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Band attributes style to diverse influences
By Joel Strauch
Senior Reporter_
A dank basement. Red carpet hangs
as a sound absorber. A dim, uncovered
bulb swings from the ceiling.
This is the home of The Geckos, a
Lincoln band with an intense brand of
grungy mood music.
“This place is a lot better than ‘The
Dungeon,’” lead guitarist Matt Silcock
said of their current practice pad.
“We used to play in a basement
with a dirt floor, and if you’d move
around too much, you would kick up a
dust cloud,” he said.
In addition to Silcock on guitar,
The Geckos consistofJeffValenzuela
as lead singer, Mitch Kline on bass
and Chad Steskal on percussion.
Stcskal recently graduated from
the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
and Kline, Silcock and Valenzuela
are enrolled at UNL. Besides study
ing, all four band members have jobs.
“There are a lot of time constraints,
but we manage,” Valenzuela said.
Steskal said, “Sometimes it’s diffi
cult finding time to practice and for
shows.”
The band has managed to I ind time
to perform a lot in Lincoln at places
such as Duffy’s Tavern and the Edge.
“We’ve played around 20 shows
here in Lincoln and two shows in
Lawrence (Kan.) and W ichita (Kan.),”
Kline said.
“We’d like to branch out a little bit
and start playing more out of town,”
Silcock said.
The band has been together for
about! 4 months.— * *
“Our next show will be a one-year
anni versary of our first show,” S ilcock
Lecture tonight to explore
Nazi theft of Jewish music
By Paula Lavigne
Senior Reporter
In the midst of Adolf Hitler’s
re ign, m il 1 ions of Jews were robbed
of their possessions, relatives, her
itage and freedom.
While trying to destroy any will
left to live, the Nazis stole yet an
other aspect of Jewish tradition —
its music.
An aspect often overlooked,
music played an important part
during the rule of the Third Reich.
This, and the prejudices that linger
in today’s society, will be the focus
of an anti-Semitism lecture tonight.
“Anti-Semitism In German Uni
versities Before Hitler: The Case of
Music Scholarship,” led by Pamela
M. Potter, a music history professor
at the University of Illinois, will be
held at 7:30 p.m. in Room 229 of
Andrews Hall.
Potter, who received her doctor
ate in music history from Yale in
1991, has conducted extensive re
search in Germany during the past
several years.
“Ever since I’ve been in college,
I’ve been interested in the connec
tion between music and politics in
all periods of history,” sne said.
Potter said once she started work
ing with music in Nazi Germany,
she realized no one had carefully
analyzed it before. She said she
discovered there were many suc
cessful musicians in Nazi Germany
who remained successful after
World War II, such as German
composers Richard Strauss andCarl
Orff
“There were very strong reasons
for leaving that whole subject un
touched,” Potter said.
-44
There was basically
a lot of discussion
of how Jews were,
through music,
destroying German
culture.
— Potter
University of Illinois
music history professor
She said music was important to
the Third Reich because it provided
yet another example of how Nazis
believed they were superior to Jews.
“They pointed to composers who
were writing atonal music and most
of them were Jewish,” she said.
“There was basically a lot of discus
sion of how Jews were, through
music, destroying German culture.”
She said the revolt against Jew
ish music went as far as tearing
down a statue ofFclix Mendelssohn,
a Jewish composer, in front of Ger
many’s Leipzig Concert Hall.
“They also claimed that Jews
and blacks worked together to cre
ate jazz, which they considered a
destructive force,” she said. “They
wanted to replace this music with
strong, healthy German folk songs,
marches and symphonies.”
She said a lot of good compos
ers, both Jewish and German, were
buried by the rubble of Nazi Ger
many.
A separate seminar, “Race and
Musicology in the Third Reich”
will be held today at 2:30 p.m. in
Room 114 of Westbrook Music
Building.
Jay Calderon/DN
Three of four members of The Geckos practice for their Friday night performance. From left: bass player Mitch Kline,
lead vocalist Jeff Valenzuela and guitarist Matt Silcock. Not pictured is Chad Steskal, percussionist.
said.
The members attribute their style
of music to multiple influences.
