ROCK FOLLIES (PBS)

by

Suzi Quatro

We had just returned from a gig and I switched on the television for Rock Follies.

After a couple of minutes I realized I was watching yet another cut-em-off castration of “Girls In Rock.”

I don’t know how they manage it, but every time we end up looking like (a) boring, hard-ass chicks or (b) thick sex-maniacs.

It seems odd to me that since Bessie Smith bluesed out her first note, nobody’s come up with more accurate assessments than these stereotypes. If my 13 years in the business and on the road is

supposed to be what’s crammed into this series, then I think I’ll give it up.

A small detail, I realize, but nevertheless one that really gets up my nose: every time they break into a song the legs fly apart (yoga training perhaps), the old arms start flapping up and down (no matter what the tempo) and the mouth gapes open (visions of the dentist’s chair).

If nothing else, rock has always survived through its redeeming quality, its basicness.

Well, this program takes the basic out and makes Hollywood look like a bunch of amateurs. They just don’t look like they mean it, and for me, that is the cardinal sin.

If they don’t underdo it, they overdo it. I don’t know which is

worse.

Among my fondest memories of those eight years I traveled through my home, America, playing my music is the very thing that Rock Follies makes look awful.

Many days we had nothing more than a hamburger; at times, not even that. We had to camp out to save dough, sneak into supermarkets and nick a tin of something—and all that. .

Quite honestly, those were the most enjoyable days of my life. We were teenage hoboes, living the life of gypsies. No worries, aside from food and a place to kip and seeing the country; on our own, loving and free.

I never minded eating in a greasy

spoon and all other musicians and singers I know feel exactly the same way. It’s all part of it and it’s a gas. You’re sharing something unique and beautiful in its own way. You’re all together living life to the fullest. It ain’t grotty and it ain’t dirty. It was fantastic.

Another point that just don’t make it is the schmucky people who surround this little group.

These shysters with their hip lingo —“far out,” “too much”—are about as funny as Cheech and Chong doing their hippie impersonations.

And I’ll bet that portrayal of an NME reporter didn’t half piss off a few journalists. I’ve played in every dive arid ballroom going and no one ever talked to me like that.

There is one other ridiculous thing that happened in the opening program. It is quite normal for groups to have sound checks. By the time you’ve checked into the hotel, grabbed a quick drink and dashed to the gig, you’re lucky if you get an hour. Something always goes wrong and there usually just isn’t the time. So a three-hour sound check is really not feasible.

So the funniest part was when one of the girls said, “We gotta have a three-hour check because we got a new monitor.”

A new monitor! So what? Talk about exaggeration! You’d need 15 minutes maybe! I bet roadies all over the country were reeling with laughter.

In all seriousness, my biggest qualm is the sex angle. Why is it that anytime there’s a movie about women, sex is one of the main features? Don’t men do it?

A reporter called me the other day to ask me a few questions about this program and its sexual aspect came up in the conversation. He said to me, “Yes, but surely you must have felt the need to sleep with the opposite sex, just to relieve the tension of the road, if nothing else.”

Oh, Lord help me. I said to him, “My good man, sex is a part of life and unless you are homosexually inclined, it’s usually done with a member of the opposite gender.,My girl friends at high school had more of a raving time than I ever did. If you work like I did, until five in the morning, you’re usually too tired to really care about it. Days off were something else. When you do it, you do it and I fail to see what any of that’s got to do with making music.”

Kiss Bleeds For You...ln A Comic?

Captured in the final stages of a genuinely blood-curdling transfusion, the last drops of their haptoglobins are emptied by the boys themselves Into a swirling vat of printers ink. The^ory mixture was usedto make the red parts rad In the long-awaited Marvel Comla'Super Special Premierelfsue of Kiss Comics. It's on sale now and it ain't no jive...Stan Lee and Co. actually uses real blood. Kiss' real bloodl Great gimmick, but what Is to become of the rock group now that their veins and arteries are as dry as the Mofave? Will Ace, Paul, The Bat and The Cat simply crumple over in a dusty pile of leather, feathers and studs? Stay tuned to this station and you're bound to find out sooner or later.

