BECK from page 69
As scores of starry-eyed teenaged girls and alter-
natively savvy college students will tell you, the
blond-bobbed Gen Xer's appeal is his distinct, yet
ever-changing rhythm. Beck's popular tunes incor-
porate familiar sounds like hip-hop, country and
folk with funky samples from the likes of James
Brown and Bob Dylan.
And while his constantly evolving M.O. makes it
difficult to assign his tunes an exact genre, his fans
— including those who have never even heard of the
Godfather of Soul — don't seem to mind.
Beck, on tour to promote his
latest album, Midnite Vultures,
will perform live in concert
7:30 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 3, at
Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor.
Even as a child, Beck spent
lots of time on the road, shuf-
fling between his paternal
grandfather, a Presbyterian min-
ister in Kansas City, and his
Jewish mother in Los Angeles.
He recalls fond memories of
Passover seders spent with his
family, though his Jewish educa-
tion stopped short of him hav-
ing a traditional bar mitzvah.
"I went to Hebrew school
for a while though," he said
during an interview with
JVibe.com . "I got some of the Jew-knowledge. I just
didn't get the ceremony. I remember my friends get-
ting bar mitzvahed though."
Beck was first exposed to music through his
father, a bluegrass musician. His mother, Bibbe, an
Andy Warhol groupie in the '60s, took in struggling
musicians as boarders when her sons were teenagers,
despite the fact that the family lived in a crowded
one-bedroom apartment near South Central L.A.
• The notoriously dangerous neighborhood was
already the scene of escalating street violence, with
machine-gun fire erupting one night in the Hansens'
front yard.
In the ninth grade, Beck quit school and began
working odd jobs and experimenting with the gui-
tar. "By the time I was 16, my mom was treating me
like another adult," he told Rolling Stone magazine
in 1997. "I was just someone living in the house. I
came and went as I pleased."
Eventually, he took a Greyhound bus ride across
the country to New York, where he immersed himself
in the eclectic music scene of the late 1980s. Working
as a street musician on the Lower East Side, Beck
dabbled mostly in folk music and honed his skills on
a multitude of instruments. He spent about a year in
Manhattan before returning to the West Coast.
Back in L.A., he worked in a video store and
played various gigs at small Hollywood clubs. That's
when things started to fall into place for the so-
called "prophet of the '90s slackers."
Soon, he was spotted by an independent record
label that helped him record "Loser" as a single. The
song was instantly popular in L.A., and earned Beck
a deal with DGC, a division of Geffen Records.
In 1993, Beck re-released "Loser" on his first album,
Mellow Gold, for which he was paid a whopping $500.
Seven years later, he's sold millions of records, has
two Grammys under his belt and has just been
nominated for a third. His sixth album, Midnite
Vultures, was released in November, following great
acclaim for 1996's Odelay and 1998's Mutations.
Hits like "Where It's At," "Devil's Haircut" and
"The New Pollution" have garnered Beck instant
respect in alternative music circles.
"I never had any expectations of winning a
Grammy. It wasn't something I was set on, that I
To The
Dina Fuchs is an Atlanta- based freelance writer.
and avoid the pitfalls that too many of his contem-
poraries have fallen victim to.
"I'm a traditionalist in a lot of ways. A lot of what
my generation is into, what it represents, I'm totally
against. I find that I connect much more with older
musicians. I think a lot of my generation has been
fed a culture that's just so disposable," he has said.
"It's easy to be a rock musician with a drug prob-
lem because it's been done before. There's already a
romance to it. It's like doing a cover of a song that
was No. 1 years ago. It's a safe bet. There's nothing
creative about it."
A desire to continue evolving as a
musician may be the key to Beck's
success. He cites Yiddish novelist and
short story writer Isaac Bashevis Singer
as someone he would have liked to
work with — "something very tradi-
tional, something very poignant" —
and his own music collection is filled
with upbeat tunes from Brazil.
There was a time when he con-
templated returning to school, but
his success has put those plans on
indefinite hold. And despite his ever-
expanding cache of awards, Beck is
keeping it all in perspective.
A true believer in music as art, he
says his goal is not so much to make a
name for himself, as it is to continue
charting new territory through his innovative tunes.
"The cliche of what a rock star is — there's some-
thing elitist about it. I've never related to that," he
admitted to Rolling Stone. "I'm an entertainer." ❑
Fu tune
was hoping and praying and starving for," he told
Rolling Stone. "But it is incredible!"
While his career may sound like a typical "rags to
riches" fairytale, Beck is quick to shun any label that
paints him as part of a stereotype or trend.
His carefully crafted lyrics and cleverly recycled
bits have helped distinguish him from the pack
while allowing him to put his own stamp on an
already popular sound. Yet he still strives to push
beyond the boundaries of today's alternative noise
Beck will perform at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, Feb.
3, at Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor. Tickets are
$22.50; call Ticketmaster at (248) 645-6666.
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Beck un
On not being bar mitvahed: "I wanted to be [bar
mitzvahed], but we were so, poor when I was a kid.
I remember my Mother griping about it for years."
On what he would have worn: "If I was bar mitz-
vahed, I would've worn a blue blazer, grey slacks
and Florsheims with a phat tie. It's the uniform."
On people finding out he's Jewish: "They can't
believe it. I don't know, because the tribe is
large. I think there's more people that have Jew
in them than don't."
On his favorite Jewish holiday "Passover,
because it's the first time I ever got drunk.
There's serious parts at Passover but there's cele-
bratory parts too — hiding the matzah. I used
one of the prayers from Passover in a song I did
[during] a Christmas jam. It was a Chanuka
interpretation of 'Little Drummer Boy.'"
— From "iVibe.com," an online magazine for
teens and a project of Jewish Family & Life!
Beck: Fond memories of filmily seders.