I . . Has Dady Arts gone crazy? We're completel} overstocked with storie, so for one special day, we're having an online extravagan-a Set your browser to full speed ahead and enjoy. firtdimm Dog rr, 6 michigandaily.comr/arts FRIDAY OCTOBER 13, 2000 8 8 Japanese author appears at orders By Johanna Hanink For the Daily Kazuo Ishiguro is quick to make sure that his latest novel, "When We Were Orphans," isn't confused with works of the post-war detective genre, which encompasses the work of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers. "I don't think it's accurate to say I've been influenced by them ... (this novel) is more Kazuo of a nod to Ishiguro them." Borders Ishiguro Tonight at 7 p.m. describes the style of the clas- sic detective writers as reflecting an idealized view of British soci- ety in which 'just one thing has gone wrong to spoil it all." It is only after the detective, a figure whom Ishiguro reters to as the "Superman," unmasks the evil that har- mony returns to the sleepy English vil- lage of the story's setting. He also points out the irony inherent between the genre and its readership; the read- ers of these detective novels had just experienced the first era of modern warfare and knew that the nature of evil was not quite so simple as the sto- ries implied. This generation enveloped themselves in a what Ishiguro calls a "knowing escapism," taking comfort in delusional hopes that a single disrup- tion and an inevitable return to harmo- ny was all the complexity that evil had to offer. The novel's protaganist is Christopher Banks, who as a boy is sent to school in England after the van- ishing of his parents in the early 1900s from their home in Shanghai. After graduating from Cambridge, Christopher becomes a detective GIG AT TflE BLIWD PIGS YOU) 40 DIG? Local band Smokestack jams on Saturday, Robert Bradley' Blackwater Surpise to groove down on Sunday Courtesy of Knopf Kazuo Ishiguro wrote "The Remains of the Day." whose ultimate goal is to solve the mystery of his parents' disappearance. Ishiguro said that his goal in crafting his novel was to take a character who had fallen out of the genre of the post- war British detective story and "dump him into the twentieth century." Christopher plays the part of the "deluded detective," trying desper- ately to cling to a vision of the world in which he is able to control and rationalize any situation. As the novel follows Christopher back to Shanghai, which in 1937 is wrought with the Sino-Japanese war, Ishiguro presents a man who is emotionally disconnected and unable to perceive the events happening outside of his immediate and personal world. Christopher seems to be oblivious to the war and suffering going on around him - the most important thing to him is that "he fulfill his agenda" of finding his parents. Ishiguro believes that there is this tendency of Christopher in everyone: "I think in a subtle, more shaded way a lot of us carry these missions." Ishiguro uses the idea of the orphan to get at a more universal condition. "We all have to bear the legacy of being orphans," he said. "We all have to come to terms with coming out of a sheltered place." While none of the characters in either "When We Were Orphans" or any of Ishiguro's books are closely based upon people he knows, he says that he often begins with a par- ticular impulse or tendency that he has felt within himself and devel- ops characters around it. Acknowledging that many authors will work with the personality of their own alter ego or that of a friend or family member, Ishiguro said that "I've never had that kind of relationship to my characters," and calls them more of a "link in my emotional history." By Chris Kula Daily Arts Editor College bands are like hangovers: They're raging one minute and they're gone the next. Which means that Ann Arbor's Smokestack, jamming strong after a solid year together, is like a tequila nausea that just keeps getting more intense with time. Smokestack Blind Pig Tomorrow at 10 p.rn. 3 "We've gotten so much better playing together in just this last year," said keyboardist and LSA junior James Sibley. "I can't even imagine what it's like when you've been doing it for 17 years like Phish." The groove-oriented quintet -- Sibley, guitarist Chuck Newsome, bassist Thom McNeil, drummer Brian Williams and vocalist Kris Kurzawa - hasn't been booked into Madison Square Garden move beyond the typical jamband thing," Sibley "Chuck is in the jazz studies program at Wayne Sat and I'm playing in the big band here, so we've be working in a lot more jazz influences." Indeed, as well as the Grateful Dead-style blu grass/roots music that is Smokestack's musical foui dation, the band's recent live recordings reveal lars doses of Latin rhythms and trance-like sections - not to mention a sly tease of the "Super Mario Bros theme music. The band's been branching out in terms of c material, too. For its special Halloween show at Speakeasy, Smokestack's been taking email reques (smokestack(asmnokestack.org) for any and all cove people desire - no matter how bizarre or obscure. "We've had some good ones come in, I thi everyone's going to have a good time," Sibley said. The musical evolution of the band, which origina ed as a straight-ahead blues-rock outfit with a diffe ent singer, has been a gradual process, and Sibl believes that the changes have helped Smokestac grow as a group. "The hardest thing about keeping a band togetha making sure that everyone is on the same p Sibley said. "Now we get to see where everyor wants to take the band." Courtesy of Smokestack Smokestack, left to right: Thom McNeil, James Sibley, Chuck Newsome, Brian Williams and Kris Kurzawa. Marquette. Its booking is being handled by the same agent that manages Funktelligence, currently the most successful band in the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti area. And most notably, the group's been tapped to open for Ekoostik Hookah at the Michigan Theater next weekend. Basically, this is a good time to be in the Stack. "We've been trying to expand our horizons, to just yet, but it's doing a whole lot better than Phish was at the same age. The band spent most of the summer playing all over the state, from Detroit to Kalamazoo to By Chris Kula yaily Arts Editor If you lose one of the five senses, the remaining four become heightened. Just ask Robert Bradley - the blind vocalist Robert Bradley's Blackwater Surprise Blind Pig Sunday at 10 p.m. may not be able to see, but his ears work just fine. And Bradley will be the first to tell you that he knows good music when he hears it. "Man, people don't want to hear Eminem talking his shit for two hours," Bradley said. "People who love good music "Anybody can sound good if the have a million dollars-behind them Bradley said. "But people like Marvi Gaye and Buddy Holly made ret music - hell, even Elvis could reall sing, and he didn't need 10;000 pe1 in the studio. "Listen to the Stones: That's n complicated music, but he hard parti putting it all together. If you can d that, that's when you know you have good band," Bradley said. Even the Blackwater Surprise nee ed a little time to get Bradley's ok school soul style with the Nehras' roc sensiblities. "Oh yeah, it was hard at firs because the rest of the guys are y and a lot of time young people y bored and make things really busy Bradley said. "But most people ot there aren't rocket scientists when comes to music, and they don't need t hear all kinds of complex stuff. "So we give them a big groove th they can lay into, something they ca shake their butts to," Bradley said. 'outesy-ofI'A Detroit's finest, and we're not talking Chet Lemon: Robert Bradley's Blackwater Surprise. want to hear something they can groove to, something that moves them." For Bradley, a soulman native of Alabama, the search for that perfect groove has taken him literally across the country. Working as a street musician, Bradely would hop a bus and ride until the next city, singing for whoever would listen. In Detroit, he found a receptive audience in Andrew and Michael Nehra, musician brothers (bass and guitar, respectively) who immediately enlisted Bradley to front their new group. Fast forward five years and you have Robert Bradley's Blackwater Surprise, a smooth quintet that's equal parts Motown soul and classic, Stones-like rock 'n' roll. The group, which is round- ed out by drummer Jeff Fowlkes and keyboardist Tim Diaz, has released two albums on RCA (including last May's excellent "Time to Discover"), and has played clubs from New York to San Francisco. 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