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Post author By
Post date December 13, 2001

CREDIT: PHOTOS BY LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

Future Perfect

We can dream, can’t we?

By Chris Przybyszewski

With only 10 seconds left in game seven of the 2007 NBA finals, the Grizzlies are down by a point to the Chicago Bulls. Griz guard Jason Williams steals the ball from Bulls forward Eddy Curry, sprints up court and finds his favorite target, NBA regular-season MVP Pau Gasol …

Hey, we can dream, can’t we.

A rash of Grizzlies injuries has pushed guard Williams and rookie forward Gasol to the fore, and for the most part they’ve responded admirably. Some are even daring to wonder if they could be the second coming of Utah’s John Stockton and Karl Malone.

That’s certainly a stretch at this point, but there is some merit to the optimism. Gasol is paying off in a big way already, leading the league’s rookies in a number of statistical categories. This while the 21-year-old is just beginning to learn the NBA game. He still misses defensive and rebounding assignments and his 220-pound, seven-foot frame looks more suited to replacing light bulbs on the Pyramid ceiling than playing power forward. But the guy is already a force on this team. That could mean big things for Memphis’ NBA future.

Also encouraging is the way Williams seems to be maturing. He has cut down on his three-point attempts and toned down the fourth-quarter passing pyrotechnics that landed him on the bench in Sacramento. Williams has been instrumental in the Grizzlies’ five wins this season, and that’s a good thing, especially with the team missing injured starters Michael Dickerson, Lorenzen Wright, and Stromile Swift.

The Williams/Gasol combination is an odd one, though. Williams is defiant and stand-offish. His sometimes brilliant, sometimes erratic play-making abilities contrast with Gasol’s seeming innocence.

Gasol’s performance would be considered solid for any player, much less a rookie. Still, the All-Star break is still two months away. There is a lot of basketball to be played and Gasol will need to show he has the endurance to handle the rigors of an 80-game schedule. There’s nothing to indicate that he can’t, he just hasn’t. Yet. And the Spaniard will have to adapt to remain a threat, as teams begin to double-team and adjust defenses to his style of play. Once the secret is out, Gasol will need to raise his game even more to progress.

With Williams, consistency is the key. The Grizzlies turned heads when they signed the guard to a six-year, $43 million extension while he still had one year left on his original contract. But that price isn’t out of line for the NBA and he remains movable if the team should change its plans. That could be as soon as one poor season for Williams and a draft full of good point guards. In fact, the upcoming draft features a number of excellent candidates at the point, including another Jason Williams, Shane Battier’s former Duke teammate and the current leader of the country’s number-one college team.

Back to now. So what do Gasol and Williams have to say about each other?

Gasol speaks in terms of getting his game up for Williams each night. “We’re doing pretty good,” he says. “I’m looking for him, he’s looking for me. The guy is a bullet, his passes are so fast.” So fast that only a few games ago Williams’ passes were bouncing off of Gasol’s hands and Williams was telling head coach Sidney Lowe that he wouldn’t throw anything Gasol’s way. That attitude has since changed, but Gasol still seems somewhat hesitant about everything.

Williams is more direct. “I don’t buy into that learning-how-to-play bullshit,” he says. “We’re in the NBA. We should be able to play with anyone in the world.” For Williams, it’s all about playing basketball. If he makes a pass, he expects his teammate to catch it. Period. Gasol is just another target, not a touchy-feely soulmate.

But for the faithful, there’s always the dream … Williams and Gasol, life-long friends and teammates, embrace at center court. The championship is theirs at last.

Rebels and Roses

A tale of two teams not getting it done.

by Jake Lawhead

Regardless of the reason — lack of execution, poor coaching, the alignment of the stars — some teams just simply don’t get it done. Local fans didn’t have to look very far to find two teams who simply didn’t get it done this past weekend.

John Calipari and his U of M Tigers had mixed reactions to the preseason expectations that surrounded their team. Some were excited that the program was receiving recognition for last year’s accomplishments and a great recruiting class. Others knew that with the Tigers’ tough out-of-conference schedule, potential would have to be realized quickly.

“I don’t like the word ‘talent,'” said Calipari. “Talent gets rebounds and scores baskets. What we have is potential.” John Calipari had used a variation of those words earlier this year. He repeated them Friday night after a heartbreaking 71-67 loss to Ole Miss in Oxford.

Memphis’ potential was regarded so favorably that they began the year ranked 13th in the country by the media and 12th by the coaches. Before Friday night, they had sunk to 22nd in the country after two losses to ranked opponents Alabama and Iowa.

Ole Miss was a team with no national ranking and had already suffered unlikely home losses to George Mason and Bowling Green.

But Calipari’s demeanor in the postgame news conference was surprisingly upbeat. “This is the hardest my team has played,” he said. “This is the most we have competed; this is the most intensity we have shown. I am ecstatic. I am mad we lost. But I’m not mad at how we played.”

But what happened? Why did the Tigers fail to hold on to an eight-point first-half lead? “We just didn’t get it done in the end,” said DaJuan Wagner, who led the team with 25 points on 6-of-20 shooting. “We need to learn how to finish teams off.”

More importantly, the Tigers need to fulfill their potential. And soon. The U of M now has three losses on the year, two of which came against ranked opponents. Looking at the schedule ahead, it is unlikely the Tigers will face another ranked opponent again until conference play begins.

Tennessee (December 15th), Temple (December 20th), and Arkansas (January 5th) are currently unranked. Marquette is the only Conference USA team ranked in the Top 25. Even if the Tigers win every other non-conference game, a weak schedule could hurt come tournament time.

