ARTS .3 The Michigan Daily Saturday, September 27, 1980 Page 5 KID CER OLE'S SUNNY SOULD Papaya, bananfish and funk PUT'EI ire e A AWAY If you can live without your cigarettes for one day. you might find you can live without them forever. By RJ SMITH Just sit right back and you'll hear a le, a tale of a fateful fandango; Kid reole's calypso romances, in the land of the pan-fried mango. It's a shame you can't roll up an, album the way you can one of those flimsy Time-Life "Greats From the Swing Era" square 45's that come in the miail every few months. Cause Kid Creole and the Coconuts' Off The Coast Of V6 is one record that deserves to be squirreled away in bottles on record store shelves, like some communique froml-a tropical island. THE KID, LIKE Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band, Cory Daye, and Gichy Dan, are brainchildren of songwriter, producer and singer August Darnell. What precedent there is for this sort of stuff is almost ex- clusively found in what Darnell has do'nb, previously. It's a disco rhumba fresh off the banana boat, it's Carmen Mirahda almost losing it on the floor at Xenon, casting a quick glance or two Out the door and thinking about something a little bit grittier, maybe her walk-up in the Bronx, maybe last night's James White show. Since Darnell spurted out on the scene in the mid-seventies, his person- na",hasn't changed much, but that's okay: Always the gleefully upwardly- mobile rhythm kid, Darnell applies the eircle of musicians surrounding him to various musical projects, albeit in- fu'siig each one with enough per- ~onality of their own to make them nqte. Darnell songs are full of comic bobk characters, or, better yet, simple char'acters frdm 1940s romances fitted ini6the 1980s. In Off The Coast Of Me the mise en scene shifts slightly, the usual Darnell dise beat becomes a rhumba, and steel drums and Puerto Rican dialects abSknd': I'm told the whole album is arranged like a movie, following one lid'acter in his romantic adventures hidtigh all the songs. I don't hear it, for all-the credits to t e hair stylist, war- drobes, and casting listed on the sleeve. Wh'rt I hear are a lot of mostly-terrific romlps through a never-never land where everybody dances, and everyone is a fast-talker. TAKE THE POOR guy in "'Mister Softee," whose member is as firm as the ice cream curlicue on top of a Dairy Queen. His girlfriend taunts him by calling him "Mister Softee"; he tries to weasel out of an embarrassing evening by saying "I got a funny feeling baby/That tonight you wanna sleep with me; /But I got a 'pointment in the morn/And I need at least eleven hours of sleep-/I'm so sorry, babe!" It doesn't wash. And all over the place is that big bass drum. A problem of Darnell's has been to build on a groove once he's laid it down, but here, with bigger arrangements than usual and a variety of instruments, the sameness of the songs is less obvious. Tune after June comes on like a soul train moving through a tunnel of love (or, as one of the Coconuts put it in "Maladie D'Amour": "Ever since I wooed you, I been acting cuckoo/Underneath a tun- nel, you'd think I was a choo-choo."), compelling one to jump and jump some more. But even a soul train can have some excess baggage. Here, it's the tongue- in-cheek sensuality of "Off The Coast Of Me" and the likewise sly reggae (af- ter the first 30 seconds) of "Calypso Pan-American." But the salt-and-pepper Gilligan's Island cast that Darnell has assembled, by and large, deliver papaya and not breadfruit. A strange character, this Kid Creole. There he is on the album liner: the pic- ture of romantic longing, in white tuxedo and tails, his hands in his pockets as he looks wistfully out to the ocean. He hasn't got a whole lot to do with the disco culture that his music plays to, nor does he have much of ain audience among the new wavers Dar- nell is interested in reaching. What he has the most to do with, I think, is Cary Grant, the image of slightly sad yet eternally hopeful sophistication. What that has to do with good popular music isn't clear. But in the hands of August Darnell, and maybe with a coconut shell full of something sweet and strong, Off The Coast Of Me is Kid Creoleshowing why he'd be a lotsmore fun on a desert island than any man Friday. R A DAY. Just because you're PA NlA A(VI, doesn't mean we're not out to get you Maybe we should say ... GET ACQUAINTED WITH YOU. You are invited to STUDENT SUNDAY tomorrow (Sept. 28) at University Church of the Nazarene 409 S. Division St. 9:45 a.m.: Time of Getting Acquointed 11:00 a.m.: Worship Hour with folk singers Barry & Vicki Woods 12 Nooni Picnic J OPEN HEARINGS ON THE FUTURE OF THE. MICHIGAN UNION Discussion of student proposals concerning: " Student role in Michigan Union decision-making (advisory or actual priority setting authority). " Proposals for Michigan Union decision-making structures. * Definition of the basic objectives and mission of The Michigan Union. SPEAK OUT.ON YOUR STUDENT UNION Hearings Sept. 29 Oct.1 & 2 (Monday) (Wednesday & Thursday) 7pm-KUENZEL ROOM, Michigan Union Sponsored by Union Discussion Committee & MSA Doily Photo by MAUREEN O'MALLEY Iggy Pop Ypsilanti's favorite son, Iggy Pop, is shown here in front of a ravenous crowd at Bookies' Club in Detroit. Iggy is wrapping up a solid week of gigs at this scenic venue and from all reports it's been an extremely successful venture. ________________________________ I. Students examine tax proposals r xy (Continued from Page ) universities-from Marquette to nn Arbor. They talked about the tax reform proposals on the Novem- ber ballot. They speculated about would happen to higher education if those ballot plans passed. And they left pledging to register students to vote and to educate them on what they ter- med these vital issues. Most of those in attendance agreed that the Tisch tax-cut plan-which would amount to a 50 percent cut in Wroperty taxes for most Michigan citizens-would be fatal to higher education. But, to the astonishment of most con- ference participants, the delegation from Northern Michigan applauded and questioned speakers as if it suppor- ted the Tisch plan. Nystrom, a business management major at Northern Michigan, told a small group of administrators why . other Northern students might like the Tisch proposal. The area's employers * ren't happy in Marquette because property taxes there are very high. IN ADDITION, THE university's president just built a new $400,000 home with state funds. There are other im- provements that students and area residents believe are extravagant, con- sidering that colleges are supposed to be having money troubles, he said. Nystrom said he doesn't blame studen- s-and their 'parents-who think that the state's money is being wasted. Nystrom's comments later inspired Tom Coyne, vice president for student services at Western Michigan, to tell the higher education crowd not to do "dumb things." "Be careful. Don't do anything to make (citizens) ask: 'Are you doing dumb things with public money."' THE STUDENTS agreed to return to their campuses and to : Register students to vote. . Educate students on the ballot issues. " Work as a group to defeat the Tisch proposal. At The University of Michigan, a massive voter registration drive is already underway. Michigan Student Assembly President Marc Breakstone told student leaders that his group hopes to register 5,000 students. Other campuses told of similar projects, but said theirs were on a much smaller scale. THE MORNING portion of the program featured presentations by proponents of the three tax reform proposals on the ballot. Dick Jacobs, spokesman for the Tisch plan, was alternately cheered and jeered. Jacobs, a businessman and Libertarian party official, told the audience that lawmakers in Lansing "are hellzbent on making this a socialist state." He said the state could afford an almost $2 billion decrease in revenue because of the "excessive waste" created by state officials. Proposals A and C, which would cut property taxes but make up the revenue with sales or income taxes, were ignored by conference participants af- ter the presentations by proponents of those ballots measures. Those plans would not have the drastic effect of the Tisch proposal-Proposal D. 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