CREEMEDIA

CREEMEDIA

I.R.'s TV EYE

by Roy Trakin

It�s, an oasis in the middle of MTV�s vast video wasteland, one more televised rock magazine, but with a crucial difference. I.R.�s monthly The Cutting Edge is give or take The Equalizer or Night Flight, the best 60 minutes on the tube. Started three years ago when label head Miles Copeland was given an hour on MTV to come up with a concept, The Cutting Edge has been developed into a pop potpourri by co-directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, along with I.R.S�s Ambassador of Creative Services producer Carl Grasso.

Since its debut. The Cu Edge has had a variety] hosts beginning with ongiflj frontman Jeffrey Vallence and] including L.A. club impresHj

Brendan Mullen, one-time 1 ; Squeeze keyboardist Jools Holland and the Bangles (all four of them), among others. Urbane Fleshtone leader Peter Zaremba is the durren® emcee, and he�s as close to a regular as Edge gets, ien-1 dmg a loopy, amateurish amiability to the proceedings which is a welcome fentrast ;

to the Stepford Wives robotics of the usugJ|^«|veejay4M fact, Jpf Cutting Edge offers thankful relief to the normal AORotation that rules the rest of MTV�S programming with! an iron fist. Where else would you get to |||| videos from Golden Palominos, Jesus & Mary Chain and the Damned, as well as one-on-one interviews with Jonathan Richman and Tom Waits Not to mention spoken word segments from semi-permanent poet H^^^wns of Black Flag or Isociai commentator Ian Shoales.

The Cutting Edge i^s^ breath of fresh air amid the stale^fcCTV. smog, a PM

Magazine for the rock generation that doesn't condescend to its audience, but tries to enlighten and inform. The format intersperses talking heads and video clips, but with an anything-goes conceptual bent. One recent segment on East Los ^Angeles, featuring performances by local residents, Los Lobos,

tad Peter Zaremba visiting custom car' dealer which specialized ^.turning your atiomobne into In official tawH gtfdbt* Jfef another off-beat con**|S versation, the Smiths� insufferably pompous .Morrissey I was fodtodWaj room and given phrases tike �Art,�4t: �Music� and�Move*�to ponraicete on to his heart�s con* I] I fonndt. In recent months* the eh^M tire Cutting Edge crew has traveled to North Carolina,

New Orleans and Austin to I profile local band activity and *" [scenes, kinda like Charles iKurault meets Ken Keseyj?'�.

The show is dorte. on a [miniscule budget by a crew of itween five and 10

or about $24,000 an episode, far less than your average rock video. Since it is produced by I.R S., one can certainly forgive the occasional inhouse plug—you won�t find me complaining about videos from R.E.M. or Stan Ridgway. Aside from that, Edge features bands you�d never see on MTV: Husker Du, Time Zone,

lad Brains, the Heartbreakers, Linton ^KwesL Johnson, Albert CoilinSj Black

IjFlag. the Minutemen and the Dead Kennedys. Upcoming shows promise such acts as Alex Chilton, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band.

Rock 'n' roll on TV has come a long way since Ed Sullivan squeezed in groups like the Beatles and the Stones between Topo Gigio and the Flying Wallendas Even Shindig and Hullaballoo seem like quaint reminders of a long-ago era. And while the MTV IEntertainment Tonightf Two On The Town syndrome has reduced popular culture to three-minute bites it's comforting to know there s still a place on the air for the kind of stuff you might see in New Musical Express or might have seen in fanzines like the late lamented New York Rocker, Trouser Pressor Punk. Or heard about on FM radio

For those who don�t have cable television, there is hope for The Cutting Edge to reach more outlets, either through syndication or on videojjlssette Recent shows taped in Austin have led directly to ||edia exposure and band jjpnings. including the offbeat Koustic folk duo Timbuk 3. to I R S themselves.

�We want the show to be about what the music is about now," says co-director Valerie jjaris. �We�re always trying to ■id the thing that excites us about music."

"And about television," Hiimes in her other half, jjlnathan Dayton �We're in pis because we're interested in film, and music just hapAns to be our subject right Ipw But we're not music filmmakers, we�re filmmakers.�

�A lotta people can do this ■pe of show," says Ambassador of Creative Services lari Grasso �But as you know, everybody in this industry's just afraid of trying something different. We just went ahead a^q did it. And that�s something that other people Wouldn�t do.

• �I just ftgggBbQfiijple out there pay attention, �cause it�s gonna keep cornin� at �em.��

And Iwejl they should Remember theiime: the final Sunday of each month on MTV at pO:3Q ' p.m. Where else can you find out where 1

■ Jonathan Ricpman gets his inspiration for writing songs about used^p|hg gum. wrappers? OijMfeftWdb lost his voice In Berlin? Or how to get yourcar made into a low-riderfo East L.A.? how Peter Zaremba is running for president on the "Fish� ticket? Like I said, along with The Equalizer. The Cutting Edge is the best 601 minutes on the tube and have theme music com• posed by Stewart Copeland,: tool! HBB

PROLETARIAN! CREAM PUF||i

||y Cynthia Rose

• A /of pf companies,� Ken Helton is confidlng just above divirhisper, JW to duplicate the Twinkie. But they can�t They can imitate it, but they Gan�t duplicate it. And that�s not all! Say Johnny Carson talks about eating a Zinger dip: national TV; who knows what he means? How many people? But if he says, �I had a Twinkie for lunch...��

A reserved gent in a grey

suit, Helton is a man with a firm stride and a dry handshake. His mission'? Twmkies Twinkies and theirprogeny— the fried pie, Suzy Q, Devil�s | Food Twinkie, Orangd or chocolate ■

