The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, August 7, 1984 - Page 11
Rick's: From bar to barndance
By Pete Williams
f your objective is to transform
Rick's American Cafe into an all-out,
knee-slappin', fiddle playin' hoedown,
there are several requirements that
have to be met.
The first is an acceptable country
music atmosphere. Ann Arbor is not
universally known for barn dance ap-
preciation, so any steel guitar and fid-
dle licks you use must have a touch of
something Ann Arborites can easily
relate to. Swing is a good example. Add
a honkey-tonk piano player, a string
bass, and - if you're adventurous
enough-even a jazzy tenor sax to the
accepted country and western or-
chestration and you are well on your
way to success at Rick's. It's called
western swing.
But Rick's crowd is not so easily
metamorphosized into a handful of
simple cowpokes and the like. They're
not used to this type of thing and need to
be sure that what they are hearing is
authentic and unique. So get a band that
is reknowned for resurrecting this
western swing.
But even after the folks at Ricks hear
a few blues licks on the o1' steel guitar,
them ten-gallon hats may still feel a bit
awkward. They want to be an integral
part of the show-to be talked through
it. The best way to meet this
requirement is to have a talkative and
intriguing lead singer-someone who
can capture the audience with a Texas
accent and downhome musician's
mannerisms.
To my knowledge, there is only one
group that can meet all the
requirements. They are Asleep at the
Wheel, and judging from both their
performance Sunday night and the
response of the audience, the transfor-
mation was a success.
The material was unmistakably
cowboy with songs such as "Miles and
Miles of Texas," "Nobody Here But Us
Chickens," and the ever-popular "Take
Me Back to Tulsa." Asleep used their
deft understanding of both country
music and blues/swing to create unique
arrangements of these tunes.
The formula also worked in reverse.
just as he was told.
An interesting aside: Sunday night
was fiddler Larry Franklin's birthday.
Benson announced it as Franklin took the
solo intro to "Take me back to Tulsa."
Benson called Franklin "The town fid-
dler," and Franklin's quick and bright
style of western fiddlin' made the
audience feel as if they should be
square dancing on the floor of Ricks. A
few enthusiasts went so far as to grab
their partner and do a modified new-
wave dance step version of barn dan-
cing.
There was one predominant theme
throughout Asleep's performance-a
swing feel perpetuated by drummer
Mike Grammar and string/electric
bassist Tom Anastasio. These
musicians seem to have gotten their
training in swing and are now applying
their talents to Benson's unique
western derivitive music. Grammar
and Anastasio set the mood that let the
vocals and soloists create what is called
western swing.
There was another predominant
theme in all of Asleep's numbers. This
time, the .theme was country and
western fostered by the vibrato and
'twang' of the steel pedal guitar. Wally
Murphy, on steel, claims that he taught
himself to play the western musicians'
staple by listening to the radio, trying to
reproduce the sounds he heard on his
axe.
That's surprising, considering Mur-
phy seemed. comfortable with any
rhythm or chord progression the band
came up with. It was as though he
listened to what the band was
doing-remember the radio-and just
tailor-made a steel pedal lick that ad-
ded to the complete sound of the band.
Murphy would slip ina short lead line
or an almost imperceptable chord
digression or a crescendo whereever he '
thought it fit in.
Take a blues rhythm section that is
not afraid of a solo now and then, add a
few country and western tendencies
and you have western swing, i.e.,
Asleep at the Wheel. Now put Asleep in
front of an appreciative and inebriated
audience at Rick's and the formula is
complete: A successful transformation
of a supper club to a barn dance.
Ray Benson, lead guitarist and vocalist for the western swing band Asleep at
the Wheel, transported Rick's American Cafe to Texas on Sunday night in a
rollicking good-time show.
The band had the capacity to take a jazz B (Mark Braun to his friends) sat in on
tune and add a flavor of country. the 'boards for this number.
