ARTS
The Michigan Daily Wednesday, June 5, 1985 Page 6
R ecordsyou're really the greatest show in
town ... ") and "Your Kind of
Freddie Mercury-Mr. Lover" ("I wanna boogie down
Bad Guy (Columbia) with you, brother . . .'), but
At the risk of social ostracism"itnaturally the wise are advised to
must be said that Queen was easily avoid the lyric sheet at all costs.
one of the most eccentric and in- The albums real oddity is "Mr.
teresting of '70 arena rock bands Bad Guy" (who're you kidding, Fred-
Their blend of glamrock, Kinks-like die), which is swathed in a bizarre or-
Brit Empire joke-colossalism, schizo chestral arrangement halfway bet-
genre-hopping and metal, topped by ween a show tune setting and Sgt.
the odd but perfect match of Brian Pepper campiness, along with some
a May's dizzying guitar spirals with of Mr. Mercury's most thrillingly
Freddie Mercury's half-kidding vocal butch-diva-at-l'opera vocalizing. But
theatrics, turned dilettantism into mostly there's just semi-lame, semi-
something so absurdly and artfully catchy semi-funk, all of it suffused
grandiose that it achieved a sort of with varying degrees of that old
1 rock-footnote state of grace. Queen wildness-which can be good
1 Be snotty if you must, but Sheer dumh fun, as on "Man Made
Heart Attack and A Night at the Paradise," or just dumb, as on the
r x Opera are perverse classics of populist funk-goes-Police-goes-behop "Living
rock wierdness. The Queen catalogue on My Own."
around them, though wildly uneven The LP does travel a bit, from that
Blues explosion (there's lots of real dead weight, like psuedo-bebop to the mock-schlock
Luther "Guitar Jr." Johnson, former lead guitarist of Muddy Water's band and now an acclaimed all of 1982's Hot Space, has its not- reggae of "My Love in Dangerous" to
blues performer in his own right, will take the stage at the Blind Pig Saturday night around 9:30 p.m. infrequent big charms, most of them ballad pathos and shameless disco.
Cover is $4 atithe door. in the form of singles. Longevity is not It's a classy carnival ride, but it's a
necessarily sufficient grounds for ride. At its very least, the record is a
admiration (look at Chicago or Styx visceral delight under head-
Ground Zero shows raw rock talent or Journey), nor is survival via phones-theflgrom leftoright
G ro n d Zer s o w s ra ro k alcashing in on the latest trend(a emphasis is utterly wow-man. You
Queen has often done). But within the can obviously take the Mercury out of
B John L o Another potential excuse was the he's about 17. But even if he was 30, limitations of commercial relen- Queen but not the Queen out of Mer-
band's youth. Yes, youth. Between his ability would be astounding. A tlessness, Queen has had little to be cury: songs like "There must be more
sets I was escorted to the van for a friend of mine who plays bass ashamed about in nearly 15 years of to Life Than This" and "Made in
TF GROUND ZERO hadn't put on a demonstration of the latest in squirt- repeatedly shouted to Ronni to turn swabbing the chart'n'tour deck. Heaven" are quintessentially Queen,
good show Monday night at the gun technology. the bass up, and it's a good thing the Of course, it's about eight years late with perhaps a touch more synth em-
Blind Pig, it would have been under- Another potential excuse was the requests were obliged. Bass of that for Freddie Mercury to do a first solo phasis to make up for the lost band
standable. The band had just driven management requesting the in- caliber shouldn't have to hide behind effort without inviting a chorus of feel, such as it was. (When you
from Chicago to open a ten-date tour struments be turned down before the the guitar, it deserves equal status. bemused smirks, but if Mick Jagger listened to those epic-scaled old
here, and already the cramped van in band even took the stage. These fac- While the rawness of youth is a can wait so long, why not? Freddie's Queen LPs, did it ever sound like a
which the band is travelling had taken tors, combined with the sparse crowd detriment to many bands, it is a big unquestionably not as socially cool, four-piece outfit anyway?)
