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(03/27/02 5:00am)
Source Tags & Codes\n... And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead\nInterscope Records\nCertainly the most hyped release since last year's Strokes and White Stripes records, the third album and major label debut from Texas' ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead doesn't fail to deliver on its enormous buzz. But instead of looking to the New Yorks and Detroits of the 1960s and '70s for inspiration, the Trail revisits British college campuses of the late '80s, when shoegazer bands like Ride and My Bloody Valentine were constructing impenetrable walls of sound using a few effects pedals and amps that go up to 11, this with a little hardcore punk thrown in.\nSource Tags & Codes is a propulsive, explosive affair that relies on densely layered guitars fighting for the upper hand with the shouty, anguished singing of Jason Reece and Conrad Keely (Rule No. 1 in the Shoegazer Handbook: Mix the vocals low). On the first few listens, the songs tend to blow by, all angst and feedback with no breathing room in between. But upon repeated exposure, the album's skin of visceral intensity peels back to reveal...well, more intensity, sure, but something human and vulnerable as well.\nSome might be a little put-off by the sometimes over-the-top emotion of the lyrics ("What is forgiveness? / It's just a dream" goes one call-and-response section), but it's light years ahead of your average emo verse (no references to seasons or sweaters, as far as I can tell), and there are some surprisingly affecting moments, particularly the sweeping chorus of "Heart in the Hand of the Matter" and the coming-down finale of the title track.\nWho knows how long the Trail and fellow rock anti-heros Queens of the Stone Age will survive on a label that counts Fred Durst as a Vice President? Source Tags & Codes is not instantly accessible, but it is instantly attention-grabbing, and it takes more than a few chances -- mostly with successful results. The future looks promising.\n
(03/21/02 10:31pm)
England, Half English\nBilly Bragg and the Blokes\nElektra Records\nBilly Bragg has spent the last four or five years with the American rockers in Wilco, putting unreleased Woody Guthrie lyrics to music for the acclaimed Mermaid Avenue albums. While that work certainly must have satisfied the progressive folk artist in him, using the words of the quintessentially American Guthrie has kept Bragg silent on a topic he's usually quite fond of writing about: being British. If you couldn't guess by the title, his first collection of wholly original songs in five years more than makes up for lost time.\nNot that he's a flag-waving Tory, mind you. Rather, Bragg's attitude towards his home country could be described as ambivalent at best. And he addresses that uneasiness throughout England, Half English -- most noticeably in "Take Down the Union Jack," an anti-patriotic diatribe that probably wouldn't fly too well if it was written in our country right now. Bragg's political consciousness also shines through on "NPWA" -- No Power Without Accountability -- an anti-globalization anthem (see the "anti-" trend here?) that might seem trendy if you didn't know he was singing about this sort of thing 15 years ago.\nAs with all of Bragg's albums, he gives equal time to matters of the heart, including the anti-adulterous "Jane Allen" and "Another Kind of Judy" (cracking tune, but minus five points for the cheap shot at the Pet Shop Boys). But certainly the most affecting moment is the album's closer, "The Tears of My Tracks." The song isn't about unrequited love, or corporate exploitation of third-world cultures -- it's something far more depressing. "I sold all my vinyl yesterday," he sings, and you feel that lump rise in the back of your throat. "Somebody owns all my albums now." Oh boy, here come the waterworks. Steal a man's heart, steal a man's freedom, but for god's sake -- don't make a man sell his records. That's just brutal.\n
(03/21/02 5:00am)
England, Half English\nBilly Bragg and the Blokes\nElektra Records\nBilly Bragg has spent the last four or five years with the American rockers in Wilco, putting unreleased Woody Guthrie lyrics to music for the acclaimed Mermaid Avenue albums. While that work certainly must have satisfied the progressive folk artist in him, using the words of the quintessentially American Guthrie has kept Bragg silent on a topic he's usually quite fond of writing about: being British. If you couldn't guess by the title, his first collection of wholly original songs in five years more than makes up for lost time.\nNot that he's a flag-waving Tory, mind you. Rather, Bragg's attitude towards his home country could be described as ambivalent at best. And he addresses that uneasiness throughout England, Half English -- most noticeably in "Take Down the Union Jack," an anti-patriotic diatribe that probably wouldn't fly too well if it was written in our country right now. Bragg's political consciousness also shines through on "NPWA" -- No Power Without Accountability -- an anti-globalization anthem (see the "anti-" trend here?) that might seem trendy if you didn't know he was singing about this sort of thing 15 years ago.\nAs with all of Bragg's albums, he gives equal time to matters of the heart, including the anti-adulterous "Jane Allen" and "Another Kind of Judy" (cracking tune, but minus five points for the cheap shot at the Pet Shop Boys). But certainly the most affecting moment is the album's closer, "The Tears of My Tracks." The song isn't about unrequited love, or corporate exploitation of third-world cultures -- it's something far more depressing. "I sold all my vinyl yesterday," he sings, and you feel that lump rise in the back of your throat. "Somebody owns all my albums now." Oh boy, here come the waterworks. Steal a man's heart, steal a man's freedom, but for god's sake -- don't make a man sell his records. That's just brutal.\n
