ARTS Tuesday, January 19, 1988 *. The Michigan Daily Page 7 o .. ___ __ U-Roy plays original D.J. style By Todd Shanker Thousands of adrenaline-juiced reggae fans were experiencing deja vu. In the midst of Jamaica's unfor- gettable 1980 One Love Peace con- cert, a familiar figure took the stage for a rare appearance. The small man with flowing dreadlocks, fierce brown eyes, and a huge gold bracelet engraved with "U-ROY," began his soul baring, live-jive toasting in a disc jockey style. U-Roy, the leg- endary king of the pre-rap, vocal D.J. style of reggae will be making another of his rare appearances tonight at the Blind Pig. After tonight's show, U-Roy will be jetting off to the Ivory Coast for a six country tour of Africa for 1988's Reggae Sunsplash, which includes such formidable reggae masters as Yellowman, Culture, Ziggy Marley, Burning Spear, and Third World. There is no doubt that U-Roy has earned his place among this elite group. It all started in 1968, when a young man named Ewart Beckford began to popularize a rap-like form of reggae with a heavy rhythm. The music was called called "D.J. style," and Beckford played under the auspi- cious title of "U-Roy." "U-Roy is a little name given to me by my cousin," he says, in a muddy Ja- maican growl. "When I was a youth in Jones Town, I used to tease him, and him say, 'Behave yourself U- Roy!' From that time the name just stick on." Using bouncy rock steady/reggae songs as his backing music, U-Roy would toast, shout, and sing about crucial issues, ghetto violence, and, world crisis as well as the local problems of the Rastafarians, the deprived and ignored element of Ja- maican society. In fact, humor, sex, and self-promotion were the only subjects of early D.J. reggae until U- Roy landed his massive hit "Listen to the Teacher," an astounding de- nunciation of the Russian invasion of Czechoslavakia. In the late '60s, U-Roy worked extensively at Sound Systems (live performances in front of huge public gatherings) and through the D.J.- style created one of the only forums where the voice of the poor could be publicly heard without constraint from the Jamaican government. U- Roy had also created a unique style with a melodic, danceable sound; the beat sleek, the melody sweet, and the toasting fast, and fleeting. Early in 1970, U-Roy had three records ("Wear You to the Ball," "Wake the Town," and "Rule the Nation") in the top three positions on both of Jamaica's major radio stations. U-Roy had become the bright spark and chief innovator of D.J. reggae. "You have a certain amount of people who love me, you know," he says. "Anywhere me sing, them go swing." By 1972, after recording the hit "Chalice in the Palace" (a song about a postulated marijuana session with Elizabeth II), U-Roy had be- come such a culture hero to Black Jamaicans and immigrant West Indi- ans that dozens of copycats sprang up overnight despite his piteous ad- monition, "Do not imitate, because I originate." As more and more D.J. artists emulated his penetrating shriek and big reverb boom, U-Roy temporarily retired, disgusted with the new tal- ent. "Then, as now, many of the new D.J.'s... they were missin' something. They (do) not have the roots-consciousness or the original- ity. To me, most men (are) just us- ing Rasta as a money-makin' thing," he says. In 1975, U-Roy emerged from his hiatus with the LP Dread in a Baby- lon. The next year he toured Europe and the United States with the Mighty Diamonds and Toots and the Maytals. Whirling onto the stage wearing a Day-Glo orange cape, U- Roy reclaimed his throne with a tenacious potpourri of maniacal rav- ing, shamanic singing, and explo- sive social commentary. Since that time he has done spo-, radic live performances and released a* handful of singles. Currently, he's producing a variety of young reggae artists in Jamaica and says a new all bum is "slowly coming together." Tonight, U-Roy's Antarctic cool and brilliant improvisational flights"; will be swirling through the Blind Pig like a soft tropic breeze. He is A bonafide original, who in his own words says, "The most important thing to me is that I imitate n o one. U-ROY will be backed by a troupe of excellent local reggae mu- sicians including King David's lead guitarist, Kent Knight, as well as Baba Tunde on bass and Glenn Washington on drums at the Blind, Pig tonight. Tickets are $6. Books Time With Children By Elizabeth Tallent Alfred A. Knopf $15.95/hardcover A collection of short stories can succeed in two ways. It can either study life through a multitude of voices, times, and settings, or it can take one small aspect of life and dis- sect its every detail, finding in them the basic currents that run through everyone's life. In Elizabeth Tallent's new collection, Time With Children, she makes a valiant attempt at achieving both these goals. She occasionally falls short, yet produces a final product that should be required read- ing for all those with the unsatiated desire fo succeed and the emotional greed associated with the current up- per middle-class. As the title suggests, many of these stories deal with children and the lens of innocence and curiosity through which they perceive the world. Tallent's ease with the ver- nacular of the young and of their ac- tions is reminiscent of J.D. Salinger's same mastery. This ability is apparent in one scene in which two young boys venture out into the magical world of a snowstorm: "At the hill's crest there's a scuffle, the older brother tucks into a ball and somersaults down the hill- jumps to his feet, deals a number of invisible blows to an invisible enemy, and finally climbs the slope again, a sled saw- ing behind him on its frayed rope." At times the book sways toward a simple glorification of the young, urban, professional way of life. Tal- lent usually evades this trap by real- izing that behind every stereotype lies individual humans with