KU Weekend
A Sweet Day on the Hill
Veteran rocker Matthew Sweet brings his music here for KU's annual music celebration.
By David Day Special to the Kansan
Matthew Sweet has always been standing in the shadows of the alternative music scene. But, as his material reveals, Sweet tends to like the darkness.
His sixth release is titled 100% Fun,
a reaction to the reputation he has
produced over the last nine years
"People kept telling me how dark and weird the songs were. So I sarcasically told everyone that I was going to call my next album 100% Fun," Sweet told Alternative Press.
"Now I'm hoping the title will predispose people to think the record is more pleasant than it really is," he said.
Sweet was raised in Lincoln, Neb. Is he the biggest rock star to come out of Nebraska? "Gee, I don't know," he told Hits magazine. "Zager and Evans, who had 'In The Year 2525,' were from Nebraska, but I don't consider myself a rock star anywhere. Maybe in Nebraska terms, am."
Sweet, who was unavailable for comment, returned to mid-America for an extensive tour. Wednesday, Sweet played in Oklahoma City and donated the proceeds to the Oklahoma bombing Disaster Relief Fund. Sweet is playing in Lawrence at Day on the Hill Sunday.
A masterful guitarist, Sweet plays bass on 100% Fun and is flanked, as always, by two renowned guitarists. Robert Quine (formerly of the bands Richard Hell and the Voidoids and Lou Reed) and Richard Lloyd (formerly of the band Television) both have supported Sweet from the beginning.
For his newest album, Sweet recruited producer extraordinaire
Brendan O'Brien (formerly of the bands Pearl Jam, Bob Dylan and the Black Crowes) who truly perfected the rackety sound Sweet is so partial to.
The new album is jammed with everything from whopping power-pop to lighter, more poignant balads. The album's opener, "Sick of Myself" scrunches the maximum amount of emotion possible into a fuzz-laced, stomping
three-and-a-half minutes.
An ode to infatuation and self-loathing, the song is unlike anything else on the radio. As the duo of Quine and Lloyd squelch over him, Sweet sings, "I'm out of luck/I am star-struck/By something in your eyes/That is keeping my hope alive/But I'm sick of myself when I look at you."
On the scene itself, Sweet has been somewhat of a "critic's darling," 100% Fun being the latest to grab their attention. But 100% Fun looks to be Sweet's most accessible and popular album yet. Rolling Stones awarded
before Zoo Entertainment picked it up, the flat-broke Sweet considered returning to college to study paleontology; he even asked about a job opening at the local Toys R Us.
the album a four-star rating. *Hits* magazine even went so far as to hail 1905 as "The Year of Matthew Sweet." Sweet moved to Athens, Georgia, after spending 18 years in Lincoln. He soon after signed with Columbia Records and moved to New York. He then released the critically-acclaimed albums *Inside* and *Earth*. However, Sweet's most enduring album.
Girlfriend, already was two years old by the time it was released. In fact.
He has every right to be somber. He went through a painful separation
with his first wife before cutting Girlfriend. "It was the most terrible experience of my life," Sweet told Rolling Stone in 1991. Four days before making the video for the song "Sick of Myself," Richard Lloyd introduced his car to a telephone pole on the Pacific coast. Sweet has been through a lot of heartache and heartbreak, yet he keeps it in perspective.
Sweet and the director of the video, Roman Coppola, son of Francis Ford Coppola, snuck into
tered and tube-tentacled Lloyd at his hospital bed, mimicking his raucous solo in the song. The clip shows up in the video for "Sick of Myself."
the hospital where Lloyd was rest perating. With their cameras and a tape-player, the two filmed the bat
His musical influences range from Yes to the Trogs. At a show, his Ren & Stimmv-stickered guitar walls with
"People kept telling me how dark and weird the songs were. So I sarcastically told everyone that I was going to call my next album 100%Fun."
Matthew Sweet
covers from John Lennon's "Crippled Inside" to Neil Young's "Don't Cry No Tears." The album cover pictures Sweet at his home in Lincoln encapsulated by a set of headphones as big as his head. Like others, Sweet, 31, is in love with his past.
Toys R Us behind.
But the future is wooing him. With a satisfying second marriage, a successful tour underway, and an album on the rise, Sweet finally may be leaving the days of heartache and
And his dark edge may be coaxing him into the sunshine.
Concert to mark the horrors of war
By Lulaa Flores Kansan staff writer
This weekend, the tragedy of World War II will be translated into a powerful display of music and voices, drawing a picture of pain and lost innocence.
More than 350 students and children from Lawrence will perform Benjamin Briten's War Requiem for the annual Chorus and Orchestra Concert at 3:30 p.m. Sunday in the Lied Center.
Simon Carrington and Brian Priestman will conduct the concert Performing are the KU Chamber and Concert Choirs, University Singers, Men's and Women's Glee clubs, the Chamber Orchestra, the University Symphony Orchestra and the Lawrence Children Choir, directed by Janeal Krebiel.
