U~d-,m 4k Yee-Raw! Strap on them boots and start kicking those heels because tonight is Family Fun Night at Swing City. Join the hippest crowd in Ann Arbor for a good o1' fashioned country barn dance. The fun starts at 7:30 p.m. at the Swing City Dance Studio, 1960 S. Industrial. Children must be accompanied by an adult, and admission is $5 per family. For more information, call 668-7782. Friday September 13, 1996 5 Punk dream team Neurotic Outsiders shoots potent load Members of Guns N' Roses, Sex Pistols, Duran Duran unite V <. 'By Brian A. Gnatt Daily Arts Editor Life's been a little busy lately for Duff McKagan. The Guns N' Roses bassist has been living a tale of two cities and two bands - one rehearsing and recording a new record with Axl, Slash and the gang in L.A., and the other Ytouring the country with his new all-star punk rock project, Neurotic Out- siders. Along with Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones, Duran Duran's A John Taylor on bass and co- Gunner Matt Sorum on d r u m s, M c Kagan and the Neurotic Outsiders are hit- ting the road with their new band and new se I f - t it l e d a l b u m (Maverick, ***). Loaded with burning power chords, raunchy lyrics and raw power, "Neurotic Outsiders" captures the punk energy you'd expect when you throw together members from some of the world's most notorious rock 'n' roll bands. McKagan and Sorum are flying in from Los Angeles today after a four-day rehearsal stint with G N' R, who is "finally," as Mc- Kagan put it, hard at work on their PR first album ofk original material since 1991's "Use Your Illusions." They'll play four To shows in a row with the Outsiders, and then it's right back to L.A. for another four days of Guns N' Roses. The story behind the formation of Neurotic Outsiders is quite a simple one: A year ago, Sorum got a call from the manager of L.A.'s Viper Room about getting a band together for a char- ity benefit. He called Taylor to play bass and McKagan and Jones to play guitar. Thus, Neurotic Outsiders was born. The band started playing covers of the Stooges, Sex Pistols and the Clash among others at the packed Hollywood hot spot. The chemistry erupted into the Outsiders' raw punk rock, and the band decided to continue playing together and recorded an album. "Jonesy had a record he was working on and all of us had the tape;' McKagan said in an interview with The Michigan Daily. "Matt had played on some of it, Ik' and it was my favorite tape of last sum- mer, so we started playing the songs 'Nasty Ho' and 'Jerk.' We basically crushed the songs and said fuck the solo record." To say McKagan is happy with Neurotic Outsiders and their new record is quite an understatement. "I'm as excited as I was when Guns was pro- moting our first record," Mc- VIE W Kagan said. "I used to put Neurotic together my ulti- Outsiders mate punk rock band when I was, ght, at the Sanctum like, 17 and 18, and Steve Jones was always in it," he said. "There wouldn't be rock'n'roll right now as it is if it weren't for Steve Jones. That's the way I feel, but that's just simply the way it is." Jones, who wrote and sings lead on five of the album's 12 tracks, centers many of his songs around his real-life sexual experiences. From the record's first single, "Jerk," with its Pistols- esque intro and a rocking chorus of "You're a bitch / I'm a jerk / I don't think we can work," to "Union" where he asks "Tell me mirror mirror on the wall / Who's the sickest Sex Pistol of them all," the album looks at the Pistols nostalgically, but doesn't try to relive and recreate the same old songs. The album opener, "Nasty Ho" takes the cake as the raunchiest of them all, recounting an encounter Jones had with a "nasty ho." The track starts with Sorum's pounding drums and Jones' and McKagan's heavy distorted guitars under the Pistol's Tom Jones-style lounge vocals. "Steve is pretty frank," McKagan said. "It's about how he met this chick at a club and brought her home, they ... you know ... they (had sex), and they got done and she asked for $300. Instead of pissing him off or bumming him out, it kinda turned him on. So, yeah, he wrote a song about it." Other album highlights are McKagan's lead vocal tracks on "Good News," "Revolution" and the Iggy Pop- sounding "Six Feet Under." Taylor sings lead on four tracks, including a cover of the Clash's "Janie Jones." McKagan said neither Guns N' Roses nor Neurotic Outsiders feel any animos- ity toward the other. "It's not a threat to any of the bands," he said. "That may have been the case behind some of the other side projects, but this just hap- pened so innocently. There was no pre- conception to it. We just started playing benefits. "I came into (Guns N' Roses) rehearsal last night and AxI goes, 'Dude ... this record ... is amazing. It's so important.' And he was singing the words to every song." As far as the new Guns N' Roses material goes: "It rocks; it's heavy" McKagan said. "With Guns, with what the chemistry of the band is, you're going to be able to tell it's Guns - even if we were playing a polka, you would Neurotic Outsiders Matt Sorum, Duff McKagan, Steve Jones and John Taylor. be able to tell it's Guns." For the new Guns N' Roses album, which McKagan said, "shouldn't be out any later than next spring" Axl will be playing rhythm guitar in place of Gilby Clarke, who was fired after the band's 1993 punk cover album, "The Spaghetti Incident." For now, McKagan is busy concen- trating on his two present bands, and said the past 10 years and 70 million records with Guns was just the begin- ning. "I really feel like I've just started,". he said. "The last 10 years was getting used to it, learning the tricks, and now it's time to apply 'em." Rock 'n' roll with Jimmy Eat World By Colin Bartos Daily Arts Writer Rock