Friday, August 12, 1977

THE MICHIGAN DAfLY

Page Five

Supero ckarama

By SUE RYNSKI
AFTER A LONG demise. Detroit's rock
'n roll is coming to life again. High
intensity rumbling vibrated f r o m the
depths of the deadly city as local talent
tried their stuff in concert at the Kramer
Theatre Wednesday night. The Kramer,,
a typically aged movie palace, set _a

suitably primitive atmosphere-true to
Detroit tradition.
And a few of the original denizens of
bllroom rock, circa 1969, members of
the legendary Stooges and MC 5, were
among the musicians performing.
Bittersweet Alley, a young band with a
lot of energy, opened the show with a
set comprised of rock standards and

Destroy All Monsters
original tunes. crowd-only to rejoin the band with in-
. NEXT WAS Destroy All Monsters, a creased vitality.
psychedelic hard rock outfit doing origi- The Sillies had a costumed i m a g e
unas with a s t r o n g lyrical accent on that blended well with the blatant sexual-
drugs, decadence and death. Lead gui- ity and pounding beat of their numbers.
;.w w tarist Ron Asheton played a smooth, re- Unfortunately, their set was cut short
fined lead guitar that had young Stooges due to time difficulties.
admirers at his feet screaming, "I wanna Clearing the way for the new MC 5-
be your dog." Smiling throughout, Mi- Rob Tyner's recent revival. They smash-
chael Davis (ex-MC 5) h e 1 d down a ed through a combination of favorites
steady bass line, but their set's most and some originals, finishing up with a
dramatic turn came when vocalist Nia- religious rendiion of "Kick Out the
The Sillies gara tumbled from the stage into the Jams."
CINDERELLA 2000
Only the jokes were obscene

By KURT HARJU
AS EXPECTED, Al Adamson's Cinderella
2000 is not your ordinary fairytale set in the
future. It rips-off freely from many obvious
sources including Kurt Vonnegut's "Harrison
Bergeron" story, a little (but certainly not
enough) of Roger Vadim and Jane Fonda's
Barbarella, song-and-dance routines in the tra-
dition but not the quality of Jesus Christ Super-
star and other "hip" musicals, and every other
X-rated film trying to be funny. It gives back
nothing really worthwhile in return.
Billed as "Tomorrow's sexiest Comedy -
Today," it does not often make the mistake
of being campy (except for the totally flakey
musical numbers) but it does come off as be-
ing incredibly silly. The film's premise of a
world without love except by the permission
of and selection by computers is not a bad
start. But, even for laughs, it's hard to accept
that the repressive situation exists because the
leader is impotent.
FOR THOSE WHO ARE interested, the rat-
ing it advertises is not a fair assessment of

its contents. For all its moralizing about the
importance of love and romantic sex over
senseless "fornication," it offers little of either.
It is funny in spots and even inventive (the
Prince's frantic, speeded-up bedhopping to find
Cinderella for example), some of the actors
do have presence to hold the screen but it is
only pornographic in that it deals with the
subject - and not that it's actually presented.
The trouble with the genre (which it's be-
coming in a clasa slightly higher than Japa-
nese sci-fi flicks and spaghetti Westerns) is
the ways in which filmmakers approach it. It's
either brutal hard-core or light-headed comedy
but it's rarely shown in the manner people
relate to each other. Sex, in everyday life, can
be humorous, entertaining or whatever, but
these flicks are laughing nervously - maybe
out of guilt - at -themselves.
THE MARKET is certainly there or else
people wouldn't pay good money for bad mov-
ies. The idea is that if you're going to do it,
do it right - but that won't happen as long
as it's hard for a big commercial film to get

an X rating and break even. It wouldn't mat-
ter if all the money, time and effort - not to
mention flesh - put into these films were
wasted so long as it satisfied the voyeur in the
American public. But they don't and the audi-
ence keeps coming back and looking for some-
thing better.
The people who could make them well or,
at least, interesting for a change don't want
to gamble their reputations on a risque ex-
periment. Robert Altman and Warren Beatty
have considered trying to produce serious por-
no movies but each has backed down for the
meantime. About the only truly funny film on
the topic was Woody Allen's: Everything You
Ever Wanted To Know About Sex, but the ac-
cent was on the comedy and it arose appropri-
ately out of the circumstances or characters
and not the act itself.
Until they start making sexual movies with
the same amount of interest, purpose and reve-
lance that their audiences attach to them, it
might be best to heed the Fairy Godfather's
advice to Cinderella - "love is for making, not
watching."

Alice astounds

I 4k38

By TIM YAGLE
ON AUGUST 9, Detroit's Cobo Arena was the
setting for what promised to be one-of the most
bizarre concerts of the season, or any other sea-
son for that matter.
Alice Cooper and his band of ghouls treated
the frenzied, sellout crowd to an outrageously
interesting show featering sights you might ex-
pect from an Alice Cooper show yet you still
can't believe you are seeing them. v
Canadian pop/rock star4Burton Cummings led
off the show with a few songs from his new
album My Own Way to Rock followed by a med-
ley of old Guess Who favorites, including "These
Eyes," "American Woman," and "Laughing."
FOLLOWING THIS nostalgia trip, and, yelling
"Detroit! Detroit!," an exuberant Cummings
gave the audience a taste of the single taken
from his new album, the title cut, "My Own Way
to Rock" which has been getting moderate air-
play in Detroit.
A few more.tunes from the album ensued be-
fore Cummings treated the concertgoers with a
splendid version of his big hit of last fall "Stand
Tall."
Then, what the "cooped up" crowd waited for
finally came. It began with the unveiling of a

giant, white, inflated television set complete with
knobs, cord, plug and outlet. Just behind the
stage was a big white curtain that doubled as a
movie screen.
COOPER BEGAN with "Under My Wheels"
and "Billion Dollar Babies." But was fascinating
about his show was that there was a different
set for each tune with differently dressed dancers
to boot.
Amidst songs like "Eighteen," "The Black
Widow," "Hot Tonight," and "Lace and Whis-
key," were sets that included a spider web back-
drop and dancing Black Widow spiders, a film
of a girl dressed in white dancing on the screen
who "magically" jumped out from the movie and
continued dancing on stage, and a body odor
commercial which advertised the product "Ears
Off," which I guess was supposed to end your
body odor problem.
During "Go To Hell" Cooper's head was chop-
ped off (just kidding folks) by a guillotine and
"Lace and Whiskey" featured two giant machine
gun-carrying chickens dancing around the stage.
The unforgettable c o n c e r t ended with a
"School's Out' encore where the Coop introduced
each member of his five-man band, each soloing
on their-respective instruments.

Cooper