I NOT QUITE VIRGIN BIR FILM NOTEBOOK PAGE 3B. HOW TO ENJOY YOURSELF IN WINTER WEATHER PAGE 3B. THE MICHIGAN DAILY THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2006 Non-lead ladies need love, too J essica Alba may be your favorite cover girl, but she's not your favorite actress. Not that I deride her very fine abilities as a cover girl (for there's skill enough in that). But when it comes to performing beyond swinging that "Sin City" lasso, Brando she ain't. Magazine covers, however, are without a doubt the mod- ern Hollywood marquee, and it seems that most people's personal selec- tion of favorite actresses reads KRISTIN like a list of those familiar MACDONALD headlining first names: Meryl, Julia, Nicole. Reese. Halle. While many such A-listers have the acting chops to merit their award-lined mantels, it's no great effort to expand our star-wattage tunnel-vision just the slightest bit. In the holiday spirit of sharing the love, how about some appreciation for a few big-screen actresses less bound to the promotion lime- light? Consider this promotional list of non-leading ladies worth looking for. When I say Cath- erine, I don't mean Zeta-Jones: Catherine O'Hara - Yes, she was Macaulay's panicked mom in the "Home Alones" and the voice of Sally in "The Night Before Christmas," but with each successive Christopher Guest comedy O'Hara seems to receive more and more of her critical and popular due. Her latest, "For Your Consider- ation," even has some already yelping Oscar (although such award-season speculation at this point in time is as prema- ture as it is sadly abundant), but O'Hara's been in the high-qual- ity comedy business for years, having earned her showbiz start with Toronto's famed Sec- ond City improv troupe back in the '70s. Naomie Harris - She sur- vived a world-threatening virus in "28 Days Later" and the career-threatening plot absur- dity of Pierce Brosnan's post- Bond "After the Sunset," but surely those were nothing after the rigors of both Cambridge and England's celebrated Bris- tol Old Vic Theatre School. Luckily Harris has the talent to match her pedigree. The Brit's agility with accents landed her two of this summer's choicest roles: romancing Jamie Foxx in "Miami Vice" and frighten- ing Johnny Depp with some seriously unbrushed teeth as "Pirates of the Caribbean's" scene-stealing swamp witch. Madeline Stowe - Stowe all but disappeared from big-bud- get Hollywood following a few films in the early '90s, and has been languishing on the small- screen in recent years. It's an inexplicable fate. She might be best known for her under- standing psychiatrist in "12 Monkeys," but Robert Altman's L.A.-set "Short Cuts" better cast her as a rueful wife to Tim Robbins's incorrigible cheater, and her palpable chemistry with Daniel Day-Lewis helped save Michael Mann's "Last of the Mohicans" from the dan- gerous territory of romantic schmaltz, Thelma Ritter - Thelma may have played second- fiddle to the likes of Grace See MAcDONALD, page 2B "Miss Fat Booty" - Mos Def Sampling "One Step Ahead" - Aretha Franklin In a song about love and powerful sex, the mighty Mos conveys feelings most men would never even feel comfort- able discussing. "Miss Fat Booty" appeals to both sides of man's spectrum: The awe-striking vision of an "ass so fat you can see it from the front" and the sensation of falling in love. This is a perfect blend for the vocals of Aretha Frank- lin's "One Step Ahead." Aretha's soothing melodies ofbeing so close to love yet so far away feed into the hook for "Ms. Fat Booty" with her cry of "I know I can't afford to stop for one moment because it's too soon to forget you." The original's sweet guitar strumming lends a smooth transi- tion from Mos Def's heavy drum beats and give voice to the love-struck brothers and the fly ladies they can't hold." "Lose My Breath" - Destiny's Child Sampling "Taps" - Michigan Marching Band drumline Yeah, so maybe the ripe, sunshine brass of the Univer- sity fight song gets you hot under certain circumstances, but Michigan Marching Band beats have never sounded as sexy as on "Lose My Breath." On Destiny's Child 2004 single, producer Rodney Jerkins coolly apes the drumline's "Taps" cadence for the track's introduction. Smart, militant snare drum cracks and snarls, and this rhythm spills into Beyonce's moaned demands to "hit me hard" and the girls' heavy panting. The drumline hasn't gotten much credit - a number of reviews