191 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
One of the greatest injustices in the history of American popular music is that zydeco remains a style on the fringes -- a form of Americana that has never broken through to mass popularity.\nSuch a crime has never been more apparent than when reviewing the career of Beau Jocque, born Andrus Espre. In the 1990s, he was on the verge of becoming the modern king of zydeco before suffering a fatal heart attack two years ago.\nThere's good reason for his success. Jocque was a master of melding different musical forms, including funk and R&B, with the traditional Creole sound. The brilliant results can be seen in his version of John Lee Hooker's "Boogie Chillun," which Jocque works into a ZZ Top-like rave-up, in a freewheeling, no-holds-barred covered of War's "Cisco Kid" and a laid back version of Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door," which shows the dying protagonist at peace with his fate.\nBoth of those tracks are on this best-of collection, as is Jocque's signature tune, "Give Him Cornbread," and other originals like "Going to the Country" and "Slip and Dip It."\nBut even more important than Jocque's musical sense is his willingness to let it all hang out, both in the studio and on stage, where, at 6'6", he presented an imposing, almost dark figure. The music is charged with an energy and vitality rarely seen in popular music today. Jocque's raw enthusiasm is even more satisfying given the fact that he had chronic back problems for much of his life.\nBeau Jocque is now gone, but his music remains as a testament to the power of American roots music and all the guts and glory it embodies. If each one of us lived life the way Jocque played music -- with an open heart and an open mind -- we'd certainly all be better off.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
Calling Wayfaring Strangers a bluegrass band is a little like calling Paul Simon a rock and roller. The term fits in a very broad sense but doesn't adequately describe the type of music the band produces. \nJust as Simon evolved into an eclectic musician who embraced folk, rock and world sounds, the Wayfaring Strangers have adapted a variety of musical styles -- including jazz, old-time country, folk and klezmer -- to produce a unique concoction on Shifting Sands of Time.\nTrue, if you had to pigeonhole the band -- which is led by musical director and strings player Matt Glaser -- you'd call them bluegrass. But from the opening strains of the album's first track, it becomes apparent that the Strangers are just as much a jazz band.\nUnderpinning the album is Jim Whitney's subtle bass and the old-timey sound of Tony Trischka's banjo. The singing duties are shared by a diverse group of voices, from the classic cowboy yodel of Ralph Stanley to the haunting vocals of Jennifer Kimball. In between are guest appearances by, among others, Lucy Kaplansky and Tracy Bonham.\nDescribing the resulting sound is somewhat difficult; think John Coltrane crossed with Chet Atkins. The music is sublime, so much so that the full effect doesn't really sink in on the first listen, or maybe even the second or third.\nAt times, the album drags, becoming a little too atmospheric for its own good. But overall, it's a refreshing shot of creativity and originality that more musicians in both jazz and country could take a lesson from.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
At this point, if you actually watch MTV you're either a) 12 years old, b) emotionally maladjusted or c) lobotomized.\nI hate to break the cold, hard facts to everyone, but it's true -- MTV is worthless, self-serving trash aimed at people with the mental capacity of a baboon. Straight up, yo.\nThat fact was never more apparent than at the channel's recent 20th anniversary "bash," which featured, as its headlining act, Kid Rock, a man (and I use that term loosely) with all the musical talent of a bowl of tapioca pudding -- perhaps even less.\nTo quote the immortal words of one Bart Simpson, "I didn't think it was physically possible, but this both sucks and blows."\nOf course, it's not as if MTV had ever been a shining example of modern mass communication. From the very beginning, it was geared toward teenagers with short attention spans and major disposable incomes (earned largely through hefty allowances from dumb parents like mine who, while thinking they were "bonding" with their kids, were actually providing them with the means to buy Dokken tapes. I should note here that I love my parents very much).\nBut in the 1980s, at least MTV played cool music. Have you ever actually listened to the Buggles? They're not that bad, especially compared with current sludge like Slipknot or Limp Bizkit.\nTwenty years ago, you could see a Who video on MTV. Granted, it was probably "You Better You Bet," which, compared to, say, "Baba O'Riley," was kind of lame. But does it matter? At least it was the Who.\nIn the 1980s, MTV also had a show called "Closet Classics," which played vintage videos from the early 1970s. Picture, if you will, the four members of Sabbath, standing on a platform and pretending to play "Paranoid." Ozzy is planted at the microphone, obviously stoned out of his mind, his long locks flowing as he bobs his head to the piped-in music. His fake vocals aren't even close to matching the track. Flashing in the background are huge, multi-colored pictures of bald women. Bald women, people. Does it get any better than that?\nSure it does! Just tune in to MTV late on Saturday night for "Headbanger's Ball," where impressionable little mushbrains like me can get their first taste of Slayer, Metal Church and Exodus. Or try out "Yo! MTV Raps" for some fly Public Enemy, Kurtis Blow or Run-DMC (minus, of course, those Aerosmith clowns).\nAnd what red-blooded, pubescent American male didn't fawn over Martha Quinn? Man, she had it goin' on. Not like these air-headed bimbos the network has now. And J.J. Jackson was The Man.\nBut that was then. Now, we are in hell. MTV hell. Today, the MTV daily rotation consists of about 20 videos filled with either mindless teen pop by girls with breast implants and boys without chest hair, or mindless, insipid (props to Morton Downey, another 1980s hipster) rap -- rock by boys with ugly tattoos and stupid earrings and backwards hats.\nOnce in a great while you might get some smooth, smokin' soul from Maxwell, Jill Scott or Alicia Keys, but the very next minute is another ballad from Elton John (who seriously needs to shut the hell up) or a mindless, cookie-cutter dance track from everybody's favorite, Madonna.\nWe are all responsible for this, because we're the ones who allow MTV to thrive and suck out the brains of our young people. That includes me, because it was my generation that first nurtured MTV and gave it life.\nIt is we who shoulder most of the blame for spawning Satan. We are the ones who pulled back the hair and saw 666 engraved on Damien's scalp. Yet we did nothing to stop it. We even encouraged it. For this, eternal damnation is indeed our fate.\nActually, I'd rather be in hell than up here. Satan is much less evil than Carson Daly.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
