music
Guitars and good times
The Lawrence music scene has something for everyone. Choices include a traditional blues guitarist and a wacky band from
the West.
By Ezra Wolfe
Kansan staff write
or Jimmy Thackery, playing blues guitar on the road isn't just a job, it's a way of life.
Thackery is playing with his barebones band, the Drivers, Thursday. Jan. 28 at The Jazzhaus, 926 1/2 Massachusetts St.
The three-piece group will perform songs from Thackery's latest album "Empty Arms Motel."
Thackery said he played almost every night when he's on the road.
"For me, it is the only way to live," he said. Thackery has played with some of the greatest blues guitarists in the country, including Albert Collins and the late Stevie
for him Thackery thought, "Holy God! Who is this kid?"
time Vaughn opened up
"I played with Stevie a bunch of times," Thackery said. "On my birthday he was opening up for us in his hometown. I was nervous about following him. He opened up with Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)" and just went off from there. I was supposed to follow him.
"Well, when he came off said, 'well happy birthday to me, what am I supposed to do now?' But everything went OK, and and we ended up jamming together at the end of his night."
Despite the pressures of playing behind guitar gods, Thackery loves playing in front of an audience. "Playing live is so much fun," he said. "There's noth- "In the response we got from the crowd."
Paying life is so much hurt, he said. There is
sung like the response you get from the crowd."
Thackery grew up in Washington, D.C., and his interest in music came from his mother, who started him on piano at an early age. But Thackery chose the guitar and formed a blues band.
An important moment in Thackery's development came when as a 17-year-old he saw Buddy Guy, a famous blues guitarist, play at a small Wash- ington church.
Monkey's tour.
Beside you. G.
But the moment that changed his life came when he saw Jimi Hendrix play.
president Hill and their
drix. Thackery's influences are Olsrush, Moddy
Waters and James Cotton.
Thackery's first professional band was the Nighthawks, formed in 1972. The group recorded more than a dozen albums and toured the country relentlessly.
Thackery left the Nighthawks in 1985 and then formed a six-piece rhythm-and-blues band, the Assassins. The band recorded three albums and toured the East Coast. The Assassins broke up in 1991 and Thackery then formed Jimmy Thackery and the Drivers.
The band's first album was released on Blind Pig Records and features blistering covers of Hendrix's "Red House," Stevie Vaughn's "Rude Mood" and two songs written by Thackery.
"It's really my first solo album," Thackery said. "As a first album I just decided to do as much stuff as I enjoyed playing, and so I recorded songs from a lot of my heroes."
Thackery he said enjoys playing with a small band.
"A three-piece band is really the way I want to play." Thackery says. "Musically it leaves me a lot of freedom to lay down a rhythmic pattern and do what I want to do. My business won't step on other musicians' 'toes.'"
Band uses 'Dadaism' to celebrate absurd
James J. Reece
James J. Reece
Kansan staff writer
Judging from the band's name, and the
i n ahame like dada, it is no surprise that this L.A. band, who will play Thursday at the Bottleneck, 737 New Hampshire St., places an emphasis on the absurd.
Judging from the
jacket of its debit compact disc, "Puzzle," featuring a flaming hobby horse, the band is fond of the 1916 European anthem, issued from which its name is borrowed.
"I like the principle behind the movement," said Phil Leavitt, drummer of dada.
Dadaism started in Germany when its founders, discontent with the bloody result of World War I, and with the absurd number of art movements in Europe, started its own movement. It was created in part to celebrate absurdity, and named itself dada, the German word for hobbyhorse.
But unlike the artists of the early 20th century, the modern day dada makes few references to politics. Few, however, does not mean none.
The song "Dizz Knee Land," contains the line "I just 'hipped off' president George. Leavitt said the song was written during the Gulf War.
"There was that whole issue going around where either you support the troops or you are against the war," said of the time when the song was written
"Myself, I've had about enough of rock 'n' roll singers getting on a soap box," he said.
Leavitt said although politics were not a main element in the band some
"You never know when something might happen that moves you to the point that you have to write about it."
he said.
The Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Doors are influences of the trio, rounded out by guitarist Michael Gurley. The sound of these groups, along with the Police and Elvis Costello, come out in the sounds dada creates. But the sound is hardly planned, said Leavitt.
"We kind of absorb a lot of music and then forget about it," he said. "Then we just play what comes out."
With Indiana, Ohio and Michigan behind them in an eight state Midwest tour in which they open for Material Success success will follow dada to Lawrence.
At the Blind Pig, a bar in Ann Arbor, Mich., the drawing power of dada, and headlining-band Material Issue was evident, according to bartender Les Schwanbeck.
"We have a capacity of 425 and we had 425," he said. "And we had people wanting to get in. We generally don't have
bands on Monday night. It was pretty much a student crowd for dada."
Jim Meyers, who owns the Vogue in Indianapolis, said he only sold about two-thirds of the 500 tickets he offered when the two bands played his venue. But he said dada sold all of the more tickets at Jakes, a bar in Bloomington, Ind.
"The next night they went down to Indiana University and packed it," he said.
music review
'Cthonic' and 'Freedom' get stamp of approval
Kill Creek "Cthonic"
With their release, "Chronic," Lawrence's own Kill Creek has quietly produced the most concise statement of pure power-pop ecstasy since Husker Du's landmark recording "New Day Rising."
