Baxter
self-tided
Maverick Records
Grade: B
We’ve all come to expect great
things from Swedish electronica
groups, first ABBA and then their ille
gitimate offspring Ace of Base both
made their impacts on die American
music scoie - well, on Casey Kasem
anyway.
Baxter, a Swedish import for those
who prefer deeper brews, will never
share the Top 40 success of its prede
cessors, but it will garner plenty of
attention - and not because it exudes
rays of Aryan Miss.
Engineered by band member
Michael Herloffson, a Swedish guitar
playo; producer and head of indie label
Primal Music, this self-titled first
release stretches the boundaries of typi
cal drums and bass electronica by
adding one little thing - well-crafted
lyrics. And lots of them.
Along with bass deep enough to
make a Sanyo sound like a church
organ, Baxter’s first album shines as a
highly composed and densely struc
tured piece of sonic artwork.
The trio is led by frontwoman Nina
Ramsby whose plaintive, willowy
vocals lilt a mood ofsuspense over cries
of violins, tickings of snare drums and
die omnipresent throbs of the blackest
bass.
In Ameriea, w*call it “Portishead
esque.”
Although the lyrics are far from
startling, they are, at least, refreshing
for a drums-and-bass ensemble. Songs
like “Television” and “I Can’t See
Why,” the two leading singles on the
- album, detail neurotic passions with
lyrical precision.
The forma escalates into a gloomy,
yet excited, chorus rejoicing a TV
addicts decision to kill his television.
Unfortunately, he also destroyed the
only world he knew. Now he is alone.
These themes of alienation and
hopelessness mix freely with neo
European excesses of Freudian
thought. Songs concerned with identity .
and die frequently resulting despair
haunt each track in one way or another.
“I Can’t See Why” drives into the
dynamics of a skewed, but not com
mon, relationship in which one person
tries to make the other into a personal
imagff
The tension of die lyrics is played
out vibrantly with staccato violins and
bhie streaks of electronic tone.
Unfortunately, these lyrics begin to
sound familiar by die fourth track, and
after a full listening it becomes obvious
that they must have been written on a
refrigerator with magnetic poetry
words - interchangeable and always
profound.
But, then again, it is only a drums
and-bass album after all. While Baxter
may be breaking new ground by adding
some introspection to the lyrically
sparse genre, the words aren’t nearly as
deep as the bass.
Baxter does deserve credit for com
posing songs that move you emotional
ly as well as physically. The yearning
vocals typically climax in unison with
the thick layers of instrumental back
drop.
On “Fading,” Nina pardons herself
for an unnamed offense to a lover as the
bass plods and the strings mourn. But
she turns around with a cry of freedom
as die music heightens and peaks.
The songs are neurotic, to be sure.
But they are honest, even if a bit redun
dant. But, hey, look where it got ABBA.
- Bret Schulte
Book sheds light on Salinger
The Associated Press
---;---'
There is a hole in this story, and
his name is Jerome David Salinger.
He wrote a few short stories and
a novel that shook lives - “Catcher
in the Rye” - and then he shut the
world out. Since 1965, he has pub
lished nothing and said little, rebuff
ing efforts to pierce his wall of
silence.
In 1972, when he was 53, he sent
a fan letter to an 18-year-old college
freshman who had written an article
in The New York Times Magazine.
Within months, they were living
together. Months later, he broke off
their relationship.
That would have been the end of
it, except that Joyce Maynard was
fated to become the anti-Salinger.
“Of all the 18-year-olds in
America that J.D. Salinger could
have written to ... he invited into his
life a person who was almost des
tined sometime or another to find
uci way uui ui uic uusi auu sn uuwu
at a typewriter,” Maynard says.
Less than half of her new book,
“At Home in die World,” is devoted
to her time with Salinger, but in
those 138 pages she tells more about
him than has been revealed since the
Eisenhower administration.
He might as well have pulled the
ears off Bambi.
If the entire book was even 15
percent as bad as a Vanity Fair
excerpt, “it will bid fair to be the
worst book ever written: smarmy,
whiny, smirky and, above all, almost
indescribably stupid,” wrote
Jonathan Yardley of the Washington
Post.
“Just because we are dying to
know, does that mean we have a
right to know?” Elizabeth Gluck
wrote in Time magazine. “Maynard
may have written this story because
she needed to. But she published it
because someone was willing to pay
her to do so. And that is not reason
enough.”
Maynard is steadfast. This is her
story, she insists.
The market for her book would
have been smaller had it not
involved Salinger, she acknowl
edges, but “it would still be a good
story.” She did not consider writing
but not publishing die book: “I have
a family to support, and I make no
apologies about that.” 1 *
She says her book is drawing
attention because it provides the
first Salinger fragments “in a long
time. Like fragments from the
Titanic.” And as for Salinger’s priva
cy? “If you want to lead a totally pri
vate life, I don’t think that you
should be writing letters to 18-year
old girls.”
That is what happened to
Maynard. She was attending Yale
when her picture appeared on the
cover of the Times Magazine. It
accompanied her story, “Looking
Back: An Eighteen Year Old
Reflects on Life.”
The story drew hundreds of let
ters, but the one from Salinger stood
out. Maynard had not even read
“Catcher in the Rye” at this point,
but she knew about Salinger, about
his celebrity and his seclusion.
