4 ARTS The Michigan Daily Tuesday, January 29, 1985 Page 6 Folk Festival is fatiguing but fabulous 4 By Andy Weine aith all the scalpers around Hill Aud- V itorium Sunday evening ("Hey buddy, ya gotcher tickets yet?"), you'd think it was a sporting event and not a concert about to happen in the hall. But folk it was, and a heavy dose at that. The Eighth Ann Arbor Folk Festival - the folk event of the year, and perhaps the best folk show in Michigan -- proved to be a night of surprises and disappointments, an immensely en- joyable show overall, if also a tiring and draining one. First, the surprises. After a warm-up of traditional, old-world music by the Lost World String Band, Jim Post took the stage and proved himself to be what M.C. Tony Barrand called him: "one of the funniest people in the whole of folk music." The large space of Hill didn't prevent Post from fostering the warm, casual, and homey air familiar to regular Ark attendants. "There's only two things that money can't buy: true love and home grown potaters! "sang Post. Post launched into a string of very fun songs that also included an autoworker's lament to go to Japan for work, and a Steve Goodman song, a late-night fantasy of buying all those cheap mail-order trinkets from the now-deceased Ronco. Viewers of Monty Python's The Meaning of Life would also have recognized Eric Idle's cosmic satire, "The Galaxy." An even greater surprise was the. talent of Nanci Griffith, a young Texan folkster with a beautifully high, clear voice and fine guitar-picking fingers. "I wasn't into Mickey Mouse and all that," she said, "but I was into Fidel Castro, who was fightin' for the little Cuban children until he fell from grace." On that note she satirized the American Dream in her Castro lament. She moved from the humorous to the sincerely sentimental in "The Blue Moon" and then to the spunkily strum- ming "Spin On a Red Brick Floor." With such a range of tones and a solid singing and playing talent, Griffith is a folk figure to keep your eye on in years to come. Like Griffith, Bim was a first-timer in Ann Arbor. The Canadian musician Bim might have been a surprise, too, but his soprano voice made his lyrics slide together in a high nasal smear that was hard to decipher. The sound system and large-hall acoustics didn't compliment the voice of Bim, who is feistily talented but needs to cultivate his voice more towards the clarity of one like Neil Young's. Still, no one could knock Bim's rendition of the Hank Williams classic, "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry." The performances of New Englander Tom Rush did not fall short of what his fans know him to be: one of the war- mest and most enjoyable figures in folk today. "Beam Me Up Scotty" put the audience in humorous jitters with lines such as "I'm just a poor old Trekkie in a world he can't afford..." On his more reflective side was a moving song about a farmer who wants to be a sailor and - you guessed it - a sailor who wants to be a farmer. Folk music is full of talented sur- prises, as seen with David Buskin and Robert Batteau, who accompanied Rush on bass, piano, and violin, and were certainly an unexpected spark in the show. Rush left them to spark the show with two very different songs: a musical parody of Death in Venice and a soul-stirring, melancholic tune, "The Boy with the Violin," in which Batteau skillfully drew his violin bow. New talents aside, the biggest sur- prise of them all - one that drew in the audience's breath - was Arlo Guthrie, fresh from the Steve Goodman tribute on Saturday night in Chicago. When the tilundering applause subsided, Guthrie played what this reviewer found to be the best song of the night: Steve Goodman's "City of New Orleans," which Rush correctly describes as the best folk song of the seventies. As many of the performers reminded us, Steve Goodman is a folk figure not to be forgotten. Yet can there be a "best" in a musical array as diverse as folk music? Who can say that Guthrie's "Orleans" rendition was any better than Jack Elliot's humorous, slurring stories about truck-stops and memorable showers he's taken in his life? Or Irelander Tommy Maken's rousing bonnie-and-lassie ditties? Or Sippie Wallace's hoarsy tunes warning women of the evils of men? These tested folk veterans gave tastes of where folk has come from and delivered great perfor- See GUTHRIE, Page 7 4 4 _________ ____Mon. & Fri. Twilight ,* M " " " " " Q$2.OO- ~~~~~Shows $2.50 til 6 P.M. $ 1 .O oS T* U . FRT AIE * C~ ~ (. SAT & SUN FIRST MATINEE ONLY $2.00 . . With this entire ad $1.00 off adult Evening admission. " Coupon good for purchase of one or two tickets good all " OFF features thru 1/31185 (EXCEPT TUESDAYS). ' FROM MARK RYDELL. ED"ThRS " + THE DIRECTOR OF HE'S NOT JUST ANOTHER OUT-OF-TOWNER! * J~ "On GOWENI POND"'"U ''-rrr; ,'' : DAILY 8:30 P.M. i " " U _ THE TALKING HEADS ; 4 CHANNEL DOLBY STEREO SISSY SPAC;EK ME"inI rA K ULNG DL 5 * DAIL Y 5:00, 7:30. 9:45 * DIY50,6010:0PM -ss U s *U* U4U U 0.. caeo ** meme tem mee meeme U@UU* @ U@U@ U*e Daily Photo by KATE O'LgARY A gathering of folk personalities created a miasma of enjoyable entertainment during the Ann Arbor Folk Festival 09 Sunday night.From left to right: Tony Barrand, Nanci Griffith, Bim, Tom Rush, Jim Post, and Robert Batteau. 4 Section 25 jams without frills By Richard Williams In these days of musical pomp and cir- cumstance I prefer to see a band go on stage without silly apparel, gaudy lights, or dumb effects. Like dry ice - that shit gets in my lungs and makes me want to throw up or drink a strawberry daquiri. Why don't bands just play powerfully without any frills? Section 25 did just that Saturday evening (more like Sunday morning; hell, they didn't come on until about 2:30, but believe me it was well worth the wait). They just came on and played a compelling and powerful set. Not once did they say, "Hello Detroit, we love you." In fact, they didn't even say "Hello." New Wave trendies call this arrogan- ce. An acquaintance said to me, "God, what's their problem? They act like they're so great and they're treating us like pieces of shit." I said, "So what? Tonight we're the audience and they are the band and that's how it is, so quit whinnin!" As far as I'm concerned this is pure honesty on their behalf. They liave no right or reason to pretend they love us. They were there on the mutual assumption that their only obligation was to perform live. No catering to:our whims like such Rock Gods as, the Talking Heads or Bruce Springstee4i. So anyways, now that I've set the record straight for the future gigs, let's discuss the songs. They c tarted off with "Reflection," which contained an ample amount of changes 4rom the LP 'ver- sion. It was much harder edged due to Larry Cassidy's superb bass breaks which turned the song into a powerful dirge. In fact, all of the songs featured See SECTION, Page 7 Spend a night at Ford Theater "cet osF to a great start with FoMr" i .1 More people have survived cancer than now live in the City of Los Angeles. We are winning. Please 4 aPR~l &9 P D;e M g I Ad