The whole subject is treated very casting couch-ish right on down to the club manager with the big cigar making improper suggestions and patting the girls’ asses with that ridiculous dirty old man glint in his eye.

I never got propositioned that way and if you’re going to make the comment, “Well, you just weren’t desirable,” you should have seen the girls in my band: tall, beautiful and sexy, so there!

Anyone with any sense in their heads knows for a fact that sleeping with someone won’t make you a star. Not unless of course you film it and put it on general release.

If these girls are supposed to be talented, then the whole angle just doesn’t make it. All the women I’ve met with real talent would no more be promiscuous than they would cut off their arms.

There have been a couple of movies made in America about girl groups and they have all been guilty of the same mistake: no one, but no one, seems to be able to understand that for a lot of us, it’s only the music.

We love what we do and struggled for at least 10 years to get that first “shot-at-the-top” and when we see a movie about ourselves that’s as phony as this, it gets on our collective TITS. Oh, what a giveaway!

In summing up, let me say this: First of all* I wanted to like Rock

Follies because it was about women. I tried hard.

Secondly, it’s not that I’m a knowall but simply that I actually lived the life for eight years in America, playing virtually every night with four other girls all alone in the big bad world of Rock ’n’ Roll, so maybe I know just a little about it.

I’m sure the writer had every intention of making a real gut-level series, but somewhere between production and screening it got turned into the show-business facade that it is.

It reconfirms all the mugs’ fantasies of dirty ladies, casting couches and sex, without ever letting them know the real truth. I wish someone somewhere would get their shit together and make something we could all be proud to watch.

A movie that would show the struggle for what it really was, the truth without all the phoney drama, would make this long-time rock and roller feel it was all worthwhile.

Reprint courtesy of New Musical Express.

Flash Gordon Slept Here!

STAR WARS

Director: George Lucas

(20th Century)_

Every millenium or so, a film comes along that is more than just a movie, it is an EVENT. The Wizard Of Oz was one, 2001 was another. And now, there is Star Wars. Star Wars is the stuff that dreams are made of; a science fiction swashbuckling fantasy that has as much to do with Tolkien as it does with Wells. Briefly, the plot concerns the misadventures of young Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) in his attempts to rescue Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) from the clutches of villains Darth Vader (Dave Prowse) and Grand MoffTarkin (Peter Cushing); two nasties who take great delight in chewing up entire planets. Along the way, Mark is aided by regal knight Ben Kenobi (Sir Alec Guinness), wise-cracking pilot Han Solo (Harrison Ford), exceedingly hairy Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew) and robotdom’s answer to the Sunshine Boys, R2-D2 and C-3PO.

The unlikely entourage, guided only by idealistic instincts (in the mystical guise of the Force), conducts its own holy war for good in a belittled galaxy riddled with crime and rebellion. Pursued by Darth Vader’s men, sought after by the sand people, troubled by dinosaur-sized Banthas and the miniscule mountain people; Luke and company fight their way aboard the titanic Death Star, a massive space vehicle with the destructive powers to wipe out entire worlds with the push of a single, sinister button. The highspirited adventure that ensues would crack a smile on the most dour of Errol Flynn enthusiasts.

Director George Lucas has pulled out all the stops visually, flooding the screen, literally, with some of the most terrific SF hardware ever to tantalize the orbs. All manners of action cliches (WWII dogfights, Arthurian sword play, western massacres) are updated and mixed into this futuristic Mulligan’s stew, making for a solid two hours of escapist fare. The movie is Pavlovian entertainment at its best ; causing audiences to cringe, laugh, hiss and cheer at the derring-do without thinking twice. A masterpiece of fantasy, Star Wars has something going for it to please all manner of film fanatics; from stalwart SF purists to adamant adventure fans and demented Disney devotees. Hell, Han Solo even swaggers like John Wayne! Talk about universality.

_ Ed Naha

Ed Naha, like the subjects he writes best about, is of unknown origin. He is the author of Horrors—From Screen to Scream [Avon Books], the producer of a record, Gene Roddenberry: Inside Star Trek [Columbia], and an all-round nice guy. Watch for his extensive Sci-Fi Guide in a future issue.