Councilman ‘Appalled’ by Heavy Metal Band’s Show

Clad in a tuxedo, Councilman Evan Anderson Braude hopped from one New Year’s Eve celebration to another in the downtown area Saturday night. He heard Les Brown and His Band of Renown at the Queen Mary, had dinner at a hotel, watched Mexican dancers at the convention center and spent 10 minutes listening to Ozzy Osbourne’s heavy metal band at the Long Beach Arena.

However brief his stay in Osbourne’s outrageously metallic world, Braude found it memorable. “I have to say I was appalled at what I heard and what I saw,” Braude reported to his colleagues at Tuesday’s council meeting. “I don’t know how to describe it. I would have to say it was fairly gross.”

The on-stage comments of Osbourne’s guitarist, Zaak Wylde, so offended Braude that the councilman wants city attorneys to research whether the performer violated obscenity and civil disorder laws--and whether the group can be barred from performing at the city-owned arena again.

In addition to using graphic sexual language, the guitarist exhorted his youthful listeners to attack homosexuals, using derisive epithets to refer to them, Braude said. “He was essentially inciting them . . . to riot against a particular group of people,” Braude maintained, saying the musician’s anti-homosexual message had a fascist ring to it. “He was carrying on like a Nazi.”

Osbourne’s manager, Sharon, who is also his wife, declined comment, according to a spokesman.

David Meek, assistant manager of the Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center, which includes the arena, said he did not hear the gay-bashing comments, although he was at the performance. He said he would be happy to talk with Braude about his concerns, adding that the arena office would undoubtedly convey the councilman’s complaints to Osbourne’s promoter and ask the rock musicians “to tone down” their act at future arena appearances.

If the convention center refused to book the band, it would invite discrimination complaints, Meek suggested.

Several spokesmen for the city’s sizable homosexual community said they were not aware of the guitarist’s remarks and had not received any complaints. “I haven’t heard a word about that,” said Robert Lawson, chairman of the board of directors of One in Long Beach Inc., a gay and lesbian community service group. “I’m definitely going to look into it.”

If the guitarist’s remarks were in violation of any laws, they would be state obscenity and civil peace codes. Speaking generally, city prosecutors said prosecution under either code is difficult, particularly where arts performances are involved. “There’s an awful lot of license given performers” to protect their First Amendment rights, City Prosecutor John A. Vander Lans said.

Under the state’s obscenity standard, material could be declared obscene if no reasonable person could find it to be of significant artistic or literary value. Another section of state law prohibits the public use of language that is inherently likely to provoke immediate violence.

Osbourne, a British rock star who has played before at the arena, has made a career out of shocking audiences. He has been banned from concert halls in Scranton, Pa. and Springfield, Mo., and picketed as a devil worshiper. His notoriety leaped several notches in 1982 when he bit the head off a dead bat tossed on stage during a performance in Des Moines.

Last weekend’s two-night stand in Long Beach went without problems, Meek said. “I’m very pleased that the concert went so smoothly. Of all the Osbourne performances (at the arena), this had by far the most well-behaved audience.”

The 13,000-seat arena was nearly sold out for both performances by fans aged from the mid-teens to 30s.

That youngsters were exposed to sexually explicit language particularly disturbed Braude. “I just can’t believe this was done in a public forum where children were allowed to be present,” said Braude, an attorney and former Los Angeles city prosecutor who hastened to add he has been a member of the American Civil Liberties Union. He just hasn’t paid his dues lately.

Braude said he was told there was no official recording of last Saturday’s performance, making it doubtful the city would be able to prosecute Osbourne’s band for the act. He is also unsure if the city would have the legal means to keep the group from returning to the arena.

But at the very least, he said, future Osbourne performances in Long Beach should be monitored for objectionable material. “We don’t want this kind of group here.”