: ARTS
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At Ontario Place The one by Chris Wodskou Imprint staff In a genre where it seems that every second performer is billed as “The Legendary - - - - - -“, Blues Boy (That’s B.B. to you and me) King has stood alone as the greatest hero and symbol of the blues ever since the death of Muddy Waters. And when a bona fide legend plays for the price of admission to Ontario Place, you tend to want to be there. The 61-year-old ,King can do it all;
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TOP TEN RECORDS 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
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TAPES
Peter ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.~~~.......:”...................~. Cure Gabriel so . . Standlng on a Beach - The Slnglcs Moody Blues .................................. The Other Side of Life Soundtrack ....................................... Band of the Hand Simply Red ............................................ Picture This Genesis Invisible Touch ............................................. Double ..Blu t! ..................................................... Dead Kennedys ...................................... Frankenchrist Kim Mitchell Shakin’ Like A Human Being ............................ Various . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . *. . . . . . . . , . . . . . Q-107 Homegrown Vol. S
JUST ARRIVED 1. Scott Merritt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , . . Gravity is Mutual 2. Dead Can Dance . . . . . . . . . . , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Spleen and Ideal 3. Smiths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Queen is Dead Based on sales at the Record Store, Campus Centre, Lower Mall, University of Waterloo.
the stage racked with tears, overcome by the sheer power of the emotion flowing through his large body. Billy Bragg Documenting personal tragedy Go! Disks and the way music acts as a healer in times of pain, Levi Stubbs’ Tears by Paul Done gains its power through the restraint With the money from her ucciwith which Bragg delivers the story dent, she bought herself a motor of love, loss and physical injury. home. So at least she could get Bragg’s ability to express genuine some enjoyment out of being alone.. emotional content in few words is With these words Billy Bragg nearly unparalleled in modern dives into Levi Stubbs’ Tears, his music. With only his guitar and most moving, emotional song to cockney accent to help him, he date. crafts stunning vignettes with his The inspiration for the song apwords and’ description which sucparently comes from a Four Tops teed in transcending the inherent show that Billy Bragg saw when he limits of language for expressing was a teenager. During the show, emotion. Levi Stubbs, the lead singer of The On the flipside, Billy reverts to his T r more political persona for Think Again (...if you think that the Russians want War, think again. ) and gets a helping hand from Duane Tremolo, otherwise known as The fi Smiths’ Johnny Marr for Walk Away Renee, his interpretation of the song The Four Tops made famIh ous. It is a telling sign when one Billy Bragg song packs more emotional punch than the entire new Smiths album, but that’s the case with Levi / I Stubbs’ Tears, the finest song Billy Bragg has ever written and the best &-i&of &year so far. Levi
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SOLOS,there were no wasted or gratuitous notes. Each solo was so finely constructed that if even on note was taken out or even slightly altered, the whole song would COIlapse. King has probably played each of these songs thousands of times, but the joy of discovery was aI1 over his face very time he tweaked out the only perfect note. Of course? most of the songs begin with lines like “Woke up early this morning/To find my baby gone away”, but B.B. King transcends the sexist cliches to get at the real pain of everyday life and ordinary people. His gospel-influenced shouts/growls can only make you believe that some vindictive bitch has ripped his heart out of his chest and stomped all over it in her spiked heels. Add to that a self-depreciating sense of humour with lines like, “No one loves me but my mother/And she might be jiving too” and “I’m as mad as I can be/ ‘Cuz we’ve got thirteen children/And not one of them looks anything like me” (The Outskirts Of Town), and you’ve got songs that not only smack of experience, but which also add a dimension of fun to the sweet misery of the blues. The show was brought to a sweltering climax with a real goosepimpler of a version of How Blue Can You Get? (Answer: pretty damn navy) that left King basking in the mass adulation of some 12,000 fans. The man has style, class, charm, and mountains of inspiration and talent. The thrill is far from gone, chillun.