Speaking of hurting … Ever wonder what it would be like to have to cancel reservations in Pasadena and post your newly puchased Rose Bowl tickets for sale on e-Bay? Just ask some Vol fans. UT surprised everyone and did exactly what they were not supposed to do: They overlooked LSU in the SEC championship game and gift-wrapped a trip to Pasadena for Nebraska, single-handedly making the BCS look like the largest conspiracy since J.F.K.

Tennessee lost a 17-7 halftime lead and gave up 24 second-half points to — get this — Matt Mauck and Domanick Davis! Unless you are an SEC football junkie or a member of the media, you would have probably never heard of the LSU backup quarterback and running back. But the Vols won’t soon forget either one.

“I don’t think we executed well the entire game. We had flashes or streaks, of being ourselves, but we catch or throw or run, or do anything well,” said coach Phil Fulmer. “We just couldn’t get it done.”

Even knocking quarterback Rohan Davey and All-SEC tailback LaBrandon Toefield out of the game couldn’t help the Volunteers win their third SEC championship and a chance for their second national championship of the Fulmer era. The Vols sabotaged themselves with turnovers from veterans Travis Stephens and Donte Stallworth, which LSU converted into 15 points.

Okay, okay. But what really happened?

Said Tennessee quarterback Casey Clausen — who finished with 27-of-43 passes for 332 yards, 2 touchdowns, and no interceptions — “We just couldn’t get it done.”

the score

QUOTABLE:

“I can’t believe it. We just didn’t do the job.” — Tennessee running back Travis Stephens on his team’s 31-20 loss to LSU in the SEC championship game.

“I was a little nervous at first but just tried to remain as calm as possible and not lose the game for us.” — LSU backup quarterback and freshman Matt Mauck on his performance after starter Rohan Davey went down with injury. Mauck would end the game with 67 yards passing, 43 yards rushing, and two rushing touchdowns.

“I am just for a little more integrity in the system we have now.” — Colorado coach and BCS proponent Gary Barnett on his squad’s being left out of the national championship game with Miami. In Colorado’s place is Nebraska, a team Colorado beat 62-36.

NOTABLE:

The Memphis Grizzlies have entered the world of the bobble-head! The oddly persistent sports marketing phenomenon debuts at The Pyramid on January 19th, when 4,000 young fans will receive a Lorenzen Wright bobble-head doll. Bobbles for Stromile Swift, Jason Williams, Shane Battier, Pau Gasol, and Michael Dickerson are scheduled for various games later in the year.

Here’s a daunting stat. Under John Calipari, the U of M Tigers have compiled a record of 1-9 against non-CUSA opponents from the country’s “power conferences” (ACC, SEC, Big 10, A-10, Pac 10, Big 12). Their lone win? Last December against Kansas State.

Music Record Reviews

Short Cuts

Post author By
Post date December 11, 2001

Driving Rain

Paul McCartney

(Capitol)

George Harrison is dead. Long live Sir Paul McCartney.

With the recent loss of the relatively young Harrison, McCartney seems all the more precious and Beatlemaniacs have seen a kind of dear friend — one of rock-and-roll’s most underrated guitarists — forever pass into the great hereafter. Besides teaching John Lennon how to do more than just look good with a guitar, beautifully playing lead in the world’s greatest rock-and-roll band, and always exhibiting a rarely equaled musical versatility, Harrison was a perfectionist, a master of his instrument and of melody, originality, and economy.

But George has finally completed the art of dying, and it seems strange that Paul’s newest album, Driving Rain, was barely into its first month of release when we lost another one of his fellow Beatles.

The very imaginative Driving Rain kicks off with “Lonely Road” and its thick riffs and twang. Another obvious ode to late wife Linda, it misleadingly begins an album of multifarious intent and method. But Driving Rain is coherently compelling throughout, both an exercise in diversity and a strong return to experimentation. What continues to surprise is the uncanny resilience of McCartney’s voice — he must gargle water from the fountain of youth. And as a great party album, Driving Rain could even shrink Beck’s Dionysian aspect.

From the timeless precision of the title song to a departure in sound for McCartney, “She’s Given Up Talking” (a bit of spooky modern pop with complex rhythm and careening electric guitars), the album stands as one of his most well-rounded. And there is, of course, no shortage of love songs. On “Magic,” a gorgeous tribute to girlfriend Heather Mills, McCartney leisurely sings, “There must have been magic/The night that we met/If I hadn’t stopped you/I’d always regret.” Et cetera.

Driving Rain gains momentum with “Spinning On an Axis,” its playful, fluid changes and philosophical mien making it one of the best songs on the album. The driving drums and effortless melody of “About You” prepare us for the healthy rock of “Back In the Sunshine Again” and the perhaps overindulgent (yet dynamic) “Rinse the Raindrops,” which is followed by the affecting “Freedom,” a hidden 16th song and last-minute addition from the September 11th benefit concert. “Rinse the Raindrops,” though, gives us a little over 10 minutes of McCartney reprising his role as assured musical frontiersman: Meandering but ultimately cogent, this wild sonic excursion seems to catalog rock-and-roll’s every transfiguration over the past 35 years. — Jeremy Spencer

Grade: A-

Buddy & Julie Miller

Buddy & Julie Miller

(Hightone Records)

On this their long-anticipated first album together, the dynamic Nashville-based duo do not disappoint. Though it was touted to be an all-country album, which is Buddy Miller’s forte, it turns out to be pretty evenly divided between traditional fare and the harder, darker material that Julie Miller favors. And the Millers glide effortlessly from one genre to another — from the hillbilly punk of “Little Darlin'” to the symbiotic Richard-and-Linda-Thompson harmonies on the opening track to pure Carter Family (their original tune, “Forever Has Come To an End,” with Emmylou Harris crooning in the background). In fact, this album reminds me of Emmylou’s classic Wrecking Ball not only for its sagacious mix of roots and rock but also for its atmospheric beauty.

