WEDNESDAY, JULY 7, 2004
WHAT'S HAPPENING
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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JULY 7
Lawrence City Band will play at Southpark, 11th and Massachusetts St, at 8 p.m. The performance, featuring folk and polka music, is free for all ages.
Rooney, Straylight Run and Ozma will perform at The Granada Theatre, 1020 Massachusetts St., at 7:30 p.m. The rock show costs $11 and is open to all ages.
Demon Hunter and Dead Poetic will perform at The Bottleneck, 737 New Hampshire. The show starts at 8 p.m. and costs $11. All ages are welcome.
4-1-1 Studio, 411 E. 9th St., will host "Freedom Unbound: Art from within American Gulags," a free exhibit featuring artwork by American prisoners.
JULY 8
Jessica Simpson will perform at Verizon Wireless Ampitheatre, 633 N. 130th St., Bonner Springs, at 7:30 p.m. Ticket prices range from $20 to $39.
ACME Jazz Co. will perform at Liberty Hall, 644 Massachusetts St.. The jazz show starts at 7 p.m. and is $5 for adults and $2 for young adults.
- Cosmic Egg will play at The Jazzhaus, 926 1/2 Massachusetts St. The funk show starts at 10 p.m. and is 21 and over. The cost is $3.
JULY 9
The Lawrence Public Library, 707 Vermont St., will play Sunset Boulevard at 7 p.m. in the Library Auditorium.The film is the first in a four-week series featuring classics by Hollywood director, Billy Wilder.
Singer and songwriter Mike Roberts will play at Bambino's Italian Cafe, 1801 Massachusetts St. The folk and rock performance is from 6 to 9 p.m. and is free for all ages.
Fallout Boy, Armor for Sleep, Bayside and The Academy will play an early show at The Bottleneck, 737 New Hampshire St. The punk rock performances begins at 5:30 p.m. and is open to all ages.The cost is $11.
Devin the Dude, Mac Lethal and Carnage will perform a hip-hop show at The Bottleneck, 737 New Hampshire St. The all ages show starts and 10 p.m. and costs $10.
JULY 10
Wayne "The Train" Hancock will play at Davey's Uptown Ramblers Club, 3402 Main St., Kansas City, Missouri. The legendary country and blues singer will play a 21 and over show, beginning at 10 p.m. The cost is $10 to $12.
Verizon Wireless Ampitheatre, 633 N. 130 St., Bonner Springs, will host Biker's Ball featuring Twisted Sister, Slaughter, Quiet Riot, Warrant, racy Grace, Black Oak Arkansas, Pat Traers, Jimmy Van Zant, Hank Rotten Jr. and Missouri. The all ages show starts at 2 p.m. and costs $10 to $25.
Douglas County Fairgrounds, 21st and
MUSIC REVIEWS
!!!'s Louden Up Now pairs '80s beats with edgy lyrics
It looks like the members of !!! (pronounced "chk chk chk") held a séance to bring back the spirit of the '80s Manchester New Wave dance rock scene.
The results didn't resurrect New Order or the Happy Mondays, but instead the seven-piece band created an album of dance music that bops with the fury of an Attention Deficit Disorder-stricken child in a sugar factory.
With its second album, Louden Up Now, !!! produces playful and hypnotic dance music fueled by layers of percussion and horns.
The sound has the power to make even the most self-conscious, ultra-
'LOUDEN UP NOW'
Artist:!!!
■ Artist: !!!
■ Album: Louden Up Now
■ Label: Touch and Go
■ Grade: B-
cool scenester in the corner bob his head without realizing it. Unlike modern dance rockers like Chicks on Speed and The Rapture that utilize newer electronic sounds,!!! sticks to '80s dance rock roots and combines Stone Roses-esque psychedelics with a beat that could be played during a Miami Vice car chase scene.
However, Louden Up Now isn't all fun and dancing. Singer John Pugh XI skims the surface of politics with darker, profanity-filled, conservative-roasting lyrics on tracks like "Pardon My Freedom" and "Me and Guiliani Down By The School Yard (A True Story)." In the latter, Pugh suggests the world would be a better place if Republicans had a dance party in the street.
