Thursday, August 26, 1999
The University Daily Kansan
Section A • Page 7
Entertainment
Solid power pop CD refreshes Verve Pipe
By Bryan Anderson Kansan music critic
"We were only freshmen." For some of us, especially at a university, this phrase has more significance than others. For the Verve Pipe, not to be confused with the British band The Verve, this phrase is the chorus from its breakthrough hit The Freshman from its third album Villains. For most people, this is all that they know about the boys from Grand Rapids, Mich. Led by vocalist/guitarist Brian Vander Ark and his bass playing brother Brad, the Verve Pipe tries to distance itself from its past runaway hit on
The latest release from the Verve Pipe is a technically sound album. It was produced by Michael Beinhorn, who has worked with such bands as Marilyn Manson, Hole and Soundgarden. The band used its studio time well. Laid down on the rhythm foundation of Vander Ark's bass and Donny Brown's drums, the lead guitar of A.J.
Dunning and the keyboard of Doug Corella sound tight, while the vocal harmonies are equally pleasing.
THE VERVE PIPE
The band lists influences such as the Beatles, the Pixies and Radiohead. As the boys from Michigan try to remove themselves from the trappings of one-hit wonderdom, these influences show.
The Verve Pipe is different from most "modern rock," which is being dominated by various forms of ska and punk, and the new metal of such bands as Korn and the Deftones. The Verve Pipe is an album of good solid power pop.
The first song supergig is an aggressive pop tune that lets the audience know that this album is not going to be The Freshman II. The band delivers fuzzy guitars and scathing lyrics. she loves everybody is another piece of aggressive power pop that showcases all ranges of Vander
ALBUM NAME: "THE VERVE PIPE"
GRADE: B+
Ark's more than ample vocals.
The first single and focal point of the album is hero. It is a direct response to The Freshman. The lyrics reflect the guilt of having a big hit with a song written about the suicide of a friend. Vander Ark states simply: "I'm just a jerk/ but a hero's what I want to be." It has an ironically happy sound that is in contrast to
its big hit.
The rest of the album is upbeat rock with an edge. The Verve Pipe throws in the few requisite ballads, all of which are good, but none outstanding. The band also winks solidly at the Beatles on in between and half a mind.
The gem of the second half of the record is generations. The chorus has a Brit-pop.
feel to it, and the lyrics are easily accessible: "Another wakeup with the morning hung over./ we gonna pack up or waste another killer day." It is a sophisticated, well-crafted song and unlike anything it has done before.
All that aside, the band falls short on the track television. This song just does not fit the style of this album. With drum loops, electronic noises and industrial guitars, the Verve Pipe ventures into territory best left to Nine Inch Nails imitators, such as Stabbing Westward.
The Verve Pipe distinguishes itself from its past glories with its latest album. It also distinguishes itself from other modern rock artists with an album that does not sound like anything else being offered to the people right now. Whether or not fans of The Freshman catch on to the new sound is another question.
By Chris Eckert
L7's latest album, *Slap-Happy* will not likely disappoint faithful fans, but gives no reason for anyone previously unimpressed to convert.
Kansan music critic
L7's Slap-Happy does not strike a chord
L7 doesn't attempt to make innovative music in any way. The band is content to be a loud all-girl rock group, with limited musical skills and no real attempts at harmony. L7 keeps up this trend on its sixth album.
Songs such as Crackpot Baby feature lyrics that consist primarily of two and a half minutes of the phrase "crackpot baby at a quarter to three" yelled over grinding guitars. This sounds perfect for the soundtrack of some 1980s horror film with cheap sexual exploitation and a rubber
monster. Lackey sounds remarkably like the score to 1988's cheesy Killer Klowns from Outer Space, complete with a spooky synthesizer moan over the standard guitar grind. Human is perhaps the best horror film song lyric, with the vaguely spooky mantra of "it appears to be human / but it's not." It has an even harder edge than most of the album, and resembles a professional wrestling entrance theme, as do On My Rockin' Machine and War With You. It's easy to imagine someone cracking a skull with a steel chair to most of this album.
