Comstock
Continued from Page 9
Backstage, in a fiberglass tent,
Roger McGuinn sat out of the wind,
signing a few autographs, talking about
guitars and hotels, waiting calmly for
his turn to play.
A little after 4:30 p.m., McGuinn
and his 12-string guitar took the stage.
By then, the crowd had peaked at
about 150 people.
McGuinn, affable, charming and
approachable, talked briefly between
songs, telling where, how and what
inspired the tunes.
He played a few of his Byrd favor
ites, “Turn! Turn! Turn!” “Eight Miles
High” and “Mr. Tambourine Man.”
Strumming softly, he told the story
of how Peter Fonda, in search of a
song to use for a movie, had ap
proached Bob Dylan. Dylan Scribbled
a couple of lines on a piece of paper,
gave it to Fonda and told him to give
it to McGuinn. From those two lines,
“River flows, flows to the sea/Wher
ever that river goes that’s where I
want to be ...,” McGuinn composed
the “Ballad of Easy Rider.”
McGuinn looked over the audi
ence, smiled and sang a stirring narra
tive of “Chestnut Mare,” another Byrd
hit.
He played a couple of new songs,
laughed and admitted that “Loving
You” was a song he wrote with two
guys who wrote songs for Madonna.
From his latest release, “Back From
Rio,” McGuinn played “Someone to
Love,” a song he had co-written with
his wife of 14 years, Camilla.
Although the size of a audience
doesn’t really matter to McGuinn, he
said, Comstock might have been the
smallest group he’s played to for a
while. However, he plays “as long as
someone is out there,” he said.
Book
Continued from Page 9
lo read will be all the more deeply
affected by their directness.
Rodriguez achieves some of his
best effects by operating on several
levels at once, as in the story “Ba
bies,” told by a heroin junkie who
aborts her baby after witnessing a
friend being discarded following her
pregnancy. Both characters arc far
loo young to be involved in such
issues.
Pregnancy also figures in “The
Lotto,” which doubles as a portrayal
of one woman’s irrational hopes of
leaving poverty by winning the lot
tery as her daughter and a friend take
their chances with birth control.
The story “Short Stop” offers one
of the few bits of hope in the entire
collection, yet it is tinged with de
spair. A potential suicide is prevented
by the brakeman on a subway, but he
knows, as the reader knows, that she
will find another way and will suc
ceed” even if several attempts arc
needed.
The reader is repeatedly struck by
the youth of Rodriguez’s characters
— the fact that so many lives arc
permanently disrupted at so young an
age.
Such a theme runs through “Birth
day Boy,” which also provides a fine
sample of Rodriguez’s style, taken
straight from the isolation and con
frontation of the grooves of a punk
record: “My mother was a real flower,
man. The pictures I saw of her make
Iris Chacon look like some kinda fly
shit.”
None of the characters seem to be
involved in deep personal relation
ships.
The collection closes with “Elba,”
which follows the story of a girl who
lost the lottery and her friend. She
keeps the baby but the father leaves.
He re-appears after a year, then mar
ries and beats her, leaving her to care
for the baby and house.
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Lee Willett walks down the runway displaying “Rawhide” from Charlotte Wittig’s
collection, “Organic Ornamentation.” Wittig’s garments were displayed at a fashion
show at the East Union Sunday.
Fashion impressionists
Clothing designers tailor works of Monet
By Mark Baldridge
Senior Reporter
Colton denim, rayon and raw
silk were featured heavily in this
year’s Advanced Apparel Design
II fashion show.
The course, which is offered
through the Department of Tex
tiles, Clothing and Design in the
college of Home Economics, has
been taught for the last 25 years by
Dr. Robert Hillestad.
This year’s show, “The Monet
Collection,” included four garments
and an accessory from each of 10
student designers.
The show began with the pres
entation of a videotape on the life
of Claude Monet. Tnc designers
studied Monet’s paintings as inspi
ration for their designs.
Students in the Advanced Fiber
Art, Apparel Design by Flat Pat
tern and Apparel Design by Drap
ing classes made a brief showing of
their work.
