Ailrdrnuu a&I Come Out and Show Your Talent
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Come check out the local talent and show your support. The show is at Page 1A
_ 8 p.m. Call 763-4186 for location and any other information., Monday,
Blur's Damon Albam comes into focus
By Heather Phares
Daily.Arts Editor
"Ind consider we were doing O.K. with
this record if we sold a million copies,
bottom line. Anything less than that would
be underacheiving. It's not that many
records. I mean, it is a lot, but we sold one
and a half million in England. Y'know,
you've got to be ambitious."
Confidence is more than a preference
for Blur's leader, Damon Albarn. It's a
way of life. By turns an assured artiste
and insightful, eageryoung man, Albarn's
eclectic personality is a large part of what
makes Blur's music so original.,
But he's a bit defensive about how
much ofhis essence goes into what makes
Blur the brilliant pop group that it is. On
the group's latest album "The Great Es-
cape,"Albarntook sole songwriting credit
- a first. When asked about the change,
he bristled: "Because I'm the one who
writes all the songs. I always have," he
said somewhat curtly.
And yet Albarn has a vulnerable side,
particularly when it comes to meeting one
of his musical heroes, Ray Davies of the
Kinks. The two dueted in a version of the
Kinks classic "Waterloo Sunset" on the
British TV show "Top of the Pops." "It
was quite stressful, really. I was very
nervous,but itwentreally well. I was very
happy to have done it," he said.
Of his own fame and fortune, Albam
frankly admitted that he enjoys being apop
star. "I'm not sure ofthe bestpartofit, but the
worst part of it is if you start to lose perspec-
tive and startthinkingyou'reveryimportant.
But then again, there's different pop stars;
some people have a hard time warming and
adjusting to it." He added with a laugh, "I
think I'm pretty relaxed about it."
Another thing Albarn's relaxed about
is touring and acheiving success in
America. "I've been over here so many
times that I've just become philosophical
about the whole thing and gone on with
what I'm about," he sighed. "But this time
it's been reciprocated. I don't know what
it means, but there's definitely a better
atmosphere at the gigs. They're really
great at the moment."
Just a year ago, when Blur released
theirexcellent third album "Parklife," the
group had very little to do with the United
States. The "Parklife" tour consisted of a
scant nine dates, located mostly on the
coasts.
"It wasn't really worth it," Albarn said
of the American "Parklife" tour. "Our
recordcompany (SBK, the group's former
label) wasn't doing a good job on us, and
it was pointless to invest emotional en-
ergy and time when it was never really
going to be reciprocated by our record
company. SBK were cheapskates. But
it's very different this time."
Albarn's mixed feelings about this
country remain, however. After days of
watching our"mad chat shows"like Jerry
Springer and Ricki Lake, Albarn mused,
"It seems that everything in America is
discussed; if you've ever got a problem,
just go on a chat show and someone will
sort it out for you."
While he feels that "The Great Escape"
could break Blur in the US, he hasn't
forgotten the diehard fans that have sup-
ported the group since their 1991 debut
"Leisure." Though the crowds on this
tour (which Blur recently finished) have
been bigger and better than ever, Albarn
acknowledges that "the people who've
been coming to see us have been coming
for years, a lot of them. I suppose some of
them will get pissed off if we do well over
here, 'cause we'll no longer be a cult
thing." "But," he added with a wry laugh,
"I've had my taste of being in a cult
band."
Whatever the size ofthe crowd, Blur puts
on a fantastic live show. They're equally at
home in huge stadiums like Mile End and
Wembley in England and clubs like St.
Andrew's Hall in Detroit, where the band
played athouroughly entertainingshow last
Monday.
Albam's philosophy on live shows?"If
you can create an intimate atmosphere, then
it's all the same, really. I know that sounds
ridiculous, but as long as I get that sense, I
don't mind where I'm playing. You just
know if you created a good feeling, not just
with a few people but when the entire audi-
ence his a great time," he said.
For all of his self-assurance and artistic
bravado, Albam is still pleasantly surprised
at just how big "Parklife" became in En-
gland, catapulting them almost overnight
from one ofmany bands to the biggest band
in Britain. "On paper it seems like too artsy
an album to do as well as it did," he said,
surprise still registering in his voice. "The
lyrics certainly weren't straightforward pop
lyrics." As to why it was so successful,
Albam said, "Good tunes and the right
antidote for the whole grunge thing, I think.
People wanted an altemative."
The success of"Parklife" in the UK has
placed them in the tradition of great Brit-
ish bands like of the Who and the Kinks
and the Jam. It's a place that Albarn's
happy to be in, though he's very particu-
lar of how that word is used. "We're
definitely in a tradition. But 'tradition' is
one of those words that gets abused now;
we've got 'traditional' flame-grilled
burgers, y'know? That's not the right
context of the word. Tradition is some-
thing that follows on from the past and
into the future. It says something that each
generation has wanted to say," he said.
As for the creation of "The Great Es-
cape," Albarn said, "It was made under
the shadow of 'Parklife,' so it had to be a
reaction to that. It had to something suc-
cessful but something very different in
mood."
"The Great Escape" is certainly differ-
ent from its predecessors.While Albam
balked at calling it a concept album, he
admitted, "it's got a title that suggests
that. We can talk about it, so in that way
it can be conceptualized. But it's not a
story that begins with the first record and
ends with the last, following characters
all the way through. It's full of disparate
characters in the middle of nowhere, try-
ing to cope."