I left campus early on Tuesday after my second class of the day was canceled. I went into my bedroom and found that my answering machine was flashing with a message.\nI pressed the "message" button and listened. It was one of my old high school friends who is now living in San Francisco. Like me, she has been struggling recently with issues of self-doubt and confusion.\n"Hi Ryan," she said. I could tell immediately that she was crying.\n"I just woke up and saw what happened," she continued, trying to hold back sobs. "I had no idea until now ... I just woke up and saw the World Trade Center burning."\nShe stopped for a moment to catch her breath and gather her strength.\n"I don't know what to say," she said. "It just … it just makes my problems look so stupid."\nHer words struck me to the core, because I spent much of Tuesday thinking the same thing. For the last few weeks, I've written about my problems with depression and mental illness, problems that have been a dominant part of my life for many years. So far, my return to IU has been marked by many ups and downs stemming from those problems.\nBut the tragedies that happened in New York and Washington on Tuesday forced me to look at things differently, at least for a little while. I found myself compelled to step back and temporarily alter the way I look at myself and the world.\nThis week's disastrous events had a dual effect on me. On one level, they served as a giant kick in the pants. They helped me to put my problems in perspective.\n"How can I be worried about my little problems, my little traumas, when so many people are losing their lives?" I thought to myself. "How can I possibly think I have it bad compared to the families of the people who have died?"\nIn a way, coming to such a stark realization helped me to forget my problems and understand, at least for a moment, that my life isn't that bad, that I am doing OK, that I am going to make it. I realized that there are other people with much, much bigger challenges ahead of them.\nBut on the other hand, Tuesday's tragedies only made things worse in my head because they were so terrible, so distressing, so unbelievable. It is upsetting and even depressing to know that we live in a world where something like this can happen, a world where so much hatred exists and even thrives.\n"What is the point of trying to be happy when there is misery all around me?" another inner voice asked. "If this is what the world is like -- if this is how human beings relate to one another -- I don't want to be a part of it."\n As a result of these dual reactions, I have spent the last few days examining my situation -- and my attitude. But I have also realized that even with the personal challenges I face, I am not much different from anyone else who saw the images of the burning towers and collapsed rubble.\nThis week's events have forced us all to re-evaluate ourselves and our world and to take stock of where we are and where we want to be. That is only natural, regardless of whether we are depressed or satisfied, happy or sad. That's because we are all human, with emotions and fears and frailties.\nAfter a couple days of calling, I eventually reached my friend in San Francisco. We talked for nearly two hours, and it was emotionally draining.\nAs we were about to hang up, I told her to have faith.\n"Everything's going to work out," I told her. "You're going to be OK."\nIndeed, we are all going to be OK.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
To many, the 13-mile stretch of road between Jerseyville and Carrollton would be unremarkable. Endless fields of corn plants, maybe some soybeans thrown in here and there. White farmhouses with windmills and weathervanes. A lone John Deere tractor lying idle by the side of Illinois Route 67.\nNothing fascinating, nothing shocking, nothing out of the Midwestern ordinary. Indeed, to many, the Illinois countryside holds nothing of any particular importance.\nBut for H.T. McAdams, the drive from Jerseyville to Carrollton, is what life is all about.\n"A lot of people just drive to get where they want to go," H.T. said to me as we rode past another cornfield. "They never really look to see what their driving by. They miss so much."\nH.T. was born and raised on this same fertile farmland. Rural Illinois is where he is from, and it's where he is living as his life winds down. This is where he belongs.\nHe sits in the passenger seat of my Chevy S-10, his head barely clearing the dashboard. Several years of cancer and chemotherapy have withered his bones and taken away his physical stature. But his mind ... his mind is as sharp as ever. It is a challenge for me just to keep up with him mentally and spiritually.\n"I love driving these roads," I say to him. "There's so much to see. This is pure Americana at its best."\nH.T. smiles at his grandson's comments and nods his head, then sits silently, his gaze fixed on the passing scenes.\nI have come to Carrollton for the weekend to take a break from all that has happened in the last few weeks. Not only has our country been assaulted from the sky, my soul has been assaulted from within. Classes and job responsibilities have started to pile up, as have my fears and self-doubts. It has been getting harder to get out of bed in the morning. It has been getting harder to make it through the day. It has been getting harder to survive.\nIn Carrollton, population 2,700, I hope to find relief. I hope to find some answers, however temporary, to the questions I have floating through me head, questions that I have been trying to answer for many years. Why do I make things hard for myself? Why can't I get my act together? What's the point of fighting anymore?\nAnd, of course, there is the question that has dominated my thoughts for so long: Why even bother at all?\nH.T. and I arrive in Carrollton. I make my way through the little town, driving past the Dairy Queen and the corner gas station. I pull into my grandparents' driveway and come to a stop.\n"Do you need any help?" I ask H.T. as he grabs his cane and opens the passenger door.\n"No, no," he says. "I'm OK."\nHe swings his legs slowly out of the cab and gingerly places his feet on the driveway. Using all the strength he can muster, he slides his thin frame off the seat and out of the truck. He closes the door and stands up as straight as his tortured, brittle bones will let him. He starts edging toward the front door of the house, each step a huge challenge and a minor miracle.\nThis is where he was born. This is where he will die. To many, rural Illinois isn't much to look at. To H.T. McAdams, it's what life is all about.\nSome day very soon, I will no longer have my grandfather. But as I watch him totter along the driveway, I know that he will always be with me. I am given an answer to my biggest question.\nWhy should I even bother?\nBecause that is what life is all about.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
