ARTS
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The Michigan Daily
Friday, November 8, 1991
Page 8
No, we're not so violent
Massive Attack has Mushroomed into success
by Richard S. Davis
Although the name brings to mind
large fists pummeling a helpless
face, peacenik and Massive Attack
keyboard player Mushroom says time ago. There was a show we did
that couldn't be farther from the in London called the Massive
truth. Attack, the Underground Massive
"Massive Attack - it's not a Attack. I don't know. It's more or
violent thing. It happened a long less in the category of a massive
attack of arts, really," Mushroom
explains.
A dance group unlike most of the
others that litter the radio dial,
Massive Attack is a collection of
DJs, musicians, vocalists and artists
who have succeeded in creating soul-
ful music that begs to be both
danced to and just listened to.
"Everything influences us,
really, everything from films to
groups to a church bell ringing in
Mexico or something," says Mush-
room.
With this sort of eclectic mix of
influences, the band easily brings to
mind the music and philosophy of
Soul II Soul (even though Massive
Attack blows that group out of the
water). This is no surprise, since
members of both Massive Attack
and Soul II Soul once all belonged
to the Wild Bunch. But musical dif-
ferences proved to be that band's un-
doing.
"Yeah, they've been very success-
ful," says Mushroom with a cool,
nonchalant British accent. "But, I
mean, they went about it in a differ-
ent way. They actually set out to be
successful. We didn't really set out
to be successful. We just set out to
do our own thing and make the mu-
sic really what we wanted to hear
Attack. These guys say they're non- and give people a chance to hear it as
nean. well, the people who wanted to hear
--- - -it."
01
The Canadian Brass is: (I to r) Graeme Page, Ronald Romm, Charles Daellenbach, Frederic Miils and Eugene
Watts. The group plays tomorrow night at Hill, which is no Great Wall of China, but it'll have to do.
who who
Nancy Griffith plays with her
Blue Moon Orchestra tonight at the
Michigan Theater. She describes her-
self as a folkabilly artist, and is
widely praised for her songwriting.
Her amazing voice is as airy as Kate
Bush's, with a twang reminiscent of
Oh no! It's the members of MassiveA
violent and all, but they look awfully m
if where
The Canadian Brass performs
tomorrow at 8 p.m. in Hill Audi-
torium. The group will be playing
everything from "Heal Street
Blues" to a Peter Schickele (of
P.D.Q. Bach fame) piece, "Horn-
smoke, A Horse Opera in One Act."
Tickets are from S16-S24. Rush
tickets are $8 at the UMS Burton
Tower box office, available tomor-
row from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
The king of cinematography is
back. "Who is Warren Miller?"
you overcultured, pompous film
junkie with a contempt for sports
may ask. For over 40 years, Miller
has been making movies about
skiing, providing breathtaking shots
of the terminally insane leaping
from magnificent panoramas of
mountain ranges. In a press kit for
his latest aptly-titled film, Born to
Ski, Miller says of one such jumper,
"I've screwed up a lot of people's
lives by putting them in my films
and I hope this one lives to talk
about it. If that dummy gets up and
when
The University of Michigan
SCHOOL OF MUSIC
Sun. Nov. 10
Tue. Nov. 12
Wed. Nov. 13
Thu. Nov. 14
Thu.-Sun.
Nov. 14-17
Fri. Nov. 15
Sun. Nov. 17
French Classic Series
John Vandertuin, Larry Visser, Marcia Van
Oyen, Leslie Wills, organists
Nicholas deGrigny: Mass
Blanche Anderson Moore Hall, 4 p.m.
Michigan Chamber Players
George Shirley, William Bolcom, Yizhak
Schotten, Donald Sinta, Katherine Collier,
Paul Kantor, Stephen Shipps, Hong-Mei
Xiao, Sarah Cleveland, Miriam Bolkovsky
Swenson: Battle Pieces - A Melville Cycle
Hindemith: Trio
Schdnberg: Verkldrte Nacht
School of Music Recital Hall, 8 p.m.
Creative Arts Orchestra
Ed Sarath, director
School of Music McIntosh Theatre, 8 p.m.
Arts Chorale
Paul Rardin, conductor
Karl Schrock, organist
Britten: Rejoice in the Lamb
Mozart: Sonata for Two Violins and Organ
Missa Brevis in C, K.220
Regina Coeli in C, K.276
Hill Auditorium, 8 p.m.
