The Michigan Daily-Thursday, June 12, 1980-Page 7 HARD ROCK Breath of ife or a dying gasp? By TIMOTHY YAGLE Columbia Records is the'proud owner of two of the most blaring and abrasive rock acts in the business: Ted Nugent and Judas Priest. What is so amazing about each band is that both launch an unrelenting and savage rock and roll attack on your ears. Song after song on their new albums Scream Dream and British Steel, respectively, feature an in- credibly strong and brash lead guitar, backed by pounding drums and a num- bing bass. "ANYONE CAN put on a loincloth and buy eight Fender Twins and play louder than anyone else and act like a hooligan. But they couldn't do it 24 hours a day for every long. He (Ted Nugent) does. And one has to come to the assumption that this is the real man, the real Ted Nugent." That's drummer Cliff Davies' description and defense of the Ted Nugent personna. Born in the "rapids of rock and roll," (Detroit) Ted has been swimming against the current of convention since he began playing guitar 25 years ago. At 31, Ted has six platinum albums and Motor City Madman doesn't sing anywhere on the album-he screams (like the LP title declares) all the sub- tley lewd lyrics that center around erotic love and violence. Judging from them, one gets the feeling Ted woke up in the middle of a nightmare several times and the raw and gutsy song sub- jects just materialized before him. Just look at the song titles. In this sense, Scream Dream= is one of Ted's most honest, straight forward albums to date-and also his worst. The listener is given little relief from Ted's incessant high-pitched raving. The album's cover tells the whole story here. He is a ridiculous lunatic on stage as well as on vinyl. Of course most of the sones feature loud, blasting and catchy hook- laden guitar riffs that just blend into one another after a while. The same holds true for the British Steel from Judas Priest. One raunchy guitar tune follows another interrupted only by Rob Halford's screechy and squeaky tough-man vocals. Judas Priest is a bunch of axe- grinders trying to revive the almost mothballed era of Deep Purple/Black Sabbath heavy-metal that christened Caught here in an uncharacteristically calm moment is Detroit's own Ted Nugent. On Terrible Ted's right is backwoods politician C. Purvis Gyp- sum, just after naming Nugent the vice presidential candidate on his Wild Boar party ticket. Nugent's acceptance of the offer is pending on Gypsum's proposals to lower the voting age for men to 14 and to make "Cat Scratch Fever" the national anthem. time-honored philosophy of play it hard, play it fast, and play it loud." Despite the omnipresent feeling to the contrary, they don't think hard rock is dying, citing the steadfast popularity of old-timer Led Zeppelin and offspring Van Halen and other young and established bands trying to keep it alive. Rock was designed to be played loud, they say, and their intention is to stick as close to the original design as possible. Aside from their deafening music, Judas Priest also relies on a realistic and predictable stage show to convey their message. One of their antics in- volves Halford riding on stage on a giant reved up black motorcycle in ad- dition to their black-leather-and-chains outfits. "With our type of music, sometimes the presentation is just as important as the playing," Halford has said. "We've got to make the audience believe that we represent all the things we sing about or much of our effect is lost." Examining Ted's Scream Dream from the other perspective, it is the ultimate Nugent, aside from the man- datory Double-live Gonzo opus. A real Terrible Ted enthusiast will gobble Scream Dream up because Ted is all over the album and his guitar has never sounded stronger. Ted is more self- indulging on this disc and he appears to be letting it all go and having a good time with himself. Just what the fans want, it would seem. THAT HE DOES to the utmost in con- cert, too. One has to wonder how he can sustain such a consistently high energy level. Many contend he simply loves what he does. He practices a form of masochism by beating both his brick wall-like chest and his rear on stage like an uncaged animal with a menacing sneer on his face. The Ted Nugents and Judas Priests have their niche somewhere in the rock world. Ted has found his and exploited it, by giving his Motor City adolescent- type crowds exactly what they want. He's larger than life, a Superman, and that is what the kids want to see. For this, he deserves some kind of credit. Judas Priest, however, will only gain a larger following by toning down their sound just a bit to get more of that crucial air-play. This style of music is not worth anything unless someone hears it on the radio and Judas Priest seems not to have recognized this fact of life. If they have, they don't care and then they will really miss the boat. However, British Steel may be the record they have been waiting for. Either way, neither Ted nor Judas Priest will allow hard rock to die, because of their absolute intensity, their need for a livelihood and their instictual desire and craving to live out this peculiar fantasy. SHORT or LONG Hairstyles for Men and Women DASCOLA STYLISTS " 615 E. Liberty-66-9329 " 3739 Washtenaw-971-9975 " 613 N. Maple-761-2733 0 611 E. University-662-0354 Do leather jackets-cause bad posture? A recent study has suggested that there may be a relationship between amount of time spent in such a coat and the pose of one's torso. Here a group of subjects display some of the observed effects, from poser's slouch to the Harley hunchback syndrome. Scream Dream, whether or not it deserves it, is destined to follow suit. Ted has accomplished this incredible feat through an incredible egomanaiacal belief in his own great- ness and his irrepressible desire to prove it-again and again. "No one un- derstand how driven I am," he has said. AS A RESULT, Ted has unfor- tunately driven himself to commandeer the lead vocal chdres on Scream Dream and we all pay for it as a result. The them. Their arsenal of power chord mayhem is straight out of their roots in slum and factory-ridden Birmingham, England. The Hells Angels-like quintet struck the heavy metal chord to nullify the problems they faced and it became the foundation of their blistering ap- proach to rock and roll. "I guess there is a bit of hostility in our music," Halford has said. JUDAS PRIEST remains one of the staunchest supporters of the simplistic, The Ann Arbor Film CoeoertieI Presents at MLB: $1.50 THURSDAY, JUNE 14 PROVIDENCE (Alain Resnais, 1977) 7 &-MLB4 Resnais' film, made in England, offers a dazzling probe into the creative imagina- tion of a dying writer. Extraordinary performances given by JOHN GIELGU and DICK BOGARDE. The film that Milos Forman calls touching, beautiful and sur- prising, that Anthony Burgess calls "a great moster iece " and that Suson ontag calls brilliant and unforgettble. WithmELAINE STOITCH, ELLEN BUR- STYN and DAVID WARNER. In French with subtitles. Tomorrow: JockNicholson in THE LAST TYCOON and THE LAST DETAIL at MLB C INEMA IT CRIA! (Carlos Soura, 1977) Saura is (next to Bunuel) Spain's most distinguished director. CRIA! a dark comedy, concerns a little girl too young to comprehend either the adult world or the consequences of her actions. She is convinced that her philandering father is somehow responsible for her mother's death from cancer-so she decides to poison him. In this great work, Saura aexplores the confusion of the preadolescent years. "It is this ability to be both right and wrong about even such matters as death that Saura has caught in this deft and strangely touching film." Starring GERALDINE CHAPLIN and ANA TARENT. Spanish with subtitles. LNAT SCIA 7:30 &9:3 0$.501 Toorw FHUA ODG