Lt does play a little bit with its standard song formula, but nothing extreme. Little One sounds almost rockabilly, and Livin' Large is a slow ballad that even has chorus harmonies.
Experiments such as Freeway, which features what appears to be a drum machine and every bad computer effect available to a band in 1985, are less successful. These effects further marginalize the most gratingly repetitive song.
To be fair, L7 keep songs to a managable 2-3 minute range, smartly ending most songs just before they start to get tiresome.
The penultimate song, Freezer Burn slows things down even more than Livin' Large. The closing Mantra Down is a raucous finish that suggests that the band's sparse lyrics are intended to promote spiritual enlightenment and are not just indicative of laziness in songwriting.
Whether the consistency of L7's work is a mantra-like religious goal or just creative stagnancy isn't definite, but if someone already is part of L7's cult, this album should suit them just fine.
Fall schedules cater to sought-after audience
The Associated Press
NEW YORK—With the fall TV season in sight, you probably have a few ideas about what would make it a good one.
Well, so do the networks as they roll out their 38 new prime-time series.
But while you're thinking, "I'd like more funny comedies," or, "Let's have some gripping new dramas," the networks are thinking about you. Do you have what it takes to make the season a success?
The networks' fall schedules say a lot about the audience they are seeking. Now they need you to be that kind of viewer. Have a look at the list.
is television.
Last month, the NAACP and others condemned the dearth of minority characters on broadcast television. Paraphrasing a famous description of TV as a vast wasteland, the chairman of cable's Black Entertainment Television termed it a vast white land. The networks' subsequent retrofitting of their series with black characters hasn't changed anybody's mind.
Be white.
White performers are overwhelmingly who viewers see, and who they will continue to see this fall.
Adults 35 and beyond may despair that not only is youth wasted on the young, so
Be young.
Young people get to be vampire slayers or witches or (on the WB's new Roswell) good-looking aliens. And when portly, middle-age John Goodman gets creamed by a subway train on ABC's Now and Again, modern science brings him back as a super man.
One other thing: Young people have cornered the market on good sex. For example, an unsatisfied woman leaves her husband on the new ABC sitcom *Then Came You* and rediscovers passion with a lad of 22.
Be a guy.
Be a guy.
Burrrrrrp!!!
Guys belch, they scratch and they love TV. And this season they continue to prosper, whether in packs (such as the three house mates on ABC's Oh Grow Up and the two house mates on NBC's Mike O'Malley Show) or surrounded by females, as is the not-so-lonely guy on CBS' Ladies Man.
TV tells you that if you're a guy, you're absolved from the duty to stay young. Instead, you thrive in a state of arrested development, of adolescent immunity, no matter how old you are.
Even though you're white, young and/or an immature guy doesn't mean you don't have a sensitive side. After sowing your wild oats, TV says, you will rise above lust
Be romantic.
to that state of enlightened lust; romance.
to that state of enlightenment last. Romance. On CBS' Love & Money, a rich girl leaves her boring fliance at the altar to begin a committed relationship with her apartment building's handyman. She lives with her family in the penthouse, he lives in the basement with his father the doorman.
And don't forget Adam, the hero of NBC's Cold Feet. An adorable, Peter Pannish hunk, he is first seen in a state of co-optal bliss with his latest conquest.
Then Shelley walks into Adam's life. Gazing upon her, Adam knows instinctively that She's The One. By then, luckily, he has slammed on the brakes.
Be devout.
Stop thinking of what you watch this fall as shows. The proper word is content. But no matter if the name it goes by is *The X-Files* or *Barney and His Friends*, so-called branded content that succeeds on TV needn't stop there. It can be reconfigured for a feature film or a stage musical, a video game or a beach toy or a magazine.
It starts out one place, then, next thing you know, it's everywhere. Only one thing is required to tie it all together: the brand that won your favor in the first place. It's the culture's new religion.
"There is ample evidence that brands are being mustered into service to fill yawning gaps in our lives that once were the domain of church, family, school." Adweek magazine recently declared.