ARTS Love Child's 'Witchcraft' The group, led by Rebecca Odes, has a hypnotically beguilng LP by Scott Sterling Don't hate Love Child's Rebecca Odes because she's beautiful. Better yet, forget what she looks like altogether and let Love Child's latest lp, "Witchcraft" do its hypnotic thing. Deliciously lo-fi garage rock that's got a firmroot in popmelodies,but(thankfully)sidesteps yourgeneric'indie- rock' stereotype. There's no happy-faced mop-top striped tee-shirtedBuzzcocks aping going downhere. "Witchcraft" is a violent yin-yang meeting of pop and noise, shimmering melodies and discordant shards of cacophonic guitars. This aural rollercoaster ride whips you through thrashing punk screamers like "Permission," straight down into slinky, bliss-eyed mood poems like "AAA/XXX" effortlessly. Well, maybe not all that effortlessly. "There'salotof possessiveness and competition,but we like to think that the tensions are sort of what fuels it," says Odes, Love Child's vocalist and bass player, who provides the band's more tuneful edge. "Alan (Licht, guitarist) and I are both pulling on two opposite sides of the same stick. There are times when I'll write a song, and Alan feels like he has to 'de-pop' it a little bit, cover it up with noise. I feel like sometimes it really works and sometimes it's very obvious that one of us is trying to fuck the other one up. Ninety percent of the time it's a huge battle of egos and wills." Formed conceptually by Licht and former guitarist/ drummer Will Baum, Odes sort of just fell into her role as Love Child's frontperson. "It really was just circumstance that we all ended up in the same band," Odes recalls. "I'd been playingbass for two weeks, so Iwas themostqualified bass player that they knew. At that time, I wasn't a creative force at all. I was this girltrying to play, hoping that thesong would be over so I wouldn't have ruined it." Once Odes had stuck her hand into Love Child's songwriting pie, it was more than apparent that something had to give. "There werejust toomany directions the band wasbeing pulledin. He(Will)ended upleaving. Alan andI were doing these opposite things and they sounded good together. It was never like 'hey, I'm into pop and you're into noise, let's make a pop-noise band."' Likemany oftheir indie contemporaries, Love Child got their first taste of acclaim in Europe, where underground U.S. guitar tribes are revered like gods. But Europe is also (in)famous for it's fickle and far too influential press. It was in Brit rock weekly 'Melody Maker" that writer Everett True attempted to wield this pseudo-power and make Odes outtobesome sort of Uber-bitch. Which wasn't too difficult to achieve, when the article opens with Odes saying, "Sev- enty-five percent of the men I meet fancy me. The other twenty-fivepercentareassholes. Which category do you fall into?" "Those words never passed through my lips," Odes emphasizes. "The guy has a real problem with women. He manipulated me, bordering on sexual harassment. The reality of it is that the English press is rooted in payola and shit like that." "The whole indie rock world is really mainstream in it's view of women," she continues. "I feel it's misogynistic the way we're only praised for being boys," Odes says, in reference to the 'legitimate' image of punk-feminist "Riot Girls" such as Bikini Kill. "In Europe, I'd do these inter- views, and the articles would say shit like 'She's the kind of girl you just wanna fuck.' It was totally humiliating." It's moronic how a Vassar grad with a penchant for writing great music can be boxed like that. But Odes isn't defined by her place in Love Child. "I grew up thinking I'd be an artist. I still feel like it's not real, being in a band. It's (L.C.) my focus now, but in six months, who knows?" LOVE CHILD was going to play THE IAB, but they got shut down by the man, so it looks like we lose. The local Chameleon's Dish combines such diverse influences as Jane's Addiction and Lou Reed. Dish gets past stigma of local bands by Nima Hodaei Ann Arbor may be a hot bed for talented performers but the lack of ven- ues and promoting supporthas ledplenty of local bands to drop into a pit of obscurity. One band who has avoided the pitfalls of this trap is the rising Chameleon'sDish- alocal groupbent on getting past the initial stigma of being an A2 band. The group's self-titled debut album (available in local record stores) cap- tures a unique sound, blending Jane's Addiction's vocals with Lou Reed's lyricism, and has a direct style which has come together in a