The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Tuesday, September 9, 2008 -5
Finding fine art in
a punk rock icon
P atti Smith. She's the mother
of punk in all her messy
glory:her rattyblack hair,
her throaty performance of "Because
the Night," cowritten with Bruce
Springsteen
and her con-
troversial(yet
quintessential)
song lyrics like
"Jesus died for
somebody's
sins /but not
mine." But how WHITNEY
does this relate POW.
to "fine arts"?
You might not
expect her name to pop up in a fine
arts column, but suspend judgment
for a moment.
I'd like to play connect-the-dots
with Patti Smith's life and show you
how she connects with this so-called
beast dubbed "fine arts." People
are often apprehensive of such an
expansive topic, usually conjuringup
images of tuxedos, velvet robes and
well-mannered people. But fine arts
isn't limited to the "genteel" or "high
cultured"; it's connected to every-
thing we see in the world around us.
And if you thought for a second that
Patti Smith was not in any way con-
nected to the "fine" or the "arty," Id
liketto turn your perspective around.
You've been viewing things from the
wrong end of the telescope.
Smith's first album, Horses, was
released in 1975. If you're not famil-
iar with the album's cover art, you
might have caught a glance of it
somewhere unknowingly. The cover
showcases a single black-and-white
" picture of a lanky, androgynous-
looking Smith wearing an un-ironed
men's white dress shirt rolled to the
elbow and a set of loose, black sus-
penders meeting atcthe belt-line of
her black, rumpled jeans. She carries
a black dress coat, hung jauntily over
her rightshoulder. Her hands are
placed over her chest. She's looking
down at the camera almost conde-
scendingly. Her face seems unthreat-
ened and arrogant.
We may remember the album
itself for songs like "Horses" and
"Redondo Beach" (a song much loved
and later covered by Morrissey), but
it's also the cover art itself that sears
the album into the history of punk
and rock'n'roll.
The photographer was a certain
Robert Mapplethorpe, whom you
may know as a master of contem-
porary photography, or, if we may
draw him into Smith's 1970s world,
as a gay contemporary artist who
was into taking pictures of both
pretty flowers and leather clad men
performing S&M. He lived in Green-
wich Village, did a shitload of drugs
and, most importantly, loved and
lived with the eccentric Smith in a
tiny loft in the Chelsea Hotel (which
you may know about from Nico of
the Velvet Underground's album
Chelsea Girl.)
Before Smith was on her feet as
a rock icon, she was a poet and an
artist in Greenwich Village. She
paid the rent with Mapplethorpe
by giving pieces of her artwork to
the hotel's landlord, which included
disturbingsketches of children and
poems. She was first and foremost a
beat poet with avery peculiar per-
sonality. She was known for being
so naturally out of it that she didn't
need to take LSD or the other hard
drugs Mapplethorpe was using (on a
daily basis) to get into that "creative
space." On an average day, Smith
would practice blood-curdling
screaming exercises (to exorcise bad
vibes) in her loft while Mappletho-
rpe took erotic Polaroid pictures of
men he'd met and made odd-looking
altars from found objects like barbed
wire and porn magazines.
Mapplethorpe's beginnings with
The man behind
a staple in the
punk movement.
Smith were modest; the two of
them were emotionally inseparable,
despite their sexualities (she is
straight; he was gay). They relied on
one another for creative inspiration
and artistic encouragementcin their
chilly loft in Chelsea. Their paths
would eventually diverge: Smith
later became a rock icon, and Map-
plethorpe went on to take famous
portraits of artists like Andy Warhol.
He also dated/was the boy toy of
men like Sam Wagstaff, an art cura-
tor for various fine arts museums.
Mapplethorpe is now widely
respected in contemporary art
circles, known for his raw, honest
portrayal of sex and gay sexuality.
Collections of his photographs are
on permanent exhibition at the pres-
tigious Guggenheim museum in New
York City, and his photographs are
now under high demand, selling for
hundreds of thousands of dollars.
All art is art, from music to
photography. What's in a-museum
shouldn't be regarded any differently
from what's being played out on the
streets or in venues like The Blind
Pig. Even though Smith's rockn'roll
could be affectionately regarded
as "low" art and Mapplethorpe's
Guggenheim photographs deemed
"high" art, they both crawled out of
the same art-scene beginnings in a
cramped, tiny loft in New York City.
