Arts & Entertainment
WAS
from page 67
Clockwise from left:
From the 1970 Oak Park
High School yearbook:
A shot of a teenaged Don
(Fagenson) Was.
The Black Cowes will
perform tunes from the Don
Was-produced "Lions" at the
DTE Energy Theatre.
Of Bob Dylan, who turned
60 on May 24, Was says:
"He is a great, cool guy"
"It always scares me if an artist has
objectivity all the way through the
record because that means he or she is
not properly emotionally engaged."
And that emotional engagement is crit-
ical. "If I don't get a c- 11 at 3 in the morn-
ing saying, 'I don't know if this is the best
record we've ever made or the biggest
mistake ever,' then I am_ concerned."
When Was works, "nothing is set in
stone." Rather, "you try to steer the
ship of state to something truthful."
He sees his objectivity as critical to
protecting the artist's point of view. So
it is only natural that what he looks
for in an artist is "someone who has a
point of view worth protecting."
From
Shmoozer To
Actor
Former Detroiter finds
career on the silver screen.
Eddy
Rubin
6/1
2001
74
But it's not as if Was doesn't have his
own point of view and avenues to
express it. An accomplished musician
who often plays bass on the albums he
produces, he and childhood friend
David (Weiss) Was formed the band
Was (Not Was) in the early '80s.
Clever and playful, they had hits
like "Walk the Dinosaur," as well as
collaborations with Mel Torme,
Leonard Cohen, Ozzy Osborne and
others.
Don Was describes their music as
acerbic, bitingly funny songs of social
observation wrapped in virtually any
musical guise they could imagine.
He was heavily influenced by the
AUDREY BECKER
Special to the Jewish News
Iff
any a story of an actor's
success begins with the
ambitious move to Los
Angeles to pursue the
Hollywood dream. Not so for Eddy
Rubin, who appears this summer in a
nationally distributed independent
film, Nikita Blues.
Rubin moved to California with his
mother in the mid-'80s, during his
senior year at Southfield-Lathrup
High School. Although he had no
background in performance, Rubin
recalls being repeatedly asked if he was
an actor or a comedian.
'After hearing that for three or four
years, I realized that I was an actor. I
was a comedian," he says. "And I start-
ed pursuing it."
Rubin honed his skills at El Camino
'60s, by life in Detroit and by the free-
flowing music scene here.
"Everyone wanted to be different —
to do something that no one else was
doing. This wasn't just a Detroit thing,
but it was the times," he says. For Was,
doing something new was "not a means
to an end; it was an end in itself"
"The '60s were an amazina time to
grow up in Detroit, up until b the riots,
which began the polarization," Was
recalls. "The beauty of Detroit was there
was no opulence. [It was like] a giant
worker's state where everything revolved
around the economy of the auto business.
"Detroit was honest; there was no
point in pretense because no one was
going anywhere, and there was a sense of
a broader community. There was this
higher consciousness and higher aware-
ness of economic exploitation. When
that happens, the culture that pours from
being downtrodden is magnificent."
Was started playing in bands as a
preteen, and honed his craft on the
Detroit bar mitzvah circuit. He had
his own bar mitzvah at Temple
Emanu-El in Oak Park.
Music always captivated him. He
has special memories of first seeing
John Sinclair and the MC5, meeting
Rod Stewart during his early days with
the Jeff Beck Group, and of Iggy Pop
and the Stooges playing for his Oak
Park High School graduation.
He recalls that "everybody came
through town," and he was sure to be
there.
"That kind of cultural jambalaya left
an indelible impression on me," Was
says, but notes it was "almost 180 degrees
from the musical climate today" He
College in Torrance, Calif., south of L.A.,
where he joined the speech and debate
team. In 1990, he won a state champi-
onship in the "theater interpretation" cat-
egory, and fully embarked upon an act-
ing career with a move to Hollywood.
Rubin took the initiative in further-
ing his career. "Because I knew so
many people and I'm such a shmoozer,
I meet a lot of people," he says. "If
they have something to do with the
business, I definitely let them know
that I'm an actor."
While in Hollywood, he lived next
door to the assistant to the executive
producer of television's The Jamie Foxx
Show. Rubin was hired by the show as
an extra for three days and earned his
Screen Actor's Guild (SAG) card.
Nov, more than 10 years since
Rubin's adventures in acting began, his
diligence is beginning to pay off. He
currently appears in a prominent role
doesn't mince words about the changes.
"In the '60s, if someone said your
music sounded like something that
someone else was doing, those were
fighting words," Was says.
"Now, if you can't walk into your
record company with your music and
say it's a cross between Mariah Carey
and such and such, you're screwed. No
one wants to take a chance."
The furor over Napster and other
music-sharing technologies is a case in
point.
"Notice that most of the people
screaming about Napster are record
companies, not artists," he says.
"Artists are used to being ripped off by
record companies. The music business
dollar is worth 70 cents by the time
you get paid because people are going
to steal from you down the line.
"So the question becomes, 'Who is
going to steal from you?' The record
company? Or would you rather let
some people download your songs
for free, dig them and buy a ticket to
a show, a T-shirt and maybe a whole
CD. I haven't seen any analysis that
shows Napster hurting music sales."
Still, Was recognizes the music busi-
ness has been good to him.
"I've got more than any human
being should have. So it's all rela-
tive," he says.
Money isn't the only perk. He finds
it inspiring to work with great artists
who have something so intensely per-
sonal to say and who express them-
selves with such eloquence."
High on that list is Bob Dylan. Was
produced Dylan's Under the Red Sky in
1990 and his Greatest Hits Vol. 3 in 1994.
"
in Nikita Blues. .
Directed by Detroit native Marc
Cayce, Nikita Blues tells the tale of a
young black girl who has fallen for her
English teacher. Rubin plays "White Boy
Wayne," an unlikely combination of class
clown and rapist who is both charming
and detestable at the same time.
Rubin is quick to distinguish him-
self from his character. "I just had to
go with the moment and be a sicko,"
he says. "In acting you have to make a
choice, no matter what you're doing.'
Nikita Blues has been screened at the
Hollywood Black Film Festival and
has been picked up for limited release
in 140 cities, including Detroit, where
it premiered last month at the Phoenix
Theatres.
The fan that director Cayce was a
Detroit native emerged as a surprising
coincidence. "We didn't know we had that
Detroit connection," says Rubin, "until