Produced by the Millers, some of the tracks take the listener into an otherworldly realm. It’s little wonder that Buddy is so in demand as a producer as well as a touring guitarist. His talents in the latter department are amazing. The man can do a delicate, spooky distortion (a la Richard Thompson) and then deliver a gut-wrenching solo or white-trash thrash without batting an eye. And Julie’s voice, all innocence personified and delicate as a bee’s wing on the old-timey stuff, goes divinely raunchy on some tracks here. In fact, on the stellar track “Dirty Water,” with Buddy’s lachrymose but sensual guitar providing a hypnotic background, her hisses and moans conjure up images of an Appalachian PJ Harvey. This duo’s debut is not to be missed. — Lisa Lumb

Grade: B+

Y’all Get Scared Now, Ya Hear!

The Reindeer Section

(PIAS America)

Great Scot! That’s one supremely atrocious album title. It’s bad-stupid instead of good-silly, which ranks it right up there with REO Speedwagon’s You Can Tune a Piano But You Can’t Tuna Fish, Limp Bizkit’s Chocolate Starfish and the Hotdog-Flavored Water, and Michael Bolton’s Timeless: The Classics, Vol. 2. Along with the whimsical cover art depicting blobular cartoon reindeer frolicking in a spot of grass, the title implies a certain lightheartedness in the accompanying music, but that’s so not the case. YGSN, YH! is full of bleak, deliberate folk rock that’s perfectly suited to an evening spent sipping pints at the back of a smoky pub.

Such melancholia is appropriate given the makeup of the band, a supergroup whose members hail from some of Scotland’s finest alt- and post-rock outfits, including Snow Patrol, Belle & Sebastian, Mogwai, and Arab Strap. Snow Patrolman Gary Lightbody wrote most of the album in one sitting after discussing the supergroup idea with his bandmates at a Lou Barlow gig (at last, Barlow’s good for something!), and he sings the deceptively simple tunes in a genuinely heartbroken voice. On “12 Hours It Takes Sometime,” he consoles a long-distance lover that “we’ll be here for 30 years or maybe more We can meet up somewhere, on our own time.” It’s a lonely, hopeful, endearing moment on an album that’s surprisingly full of them.

But the MVP award goes to drummer Jonny Quinn, who plays with Lightbody in Snow Patrol. His inventive rhythms seek out the sags in these sad songs and prop them up like tent poles.

There’s a pleasant chemistry between all the musicians involved in the project, which lends YGSN, YH! a cohesion that suggests a real band instead of a one-time-only supergroup. The music is indeed memorable, but the presentation needs a lot of work.

— Stephen Deusner

Grade: B+

Listening Log

Strange Little Girls — Tori Amos (Atlantic): This batch of cover tunes written exclusively by guys is more a recorded act of music criticism than homage, and, in those terms exclusively, a pretty successful experiment. The perfect Tori Amos album for record geeks (like me) who’ve never liked Tori Amos and about as compelling a feminist critique of male-centric rock as Exile in Guyville — just nowhere near as good a record. (“New Age,” “’97 Bonnie and Clyde,” “Strange Little Girl,” “Real Men”)

Grade: B+

Songs in A Minor — Alicia Keys (J Records): Though there’s plenty of good stuff lurking beyond the fab first single and solid second one, the preponderance of song doctors here precludes me from crowning this child prodigy/Clive Davis protégée the new Stevie Wonder, though she does share ’70s-era Wonder’s penchant for sounding genteel without sounding stuffy. So while the Wu-Tang sample and choice Prince cover are ace touches, this boho-soul bandwagon-jumper is as much Mariah Carey and Debbie Gibson as Erykah Badu and Jill Scott, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a mighty impressive debut. (“Fallin’,” “How Come You Don’t Call Me,” “Girlfriend”) — Chris Herrington

Grade: A-

Music Record Reviews

Short Cuts

Post author By
Post date December 4, 2001

Southern Rock Opera, The Drive-By Truckers (Soul Dump Records)

Years in the making and probably a break-even proposition at best, Southern Rock Opera is a two-disc, 20-song opus about the legend of Lynyrd Skynyrd and growing up in the South during the ’70s proffered by a criminally underrecognized, hand-to-mouth indie road band from northern Alabama. This is clearly a labor of love, a bid for art rather than commerce, and a far, far better record than it has any right to be.

One of rock-and-roll’s great obscure treasures for a few years now, the Truckers have outdone themselves with Southern Rock Opera, even if the tongue-in-cheek but still literal title is a little misleading: This record is a Southern-rock equivalent to Hüsker Dü’s Zen Arcade not just because it’s a great, dirty-sounding guitar record, but because, like Zen Arcade, the “opera” aspect is more theory than fact.

