page 12
daily nebraskan
thursday, april 13, 1978
o orts and-
Guitarist lacks versatility, dominates Hot Tuna album
By Jeff Taebel
In the years since Jack Cassady and
Jorma Kaukonen left the Jefferson Air
plane to, work permanently as Hot Tuna,
people have said that these two musicians,
along with whoever their drummer might
happen to be at any given time, play some
of the most exciting, instrumentally
dazzling hard rock available on the market.
Certainly the early work of Hot Tuna
was somewhat supportive of these claims.
Their debut album was decorated by the
nimble acoustic guitar work of Kaukonen,
and, despite the fact that his style
incorporated elements from the work of
other artists, he still was able to breathe
new life and originality into some old standards.
album
The electrically oriented Burgers also
was a big success for the band, exhibiting
their songwriting capabilities as well as
their instrumental prowess.
Unfortunately, all the qualities that dis
tinguished their early work seem to be
missing on their current release, Double
Dose, a two-record live set that has to be
one of the most numbingly excessive al
bums of the year.
The first and foremost problem with
Hot Tuna on this set is that they are com
pletely dominated by Kaukonen, who does
all the singing, somgwriting and most of
the playing. As a matter of fact, it almost
seems like this is a Kaukonen solo album.
The problem with this dominance is that
Kaukonen simply is not versatile enough
to carry the whole show for four album
sides.
His vocals are uninspired and his voice
doesn't have much range, but these defi
ciencies are concealed by the fact that
many of his songs only require his lyrics to
be intoned over a repetitive chord pro
gression, representing a token attempt at
a melody.
Kaukonen also has better moments as
a guitarist. He was indeed an innovator on
the guitar with the Airplane in the late 60s,
but his playing has progressed little in the
past 10 years. If anything, it is less imagi
native now than it was back then.
His unique guitar tone and use of special
effects with the Airplane was what helped
set him apart from other guitarists of the
psychedelic era. Now, while his style still
is unique, it is highly repetitious, and his
incessant overuse of the wah-wah pedal
and phase shifter muddle the sound of his
guitar, rather than accentuate it.
Joining Kaukonen on this sinking ship
is Jack Cassady, the agile bassist, who along
with Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead,
helpd create an entirely new approach to
rock bass playing. Cassady always has
stood out on studio efforts of the Airplane
and Hot Tuna, but for some inexplicable
reason, his playing on the live albums re
corded by each of those bands is quite sim
ple and predictable, as if he doesn't want
to strain himself. The fact that he doesn't
solo or even really get cooking at any point
on this record means that there is no one
to challenge Kaukonen's dominance, allow
ing the music to become mired in his self
indulgence. Cassady and Kaukonen are joined by
San Francisco session keyboardist Nick
Buck, whose playing is mixed well into the
background, and yet another in the long
parade of Hot Tuna drummers, named Bob
Steeler, whose playing is mediocre at best.
The album opens, appropriately enough,
with a side featuring Kaukonen alone on
acoustic guitar and vocals, and, although
his playing is predictable and his vocals
are bland, this side probably is the most
Groups yap over student fleas,
scratch surface of itchy issue
A dispatch arrived yesterday from
Rocky McGoon of Cicero Mechanical and
Brutal, a vocational and technical college
in Illinois. You might find it interesting to
see the vast difference between a school
like that and our own university, where
such silly going-on never could happen. . .
"A new source of contravesty has hit
the halls of Acanemia at Cicero M&B, in a
dispute that has divided student groups.
"At issue is Cicero's unique Student Aid
Program (SAP). In this program, Cicero
students are contracted to work for a
major local industry, KillZemDed Vet
erinary Supply .Co., makers of famous
KillZemDed Flea Powder.
jim
Williams
"Students work in the company's re
search labs raising millions of fleas for pro
duct improvement and testing. The
company pays the college for the students'
services. The college gives some of the
money to the students, while the rest goes
to support campus activities through the
Student Organizations Budget (SOB).
"Some of the student groups are organi
zations of foreign students from other
countries. One of the most active is the
Yugoslavians and Albanians for Purity
(YAP). This group holds weakly meetings
whereatwhich they talk with their foreign
tongues. They also try to keep the cam
pus's morals up to the high standards of
the old country.
"Since Cicero M&B is a technical
school, there are several other group
which are formed to study various
products. One of these is the Nylon Under
wear Procurement, Improvement and
Repair Board (NUPIRB) which tests and
analyzes this product so consumers of un
derwear won't get ripped off. NUPIRB
spends most of the money it gets from the
SOB on lab equipment such as test tubes
and beakers.
"The counterattempts began after NU
PIRB members finished up a grueling test
session on some ladies' garments and de
cided to celebrate. They purchased a con
tainer of alchaotic beverages, viz a keg of
beer, with their own money. But since they
had no mugs from which to drink it out of,
they washed some of the beakers and used
that.
"When YAP heard about this drunken
behavior they were outrageous.
"YAP's president went to the SOB to
complain about NUPIRB's use of college
owned lab equipment for drinking.
'"We can no longer tolerate,' he said,
'the use of student flea money for beakers.
"NUPIRB appealed YAP's action to the
College Office for Organizations, Trade and
Industry Executive Senate (COOTIES.)
