0 age 8 - The Michigan Daily - Friday, November 4, 1988 Leonard's love: Sad but true BY GREG BAISE A H, yes. The age-old tale: I want you, I have you, I lost you, I need you.The life of the heart. The stuff great songs are made of: the songs of Robert Smith and the Cure, Morrissey and the Smiths, Ian McCulloch and Echo and the Bun- nymen. The songs of Leonard Cohen. Yeah, Canadian singer, author and poet Cohen had travelled there and back again before any of the aforementioned artists even started on their journeys into the dark depths of Hades searching for their Eurydices. Cohen often gets categorized as a folk singer, a style that is reflected by his early classics "Suzanne," "Sisters of Mercy," and his interpretation of "The Partisan." However, his latest album, I'm Your Man (CBS), finds the synthesized, grim attack on everything that's wrong with contemporary society, "First We Take Manhattan" followed by the middle-of-the- road "Ain't No Cure For Love." Also present are "Take This Waltz," a song reminiscent of his earlier songs, and "Tower of Song," perhaps the best showcase of Cohen's sharp sense of hu- mor/self-depreciation: "My friends are gone, and my hair is grey/And I ache in the places where I used to play." Regarding the many synthesized arrangements on the new album, Cohen says, "I think they are appropriate. Every album has differed quite sig- nificantly from the previous album." Much of the synthesizer sound will be reproduced in con- cert, although the main synthesizer arrangers on the new album, Jeff Fisher and Michel Ro- bidoux, are unable to tour with Cohen. I'm Your Man has sold over 750,000 copies worldwide, yet Cohen still remains unknown to the masses. The two promotional videos for the new album aren't shown on MTV or VH-1. But Cohen still feels that being a cult attraction is better than not attracting anyone at all: "I'm happy to have any sort of label attached to me, because without some sort of label, you're out of business. If cult just means that there are a few people here and there that like your work, well, I'll settle for that, because what's the next step? Nobody knows your work." Regarding his lack of recognition on the North American continent, Cohen adds, "We have a certain, special attitude towards performers that come from our own country: we tend to ignore them unless they be- come famous somewhere else." Not surprisingly, many of Cohen's fans are younger musicians who readily identify with the sad love present in Cohen's work. But as for an actual influence on the works of, say, the Cure or the Smiths, Cohen modestly states, "I see it more as a fraternal greeting that goes over the years. It's just a matter of carrying the torch for a little while, and then somebody else picks it up." Cohen is also an author, publishing poetry and novels. Perhaps the most famous of Cohen's novels is Beautiful Losers, a deeply confessional story published in 1966, the year before the re- lease of Cohen's first album. "I've always played a little music and blackened a few pages," he confesses. "It's been going on like that for a long, long time." Cohen's last book was Book of Mercy, a book of psalms. He sardonically claims that this book was published in secret by a division of Random House in the United States. "I think there was one review of it in Akron, Ohio," he said. Similarly, his album previous to I'm Your Man, Various Positions, wasn't released by CBS Records and had to be distributed by Passport, a much smaller, independent label. Both of these obstacles to Cohen's success occurred in 1984. "My career has always been very modest," Cohen comments. Cohen remembers 1984 as one of the lower points in his days: "In the mid '80s, my success in America was pretty thin. You hope, but you don't expect. You hope that things go well, but if they don't, you get used to disap- pointment. Jennifer [Warnes] definitely helped to ressurect my credentials in the record offices throughout America." In fact near the end of 1986, Jennifer Warnes, a long time friend of Cohen, released an album of her recordings of his songs called Famous Blue Raincoat. Warnes appears on I'm Your Man, and Warnes is recording a new album which will contain some more of his songs. Cohen is enjoying his current success, sym- bolized perhaps by his popularity in Europel'm Your Man was number one in