(02/28/02 5:00am)
For the last three years, local drum and bass collective Terminal Minded has been recording music and playing at house parties and clubs throughout Bloomington. Their next local live appearance will be March 1 at Space 101. Here, TM member Matt Weldon talks about the nature of their live show, being mistaken for DJs and the state of the electronic music scene in Bloomington. \nQ: Can you say something about this show coming up at Space 101 on March 1?\nA: The show is called "The Syndicate Strikes Back." It's an electronic music event featuring 23 different DJs and artists in two rooms, with professional live video, plus automated lasers and a massive sound system. Rob F of Renegade Hardware fame will be performing, as well as Wrisk and MC Bubbla (of GAIN recordings), who are flying out from London to make their first-ever U.S. appearance, right here in Bloomington. Anyone in Bloomington who is remotely interested in dance music or electronic music culture needs to be at this show, period.\nQ: What role does the Bloomington Bass Syndicate play locally?\nA: The Bloomington Bass Syndicate is basically the umbrella group that most of the significant local promoters and DJs are using to network and plan shows. Essentially, the idea is that our scene is simply too small for competition between crews, but that there's room for everybody if we help each other out and avoid stepping on each other's toes. It seems to have worked fairly well so far. We have a Yahoo! threaded discussion group online, which is pretty active, and we occasionally all get together to put on these larger events -- events that wouldn't really be possible in Bloomington without a collective effort. \nIn a more subtle way, I think the BBS is attempting to legitimize electronic music as an art form and cultural force in Bloomington. With all the bad press, rhetoric and misinformation going around regarding this subculture these days, people easily lose sight of what 99.999 percent of us are in it for -- the music. It sounds like a cliché, but it's not. Plain and simple, we're all doing this because we feel a connection with how this music and culture affects us emotionally. And we simply want to share that with as many people as possible.\nQ: You said that you started Terminal Minded with an interest in "nurturing a budding local scene." What is the state of the electronic music scene in Bloomington right now?\nA: I suppose that depends on whom you ask. My feeling is that the scene is starting to gel, but it's not necessarily growing per se (a lot of people would disagree with me on that). We are definitely better organized than we were even a few months ago, to the point where we can do shows with internationally known artists as headliners. But, as far as I can tell, it's still restricted to a fairly small but devoted group of people. Most of the audience is still under 21, so you're not seeing much turnout at bars, etc. It's still mostly house parties, with the occasional bigger show.\nQ: What's your live show like? Do you play only your own stuff or is it more like a DJ mix set? Do you do your own visuals?\nA: We play only our own stuff. Period. Some tracks are more "performance-oriented" than others, but it's all ours and it's all being done live.\nWe had a running joke going on for a while; early on, we'd have people come up to us after our set at a house party or something and compliment us on the records we were supposedly playing. Sometimes it was funny, but other times it was kind of obnoxious. I mean, we've got all these crazy blinking boxes with wires hanging out of them, and we're making mistakes that you're not going to hear in a DJ set, and still people can't figure it out. So we went out and printed a bunch of T-shirts with the words "We are not DJs" printed on the front and started wearing them at our shows and giving them away. Some people may not have gotten the joke, but it was all in good fun. Now when somebody comes up and makes a similar comment, I try to be a lot more patient and explain it to them. Admittedly, it's not the sort of thing you see every day.\nKyle Birkemeier (a.k.a. Dr. Mindbender) does all of the visuals live on one or two Macintosh computers and a top-of-the-line video projector; some of it is stuff he did from scratch and some of it is "sampled" from various sources and mixed/mangled -- film excerpts, digital video bits etc. He's essentially doing the video equivalent of what we do musically, so it complements us well, especially since what we do on stage is not always especially exciting to watch. Plus he's damn good at it.\nQ: Is this just a hobby for you guys, or do you hope to eventually work in the sphere of electronic music as a career? Do you hope to take Terminal Minded beyond Bloomington?\nA: Well, after pouring thousands of dollars and hours into this enterprise, we can't really call it a hobby anymore. I'd like to say that we definitely have goals beyond the scope of the Bloomington scene. We're already venturing out of town to do shows -- we just played in Kalamazoo, Mich. on Feb. 15, and we're performing in Lafayette (Ind.) on March 2 -- and a tour is probably inevitable at this point. Kyle's networking skills have gotten us some label attention as well, so we're currently putting together a handful of DJ-friendly tracks that will hopefully see a vinyl release. Unfortunately, Bloomington is too small of a town to really support us in a financial sense. We love our friends and fans that come to see us, and this will continue to be our base of operations for the foreseeable future, but, yeah, at some point you've got to get the word out to as many places as possible, and that means putting out records and touring.
