4
Page 8 - The Michigan Daily - Friday, April 10, 1987
Records
Various Artists
The New Bluebloods
Alligator
Otis Rush
Right Place, Wrong Time
Hightone
Both Alligator and Hightone
have played important roles in the
recent blues resurgency. Hightone,
through the signing and continued
production of Robert Cray;
Alligator via their 17 years of
consistently fine releases by many
of Chicago's finest.
Alligator built its reputation
through high production values and
a stable of long time Chicago blues
greats, including Son Seals, KoKo
Taylor, and James Cotton. Now the
label is spreading the wealth
around.
The New Bluebloods features
ten of Chicago's best unrecorded
and underecorded blues artists, many
album serves to illustrate the
several directions in which the
blues have branched from their
country delta and electric Chicago
origins.
Tracks range from Lil' Ed and
the Blues Imperials rollicking bar-
room stomp "Young Thing" to the
Professor's Blues Review with
Gloria Hardiman's .gospel tinged
"Meet Me With Your Black
Drawers On" to the rockish, evi -
dently Hendrix inspired Melvin
Taylor and the Slack Band's
"Depression Blues."
Virtually any three songs could
have been picked for contrast. All
are played with originality, skill,
and feeling. Each also receives
excellant production.
The New Bluebloods is an
exciting reminder that the blues are
alive, well and progressing just
scant years after The New York
Times declared them to be dead.
It is no secret to blues fans that
Otis Rush is one of the genre's top
guitarist/vocalist/bandleaders.
Unfortunately however, bad luck,
bad deals, and bad production have
made it virtually impossible to
obtain a decent Rush recording.
Until now.
Y
Hightone has seen to the
rerelease and wide distribution of
this fabulous album, originally
recorded, though never released, for
Capitol in 1971. Rush had to 4
bargain with the company to buy
back the tapes .and Right Place,
Wrong Time was finally released
by Bullfrog Records in 1976 and
quickly went out of circulation.
With an excellant big band,
featuring a tight horn section and
production assistance from ex
Electric Flag vocalist Nick
Graventines, Rush sparkles and
displays the intensity for which
both his playing and singing are
known.
Rush proves the blues maxim,
"It's not how many notes you play, q =
it's how you play them." Just,
check out the conviction with'
which he sings "Three Times a
Fool" or the force of his guitar solo:
on "Natural Ball." There's not a::
wasted note on this album.
Right Place, Wrong Time is a
fine recording of a giant talent at
the height of his musical prowess..
A must-own for any serious blues
fan.
Death of Smamantha will be
music.
By Mike Rubin
Value Village shoppers beware.
Homestead recording artists and
tacky dressers Death of Samantha
will attempt to set fire to the
Halfway Inn tomorrow night in
their first Michigan appearance; so
those of you with incendiary
17acron leisure suits, pea green
4crylic grandfather sweaters, and
naugahyde mptorcycle jackets better
trade your flammables in for some
flame retardants before Cleveland's
liiggest export since the Michael
Stanley Band hit the stage at 9
p.m..
The Ohio four-piece has taken
great strides (in Gene Simmons
platforms, of course) since their,
inauspicious debut at a Parma,
Ohio, Ground Round restaurant
where lead wailer/ guitarist John
Petkovic worked three years ago.
(The hastily arranged anarchic gig
lasted all of 15 minutes, and left a
supper crowd of middle-aged
breadwinners tossing their cookies,
popcorn, and peanut shells on the
meals in front of them. Petkovic
was fired the next day.) Since then,
the band has released a greasy-
handful of singles around the
Cleveland area, the 1985 Homestead
LP Strung Out On Jargon, and the
e at the Halfway Inn tomorrow night with trashy clothes and trashy
1 Th rash,
outstanding 1986 EP Laughing In
the Face of a Dead Man .
The garagey group, heirs-by-
default to the underground legacy of
Cleveland legends like Pere Ubu
and the Pagans, derived their
macabre moniker from the
embryonic extravaganza as well.
"Our drummer Steve-,O came up
with the most obnoxious but cool
thing to put up on that Ground
Round marquee," says Petkovic.
"We kept it to appease him,
considering he has no other fune -
tion in the band besides playing
drums. Drummers usually need
something else to keep them going,
anyway."
The portly skins-beater, whose
age "lies anywhere between 14-38"
joked Petkovic, is the object of
much, (dubious) affection in
Cleveland, where a "Steve-O Fan
Club" of over 150 members was
organized. "He's kind of a pathetic
hero to a lot of people," said
Petkovic,"so the club almost got
bigger than Steve-O was. He had to
go on one of his eating binges to
surpass the club's size, and it's
been downhill for membership ever
since."
