10 - The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, April 18, 2006 ARTS SPECTRAL SOUNDS GLORIOUS BYRNE AND ENo's MASTERFUL REISSUE STILL CAPTIVATES By Lloyd Cargo Daily Music Editor MusCRV****I* In 1981, the music landscape was a wasteland. There were the dying heaves of disco run ragged by punk, which was rusting into new wave. No wave was David Byrne on the horizon, and Kool DJ Herc's legendary revolutions and Brian Eno were rumbling out of the My Life in the Bronx's dark, dirty streets. Bush of Ghosts The music world was turning Nonesuch inward, getting darker and sparser, exploring Unknown Pleasures. Prince had unveiled his first master- piece, Dirty Mind, a year earlier and the decade would rightly belong to him. But in 1981, the Talk- ing Heads were still kings of the junkyard. David Byrne was road weary after globetrotting behind Fear of Music. Brian Eno was spent after a string of solo albums that began in 1974 with Here Come The Warm Jets, and got progressively more avant garde until Ambient 1: Music For Airports completely dismissed vocals for lush soundscapes. At the height of their respective popularity, both wanted to go further out, exploring minimalism. They were interested more in rhythm than melody, borrowing tape splicing and sampling techniques from pioneers like John Cage ("Imaginary Land- scape No. 4"), Steve Reich ("It's Gonna Rain") and Karlheinz Stockhausen (Telemusik). At the, same time, Byrne and Eno were delving into the surreal jazz / rock scene in Nigeria. Led by Sunny Ade, Sir Shina Adewale and Fela Ani- kulapo-Kuti, their cries echoed the great Nigerian author Amos Tutuolo, whose "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" had been published 30 years earlier. Full of angst and revulsion, the novel offered the Courtesy or Samuel uoldwyn ilms "Dance like you dancin' on the floor." 'Charm sweet, easy By Kristin MacDonald Daily Arts Writer While bleeding profusely after a griev- ous car accident on a deserted highway, the first thing on most people's minds would probably not be nostalgia for some ages-past middle school cotillion. Courtesy of Nonesuch Not exactly Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. story of a young boy trapped in a weird world of "television-handed ghosts." The tale, with these strange images, anticipated musical Afro-futurism - later expounded by Albert Ayler, Sun Ra, James Brown, Sly Stone, Miles Davis, Funkadelic and John Coltrane, among others. The project that took its name from the Tutuola novel cobbled all those swirling influences as Byrne and Eno side-by-side slowly laid to tape their own Afro-inspired musique concrete. Twenty-five years later, the effects haven't faded. Opener "America is Waiting" still haunts, as the Linn drum machine bangs out an icy heartbeat. Samples play a large role in the album, with the six-LP boxset, Music in the World of Islam, provid- ing spectral vocal samples on multiple tracks. Not every song is machine-dominated; Bill Laswell's bass is highlighted on songs like the in-the-pocket "The Jezebel Spirit" and the thunderous "Regi- ment," while an array of talented musicians from But Steve (John Goodman, "The Big Lebowski") is late for a very important date with his grade- school sweet- heart from 1962. He was 12. He still "hated girls more than liver." And he was Marilyn Hotchkiss's Ballroom Dancing & Charm School At the Michigan Theater Samuel Goldwyn Films Mingo Lewis to Prairie Prince banged on every imaginable surface to flesh out the complex rhythm arrangements. The seven bonus tracks add substantially to the bulk of the album without diluting the qual- ity. According to Byrne's liner notes, they're all finished mixes that would've been included on the original if not for the time limitations of vinyl. Also included on the disc is the video for "Mea Culpa," directed by Bruce Connor, and reminiscent of Cor- nelius's recent Point project. In 2006, with every corner of the world accessi- ble via the Internet, and the pop charts truly global, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts is still a touchstone for multiple genres. Its waves are felt from Public Enemy to The Books, and its cultural relevance overwhelms any of its aging synths. It seems odd that two cerebral, urban, detached white men could produce such a powerful, moving piece of music, but the proof is in the