Richard hung himself/VV/UO

[hsu%uicsrd.CSRD.UIUC.EDU@a.cs.uiuc.edu (William Tsun-Yuk Hsu)]

Re: Richard hung himself...
... is by, I believe, D.I. (or the D.I.'s, whatever). You probably heard it
(I did) in one of the worst movies about punks ever made, Suburbia. Not
only did the people who wrote and directed the movie know nothing about
punks, but the movie was simply a textbook example of bad film-making. Each
cardboard character can be described in less than 5 words. Supposedly,
real punks were used in the movie in the major roles, but I'm surprised
they agreed to be associated with this stinker. Whatever this movie was
trying to say, it was inept at saying it. 

(For a more extended flame about Suburbia, refer to the review in 
rec.arts.movies.)

Why You Should Not Bother Reading the Music Section of the Village Voice:
(except when Simon Frith has his column, of course)

Check out this year's Pazz and Jop poll. Only slightly better than the
by now infamous NME polls posted awhile back. They also printed gushing
notes from people who were invited to vote, including one Gerard Cosloy.
I would think Cosloy is big enough that he doesn't have to resort to this
type of corporate ass-kissing. And of course most of the contributors
complained that '86 was a bad year for music.

SHAKES/DIDJITS/URGE OVERKILL at Channing-Murray, Champaign 

I was all ready to hate the Shakes since their guitar player called a
week ago and made some facetious remark about Happy Flowers. The band
is good: big guitar post-punk somewhere between Volcano Suns and
Scratch Acid (??) with occasional sneaky little rhythmic quirks and thrashy
7/8 passages. Didjits is a tight hardcore trio with funny '50s references
but I'm a little tired of their old bag of tricks.

How to alienate a not-very-open-minded, young hardcore audience:
1) play after a young, happy hardcore band
2) dress in red tuxes 
3) play thick, churning guitar rock that's a cross between Mission of Burma
   and Swans

All of which Urge Overkill did, AGAIN. Not as good as their show a month
ago, but still hot towards the end. I hope they keep coming down here
despite the poor response. They'll have a new 7" out soon.

Bill