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i ne micnigan Daily - Friday March 24~ 1995 - 9
'Sick' of all the controversy
'Orange' you glad these guys are on tour?
y Kirk Miller
ily Arts Writer
3Maybe the reason they called them-
selves Sick of It All comes from how
badly they've been treated.
"The worst thing that happened was
yesterday,"vocalistLou Kollerexplained.
"We played First Avenue in Minneapolis.
We've played there before and they've
always had a huge barricade. (At
SICK OF IT ALL
?When: Tonight at 6 p.m.
Where: St. Andrew's Hall
Tickets: Call 961-MELT for
information.
soundcheck) there was no barricade up,
but we weren't thinking because we had
.t got up and we had to go righton stage.
Apparently it's been a few years since
they've had a show without a barricade
and the kids knew this and went crazy. I
mean, there were 17 people stage-diving
at once and abig human mess on the floor.
I guess one kid broke his nose, another
twisted his ankle."
Although the band's legendary live
show inspired riots on their last Ameri-
tour threeyears ago, Koller claimed
'xcept for the previous night) that the
audience has been great and there have
been no injuries. But in typical Sick of
It All fashion, one small incident has
already blossomed into a controversy.
"Now I'm getting calls at this club
today," Koller complained. "They're
saying 'If you don't play with a barri-
cade you don't play this club, because
we heard that you broke someone's
neck and somebody broke their ribs.'
Everything is exaggerated and blown
out of proportion, and it's really bring-
ing me down."
However, attendance at their shows
is up, probably due to the favorable
response to their new major label re-
lease "Scratch the Surface." While other
New York hardcore bands have been
plagued by overproduction and lack-
luster songs, Sick of It All have made
easily the best hardcore album in years,
very stripped down and heavy. Most
importantly, they have the songs to go
with the anger, including what might be
their first hit in the catchy punk anthem
"StepDown." Ifyou blinked, you might
have missed its 2 a.m. debut on MTV's
"120 Minutes."
Part of the reaction against the band
might stem from a horrible 1992 inci-
dent when Massachusetts prep school
student Wayne Lo gunned down sev-
eral classmates while wearing a Sick of
By Gianluca Montalti
For the Daily
What happens when hardcore
bands get older? Some 'mature,' like
Bad Religion, some stick to their roots
like Sick of It All, and still others like
Orange 9mm expand their musical
horizons while maintaining their
hardcore integrity, a noble achieve-
ment indeed. Borne out of ex-Burn
It All t-shirt. While the band received
no coverage for their work on amnesty
orantifascist benefit concerts, suddenly
the press jumped all over them.
"The worst was the New York
Times," Koller commented. "We
wrote a letter of rebuttal against them.
They had called us 'fascist' and all of
this other stuff. But they didn't print
the letter until a friend of ours from
the Village Voice wrote how they did
some shoddy reporting and didn't read
the band's lyrics or let the band have
their say."
While the music is extremely ag-
gressive, Koller thought most of the
lyrics could be summed up as"Don't be
ignorant, because that's the basis for all
evil." Besides, Koller, an admitted Sade
fan, is more of an expert on the punk
scene than any relative newcomer or
concerned parent. "If they'd just look
past the violence," he admonished. "It's
a really good scene, and, from what I
remember, a very positive one."
can never say you're too old for
hardcore," he said. "Hardcore is the
most guttural level of crowd to audi-
ence interaction. Anybody who says
that they can outgrow that is a little
weird."
The band is always striving for pure
expression, a carryover from the
hardcore book of songwriting. "I de-
cided I wanted to do something a little
bit different," he said. "Burn was a little
less personal and more about every-
body. In Orange 9mm, what I'm saying
is the same shit that you go through,
yourcousin goes through and my mother
went through when she was a kid."
The band recently released their
major label debut, a truly nontradi-
tional major label record. It is nontra-
ditional in the sense that, for better or
worse, it incorporates Chaka's
'Driver' concept in the songwriting
process. "The record is called 'Driver
Not Included."'he said. "You put this
record on and you control it and take
it where you want to go. When I listen
to our record all the way through, I'll
go through nine, 10 different emo-
tions." In fact, the musicians are cred-
ited as 'passengers' on the inlay. He
sings incessantly about his feelings in
a rather juxtaposed fashion, much the
same way that we think and feel ev-
eryday. "When Iget asong and Ihave
to write lyrics to it, I'll get naked and
lie on my bed and be like, BOOM,
let's see what happens. Whatever
comes out ends up being the fucking
song."
Orange 9mm has now joined the
ranks of Quicksand, Sick of It All,
and B iohazard as a hardcore band that
has graduated. Chaka sees it as a
chance to be part of the next big thing.
"The scene is still young," he said. "It
went from English punk to American
punk, then to the Minor Threat, SST
bands of the world to what you call
New York Hardcore which is kind of
a mishmash of all those styles to like
metal/hardcore. Everybody right now
is in kind of the baby stage of growing
into what the next type of rebellious
music is going to be."
vocalist, Chaka Malik, and ex-Foun-
tainhead guitarist, Chris Traynor,
Orange 9mm is a living testament that
the energy that drove the New York
hardcore scene is not dead, it has just
taken a different form.
Chaka Malik has been encounter-
ing some dissension from the hardcore
ranks for moving to a major label from
Revelation Records, the same label that
put out Quicksand's first EP. Even
though Chaka may be attacking a wider
array of styles these days, he has not
forgotten his musical standby. "You
Aw, aren't the li' guys cute?