Now these tracks allow a familiar, hearth-side perspective of Hooker's music, and add a new sparkle to the numerous plaques commemorating the man's genius and artistry.
Despite all the bubbly fun and meandering into the darkness of life, !!! can force the listener to hit the skip button due to the inherent repetitiveness of dance music and the length of the songs, most of them clocking in more than six minutes.
In some songs the sonic quality can be rivaled by old-school Nintendo games. Still, if a dead party needs to liven up, Louden Up Now will get those butts shaking and those beers flowing down the throats.
— Neil Mulka
Resurfaced recordings offer early glimpse of guitar great
The music collector's dream has come true with the issue of John Lee Hooker's Jack O' Diamonds: 1949 Recordings, which makes available 20 lost recordings of one of the greatest blues musicians ever.
The forgotten reels were exhumed from Deitch's basement in 1999.
The remarkable story is that of Gene Deitch, a Detroit-area cartoonist and music enthusiast, who taped the 32-year-old, locally-renowned blues guitarist in his kitchen after dinner one night.
For blues fans, the greatest delight will be found in early versions of hits like "Catfish Blues," and in picking out hints of his blustering style in its formative days.
"Trouble in Mind" is one of the best, with whispering vocals and an energetic
'JACK O' DIAMONDS'
Artist: John Lee Hooker
Album: Jack O' Diamonds: 1949 Recordings
Label: Eagle-Rock Entertainment
Grade: A
guitar solo that heralds the coming of an electric guitar era that included Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters and culminated popularly with the wailing of Jimi Hendrix.
This album will inspire ethno-musicologists too.
Several of the tunes come from an old-time repertoire that fell by the wayside as music was amplified. These songs, like "Two White Horses," "John Henry," and "Rabbit on a Log," call upon the distant past of the rural South, when the black and white musical traditions shared common, pre-blues roots.
The slick, bow-tied entrepreneurs of the recording industry, who knew their market well and often dictated song lists, usually obscured traces of the
"before the blues" days of rural American music. Mississippi Delta giant Robert Johnson's cowboy ballads were never recorded because of such biases. In a friend's kitchen, however, no such expurgation affected Hooker.
The gospel tunes "Old Blind Barnabas," "Moses Smote the Water," and "Ezekial Saw the Wheel" are equally rare and significant.
He may have learned these gospel songs from his father, who was a parttime preacher, but his primeval, spiritual sort of rapping is an example of the unique vocal effects for which bluesmen are famed.
As a child, Hooker met his stepfather's more-famous fellow musicians, such as Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Blake and Charlie Patton. Though he hardly improves on the great recordings of that generation — his "In the Evening When the Sun Goes Down" falls short of Leroy Carr's memorable version — still he reminds us of that musical heritage, while looking forward to the ecstatic reverberations of the electric guitar.
Matt Gertken
Harper, will host the Annual Wizard Run Car Show, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The show, sponsored by the Lawrence Street Rod Association, features over 375 custom made and modeled cars and is free to the public.
Blaine Oswald and Headshandfeet will perform bluegrass music at Apple Valley Farm, 9252 Apple Valley Lane, Ozawakie. The show is for ages five and over and costs $10.Doors open at 8 p.m.
JULY 11
Country star and husband of Faith Hill, Tim McGraw will perform at Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre. The show,
which will also include a performance by the Warren Brothers, starts at 7:30 p.m. Tickets range from $29.75 to $67.
Ray Guy Kicking Camps will host a two day session at the University of Kansas for those who aspire to become National Football League punters and kickers. Tuition for the camp is $350. Call 800-234-1800 for more information.
JULY 12
Neo-country rockers Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash will perform with Loco Macheen at 9 p.m. at the Bottleneck. Tickets cost $7.
The Allman Brothers will perform with former Black Crowes frontman Chris
Robinson at the Uptown Theatre at 7:30 p.m. Tickets range from $39.50 to $55.
JULY 13
Former Creedence Clearwater Revival singer John Fogerty will perform at 7:30 p.m. at the Uptown Theatre. Tickets range from $38.50 to $58.50
JULY 14
The Lawrence City Band will perform at 8:00 at South Park,11th and Massachusetts, as part of its summer concert series.
Carillon player Elizabeth Berhout will perform at the Memorial Campanile at 8 p.m.