W-ABX TV

WABX - Detroit’s self-confessed weird radio invaded Channel 56 again last week at 10:00 p.m. for another zany period of freeky fun and artistic progression.

The show opened with the Savage Grace, a Detroit band of very high calibre. They performed two numbers and managed to balance their sound well - a feat which I’m sure must be very difficult in a T.V. Studio. And then came the first mistake. The audience, which was simply a collection of weirdosand gate crashers and guests, were just kind of left to lampoon around and, consequently, at the end of the | songs - the applause that they generated sounded very spatse. The whole 'effect was such that, had they had someone who could whistle, the audience would have been almost Tom Shannonish.

After the Grace played, the new Simon & Garfunkel single was featured in conjunction with a psychedelic flickering - almost strobescopic - film composed of the sleeve, in which the single is sold, shot and >e-shot, under and over dubbed and. generally played around with. The feature would have been very effective, I’m sure, done in color on a movie screen, but I’m sure that most of the people who would be likely to appreciate the film are in the same situation as I and find Channel 56 a very difficult station to get with any great clarity. Consequently, much of the effect was lost in the static and interference on the screen.

A promotion film of the MC-5 was shown in accompaniment to the record “Kick Out the Jams, Brothers & Sisters”, (sell* out) and fell victims to the same interference from the T.V.

The S.R.C. played next and made me change my mind about them yet again. I heard their albums and didn’t like them.I saw them live twice and thought they were quite good. I saw them on T.V. last week and thought they were atrocious. I’m sorry and all that but, apart from the drummer and bass player, the band plays like amateurs with the exception of Scott Richardson who has excellent stage presence but just can’t sing -he’s flat and off-key generally and very weak always.

However they played 3 songs and closed the show or would have but Dave Dixon, the ideas man behind the whole thing, snuck on camera to read the credits and briefly describe the chaos involved in producing the show. He did not, however mention the hours of work also involved in producing the show.

So - all in all - the show was, as a T.V. show, something of a hodge-podge - an artistic development, an improvement over the first show; and most important well worth the trip, thank you very much.

W-ABX TV