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Really Randoms: Fred Durst pleads not guilty, Kurupt's bodyguard slain, Manson gets ready to wrassle & more Durst declares innocence. FRED DURST's attorney, Earl Gray, yesterday appeared in St. Paul, Minn.'s Ramsey County Court to enter a not guilty plea on behalf of the LIMP BIZKIT singer, who is charged with assault and disorderly conduct for allegedly having kicked a security guard in the head at a July 12 show in St. Paul. Durst is set to begin his jury trial on Dec. 20... On Sunday night, three members of KURUPT's posse were shot outside the Atwater Village (near L.A.), Calif., studio where he and his producer DAZ were working on the rapper's new album. Dwayne Dupree, Kurupt's twenty-three-year-old bodyguard, was killed, and rappers Jevon Jones (a k a "The Realist) and Willard Givers (a k a "Act Da Fool") were treated at a local hospital and released. Antra Music, Kurupt's label, issued a statement today expressing sympathy for Dupree's family and "fervent hope that that there will be no more violence in the hip-hop community" ... The video for Marilyn Manson's new song, "Astonishing Panorama of the Endtimes" -- which was written for the Nov. 11 season finale of Celebrity Death Match, where a claymation Manson will enter the ring -- will debut on MTV's Total Request Live on Thursday, Oct. 21. The song will appear on a Celebrity Death Match soundtrack and has been tacked onto Manson's upcoming live album, The Last Tour on Earth... Itching to make your own ALANIS MORISSETTE video compilation? She thought you were, and now she's letting you. Fans can choose videos and even their own cover art on Morissette's site (www.alanismorissette.com), Maverick Records' site (www.maverickrc.com) and Tower Records' site (www.towerrecords.com). The "Video Custom Disc" costs $7.99 for four songs and $8.99 for five. In other Morissette news, Liquid Audio is offering a free full-length preview of her upcoming MTV Unplugged album, which will be released Nov. 23 . . . PAUL McCARTNEY hits the airwaves Wednesday, Oct. 20, with the "Roots of Rock," the first of a five-part radio show for the BBC that Macca recorded at his home in southeastern England. The legendary musician will play some tracks from his critically acclaimed rock & roll covers collection, Run Devil Run, and also regale listeners with his own personal favorite records from the annals of rock history, in between reminiscences of his former compatriots -- including the night he first laid eyes on John Lennon. "When I first saw him, I thought, oh, he looks pretty handy, you know. And he's singing great and he's in command," McCartney reveals in transcripts of the program released by the BBC. Also on the McCartney front, there are plans to release a Paul McCartney tribute album early next year. According to CBS Radio, Elvis Costello, Brian Wilson, Squeeze, Paul Weller, Echo & the Bunnymen and Ron Sexsmith have been asked to contribute songs . . . Nearly two and a half years after RONNIE LANE's death from Multiple Sclerosis, Ooh La La: Ronnie Lane Live in Austin will be released early next year on Sideburn Records. Done in conjunction with Lane's widow, Susan Gallegos, the record is culled from a series of live shows with Lane's band the Tremors during 1986 and 1987. Besides the eighteen tracks, the compilers have spliced in some hilarious interviews with the Small Faces founder, as well as clpis with Lane and Small Faces keyboardist Ian McLagan describing the demise of the band . . . Last year, it looked as if the Sony MiniDisc was going to go the way of the Sony Betamax. Well, the MiniDisc is proving pretty mighty, and now Warner Bros. is re-entering the market. Later this month the label will begin issuing albums by artists like R.E.M., MADONNA and ALANIS MORISSETTE on MiniDisc ... Listen up, ladies: NINE INCH NAILS' TRENT REZNOR is accepting demo tapes from female singers. According to the band's official Web site, interested parties can send materials to P.O. Box 16948, Cleveland, OH, 44116. Meanwhile, anyone else wanting to get their tape into TRENT REZNOR's hands should send it to P.O. Box 161095, Cleveland, Oh, 44116... MADONNA and her daughter, Lourdes, received a police escort Sunday night after they got off their British Airways Concorde flight. The airline reportedly had received a call threatening the singer, who had flown from New York to London to continue work on her next album. About six police officers and a police dog surrounded the singer as she walked into the Heathrow's Terminal 4, according to AirNews, a news agency based at the airport. She was still under police protection when she was helped into a limousine, which sped from the airport. London's Scotland Yard said in a statement that, "as a result of information received," police were present when a woman arrived on the Concorde flight. "There was no incident during her arrival." British Airways said that they are forbidden to give out information about individual passengers. Madonna's record label, Warner Bros. refused to comment, calling the incident "a non-story." This is not the first time the singer has been the center of a such controversy. In May 1995, Robert Dewey Hoskins was shot