_ARTS Wednesday, March 25,1992 The Michigan Daily Page5 What's the commotion? Matthew Sweet discovers the Madonna Document' by Jeff Rosenberg After a divorce, a flood-ruined al- bum collection, and a scary record label change, Matthew Sweet is fi- nally getting a turn for the better. His newest album, Girlfriend, has been near the top of college album charts for several weeks now - and it deserves the honor. Sweet's newest super-grunge-o album, featuring Lloyd Cole, Robert :Quine, and Richard Lloyd on guitars, Ric Menck of Velvet Crush and Fred *Maher on drums is twisted, brilliant :pop-song craftsmanship. Combining pure vocal melodies and raw, driven ,tunes, Matthew Sweet creates hard ,organic music in an era of machine- driven drivel. Sweet's periodic ups and downs haven't prevented him from doing an interview on a payphone in a Boston bathroom in Boston, though. Sweet didn't want to be in the spotlight when he was younger. "I sang when I was in grade school in the chorus, but I wasn't confident about that, ever. It wasn't something were doing Generation X covers and stuff like that. "So that led me more into feeling music just for a pure passion/ex- pression thing, instead of just the technical aspect of learning how to play an instrument. I thought 'Wow, I only play one note really fast, but it really feels cool."' Sweet's realization that overpro- ducing and drum machines do not necessarily make a great album gives Girlfriend its dry, authentic touch. Like the opening to "Does She Talk?", where you hear Sweet state: "I'm gonna do a sick one," with plenty of obvious feedback. This in-your-face quality of Girl- friend led Sweet to develop the album's overall content differently. Many tracks have spaced parts - you hear instrumental segments in one ear or the other. Then there are some simply nifty touches, giving the near-perfect CD genre a hail to lost vinyl. Before two of the tracks, are the delicate scratching sounds of a record ending. That was Sweet's idea. "Well, I felt ... already with twelve songs in the main order, that it was a lot of songs. And so it was a way for me to break it up in my head and not feel so overindulgent (laughs)." Feedback is all Sweet has been getting about his song "Winona," however. The song, in which Sweet asks Winona Ryder to be his per- sonal movie star (though he never mentions her last name), is not about her but only named after her. "That song was written," said Sweet, "a while before I ever called it 'Wi- nona."' The liner notes on the album inset do name the ever-lascivious Ma- donna, however. "That's a really frivolous kind of inside joke studio thing. She was recording upstairs in the same studio where I made the album, and at one point I sent her this note, because everybody else was mocking me at the concept that she would come down and sing on my record. "I decided I was going to try and get her to. So I sent her this note that sort of begged her to come and sing on my song 'I Wanted to Tell You.' "After she left, it turns out there was this 'doodle page' that she left behind on her music stand, and she had written my name on it. And this became known as, "The Madonna Document", and was xeroxed, and 'After (Madonna) left, it turns out there was this 'doodle page' that she left behind on her music stand, and she had written my name on it. And this became known as, "The Madonna Document."' -,Matthew Sweet everything, and at one point I was gonna shrink it down and use it as a good luck charm. "But then I became convinced it was bad luck 'cause it took me so long to play for my record." Compared to the 'What's with "Winona?"' syndrome, other facts that abound in the press seem to be very personal. Sweet was born and raised in Lincoln, Nebraska, has the same girlfriend since the recording of the new album whom he is very happy with, and even that he sent a tape of "Your Sweet Voice" to the mother of a close friend who was dy- ing in the hospital. "Yeah, I know, people are strange," Sweet said. "I don't think anybody had any conception my record would get noticed, or have any exposure. "A lot of the lyrics, you just can't take them literally. They're not literal about my life but people think they are, because of all the press about it now. So I just hope people will feel the songs for what they mean to them, and not think about my life." MATTHEW SWEET's itinerary to- day: Hear him on WCBN at 3:30, meet him at Wherehouse Records be- tween 4 and 5, and (if you have tick- ets) see him at the Blind Pig at 10 p.m., with Insane Jane opening. The show is sold out. Arwulf Arwulf, seen here avec beret at WCBN four ye ars ag o, is ba ck with a performance tribute to the ex- pressionist German composer Anton Webern. Wultie does Webern by Michelle L. Weger A strange string of tunes - blues, new wave, techno- pop - blares from the speakers of a dark, crowded bar on West Washington. That eclectic mix might be a me- taphor for the conversation I'm having with Arwulf Ar- wulf, whose stream of thoughts flows from surrealism to expressionism, from jazz to ancient Greek sculpture, from his beginnings at WCBN in the late seventies to his latest projects for Performance Network. In addition to directing a set of dances based on the music of Zoltan Kodaly, and doing his own perfor- mances with the Modified Starch Chamber Ensemble, Arwulf's performance art piece, "Das Sonnenlicht Spricht" ("The Sunlight Speaks") opens a three night run on Wednesday. The piece, which incorporates projected images and texts with music and movement, is a tribute to expres- sionist composer Anton Webern. A student of Arnold Schonberg, and member of the Second Viennese School, Webern was instrumental to the early 20th cent- ury movement which literally set the music world on its ear. "Webern based his whole life on carrying out these notions that Schonberg had, and based a whole new form of music on them," says Arwulf. He gestures