POP/ROCK - July 31, 1993

Headbangers Ball: Foundations Forum, the world’s only “hard music” convention, is scheduled for Sept. 9-11 at the Burbank Hilton. Bands scheduled to appear include KISS, in its only live performance this year, as well as the Scorpions and Accept. Other up-and-coming acts include Souls at Zero, Schnitt Acht and My Sister’s Machine.

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Sing Goodby: The Music Machine nightclub in West Los Angeles will close today after more than a decade of presenting local and international rock and pop acts. The final performance features two Southern California-based African groups, San Diego’s Bitoto and Los Angeles’ Makina Loca. The 500-seat club was also a center for African music, and a new nonprofit group, the African Music Society, has been formed to help fill the gap.

TELEVISION

Local Scene: Steve Edwards and Cyndy Garvey will host a new local morning show on KCAL-TV Channel 9 called “Live in L.A.” beginning Aug. 16 at 10 a.m. The one-hour magazine program will examine the Los Angeles and Southern California lifestyle before a live studio audience. The show will include “around town” remotes, entertainment bits, audience interaction and “how to” segments. Edwards’ many local credits include co-hosting the similar longtime KABC morning program “A.M. Los Angeles” from 1984-91. Garvey was also an “A.M. Los Angeles” co-host (with Regis Philbin) from 1978-81.

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New ‘Street’ Scene: Big changes are in store for Big Bird and the rest of the “Sesame Street” gang this fall--the biggest in the program’s history. In an attempt to make the children’s show “more responsive to today’s children,” new actors, new music and a whole new street of people and places are being added as the show enters its 25th season. Also new this season--eight new Muppets from Jim Henson’s shop, seven of them female. Among the new live characters is one played by comedian Ruth Buzzi.

ARTS

The Show Goes On: The Christian Action Network will reopen the art exhibit “A Graphic Picture Is Worth a Thousand Votes” in the office of Rep. Phil Crane (R. Ill.), a member of the House Ways and Means Committee who planned the original show. The conservative policy group got shut down earlier this week when it tried to stage the same exhibit of “offensive” photos, funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, at the Capitol. “It’s pretty scary when taxpayer-funded art cannot be shown in the taxpayer-funded U.S. Capitol building,” said the group’s president, Martin Mawyer.

MOVIES

Getting the Boot: Clint Eastwood, Jack Palance, Jane Fonda and Ted Turner are among the seven recipients of the 1993 Golden Boot Awards for Western-style films, which will be given out Aug. 21 in a benefit for the Motion Picture and Television Fund Foundation. Other honorees are stuntman Chuck Courtney, actor Buck Taylor and the late William (Hopalong Cassidy) Boyd. . . . Meanwhile, Jane and Ted aren’t drawing all rave reviews these days. Members of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals plan to protest outside a buffalo meat promotion that the couple, who recently bought buffalo ranches, is holding Friday in Wisconsin.

LEGAL FILE

Helping Hand: Dan Aykroyd bailed out a friend in Connecticut charged with growing about $400,000 worth of marijuana. “Anyone that knows Mr. Aykroyd knows that he would never turn his back on a friend,” said his publicist, Susan Patricola. Aykroyd provided the $100,000 bond to get John Murtha, 46, of Milford, out of the New Haven Correctional Center last week, authorities said. Police said Aykroyd also bailed Murtha out in 1991, when he and his girlfriend were charged with marijuana possession.

QUICK TAKES

Davis Gaines, Los Angeles’ longest-running Phantom of the Opera, will make his local concert debut at the Universal Amphitheatre on Sept. 18. . . . Former Warner Bros. animator Friz Freleng will make a rare gallery appearance at a showing honoring his 90th birthday today at 6 p.m. at Animation Plus! on Melrose Avenue. . . . Michael Arabian’s back-lot production of “Romeo and Juliet,” which had just been extended at CBS Studio Center, will in fact close on Sunday because a soundstage where the production took place is needed for a filmed production. . . . KCET-TV Channel 28 scheduled a quick airing of “The Flood of ‘93,” the timely PBS documentary about the floods in the Mississippi River valley, for tonight at 8.