2B - The Michigan Daily - Thursday, October 12, 2006 the b-side 4 4 4 Television The (in)famous first husband of pop, Kevin Federline, will guest-star in an episode of "CSI" tonight at 9 p.m. The episode centers on a series of tourist beatings that take place on the Las Vegas strip. Federline plays the bit part of Cole Tritt, an arrogant teenager () who harasses agents on the crime scene. The show has reportedly been struggling for its usual high ratings ever since ABC moved "Grey's Anatomy" to the 9 p.m. Thursday slot as well. Let's all bow our heads in prayer that no one allows old K-Fed to rap for the duration of the show, or else "CSI" might have to pull more ratings stunts like these in the future. MUSIC What do a popular television cooking show host and a hip twee-pop band have in common? Absolutely nothing, which makes Food Network personality Rachel Ray's inclusion of a song by The Boy Least Likely To on her children's CD, Too Cool for School Mixtape for Kids, even stranger. Ray apparently has quite an affinity for The Boy's stylings, and is a self-professed fan. Other artists to be included on Too Cool for School are Janis Joplin, Nellie McKay and Harry Nilsson. The album will be released on Oct. 31. Like The Pixies before them, The Raconteurs are offering a special kind of merchandise at their United Kingdom shows this season: instant bootlegs. That's right: Now fans won't have to smuggle all of that bulky recording equipment into the venue underneath their coats to get high-quality bootlegs! Unfortunately, the free bootlegs, while limited to a run of 1,000 per show, will lessen the demand for illegal copies anyway. Each double- disc CD will come with original artwork specific to the show at which it will be distributed. A KCRW version of the "Broken Boy Soldiers" single will also be included. The Chinese Ministry of Culture has banned Jay-Z from performing his debut show in the nation. The lyrics in many of the songs the self-proclaimed CEO of hip hop performs have been deemed too vulgar for audiences by the Chinese government. Apparently pimps, drugs, hos and violence are too much for his intended audience. Jay-Z, who is coming out of retirement on a comeback tour, hasn't made any public statements about the ban and doesn't seem too concerned. It's not like he's worth an estimated $320 million or anything. CBGB night club will close the doors of its historic New York location on Halloween after its final concert on Oct. 15. The club, which helped to make acts like the Ramones, Blondie, Patti Smith and the Talking Heads household names, has been a cultural fixture in Manhattan for more than thirty years. Hilly Kristal founded the club, whose full name is CBGB & OMFUG, which stands for Country, Bluegrass and Blues and Other Music for Uplifting Gormandizers, in 1973. After issues about Nick Drake (1970) Bryter Layter Island Records By Caitlin Cowan Daily Arts Editor When a brilliant artist dies young, to view their art through any other lens than that of their heartbreakingly short lives often makes for an incomplete picture. In the case of British singer-songwriter Nick Drake, who died of an overdose of anti- depressants at the age of 26, his death did not propel him into fame in quite the same way that the deaths of other young musi- cians have. Today, Drake is widely con- sidered to be one of the foremost singer-songwriters of his gener- ation. It is his sheer virtuosity,. his clean, dazzling guitar work and his inimitably plaintive voice, not his death, which has earned him posthumous praise. While he remains unknown to the most of the world, he has garnered a devoted following among those fortunate enough to stumble upon his music. Bryter Layter, the middle of the three exceptional if unknown records Drake made between 1969 and 1972, is a beautiful, autumnal album. Recorded when Drake was just 22 years old, Bryter Layter is the clearest example of his genius. His sweet falsetto soars over skillful guitar melodies and string accompaniments and then, at other times, drops lower to a rich, sonorous chest voice that reverberates with longing. Every song seems appropriate for a different occasion, and yet at the same time all of the tracks work together as they paint a red and orange watercolor of the England Drake knew in his time. The album begs to be lis- tened to under a tree at sunset in the countryside, much like the Tanworth-in-Arden that Drake knew growing up. The glittering instrumental "Introduction" sets the tone for the album. Cellos and violins swell and recede over Drake's flowing streams of guitar pizzi- cato. The tempo picks up on the sunny "Hazey Jane II" before rolling into the echoing, autum- nal beauty and strings on "At the Chime of a City Clock." The undulating piano and delicate chord picking on "One of These Things First" gives the impres- sion of looking out of a car win- dow as the world rolls by. Drake was a master of intro- spective songwriting. He exper- imented with a jazzier sound on "Poor Boy," which has a gospel-like refrain that repeats, "Oh poor boy / So worried for his health." Drake hid away the magical, sparkling treasure of "Northern Sky" at the end of the album, coming in ninth out of ten tracks. With is rainy, revela- tory arpeggios and pleading "Would you love me through the winter / Would you love me 'til I'm dead" cho- rus, "Northern Sky" is one of the most beautiful love songs ever recorded. The overwhelming feeling that comes after listening to Bryter Layter is similar to the feeling of looking at a Van Gogh. His desolate last canvas of a whea field with crows fills one's heart with a particular kind of elegant desperation. Van Gogh's paint- ings, which went unsold for the duration of his life, and Drake's albums, which saw almost nc success while he was alive, beg similar questions: How could