Longform

Using good music to make good music

By Mia Partlow · Thursday, July 10,2003 12 a.m.

Tindersticks, a six piece big band with an intimate sound, has created a beautiful album with Waiting for the Moon, its sixth studio LP. And it is enjoyable to listen to despite its lack of originality. Tindersticks play a sound derived, clearly, from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, but somehow it works. Cave, the reigning king of underground music (at least as far as this reviewer is concerned), specializes in morbid lounge ballads that are beyond astounding.

Type O Negative a bloody mess

By -Val Tsoutsouris · Thursday, July 10,2003 12 a.m.

Goth and metal don't mix. For evidence, listen to Type O Negative's Life Is Killing Me. Is frontman Peter Steele serious or joking? The more one listens, the more unsure one gets. For example, a song on Life Is Killing Me is called "(We Were) Electrocute." Sorry, but wordplay doesn't go with this music. While this reviewer might be missing the joke, there's no questioning the music: it's lethargic, restrained and bland. Guitar shredding is absent, leaving the listener to focus on Steele's overmodulated baritone. With repeated listenings, Steele's singing just gets annoying.

Once again the French appropriate

By Mia Partlow · Thursday, July 10,2003 12 a.m.

In the most generalizing and stereotypical way possible, one can divide most indie-rock bands into two broad categories: the 'always building up to something' band, and the 'something important is happening right now' band. The French electronic band M83 belongs to the latter category. Its second full-length Dead Cities, Red Seas, & Lost Ghosts creates a sound that is as big as an ocean (or a sea?) and as depressingly ephemeral as, uh, a ghost.

Pray this isn't 'For the Ride Home'

By Seth Forster · Thursday, July 10,2003 12 a.m.

Looking at the album cover, I see Josh Kelley's drinking a cup of coffee. He must have been listening to this album. Of the two things that most offend me most in music, the completely, intentionally, sterilized, unoffensive manufacture of mainstream pop music ranks right up there with the hypocritical shock-value arrogance of pseudo-self-important modern art. Now that I've got that out in the open, I can go into detail on the music for the drones. The few hooks that exist seem borrowed and the writing is empty at best: "You've been bad / You've been good / Did you lose your mind / Like I knew you would?" In his sweater and unkempt hair, Josh Kelley is a hard guy not to like and the organ work and occasional banjo and steel help too.

Court refuses to alter decision

Wednesday, July 9,2003 10:48 p.m.

RICHMOND, Va. -- A federal appeals court Wednesday refused to rehear the claims of an American-born man captured in Afghanistan who says he is being unconstitutionally held in a military jail as an "enemy combatant."

IU loses Kelley school benefactor

By Aaron Uslan · Wednesday, July 9,2003 10:22 p.m.

A funeral service will be held today at 10 a.m. at the First Friends Church in Kokomo for the man we can thank for introducing Steakburgers to the market. Indiana businessman, philanthropist and IU alumnus Estel Wood Kelley passed away Friday in Indianapolis at the age of 86. A 1939 IU graduate, he died at the Krannert Pavilion of the IU Medical Center after a long battle with cancer.

Bush promises not to overextend troops around world for Liberia's aid

By Darlene Superville · Wednesday, July 9,2003 10:20 p.m.

PRETORIA, South Africa -- President Bush pledged Wednesday that the United States will "be involved" in war-torn Liberia but said he would not overextend U.S. armed forces if he sends troops there to join a peacekeeping force.

Problems recognized in department

By Nicholas J. Schmidt and Nick J. Schmidt · Wednesday, July 9,2003 10:10 p.m.

Changes are underway in the African-American and African-Diaspora Studies Department, headed by Chairperson John Stanfield. Since his appointment in July 2002, Stanfield has seen some problems that have been ailing the department, and is slowly trying to fix them, he said in an e-mail sent to the department.

New center to address Latino issues

By Patrice Worthy · Wednesday, July 9,2003 10:10 p.m.

The Latino population is one of the fastest growing population groups in the United States. Latinos are represented everywhere, and here in Bloomington, they are a huge part of the ethnic minority. The Spanish speaking population has grown so rapidly that many organizations have come together in order to help them adjust to living in North America.

