Legal entanglements silencing Romantics
By Kira L. Billik
Associated Press Writer
PHILADELPHIA — If there's one song guaranteed to get bodies jumping on the dance floor, it's the Romantic's "That's What I Like About You." If there's one song guaranteed to keep the Romantics off the record charts, it's "That's What I Like About You."
The Romantics have been locked in a legal battle for the past several years over publishing royalties and other claims for "That's What I Like About You" and other songs.
The dispute is with their two former managers, Artie Tencer and Joel Zuckerman, whom they fired in 1987, after discovering their contract included no specific language concerning the publishing and licensing of their songs. "That's What I Like About You" has since been used extensively in commercials, notably by Anheuser Busch, but the band says it has received little compensation.
A trial has been scheduled for the beginning of next year in Oaldand County Circuit Court. Meanwhile, the band's career is in limbo — they haven't released any material in the United States since 1985's "Rhythm Romance" and a 1990 greatest hits compilation.
"The licensing of 'What I Like About You' to Budweiser, to Molson in Canada, (to)
HBO...this was all done without our knowledge," singer Wally Palmer said in a telephone interview. "We still haven't received the proper accounting of how much these deals were struck for or, for that matter, where the money went.
"You have to imagine that by this point from the songs being played as much as they have and licensed over and over to these certain companies (that) there could be a significant amount (of money) there."
Palmer thinks the band, now unsigned, is a risk for record labels while they're involved in litigation.
"It's preventing us from recording properly," he said. "Record labels will tend to lay back a little bit off you if they know that you're involved in a lawsuit."
Palmer, not surprisingly, can't wait for it to all be over.
"We've already started work—we've got a good five, six songs that are pretty much done already and we've got a lot more ideas that we're working on. Hopefully, when this lawsuit ends ... we can put out some new product domestically."
Influenced by not only Detroit's Motown sound, but by its rock and punk scene, especially bands like the MC5, Iggy and the Stooges and Bob Seger, the Romantics combine rockabilly pop with a bit of punk energy (but not its nihilism). They were much too upbeat to be true punks, but they fit right in with the "new wave" scene.
Daytime drama marriages available on video cassette
By Douglas J. Rowe
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK — ABC Video hopes to engage viewers with "Daytime's Greatest Weddings." If anyone has any objections, they should speak now or forever hold their piece.
Be prepared, however, to be shouted down by the 30 million viewers who tune in ABC-TV's "All My Children," "General Hospital" and "One Life to Live" each month.
Those avid fans have never been able to savor favorite episodes through reruns (though flashbacks in soap operas can be more rampant than at an LSD convention).
So they're likely to scarf up the three 45- to 50-minute videos that cost $14.95 ($9.95 with a $5 rebate from, fittingly enough, Lysol products).
For someone who's not a soap opera fan, these videos can be laugh-out-loud funny.
Then they can really live happily ever after.
The Tina Roberts character on "One Life to Live" comes back from the grave as her husband is walking down the aisle with his new wife. And she proclaims her love for the best man instead of the groom during a subsequent ceremony.
"I take thee, uh, ..." Don't you hate it when happens?
Maybe not as much as an exploding wedding cake, which the video also has.
These videos show how some characters get married about often as Elizabeth Taylor or Mickey Rooney in real life.
"If only we could stay married as much as we get married," daytime doyenne Susan Lucci says as hostess of the "All My Children" video.
As Erica Kane, she points out how she's the show's most frequent bride.
"Erica's full name alone tells the story, and frankly even I have trouble remembering it. Let's see: Erica Kane Martin Brent Cudahy Chandler Roy Roy Montgomery Montgomery Chandler Marick," she says, taking a deep breathe. "Now THAT'S a trip down memory lane."
Yes, sometimes like Liz and the late Richard Burton, a couple take their vows to each other more than once — "till death do they part. or unless the ratings or plot lines lag."
The "One Life to Live" collection alone has 18 weddings — five of them for patriarchal Asa Buchanan. "All My Children" features 26 (eight of Erica's), and "General Hospital," eight — though the latter highlights the most famous one, the Luke and Laura nuptials that rated a Newsweek cover story and had 30 million viewers in front of their TV sets on a single afternoon.
"Daytime loves spectacles. So the more weddings the better," Erika Slezak, who plays Viki Buchanan on "One Life to Live" and serves as the hostess of that soap's nuptial compendium, said in an interview.
Keep Yourself
September 24, 1993 *K-you* ENTERTAINMENT '93
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