th MMVAU side U The Michigan Daily I michigandaily.com I Thursday, March 6,2008 The Daily Arts guide to the best upcoming events - it's everywhere you should be this weekend and why. AT THE ARK Come witness a significant part of The Ark's history when the venue says farewell to longstanding program director Dave Siglin. Throughout the three-night bash, The Ark will host many of the acts that Siglin pushed into national prominence. Tickets are $35 and the shows start at 7:30 p.m. tonight through Sunday. don't think it really hit any of us until we were about to sit down to a home-cooked meal made by the same woman who had prepared food for the likes of Muddy Waters, Howlin'Wolf and B.B. King when they played in Greenville, Miss. We played guitar outside Hirsberg's, a neighborhood store where the legendary Robert Johnson played - on the same benches he sat on, no less. We visited various museums, admiring count- less pieces of iconic blues history. We reverently laid coins on Charley Patton's grave. But it became real when we were packed into a small Greenville diningroom experiencing the most gra- cious Southern hospitality you can imagine. While many students were soaking up the sun and lying on beaches in Acapulco, a group of five students led by Professor Bruce Con- forth toured the Mississippi Delta in search of the seem- ingly forgotten world of early 20th-century blues. Being in a region pur- portedly filled with legend- ary landmarks, you'd think it would be easy to find the town where Robert John- son lived with his first wife or the family graveyard of famous musician "Missis- sippi" John Hurt. But, many of these sites aren't just neglected but downright for- gotten, overgrown with years of sprawling ivy or burned to be sure, most of these musi- the ground. It begs the ques- cians were constantly tour- tion: How did these monu- ing, settling down for only mentally important sites, short periods of time. Even the homes and communities those who became legends, of America's arguably most like Robert Johnson, led famous and original musi- nomadic lives and died more cians, become so archaic and or less unknown. This life- obscure? style is the pimary cause In an attempt to escape of the forgotten world of the desolation and hopeless- the Mississippi blues. It's ness of Southern sharecrop- thought that,;after Johnson ping during the first third died in his house (folklore of the 1900s, artists began holds that he was poisoned to spring up throughout the at a bar days before his ago- Mississippi Delta. Musicians nizing death), the few people like Muddy Waters, Charley who knew him took him to Patton and Son House trav- the closest church to bury him. Miles outside Green- ville, his true grave lies in a small yard among random The orgaotten others, commemorated only by a slightly more impressive lives of the headstone than those sur- rounding it. blues's greats The church, Little Zion, isn't impossible to find, but unquestionably lies off the beaten path. But most eled through the area, play- surprisingly, there are no ing various juke joints and markers or signs within the street corners, often scarcely city that tell where one of making enough money to live America's most legendary by. Many of them began to musicians -is buried. You'd gain notoriety while count- think there would be count- less others continued to play less pilgrimages like our own in relative anonymity. These to visit the man's grave, but bluesmen weren't exactly the aside from a few tokens of MTV crowd of today. There gratitude and fandom, his was no mass broadcasting grave is lonesome. of blues at the time and they But this is the trend with a weren't celebrities. When number of famous bluesmen, they traveled to a town, there like "Mississippi" John Hurt, weren't parades of adoring who is buried in a forest in fans. Avalon. His family'sgravesite Living an unstable life to See BLUES, Page 6B AT T HE PIG In case you've forgotten, the first Friday of March is here, so that means it's time once again for the Ann Arbor Soul Club at the Blind Pig. Catch DJs Brad Hales and Robert Wells spinning some of the best forgotten soul and R&B from the Michigan area. Doors open at 9:30 p.m. and tickets are $5 for those 21+. CHRIS GAERIG/Daily CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: The headstone of legendary blues guitarist Charley Patton; Little Zion church where Robert Johnson is actually buried; Stovall's Plantation store after it was rebuilt; Dockery Farms, the plantation that Charley Patton grew up on. n acERT PREVio'o Black L ip s's 'flower punk' sh ine s on stage AT THE PODIUM It's a play that's all the, rage. Now find out how "Wicked" has shaped facets of culture when Stacy Wolf gives a lecture titled "Defying Gravity: or How Wicked's Witches Queered the Broadway Musical" tonight at S p.m. in Angell Hall room 3222. American troupe travels to distant venues with their unique sound By GABRIEL BAKER Daily Arts Writer Some time ago, the Black Lips crossed into Tijuana and came out with more than just a bag of churros and a gut full of Tecate. They brought back a whole live album. Los Vlientes del Mundo Black Lips Nuevo was released in 2007 and captures the Tonight at band characteristically 8 p.m. romping through a half- At the Magic Stick hour set full of sweaty, drunken garage rock $8, all ages (or what the band calls "flower punk"). The term was coined after one too many overblown descriptions were used to pin down the band's sound. As drummer and screamer Joe Bradley put it, "Spin or some other magazine called us ninth-hand rock-a-billy garage core, and that was the last straw." So, since then, the band has opted for a moniker that's both "tough and wimpy." "It's kind of a paradox," Bradley said. The only downside to the album is the handful of antics that typically mark a Black Lips live performance - nudity, uri- nating, vomiting, fireworks, large blonde wigs, etc. - that can't really be captured onan audio recording. Butthat's whatYou- Tube is for. As exotic as Tijuana sounds, it's just one of several international destinations that's hosted the Black Lips recently. The band traveled to Israel and the West Bank last year for a series of shows. According to Bradley, many American bands promise to perform in the Holy Land but ultimately bail, so their accomplishment has helped the group's popularity in the region. "In Israel,they treatus really,reallywell, 'cause no band goes down there. The Red Hot Chili Peppers promised them a concert for a long time, butI guess Anthony Kiedis isn't down with the Jews," Bradley joked. While other musical acts are more con- cerned with performing in larger venues, the Black Lips seem attune to a more global perspective. "We want to offer our music to all the places in the world," Bradley said. "If we can establish that relationship with people, they'll remember you there for life." This mantra might help explain why the band seems content to tour less-frequented venues. In Palestine, theband actually per- formed in the street, drawing the audience in with a rendition of "Johnny B. Goode." See BLACK LIPS, Page 6B ON STAGE This won't be your typical 9 to 5. Check out the celebration of the trombone at the University of Michigan Trombone Symposium Saturday starting at 9 a.m. Trombonists from across the United States will collaborate with members of the University faculty as well as students at the E.V. Moore Building. weeeeee. cars!