The Michigan Daily - Wu W , 4c. - Thursday, March 28, 1996 - 9 6o, 49P Musicians solve 'Mysteries of Life' Little-known band is a 'Secret' worth revealing is ageless e either cleaning up or resting up for a night eater has started the party early. The child- )ws there - one at 3 p.m. and one at :11 male vocalist Monifah and singer/rapper garnered a fair share of popularity with their '94 hit the recent release of their newest LP "We Got It (MCA, B are certainly celebrating their new growth spurt of R&B a vast menu of both fast- and slow-paced songs will at Ticketmaster. - Eugene Bowen By Victoria Salipande For the Daily A band like The Mysteries of Life requires a family tree to explain its long, complex history. They repre- sent another branch in a line of bands/ musicians that traces back to the start of a band almost a decade ago called the Blake Babies at the Berklee Col- lege of Music in Massachusetts. Consisting of Juliana Hatfield on bass, John Strohm on guitar and Freda Love, known then by her infamous full name Freda Love Boner, on drums, the Blake Babies grew up to be one of the more popular bands in the legendary Boston music scene that included the Lemonheads and Dino- saur Jr. When they broke up in the early '90s, Hatfield pursued a solo career while Strohm and Love formed the noise-pop band Antenna with fel- low Indiana native Jake Smith. Years later, Strohm now fronts the band Velo-Deluxe while Hatfield remains successful at her solo career. As for Love and Smith, they married, had a baby, and eventually started The Mysteries of Life. Along with marriage and childbirth, Love and Smith had gone back to school during a period where they had stopped playing music. Boredom soon set in. Through that boredom, Love and Smith formed The Mysteries of Life as a local side band occasionally playing shows and releasing singles. "We'd have more control that way," Smith explained. The Mysteries of Life stayed a secret until the people at RCA Records heard about those singles and signed the band to their label after hearing them. Their debut album, "Keep a Secret" was released in February. While not a complete departure from Love and Smith's previous bands, "Keep a Secret" reflects the loose atmosphere that created it. The pretty pop melodies found in the Blake Babies are still there, but while they masked Hatfield's depressing, often disturbing lyrics, Smith's lyrics seem more laid back and less angst driven. (He actually seems happy for the most part.) The lush, warm melodies created through the use of a cello on "Keep a Secret" replace the noisy guitar sound of Antenna. Love and Smith have a more direct approach to pop music than their former bandmates. Smith cites early REM and the Vel- vet Underground as influences. They seem happy with that change in style. "We kind oflost touch with the music we were making before since we were away from it so long. It was nice to start from the ground up," Smith said. While they'vealready made a video for the song "Going Through the Mo- tions," Love and Smith aren't in a hurry to make their band known. They do plan to play some shows including the South By Southwest conference even though there are no plans for a national tour at the moment. Smith would like to do a national tour, but the problems of touring with a child may have played a factor in the deci- sion not to rush into it. At their recent show at the Shelter in Detroit, Love and Smith's year and a half old son was in attendance be- cause they were late due to car trouble. "It can be hard," Smith said. "There are times when Freda and I don't sleep." Lack of sleep may be the only thing Love and Smith are worried about. While they could be considered vet- eran musicians, Love and Smith never really got as big as Hatfield did when she went solo. They've quietly gone about making music they enjoy with littleconcern for commercial success. "There was a change in motivation ,'_is time. We've had a certain amount The Mysteries of Life is a complex band with a complex history. Their unique sound may soon draw the kind of fame ex-assoclate Jullanna Hatfield acquired when she went solo. of success in the past and were really lucky that way. You could say the pursuit of success kind of lost its tug. We're doing it now because it feels good. We needed to prove to our- selves that we could do it on our own, terms, " Smith said. That "doing what feels good" ap; proach the Mysteries of Life take to music, like the band itself, is a secret worth revealing. Re-issues lend modern sound to classics The Baltimore Sun One of the frustrations of the CD age is the repeated re-issue, deletion and re-issue of recordings from the LP era. Many listeners find them- selves buying the same performances *ain and again because of new cou- plings Land more attractive packing and;,im'st important;in hope of more truthful transfers from the original analogue master tapes. The last of these promises often proves more than a lost hope, how- ever..New computer technology has made possible retrieving more infor- mation from master tapes, and the re- sues in RCA's "Living Stereo" and ilips' "Mercury Living Presence" series sound almost as good as new LPs on excellent playback equipment. The latest in this series of improved digital transfers of analogue