MORE VINYL -9 9Q a 0 CATCH OF THE DAY U. Plan 9 mixes past blasts, new sounds Granville: Ohio's little Ft. Laude Plan 9-- Keep Your Cool and Read the Rules (Enigma) This nifty slice of psycho-grunge sounds like it stepped intact from an obscure corner of 1971. It is astonishingly, brazenly true to its heavy guitar ancestors, and falters only when the synthesizer can't aptly mimic the sound of a real organ. But this isn't just a heavy-duty slab of dinosaur rock, it also features a couple nifty departures. "Machines" features Devo-like synth work, a nifty Indian-style drone, and affected vocals. "Face in the Box" features great sounding slide-guitar work, and a nice, sycopated drumbeat. Plan 9 manages to keep one foot firmly planted in the revivalist movement, but the other foot roams free, stopping off arbitrarily, and it is this combination that distinguishes Plan 9 from the legion of retro- rockers, and makes Keep Your Cool enjoyable. -John Logie Sweet Honey In The Rock Feel Something Drawing Me on (Flying Fish) It is easy to forget the power of voices raised in song. Yes, there are voices and then there are voices. Sweet Honey in the Rock are clearly at the top of their game on their acapella gospel collection entitled Feel Something Drawing Me On. Founded and led by singer/activist Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon, Sweet Honey in the Rock uses this half of a tandem release (the other LP, The Other Side, shows the political side of their repetoire) to celebrate the colors of praise in the sacred song of Afro- Americans and Africans. One standout track is actually from the white gospel tradition, a Protestant hymn titled "Father, I Stretch My Hand To Thee." This song is transformed by a singing device called "lining-out," in which notes are held and savored, with various singers pushing the note for- ward one after another. One can imagine birds in flight, streaking ahead and then falling behind, creating indelible images out of a progression of moments. "When I Die Tomorrow" is patter- ned after a song performed by a Liberian congregation. Here the voices bounce off one another in a marvelous swirl that builds off of and blends with the pronounced vocal per- cussion. This song is paired with the West African funeral song "Meyango" to wind up side one. "Meyango" is harsh where "When I Die . . ." is soothing, bluntly declarative in a way that is at once jarring and arresting. More that simply a display of vocal prowess, Feel Something Drawing Me On powerfully and tangibly conveys the emotional exuberance of the per- formance. Moving from the con- trolled precision of the R&B vocal group style to the ebuillence of the gospel ensemble with equal faculty, Sweet Honey in the Rock has made an album that manages to touch the heart while lifting the spirit. - Jeff Stanzler I WAS HAVING trouble deciding whether to go torone of the "in" places for spring break-Daytona Beach, Aspen, Ft. Lauderdale-but my difficult decision was made in- finitely easier when my friend Joe suggested I stay with him and his family in Granville, Ohio. I quickly accepted Joe's invitation. I spent seven days in Granville (population approximately 3500); it seemed more like six days but time sure flies when you're having non- stop, wacky, college-style spring break fun. When I came back from Granville, a bunch of my friends who vacationed in Ft. Lauderdale complained about the weather in Florida. I smiled and said "Aww, I feel for all those Michigan students who didn't get tan." The whole Ft. Lauderdale con- tingent thought I was unduly hostile, and agreed amongst themselves that I made the comment only because I was "stuck in Ohio over break." What a bunch of groundless bunk. Granville is a city rich in history, and it has a library with hundreds of volumes. Sure, it may not be recognized as a spring hotspot, but that's one of the main reasons I went there. (I also didn't have enough money to go anywhere else). See, we people who are knowledgeable about Granville know that Granville is sort of a downscale Ft. Lauderdale without the crowds, sweat, and high- priced accomodations. For example, a hotel on the strip in Ft. Lauderdale might cost $100 a night. It didn't cost me a penny to sleep at Joe's. Student who stay in hotels in spring break hot- spots tend to squeeze five or six people into one room; for most of the studen- ts that means sleeping on the har- dwood floor. In Granville, however I slept comfortably on a couch. When my friends launched into a discussion of their wild, beer-infested revelries in Lauderdale bars I kept down the urge to embarrass them by telling stories about my own non-stop, wacky, spring break fun. I have repressed the urge long enough. One day Joe, his dad and I went to Value City to buy Joe a pair of sneakers (in the northeast we call tennis shoes tennis shoes and other varieties of shoes sneakers). The selection was amazing. And the prices? Well, they don't call it Value City for nothing. Value City was abuzz with activity. There were people in every row of the store examining merchandise. At the very same time there were people paying for things. One woman bought a garbage can liner. People who were neither examining nor paying for merchandise left through the sliding door exit, but one little kid tried to go out the 'in' doors. That sure got his mom mad. While all this was taking place, Bill Widlow, the floor manager, barked out the day's specials and valuable in- formation about the Value City Layaway Plan. Turns out that for most of the Value City furniture you need only put five dollars down. Joe's dad didn't been any furniture, but he was just as caught up in the ex- citement as Joe and I were. He almost bought a coffee table. It took a day or four of sitting around before Joe and I recovered from our trip to Value City. Don't think for a second that we didn't have non-stop, wacky, spring break fun during our recovery. Joe's mom bought us the ingredients for Oat- meal/Bran Cookies, which we made with hot Top-40 jams blaring from the radio. Once our strength was back. however, there wasn't a cookie recipe in the word that could keep us college nuts from hitting the bar scene. Granville doesn't have a bar. We road-tripped to Neward, Ohio and went to a bar called Wendell P's. Tuesday isn't a big bar night in Newark, which was fine by us becuase we all know what a pain it is to be in a crowded bar with all the pushing, and the slow service. We ordered canned beer (they didn't serve bottles, or beer on tap) and the waitress brought it right over to us. No wait. Around 11, things star- ted to get moving. A guy came in and looked around and left. At 11:30 two people came in and sat down. When Joe and I talked at the same time they did, it sounded like a huge crowd. Any college student knows the first- class chow, is an important part of non-stop, wacky, college-type spring 310 3 Ak1