music with an edge. Adventurous songs. A band of young guys our own age who sound like they've been playing for years and years. Meet Jimmy Eat World. The funny thing is, "rock" music does not even begin to describe the aura of immense energy surrounding Jimmy Eat World's major-label debut, "Static Prevails" (Capitol, ****). The band's sound stretches to all different areas, sounding like Sunny Day Real Estate, Texas Is The Reason and Seam at times, but always original. PREVIEW Jimmy Eat World At the Shelter Sunday, Sept. 15 It's weird that a band from the Tempe, Ariz., scene, whose graduates include the Gin Blossoms and the Refreshments, wouldn't follow along and play that whole "desert-country rock" thing. Co-lead vocalist Tom Linton said that Jimmy Eat World was "just influenced by different bands than they are" in a telephone interview with The Michigan Daily. The scene is small right now, but Linton said "it's slowly starting to build up and starting to get pretty cool out there." Jimmy Eat World formed two years ago when guitarist and co-lead vocalist Jim Adkins and drummer Zach Lind, good friends since they were little, met up with guitarist Linton anid bassist Rick Burch, and everything just clicked. All the band members were just out of high school. After recording five seven-inch sin- gles and one full-length album on Wooden Blue Records, the band was signed by Capitol Records, something a little overwhelming for a bunch of young guys to handle. "So far, it's been pretty cool," Linton said. "We got to go in and record an album that we wanted to do." The result of that recording was "Static Prevails," an album which the band is extremely happy with. When asked how "Static Prevails" compares to their indie debut, Linton snickered. "This one is way more mature. The one before was songs we wrote in like a week. At that time we were more influ- enced by Propagandhi and NOFX ... it's not that good ... but I guess, like, every band hates their old stuff." "Static Prevails" is 12 songs, no two the same, of adventurous "space" rock. The thing is, there's not a weak song on the whole disc. The first track, "Thinking, That's All," compares to space noise-rock superstars Unwound with its stop and go distorted delivery. Most of the songs are on the edge of punk, but much more elaborate than just three-chord verse-chorus-verse songs. The song "Claire," which definitely sounds like Texas Is the Reason, rocks out and then mellows to a hushed roar, with a violin in the background. "Episode IV," which brings compar- isons of Seam, with its soft, haunting vocals and lyrics like "We'll dance off time to songs we've never liked / And sing off-key, thinking it sounds all right;' shows the more ambient, cre- ative side of the band. The first single, "Call It In the Air," has a very punky sound, like something you might find on the new Sense Field album, with a chugging guitar and both vocalists meshing together to create a unique sound. The last song on the disc, "Anderson Mesa" is a beautiful end, with a string section joining the band to give the song that extra something you don't hear on a lot of discs. Any way you cut it, the album is incredible and very mature for a debut act. Jimmy Eat World is now on tour with the Smoking Popes and the Figgs, two bands who have gotten some recogni- tion in the past. When asked why those two bands are getting all the press, Linton said, "I don't know, it kinda sucks, I guess ... I guess we're just the See JIMMY, Page 8 These guys would be Jimmy Eat World. Jimmy unplugs for in-store at Tower ,By Shannon O'Neill For the Daily Capitol Records' "God Bless America" nationwide tour will grace Ann Arbor Tower Records with its pres- ence this Sunday. Sponsored by Calvin Klein, Rolling Stone magazine and Tower Records, *apitol Records' band Jimmy Eat World will play an acoustic set and do a signing at 4 p.m. in the South University Galleria. PREVIEW Jimmy Eat World At Tower Records 4 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 15 Free samples of cK be, Calvin Klein's latest sensory delight, and a free limited-release CD sampler by Capitol Records will be given to atten- dees. The CD has tracks from other bands on the "God Bless America" tour, the Smoking Popes, and The Figgs, as well as tracks from Radiohead, Liz Phair, Nil Lara, I Mother Earth and others. If that's not enough, current releas- es by artists on the sampler will be specially priced at Tower during the tour. Jimmy Eat World will do a follow-up all-ages concert with the Smoking of Retail Operations for Records / Videos. Coordinated by Rob Gordon, Vice President of Marketing for Captiol and Tripp DuBois, Director of Marketing for Capitol, the opportunity for the bands is far-reaching with the new appeal of free music and fragrance samples. "Capitol's roster of new bands is very fresh and distinctive and we aim to reach our audience in unique and memorable ways beyond the tradi- tional retail and radio channels. This is a great opportunity for the Smoking Popes, The Figgs, Jimmy Eat World and Capitol Records," Gordon said. I * U I Interview with the world's top companies at the Pan-Asian Job Fair! " New York City Oct. 18 - Oct. 19, 1996 Sheraton New York Hotel & Towers * Chicago Nov. 1 - Nov. 2, 1996 Hyatt Regency Chicago * Silicon Valley Feb. 7 - Feb. 8, 1997 South San Francisco Conference Center To register or get more information, contact: International Career Information, Inc. Phone: 1-8004859-8535 http:/www.rIc.com/acw China Hong Kong India Indonesia Japan Korea Malaysia Philippines Singapore Taiwan Thailand Vietnam PAN-ASIAN JOB FAIR GOD- BLEss-AMERICA UI I i III I 2438-36687-2 Land Of The Almost Free. On Tour. Three bands. $5.00 SMOKING POPES THE FlOGGS The Air Force needs over 700 new pilots in 1999 & 2000.