Co-lead singer/guitarist Patterson Hood lends the album its conceptual core, his songs mostly anthemic treatises on Skynyrd and the prickly contours of recent Southern history. “Ronnie and Neil” sets the tone early, Hood riding a tough riff as he juxtaposes a ’60s Alabama where church bombings coincided with the great interracial soul music being made in Muscle Shoals, allowing Hood to segue into a deft recounting of the controversy between Neil Young and Skynyrd’s Ronnie VanZant over “Sweet Home Alabama.” “Let them guitars blast for Ronnie and Neil,” Hood shouts on the chorus, which is appropriate given how the Truckers’ own three-guitar attack owes as much to the live rust of Neil Young and Crazy Horse as to the nimble boogie of Skynyrd.

Hood gets back to more Skynyrd specifics on the second disc, but his best songs here deal with his own experience of Southern history. “The Southern Thing” is a New South anthem seeking a third way between heritage and hate, Hood singing, “Ain’t about no hatred/Better raise a glass/It’s a little about some rebels but it ain’t about the past/Ain’t about no foolish pride/Ain’t about no flag Proud of the glory/Stare down the shame/Duality of the Southern Thing.”

Hood, who may be the finest talker in all of rock-and-roll, peaks with the eight-minute monologue “The Three Great Alabama Icons” (Ronnie VanZant, George Wallace, and Bear Bryant), which opens sardonically, “I grew up in north Alabama in the 1970s, when dinosaurs still roamed the earth.” The song offers an even-handed appraisal of Wallace as “no worse than most men of his generation, North or South,” but Hood condemns him anyway, following the monologue with “Wallace,” which imagines the devil preparing Wallace’s place in hell: “And if it’s true that he wasn’t a racist and he just did all them things for the votes/I guess hell’s just the place for kiss-ass politicians who pander to assholes.”

Hood’s chief partner is Mike Cooley, who, outside of “Shut Up and Get On the Plane,” side two’s great reimagining of Skynyrd’s final departure, acts like he didn’t get the script. Cooley’s songs here are more personal and less concerned with the album’s conceptual framework than Hood’s, but they’re a remarkable batch of songs, finally establishing Cooley as the Grant Hart to Hood’s Bob Mould.

“Seems like it’s always hot down here/No matter when you come/It’s the kind of heat that holds you like a mama holds her son/Tight when he tries to walk/Even tighter if he runs,” Cooley sings on “72 (This Highway’s Mean),” his first appearance, and just takes off from there. His “Guitar Man Upstairs” is a locomotive, boogie-based sketch of a former landlord, and “Zip City,” a downright Springsteenian meditation on a high school girlfriend, may be the best thing on the whole record. — Chris Herrington

Grade: A-

Jesus Loves Stacey, Cry Baby Cry (Skoda Records)

Despite reports in Maximum Rock’N’Roll to the contrary, pop-punk is not yet dead. Take, for example, Jesus Loves Stacey, the debut album from Cry Baby Cry, the latest band from the Washington, D.C., emo scene to break from its environs. From its opening track, “The Last Days of Tarzan the Ape Man,” replete with chunky guitar chords and bright keyboard riffs, through the driving “Monkey’s Darling” (what’s up with the simian theme here?) and the rock-and-roll sing-along of “Calling Out,” Jesus Loves Stacey neatly fills the indie-credible void left empty since Green Day went mainstream in the mid-’90s.

Guitarists James Brady (ex-Trusty) and Kathy Cashel (ex-Norman Mayer Group) share the vocal duties — and while Brady is eminently capable and provides grounding harmonies as well as lead vocals, it’s Cashel’s voice that makes this album shine. On the angry “A Sad Song of Needless Complication” and the resilient “Over and After,” she carries the band with passionate authority while drummer Jenn Thomas and bassist Drew Sutter hold down the rhythm section — then strips down the sound for the philosophical ballad “Chemical Castration.”

While Cry Baby Cry name-check the usual rock references (the Beatles, the Who) and cite a well-worn litany of adolescent crises — suicide, lost love, religious doubt — they do it with style and clout. Listening to Jesus Loves Stacey may not change your life, but it’s a damn fine way to spend a few hours. — Andria Lisle

Grade: B

Cry Baby Cry will be at the Map Room on Saturday, December 8th.

Nice, Rollins Band (Sanctuary Records)

When I began this review, Henry Rollins was hosting Fox’s mid-season replacement Night Visions. The fact that the horror anthology was beheaded before this review’s publication is either a testament to my monolithic procrastination or to the daunting ephemerality of television producers’ whimsy. Of course, Rollins’ lockjawed turn as the “Master of Scare-amonies” was no particular boon. This fact is mentioned only because I have spent countless hours trying to explain to my little Gen Y brother that the tattooed meathead he saw in such sci-fi stinkers as Jack Frost, Johnny Mnemonic, and Snowboarding Warlocks used to actually be in a hella wicked band called Black Flag. And at one time, God forgive us, he was one of the foremost political spokespersons of my generation.

It’s hard to tell exactly what Henry Rollins is going on about over the course of Nice. But whatever it is, it sure has him fuming in his breeches. There are vague themes of politics and social commentary, but ultimately the message can be boiled down to ‘roided-up self-empowerment — a motivational Tony Robbins for the wallet-chain set. So we’re stuck with lyrics like “I’m looking high/I’m looking low/I wanna know/Therefore I go/Your number is One” and “Back in the lab they shock my brain/I am electrically insane” taking center stage. Keep in mind that these gems of poesy, borrowing equally from the literary schools of Dr. Seuss and Twisted Sister’s Dee Snyder, are flowing from the mouth of a bona fide publishing magnate with 20 books under his weightlifting belt. I’m sure that the album’s title is meant facetiously, as in “wink, wink, we’re actually quite naughty.” However, on this toothless rock release, the only thing that is truly “nice” is that there isn’t a goddamned nü-metal DJ in sight. — David Dunlap Jr.

