lifestyles
It's like reggae, Latin, funk,jazz and hip-hop. In other words,it's ... ACIDJazz
By Brenden Sagen
Kansan staff writer
Brooklyn Funk Essentials is a band that defies adjectives. Tonight they're playing in the even more adjective-defying Chocolate Supa-Highway Meltdown Tour '05 at 9 p.m. at the Granada, 1020 Massachusetts St.
Brooklyn Funk Essentials describe themselves as reggae, Latin, funk, jazz, hip-hop, or for short, "just-like-gumbo", said Brooklyn Funk Essentials bassist Lati Kronlund in an interview with Billboard magazine. On their summer 1994 album, "Cool And Steady And Easy," the band plays with a musical entourage including trombones, drums, bass, keyboards, saxophone, turntables and the often-missing flugel horn.
The band augments their music with an equally eclectic selection of lyricists including rappers, singers and poets. The lyrics are often beat-backed narratives on urban life, said Joe D'Angelo, JLM Records
promoter.
promoter.
) On the track "The revolution was postponed
ation was postponed because of rain," Brooklyn Funk Essentials piddles upon classical American stereotypes such as Super Bowl Sunday, weatherman worship and McCulture — the downfall of basic arithmetic and the rise of picture pages on cash registers.
On the album, the band manipulates time and space by using the same people on different tracks, making it sound as if 20 people are playing. When they come to Lawrence though, there will only be eight of them.
However, this should suffice.
Brooklyn Funk Essentials is opening for two other acts — Spearhead (of "Hole in the Bucket" fame) and Aceyalone, another jazzy, hip-hop, shake-vo-bootyband.
Lati Kronlund, leader of the band and bassist, received recognition playing live in New York's
"Lawrence has a great music scene, and we get a lot of good bands."
Jackl Becker Granada promoter
and London's night club scenes, D'Angelo said. The band started when Kronlund made connections with people in the Big Apple's musical core. Kronlund was born in Sweden and is the son of a big band musician. He made his way to Califor
nia, then London and finally New York. The other members of the
band are mostly from New York, although their cultural backgrounds are as well-traveled as kronlund.
Their traveling team includes Yancy Drew on drums, D.J. Jazzy Nice turning tables, Joshua Roseman on the trombone, Bob Brockman on keyboards, Paul Shapiro
on sax,
Rodriguez
on drums,
Ponna
Dee on reggae vocals, Jol Card-
well on other vocals and Everton
Sylvester on poetry.
"We're lucky to have them," said Jack Becker, Granada promoter. She said that Lawrence often lacked the licks of a funky D.J. because the music scene in these paris focused on alternative and rock bands. However, some popular hip-hop acts that come through here are DJ J. Cycles and
Guru. she said.
"Lawrence has a great music scene, and we get a lot of good bands," Becker said.
Becker defined Brooklyn Funk Essentials's style — insofar as that is possible — as acid jazz. This style of music employs classical jazz as its backbone and incorporates different ethnic styles.
Brooklyn Funk Essentials said in Billboard magazine that the group was influenced by Dizzy Gillespie, Maceo Parker and Michigan & Smiley. However, the group isn't afraid to incorporate these jazz greats' style into their own version of "The Nutcracker Suite."
Becker said Brooklyn Funk Essentials decided to stop here on a national tour promoting their album. They are working the college circuit with a stop in Columbia, Mo., before they come to
Lawrence.
Tickets are $10 for the Chocolate Supa-Highway Meltdown Tour '95 and are available through Ticket-master outlets, the Bottleneck, 737 New Hampshire St. or at the Granada at 842-1390.
Acidified tunes
The band Brooklyn Funk Essen
time will play tonight at 9 p.m.
at the Granate, 1020 Masson-
castle Street.
Tickets cost $10 and are available through Ticketmaster outlets, the Bottleneck, 737 New Hampshire Street or at the Granada.
For more information, call the Granada at 842-1390.
'Desperado' just a shameless rip-off
The Associated Press
In 1992, a small film came out that was made for just $7,000 and told a fresh, wild story about a young singer mistaken for a gangster. "El Mariachi" quickly became the darling of art-house audiences.
Here's a short inventory of elements from "El Mariachi" grafted on to "Desperado": Both have a mariachi with a gentle soul but, remarkably, perfect marksmanship. Both have a cool druglord (one named "Moco," the other "Bucho") sequestered in a luxury estate and tended to by scantily clad women. And both have a beautiful heroine with mysterieous ties to the druglord who offers the mariachi safe haven.
Three years later, its director, inflating his budget almost a thousandfold, has returned with "Desperado," a part sequel, part shameless ripoff of his original hit, with half the charm and twice as much blood, guts and gore.
