ARTS
_.
The Michigan Daily Friday, September 17, 1982 Pagel
Making audio history at Joe's
_A
Matt "Guitar" Murphy plays blues at Rick's tonight and tomorrow night.
Clubs/Bars
The Ark (1421 Hill; 761-1451)
Canadian singer/songwriter Stan
Rogers performs tonight and Satur-
day. On Sunday, it's the pleasant
sounds of Robin and Linda Williams.
Joe's Star Lounge (109 N. Main;
665-JOES)
"Four Nights That Rocked Ann
Arbor" concludes the last two nights
tonight and tomorrow. SLK, Ragnar
Kvaran, and VVT take the stage
tonight, while Non-Fiction, the Cult
Heroes, and Baal close the festival
tomorrow night.
comes to Rick's tonight and Satur-
day. Murphy, who achieved national
recognition as a member of John
Belushi's Blues Brothers band and
as Aretha Franklin's husband in the
Blues Brothers movie, is an excellent
blues guitarist. The show should be
well worth the $2 admission.
Second Chance (516 E. Liberty; 994-
5350)
Top-40 rock with Mugsy.
Miscellaneous
Benefit Auction for the Michigan
Community Theatre Foundation.
Local auctioneers Lloyd Braun
and Jerry Helmer will be selling off
many great items tonight at the
Michigan Theatre. Come and bid for
a leg of 'lamb (the rest of it has
already been spoken for), a football
autographed by the University of
Michigan football team (proving on-
ce and for all that they can at least
write their own names), a film
showing in your house courtesy of
the Ann Arbor Film Festival Board,
wildlife prints, free cable TV in-
stallation and one month service,
two hours of accounting service for
those helplessly in debt, and more.
Admission is free. The festivities
begin at 8 p.m.
By Robert Weisberg
JOE'S STAR Lounge was packed.
Joe Tiboni, the ponytailed
entrepeneur who resurrected the dying
club once known as the Star Bar, even
admitted his amazement at the sight of
the masses, imploring some of them to
hit the dance floor. You couldn't even
hear the vintage fans whirring
overhead. The people were making
noise.
It was night one of what's being billed
as "the four nights that rocked Ann Ar-
bor"-although nobody had been rocked
yet-and the people wanted to be heard.
They wanted to be heard on the first
Ann Arbor compilation LP, and when
you hear the record, you will indeed
hear them.
You'll also hear the live performan-
ces of twelve of Ann Arbor's foremost
musical attractions, three of whom-
Mike Gould and the Gene Pool Band
(the latter is not a person, by the way),
the Blue Front Persuaders, and the Ur-
bations-began it all yesterday night.
Joe's is a unique place. It's decorated
in art-deco style from the bar to the
fans to the silver-silk-screened scenes
of merriment atop the side walls. It has
many uncomfortable wooden stools
that sometimes get tangled up beneath
rows of wooden tables. And it has a real
live dance floor that Joe didn't have to
mention again once the music got
going.
The first of the three bands to appear
was Mike Gould and the Gene Pool
Band. It took them a while to set up,
since they were the very first. Joe
asked the crowd to beware of the extra
wires and the bassist and guitarist per-
formed a minimalist piece of Green
Onions. Around a quarter to ten stoic
sound man Eric Cole gave Joe the okay,
and the semi-historic event began.
The band played a nice set, saving the
B and A sides of their single, "Clones
All Think Alike" and "All Messed Up,"
for last, which wasn't a bad idea
because they are arguably the group's
best songs. They're both upbeat and
humorous, reflecting the band's
leanings toward novelty. I particularly
liked the snappy "Lipsynch" derived
from the central line "Loose Lips Sink
Ships." "Dead Punk" satirized both
Loudon Wainrights' "Dead Skunk," a
novelty tune in itself, and-via abrupt
acceleration and Gould's special
glasses-the music that used to be
called "punk," and also made
something of an anti-drug statement to
boot. The political anthem "Ketchup is
a Vegetable," on which Gould sounded
a bit like the Dead Kennedy's Jello
Biafra backed by the Specials, also
caught my attention.
Compared to the two bands to follow,
though, the Gene Pool Band wasn't
very popular on the dance floor, and ar-
tistically speaking didn't play the best
set. Their best songs were new wavy
ones like "Clones," songs that aren't
terribly original nor quite funny or
unusual enough. In between they sought
diversity and sacrificed ingenuity in the
process.
Next up were the Blue Front Per-
suaders, who I also enjoyed hearing.
