Rock And Roll

"I want everyone to see me but not know who I am."--"Fake Monk" by Cui JianCui Jian may be the only rock star in the world who wants to keep his concerts hush-hush -- and with good reason.This fall, just a few days before what would have been his first major public performance in months, China's foremost rock and roller sat amid the jumble of electronic guitars and audio gear littering his one-room apartment, explaining why the event was not being advertised."I have no interest in calling attention to myself," he said.

Dick Clark, who died Wednesday at the age of 82, is rightfully being hailed as a pioneer of popular culture. And that's fair enough. In the 1950s, '60s and '70s, the reach of his daily"American Bandstand"show and his myriad prime-time special productions was enormous. He was one of the most powerful producers in Hollywood, particularly in terms of his perceived ability to deliver a white, suburban, teenage audience to advertisers. His power was all the more valued on Madison Avenue because he was one of TV's first personalities associated with teen viewers at the very time that advertisers first started conceiving of teens as a lucrative audience with disposable income in its own right.

Never mind the best and the worst -- it was easy enough to pick out the big stories for popular music in 1990. They were as obvious as the headlines:*Mandatory record labeling bills were introduced in nearly 20 states, including Maryland; on May 9, the recording industry headed off legislation with its own standardized Parental Advisory sticker.*"As Nasty As They Wanna Be," an album by the rap group 2 Live Crew, was declared obscene in June by a judge in Florida's Broward County. Arrests followed; though members of the group were acquitted on charges stemming from a nightclub performance, a local record store owner was convicted and fined for selling the album.

David Bryan has a message for Baltimore theatergoers: You won't be able to tell the difference between "Memphis" at the Hippodrome and its Broadway counterpart. The casts and stage have changed, but the 50-year-old playwright and Bon Jovi keyboardist ensures the quality will remain the same. "You don't have to go to Broadway to see the real show," Bryan said. "This is the real show. " Bryan should know, since he is the show's "quality-control guy. " He says he and co-writer Joe DiPietro were in charge of all of the auditions for the Baltimore production.

Rock and roll rules. That's liturgy among millions. Fine. But in truth, its job is to smash rules. That's what it's for. Always has been. The genre is now a half-century old. Sure, some of that music has been musically innovative, interesting, even occasionally intricate. A rather larger portion of the best of the lyrics has had genuine -- certainly memorable -- poetic qualities. But neither of those is the real point or purpose.Rock and roll began, prospers and prevails as a ritual of defiance.

WITH-AM (1230), which attempted to carve itself a niche in Baltimore radio by harking back to the early days of rock and roll, has been sold to a California-based company that specializes in religious broadcasting.In an agreement signed last week, Salem Communications Corp., which owns some 40 radio stations nationwide, shelled out $3 million to purchase WITH and two other stations (in Cleveland and Cincinnati) from Cincinnati-based Guardian Communications.The sale, which almost certainly will result in a change in formats from music to religious talk, ends a decades-long run by WITH as one of Baltimore's premier music stations.

Psychedelic rock.It's a term even those who don't pay much attention to music immediately understand. Just say the words, and a host of images floods to mind: Tie-dyes. Love beads. Day-Glo colors. Posters with letters warped to illegibility. Peter Max illustrations. R. Crumb comics. Nehru jackets. Paisley prints. Granny glasses.Funny thing is, each of those associations is visual, not musical. Understanding psychedelia as a design concept is easy; defining it in musical terms is trickier.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- Elvis Presley is crooning over a synthesized dance beat. Again. "A little less conversation, a little more action," he sings, as another van filled with tourists rolls off toward the Graceland mansion. The song blares all around Memphis. It greets guests checking into Elvis Presley's Heartbreak Hotel -- which is, of course, down at the end of Lonely Street. It greets shoppers cruising the Graceland Crossing for discount souvenirs. It greets diners at Elvis Presley's Memphis Restaurant, where it helps the Elvis-approved fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches go down a bit easier.

The deal is that the Serbs concede part of Croatia where they always lived in return for most of Bosnia where they never did.If Agent Ron strikes out with Client Kurt, he at least went deep with Client Cal.Never mind Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Bawlamer has the Lacrosse Hall of Fame.

