The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, April 12, 1995
'My Brother the Cow' full of great moo-sic
by Matt Carison
'Daily Arts Writer
"We're the only Grunge band left
i1 '95. No one else will take that
word, 'Grunge,' but we will," claims
one Mudhoney member who wishes
yo remain anonymous.
Despite my resolve to never use
deG-word in a complimentary man-
ier, I say to you, friends, that the
world that those garage devils
"nown as Mudhoney have to offer
is is what popular music needs right
:ow: A firm kick of kindergarten
egression up your ass that will leave
you hacking and slobbering all over
,our copies of Candlebox, Bush,
sponge and all of those other pagan
runge bands that masquerade ar-
istic vacuity behind a wall of sound
?hat's as vapid as '80s glam-metal.
Wonder no longer what happened to
Ratt! They stopped wearing leather
pants and started wearing flannel; they
itopped snortin' coke and started
4hootin' smack; they stopped pranc-
ng one way and started prancing an-
.ther. They kept their long hair.
SvUDHONEY CUT THEIRS. Well,
only guitarist Steve Turner did, but
Mudhoney is the one true Grunge -
mockingly cynical of the whole rock
n' roll shenanigan of showbiz.
Pop culture builds icons up that
Mudhoney
My Brother The Cow
Reprise
Mudhoney tears down. On their last
full-length, "Piece of Cake," they
shredded techno to pieces on one un-
titled track and gave us 30 seconds of
farting on another - enough to let us
know that, even though their flatu-
lence was out in the open air, their
tongues were firmly in their cheeks.
Not enough farts to make "Piece of
Cake" a great album, but enough to
let us know they had survived the
GrungeExplosion of'91. "My Brother
The Cow" isn't as aurally searing as
Mudhoney's been on their smash hits
"Suck You Dry," "Touch Me, I'm
Sick" or "Here Comes Sickness." The
entire album is musically strong, but
no single track stands out.
But that seems to be Mudhoney's
point. From the wonderfully juve-
nile crayon drawing by Mr.
Fotheringham that graces the cover
to the raw, sloppy garage rock thun-
der of Mudhoney's twin guitar au-
dio assault, Mudhoney is schoolin'
us all. But the "Mudhoney Elemen-
tary School of Debasement, Regres-
sion and 24-Hour Recess" is for
everyone. Anyone who cares to shed
his or her dignified views on mod-
ern music, anyone who can stop and
say "Geez, Sponge doesn't really
live in a world of human wreckage
- they're rich MTV rock stars and
buddies with Howard Stern - so
what the hell are they trying to pull
over our eyes," can enter its halls.
But everyone is too serious these
days to actually take the big leap
and regress. Mudhoney's deliberate
regression into '60s garage-punk
and smart-ass Attitude with a capi-
tal A on "My Brother The Cow" is
the cure. But still people don't want
the cure; they want to remain in
their make-believe land of serious
artistic integrity and ultra-sheen
craftsmanship. Want to know why?
Because if they were ever to admit
that all their neuroses were curable,
they would no longer have anything
to write songs about.
Courtney Love is busy being a
media whore, and that's fine. More
power to her. But when she believes
that Mudhoney's "Into Your Shtik" is
about her, she's mistaken. Sure,
"You're so tormented, demented, in-
debted to all the assholes just like
you,/Why don't you blow your brains
out too?," could be targeted at Ms.
Love, but it could also be directed at
Trent Reznor, Sponge, Bush or any
other band that tries to be as serious as
Nirvana but forget that Kurt Cobain
wasalso hysterically cynical.
Mudhoney is not serious. When
Mark Arm snarls, "Hey kids, how do
I look on the cover of Spin" on "Gen-
eration Spokesmodel," he's not seri-
ous. He's also not talking about
Mudhoney. This band doesn't want
to be your role model, they want to be
your partner-in-crime at tearing down
My Broner the Cow' teaches generation x how to rock once more.
the walls of this make-believe Rock
N' Roll Babylon. Rock music was
never meant to be viewed as a serious
artistic medium. True rock is raw,
awkward and revolutionary. And
Mudhoney is the current four-star
general in the revolution.
One final note: Alternative ain't
dead, kiddies. Mudhoney just owns
all the copyrights.
RECORDS
Continued from page 5
reactions - the devoted believe he's
t primitive genius, while doubters
ind him monotonous and unengaging.
Either way, he has inspired a legion of
Jisciples that have expanded and
popularized his innovations. At the
very least, that means he deserves a
retrospective as thoroughly compre-
hensive like "Return of the Re-
gressed."
- Tom Erlewine
Immature
Playtyme Is Over
ICA Records
Marques Houston, Jerome Jones
and Kelton Kessee may call them-
selves Immature, but "Playtyme Is
Over" says otherwise. These guys may
look crazy (they do) and their past
songs may have been crazy (they
were), but they have toned down some,
and in the process they have devel-
oped their innocent-sounding voices.