Urban Beaches Cactus World News MCA by Andrew Saikali Imprint staff Admit it, Ireland has done better before. I mean U2 has energy, the Pogues have spirit, but Cactus World News, “discovered” by Bono, just occupies space, spinning around at 33 l/3 rpm - though you’d never know it were it not for that persistent noise you ,hear. You wait for something, anything - a riff, a lyric, a melody to jump out, grab you and draw you into the grooves of the spinning vinyl. Oh well, dream on. Ten songs, largely bland, lifeless U2/Edge-style instrumentation,
Punk for the’ proletariat pointing early ticket sales) brought to Toronto a night of unambiguous punk and one of the best shows seen in this neck of the woods for a long time. Johnny’s first Toronto entrance in more than three years was made to the strains of Led Zepplin’s Kushmir, played by the remainder of the band, and the evening took off from there. The set was about and hour and a half long and featured music from 2” of PIL’s alb,ums, which span the past eight years, as well as an unex-
by Tom Rand Imprint staff It’s been a decade since the birth of the infamous Sex Pistols and punk for the masses Much about punk has changed since then, but a few things haven’t, and among them are Johnny (Rotten) Lydon, his anger and his energy. Lydon, along with his band Public Image Ltd., came to Toronto’s Concert Hall June 10. Public Image (originally scheduled for the International Center, but later moved to the smaller Concert Hall due to disap-
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there’s a whole lot more to his show than the traditional “that meanhearted old lady of mine done did me wrong” laments that the Delta blues-wailers are notorious for. The smoky. jazz opener gave each member of the supremely tight seven-piece band the opportunity to show off their prowess and they hit some pretty solid, sinewy grooves toughened up by the punchy brass section on such soulful and funky excursions as Rock Me Baby and The Thrill Is Gone. But of course, the star of the show is Lucille, the black Gibson that King caresses and fondles as if he’s making love to it. Amazingly; even though at least half of the more than two hours was taken up with guitar
B. B. King Live at Ontario Place June 21, 1986
Friday
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without any sort of inspired songwriting to justify their .existence. Two songs have promise. State of Emergency imparts a sombre mood with a sense of urgency. Years Later could be a really good track if it. were not for the annoying “ahooo”s interjected in the lyric. If only the composition were a bit more inspired, Cactus World News could put otherwise well-meaning musicians to good use. And they insist on dragging the whole ordeal out to the bitter end. Urban Beaches ends with an unnecessarily long, textured piece - as if they- wait until the end to set the mood - and fail even at that. The song is called Maybe This Time. Well, maybe next time.
pected rendition of the Sex Pistol’s Pretty Vacant. The band was tight and Johnny’s vocals were as piercing and strong as ever. His antics on stage between wails showed he’s as silly as ever, and just as funny looking, with his bright orange hair rolled into several dread-locks on top. PIL’s music, a unique breed dominated by drums, bass and of course, Lydon’s vocals, certainly spoke for itself. The band lived-up in concert to all the magnificent vinyl Public Image has produced in the past. The only disappointment of the evening was the crowd, which seemed to be as stupid as Lydon was clever. The show became, probably as Johnny expected (and perhaps wanted), a battle between himself and the crowd. A custom during the Sex Pistols’ heyday was to spit on the band. The punks out on June 10 took it upon themselves to be as ‘punk’ as possible and ape the Pistols’ fans of a decade ago. Under the circumstances, Johnny’s arrogance and antagonistic attitude to his audience was certainly not unwarranted. A bunch of no-minds trying to be street-punks by aping people with whom they have nothing in common would certainly upset me. The concert ended with PIL playing Theme, one of the more wellknown songs from the First Issue album, as an encore, on Johnny’s condition that the spitting stop. When the inevitable spitting started again, Johnny threw down his microphone, directed a “fuck you” at the audience coupled with a rather rude hand signal and stormed offstage. Knowing Johnny, one wonders how many shows he has ended just like that, simply waiting for his cue. . but think about it, isn’t that just why we love him?
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