(02/28/02 5:00am)
Geogaddi\nBoards of Canada\nWarp Records\nDo you remember those faded, scratchy nature filmstrips your teacher showed you in grade school? You might not have realized it then, but the bulk of those were made with money from the National Film Boards of Canada, and it's from those relics of the pre-VCR/cable days that Scottish electronic duo Boards of Canada take both their name and a good deal of the inspiration for their evocative ambient music.\nThe pair ambled out of the underground in 1998 with their debut LP, Music has the Right to Children, a record that definitely took influences from Warp labelmates like Aphex Twin and Autechre -- twisted, crunchy beats and meandering keyboard melodies -- but mellowed them out and took them to a beautiful place out in the country. They stayed there for their next release, the 2000 EP incidentally titled In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country.\nGeogaddi, the full length follow-up to Children and Country, doesn't break a whole lot of new ground, but expands the sonic palette enough that Boards fans should stay both pleased and interested. The Children formula is adhered to -- short, one-minute passages of ethereal ambience alternate with longer passages of ethereal ambience with beats. Just as before, there's a certain David Lynch quality to the peaceful drones, as if something ominous is lurking just below the surface. \nThere's some subtle packaging psychology at work here as well; where Children's sleeve was cool, hazy turquoise photographs of 1970s families, Geogaddi's booklet is warm and red, with geometric kaleidoscope patterns of, um, children. These images, combined with track names like "Music is Math," "The Smallest Weird Number" and "A is to B as B is to C" reflect a shift towards the scientific end of the inspiration spectrum. Maybe they were watching a filmstrip about volcanoes and not the forests of Northern Canada this time, but the Boards are still definitely exploring the same beautiful place.\n
(02/20/02 5:00am)
Since they started self-releasing records in the 1980s, the Dayton, Ohio-based rockers in Guided By Voices have become icons of so-called "college" rock, finding a progressively wider audience with albums like Bee Thousand (1994) and Alien Lanes (1995). The latter part of the 1990s saw the band move away from basement 4-track recording and into the studio, recording an album with Cars frontman Ric Ocasek (1999's Do the Collapse) that divided fans with its more polished sound. The band will kick off its next tour Friday, at the Bluebird Nightclub. Here guitarist Doug Gillard speaks about life on the road, the forthcoming new album and the problems with breaking into the mainstream. \nQ: Do you guys rehearse a lot right before a tour?\nA: Yeah. This time we're especially going to be practicing, for probably two or three days. We usually practice maybe once to bone up for a tour. But we're breaking in a new drummer (Kevin March, replacing the departing Jon McCann).\nQ: You guys have a huge songbook. Is he cramming to learn all these songs?\nA: Yeah, I guess so! When you first join the band there's always at least 60 songs to learn for the live set.\nQ: Is it still hard for you to remember all those songs on stage?\nA: It's only difficult at first, when you very first join. After a while, the songs that you learn along the way and/or have played so often, it just becomes second nature.\nQ: Do you enjoy being out on the road?\nA: Yeah, we always have a really good time on the road. Sometimes the driving part gets a little tedious, but we always enjoy being on the road and being together.\nQ: Why do you think Cleveland, and Ohio in general, produces so many bands?\nA: I could never really put my finger on it. I've tried to offer explanations, but I don't really know. Maybe everyone in Ohio thinks there's something to live up to.\nQ: Musically?\nA: Yeah. So they tried to keep it going. I can't really say because the state's boring… there's a lot more boring states than Ohio.\nQ: Have the songs become more straight-ahead to reflect the move into the studios, or vice versa?\nA: They just happen to coincide. The last two or three years, Bob (Pollard, Guided By Voices vocalist) has been writing a little more straightforward lyrically, lengthening the songs a little bit more, fleshing them out. The songs are a little bit more serious, generally. This new one, there's a little bit of everything on it. It's really not heavy on the serious songs. Bob's also been writing the lyrics and titles first and kind of constructing the music around that. So that's sort of a newer approach for him in the way the songs are done.\nQ: Are you working with an outside producer again on the new record?\nA: No, we produced it ourselves with Todd Tobias, who is (GBV bassist) Tim's brother and also played on Circus Devils with Bob. He's also in the band Tim and I have called Gem.\nQ: When you go into the studio to record, do you take a lot of time, or are the songs ready to go?\nA: Usually, we are rehearsed and we bang 'em out. We did two different sessions for this last album that's not out yet -- one in Dayton where we pretty much had known the songs beforehand, and then we just did one (session) in Kent, Ohio, where a lot of them were not rehearsed, so a lot of those were learned in the studio, but also we wanted a spontaneous feel for that batch of songs. So, it didn't take much time for us to learn them and bang them out, and we weren't meticulous on whether there were mistakes left in or not. We got them to where they were pretty good, and still spontaneous sounding, still fresh sounding, and they sound great.\nQ: Do you guys do the artwork for the albums yourselves?\nA: Not with TVT. Bob wanted to have a collage for the cover of Isolation Drills, and they didn't like it at first, and they said, 'If you'll agree to let us have an artist paint it over, without all the scotch tape marks and everything, then we'll consider it.' See, they're not into the idea -- they think everything should look really professional. Their artist did the airplane thing for Isolation Drills which ended up not being too bad, it's a pretty cool cover. I just think Guided By Voices records need that flavor of what Bob always used to do, which was have his collage. Even Mag Earwhig! has one of Bob's collages. He does really great photo collages, so this next one definitely will. We don't know what it will be out on. \nQ: So the new one won't be out on TVT?\nA: No.\nQ: You're just shopping around for a deal?\nA: Yeah. We're hoping the album will be out within four or five months -- early summer, but we're not sure. \nQ: Are you happy with the level of success you guys have reached, or are you going to try to push higher? \nA: We sort of tried that with TVT and Do the Collapse and Isolation Drills, trying to have top 40 singles, and we had "Hold on Hope" on Conan O'Brien and everything. Nothing was really taking off like a jumbo jet. We're happy kind of having artistic freedom and really doing songs and albums the way we want to. \nQ: Do you think you guys weren't promoted right, or has the climate made it impossible to break through?\nA: I always think it's entirely possible, if there wasn't such a stigma from radio and heads of record companies thinking that things just have to be a certain way. If anything's promoted enough, a lot more people are going to latch onto it. There's no reason "Glad Girls" (from Isolation Drills) shouldn't have been really huge last year. That's a fine song. It's a good pop song that rocks. The other thing is that we're not young and marketable. We're not really cover boys, and that seems to still be a consideration.
