ARTS
The Michigan Daily
Page 5
Monday, April 7, 1986
---- _ i
Replacements
rock' ' reel
Baez performs,
praises activism
By John Logie
A lot of people were upset by a
lack of professionalism on the
part of Bob Stinson, lead guitarist
for The Replacements, Saturday
night. Bob, it seems, went to the
State Theatre to see a movie, and
wasn't back when the other band
members were ready to start the
show.
But the response to Bob's absence
on the part of the remainig
Replacements showed them to be a
bar band, pure and simple. The
band took the stage, and announced
that they were auditioning for a new
lead guitarist, and then welcomed
the guitarist from the opening act,
The Skyscrapers, aboard for
rollicking renditions of "Color Me
Impressed," and "Johnny B.
Goode."
The band had launced another song
when Bob came bounding down an
aisle. A tempestuous reunion
followed, in which every member of
the band got drenched with beer.
For those audience members who
had never seen the band before, or
heard Replacements records other
than Tim, Saturday night's show
was probably a disappointment.
The show was not the type of show
one would expect in a theater for
$12.50.
But for longtime fans of the band,
Saturday night's show was a clear
demonstration that while you can
take The Replacements out of the
bar, you can't take the bar out of The
Replacements, and that's somewhat
comforting. The band is now a
reasonably successful major-label
act, and musically they reflect that.
The band sounded terrific, playing a
huge chunk of their repertoire in-
cluding both old and new with more
fire and energy than had been cap-
tured on vinyl. But, more importan-
tly, The Replacements still possess
an attitude.
The Replacements haven't lost the
obnoxiousness they started out with.
Bob is still spouting beer like a foun-
tain, and breaking guitars.
Monkeyshines line a full moon from
Bob, and Westerberg and bassist
Tommy Stinson leaving the stage,
while still playing their instruments,
when Bob elbowed his way to the
microphone for a cover of "Takin'
Care of Business," are charac-
teristic. While some fans feel that
it's time for the band to grow up, one
has to wonder whether maturity
would destroy an element of the
band's basic appeal.
Bob Stinson is, as of a week ago, a
married man, but he's still screwing
up, and sucking down beer like a
baby sucks down formula. The rest
of the band is still hell-bent too. This
may eventually kill the band.
There were on-stage rumblings
that this might be the band's last
tour, but it's hard to know when to
take these guys seriously. For now,
its enough rock'n'reel with this bun-
ch of dressing room destroyers, and
hope that they manage to pump out
their brand of music without hurting
themselves in the process.
By Joseph Kraus
oan Baez is an artist almost trap-
ped behind her own superstar-
dom. In a Saturday night show at Hill
Auditorium, Baez attracted 2700 fans
largely on the strength of a reputation
established in the heydey of the '60s
folk revival, but won three standing
ovations from them with a mixture of,
old hits, open patter, and contem-
porary songs.
"What I do this evening is try to
condense 27 years into an hour and a
half," Baez quipped from stage; and
for somebody who hasn't put out a
domestic album since 1979 the of-
ferings from the most recent seven
years were surpisingly strong.
Praising the audience as "in-
telligent," she served up such con-
temporary offerings as "M.L.K.", by
U2, "The Queen and the Soldier" by
Suzanne Vega, and "Hold on to Your
Dreams" by Pink Floyd.
Aware, though, that the bulk of her
audience was there to hear the songs
she made famous in the '60s she
teased, "Then occasionally I do one of
the songs that you hoped I would do
this evening," as she led into
"Farewell, Angelina."
Before the evening was through, she
managed to fit in a smattering of her
most famous hits like Phil Och's
"There But for Fortune," The Band's
"The Night They Drove Old Dixie
:Down," "Diamonds and Rust," and
"Amazing Grace."
Sustaining her long career as a
progressive political activist, she
cited and praised such Ann Arbor
initiatives as the anti-apartheid mar-
ch last Friday and Proposal A, which
articulates city-wide dppostiion to the
Reagan Administration's policies in
Central America in today's city elec-
tion.
With most of her audiences expec-
ting her to perform the material that
made her most famous, Baez
acknowledged her difficulty incor-
porating changes into her act. Noting
that audiences at her concerts are
"mostly people my age" she said,
"It's pointless to try to force a 'new
me' on them."
Explaining that she wouldn't feel
comfortable performing in a
drastically new style without first
working on a recording, she talked
about her frustration with record
labels. Independent labels have
pitiful distribution for an artist of her
stature, but major labels demand a
"plan" as the price for their
marketing. Laughing, she said she
wasn't ready to don "sunglasses and
spandex pants" to make it in the "fast
lane."
She did say, however, that she has
several possibilities for recording
contracts in the works. Her accom-
panist Cesar Cancino said he was
composing themes that she and he
might record. Joking on stage, Baez
alluded to her famous affair with Bob
Dylan by mimicking his distinctive
nasal twang. "That was a voice from
a folk singer in the '60s," she said.
