Music Machine

IT WASN'T WITH THE IDEA OF changing people's tastes that Anne Robinson and her husband, William Ackerman, decided to issue Ackerman's solo guitar LP, "In Search of the Turtle's Navel," the 1976 debut disc on the Windham Hill label.. "People simply like his music and asked him to put a record out," says Robinson, who was working as a manager of the Plowshare Bookstore in Palo Alto at the time. "I didn't have money to invest, but I gave time and energy. I hand-sold a lot of those records."

Those individuals whose mission in life is to seek out the Ultimate Biker Bar Band needn't have stopped, looked and listened any further than the nearly 90 minutes of bruisin' blues 'n' brews pounded down by local semi-legends Top Jimmy and the Rhythm Pigs at the Music Machine on Thursday night. Truthfully, it wasn't much different from any of the shows the band did five . . . seven . . . nine years ago.

When the blind Jamaican singer-songwriter Frankie Paul burst on the reggae scene three years ago, he was frequently likened to Stevie Wonder. And Paul's brief, but dazzling, half-hour performance before an overflow crowd Saturday at the Music Machine made those comparisons seem quite reasonable.

The Music Machine, Chula Vista's answer to Up With People, has a novel problem: How to adapt the high school song-and-dance group's routine to a 25-foot-long float careening through the streets of a French city when the float is just six feet wide. The 11-year-old ensemble--proud possessor of 59 awards from 52 festivals, 40 of them first place--has been invited by the city of Nice to perform in its next Mardi Gras celebration, which dates to the 13th Century.

One part Caravan of Stars, two parts jam session and all the way live, "A Night at Antone's" pulled into the Music Machine for two shows over the weekend, bringing Los Angelenos a taste of the ambiance of the Austin, Tex., club that's served as home and riding partner to the Blues for the past 12 years.

What better way to usher in 1987 than with a little bit of high-tech time travel? That's the philosophy behind "The Time Machine--The Musical," a new adaptation of H.G. Wells' classic, which opens Wednesday (New Year's Eve) at the Gene Dynarski Theatre--and the only opening in a week much given over to ushering in the New Year with other kinds of celebrations.

The Meat Puppets is part of a new breed of quality rock bands that appeal to your gambling instincts. And the Puppets certainly rolled the dice boldly in a warm, good-natured and constantly surprising show Friday at the Music Machine. Traditionally, pop performers have isolated the elements in their concerts that worked best and served them up show after show. This standard Social Contract of Pop is the live equivalent of a greatest hits album--with a few new numbers to plug the latest LP.

Just by coincidence, the atom bomb and MTV both celebrated anniversaries within a few days of each other. MTV, the "video music" channel, is the first TV network to look as good as its commercials, but then MTV is a commercial, a 24-hour-a-day advertisement for the record business. MTV videos--tireless pluggers of albums, singles, and movies--are flashily produced closet commercials frequently interrupted for real commercials.