masters is Deutsche Grammophon's "The Originals," 25 mid-priced, re-issued recordings dating from the middle 1950s until the early '70s and featur- ing such heavyweights from the DG roster as conductor Herbert von krajan, pianists Wilhelm Kempffand eza Anda and violinist David Oistirakh. The good news is that these new re- issues sound terrific. There is almost none of the quasi-metallic scraping and dry, air-between-the-notes sound that so irritated listeners when the new digital technology emerged in the middle 1980s. The bad news is that listeners may d themselves, yet once more, buy- ing new copies of their favorite re- cordings. To take one example, compare the new {transfer of the Karajan-Berlin Philharmonic Schumann Symphony No. 1 (coupled with Brahms' Sym- phony No. I) to the 1990 transfer. The opening horn call is more clearly fo- cused, not shrill as in the 1990 trans- fer, and the fanfare that follows has the solidity and richness of the 1972 LP issue. Concerto recordings fare particu- larly well in this series. The first CD re-issues of some of DG's famous concerto recordings tended to over- emphasize the soloist at the expense of the orchestra. In DG's 1985 trans- fer of Sviatoslav Richter's famous 1959 recording of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2, for example, the great pianist's opening chords sounded uncharacteristically percus- sive, and the orchestral framework supplied by conductor Stanislas Wislocki and the Warsaw Philhar- monic all but disappeared. In "The Originals" re-issue (in which the Rachmaninoff is coupled with the Richter-Karajan Tchaikovsky Concerto No. I), the piano's opening chords have the irresistible resonance that has always been a feature of this pianist's playing, and the orchestra has an increased presence that reminds the listener why many aficionados consider this performance head and shoulders above others. Aside from refurbished sound, one of the best things about this series is the return of several great perfor- mances to the catalog. The re-issue of Martha Argerich's 1961 debut recital, for example, includes a tender, melt- ing Chopin "Barcarole" that should illuminate the benighted listeners who think of Argerich merely as a pianistic tigress. David Oistrakh recorded the Brahms and Tchaikovsky violin con- certos many times. But in terms of physical mastery, good recorded sound and interpretive ripeness, his 1954 DG recordings with Franz Konwitschny and the Dresden State Orchestra (combined here with the violinist's 1961 performances of the Bach violin concertos) probably rep- resent the violinist at his best. And while Evgeny M ravinsky's early 1960s recordings of Tchaikovsky's Symphonies Nos. 4-6 with the Leningrad (now St. Peters- burg) Philharmonic have been avail- able from time to time, "The Origi- nals" make accessible on CD for the first time the Leningrad's 1956 set, which startled the West with its dem- onstration of a Soviet orchestra equal to the best in Berlin, Boston or Chi- cago. Mravinsky's Symphony No. 5 is similar to the one recorded a few years later, and his No. 6 ("Pathetique") may be even more sear- ing. But the major revelation is the Sym- phony No. 4, which is conducted by the then-44-year-old Kurt San derling. Anyone familiar with Sanderling's current interpretations - in which fires are banked and tempos are slow (sometimes to the point of seeming interminable) - will be astonished by the high-tension atmosphere, ve- locity and ferocious personal com- mitment of this performance. This is not to say that everything in "The Originals" is wonderful. It would have been nice to have more long- out-of-print recordings from the 1950s and 1960s (such as Anda's Schumann and Pierre Fournier's Dvorak) and fewer recordings from the early 1970s. And some of DC's choices are ques- tionable. Richter's Rachmaninoff Sec- ond, for example, should have been re-issued with his great performance of Prokofiev's Fifth Concerto, instead of the tepid Tchaikovsky First Con- certo that resulted from his 1963 col- laboration with Karajan. But we need not quibble. What we really need from DG are more of "The Originals." .1 -11* - A L .=.. . . ., ; h t r 1 'i Save Your Friends & Family Money When You Call Them Collect! Only 22ยข Per Minute Plus Connection! Dial...1-800-97 C H E A P (24327) OR Call Us To Order Your Personal Pre-Paid Phone Card Only 30a Per Minute Anywhere Ii 'The USA! Call Now...1-800-261-5321 . mmm-- U The Michigan Pp Ocesr Sunday, March 31 at 2pm Michigan Theater Showcasing music from Phantom of the Opera, Beauty and the Beast, West Side Story, Jurassic Park, and works by Copland, Elfman, Tchaikovsky z Come hear the University's newest orchestra! S *$6 general admission / $4 students, seniors, children Tickets available at the Michigan Union Ticket Office Charge by phone: 763-TKTS Sponsored by: UAC, Programming Grants Council, MSA, LSA Student Government, RHA, Rackham Student Government, KK'i'/TB r~ Preparing Vessels of Honor at the Detroit Center of Theological Education Wayne State University Campus Accredited MA., M. Div., D. Min. GIANNI SCHICCHI oa C fs.,, IL CAMPANELLO y SUNG IN ITALIAN WITHi SUPERTITLES DIRECTED BY JOSHUA MAJOR THE UNIVERSITY PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA CONDUCTED BY PIER CALABRIA ... .