The Kansas City Star from Kansas City, Missouri • 50

ARTS ENTERTAINMENT F-8 The Kansas City Star Thumtay Much 211991 Channel 62 picks new call letters The language of rock 'n' roll NIGHTHAWK BRIAN MCTAVISH Klaus Maine (center) and Scorpions tonight at Municipal Auditorium stateside production The songs were cut in about three months without longtime producer Diss Dierks whose contract with Scorpions expired after the band's previous long-player "Savage Amusement" Meine didn't mind giving Dierks his due for Scorpions international success but complained of his spirit-numbing perfectionism "We spent more than a year in the studio for a bloody nine songs" Meine said of "Savage Amusement" "The fun you normally have when you play musk was gone in the end" Meine mi happier discussing Scorpions' interaction with hundreds of thousands of fans in the Soviet Union during a 10-oight stand in Leningrad in 1988 and at the Moscow Musk Peace Festival in 1989 "We felt pretty much like musk ambassadors" he said "It was like 'Hey our parents came with tanks And here are the Germans coming back but this time with guitars' "That was our idea of rock roll: a German band playing in Russia singing in English and the Russian audience singing along You could fed how strong the voice of rock n' roll was and how it brought the people from different worlds closer together" After its Soviet triumphs the Scorpions forsake their mother tongue to sing around world I wouldn't want to learn a language the way Klaus Meine of the German rock band Scstflsai put himself through you-know-what to learn English "I imagine you would have to write your article in German rightr Meine kidded the other day in a telephone interview Meine and Scorpions will perform after Trixter in a hard rock show at 8 tonight at Municipal Auditorium Tickets cost $1830 at the box office "It was kind of tough to learn the language in the beginning" Meine said "But the desire to play this musk with English lyrics was much stronger so we did it "Our idea of rock roll was to play all over the world If we would have sung in German maybe we'd be a famous band in Germany But that would be about it" Translation: Deutsche marks are fine but dollars lots of dollars are better Meine and guitarist Rudolf Schenker brother of rock guitarist Michael Schenker formed Scorpions in 1971 in Hanover West Germany In 197S the band began gigging in England where interviews with the media became an immediate survival test the Cambridge Circk building to which the station will move next month "KSMO had the nicest ring and also allowed us to insert a check mark into the MacDonaU said The check mark is important bftausc the station intends to ask viewers frequently to select the programs they want to see MacDonald is eager to adopt the new letters "KZKC was probably the worst call letters that any station in America could have chosen" he said They ate difficult to say and reinember he said They also were troublesome In July 1986 a year and a half after the station adopted the call letters a federal court ruled that it could no longer identify itself as KZKC-TV The decision followed a complaint from KCTV Channel that Channel 67s call letters sounded too much like Channel 5's Call letters also can affect station ratings MacDonaMthismonmiBapect-ed 500 Nielsen diaries He noticed that several viewers wrote down programs seen on Channel 62 but put down the call letters of other stations Nielsen gave viewing credit to the other stations "A lot of peopk are watching our shows but they don't know what station they're on" Mao-Donald said "I was afraid for the next question to come that maybe I don't understand' Meine said "By the time we got to America in '79 the Engtish was better" Besides its commercial potential singing and writing in English was aesthetically pleasing to Meine: "If I would sing 'Rock You Like a Hurricane' in German it would sound like Schaufcem wk eia Sturm Pretty strange" Although not much of a Top-40 singles contender in America the pioneering muskality of Scorpions in the hard rockheavy metal genre has sold IS miffion albums worldwide "I like to sing ballads as much as I enjoy singmf the hot stuff" Meine said "This band likes to show all kinds of emotions not only the tough side We are as much 'Still Loving You as we are Tease Me Please Me' That song is on Scorpions' latest album "Crazy World" which was recorded in Los Angeks as its first fiend and vocalist Johany Winter brother of rock singer and keyboardist Edgar Winter goes off for fans tonight at the Lone Star 4117 MillSt Spike Blake opens at 9 Tickets cost $16 Other tunes tonight: The hot-diggity Mues of San Francisco's Lane Charlie A the NigMcats at 9:30 at the Grand Emporium 3832 Main St $6 cover The alternative rock of BuTy Geat at 9 at the Shadow 510 Westport Road $4 cover The flat-picking country guitar of Daa Gary at 7 at the Paradise Theatre 408 Armour Road in North Kansas City $7 cover band performed in Roger Waters' massive staging of Flak Herd's "The Wall" against a backdrop of the fallen Berlin Wall between East and West Berlin Performing for the first time in front of East Germans gave the band yet another cathartic belt of brotherhood "To get up there in front of 300000 people sitting on top of Hitler's bunker rocking'out and going crazy with half the world watching on television for us as a German band it was very very special" Winter in spring Mississippi-born Hues guitar 'L A Law' anticipates personnel shakeup namjaaaBw- Cofltbuand from F1 a campaign pressuring advertisers to boycott the program Despite the provocative tendencies of "LA Law" (remember the Venus Butterfly episode?) KeUey said "The viewers will have to be imaginative with respect