ART S The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, February 8, 2000 - 9 JIart keeps on truckin' after the end of his tenure with 'Dead' z The Hartford Courant You'd never guess from listening to the pleasant, interna- tional sounds on the new disc "Spirit Into Sound" that it all comes from the guy who spent 30 years pounding drums for the world's biggest touring psychedelic circus, the rateful Dead. Rather, Mickey Hart is making music that sounds like he's fully relaxed after years on the Dead-go-round, and happy to share his joy of music and the crates of percussive instruments he has picked up during international jaunts. He was so relaxed, in fact, he was asleep half the time as he composed it. "I get this stuff in dreams; that's where it comes from," said Hart over the phone from his California home. "I'm a big believer in listening to my dreams." While working on his latest book, which has the same name as the CD, the musical ideas would fill his head at *ght, and he recorded them with a tape machine at the side of his bed, then more fully in the morning at his home studio. "I try to lay down whatever remnant I have on tape," he said. And when he can't, he said, "I use self-hypnosis and tell myself to remember my dream. It's a very powerful way of getting into the unconscious. And there are other tech- niques I use to mine the dream state." Whatever approach he uses, it's not conventional. "I don't sit down and compose it as much as it composes me," he said, begging to sound like a Zen master. "I use a lot of yoga d deep-breathing techniques to get me to play new music instead of old music." Also, for the first time he used a collaborator, Planet Drum and Super Lingua vocalist Rebeca Mauleon, whose voice can be heard over the exotic instrumentals, which use Peruvian flutes. "Working with Rebeca Mauleon has been an invigorating experience for me. She sings like an angel, and as a co- composer, there's a lot of chemistry," he said. Hart has worked in tandem before, mostly for years with co-drummer Bill Kreutzmann in the Dead to produce night- ly percussive improvisation. "I love the group experience; as you know, I specialized in that," Hart said. "But working with one other person compositionally is very rewarding. The grooves have a cer- tain direction and are very cogent." The best selling book version of "Spirit into Sound" is a collection of quotes about music from sources as varied as Plato, Confucius, John Lennon and Ice-T. The album, released Jan. 25, seems best reflected by a quote from Bob Marley: "One good thing about music: When it hits, you feel no pain." The guests on the album include former Dead band mate Bob Weir, but it more often turns to such international musicians as Zakir Hussain and Haroon Tahir. Hart, 49, is gratified that, for the most part, fans from his old band have allowed him to travel freely to such foreign musical grounds. "I credit my audience and fans and friends who have encouraged me to go outside of the Grateful Dead," he said. Courtesy of dead net Mickey Hart, former Grateful Dead drummer, continues his musical forays, experimenting with a variety of percussive sounds, "I don't want to go out and just be an echo of the Grateful Dead. They can get that on tapes and get the real thing. Everything else is just knockoffs. I don't want to play 'Truckin' when I'm 70 years old. It's not my idea of a fulfill- ing life." Still, he imagines there will be some playing with The Other Ones, the surviving Dead group with Weir and Bruce Hornsby (although bassist Phil Lesh, after one Other Ones tour, has said he'd rather lead his own band in the future). "Once or twice a year, I'm going to go out and do that" Hart said. "Bob and I and Bruce are going to go outanld, make that kind of music and I'm going to love it, and enjoy it to the max. But every month for the rest of my life? No. I'll be going back to visit it and really love it. And why not? I created it. But to base my musical existence on the music of the past? No. I have no interest in that at all. I've already done', it. All that has already been done." Reality, The Los Angeles Times Voyeurism head to Summer TV 'Ul 17:1 :7A\Yjj The major networks are finally making good on a long-standing pledge to provide more origi- nal summer programming - although many of e programs in question will be an odd mix of '0TV's cinema verite "The Real World" with voyeuristic elements seemingly plucked from the nightmare world of the fantasy feature "The Tru- man Show." The latest, and perhaps most provocative, entry in this genre is "Big Brother," a Dutch project that confines 10 strangers in a house for 100 days, monitoring their every move with 24 cam- eras and 59 microphones. CBS has committed to airing 50 hours of the *ogram, which will be shown at least five nights a week beginning in July. The network, which won rights to the series - a huge hit in Holland quickly spreading across Europe - after a bid- ding contest among several networks, had previ- ously announced plans to air another European "reality" show this summer, "Survivor." That series documents the activity of a group of peo- pie stranded on an island near Borneo. This infusion of so-called reality programs not only ups the ante on voyeurism but reflects a ncerted effort to provide fresh summer fare after years of lip-service to the idea, including grand announcements that were later abandoned. The key development to jump-start the process has been the explosive popularity of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," which ABC introduced last August with an experimental run on 13 consecu- tive nights. ABC has also enjoyed success, albeit on a less- er scale, with "Whose Line Is It Anyway?," an improvisational comedy that made its debut in the summer. And the network is likely to launch "Mastermind" - a new quiz concept under the stewardship of "Millionaire" producer Michael Davies _ next summer, perhaps during the same August window that proved such a blessing for the existing show. In similar fashion, Fox has announced plans for a concert series and is developing a documentary program that could air multiple nights each week, in which a camera crew chronicles the daily goings- on in a high school. Fox is describing the concept as a "reality drama." "As long as I've been in American television, people have been talking about how it's crazy not to put on original programming during the summer," said Davies, a native of England, adding that suc- cess of "Millionaire" has "given people no excuse not to go and do it." Networks have long relied on second runs of pro- grams in the spring or summer as a vital part of their economic equation, since the fee paid to pro- ducers covers two airings and programmers seldom make a profit on the first showing. Still, programmers have discovered there is con- siderable risk in freeing viewers to sample splashy cable movies and series during those months, as well as potential value in using summer as a labora- tory, provided the programs themselves are inex- pensive enough to justify production, similar to the model followed on cable. Some executives have argued that expensive series such as "ER," "NYPD Blue" and "Every- body Loves Raymond" remain the best way for the major networks to command viewer loyalty and define themselves, in part because such offerings aren't readily available on cable channels, whereas game shows, quirky reality series and movies are. The astonishing ratings for "Millionaire," how- ever, have dealt all conventional logic a setback - attracting audiences that exceed "ER" at a fraction of its cost and for considerably less than most dra- mas and sitcoms. "The old rules are all very, very different from what they used to be," said CBS Television Presi- dent Leslie Moonves at a news conference Thurs- day announcing the deal on "Big Brother." Planning Trips for Generations X, Y,and Ze Lndon........... $341 Paris ..............$416'' Tokcyo3 ..........$85 New York ....... $237 Ail fares are rmundtnp from Oetrpit; Taxf not inndded. 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