It's been a couple of years since a big-name comedian performed at IU as a guest of the Union Board.\nBut that dry spell will be broken tonight when Dave Chappelle, star of the cult movie favorite "Half-Baked" and a standup comedian, takes the stage at the IU Auditorium.\nUB Comedy Director Meg DeTore, a senior, said that in recent years, UB had focused on attracting musical acts, a fact that led to the recent comedy drought. But a newly-formed comedy committee began working last spring to attract popular comedians to campus. \n"When the board assembled in January, we noticed a void on campus in terms of big name comedy," UB President Vaughn Allen, a senior, said of the new committee's creation.\nDeTore said the new committee was given the flexibility and financial ability it needed to do its job, and the result is Chappelle.\n"We wanted to bring a large-name performer to campus," she said. "We wanted to meet a need that wasn't being met."\nDeTore said an upcoming IU performance by comedy legend George Carlin, the first host of "Saturday Night Live," will appeal to baby boomers and older adults. That's why attracting a younger comedian like Chappelle was so important as well, she said.\n"We made a list of comedians who would appeal to college students, and we tossed around other big names, but we felt Dave Chappelle was someone different," she said.\nTonight's show is also being sponsored by the Black Student Union. DeTore said UB made an effort to appeal to a wide spectrum of IU students.\n"Diversity has always been a part of Union Board's philosophy," she said. "We wanted a show that catered to a diverse audience."\nChappelle is glad that he has been able to build a multi-cultural fan base.\n"I got a lot of white fans," Chappelle recently told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. "It's cool, man, because it means I'm getting my point across without offending anyone. The people out there understand. It's like Richard Pryor -- his whole angle was his black experience, but he had a way of making people understand it, because it's a human experience."\nAllen hopes that Chappelle's performance will provide his audience with a brief distraction from recent global events.\n"Hopefully, he'll make life fun again for a couple of hours," he said.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
The style of humor offered by legendary comedian Richard Pryor can be traced back to the ancient Greek traditions of comedy and tragedy, Pulitzer Prize-winning author James Alan McPherson said during a lecture at IU last Thursday.\nMcPherson, a University of Iowa English professor who wrote Hue and Cry, Crabcakes and other collections of fiction, said Pryor did something few comics have done before him or since.\n"It was Richard Pryor who insisted the comic and the tragic could mix," McPherson told an audience of more than 50 people in the Fine Arts building.\nWhile bringing together a class on humor in American literature, McPherson discovered the American literary and folk traditions contained several ways to deal with laughter but few, if any, methods of coping with tragedy.\n"The challenge for us is to find some way to make the comic and the tragic come together," he said.\nThat's where Pryor came in. McPherson said the comedian helped people use laughter as a way to cope with their problems.\n"Only Richard Pryor did something special," McPherson said. "He extended our tradition and made it receptive to the comic tradition. He helped us solve our problems. He expanded the American comic tradition by bringing in tragedy with a comic sense."\nDuring the lecture, McPherson played taped excerpts of a 1973 interview he conducted with Pryor for The New York Times Magazine. One of the tapes included a riff in which Pryor recalled seeing a group of heroin junkies waiting in line for methadone treatments. By the time he reached the end of the story, McPherson said, the comedian had made it funny.\n"He expressed his feelings on something horrible, and he laughed at it," McPherson said.\nMcPherson's talk was sponsored by the Black Film Center/Archive and the Afro-American Studies department as part of a series featuring screenings of several Pryor movies. Pryor's impact has been underestimated, said Associate professor Audrey McCluskey, the director of the film center.\n"He has not been given his due," she said. "He's such an influential artist. There's a whole generation now that grew up without knowing him. We as a society really benefitted from his art, and I wanted to introduce him to a new generation."\nDespite Pryor's heavy use of obscenity, junior Dolly Whitt said she enjoys his work.\n"He's a very funny and very talented man," said Whitt, who attended McPherson's lecture. "I've seen a bunch of his movies and I liked all of them."\nJunior April Freeman said Pryor's mixing of the comic and the tragic is important.\n"It makes it funnier," she said. "To be able to laugh about the tragic experiences in your life makes it funny. It's good to be able to look back and make jokes"
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
Chris Thomas King wants to bring the blues into the 21st century -- kicking and screaming, if necessary.\nWith the All Over Blues Tour, King is spreading his unique blend of rootsy blues and modern hip-hop all across the country. \nBut not everyone in the traditional blues community approves.\n"I've found a lot of resistance in the United States," King says. "We've been banned from a lot of blues festivals. There are still cities on our schedule that want to stop this tour."\nKing, whose father is noted bluesman Tabby Thomas, says the reaction is different in Europe, where fans don't try to pigeonhole him as a straight-on blues artist. He says that overseas, audiences accept the way he has incorporated the music of his influences, which range from Muddy Waters, Jimi Hendrix and Robert Cray (with whom he just completed a tour) to Chuck D and NWA.\n"It's kind of easy to say I'm influenced by everything, but that's a good way to start," he says. "I let everything seep in."\nAs co-headliner of the All Over Blues Fest, which comes to Bloomington this weekend, King is one half of a blues yin and yang. The other featured act on the tour is the Muddy Waters Tribute Band, a group featuring such respected blues stars as Luther "Guitar Junior" Johnson, Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, Calvin "Fuzz" Jones, Jerry Portnoy and "Steady Rollin'" Bob Margolin.