October 12 - October 18, 1995

DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME: Don't try to write 1,000 words on any subject without using the letters o and j. I tried, my brain exploded and I wound up surfing the tube. As if that weren't bad enough, I wiped out and landed on the Geraldo show. I know, believe me, I know how stupid that sounds. There I was, sitting on my brain, watching Geraldo yap about you-know-who when he caught me with a teaser about Selena, the Tejano singer and star who was killed this past April by the president of her fan club.

I bit on the tease and waited through the commercials for the mustache hung on an idiot to return. When it did, it offered a "news" story from a "reporter" at the courthouse in Houston where the trial of Yolanda Saldivar, the woman accused of murdering Selena, is taking place. I put quotes around those two words in the previous sentence because everyone knows that Rivera imagines himself to be the host of a news-oriented talk show, when in reality he's just an overpaid gossiping sleaze. (So why was I watching such a contemptible person? I take the fifth and plead insanity.)

This alleged person at the courthouse claimed Hispanic people in this country see the Selena case as "their O.J. Simpson trial." This humanoid came to that astoundingly asinine conclusion because several hundred fans are gathering daily at the courthouse and many are pissed at the judge who isn't allowing the trial to be televised. Since most of the fans are Hispanic, this boob on the tube assumes that all people in the ethnic group are fixated on the outcome of the case.

If you happen to be Hispanic, you may not have been aware of your duty to your culture and people to obsess over whether Saldivar accidentally shot Selena or deliberately pulled the trigger. You can't be simply curious or indifferent or oblivious or anything else but consumed by the case. You're Hispanic and you've got to be manic when it comes to the Selena tragedy. I'm a small part of the media, and more importantly, the male offspring of descendants of European Caucasians. I'm just doing my job. I hope you're doing yours.

MORE DUMB SHIT: As long as I'm admitting to having wasted precious moments of my life with Geraldo Rivera, moments I can never recapture and put to some use, I might as well cop to having gone to The Rock on a recent Monday evening. Monday is when Boogie Knights stick the disco thermometer up your butt to see if you've got Saturday Night Fever. I'm afraid I never had the heat and never will.

If you haven't checked out this scene, you'll be glad you read this. Now you won't waste five bucks on some of the worst music ever made--now remade by BK.

This L.A.-based band wears all-polyester clothes and wigs, platform shoes and gold-plated chains while keeping the monotonous dance music of the late-'70s "alive."

What makes the whole thing so super freaky is the crowd. They aren't Baby Boomers reliving past follies. No, these people are in their early to mid-20s. Certainly old enough to know better. Most of them were between the ages of three and 10 when the Bee Gees were the best-selling Aussie wusses around.

Another strange thing about the capacity crowd that fills the club every Monday is their immobility. They don't really dance to the music much. Some people bounce in place and some bump behinds against their friends, but there's no all-out John Travolta-style strutting and swaying. At least no one was doing it while I was there. But then I didn't make it through the whole boogie night. I only made it, barely, through the first set, when I felt something crawling up my throat that tasted like it had been in my stomach since Donna Summer was somebody. I had to get out. No more K.C. and The Sunshine Band covers, no more Gloria Gaynor or Sister Sledge or Rose Royce or remakes of anyone else.

I don't get it, I don't like it, I don't want to talk about it anymore. If you do, go to The Rock, 136 N. Park Ave., and may the god of music have no mercy on your soul.

SAMPLE EXAMPLE: The Samples have been out touring in support of their Autopilot album on the WAR? (What Are Records?) label since the disc was released a year ago. It's an amazingly Eighties slab of music: Sometimes lead singer Sean Kelly sounds just like Sting fronting The Police.

Airy, distant pulsations of jazz-tinged reggae ripple through "Seasons In The City," "Only To You" and "Weight Of The World." Very Zenyatta Mondatta. Very eerie.

If they can sound that much like those ancient cops in the studio, you have to wonder if they can do it on stage, too. I caught The Police in concert one time at the height of their popularity. They were able to reproduce their own hits more faithfully--note for note and inflection for inflection--than any group I've ever seen in person. It could have just been one giant lipsyncronicity, for all I know.

The Samples are at The Rock on Sunday, October 15. Call 629-9211 for ticket information.

LAST NOTES: This year's Jazz Sundae festival features Grammy winner Arturo Sandoval, among others. Check out this week's music feature for more information on the free jazz fest at Reid Park DeMeester Outdoor Performance Center at 11 a.m. Sunday, October 15.

Sponge is still touring to keep copies of their album Rotting Piñata moving across music store counters from clerks to customers. This time in town they'll appear with Poster Children in the Arizona Ballroom of the University of Arizona Student Union on Saturday, October 14. It's an all-ages show. Tickets are $15 each.
--Michael Metzger

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