‘Radio with Pictures’ without radio

Press, 9 November 1978, Page 15

‘Radio with Pictures’ without radio

By

JOHN COLLINS

Good evening, citizens, and welcome to another blast from “Radio with Pictures,” the programme in which 1 lay some really heavy numbers on you, with lottsa jive, no hype, and an endless string of trendo phrases guaranteed to confuse you all, from the swinging hip to the arthritic hip, and sometimes including myself.

Tonight, as promised, we’ve got a seven-and-a-half second profile on the main influences in

Eric Clapton’s early life; from Yaldhurst there’s a New Wave band, Blood, Bones, and Offal; we’ve got a really sharp clip of a concert given on the Caribbean Island of Antigua by the top band of Twin Falls, Michigan; and an intimate interview between Dylan Tait and Dylan rr ait in which Dylan Tait’s major influence on the interviewing of rock stars is discussed with special reference to widespread gastric orders , among viewers .

We should be so lucky. Compared with the listless huddles of virtually unknown musicians that “Radio with Pictures” has been inflicting on us recently, even the above regularly on the radio and uninspired line-up would be enough to have me slashing the settee in appreciation and rounding off a pleasant evening by driving my 1938 twinspinner V 8 off the cliff at Scarborough while hum-

ming a re-issued version of “Peggy Sue.” When it first began, “Radio with Pictures” was refreshing and worth staying half-awake for. It seemed to have access to films of live performances by leading performers, and Doctor Rock’s parody of a hip disc jockey added a touch of humour between “clips.” Now he seems to be taking himself seriously — something that would seem impossible with that

huge, plastic 2LO microphone only inches away from his wig — and the quality of the music has fallen away.

It may be that I am getting too old to appreciate these modern young musicians with their electrical ukeleles and their strange stage antics, but I have occasionally hobbled along to watch the show in the company of young people, sound in wind and limb, and they, too, have never heard of half the groups “Radio with Pictures” trots out; and they,' too, think it’s about time the programme lived up to its name and showed performances of bands and singers whose music is whose records are in the charts. Not that “Radio with Pictures” was the most insipid thing I watched on Tuesday.

Admittedly, I may have been feeling unusually unresponsive that night (I had discovered a small

fingernail scratch on the wall near the medicine cabinet and had had to call the police in as it was clear evidence of a political break-in), but I thought the “Prime Time” effort at interviewing political satirists produced such a drab affair that it was a mistake to screen it.

New Zealand has never exactly been among the world’s frontrunners in satire, and yet the interviewer approached our own mob of ex-varsity-revue wags as if he were unravelling the mysteries of Dean Swift. All the viewer discovered, really, w’as that, like most writers, satirists rumble inanities when interviewed about their work, make poor spontaneous jokes, and don’t like to look at the camera; which is precisely what one would expect from people whose work is produced by long and lonely polishing at the typewriter or hours and hours of rehearsal.

It’s precisely what one would expect, and it makes lousy television.

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