Wednesday
January 19, 2005
arts. michigandaily.com
artspage@michigandaily. com

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9


THE HOTTEST PICKS IN ENTERTAINMENT
FROM A DAILY ARTS WRITER
a ~"Napoleon Dynamite" on DVD - Girls only want boyfriends with
skills: Nunchuck skills; bowhunting skills; computer-hacking skills.
Girls also only want boyfriends who have this DVD.
"Vibrate" - Who would have thought that Petey Pablo would make
it past aircraft metaphors. In his latest, "Vibrate," Petey upgrades his
rhymes from simple listing (that was so "Mambo No. 5"), to sweet lines
like these: "Make that ass vibrate / shake that shit 'til you start an earth-
quake" and "Just as sure as your ass is fat / there's some 26-inch rims on
a Cadillac." Sweet rhymes indeed.
Joss Whedon on "Wonder Woman" - TV Guide reported last week
that writer/director/all-around awesome guy Joss Whedon may take
the helm of an upcoming big-screen Wonder Woman
project. Not only does the return of
"Buffy"/"Angel"/"Firefly" creator
tickle my fancy in itself, but the
possibility that the likes of Sarah
Michelle Gellar or Charisma
Carpenter could sport the gold-
en lasso is more than my geeky
heart can handle.

Conor Oberst plays at October's Vote for Change concert in Detroit. He returned to Ann Arbor last night.
EYES WIDE OPEN
LNDIE-ROCK GROUP ILLUMINATES MICHIGAN THEATER


By Kat Bawden
Daily Arts Writer

Last night at the Michigan Theater, Conor
Oberst, the visionary behind the band Bright
Eyes, appeared onstage with
his head looking at the floor.
He moved as modestly and Bright Eyes
quietly as an apparition, The Michigan Theater
dressed in various shades
of gray with black finger-
less gloves he later shed
from each hand. Notorious as a sensitive-but-
aggressive emo heartthrob, his opening song
is a shock - a country song. There were two
guitars (acoustic and electric), bass, keyboards,
dulcimer and pedal strings, and Oberst was
singing about a highway.
This new sound is reminiscent of "Mermaid
Avenue" by Billy Braggs and Wilco, or Bob
Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited." The one aural
giveaway that you're not at the wrong venue is
Oberst's cold shudder of a voice. His charis-

matic intensity creates his own. matchless and
classic touch which others attempt to imitate.
Behind his guitar he twitches and lurches back
and forth, barely able to contain himself - a
crazy young man breaking through his skin -
and it is captivating.
The key to his performance was his versatility.
During one song he sat on the chair behind the
organ, knees to chest, swaying back and forth in
self-inflicted agony. Then he rocked out on his
knees. Next he stood alone on stage, cursing the
president through clenched teeth ("When the
president talks to God/ Does he fake that drawl
or just nod/ Decides which weapons to conceal/
Decides which prisons should be filled"). None-
theless, the music remained beautiful and multi-
faceted, eerily connected. The glue is his attitude
and imagery. In "Landlocked Blues" he sings,
"And the moon's laying low in the sky/ Forc-
ing everything metal to shine/ And the sidewalk
holds diamonds like a jewelry store case/ They
argue 'walk this way,' no 'walk this way.' "
The audience was varied as well. Jagged
black bangs framed pale, stoic faces while rug-
ged men in baseball caps yelling "yeah buddy!"

sat next to curly-haired girls begging Conor to
dance and marry them. But when Oberst played,
wrapping himself in song, there was silence.
He shook his head while juxtaposing love and
destruction. The stories in his lyrics were com-
pelling, delightfully addicting, and he ushers
us into his crooked microcosm where kids play
with guns and girls dream of waves. His anger
and insecurity with the status quo, as blatant as
it is, still maintains a certain mystique. And as
he peered out at a full theater from behind his
own jagged black hair and launched into anoth-
er song, the audience watches as this young man
is swept up in the moment, finally reaching his
own escape.
While tuning his electric guitar, Oberst told
the audience, "I have a friend who tells me,
never walk out on a song. But, it's OK to do
on this song." But who could? He listeners were
captivated: Sitting in the palm of his hand; they
were being led page by page through a journal
inside his guitar. It is a sound that resonates,
and the audience wants to know where it's
going, how it will change, how it ends and what
begins next.

2

The Golden Globes -
The Oscars' trashier little
sister got a little more ris-
que this weekend by recogniz-
ing the shows that have taken sex to
places your TV shouldn't be tuning to.
"Desperate Housewives" combined
sex with suburbia; "Nip/Tuck" did it
with surgery; and Mariska Hargitay
of "Law and Order: Special Victims
Unit" helped connect it with crime. As
for movies, the Globes kept its panties
on and managed to only bestow two
sexy awards to Clive Owen and Nata-
lie Portman for their sexually depraved,
(but still hot) turns in "Closer."


"24" Season Four - Sure the
show is sexist (there aren't too
many women who aren't stupid,
whiny, evil or dead in the show's
history) and slightly racist (they
really embrace the big, bitchy
black woman stereotype), but
it is still the most exciting hour
of television each week. Five
weeks worth of Jack Bauer in
an eight-day span? Can't beat
that.


