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etre fo amege ee

 

page 10 October 28, 1985

 

The Other Press

 

 

 

 

is all about.

The Dilettants Article

| could start off with ‘‘Rock, once

an exclusively male bastion...’’ or
some such nonsense, but girls in Rock

is old news. The days are over when ™&

 

by Jeremy Bloom

 

female musicians must be relegated
to ‘‘girl groups’’ (GoGo’s and Bangles
excepted), and it now appears musici-
ans who happen to be women can fit
in quite nicely with musicians who
happen to be men, and get on with
the business of making music. This is
good. | approve 100 per cent, but it
doesn“ give me a catchy, trendy lead
for this article.

Hm. On the other hand, | can start
off talking about the ‘‘New Psycha-
delic’’ movement, except that the
New Psych movement is very unpopu-
lar these days, except among those
cognoszenti who don’t need to read
this article because they know all
about the music scene already, but
who will read it anyway, because they
like seeing their friends’ names _ in
print. Why is Psychedelia ignored and
sneered at by the movers and shakers
of the music industry? Primarily, you
can blame the Byrds, who could have
gotten back together after almost two
decades and provide some legitimacy
for the revival, at least in the eyes of
the radio programmers.

But they didn’t. It’s also very
much the fault. of REM, the founding
band and chief prophet of the move-
ment. Their problem has been that
they have this ideologically pure,
politically correct vision of the music
industry, which prevents them from
being the least bit ‘‘accessible’’, or
cooperating in any way with the evil
fascists who run the modern recording
industry. As a result, most people in
the radio/recording industry think

t %
*

If you’re an Arnold Schwarzenegger
fan, Commando is the movie to see.
The second shot we see of Arnie is his
biceps - and Arnie is BIG - he makes

they’re stuck-up assholes, and won’t
play any ‘‘new. psychedelia’ stuff,
which they think is never going to be
popular anyway. Which is why, for
instance, Lora Rempel of The
Dilettants says ‘I’m burned with
REM.’’

The Dilettants? Oh, yeah. This
article is about the Dilettants. | guess
| better move on...

The Dilettants are not likely to
have the kind of problems REM has
had, although their music has a
similar, late-sixties ring to it. For one
thing (and in this they differ from
most bands I’ve seen in the Vancou-
= scene) they are completely apolit-
ical.

“What? Us? Political?’’ quipped

  
 
 
 

  

 

by Doug Redecopp

dialogue like:
Bad Guy:

Left to Right: Erica,

give it to us - Arnie is the irresistable
force. Sure, everything
but the director lets us know that he
knows we don’t take it seriously with

“This Green Beret’s

fand he_ has
& sabbatical to join forces with the

The Dilettants were born in last
year’s breakup of the Debutants.
While some of them went on to form
the band Go Four Three, Ex-Debs
bassist Erica’ Leiran and singer
Sheilagh joined forces with singer

 

Bm Lora Rempel, guitarist Lawrence
@ McGuinness and drummer Ryan

Volberg to form the Dilettants. While
opening a gig for the Enigmas, they
attracted the interest of that band’s
singer/sax player Paul McKenzie,
taken an enigmatic

Dil’s. Having all those people makes
for a crowded stage, but a very

fy dynamic line-up and great four part

Sheilagh, Paul, Lora :

singer Sheilagh Badanic, to which her
co-singer, the previously mentioned
Lora Rempel adds, ‘‘we have ab-
solutely no political consciousness.’’
Most of their songs are about love and
fun, which is all anyone could ever
ask for, unless you live in El Salvador,
which we don’t. | don’t know about
you, but when | go out on Saturday
night, | like to forget about the
world’s problems for awhile, not be
reminded of man’s inhumnity to man
by 800 watts of driving power chords.
(how can a band be said to be truly
political, anyway, when the message
of the lyrics is lost in the wall of
sound, along with the audiences
hearing? beats me.) And fun, as
their name implies, is what this band

   

Syataak a ahs

  

is serious,

Bae eeeeee eee ee K x

 

Rambo look like a wimp. As one
shopping mall security guard says as
he radios for backup...‘‘He’s six foot
three and he’s a big fucker!”’

| liked this movie, much more than
| liked Rambo. Stallone took himself
too seriously, so the many flaws in
Rambo were too obvious. The makers
of Commando know what we want to
see - lots of violent action and they

BEBE EREBREREEREEREEREER EE |

Correction

In A-Ha record review last week the

average age of A-Ha is 24 years old
not 16 as stated in the review.

  
  
  

going to kick your ass.’’

Arnie: ‘‘I eats Green Berets for
breakfast!’’

Rae Down Chong: ‘‘! don’t believe
this macho bullshit! ’’

| mean this movie is fun, and it
works too - probably due to the
George Lucas principle: some things
may be a little bit off, some things
may not work right - but a movie
either works or it doesn’t - and

bad guy.

You should see this movie, if you
can, in the large Capital main theatre,
preferably a late show on a weekend
night. This is definitely a movie made
better by audience participation, so go

and enjoy.

Ratiings at a glance.

a1 2- TOR CRLICS

****for Arnie fans
| give it a thumbs up.

   

Baia)

Arnie Eats Rambo For Breakfast «x

TPR RRR eee eee »*

harmonies.

Their songs are generally bouncy
and always melodic, the kind of stuff
that sticks in your head for days, and

B you don’t mind finding yourself hum-

ming in the bus. Two of their songs
have been played. on CITR: the

, Dilettants Theme Song, which was a

number one hit, and Dunkle Augen, a
love song in German (Lora was shy -
she thought if she wrote in German, it
would be less embarrassing.)

Their next step, of course, is
recording. Having a number one
song, even if it’s just College Radio,
is enough of an acheivement to attract
the interest of Atlantic records.
Things may be happening for these
lucky local lads and lasses...

As for future plans, Paul jokes that
they’ve been approached by South
African club owners...‘‘they’ve been
having a hard time getting acts to
come down there,. ya know...’’ For
those of you who have political
objections to going all that way to see
them, they’ll be playing at the
Firehall Theatre on Saturday, Oct. 26.
Worth a listen...

¥

«x *

Commando works. Arnie has a reason
to go after bad guys. This is his
daughter he’s saving, someone we the
audience are made to care about. The
audience responds by cheering when-
ever Arnie dusts off a particularly bad

 
 
 

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