1983_12 The Daily Collegian December 1983 Reloaded

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U2 flies high through Big Red Sky'
From their very beginning, it was evident that U2 was a band that mattered
— a bend that was the creator of impassioned, urgent music.
That fact was never clearer than on
War, the Irish group's third album that
established them as one of the most'
important new bands of the decade.
On their ensuingtour of America, U2
convinced all nonbclicvers with a stunning live show, and without question
proved themselves worthy of superstar
The bands 1983 tour — both here
and in Europe — was one of the year*
highlights, and just in time for Christmas U2 has presented their fans with a
gift: an eight-song mini album recorded
live. Under a Blood Red Sky.
Recorded in Denver, Boston and at
the  Rockpalast 83  Festival in West
Germany, Under a Blood Red Sky is an
impressive work, capturing the Irish
quartet at their finest. So cleanly is this
album recorded it almost sounds like a
studio recording with audience applause
dubbed in later.
[Copies of the Audited Financial
Statements of the Associated
Students of California State
University, Fresno, for the: fiscal
year ended June 30, 1983, are
available for review in the Associated Students office located
in the College Union Room 316,
and in the library, Department of
Social Collections
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But such is not the case — producer
Jimmy lovinc has done his usual excellent job of giving a band a clean, crisp
Featuring songs from all three of
their albums. U2 presents us with a fulfilling testament of their musics importance. From War we have "Sunday
Bloody Sunday," "New Years Day,"
and the quiet but forceful "40," which
along with "GIoria"and "I Will Follow"
combine to form the heart and passionate soul of Under a Blood Red Sky. Add
to that "The Electric Co.," "Party Girl"
and "I I O'clock Tick Tock," and we
have the makings for one of the best live
albums in several years.
Paced by the incceasinalv sophisticated guitar work of the Edge, the
rhythm section of bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen Jr. and
the forceful tenor of lead singer Bono'
Vox, U2 sweeps the listener into an
exhilarating, stirring experience.
On a scale of 1 to 10. Under a Blood
Red Sky earns a well-deserved 9.
Although the Doors havent been
together as a group since Jim Morrison's death in 1971, they have maintained their popularity without the
benefit of having released any new
material in more than 10 years.
, Hailed as one of the most important
groups of the late 1960s, the Doors were
the spokesmen for a hedonistic generation raised on rock V roll, protest
marches and Vietnam. Their psychedelic sound, driven by Ray Manzarek's
pumping organ, John Densmore's crashing drums and Robbie Krieger's jagged
guitar, became the hallmark of the
1960s.
In concert, the Doors were right at
home, pushing conventional standards
to the limit and glowing brilliantly as a
musical entity. So it is on AHve, She
Cried, a live chronicle recorded over a
three-year span (1968-70) that covers
the gamut of the Doors' musical styles.
The Doors were often labeled as a
bunch of boozing druggies, but on
Alive, She Cried Morrison and Co. are
sharp, giving the listener a superlative
performance on every song.       ~""~
From the driving blues of Willie Dixon's "Little Red Rooster,*to the electrifying but crude rendition of Van Morri- ^ ^
son's "Gloria,"to the passionate reading
of "Light My Fire," the Doors were
perhaps a little ahead of their time.
Their popularity remains today, even a
decade after Morrison's death, and it
could become even stronger with this
album.
On a scale of 1 to 10, Alive, She Cried
Pat Benatar is one of the finest hard
rock female singers around. That much
can be deduced by listening to her studio albums and her string of hit singles.
But on Live From Earth, her stab at a
live album, Benatar fails miserably.
M uch of Live From Earth sounds like
a cheap bootleg tape recorded from the
bathroom of the concert hall and then
re-recorded onto the cheapest tape
available. So bad is the sound that Neil
Gerardo's fine guitar work is lost most of
the time, and some songs, like "1 Want
eSc* Maaic, Pas* 12
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UTiyttlmo or zi/futegold.
From pro ball...to prison...to pottery
i Raku's life has been shaped and molded like the pottery he creates.
xlLi Mudhamud Raku uses one finger to gently
shape the clay spinning on his potter's wheel, he tells
how his life has been shaped and molded, and how not
until now has he found the right form.
Fourteen years ago the 38-year-old CSUF art student was playing professional football. Six years ago
he was in prison for assault with a deadly weapon.
Now he is content to make pottery and study art.
With a mud-covered finger, Raku points at the
name "Peter Voulkos,"a sculptor he admires, scrawled
on the wall behind him. Flinging a glob of clay at the
scribbling, Raku said, "1 throw mud at him once in
awhile to let him know he is No. 2 and I am No. I."
Although Raku threw the clay at the scribbling on
the wall with a laugh, his words were symbolic. He has
been attending CSUF for two yean, and now believes
it's time to concentrate on being an artist.
"I'm beginning to feel I've paid my dues and now I
want to do ceramics full-time."
For Raku, paying his dues has meant volunteering
many hours a week at Inside Out, a rehabilitation
center for ex-convicts, counseling inmates at the
Fresno County Jail on weekends, and hosting an
Inside Out-sponsored talk show that airs on cable
channel 4 every Thursday night.
