jayplay The University D
Thursday February 28,2002 1B
Daily Kansan
TALK TO US: Contact Kimberly Thompson or Meghan Bainum at (785) 664-4810 or jayplay@kansan.com
PRIVATE PART PIERCINGS: Not a do-it-yourself activity. Meghan explains all. SEE PAGE 2B.
ANI
Musician Ani DiFranco appeals to more than just the musical side of her fans
By Sarah Smarsh Jayplay writer
The artist takes a deep breath, raises one hand in the air and revamps the United States Declaration of Independence.
"We hold these three truths to be self-evident," the dreadlocked musician tells the sold-out crowd of attentive youth, her voice strong and impassioned. "Mr. Bush is not president." The crowd roars. "America is not a true democracy." The crowd roars again. "And the media is not fooling me." The beat continues, and it's hard to tell if the frenzied revelers are nodding their heads to keep time or to concur with Ami DIFranco's message.
DiFranco's rousing performance Monday night at Liberty Hall, 642 Massachusetts St. was a testament to the college scene's proverbial linking of politics
with music. While the singer-songwriter-guitarist-pianist-bongo drummer-record label CEO is a tour de force with her music alone, DiFranco's image evolved around her lyrical political commentaries, to which the Lawrence crowd responded with a resounding "Amen, sister." Before the concert, attendees streamed between information tables for Amnesty International, KU Greens and the Metropolitan Organization to Counter Sexual Assault.
Erin Runnels, a Kansas State University freshman who stood near the stage sporting long dreadlocks like DiFranco's, said college students were drawn to artists like DiFranco at a pivotal time in their lives.
"It's the age when people are trying to develop who they are and their viewpoints," Runnels said. "Ani and political artists appeal to that. It's not their parents' viewpoints. It's someone they can identify with."
The audience identified strongly with DiFranco's spoken-word performance of her poem inspired by Sept. 11, which
SEE ANI ON PAGE 4B
CHRISTINA NEFF/KANSAN
Ani DiFranco delivers a passionate performance to a sold-out crowd Monday night at Liberty Hall, 642 Massachusetts St. The artist is known for her politically charged lyrics and liberal ideology.
RAWK SNOB
Certain music helps tame the wild
I've never had luck with pets. My first dog, Stickers, destroyed three baskets of laundry one night, much to my mother's chagrin. Later, a previous roommate's iguanas enjoyed breaking out of their cage and staging territorial struggles for the rights to my bed.
My latest attempt at housing the hoodlums of the animal kingdom involves two adopted cats. Mogwai, the youngest, keeps generally cool and enjoys interacting with human beings. Stella, on the other hand, often enjoys sitting and hating the human race with a disdainful glare and a hair-trigger set of claws.
However, I accidentally discovered that spacey, ambient rock albums played at a high volume have a calming effect that turns Stella into an affectionate creature. After conducting hours of painstaking research in my white lab coat and mortar board, I found the following albums to have profound calming effects on this most savage of my household's beasts.
COMMENTARY
Com Plex - The Helio Sequence, 2000. Written, performed, recorded and produced by the two band members in the music supply shop where they work. The Helio Sequence's Com Plex boasts a relentless barrage of otherworldly sounds that, when played at a high volume, are surprisingly soothing. Sounding like mid-period Beatles performing at the bottom of a pool's deep end, The Helio Sequence creates jangley five-minute pop songs whose more conventional elements, such as guitars, bass, drums and voices, are digitally mutated into beautifully alien caricatures of themselves.
Andy Gassaway agassaway@kansan.com
Remain in Light — Talking Heads, 1980. All I really knew about this album was it featured the modest radio hit "Once in a Lifetime," which was also featured during the opening credits of the cinematic landmark Down and Out in Beverly Hills. But, when I threw on a recently acquired vinyl LP of Remain in Light, I was pleased to discover that not only did David Byrne and his nerdy little cronies create an album that is completely spooky in its atmospheric breadth, but they created a prime cat sedative as well.
The band's cover of John Lennon's "Tomorrow Never Knows" is the decided highlight of the album for Stella, who always appears oddly amused at the twisted prehistoric bird screams that swirl around from one speaker to the other as the song reaches its Atari 2600-in-the-meatgrinder climax.
Side one consists of funk-driven new wave dance tunes that allot equal space for indigenous percussion, guitar workouts and keyboard strangeness. Side two, minus "Lifetime," is a montage of droning synthesizer/drum pieces that are equally awe-inspiring
Loveless — My Bloody Valentine, 1991. Airy, paper-thin vocals and criminally understated drums ... why would anyone want to listen to this overblown, self-indulgent mope fest?
The frantic stuff provokes the cats to dart around the room attacking invisible insects — I think — but the droning stuff usually puts them to sleen even at their most bloodthirsty.
Naturally, I'll say it's the guitars — piles upon piles of fuzzed-out guitars played backward and strangled to death with their own tremolo bars help to fill out songs that move at about the same speed as your average glacier, and is certainly no less awe inspiring. The daredevil pitch-bending treatments guitarist/songwriter Kevin Shields gives these ambient tunes have been known to make some a little quiescent, but apparently cats find it particularly suitable for sleeping.
and creepy, like being in the desert at night. In fact, I'm fairly sure I stole that allusion from one of the song's lyrics.