reissue. forced by his mother to attend cotillion. In his stead, the injured Steve sends Frank Keane (Robert Carlyle, "Trainspot- ting"), the passing driver of a bread truck who had stopped to call 911. If few peo- ple would want to think about a ballroom dance, even less would deign to go. But Frank is a lonely man without much else to do than knead that bread. Habitually quiet, the socially anxious Frank even stammers with his own name. But Frank finds himself drawn back to Marilyn Hotchkiss's Ballroom Dancing and Charm School, though he doesn't find Steve's grade-school sweetheart there. As governed by the satin-gloved Marienne (Mary Steenburgen, "Phila- delphia," plying her patented icy grace), devoted daughter of the deceased Mari- lyn, Hotchkiss's school teaches a sweetly archaic sort of formal dance. Girls line up on one side of the room, boys on the other; flirting is rampant, smiles are coy, but all sexual frankness is channeled safely into the suggestiveness of the moves on the floor. Even an adult dance course can't escape the need for a class bully. The resident hotshot comes in the form of Randall (Donnie ,Wahlberg, recently of "Saw II" but mor- famously of Marky Mark's family). tfie rare self-described bad boy who does'Wt bat an eye at con- sistently outfitting himself in a flam- boyantly tight an , s-through shirt. Randall is the be aver in class and knows it. Naturalld takes personal offense when Keane's personal blos- soming starts to "stl on his toes." But giving the bad guy a soft side fits in surprisingly well with the rest of "Marilyn." For once ir a romantic com- edy, it's the men who yine for lost loves - Goodman for his gr4de-school crush, Randall for his maltreate-d step-sister and Frank for his dead wife. Despite the ready playfulness of"Mar- ilyn Hotchkiss," the wholle film builds around a story which sinply doesn't merit its high production value. Frank's plight doesn't come off like ,subtle drama - the movie's commitmert to cinema formula almost seems to 'mock him. Even the unflaggingly consi tent Good- man is wasted, constantly rhap sodizing life-is-short epigrams. 1 But writer-director Randall Miller clearly has a soft spot for the mate- rial, having worked it once beforein a 1990 short which he also wrote a d directed. By way of Goodman's flash- backs, he incorporates some ofthe short's grade-school cotillion footage (which amusingly includes Michael Bower, everyone's favorite fat kid, bet- ter known as Donkeylips on Nickelode- on's "Salute Your Shorts"). Toward the end of the dance, one little hair-gelled boy slouches tuckered out on a sideline couch. "I'm tired of being charming," he sighs. Though "Marilyn Hotchkiss," at 100 minutes, keeps things fairly concise, it's a sentiment you wish the movie would share. An excerpt from "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" by Amos Tutuol- All kinds of snakes, centipedes, and flies were living on every part of his body. Bees wasps and uncountable mosqi4toes were also flying round hin and it was hard to see him plainly because of these flies and insects. But immediately this dread ful ghost came inside this houtsefrom heaven-knows-where his smell and also the smell of his body first drove us to krng distance before we came back after a few minutes, but still the smellsdid not let ever'y one of the settlers stand still as all hisboay was full of eicreta, urine, and also wet with the rotten blood of all the animals'that he was killing for his food. His mouth which was always opening, his nose and eyes were very hard to look at as they were very dirty and smelling. His name is "Smelling-ghost." But wlwt made me surprisedgand fear most was that this smeling-ghost" wore many scorpions on his finger as rings and all were alive, many poisonous snakes were also on his neck as beads and he belted his leathern trousers with a very big and long boa constrictor which was still alive. r I Need a 30G8 IPod iookster is giving away 5 30GB iPods in April. Go to iookster.com to find out how to win yours. 0 0 What is looksteri' A site that helps you discover things on the web through social networking. Think Myspace combined with Google. Why should I care? Because Jookster can help you find every- thing from new websites to cool video clips through friends. Oh and winning a new iPod would rock as well. Are von guys really giving lio; I