Friday, February 15.1980
7
University Daily Kansan
Don Rayton, 1025 Conn., and Mariane Thomas, 1964 Meadowlark, try roller dancing during a break at Wheels of Fun. 3210 Iowa St.
By JON BLONGEWICZ Staff Reporter
Roller skating has come a long way since metal wheels on sidewalls, skinned knees and skate wheels.
Now it is inier rinks, polyurethane and the newest craze, roller disco. Crafe, faz, whatever it is. Cher Bollan Allam and other West Coast celebrities have taken it up. While disco music and dancing is not new, and as old as wheels, dancing on wheels has slowly moved from the Midwest and is even catching on in Lawrence.
Yellow, red, green, blue lights and the silver-mirrored gracious glaze, and slide, roll and glue around the gray
On College Nights at Wheel of Fires, 3210 Iowa St., one can see LaWrence's answer to the popular skating movies, Roller Boogie and Skatetown USA, that have helped spread disco on wheels.
The atmosphere is complete with fire extinguishers, presumably to put out blazing "disco infernos."
IN PAIRS OR groups, more often backwards than forward, with an occasional spin or spin, the Lawrence type.
Make no mistake about it, this is not the polyester and plastic set that haunts the Los Angeles roller palaces. Lawrence disco skates are still basically a jeans and T-shirt crowd.
Comparing Lawrence to LA is no comparison, according to Darold "Woody" Evans, Vans City, Kan,
who recently returned from doing some skating in Beverly Hills.
"Out there they do a lot more stuff, jumps and splits and things," he said. "And, man, those outfits are weird, but you don't have to worry about them."
But it seemed that Woody could do some "jamming" of an as he stristed, spanned and ended a routine by doing something.
"I learn it from watching other people on TV and in the movies," Wood said.
"It hasn't hit here yet, but when it does, it will be like nothing you've ever seen before," Jumie Pickel, manager of the Lakers.
IF KANSAS CITY is in that position, where is Lawrence?
"Roller disc out there is a whole other world," he said. "I don't think Kansas City will ever catch us."
According to Pickel, skaters have been dancing in competitions for quite a while, but it isn't the same as
Those feelings and motions are hard work as evidenced by the perspiration that some workers were wiping off with a damp cloth.
"They really put their feelings into motion. It's not just dancing on wheels." he said.
"It is a combination of sport and entertainment. It is very good for one's health, it is in the same class as sports," she said.
For Woodv. disco skating is just for relaxation.
IF LAWRENCE is not Los Angeles, it isn't Chicago
to inform them about Sharon Braswell, they have
bass hire all of them.
Wheels of Fun, which normally catches to a younger and family-oriented crowd, serves no alcoholic beverages
"It is good for my nerves," he said over the hard-driving "Disco Lady."
"In one bar in Chicago they have a tangle with palm
and everything right in the middle of the floor," Bresser
says.
In Lawrence the closest thing to flash is a multitude of colored pompons and wheels that adorn the skates.
"Kansas is just slow," she said. "In Chicago they wear tights, flushes suit and everything."
"You can buy skates anywhere from $65 to $1,000. I just
have a pair of skates at $30."
PRECISION BEARINGS and polyurethane wheels make the slidin' and glidin' easier.
In the roller disc craze, for Lawrence it to compete with L.A. and Chicago is a fantasy, but Lawrence is even better. He's already a master of the roller disc.
"In Kansas City on a Saturday night, everybody is jamming. It's really alive, everybody in it. They are screening and holoring, doing jams and splits," LaShae K. Kan, said, "Us' quiet here compared to Kansas City."
Not so quiet, as the disc pounds out of group speakers,
he lights flash, the silver half spins and the groups twist
No sign of skinned knees or skate keys.
Fashion show highlights more than clothes
Staff Reporter
By EVIE LAZZARINO
"I it's nails' night - show and sell - almost all new. We do the fashion and the fabulous wear underneath. You buy he takes it off." So begin another Wednesday night "it's Shirt" back "fashion" weekend. "It's a great time to shop."
The fashion show, where women buy the clothes and the models take them off onstage, will run every Wednesday night through February.
The fashion show is organized by a Kansas City marketing firm, International Advertisers' Research Bureau, and the business unit of the city area. Bone Stickel, a vice president of IBRA, explained the concept of the "Shirt OFF His back," saying that women buy more than 80 percent of menswear sold nationwide because of influence on purchases is more than that.