Grade: D+

Music Record Reviews

Short Cuts

Post author By
Post date November 30, 2001

Almost Famous

8ball

(JCOR Entertainment)

The first thing you notice about Southern rap pioneer 8ball’s new platter is an almost ascetic level of restraint. Instead of a triple-disc Sandinista-esque lumbering opus like 1997’s Lost, we have a relatively taciturn single CD with a mere 15 tracks. And secondly, we have a title, Almost Famous, that is as refreshingly humble and unpretentious as possible in the egoistic effluvium of modern rap. The cover is also a perfect example of the Memphis-born 8ball’s newly refined perspective. Instead of a Pen & Pixel-designed image of 8ball being ferried down canals full of glowing “Benjamins” by topless supermodel gondoliers, there is the cuddly mug of the Mid-South’s favorite spuddy spitter in full close-up, Andy Williams-style.

On the opener, “Thorn,” 8ball intones, “You see them pretty motherfuckas on the TV screen/Live and die for that fake shit on MTV.” And just as that perceptive observation is starting to sink in, you end up watching BET’s Rap City: Tha Bassment and peep his new video for “Stop Playin’ Games,” directed by Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst and co-written by the patron saint of the sellout, P-Diddy himself. But it’s hard to hold a grudge against 8ball. Partly because it’s such an infectious single and he’s been at the game for so long but mainly because he’s 350 pounds of playa heading for you in a Rolls Royce golf cart. And for every party-anthem head-bobber, there’s a corresponding contemplative chin-stroker.

Maybe it’s his recent bout with respiratory complications, no doubt abetted by his considerable breadth of beam and his perpetual leaf-chiefing, that has given him such gravity on tracks like “Spit” and “Live This.” However, on “Daddy,” 8ball has erred on the side of bathos. The chorus — “Daddy, when are you coming home?” — is sung by little children. This tearjerker concerns itself with a family torn asunder by the absence of the father, who is either on the road making hit records or dealing cocaine. It’s the urban equivalent of one of Red Sovine’s sentimental trucker ballads — call it “Ghetty Bear” if you must. But 8Ball, if you can’t tell by his girth, is an Epicurean at heart. So there are plenty of lyrics devoted to hydroponic green-green and, oddly enough, froufrou Grey Goose vodka interspersed with all of the heady verbiage. 8ball’s hedonism distances itself from its cousin, bling-bling nihilism, with an anchor in grown-ass-man philosophizing. Some rappers are still sipping on baby bottles; 8ball is nursing a Grey Goose on the rocks.

— David Dunlap Jr.

Grade: B+

Find Your Home

The Vue

(Sub Pop)

More than just another group of make-up artists attempting the Beggars Banquet On $5 a Day program, the Vue (formerly known as the Audience) add personality and metaphorical guesswork to their second glam/blues platter, Find Your Home. Musically, they are a good (and very showy) garage/blues band that knows a trick that most in the genre do not: how to use space. And that space makes for a nod to forebears that don’t exist entirely in the ’60s. I hear Television, the Dream Syndicate, and Bowie-treated Mott the Hoople floating around in some familiar blues riffing you don’t mind hearing over and over again — specifically a revved-up version of the “ill-advised” electric records made by Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters in the late ’60s. Oh, and I mention “metaphorical guesswork” because the lyrics and vocals manage to overflow with the sexual charge of early-’70s glam while being vague in their direct motive.

Rather than a full-on minstrel show slumming around in genres they don’t understand, the Vue steal a few licks from the bands that perfected that slumming to begin with (the Stones, the Animals) and then move forward. Find Your Home is all rock swagger but not without the warm dissonance that made early Sonic Youth so good. Plus, they’ve got the charisma. The Vue are purportedly a fantastic live act (a necessity if you are going this route).

— Andrew Earles

Grade: B+

The Vue will be at Young Avenue Deli on Saturday, December 1st, with Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.

Because It Feel Good

Kelly Hogan

(Bloodshot)

“[She] manages to express emotion without screaming, grunting, going out of tune, or using any of the other devices common to singers who attempt to make bad taste a substitute for soul.” Stanley Booth was referring to Dusty Springfield’s Dusty in Memphis album when he voiced that sentiment three decades ago, but he may as well have been writing about Kelly Hogan’s latest, Because It Feel Good.

An alum of what she calls “a billion bands” — including the Jody Grind and Rock*A*Teens — Georgia-native Hogan quit the music biz and relocated to Chicago in 1997. When she found a job working as a publicist at Bloodshot Records, the Windy City’s alt-country enclave, Hogan realized that she could no longer avoid her true calling. After contributing guest vocals to a bevy of albums by the likes of Alejandro Escovedo and the Waco Brothers, she came out from behind the desk last year to make the Bob Wills tribute album Beneath the Country Underdog, an underrated gem recorded with the Pine Valley Cosmonauts, a collective of musicians including Jon Langford, Neko Case, John Wesley Harding, and Robbie Fulks.

If Beneath the Country Underdog is comparable to a raucous honky-tonk, then Because It Feel Good is a smoke-filled Berlin nightclub. From the album’s opener, a stark version of the Statler Brothers’ “I’ll Go To My Grave Loving You,” Hogan sets a cabaret tone with her alternately whispering, then booming, voice. Ably backed by a low-frequency violin and banjo warble, the country weeper becomes a battle cry: “I’d work day and night loving you/And when God calls us both above/Honey, you’d know that you’d been loved.” The overall effect is like filtering Tammy Wynette through Lotte Lenya — and, incredibly, it works.