men like these go unnoticed ir their time? So many artists seek to affirm their tumultuous lives through their art. Drake was no excep- tion. In the documentary "A Skin Too Few: The Days of Nick Drake," Nick's sister Gabrielle said "A lot of young people have found his music such a help And that I think would have pleased him so very very much He once said to my mother 'Ii only I could feel that my music had ever done anything to help one single person it would have made it worth it."' This is the charm of Nick Drake, and indeed of the beau- tiful Bryter Layter. While his songs have since been used somewhat inconspicuously it everything from Volkswagen ads to movie soundtracks from "Ser- endipity" and "Garden State,' Drake did not seek commercial success. He instead yearned for the validation that a fragile young artist so desperately need- ed. He just wanted the world tc listen, if only for a moment, tc his music. This fact coupled with his tragic death, cast a shadow of exquisite urgency over his entire discography. Drake would go on to record Pink Moon, his third and final album, on which he sang in a broken voice, "Fame is but a fruit tree / So very unsound ...' He continues, singing "Fruit tree, fruit tree / No one knows you but the rain and the air Don't you worry / They'll all know / That you were here when you're gone." What a shame it is that Nick Drake never knew how important his songs would become for so many captivated fans. However, he did leave behind the seeds of his vision in albums like Bryter Layter which continue to bewitch lis- teners with their unsurpassed beauty. A If you're sick of your significant other spending all of her time drafting her fantasyL football leagues instead of hanging out with you, log onto www.fantasymoguls. com. Starting Oct. 27 the website will allow users to draft movies to be released£ during certain seasons and earn in-game Courtesyofcbgb.com/hiphopreader.com/ dollars equivalent to the actual box-office TOP: Jay-Z. MIDDLE: Club CB odieobsess ecom earnings of the films in real life during York City. BOTTOM: Rachael Ray. their quest to become big-time Hollywood Y movie CEOs. The rules are as complex least 20 musicians and acts that will play and the game play entertaining as those simultaneous concerts in venues across of fantasy sports. Best of all, its free. So the country. Some of the shows slated to get out there and make yourself a star. go on are TV on the Radio and Grizzly Bear at the Starlight Ballroom in Philadelphia ... and the Secret Machines at Soma in San Diego. Other bands involved are Switchfoot, Internet giant MySpace.com decided Jamie Cullum, Ziggy Marley, Alice in Chains to spearhead an awareness campaign and +44, a band that includes 2/3 of Blink genocide by creating Rock For Darfur, and 182's alums. A portion of the proceeds organization that seeks to send a message will be donated to Sudanese crisis relief about the crisis and a call to action to the organizations and rehabilitation funds. I 4 4 world through music and activism. On Oct. 21, the group has organized a group of at MACDONALD Continued from page 11B more than a sequence of skits, they're strung together far from seamlessly, without any attempt at a chronological or coherent storyline. That scattered nature is precisely their appeal, as effective as a standup comedian leaping from punchline to punchline over the course of a two-hour set. The true cinematic response to our quick-hit tendency should be the resurgence of the short film. Shorts are the primary storytell- ing form of film students - why haven't these received a little more mainstream Hollywood treatment? Sure, you can get an Academy Award with a short film, but unless you're at a film festival you can't get an audi- ence. Movie screenings used to come with newsreels or cartoons beforehand, but only Pixar nods to the old tradition by regularly including an opening act with their feature presentations. Other than music videos (the proving ground for visual- minded directors and its own sort of creative goldmine), the Hollywood short is typically relegated to the anthology film, a movie composed of several shorts with a common umbrella theme. Often this showcases the work of different directors, such as 1989's "New York Stories" (Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and Woody Allen) or 1995's "Four Rooms" (including Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino), although a format combining so many different visions can be dangerously hit or miss. Last year's "Eros" went painfully awry with the vast dis- parity of its contributors' projects, jumping abruptly from a poetic Wong Kar-Wai fable to Steven Soderbergh's ill-fitting scene in a shrink's office to Michelangelo Antonioni's embarrassing show of euro-trash eroticism. This omnibus form perhaps works best as one director's single-topic study, and has its creative advantages. Rodrigo Garcia's "Nine Lives," released last year and criminally under- rated, followed a group of women's intersecting lives in nine long scenes without the pressure of filling in their whole narra- - Compiled by Caitlin Cowan. tive biography. In the comedic direction, there's Woody Allen's quirky "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid To Ask" (1971), which allowed him to go from medieval times to a game show to the inner "control room" of the brain with a Monty Python-esque comedic freedom. Hollywood is often accused of sticking with the usual clichds and, as a threatened industry looking at decreasing revenues on a yearly basis, it's probably guilty of typi- cally going with established for- mula. With an open mind, it should instead take heart -there are still plenty of directions to go. - MacDonald can be reached at kmacd@umich.edu. 4 Pilot's license not required. CSUBURBAN SAAB 1.8858360 a I I