This comparison rests not in the band's sound, an unholly cross between Thin White Rope and The Beatles, but in the feeling of duality that the music expresses. From track to track, the listener is dragged, laughing and shrieking, through a world that is half-inferno and half ice bath.
The journey begins with "killing," a foot-to-the-floorboard-rocker that careens unrelentingly from chunky speed metal verse to harmony-laden break before screeching to a climax with the eerie lyric, "it's all a waste of time/ 'cause I know I killed you."
We then travel, undauntedly, through the twisting pop of "Johnny Boy" before
receiving a jolt from the recording's centerpiece, "Cixou." its stark 5/4 drumbeat and disturbing dual guitar interplay effortlessly frame the lyrics that describe the agony over a relationship that will never be.
The song closes with a rising feedback crescendo that leaves us exhausted yet exhilarated by the thrill at the prospect of flipping the tape and beginning again.
Kill Creek will be playing Tuesday at The Hurricane in Kansas City, Mo., so don't miss them.
At the end of our excursion we reach "March."
Various artists "Freedom of Choice"
Here's a little lesson in behaviorism:
Warm smell of collias, rising up through the air." —The Eagles,"Hotel California"
Stimulus: "On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair,
Response: "Beat on the brat, beat on the brat, beat on the brat,"
When Pavlov rang the bell in 1976, his mangy, undernourished, music industry mutt forgot all about drooling and coughed up a lung cookie called punk rock. Shortly after this musical revolution began, "new wave" evolved as bands began to stray from punk's four-chord fury formula.
With a baseball bat, ooh yeah!
The Ramones, "Beat on the Brat"
"Freedom of Choice," a nifty little collection on Caroline Records, contains, as the
So what does all this nonsense have to do with today's review?
subtitle suggests, "Yesterday's New Wave Hits As Performed By Today's Stars."
Perhaps our friends at Caroline are taking liberties with the term "stars," but the album does include offerings by such alternative rock deities as Sonic Youth, Redd Kross, and Mudhoney.
As with most tribute collections, "Freedom of Choice" contains its share of hits and misses, but even the misses land close to the target.
Standout tracks range from the blistering pop-rock version of The Go's Go's "How Much More" by Redd Kross, to the trippy Bongwateresque reading of the Human League's "Don't You Want Me Baby" by Chia Pet. Other A+ contributions include Big Dipper's scoop of Pete Shelley's goofy dance routine and Superchunk's drenched blowout of Blondie's "Dreaming," and Superchunk's annihilation of the Devo classic "Girl U Want."
As if all this music isn't enough to make you rush to your local record store and purchase "Freedom of Choice" here's an added incentive; all proceeds are being donated to Planned Parenthood.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Your guide to Entertainment in the Lawrence Area.
calendar
Nightlife
The Bottleneck
737 New Hampshire St.
Acoustic Junction
Tuesday, $3
Dos Hombres
Gusto's
505 Nombres
815 New Hampshire St.
Country Night - The Dixie Cadillacs
9:30 p.m. Thursday, $2
925 Iowa St.
Cher Original Music
10 p.m., Thursday, $3
Jeff And Jeff
10 p.m., Saturday, $2
Harmony Hall
10 E. Ninth St.
Jazz night featuring Chuck Berg, Charlie
Gatschet and James Jeffley
8 p.m., Friday
Tickets: $5 at the door
Hockenbury Tavern
1016 Massachusetts St.
Bummilk
10:30 p.m., Thursday, $3
Cry Out Reggae Band
Friday, Same time and cover charge
Chubby Smith and His Orchestra
Playing with Skinners
10 p.m., Saturday, Same time and cover
Acoustic, open mike
Sunday
Interstring, Kansas City Jazz Quartet
Wed. Jan. 27
interstring Kansas City Jazz Quartet
Wed., Jan. 27, Same time and cover
Continued on Page 8.
Come to our Slide Presentation
Thursday, January 21st
Jayhawk Room, Kansas Union
SUMMER STAFF POSITIONS
Come to our Slide Presentation:
Thursday, January 21st
A Christian sports and adventure camp for boys and girls ages 8-16, located in the heart of the Ouachita Lake and Mountain Region in Arkansas, is now accepting applications for summer staff positions:
For More Info
Camp Ozark + HC 64 Box 190 + MIIds, AR 71957 + (501) 867-4131
Hong Kong and Macau Students Association Spring Festival Dinner Party
新春聯歡吮會
Karaoke
Lucky Draw 油罐
Performances 综合表演
欢迎
Dinner
Lucky Draw Date: Sat., Jan. 23
Time: 8:00pm Reception, 8:00pm Dinner
Place: Ecumenical Christian Ministries,
1204 Oread (Beidai Adasi Alumni Center)
Tickets: Contact Dora Yip Z6-2243
Member $8 Non-member $12
Pallet funded by Student Funds
Spring Break Special
Jan.12-Mar.28
10 weeks plus 10 free tans
for $49.95
TANNING SPECIAL
LADIES
10-tans for $15.00
Nom membership
required