Nebraskan
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For the weekend
of Dec. 2-4
Give it a shot
> Downtown Lights — The public is
invited to the capitol building tonight for
a free concert and a chance to see the
city lights from the 14th floor of the capi
tol. The Nebraska Wesleyan Women’s
Chorus will perform a holiday concert
at 6 p.m. and the building will remain
open until 8 p.m. to allow concert goers
a chance to view the lights.
Folk punk band inspired by crazy stories
By Joel Strauch
Senior Reporter
Lincoln band Clarke County
will be marking its territory Sun
day night with an awesome display
of unique music at Duffy’s Tavern.
The band has an unusual ori
gin.
Gregg Cosgrove, the band’s vo
calist and guitarist, said, “I’ve been
a songwriter for a long time, and
someone was going to give me
money to record a CD.
“So we got together and started
playing. The recording never hap
pened, but we stayed together.
“And now we’re recording with
Dave Snider,” said Cosgrove, a
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
graduate. “We’re trying to finish
two songs and get them out on a
7-inch.
“We plan to finish the rest of
the songs and shop around. Hope
fully someone will put it out on
CD.”
Cosgrove said Clarke County
was a real place.
“It’s the county in Iowa that I
grew up in,” he said. “All the songs
are written about stories that take
place there.
“I heard all these crazy stories
about farmers wearing dresses and
people dying. They were the kinds
of stories that you don’t know if
they’re true, but they become fable
like.
“It’s really interesting to write
about. It’s like Edgar Lee Masters’
‘Spoon River Anthology,’ where
he goes through the graveyard and
writes a poem about each person.
“But I don’t know how long it
will last,” he said. “How much can
Scott StolVom/Special to the Daily Nebraskan
The immbars of tho band Clark# County: from left, Barry Zimmerman, percussion; Nancy Cosgrove, accordion; Ben
Zimmerman, bass; and Qregg Cosgrove, guitar and vocals. Also pictured Is Harley, a Siberian husky.
you milk out of one town?”
Cosgrove described the band’s
music as folk punk.
“It’s folk music played with
punk aesthetics,” he said. “Our
songs are all really strong. The
strong narratives direct the songs.”
The band has changed appear
ances in the last couple years.
’ “At first it was just Nancy, a
violin and me,” Cosgrove said.
“But we added the Zimmermans a
year ago.”
Nancy Cosgrove, a UNL gradu
ate and Gregg’s wife, plays accor
dion for the band. Ben
Zimmerman, a junior geography
major, plays bass, and Barry
Zimmerman, a junior interior de
sign major, is the band’s percus
sionist.
Gregg Cosgrove said the band
tried to play about once every other
month.
The band now has two shows
in one week. Clarke County will
play Sunday night at Duffy’s Tav
ern, 1412 O St., and will open for
Bad Livers Dec. 9 at Le Cafe
Shakes, 1418 O St.
Quik Facts
Show: Clarke County
At: Dufly’s Tavern
Time: 10 p.m. Sunday
Tickets: $3 at the door
Gala to include
the work of
CU composer
From Staff Reports
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln
School of Music’s annual Choral Holi
day Gala will take place 3 p.m. Sunday
in Kimball Recital Hall.
The concert will feature four of
UNL’s vocal ensembles: the University
Singers, the Varsity Glee Club, the Uni
versity Chorale and the Freshman Acad
emy Chorale.
Music from many countries and time
periods will be included in the perfor
mance.
One of the show’s highlights will be
the premiere of “The Christmas
Motets,” by University of Colorado com
poser Richard Toensing.
Admission is free.
Quik Facts
Show: UNL Choral Holiday Gala
At: Kimball Recital Hall
Time: 3 p.m. Sunday
Tickets: Admission is free
Artists use music to blend cultures
By Jill O’Brim
Staff Reporter
Two cultures become one whenever Wil
liam Eaton and R. Carlos Nakai merge their
music.
Guitarist Eaton grew up in Lincoln —
the center of the universe, he called it. Flut
ist Nakai grew up as a member of the Na
vajo-Ute tribe.
“I spent a lot of time with extended fam
ily members on the Colorado River Indian
Reservation, other parts of Southern Cali
fornia, Washington State around Puget
Sound, Hawaii and the Four Comers Area,”
Nakai said.
“I grew up around trees,” Eaton said,
recalling climbing neighborhood trees.
His occupation as a luthier, a guitar
maker, is related to his love of trees, he said.
His guitar making led to his co-founding
the Roberto-Venn School of Lulhiery in
Phoenix. It later led to the creation of his
lyre-harp guitar, the 31-string O’ele’n and
other multi-stringed guitars.
At the time Eaton began building gui
tars, Nakai began playing the flute.
He picked up the traditional wooden flute
in 1972, after an accident ended his ability
to play brass instruments, Nakai said.
The instrument had been resigned to
museum collections, Nakai said. Vfery few
people knew anything about the flute, other
than its romantic history. Nakai said at the
'time he knew of only three men who took
Quik Facts
Concert: R. Carlos Nakai and William
Eaton, Abendmusik Winter Series
At: First Plymouth Church, 2000 D St.
Time: 7:30 p.m. Sunday
Tickets: Sold out, but tickets may
become available.
their flutes on the road in the manner he
now does, he said.
“They were primarily involved in tradi
tional music, so 1 picked it up and began
working to see if I could include it in a con
temporary context of how we are as Native
people today,” he said.
Nakai has just finished writing a book
based on his travel experiences as a Native
American musician. His career with Can
yon Records began in 1982 with the album
“Changes.” Since then, he has has recorded
11 more albums and played on 25, he said.
“Ancestoral Voices,” a collaboration with
Eaton, earned a Grammy in 1994 for best
traditional/folk performance.
“I first met K. Carlos at the Heard Mu
seum in Phoenix, Arizona,” Eaton said. “A
year later, we were playing together. There’s
really no other flute players who have his
vocabulary or sense of timing.”
Eaton said he tried to come up with ar
rangements that gave Nakai’s flute playing
“a carpet to ride on.”
9 That carpet is marketed in the United
States as “New Age” music, Nakai said,
even though his music builds on an oral tra
dition from an older time.
“Much of what I do is a rendition of what
we’ve always been doing through time as
Native people,” Nakai said. “Our composi
tions deal with how we are as a people to
day.”
For the Abendmusik Winter Series con
cert, Nakai and Eaton will perform Christ
mas music and songs from their albums.
They also will include a song from “Feather,
Stone, and Light,” a new album in collabo
ration with William Clipman that will be
released in early 1995 on Canyon Records.
Eaton recently recorded an album,
“Where Rivers Meet” Whether he is record
ing, building or performing, he is clearly
infatuated with wooden instruments.
“The wood grows from the seed of a tree.
You see this tree grow up, goes through
stages, then dies,” Eaton said. “The flutes
are the same way. They’re wooden. They’re
cedar. They’re related and they’re in the
same clan.
“I think that’s one of the reasons R.
Carlos and I were attracted to each other.
Even though our cultural backgrounds are
different, we’re alike in the same ways. We
relate as two equal beings addressing each
other.”