Norway for 14 weeks. Cohen noted, "Right now it seems that the countries that are most interested in my work are Norway, Spain, and Poland." In fact, there is an annual Leonard Cohen Festival in Krakow, Poland. Poland? For our North American minds, it's easy to see how that nation behind the Iron Cur- tain can take such a liking to Cohen's work. Many of Cohen's songs are gloomy. But he looks upon this dark atmosphere as natural and by no means as being unique to him. He ex- plains, "Popular song is about the life of the heart. Nobody masters the heart. Nobody cools it out. It just cooks like shish kabob in your breast. It's not philosophy. It's not theology. It hurts a lot of the time, and that's the beginning of a lot of songs, not just my own." LEONARD COHEN makes his first Ann Arbor appearance at the Michigan Theater Sunday at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $16.50. ,a Youth ontinued from Page 7 topic: will the tour be mostly songs from Daydream alion?) : Yeah, that's all you're gonna hear... Pretty much, I mean, we'll rebably whip out a few oldies... 'robably because, I mean, at first, 4 en we just played in Europe and at rt we did all of Daydream, like the mnire album, and it was really weird :ause people (laughs)... I mean, we ilgyed in Spain and Greece where we -eer played before and people really wanted to hear songs that we never are played in - 1: Like, (sarcastically) "Kill Yr Idols!" .Yeah like, "Kill Yr Idols," "Death Valley," and it's like, "No way." The Engelhard helps even though the them. Enge/hard, we drive, clothing plants where web make us efficie maceuticals and4 materials perfornr ing process or s giving a certain c duct. That's why ducts company. / ing the company quality to give us the needs of cus (topic: The Sonic sound) T: We almost feel that we should just say screw it and get two standard E-tuned guitars and write a bunch of songs. You know, and not tell any- body that we did that and they'll think "wow, these tunings are really interesting." 'Cause a lot of the songs we write, it doesn't sound so that it's the guitars... I guess if you didn't know (about the tunings), you'd think we were playing some pretty wild chords. That's about it. 'Cause, to me, when I hear our stuff, it doesn't sound like there's a bunch of weirdly tuned guitars, but it's just so well known that.., it really sticks in your craw. Oh, like, "what are they doing... they must have a drill underneath their pickup there..." D: I think you guys are really great. But those (critics) describe too much, they make it like you consciously go and deconstruct all this, that, and the other thing. And, I see you as more like a continuum or more like a whole lot of really cool punk bands. T: Yeah, well, that's the way we see it also, so that's cool. But I can see where people get the ideas from. I mean, 'cause there's such a history of ways of dealing with electric instru- ments, modifying things... So yeah, I mean, it does relate to that. I mean, it has to. But, you know, just the way harmonics are used, the over- tones relate to the music. Second 'you BY MARGIE saw HEINLEN SONIC YOUTH will play St. An- drew's Hall, 431 E. Congress in De- troit, tonight with Ann Arbor's own favorite screamers the Laughing Hyenas opening. Tickets are $10.50 in advance, $13 at the door. Show starts at 10 p.m. Get out of your cave and make the trek. W hich one doesn't belong: Joh Belushi (and brother James), Gild Radner, Joan Rivers, Dan Akroyd, o Bill Murray? Wrong. Trick question. They a belong, or more correctly, used t belong, to a theater group many c you know as the Second City. Thes Second Citizens have gone on t bigger, if not necessarily bette things. But where the comedy troup is going Saturday night is here, t the Michigan Theater. It all began in 1959 - the rea ization of a dream that began in th minds of university students.) group of University of Chicago th I SPECIAL SPRI Us [ I w nt of Tomorrow Today make many of the products we use everyday company name doesn't appear on most of products and technologies help make the cars we wear, food we eat, homes and offices and live and work, telephones and computers that nt, magazines and books we read, phar- vitamins that keep us healthy. The company's n vital functions in a customer's manufactur- erve critical purposes providing reliability, or