Heavy Metal Music

The Trinity Broadcasting Network, which pulled Pat Boone's half-hour "Gospel America" program indefinitely after the singer sauntered onto the American Music Awards show bare-chested with dark sunglasses and fake tattoos, announced Thursday that Boone and his pastor will appear on the network's "Praise" program.

The Trinity Broadcasting Network's dropping of Pat Boone's weekly half-hour show is no laughing matter. At least not totally. It's understandable that viewers of the conservative Christian television network thought Boone had lost his mind when he went on ABC-TV's "American Music Awards" show Jan. 27 dressed like a heavy metal singer--tattoos, black leather and all. Who didn't?

Singer Pat Boone, one of America's best-known Christian entertainers, has been taken off the air by a national religious television network after showing up at the American Music Awards dressed like a heavy metal rock singer.

What the devil has gotten into the Egyptians? Devil-mania has been the order of the day in Cairo since police swooped into homes on the night of Jan. 22, rounding up scores of upper-class teenagers and young adults. The crime? They were accused of losing their religion and worshiping the devil.

It's been a tough decade for heavy metal. No one knows that better than Ronnie James Dio, the onetime lead singer of Black Sabbath now turned solo artist. Dio's dark, quasi-operatic vocalizing helped Black Sabbath chart two hit albums in 1980 and 1981 in its waning, post-Ozzy Osbourne years. Starting in 1983, he delivered several well-received albums with his band, Dio. The '90s have been less kind. Warner Bros., his high-powered record label for more than 15 years, dropped him.

In its five years, the Lollapalooza tour has come in for a lot of criticism and second-guessing. That goes with the territory for the traveling summer festival, which has become the definitive rock showcase of the '90s. But its organizers weren't prepared for the intense criticism that has followed the recent announcement that Lollapalooza '96 will be headlined not by the kind of alternative-rock act that has anchored the past tours, but by hard-rock giant Metallica.

It's a lovely late-spring afternoon in Manhattan, and a visitor from Los Angeles is seated inside a trendy midtown eatery. A perky waitress suggests a visit to the dazzling antipasto bar; the visitor is neither smiling nor eating. Instead Rob Zombie, leader of the band White Zombie, is nursing a glass of water and soberly putting forth what might be called the theory of negative artistic inspiration.

For many, music by such heavy-metal bands as Megadeath and Black Sabbath means one thing: teen-age rebellion. But for Jim Ambriz, the bands' songs serve as lightning rods, supplying the Saddleback High wrestler with an adrenaline overload. "Before I wrestle I pace back and forth. I've usually got Megadeath's 'Symphony of Destruction' or Sabbath's 'Iron Man' or 'Paranoid' playing in my head," Ambriz said. "Then I go out there (on the mat) and beat my opponent."