ARTS The Michigan Daily Thursday, April 18,1991 Page 8 Railroad jerks off ! New York band makes steel-driven music Vy Kim Yaged The tracks head as far north as Minneapolis and as far south as Atlanta. Railroad Jerk will be rid- ing them. But before their departure from their home base in New York (which the band is tired of), we shared a session of telephone tag in anticipation of their arrival in Ann Arbor. The name Railroad Jerk is an onomatopoeia for the band's sound. Perhaps it's equivalent to that nau- seous feeling one gets when a train makes a sudden stop while pulling into the station. Or it could be the :sound of two locomotives collid- ing, as the front cover of their self- titled LP depicts. In any case, that's for you to decide tonight when Railroad Jerk graces Club Heidel- berg with their presence. The group has encountered a cou- pie of line-up changes along the way the latest being the replacement of drummer Jez Aspinall with Steven Cerio - but the remainder of the band stands as Marcellus Hall (guitar, vocals and harmonica), Tony Lee (bass and vocals) and Chris Mueller (guitar and vocals). When asked about what he thought of their album, Mueller replied, "I want more people to buy it." Well, that's honest enough, and that's how it tends to go with R.J. "We're not a crowd pleaser," he continued. "We don't play a couple of Stones songs - 'Alright!' - to get the crowd going." They do per- form covers, though, notably Bubba White's "Fixin' To Die," and possi- bly an Adam and the Ants song in the future. Expounding on the ono- matopoeia idea, Mueller explained, "We're definitely more quiet and melodic than most of the bands in New York City... We play pop songs... so we present them live as we presented them on the record. Basically, our live show is our pre- sentation, our live presentation, of the record... with no stage theatrics, just straight presentation. Basic rocking, I guess." He was exhaustive in his praise for the band's record label, Matador, and explained the back- ground behind how R.J.'s sound evolves. "Each member contributes twenty-five percent to Railroad Jerk. Twenty-five percent in; twenty-five percent out. We don't really get in on the scene of, like, song writers... We all want to play our music, and itfs worked out pretty well so far." "It's totally fun," Mueller con- tinued. "Some people could look at it as a job because I make money. Making money isn't so bad... A lot of people believe that your integrity is breached when you're looking for money, and I don't think that's the case. I really don't." Fun? Well, this word seemed somewhat odd when mentioned to Mueller - he even made a reference to work in conjunction with it - but he did reveal that they go to shows, rehearse and sneak a few beers periodically. But even if Railroad Jerk can't quite relate to fun, goal-setting is definitely on the agenda. Presently, they are trying to work their way out to the West. The tracks for their new record are all written; they just need to decide in which studio to record what. In the meanwhile, they have released a new single, "Younger Than You," which was recorded at Waterworks Studio, with "The Ballad of Jim White" on the flip side. i Railroad Jerk look kind of pretentious here with the wall jutting out in the middle. The band is not even smiling. Maybe it's because they are alternative. Maybe it's because they are on an independent label, Matador. About telephones (and on our being disconnected during our con- versation), Mueller had this to say: "If you notice, it's impossible to break, or otherwise fuck up, a public phone, and the phones that you bring home are so easy to break. At least you don't have to put a quarter into it." case you've never heard of them, it's Kevin and Jim from the Laughing. Hyneas and Preston from Wig - Ann Arbor's first supergroup d la Electronic and Cream. Doors open at 10 p.m. and cover is $4. RAILROAD JERK choo-choos into Club Heidelberg tonight with spe- cial guests N.L. MULE opening. In I I Theses meant to be watched an by Caroline G. Shin For most students, a thesis usually produces many groans of frustration because it is such an extremely tire- some and mundane task: thousands of hours poring over journals, valu- able time wasted wandering around the Grad looking for those elusive journals and, at the last minute, sit- tihg down at a Mac to actually write the 60-page monster. Finally, it" is turned in, orally defended and hopefully done with. For the five School of Dance students who will be performing in this weekend's BFA Dance Thesis at the School of Dance, a performance thesis proves to be a more reward- ing, a more creative and, perhaps, a more challenging experience. This concert, titled Shaping Forces, will showcase the final step which is re- quired for dance students Russell Constine, Christine Knight, Lynn Neuman, Christina Sears and Deborah Weisbach to earn their BFA. Because five dancers choreo- graph and dance this weekend, a wide human beings. "(The show)," Neuman says, "is just about the forces which shape our lives or the personal issues which touch us." These dynamic shaping forces range from personal and social is- sues to global events. They are por- trayed as struggles, or as a wonder- ful memories, or as confusing jour- neys. Both Weisbach and Sears draw Ld enjoyed strike a familiar chord in each of us. Some of the other dancers tackle social and world issues which affect us all. Sears choreographs a group piece entitled "Players: Reading B/T the Lines," which graphically searches to find the perfect romantic relationship and the sacrifices made for such a quest. Neuman grapples with the world issue which still leaves its smoldering mark - the Gulf War. She expresses through her often graphic and rigid move- ments two views of the war crisis. She does not offer the answer, but instead presents a parody of the reg- imented military and of the dra- matic exposing of vulnerability, the aftermath of the war. Weisbach exposes her most vul- nerable self, her artistic self, in "Says I to Me," choreographed by University graduate Lesli Cohen. This poses a paradox of an artist who has created a piece of art which deals with the difficulty in doing so. Cohen