“It’s hard to pinpoint the specific
bands that have influenced us,” Kline
said.
“We’re sort of a Helmet, Primus,
Black Sabbath, Run DMC kind of
band,” Steskal said.
“We like playing heavy music like
these bands, but the more we play, the
more we move away from our influ
ences and develop our own style,”
Silcock said.
The band has recently recorded a
13-track compact disc at Lincoln’s
Studio Q.
This debut album, “Thistle,” shows
the diversity of the musical influences
this band has felt.
Ranging from the heavy sounds of
“Loss” to the more mellow tune “It’s
Alright” and the didactic lyrics of
“Trap,” The Geckos demonstrate the
many styles of music they are capable
of playing.
The title of the album originated
with Valenzuela’sold jobdigging this
tles.
“I saw thistles in my sleep,”
Valenzuela said.
As far as the name of the band, the
members insist that it means nothing.
“You never see a band with ‘The’
in front of the name,” Kline said.
“We’re trying to bring it back.
We ’ re 1 ike The Beatles,” S ilcock said.
The Geckos will play at the UNL
Culture Center on Friday. They will
be performing with Throttle. Filter,
Gregory, Mousetrap and Mercy Rule
in a benefit for Ecology Now!
Artist’s life reflected in his prints
By Steven Sparling
Staff Reporter__
The 90 prints filling Sheldon Me
morial Art Gallery reflect the life of a
20th-century urban artist.
New York artist Donald Sultan’s
“A Print Retrospective” will be on
display at the gallery until April 10.
“Donald Sultan is one of the fore
most artists of the 1980s and probably
will remain a very important artist
throughout the history of 20th-centu
ry art,” Sheldon curator Daphne Deeds
said.
Sultan said he got inspiration for
his art from a variety of areas — in
particular, artists Andy Warhol and
Clyfford Still.
“The inspiration comes from the
work itself. Each picture inspires the
next picture, or each group of pictures
tells me something else,” he said. *
Sultan not only creates prints but
also does sculpture and designs sets of
china, rugs and “paintings,” which
include the use of tar, plaster, lino
leum tile, latex paint and other mate
rials.
“I’ve tried to combine the two. I’m
not really a pop artist, but I’m not
metaphysical,” Sultan said.
S imilar to various series of prints at
the Sheldon,suchas“Lcmons,”“Black
Roses” and “The Female Series,” Sul
tan is in the process of doing other
work. He said he already started on a
new scries of dark landscape prints.
During a public lecture last Satur
day, Sultan said each painting had its
own theater. He said his art revealed
his life, history and industrial envi
ronment in New York.
“I’ve been always interested in the
architectural quality of painting, and
I always felt more comfortable with
the physical ity of it—more the illus
trative qualities of it.”
Further inspiration came from
working in an art gallery.
“I happened to sec some men lay
ing linoleum tile, and I decided to start
working with that,” Sultan said.
Such themes of architecture and
industrialization show in the textural,
grid-like geometry of his paintings
and prints, which began with his use
of tile. One print series at the Sheldon,
which deals with smokestacks and
cigarettes, is the best example of this
influence.
“(I get the ideas) from living in the
city, looking out the window at the
factory that makes things and being
inside working on a table where things
arc made. I just started flipping them
around,” Sultan said.
Sultan became interested in fine
arts early in life. He said he was orig
inally a part of the Straw Hat circuit
when he was younger. It was on this
circuit that he toured, designing sets
for plays and often acting in them.
“I did everything from acting to
building the props and so on. When I
went to college, I moved right into
painting. It seemed a natural thing to
do,” Sultan said.
Sultan said his father, also an art
ist, took influences from the work of
artists of the 1930s and ’40s, an influ
ence that Sultan shares. Sultan said he
often worked with his father in his art
studio in the basement of their home.
WFtoaffMafcM
Ten years ago this week:
-New Album: The Pretenders,
"Learning to Crawl."
-The Robert Cray Band played
at the Zoo Bar on Feb. 27.
-26th Annual Grammy
Awards: Michael
Jackson was up
for the most
awards. John
Denver was
the MC.
-Compiled by (
Steven ggj
Sparling t-j
DN graphic