"Originally we started out stumpingly telling customers that the clothes being made is by women going onstage and the competition of women going onstage and purchasing from the models creates more
THE SHOW HAS also been, in various stages of dress and undress, at Kansas City area clubs and restaurants such as Jasper's, Papillon, Kona Kai and Pops', as it'ven established in the state. 'It's proven a lot in six months,' Stickel said.
Before the show begins, the models sit around a table drinking water, smoking and commenting on the Donna Sunnies music behind the dance floor, where they will later model. The models, Costanza, Michael Dawes, Joel Downs and "Brad" are that shot they took.
model—you just have to have a certain something. You have to have confidence."
Later, the show begins and the models dance onstage while Stickel comments on the fashions shown. The first woman goes to the casher's desk and walks onstage with an empty bag and receipt, approaching her. He reads the receipt, then quickly takes off his coat. The woman leaves and he is left onstage dancing in an orange and brown swim suit.
Five University of Kansas students are stationed in the front row. All ask not to be seen, so they keep good time," one of them says. "Everybody gives a little crush," another adds. "It's an arc."
The women laugh. "I like looking at the men dance," another says. "It's kind of amusing, really."
THE MODELS agreed that modeling was a difficult and competitive field. "A model has to project an image 24 hours a day," said the guard. "You can never decide to sleep."
Three KU employees are seated at a back
THE ICE BROKEN, another woman buy clothes, this time from Brad, who sheds his shorts and grey sweatshirt for the bikini he is left dancing in.
"I would tell you my name, but I work on campus, and I really don't want everyone in the office to know I'm here."
Removing their clothes is an important part of audience interest, according to the models. "In a time of liberation, the women who have been subjected have seen and enjoyed for years," Morss said.
table. "We didn't realize women actually bought the clothes," one woman says. "We just thought you paid the guy to take his clothes off, to put it bluntly."
"They buy the clothes mostly to see us take them off," Fields said. "They scream and enjoy themselves."
Downs said modeling school helped him in his career. "You learn a lot about your trade," he said. "If you don't learn it, you can't do it."
The women ask not to be identified.
"We let lose a little bit and have fun—we play to our audience," Fields said.
Moris disagreed. "No one can teach you to
By BLAKE GUMPRECHT
Staff Reporter
Demanding road life doesn't squelch XTC
The band is tired. They want to go home.
Home to England. Home to Swindon, a
"boring saxophone" industrial city about 90 km
away from London XTC's unofficial
leader Andy Partridge.
But the few minutes following the afternoon show, the lawnside Lawnwork Open House are brightened by a tiny package that one of the band's rooftops picks up in a sleeper gas station
It is precisely the midway point through the 46-date tour by the English band that has practically no following in the Top-40 dominated midwest.
The members of XTC swear in disbelief through their thick British accents. Colin Moulding laughs.
"Can you believe this?" he asks, smiling devilishly.
The package is embosed with the same three letters that XTC has trademarked in the United Kingdom—in this case, a not-sotrily acronym for ectasy.
It's a box of condoms.
"This has got to go on the cover of something," cracks guitarist Dave Gregory.
HTC HASEN traveling since Jan. 14 in a cramped, 14-seat van, sometimes spending the entire day on the road and playing a concert that night.
They've flown only once: the original trip from London to New York City.
Humeror does not come easily, particularly with the prospect of another month of smoked-filled bars and obnoxious DJ's wondering what XTC stands for.
Talk to the band's manager and he'll say the response to the band's first major North American tour has been phenomenal.
Publicity men at Virgin Records will scatter even more adjectives and even go so far as to call XTC "trailblazers for the B&W."
"Nobody knows how we are outside of the east," says bassist Moulding. "They get the names of our songs wrong. Hell, they get our names wrong. They get the bearer little town in northern Scotland."
The band's latest album, Drums and Wires, their third album and their U.S. release, is the sixth best-selling album in Canada and is in England's Top-30.
The band's big in New York City and will sell out in Los Angeles.
"No matter where we go there's usually a
core hard core fans," adds Partridge,
who wrote eight of the 14 songs on ATX
of the rest of the crowd looks
confused."
But elsewhere ...
Shirt sales
The charts bear that out. Drums and Wires was 176th on the latest U.S. charts put out by Billboard magazine.
XTCS's sound is unusual. Partridge陪说 That, that he predicts, is what will keep the band from becoming a huge success in the states.
THE BAND 'intracte, futuristic, almost mechanical melodies are a far cry from the Styx-Supertramp-Eagles sound that hugs the FM airwaves.
But unlike much of the not-so-new wave, the band's lyrics aren't politically motivated, for the most part. At least they don't seem to be.