Blur's "Modern Life is Rubbish,"
"Parklife" and "The Great Escape" make
up a loose trilogy of mood, theme, and
especially characters. Albarn elaborated
about the connections between the al-
bums: "They've got the same sort of
sense of elsewhere. They all have charac-
ters in them that are like the people at the
end of the street who are sort of weird,
cross-eyed looking."
One ofthe intruiging things about "The
Great Escape" is the Prozac references in
two of the songs - the eerily mellow
"The Universal" and the rowdy, satirical
"Country House." Though A.lbarn has
never taken Prozac, he likes "the idea of
something that just makes you feel bland.
I don't need it personally, fame's been a
little like a personal Prozac for me," he
said.
As far as Albarn's long-term future
plans, they are characteristically lofty. He
wrote a piece in the British music weekly
NME (New Music Express) and found
writing to his taste. "I'd like to write for
some more serious magazines-GQ, the
Blur's members are the top mod dogs.
Modern Review in Britain, periodicals.
It's bloody hard work, though," he said.
But what Albarn seems most excited
about outside of Blur is the prospect of
writing a play or a musical. It isn't a
stretch, considering how theatrical and
character-based his songs are. About a
future on Broadway, Albarn enthused,
"I'd love to do that, definitely. Haven't
got really got an idea yet. But I could, and
I will. I'd love to put something out on
Broadway, that'd be brilliant, yeah." For
Albarn, that would be the perfect encore
to a dramatic pop career.
Damon Albarn Is Blur's top man.
'Halloween VI': A shameful exercise in gluttonous dribble
RuF W
Halloween VI:
The Curse of
Michael Myers
Directed by Joe Chappelk
with Paul Stephen Rudd ana
Donald Pleasance
At Briarwood and Showcase
By Neal C. Carruth
For The Daily
Don't get tricked into seeing "Hallow-
een VI: The Curse of Michael Myers." I
can assure you that it is no treat. This
mindless, derivative piece of schlock is
hardly worth the space being given to it,
but oh well. Here it goes.
As the subtitle suggests, Michael Myers
has once again overcome adversity and
returned to menace the residents of the
archetypal small town of Haddonfield.
Forthose of you unfamiliar with the "Hal-
loween" oeuvre, Michael (we're on afirst
name basis) was a slightly disturbed child
who inexplicably murdered his entire
nuclear family one Halloween night.
The action picks up with the birth of a
child to Michael's last surviving relative,
in an odd pagan-esque ritual that takes
place in the bowels of the hospital. These
early scenes are so muddled and the film
has such a poor sense of narrative.
Despite the mother's death at the hands
of Michael, the baby survives and falls
into the hands of Tommy Doyle (Paul
StephenRudd) a strange, introvertedpeep-
ing tom (and a surviving witness to
Michael's initial murderous rampage).
He lives across the street from the Strodes,
who it turns out live in the house that was
once inhabited by the Myers family. My,
what complexities!
The Strode's eldest daughter Kara
(Marianne Kagan) has ayoung son Danny,
who lives in the room that was once
inhabited by guess who? In addition, his
face bears a striking resemblance to the
pallid, expressionless death mask wom
by Myers. Tommy and Kara deftly put
two and two together and discern that
Michael will probably attempt to hunt
down the baby and kill anyone who gets
in his way.
Enter Donald Pleasance, who reclaims
his role as Dr. Loomis, the psychiatrist
who really understands Michael Myers.
However, Tommy tells us that Michael is
the cold-blooded killing machine that he
is because of some old pagan sacrificial
ritual which took place on October 31st.
This is all laughable, made even more
so by the heavy-handedness with which
the film was crafted. The director and his
editor could use a few lessons in film
editing and narrative flow. Daniel
Farrands's screenplay is a study in pre-
dictability. We even get the now-cliched
"Blue Velvet"-ish look at the dark and
seamy underbelly ofsmall-town America.
We're supposed to be shocked by an
American domestic scene that is not only
peopled by an android-like murderer, but
is replete with alcoholism, corruption,
teen sex and domestic violence.
The acting in "Halloween VI" is not as
no treat
bad as it could be. Yet, the actors spewout
vapid dialogue and the screenplay dic-
tates that they suffer from the ubiquitous
horror film malady: The "don't-leave-
the-dark-house-even-though-the-mur-
derer- is-in-there" Syndrome.
But let's put all of this aside and get
down to the most basic problem of "Hal-
loween VI." It is the simple fact that
Michael Myers sucks as a screen villain.
Evil-doers are supposed to scare us whije
allowing us to vicariously experiencetheir
nastiness. They should appeal to that bit
of Schadenfreude in each of us. Wes
Craven's Freddy Kruegeris quite inspired:
He has a sense of style, is wickedly funny
and often defies expectations. Michael on
the otherhand lurches along stiffly, rather
like all the"Halloween" films themselves.
But wait, there is one thing about "Hal-
loween VI" that is even worse than the
characterofMichael Myers-thefilmmak-
ers didn't have enough integrity to do away
with Michael, once and for all. And we
probably will see him again in "Halloween
VII: Another Shameful Exercise in Glutton-
ous Dribble."
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