On a more serious note, she praised
recent student activism as an in-
dication that "the silence and the
ashes of the '70s" were coming to an
end.
The most remarkable aspect of
Baez's concert is that she was able to
condense so many of her varied suc-
cesses into the show. Her triumph has
been the protest music of the '60s and
early '70s that made her famous, but
she remains a gifted singer capable of
interpreting contemporary music in
ways unlike anybody else.
Striking a difficult balance between
the expectations placed on her by her
early success and the impetus to work
with new material in new ways, she
proved she still has much to say and
that she will not be constricted by her
past successes.
A defense
against cancer can be
cooked up in your kitchen.
Call us.
AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY'
Daily Photo by JAE KIM
The Replacements lead singer, Paul Westerberg, tears into a song Satur-
day night during their controversial shorn at The Michigan Theatre.
r
R.C.
Players
offer
vigne ttes
By Phillip Barnhart
f you're not a member of the cast, a
I cast party can be a mildly
voyeuristic sensation. Friends,
acquaintances or just faces that
you've seen around take on new light
as they break in and out of their
evening's characters. High energy
and wired voices prevail and Friday
night's cast party for the opening of
R.C. Players Presents: An Evening
of One-Acts was no different. In the
air was also a sense of accomplish-
ment and pride; well, there should
have been for each of the pieces was,
indeed, very good.
The first piece, Sandra and the
Janitor, a one act "garage theater"
play by William Packard, starred
Maura Troester as an emotionally
needy and neurotically driven Sandra
who is desperately attempting to
befriend a down-and-out basement
dwelling custodian (Gary Sobotla).
Troester's vivd performance com-
plemented the slow stumble-bum
character of Sobotla's janitor on a
stage set with stacked newspapers
and trash.
The next three pieces, done in
"Open Theater," a style of theater
based on ensemble rhythm and tran-
sforming character roles,. were
markedly different from the first.
Calm Down Mother, by Megan Terry,
starred Kimberly Hoedeman,
Elizabeth Edelman and Johanna
Borman, three black-clad women on
a minimal stage evolving from un-
dulating protazoa to young women,
old women, mother-sister-daughter,
prostitutes and finally personifying
the symbolism of the ovary. Very
strong performances by all three
women created a beautiful depiction
of the cycles of self-perception.
Nancy Bishop, director of two of the
open theater pieces said that the play
exposes women's issues from a pro-
humanity vantage exploring the
frustrations and aloneness of being-a
eight actors by Jean-Claude van
Itallie. Also through transformation,
eight actors on a minimalist stage
demonstrate the effects of
mechanization on the people whom it
surrounds. A collection of whirring,
buzzing, and clanking gave way to a
stream of surrealistic vignettes
ranging from job interviews, cocktail
parties, and political rallies to a par-
ticularly moving subway ride, all
made effective by the textual rhyth-
ms and sounds of the actors them-
selves.
The final piece, another Jean-
Claude van Itallie play entitled
Motel-a masque, though short, was
the perfect way to end the night of
theater. The three actors,
grotesquely masked and costumed,
circled around the destruction of a
motel room while the broadcasted
voice of the narrator broke under the
increasing volume of the Black Flag
album, Damaged. It left the audience
electrified and wishing for more, in
spite of themselves.
The pieces flowed together giving
validity to the Yeats quote in the
program guide: "..after all our subtle
colour and nervous rhythm, after the
faint mixed tines of condor, what
more is possible? After us a Savage
God."
The plays will beperformedfor a
second weekend April 11 and 12,
in the Residential College
Auditorium at East Quadrangle.
Curtain time is 8:00p. m.
Juniors,Seniors & Grads..
d woman but also the same feelings
r dgender non-specific.
The second of the open theater
pieces was Interview-a fugue for
Dancing Hoods - Twelve
Jealous Roses (Relativity)
Twelve Jealous Roses is the first
full-length album from Dancing
Hoods and it is bound to win over
more than a few listeners for the
Long Island-based band. The
eleven-track album is a goldmine of
fresh, catchy tunes, almost all of
which have a savory southern rock
sound. The distinct rockabilly sound
on cuts like "Build a House" and
"Blue Letter" is so strong that they
could have easily been recorded by
the likes of Marshall Crenshaw, or
even Buddy Holly.
The lyrics and topics of the songs
are nothing special. They tend to
focus on the typical rock standbys -
girls, relationships, and broken
hearts. However, the sound of Dan-
cing Hoods doesn't require any
deeper accompaniment than this.
This band just makes good, fun rock
and roll and they do it in a straight-
forward, energetic way that makes
them instantly likeable. Simply put,
the music is great - both for
listening and dancing - and Twelve
Jealous Roses is a fine album from a
band that shows a lot of promise.
-fichael Race
FIGHT RACISM
come to the
WASHOUT RALLY
Wed., April 9, 12 Noon
on the DIAG
GRADUATE LIBRARY CLEANUP
Sunday, April 13, 9:00-1:00
UCARe
United Community Against Racism
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