But YAP said students wouldn't support
any action by the senate because they want
NUPIRB to stick to its business.
'"NUPIRB is an underwear organiza
tion,' the YAP president said. 'Cicero stu
dents don't want COOTIES in their under
wear organization .'
"NUPIRB has threatened to take the
question to the Associated Board of Col
lege Deans, Executives and Faculty Groups
(ABCDEFG.)
"This reporter thinks the whole situa
tion is the epitomy of ridiculosity."
'I'd probably agree with Rocky but I
just can't imagine what he's talking about.
successful, simply because it is the most
musically concise. Its highlights include a
fine version of the Rev. Gary Davis' "Keep
Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning" and a
remake of "Embryonic Journey" from Sur
realistic Pillow.
The next three sides are all electric and,
with a few exceptions, contain pounding,
redundant exercises in cliched rock playing
that end in feedback screechings remi
niscent of high school garage band jams. By
far the best of the electric sides is side
four, on which the band almost pulls things
together with "I See The Light" and
"Watch The North Wind Rise." However,
the band settles back into its familiar
doldrums by closing the side with dull,
plodding versions of Kaukonen's "Sunrise
Dance With The Devil" and Muddy Water's
"I Can't Be Satisfied."
It is interesting to note that this album
was produced by Felix Pappalardi, because
Hot Tuna sounds rather like Pappalardi's
old band, Mountain, on this release, as far
as their onstage excesses. However, Moun
tain in their worst moments at least seemed
to have a more spirited attitude towards
their music than Hot Tuna does here.
Maybe the solution would be for Hot
Tuna to give Kaukonen an extended vaca
tion, let Leslie West take over on guitar
and vocals and invite Corky Laing to be
their next drummer. The results of such a
recombination couldn't be any worse than
Double Dose.
Expressionism and sensitivity
basic to harpsicord Hinshaw
By Charlie Krig
Harvey Hinshaw, harpsicordist. The
UNL School of Music faculty member's
name has a musical alliteration when com
bined with his instrument. Both are fea
tured tonight in a free recital at 8 in
Kimball Recital Hall.
Hinshaw said his interest in harpsicords
goes back to his early music studies with
Alice Ehlers at the University of Southern
California. During the 1960s he was ac
companist at the Unitarian Church in Lin
coln and he practiced there. He bought
his own harpsicord in 1973.
UNL has four harpsicords. Hinshaw said
he has been practicing his selections so
he will have the right touch for the harp
sicord. That takes concentration because
he also teaches piano and the two instru
ments require different techniques.
"You can't make loud and soft with
touch on the harpsicord, at least not with
any major change," Hinshaw said. "You
can't get the wide variation in tones like
you can when you hit the piano keys with
different strengths. For the harpsicord you
have to adjust tremendously to get subtle
differences in sound. For example, you can
use much arm touch on the piano. Harpsi
cord work is practically all finger work
close to the keys."
Hinshaw said anoth" difference
between the instruments i! the type of
music composed.
"You have to remember that you're
dealing with music written when the piano
was not born or else was just in its in
fancy. Piano music has a lot of shadings
rises and falls and it's much more legato.
Harpsicord music has more spaces between
the notes and phrases," he explained.
"When playing the harpsicord you must
make the most of the expressive possibili
ties so the music does not lose its effect.
Some performers are too pedantic so they
lose their expressionism and the music
reflects that," he said. "The expression
must come out of your own fingers. The
harpsicordist must be as sensitive as he can
be to get the expression. It takes more
concentration to communicate things on
the harpsicord with the effectiveness that a
piano can produce."
There are contemporary composers of
harpsicord music, Hinshaw said, but most
don't know the instrument well enough to
produce acceptable music. He chose a
1971 composition by Daniel Pinkham,
Lessons for the Harpsicord, for tonight's
recital because the composer is better
than the others.
"The others don't write idiogrammatical
ly well. They're not experienced enough
with the harpsicord. Some of the modern
composers don't quite understand the
instrument well, but Pinkham is a good
harpsicordist himself," Hinshaw explained.
He said he chose the other works for
contrast between selections to maintain the
audience's interest. "I like to think there's
a good deal of meat in the programs I
choose," he said. "Although there might be
something there just for 'flash,' there also
are pieces for profundity."
Hinshaw 's other choices for tonight are
two selections from Intavolatura di balli
d'arpicordi by Marco Facoli, Order no. 6
in B flat major by Francois Couperin and
Prelude in B minor, BWV 923 and Fugue in
B minor (on a theme by Albinoni, BWV
951) by Johann Sebastian Bach.
In spite of the harpsicord's heritage, old
age is not affecting its popularity. Hinshaw
said interest in the instrument is on such an
extreme increase that people have to get on
waiting lists to buy harpsicords. The re
surgence has created such a demand that a
master harpsicord builder in Germany has a
15 -year waiting list, he said.
Hinshaw has only one harpsicord stu
dent this semester. Usually there are five
or six, he said, and one time there was a
record of eight. But Hinshaw is confident
the harpsicord will maintain its public
interest and next semester will produce a
few more majors for him to tutor.
Photo by Bob Pearson
Harpsicordist Harvey Hinshaw, a UNL School of Music instructor, has been perfect
ing his technique for his faculty recital at 8 tonight in Kimball Recital Hall.