If this show is any hint, the next
generation of designers will be
heavily influenced by the fashions
of the 1970s.
Above the knee hemlines and
textured fabrics, billowy tie-died
wraps and silk drapes were remi
niscent of garments that might have
been worn by stylish steppers on
the ’70s T.V. show “Rhoda” —
designers innovated in the area of
materials and dying.
Nice silk and leather pieces
seemed almost to constitute a trend.
Chad Kassmeier designed “The
Celcbrauon,” a strapless gown made
from metallic balloon string and
Christmas package curling ribbon.
More garments, though, were
made from hand-dyed and painted
textiles.
Perhaps because of Monet’s
influence, the show highlighted
floral patterns and pastel colors. In
many works, the impact of impres
sionist painting was evident.
The designers influence on one
another was also apparent. Several
works were so similar, they might
have come from a single mind.
However, each designer’s set
also included .something unique.
• Some of the garments presented
were intended for eye-catching, one
time wear. Others were more func
tional. And many pieces appeared
both beautifully unique and wear
able, including such pedestrian
niceties as pockets and warm inner
linings.
The show was well attended,
filling the Great Plains Room of
the East Campus Union.
Beastie Boys getting serious
KCiliCii/yJ,
“Check Your Head”
The BPastie Boys
Capitol Records America
Why exactly this group continu
ally ends up drawing comparisons to
people like Marky Mark and the Funky
Bunch is simply astounding. Little
Marky, for instance, is pretty much a
clueless mimic with expensive pro
duction, fourth-rate rhyming and a
famous brother.
The Bcaslic Boys, on the other
hand, make no qualms about who or
what they arc, they’re just themselves
and pay respect to an art form they
feel passionate about.
Oh, but they’re both white. What
ever.
The same people that form that
comparison arc probably identical to
those journalists who compare Body
Count to Brand Nubian. Oh, but they’re
both black. Whatever.
For the uninformed, the three
Brooklyn boys who make up the
Beasties don ’l ever try to come across
as hard or political or Afroccntric
(though those pangs seem to surface
in their music anyway), they simply
fuse the music they’ve been bred on
into a jagged, towering shot of b-boy
prowess.
“Licensed to 111,” the 1986 multi
plaunum effort that was infinitely funny
but ultimately doomed to just be a
soundtrack to bad fraternity parties,
showcased little tangible talent but
loads of attitude. A rap Sex Pistols, if
you will. If “punk” wasn’t such an
unhip term back then, that’s what the
^ f
music would have been.
Then, foreshadowing the slew of
retro- 1970s acts to come in the future
emerged 1990’s “Paul’s Boutique,” a
seamless groovcfest that knocked the
critics on their collective ear but sold
about 13 copies worldwide. After being
everybody’s favorite brats, the Bcasties
got what they deserved: exclusion
from the mediocre.
“Check Your Head,” the group’s
third full-length release, stands poised
to knock some more heads around,
perhaps in the consumer market this
time. It is an exceedingly funky batch
of punk tunes anchored in rap's atti
tude and deft wordplay.
This outing, the Boys attempt to
mix inventive sampling with live
action instrumentation, and they do
so with panache; these tunes, like all
the best funk, start with the booty,
then head up to the heart and head.
From the opening slither of “Jimmy
James” to the raggedy thrash “Biz Vs.
Courtesy of Capitol Records
the Nuge”( which features Biz Markie
in a painfully funny sing-along) to the
bobbing credo “Namastc,” there's a
communal thing going on: a party
with all the band's influences invited
over to jam.
There is no preoccupation or prob
lem with being bom of the Caucasian
persuasion here, and consequently there
is nothing to prove, really. And, un
like while gangster acts, which make
little sense, there’s no “I’m so hard, I
shot eight suckas before I woke up,
man.” Oooh, OK. There’s attitude
here, but it is a delicate balance be
tween making fun of and paying re
spect to the formulas of rap.
If you arc one of the unfaithful,
you’re forgiven. Just don’t be on the
outside of the gag this time. The boys
are getting senoui— seriously great.
It’s a cold disc for the dead of sum
mer.
— Paul Winner
