Daily News from New York, New York • 328

DAILY EXTfJA NEWS 29 Monday. August 3, 1987 THE BAD BOYS OF ROCK'N'ROLL By DAVID BROWNE 1 EPLACEMENT PARTS: THE CROWD THAT 1 9 I piled into the Beacon Theater on July 23 for the I soldout Replacement show came to see a bunch of drunken slobs on stage, and that's pretty much what they got Dispelling rumors that they would be playing it straight on their "Please to Meet Me" tour, the Minneapolis quartet lived up to its reputation as the pitbulls of rock n' roll. Frontman and songwriter Paul Westerberg sang most of the first number, "Hold My Life," in a folding chair, after which the band spent half the evening indulging in covers of "Rebel Rebel," "California Sun," "I Can Help" and "Honky Tonk Women." When they found the time to attack their own songs, things were equally shambolic. "I Will Dare" became a slow blues number, while the new album's "Never Mind" became an instrumental when Westerberg forgot the words. And he slurred "This is our latest sellout" as the quartet launched into a terrifying version of the new teen-suicide song, "The Ledge." Despite the insufferable heat inside the Beacon, the crowd ate it up; they accurately sensed that the group was expressing contempt not for them but for professionalism.

Yet the band's stumble-bum nature and the Irf frjinnir-- ir I i MMlhl jdmmmm: mm niii Jk NO NOISE, PLEASE: Charlie Chaplin stars in "Modern Times" being CAN'T HEAR A ring Laurel Hardy. Other films will include "Modern Times," starring Charlie Chaplin (Aug. 7); "Phantom of the Opera," with Lon Chaney (Aug. 11); "Dr. Je-kyll and Mr.

Hyde," with John Barrymore (Aug. 13); Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" (Aug. 20); Alfred Hitchcock's "The Ring" (Aug. 21); "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" (Aug. 25); and "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse," with Rudolph Valentino (Aug.

26). All the films start at 7:30 p.m. and are free. "Last year, the films attracted 400 to 500 people each night," said Bryer. "People were surprised they were so popular.

I think most people have seen some silent movies By BRUCE CHADWICK Daily News Staff Writer HIS IS THE ERA of the VCR, stereo sound TV and Dolby sound mov iesa hi-tech entertainment world Thomas Edison never dreamed of when he invented the movie camera. So what hi-tech dazzle will Citicorp unveil tonight for its annual August film series? Silent movies, that's what Citicorp's Market sponsored a 26-film Silent Movie Festival last summer. It was such a hit that Citicorp manager, Honora Bryer, decided to bring it back with 24 different titles. The festival kicks off tonight with the 1929 silent classic "Big Business," star audience's acceptance of it raised some troubling questions about the Replacements and their future. For anyone who wasn't content to hear them attempt "Born in the U.S.A.," the show was frustrating: Paul Westerberg writes wonderful songs and has a raspy voice to boot, but reducing the Replacements' experience to musical theater doesn't bode well for anyone.

Two nights later, at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, the band did a complete turnabout They performed mostly their own songs and only a few covers, and Westerberg remembered the lyrics. It's just this unpredictable ten-sion-and-release that qualifies the 'Ments as an unquestionably great band. But will they get sucked into believing their own legend? Will their steadily increasing audience continue to encourage them to lose it on stage? The best rock 'n' roll is never pretty, but it isn't wasteful, either. POP AND CIRCUMSTANCE: Under a new distribution deal with Records, Hoboken's Coyote Records will begin getting some big-league national distribution. Both Coyote and its co-conspirator, TwinTone Records, will "maintain their status as independent labels," according to a statement Los Lobos' remake of Ritchie Valens' "La Bamba," from the movie of the same name, looks to be the band's first hit single.

While that's all well and good, it's also ironic: None of the band's three worthwhile albums of original material did this well. Just another sign of life in the retro-'80s Addendum to a recent column on the '70s revival: It has been announced that Lynyrd Skynyrd will hit the road next month, coinciding with the release of a new album of previously released material on MCA. The fact that lead singer Ronnie Van Zant died in a plane crash 10 years ago hasn't seemed to interfere with plans. shown at the Citicorp Market WORD and are eager to see more. They are something you just can't find in movie theaters.

These movies are classics, too, some of the best work of people like Hitchcock, Chaplin and Chaney." The films at the Citicorp Festival were chosen for notoriety and balance. "We wanted movies people heard of, like the Laurel Hardy and Chaplin films, and we wanted a good mix of comedy and drama. We think the lineup reflects a good balance," she says. To reconstruct the era of the silent film, Citicorp's market will import different pianists from Juilliard to provide musical accompaniment for the films. The films continue Monday through Saturday until Aug.

29. Of Joy Etc. Kaylan interrupts briefly: "Now we're working on our comic awareness." However they've done it, the Turtles' current success adds a new curious chapter to a curious career. When they first hit the charts in August 1965 with Bob Dylan's "It Ain't Me Babe," they seemed to have it all: a smooth, easy sound that could last forever. But by the late '60s the Turtles had faded unable, perhaps, to take themselves as seriously as the rock milieu then seemed to demand.

So Volman and Kaylan decided to survive. Literally. "We used to visit guys like Al Wilson and Bob Hite. Or Keith Moon. We never imagined these guys wouldn't always be here.

But looking back through the haze of our youth, we're lucky any of us are. "And I can say that we 'do appreciate it The Turtles Return: Pride By DAVID HINCKLEY Daily News Staff Writer HE FIRST TIME around for the Turtles, they were kids. "We were 19 when 'Happy Together' was a hit," says Mark Volman. "A bunch of kids who'd been playing Zombies cover songs." "We didn't understand much of anything," says Howard Kaylan. "When we first met the Beatles on an English tour, our rhythm guitarist was so shaken by their behaving differently off-stage that he flew home the next day.

We never saw him again." Twenty years later, things are different. Kaylan and Volman have played with Frank Zappa, developed a wickedly funny act as Flo and Eddie and been successful with commercials, the Care Bears and Strawberry Shortcake, among other things. About all that hasn't changed is they're still the TP core of the Turtles, who are now making their annual summer charge around America as headliners of the VH-1 Superfest tour which comes to the Pier Wednesday and Jones Beach Friday. The cast also includes Gene Clark's Byrds, Herman's Hermits, the Grass Roots and Mark Lindsay with Tommy James and the Shon-dells, which means this isn't a show for slam-dancing fans. It's nice music, feel-good music, the kind of thing you take the kids to see.

"A lot of people forgot fun and innocence were tied together in the '60s," says Volman. "The fact so much of the music is coming back shows they're remembering. "But never been a nostalgia act I'm not a dentist who's come out of retirement to make $3,500 a night at the Trocadero. We know scoring, background, ad spots, marketing, mercnan-dising-allof it" Cm jt 4 J. i WHArs HAPPENING? Are the 1, Replacements schizophrenic? w.

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