When Loveless pounds throughout the house, Stella can always find time to take a break from her mountain lion-like charm to take a nap between the speakers for the duration of the album.
No two cats are the same, of course, but the effects I've witnessed these albums having on mine were quite amazing. Perhaps I'll write a follow-up column dealing with albums that should never be played near household pets — just as soon as I have time to secure a pair of steel mesh gloves and a tube of bactine.
Local music, not kegs, found at Pink House
By Michelle Burhenn Javolav writer
About 20 people gathered around a pink house, huddled in groups to keep warm during the early February weather. With the front picture window covered by a blanket and plastic wrap, the scene looked like a typical house party.
But inside the rosy walls of 1131 Tennessee St., about 60 people filled the living room and stood inches away from Nate Harold as he performed with his band Diversion 4.0. Part of the crowd flooded the front of the room of the Pink House, and it was difficult to determine where the band ended and its audience began.
"That's the most fun I have, playing at shows like that. Especially at that house," Harold, Weskan junior, said. "It's always fun. Usually people go out just to have fun with their friends, but that's not usually the case there. I just love the vibe."
Heath Leffel, Hutchinson junior and member of the band Last Ride Out, stood in the audience and said he agreed with Harold.
"I would say it's my favorite venue in Lawrence," Leffel said. "It's not a bar. It's a place where people come to see shows, not to drink."
What is known to local music junkies as the Pink House spruced from four guys' love of the Lawrence music scene and a Web site devoted to local music.
Fadi Elmansour, Morocco junior, Scott Horn, Omaha, Neb., senior, and Dave Best, Dallas junior, live together on the first
SEE PINK ON PAGE 48
LIVE MUSIC CALENDAR
TODAY
Lied Center, 864-2787
St. Petersburg Philharmonic
Orchestra, 7:30 p.m.
El Torreon, 3101 Gillham Plaza,
Kansas City, Mo., (816) 419-7278
Darkest Hour, All Else Failed, &
Casket Lottery
Bottleneck, 737 New Hampshire St. Rd.814-5483
DIPT, Bullfrog featuring Kid Koala, DJ Proof and That Guy Downstairs
Granada Theatre, 1020 Massachusetts St., 842-1390 Better Than Ezra, Iffy
Brown Bear Brewing Company,
729 Massachusetts St., 313-4338
The Disagreements, Brent Berry
& the Roots Crew, others TBA
Grand Emporium, 3832 Main,
Kansas City, Mo., (816) 531-1504
American Standard
Jazzhaus, 926 1/2 Mass. St., 749-3320
Ready with Windsor Medium
Niener's, 815 N. Noland Rd., Kansas City, Mo., (816)461-6955 Fatal Candy Machine, Shotgun Jenny
Replay Lounge, 946 Mass. St., 749-7656
raprooom, 801 New Hampshire
Stk. 814-6918
The Potomac Accord, Me Island See
St. 841-601-616
DJ Justin Montag and DJ Branden Burke
TOMORROW
Lied Center, 864-2787 KU Symphonic Band, 7:30 p.m.
Bottleneck, 737 New Hampshire St..
841-5483
Catch 22, Grade, Reach the Sky,
Student Rick, The Schwag, Greyhounds
El Torreon, 3101 Gillham Plaza,
Kansas City, Mo. (816) 419-7278
Slaughter and the Dogs, Sister
Mary Rotten Crotch, The Riffs,
Kosher
Grand Emporium, 3832 Main,
Kansas City, Mo., (816)531-1504
The Iguanas
Confederate Railroad
Beaumont Club, 4050 Pennslyvania, Kansas City, Mo., (816) 561-2668
Davey's Uptown Rambler, 3402 Main, Kansas City, Mo., (816)753-1909
As Memphis Burns, Animated by Sound, Cloudy and 47
Hurricane, 4048 Broadway,
Kansas City, Mo., (816)753-0884
Onward Crispin Glover, The People
Jazzahaus, 926 1/2 Mass. St., 749-3320
The Diplomats of Solid Sound (former members of Bent Scepters)
Yacht Club, 530 Wisconsin St.,
842-9445
SunYear Senghomers
Six Year Sophomore
SATURDAY
Lied Center, 864-2787 Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, 7 p.m.
Bottleneck, 737 New Hampshire St., 841-5483
Son Venezuela, Sean, Richmond
Fontaine.
Grand Emporium, 3832 Main,
Kansas City, Mo., (816)531-1504
Ronnie Baker Brooks
Jazzhaus, 926 1/2 Mass. St., 749-3320 The Bel Airs
The Bel Airs
The Pub, 1727 McGee, Kansas City, Mo., (816) 421-1634 Snakebite Orphans, QI Yeller
Hurricane, 4048 Broadway,
Kansas City, Mo., (816)753-0884
The Dragons, The Demons, The
Throttlers
El Torreon, 3101 Gillham Plaza,
Kansas City, Mo., (816) 419-7278
Eiffel, Sunset Black, National Fire
Therapy, +1
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