The Sacramento Bee from Sacramento, California • 105

The Sacramento Bee FRIDAY March 26 1999 Internet 4 A going places Rebecca Upon is always on the move Sidetracks backpage C8 COLUMNS E2''n COMICS GG-G7x TELEVISION G4 1 -rt mww-ssu- wit ui tfimtav S-sut4ir ita iaWsu a jAwtAr ia ikHM Htsu AsihjriMfctiiWata'iafcJAWItt -jiiL'itBKiwtnl Ta4 JK 4 ANITA CREAMER At this South By Southncst gathering the music industry prepares tor a different hind of invasion Right away Right Said Fred set a sexy tone By Freedom du Lac Bee Pop Culture Writer AUSTIN Texas -Right Said Fred was not too sexy for the South By Southwest Music and Media Conference in Austin Texas But the British band with the buffed lead singer was apparently too sexy to start its showcase on time Best (and really only) known for worldwide No 1 hit Too the trio is trying to mount a comeback And as with many other artists with stalling careers the group attempted to use the annual SXSW festival held here last week to re-launch itself into pop orbit Yet when the time came for Right Said Fred to come on stage and entertain an audience packed with curiosity seekers the musicians were nowhere to be seen Five minutes later still no Fred' Then 10 minutes 15 At SXSW where nearly 800 actq perform 40-minute sets on 44 stages over five nights and sched- ules are about as rigid as they come this qualified as a bad development Finally there was a Fred sight- ing as Fred Fairbrass came on stage to set up his acoustic guitar -A second musician did likewise with his electric guitar Then they both disappeared And singer Richard Fairbrass the one everybody thinks is Fred -was still missing Fred! the audience shouted its tone growing more and more angry as time wore on About 25 minutes later Right I Said Fred wandered on stage led by flamboyant frontman Richard Fairbrass who was wearing platform tennis shoes wild print pants that suggested LSD-inspired camouflage and a sleeveless nylon1: mesh V-neck shirt through which I you could see his pierced left 1 nipple The band opened with the gender-twisted pop gem Lake Girls I Like plus a lascivious song about sex and a sarcastic one about pop stardom that was set to Home and even included the chorus from that southern-fried Lynyrd Skynyrd song Eventually Fairbrass removed -his sweaty shirt and threw it into the middle of the capacity crowd then said know this 1' Right that 8-year-old smash single in which he famously declares Tm too sexy for my The band performed a drummerless stripped-down version of the otherwise percolating dance song but that stop Fairbrass from wiggling his bum when he came to the my little line He Please see NOTEBOOK page Q3 By Freedom du Lac Bee Pop Culture Writer USTIN Texas For the first time in too many bone-dry months to count it rained here last week It rained so hard during the sinister and very much Texas-sized storm in fact that cars on Interstate 35 had to pull over because drivers see a thing save for the lightning bolts that continuously streaked through the sky And so much water was coming down and so quickly that the music actually stopped in this the self-professed Live Music Capital of the World Several small clubs along the main musical drag Sixth Street flooded and were forced to temporarily close during the deluge and Willie Nelson and Leon Russell had to cancel a joint performance at a delightful downtown barbecue spot with a big backyard stage The annual five-day South By Southwest Music and Media Conference that wrapped up here Photographs by Ha LamSpecial to The Bee Shelley King a local Austin singer performed and networked at the South by Southwest Conference but said she going to sign with a major label Graceful aging is a lift all by itself Leave it to catty Joan Rivers who admits no stranger to plastic surgery herself to sum up past star-studded awards shows by taking time in her subsequent telecasts to point out displaying the newest results of cosmetic surgery The suddenly svelte and sleek figure The older face as newly smooth and unlined as a And (of course) the perkiest new breast implants If memory serves Joan likes to announce in her words which stars had new saying at the ceremony not nice not by any means but it sure is entertaining Educational too Without Joan we might have to wait for those TV biography shows that display childhood and high school photos to get a glimpse of their real faces and physiques to see the ordinary human imperfection behind the unreal perfection Blame Hollywood then that the face of America is changing The size and shape of America too Quite literally and at great expense and not necessarily for the better Nationwide in 1997 plastic surgeons performed some 700000 procedures -70 percent higher than only four years earlier according to the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons Face lifts were up more than 50 percent and so were eyelid surgeries Most of those procedures