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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 16, 1985)
(b - ^ ^ -U ^ c - «u r - - ' • ^ ? S-g -g-i Oct vies scores witli soundtrack ByKARLPALLMEYER Music Reviewer R eturn to Waterloo" is a film that we probably won't get to see in the Bryan- College Station area. It is the story of a man who rides a train from his home in the suburbs to his office in town every day of the week. During one of his rides he meets a variety of characters and contemplates his life and his country. "Return To Waterloo" is the first film from Ray Davies of the Kinks. The Kinks had been involved previously in films when making videos and sup plying the music for "Arthur or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire," a television movie that was never completed, and for "Percy," a soft-core porno film staring Britt Ekland But they never have had absolute control over the finished prod uct until now. Davies directed and wrote the screenplay for "Return To Waterloo." He also penned the music and performed in the film. The music was performed by Davies with Mick Avory, Ian Gibbons and Jim Rodford of the Kinks. Dave Davies, Ray's brother and co-founder of the band, is suspiciously absent from the album. Like all good brothers, Ray and Dave have had many fights and one of them has left the band for a short while. Let's hope it's not for good this time either. The album also marks the last performances of drummer Mick Avory, who has left the Kinks after 20 years to retire from music. Avory was never a spectacular percussionist, but he could pound out a good, hard beat that was basic to the Kinks' sound. Although the songs "Going Solo," "Missing Per sons" and "Sold Me Out" were on the Kinks' "Word of Mouth" album last year, they fit in better in the context of the new album. Davies is pretty comfortable making concept albums. Davies and the Kinks were responsible for one of the first rock operas," "The Kinks are the Village Green Preser vation Society," which was released two years before the Who's "Tommy." In "Return To Waterloo," film and album, Da vies uses a train ride to' tell the story of a typical middle-class Englishman and how he fits into the British Empire of today. Davies has often used middle-class for the subject matter of Kinks' songs like "Well Respected Man," "Dedicated Follower of Fashion" and "Sunny Afternoon." and has written some of the best character studies ever set Ray Davies "Music from the Motion Picture 'Return To Waterloo'" Arista Records Album provided by Camelot Music to music. Davies has also questioned the "Great ness of Great Britian on such albums as "Preser vation Acts One and Two" and "Arthur or the De cline and Fall of the British Empire." The album starts off with a short instrumental intro that leads into the title track. Davies uses synthesizers and drum machines to give the songs the feeling of a train pulling out of the sta tion and to show the loneliness of the train ride (the British rarely talk to one another while on a train). As the traveler rides, he thinks about his daughter who has just left home. "Going Solo" is a bittersweet song in which the traveler asks him self where he went wrong in bringing up his daughter. O N "MISSINGPERSONS," THE TRAVELER finds that he resembles a man whose pic ture is in a newspaper that an old lady is reading on the train. The man in the paper is wanted for murder and the old lady regards the traveler with uneasy suspicion. The traveler, bored with his life, plays on the old lady's suspi cion by acting in a suspicious manner. His fun ends, however, when he realizes that there are many undesirables in the world and his daughter may be out there with them. The traveler has a run-in with some teenage punkers over the volume of their radio. "Sold Me Out" tells of the punks' disgust of their hypocritical elders and gives some insight as to why the daughter left home. "Sold Me Out" is a tough song that recalls earlier Kinks songs. The Kinks virtually invented the sound that was to become Heavy Metal on songs like "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night." In "Lonely Hearts" the traveler thinks about growing old. He wonders why he and his wife no longer have any feelings for each other and why he still hangs on to her. He debates cutting loose and having an affair with his secretary while he still can on "Not Far Away." "Not Far Away" shows that most middle-age men have this fan tasy but few do anything about it. "Expectations" questions the British Empire. The traveler had been brought up and taught that England was a glorious empire that stretched across the world and would last forever. As he grew older he learned that Britian wasn't so great and that its empire had been built on the suffering and pain of many of its own and other people. He now knows that the British Empire, like our Amer ican Dream, is not for everyone. T he album ends with a song that shows the traveler in his place in the world. "Voices in the Dark (End Title)" shows that the traveler is just one of many people who.ride the train. These people live out their lives, die and are forgotten in the eyes of their country. The song calls for a return to Waterloo, where the Brit ish became the greatest power on earth after de feating Napoleon. Ray Davies has been the driving force behind the Kinks for the past 20 years. With the loss of Mick Avory and possible loss ol Dave Davies, the Kinks future is uncertain. But "Return To Water loo," despite its brevity (it's only 30 minutes long), is one of the best albums ever to be associated with the Kinks. Since the local theaters don't be lieve in showing anything that is purely artistic or non-commercial, we probably won't get to see "Return To Waterloo" unless we go somewhere else. But we can get the album. □ Midnight Oil is Down Under's Springsteen By RICHARD DEATLEY Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) - In "Bucka- roo Banzai," last year's trendy sci ence fiction movie, the title charac ter was a neurosurgeon, physicist, rock star and comic book hero. Only in Hollywood. Meet Peter Garrett: Lawyer, anti nuclear activist, unsuccesful candi date for the Australian Senate, surfer and rock star. But Garrett is real. All 6 feet, 5 inches of him, topped by a shaved head. Garrett, 32, is the lead singer for Midnight Oil, a band whose impact on the Australian , psyche has been compared to that of Bruce Springsteen in the United States. Midnight Oil's music is energetic and uncompromising, and none of the tunes on the current U.S. album on CBS Records, "Red Sails in the Sunset," features the synthesizer- drum machine sounds that have been capturing the Top Ten. Other band members are drum mer Rob Hirst, guitarists Jim Moginie and Martin Rotsey and bassist Peter Gifford. Hirst and Moginie are the principal songwriters. Garrett was an Australian Senate candidate last year for the newly formed Nuclear Disarmament Party, and received an unexpected 10 per cent of the vote. He ran for the seat of his home state of New South Wales. "There's a prevailing sentiment expressed through popular culture and film which is one of escapism and simple emotional truths," Gar rett says. "If you like, its the re-inven- tion of the dream and the joy of youth. "(That) ignores the far deeper mal aise which young people in this country, as well as everywhere else, are faced with, which is their uncer tain future ... It's hard to think about a future when they're looking at peo ple talking about nuclear wars and nuclear winters." The bands concentration on Aus tralian identity and anti-nuclear themes in "Red Sails". "Jimmy Shar- man's Boxers" is about a traveling tent show, now outlawed, which of fered Aussies a chance to fight with aboriginal boxers, "a round or two for a pound or two." Anti-nuclear themes are heard in "Harrisburg" and "Minutes to Mid night. " When "Red Sails in the Sunset," with album cover art depicting the nuclear destruction of Sydney, was released in October, it debuted on Australian charts at No. 2. In the United States, it showed up at No. 177 on the Billboard Charts for Aug. JO. "I don't think we have the view, or at leas: I don't, that music can change the way people think," Gar rett says. "... If we move people half an inch, I'm happy." □