\nKing says the show gives audiences what he believes are two views of the blues -- the Muddy Waters band's traditional Chicago blues and his updated, modern take on the century-old genre, what he calls "21st-century blues." (King heads up his own record label of the same name.)\nHe says he didn't decide to embark on a new musical path overnight.\n"I don't wake up in the morning and say, 'I'm going to make blues and hip-hop,'" King says.\nInstead, he says, it involved a steady process of absorbing and integrating his musical influences and personal experiences -- experiences that differed from those of traditional bluesmen.\n"When I started learning about the blues, Muddy Waters had been dead for several years," says King, who released his first album in 1986 at age 17. \nAs a result, he doesn't attempt to replicate the type of music Waters played.\n"I couldn't be that if I tried," he says.\nBut, he adds, straight-forward hip-hop "doesn't fit me, either." That non-conformist attitude has led to albums and live shows that feature a DJ and turntable in addition to King and his guitar.\n"When I play my guitar, people hear a blues sound, but it's all contemporary," he says. "I've got to have my turntables. I've got to have a little scratching in my music."\nProfessor Susan Oehler says it's that kind of experimentation that will keep the blues fresh. Noting that the blues have survived -- and even thrived off -- such "radical" developments as the white blues revival of the 1960s, Oehler says artists like King fit into the blues heritage.\n"He represents a category of blues performers who carry on a large African American tradition, which is to flavor traditional blues with contemporary sound scapes that occur today," she says.\nOehler cites another key development in African American history -- the massive migration of rural blacks to northern urban centers in the first half of the 20th century -- that helped transform the blues. By electrifying and urbanizing traditional rural blues, artists like Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf created a new genre of music. Artists like Chris Thomas King are no different, she says.\n"To blend in a new musical style is always controversial for some people who think blues as it was is the best, most expressive, most beautiful form of the blues," she says. "But change is a part of the blues, especially if the blues are to be maintained."\nBy the time King released Me, My Guitar and the Blues in 2000 on Blind Pig Records, King's forward-thinking sound had crystallized. But a lot has happened since then. He played itinerant bluesman Tommy Johnson in Joel and Ethan Cohen's movie, "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" and contributed a song to the high-selling soundtrack.\nHis latest release is this year's "The Legend of Tommy Johnson Act I," recorded for 21st Century Blues and distributed by Valley Entertainment. In addition, he is featured on the cover of the November issue of OffBeat Magazine.\nBut not everyone is thrilled with what King is producing. A recent review for "Tommy Johnson Act I" on the Web site "Blues Bytes" stated that "this atrocity jumbles together too many different styles in a way that makes it painful to the listener. At the front of the CD are half a dozen acoustic, traditional numbers that were recorded in a much too sterile environment ... It's all downhill from there, as Thomas King goes electric on the next three cuts and gets too histrionic and rocked out."\nBut for every harsh critic, there seems to be an enthusiastic convert to King's new style.\n"In a world where many blues bands tend to rely on overdone cover songs and mindless guitar solos, it is refreshing to hear the work of an artist like Chris Thomas King, who is able to draw on disparate influences while maintaining traditional blues roots," wrote Barry T. Gober in a 2000 issue of Southwest Blues. "While many listeners might be taken back by King's unique fusion of musical styles ... Chris Thomas King is truly a unique musician whose talents should only grow in the future and his new recording is definitely a worthwhile listen for those with adventurous musical tastes."\nFor his part, King tries not to worry too much about how other people react to his style. Musically, he says, "I just let the chips fall where they may. I let other people try to figure it out for themselves."\nOne of his biggest goals is to help revitalize a genre that, in his mind, is in a downswing.\n"Blues music is pretty dismal, as far as recordings go," he says. "The labels that specialize in blues are really hurting."\nThe problem, he says, is a failure to connect with young people.\n"The records (labels) make don't say anything about the lives of people who buy records today," he says. "They just don't resonate."\nAs a result, he says, King wants to keep the blues alive by keeping the music fresh.\n"I try not to sing about what happened 50 years ago," he says. "I try to sing about what's happened in my life. If I strike a chord with my generation or younger, then I feel I'm doing a service to the blues"
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
They tell me the new fall TV season is underway. I really wouldn't know. Network TV lost me a long time ago. Today, it seems, prime-time opportunities go to either has-beens who have flopped out of the movie business (Jim Belushi, Damon Wayans, Keifer Sutherland, Geena Davis, Charlie Sheen ... the list is endless and depressing) or hyperactive chefs.\n At this point, there's only a handful of shows that I watch regularly, and the vast majority of them are shown on Fox on Sunday nights. Once in a while I will watch "Monday Night Football," but only when they have a decent match-up (which, apparently, happens about as frequently as Eminem says something intelligent).\nCable offers a similarly bleak broadcast landscape. ESPN is OK for "SportsCenter" or college football, but that's balanced off by the presence of Paul McGuire and Joe Theismann -- both of whom were most assuredly dropped on their heads as babies -- on the channel's Sunday night NFL broadcasts.\nThe "news" channels offer talking Barbie and Ken dolls and frenetic, incomprehensible displays of computer-generated graphic excess. TNT or TBS might show a good movie once in a while, but only in between the 152 times a month they show either "Jaws" or "Stepmom." Then there's E!, a channel entirely devoid to phony breasts and even phonier people. (The one exception is "Talk Soup," which now features new host Aisha Tyler, who is witty, goofy and a total babe to boot. Too bad the show has been banished to the 1 a.m. slot. I guess E! executives figure it's much more important to show "Wild On Boise" in prime time.)