The Michigan Daily__A R T S_ Th ihgnDiyWednesday, January 14, 1981 Page5 'Reelin' and rockin' with Chuck Berry Br FRED SCHILL "I'm still here," Chuck Berry mischievously reminded the ecstatic crowd crammed like jubilant sardines into Second Chance Monday night, "and I love it." At fifty-four (or maybe forty-nine, depending on who is doing the guessing), Chuck Berry is still magnificent. There is grey in the slicked-back pompadour, but silver in the fingers. VIBRANT, energetic, smooth as an eel in an oil slick, Berry was Everyman's king of rock and roll Mon- day night... for an hour. One hour. Ten songs. That came out to one shrinking dollar per song for the 700 or so faithful who filled the sparse seats, clogged the aisles, and sat on the dance floor. For both sets combined, Barry made over $500 a song. Oh, but it was glorious while it lasted. Koko Taylor and her splendid Blues Machine proved to the audience that their relative anonymity was undeser- ved as soon as Koko growled out the fir- st few bars of "Let the Good Times Roll." Those who cane only to see Berry (and that encompassed almost everyone) were - startled and mesmerized by the tar-pit grittiness of Taylor's versatile voice and the smooth, scorching solos sent flaming from the neck of "The Maestro's" lead guitar. Taylor and the Machine shared a passionate, hour-long love affair with the blues that had the crowd learning the lyrics and singing along to such Taylor classics as "Hey Bartender" and "Wang Dang Doodle." THEY ALSO established the proper context for Berry, whose own guitar style is oh-so-obviously an impatient extrapolation of the blues. After an embarrassingly worshipful introduction by some airhead DJ, Berry and his band leaped feet-first into his irreverent classic, "Roll Over Beethoven." Genuinely taken aback by the frenzied adultation of the crowd, Berry reveled in the appreciative chaos that followed "School Days," quipping "I think I'm going back to school." BERRY WAS spectacular. He wrung paroxysms of shattering intensity from the neck of his guitar in flickering, fluid surges of energy. He displayed an in- stinctive intimacy with a guitar that makes him the master of its every mood; he danced with it, he humped it, he slashed the air before the outstret- ched hands of the groundlings with it, he crouched down face-to-face with it in the raucous show-ending "Reeling and Rocking." Finally, he turned the stage over to the dancers while he stood off to the side quietly creating two, three, four minutes worth of indigenous guitar mastery. The guitar was a complete in- strument in the hands of Chuck Berry; he masterfully manipulated all six strings at all positions, while almost all guitarists today cannot stay away from the highest notes humanly produceable. Berry played almost entirely old material, sharing the singing with a crowd who largely wasn't even born when he first made the charts with "Maybellene." He mixed in a couple of new songs, shared the stage with his stunning and talented daughter for three songs, did one encore, and left to a cacophony of noise generally generated in the hopes of getting more. It was not to be. Although I would gladly have paid ten clams to see Taylor and Berry again, I expected a little more than an hour's worth of work. Even legends should earn their keep. Speaking of which, and at the expense of ending this review on a sour note, it is time for someone to reprimand the management of Second Chance. This is easily the worst forum for a concert I have ever had the misfortune to be trapped in. The management has no concept of the term "crowd control," and anyone who doesn't believe- in evolution after standing in line there is living in a fantasy world. People crammed themselves into the V5 club's foyer in hopes of grabbing one of the few seats around the railings-the only seats from which one can see. Those who got left out in this game of musical chairs sat on the dance floor (a privilege for which they paid ten dollars) and jammed the aisles, creating a fire hazard of unthinkable porportions. Hell, I couldn't even get to the bathroom-and when I asked an em- ployee if there was another one, I was advised to "go piss in the street." Second Chance is not a healthy place, and until they clean up their act, it would be wise to avoid it. PUT'IEM AWAY, 1!! p$ Wit G are r s If you can live without -your cigarettes for one day. you right find you can live without them forever. _ JUST FOR ADAY. _ I,- r WHAT'S NEW, PUSSYCAT? Dir. Clive Donner. WOODY ALLEN made his acting debut in his screenplay about a neurotic, sex-obsessed fashion editor who takes his problems to a psychiatrist with the same character traits and a few more to boot. PETER SELLERS is the Beatle-wig wearing Doctor of Psychiatry. Another Peter, this one an O'Toole, is the patient. The rest of the neurotic cast 'includes URSULA ANDRESS and several actors whose names are in the way-out go-cart chase in the (neurotic) climax. If all this is not enough, there is a Mighty Mouse cartoon, A COLD RO- MANCE, to start the festivities. 