Cut in Athens, Georgia, with producer Dave Barbe (Sugar, Son Volt) at the helm, Because It Feel Good features a handpicked group of Chicago musicians, including Jon Rauhouse on guitar and former Squirrel Nut Zipper Andrew Bird on violin. The 10 songs that make up the album encompass a wide musical spectrum — from oldies like the aforementioned Statler Brothers tune, “Please Don’t Leave Me” (an obscurity from soulster King Floyd), Nilsson’s version of Randy Newman’s “Living Without You,” and Charlie Rich’s understated “Stay” to modern tracks from indie faves Smog and the Bogmen.

Like Johnny Cash’s albums on the American label and Cat Power’s The Covers Record, Hogan’s interpretations of these familiar songs derive new meaning from even the most hackneyed tunes, making the material — unequivocally — her own. “Strayed,” another brilliant cover, comes from an unlikely source: Smog’s low-fi Dongs of Sevotion album. In a perfect world, Hogan’s rendition, belted out in a honeyed Southern voice, would rule the Nashville country scene. “I have loved in haste,” she laments. “I’ve been an alley cat and a bumble bee/To your panther, to your wasp/Oh, I have loved while thinking only of the cost.”

Range, depth, and carefully selected material all add up to a minor masterpiece. But what puts this album over the top — the final ingredient — is crystal-clear: Kelly Hogan has soul. It’s obvious that she loves to sing, and she expresses her emotions like a Dixie-fried Dusty Springfield, with grace, guts, and good taste. Why? Because it feel good. — Andria Lisle

Grade: A

Film Features Film/TV

Murder and Magic

Post author By
Post date November 23, 2001

The Man Who Wasn’t There, the new Coen Brothers film, is a tasty piece of pitch-black candy. It is a perfect ’40s-style noir that is, in many ways, the victim of its own perfection. In it, the Coens explore the “uncertainty principle,” whereby merely looking at an object or an event forever changes that object or event. As the film’s shit-slick attorney says again and again, “The more you look, the less you know.” And this, it would seem, is the Coens’ confession and open apology for having looked at too much noir. Their tough, street-real story is not as dark but is certainly more fatalistic than Double Indemnity. It’s more soul-numbing than Scarlet Street, with a loveless pedophilic twist that would make Jim Thompson giggle in his grave. But we are never content to watch the film as a film. We must watch it as a specific kind of film. We must watch it as a noir because every audio-visual cue is like an unsubtle nudge reminding us that The Man Who Wasn’t There has gotten every detail right.

Billy Bob Thornton plays Ed, a man so tight-lipped he makes Sergio Leone’s stable of nameless cowboys look like a pod of self-actualized telemarketers. He’s not an ambitious man but hard-working: the competent second-chair cutter at his brother-in-law’s barber shop in the just-this-side-of-bucolic Santa Rosa, California. There are no flickering neon signs here. No seedy hotels, femme fatales, or dark stormy nights. The environment is placid, sanitary, and as hypnotic as a spinning barber pole. Thornton, his hair oiled and molded to Glen Fordian proportions, is the exact mirror of his community. He’s strong, decent after a fashion, and non-violent: a sort of proto-northern Californian. He is also impotent. One might say cursed.

The chain-smoking Thornton manages to do the astounding: He is entirely the nebbish and entirely magnetic. It’s like he stepped from a Hemingway story fully grown. His most unsavory actions are, considering the circumstances, rather conservative and are motivated, it would seem, less by greed or jealousy than by a sense of quiet justice.

And then there are Thornton’s voice-overs. Though stylistically indispensable, the unrelenting voice-overs are painfully self-aware and bordering on the cutesy-pie. They are more akin to Nicolas Cage’s disembodied banter in Raising Arizona than a solid Mike Hammer narration. They are the whistle-clean but just over-the-top “tell” that pulls down the curtain on the Coen Brothers’ confidence game. They remind us most of all that we are standing outside a genre looking in.

Coen heavy-hitter Frances McDormand is cinderblock-hard as Doris, Ed’s career-gal wife who’s sleeping her way to the not-exactly-glitzy top of Nirdlinger’s department store. When she’s eventually implicated in a murder she didn’t commit it’s hard to blame Ed for not trying harder to save her.

The film’s real crimes are not the ones brought to justice but the ones caused by justice: Doris’ suicide and Ed’s execution. Two counts of murder are pinned on the wrong people. One murder was undeniably an act of self-defense. The only federal crime is that of blackmail. A film where four people end up dead, two the victim of unfair prosecution, should leave an audience feeling violated. It is the very essence of noir. But somehow The Man Who Wasn’t There only leaves the audience with a sense of completeness. It’s an ending that says, “There you have it, the most perfect of its kind,” and by saying so, sets it apart from its kind, and diminishes it.

As to the much-debated U.F.O. subplot, I ask, “What subplot?” It’s more of a dangling signifier to be wondered at than a plot to be followed. It’s completely out of place but it doesn’t feel particularly intrusive. Like the fantasy dance scenes in The Hudsucker Proxy, it’s just one of those beautiful things the Coens sometimes do perhaps for no other reason than because they can.

Longtime Coen collaborator Roger Deakins (Fargo, The Big Lebowski, Barton Fink) has outdone himself in terms of cinematography. The black-and-white world of The Man Who Wasn’t There is gorgeously photographed in that wonderful way that early critics of the genre always called “mannered.” It’s like Fritz Lang (Scarlet Street, Metropolis, The Big Heat) never went away.