After long wait, 'Cement Garden
By Fred Rice
Daily Arts Writer
"The Cement Garden" started pre-
production twice during the '80s, but
apparently, the filmmakers could not
find a studio to back their controversial
#mes of incest and cross-dressing.
"The Cement Garden" tells of a
family's struggle to survive after their
father and mother die. To ward off
foster agencies, the family secretly bur-
ies the mother in a cement-filled coffin
in their basement. The kids gradually
reinterpret their familial roles in a quest
for love and stability.
The film is set among the industrial
ns of England. Something is gradu-
y decaying in every scene: Aban-
doned buildings, the family's house
that resembles a giant cement cinder
block - all overloaded metaphors.
The lack of any other details makes
the story impossible for the audience to
date and for the characters who occa-
sionally comment that they can't re-
member their family being different.
To keep the surreal qualities from
floating adrift, Andrew Birkin grounds
The Cement
Garden
Directed by Andrew Birkin
with Andrew Robertson
Friday only at Nat Sci 7:30 & 9:30
the sibling dynamics in firm reality.
Jack (Andrew Robertson) is a typical,
miserable teenager, uncertain how to
behave and constantly masturbating.
His older sister Julie (Charlotte
Gainsburg) has greater poise and re-
sponsibility.
No matter how much they tend to
'blooms into strange love story
disapprove of each other, they some- Birkin carefully manipulates the
how manage to show understanding. It shifting sexual and gender roles to
is through this dynamic that Birkin illuminate a family's resilience in the
weaves in Jack and Julie's desire by face of disintegration. The superb
casually inserting scenes that appear narrative draws the audienceso tightly
harmless at first, but then take on tre- into the bizarre world that everyone
mendous significance. An example: will be rooting for the brother and
Jack bursts into Julie's. room to tickle sister's relationship to culminate.
her - rather harmless sibling play - The delayed production was well
but then they have orgasms. worth the wait.
U U
University of Michigan
School of Music
shades
of suiuucr
1995
This summer, attend Colorado State and
earn credits during 4-, 8-, or 12-week terms.
Courses begin
May 15, June 12 and July 10
No formal admission requirements
Summer
Call for a free
Bulletin or Class Schedule
1-800-854-6456
University
Friday, March 24
Contemporary Directions Ensemble: Music of Henryk G6recki
H. Robert Reynolds, music director; G6recki himself will attend.
" Quartetto, op. 5 (1956)
" String Quartet No. 2, "Quasi una Fantasia" (1991)
" Kleines Requiem far eine Polka (1993)
Rackham Auditorium, 8 p.m., free
Saturday, March 25
Composition Seminar with Henryk G6recki
West Conference Room, Rackham Bldg., 10 a.m.-noon
Digital Music Ensemble: "Medieval Meets Jazz"
Stephen Rush, director
Dancing monks plus Jimi Hendrix, chant and guitar synthesizers,
all in cathedral-like acoustics and lighting
McIntosh Theatre, School of Music, 8 p.m., free
Sunday, March 26
Digital Music Ensemble: "Medieval Meets Jazz"
Repeat of Saturday's program
McIntosh Theatre, School of Music, 4 p.m., free
Monday, March 27
Michigan Youth Ensembles
Dennis Glocke, Jerry Blackstone, Michael Webster, conductors
" Michigan Youth Band: Two of Gustav Holst's Planets
" Michigan Youth Chamber Singers: Gabriel Faurd's Requiem
" Michigan Youth Symphony Orchestra: Paul Hindemith's
Symphonic Metamorphoses
Hill Auditorium, 7 p.m., free
Tuesday, March 28
UMS: Michigan Chamber Players
" Strauss: Sonata in E-flat for violin and piano (Andrew Jennings,
violin; Martin Katz, piano)
" Beethoven: Trio in B-flat (Deborah Chodacki, clarinet; Erling
Bl6ndal Bengtsson, cello; Louis Nagel, piano)
* Dvorak: Trio in F minor (Arthur Greene, piano; Stephen Shipps,
violin; Anthony Elliott, cello)
Rackham Auditorium, 8 p. m., free
Piano Forum
Professor Dickran Atamian presents a new work for piano.
Recital Hall, School of Music, 11:30 a.m., free
Wednesday, March 29
Piano Dedication Recital
Four faculty pianists inaugurate Rackham's new Steinway:
" Anton Nel-Chopin's Mazurka in C-sharp minor, Scherzo No. 4
" Arthur Greene-Etudes from Scriabin'ss Opp. 42, 65, and 8
" Louis Nagel-Souvenir de Porto Rico by Gottschalk; La Fille
aux cheveux de lin and L'Isle joyeuse by Debussy
" Dickran Atamian-Rachmaninoff's Etude Tableaux; Liszt's
Jeux d'eaux a la Villa d'Este; Pavane by Mouret (arr. Atamian)
Rackham Auditorium, 8 p.m., free
Arts Chorale
Jonathan Hirsh conducts Maurice Durufle's Requiem
Hill Auditorium, 8 p.m., free
.Opera Workshop
Joshua Major directs Hoiby's one-act opera The Italian Lesson
McIntosh Theatre, 7 p. m., free
Note: The 5 p.m. Opera Workshop performance has been canceled.
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