Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • Page 31

SECTION Designers atone, disappoint and intrigue AM REG HENRY clothes, hats and handbags for the smart and sexy sophisticate, the woman who likes to dress her derriere off and still be taken seriously. It's a risky proposition for a woman to try to appear forward and timeless at the same time, but michael made it look easy. He opened the show with a stunning floor-length red cashmere jersey dress with a high draped neck and gauntlet cuffs. Other unforgettable ensembles were a brown striped cashmere tailored pantsuit with yellow gloves and a fur scarf and a khaki and red trapeze reversible sweep coat over a trapeze sheath made of Toray Ultra-suede. The designer also offered four looks for men, including a form-fitting charcoal silk-wool jersey SEE FASHION, PAGE C-4 By LaMont Jones Post-Gazette Fashion Editor NEW YORK CITY Designer michael redeemed himself.

With a vengeance. Many buyers, journalists and others who planned to attend the designer's spring 2001 show in September turned on their designer heels and walked away in disgust, angered by unusually lengthy waits before the show and woefully inadequate seating once they got inside. Those who waited out the wait were treated to obstructed views and models in colossal heels tipping their way down twisting staircases at a snail's pace. All but forgotten in the aftermath were the fantastic clothes he had designed for this spring and summer. So michael, granted membership into the prestigious Council of Fashion Designers of America in 1998, made sure to stage his fall-winter 2001 preview Sunday afternoon in the more accommodating environs of Bryant Park.

He won a rare standing ovation by proving that he's a master at creating em- Mike SegarReuters News Service Mark Montano's fall collection includes a red-and-gold asymmetrical skirt and matching top. LJ THE STORY OF ROCK ROLL IN PITTSBURGH OF TWO PARTS By Scott Mervis and Ed Masley Weekend Editor and Post-Gazette Pop Music Critic the Pittsburgh music scene from early doo-wop hits to "The Rapper." Here, we pick up with the leaner chart bar-rock years, the birth of local punk, Rusted Root and LAST Post-Gazette unday, we followed the Jaggerz's successes of the beyond. Pumpin' Iron In late 1973, Dom DiSilvio and his then-wife Jan Chepes purchased the Pizza Pub at the corner of Atwood and Sen-nott in Oakland and renamed it the Decade. The plan was to make it an oldies club, but after a few years, DiSilvio says, "We realized we weren't in the '50s any longer." Neither was the Pittsburgh music scene. The Decade would soon be home to a bruising bunch of bar-rock bands.

Some of the players had been on the scene going back to the Jaggerz, the Igniters and the infamous Diamond Reo, a band that brought together Norm Nardini, Warren King, Robbie Johns and Frankie Czuri. Some say Diamond Reo, in those transitional days of harder rock 'n' roll, went any way the wind blew, and that's not far from the truth. They began as a power pop band, recorded for Atlantic subsidiary Big Tree Records, hit the Top 100 with a cover of Marvin Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar" and got to hang out Dreaming of his wife's surrender Just in time for Valentine's Day, a new self-help book is available for women who wish to recover the romance of marriage. It is called "The Surrendered Wife: A Practical Guide to Finding Intimacy, Passion and Peace With a Man." The author is Laura Doyle, who lives in California with her husband, who must be a happy fellow indeed during the power outages. Ms.

Doyle believes wives should be really nice to their husbands. They should stop trying to control them. Coincidentally, this is something I have long believed. An article about her book appeared Thursday in The New York Times under a questioning headline: "Yes-Dearing Your Way to a Happy Marriage?" Hmm. I wonder if a woman copy editor wrote that headline.

Still, if The New York Times is paying attention, this must be important. Oddly, surrendered wives are not much in evidence. Around my neighborhood at least, there's nary a white flag in sight In fact, as far as I can see, it is the same old marital intifada, with the wives throwing verbal rocks and the husbands cowering in confusion. But I have no doubt that in some parallel universe, women are smiling and cooing and saying "Yes, dear" and "Certainly, darling." Not wishing to deprive my own wife of the joys of surrender, I rushed out to Barnes Noble on my lunch hour Friday to buy a copy. It was a tad embarrassing.

In my view, self-help books are rarely the answer. If you have problems, you should go to the professionals who have experience in these matters. For goodness' sake, that's what bartenders are for. To make matters worse, the book was to be found in the Relationships section, which is right next to Sexuality two topics that I figure if you need to read a book about, you probably shouldn't attempt. Excuse me for a moment.