their own unique hopes, fears, and desires. She also includes a few stories that deal with less-than-fortunate Mexi- can Americans to whom the Ameri- can dream is, in reality, the Ameri- can lie. Tallent perfectly captures a feel- ing that everyone experiences at some point during their lives - yearning for something better that is intangible and indescribable. This longing is especially found in the thoughts of a lonely, young girl in Colorado dreaming of the distant paradise of Los Angeles: "She tips her bicycle up and walks it back to the highway, studying low bluffs that fade backward into a line of identically eroded shades - paler bluffs; under the shadows of small moving clouds, the bluffs seem to be folding and unfolding. Between her and them lie a hundred miles that are nothing but empty after that a thousand miles, and after that, L.A. Ah, she hates it. Hates it." Time With Children is the type of book which will probably be found on the dashboard of a BMW, under an umbrella on a beach in Cape Cod, on a coffee table next to a pile of unread New Yorkers. Never- theless, it is no less a powerful, dis- turbing work of fiction. Hopefully it will be more than just a conversa- tion piece at some yuppie cocktail party. It could be if they would only crack open its cover and look into its reflecting mirror that highlights both the glory and the folly present in their lives. They might sell the Volvo, stop eating "power" break- fasts, lunches, and dinners, throw away their CD's, and begin enjoying the simple pleasures of life. Then again they might not. -John Davey Between Pictures By Jayne Loader Grove Press $16.95/hardcover Porter O'Shea (Anna Kate) is a small-town Texas screenwriter who becomes part of the international film set and the decadent bicoastal party crowd. Meanwhile, under her sharply brittle exterior, a sad, lonely woman searches for true love. Loader's treatment of a series of tragic episodes in Anna Kate's life is similar to Bret Easton Ellis' por- trayal of the coked-up, zoned-out college crowd in Less Than Zero. Events are laid out with witty ni- hilism, but Loader's wittiness is where the similarity to Ellis ends. A sense of humor is evident even in the scenes where Anna Kate discov- ers a loved one's body after a heroin overdose or is gang-raped by Mafiosos. Humor, in fact, dominates Between Pictures. It is this that re- SELF-SERVICE COPIES With This Ad. Try Kinko's. For great copies. And great deals. KINKO'S OPEN 24 HOURS 540 East Liberty 1220 South University deems the book from the seemingly endless stack of trendy, plotless sex/drugs/money books that have taken over the bestseller shelves. Between Pictures is more fun than nicely packaged, slightly elevated trash. Flaws? A few. Perhaps the book would have been more effective had it been written in third person in- stead of first. Anna Kate speaks in a Now Leasing for Fall '88 All apartments convenient to campus Evening and Saturday Hours detached, chatty, but self-conscious way about her own. experiences. The way she describes herself- objectively, wittily, but with little emotion- would have worked better if someone else had said it: "...think of a short showgirl or starlet, a bottled blonde, a second-rate Forties pinup whose face will one day show vestiges of great prettiness. I have See BOOKS Page 8 Forest Terrace, Ann Arbor The Lion, Ann Arbor The Abbey, Ann Arbor Carriage House, Ann Arbor Arbor Forest, Ann Arbor Park Plaza, Ann Arbor Albert Terrace, Ann Arbor And others... (313) 761-1523 543 Church Street Ann Arbor, MI 48104 All I know about Jayne Loader, author of Between Picture,, is that she's a University graduate, co-pro- ducer, writer, and director of the film The Atomic Cafe, and a witty writer who occasionally forges into bril- liance. The protagonist, Katherine Anne CAEN I LOOK YOUR BEST!! If your hair isn't becom- ing to you-You should be coming to us! DASCOLA STYLISTS Opposite Jacobson's Maple Village 441193"9 741-2733 I ComputerAided Engineering Network College of Enghnering presents two special events open to the University community Wednesday and Thursday January20 and 21, 1988 =-'k ~'} tl THE GREAT WALL RESTAURANT Specializing in Szechuan, Hunan and Cantonese Chef Chiu Wing Chu, former Chief Chef at Middle Kingdom. 5 Luncheon Favorites 11 a.m.-4p.m. -7 days Boneless Chicken Szechuan vegetables t Spicy Chicken Sweet & Sour Chicken Pepper Steak 1220 South University Ann Arbor Next to City Parking Structure Frm Parking after 6P, m. 747-7006 - Monday to Sunday 11 a.m.-11 p.m.= While chef at Middle Kingdom, the restaurant was voted No. 1 in town. His cooking experience originates from Hong Kong to New York City to Ann Arbor. NEED MOEY WORK FOR Jobs with Housing Division's Food Service offer $4.50/hr. starting wages FLEXIBLE HOURS NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY Phone or stop by the Food Service Office of any Hall. Alice Lloyd............. 764-1183 Bursley.................. 763-1121 East Quad .............. 764-0136 Couzens Hall........ 764-2142 Law Quad.............. 764-1115 Open House In celebration of our recently renovated offices, machine room,.and network control center, Wednesday, 20 January 1988, 1 o'clock to 5 o'clock in the afternoon, room129 Chrysler Center (machine, room), second floor Chrysler Center (CAEN offices), and room 1105c EECS building (network control center). Refreshments will be served in the lobby, and CAEN staff will be available for informal tours. Presented by: Dr. John R. Perry Alliant Computer Systems Corporation Thursday, January 21, 1988 WANTED USHERS FOR MAJOR EVENTS CONCERTS I liant r. Architecture and Programming Seminar I: Technical Overview of the FX8 System. 10:00.11:30 am, Chrysler Auditorium Intended Audience: Those interested in parallel and vector processing for high-speed scientific computation. No previous knowledge of the Alliant FX/8 system is assumed. I t. .