Fine arts isn't always "fine" - it's
gritty, unpredictable and every-
where.
Pow would have killed to
have lived with Mapplethorpe.
E-mail her at poww@umich.edu
Dressing up despair
Introspective Sheff
spearheads deeper,
darker album
By DAVID WATNICK
Daily Arts Writer
Okkervil River's The Stand Ins
will be relegated to second-class
status before most people even
hear it. That's because the band's
leader, Will Sheff, has variously
pushed it as a
sort of sequel, ****
second disc or
leftovers col- Okkervil
lection from River
last year's
The Stage The Stand Ins
Names. Faith- lagjaguwar
fully, the new
album resides
in a musical habitat near its
predecessor, making the pair
of records a spiritual couplet
beyond their visibly congruent
covers and titles. But since The
Stage Names has now emerged -
over a year after its release - as
perhaps the best album of 2007,
it casts a boundless shadow from
which its little brother is unlike-
ly to ever emerge, even if the two
share extended sequences of
DNA. Like Amnesiac after Kid A,
detractors will almost certainly
deem The Stand Ins an unwor-
thy, afterthought effort. But
they will be ignoring the eccen-
tric personal depth that only this
record possesses.
At his most basic, Will Sheff is
a balladeer. Regardless of what
tempo, rage, intensity or feroc-
ity he propels his songs to, his
convoluted accounts, ranging
from introverted identity crisis
to explicit murder recollections,
value narrative above all else.
And so it goes on The Stand Ins.
only this time around, it seems
he's flipped over his lens and
decided to document himself
more than ever before. And what
the audience sees is fuzzy cin-
ma vdritd of a man conflicted.
It's odd that on "Lost Coast-
lines" Sheff would dress up
despair like "Packed and all eyes
turned in / No one to see on the
key, no one waving for me / Just
the shoreline receding" with
manic bass, banjos and "la la la"
vocals, but he does just that on
the song about his touring expe-
riences. In the honestly named
"On Tour With Zykos," Sheff cov-
ers the same subject but reverses
his approach. He appropriately
opts for elegiac piano furnish-
ings, but as his complaints grow
more obtuse ("Another day lost
and gone... I go home, take off
clothes, smoke a bowl / Watch a
whole TV movie"), the roots of
his bruised psyche become more
enigmatic.
From there, it's not a stretch
to extrapolate that the titu-
lar character Sheff confidently
chastises in the jangly barns-
tomp "Singer Songwriter" might
in fact be Sheff himself. Sing-
ing something like, "You've got
taste, you've got taste / What
a waste that that's all that you
have" shouldn't be beyond a
self-doubting artist. And it's this
same pessimism that brings the
new wave triumph pop of "Pop
Lie" down from its emotional
joyride.
Since The Stage Names comes
off as so Sheff-centric, the most
pressing question then becomes:
Is Sheff serious about the sui-
cidal subjects in "Starry Stairs"
and "Bruce Wayne Campbell
Interviewed On The Roof Of
The Chelsea Hotel, 1979" as
proxies for himself? Hopefully
not. And given the enthusiasm
(usually not of the angry kind)
that his music and live perfor-
mances beam with, it's anoma-
lous that his lyrics would be
riddled with such gloom. Tell-
ingly, this album doesn't sound
like enraged heartache; it's more
or less poppy folk-rock.
So maybe Sheff's true aim
was to simply craft beaten-
down character sketches. But by
doing so in such a troubling and
vague -way, he at worst performs
impenetrable portrayals of the
roles he wrote. Sure, there are
innuendos of breakup (of both
the girlfriend and band vari-
ety) all over the record, but The
Stand Ins is defined by the fact
that it got so up close to Sheff
that it was unable to keep him in
focus. In "On Tour With Zykos"
Sheff laments, "I was supposed
to be writing/the mostbeautiful
poems / and completely reveal-
ing / divine mysteries up close."
He failed to do so, and that's why
The Stand Ins is so engaging.
On re-entry,'90s
.hit finds crowded,
superficial waters
-
ARTS IN BRIEF
Music
Cometbus strikes again
Pinhead Gunpowder
7"
Recess
Aaron Cometbus's Pinhead Gun-
powder might be the only punk
band named after a green tea. And
though the band's latest release, 7",
is the group's first in eight years, the
three-song EP serves as a fair show--
case of the group's talents.
