Journalist, Author & Syndicated Columnist
He took his stage name from a Bob Dylan album almost as old as he is and nicks his album titles from Frank Capra movies. So where’s John Wesley Harding’s originality? In his music. An acerbically witty songwriter who sings folk-style rock songs, Harding is touring with a group of musicians who he refuses to Christian with a band name. Catch him and them when they perform tomorrow at the Metro.
As Michael McDermott sips a cold mug of beer at Harrington’s Pub, a wide smiles spreads across his face. McDermott used to play acoustic guitar here not too long ago, and he feels a tad weird today lounging like the customer he is.
The Last of the Mohicans is as much a love story as it is a tale of how the West was won — by some people, that is, the poor Mohicans not being among them. Set in 1757, during the American colonial wars between the English and French settlers of North America, the movie stars Daniel Day-Lewis as Hawkeye, a frontiersman who agrees to escort Clara (Madeleine Stowe) and her sister to the fort where their British-officer father awaits them.
Butts are big. When the No. 1-selling pop single in America features a rapper rhapsodizing about rumps, the rest of the world sits up and takes notice. Many people take offense. That’s the case with Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back.” But even he doesn’t understand the controversy.
A huge stars-and-stripes banner emblazoned with the Arabic numeral “1” and “Material Issue” served as a not-so-subtle backdrop for the Chicago trio when it kicked off a national tour over the weekend with concerts at the Oak Theatre.
The British rock group James understands that simplicity can be an elegantly powerful tool in concert. On its first tour of the United States, the seven-man band played an exquisitely stripped-down show in Chicago, proving that while the hype machine may be turned on full gear, the group is more than capable of living up to any hyperbole thrust upon it.
“When my first record bombed, I chose not to look at anything,” says Tori Amos. “I thought I was making a statement having 12-feet-high hair. I didn’t look beyond the outside and had a hard time looking in.”
Rowdy heavy metal rocker Axl Rose cancelled a concert at the Rosemont Horizon and skipped town to escape the long arms of persecuting prosecutors, a representative for the singer says. Leaving thousands of fans waiting outside the Rosemont Horizon, Rose’s band, Guns N’ Roses, canceled a Friday night show half an hour before doors were to open so that Rose could avoid being served with misdemeanor arrest warrants for his alleged role in a Missouri riot last year.
In the four years it took to go from being an anonymous L.A. club band to America’s reigning hard rock kings, members of Guns N’ Roses have created more controversy and publicity by being themselves than most musicians could conjure with an army of PR flacks thinking things up.
There is such strength and purity to Luka Bloom’s music that a band could only diminish the conviction of his songs. Standing alone on a barren stage at the Park West Friday night with just his electro-acoustic guitar for accompaniment, Bloom gave a sly but powerful performance that ended all too soon.
“Yeah, I guess my next step is making a disgusting sexist video for MTV,” Luka Bloom said, laughing. “But my treatment would have to be very different. For an Irish rap song, we’d have to get green babes. No, I go for the pretty soft videos, which I hope aren’t too schmaltzy. But as long as it doesn’t get mistaken for one of Michael Bolton’s, I’m fine.”
It’s Christmas Eve and Trudy Davis is alone. Not a big surprise, considering she’s a xenophobic bulimic who views food as “unmasticated vomit,” duct tapes her microwave shut and stocks her fridge only with Evian water. Trudy is a woman who needs a little fun in her life, and when she puts Elvis Presley’s “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” on her stereo, the King’s apparition answers her self-pitying call.
There is a heartache in Matthew Sweet’s voice that pegs him as a romantic who knows both the euphoria of being in love and the pain of breaking up. On his first Chicago gig as a headliner, Sweet performed a tantalizing midnight show Saturday at the Cabaret Metro where he and his tight backup band channeled his wisely ambiguous lyrics with playful abandon, letting the audience know that though he may have been beaten up emotionally, he’s not a whiner.
It is a rare band that can make the kind of musical impact the British band James did Friday night at the Cabaret Metro. Starting off a little shaky, the seven-man group eased its way into a spectacular 90-minute concert that made it clear why the buzz is so strong about this unpretentious band. The buzz has been a long time in the making, at least over here.
Miles Hunt ticks off a lot of people. He thinks the majority of record buyers are lazy, that Elvis is little more than a joke and that the media play right into the hands of bands that have next to nothing to offer artistically. There are a lot of people who think Hunt is full of it, including Hunt himself, but the British vocalist for the Wonder Stuff doesn’t care. He’s just got to be him.
If they had to, the musicians in Teenage Fanclub could cloak many weaknesses with their sweet melodies and delicious harmonies. But when the vocals are as perfect as they were at the band’s Chicago debut Friday night at the Cabaret Metro, it really doesn’t matter how profound or inane the lyrics are. At their sold-out show, the group dished up the same savory vocals that are featured on its current LP “Bandwagonesque,” but with the added bonus of cranked-up instrumentation.
“Our producer told us that anyone can get good guitar or drum sounds, but the vocals identify you as individuals,” says Raymond McGinley, guitarist-vocalist for Scotland’s latest darlings, Teenage Fanclub. “That’s one reason why we all sing, even though I’m not particularly comfortable doing it.”
The only thing coy about Joan Jett Saturday night at the Cabaret Metro was the peekaboo lace catsuit she wore. With a guitar slung low on her hips and a sly sneer spread over her lips, Jett out-machoed the male guitarists she grew up emulating and took her fans through a gritty, 85-minute rock ‘n’ roll odyssey, where sweat and vitality were as essential to the show as a solid riff.
When an actor plays his role so well that his buddy’s mom refuses to speak to him, he knows he has done his job. “After the screening of `Juice,’ my mother couldn’t even look at Tupac (Shakur, who plays Bishop), much less speak to him,” said Khalil Kain, whose character, Raheem, has a tragic falling out with his friend Bishop. “Even though that’s an irrational feeling, I certainly understand it. Certain scenes between Bishop and Raheem were intense even for me, and I knew how everything was going to turn out.”
The banner behind the drum kit read “Be Silent. Consume. Die.” When Ned’s Atomic Dustbin made a return engagment Tuesday night at a sold-out show at the Cabaret Metro, the five young Brits took a similarly simple, minimalistic approach to their music, assaulting the audience with a barrage of sounds that joyously paid homage to punk, thrash and pop.