XTC is almost an acquired taste.
In fact, some of the songs border on pop, with such titles as "When Your Near Me I Have Difficulty" and "Life Begins at the Hoo"
"I don't think we'll ever be big here," Partridge says. "Everything is so easy here. Nobody in Britain has four cars. Only
"In the U.S. everything has to be so simple. The same type of music will always be popular. That’s why disco’s so it but. The Gilmer Miller with a loud bass drum."
"We're not into messages," says Parridge. "If we were in messages we'd
SCOTT SMITH/Kansan Staff
Shirt Off His Back," a fashion show held every Wednesday night at G. P.L. Floyd's, 709 Mass.
one person out of five has one car. They're hungry.
Male models sell their clothes in the interest of fashion at "The
Their energy is relentless throughout an 80 minute set. The group's powerful beat has the audience constantly jumping and dancing.
Andy Partridge
"Besides, protest is stupid if people can't understand the lyrics; if they got guitars blaring and screaming lyrics. With most bands it's just a front, it's a zizzmick."
work for the post office. Our music is just a compilation of our personalities.
XTC HAS BEEN in 1976. Previously, Partridge, Moulding and drummer Terry Chambers had worked with the band. In 1980 he performed at the Helium Kids, Skriverer and Snakes.
XTC's live show is exhausting. It's no wonder the band is ragged after 23 shows in four weeks.
Their first two albums, Go 2 and White Music, are available only as imports.
but despite what seems like a genuine hatred for the road, XTC may be best known for their touring. Already they've been to Europe, and have traveled about Europe, as well as the U.S. and Canada.
New Musical Express, an English music weekly, even gave them a mock tour award. XTC were co-winners with Pope John Paul II.
Partridge says the energy is essential. "Without the adrenal," he says, "we'd just sound like the Grateful Dead."
spare time
FRIDAY
MUSIC: Shooting Star and the Gary Charleson Band, Lawrence Opera House, 7th and Mass.
Skip Deveritt, 8 p.m. Palmyra Theater, 930 mass Robert Hunter, 9 p.m. Palmyra Theater, 937 New Hampshire Art: Dennis Helm, paintings, and David Veracrati sculpture, 727 Gallery through Feb. 27
THEATRE: T27 Gallery through Feb. 27
MISSURO REPERTORY Theatre, Helen F. Spencer Theatre, UMKC Campus.
SATURDAY
MUSIC: Molly Hatchett, 8 p.m. Hoch Auditorium, Weather Report, 8 p.m. Uptown Theatre, Kansas City, Mo.
Lakeview School, 8 p.m. Uptown Theatre, 9:30 am and 1:30 p.m. Swarthout Recital Hall
Billy Spears, 8 p.m. Lawrence Opera House, 7th and Mass.
THEATRE: "Hamlet," Missouri Repertory Theatre, 8 p.m. Helen F. Spencer Theatre, UMKC Campus.
The Elephant's Child", Lawrence Arts Center, 9th and Vermont.
SUNDAY
MUSIC: Leon Flasher Master Piano Classes, 9:30 a.m and 1:30 p.m. Swarthout Recital Hall
Carlion Recital, Albert Gerken, 3 p.m. Memorial Carillon
THEATRE: "Twelfth Night," Missouri Repertory Theatre, Helen F. Spencer Theatre, UMKC Campus.
MONDAY
ART: Imagine Shakespeare舞台, Lecture, Stephen Orgel, 3:30 p.m. Library
"Seacast of Bohemia", Spencer Library, through May 2.
TUESDAY
MUSIC: Muddy Waters, 8 p.m. Lawrence Opera House, 7th and Mass.
The Campanella's Craft", Lecture, David Burge, 2:30 p.m. Sworthout Recital Hall
Faculty and Student Concert, 8 p.m. Swarthout Recital Hall
THEATRE: "Twelfth Night," Missouri Repertory Theatre, Helen F. Spencer Theatre, UMKC Campus.
WEDNESDAY
MUSIC: Faculty and Student Concert, 2:30 p.m. Swarthout Recital, Albert Gerken, 7 p.m. Memorial Carillon
THEATRE: "Hamlet", 12 p.m. and 9 p.m. Missouri Repertory Theatre, Helen F. Spencer Theatre, UMKC Campus
Theatre, Lawrence Opera House, 7th and Mass.
THURSDAY
THEATRE: "Private Lives", Hutchison Repertory Theatre, Lawrence Opera House, 7th and Mass.