simply referred to "some Southern marching band" - but Jerkins's borrowing of "Taps" won "Lose My Breath" a spot on a Stylus magazine's "Top Ten Drumbeats You are Powerless to Resist" list. "Time: The Donuts of the Heart" - J Dilla Sampling "All IDo Is Think of You" - The Jackson 5 The 31 miniatures that comprise the late J Dilla's mas- terpiece, Donuts, are at once spiritually transcendent and deeply emotional. "Donuts of the Heart" captures Jay Dee in all of his funk-laden glory, sprinkling a muted backbeat with The Jacksons' clipped harmonies, while a female vocalist moans and groans, bathing the mix in a foggy sex- ual haze. The song's outward appearance is overtly sexual, but Dilla's work runs deeper than the average slow jam. He uses a treated gui- tar riff as the song's backbone and its simple descend- ing melody has an emo- tional res- onance that mas- ter- fully plays against the music's bla- tant allusions to physical love. In a minute and 38 sec- unds Dilla calmly creates an elo- quent musical moment that captures all of the joy and spiritual pleasure.found in great works of art. STEVE REICH "Fantasy" - Mariah Carey Sampling "Genius of Love" - The Tom Tom Club Oh, Mariah, you on fire. "Fantasy" is exquisite in all the ways escapist pop music is meant to be. The beat samples The Tom Tom Club's "Genius of Love," grounding the track in a simple bed of snare and computerized blips. Mariah's voice soars as she masterfully tows the line between sug- ary sex chanteuse and illusive schoolgirl. Forget what you know about Crazy Mariah, "Fantasy" showcases the diva at the peak of her powers. "CanI Kick It?" - A Tribe Called Quest Sampling "Walk on the Wild Side" - Lou Reed The bouncy guitar slide that begins Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side" is used in the exact same way all through A Tribe Called Quest's "Can I Kick It?" And until the rush- thump of the latter's manufactured bass line jumps in, it's hard to tell the two songs apart. Where Reed's original is smooth and laid back as he drawls out "Hey b-a-b-e / Take a walk on the wild s-i-d-e," A Tribe Called Quest takes his inimitable guitar lick and infuses it with a kicking beat and ,a fun call-and-response verse that makes for a great sum- mer jam. "Can I kick it? /Yes, you can!" "Mo Money Mo Problems" - The Notorious B.IG. Sampling "I'm Coming Out"- Diana Ross Mark this asa turning point in hip hop's history. Produc- er Stevie J, one of Puff Daddy's numerous proteges during the '90s, takes Diana Ross's exultant "I'm Coming Out" and creates one of the most rapturous beats to tout Bad Boy's rep. Mase and Puff sound uncomfortable, but Biggie's lis- some flow supplements the sample's effortless cool. The sample suggests hip hop's commercial emergence more than Big's. Once the single topped the charts, it was clear - gangsta rap was no longer just for the projects. "Devil's Haircut" - Beck Sampling "Out Of Sight," "I Can Only Give You Every- thing" - Them, "Soul Drums" - Pretty Purdie The Dust Brothers wrapped Beck's songs in bizarre blankets of junkyard drums and drunken piano refrains, transforming 1996's Odelay into an unexpected commer- cial success. "Devil's Haircut" combines two samples from pioneering garage-rockers. Them, and creates a fractured world all its own. Sharply strummed electric guitars are overpowered by a breakneck drum beat, eventually giving way to a squealing harmonica and Beck's heavily overdriv- en vocals. The Dust Brothers completely obliterated their samples, using the unrecognizable remnants to distort and enhance Beck's idiosyncratic song structures. "Smile" - Lily Allen Sampling "Uptown Top Ranking" - Althea feDonna Althea & Donna's only reggae hit, "Uptown Top Rank- ing," bursts with female sexual empowerment as two women flaunt their stuff on the street, giving all the boys fits. Lily Allen raps the 2006 version, sampling the toasting reggae guitar and drum repetition, but adds style with her edgy rhymes. "When you first left me / I was wanting more / But you were fucking that girl next door / What'd you do that for?" She then proceeds to mock the guy for crying and wanting her back. So much flare from such a modest and seemingly reserved British vocalist. See SAMPLES, page 4B It's impossible to talk about music sampling with- out giving props to composer Steve Reich. Even from his earliest taped-speech pieces (1965's It's Gonna Rain and 1966's Come Out), Reich has