(02/06/02 5:00am)
In the Grips of the Light\nRacebannon\nSecretly Canadian\nRacebannon's live show -- a chaotic maelstrom of grinding guitars, turntable noise and the singular, shambolic stage presence of singer Mike Anderson -- is certainly one of the more intense concert experiences in Bloomington. But fans might have some doubts about how well they can translate their visceral live sound into a compact disc. Those fans can rest assured. In the Grips of the Light, the Bloomington band's second full-length album (and first for local label Secretly Canadian), shoves you to the ground in its opening seconds, then proceeds to kick you in the gut over the course of its 50 minutes. And that's meant in a good way.\nFor those not familiar with Racebannon, the local band takes hardcore as its starting point, throws in a little speed metal and a dash of grindcore, and then explodes every convention of those genres on its way to something totally unique. The songs stretch up to 11 minutes, ebbing and flowing into spacy, abstract guitar noise before snapping back into a tight thrash that can get even the mildest indie kids attempting to headbang.\nRecorded in Nebraska by indie knob-twiddler Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes, The Faint), In the Grips of the Light lets you enjoy the Racebannon experience from the comfort of your easy chair. All the elements that make a night with the band are here -- only unlike your average club PA, the album's sound is remarkably clear, revealing layers and elements of the band's sound hitherto indistinguishable. \nThis album is loud, confrontational and maybe not for everyone (who would have thought a Captain Beefheart cover could be an album's most accessible moment?). The inclusion of the lyric sheet might have been solely to prove that Anderson isn't just making up strange noises as he goes along. But if you're a fan of the band and are tired of waiting weeks in between their local live appearances, In the Grips of the Light should be more than enough to tide you over.\n
(01/30/02 5:00am)
Come With Us\nChemical Brothers\nAstralwerks Records\nThe party, of course, has been over for some time now. The hosts were Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons, the British duo better known as The Chemical Brothers. In their heyday, the Brothers managed to invent (or at least mainstream) big beat techno on their 1995 debut album Exit Planet Dust, perfect it on 1997's Dig Your Own Hole and strip it down to the bare essentials on 1999's Surrender. But by the time of that third album's release, the genre was already being co-opted by more gimmicky TV ad-ready artists like Fatboy Slim, who mistook a hooky sample for a good groove and completely lost the plot. Meanwhile, British dance floors moved onto two-step and garage and God knows what else, and the rest of us just had a good time with Daft Punk.\nSo what does the first Chemical Brothers album of the 21st Century have to offer? Well, for one thing, an adrenaline-pumping opening number (the title track) with a taut string sample and the big-drum sound that Surrender, for the most part, left behind. It's almost too exciting -- how do you maintain momentum for another 45 minutes? The tight, percussive bounce of "It Began in Afrika," the second track, isn't a bad answer to that question. Later on, "My Elastic Eye" combines skittering beats and a head-drilling buzz melody that sounds like one of Warp Records' avant-garde techno workouts married to a more standard dance beat.\nThe Chems stick to themselves through the first half of the album, bringing in the prerequisite guest stars -- Beth Orton and ex-Verve frontman Richard Ashcroft -- only towards the end. Orton's "The State We're In" is a welcome acoustic slowdown that turns into a house stomp three-fourths of the way through. Ashcroft's cameo, if nothing else, reminds us that he's still alive ("Can you hear me?" he asks. Yes, we can -- now make a new album).\nThe obvious complaint about Come With Us is that there's nothing new here, and it's a valid one. The album is a subtle tweaking of past successes, with just enough new sounds and beats thrown in to avoid a total retread. Five years ago, this stuff was fresh and exciting -- today, it's just exciting. In the middle of a typical January record release drought, exciting is more than enough.\n
(01/16/02 5:00am)
Gosford Park - R\nStarring: Michael Gambon, Kristin Scott Thomas\nDirected by: Robert Altman\nShowing: Showplace East 11\nRobert Altman has been a filmmaker for 50-some years now, and a potent force in American cinema for at least 30. The latest from this 76-year-old plays to his strengths while simultaneously expanding his horizons -- one of the few giants from '70s cinema still striving for new ideas.\n"Gosford Park" boasts a huge cast of respected actors -- this time, it's a mostly British ensemble that includes Kristin Scott Thomas, Helen Mirren, Derek Jacobi, Emily Watson and Stephen Fry. The action takes place over a weekend at a rural British estate in the 1930s, as an array of snobby British nobles gather for a shooting party. Like many of Altman's films, the opening scenes are a confusing, occasionally frustrating mish-mash as the gigantic cast is introduced -- and like most of Altman's films, he amazingly manages to extract order from the chaos. We slowly learn about each character and their complicated relationships with each other, and through some miracle, it all makes sense.\nWhat "Gosford Park" does so well is show the two sides of upper-class life in England at the time -- the masters and their servants. The film is often hilarious, but at the same time is sensitive to the tensions between the two classes. Each side is a world unto itself, and Altman parallels them nicely. (Even the credits divide the cast into "upstairs" and "downstairs.") The guests' maids and valets all refer to each other by the names of their masters, as if by virtue of their class they have no right to names of their own. This class consciousness could have allowed the movie to quickly slip into a one-sided portrayal of servants oppressed by their privileged masters, but Julian Fellowes' screenplay refuses to make sweeping generalizations. Although the upper classes often seem shallow compared to their counterparts, each character is presented as multi-faceted and human.\nThe plot thickens when one of the hosts is murdered, prompting Stephen Fry's hilarious turn as an incompetent police inspector. There's a plethora of suspects and motives, and by the end it's at least partially sorted out, although Altman leaves enough ambiguity to keep the audience from being absolutely certain. In the end, "whodunit" isn't as important as how the characters' reactions illustrate their personalities and relationships with each other. It's this kind of attention and respect for its characters (and by extension, its audience) that makes "Gosford Park" so satisfying.\n