\nAnd the music channels? The dimwits at CMT wouldn't know real country if it fell in their laps, MTV is a vacuous wasteland and VH-1 has been reduced to doing "Behind the Music"s on clowns like Creed or No Doubt.\nWhich, of course, leaves only one viewing option: Comedy Central. There's really no other logical choice.\nComedy Central is, of course, anchored by two mainstays: "South Park" and "The Daily Show." Although it has completely permeated popular American culture and become a merchandising juggernaut, "South Park" is still freakin' funny. It's maintained its edge after four years of swear words, poop jokes and Kenny deaths.\nAnd "The Daily Show" didn't win a Peabody Award for nothin'. Jon Stewart is easily the funniest and most cutting-edge host on the air today, and he's also quite the hottie. He's not as annoyingly smug as his predecessor, Craig Kilborn, and he's got a great supporting cast of correspondents. You got your sarcastic cynic (Lewis Black), your lovable loser (Steve Carell) and your nerd with a bow tie (Mo Rocca).\nComedy Central also is the only channel to show reruns of "The Critic," the hilarious but ill-fated cartoon featuring the voice of Jon Lovitz. It says a lot about the American populace that "The Critic" -- an insightful, intelligent comedy that skewered Hollywood with alternately biting and subtle humor -- failed miserably while Tim Allen survived for a decade doing the same hackneyed "dumb guy with power tools" schtick.\nMy favorite new addition to the Comedy Central line-up is "Let's Bowl," a slightly insane game show in which contestants settle their squabbles in a bowling alley. Set in Minneapolis, the show features two loony, dippy announcers and prizes like canned fish and a 1973 El Camino for prizes. I used to bowl when I was a kid, and it was nothing like this.\nBut Comedy Central does have one major drawback -- "The Man Show," which routinely features 30 minutes of lowbrow, sexist and downright lame comedy aimed at the worst features of the average male psyche. Example No. 1: they call their scantily-clad cheerleaders the "Juggies." Example No. 2: It's hosted by Jimmy Kimmel. Example No. 3: It's hosted by Adam Corolla.\nBut fortunately, "The Man Show" isn't on that often, and Comedy Central doesn't suffer as a result. And we don't suffer as a result. So boycott network TV. Ween yourself from Calista "For the love of God eat a sandwich" Flockhart. Resist the temptation to watch "The O'Reilly Factor."\nInstead, watch Comedy Central and become an introverted, anti-social freak like me. Come. Join us. An Emeril-free life awaits.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
In the mid- to late-1990s, music fans discovered R.L. Burnside after a strange but fortunate series of events that included help from alt-rocker Jon Spencer, album production by a Beck cohort and inclusion on a "The Sopranos" soundtrack.\nIt's too bad it had to come to that, because the 75-year-old Burnside has been cranking out high-energy, gut-bucket blues for decades. With Burnside on Burnside, a live album recorded mostly at the Crystal Ballroom on Burnside Street in Portland, Ore., listeners are shown how powerful -- and fun -- the blues can be in the hands of a master.\nBacked only by grandson Cedric Burnside on drums and "adopted son" Kenny Brown on guitar, R.L. rips through a loose but intense set of stripped-down, relentless blues that can best be described as grunge-boogie. \nWhile Cedric pounds out a steady, heavy rhythm for his grandfather, R.L. frequently hits on a single note on the guitar and drives it in, much like late blues legend John Lee Hooker did in his classic sides. \nAlthough 2001 has brought a handful of health problems for Burnside, he barely shows it in Burnside on Burnside. A Mississippi native who for many years subsisted as an itinerant farm worker, Burnside conjures up images of sweaty, deep South juke joints and monthly house-rent parties.\nHe brings a freewheeling attitude and devilish sense of humor to the album. Mid-way through the disc, he stops to relate the story of a friend whose son had yet to have a girlfriend at the age of 22. The father implores the son to find a woman to bring home, which the son dutifully does. But the father rejects the girlfriend for a sordid reason: "Son, you can't marry that girl. That's your sister, but your momma don't know it."\nThe son finds a second girlfriend, but the father again balks for the same reason. The son then tells his mother what his father told him. The mother tells her son not to worry. "Son, you can marry either of them girls you want to," she says, "'cause he ain't your daddy, but he don't know it."\nIt's that type of sly, earthy approach that makes Burnside on Burnside so great. It also makes you wonder what took the mainstream so long to find out about R.L. Burnside.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
The Dances Down Home\nJoe Cormier\nRounder Records\n"Cheticamp, a French-Acadian village of three thousand souls, is situated on the northwest shore of Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia."\nThus begins Anselm Cormier's essay about life in Atlantic Canada that appears in The Dances Down Home, a collection of jigs and reels by Anselm's brother, violinist Joe Cormier.\nThe essay, which originally appeared in the liner notes for Joe Cormier's first album for Rounder Records in 1974, details how the Cormier family grew and flourished in a land settled by Acadian outcasts and, later, Scottish immigrants. The village and the surrounding landscape were, and still are, beautiful, Anselm writes, but life in often-frigid Nova Scotia during the Depression was tough.\nIt was from that stark background that Cape Breton fiddle music developed and where Joe Cormier learned how to play. "The love of music and fiddling," Anselm writes, "came easy to Joe because our house was one where musicians gathered."\nThe Dances Down Home reflects Cormier's brilliant talents and captures the soul of Scottish Canada. The album is one of a projected 30 Heritage compilations released by Rounder to mark the company's 30th year of operation. The collection was culled from currently out-of-print material Cormier recorded for Rounder during a quarter-century.\nAbly supported by Eddie Irwin on piano and Edmond Boudreau on guitar and bass, Cormier's violin ranges from soothing to haunting over the 20 songs in the set. Cormier, who now lives in Waltham, Mass., and rarely plays for large groups of people, evokes images of lonely fishermen yearning for home and close-knit communities gathering to dance on a Saturday night in an attempt to ignore the cold of the North Atlantic.\nOn an even broader scale, this collection of Cormier's music reminds us that North American folk traditions extend to music made north of the border, where the musical heritage is just as deep as the ones found in the Mississippi Delta or the mountains of Kentucky.\n