— Chris Davis

Having doubts about that young wizard Harry Potter and his new movie, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone? Don’t worry. Though Hollywood has rarely paid enough attention to the fantasy genre (Dungeons & Dragons is a recent example of yet another big-tech, little-story adventure with a dragon thrown in and imagination left out), Harry Potter, based on the wildly successful childrens’ series by J.K. Rowling, takes a step forward.

Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) is an orphan, living with his aunt, uncle, and cousin, who discovers he’s a wizard. His life sucks. He has no friends, his so-called family treats him badly. No one has Harry’s imagination, courage, or curiosity. Radcliffe, looking eerily like a cross between the Harry of the bookjackets and John Lennon, embodies these traits well. Whether he’s calmly surveying an ogre or relentlessly pursuing a bad guy on a broom, Harry is a talented boy destined for great things who only wants to be a touch more normal. Maybe with a family all his own.

That’s not to be. Harry is whisked away to Hogwarts castle, where he begins his training as a wizard. The transition from Harry’s world to the world of Hogwarts is magical. Whether it’s the subtle difference between a London train station and the Hogwarts Express or the less than subtle difference between the relative safety of a wizard’s mess hall and a trap-door guarded by a gargantuan three-headed monster named Fluffy, director Chris Columbus does a good job playing the dynamic between reality and imagination, imagination and dream, and dream and nightmare.

Those transitions, however, are sometimes spotty. This movie employs a huge variety of sets and stages, so the film is necessarily episodic with few overall themes, except, of course, Harry. But keeping up with those episodes almost necessitates reading the book just to know the significance of each element.

Supporting Harry in this world is a large cast of characters, few of whom are treated in depth. To be fair, the movie is two-and-a-half hours long, but that’s still not enough time to capture the full range of characterization found in the books. Still, caring for any character but Harry is difficult, with the exception of Harry’s two friends Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Hermione Grainger (Emma Watson).

But however episodic or overrun with characters, this film at least shows a respect for Rowling’s work by faithfully working with the events and complexities of the original book. The result is a good movie with huge scope and imagination. Columbus’ goal now is to translate the next seven (longer) books into manageable films. That might be a bigger magic trick than anything Harry or friends could ever perform. — Chris Przybyszewski

Sports Sports Feature

City Sports

Post author By
Post date November 23, 2001

Memphis Basketball’s Best-kept Secret?

Super-Serb point guard at Lausanne.

By Jake Lawhead

Tucked away in a plush East Memphis neighborhood, Lausanne Collegiate School is probably more known for its academics than its basketball team. Supporters, parents, and students believe the former all-girls school is one of the best-kept secrets in Memphis.

But Lausanne and its basketball program are not likely to be a secret much longer.

The school’s halls are filled with excitement because this year’s team could prove to be as powerful as it is diverse. The squad features players from Yugoslavia, Spain, Germany, and Russia, as well as a slew of home-grown players. Though much attention has been paid to the addition of Marc Gasol (yep, Pau’s hermano), no one is more important to the team than returning point guard and leading scorer Mladen Mrkaic (Ma-la-den Mer-kich). In Mrkaic, Lausanne has what many observers believe is the best-kept secret in Memphis.

“We have enjoyed having international students on the team in recent years, but none has made the impact that Mladen has,” says head coach Jason Peters. “He is a relentless competitor whose understanding of the game is the result of intense training and excellent coaching back home in Europe.”

Mrkaic’s arrival was somewhat of an unsuspected bonus for the Lynx. While walking to one of his classes, Peters noticed the Serbian exchange student shooting around with classmates. The coach had found a gem of a point guard who would not only be his floor general but his leading scorer (17.2 ppg). “He’s fundamentally skilled and well rounded as a player, which makes him effective in many ways,” says Peters. “He has the ability to shoot the three-pointer, the mid-range jumper, and put the ball on the floor and get to the goal with reckless abandon.”

Peters, son of high school basketball coaching legend Jerry Peters, started as coach of the basketball Lynx in 1998. He inherited a program that had won five games in the previous five years. But things changed quickly. His first season the team went 10-17, the second 12-15. And last season — Mrkaic’s first — the Lynx finished 21-8.

Mrkaic decided to return to the States again this year in hopes of fulfilling hoop dreams and continuing friendships. “I have bonded with the team and I really enjoy my teachers and coaches,” he says. “But it’s very different here, both culturally and in the style of basketball played.” Mrkaic says the European game is more physical, while the American game features more athleticism.

Another difference he notes is the manner in which the players are developed. In Europe the elite players from each town, like Mrkaic’s in Serbia, are identified and placed on club teams similar to our AAU system. These players then play together under the same coach for several years before they are ready to compete against other club organizations throughout Europe.

Mrkaic admires NBA stars like Tracy McGrady and Jason Kidd but holds a special place in his heart for fellow Yugoslavs Pedja Stojacovich and Vlade Divac. “Those guys are like a double-edged sword,” says Mrkaic. “They understand how to play the game and they can run, jump, and move incredibly well.” Mrkaic could well be describing himself. He is being rated as one of the top area seniors.

“He is very mature, he is a true coach on the floor,” Peters says.”He could make a great point guard for some college program, because you always feel you have a chance to win with Mladen in the game.”

“I would love to play basketball in college,” says Mrkaic. “I just hope I can get the opportunity and possibly receive a scholarship.”