(01/09/02 5:00am)
Love is Here\nStarsailor\nCapitol Records\nWith the release of Love is Here, the cynic in me wants to declare Starsailor "this year's Coldplay," just as last year the cynic in me wanted to declare Coldplay "this year's Travis." The similarities are there, to be sure -- sensitive British guitar bands heavy on tunes and melodrama, light on innovation. But where Travis trades on their everyman affability and Coldplay gets by with singer Chris Martin's doe-eyed innocence, Starsailor brews a blend of sexual frustration and 20-something angst all their own -- one that won't set the world on fire, but makes for a satisfying listen all the same.\nAlbum opener "Tie Up My Hands" kicks off the theme of romantic dissatisfaction that permeates the record, as well as the tried-and-true musical template of gentle, strummy verses and grandiose choruses. "I wanna love you, but my hands are tied," complains singer James Walsh. "I need to be alone while I suffer," he says later on "Way to Fall." If love is here, it's certainly hiding itself pretty well.\nWalsh's lyrical self-obsession would probably wear thin after a while if it wasn't wrapped up in such gorgeous instrumental texture. "I need to be loved," he cloyingly reminds us on "Good Souls," as if we hadn't figured it out 10 songs% into the album. But another monster chorus bails him out just as listeners roll their eyes and say, "tell us something we don't know."\nProducer Steve Osborne avoids the sharp edges he's brought to other Brit-guitar ensembles like Suede and Placebo, focusing on the sweeping arrangements and "big" moments that give the album its punch. Some listeners might find that the formula adhered to by Starsailor is wearing a bit thin -- if you don't have time for the good-but-not-great, then you won't miss much by passing them up. But for Anglophiles looking to warm up their winter,Love is Here can be an inviting musical blanket.\n
(11/15/01 5:00am)
David Mamet's new film "Heist," like last summer's "The Score" and "Sexy Beast," is a movie about a career criminal brought back for One Last Job. What "Heist" has that the others don't is the deft dialogue of Mamet, the Chicago playwright ("Glengarry Glen Ross," "American Buffalo") turned screenwriter/director whose unique writing is instantly recognizable, as much for its constant obscenity and sharp one-liners as anything.\n"My motherfucker is so cool, when he goes to bed, sheep count him," says one character -- Joe Moore (Gene Hackman), who opens the movie by pulling off a ridiculously elaborate jewelry store job with the help of his wife (played by Rebecca Pidgeon, Mamet's real-life wife) and compatriots Bobby and Pinky (Delroy Lindo and Mamet standby Ricky Jay). Hoping to retire, he's urged to "do the other thing" by the jewelry heist's financier, played by a perpetually apoplectic Danny DeVito. "The other thing" turns out to be an even stickier caper involving a Swiss airplane and a whole lot of gold.\nThe movie naturally features a dizzying string of double, triple and quadruple crosses, and you never really know who's going to end up with whom (or what) until the credits start to roll. Hackman's character tells himself and others that he's doing the job so he'll have a nice retirement nest egg, but of course he's really doing it because he can. "Heist" moves slightly faster than Mamet's usual, more deliberate pacing, but is still refreshingly free of gratuitous car chases and explosions (there is an explosion, but it's not gratuitous).\n"Heist" follows earlier Mamet films like "The Spanish Prisoner" and "House of Games" that present a compelling look at extremely intelligent people taking money from the slower-witted ("Glengarry Glen Ross" sort of falls into this category as well, although it's set in the marginally more legitimate world of real estate). Like everything he does, "Heist" is smart, sharp and funny.
(11/15/01 4:27am)
David Mamet's new film "Heist," like last summer's "The Score" and "Sexy Beast," is a movie about a career criminal brought back for One Last Job. What "Heist" has that the others don't is the deft dialogue of Mamet, the Chicago playwright ("Glengarry Glen Ross," "American Buffalo") turned screenwriter/director whose unique writing is instantly recognizable, as much for its constant obscenity and sharp one-liners as anything.\n"My motherfucker is so cool, when he goes to bed, sheep count him," says one character -- Joe Moore (Gene Hackman), who opens the movie by pulling off a ridiculously elaborate jewelry store job with the help of his wife (played by Rebecca Pidgeon, Mamet's real-life wife) and compatriots Bobby and Pinky (Delroy Lindo and Mamet standby Ricky Jay). Hoping to retire, he's urged to "do the other thing" by the jewelry heist's financier, played by a perpetually apoplectic Danny DeVito. "The other thing" turns out to be an even stickier caper involving a Swiss airplane and a whole lot of gold.\nThe movie naturally features a dizzying string of double, triple and quadruple crosses, and you never really know who's going to end up with whom (or what) until the credits start to roll. Hackman's character tells himself and others that he's doing the job so he'll have a nice retirement nest egg, but of course he's really doing it because he can. "Heist" moves slightly faster than Mamet's usual, more deliberate pacing, but is still refreshingly free of gratuitous car chases and explosions (there is an explosion, but it's not gratuitous).\n"Heist" follows earlier Mamet films like "The Spanish Prisoner" and "House of Games" that present a compelling look at extremely intelligent people taking money from the slower-witted ("Glengarry Glen Ross" sort of falls into this category as well, although it's set in the marginally more legitimate world of real estate). Like everything he does, "Heist" is smart, sharp and funny.