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
Ozark Folksongs\nVarious Artists\nRounder\nLance Randolph did most of his work in other people's kitchens or on other people's porches. The folklore collector spent nearly 50 years recording the music of the Ozark Mountain region, which covers parts of Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kansas. Nestled in that rugged terrain, Randolph captured Ozark natives as they spilled forth the soul of a culture.\nMuch of Randolph's work was completed in 1941-42, after famed folklorist Alan Lomax loaned him a cumbersome recording machine, aluminum discs and travel expenses. Randolph proceeded to capture roughly 830 pieces on nearly 200 discs, recording ballads, songs and instrumentals. The collection was deposited at the Library of Congress' Archive of Folk Culture, but, for the most part, the recordings were not commercially released until now.\nOzark Folksongs presents a wide variety of musical forms and styles, from the lonely a cappella warblings of Charles Ingenthron, Lillian Short and Doney Hammontree to the solemn couplings of harmonica player Arthur Trail and guitarist Wiley Hembree. The collection also features solo instrumentalist pieces by several artists, including fiddler Lon Jordan and Shamus O'Brien on guitar.\nPerhaps the best music on the collection are the two songs by Jimmy Denoon. On "The Little Old Shod Shanty on the Claim," Denoon's sad, lilting voice resonates beautifully against quiet guitar accompaniment, while Denoon's shows his talents as a guitar-picker on "Chicken Reel."\nThe music on Ozark Folksongs is limited by the production quality; the recordings are scratchy and sometimes muffled, and often the listener can hear the sounds of shuffled papers or passing trains in the background.\nBut then again, that's part of the music's charm. Ozark Folksongs presents real American folk music being performed in its natural environment -- on a porch, for just a few attentive listeners.\n
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
Uncle Tupelo 89/93: An Anthology\nUncle Tupelo\nColumbia Legacy\nAs the '80s turned into the '90s, few people were thinking about country-rock. Seattle grunge was about to explode across the country, Guns N' Roses hadn't yet flamed out, and legions of white suburban kids were just beginning to expose their tender ears to the grittier side of hip-hop.\nA dozen or so years ago, the idea of reviving the breathtaking fusion of rock and country pioneered by groups like the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield and Big Star was way off the radar screen. Yet Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy did it with Uncle Tupelo, a band that burned with intensity and raw emotion for a handful of years before splintering into Wilco and Son Volt in the mid-1990s.\nRemarkably, Columbia Legacy has managed to capture the essence of Uncle Tupelo, on 89/93: An Anthology, a 21-track collection culled from the band's four albums (the first three were recorded for indie label Rockville, the fourth for Sire/Reprise). \nBeginning with the first cut, "No Depression" -- a cover of a classic Carter Family song -- the anthology proves that Uncle Tupelo deserved much more recognition than it received.\nMuch like "Spoon River Anthology," Edgar Lee Master's brilliant book of poetry about a sleepy but sordid Illinois town, Uncle Tupelo manages to reflect on the big questions of life while remaining firmly planted on the ground and focused on individual stories. As Tweedy sings on the collection's second song, "Down here, we don't care what happens outside the screen door."\nThe band was able to record both elegant ballads ("Sauget Wind," "Moonshiner") and hard-driving rockers ("Graveyard Shift," "I Got Drunk," "The Long Cut") with equal ease. Somber fiddles and sullen harmonicas float throughout the collection, and at times the band displays echoes of John Mellencamp, Neil Young and R.E.M. (whose guitarist, Peter Buck, served as Uncle Tupelo's producer for a time).\nIn fact, at its best, Uncle Tupelo conjures up images of Young's best work with Crazy Horse. On the epic "Effigy," a cover of a John Fogerty song, the trio of Farrar (vocals and guitar), Tweedy (vocals and bass) and drummer Ken Coomer seems as if it is channeling the same spirit that fueled classic Young cuts like "Down by the River" and "Like a Hurricane."\nPerhaps, in hindsight, Uncle Tupelo was either ahead of its time or behind the times. But even if they were, the band cut a wide swath of true Americana through a popular music scene that was, in many ways, so superficial.\n
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
The Essential Masters\nMemphis Slim\nPurple Pyramid\nIt might be a few weeks after Valentine's Day, but in retrospect legendary blues shouter Memphis Slim has the best line for those of us who were without company that day: "A room without a woman is like a heart without a beat / Seems like I have trouble with every girl I meet." Preach on, brother.\nThus Purple Pyramid's re-issue of classic Slim sides comes at a perfect time. But actually, there's no bad time for a talent like Memphis Slim. As a singer and a pianist, he cut some of the nastiest, dirtiest blues ever put on wax. Whether Slim was working with guitar great Big Bill Broonzy or playing with his own backing band, the House Rockers, he was able to capture the essence of the blues.\nBut what do you expect from a cat who was born and raised in Memphis and then moved to Chicago. Being in such blues-soaked burgs most assuredly wore off on Slim, who produced hit records for 25 years starting in 1948.\nOn Essential Masters, one can hear a myriad of influences and styles. On tracks like "Let the Good Times Roll" and "Harlem Bound," Slim sounds uncannily like R&B big man Joe Turner; on "Slim's Blues" and "Trouble in Mind," he pours out the type of gut-bucket blues that would satisfy any lonely soul. On "I Guess I'm a Fool," Slim even uses a backing vocal group that evokes memories of the Ink Spots.\nAnd Slim is no less impressive on the ivories. Working with his backing band he creates a gritty soundtrack for his vocals. It's easy to see why he influenced countless piano players who came after him; one can hear shades of Slim in artists like Little Richard, Dr. John and others.\nIt might be too late this year to celebrate a lonely Valentine's Day with Memphis Slim and some moonshine hooch, but there's always next year. Don't worry, the music won't go bad. It just keeps getting better year after year.\n
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