Now that the secret is out, maybe he will.

A Winning Weekend

The Grizzlies and the football Tigers both break through.

By Chris Przybyszewski

It wasn’t the Super Bowl or the World Series. It wasn’t even the playoffs.

But wasn’t it something?

As time ran out on the Cleveland Cavaliers and Memphis Grizzlies last Saturday night, forward Pau Gasol tossed the basketball into the stands (the ball actually landed on the scorer’s table) and the crowd of over 13,000 stood and raised 26,000 hands, ending what had to be one of the longest teases in professional sports. Little ol’ Memphis had just won a game in a “big time” league.

The Grizzlies had toyed with victory a couple of times this season, in each instance dropping the ball in the fourth quarter. This time, against another squad with eight losses, the Grizzlies didn’t falter, despite being without the services of two injured starters — shooting guard Michael Dickerson and center Lorenzen Wright.

The win was a small thing in the context of an 82-game season, but still the game was a milestone. Rookies Shane Battier and Gasol experienced their first NBA win and the team showed it was at least good enough to win against an equally woeful Cavalier team. And if a team can win one, then it can win another. Now there’s hope.

Members of the Griz squad took the game in stride, but their relief was obvious. Shouts echoed throughout the locker room; rap music played loud, making the job of transcribing quotes near-impossible. But quotes weren’t necessary as Gasol bobbed his head and mouthed lyrics and forward Stromile Swift smiled bright and easy into the glaring cameras.

Point guard Jason Williams was instrumental in the win with 14 assists. The Grizzlies also created match-up problems for the Cavaliers by putting Battier at off-guard spot, moving Swift into both forward spots, and playing the seven-foot Gasol at forward and center. Despite the win, Williams remained characteristically low-key. “No relief,” he said. “It’s just a win. Every win feels good.” Williams played for a team that won 55 games last year. He can put a single win in perspective.

Battier seemed to have a similar outlook, coming off his storied college career: “We made some plays,” he said. “There is no magic. We can win a ball game here and there.” That’s right. Here and there the Griz can win.

The U of M football squad also tasted victory over the weekend with a 42-10 romp over the Black Knights of Army. The win puts Memphis at 5-5 and one game away from a winning season and bowl eligibility. Tiger head coach Tommy West knew that his team’s approach to this game would be a defining moment. The team didn’t let him down.

“We treated it more business-like,” West said. “Like a work day.” The win makes this week’s game against C-USA foe Cincinnati actually mean something.

Wide receiver Bunkie Perkins and the rest of the Tigers are well aware of the situation. “At the beginning of the season,” Perkins said, “Coach West told us to take it one game at a time. The most important game is the next game. [Cincinnati] is the most important because it is the next game. And it’s the last one. If we don’t perform in this game, we don’t have a chance to perform again. [We] have to look at it like that.”

So for the first time since 1994 the Tigers stare at the possibility of a winning season and even the possibility of a bowl bid. The galleryfurniture.com bowl, the GMAC bowl, or the Motor City Bowl aren’t exactly big time, but few U of M faithful would turn up their noses at a bid.

In the same way that the Grizzlies win over the Cavaliers marked a milestone for the franchise, Memphis’ win over Army drew a line in the sand for the program.

But other tests are right around the corner. West said it best minutes after the Army game. A reporter asked how long he could savor the moment of being 5-5 and in position to accomplish so very much. “We have time to feel good until tomorrow morning,” West said. That’s when the Tigers went back to the practice field to start preparing for Cincinnati.

But still, wasn’t it something?

The Score

NOTABLE:

Memphis Grizzlies forwards Pau Gasol (13.6 ppg) and Shane Battier (13.0 ppg) are ranked one and two, respectively, for rookie scorers in the NBA. Gasol also leads all NBA rookies in rebounds per game (6.1), blocks per game (2.22), and field-goal percentage (.532). Center Lorenzen Wright is second in the league, with 12.6 rebounds per game.

Point guard Jason Williams ranks seventh in assists, at 8.2 per game, and third in steals, with 2.11 per game.

Tigers quarterback Danny Wimprine accounted for five touchdowns Saturday against Army, four passing and one rushing. Wimprine also passed senior Neil Suber and junior Travis Anglin as the all-time top-ranked freshman quarterback.

QUOTABLE:

“I tried to put this team under as much pressure as I could. I think they responded.” — Tiger head coach Tommy West on the urgency of the win over Army

“I just told [Grizzlies forward Stromile Swift], ‘That guy can’t guard you.'” — Grizzlies coach Sidney Lowe on Swift’s 10 fourth-quarter points to help the team to its first season win

“They played like men tonight.” — Lowe, on his team’s performance in last Saturday’s game

“I was wondering why it has been so long since I heard so much hype about an incoming college basketball freshman, then I realized most great incoming freshmen never ‘in-come.’ They just go straight to the NBA. Then there’s Dajuan Wagner, a guy who, if you looked up the word ‘phenom’ in the dictionary, you’d probably see Diogenes’ corn-rowed head looking at you. ‘Shorty’ averaged — I mean averaged — 42.5 points per game as a high school senior, went for 50 nine times. He’s a freshman at Memphis. His daddy, Milt, who won championships in high school, college, and the NBA, is a Memphis assistant. I know what you’re thinking. Maybe. Maybe not. But who cares? Milt has the credentials, his son has game. John Calipari has players. Don’t scrutinize. Just enjoy a rarity: a college freshman who just might live up to the hype.” — ESPN Radio’s Stuart Scott.