Get your shine on Okay, we lied in The List -"The Shining" isn't free, it's $5.50. But it's still at the Michigan Theater tomorrow, at midnight, and it's still scary. R rati michigandaily.com I/arts Guitar phenom Shepherd arrives By Gautam Baksi ' album with established blues-rock writ D~ail Arts Wnitea 1ers, he chose to turn over lead vocals tc I~ Courtesy of USA Flms Billy Crudup practices sensual frenology on Jennifer Connelly in "Waking the Dead." Faulty 'Dead' a contrived effort Coltrane did it with Miles and Monk. Clapton did it with the Yardbirds and y Cream. In fact, almost all major virtuoso jazz and blues artists of the 20th Century paid their dues with contemporary per-iy formers before rising into their own pio- neering solo careers. So what does a 22- year old guitar genius say to critics who question his right to go on a national col- lege tour with a self-titled group, the Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band? "Well, I signed a record deal when I was 16:' Shepherd said, "so I'm not really sure I thought about that." Not exactly words of wisdom, but a Shepherd is a young man of few words Courtesy of Giant/Repris overall. Choosing Hailed by some as the next great guitar god, Shepherd is bringing blues to new masses. to let his 1963 a F e n d e r and B.B. King as well as guitar maestros people who have screwed you over one . Stratocaster speak Joe Satriani and Eddie Van Halen. or twice. The blues are natural." Kenny for him, Shepherd Halfway through a tour of major col- A gross under-exaggeratior is, without a leges and universities around the United Shepherd's sound is almost super-natur doubt, an extraor- States, Shepherd took time from his al. He draws on all forms of blues rocl Shepherd dinarily gifted Atlantic City sound check to speak with influences from traditional 12-bar blue ichigan Theater musician. He was the Daily. Playing to almost continuous rhythms to wah-wah screaming solo Tomorrow at 7:30 introduced to the sold-out venues, Shepherd talked about filled with plenty of high fret action. blues and rock the tour schedule and taking time off. "I While most critics believe the blue roots that formed like to lazy as much as possible. can only be learned by experience an( the foundation of Sometimes it seems like every day is a age, Shepherd proves them wrong. Afte his sound at the workday. A weekend is just like a week- two earlier albums filled with soul age of seven when day to me. But I still would not give this searching, homage paying, young tunes he first heard the up for anything." Shepherd is now paving a path of dis late, great Stevie But what does a longhaired covery and the results are astonishing Ray Vaughan performing at a show his Caucasian kid sporting Adidas warm- "You can take lessons, but there's jus father had arranged. Since then, ups really know about the blues? "I don't something about playing from the hear Shepherd has remained a completely think it is a foreign concept," Kenny and channeling it to the audience. It jus self-taught blues guitar-rock artist who quickly retorts. "Everybody has had a can't be taught." has played with the likes of Keb' Mo' girl break their heart and there's always Although Kenny co-wrote lyrics to hi Coprieldflis itoDetroi By Aaron Rich So when the master conjurer thirteen audience members whi Daily Arts Writer stepped on the stage from a seeming- apparently never return (as th By Erin Podolsky Daily Arts Writer There's so much to like about Keith Gordon's "Waking The Dead" that it's a bit of a mystery as to what happened to Waking the Dead Grade: C+ At State suck it down. Or rather, there's one huge thing to like about "Waking The Dead," which unfortunately left a lot of necessary elements out in the cold. Congressional c a n d i d a t e Fielding Pierce (Billy Crudup) sees dead people. Actually, make that singular: He sees a dead per- relationship it draws between these two people, living and dead, is rendered with such tenderness and detail that there's never any question whether or not Fielding is wrong, or crazy, or able to move on. He is none of these, and he is a better person for it. "Waking The Dead" veers into con- descension once too often for comfort, though, losing credibility in the process as it takes audience stupidity for grant- ed. The movie jumps back and forth in time from 1972-73 to 1982-83, cover- ing Fielding and Sarah's love affair in the former and Fielding's self-destruc- tion in the latter. There's nothing wrong with this - mixed up timelines are often effective, haunting tools. Or at least they are when the director recog- nizes the intelligence of his audience. Not so in "Waking The Dead" - every single time we move back or forward in time, Gordon pastes a cringe-inducing year title on the screen, apparently uncertain that the fade-to-whites between each time period are enough to clue us into the fact that we're in the past or the present. It's a small thing, but it's a symptom of a greater problem with the movie. Instead of taking us for granted, it takes us for simpletons. It's See DEAD, Page 9 son, the love of his life, Sarah Williams (Jennifer Connelly, who starred with Crudup previously in "Inventing The Abbotts"), who lost her life in a car bombing while helping politically explosive Chilean nationals. Make no mistake, though: "Waking The Dead" isi't about to break any box office records, nor does it deserve to. But the Before I first saw David Copperfield live on stage, I was skeptical of the magician's abilities. Until that point I had only seen him on television, mostly performing some of the biggest and over-hyped tricks I, or for that matter the world, had ever seen. I always felt that his continual pleas that there were "no camera tricks" were just an invita- tion for suspecting exactly the oppo- site.