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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (March 7, 2000)
Rouse’s Midwestern roots shine through on ‘Home’ ■ Album’s relaxed feel fits in with artists such as Neil Young and Wilco. By Josh Krauter Staff writer Josh Rouse’s new album, “Home,” should sound familiar to anyone who has spent long hours driving on Interstate 80. “Home” is the sound of the Midwest. It’s full of relaxed, melod ic songs that take their time, but don’t hang around too long. It’s the sound of highways, cornfields, half empty bars and the clash between rural and urban life. It s also an album that tits com fortably between Americana rock schools old (Neil Young, Tom Petty) and new (Wilco, Son Volt). Rouse, a Nebraska native (though all Web sites and press releases mysteriously never mention a hometown, just thp state) who moved around a lot as a child, knows what the Midwest sounds and feels like. Oddly enough, Rouse cites ’80s Brit-rock such as the Cure and the Smiths as primary influences, though “Home” doesn’t give this away. The music is simple, with lyrics tap dancing between cliche and sen timent, and arrangements spare, with just a few guitars and drums peppered with the occasional violin and trumpet. Most of the songs are about recent memories and introspective moments, the words neither pro found nor embarrassing. On “Directions,” Rouse tells a friend (or maybe himself) that his life has gone somewhere it wasn’t supposed to go. “Don’t like the direction you have come to/Seems to lack the attention it used to/Stay out all night and get high with your friends/Wonder why you don’t get anything done,” Rouse sings, but this is not a sappy, anti-drug song. in the next verse, Rouse still is unsatisfied when the song’s subject gets his life together. “Don’t like the direction you have come to/Now it has the atten tion it used to.” Nothing too pro found, but it’s a nice little ode to pes simism and the mundane that just seems to fit Midwesterners best. In “Hey Porcupine,” a nice com panion piece to “Directions,” Rouse sings to someone who is probably an ex-girlfriend. Josh Rouse \ TITLE: Home LABEL: Rykodisc Records - GRADE: B FIVE WORDS: Pleasant, solid, yet slight album. “I heard you’ve cleaned up and you’re going back to school/What a shame.” The rest of the songs are mostly about relationship problems, nostal gia and driving back home, but, at less than 40 minutes, Rouse knows when to exit. It’s a good thing, too, because “Home” would have been a tough listen if it had been longer. Rouse is a competent songwriter, but only about half the songs are memorable. The rest are as bland as mile markers or Wal-Marts. Laughter, 100M Backstroke,” and “Hey Porcupine” are the only really good songs, with “Directions” and “Afraid to Fail” close contenders. And for every good line, such as “Watch the way you backstroke across the room,” there is another, such as “As you waltzed in, the room became a glow” that would probably only work on “Dawson’s Creek” or some other show I’ve never seen. But Rouse shows promise, and if he builds on the strong parts of “Home,” he’s going to come up with an album that will make it all the way down the highways, dirt roads and Interstates without a nudge to the fast forward button. ‘Exterminator’ a mix of techno and rock By Cliff Hicks Staff uniter As techno goes mainstream, a lot of rock bands have tried to blend tech no tactics into their folds, but very few succeed. Primal Scream’s last album, 1997’s “Vanishing Point,” touched on a few techno elements, but never really cap tured a full-force techno rush. Still, the band was starting to experiment in that direction. The Primals have never been able to be pegged into a musical field - they’re chameleons in a music world full of stagnation. Their first album, “Screamadelica,” took ’60s groove laced wanderings and blended in slow er acid-house beats. They followed this with “Give Out But Don’t Give Up,” a record that was as squared-jawed a rip-off of ’70s Rolling Stones as possible. “Vanishing Point” captured the dark ’80s aimlessness and hopeless ness, which left everyone wondering - what next? “Exterminator.” In 1998, guitar-god Kevin Shields, the man who is, was and will always be My Bloody Valentine, remixed “If They Move, Kill ’em,” one of the tracks from “Vanishing Point,” for the single’s B-side. In 1999, Bobby Gillispie, the Primals’ mastermind, was a guest to Bernard Butler on the latest Chemical Brothers album. These two events changed the band more than anyone could have guessed. On “Exterminator,” we find the Primals cranking up the volume so far that the tones start to blur, like staring into the sun too long. This is the sound of a band cranking it up far beyond 11. From the opening crash of “Kill All Hippies” to the closing buzzes of sr Primal Scream TITLE: Exterminator LABEL: Creation Records GRADE: A 1 FIVE WORDS: Rock meets techno