01 Page 8- The Michigan Daily-Weekend etc. -.January 14,1993 1 Two great tastes in one You can have your flannel-brained grungesters and ambassadors of the "alternative nation" (whatever thatmeans) here comes two bands that represent the true breed of happenin' made in the U.S.A. Rawk and Roll. First up is Madison, WA.'s Walt Mink. This post-Rush power trio is with the killer chops routinely blow minds with their complex stop-start key change mindfuck histrionics. They've got that loud-quiet dynamic thing nailed. It's all about tension, kids. Way trippy but still firmly rooted in Mother Earth, the Minksters are (still) touring in support of their debut disc, "Miss Happiness." This cerebral romp through the twenty-something psyches of starchildren equally versed in Cream as Nick Drake (whose "Pink Moon" they smashingly cover) is a gas. Live, they'll be tightening up a bevy of new tunes for their much-anticipated sophomore release. Get Minked, it's fun! Behind curtain #2 is the Swirlies, a crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside quartet from Beantown, MA. Unlike everyone else in the world, I'm not gonna say they sound like My Bloody Valentine. The Swirlies just used the lovefuzz acid drops of MBV's "Isn't Anything" as a springboard into a totally different head. Where the Valentines explode pop conventions and sends them hurtling into the stratosphere, the Swirlies eschew that whole pretentious "netherworlds" trip, and cart their oceanic sugarblast musings down to the basement. Shelve the high-tech trickery; The Swirlies prefer good ol' fashioned creative ingenuity. Their new release, "What To Do About Them" is a blistering collection of brill tunes old and new. From cacophonic masterpieces like "Tall Ships" and "Didn't Understand," to the glorious post-power pop monster "Chris R.," this sucker will rock your world. If these happy faces are half as good live, prepare to be amazed. Walt Mink and The Swirlies will be making some really cool noise Friday night at the Blind Pig (206 S. First) Tickets are a measly $5 (p.e.s.c.) in advance, and 18 and older are more than welcome. Oh yeah, and the Swirlies are also playing a set at The Lab later on that same night. Someone at The Pig will be able to tell you where it is. RECORDS Continued from page 3 Various Artists Honkers and Bar Walkers vol. 2 Delmark Records This second volume of 1950s sax blowouts contains even more heavy honkers and killer dillers than its pre- cursor. Volume two has matured from the duck fever, sausage pondering, and pink Cadillac pining of numero uno to gator calls, bean heads, and blue jean stylin'. None of the artists match the blow- your-guts-out squankin' of Jimmy Forrest and Jimmy Coe. Instead, the cd But, if you want it hot, Morris Lane and King Curtis bracket this cd with some passionate wonking. glides through steamy R & Bebop instrumentals with Panama Francis's and Charlie Ferguson's Orchestra's li- bidinous grinds and spooky hair-rais- ers. What some of these smoothies lack in ear-aching sax appeal is made up with gobs of reverb and hormone drenched shouts from ecstatic teens. Just when things are getting predict- able, you stumble over Bill Harray's cooky Walk Right In filled with sly double entendres that slip right by the furrowed browed moral majority and like-minded FCC executive types. Jesse Powell's 1956 remake (The Walkin' Blues) lacks all of Harray's subtlety for the benefit of dimwitted portions of the R & B populace. But, if you want it hot, Morris Lane and King Curtis bracket this cd with some passionate wonking. Lane re- placed Arnett Cobb in the 1947 Lionel Hampton Band, and the Cobbesian in- fluence is evident in the 1951 session. King Curtis, the last of the R & B stylists, trucks with heavy footed assurity on Rush Hour, whose opening reso- nates with Bud Powell's Parisian Thor- oughfare. The only thing missing from this compilation is the live bar walking, bug crawling showmanship of these reed-biters...but you can imagine. -Chris Wyrod Trixter Hear! MCA "Hear!" Is that an order? I guess it would have to be. There are three redeeming songs on this album, the rest are pure filler. These three are "Rockin' Horse," "Power of Love," and "Bloodrock," which all employ the same catchy hook. They come as a package, interrupted only by the suspiciously Tesla-like "Runaway Train." Sadly, they are the only semi- original material on the album. Now "hear" this: we have enough corny hard-rock tunes about following our hearts ("As the Candle Burns"), how wild the hard-rock lifestyle is ("Wild is the Heart"), and don't forget the ever-popular good-to-be-bad motif ("Damn Good"). Hey, Trixter - get some original song ideas and then we'll see. -Kristen Knudsen Keith Richards Main Offender Virgin I never thought I'd say this, but Keith Richards' new record is boring. It used to be my favorite part of Rolling Stones' records to hear Richards' meat grinder voice tearing apart some raging rocker. But somehow his voice has smoothed out (I often can't tell him from his female backing singers) and without the Stones' rhythm sections, the songs are flabby and slow (not to mention very weak lyrically). "Main Offender" is a real disappointment. - Steven