SciaparI elli-pink Sno Ball, and �enrobed� or chocolate-covered [Ding Dong Every week he supervisee the p^ycti°nsaBB [million pounds of JHHj snackcakes,

■ Ail—like their

I (the Tastyeake Devil Dog, Boom Boom and Hoot n�

!^bot)—1were founded on that Brock which is world�s first and most popular snackcake, 55 years old and lehristened after Chicago's j Twinkie-Toe Shoe Company. | I The Twinkie, itself founded on ||rtreat American Principle® Bhe ■ (©reed of ultimatum

ifreshness. I learned the hard way: by railing the Little Cake That Could through its entire odys-

Iy, It tool^fcedding.' ,my velry, donning a snow-white jrnet, and cozying up to a workforce Composed exclusively of tall black men in net Jjpeard-guaids and kindly old ladies covered in fine White dust My guide was OperavftSis Manager Ron PipuiI loch, a 24-year employee of Continental, whose life is dedicated to impressing employee minds that (�the minute that cake leaves the oven, it�s getting old!� |j|S| Every day the spruce Mr McCulloch i�scores� random samples from the bakery's output on a long, stainless steel table tn his private derfi �Til usually the

Twmkies first,� he explair^B �to make sure they're sealed good. Next,! open �em; check for color, symmetry, and standard amounts of filling � ■! McCulloch grins as he deftly | guts a tiny golden cake and berfds his gaze to its twin halves He pays particular at I tentton to �the smile/�^�that little bitty bit where the machine puts so much filling in that the Twinkip almost bursts " The � filling," my workmates tell me, rs known colloquially as whip.

Like everything else about the Twinkie, �the smile� is scored on a 1-10 scale; every

day McCulloch (whose kids

I �don�t like �em�) takes a thorough chew p his quest for thepiatonically perfect snack■cake. Wheilllll/ eat a Twinkie, you can rest assured I that its package appearance, its �symmetry,� Its volume, its I grain (�whether |he sponge is I aera loose or tight�), its crumb color, texture arid filling have all passed muster Be not

I afraid that the wrapper code is smeared or: loqse, that the filling you are about to receive is wet |p|gummy, cheesy or gritty, too sweet or not sweet I enough. And marvel how your Cake stands tall, free of the dreaded �low side' or �sunken area.� Marvel that the Bcrumb color does not strike you as too dark, too light, I uneven or streaked.

To few Americans is it given that they shall invent an , artifact of timeless singularity tn 1868, Credfo Sebastian Chaveau gave us the marshmallow. Iri 1954, big band leader Ray Kroc abandoned an egg-beater to pursue the McDonald�s hamburger we know today. And irf 1930, at a Chicago Continental Baking Company plant* manager James A. Dewar decoyed taste buds from the Depres-

Ision by devising tee Twinkie. This past summer Dewar passed away at the ripe age of 88. His aim had been to mobtlize Continental cake molds normally dormant outside the brief strawberry; shortcake season But his achievement was the creation of an icon the quintessential^ (resilient snack food of WASP V America Alt fn The Family�s Archie and Steve Martin�s Jerk characterized the [ Twinkie as WASP soul food. Three American cities have streets named after Dewar's I cake. photonic* Springs steen confessed hts4par. addiction, and New Journalists lauded the oblong sponge as part eK trash

aesthetic: Larry Groce�s 1974 singlaf The Junk Food Junkie." pitted IW' affection fortHe Twinkie against art;/emerging nutritional fanaticism.

But Ken Helton claims that during 14 years with the company, �I�ve heard the words junk food� only twice—and both times from schools.� For years, full-page strips in comic books helped men like Helton hawk the concept pf Dewar�s fresh taste treats. Now, there is Twinkie the Kid, who haunts supermarkets in a Twinkie suit dispensing plastic rings, T-shirts, balloons, and of course free ■Twinkies. There are also �Twinkie Power� bumper stickers for food shows and trade events. �The Twinkie,� claims Ken Helton, �will sell litself Our job is just to go: it exposure."

And he aims to put his cakes �wherever there�s people-—wherever there�s traffic. It can be a roller rink, a golf course. We�ve put Twinkies in drive-in theaters. We�ve had big swimming pools sell cake from concession stands � Once, while traveling through Tennessee raising Twinkie consciousjf@S8||H0lton even found ' himself out a van-

load singlehandedly, at stop lights and had to get rid of they were fresh I knew anyone who had a fresh free I Twinkie would buy another later!"

From � the generalfjiales

■manager (�when you ask a premium price—which We do—people expect premium quality and service�) to the wet-eyed cake-wrapper who cornered me proclaiming, ft\Ne should be right up there! Twinkies, Mom and Chevrolet* Continental�s plant is a monument to the memory

I of Jjijjgpewaj It may not be as _ siirreat a testament as some (Continental�s St. Louis * complex recently erected a three-story , high inflatable i Twinkie the Kid), But from I the dog-eared copies of Minting and Baking News, which ft entertain loiterers in the lobby, through the signs—lAftaf have I you gone■ today to strengthen I the FUNDAMENTALIZM which instruct from the walB land desks of every office, forces remain ever-vigilant.

I Their call? That note of I ultimate ^Immediacy—freshness is our business!—r sounded by James Dewar�s original snackcake success. The one and only, ifpiosyncraticaHy -pee|Jess perishable Which has symbolized Arne rica h ere and abroad for 55 years. The pick of the pack, the "cream puff $ the " proletariat�...the