Putting Up 'The Wall'

One of the most ambitious charity concerts in years is to take place on July 21 at Potzdamer Platz in East Berlin, near the Brandenburg Gate, when Roger Waters sings his rock suite ''The Wall.'' The work, which he composed in 1979 for the group Pink Floyd, sold 19 million albums worldwide. It was also performed live in four cities and made into a feature film directed by Alan Parker. It hasn't been staged since 1981.

Planes, helicopters and Army troops from both East and West Germany are to be used for the event. Mr. Waters has asked the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra to participate, and he has also invited rock stars to sing selections from the suite and to play guitar. Their names are to be announced in four to six weeks.

The extravaganza will use the stage designs for the original concert performances, enlarged to fit the outdoor setting. One central feature, a wall of cardboard bricks 60 feet high by 600 feet wide, is already being prepared. The production will also use inflatable figures of characters from ''The Wall'' by the designer Gerald Scarfe, some as tall as 80 feet.

''I think the whole thing is pretty timely,'' Mr. Waters said the other day by telephone from London. ''There has been a lot of talk about a resurgence of neo-Fascism in East Germany. 'The Wall' is about how we all run the risk of turning into extremist despots of one kind or another if we wall ourselves off from other human beings in the world.''

Through ticket sales, donations and television rights, the organizers seek to raise $800 million, which is to be given to the Memorial Fund for Disaster Relief, an international charity based in England founded last year by Leonard Cheshire, a British Royal Air Force hero. The idea, as conceived by Mr. Cheshire, is to create a permanent fund to respond to disasters all over the world.

Banning a Box

A coalition of record company executives and performers has formed to try to change what it says is the expensive and ecologically wasteful packaging of compact disks in the United States, where about 250 million are sold each year.

Among the companies and performers who have joined the group, called Ban the Box, which seeks to ban the standard 6-by-12-inch paperboard and plastic packages for compact disks, are several smaller record companies, including Rykodisc, Rhino, SST, Fantasy and Rounder Records and performers including the Grateful Dead, R.E.M., Kris Kristofferson and Olivia Newton-John.

The opposition to the packaging, which is known as the long box, was organized by Robert Simonds, the chief financial officer for the independent label Rykodisc.

''As a consumer, I go into a record store once a week and buy three or four disks,'' he said the other day. ''I unpackage them before I go into the house, and every time I do that it strikes me as wasteful and stupid.''

Mr. Simonds said the package was also a prohibitive expense for small labels like Rykodisc because of the high costs of creating four-color graphics when only 3,000 to 5,000 copies of the compact disk are expected to sell. The cost of the packaging, he said, adds an extra dollar to the retail price.

The coalition has already proposed some alternatives to the long box, including shrink-wrapped jewel boxes (the plastic containers housing the disks), which are used in many other countries. Another alternative would be reusable 6-by-12-inch plastic frames housing the jewel boxes.

Opposition to Ban the Box has already sprung up. One of the most vocal opponents is Russ Solomon, the president of the nationwide Tower Records chain, who has called the issue ''a tempest in a teapot.''

''Most record dealers and record manufacturers in America are in favor of the long box for security and merchandising reasons,'' he said in a telephone interview the other day from his headquarters in Sacramento, Calif. ''You can't put a $15 item in a little jewel box, and have it lying around in a discount house unattended. The 6-by-12-inch size also allows more graphics to be displayed than the 5-by-6-inch size, and graphics are important in selling the product.''

The idea of replacing the paperboard with a 6-by-12-inch plastic frame Mr. Solomon dismissed as ''looking ugly and cheap.''

Mr. Simonds, however, said he hoped that the coalition could persuade the industry to do away with the long box by the summer of 1991.

A Band's Rejuvenation

When Hillel Slovak, the lead guitarist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, died of a heroin overdose in June 1988, the future of the Los Angeles cult band seemed uncertain. That future looked shakier still when its drummer, Jack Irons, left the band, leaving its lead singer, Anthony Kiedis, and its bassist, Flea, to pick up the pieces.

Nearly two years after the death, however, the rambunctious quartet, which has been known to perform wearing nothing except strategically placed socks, is thriving.

''We wouldn't be where we are today without Hillel, who was influential in creating our style and philosophy,'' Mr. Kiedis said the other day. ''Since being in the band is like being married to four guys at once, we had to find two new members we felt we could spend the rest of our lives with. We got lucky with our new guitar player, John Frusciante, who grew up in Los Angeles and was a Red Hot Chili Pepper fanatic and was completely familiar with every note we'd ever played.

''Our drummer, Chad Smith, was the 40th drummer we auditioned. Before we found him, we were dismayed at the lack of energy of the drummers we had played with. But as soon as he sat down, it was like a herd of psychedelic gorillas.''

With its new members, the band has broken out of its cult status. Its newest album, ''Mother's Milk'' (EMI), which includes rip-roaring cover versions of Jimi Hendrix's ''Fire'' and Stevie Wonder's ''Higher Ground,'' has sold more than 500,000 copies. And its two-evening engagement at the Ritz tomorrow and on Friday is sold out.

photo: Roger Waters, who is to perform his rock suite ''The Wall'' of 1979 on July 21 in East Berlin.