Knowlton Raymond Scott Reckless Nights and Turkish Twilights Columbia Imagine a wabbit hole being overstuffed with dynamite - this is the music you're hearing. The woefully unheralded 20th-century musical giant Raymond Scott is the Ur-Carl Stalling in that he is the most distinctive of that merrie maestro's non-classical sources. You'll recognize many of his proto- merrie-melodies if you've ever seen a Looney Tune on the cathode tube. These cleaned-up and compiled jazzy 78s dat- French artists frolic in the countryside by Camilo Fontecilla It's a general rule to beware of all films that display framed pictures of the stars on the poster, a la Agatha Christie adaptations. "Impromptu," set in the Richards ing from the late '30s are many of Scott's rinky-dinky standards, includ- ing "DinnerMusic fora Pack of Hungry Cannibals" and the ever-popular "Pow- erhouse." Scott archivist Irwin Chusid's liner notes are thorough and most helpful in looking into both Scott's genius and his biography. Would you have guessed that behind Scott's seemingly sponta- neous, energetic music was a composi- tional style not unlike the one employed by Captain Beefheart for "Trout Mask Replica"? He didn't compose on paper - he composed on his piano and told the members of his six-piece "quintette" exactly what to play, and mercilessly drove them through chronic practices and rehearsals. Though the hour of "Reckless Nights"might seemlike themotherlode, it is only the surface of Scott's visionary musical depths, which ranged from pre- scient innovations in ambient and elec- tronic music (including inventing the programmable sequencer) to working for Motown Records. Hopefully many more archives will be dipped into, so as to present Scott in all of his musical guises, and to make sure that Scott's work can be heard-notjust read about in footnotes. - Greg Baise height of the French romantic period, is an exception. James Lapine draws to- gether an ensemble that captures the 19th-century bohemian Paris art scene (phew) with great accuracy. Essentially, this movie is a festival of human energy, sparked by love, lust and wit. Lapine tames this energy without suppressing it, and channels it into the fast-moving storyline and characters' sharp tongues. "Impromptu" recounts the mishaps of androgynous novelist George Sand (Judy Davis) as she attempts to seduce the gifted but chaste composer Frederic Chopin (Hugh Grant). Due toherliberal lifestyle, she has managed to accumu- late two children and a history of heart- broken lovers. Of these, Felicien Mallefille (Georges Corraface), hermost recent suitor, seems most particularly set on getting her back, and will do anything to truncate her plans. What's more, her friend Marie d'Agoult (Bernadette Peters), who is living with composer Franz Liszt (Julian Sands), also develops an interest in Monsieur Chopin and contrives to. covertly foil George's objectives. The situation be- gins getting juicy when they are all invited to the country mansion of the Duchess d'Antan (Emma Thompson), a self-proclaimed patron of the arts. Judy Davis excels as the masculine and passionate George Sands. Hugh Grant plays a prim and well drawn out Chopin, Polish accent and all, and Bernadette Peters is splendid as the cunningand unhappy Mme. d'Agoult. Mandy Patinkin is the writer Alfred de Musset, another of George's ex-lovers, and the perfect impersonation of a fop, as is painter Eugene Delacroix (Ralph Brown). Emma Thompson, butt of the sarcasm of her guest artists, carries her- self with such an affected dignity that without question she becomes the most comic character in this jumble that she inadvertently sets up. To make aperiod piecework, it's not This movie is a festival of human energy, sparked by love, lust and wit. enough to make pretty costumes. James Lapine recreates the style and flavor of the period meticulously, spicing it up with hilarious comic situations andcon- trasting high passion. To mix these two is not easy, but this movie serves them both on the same silver platter. Remem- ber to leave your family values on your desk, though. There is nothing proper about the way these people get what they want. If you're willing to take the risk, go out and rent the movie, and don't get thrown off by the musicians in the plot. They're only human too, you know. I I - L tokanrg f- ~ e U s me a C The University of Michigan Club 1-g :lri ntit)-T IJ CCRB Small Jan iuarv 19 and 20 cGill it( 8O) )I Beginners XWelcome! Winter 1993 Pranctice schedu ic Tuc>s Thu r, Sali 0(1)- 1 0:01 ( H Smnall (C" Smll (; Small C(;\ 'ill m1 ill For more inftuniiaon: YaIsu: 994-355X Mary: 747-2945 Atri 747-3141 IMPROMPTU is available at Liberty Street Video A N N A R B O R 0* mpkrnj' '' 'rchcrd SAMUEL" WONG, MUSIC DIRECTOR AN ALL-AMERICAN LANDSCAPE Saturday, January 16, 8 p.m. at the Michigan Theater featuring THE MIDWEST PREMIERE OF YAMEKRAW, A Negro Rhapsody by celebrated American Composer James P. Johnson Performed with orchestra by noted U-M pianist William Albright gammmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmqg ° e Fabber than ° the Fab 5! ° Badder than I ° the Bad Boys! I ° ~Grateful Dead° Olympic s 01 MONDAY FRIDAY SUNDAY I 1 t ,1 F ' 1