on overload. “Shoot Speed/Kill Light,” the Primals are reinventing themselves into a new sound, a new face for music. Both Shields and the Chemicals make appearances on “Exterminator,” and their influence throughout the whole album is unforgettable. Much like My Bloody Valentine’s s defining work, “Loveless,” there is always something going on. Sometimes the guitars roar and over load any stereo, other times they bend, whine, swirl and distort. Shields himself mixed a track on the album, “Accelerator,” and it’s easy to recognize his sonic thumbprint from the start. It’s the track that keeps all equalizer bands in the red no matter how quietly it’s played. It s hard to categorize “Exterminator” as an album - it’s such a masterful blend of rock, noise, tech no, orchestral meandering, rushing breakbeats and deadpan vocals that it defies classification. Take, for example, “Blood Money,” which keeps a steady drum beat the whole time but adds ’60s spy jazz over it, then compounds it with a overwhelming bass line, then drops in what sounds like a harpsichord. And this track stays instrumental the whole time. Contrast it against “Accelerator” and you’ll think you aren’t listening to the same album. “Exterminator” (or, as it’s written on the album’s cover, “Xtrmntr”) isn’t without faults. It’s nice to see Shields’ remix of “If They Move, Kill ’em” on an album, but it’s also stuff Primal fans have heard before. And while the two versions of “Swastika Eyes” are fairly different, one of which was mixed by the Chemical Brothers, did we really need both on the album? The biggest hindrance is that the Primals don’t have a U.S. distributor right now, so the album’s only available on import. Still, even the big chains are carrying the import version, which should tell you just how good this album is. Experience the noise, the beauty, the fusion. Get “Exterminator.” Fat Tuesday Celebration! March 7 Featuring! Clockworked, 9pm Straight from Fort Tlollins! New Orleans Buffet 5:00pm Duggan's Pub K Comer of 11th & K 477-3513 $1 Mug Night $1 Mini Pizza Every Wednesday from 8pm to midnight 2 for I Calzones All day Sunday shiitymikmm Come hear the ASUN Candidates @ Daily Nebraskan/RHA-sponsored debate at Nebraska Union today at 7pm L ‘TACO TUESDAY” 4 Crispy Corn Tacos for $3.99 Stop in Wednesday For “TACOS & TACHAS” at ARTURO’S 803 ‘Q’ ST. 475-TACO r [M&N Sandwich! M43 Randolph Authentic Chicago Style Deli llloiids Best Free Drink with Sandwich Order Live Music 6:30 - 8:30 Tues-Sat No cover, AH Ages ★with Dotty’s Nails 4201 “O” St. 438-6388 March Specials Pedicures $15 Nail Sets $30 use no MMA exp 3/31/00 Celebrate Fat Tuesday with Us! ' . March 7, 4pm *Drink Specials *Free Beeds *Door Prizes *Cajun Creole *Cajun Music BUS zes reole Food I Hanks forced to drop pounds for Island film MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) - A slim mer Tom Hanks is due in Memphis next month to film parts of a movie in which he plays an island castaway, a spokeswoman says. Hanks plays a workaholic Federal Express executive who survives a plane crash and is stranded alone on a small island in the film “Cast Away,” a 20th Century Fox and DreamWorks studios production with Robert Zemeckis directing. While on the remote island, Hanks has to completely transform himself both physically and emotionally in order to survive his circumstance. Madonna gets serious about love, motherhood NEW YORK (AP) - Madonna enjoys being in love again but isn’t sure she’s ready for marriage. In the March 13 issue of People magazine, she calls her romance with film director Guy Ritchie a “serious relationship.” But on the subject of marriage, she said: “I don’t know about that. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, if we get to it.” Madonna, who divorced actor Sean Penn in 1989. also acknowledges she still has feelings for former boyfriend Carlos Leon, the father of her 3-year-old daughter Lourdes. German show allows for little privacy for subjects BERLIN (AP) - Residents on a 24-hour German TV show will now be able to duck from the omnipresent cameras’ range, the producers of the “Big Brother” series agreed Monday. In turn, media regulators meeting in Munich postponed a decision until March 14 on whether to order the show off the air. Under fire for violating residents’ dignity, the show’s producers said they would set up a camera-free room in the house where residents could spend an hour a day in privacy. The show is based on a series of the same name in the Netherlands, where cameras and microphones monitor five men and five women for 100 days, 24 hours a day - even in the shower. Infrared cameras observe resi dents when the lights are off in the two communal bedrooms, and there also is a camera in the toilet - though produc ers say it’s there only for security. The audience periodically gets the chance to vote to kick someone out of the house, and the person left at t> c end wins $125,000.