PAGE 6

 

OO a Oe Ee ee oe ne ee

 

THE OTHER PRESS

PAGE 6

 

- Vaugh

“‘That’s the only reason I’m
here’ said the guy in front of
me to his girlfriend seated
beside him. This was the
not-so-seldom heard reason
why last Thursday night’s
concert had one of the best-

by Stuart Woolverton

 

attended warm-up acts that
this reviewer has seen or
heard of yet.

Steve Ray Vaughan is the
name;.~blues guitar is the
game. He took 55 minutes to
prove that he is one of the best
in the biz, and had the
scheduling allowed it, he
would have been called back

 

for more by the 7,000 or so
people who came early spec-
ifically to catch his act, and a
lot of whom would have been
- quite happy just to see him
headlining his own show.

He and his back-up band,
Double Trouble, clearly came
to entertain, and from. the
moment they were introduced,
they did just that. The eight
songs they played were for the
most part straight-ahead blues
rock, showing off some cuts
from the album, Texas Flood,
and some renditions of Oldies-
but-Goodies from the days of
my youth.

Straight from the introduc-
tion, Steve showed that he was
afraid of nothing and ripped
right into two hot instrumen-
tals that lasted better than 10
minutes, He went through
some material ,from the al-
bum, and when he got to his
signature song, Texas Flood,
he really started showing off,
playing a behind-the-back solo
that electrified the crowd.
Afterwards, more instrumen-
tals, including a mini-medley
of Hendrix songs that also
took me back awhile. He
closed the show with a real
Hendrix-like performance that

included walking his battered-
looking Strat across the stage
by the tremolo bar, and send-
ing his amps wild with feed-
back.

Double Trouble provided a
good, tight back-up beat that
did not overpower but comp-
limented Steve’s great guitar
work. There was a minor
problem in that Steve, being
primarily an instrumental tal-
ent, was a bit weak on the
vocals, especially when he was
trying to sing over his blister-
ing finger work. They were
also faced with the bane of
bands playing in hockey rinks
everywhere; the bass end of
the sound tended to get lost up

in the rafters. Aside from
these common drawbacks, the
show was great. Steve has a
great stage presence, and has
his roots firmly implanted in
Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton,
and (gasp!) ZZ Top, which
shows heavily in his vocal
style, mannerisms, and play-
ing style.

Steve Ray Vaughan will def-
inately be expected back with-
in the next year or few
months, hopefully headlining
his own show.

As the lights came back on
after the set from Steve Ray
Vaughan, I took a quick glance
around and found that there
were still a fair number of
floor seats empty, and that
condition did not resolve itself
as the ’’main act’’ took the
floor.

‘‘The Men’’ have changed
their style a bit since I went to
see them at the Queen E. last
year, when they were being
billed as the phenomenom
from Australia. Their bar-

band gone big sound of last.

year has been replaced in
some places by a_ semi-
polished professional one, and
I’m not sure whether or not |

like the change.

 

On one hand, this comes as a
welcome relief as they seem to
be moving on to ‘‘bigger and
better’’ which shows in their
expanded stage show, more
gags, better lighting, and lots
of speakers, with two banks of
them suspended from the
ceiling above the crowd. They
even had props, with large
white-painted cut-out palm
trees and clouds.

On the other hand, I miss the
raw, rough edges that their
sound used to have, and the
bar band type of intimacy that
they used to have with their
audiences; the kind of stuff
that made them really enjoy-
able to listen to. In other
words, what they have gained
in professionalism, they have
lost in respect.

At any rate, the audience in
the Coliseum didn’t seem to
be too worried about seman-
tics such as these. They
cheered The Men onto the
stage, laughed in the right
places, and as a whole, rather
seemed to enjoy themselves.

As I said earlier, there are a
few things about the group
that seem to detract from their
image of general humor and
their ability to not take them-
selves too seriously; namely
Colin Hay’s statement that

they were there to entertain’

for the next hour and a half
(that’s all they were there for,
no more) and his general
listlessness during the rend-
ition of ‘‘Overkill’’. It was also
noticeable that he wasn’t hav-
ing anywhere near as much
fun on stage as he usually
does, as most of the clowning
was provided by the group’s

other front man, Greg Ham. I
was having serious thoughts
about whether Mr. Hay had
fallen victim to the old plague
of musicians; taking himself to
of musicians; taking himself
too seriously. However, it was
pointed out to me by my
advisor that Colin Hay is the
type of performer who thrives
off feedback from his aud-
ience. This became noticeable
and allayed my fears as he
became more alert and lively
as the audience did.

