stage director Nancy Ferguson. It represents the culmination of a full semester of inten- sive study for most of those involved. Unde the guidance of Prof. Matthew Wikander, the students have read all of Chekov's plays and an enormous num- ber of his short stories, studied the historical surroundings of the playwright, and investigated previous interpretations of The Seagull in a play production seminar. Such "in depth study of one play," Wikander says, can only "serve to fuel interpretations of the play." The play itself is a Russian classic. While written in 1895, the theme remains particularly relevant almost one hundred years later. In our own age of fads and cranks, The Seagull's message of the hard road to success over the easy fame of the avant-garde strikes home. And the 'coming RC Players' production April 6-8 in RC Auditorium at East Quad promises to strike home as well. 'or identity best summed up by Robert in Kings, who says, "The Yanks have colonized our subconscious," in response to Bruno's story of having remembered an appropriate tune when leaving an old girlfriend. But as Bruno drives off at the end singing Roger Miller's "King of the Road," it is clear that no other music could be appropriate. The new German Cinema initiated in 1962 at the Oberhausen Film Festival, amidst strident cries from 26 young German writers, directors and artists who signed a manifesto calling for a break with the moribund commercial German cinema and demanding gover- nment support for a fresh start. By the late Sixties the West German gover- nment had responded in a number of ways, including a subsidies program for new films and the establishment of film schools in Munich and Berlin. Wenders attended the Munich school from its foundation in 1967 until 1970. The only well-known German director to have had a formal training, Wenders found it only marginally helpful. Most helpful, he says, is watching other movies. Like Truffaut and Goddard, he managed to earn money watching movies, working as a critic while in school. His diploma film, the full-length feature Summer in the City, is available for commercial distribution and anticipates the lonely characters and travel motifs of the later films. His seconfd film was the adaptation of Peter Handke's The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick, in which he ex- plored and developed a personal style. In 1972 he directed an international co- production of Hawthorn's The Scarlet Letter in Spain, where, he says, he so lost the sense of Puritan New England that the film lacks all dimension. The trilogy followed in '74, '75, and '76. False Movement was awarded the government film prize while Kings won the International Critics Prize at Can- nes. PERFORMANCES: Wednesday, April 12 at 8 p.m. @ $3.50 Thursday, April 13 at 8 p.m. @ $3.50 Friday, April 14 at 8 p.m.@ $4.00 Saturday, April 15 at 2 p.m. @ $3.50) Saturday, April 15 at 8 p.m.@ $4.00 Extremely limited tickets available FOR TICKET INFORMATION BEFORE APR. 9, 994-0221: AFTER APR. 9.763-1085 siudens t supplement summer wor For 200per week t Frfurther in formationciet STUDENT ACTIVITIES BUILDING R oom No. 3545 at 11:00, 1:00 or 3:00 Wednesday April5 2:0 &2:0 h~rdo pi l THE SEAGULL by ANTON CHEKHOV PRESENTED BY THE RESIDENTIAL COLLEGE PLAYERS APRIL 67,858PM EAST QUAD AUDITORIUM ADMISSION $2.50 Tickets Available Michigan Union Box Office 763-2071 9 L Il 1kIVESITY cfMUSICAL OCIETY presentg " The Notre Dame Cultural Arts Commission Presents The Twentieth Annual d COLLEGIATE V JAZZ. FESTIVAL 1978 FEATURING MANY OF THE NATION'S FINEST COLLEGE JAZZ GROUPS Bavaan .Symphonmy, Orchestra .Rafael Kubeliok Conductor, In their first Ann Arbor appearance since 1968 the I110-member Bavarian Symphony Orchestra of Munich willplay Mahler's Symphony No. 9. The renowned Rafael Kubelik will conduct. This program is of particular interest because Maestro Kubelik has done so much to make Mahler's symphonies a part of standard repertory. Tickets are $4 to $10 at Burton Tower. Weekdays 9-4:30, Saturdays 9-12. Telephone: 665-3717. Sa__ - - - A O.2N i