The Michigan Daily - Monday, October 23, 1989 - Page 11 RECORDS Continued from page 9 Guru sexiest. Crack, fast cars, bul- lets, violence in the naked city come to mind in its aural assault. "Shimmer" starts off with one of those fragile guitar lines on the Vel- vet Underground's third album. First singing on Darklands, William Reid has now perfected the Raskol- nikov slur; he sounds as if he's about to descend into paranoid schizophrenia at any moment. The song's a slow burning fuse that you just don't want to put out. "Penetration" is the hardest song on the record. "Give me penetration/ I'm gonna take you 'til I die/ 'til I break my spine," snarls Jim to abra- sive guitars and a techno-like beat. It's the cry of a maniac, and I want to see it performed by choirboys at Westminster Cathedral. The final track, "Subway," is traditional Mary Chain, ripping the Beach Boys to shreds and melting the Music Ma- chine. It's a 1960s go-go classic that belongs in a biker movie. Scratchy guitars haven't sounded this good since the Buzzcocks' Spiral Scratch EP. We need more sex, violence and self-abuse of all kinds in our pop music today, and The Jesus And Mary Chain's brand of noble ni- hilism and "Up Your Bum!" senti- ment is a welcome palliative to Jesse Helms, Christian platitudes and the anti-drug hysteria (the new McCarthyism) with which we're be- ing assaulted. -Nabeel Zuberi Nice Strong Arm Cloud Machine (12" EP) Homestead Nice Strong Arm, who played the Pig about a week ago, have a nice strong disc here, comprised of an ag- gressive hardcore distortion thing, argumentative, sometimes staid sing-screaming, tricky but harmless beats, and enough guitar attack to sustain any underground fiend shak- ing through an aggro fit. The songs sort of merge into each other as the second side was recorded live with audience noise included. The first two songs, "Cloud Machine" and "Cop Show," come off like your standard guitar riff-fest with certain nods to postmodern weirdness. The last two are more satisfying. The guitarist (there are no band members listed) seems to be satisfied with moving the thrash in a general forward direction rather than pound- ing your head into the ground with one groove. Overall, a satisfying piece of vinyl, but no better than the standard fare that the hardcore scene seems to offer nowadays, sort of pseudo-pop with a nod or two in the drooling direction. -Forrest Green III REVIEWS Continued from page 10 the giant. This was difficult, as he never showed up. Pan came onstage to explain his problems to the audience. Zeus, it seems, does not like him - he keeps changing Pan's favorite women into waterfalls, shopping malls, saxophones, and psycho killers (qu'est-ce que c'est). Pan consulted the oracle - a local branch - which told him that Zeus really didn't like him, and was going to punish him by making his bas- soon disappear. After much dancing and singing and general hilarity, Pan and the nymph were left alone onstage. The two declared "It's time to party!" and jumped around to illustrate that point. The Professor came out for a standing ovation and the audience left for more mainstream pursuits. Professor Schickele's P.D.Q. Bach is musical parody at its funni- est, its silliest, its most on-target. Thank the good Professor for bring- ing P.D.Q. into the spotlight (and sometimes out of it), for if old Jo- hann Sebastian had known what kind of composer - and I use the term loosely - his last child would be- come, I'm sure he would have dis- owned the baby completely, shipped him off to some distant country, and made sure the kid never grew up to shame the Bach name with what he liked to call music. --Cindy Rosenthal Beer drinkers have a blast Saturday night, The Blind Pig was the mighty overflowing Nile of beer. Empty pitchers lay strewn all over the floor, empty bottles pyra- mided up to the ceiling, and harried servers turned into bloodshot zom- bies. As the aroma thickened and the floor slickened, the sounds being generated onstage grew increasingly important, meaningful, life-giving. It was the Blasters up there, the Los Angeles retro-rock outfit led by Garry Shandling lookalike Phil Alvin. With a controlled intensity that gave a body to lines like "Don't dog me to death 'cause I ain't ready to die," Alvin led the band through a two-plus hour set and a tremendous encore much to the delight of the biggest crowd I've ever seen at the Pig. People were just going nuts. The presence of studio legend Lee Allen on saxophone, a strategic Clarence-like foil to Alvin's sing- ing, got every booty in the house to shake at least a little bit. New York avant garde swingers The Ordinaires, a polar-opposite in terms of aesthetic goals, surprisingly won just as much frenzy from the crowd. Somebody said to me at one point that the Kronos Quartet is a rock band that sounds like a string quartet and that the Ordinaires are a cINEDIRE T6RY chamber ensemble that sounds like a rock band. Makes sense to me, I guess. I do know that I may have never seen or heard a more exciting drum solo, and that I'll never be able to listen to Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir" the same way ever again. -Mark Swartz Ho ho ho and a bottle of sl ivovitz "Sexy singers like Tom Jones and Englebert Humperdinck get brassieres and panties thrown at them; I get hearing aids