Arts Thursday, May 14, 1981 The Michigan Daily D.a. e_ , k Vage 4 Seals slips into mediocrity By KEN FELDMAN Son Seals has been acclaimed as the best new blues guitarist around, and it's not hard to see why. Seals is a for- midable talent; his style describes a revved up Albert King, yet he never lapses into imitation. But for several reasons, The Son Seals Blues Band is not the exciting young outfit it could be. For one thing, Seals' band is not stric- tly.a blues band. Their more modern, electric excursions would more ac- curately be labeled urban R&B, a laudable genre, but one that requires restraint and economy. Unfortunately, this band exhibited precious little of either quality at Rick's Tuesday night. THE BAND began the performance without Seals, playing four or five numbers to warm up the crowd. Mike Gibb, normally the rhythm guitarist, handled the vocal and lead guitar chores. His contrived wailings recalled Greg Allman's southern drawl in their nauseatingly mellow manner. Then as the band continued to play, Seals was introduced (by bassist Snapper Mit- chel) as the "master chef in a band that cooks" and took the stage in a manner that would not be out of place in Las Vegas. This bit of showbiz was repeated at the beginningand end of each of the three sets and of course at theencore. While this indulgence was not fatally in- trusive, it was symptomatic of the more musical problems of Seals and his band. Firstly, the sheer volume and ex- travagance of the rhythm section was often too much to 'take. Drummer David Anderson and Snapper Myitchel are both quite good, but one suspects that this fact has gone to their heads when every chord change is accented with a flashy bass "pop" or drum flourish. EQUALLY ERRATIC was Seals' own singing. Attimes (mostly the slow blues numbers) his gruff baritone was used effectively; at other times he resem- bled an angry Barry White, mannered and cliche-ridden. The sound of the band in general was sometimes ren- dered equally souless by the modern disco rhythms and funk riffs. Not to distort things, there were cer- tainly some fine moments during the three hour performance. "How Blue Can You Get," one of the more traditional songs, was achingly beautiful in the old blues sense. The slower songs in general made it clear that Seals has the potential to com- municate more than technical tricks. When the egotism was toned down, the instrumentals were more than effec- tive, often brilliant. Even done to death standards like "Got My Mo-Jo Workin' " were sometimes fine vehicles for the band's updated ap- proach. Regrettably, this didn't happen nearly as much as it could have. Most of the time the bands' indulgence destroyed the sensual subtlety of the blues for a more mechanical sound. Though the slower traditional songs seemed to hold up the best, Seals con- centrated on the up-tempo ones, perhaps because the band was packing the dance floor. The music was almost ideal for dancing, with most of the sound aimed at the feet as opposed to the heart. The bottom line is that Son Seals, at least at this point, has more talent than taste. Emmanuel gets it in lots of exotic spots Son Seals By DENNIS HARVEY Funny, isn't it, how balling can be one of the most fun activities to do in real life and one of the least interesting things to watch on screen. Actually, that observation doesn't have a lot to do with Emmanuelle Around the -World, except perhaps that to assure the unfor- tunate reader/viewer that he/she probably would be just as bored, even- tually, watching a genuinely naughtee movie as they undoubtedly will be wat- ching this not-bad-enough-to-be-good soft porner. Emmanuelle used to be a slightly bored French hedonist who did her tasteful! so tasteful! balling with lots of surprised, but not unhappy, men on planes, trains, etc. Sylvia Kristel played this siren in the first, circa-1974 movie, which was photographed in gauzy Hallmark-greeting-card pastels with a syrupy Love Story-redux musical score; God knows why, but some people thought this was a class act. AS A RESULT, Ms. Kristel got her, real shot at' inhmoitality in Airport 5979-The Concorde (she got told "cock- pit" jokes by George Kennedy while passengers Charo and John Davidson screamed), and Emmanuelle, like a Barbie doll, has kept changing clothes, faces and identities in such gems as Black Emmanuelle and Emmanuelle in Tokyo. Around the World takes this carefee babe, now an Oriental type who happens to be "the biggest photo- reporter in America," through lots of foreign lands and lays. There really is a story line, but after a while you may begin to wish there wasn't. It's a lot of unignorable tripe abput Emmanuelle cracking (yipes!) an international white slavery ring. This allows a lot of scenery to be shown, along with several definitely unappealing gang rapes and a couple of girl-beatings that seem rather out-of-place in such generally harmless sleaze. The nastiest possible criticism: Around the World will leave even ner- vous older men with newspapers in their laps bored.