Action Packed: The Best of Jonathan Richman\nJonathan Richman\nRounder Records\nJonathan Richman is a little strange. Well, OK, the official industry buzz word is "quirky," but whatever you call Richman's music, the fact is that it's sometimes just plain weird. Or odd. Or nutty.\nAnd that's generally a good thing. Because in the mid- to late-1970s, Richman and his band, the Modern Lovers, helped spearhead the "new wave" movement that would bring punk into the '80s with a glib combination of humor and sincerity.\nAt first Richman recorded for the Beserkley label (which is probably best known for Greg Kihn's "Jeopardy"), but by the late 1980s he had moved to Rounder Records, where he continued to make off-beat yet catchy music. The best of Richman's seven Rounder albums have been condensed into Action Packed, a 22-track disc that largely features Richman alone with his guitar.\nThe anthology reflects Richman's innate ability to channel the spirits of early rock and roll legends. On "New Kind of Neighborhood," Richman gives off a distinctly Buddy Holly-ish vibe. "Closer" features vocals that echo Del Shannon and a twangy guitar sound that conjures up Duane Eddy.\n"You're Crazy for Taking the Bus" sounds an awful lot like the stuff Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash did for Sun Records nearly 50 years ago, while Richman openly acknowledges being influenced by the Kingsmen, the McCoys and the Righteous Brothers on "Parties in the U.S.A."\nNone of the tracks on Action Packed deliver the punch of Richman's best Beserkley stuff (such as the ageless "Roadrunner"). However, most of the cuts wonderfully reveal a songwriting talent who wears his heart on his sleeve and keeps his tongue in his cheek. Action Packed is a good lesson for twenty-somethings who know Richman only as the singing guy in "There's Something About Mary."\n
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
As the owner of All Ears Record Store on 10th Street, Charlie Titche sells both CDs and traditional vinyl records. In fact, his store is split evenly into two rooms, one filled with compact discs, the other with LPs. And, he says, his sales are divided 50-50 between the old and the new format.\nBut as a music collector, Titche isn't divided at all. He knows which one he prefers.\n"I'm addicted to vinyl," he says. "It's a personal fixation I have."\nSome might call Titche a throwback. They might say he's stuck in the past. That might be so, but he's not alone in his love for the 12-inch black platters.\n"I grew up with The Who's Live at Leeds and Jefferson Airplane's Volunteers, great vinyl like that," says Andy Walter, the manager of Tracks on Kirkwood Avenue. "It just sounds different off the stereo. The guitar sort of moves back and forth between the speakers. With CDs you don't have that. It's flat."\nLike Titche, Walter has stacks and stacks of old vinyl LPs for sale in an attempt to cater to the small but dedicated market of record collectors in Bloomington.\nJust how small is that market? According to numbers released by the Recording Industry Association of America, music companies shipped a total of 7 million units of LPs, EPs and vinyl singles in 2000. Total net revenue: $54 million. That's less than 1 percent of the industry's total sales for that year.\nWalter says sales of vinyl records are a "negligible" portion of his overall business; many of his LP buyers are international students studying at IU. In his mind, the vinyl business is "clearly on the backside" of the sales curve.\nStill, he says, there are still people out there who have a craving for LPs. He says he recently received new vinyl pressings of the Rolling Stones' ABKCO albums, as well as fresh copies of new Tom Waits platters. And, believe it or not, he's sold multiple vinyl copies of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in the last month.\nTitche acknowledges that LPs have seen better days, but he believes the market has remained steady in recent years.\n"It's not the dominant format like it was throughout the '70s and early '80s," he says. "But compared to 10, five or two years ago, vinyl sales continue to rock."\nBut why? CDs are smaller, more portable and almost as cheap as vinyl, and to many collectors they have the best sound in the business. So why would someone prefer the clunky, scratchy, dusty LP?\nFor one thing, many vinyl collectors dispute the assertion that CDs sound better. For example, Walter says some classical, such as Mantovani, "just sounds incredible on vinyl. Some of that stuff is outstanding."\nAnd, Walter adds, many classic-rock bands like the Airplane recorded their albums on three- or four-track stereo systems, a sound that can only be brought out on vinyl.\n"The sound just moved around the room," he says.\nTitche agrees that LPs have a great, unique sound.\n"There is a marked difference in sound quality, and you don't have to have a ritzy stereo system to tell the difference," he says. "It might not be better, but there is a difference."\nAnother factor is price. Used LPs are frequently cheaper than used CDs, and many music stores have bargain bins of records costing a couple bucks each -- or less.\n"People can get 20 albums for $75," Titche says. "You can't get 20 CDs for $175, $200, $250. And we have lots of records that are $6 each, and they're in beautiful shape. There's a greater value there. People can pick up more for the same amount of money."\nMusic collector John McLaughlin says LPs' lower prices are attractive.\n"There's something kind of fun in finding a place that just has a rack of 25-cent or 50-cent albums of older stuff," McLaughlin says. "It can be pretty entertaining."\nAnother factor, Titche notes, is bigger, richer, more detailed album art and packaging. And, he says, there's still countless numbers of albums that can only be found on vinyl.\nThose are all qualities that help attract a fair amount of young buyers to vinyl. Titche says about two-thirds of the LP shoppers in his store are students under the age of 25.\nSophomore Tre Murillo and junior Dave Parker are both young converts.\n"I like the sound and the larger cover art," Murillo says. "There's something about putting on a record that's different than a CD."\nAnd as Parker says, "It's a nostalgia thing."\nBut for many vinyl enthusiasts, it's the intangibles that are too hard to ignore.\n"LPs appeal to a part of me that's off-kilter, out of the mainstream," Walter says. "There's a virtue to it, like emotional sustenance."\nAnd besides emotion, Titche enjoys the physical texture of the albums.\n"Sometimes when you flip through old records, you get that mildew smell, your fingers get a little dirty," he says. "You can flip through CDs all day and that won't happen. You flip through CDs and it's just click, click, click.\n"I've had friends who never collected vinyl before, then they tried it and were totally hooked in," he adds. "They didn't get it before, but they get it now."\nSo where do you go when you're jonesin' for some vinyl? While there might only be a handful of stores that still sell vinyl in Bloomington, other avenues of obtaining the stuff exist. There's usually a monthly record show in Indianapolis (the next one, organized by Alpha Records and Music, is scheduled for April 14 at the Quality Inn on Shadeland Avenue).\nAnd, if all else fails, collectors can head online. General auction sites like eBay constantly feature hundreds of LPs, while www.gemm.com is a nationwide music clearinghouse that features volumes and volumes of vinyl. There's also www.recordcollecting.com and a record collecting-webring at www.r.c.webring.8m.com.\nThe bottom line: it's there if you look hard enough. And Titche says collectors should be proud of their obsession. He definitely is.\n"Vinyl is not dead," he says. "Far from it"