(11/08/01 5:00am)
David Lynch, who has made a career out of frustrating his audience's natural expectations for conventional film narrative, has made one of his most frustrating films in "Mulholland Drive" -- and also one of his most compelling.\nAs the story begins, a woman riding in a limousine is suddenly held at gunpoint by her drivers. A car crash ensues from which only she escapes alive, but loses her memory in the process. She stumbles into a house where a bright-eyed young Canadian named Betty has just moved, nursing dreams of making it big in Hollywood. The two women begin a search for the truth behind the identity of "Rita." (A name the amnesiac takes from a Rita Hayworth movie poster.)\nAny viewer of "Mulholland Drive" hoping for a satisfying solution to the mystery surrounding Rita -- or any of the other seemingly tangentially related subplots that swirl around the film -- is going to be disappointed. Lynch is only interested in questions, not answers, as he has shown in earlier films like "Eraserhead" and "Lost Highway." The film abandons any attempt at coherence in the last half hour, taking a sharp right turn into the realm of dream logic. Characters' roles and names shift, but nothing really adds up. The beauty of the film is that each viewer's mind desperately tries to draw a straight line between the seemingly contradictory plot points, because that's what we've come to expect. But there are as many interpretations of "Mulholland Drive" as there are people who see it.\nThe film was originally made as a television pilot that was never bought, and Lynch expanded it to feature length with money from French producers. While a "Mulholland Drive" series may have clarified much of the film's chaos, it would have been beside the point. For Lynch, the journey is the destination.
(11/08/01 4:44am)
David Lynch, who has made a career out of frustrating his audience's natural expectations for conventional film narrative, has made one of his most frustrating films in "Mulholland Drive" -- and also one of his most compelling.\nAs the story begins, a woman riding in a limousine is suddenly held at gunpoint by her drivers. A car crash ensues from which only she escapes alive, but loses her memory in the process. She stumbles into a house where a bright-eyed young Canadian named Betty has just moved, nursing dreams of making it big in Hollywood. The two women begin a search for the truth behind the identity of "Rita." (A name the amnesiac takes from a Rita Hayworth movie poster.)\nAny viewer of "Mulholland Drive" hoping for a satisfying solution to the mystery surrounding Rita -- or any of the other seemingly tangentially related subplots that swirl around the film -- is going to be disappointed. Lynch is only interested in questions, not answers, as he has shown in earlier films like "Eraserhead" and "Lost Highway." The film abandons any attempt at coherence in the last half hour, taking a sharp right turn into the realm of dream logic. Characters' roles and names shift, but nothing really adds up. The beauty of the film is that each viewer's mind desperately tries to draw a straight line between the seemingly contradictory plot points, because that's what we've come to expect. But there are as many interpretations of "Mulholland Drive" as there are people who see it.\nThe film was originally made as a television pilot that was never bought, and Lynch expanded it to feature length with money from French producers. While a "Mulholland Drive" series may have clarified much of the film's chaos, it would have been beside the point. For Lynch, the journey is the destination.
(11/05/01 4:45am)
Bob Dylan doesn't need to do this anymore. The man just turned 60 -- he could easily rest on his considerable laurels, maybe tour every three or four years, and no one could blame him. Instead, he tours constantly, playing mid-sized venues and constantly revising his back catalog to fit the strengths of his band. The evolution that results from these live shows keeps both his performances and the songs themselves as vital as they have ever been.\nDylan's concert at Indiana State University's Hulman Center in Terre Haute Friday proved that the man's message is as relevant today as it has ever been. Clocking in at almost two-and-a-half hours, the show mixed old and new effortlessly, and perhaps most impressively showed how well the songs from his newest album Love & Theft stand up next to old classics like "Maggie's Farm" and "Desolation Row."\nThe two seemingly conflicting sides of Dylan's art -- "serious" poet and old-time song and dance man -- are both brought to the fore in Dylan's live show. Standing in a slight crouch with his guitar pointed at the ground, he initially seems unemotional, but he shows his intensity with the smallest gestures -- a slight bend of his knee, or a small step backwards during a particularly intense guitar solo. The crowd is so tuned in to his every word and movement, they react wildly to the subtle visual cues. When he sticks his arm out to the side during a harmonica solo, you would think he'd just done a Pete Townshend windmill for the cheering he evokes.\nPerhaps the most impressive aspect of Dylan's live show is how completely he updates his old material. Musically, "Tangled Up In Blue" is almost a completely different song from its first showing on 1975's Blood on the Tracks album, and years ago Dylan changed all the pronouns from first to third person. The new pacing offers a completely different perspective on the classic lost-love song. \nDylan's 40-year-old war protest song "John Brown" remains unchanged, but has never seemed more relevant than now, and similarly, "Blowin' in the Wind" prompted peace signs to rise from the crowd.\nIn these complicated and confusing times, we need music like Dylan's more than ever. "I used to care, but things have changed," he sang during the first encore. I don't believe him.
