University Daily Kansan / Friday, December 8, 1989
Arts/Entertainment
11
Trip's caravan rolls to Lawrence
Trip Shakespeare, a band known for its poetic lyrics, will perform Saturday night at the Bottleneck
By Jennifer Reynolds Kansan staff writer
F from humble beginnings at a Minneapolis high school dance, to two independence
dance, to two independently released records and an album due on A&M Records in April, Trip Shakespeare has created a sound and an image that baffles fans and critics alike.
The band will play at 9 p.m. Saturday at the Bottleneck, 737 New Hampshire St.
"They are just real, real hard to explain," said Scott Mathews, Matthedt, Mimm., junior. "They have a really original aura to them."
Scott, who first saw the band at a high school dance, has followed its career from the beginning.
"I would say they play a '60s type of music in the sense that it is some really good guitar and some unbelievable vocals," he said. "I think they are the best singing band I have ever heard."
Jay Mathews, Mahtomedi, Minn., sophomore and Scott's brother, said that the band had been compared to Talking Heads but that the description wasn't very accurate.
"They are like Talking Heads more in stage presence than music," he said. "They are real spontaneous and unpredictable. There is really no one to compare them to. It is a style all their own."
Trip Shakespeare's music combines the heavy bass foundation of John Munson on bass and Elaine Harris on drums with the melodious rhythms of Dan and Matt Wilson on guitar and piano.
Jay, who also saw the band perform at a high school dance, said that
its music hadn't changed much but that its look had.
“At first they had sort of a Beatles look in suits and short hair,” he said. “Now, they dress in Goodwill clothes with the big collars and long hair.”
The Minneapolis-based band also has been known to appear on stage in costumes, including horns and wings, wings or enormous dorsal fins.
The band began in 1848 when Matt Wilson, an English major at Harvard University, placed an ad looking for someone with "wicked percussion hands." Harris, who had recently graduated from Harvard with a degree in biological anthropology, answered it, and the two began to play the Ivy League college band
scene.
Wilson dropped out of Harvard, and he and Harris decided to go to Napoleapolis to start a band. They picked up Munson, a University of Chicago Chinese/humanist senior and created the original Trip Shakespeare.
After the album "Applehead Man," independently released on Gark Records, Wilson's brother Dan joined the band. Dan, a Harvard Phi Beta graduate in environ- ment, will teach depth to their sound. Their second album "Are You Shakespeareienced?" also was released by Gark Records.
"The band's stage presence blows most other bands away," Scott said. "Matt Wilson has an incredible rapport with the audience that really gets it going. Even if it's a really lame audience Matt can bring them on we never seen another band do that."
The band first played in Lawrence two years ago to a crowd of six people, he said. But since its Lawrence debet, the band's popularity has grown enormously.
"They are absolutely huge here," said Bruce Rowley, program manager at student radio station KJHK. "They sell out every time."
Jay, who spoke with Matt Wilson over the phone this summer, asked Wilson whether the band was going to play in Lawrence this semester.
"Matt told me 'Yes, Lawrence is like a second home to us,'" he said.
By Jennifer Reynolds Kansan staff writer
Vespers to celebrate 65 years of tradition
The University of Kansas Vespers will usher in the Christmas season for the 65th consecutive year at 3:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday in Hoch Auditorium.
Vespers, which is presented by the Department of Music and Dance, will feature more than 200 KU music students.
James Ralston, director of choral activities for the event, said the program was for people seeking a dose of holiday spirit.
"It's a festive and beautiful program," he said. "It's become a holiday tradition for the town and the region."
Part of the attraction is the colorful lights, the processionals and the Christmas trees, Ralston said, but the main feature is the music:
The program will begin and end with processional marches. The University Choirs and the University Orchestra form traditional Christmas carols.
For 30 minutes before each performance, carols will be sung from the balconies...James Barnes, assistant to the director of bands, will conduct the KU Trombone Choir at 3 p.m., and Thomas
Ashworth, assistant professor of trombone, will direct it at 7 p.m.
Ralston said the format for Vespers would be the same as in past
years.
"It works," he said. "We plug into the way it has been for years. It is easier than to wax poetic and change everything."
Only one thing has been changed for this year's performance.
"We have changed the finale to a more upbeat finish than before," Ralston said.
He said that in a few years, when Vespers activities move into the Lied Center, the format might change.
"It will be a different visual effect," he said. "The center will also seat only about 2,200 people, so there is a possibility of a Saturday night performance."
Hoch Auditorium seats 3.000
Laurence Lamy, Kansas City, Mo., graduate student, will sing in Vespers for the first time.
"I'm very excited about it," she said. "This performance is special because it's not just any regular performance. It's Christmas time."
Lamy, originally from France, said she enjoyed the Vespers ceremony.
"In France we don't do that kind of stuff anymore," she said. "Some universities do, but I went to a more modernistic one where we didn't."
Vespers is open to the public, and a collection will be taken to support the Vespers Scholarship Fund.
DeVito devises battleground of fun in 'War of the Roses' comedy
By Marc Parillo
Kansan movie reviewer
From the poetic words of Gertrude Stein:
"Rose is a rose is a rose."
In the case of Barbara and Oliver Rose, the two married enemies in Danny DeVille's tale of love gone awry, you might as well throw Stein's argument out the window.
In a nutshell, "War of the Roses" is a darkly hilarious reversal of the oh-so-common phrase between argumentative couples: "Let's work it out."
Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas play Barbara and Oliver — an overly eccentric couple out of the trenches of lower middle-class status. After 18 years of hard work and commitment, they have built a happy family, a stable, if boring relationship and a beautiful, million-dollar home.
Barbara, unsatisfied with their stale relationship, requests a divorce and demands everything except Oliver's wardrobe.
What the Roses didn't seem to pick up during their marriage was a little flexibility and a sense of humor.
Seem fair?
Not on your life — or theirs for that matter.
Fists start swinging, chairs start flying and
Barbara and Oliver declare war one each other . . . literally.
Determined to hold onto the extravagant house for which each claims sole possession, the Roses commit every heinous, disgusting, inhumane act you can think of to rid the other from existence. Their destructive game of cat and mouse turns their Norman Rockwell lifestyle into a battleground that even Dirty Harry wouldn't want to visit.
If you liked Douglas and Turner in "Romancing the Stone" and "Jewel of the Nile," you'll enjoy them equally well in this film. Turner's high-handedness and Douglas's violent demeanor — reminiscent of "Fatal Attraction" — mold their characters into a delightful, but frightening, variation of mould, double-crossing children.
"War of the Roses" serves as Devin's encore to 1988's "Throw Mamma From the Train." Wrapped up with his usual mix of stunning camera angles and impressive lighting styles, no other director could have
created the film's ominous, psychotic tone so brilliantly other than Hitchcock himself.
"War of the Roses" is like a visual punch bag and a bag of stress relief — if you enjoy intense sarcasm and irrational destruction. But whether you side with Mr. Rose or Mrs. Rose, entertaining leaps and bounds throw the legitimacy of "legal separation" into a whirlwind of chaos and laughter you won't want to miss.
▶ Mac Parillo is a Lenex sophomore majoring in English and film studies.
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