describes the piece as "the art of making art and a personal way of looking at how an artist is al- ways looking at themselves." The pieces will incorporate all the elements that make the School of Dance a dynamic force, using sto- ries as well as music for accompa- niments, and using the School's fa- mous penchant for video. The dances have not been created specifically to please audiences, but rather to explore the dancers' own creativity. "The thesis is a beginning of future pieces, a sort of spring- board," Sears says. "It provides a safe working atmosphere to launch ahead and just keep working. I hope that these dances will allow the au- dience to stretch themselves, even if they are disturbed by some of them." Woods reveals truth by Beth Colquitt 0 nce upon a time... All fairy tales start like this. Most of them end with "Happily Ever After," but this is only the beginning. Didn't you ever wonder what hap- pened after Cinderella and her Prince got married - did they fight over how to raise the children since they were from different eco- nomic backgrounds? Stephen Sondheim has taken it upon himself to explore the grown-up question, "What happens in Act Two?" In 1987, Into The Woods opened up to largely favor- able crowds in the United States. Sondheim and director/librettist James Lapine took several familiar fairy tales, modernized the lan- guage, elaborated on the characters, examined how they got their wishes and told what happened af- ter they attained their goals. The concept was excellent, but it was criticized for being pedantic. Despite the curiosity to see what happens in one's favorite fairy tales, some critics said the novelty wore off before the show was over. Guest director John Schak has a different idea for how to interpret the show, giving it an added punch. He sees the first act as the United States in the 1950s, when everyone was determined to "make it." He refers to the consumer-crazy post- War activity, and even back to the original behavior of the American colonists, who took everything they wanted. The characters in Into The Woods do the same, but some- times in morally questionable ways. Act Two, then, becomes the 1960s, says Schak, "when every- thing began to fragment and un- ravel." What the United States re- ally brought to the third world, he claims, was capitalism, not democ- racy, while what we left were to- talitarian dictatorships. In the '60s, the people of these countries started to object. Schak interprets the Giantess who breaks into the happily-ever-after world of Act Two as "the Civil Rights move- ment, the working class, minorities - all the groups that began to speak up in the sixties about those who made it in the fifties by step- ping on others." Schak says that the interna- tional reaction to the Gulf Crisis is similar to the way that Into The Woods ends. When Iraq invaded Kuwait, he notes, all the world agreed that "(Iraq's) behavior was unacceptable." By no means a vic- tory over individualism, he saw the U.N. action as a first step towards an international cooperative effort for the general good instead of per- sonal gain. To protect each other, and defeat the Giantess who is seek- ing justice for Jack's giant-killing and thieving offenses, the charac- ters have to learn to work together. As the truth-telling witch makes her exit, she throws out more beanstalk beans, symbolizing the future decisions the characters will have to make. At the end, the char- acters are beginning to develop the ability to work together for the common good. The costumes and the set design for Into The Woods are also 1960s in flavor.} Schak says that "'60s fashion was such wacked-out cloth- ing that it had a sort of fairytale quality to it already. It also al- lowed, between the style of the, haute couture and campus style, coverage of the range of social classes represented by the charac- ters." The design uses all varieties of '60s clothing, to not only indicate class, but to make the original ren- derings of certain characters more realistic. As the mother of a young boy, Jack's mother will appear as a youngish diner waitress, a per- fectly understandable occupation for a working class mother who has to tell her son to sell their only skinny cow for food. INTO THE WOODS at the Power Center tonight through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets are $12 and $9, student tickets with I.D. are $5, available at the Michigan League Ticket office. 0 : The BFA Thesis Concert dancers strike a dramatic dancing pose. Hey, one of them.could be the next Madonna who was a dance student in the late 70s at the University. But she never graduated and had a BFA Thesis concert. range of style and technique will be° on past travel experiences and ex visible. press these memories through the For anyone who finds him/ dances "Across Landscapes" an herself reflecting over his/her image "Otherworld." They concentrate o in the bathroom mirror on a given creating an atmosphere reminiscen morning, contemplating personal of remote lands and times, ult and world crises, this performance mately reaching their own space. may be the ticket for you. These "I would hope that the audienc dancers will seek to make a visual would concentrate on being in; impact on you with the struggles place, and to experience it, not v and conflicts they have experienced analyze its content. I'm trying v in their lives as dancers and as create a sense of timelessness," say X- ir ad Dn nt i- ce a to to ys 0 0 Sears. Knight, meanwhile, chooses to deal with her own conflict between responsibility and blame in "Imaginary Friend Realized," but her message and implications should The BFA Thesis Concert SHAPING FORCES will be performed tonight through Saturday at 8:00 p.m. in Studio A at the School of Dance. Admission is $5 at the door. L I- DON'T FORGET TO CALL US I U We'll get your belongings home quickly, safely, professionally. ... And for LESS THAN YOU THINK! []SHIPPING To any location in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania. L STORAGE Complete pick-up and delivery service. ~ BOXES& TAPE ) Studies presents a lecture by Andrew Horton "Hard Currency & Soft Porno: Images of Women in Recent Soviet Cinema" 0I WAWIC if