Beach to reopen; egotism ridiculed on ACTV's "Cow'

BYLINE KATHLEEN McTEE

The questions surrounding the fate of the Beach Cabaret have been answered. Although Chris Mossler, owner of the Beach and the South Bank, is still out of town, a Beach employee reports that the club is ordering beer - a sure sign that there will be many more Beach gigs to come for local bands. This is great news for local musicians, many of whom report that they'd gladly play a benefit for the club. Apparently, this won't be necessary yet - even though Mossler closed down during two of the busiest weeks of the year for local clubs. A benefit should be organized anyway - to fund the construction of a real parking lot for the Beach. * * * Mentioning the "Austin Avalanche" episode of IRS's The Cutting Edge to local music fans is like asking Leonard Nimoy for a look at his ears - most would rather watch Regis Philbin reruns than watch the town's hour of infamy again. A snippet of the Austin Avalanche, however, has been put to fascinating use by several local videomeisters in the latest edition of Sacred Cow on Austin Community Television, cable Channel 10. The Doctors' Mob sequence of the show, produced by Kevin Booth and former Mobster Jimmy Dolusio, and shot by David Johndrow, is what might be called a reinterpretation of recent Austin music history. "It's a rock star video, my impression of The Cutting Edge" said Dolusio. "Kevin had the original idea, and David did the camerawork, but we used my ego,"he said. The video, shot at various locations around Austin, including the Villa Capri Motor Inn, intercuts new elements into the Mob sequence originally shown on The Cutting Edge. "It's my ego gone wild - not really me, but a hologram of my ego." Dolusio said. Set to the song Somewhere Else, the video reveals the ugly underside of rock'n'roll: Dolusio with "hot babes,' playing his bass behind his neck, burning his bass Jimi Hendrix-style, tuning on stage and frowning at the other band members. "It's an open challenge to Doctors' Mob to put together their own version of what happened, Three's Company style," said Dolusio. He describes the video as intentionally "rank, amateurish, self-supporting" and "goofy." Sacred Cow is the creation of Kevin Booth of Year Zero. He said that he's been doing video for about two years, and has been working on the cable series for four months or so. Much of the video used in the show is actual footage from Booth's files. "I've got about 100 hours of what are basically home movies that I'm clearing out," he said. Sacred Cow includes everything from video parodies to road footage shot on Year Zero's tours. "The shows are sort of psychedelic home movies put together real quickly," Booth said. This week's Sacred Cow includes, in addition to the Dolusio sequence, a video of Eye of the Storm by heavy metal gods Cockmometer, footage of Year Zero in the studio and on tour in St. Louis, and what Dolusio described as "the famous five-minute sequence of Year Zero member Brent Ballard searching for his cigarettes and sunglasses." Booth says that another of his video projects, a 10 minute feature on Year Zero, will air on ACTV in the next few weeks. Ninja Bachelor Party, yet another Sacred Cow production, features comedian Bill Hicks and Johndrow, and is also forthcoming. "Hopefully, we'll start working soon on a real video for Year Zero," Booth said. Watch for Sacred Cow productions on ACTV: the Dolusio video airs Friday at 6:27 p.m., Eye of the Storm airs Friday at 11:49 p.m. and Saturday at 11:28 p.m.; and the entire current edition of Sacred Cow will be on ACTV Sunday morning at 1:30 a.m. and again at 11 p.m. Monday, 12:30 a.m. Wednesday, and at midnight Thursday.

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