The band tore through sev-
eral songs from both of their
albums, as well as some new
stuff that I didn’t recognize,
and as the show progressed,
Hay lossened up and the jokes
started to come out. Joke?
What America’s Cup Joke?
Who told those people that
they could leave to go and
smoke up? As the show went
on, they got a better and
better reaction out of the
crowd, until the ‘‘real fans’’ in
the crowd were exhorted to
come on down in front, they
did. The area in front of the
stage was packed, and people
were jammed into the aisles,
and on top of seats, a far cry

an on Duty with Men At Wor

from the sedateness and laid-
back attitude that was prev-
alent at the beginning of the
show.

The one thing about this
show that was a pleasant
surprise was that the sound
was excellent. The four banks
of speakers used and mention-
ed earlier were well placed
and well set up. There was
great loud sound, but with
-echoes and no extra noise.
This was the first non-

   
 
  
 
 
 

accoustic within recent mem-
ory that I can remember
coming out of without having
my ears ringing from residual
sound and extra noise. In
other words, really cle,

sound.

Sum total: a good show,
not tor all the right reasons.
Next time they come to town, I
think I'll skip it-another victim
of too much commercializing,
with no hope of improvement
in the immediate future.

   
 
  

 

 

  

 

 

Lasers and Digital Music

When was the last time you
played a record? Did you hear
anything that you didn’t like?
For most of us, the pops and
ticks that we hear when play-
ing LPs and 45s are an

 

Vic Cromarty

 

accepted, if unwelcome part of
the total sound. Even brand
new just of the shrink wrap
discs are prone to this annoy-
ing problem.

Do we really have to put up
with it though? Philips of
Holland and Sony think not.
This is because these two
giants of the home electronics
field have put their corporate
heads together and come up
with what will soon become an
intergral part of everybody’s
stereo system. It’s called the
Digital Audio Disc, or DAD for
short.

The DAD, or as it’s some-
times called, the Compact
Disc (CD) promises to com-
pletely change the consumers
listen to music. This is the.
result of the complex techn-
ologies involved in the manu-
facture of the CD and its
associated player.

Well, what’s so special about
the DAD? To start with, it
stores musical information in
an entirely new fashion. It
uses advanced computer chips
called microprocessors to en-
code and decode sound
DIGITALLY. This digital code
tells the CD player exactly
what the sound should be
when it finally reaches your
stereo from the disc.

Conventional records store
sound through the use of
wiggly grooves molded in
plastic. CDs store this same
information as a series of
microscopic pits that are the
mechanical representation of

   
  
  
   
  
   
 
 
 
 
   
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
 

the computer code needed to
produce the sound.

And while a record has to be
read through PHYSICAL con-
tact with the diamond stylus of
your turntables’ cartridge,
CD is scanned by an opti
laser which REFLECTS off
the surface of the rapidly
spinning disc.

Because the music is stored
as a code, copies made will
sound much better than what
you are used to. In fact, it will
be the next best thing to
‘actually owning the original
master tape. If the disc is
recorded and played back next
to the original, you should not
be able to tell the difference,
at least in theory.

Second, you won’t have to
worry about those annoying
noises we talked about at the
beginning. This is because of
the digital error correction
circuitry built in to every DAD
player.

Thirdly, the sound that you
hear will have louder musical
peaks and much softer quiet
spots due to the nature of the
encoding. This increase in.
DYNAMIC RANGE, coupled
with the discs ability to repr
duce sound with greater acl
uracy than we are used to, wi
give us the impression of
being more realistic.

Then there is the matter of

price. Right now, digital tech-
nology is not cheap. With
prices ranging upwards of
eight hundred dollars, you’re
not going to be running out
and buying a couple of players
for Xmas presents unless
you’re very well off.

Oh yeah, start saving up for
better speakers and a- more
powerful amplifier to handle
all this clean dynamic sound.