BATTLE OVER ROCK LYRICS FLARES UP AT SYMPOSIUM

Do the Beastie Boys foster freebasing?

Does Ozzy Osbourne induce suicide?

Is there a connection between heavy metal music and animal sacrifice?

No, according to rock musician Frank Zappa, the Dead Kennedys’ Jello Biafra and other music professionals.

Yes, according to Ann Kahn, president of the national Parent Teachers Assn., Jennifer Norwood, director of the Parents Music Resource Center; and alarmed observers.

When they squared off on the issue of rock music’s influence on teen-age behavior Friday at the second annual Music Business Symposium at the Ambassador Hotel, they did agree on one point: The highly publicized controversy that arose two years ago over rock lyrics is an issue that simply won’t go away.

“I probably represent more people here than any one of us sitting in this room,” said the PTA’s Kahn, whose organization claims a membership of 6.2 million. “Those people are of every faith. They are of every belief. They are of every color. And they feel very strongly about this issue. . . . These are not the oddballs of society. These are the caring parents.”

But Zappa and his allies on the panel saw a “hidden agenda” in the persistence of critics who began surfacing in the summer of 1985 when the PTA joined with the Virginia-based PMRC in attempting to warn parents about the music their teen-agers were hearing. They suggested that the PMRC, which was founded by the spouses of several conservative U.S. Senators and other national political figures, might have ulterior motives.

“Do they really want to help or do they want to be President?” panel member Dennis Erokan, publisher of BAM magazine, asked Friday.

“I hope to never have to see another one of these rancid symposiums (sic) on this topic again,” Zappa told about 500 industry professionals at the music industry symposium.

But there seemed little hope for a speedy conclusion to the debate over rock lyrics that allegedly encourage drinking, violence, promiscuity, suicide and drug use.

Musicians, record label executives and rock journalists on the panel focused on censorship and even persecution by government officials and overzealous Christian fundamentalists. Biafra, who gained national attention as leader of the defunct Dead Kennedys punk-rock band, for example, is currently facing pornography charges in Los Angeles Municipal Court because his “Frankenchrist” record album allegedly bears artwork displaying human genitals.

Biafra (whose real name is Eric Boucher) said he and a fellow panelist--Rock Rag magazine publisher Marianne Hatfield--were victims of “cultural vigilantes” who use the PTA and PMRC criticisms to justify their own more extreme attacks.

Hatfield said she and her family have been abused in their hometown of Goshen, Ind., by fundamentalists who equate her rock newsmagazine with satanism, drug use and pornography.

Ministers, parents and probation officers on the panel countered these arguments by suggesting that irresponsible rockers are turning the nation’s children into sociopathic adolescents.

“There’s a band called the Beastie Boys,” said the PMRC’s Norwood. “They are very popular with junior high school students.”

Lyrics on the New York rap ‘n’ rock trio’s album (“Licensed to Ill,” which has been the nation’s best seller for five weeks) “talk about trusting crack, talk about angel dust, freebasing, sniffing glue,” according to Norwood. “They’re playing concerts across the country and because they’re so new, parents have no idea what they’re singing about. There hasn’t been enough publicity on this band.

“So they’re dropping their 12-year-olds off at this concert to have the Beastie Boys spit beer on them and sing about trusting crack. Why can’t parents have the knowledge about what’s going on . . . before they buy these albums for the kids or take the kids to those concerts? That’s all we’re asking.”

Twenty-two record companies represented by the Recording Industry Assn. of America signed an agreement more than a year ago pledging to make lyrics available to parents by printing them on record albums, but the PMRC has complained about a lack of compliance.

Legislation forcing record companies to print lyrics on album covers is the first step toward censorship, warned the music industry professionals.

“When you start to juggle principles of freedom of expression, that’s like juggling nitroglycerin: It’s all right until you drop it,” said panelist Bob Guccione Jr., publisher of Spin magazine.

Most teens may go unaffected by lyrics that seem to encourage sex, suicide and mayhem, but an impressionable or unstable few can be pushed over the edge, according to Greg Bodenhamer of the Southern California-based outreach organization, Back in Control.

He said the organization, which works in conjunction with courts, police and probation departments, deals with about 1,000 troubled youngsters each year. Many of them are heavy metal music fans who commit felonies in part because they are encouraged to do so by their favorite rock artists, he said.

“These are immature, impulsive, aggressive kids who believe the life style, who believe the culture” of heavy metal themes, Bodenhamer said.

The four-day symposium ended Sunday.