characteristic to the customer's finished pro- Engelhard is known as a Performance Pro- And why technology is so important in enabl- to continue advancing the leading edge in an advantage over competition by meeting tomers in our markets. i Can F City: Remember, them here first ater zealots got together in an low- they're shooting at us. rent ex-chop suey house and and The philosophy behind the Sec- launched the Playwrights Theater ond City approaches comedy as not n Club. It crashed. Then it shared the telling jokes... but creating or recre- a space with two companies, the ating vignettes and situations that )r Compass Players and the Studebaker are realistic and personal and there- Theater Company, and the group's fore;inanely, funny. And we bring it ll performers and cohorts. Same story. on ourselves. Most of the dozen or o So they they bought a Chinese so skits in each review are scripted f laundry in Chicago's Old Town. And and rehearsed, but they begin as e on December 16, 1959, the spontaneous ideas generated at the o reconstituted yet still potent concoc- end of each night's performance. The r, tion of players opened the doors of audience is asked to yell out topics e The Second City (a name taken from and ideas for the players to develop o a put-down of Chicago in the New into comedy. Yorker ). The rest is just good com- Joyce Sloane, Second City's pro- 1- edy. Though not yet exactly venera- ducer, has been with the troupe since e ble, the Second City has set most of its first baby steps and has watched A the comedy canons of the recent tra- it stride confidently and dramatically e- dition in American satire. And into the history of humor, spawning takeoffs such as Saturday Night Live. :NG REAK TRIPRecalling Second City alum and NG BREAK TRIP past SNL member Gilda Radner's calling to comedy, Sloane said, Lcun $589.00 per person "Gilda first saw Second City when $58.00we played the Trueblood Theater in ieb. 25- Mar. 4, 1988 Ann Arbor - she followed it to Chicago." But Sloane preferred to comment reservation. Includes on the here and now. "We hope to be a reflection of our audience's present s in a beach hotel, close situations and behavior." She adds that "people's greatest misperception , transfers and taxis! about Second City is that we're just Space Limited! a club. We're a group of profession- als. We're artists." MH O R IZONS These comedians are students, ______________________ too. Troupe member Dave Sinker, , TRAVEL INC himself a graduate, with a degree in WV Icommunications, from Marquette, says'that college towns are his fa- vorite. "We love doing college ersity of Michigan towns. We find undiscovered laughs. national Center Ina scene, whichhas already been played, the actor knows when to an- ticipate a laugh but students find s you to humor in different lines and different actions that we don't expect," says Sloane. TERNATIONAL Greg Holloman, Michael Mc- Carthy, Amy Sedans, Tim Mead- S GHows, Dave Sinker, Claudia Smith and Rose Abdoo. Remember those names - become a pompous snob ERNATIONALIZED of the future ("I saw them before they were big. Yeah, in college. I 7-9 p.m was sitting two feet from 'em."). So check out the elite of comedy ational Center (although they get paid about as well Madison as our T.A.'s, so they need your support). er countries through games SECOND- CITY performs Saturday ill Kay at 747-2303 night at the Michigan Theater. Tickets are $1250 and $10.50. $75.00 will hold your round-trip air, 7 night to the Hard Rock Cafe Call Now! 663-3434 475 Market Place The Univ Intern - - invites THE FIRST IN' GAME% PICTIONARY INT Tonight at the Intern 603 E.I Come and learn about oth For more info ca ENGELHA RD IS COMING TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN! All Mechanical & Chemical Engineering students, together, with their faculty and staff, are invited to a reception sponsored by A.L.Ch.E. from 5:15-7:15PM, Tuesday, November 8th in the EECS. Recruiting Interviews November 9th, 1988 (Contact your Placement Office) . . :-: : : «.. "'.": :";": .". . Engelhard is a Fortune 200 company offering employment op- portunities that are unparalleled. Our 18-month Graduate Development Program provides new graduates with an ex- cellent balance of process/project orientation and hands-on ex- periences. 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