(11/02/01 6:10am)
For six years, IU Auditorium General Manager Bryan Rives has been welcoming patrons to performances of some of the biggest names in music, comedy and theater. \nNow, he'll be doing the welcoming in St. Louis. Rives is leaving IU to head performing arts operations at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. His last day at IU will be Dec. 31. He begins his new job Jan. 2, 2002.\n"The opportunity was so incredible," said Rives of his decision. "Something like this only comes around every so often. I shared their enthusiasm, and it looked like a great match."\nRives will face a new challenge in Missouri. The school is constructing a $50 million performing arts center, scheduled to open in 2003. Rives will be in charge of all long-term and day-to-day operations of the facility when it is completed. \n"They're looking for somebody to come in and literally start from scratch," Rives said.\nRives is no stranger to construction projects. He guided the 60-year-old, 3,154 seat IU Auditorium through a $12.5 million dollar renovation that closed it for 20 months, beginning in December 1997. The renovations included infrastructure upgrades, improved accessibility and aesthetic improvements, including the restoration of the Thomas Hart Benton mural.\nA relatively narrow field such as auditorium management presents a limited field of candidates when a new position opens. But Rives says he and UMSL found "a great match" with each other.\n"We interviewed dozens of the top performing arts managers from around the nation," said University of Missouri-St. Louis Vice Chancellor Reinhard Schuster in a press release. "Bryan possessed the right combination of energy, experience and innovation. He's ideal for our situation."\nIndiana Memorial Union Executive Director Winston Shindell said Rives will be missed.\n"Bryan brought a great deal of energy and creativity to the Auditorium," he said. "We have greatly expanded the number of performances per year, as well as the variety."\nIn his time at IU, Rives increased Auditorium season subscriptions from 800 to more than 3,800. More than 50 percent of those subscribers are now students.\n"It's something we had very much wanted to do," said Shindell of the increased student attendance. Shindell said Rives' success at improving attendance has allowed the Auditorium to become more independent from the University.\n"We've been able to return more funds to the University," Shindell said.\nThe next step for the Auditorium is the search for a new General Manager. During the search process, Facility and Events Manager Doug Booher will step in as interim general manager.\n"Bryan has been a great friend and mentor," said Booher, who also came to the Auditorium six years ago.\nBooher will take charge of the Auditorium as it books shows for the 2002-03 season. Shows are typically booked in December, January and February and confirmed in March. \nBooher said while Rives will be missed, it's a great opportunity.\n"Having worked so closely with him through the renovation, I know the idea and opportunity for him to open his own building is too good to pass up," he said.\nAlthough Rives is looking forward to his new job, he said he'll be sorry to leave Bloomington.\n"I didn't know Bloomington existed before I interviewed for the job," he said. "But I just fell in love with it."\nWorking in St. Louis will allow Rives to stay in the Midwest.\n"I really don't have a desire to go to New York or L.A. -- I love the Midwest," he said. "(Leaving Bloomington) was a choice I had to think hard about. I've absolutely loved living in Bloomington and the staff. Working with Mr. Shindell has been one of the best experiences -- I wish I could take him to St. Louis with me"
(10/25/01 6:04am)
It seems nearly impossible to find anything new or profound to say about "Apocalypse Now" -- since its release in 1979, it has been so pored over, discussed and dissected that even if you haven't seen it, you can probably quote from it. Lines like "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" are so ingrained in the fabric of cinema history, it's almost jarring to hear them in the movie and realize they actually were spoken by an actor rather than just plucked out of the ether.\nFor those not familiar with the film's plot: loosely based on Joseph Conrad's novel "Heart of Darkness," "Apocalypse Now" shows Special Forces Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) sent up a river in Vietnam to "terminate the command" of rogue Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando), whose erratic behavior has the military brass on edge. On the way upriver, Willard encounters an array of bizarre characters, such as Lt. Colonel Kilgore (Robert Duvall), who clears Charlie off the beach with helicopter bombing runs so he and his men can surf. Few other movies have as accurately captured the confusion and nihilism of Vietnam.\nAny fan of "Apocalypse Now" knows the almost farcical backstory behind the troubled production -- how shooting stretched out over 18 months, Brando showed up to the set grossly overweight and refusing to learn his lines, etc. (for the skinny on the shoot, check out the excellent 1991 documentary "Hearts of Darkness"). It's this awareness of the movie's tortured genesis that almost makes "Apocalypse Now" into meta-film -- when we see Willard's drunken breakdown in the hotel room at the film's opening, we know that Sheen wasn't acting, and that he actually cut his hand open when he broke the mirror. We know that Dennis Hopper really was as crazy as he's acting, if not more so. \nThis re-release of Francis Ford Coppola's last truly great film beefs up the running time from an already-hefty 153 minutes to a truly daunting 197. None of the new scenes are essential, but some are better than others. A sequence where Willard and his boatmates trade fuel for sex with the Playboy bunnies is interesting, but a later scene on a French plantation just drags the movie down. But more importantly than the added material, "Apocalypse Now Redux" gives a new generation the chance to see this tour de force where it was meant to be seen - in a movie theater. Even if you have mixed feelings about this sprawling, stunning film, you owe yourself the experience.