Honey, can you come and rub my toes? Now, where was Oh, yes, I am really glad I got this book because my wife is going to love it The principles are summarized on the back: "The control women wield at work and with children must be left at the front door of any marriage." (It makes you wonder now mail carriers are going to get through with all that burden left at our front doors.) "The Surrendered Wife" is a step-to-step guide that teaches women to give up "unnecessary control and responsibility" and "to resist the temptation to criticize, belittle or dismiss their husbands." They should also make themselves available for lovemaking at least once a week whether they are in the mood or not (in real life, it's probably "or Excuse me for another moment Darling, while you're up doing the ironing, could you stop by the fridge and get me a chilled hop-flavored beverage?" I think my wife is really going to like the neat chapter headings, which make a lot of sense: "Stop Reading His Mind," "Abandon the Myth of Equality," "Strive to be Vulnerable," "Let Him Solve Some of Your Problems" and (the always popular) "Say Yes to Sex." But in being nice to their husbands, women do not need to shun their female friends. Ms. Doyle believes it Is important to have" friends with whom to share secrets. As she puts it "Female friends will talk tirelessly and compare notes about their husbands and their marriage, which your husband can't do with you." No kidding! She even suggests that women meet in what she calls "Surrendered Circles" to compare notes. My wife will love that, too.

"I told Reg his bald head was sexy," she will say to her pals. "He actually fell for that?" they will say, tears of incredulous laughter streaming down their faces. Yes, it will definitely be more fun than a book club. Ms. Doyle's book has rendered a great service.

No longer does an American woman have to walk behind her husband in the Japanese fashion just for the chance of a good relationship. In the spirit of the book, all she has to do is speak a few simple American words of her own choosing, such as: "You are so right, my noble master." Excuse me again. Darling. I'm in the mood for romance, you lucky little woman, you. HeM Hello? Anybody there? Funny.

She must have gone to wash my socks. Reg Henry's e-mail address is rhenry (a with Dick Clark on American Bandstand. It was us and Barbi Benton," Czuri recalls, with a laugh. "It was a hoot." Iff0. ittsburqb Post-Gazette Tuesday, February 13, 2001 INSIDE Rodney Crowell Country musician-composer Rodney Crowell stuck his neck out when he tried to instivct Johnny Cash in a recording session.

PEOPLE, PAGE C-7. Clay is the medium of choice as three Shadyside galleries showcase the material in forms that are decorative and sculptural. PAGE C-5. Delude yourself and entertain your friends! Astrocyber-numerology offers another bogus hocus-pocus for peering into the past and future. LIFE SUPPORT, PAGE C-7.

ALSO INSIDE Celebrations Comics Kids' Corner C-8 Horoscope C-9' nnmimn II Tin ti 4 Jfoo-f In time, the band turned metal, recorded two more albums and toured the country with everyone from Ted Nugent to Kiss. "We came back, and we were as bad as any band you'd see in your life," Nardini says. "And people hated our guts. He remembers a gig at the Decade in '76 with Gravel, a folk-country band that would spawn the Nashville writing team Bob Corbin and Dave Hanner. "I think we scared some of the white folk the really white folk," he says.

"We were like the ghetto people." It should be noted here that Nardini is white. The Diamonds were a little scary, though. "Out of the four of us, says Czuri, "I'd say four of us were pretty crazy." Diamond Reo didn't play the Decade often, but Nardini made a last ing impression on DiSilvio because of Nardini's somewhat punk habit. "I had trouble getting Ithe Tigers 1 in there, because someone told Dom I was spitting, and he said, 'I don't want him in my I had to beg to get back in." Nardini got back in. The year was 1980, Diamond Reo had broken up, and Nardini was making a name for himself as the city's most colorful frontman.

it 's moving on PAGE 2 SEE STORY Judging from relationships, Amy By Rob Owen Post-Gazetto TV Editor HOLLYWOOD, Calif Judge Amy Gray got an early Valentine's roll in the hay on last week's "Judging Amy." She'll get another tonight. It's the third episode in the Brenneman) has been pretty much out of the romantic loop. Last month on the Fox studios soundstage that houses the set Maxine Gray's home, executive producer Barbara Hall said Amy's nonexistent sex life was by design. "It was very important for me do a full year about a woman SEE FUDGING PAGE C-6 past month in which she's had sex (most recently with guest star Gregory Harrison), which when you think about the current TV environment, isn't surprising. What is surprising is that it took this long.

Save for a tryst with her ex-husband last season, Amy (Amy FOR ARTS ENTERTAINMENT, 412 for to One of the appeals of "Judging Amy" is the mother-daughter relationship between Tyne Daly's Maxine, left, and Amy Brenneman's Amy. Cliff UpsonCBS E-MAIL: PHONE: FOR FEATURES, 412-263-1635; 263 3859 WEB: WWW.P0ST GAZETTE.COMMAGAZINE.