A marathon journey

By Zack Eldridge · Wednesday, July 9,2003 9:50 p.m.

Not long ago, Amie Dworecki was forced to give up running competitively because of bad knees. Her doctor advised her to stop running long distances.

Three more players verbally commit to IU

Wednesday, July 9,2003 9:40 p.m.

Men's basketball coach Mike Davis always has been considered a knowledgeable recruiter. Chances are, he just landed another prized recruit to add to his resume. D.J. White, a 6-foot-7-inch, 233-pound forward from Tuscaloosa, Ala., verbally committed to play for the Hoosiers on Monday. He will begin playing in the 2004-2005 season. White, who made his intentions clear while playing at the Nike All-America Camp in Indianapolis, is considered by many recruiting services to be one of the top 10 players in the class of 2004. White joins Pike's Robert Vaden and Fort Wayne Elmhurst's James Hardy as players who have committed to IU. All three are participating in the Nike Camp, getting the opportunity to play against the country's top 180 high school players. The experience they gain at the Nike Camp will help prepare them not only for their basketball careers, but also for decisions they will face off the court.

Around the Arts

Wednesday, July 9,2003 9:36 p.m.

Low-income youth scholarships available The Bloomington Area Arts council has made available 50 scholarships for low income Bloomington residents under the age of 18. These scholarships can be used to enroll in camps, workshops or art classes offered by the John Waldron Arts Center.

Rare Kiron opera to play in N.Y.

By Mike Silverman · Wednesday, July 9,2003 9:34 p.m.

NEW YORK -- Valery Gergiev seems to be on a one-man crusade to bring the neglected operas of Sergei Prokofiev before New York audiences.

Baghdads landmark statues falling to looters in postwar lawlessness

By Jim Krane · Wednesday, July 9,2003 9:34 p.m.

BAGHDAD, Iraq --The world watched the toppling of the Saddam Hussein statue April 9. But few saw the falling of the stately figure of Abdul Muhsin al-Saadoun -- or more than a dozen other landmark bronzes that once watched over this city's squares and boulevards.

Corrections

Wednesday, July 9,2003 9:30 p.m.

• In the July 7 issue, Sharon Chandler is misidentified in a photograph for the "Celebrating the Fourth" story.

IUPD Blotter

Wednesday, July 9,2003 9:30 p.m.

The IU Police Department reported the following activity. July 1 • Sophomore Kent Roberts reported the theft of his cell phone from the IU Outdoor Pool. Estimated loss is $150.

New visa rules disuade international students

Wednesday, July 9,2003 9:29 p.m.

College officials across Indiana fear new visa restrictions adopted in response to the 2001 terrorist attacks could cause many foreign students to miss this year's fall semester.

Hits just keep getting harder to find

By -Val Tsoutsouris · Wednesday, July 9,2003 9:18 p.m.

Baseball is one sport people love to over-intellectualize. I've heard fellow Cubs fans tell me that Carlos Zambrano is a better young pitcher than Kerry Wood or Mark Prior. (He's not.) I've heard even non-Cardinals fans tell me that Albert Pujols deserved the 2001 National League Most Valuable Player Award over Barry Bonds because Pujols' team made the playoffs and Bonds' didn't, forgetting that Bonds hit 73 homers. (Nope.) And countless times, I've heard that so and so didn't win not because they lacked better players but because they lacked team "chemistry," whatever that is. (That's preposterous.)

Southern Ind. trustees raise tuition 8 percent

Wednesday, July 9,2003 9:17 p.m.

EVANSVILLE -- Trustees at the University of Southern Indiana voted Monday to approve a nearly 8 percent increase in tuition and fees for the 2003-2004 school year. University President H. Ray Hoops said the school's business office will "manage the heck out of the dollars." Tuition for in-state, undergraduate students will be $3,885 a year.

Indiana residents pull together to stop flooding

By Tom Coyne · Wednesday, July 9,2003 9:16 p.m.

DECATUR, Ind. -- Strangers and National Guardsmen joined together Wednesday in an effort to save homes surrounded by flood waters brought on by days of thunderstorms. The St. Marys River in northeastern Indiana remained at record levels and several hundred homes around Decatur had been flooded or were being threatened by high water.