Cure vocalist nixes planes,house music

It is unlikely that Robert Smith-vocalist,guitarist and songwriter for
British band the Cure-will be found any time soon chatting with fellow
passengers on an airliner about the joys of the London music scene.The
topics of flying and London's pop climate are two areas on which Smith has
some definite-and not so positive-opinions.

"I'm never going to fly again," says Smith,who has logged several thousand
air miles during his band's 10-year career. "I made a promise to myself.
I've decided that enough's enough.It got to the point where I'd get so
stressed by flying.

"The idea of flying is to get from A to B in a far shorter time than if you
traveled by any other means of transport.But when the scales start to tip,
and the discomfort starts to outweigh the speed,you start to wonder why
you're putting yourself through it.

"When I first started (touring with the band),I really loved it,but...the
absurdity of being thousands of feet up in the air in a piece of metal does
sort of strike home to you sometimes as you're hitting clear-air
turbulence."

For the Cure's current tour of America-which brings the band to the
Rosemont Horizon Thursday and Sept. 1-Smith and his bandmates journeyed to
this country aboard the ocean liner QE2.They will travel by bus in the
States,taking a northern route-and playing a couple of Canadian dates-on
their way to the West Coast,then return to the East Coast via a southern
route.

On the subject of London's music scene-dominated for many months by house
music and its offshoot,acid house-Smith also has some definite views.

"It all seems dreadfully contrived,what goes on in London," he says. "It's
only a handful of people who are dictating what's going on.But then
everyone else thinks that's what's going on-and then it is going on.The
same old trick that's been played for years.I think it's all to do with
T-shirt sales more than music."

Judging by Smith's comments,the British capital's pop scene is not
exactly vibrant at the moment.

"We played in London a couple of weeks ago,and the people who came to see
us backstage were,like,(Ian) McCulloch of the Bunnymen and the Cocteau
Twins.It's the same people as before.There's not really that much that has
happened (on the music scene).

"I don't honestly think it seems that way because I'm old or getting old,"
says the 30-year-old Smith. "I think people are still sort of waiting for
something to happen even now.But it is very difficult:You can end up
sounding like all the people you loathed first time around."

The remarks remind Smith that his older brother was able to embrace music
from a couple of generations,finding merit in pop styles that sprang up
almost a decade apart.

"He used to play me Captain Beefheart and Hendrix when I was 10," says
Smith. "When I got to about 17 or 18,punk was happening, and my brother
thought the Sex Pistols and the Clash were brilliant as well.He didn't go
to concerts and pogo because he was too old,but he thought the energy
involved was really good,the excitement.It reminded him of early Rolling
Stones days and things like that."

Smith himself,though,isn't about to embrace the house music that has been
so prevalent in England in recent times.

"With house music,the only thing about that movement I thought was any
good was that it was very easy for anyone to play,that similarity to punk,"
says Smith. "A lot of it is derivative.A lot of what's going on in rap
music,the ethic behind it is so completely misplaced.It's like the
antithesis of punk,in that it's all to do with gaining material things and
punk was all to do with getting rid of material things.The energy involved
is so sort of low,it seems to me,compared to what was going on 10 years
ago."

(For more on the Cure and their latest album, "Disintegration," see
Sunday's Arts section.)

Who:The Cure

Where:Rosemont Horizon,6920 N. Mannheim Rd.,Rosemont; 559-1212.

When:8 p.m. Thursday and Sept. 1

How much:$20