Opening track "West Side High-
way" is a punk's anthem about being
shunned. While Cometbus's lyrics
have never strayed too far from his
stories of a young, nomadic punk
rocker, he has adjusted to being
an almost-over-the-hill nomadic
punk rocker. And while the guitar
work on "West Side Highway" fea-
tures a heavier sound than that of
the band's previous release, it can
best be described as reminiscent of
Green Day at its angriest and grit-
tiest period. None of this is all too
surprising, considering Billie Joe
Armstrong is one of Gunpowder's
guitarists.
"Anniversary Song" is undoubt-
edly the stand-out track on the EP.
Sung by Armstrong, it again shows
a Green Day's Nimrod-era influence
in its melody, while working devoid
of the overwhelming, heavy guitar
that has come to define the aesthet-
ic of Pinhead Gunpowder. However,
closing track "On the Ave." falls
short with its melodic acoustic duet
and female vocals that are initially
catchy and worthy of a sing-along,
but turn borderline gross with,
"We were a mess, bloody and half
undressed," and "They fought in
the bed / While we fucked on the
floor."
It would be a shame if the only
reason someone checked out the
band was because of an allegiance
to Armstrong or an expectation of
it sounding exactly like Green Day.
But 7" has many raw, endearing
qualities all its own.
LINDSAY CHMIELEWSKI
By TRINA MANNINO
DailyArts Writer
In an effort to maintain its
hold on the teen demograph-
ic, The CW
has updated **
the histori-
cally beloved 90210
"Beverly Hills,
90210" for Tuesdays
today's youth. at 8p.m.
While the new The CW
"90210" resem-
bles its successful parent, it
doesn't stand out in television's
current line-up of teenage melo-
dramas.
Theshowfollows
the sheltered
Wilson family
of Kansas, who
relocate to Bev-
erly Hills and are
immediately
thrown into
the upscale
lifestyle
that the
exclusive
area code
requires.
Such a demand-
ing transition
is a breeding
ground for
moral dilem-
mas, which
each fam-
ily member
encounters.
One bright
point of the show is that it gains
instant credibility by re-using
original cast members. In addi-
tion to the likable Lori Loughlin
(a.k.aAuntBecky, "FullHouse"),
original cast members Jenny
Garth ("What I Like About
You") and Shannon Doherty
("Charmed"), have returned to
the series. Nat (Joe Tata, "Bev-
erly Hills, 90210,") the cook at
the Peach Pit Cafe, continues to
bestow his wisdom on his young
and faithful patrons. Although
none of the "90210" veterans
have evolved as actors, it's reas-
suring to know that do-gooder
Kelly Taylor and sassy Brenda
Walsh still rule Beverly Hills.
Partly because of the familiar
characters and original hang-
outs - The Peach Pit and West
Beverly High School - the
show feels stale and offers
nothing new. There's a
template for the overly
dramatic genre: an
indie rock soundtrack
and freakishly good-
looking people, with
mediocre acting ability.
The stereotypical charac-
ters and pseudo-scandal-
ous drama will be vaguely
familiar to faithful follow-
ers of other teen dramas, .
such as the "O.C.," "The
Hills" 'and "Gossip Girl,"
which were all formed
after the original "90210"
series.
In the two-hour pre-
"Arrested Development" + "The Wire" + "Full House"= This crap
miere, the show tries to pack meant to entertain, over-the-
every imaginable crisis into top situations executed by bad
one episode in an attempt to actors are painful and boring to
shock its audience and outdo watch. "90210" is no exception.
its primetime competition. But The original "Beverly Hills,
90210" was not award-win-
ning television, but at least it
can claim the dubious honor
Just because it's of being one of the first shows
geared toward young adults, and
back, certainly also paved the way for today's
teen dramas. Unfortunately,
'mean its reincarnation is a confused,
bete. tired cocktail: one part "Gossip
it'sbetter. Girl", two parts "The O.C." and
a splash of the original "Beverly
Hills, 90210."
Reportedly, the show brought
the numerous plotlines end up in the highest ratings of any the
being confusing, not to mention CW scripted series. In the com-
unrealistic. How many teens do ing weeks, when other pilots
you know who take their private and returning programs debut,
jet out for a hot date or have a we'll find out be if the new gang
birthday party that looks like of "90210" has staying power.
a scene from "My Super Sweet One thing is for sure: the Wil-
16"? Although TV is largely son's aren't in Kansas anymore.
4