and bowling balls," acknowledged Bobby Vinton, "the Polish Prince," to the audience Friday night at the Fox Theater in Detroit. The Prince, straight from shows in Reno, Atlantic City, and Vegas, dazzled the largely over-50 crowd with stirring renditions of his old rock standards "Roses are Red" and "Blue Velvet." After every song the normally re- served audience bellowed "Ho, ho." Donned in a literally sparkling black jacket, Vinton explained this odd ritual: "We 'ho-ho' after every song to let you know were having a good time." Although Vinton focused on his Polish favorites like "The Polish Polka" and "Santa Must Be Polish," he made sure he left no ethnic stone unturned by crooning Italian,. French, German, Irish, and Jewish: numbers. "I'm the only singer in the world that can sing Belgian and: Lithuanian at the same time," Vin- ton boasted. Vinton, whose career has spanned three decades, separated himself from; some of the other dinosaur singersr on tour by unveiling new material from his current country-Western phase like "It's Been One of Those Days When I Need One of Your Nights." The night's climactic set was: 4 condensed version of the Broadwy; hit "Phantom of the Opera." Fog: machines in full gear, the Prince transformed himself into the Phan- tom and hypnotized back-up singer Beth Lawrence and the crowd with his melodic strains. It didn't seem to matter to the au- dience what Bobby sang. Vinton knows how to play his crowd. On several occasions he entered the audi- ence, without bodyguards, to kiss women, autograph records, and give birthday greetings. The audience continued to "ho" well into the night, but they were not the only ones who enjoyed the show. Vinton told the audience that he sincerely was having a blast. "If I could actsthis well I'd be on Love Boat," he said. -Alex Gordon GUILD Continued from page 9 tite blustery breezes of Ann Arbor, chances are - it's Sara Messer. Kevin Walker will stun listeners v ith his title, "Ann Arbor, Michi- gan, Donates and Delivers A Garbage Truck to Juigulpa, Nicaragua, Its Sister City." When Ann Arbor asked its "sister" what it could give to her, "she" politely re- sbonded that a trash collection vehi- cle would be just wonderful. And Kevin Walker wrote about it. Walker's flexibility of subject matter reflects his recent exploration of "imaginative technique." Walker has recently struggled with the fascination and liberality of this practice and the loss of intimacy with one's poetry that it can cause. This "fanciful" method of writing al- lows poets to "leap off from an idea," and extrapolate its spon- taneous energy. But Walker empha- sizes the importance of sincerity and focused emotion in his writing. "It was getting heartless," said Walker, "The poems didn't mean enough for me," Walker "always wanted to be a writer." In high school he began writing free verse and enjoying the poetry of Walt Whitman and Dylan Thomas. At Harvard, Walker real- ized, as many writers do, that simple revising would make his work achieve standards of excellence set by himself and by others. But it was studying under Seamus Heaney that inspired him to continue writing. "He really fired me up," said Walker. The influence of Heaney shows in Walker's poetry. Walker weaves his work into a tanestrv be- tween "two poles": the "melodic" tendencies of Heaney, and the "casual" nature of the writings of William Matthews. From there, Walker went to the Bennington Writers' Workshop where he discovered the future that is his present reality - that of being a prolific M.F.A. student. SARA MESSER and KEVIN WALKER will be reading at Guild House, 802 Monroe, at 8:30 p.m. tonight. WEEKEND MAGAZINE Fridays in The Daily 763-0379 I Half Off After 100 C opies After your first 100 copies of a single sheet original. the rest are Half Price! kinko's the copy center Reach 40,000 readers after class, advertise in i~Je lllcl~igmai lq - - _______ d --MAGAZINE OPEN 24 HOURS 1220 S. University 747-9070 OPEN 7 DAYS Michigan Union 662-1222 OPEN 24 HOURS 540 E. Liberty 761-4539 p' EMU vs. U of M at YPSIARBOR LANES New Mixed League Now Forming! Bring A Friend in and Bowl Every Other Sunday To Beat Teams of Eastern Students League Meeting Oct. 29 at. 4:00pm Starts Nov. 5th mm" Ypsi Arbor Lanes 2985 Washtenaw Ypsilanti 484-1110 Want to Know Where Your Liber al Arts Degree Can Lead? Your bachelor's degree, combined with a Master's from the Annenberg School of Communications, can take you into a management career in mass media, telecommunications, public policy, corporate communications, and more. Here's what some recent graduates of Annenberg's M.A. program are doing: Cgat I RESTAURANT "24 YEARS EXPERIENCE" CHEF JAN TOP GOLD MEDAL WINNER OF DETROIT COBO HALL NATIONAL CONTEST Sponsored by Michigan Restaurant Association Michigan Chefs De Cuisine Association BLUE RIBBON BEST CHEF AWARD IN WASHINGTON D.C. I Paramount Pictures Vice-President, TV Programming Walt Disney Co. Director, Consumer Marketing The Disney Channel MGM/UA Director, European Sales & Marketing International Home Video J. 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Martin Kierszenbaum, Michigan '88, currently completing the Master's degree at Annenberg while working in the International Publicity Department of Warner Bros. Records, will also speak. Date: Wednesday, October 25 . m I I a i