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ARTS
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The Michigan Daily
Friday, October 1, 1982
Page7--
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AU glitter, little
su
By Rob Weisberg
L AST NIGHT'S glitter-soul
extravaganza at Crisler Arena
proved that you can do a lot with a
couple of riffs and spiffily un-subtle
choreography, but unfortunately also
proved that sometimes playing it to the
hilt is worse than playing it wrong.
Featured on the bill were the com-
mercially huge Gap Band, along with
the groups Zapp and Goodie. Goodie, a
think toothy man who wore a car-
nivalesque green-striped white suit and
a white hat with a green bow tie, makes
sure everybody knows who he is by
naming both his band and a song-
their opening number on Wednesday-
after himself.
He even pulled off a great p.r. coup by
getting the crowd to sing his name back
to him. He did a couple of nice ballads,
one featuring a Teddy Pendegrass
imitation complete with hat (he does
Johnny Cash on his current album);
and closed with the upbeat "Do
Something" with a keyboard-lead
pseudojam ending. Though Goodie as a
Daily Photo by ELIZABETH SCOTT
Gap Band struts its stuff Wednesday night at Crisler Arena.
front man lacked the charisma of Zapp,
the music wasn't bad.
ZApp's stageshow was electrifying.
By rights they should have been the
headliners, but they haven't got a
platinum album. The music was easily
the strongest of the night, propelled by
the sexual suggestiveness of frontman
Roger Troutman and embellished by a
classic swinging horn section.
Troutman, first clad in a sparkling
silver spaceage costume and later in a
bright red gold-fringed militaristic
looking getup, successively played off
both his audience and his hammily-ac-
ting band. Everybody had a role, and
though it seemed rather blunt if not
juvenile at times, particularly when
Troutman's cohorts stripped him to the
bare essentials, the show kept my at-
tention the whole time. They even
threw in a little latin percussion, just to
show that there is more to the band than
the disco beat.
Gap Band was another story. Their
big hits all stem from one song, "Burn
Rubber on Me." It's got a catchy as hell
riff, but when the entire show amounts
to lead singer Charlie Wilson
threatening to go home while mean-
be style
bombed out concert hall or, as in the
climax, swirling as if entrapping the
characters, the feeling of immediacy
leaves you breathless. Vladimir
Cosma's synthesized score ranges from
Robert Fripp-like rock, to Philip Glass-
like classicism. This music is the per-
fect companion piece to the beautiful
aria that is heard throughout the film.
All of these elements are blended with
one thought in mind; that is to enter-
tain.
On the bottom line, Diva is most ex-
citing because it is a thriller that
delivers. The triple bang ending is wor-
thy of Hitchcock. The tension soars un-
til you think there is nothing left, then
once again the movie takes flight. Style
is not the only word that comes to mind
when discussing this film; Diva is a
rush.
ibstance
dering around to the riff, you begin ,to
wonder whether you should depart
before he gets a chance.
If Zapp played audience-baiting :tQ
the hilt, at least it wasn't boring.
Troutman knew when to stop and
change the pace. Wilson and his two a
frontmen brothers had no such insight;
nor did they approach Troutman in
looks or, flair. At this sort of show,,
directly descended from James
Brown's hardest-working-man-in-show-
business routines, the visual aspect can
make all the difference.
Probably the most exciting part of
the show was the appearance of a young
top-hatted acrobat dubbed "Baby Gap"
who did some cute acrobatics. Other-
wise, everything was overdone-they
even brought out Thomas Hearns to
sing and the big dancing chicken that
did the intro to "Early in the Morning"
(one of the "Burning" clones).
Buoyed by the incessant beat, the
crowd stayed on their feet, but
everybody seemed a little relieved
when the Gap Band finally took off. I
guess that's show biz.
Find,
Insight
Into
the
Future
Horoscope!
ON THE
CLASSIFIED PAGE
Chasing around Paris with divin
By James Bowen
Diva: Latin, fem. of divus, divine.
Diva: a popular female singer, a
prima donna.,
Diva: the divinely intricate thriller
by director Jean Jacques Beineix.
Simple in plot but deliriously complex
in the execution, Diva is being touted as
the first new wave thriller; this is not
entirely true. A more appropriate
phrase would be new style. Like
American filmmakers Steve Spielberg,
George Lucas, Martin Scorsese and
Holland's Paul Verhoeven, Beineix was
born when movies were rousing enter-
tainment as well as being artistically
adventurous. Living through the later
developments of film techniques and
structure, they have produced popular
epics on everything from adolescent
sexual development in American Graf-
fiti to a young boy's friendship with a
creature from outer space in E.T. Jean
Jacques Beineix's debut film Diva is a.
startling and beautiful example of this
style.