Example: Count Basie's classic "One Mr. B was truly in the spotlight for
O'clock Jump." this piece was the "Roll 'em" moreso than any of his solo
showcase for two of Asleep's personnel: performances including those in the
Tim Alexander pounding out a high- middle of the street during the art fair.
energy honkeytonk piano line and Braun showed the ability to keep in step
Michael Francis with highly technical with Asleep as well as the ability to take
tenor sax solo. a profound lead upon singer/guitarist
Alexander gave his fingers a much Ray Benson's cue. Benson pointed to
needed rest on "Roll 'em Pete," when Mr. B at the end of a phrase and said
Ann Arbor's own honkey tonk king, Mr. "O.K., Now go way down." Braun did
Robinson wins 'Gremlins 'contest with 39
G RE MLINS is one of the summer's most
interesting films for fans of cinema because
references to other films are liberally inserted
throughout the film's script and plot. Therefore it is
not surprising that the winner of the Daily's Find-the-
Films-in-the-Film contest is Malcolm Robinson, a
former Daily film reviewer. Robinson found 39
allusions, homages, and direct quotes from a dozen
other films in Gremlins which puts him leaps and
bounds above the other entrants.
We hope that his list will not only aid future film
researchers but will make your viewings of Gremlins
all the more enjoyable.
1) The setting for the film is a town named Kingston
Falls, a reference to Bedford Falls, the town in Frank
Capra's It's a Wonderful Life.
2) A film clip from It's A Wonderful Life is showing
on the kitchen TV.
3) Our hero, Billy, works in a bank in a poor town
terrorized by a rich person. This is exactly the same
situation that Jimmy Stewart faced in It's A Wonder-
ful Life.
4)There is a film clip from Invasion of the Body
Snatchers playing on a TV.
5) Gizmo the Mogwai watches Clark Gable in
Please a Lady on TV.
6) On a theatre marquee is the title,A Boy's Life,
the original title for Steven Spielberg's E.T.
7)The second movie on that theatre's marquee is
Watch the Sky, the working title of Spielberg's Close
Encounters of the Third Kind.
8) When Gizmo sings along with Billy's synthesizer
the film is making a reference to the mothership
singing along with the scientist's computer in Close
Encounters.
9) Stripe, the lead gremlin, knocks an E.T. Doll to
the floor as he hides in the toy shop.
10) When a gremlin cuts some phone lines, it says,
"Phone home," a reference to E.T.
11) Gizmo says at the films end, "Bye, Billy," an
allusion to E.T.'s last words to Elliot.
12)Gizmo watches television just as E.T. did.
13) At the inventor's convention the time machine
from the film The Time Machine disappears in a puff
of smoke.
14) At the same convention, Robbie the Robot from
Forbidden Planet walks around and speaks some
dialogue from that film.
15) The bar room sequence with the gremlins running
amuck alludes to the bizarre cantina sequence in Star
Wars.
16) When Phoebe Cates escapes from the bar, she
does so by blinding gremlins with the light from a
camera flash bulb just as Jimmy Stewart did in .Rear
Window.
17) At the convention, Steven Spielberg, director of
Close Encounters, E.T., Jaws, and Raiders of the
Lost Ark, is riding around ina wheelchair.
18) A gremlin breakdances in the bar in a torn
sweat-shirt, just like Flashdance.
19) When the gremlins are sitting in the movie
theater, they are photographed in exactly the same
pose as are the muppets in The Muppet Movie.
20) The movie the gremlins are waiting to see is
Snow White.
21) When Billy tries to convince the police of the
imminent gremlin attack, he receives the same
cynical reception that the hero got in Invasion of the
Body Snatchers.
22) On the desk of the town's rich widow, Mrs.
Deagle, is a portrait of Frank Capra-movie-bad-guy-
businessman Edward Albert.
23) The same Edward Albert photograph is
hanging on the staircase wall in Mrs. Deagle's home.
24) Mrs. Deagle talks about killing Billy's dog just
as Miss Gulch talked about killing Toto in The Wizard
of Oz.
25) The gremlins kill Mrs. Deagle by having her
electric wheelchair zoom up her staircase, an inver-
sion of the scene in Kiss of Death where Richard
See ROBINSON, Page 14