arts
Big Country's 'Crossing':
By RON YEANY
Collegian Staff Writer
"THE CROSSING" Big Country, Mercury
812870-1
If you haven't heard of,. Big Country by
now, you soon will. Big Country is an En
glish band who has enjoyed moderate suc
cess in England with a Top 10 single "Fields
Of Fire." "Fields" is contained on their
debut album The Crossing, which is un
doubtedly, some of the best rock music that
I've heard in years.
Big Country is a very young band, which
only leads me to believe they are going to set
the tone for, rock music in the 80s. Big
Country grew out of the Skids, another
British act that only enjoyed moderate
success in Great Britain on the singles
charts.
The Skids also enjoyed moderate critical
success for their music, but they failed to
last very long. Guitarist Stuart Adamson
said the band was fading into the fashion of
futurism and left the Skids in early 1981. Big
Country got its start from Adamson and
Bruce Watson, a guitarist and punk afficia
nado who was working at a job scrubbing
out nuclear submarines.
After a disastrous tour with Alice Cooper
in Spring 1982, Big Country settled down to
do their homework and decide which direc
tion the band was going in. Part of that soul
seeking lead to the teaming of Adamson and
Watson with bassist Tony Butler and drum
mer Mark Brzezicki, two very talented
studio musicians who were fresh off stints
with Pete Townshend and the Pretenders.
'Eating Raoul' is a tasteless delight
By SHAWN ISRAEL
;: Collegian Staff Writer
"Eating Raoul" is one of the tamer things that
go on in Paul Bartel's offbeat black-and-blue
comedy that, after almost an eternity, finally
made it to State College. If you're in the mood for
some thoroughly off-the-wall humor, "Eating
Raoul" is just the ticket.
The "heroes" of this 84-minute opus are Paul
Bland (Bartel) and his loving wife Mary (Mary
Waronov). He's a snooty wine salesman; she's a
4 , nutritionist; they're both closet gourmets who
abhor the inconsiderate white-collar swingers
who constantly infiltrate their neighborhood to
hold nearby parties.
film review
Paul and Mary's dream is, as one might guess,
to open up a gourmet restaurant in the country
called, appropriately, Chez Bland. One night, an
act of providence makes their dream more real.
When a stray guest from a nearby orgy assaults
Mary in her living room, Paul sends the boor to
his maker by conking him on the noggin with a
skillet. It is then that our ingenious couple has
Radio drama is alive on lowa morning show
By ROGER MUNNS
Associated Press Writer
AMES, lowa As Doug Brown
began reading "The Iliad" on the
radio one recent morning, a loyal
following in kitchens and cars
across the state tuned in to catch the
latest plot twists.
"They're busy bashing their
brains out at the moment," Brown
said before he began his 30 minutes
of daily reading. "Diamedes has
had a couple of very good innings."
Then he plunged into his rendition
of Homer's classic, holding the pa
perback with one hand, gesturing
with the other and changing voices
ABC registers another fantasy show tonight with 'Hotel'
By FRED ROTHENBERG
AP Television Writer
NEW YORK During the Depression, filmmaker
Busby Berkeley made leggy spectacles to help a nation
forget breadlines. ABC seems to be taking similar flights
of fancy in these tough economic times, selling fantasies,
fairy-tale endings and stars, stars and more stars in
tonight's debut of "Hotel."
television preview
"Hotel" is the seventh series on ABC's schedule
stamped out of executive producer Aaron Spelling's
dream factory. Supremely slick and gaudily opulent,
"Hotel," from the book by Arthur Hailey, is not the
Holiday Inn.
Immediately following Spelling's rich and steamy
"Dynasty" on ABC's Wednesday night schedule, "Ho-
The Crossing was recorded earlier this
year and is now breaking upon the Ameri
can rock scene with a buzz of expectation
rarely seen from rock critics. And with one
listen to The Crossing, it is obvious why Big
Country is predicted to hit it very big in the
United States.
To classify Big Country is impossible.
That is one of the unique qualities of this
band. Big Country has really forged its own
genre in rock music. If I were pressed to
take a stab at it, I would try combining the
originality of U 2, the down-to-earth ap
proach of Springsteen and the intricate, full
sound of Asia.
In fact, a lot of comparisons can be made
to U 2 here. Big Country's vocals sound
almost like a cross between Springsteen and
U2's Bono. Also, one of rock's premeire
geniuses, Steve Lillywhite, produced The
Crossing. Lillywhite's recent work has in
cluded U2's War.