were elective the likes of tummy tucks breast augmentation liposuction and nose jobs Most quite clearly were not performed bn Hollywood stars i But Hollywood has long shaped our standards of physical beauty the ideals that most of us know better than to believe attain And plastic surgery has long been in the bag of tricks Wanting Fearing and Having a (1998 Viking Penguin) mentions Marlene Dietrich Marilyn Monroe Hedy Lamarr Gary Cobper Burt Lancaster Carol Burnett and Mary Tyler Moore as plastic surgery veterans And gosh always Cher Dolly Parton Roseanne Pamela Anderson Once you start the cosmetic surgery list hard to stop their job to look good but what a shame to have a job that depends in part on the torture and pain of elective surgery Now maybe things have gone too far: When even war hero and former US Sen Bob Dole has had a face lift time to realize that the American face of age may never be the same trying in fact to erase age as if we think we can dodge age and infirmity by hiding from them behind youthful faces as if we think we can fool death by pretending to be decades younger than we really are I A he shape of youth has been changing all along as well Even if among those who understand what Gwyneth appeal might be got to give the best actress winner this much: At least she had breast augmentation done confident enough not to have cosmetic surgery which certainly sets her apart from a whole lot of the stars who paraded into our living rooms during Academy Awards show For example in real life most 50-year-olds just look the way that Goldie Hawn looks And consider a long-ago dinnertime debate with friends fans of the TV show and those unnaturally thin unnaturally busty young women who star in the show On the one side the laissez-faire attitude: So what? They look good On the other: Maybe not such a wise idea to admire a standard of femininity and beauty based on anorexia and breast implants Maybe as well not wise to admire a standard of aging based more on the scalpel than on health energy vitality generosity and serenity You buy the real face of graceful aging You have to earn it never hand out awards for that but maybe they should ANITA column appears Monday Wednesday and Friday In Scene Write to her at PO Box 1 5779 Sacramento CA 95852 or cAlf (916) 321-1136 i 1 I ij: Si JV 'r Sit changed dramatically in recent months The Big Six record conglomerates are now down to five what with Seagram $104 billion December purchase of PolyGram which was then merged with Universal Music Group The largest corporate restructuring in industry history followed resulting in label closures massive layoffs and a legion of newly unemployed recording artists been downsizing at other music companies too with artists and label staffers being shown the door And the seemingly sudden arrival of the digital distribution technology known as MP3 has added an extra element of chaos and controversy to the industry Please see MUSIC page G3 Sunday then was more like South By Southmef And how appropriate that it rained on the unlucky 13th installment of the music normally festive parade SXSW may jokingly be referred to as spring break for the music 1 1 business but this is no time for carefree celebration in the $12 billion industry which has RICK KUSHiViAN Above Ken Comstock of Diamond Multimedia discusses his com portable MP3 player The player shown at right Is called fans are sure to love is not You have to start right off with that because it comes from the same borderline madman and it looks a lot like set in the year 3000 and that make it in the future or even no Bart no Homer and no dog slurring his Having said that recognize a lot of in and a good thing The first episode premiering Sunday night (at 8:30 on Channel 40) has its slow spots like most pilots setting up the premise is often clunky but it alsojhows the promise we expect from Simp- V' JF: WEEKENDTV Futurama 8:30 pm Sunday on 00 by Billy West) a delivery boy who accidentally freezes himself on Dec 31 1999 when he brings a pizza to the office of Applied Cryogenics (motto: power failures since Fry defrosts 1000 years later and is thrilled despite having no family no friends and learning that New York has twice been destroyed by alien invasions He now has the chance to start over to remake himself to be anything he wants He meets Leela (voiced by With Katey Sagal) a one-eyed alien who genetically tests Fry and assigns him a career perfect for him and you see this coming He is to be: a delivery boyl Eventually Fry and Leela team up for intergalactic adventures They jdso join with other new pal Bender a robot the Krusty the Clowg of the 31st century Please we KUS1IMAN page G5 creator Matt Groening There are the same subversive gags (Dick preserved head hosts Eve the same apocalyptic tone the same nonchalance in the face of insanity and gladly the same high quality of ironic smarts is the tale of Fry (voiced.