Asbury Park Press from Asbury Park, New Jersey • Page 38

LISTENING' ROOMPOP MUSIC C6 Asbury Park Press Friday, April 2, 1993 1 Trees rejoice! CD longbox a thing of the past larly Van Halen, great. This Van Halen, fat and stodgy and I not particularly inspiring. Why? gar's incessant whining and screeching throughout and Eddie Van Halen's seemingly endless "316," which isn't so much a' song as a guitar solo that goes on for the best part of 12 minutes. All this pregnant hogwash is a pity, because the band's "Right Now" video made a year ago for the studio version of the title song is excellent, as are some of the earlier tracks on this album. Among the good ones are "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love," "Panama" and "Jump," all played with a touch of spirit and panache.

A glimmer of light indeed, but nowhere near enough to save this album from being incredible hard work. David Marx Press Correspondent Because singer Sammy Hagar has an ego the size of Pittsburgh, and because "Live Right Here, Right Now" (Warner Bros. 45198), the band's career-encompassing live double album, is inexorably littered with solos. And more solos. And still more.

"Right Here, Right Now" could and should have been a great album, because Van Halen's catalog includes some finger-lickin', rockin' good songs and exceptionally gifted guitarist Eddie Van Halen knows a thing or two about blowing audiences away. But the album's 24 songs are weighted down with pomp and ceremony: Michael Anthony's horrendous bass solo on "Ultra Bass," Alex Van Halen's disposable nine-minute "Drum Solo," Ha- said Donio and Sites. And they plan to soon include anti-theft magnetic strips on CD packages, Sites said. Despite the trade group's concerns, local record-store managers said they foresee no transitional troubles. "We have a lot of product that has been coming without a longbox for some time, particularly classical and jazz," said Jan-Mikael Erakere, a manager at the Record World store in Toms River.

And when there is a longbox, he said, "a lot of customers ask us to remove the package and recycle it." The Ban the Box group has estimated record companies could cut up to $1 off the manufacturing and packaging process by eliminating the long-box, but no one is predicting consumers will see any savings. "That's up to the industry, said Jim Edenbaum, manager of Vintage Vinyl in Ocean Township. "Knowing the industry, I don't think it'll be lowering the price on By MATTY KARAS PRESS CORRESPONDENT The CD longbox that 12-inch-long, environmentally incorrect cardboard box in which most compact discs have been packaged for the past decade died yesterday. This is good news for trees. The average consumer, say retailers, may not even notice.

After years of discussion, the six major distributors of CDs Warner Sony, Polygram, MCA, EMI and Bertelsmann Music Group stopped shipping CDs in packages more than twice as large as the CD itself. CDs are 5 inches in diameter and normally stored in 5- by S'z-inch plastic boxes known as jewel boxes. But since the birth of the digital music medium in the early 1980s, the major record companies have shipped the CDs and jewel boxes inside 6- by 12-inch cardboard boxes to make them easier for stores to display. The so-called longboxes fit two across inside the 12-inch-wide bins the stores used to use for vinyl records. But the longboxes outraged environmentalists, who saw them as wasteful packaging.

"It was a good transition tool that unfortunately stayed around just a little too long," said Tim Sites, a spokesman for the Recording Industry Association of America, which represents the six major record tympanies. Pressured for years by environmental lobbyists, including a record industry group that calls itself Ban the Box, the record companies agreed a year ago to find an alternative. They gave themselves until this week to put that alternative into regular action. From now on, CDs will be shipped in a variety of formats, most of which will conform to a new 5- by 52-inch packaging standard, according to Sites. Among the formats will be the jewel box itself, which will be shrink-wrapped and shipped with no additional packaging as some independent record companies have done for years anyway.

Other CDs will be shipped in similar-size paperboard packages that can be unfolded at home by the con sumer, allowing extra space for artwork. Most local record stores contacted said they will snap the CDs into 6- by 12-inch plastic display frames, as they do for imports and other CDs already shipped in simple jewel boxes. But it will take as long as a year for longboxes to disappear from record stores, since a compact disc shipped Wednesday, when longboxes were still in use, could conceivably sit on a shelf for that long, waiting to be bought, retailers said. Record companies have said retailer worries were a chief reason for the slow death of the longbox. Store owners complained they would have to reconfigure their shelves to accommodate the smaller packages and said they would be easier to steal.

The changeover will cost record retailers and wholesalers nationwide about $200 million, said Jim Donio, spokesman for the National Association of Recording Merchandisers, an Evesham Township-based trade group. The major record companies have offset much of that cost by offering the stores rebates on record orders, The Old At Restaurant IS BASH! Hangui' BL-L I t- New Owners Come Enjoy Our Newly Remodeled Family Dining Room And Menu Serving Continental Cuisine, Our Famous Prime Rib Pizza In the show, which has remained among the top 20 most of this it's first season, Mr. Cooper is a former college basketball star who returns to the Oakland neighborhood where he grew up to work as a substitute teacher. "I told the producers we can do this on an educated level," Curry said. "It was just a case of if you want me then this is the way.

I'm not a jigaboo buffoon and I'm not about to play one. "I know some people get all the money and forget about things like presenting a positive image of black people. I'm not like that." The fact that Curry's character also shares an apartment with two women, has prompted some television critics to jokingly compare the series to the 1970s sitcoms, "Welcome Back, Hot ter a show about an inner-city school teacher, and the two women and one man as roommates sitcom "Three's Company." The comparisons annoy Curry but he's not surprised about the comparisons either. "Unfortunately when there's only a few of us on screen you're going to get the attention," Curry said. "My whole thing is that when 'Police Story' came out you didn't hear comparisons to Any other show about a teacher they've never said it was like 'Welcome Back, "The critics just don't want to say it's a good -show.

That's OK. I know what's up." He's been in the area since last week, making the rounds of talk shows and taping shows at the Apollo. "I've been back a couple of times since I started doing the show. I love it. It's very important for me to go back there," he said.

"First of all, I enjoy it because it's a good crowd. But I also like it because the Apollo audience keeps you humble. They'll let you know if you're messing up. They don't care who you are." The setting for "Mr. Cooper" is yet another example of how Curry doesn't forget his roots.

Curry insisted the show be set in his hometown of Oakland. He also was adamant his character present a positive image no drugged out, unemployed or other negative stereotypes frequently assigned to black males on television. HAPPY HOUR BUFFET DAILY IN THE LOUNGE 4-6 EARLY DINNER SPECIALS 4:00 to 5:00 Daily Includes Soup, Salad, Coffee Dessert 10 OFF DINNERS wThis Ad No! To Be ComWed WAny Ollw a From page CI an Richard Pryor during a recent benefit performance. Curry, who will only say he's in his late 20s, performs today and tomorrow at Rascal's Comedy Club in Ocean Township. But Curry isn't the type of performer tc make it big and forget where he came from.

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