But the most amazing thing about Big
Country is their music. The Crossing is
absolutely essential rock. Nothing is wasted
here; every sound is pertinent to the song,
and every song hinges on the album as a
whole. "In A Big Country," which opens
side one, is an excellent song. Simply excel
lent. Big Country takes this rock anthem
and weaves it into a tale spun around a
mystical bagpipe-type sound that sets the
stage for this debut album.
The album continues on a frantic pace
with "Inwards," which has an utmost im
mediacy to it. "Chance" opens with orien
tal-type guitar licks that sets up an excellent
"break-up" song that shatters the standard
of mushy, operatic love-gone-wrong songs.
"Now the skirts hang so heavy around your
their sweet inspiration: lure the regular throng of
white-collar perverts into their apartment using
unspeakablesexual delights as a lure, then knock
them out, lift their cash and stuff them in the
trash compactor. Dastardly but brilliant.
All goes fairly well for the Blands until Raoul, a
shifty locksmith, offers to take the bodies off
their hands for a substantial cut of the booty. As
the title implies, he eventually winds up with the
short end of the proverbial stick.
"Eating Raoul" is essentially a B-movie so
conceptually wild it almost defies even being
viewed. To see this film the whole way through is
virtually to admit one's own barbarism. But a-
HA, kids! That's the whole point of Bartel's little
exercise to show the implicit barbarism in
modern society.
The viewer will probably not confuse "Eating
Raoul" with the kind of emotionally and intellec
tually layered, sophisticated farce we've all
come to expect from the likes of Woody Allen and
Monty Python. But, I admit, the film has its own
perverse sort of charm. This is not completely
surprising, considering Bartel and Waronov are
working in the terms of a genre they've known for
many years.
Bartel, 45, .was a prime mover of the mid-'6os
"underground" and the creator of some of Roger
Corman's more profitable films of the '7os, such
as "Death Race 2000," "Last Days of Man on
to assume different characters
"You really have to live with a
book," he said later.
Brown, 47, one of the few dramat
ic readers still on the air, has been
broadcasting the classics five days
a week for nearly 20 years. His
show, "The Book Club," is a 50-year
tradition at public radio station
WOI.
Hundreds of listeners write WOI
every year.
"I shivered every day," wrote one
woman, recounting the many voices
in Brown's rendition of Dickens' "A
Christmas Carol."
"Thanks for your interpretation
of Madame Bovary. However, I
tel" is bound to be heavily booked this season.
Every week, elegant guest stars will check into the
hotel, involve themselves in flimsy and whimsical plots
about faded romance or blooming love and check out
before we can be charged for an extra day's thought.
This is the same format milked by Spelling's "Love
Boat" and "Fantasy Island."
His shows are candy for the cerebrum. Although
"Hotel" is never memorable, it does aspire to being a
tad more meaningful than just a landlocked "Love
Boat." This is the classiest of Spelling's seven current hit
shows, which include "T.J. Hooker," "Matt Houston"
'and "Hart to Hart."
In tonight's pilot, the moral issue concerns a prosti
tute, played by Morgan Fairchild, who is raped in the St.
Gregory's Hotel by a bunch of boys on prom night. Does
she have any rights? Should she press charges?
The hotel manager, Peter McDermott (James Brolin),
thinks she should. He considers the violation also a
violation of his precious hotel.
Brolin brings his distinct style of non-emotional acting
to the starring role of Peter McDermott, the bachelor
head/ that you never knew you were young/
Because you played chance with a lifetime's
romance/ and the price was far too long."
"Fields of Fire," their moderately suc
cessful British hit, follows. The best way to
describe this one is a new-wave Bonanza
theme. It has the airy feeling of the great
plains while you can just picture horses
trotting across the open expanse.
Many of the songs here roll up a picture in
the mind, as if a slide projector in the back
of the mind turns on an image for each song.
Such is true for "The Storm," which closes
side one. "Storm" sets an eerie feeling as
the song begins, and turns into a "The
ballad of. . ." type setting.
"Harvest Home" opens side two with a
very domestic song. Here, the dust bowl
days and ghost towns of the midwest are
brought to mind. "See how the bowls are
empty/ see how the arms reach/ see where
the butter melted/ see where the alters
creak/ Just as you sow shall you reap."
The urgency of "Inwards" is also found on
side two with "Lost Patrol." But "Patrol" is
a very desparate, tragic song about death
and decay. "Close Action" and !'lOOO Stars"
follow. Here is the weakest part of the
album. But even when the themes and
images are faltering, the music stands on its
own.