a toll on its occupants. would have easily made a poor per- part of Ground Zero's appeal. These but he's probably at least half as rich. Mr. Bad Guy is probably almost
formance forgivable, but that's not guys are still such music business Of course, the album, Mr. Bad Guy, is nobody's idea of a good album in 1985,
what the audience got. outsiders, like a bunch of kids on an not much. But it's not awful either, but it really is entertaining, a decent
V~m 0While the and is young, (Bassist outlandish road trip, that their sets Though it is often pretty ad, in just consumer throwaway- surely no
Jamie Ronni is going to be a high- are brazen. The playlist is very sub- the sort of disco-oriented way you'd worse that toffutti or Cabbage Patch
school senior next year) they have a ject to change. Spontaneity rules. expect from the Castro St-clone/stud dolls. Mercury is a wierd bird, with
lot of experience. They have several The songs range from gutsy to in- magnetism cover photos of the newly the dramatic gestures of a maestro
sa SA B~Ild ltofspgine.Te have meean- h romg ag fo us to andmgets muerphtscl ed nwytedaai etrso asr
5Balbums out, and they have been main- nocent, from thoughtful to off-the- mustachioed and muscled Freddie. and the taste of a confirmed second-
stays of the Minneapolis club scene cuff. There's enough meat to justify The opening cut, "Let's Turn it rater. This LP can't be recommended
764-9216 for quite a while. the bands derisive lyric about being On," is a furiously silly but not with a clear conscience to anyone but
As musicians, Ground Zero are ex- thought of as Just a bunch of unamusing piece of watered funk, serious Queen devotees, but for
cellent. Taras Ostroushko is a very comedians. with a production that's as busy as a them- and you know who you
INSTANT good guitarist, although the limit on The cover versions the band played whole ELO album, plus some in- are-it's loads of admittedly minor-
volume did detract from his sound were terrific; Neil Young's "Comes a congruous guitarwork that's either by league fun.
asot Vis early on. The drummer, Dave Time" got an excellent reworking, as (an uncredited) Brian May or is a
Evanhouse is terrific, able to churn did "Schroeder", yes, the Peanuts perfect facsimile of the same. -Dennis Harvey
AppicutienPhoto$ out incredibly fast licks with clarity theme. The high-speed rendition of The next cut, "Made in Heaven," is
and verve. "Pinball Wizard" was astounding, a classic Queenesque wallow in
while -U -wait Ronni is ridiculously entertaining and the Husker Du cover, with shameless sentimentality, like A
hrs. 1:00 - 4:30 on bass. He's tall, skinny, and moves Ostrushko aping their producer Bob Night at the Opera's "Love of My
like a tilt-a-whirl while he's playing. Mould's vocals was a hilarious treat, Life." In its operatic melodrama it BLOO M
Mon- Fri The surety with which he pounded out especially for those in the audience proves, at least, that Freddie Mer- CO N TY
student discount complex riffs at breakneck tempos who saw Husker Du in Detroit a few cury was always a near-great vocalist
was startling, even more so because weeks back- of the most florid rock variety,
Ground Zero, for now, is cruising capable of both faultlessly pure AlMo..
-" °"°° °4 'w o o a o 4 the Midwest, having one hell of a vibrato and rockin' roughness, with
time. I'm not sure they realize how an effortlessly powerful falsetto that
Two Week Workshop ... § good they are. They are a few steps puts the likes of Bronski Beat to
§Tfrom being as good as Husker Du, or shame.r ty
S READINGWRITING , TEACHING POEMS § The Replacements. I hope success The rest of the LP is varying
§hits them before college does degrees of mediocrity and silliness,
JUNE10 -21, 985with color splashed from the stock
Monday - Friday, 1:00 - 4:30 p.m. Queen-type Fred die-as-tabernacle-
§C e choir backups and a few decent shots
SSTEPHEN DUNNING, INSTRUCTOR (No one faces cancer alone- of real perversity. There are wrong-o Watch for it in
Call us. disco misses like "I Was Born to Love
§ EDUCATION D508 or ENGLISH 578 § AMERtlAN CANCER SOCEMY' You," and afficionadoes of rock
(NO "LATIN AION" FEE UNTIL 6/51/85) 4§sexual politics can feed their heads 01 ie M il-b i fl D aIIQ
over the seeming schism between
"Foolin' Around" ("Foxy lady,