Like the great adventures of the past,
Diva is a romantic chase. Our postman
hero (Frederic Andrei) is the most ear-
nest young man since Luke Skywalker.
He loves and longs to meet an unap-
proachable black American soprano
(Wilhelmina Wiggins Fernandez). In
the opening sequence, he cries as she
performs a haunting aria by Catalani.
The soprano has such a romance with
opera that she will not allow recordings
of her voice, claiming that she needs an
audience to perform the true act of
giving.
As the film opens, Andrei sneaks a
tape recorder to one of her concerts;
two Taiwanese record company hen-
chmen see what he is doing. The next
day, a woman on the run from killers
hides an incriminating cassette tape in
his mail bag. Thus begins the triple
chase which is the heart of the film. The
record company wants the concert
tape, the murderers want the cassette
tape, and the police want the mur-
derers.
The swiftness and economy of
dialogue and characterization is
reminiscent of the most stylish debut
film (many will take issue here and
vote for Orson Welles' Citizen Kane),
John Huston's The Maltese Falcon.
People speak straight from the hip, and
are totally unexpected comic
pleasures. The film is put together in
the 1950s-'60s style of Jean Luc Godard,
Federico Fellini and Alan Resnais (and
currently one of the styles of Robert
Altman and Terence Malick) we in-
terrupt scenes while they are oc-
curring, and often leave while they are
still in progress. It is superbly edited by
Marie-Josephe Yoyotte and Monique
Prim. The visual part of the film has a
rhythm of its own to blend with the
rhythms of the dialogue and music. The
effect is stunning.
Diva is giddy with juxtapositions of
the new onto the old. Hilton McCon-
nico's eerily modern sets are worthy
counterparts to the spaciously designed
structures of old Paris. The
photography by Philippe Kousselot is a
fantastic example of the use of hand
held cameras. Whether we are
careening down the tunnelways of the
Parisian metro; gliding through the
Records
Lords, Glenn Frey
concerts cancelled
ABC-'The Lexicon of Love'
(Mercury)
If, ten years from now, we could ex-
plore the major influences of contem-
porary pop music, we would discover
that the disco era was nearly as impor-
tant as the British punk movement.
Still, in 1982, such a thought might be
casually dismissed. We all recall the
initial onslaught of discomania as
essentially one of blatant excess; a
music lost within the confines of its en-
vironment, a potential unrealized. Yet,
today we find many of its most
hackneyed conventions being used in-
telligently and creatively. Not sur-
prisingly, in the tradition of trans-
Atlantic reciprocation, the new,
technology-aware British bands (Soft
Cell, Human League, Duran Duran,
etc.) stand at the forefront of this
movement.
The Lexicon of Love follows closely
on the heels of the smash Human
League album Dare. Like its
predecessor, The Lexicon of Love is
basically a compilation album, com-
prised of four former British hit singles,
B-sides, and "filler" material. There,
however, is where the similarities end.
In short, The Lexicon of Love is the
most consistently satisfying fusion of
pure pop and dance music since
Michael Jackson's Off The Wall. Unlike
the ponderous Dare, Lexicon of Love
achieves an uncanny conceptual unity
for a "singles" album. From its stun-
ningly textured openers, "Show Me,"
and "Poison Arrow," through its lushly
symphonic coda, "The Look of Love,"
the album explores the varied
theatrical aspects of a typical love
relationship.
Songwriter-vocalist Martin Fry has
often said that his sole ambition is to
write definitive pop songs. He does that
and more, arriving at an infectious
canceability that holds up throughout
the record. Drawing upon influences
ranging from Elvis Costello, Bowie,
and Roxy Music to Earth, Wind and
Fire and Chic, ABC have concocted
songs of tragedy (the disco placebo
"Tears Are Not Enough"), melancholy
("The Look of Love"), and triumph
("4ever 2gether"). Consequently, the
songs comprise an album worthy of its
ambitious title.
Amazingly, ABC manages to retain
an engaging sense of humor and in-
nocence that is noticeably lacking these
days (and- yes, synthophobiacs, ,they
also use REAL instruments!). Cliches?
Sure, but ABC uses them with all the
verve and excitement of children given
new toys. Formulaic? You bet it is.
Essential? Absolutely.
-Jeffrey Gibson
The October 7th Lords of the New
Church concert at the Second Chance
and the October 9th Glenn Frey con-
cert at Hill Auditorium have been can-
celled.
Lord's lead singer Stiv Bator, former
vocalist for the Dead Boys, reportedly
fractured his arm after falling off the
stage during a performance this past
week.
Glenn Frey, ex-Eagle guitatist, ap-
parently cancelled his entire tour
because of poor ticket sales.
Tickets for both shows will be refun-
ded at the point of purchase.
-Michael Huget
I I 1 ±V W I : :II:IIII
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Phillip decided to live his.
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