been in a world all his own. It was his notion that sampling and looping the spoken words of the human voice exposes the listener to the inherently rhythmic and melodic nature of everyday speech patterns. Eventu- ally, the words repeated ad nauseam become less sig- nificant to the piece than the rhythmic sound of each word - a radical conception. Possibly the greatest example of Reich's ground- breaking technique is his masterful Different Trains (1988). In the piece, several different speech record- ings are sampled and looped to generate the rhythmic and melodic backbone for the stringsection. While sampling the human voice is one of Reich's signature techniques, another favorite is the sampling and multiple layering of single instruments, as on Electric Counterpoint (1987). 1976's Music for 18 Musicians presents the great- est case for Reich's perfection. Scored for all acoustic instruments and based on a cycle of11different chords, it remains his most ambitious composition to date. DEREKBARBER EDGARD VARESE Atthe 1958 World's Fair in Brussels, Edgard Varese unleashed his uncompromising vision of "organized sound" through 400 speakers at the Phillips Pavil- ion. Comprised of detached human voices, found sounds and hauntingsilences,"PoemElectronique" is stark and otherworldly. Varese was meticulous in his approach, diagramming endless "visual maps" and manually splicing layers of tape to forma unified and singular composition. "Poem Electronique" would go on to influence many in the musical avant-garde com- munity and stand as Varese's definitive statement. MATT KIVEL THE BOMB SQUAD In the early '90s there was no other rap group like Public Enemy. Chuck D and Flava Flav hogged the spotlight, but it was their unsung production team, the aptly titled "Bomb Squad," that was responsible for the group's fearless innovation in sampling and hip-hop orchestration. The Bomb Squad were always capable of white- hot aggression, but it's songs like FOABP's title track that make them such a revolutionary musical force. The piece samples from old-school funk corner- stones like Sly Stone and The Bar-Rays, but disrupts the breezy melodies with expertly spliced news-reel rhetoric. The comfortable funk layers are dissolved at the song's climax by a single note piano-loop, leaving the listener naked to digest the Bomb Squad's fully realized genius as an uncomfortably cocksure voice repeats: "Black woman, black man black, black baby. White woman, white man, white baby. White man, black woman, black baby." MATTKIVEL iLIST * Nov. 30 to Dec. 3 The Daily Arts guide to the best upcoming events - everywhere you should be this week and why. World AIDS week, a series of activities and events in Ann Arbor, has been going on for the past week. Planned Parenthood and HARC present Day Without Art on World AIDS day tomorrow; businesses around town will cover up their art- work with black cloth that displays facts about AIDS. The Union hosts "Community Dialogue on HIV Test- ing" at 7 p.m., showcasing photos of and writing by locals with HIV and AIDS. The event is free. On Saturday, for its latest mid- night movie, The State Theater will present the classic tale of murderous Mallory and Mickey with "Natural Born Killers." There's nothing quite like slaughtering your relatives and making your way across the Ameri- can heartland with investigators on your trail - or at least watching Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis do so on screen. Regular ticket prices apply: If you present your student ID, it's only $6.75. Carlos Mencia brings his SO-city The Punisher tour to The Michigan Theater Saturday night. Best known for his Comedy Central show, "Mind of Mencia," the comedian is the 17th out of 18 children. He dropped out of California State University after a successful gig at an open mic night at L.A.'s The Laugh Factory, and has been making people laugh all over the country ever since. Catch him at the Michigan for $40 at the 7 p.m. or 10 p.m. shows. TheDetroitFashionIncubatorwill finally open its doors at 4737 Grand River Avenue tonight with a grand opening celebration. With a mission to promote and create demand for designer fashion in Detroit, the Fash- ion Incubator's opening coincides with the close of the Pure Detroit Design Lab. The Design Lab solely sold fare from local designers. After the Incubator's opening tomorrow, it will be open Tuesdays through Sat- urdays from noon until 6 p.m.