mere six months. To the delightof band members Charlie Johnson (vocals/guitar), Mike Tomlinson (guitar), DanFriedman (vio- lin), David Mudie (bass) and Mark Osenieks (drums) the initial reaction to the music has been overwhelming, cul- minating in the first release of the tape - selling out in a week and a half. "That was a big surprise for me," said Johnson. "We made the Wherehouse Local Band of the Month. I don't know if that's significant or not ... We thought we were far enough away from the mainstream that it was going to possibly limit our audience." The band's non-mainstream ap- proachis punctuated by theuseofviolin on the album, as well as tongue-in- cheek humor that works its way into several songs like "Sex with the Lights On" and "Bed." Pressed to describe the band (whose members all have consid- erable musical experience) to an unedu- cated listener, Tomlinson thought aloud. "About the only thing that we've ever been able to come up with is harder edged alternative stuff with aviolin," he concluded. "It doesn'tcover everything that we do. But some of the songs are serious, and some of them definitely have a sense of humor." Johnson observed, "I like to make fun of sexuality. I just think it's a joke. People are so uptight with it. If you can't laugh at human sexuality then you have a problem, because it's the most imper- fect practice, just dealing with those feelings when you're young and trying to be a mature adult." The Chameleon's Dish is as much a concept as it is a band. The group puts together "artnights" in which they gather to play music and paint. And this con- cept has expanded over into their live performances, in which sculptures and other artwork are common as interac- tive parts of the show. "If you have goodmusicthenyou're an average band," explained Johnson. "But if you have good music, and you can entertain a crowd, then you're a very good band." Quite possibly, the most impressive aspect of the band is how quickly they have broken onto the local music scene. Rather than sitting back and waiting years for a first release as most local performers are inclined to do, the band formed in October of '92 and had their first album out a few months later. Mostofthe compositions at the time were strictly theworkof Johnson. How- ever, the members explained that the collaborating since then is gelling the band into a definite cohesive unit. "The band itself is really growing as far as the stuff that it's doing and the music that is coming out of it," said Tomlinson. "It'salot offun, because it's all original." Long term future plans are still far off on the horizon for the Chameleon's Dish, whose members are all still Uni- versity students. But comments on the matter indicate the continuing plight of being a band trying to break out of Ann Arbor. "We're giving ourselves two years to make it work," said Johnson of the group's plans. "The reaction we get from people who listen to our tapes encourages us, and then the information we get about how bad the music indus- try is run, discourages us. EverydayI go through this cycle of feeling great about myself, because we get another gig, or we get information that we're out of tapes at one store. And then I try to talk to somebody (in the industry) and get total discouragement." THE CHAMELEON'S DISH will perform April 16th at the Amsterdam (for info call Charlie at 761-3158) and April 17th at the Rock for Life Concert outside Delta Sigma Phi on the corner of Hill St. and Forest. 01 T Healthy males, ages 18-40, may qualify for medication research studies. Research volunteers are paid for participation. Interested? Call Liz or inn at (313) 996-7051, Mon. - Fri., 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Warner-Lambert/ Parke-Davis Community Research Clinic, 2800 Plymouth Road, Ginn Orbor, MI 48105 01 Frp I Aloha Entertainment's 994 40. 4 TATSE THEATER 24 HOUR on State St. at Liberty MOVIEUNE AFEW GOOD AMENe RUNS THROUGH IT COL'MBIA COIUMBIR Friday 4:30 7:00 Fri - Sun 4:30 only Sun - Thurs 4:30 7:00 9:30 Mon - Thurs 4:30 7:00 **Vote "State Theater for Best of~nn Arbor -see ballot elsewh~ere in this issue kk* . A MAGICAL VILLAGE... . A TENDER ROMANCE Book & Lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner Music by Frederick Loewe Directed by BRENT WAGNER MusicalDirection by JERRY DEPUIT .. pChoreographed by DEBRA ANN DRAPER POWER CENTER 0 JOSTENS Stop by and see a Jostens representative Today, April 9 * 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. to select from a Complete line of gold rings, 0