to a great deal of her private life because frankly the network is not going to allow us to plunge into CJ's bisexuality They were very supportive when we did the story line but they are sko very cautious "The sales department at NBC constantly tells me that advertisers are threatening to pull out and that we have to be carefuL "It haant come to the point yet to where I've really had to censor myself or censor the show or not ten stories that we want to tdL But I know for a fact that when we raised this issue the network was very concerned about how far we'd be going with it and intimated there would be problems down the road if we wanted to get particularly graphic" (Only 85 persons according to an NBC spokesman called the network's New York and Los Angeks offices to comment It is not uncommon KeUey added to get 10 times that number of calls after controversial "LA Law" episodes) In any case KeUey thinks "LA Law" always has been at its best when its focus was the law "I still believe the heart of 'LA Law' is those court cases" be said "and I think we access more emotions in those cases than we do in the personal lives of our own characters "Our show the grain of it is confrontation and the way we pace our show it's just a combative piece of business whether it be in the courtroom or the office environment" "LA Law" is edited and paced at such a high pitch KeUey said that romantic stories can stop the action cold Kelley said none of the actors leaving the show would do so out of discontent characterizing "LA Law" as an atypkally harmonious set For his part "It truly was just a question of being on one show for five years and I just felt it was the right time to take the challenge of creating and developing my own show" to be fresh to be new as you go along" Kelley said But original cast members Harry Hamlin (who plays partner Mkhad Kuzak) Susan Dey (Grace Van Owen) and Jimmy Smits (Victor Sifiientes) are poised to leave the show after this season a change that could put "LA Law" out of business "All three of them will be missed" KeUey said "They've been integral parts of the show from day one" Keller said that it is possibk Smits might be back for cameos and that 20th Century Fox Television which produces the ihow has been trying to persuade Hamlin to extend his contract But Kelley said "I'm operating under the assumption that those three will not be back" Leave it to a creative and legal mind like Kelky's to make a case for an "LA Law" without some of its top talent including himself The 34-year-old former Boston lawyer who gave up real-life law for TV law also is leaving the show at season's end to develop a program due in 1992 for CBS "If I were coming back I think my greatest fear would be that no one would leave" said Kelley who joined "LA Law" as a story editor in 1986 He rose to supervising producer before "LA Law" co-creator and producer Steven Bochco turned over the show to him "You have to bring in new faces and infuse new blood and you cant just keep extending the roster So in order to develop new characters you have to make room on die bench" he uid Toward that end KeUey brought on three new cast members this year after establishing internal unrest at the law firm during the previous season "I think what I did last year and which I've continued a little bit this year is introduce office politics and some of the vitriol that goes with it" he uid Much of the credit for the bik buildup can be attributed to Rosalind Shays a cutthroat corporate lawyer with a penchant for power played to perfection by Diana Muldaur Shays became the much-loathed target of the tighlknit "LA Law" family and in a shocker for viewers became lover to esteemed senior partner Leland McKenzk (Richard Dysart) In the end however Rosalind was shown the door Walking in the door obviously with a mind toward replacing departing cast members Dey Hamlin and Smits were Amanda Donohoe John Spencer and Cecil Hoffman as lawyers CJ Lamb Tommy MuHaney and ZoeyCkmmons Mullaney a hustling beat-the-system type and Ckmmons his ex-wife and an idealistic and tough assistant district attorney have yet to catch fire with audiences But CJ Lamb who a coupk of weeks ago revealed that she was bisexual after a woman-to-woman kiss with Abby (Mkhek Greene) has raised more than a few eyebrows (For the record CJ said she was romantically Gay-rights activists hailed the CJ-Abby scene as historic whik at least one Christian-oriented watchdog group promised to WWW i' I Yes it's true With Call Waiting from Southwestern Bell Telephone a simple "click" lets you know someone's trying to reach you Then one touch puts them on and puts your original party on hold It's that easy It's only a few dollars a month And if you order by April 30 you even save on connection So what are you waiting for? Call your Southwestern Bell Telephone Business He will hang around "as a pest" or creative consultant in the same way Bochco has He does not have a due as to what his CBS project will be or even whether it will be a sitcom or drama but he is certain he would rather avoid the legal profession For now however Kelley is still focused on "LA Law" which he noted will end the season with a flurry of activity Kelley was reluctant to offer details of how Kuzak Van Owen and Sifiientes might bow out and offered only this shred of information: "I will give you one hint You don't have to watch anybody in particular You can watch everybody but watch their backs" Befl Telephone Office today and ask for Call Waiting It's an easy way to do more with your phone The one to call orc AmIIiM in moil mu 1 Missouri customers get free connection for your home FOR CONVENIENT HOME DELIVERY CALL 234-4545 when you orderpy April 1 1.