The Persuaders indulge in the upbeat,
and this indulgence combined with
precision playing and the time the
break gave folks for a few extra drinks
brought them out to the dance floor in
hordes. The Blue Front Persuaders
play what amounts to the roots of rock
and roll thirty or forty years later, and
they play it well. My gripe is that it's
not very original, but if it makes people
dance it doesn't really matter-that's
what the music was about and con-
tinues to be about today. And "Call the
Police" was marvelous, to name one. I
don't know whether this is a band that
ought to make an album, since they are
so derivative, but people elsewhere do
need a chance to hear that the music's
still being played well so the Per-
suaders' spot on the album is well
deserved.
Finally, as the straw-hatted Tiboni
took a turn at this own bar, the Ur-
bations strode onto the stage. Like the
Persuaders, the Urbations feature
saxophones up front and an R&B sound,
though they show a little more diversity
in style as well as in tempo than the
former.
The Urbations may have played the
best set of the night. Their transitions
from their opening skaistic inter-
pretation of "Twist and Shout" to a
funkier number to a nice fast-paced
rendition of "Deep in the Heart of
Texas" to the slower lament "The
Knife and the Fork" (about a boy who
fears his girlfriend is eating herself into
oblivion) showed versatility and com-
petence.
All three bands played well enough to
go on record, and they all deserve to be
heard at least once. And for us folks in
Ann Arbor, it's great to have them
around. But when people in other places
hear them, they're gonna say "Hey,
that's great, but haven't I heard it
before somewhere?" Even Gould's
wavistic novelty numbers are really
just post-Devo/keyboard-based
cuteness.
Whether or not that's true, one thing
Tonight at Joe's SLK (pictured above), Ragnar Kvaran, and VVT put their music on vinyl for posterity.
that can never be denied is the ex-
citement that was provide d' y
everyone, performers, technicians, y d
spectator's alike, last night at Jo s.
And it's all going to go down in au al
history.
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Mr. Flood's Party (120 W. Liberty;
995-2132)
Tonight and tomorrow night, rock
with=a band called Trees and leaf
your troubles behind.
Rick's American Cafe (611 Church;
996-2747)
Former Booker T. and the MG's
guitarist Matt "Guitar" Murphy
Call DaysEves & Weekend
211 E. Huron St. t
MFUH Ann Arbor, MI 4f*
DMaTipAA ET (313) 662-3149_
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Use Daily
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764-0557
HUSE
invites you to participate in
a unique service for
ROSH HAS/lNA
FEATURED WITH MELODIES
AND EXPLANATIONS ON THE
HOLIDAY. Followed by a de-
licious holiday dinner in a
warm and joyous atmosphere.
Services &AMeals
at
C/ARAD HOUSE
715 HILL ST.
corner Oak land off State
for further info dial
99-LEARN
or
769-3078
Friday evening, Sept.1 7: 7:45 pm
Cr~iMr~pu m~ninn C^^+ 1 0
edpse
fC 1982
i
EARL KLUGH
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 25
8:00 p.m.
HILL AUDITORIUM, Ann Arbor
TICKETS: $8.50, 7.50, 6.50 Reserved
GOOD SEATS STILL AVAILABLE
Gregorys
Girl (G
FRI-6:50, 10:30
SAT, SUN-12:50, 2:40, 4:40,
6:30, 8:20, 10:10
4
JOHNNY
SATURDA
TWO SHOWS
UNIVERSITY
TICKETS: $6.5
GRIFFIN.)
Y, OCTOBER 9
--8:00 and 10:30 p;m.
CLUB, Ann Arbor
0 General Admission
GATEWAY TRIO.D
JOHN ABERCROMBIE, JACK DeJOHNETTE, DAVID HOLLAND
TWO SHOWS-8:00 and 10:30 p.m.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 23
UNIVERSITY CLUB, Ann Arbor
TICKETS: $6.50 General Admission
WENDELL HARRISON
with Special Guest LEON THOMAS
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 6
8:00 p.m.
UNIVERSITY CLUB, Ann Arbor
TICKETS: $5.00 Advance, $6.00 at Door
ART ENSEMBLE
~ "GREAT BLACK MUSIC
OF CHICAGO "ANCIENT TO THE FUTURE"
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 20
TWO SHOWS-8:00 and 10:30 p.m.
MICHIGAN UNION BALLROOM
TICKETS: $8.50 General Admission
RICHARD GERE
DEBRA WINGER
AN OFFICER
ANDA
GENTLEMAN
'
' 0
{R
FRi--7:40, 9:55
SAT, SUN-12:40, 3:00, 5:20,
7:40, 9:55
SNEAK PREVIEW
TONIGHT ONLY
AT: 8:25 pm
DAVID YS
U m U w a w a m i u