'the b
-side
weekend
essentials
Jan 15. to Jan.18
CONCERT
It's a weekend of non-
stop entertainment at
the Blind Pig. On Friday
night, feel-good indie
popsters Mason Proper
will be playing with
the Javelins and The
Mighty Narwhale, And
on Saturday night, pre-
pare to be pummeled
by Aleph-1's spaced-
out brand of proggy
electronica as they
play with Vox Maui.
Tickets for each show
are $7 ($10 if you're
under 21). Doors open
Friday at 9 p.m. and
Saturday at 9:30 p.m.
TV
Last May, Flight of the-
Conchords delighted
Ann Arborites with a
concert at the Michi-
gan Theatre. Though
there's no sign the duo
is planning a return to
Ann Arbor anytime
soon, you can get your
fix of Bret and Jermaine
on the tube in the
meantime. The second
season of "Flight of the
Conchords" the TV
show begins this Sun-
day at 10 p.m. on HBO.
FILM
"Slumdog Millionaire"
generated a lot of
buzz, and with good
reason.'This whimsi-
cal romance about a
boy from Mumbai is
a sure-fire Oscar con-
tender. This is the last
weekend the film plays
at the State Theatre,
so if you haven't seen
it yet ... well, what
are you waiting for?
Herb David has hung out with some of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, including Bob Dylan, Iggy Pop and Frank Zappa.
"You know who Thurston Moore is, from Sonic
Youth?" Charlie Lorenzi, the manager for Herb David
Guitar Studio asks. It's almost a rhetorical question.
Thurston Moore, one of Rolling Stone Magazine's
"Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and founder of Sonic
Youth, the groundbreaking noise-rock band of the '90s?
"Well, he bought a Ron Asheton signature guitar
from us yesterday," Lorenzi says, as if it was an everyday
occurrence, as phenomenal as a kid buying a Snickers
bar. "And Jack White, from the White Stripes, he buys
stuff here when he comes to town," Lorenzi adds.
Herb David himself, white-haired and garbed in a
turtleneck, is sitting in an office chair nearby, engaged
in the conversation. He nods in agreement. "People of
the '60s who hung out here were Bob Dylan and Joni
Mitchell, Sun Ra, Phil Ochs," he says, listing off names
as if these legendary music icons were old friends he
bummed around with once upon a time. Which is actu-
ally pretty much what happened.
"Bob Dylan played here once, and we all thought
that he wrote good songs but he can't play worth a darn
and he smelled bad," David admits, chuckling. "He was
trying to be like Woody Guthrie, a wanderer," he says,
suggesting that Dylan's smell was the result of his itin-
erant habits and *inability to get a good shower once in
a while.
Lorenzi and David are talking in the unseen recesses
of Herb David Guitar Studio, in a loft with angled wood-
en ceilings and walls lined with shelves piled high with
Herb David played
a huge role in the,
1960s explosion of
rock'n'roll in Ann
Arbor. He has been
a mainstay ever
since. <-
By Whitney Pow
Senior Arts Editor
lumber for guitar-making. It's dusty in here, but in a way
that suggests loving use - the room is filled with hand-
crafted lutes, broken mandolins and works-in-progress
still hanging around the workbench.
David's guitar studio has been in Ann Arbor since
the 1960s, a vital place and time for the cultural and
musical revolution of that seminal decade. David him-
self was a central figure in the burgeoning music scene.
"Music was our life, our literature, our politics - free
from conformity," he said. "(It was) a big deal in the'60s.
That's the way we felt. Music was going to change the
whole world." People came to David's shop not only for
the Ann Arbor scene, but to hang out with David, a local
celebrity himself.
"Newsweek did an article about me, and I was on the
front page of a lot of newspapers across the country and
other magazines," he said. He says he has been written
about in The Washington Post, and he's made appear-
ances on popular, TV shows including "The Today
Show." After all that press, word quickly got around
about David and his workshop - the then-central hub
of the music revolution that once met in an Ann Arbor
basement.
The city hosted a completely different scene back
then. Jimi Hendrix played at the Fifth Dimension, a
now-defunct club that used to be at Huron and Main
Street. The Grateful Dead put on shows at Crisler Arena.
Frank Zappa played at Hill Auditorium. And the Can-
See HERB DAVID, Page 4B
READING
Author Michael Shil-
ling, writer, UM lecturer
and ex-drummer of The
Long Winters is read-
ing from his new book,
"Rock Bottom" at Sha-
man Drum today. The
novel tells the story of
a rock band called The
Blood Orphans that is
bothered by random
problems like nagging
Buddhist preachers and
eczema. The reading
is at 7 p.m. and will be
followed with a signing.
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