Soloists for the concert are soprano Maryjane Kania, Chesterfield Mo., doctoral student; tenor
The orchestra, chorus and soprano soloist provide the Latin texts, while the children's choir sings to the accompaniment of strange dissonances and flourishes on a small chamber organ. In the background are the tenor and baritone soloists, like two opposing soldiers, intoning war poems of Wilfred Owens to the accompaniment of a chamber ensemble.
Ken Larmore, Lawrence junior; and baritone Andrew Stuckey, Lawrence graduate student
"It is the job of the choirs to interpret the text effectively and elegantly, and then the effect on the audience is very powerful." Carrington said. "It has to be very dramatic, like an opera."
"The Lawrence Children Choir will play a part of lost innocence, perhaps soldiers that were slaughtered in World War II who not many years before were innocent children."
Brian Priestman, who also will conduct the orchestra, explained the origin of the War Requiem : "In 1941 the city of Coventry, England, was destroyed by German bombing. There were thousands of dead. The Gothic Cathedral of St. Michael built in the 14th century was also destroyed. The city authorities built a very beautiful modern cathedral next to the ruins of the old cathedral.
Carrington said that this performance of the War Requiem was a precedent at the University of Kansas because it will be performed only by students. The one exception is Michael Bauer, associate professor of music and dance, who is going to play the organ, and the two orchestra conductors.
Carrington said that, in that sense, the piece came very close to the tragic Oklahoma City bombing, where many children died.
"In 1962 the cathedral was open
the first day the Bishop consecrated the cathedral. The second day, a German orchestra came to say sorry by giving a concert in the new cathedral. The third day was the first performance of the War Requiem."
The War Requiem was commissioned for the festival to celebrate the consecration of St. Michael's Cathedral in Coventry in May 1962.
"The work itself consists of the Latin text from the Requiem Mass, which is mixed with fantastic, powerful English poetry about the horror of the war," Priestman said.
"The requiem conveys a message of the futility of the war, the fact that war solves nothing."
Events
The war poems of Wilfred Owens are sad and tragic, just as the war itself. As Owens, who was killed during Word War I, once wrote, "My subject is war and the pity of the war. The poetry is the pity ... All a poet can do is warn."
Tonight
Sir Duke, 10 p.m., $3, at Mulligan's.
KJHK Farmer's Ball Finals, 10 p.m., cover charge, at The Bottleneck, 737 New Hampshire St.
Floyd the Barber, 10 p.m.
$3, at Mulligan's 1016
Massachusetts St.
Floyd's Funk Revival, 10 p.m., $5, at The Jazzhaus of Lawrence.
Floyd's Funk Revival, 10 p.m., $5, at The Jazzhaus of Lawrence, 926 1/2 Massachusetts St.
Johnny Reno, with James Hinkle and Johnny Mack, 9:30 p.m., $10, at The Grand Emporium, 3832 Main, Kansas City, Mo.
Tomorrow
Blues Jam Session, 9 p.m., no cover charge, at Full Moon Cafe, 803 Massachusetts St.
Truck Stop Love with Claw Hammer and Suffer bus, 10 p.m., cover charge, At The Bottleneck.
- Los Hobos, 10 p.m., no cover charge, at Full Moon Cafe.
KANU Goodtime Radio Revue, featuring Blues Stem, Lisa Harris and Bill Craham, 7:15 p.m., $8, at Liberty Hall, 642 Massachusetts St.
Sir Duke Band, 10 p.m., $2,
at Duffy's in the Ramada
Inn, 6th and Iowa Streets.
Johnny Reno, with Sixty.
Six; 9.30 p.m., $10; at The
Grand Emporium.
Sunday
- Floyd's Funk Revival, 9:30 p.m., $3, at The Grand Emporium.
Monday
Acid Jazz, 10 p.m., $3, at Mulligan's.
Open Mike Night, 10 p.m. cover charge, at The Bottleneck.
■ Black Calvin with Mount Shasta and Crown Roast, 9:30 p.m., $3, at The Grand Emporium.
Tuesday
Wilco, 10 p.m., cover charge, at The Bottleneck
■ Mondo Retro, 10 p.m.,
cover charge, at Mulligan's.
Mouse Costello, 8 p.m., no cover charge, at Full Moon Gafe.
Chris Smither with Gay-
land Titus, 8 p.m., $6 at The
Grand Emporium.
Wednesday
Jack Logan and the Liquor Cabinet, 9:30 p.m., cover charge, at Mulligan's.
Acme Jazz Band, 8 p.m., no cover charge, at Full Moon Cafe.
Blind Boys of Alabama with Clarence Fountain and Russell Jackson, 8 p.m., $12 at The Grand Emporium.
Thursday
Blueshead Beggars, 10 p.m., cover charge, at Mulligan's.
Built for Comfort, 9 p.m.
no cover charge, at Full
Moon Cafe.
Billy Tipton Memorial Sax quartet On琴塔 with Grumpy, 9 p.m., $5, at The Grand Emporium.