On stage in front of the
dinosaur-sized drummer, D.O.S.'
cacaphonous chaos rages like a pre-
trash
Red Adair forest fire. Petkovic's
voice whines like a shrill wind
whipping through ancient awnings,
sarcasm dripping from his yawning
mouth like castor oil on a too-big
wooden spoon with splinters.
Glam-rock guitarist Doug Gillard
and Ron Howard-clone bassist
Doug James punch holes in the
audience's armor with their axe-
jousting: feverish fret notes bending
like pipe cleaners around their
straight-ahead song structures,
causing melodies to pour off and
bead like pearly-dew-drops drops.
These rock 'n' roll Lancelots in
shiny polyester have yet to grace
this side of Lake Erie's shores
because, "We've been asleep," said
Petkovic. Their next album, Where
the Women Wear the Glory and the
Men Wear the Pants, will be
released later this year and should
make them "humungous, bigger
than Blue Oyster Cult," predicted
Petkovic. The group is looking
forward to their local debut, as Ann
Arbor brings to their minds,
"images of Bo Schembechler and
the Stooges".
The wash-and-wear warriors will
do battle tomorrow night at East
Quad's Halfway Inn at 9 p.m., with
Chicago crunge-rockers Bloodsport
opening up. Admission is $5;
absolutely no bottles or alcohol
allowed.
STUDENTS"
do you need r '
SUMMERRSTORAGE
OR
127th Annual Spring Concert
Tomorrow night at Hill Auditorium, the University Men's Glee Club will perform various works
ranging from opera to sea chanties to classical, and, of course, Michigan songs. Performance time is
scheduled for 8 p.m.
1 ',
061,
I r
-. 2
Be hip!
Be cool!
Be groovy!
l
g2 gV
HAIR1
YOUR
BAC K
ITEMS SHIPPED
HOME
call
DESIGNERS. FACIAL SALON . NAIL SERVICES
COSMETICS. WAXING. PEDICURES
division of
NIOVJNG & STORAGE CO. f
704- .t4Icc
Join the Summer Daily Arts staff.
Be part of the happening crowd!
The Michigan Daily Arts page.
It's more than a job. It's Art.
Look for announcements for our upcoming mass meeting.
747-8787
Mon - Fri: 9:30 - 7:00
Sat: 9:30 - 4:00
1220 S. UNIVERSITY
ANN ARBOR, MI 48104
,'
ONNOMM
ENSIN
1987 YEARBOOK
PICK-UP
Starting Tuesday, April 14
They may be picked up at
Student Publications Building,
Aprl
Power and the Abstract
IT IS YOUR KARMA
TO BE READING THIS NOW.
When you woke up this morning you didn't begin your day as though it was the first ;
day of your life. No. Everything you met with today was the result, directly or
indirectly, of something you did yesterday, or some other day earlier.
This is precisely how the- concept of karma and reincarnation is to be understood.
We do not enter this earth life as though it was our first life on this planet. Rather,
we are born into definite families, at a definite place and time, with definite talents
and predispositions. In fact, according to the concept of karma and reincarnation all ;
the events and people that come to meet us in this earth life are the results of our g
activities in previous earth lives.4
And just as what we do today will affect what we do tomorrow, so too will this
affect our next incarnation. If this is true, try to imagine the consequences.
You will find a completely new and Western approach to the concept of Karma *
Reincarnation in two of Rudolf Steiner's basic books, Occult Science, An
Outline and Theosophy.
"Read Theosophy," said Saul Bellow in a Newsweek interview, "it will make
your hair stand on end."
Available from the Anthroposophic Press (use coupon). Borders Bookstore 303 S.
State, or the Rudolf Steiner Library at 1923 Geddes Ave. (662-9355)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- z
Yes, send me:
Theosophy at $6.95 + $1.75 p & h (total $8.70) 0 Occult Science, An
Outline at $9.95 + $1.75 p & h (total $11.70) 0 (Please check box with quantity
desired.)
10 Friday
7:30 pm
The Abstract as Anxious
Will to Power
Donald Kuspit, Depts. of Art History
and Philosophy, State University of
New York at Stony Brook
8:30 pm
Response
Thomas Crow, Dept. of the
History of Art
Open discussion
11 Saturday
9:00 am
The Abstraction of a Lady
Mary Anne Doane, Semiotics Pro-
gram, Brown University (See April 6 &
8 for showings of 'LA Signora di
Tutti.')
10:00 pm
Praxis Interruptus:
Feminism and
Postmodernism
Laura Kipnis, Video Artist,
Michigan Society of Fellows