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The 'royal we' with Rob and Kevin What the world needs now is love, sweet love. That’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.” Ah, the soothing notes and words of Burt Bacharach. You might know him as the guy who played the piano while Austin Powers wooed Vanessa Kensington in the first Austin Powers movie. Wfe know him as a legendary songwriter and musician who recently collaborated with the wonderful Elvis Costello. You might be ask ing yourself, What’s this got to do with anything? So glad you asked. You see, our friend Burt was in charge of the music for the Oscars this past Sunday. Burt was a glim mering presence at the Academy Awards, but his music was downright weird. We suppose he was try ing to bring the old and new together in his conduc tion, because we swear we heard break-beat versions of the themes from “Jaws” and “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.” We expected to see kids dancing and dropping acid to this stuff. It was a little wild and out of place in our opinion. Change is good, Burt, but some things just don’t mix. Remember, oil and water... There was another aspect to the Oscars we found a bit out of place. The master of ceremonies (you know, the guy who seems to know everything about every body there) was on camera several times that night. He had this little studio set up in the left wing of the stage. You could see Oscar recipients walking past as he segued the commercials and the upcoming events. Not only was the guy goofy-looking, but we were just taken aback by his vocal and visual presence in the show. What happened to the colorful shots of the crowd? Wfe vaguely recall, but we think they showed the same few people over and over again. The only time the cameramen strayed was to show a shot of Val Kilmer. Val Kilmer?!? Where the hell has he been, and why was he at the Oscars? Do they let anybody in? This star of “The Saint,” “Batman Forever,” “Re al Genius” and “Tombstone” has been a ghost recent ly, but we guess all the freaks come out at the Oscars. Anyway, back to the master of ceremonies. Why was he shown so many times? Why did they decide to give him an active role in the evening’s events? It just gave the show more of that dance hall atmosphere. Here we have Burt dropping mad beats and our M.C. keeping us posted at all times. What’s more was the floor (nice rhyme there, huh). Host Billy Crystal said they borrowed it from “Soul Train,” and webelieve them. While it was pretty cool, it was a bit much at times. Where was the rest of the cast of “Hair”? Even the background was a lot to di gest. We hope there were no epileptics watching, be cause the flashing lights might have been too much for them. Sometimes the special effects were too much for even the stars to handle. During the homage to movie music, Isaac Hayes disappeared behind a cloud of fog. You could still hear the words of “Shaft,” but he was buried at his keyboard. Wfe felt like we were watch ing one of those animatronic performers at Disney World. The smoke would always build up before they pulled the robot off stage. Like Crystal said, “How do you lose Isaac Hayes?” So they got rid of the interpretive dance this year, but the show still ran dreadfully long. We know the more important (or eagerly awaited) awards are saved for last, but this also means that their acceptance speech es were shorter and had to be cut. So we could have heard a five-minute speech from the recipient of the Art Direction Oscar, but our Best Director might have had to cut his speech short because Burt was striking up the band and dropping mad beats again. But who are we to mess with tradition? Wfe haven’t even thought of an acceptable alternative to the way the show is run. We, for starters, would lose some of the science and get it back to a prestigious and for mal awards ceremony. The actors should take the main stage, not the music, staging and wacky M.C. guy. By the way, what the hell was Robin Williams do ROYAL see page 7 WUSC-FM spring 2000 schedule Time slot Monday Tuesday 12-2 a.m. Tug, with Audio Occasional Music Assault 2-4 a.m. N'se Mandy 4-6 a.m. Nirav Casey McKeever 6-8 a.m. Christi Anthony Pistilli 8-10 a.m. Peter A. Ken 10-noon Jim Village O’ Kevin Variety Heard It 12-2 p.m. Trent Auditory Stimulation 2-4 p.m. Niffer The Girl Show 4-6 p.m. The Marquee Wasteland Music 6-8 p.m. Breakneck Blues Moon Punk Rock w/ DeLune 8-10 p.m. Radio Riot Big Band Hardcore Show 10-midnight HARDTIME The LoudRock Connection WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY Imperial Midnight Nonstop Theater Hangover Hip-Hop Audio XTC Will Cathcart Louis St. Jacques John Elliott Scott Cunn Derik Brenner The Morning Morning Music Tony H. After Invasion Jennifer L. DJ McClaine Mitch Schitzophrenic Jason P. Morning Meat Surplus Supertwins Justin The Action Hour Catacombs Spin Cycle DJ Smiley Afternoons with JMAC Richard H. Russ B. TGIF The Afterlight Ska Revolution armageddon Revolution/ Free Format La Voz Wed. Shag Latina Wed. Shag Nonstop Locals Hip-Hop Only SATURDAY SUNDAY Andy's Dave Wood Onslaught Jen & Dawn Campbell Campbell Campbell Campbell Mandy M. Red Bank Stacia Bar & Grill Red Bank Sunday Mom. Bar & Grill Excursions Nate the Lone Great Gunman Ghetto Radio Hymns Clash Easy Radio Skanking Inferno Nick & Electric CK Podium Textures Digital Dis tribution Dark Dead Cow Entries Show wusc top 30 1. Dinosaur Jr. - BBC Sessions 2. Modest Mouse - Building Something Out of Nothing 3. YoLa Tengo - And Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out 4. Apples in Stereo - Looking Ahead EP 5. Guided By Voices - Hold on Hope EP 6. Morphine - The Night 7. Ryucbi Sakamoto - Cinemage 8. Will Oldham - Guarapero 9. The Alchemyst and Simeon - S/T 10. Kid Koala - Carpal Tunnel Syn drome 11. Olivia Tremor Control - The Peel Sessions 12. BradMebldau - Deregulating Jazz 13. GungaDin - Glilterati 14. Paul Newman - Machine is Not Bro ken 15. Mekons - Journey Through the Night 16. Van Morrison, Lonnie Donegan, Chris Barber - The Skiffle Sessions 11. Sex Mob - Solid Sender 18. New Dimensions in Music w/ Matthew Shipp - Time is of the Essence 19. Josh Rouse - Home 20. Sun Ra and His Solar Myth Arkestra - Life is Splendid 21. AnandaShankarExperience - Walk ing On 22. Death Cab For Cube - We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes 23. The Flashing Lights - Where the Change Is 24. John B. - Catalyst 25. Zony Marsh - Upper Eygpt 26. Poster Children - DDD 27. Lucky Bishops - S/T 28. Papas Fritas - Buildings and Grounds 29. Rev. Horton Heat - Spend a Night in a Box 30. Windsor For tire Derby-Difference and Repetition