Both film sets also are virtually identical, since both movies
were filmed in the border town of Ciudad Acuna, Mexico.
Antonio Banderas plays the mariachi in "Desperado," drawing on a familiar archetype — the misunderstood loner out to avenge the killing of the woman he loved. He has a wounded hand to match his wounded heart, so instead of playing the guitar, he uses the case to tote around an army's arsenal of weapons.
What's lost in this more expensive Columbia Pictures update, however, is the light comic touch that made "El Mariachi" so irresistible and winning. Instead, "Desperader" comes off as a bloated, slick redux of the original.
Then there are smaller touches director Robert Rodriguez obviously enjoys — the lighting of matches off other people's faces, spent bullet cases falling to the floor and the distinct clanking sound they make, and the self-conscious editing of slow motion and rapid scenes.
Banderas hides his pretty face behind a thick mop of hair during much of the film, which is probably just as well — he's far too handsome to be taken seriously as the bad boy he's supposed to be here.
Along the way, Banderas is taken in by the beguiling and sexy bookstore owner, Carolna (Salma Hayek). And he confers with his buddy, the hilarious Steve Buscemi ("Reservoir Dogs"). (The other notable bit player is Cheech Martin, who plays a bullet-dodging bartender.)
He's hunting the illusive Bucho (Joaquim de Almeida), the drug czar who also has dispatched a team of thugs to kill the lonely mariachi.
Throughout it all, Rodriguez employs a bloodlust so rampant that several scenes verge on gore orgasms: Scores of men get blown away — point blank — with high-powered guns, and the neighborhood bar keeps a mop on hand to clean up the ubiquitous puddles of blood. Wounds are shown up close, oozing red and floridly meaty.
It even includes a protracted cameo with Tarantino, in which he enters a bar with another man. Within a few minutes, the man is shot in the head and Tarantino's face is covered with blood and brain splatter, a la "Pulp Fiction."
The net effect is pure 14-year-old male fantasy: endless scenes of guys blowing each other away, with a few moments of rest while the hero gets naked with a babe, set to a great soundtrack, courtesy of the band Los Lobos.
by showing such extreme carnage and destruction that it takes on cartoonish characteristics. And, in a clumsy wink to the master of sado-cinema, Quentin Tarantino, "Desperado" also plays its violence for laughs.
Like "Pulp Fiction," this R-rated film tries to desensitize viewers
Rodriguez wore almost as many hats for "Desperado" as he did on his earlier effort: He wrote the screenplay, directed, co-produced and edited it.
You'll get more bang and laughs for your buck, however, by renting the original "El Mariachi" and skipping "Desperado" altogether.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
PAGE 12A
AUGUST 23,1995
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SPY-DEVICE SHOP OWNERS ARE CHARGED
KU Life
The company also had stores in Atlanta; Chicago; Dallas; Denver; El Paso, Texas; Houston; St. Louis; Salt Lake City; San Diego; San Francisco; Seattle; Tucson, Azir; Utah; and the California cities of West Hollywood and Costa Mesa.
The Associated Press
Indicted were Spy Factory owner Ronald Kimball, general manager Marlin Richardson and deputy general manager Tracy Edward Ford. They could face up to five years in prison if convicted of conspiracy, smuggling, possession and sale of illegal and wiretapping devices. Prosecutors also seek at least $1.5 million in illegal profits from the defendants.
Spy Factory had no comment, said an employee at the company's San Antonio, Texas, headquarters who identified herself only as Cheryl.
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NEW YORK — The nation's largest chain of spy shops and three of its executives have been charged with smuggling illegal bugging and wiretapping devices into the country.
Spy Factory Inc. sold more than $1.5 million worth of the devices, such as calculator and power strips outfitted with miniature eaves-dropping equipment, according to an eight-count indictment handed down Monday.
A manager at one of Spy Factory's 16 stores allegedly told an undercover U.S. Customs Service agent that most of its merchandise was sold to lawyers and private investigators.
It was the latest in a series of assaults on the eavesdropping business and the international smuggling ring that it on April 5, custom agents raided 40 spy equipment stores in 24 cities, resulting in smuggling charges against 10 Americans and three Japanese.
Federal law prohibits the import, sale or advertisement of eavesdropping devices for private use.
Customers also bought devices that allowed them to secretly intercept both sides of a telephone conversation and transmit it to a remote location, the indictment said.
Customs agents arrested Kimball on Monday in San Antonio. Richardson was arrested April 5, and Ford remains at large.
Prosecuters said Spy Factory bought the bugging devices over the last five years from Micro Electronics Industries Co. Ltd. of Tokyo. On July 11, Micro Electronics executive Ken Taguchi pleaded guilty to conspiracy to manufacture and smuggle illegal bugging devices. He awaits sentencing.
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