Taking the lead from his grandmother, who as a
Mormon went on an evangelistic mission to Connecticut,' Raku set out tin his own mission to help other
ex-convicts and prisoners when he was released from
prison three years ago.
But, taking a draw on his cigarette, the 6-foot-2,
160-pound man said that it is time to put more energy
m his art and his studies.
"I'm going to get my (teaching) credential and my
master's and any other papers that will show all those
people IVe changed."
"All those other people" are the prison authorities at
Sierra Conservation Center in Jamestown and Vaca-
villc North Reception Center where Raku was an
inmate.
Raku's goal is to teach ceramics in prison, an institution that is familiar to him.
X he hands that carefully molded the rows of
multi-colored pots lining several shelves in the Conley
Art Building were not always so gentle. When he was
12 years old be stole bottles of liquor from a boxcar,
the first of many minor crimes that kept him in and out
of juvenile halls until he was 16.Su years ago.duringa
trigger on a shotgun, and he was sent to prison on his
33rd birthday.    s
While Raku was in prison, artist Jerry Meaks taught
him and other inmates ceramics.
"I saw people get beat up," Raku said, rolling a large
lump of clay into a ball. "It was really gross in prison.
Pottery gave you sorhethirrg-to do."
Raku was "sold" on pottery as a teenager after
seeing a man in a juvenile hall farm an elephant and
v   "But my peers wouldn't let me doc
supposed to go to the gym."
L7o Raku, who was known at that time as James
Smith, went to the gym and the playgrounds, and
excelled in football, basketball and track at Edison
High School in Stockton.
He played football and two years of basketball at
San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton, and won a
full-ride basketball scholarship to Utah State. There
he played two years of basketball and some more
football. He was drafted by the National Basketball
Association's Seattle Supersonics, but opted to play
pro football for the Denver Broncos becuase the pay
was better.
He played only four games for the Broncos during
the 1968 and 1969 seasons becuase of an injury. He
finished the 1969 season with the Ottowa Roughriders
of the Canadian Football League.
"When I was 26 years old I had a big decision to
make," be said. "Should I go back and get °eat up
(playing football) or should I be a family man? So I
went to work for PG&E (Pacific Gas and Electric)
because I figured everyone needs electriciiy."
Raku has seven children, ranging in age from 11 to
20, including three 18-year-old sons, "all by different
ladies."
But after the shooting incident, his PGAE job.
ended, and he acquired a handicap: a criminal record.
m.
hen he first began attending CSUF be was
advised by counselors and the Vocational Rehabilitation Center to take business classes. Many business
courses later he realized something—"Who's going to
let me sit in their office?" As an ex-convict. he thought
his chances of landing a job as a secretary, which was
what his schooling was preparing him for, were slim.
So he turned his hands from the typewriter to painting, ceramics and other art classes, and eventually
settled in as a potter.
"Roger Bolomey (a CSU F art instructor) helped me
make a decssioa about doing one phase of art.'' Raku
said. "You cant do a whole bunch."
Raku takes his name from his favorite kind of
ceramics". Raku pottery. An art instructor told him
that his pots weren t really Raku because the only true
Raku potters were those from the Raku family who
originated the type of tow-fire pottery.
So looking up at a poster that said "Mud. Ha Ha,
Mud." Raku decided at that moment to go by Mudhamud Raku.
His artist's license is already under Raku. and he
plans eventually to change his name legally.
"I'm going to change it for art's sake. I know actors
do it. When you're trying to assume an identity, you
need to assume a name."
Reaching up to a shelf, Raku pulls down and examines a pot he's especially proud of. "It looks like velvet.
It even feels like velvet." he said.
The pot is finished with a glaze of his own invention,
a project he's been working on for several semesters.
He finally perfected the glaze on his first firing of Raku
pottery this semester, after experimenting on over 500
pieces of pottery.
'   "It s got its own distinctive look. People can work a
lifetime and.not do that, make their own glaze."
He credits art instructor Larry Anderson with helping him make the glaze which includes lead, frit, cobalt
and copper carbonate.
U chooling and art have been Raku's path back to a
normal life, and he wants to help other ex-convicts,
and convicts, find their place in society.
"I think it's a therapeutic thing. It will give them
some kind of highway, a way to get back. '
"Ex-convicts should be the first ones to go back and
teach,**beiaid. "I think 1 know the problem. IVe been
institutionalized my whole life.
"They say the average grade level (of convicts) is 6.8.
I'm telling it's 3.4. Those guys are out of it."
A specific incident came to his avast- "One time a
guy came out and said,'Hey, how you Homo sapiens
doing?' and got jumped. They thought he was catting
them homosexuals.
"The best way to attack the problem is to prepare
them for getting out. It's really borriMe to expect lacm
to make a transition when they dent know anything."
When you're out of prison, Raku said, with no job,
no money and often no one to turn to for help, its hard
to go to college.
"I know a lady who went out and whored herself lo
buy her books."
Raku wants to go back to prison and try to prepare
convicts for the day they're set oat, bat right now he
wants to finish his own education and find his place in
society.   .
"First you "redoing what you fttvt to do, then you Ye
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