This is easily seen in slow songs like
"I Don't Mind," "Never Lie" and
"Broken Heart" where these three pre-
teens milk their vocs for all they're
worth. Throw in some fresh back-
ground sounds, and you'll soon see
why "Playtyme Is Over" is such a
good CD.
This isn't to say that this CD is
"wack-free." The B.S. is there -
faster songs like "Summertime" and
"Nothing But A Party" quickly come
to mind. Basically all of the fast songs
on "Playtyme Is Over" are pretty ho-
hum. Fortunately, very few of the I I
cuts in this album are fast. When you
get back to those slow songs ... you
just don't know.
When Immature named its CD
"Playtyme Is Over," these guys
weren't joking. They may look im-
mature, but they are completely seri-
ous.
- Eugene Bowen
The Beacon Hillbillies
More Songs of Love and
Murder'
East Side Digital
The acoustic trio of the Beacon
Hillbillies takes a slightly more tradi-
tional approach on their second qual-
ity bluegrass release, "More Songs of
Love and Murder." Though it fea-
See RECORDS, page 9
'Bad Boys' a tired, cliched action-thriller *
By Michael Zilberman
Daily Arts Writer
Here's what "Bad Boys" pretends to
be about: $100 million worth of heroin,
temporarily kept at a police station after a
particularly successful bust, gets stolen
back by the mob. The natural response
would be to trace it and bring it back as
quickly and quietly as possible. The as-
signment goes to acouple of badass street
cops, played by Will Smith and Martin
Lawrence. One is a millionaire playboy
who works in the police for the adrenaline
rush of it, another is a mild-mannered
family man. They have one possible wit-
ness on their hands, plus the usual load of
chips on their shoulders and monkeys on
their backs.
Now, what it's really about: two
sitcom stars ("Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air"
and "Martin," respectively) acting out
their childhood fantasies of blowing
stuff up, simultaneously competing for
the place on the urban action-comedy
throne recently abandoned by Eddie
Murphy.
Action-comedy is a slippery thing to
define these days. The thinner cliches
wear, the more recognizable plot lines
become, the more self-deprecating and
proudly outlandish revisionist action flicks
will get, simply in order to survive. The
line separating the two genres is almost
invisible now, but it still exists. For ex-
ample,"ULthalWeapon"isanactionmovie
with sarcastic overtones, and "Beverly
Hills Cop" is a comedy with action ele-
ments.
"Bad Boys" is neither. It's a straight-
forward generic thriller inexplicably star-
ring comedians. Given, it is slightly wa-
tered down with several chatty interludes.
Bad Boys
Directed by Michael Bay
with Martin Lawrence
and Will Smith
At Showcase
There are some male-bonding displays
that traditionally require witty dialogue,
which in this particular case results in a
myriad of pointless pop-culture refer-
ences ("Bad Boys" is obviously tar-
geted at the audiences that consider
Wesley Snipes' vehicle "Passenger57"
worth paying homage to). Also, there's
that emerging problem in the world of
screenwriting: doing self-referential
dialogue after "Pulp Fiction" is a little
like composing poetry after Auchwitz,
you have to start from scratch. Having
Lawrence utter lines such as "I'm not a
comedian!" doesn't help much: such
elbow-nudging transcends from being
moderately amusing to unbearable in a
matter of seconds.
Both Smith and Lawrence are very
decent character actors. But instead Of
casting one of them as a straight hero and
another as a comedian-sidekick, the pro-
ducers went a little too far in their desire to
createtwo action stars with one movie.
Smith andLawrencearegivenequal screen
time, equal number of showy lines, one
Big Stunt and one Serious Moment for i
each. As a result, watching "Bad Boys"is
an experience comparable to seeing, say,
"Lethal Weapon" with two Danny Glov-
ers. This is not to imply that the genre
requires a white hero; it simply needs a
human center. The above-mentioned
Wesley Snipes, for instance, is able to pull
this off. So are the forever underrated Bil 4
Blanks and Cuba Gooding Jr. Not Smith
and Lawrence.
Among the few pleasurable points
that the movie has to offer is camerawork
- very lively, effective and even moody,
which is highly unusual for the situation.
The requisite hip-hop soundtrack is in
place, the stunts are effective, Miami is
adoringly filmed. The film is by no means
horrible, but there's a sad incompatibility
between its plot and its stars. Cinema
genres will continue to blend and mutate,
but hopefully not to the extent when Garry
Shandling will pick up a machine gun.
Lawrence and Smith, completely forgive
able in their desire to break through and
cross over, wandered into the wrong
project.
-n
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