Courtesy of 20th Century Fox

Furnaces continue to impress with 'EP'

By Alexandra Jones
Daily Weekend Editor
It's not often that the creators of
an obtuse, shimmering musical work
- the kind you want to understand
because of its complexity, but can't fully

enjoy - release
what might just
be the key to
comprehending
the seemingly
rarefied aspects
of their body of
art. For that key
to be a 40-min-

Fiery
Fumaces
EP
Rough Trade/
Sanctuary

A snake! A snake killed me!

t,.u Mr,'y AC Cri

,;

COURTESY OF ESPN

Poker phenomenon
moves into drama

SBy Kevin Hollifield
Daily Arts Writer
TVRES E *n

Every year, thousands

of would-be

millionaires, wide-eyed
with dreams of riches, Tilt
attempt to earn their for-
tune in the high-stakes Thursdays
world of Las Vegas gam- at 9 p.m.
bling. Others are all too ESPN
willing to let them try.
Don "The Matador" Everest
(Michael Madsen, "Kill Bill") is one
of the latter. A Texas Hold 'Em leg-
end, Everest is willing to teach the
other gamblers at the table a costly les-
son. In the pilot, he gets himself and
the casino in trouble when one of the
players he bankrupts turns out to be
Lee Nickel, an undercover cop (Chris
Bauer, "61*").
Nickel suspects Everest cheated,
but when he reviews the casino's secu-
rity tapes, he finds that they have been
erased. Nickel also believes his brother
was murdered by "The Matador."
Bart "Lowball" Rogers (Don McM-
nnus) is Everest's best friend and owner

Everest, although this story is only
alluded to in the pilot. Joining them is
Clark Marcellin (Todd Williams), and
though he has a love-hate relationship
with the other two, they concoct a plan
to raise enough money to enter the
championships and slay The Matador.
The show lives and dies on the
strength of Michael Madsen. While the
rest of the cast play their roles well, they
are relative unknowns. The character
of The Matador appears to have been
written for Madsen and the show suf-
fers when he's not on the screen. Each
of the trio of young bulls brings their
own baggage to the group. The tangled
past between Nickel and Everest only
fuels Nickel's determination.
"Tilt" attempts to give viewers an
inside look at the underside of the
gambling world. While flashy casinos
are instantly recognizable Las Vegas
landmarks, they contrast sharply with
underground gambling dens the trio
visit to earn their bankroll. The visu-
als feel natural, but the fact that the
show airs on basic cable, as opposed to
HBO, requires some of this realism to
be scaled back..
After the success of the controversial

ute collection of songs with the unas-
suming non-title EP is an important
sign, an opportunity for fans, would-be
admirers and critics to give another lis-
ten: It's not the band that's the problem,
people just aren't listening to them the
right way.
EP, a 10-song collection of singles
and B-sides, comes only months after
the release of the 80-minute Blue-
berry Boat, one of 2004's most polar-
izing, tantalizing and inscrutable
albums. Where Eleanor and Matthew
Friedberger's latest full-length is like
a gallery of dark-colored, many-angled
sculptures, EP uses crayons, markers,
glitter and construction paper cutouts
to communicate the same message, to
touch listeners with bright and vibrant
sound-pictures that are still highly
developed, but easier on the ears than
their art school counterparts on Blue-
berry Boat.
Take, for example, EP's initial
sounds: Rather than the squawking,
drawn-out keyboard that opens Blue-
berry Boat's first track, "Quay Cur,"

listeners are given the immediate drum
machine groove and synth hook of
"Single Again," Eleanor's homage to
living unattached. The easy yet quirky
rhymes that sound even weirder against
their previous album's spiky musical
backdrop mesh perfectly with a more
visceral song structure, appealing to
the part of the brain that responds to
booty-shaking grooves before appeal-
ing to the intellect.
The first track segues without pause
into the genuinely pretty "Here Comes
the Summer," an ABBA-esque disco-
inspired track that punctuates Elea-
nor's rich, matter-of-fact vocals with
rubbery, distorted guitar notes. The
slow, anthemic "Evergreen" is next in
this trifecta of compelling, easygoing
songs. After she, "took dinner all alone
every night of the week awaiting by the
phone," Eleanor asks beautifully: "I
bent down by the thistle and thought
of what I'd say ... Make me stay sharp
and keen, evergreen."
Although EP isn't a complete col-
lection of the Fiery Furnaces' singles
and rarities, it serves another purpose:
It's not for aficionados alone. This
addictive release, with the same kind
of dense keyboards and playful, well

Courtesy of Rough Trade

Carjackers of the world unite.
developed lyrics that confounded and
enchanted listeners on Blueberry Boat,
will hopefully lure a larger, more var-
ied audience to the band's music. The
tuneful, rhythmic songs on EP aren't
a watered-down version of the Fried-
berger siblings's better work; the cool,

almost jazzy "Smelling Cigarettes"
and an fiber-poppy reworking of a song
from their debut Gallowsbird Bark,
"Tropical-Iceland" take us to the same
Emerald City that their large works do,
they just give listeners another way to
get there.