A correspondence started, and
then there were phone calls. He told
her that they were “landsmen,” a
Yiddishism meaning that they were
from the same place, soul mates.
Finally, she quit school and moved
in with him.
The portrait of Salinger that
emerges in “At Home in the World”
is of a crank. Maynard’s Salinger is a
control freak. He is obsessed with
homeopathic medicine; a strange
diet consisting of nuts, cheese, veg
etables and ground lamb patties
cooked at 1 SO degrees (he taught her
how to induce vomiting after eating
foods that were deemed unhealthy);
the treacheries of publishing and of
fame.
The book details their problem
atic sex life, and the disintegration
of their relationship. Salinger disap
proved of Maynard’s desire for
celebrity, her willingness to put her
picture on the jacket of the book
length version of “Looking Back.”
The covers of bis books are plain.
After eight months, Maynard
says, during a trip to Florida with his
children, Salinger told her they were
through. She should go to die New
Hampshire house, remove her
belongings and be gone.
“One review of the book said,
‘Joyce Maynard is shameless.’
That’s true! I decided to give shame
up, and what a relief it was,”
Maynard said. “I can reveal regret
and sadness and even dismay, but I
am not a bad person.”
Salinger’s fans are all over the
Web - every bit as devoted as
Maynard’s and more numerous,
though he doesn’t encourage them
at all. If Maynard is celebrated for.
her willingness to invite readers into
her messy life, Salinger is revered
for his purity of vision and his
refusal to open up.
Salinger has written for more
than 30 years but refuses to publish.
When quotes from his works were
reprinted on Web sites, Salinger
unleashed his literary agents,
Harold Ober Associates, to order
mem removed.
In Cornish, N.H., his neighbors
respect Salinger’s choices, and have
no respect for Maynard’s.
“What she’s doing is despica
ble,” said state Rep. Peter Burling.
“We certainly aren’t going to open
any doors to folks that are attracted
here because of that book. If any
thing, we’ll probably be a little
tighter-lipped.”
Orange “No Trespassing” signs
are nailed to nearly every tree on the
dirt road to Salinger’s house. The
man who lives inside, Maynard says,
speaks with the voice of his most
famous creation, Holden Caulfield.
It is Holden, in “Catcher in the
Rye,” who says he would “pretend I
was one of those deaf-mutes. That
way I wouldn’t have to have any ...
stupid useless conversations with
anybody.”
Maynard does not understand
why the world goes along.
“A man kind of dictates the rules
about how he is to be treated, and for
30 years, people do what he says. I
can’t think of another public figure
- and he is a public figure - who has
been allowed to do that. He’s not a
monster, but he’s not a god. He’s a
man.”
New lineup magical for Baby Jason
SPANKERS from page 12
be too much for the band to deal
with. N
“The road really sucks. It’s hard
work, and it tends to wear you out,”
Davis said. “I would have loved to
play with those guys forever, but I’m
not in this to try and talk people into
playing with me. I want them with
me because they want to be with
me.”
Davis said the breakup was an
amicable one.'
“It’s been a peaceful split and
they have really gone out of their
way to help me out while I formed
the new band,” he said.
Davis said the main difference
between the new and old lineups is
one thing: focus.
“We looked at the songs and
made them more efficient. The hew
band has the skill, but we also have
the groove,” he said.
Steen agreed.
“It’s going to be the same tunes,
but the sound is going to be so much
newer,” he said, “just because we are
all different musicians, and we have
different styles.”
Davis said the band has been
sticking to a rigorous practice sched
ule, sometimes playing for eight
hours straight
The backbreaking schedule has
paid off.
“We’ve had a good, solid month
of practicing, and I think each time
the songs just sound tighter and
tighter,” Steen said. “It’s new and
fresh.”
Although this time around Davis
seems to be playing for keeps with
his new lineup, he said another
breakup wouldn’t stop him.
“This industry is definitely sur
vival of the fittest. And it will beat
you down,” he said. “But if it ended
again, I would have no choice but to
do it again.”
Baby Jason and the Spankers
play tonight and Friday night at the
Zoo Bar. Tickets are $3 and the show
starts at 9 p.m.
For more information, call the
Zoo Bar at (402) 435-8754.
poetry looks to the future
A University of Nebraska
Lincoln professor continues to
leave her footprints well off cam
pus.
Terri Brown-Davidson, asso
ciate professor of English,
appears tonight at the Bennett
Martin Public Library, 14* and N
Streets, as part of the John H.
Ames Reading Series.
The Palo Alto, Calif., native
describes herself as a self-pro
claimed “modern romantic,”
drawing on visions of the future
and the 20* century in her collec
tions of poetry and fiction.
She confesses as her quest to
“return poetry to the realm of the
imagination.”
“The Doll Artist’s Daughter,” a
book-length narrative poem, was
published in 1997, yet another
addition to her tome-like list of
accomplishments.
Brown-Davidson is published
in more than 300 journals and was
hailed in the journal “Tri
Quarterly New Writers,” as among
the brightest talents in modem fic
tion.
Her reading begins at 7:30
p.m. in the Heritage Room of
Nebraska Authors. Admission is
public and free of charge.
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