ly - Tuesday, June 19, 1984--- Page 11 Members of the Rain Parade brood in anticipation of their Tuesday night show at Joe's Star Lounge. Rain ¶de mixwell Jazz fest sets up under outdoor big tent By Pete Williams A FULL AFTERNOON of live jazz performances. What could possibly be better? What if you add a full cash bar and hold the whole extravaganza outdoors, in a tent? That's what the public radio station, WEMU, and the Ypsilanti Depot Town Association have planned on June 23. Rain or shine - picnic baskets, lawn chairs, and jazz enthusiasts en- courged. There are five jazz ensembles scheduled from noon to midnight, star- ting with Tom Saunders' Surf Side Six. The Six area group specializing in 1930s swing. Other bands are The New Larry Nozero Quartet, the J.C. Heard Or- chestra, and, if the warm weather and cool drinks keep you there until 8 p.m. a Detroit all-star band. Featured in this sextet of top Detroit jazz artists are trumpeter Marcus Belgrave, Roy Brooks on the drums, pianist Kenn Cox, trombonist/flutist Sherman Mitchell, bassist Robert Hur- st, and saxist Donald Walden. The six will be performing together for the first time in the festival. The afternoon of jazz will conclude with The Son Seals Blues Band. Premiere blues guitarist Son Seals will join with the Chicago Fire Horns to cap the evening with a poweful jazz and blues performance. For those interested in sitting out on the lawn and taking in some good jazz next Saturday, Ypsi is the place to be. Tickets are available for $8 at the door - the tent flap, I mean - or for $7 at a few choice record stores in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. By Joseph Kraus T HERE ARE some things that just don't mix. Alcohol and 1 driving for one, and rain and parades for another. But keep your eyes open. Nowadays they're talking about things like gasahol, which definitely mixes alcohol and driving, and nowadays they're talking about The Rain Parade. Who? The Rain Parade, one of the biggest bands in L.A.'s un- derground (as of last year) neo-psychedelic movement. The Rain Parade comes from the same cradle as such other notables as The Dream Syndicate, Green on Red, The Long Ryders and The Three O'Clock. The Parade has been together for about three years, but they only recently released their first album, Emergency Third Power Trip, to very nositive reviews. The music on Power Trip shows a band that is at home with its simple instrumental lineup. It's a much more primitive sound than most of today's pop, and in that light it becomes refreshing. Comparisons to the psychedelic greats of the '60s are inevitable. Rain Parade's songs have not yet gone beyond recalling the fascination and moodiness that such music had. For now, though, that's enough. Only time will tell whether they will be able to mature into a band capable of departing from psychedelia into its own turf, whether they will wind up fading away, or worse yet, whether they will wind up being to the '60s what Sha-Na-Na is to the '50s. But today is another story. Merely recalling psychedelia, and giving it new energy, is a feat worthy of notice. And even though most of the members of Rain Parade were too young to care very much about which radio station was on in 1967, they seem to remember psychedelia quite well. Neither Matthew Piucci nor Steven Roback write great songs, but they have written several pretty good ones. Their lyrics seem a bit underdeveloped, but they have a tendency to create a swirling moody (oh no, here it comes) psychedelic instrumental sound that overcomes this weakness. And who knows, it's a weakness they may grow out of. Like so many of its fellow Paisley Underground com- patriot bands, The Rain Parade is stopping at Joe's Star Lounge on this, its second national tour. Joe's has shown a remarkable tendency for attracting these bands recently, and this summer alone has already brought us The Long Ryders and Green on Red. In addition, local Ann Arborites, Grey Area, are slated to do an opening set. The action should get started around 10 p.m., and cover is $4 for the evening. And don't worry, since it's inside, it's not going to Rain on your Parade. Life out of balance with silly masterpiece By Byron L. Bull G ODFREY REGGIO'S Koyaanisqatsi is unquestionably ' a stunning piece of filmmakip. A technics tour de force combining images and music, it's a powerful experience to sit through. Unfortunately, it's a film burdened by a ridiculously heavy-handed, intellec- tually vapid thesis that is both infuriating and laughable. The title of the film is derived from a Hopi Indian term, translating roughly into "Life out of balance," and Reggio takes that idea to an apocalyptic ex- treme, brought on by rampant industrialization. Reggio captures images of natural and urban lan- dscapes, and contrasts them in a mosaic of almost hallucinatory design. He compresses and distorts time, using time-lapse, slow motion, and assorted other techniques to render his landscapes with a surreal tone. The scenery has a haunting, supernatural quality, like a wilk, vivid dream. Clouds boil and seethe, rolling around mountains and canyons like steam from a kettle. Long shadows sweep across desert floors in only seconds, as steam rises up from craggy fissures. The whole planet seems to be a living organism. Even when the landscape is static, Reggio's camera isn't: It sweeps and pans, pulls back and zooms, infusing the film with a tireless kineticism that continually sweeps the viewer along. When we cut to the modern metropolis, the terrain is no less captivating. Massive earth movers dig away whole cliffsides, as a row of 747's taxi down a runway, turning and spinning in formation like a bizarre ballet. Skyscrapers, when shot with an ex- treme low angle, are revealed to reflect whole acres of the sky. And the gray concrete canyons they form are every bit as imposing as their natural counter- parts. Reggio goes wrong when he takes the film on its pretentious, preachy turn. He cuts to inner city slums, and such loaded metaphors as a dilapidated playground, or a projects tenement that is com- pletely gutted and so large it could be its own city. A sequence of bridges and office buildings being detonated for demolition in slow motion is gripping, but too contrived for its own good. The people who inhabit the cities all seem to be soulless shells. They're overshadowed by the massive machinery behind them, and stare into the camera with empty listless eyes. Reggio uses repeated extreme fast motion photography of crowds swirling through malls, up escalators, and through See KOYAANISQATSI, Page 14