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
Sheryl Crow\nC'mon, C'mon\nA&M/Interscope\nThese days, there are very few women who play straight-ahead rock and roll in the classic sense: melodic, guitar-based and riff-heavy, a la the Stones, Creedence, Neil Young and Tom Petty. Sheryl Crow is one of those few. Along with Liz Phair and a couple of others, Crow carries the torch that has in the past been borne by Ronnie Spector, Grace Slick, Janis Joplin and Chrissie Hynde. In a music world dominated by air-headed pop divas of questionable talent, at best, Crow provides a refreshing reminder that, yes, women can indeed rock.\nHowever, the best rock icons haven't simply rocked; they've developed and matured as artists and have given their audience different sounds throughout their careers. On C'mon, C'mon, Crow's fourth studio album and the first since 1998's The Globe Sessions, the singer-songwriter-guitarist doesn't display the type of growth that should be expected of the best rock stars. The album derives much of its inspiration from classic rock, the sometimes wonderful, sometimes schlocky genre of music that started in the late 1960s and developed throughout the '70s. In fact, C'mon, C'mon features guest appearances by such classic rock standard-bearers as Stevie Nicks and Don Henley, as well as visits from more contemporary stars like Phair, Lenny Kravitz and Dixie Chick Natalie Maines. And that can be a good thing, but only to a certain extent. \nWhile the album does display some token ventures into modern production techniques and instrumentation, in general C'mon, C'mon remains stuck in the past. That's not to say it's not a good record. C'mon, C'mon is certainly on a par with her previous efforts, and it's miles ahead of 90 percent of the pop-music market. The best tracks are the leadoff, "Steve McQueen," which establishes a solid groove from the get-go, and the plaintive, wistful title track, which features Crow's best singing and songwriting.\nHopefully, Crow will eventually move beyond such ho-hum influences as the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac and start to carve out her own special niche in rock and roll history. That doesn't happen on C'mon, C'mon.\n
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
Like most music fans, there are certain artists and albums I wouldn't listen to for anything. Take, for example, Lynyrd Skynyrd. I wouldn't listen to those talentless crackers even if doing so would, say, get me a date with Gillian Anderson or put George Clinton in the White House. However, I am also human. I have human weaknesses, personal failings that irritate and embarass me. This means that every once in a while, I find myself liking a song or album by an artist I would otherwise despise. Even as I derive pleasure from listening to such songs my insides are tied into knots of shame and self-loathing. That's why I call them guilty pleasures. It's music I know I should hate, but for some reason I'm still drawn to it like a pigeon to a freshly waxed car. The list is nothing short of frightening:\n"Ray of Light," Madonna\nNormally, I would shrug off Madonna as the screeching, two-bit whore she is. However, this one song turns my whole world upside down. Because I like it, I feel like my musical sensibilities have been scrambled and convoluted. I don't know what's real anymore. It pains me very much to admit I like a Madonna song. If I were Catholic, I'd be repenting every week.\n"Already Gone," the Eagles\nThe knowledge that the Eagles continue to plague modern society keeps me awake at night. I almost had a coronary when the band was elected to the Rock 'n' Roll of Fame. But this song actually kicks butt, which is surprising, since it was recorded by a bunch of sunstroked, California pansies.\nMotley Crue's Too Fast For Love\nLike most people of normal intellectual capacity, I outgrew the Crue in junior high school. However, the band's debut album has a surprisingly raw and punky streak to it that actually makes it kind of listenable. It's too bad these clowns took the fluff-metal path instead of the punk one.\n"Renegade," Styx\nFor some bewildering reason Styx was really popular in the '70s and '80s. My guess is that Dennis DeYoung sold his soul to the devil, a transaction that cursed humankind with "Lady," "Come Sail Away" and "Mr. Roboto." But "Renegade" is a rockin' little number that almost makes you forget that the rest of the Pieces of Eight album is total crap.\n"Heaven Is a Place on Earth," Belinda Carlisle\nMs. Carlisle should have just given up music altogether after leaving the Go-Gos. But, unfortunately, she didn't, and American society suffered for it. However, "Heaven" is just one of those catchy, well-written pop songs that gets under your skin and plants itself in your head. It makes you long for a lobotomy.\n"Sugar Sugar," the Archies\nThe Archies were an embarassment to rock 'n' roll fans everywhere. They were a completely made up group based on a comic book. They somehow made the Monkees look good. Despite the insulting concept behind the band, "Sugar Sugar" is a pop gem. (Tip: Check out Wilson Pickett's version of it.)\n"Breakfast in America," Supertramp\nWas there any wussier '70s group than Supertramp? Roger Hogsdon sounded like he had been castrated with a weed whacker. But this song, found on the album of the same name, was catchy and somewhat socially relevant.\n"These Boots," Nancy Sinatra\nThis offspring of music royalty had very little talent but was blessed with a hot body and a sultry song that fit her near-monotone vocals perfectly. (Another tip: Check out Megadeth's version of it.)\nThis is, of course, an abbreviated list of my guilty pleasures. There are many more sinful songs that will send me to hell, but I'd rather keep those buried deep within the twisted recesses of my mind. So please, if you ever see me singing "Ray of Light," do the humane thing and put me out of my misery, preferably with a baseball bat to the head.