7:00 & 9:00 at LORCH HALL Chuck Berry thrills to the unexpected adulation of the college-aged crowd -at Second Chance Monday night. STEELY DAN'S 'GAUCHO': Dull, but so clean! so careful! CINEMA GUILD CINEMA GUILD W By FRED SCHILL Never underestimate man's capacity for self-indulgence. Steely Dan (Walter Becker and Donald Fagen) has put out a whole new album dedicated to the preservation and enrichment of the term. Gaucho has created whole new worlds for egotism to conquer, and Steely Dan has risen to the challenge. C'mon, guys, you have got to be kid- ding. You really meant to name it Gauche, right? That is actually just a. primitive joke, right? WELL, THE JOKE is on us. There are seven (count 'em) songs on Gaucho; two are testimonies to them- selves, one is a denigration of homosexuality, one is a macho wish to beat the crap out of the competition, and two are tales of men on the make. Only one song on the. entire album ("Third World Man") would engage the attention of a contemplative three- year-old for more than a few seconds. The music is slapped together with horn arrangements as the substance, and simplified, ponderous rhythms as the glue. Even the inclusion of guests Larry Carlton, Rick Derringer, Mark Knopfler, Tom Scott, David Sanborn, Michael McDonald, and Randy and Michael Brecker cannot breath life into the corpse. This is largely because their presence is barely evidenced. Producer Gary Katz has taken material that was -already monotonous and given it an ad- ditional somnolence beyond its own power to achieve. Mark Knopfler's potentially enlivening guitar solo on "Time Out of Mind" wails away into obscurity along with everything else, forcing the listener to embark on a tiresome venture to clearly hear just what is being played. THAT MAY BE just as well, con- a sidering the lackluster quality of the music. It's a pity Katz didn't do the same for Fagen's vocals or, please God, those drippy sweet back-up vocalists he included. Fagen has a vocal style that defies musical traditions such as melody with a stop-and-go, sputtering ------------- sort of ambiguity that ridicules all ef- forts to sing along. His back-up vocalists supplement his inconsistency with sugary, sound-of-Philadelphia vapidity.. Not that it matters all that much. Who really wants to sit and listen to Fagen salivate pretentiously in "Hey Nineteen?" "No we can't talk together! No we can't talk at all," the older man sagely observes, so (you guessed it), let's just go fuck. Who really wants to listen to Fagen sing from the crotch in "Babylon Sisters" (Babylon-decadence-get the imagery?) or deliver snide stereotyped judgments of homosexuals in the title cut? And then there's the mature ap- proach taken towards the fortunes of love in "My Rival": "I loved you more than you can tell/But now it's stomping time." For.those who tire of it all, Becker and Fagen have undertaken to imper- sonate the Doobie Brothers on "Time Out of Mind," with the humble lines, "Children we have it right here/It's the light in my eyes/It's perfection and grace/It's the smile on my face." Or you can see the world through the eyes of a celebrity in "Glamour Profession," where Fagen asks of Hollywood, "Who inspires, your fabled, fools?/That's my claim to fame." Can you believe all of this? And the saddest part is that the album hasn't even enough character to be truly bad, to be awful in that amusingly acciden- tal sort of way. Gaucho is merely boring:it is wholly devoid of value, an unblushing altar before the shrivelling spectre of Steely Dan. the ann arborefilm cooperative \ Tonight PRESENTS Tonight RUDE BOY 7:00 and 10:20 A look at contern porar En land . Music by THECLASH The University of Michigan Women's { Glee G C1 Andrbo M! 81 SUPERSHORTS 8:40 only N AUDITIONS for Short films featuring DEVO, SUICIDE, THE RESIDENTS, and others Aud. A, Angell Hall Single Feature: $2; double feature $3 r THIS TERM \ Call Mrs. Edwa 665-7408 rds I. I ji ti ' ,- PRIVATE - BEN.JAMINm (R) TUES, THURS-7:30, 9:30 WED-1:20, 3:20, 5:30, 7:30, 9:30 S INLVIDUAL THEATRES S 5h Ave of Libery 761-9700 CHEAP FLICKS *. ALL SEATS $2.00 \I j 7i -_ J I 0 - U'