The album closes with "Porrohman," a
wide-sweeping arrangement that sounds
like a rocked-up Twilight Zone introduction
ttiat ends with an army marching away. The
troops have been very successful. Big Coun
try has conquered as the undefeated corps
of rock music.
And in the end, Big Country is superb. The
hope the book's naughtiness doesn't
spoil the rolls," said another wom
an, explaining it was hard to listen
and bake at the same time.
While there are only a few radio
readers left, they flourished in ra
dio's early days. "People had more
time and radio was the all-around
medium," said Mike Havice, an
associate journalism professor at
Drake University in Des Moines.
"It's always a treat" to listen to
Brown, he said. "But normally, I
don't have the time. Besides, I could
read the book in three days, while it
would take three weeks to listen to it
read."
"It took 10 weeks to read Moby
An overdue upheaval of rock music standards
Earth" and "Born to Kill" films that will live
forever in all-night drive-in movie shows and on
late-night Home Box Office. He also makes Paul
Bland a nicely engaging character with his bald
pate, perfectly coiffed beard, repressively stuffy
suits and priggish dialogue. Waronov, who
starred in such low -budget classics as "Holly
wood Boulevard" (With Bartel) and "Angel of
H.E.A.T.," featuring Marilyn Chambers in a
"legitimate" role, is also engaging as Mary, a
believable closet sensualist and practical joker
as well as loving wife.
The supporting cast fares rather well, too.
Robert Beltran is magnetic and amusing in the
role of Raoul. Buck Henry is fun to watch as a
lecherous bank manager who comes on to Mary.
Susan Saiger is surprisingly effective as a placid
housewife who's a whip-brandishing dominatrix
in her spare time.
Suffice it to say that Bartel and company get
their point across, if not painlessly or tastefully,
with enough swiftness and satire to keep the
viewer reasonably entertained. "Eating Raoul"
may be no more than a sometimes obvious ironic
fable told in B-movie styles, but at least it's done
by people who have a passion for the craft of
shooting on the cheap. More, they know that
"cheap" is not necessarily synonymous with
"bad."
Dick," Brown said. "People would
ask, 'Are you still reading Moby
Dick?' Which meant I was the only
one around at the end, I suppose."
"The Book Club," transmitted to
four other lowa stations each day,
really was a book club when it
started in 1927, Brown said. "We
don't lend books anymore, but the
name stuck."
Brown, who as a child had wanted
to be a sportscaster, also makes
frequent appearances as commen
tator for televised college wrestling
matches and is equally at home as
host for WOl's classical music seg
ments.
manager of San Francisco's dignified, traditional and
luxurious St. Gregory's. Brolin, formerly Dr. Steven
Kiley on "Marcus Welby, M.D.," never seems to put his
heart into his roles.
This role requires him to be a master plumber in a
world of leaky faucets, all of which he manages to fix
without getting his hands dirty. Every segment has a
deliriously happy ending. While the world outside might
be under attack, the St. Gregory's and Spelling's
series will be a safe haven.
Bette - Davis is given top billing as the aristocratic
owner of the St. Gregory's, but her contract calls for
limited appearances. ABC says she won't show up in
every episode. In tonight's two-hour pilot, she appears in
four scenes.
The other major characters touch the right demogra
phic bases. Connie Selleca plays the beautiful assistant
manager, Christine Francis, who walks off the street
and, without any hotel experience, begins running the
hotel. Shea Farrell is the handsome head of guest
relations who, based on the pilot, will fall in love much
too often.
album or the band is not perfect, but they
really have very little room to improve. In a
world ruled by techno-pop and flashy funk of
late, Big Country is a debacle that should
give rock music an overdue upheaval and
Alan Alda is the new
Atari spokesperson
From the Associated Press
HOLLYWOOD (AP) Alan
Alda, who was Hawkeye Pierce
for 11 years on "M
-A-S-H," is
assuming a new role as the adver
tising spokesman for Atari, mak
ers of video games and home
computers.
Alda has completed 11 commer
cials which will go on the air at the
end of September or early Octo
ber, said Ted Voss, Atari's senior
vice president for marketing and
advertising.
The multitalented Alda actor,
writer, director, producer was
given the right in his contract to
approve the concept and script of
each commercial.
At times, Alda changed the dia
logue to put it into his own words.
"One of the commercials that he
worked on had to do with how an
Atari computer is probably the
best roommate a college student
will ever have," said Voss. "The
original concept was that the stu
dent was a boy. We rewrote it so
that it was non-sexist."