(10/25/01 4:00am)
It seems nearly impossible to find anything new or profound to say about "Apocalypse Now" -- since its release in 1979, it has been so pored over, discussed and dissected that even if you haven't seen it, you can probably quote from it. Lines like "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" are so ingrained in the fabric of cinema history, it's almost jarring to hear them in the movie and realize they actually were spoken by an actor rather than just plucked out of the ether.\nFor those not familiar with the film's plot: loosely based on Joseph Conrad's novel "Heart of Darkness," "Apocalypse Now" shows Special Forces Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) sent up a river in Vietnam to "terminate the command" of rogue Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando), whose erratic behavior has the military brass on edge. On the way upriver, Willard encounters an array of bizarre characters, such as Lt. Colonel Kilgore (Robert Duvall), who clears Charlie off the beach with helicopter bombing runs so he and his men can surf. Few other movies have as accurately captured the confusion and nihilism of Vietnam.\nAny fan of "Apocalypse Now" knows the almost farcical backstory behind the troubled production -- how shooting stretched out over 18 months, Brando showed up to the set grossly overweight and refusing to learn his lines, etc. (for the skinny on the shoot, check out the excellent 1991 documentary "Hearts of Darkness"). It's this awareness of the movie's tortured genesis that almost makes "Apocalypse Now" into meta-film -- when we see Willard's drunken breakdown in the hotel room at the film's opening, we know that Sheen wasn't acting, and that he actually cut his hand open when he broke the mirror. We know that Dennis Hopper really was as crazy as he's acting, if not more so. \nThis re-release of Francis Ford Coppola's last truly great film beefs up the running time from an already-hefty 153 minutes to a truly daunting 197. None of the new scenes are essential, but some are better than others. A sequence where Willard and his boatmates trade fuel for sex with the Playboy bunnies is interesting, but a later scene on a French plantation just drags the movie down. But more importantly than the added material, "Apocalypse Now Redux" gives a new generation the chance to see this tour de force where it was meant to be seen - in a movie theater. Even if you have mixed feelings about this sprawling, stunning film, you owe yourself the experience.
(09/20/01 4:39am)
ho would have thought that a band that started as a pair of upstate-New York misfits making instrumental soundtracks for nature films would end up here? Who would have thought Mercury Rev would survive massive turnover (including the departure of the band's original singer), heavy narcotics abuse, major-label departure, an airline ban, being kicked off Lollapalooza for excessive noise and, oh yeah, a guitarist shutting himself up in a monastery for half a year?\nNevertheless, Mercury Rev returned from purgatory in 1998 with the stunning Deserter's Songs, and now the musicians have very possibly outdone themselves with their new album, All is Dream. Simultaneously encompassing the orchestral majesty of Deserter's Songs and the titanic noise of their earlier, more erratic days, All is Dream is sprawling and self-indulgent -- and I mean that as a compliment. It's a uniquely American work and a fitting tribute to Jack Nitzsche, the composer, arranger and musician whose work stretched from Phil Spector to the Rolling Stones to film scores. Nitzsche was to produce All is Dream, but passed away last year just before Rev went back into the studio.\n"The Dark is Rising" opens the record with an orchestral swell like a wave crashing against the shore -- it kicks you in the gut and leaves you vulnerable for Jonathan Donohue's Neil Young-nasal vocals and piano melody. "Chains" is the next emotional peak, bringing in the guitar and big drum sound missing from Deserter's Songs pastoral reflections. "A Drop in Time" goes the opposite direction, bringing the band's showtune-wannabe tendencies to the fore. As on all previous Rev albums, the flow from one song to the next is seamless, creating a tour de force statement that will be hard to top next time out.\nThankfully, it would seem that there will be a next time out. On the back cover of 1995's See You On The Other Side, Donohue gazed at a handgun and bullets spread out on a table. Six years later, the trials of the band's salad days would seem to be over, the ship has been righted, and Mercury Rev has taken its rightful place as one of America's premier ensembles. The only question is, where to next?
(09/20/01 4:21am)
Faced with Vasen's album Whirled, I had no idea what context to listen to the group in. Not being familiar with what "normal" Swedish music sounds like, there was no point of entry or comparison -- I just had to stick in the CD and see what I thought. After I'd established a first impression, I did some research to see what Vasen is all about.\nVasen, it would seem, borrows heavily from traditional Swedish folk music and instrumentation, but also contemporizes its sound with original compositions and percussion. The band's sound is composed of instruments rarely seen in Western music, including the nyckelharpa (a keyed fiddle) and the Swedish bouzouki. Despite the foreign instrumentation, Vasen produces a sound that is reminiscent enough of some American fiddle music to be accessible, but unique enough to be compelling to the discriminating listener.\nThe interplay of the quartet is impressive, as the mood of the songs veer from joyous and dancelike to moody and reflective. The percussion, unique to Vasen and not usually a part of traditional Swedish folk, helps drive the music forward and meshes well with the strings. Similar in spirit to the alt-country and progressive folk artists operating in the United States today, it's refreshing and inspiring to see a group of musicians with a healthy respect for the music of their roots, but at the same time aren't afraid to add their own personal, contemporary touch.