What do U.S. fighter pilots listen to as they set out on bombing missions over Iraq?Heavy metal music -- Van Halen is a popular choice -- according to one Air Force pilot, who told a reporter Sunday that fliers slip earphones for portable cassette players under their official headsets, so they can hear rock and roll along with military radio communications.That piece of information disturbs military officials, delights the lead singer for Van Halen and makes a lot of sense to music therapist Louise Lynch.

Joseph Eugene Hamilton Sr., who coached baseball teams at the Community College of Baltimore and Essex Community College, died Nov. 17 of pancreatic cancer at Harbor Hospital. The lifelong Locust Point resident was 77. Born in Baltimore, Mr. Hamilton, who was known as "Pete," was raised on Fort Avenue in Locust Point. After graduating from Southern High School in 1954, he went to work as a building superintendent at Whitman Requardt Associates. During his 46-year career with the Baltimore engineering company, Mr. Hamilton, who retired in 2000, missed only four days of work, family members said.

There are so many big-voiced female British singers, it's hard to keep track of them. There's Adele, out with new album "21," and there's Duffy, of the ubiquitous "Mercy. " Then there's Florence Welch and Elly Jackson, of La Roux, not to mention the ones who started it all, Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse. Joining their ranks this year is Ellie Goulding, a 24-year-old singer from Hereford, England, whose new album, "Lights," has already climbed to the top of the British music charts.

Every day for three years, when Darlene Love stepped onto a Broadway stage to sing, she was transported to Baltimore — to the city of big hair and 1960s dance music — playing a teenager who gives dance lessons to a girl longing to be on the Corny Collins Show. Tomorrow, her role in "Hairspray" long behind her, she comes to the city of Hon to host a live Maryland Public Television premiere of her new DVD, "Darlene Love: The Concert of Love. " For those who may not have grown up singing along on the radio to "He's sure the boy I am going to marry" or "Da Doo Ron Ron," Love was a voice behind many 1960s hits.

Since the mid-19th century, a beloved carol about the Three Wise Men has celebrated a "King forever, ceasing never/over us all to reign. " That might not be exactly the way plenty of otherwise-normal human beings still feel about Elvis Aron Presley 33 years after his death, but it's within shouting distance. Especially at the time of year the singer known as the King of Rock loved most. "Elvis was a big Christmas freak," says Jed Duvall, a Presley impersonator who will share a Glen Burnie stage with two fellow professionals this weekend in a show titled, whimsically enough, "The 3 Kings of Christmas.

Performer Mark Ruegg came up with the idea for his interactive rock concert, "Party Animals" while trying to coax smiles from one of the toughest audiences imaginable — children of celebrities. Ruegg was hired to provide the youth entertainment for such Hollywood celebrities as Barbra Streisand and Steven Spielberg, and was determined to reproduce the over-the-top extravaganzas in which he participated for everyday kids. "You can't imagine what birthday parties in Hollywood are like," said Ruegg's wife, the dancer and aerialist Buffy Hornung.

S. Ronald Ellison, a prominent Baltimore attorney and partner in the law firm of Fedder and Garten who was also active in local Democratic Party circles, died Tuesday of lung cancer at Union Memorial Hospital. He was 68. Born and raised in West Baltimore, Mr. Ellison was a 1957 graduate of City College. He earned a bachelor's degree from the Johns Hopkins University in 1961 and his law degree in 1964 from the University of Maryland School of Law. "Ronnie enjoyed gambling and liked telling the story that he put himself through Hopkins playing pinochle," said Joann Rodgers, a cousin who lives in Baltimore.

I'm hoping we remember more than just the sex, drug and rock and roll party. That party caused a lot of pain, some very stressing social disorder. That wasn't our goal."

An announcement that bands of debatable genius Black Sabbath and Blondie are among the latest inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame gave us reason to explore the wide world of rock-related Web sites. rockhall.com: Introduced with a Buddy Holly quote honoring the eternal supremacy of rock's king, Elvis, the Web site of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has a "Today in rock history" feature, an animated music time line, and a schedule of the museum's traveling exhibitions. When we checked in, the site was in search of people who attended an Elvis Presley performance at Cleveland's Brooklyn High School in October 1955.