University Philharmonia
Orchestra
Donald Schleicher, conductor
Laurence Kaptain, cimbalom soloist
Verdi: Overture to Nabucco
Daugherty: Flamingo
Kocily: Suite, Hdry Jdnos
Hill Auditorium, 8 p.m.
Digital Music Ensemble
"Electric Amadeus"
Steven Rush, director
School of Music McIntosh Theatre, 8 p.m.
Opera Theatre
Britten: Albert Herring
Gustav Meier, conductor
Tickets: $12, $9, $6 (students)
Power Center for the Performing Arts
Thu.-Sat. 8 p.m.; Sun. 2 p.m.
Women's Glee Club
Earl Coleman, director
Tickets: $5, $3 (students and seniors)
Rackham Lecture Hall, 8 p.m.
Michigan Marching Band
In Concert
Tickets: $4, $2 (children)
(764-0582)
Crisler Arena, 3 p.m.
But even though the band did not
set outtoagainnfame, that's exactly
what's happening. Several critics
have proclaimed that Massive At-
tack's album Blue Lines is one of
'Massive Attack - it's
not a violent thing. It
happened a long time
ago. There was a
show we did in
London called... the
Underground Massive
Attack. I don't know.
It's more or less in the
category of a massive
attack of arts, really'
-Mush room,
on the band's name
the best releases of the year, but
Mushroom takes the praise in style.
"We're not looking for any of
that, you know?" he says. "We've
just done what we've wanted to do,
really. We're not making any mes-
sages or any statements or asking
anyone, 'Vote us this, vote us that.'
We're not asking or saying anything,
really, you know? It's up to those
outside elements... what they want
to make of it. We're just doing our
own thing."
MASSIVE ATTACK plays this
Sunday at Industry in Pontiac with
Giant Step. Cover is $5 and doors
open at 8 p.m.
Griffith
Loretta Lynn and the pith of Woody
Guthrie. Tickets for the show are
$15.50 in advance (p.e.s.c.) from
TicketMaster.
Dancing at the Edge of
the World: Thoughts on
Words, Women, Places
Ursula K. Le Guin
Harper & Row
Every once in a while, if you're
lucky, an author will come along
who speaks to you, really speaks to
you. You murmur "Yes! yes! that's
it!" and look up to see if anyone no-
tices the glow of your discovery. Of
course, no one does.
Like the civil rights movement
and the general upheaval of the '60s,
the women's lib movement often
seems distant and rather obscure to
those of us in the following genera-
tion. One reads often enough these
days about the feminist movements
in crisis, stalling, etc. Ursula Le
Guin's essays, ranging far and wide
over topics from the history of civi-
lization to abortion, bring not just
an understanding of the past but of
the present and an optimistic future.
The reader joins her on a retrospec-
tive journey of intellectual disco-
very as she shares keen insights into
her own work and that of others.
Le Guin waxes most eloquent
when addressing women's issues -
exploring women's language, cul-
ture, consciousness and morality. In
her language, in her writing, one
begins to see, as through a mist, the
outlines of a new form of expres-
sion for women, and there is a sense
of urgency in reaching for it: "Men
live their whole lives within the
Dominant area. When they go off
hunting bears, they come back with
bear stories, and these... become the
history or the mythology of that
culture. So the men's 'wilderness'
becomes Nature, considered as the
property of Man.
"But the experience of women as
women, their experience unshared
with men, that experience is the
wilderness or the wildness that is
utterly other - that is in fact, to
Man, unnatural. That is what civi-
lization has left out, what culture
excludes, what the Dominants call
animal, bestial, primitive, undeve-
loped; unauthentic... what we are
just beginning to find words for our
words not their words: the exper-
ience of women."
Pregnancy and motherhood are an
integral part of the experience of
See BOOKS, Page 10
Miller
skis away, it's gonna be hard to
explain." Thankfully, the local ski
ranges aren't open yet, so no one
will leave the Michigan Theater
Sunday night and break out into
violent ski jumping. The show
starts at 7:30 p.m. and tickets are $4
for students, $5 for civilians.
r
Albert
Herrin
Britten's charming
comic opera about the
lack of young women
able to honorably
lead a small town's
May Day, and the
young man who fills
their shoes
~ ,'1
. 4 I
. t l;
Faculty Recital by Jeffrey Gilliam,
piano
Assisted by Stephen Shipps, violin
Berg: Sonata Op. 1
. . VV '