THANK .GQD for the Canadian
Radio-television and Telecom-
Munications Commission (CRTC).

_ By AP. McCredie
News Reporter

Earlier this year, the govern-
ment agency denied an ‘“‘alter-
native’. Vancouver AM music
_tadio station — Coast 800 — an
FM licence.

‘The caterwauling by Van-
couver’s indie community could be
heard emanating from the alleys
of the Lower Mainland — unlike
Coast’s grainy signal (or was that
the music?) — as hipster cowboys
and cowgirls decried.-the narrow
vision of the CRTC.

One nation

HAVEN'T WE all had our fill of
the classic rock spew. cozing from
Jim Mortison’s restless carcass?

“By Michael Becker
News Reporter

“It’s all so much classic fossilized
elonk.
2 It's a clenched state of affairs.
“It sucks just as disco sucked in
-the:’70s, only this business is part
«, Of something much more insidi-
a ous. Lo
“So, say you're motorvating
along in your Malibu Classic one
fine morning. You feel good. You
feel you could just skip your way
- up that stairway to heaven and
-break on through to the other

In recent years, the alternative
movement has gained much pop-
ularity, as tone deaf musicians and
color blind artists carved out a
comfy niche for themselves and
their ilk by pulling the smelling
black wool over the eyes and ears
of the good public.

Wiping their feet on the mat
that is their musical roots, most
alternative bands feel it is their
self-evident right that not only
should their vile sound be forced
upon the public, but that it should
be thought of as: good. As in
quality.

One prablem with this (1 hesi-
tate to use the word) genre, is that
its ‘‘Rteeests” dismiss criticism of
their stumbling works by saying
their critics ‘‘don’t understand.”

Ask them to explain it and they
inevitably faunch into a tortured
artist stance. compleie with im-
ported cigarette smoke.

Put most of these posers up
against a straight-ahead, max-
imum rhythm and blues quartet,
and watch the faux fur fly.

{n answer to my colleague’s re-
quest to silence the Lizard Kings’
spinning remains, | can only say
the cream always rises. Even when
sour.

And-to my black-clad brethren,
feverishly spinning their wheels
and the radio dial in search of a
beluved alternative, I have some
words of advice,

Buy a tape deck. And head-
phones.

under a stagnant groove |

side.”

The chromium is gleaming, the
V8 is humming. nicely and you're
hankering for something to whistle
along to.

Switch on the radio and it’s all
classic this, oldie that, memory
music whatever, It’s that soporific
Perry Como, Buddy Holly, BTO,
Springsteen trip. You've been
down that road before. It’s a
hellacious Mobius strip.

The glassy-eyed flower-child
dominatrix sitting bloated at your
side applies her classic chcke hold.

li is the demographic in
perative. You struggle. She opens
her, yap and fets go with an
elongated boomer burp. She
pushes your flashback buttons

TAY IT
NT TO

¢ Superb North Shore location
—® Some city/harbour views .
* Highest quality construction

& design

* Large units

© Full range of amenities

¢ Nearby shopping on
Lonsdale Ave.

WEST QUEENS ROAD

|

22TH ST.

CHESTERFIELD

LONSDALE
AVE,

-[ UPPER LeveL HiGHway ||

with a foul rush of Led Zep-
pelinized exhalation.

Yet is it not comforting that
there is a balance in this universe,
Doors and Donovan, Beatles and
Boston?

Buz at what price this stagna-
tion, built as it is upon a heap of
judiciously selected pickled pop
carbuncles?

The problem is this: impulsive
origins that once informed the
music, were exhausted long ago.

The residual banal gestures,
with context turned on its head
and revised to service the cor-
porate agenda, are smothering the
hapless generation that follows
behind you, hunkered at the
wheels of their Honda Civies.

PROPOSED CONDOMINIUM DEVELOPMENT
WEST QUEENS AND LONSDALE, NORTH VANCOUVER

For information and an opportunity to become involved in the planning of your new home call:

‘Betty Ann Vivian

Brookman Anderson Development Corporation

986-4912

HUH-HUH-huh, Beavis and Butthead hate, hate, hate. Could it be
the quintessential expression of a frustrated generation
smothered by boomers and other elderly itk? ©

A TOUC!
OF ELEGA

OFFER EXPIRES DEC. 6/83

ier