with animation as he refers to those notions, the basis of the then-new musical language called serialism (think of it as musical Esperanto) which completely defied previ- ous ideas about harmony, melody, rhythm, and expres- sion. Voraciously self-taught, Arwulf explains how he "discovered" Webern and why the composer became an obsession. As a teenager, "Wulfie" (Arwulf's preferred nickname) was intrigued by surrealism, which in turn sparked a fascination with all creative minds of the early decades of this century. lie says that the period gripped him because every- thing was in a constant state of change. "First thing, we started having world wars," he says wryly. He then be- came infatuated with the music of the twenties - jazz. And it was jazz that ultimately led him to the serialists. Arwulf first came across Webern's name while read- ing a book on jazz musician Anthony Braxton. A little later, he found another reference to the composer in some writings by a pioneer of electronic music, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and decided to pick up a little light reading: an 800-page Webern biography. The more Arwulf learned about Webern and his See ARWULF, Page 8 Sweet I wanted to do. ... That sounded horrible to me cause I was really self-conscious and shy, as a kid. I was very awkward always." From grade school through eighth grade, Sweet learned a gamut of garden-variety instruments, from recorder to electric bass. "Then in about ninth grade ... I got this gig with a group of college guys that Patsy Kensit divulges (shallow) sexual secrets Twenty-One dir. Don Boyd 'aby JonBilik W hen this mask comes off," says a mud-clad Patsy Kensit to the camera, "I will look like Grace Kelly." Kensit has no need to re- semble Grace Kelly; looking like herself is quite enough. In Twenty- One, she plays Katy, a woman who, in clichcd movie vernacular, is ex- ploring her sexual identity. The pre- mise is simple: Katy, a Londoner, has wound up in New York City and she needs to explain to us how she's gotten there. She travels through the movie in alternating scenes and conversations with the camera. Presumably she drops her mask for us, parting her luscious lips to explain her different personas as we see them enacted in the scenes with other characters. Katy loves her father (Jack Shep- herd) and her best friend, Francesca (Susan Woolridge), commits herself to a junkie boyfriend (Rufus Sewell), has sex with a slimy married man, and hangs out with an illegal immigrant from named Baldie (May- nard Eziashi). Her mother commits flagrant adultery against her father. With this succession of characters and with silly temp jobs that rest be- neath her intelligence, Katy reveals herself to us voyeuristically, but not quite honestly. Katy's a likeable character and there's something compelling in just watching her prance across the screen because she's so damn sexy. She makes Twenty-One an enjoyable movie, though not very memorable or, finally, believable. One might say that this film breaks ground in exploring (or at the very least acknowledging) female sexuality, but Katy's sex life doesn't seem so real. She herself lends cred- ibility to the whole endeavor because of a confidence that underlies even the most pathetic situations. We never understand, however, why she would involve herself with a self-ab- sorbed junkie who thinks about his next fix more than he thinks about her. Katy's a woman who could have any man she wants, but spends her time with losers - and she doesn't have the low self-esteem that might justify her behavior patterns. Twenty-One moves quickly through its different scenarios, from dinners in exotic restaurants with Francesca (after Ethiopian, Turkish, and Japanese, they wind up in a par- ody of an American restaurant) to scenes in which she comforts her chump father. The movie tries to create a psy- chology for Katy by insinuating a sexual attraction for her father and a hatred for her cheating mother, but it doesn't gel with Katy's unflappable self-assurance. Despite the inconsistencies, Ken- sit (last seen in Lethal Weapon 2) is a pleasure to watch. She moves like any number of sleek animals and dresses with unprecedented hipness. As she seduces the men in her life, so does she titillate the audience with her personal addresses. The film moves quickly and entertain- ingly through her life with a sardonic British wit. While no new ground has been broken here, Katy's life draws us in and the satirical camera mimics her sense of humor to make her es- capades interesting if not important. Katy (Patsy Kensit) is one hip Brit. She's got sexual savvy which enables her to emerge unscathed (and Yankified) from her life and men in London. The film thinks itself an innovation with its narrative style and self-con- sciously honest depiction of Katy's sexuality. But ultimately, Twenty- One is a good movie - definitely worth seeing - but nothing more. TWENTY-ONE is playing at the Ann Arbor 1 & 2. " " " - - ~Do You? Exercise Good aste at theLICIvbIh Dinner served Wednesday thru Sunday 5:30 until 7:30 Fr. Peter Gillquist Distinguished author and lecturer will speak on "BREAKING FREE FROM INNER GLOOM" Sponsored by the Council of Eastern Orthodox Churches of Metropolitan Detroit University of Michigan Union - Ballroom 530 S. State Street Ann Arbor, Michigan Thursday, March 26th 7:30-9:00 pm Author of Love is Now (Zondervan Press,1970); Hndbook For Spiritual Survnal (Zondervan Press, 1972); (Zondervan Press, 1974); The Pheal Side of Beitual (Zondervan Press, 1979); Designed For Holiness (Servant Press, 1982): - - - - Clip here to destroy your Daily- - - - - - I Io .0 I Ia 1gip j- 1' Irh ',ytn becaus " ' 1- ;9;: :: }t :fir:: "e"me becausei;:i;v+r $ i::iir }_ t :t"Ii ;vV, .,Ii::.: vdbuthti:,'Y"r:ry.fm" .: f^fbY{:}":{{: r:::(i A'{fr::t::n} :::::*:ea s o ":,:{;} :v-.{"s I Us Wedesdaq-Saturda I Sundoq Buffet 1 I Casual, sit down Come and try