Voss refused to say how much
Alda is being paid for the commer
cials. Alda's contract, which he
signed in June, runs for five years.
These are the first commercials
Alda has done.
HOLLYWOOD (AP) C'est la
vie. Actor Howard Lang has gone
from British prime minister to
Roman slave.
Lang portrayed Winston Chur
chill in "The Winds of War,' the
highly rated miniseries telecast by
ABC last February.
He plays a Roman slave named
Medon in "The Last Days of Porn
peii," a seven-hour miniseries
ABC will telecast next February
or May.
Medon is a slave in the house
hold of a wealthy shipowner
Wednesday Sept. 21, 1983
„0 „
Big Country
Then there are the spunky, all-too-appealing young
newlyweds, Dave and Megan Kendall, who can never
find time alone together. Dave (Michael Spound) is a
bellhop and law student. Megan (Heidi Bohay) is a desk
clerk. They work different shifts, alternatingly frustrat
ing each other in what promises to be a running tease
throughout the fall.
Nathan Cook plays a black former convict, who now
serves as the hotel's chief of security.
Tonight's stars and storylines: Pernell Roberts and'
Shirley Jones, each on the rebound, bounce into each
other's arms; Erin Moran, a struggling singer, exploits
the infatuation of a hotel staffer; Bill Macy and Lainie
Kazan depict a stereotypical bickering couple, and Jack
Gilford, an older man, is made ecstatic by a younger
woman (Stephanie Faracy).
Gilford's character succumbs to a heart attack in the
hotel restaurant and, after a day or so of mourning, Miss
Faracy's character leaves with the king of Portugal,
played by Alejandro Rey.
Give Spelling credit. He doesn't dream small
The Daily Collegian
make performers think about the music.
But until then, suffice to say (and DARE I
say?) that Big Country may be one of the
most significant British bands to hit the
American rock scene since The Beatles.
named Diomed, played by Ned
Beatty.
"The Last Days of Pompeii," by
Columbia Pictures Television,
chronicles life in the Roman city of
Pompeii immediately before, and
as, the eruption of the volcano
Vesuvius destroys the city in 79
A.D. The series is being filmed on
location in Italy and in England.
HOLLYWOOD (AP) Tyne
Daly, discussing her canceled CBS
series "Cagney & Lacey," says
she liked her character, Mary
Beth, because "she's tired.
"Nobody's tired on TV," she
said.
Miss Daly starred in the series
of two women detectives as Mary
Beth Lacey and Sharon Gless was
her partner, Christine Cagney. As
sometimes happens when a series
is canceled for low ratings, it did
better in the summer reruns. The
show was first in the ratings for
the week ended Aug. 21.
Miss Daly was nominated for an
Emmy Award for her perfor
mance in an episode called "Burn
Out." Mary Beth finds that being
detective, wife and mother is al
most too much to cope with and
she shows her weariness.
In all, the show got four Emmy
nominations: as best dramatic
series, best sound mixing, and two
best-actress entries for Miss Daly
and Miss Gless.
NEW YORK (AP) NBC's
"Saturday Night Live" is going to
give a new performer a break as
the host of the late-night show on
Oct. 8.
Brandon Tartikoff will be the
host for the premiere of the ninth
season. This young unknown is
also the president of NBC Enter
tainment.
comics, etc.
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1 Arabian tambourines
6 Warp yarn
9 Dormant
11 Lovely graceful person
13 Seville's barber
14 Pollute
16 Chinese pagoda
17 Sticky substance
19 Resort city
20 Fine line on a letter
22 Pinabete
23 Sorceress
26 Clear
28 Levant
30 Estimate
31 Alternatives
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34 Exclamation of disgust
36 Servant
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40 Tend a fire
42 Judge's chamber
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45 Fooyung
46 Trotyl
47 Calm •
Homecoming 'B3 Reminder
Today is the last day to register for Homecoming Event
Competitions, 203-B HUB by spm.
An orientation meeting for group chairman will be held at
7:3opm Sunday, Sept. 25 in 60 Willard.
Tentative sketches (for float,
28 ban
IFC etc.)
Officeare due by
s:oopm, Wednesday, Sept. in the
If you have any questions, please contact Jerry Wade,
238-1191 u-103
aismisanusiem mom NI sm um pm ma NEI um= imamlN so ism me um in mum moan
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( 0 1983 Domino's Pizza
Our driver's carry less than $lO
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Down
1 27th president
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North: 237-1414 South: 234-5655
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The Daily Collegian
Wednesday Sept. 21, 1983
Crossword
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one coupon per pizza
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