scaling a fence at the Madonna's Hollywood home, and jailed in March 1996 after the singer was forced to testify against him. He is currently serving ten years in prison. Soon afterward, Madonna sold the house in the Hollywood Hills. Last November, the singer's bodyguards threw out a group of fans who followed her to the BBC studios outside of London, where she was to perform on Top of the Pops. According a Top of the Pops spokesperson, the group was considered a "security risk" . . . MICHAEL HUTCHENCE's father, Kelland, has created an online memorial for his son almost two years after his death by hanging in a Sydney, Australia, hotel room. The elder Hutchence has launched a memorial Web site for his son (http://www.michaelhutchence.org) -- with the help of two fans in Switzerland -- to coincide with the release of the INXS's singer's posthumous solo album which comes out tomorrow in the U.K. (due Feb. 20 in the U.S.) The elder Hutchence provided family pictures for the site, including one of the singer's daughter, Tiger. Kelland Hutchence tells fans that he is still struggling with his son's death, explaining, "Somehow I always feel he is not far away -- just out there fairly close with a smile on his face and missing us as much as we miss him." Also included are tributes from friends and musicians including BONO and BOY GEORGE . . . Tickets went on sale Saturday for most of the stops on JIMMY BUFFETT's upcoming mini-tour, which kicks-off Nov. 30 in Tampa, Fla., hits Orlando (12/2), New Orleans (12/4), Houston (12/7), West Palm Beach (12/9, 12/11) and culminates with the all-night "Buffett at the Beach" millennial party at the Universal Amphitheatre in Los Angeles on Dec. 31 . . . IGGY POP is putting on his traveling shoes again, and will kick off a small, five-city tour of his North American strongholds before embarking on a tour of the European capitals. He'll set out on the road on October 25 for a two-night stand at the El Rey Theater in Los Angeles, and ten days later, he'll pick up his passport and head for the City of Lights. Along the way, the Iggster will be one of the presenters for the MTV's European VMA's in Dublin on November 11. Pop's tour dates are as follows: 10/25, Los Angeles, El Rey Theater Their cover of "Jump, Jive and Wail" may have catapulted the BRIAN SETZER ORCHESTRA to mainstream celebrity, but bandleader Setzer was rockabilly way before the Gap made it trendy to wear cuffed blue-jeans. For proof, look to the upcoming Brian Setzer Collection: 1981-1988, which documents his years with the STRAY CATS and his pre-Orchestra solo albums. The album is due out on Nov. 16... WILL SMITH is looking to be the Donald Trump of Philadelphia. The rapper/actor is planning a new hotel, "Hotel W," in downtown Philadelphia. The structure is expected to open in 2002. Smith's new album, Willenium, hits stores Nov. 16 ... FIONA APPLE is offering free downloads of "Love Ridden" and "Fast as You Can," at www.launch.com. The two songs are from her verbosely titled upcoming album -- which we'll call When the Pawn Hits. The album hits stones Nov. 9 ... MICHAEL JACKSON was planning a Y2K thriller, by ringing in the New Year on two separate continents. The King of Pop was to play a concert in Sydney, Australia, and then jump on a jet to play in Honolulu, Hawaii. However, because he wants to concentrate attention on his new album, Jacko has cancelled both shows... Mark Hosler, best known as one of the mad geniuses behind U2-baiting conceptualists NEGATIVLAND, has set his sights on an even bigger target than Bono's rock-star butt. Hosler, sans his mates, is taking a crack at the whole darn advertising world via a series of lectures on what he likes to call "culture jamming." He'll be kicking off his crusade at New York University on October 27, and if we're lucky, the whole shebang won't stop until each and every one of the folks who's sold a song for use in salad dressing commercials is tarred, feathered and made to wear silly spandex pants in public... You know what ticks us off more than anything? Well, okay, the fact that the bozo from SUGAR RAY came up with some Rock 'n' Roll Jeopardy answers we couldn't get is pretty close...but what really gets our goat is feeling unnecessarily confused. As such, we must thank the fine folks over at the La-Z Boy furniture company for setting their lawyers loose on a New York instrumental-rock band that's been performing under the name LAZY BOY for the past several years. Since we know that countless folks have been duped by thinking that you could get hurricane relief at Redd Kross shows, and see famous aquatic mammals when Flipper came to town, it's about time that the reclining-chair kings went after the surf-loungesters on behalf of folks who saw those club ads and expected a group sit. In any event, the band, which has a handful of releases to its credit, will henceforth be known as Big Lazy (as opposed to their first choice, Lazy Girl, which the chair-men also nixed).
Hot Chicks Who are the Dixie Chicks, and how have they come to rock & rule the roost?
Video presentation by Adam Falik
By Richard Skanse
It's the encore of Sheryl Crow's September 14th concert in Central Park, and some 25,000 people are watching Dixie Chick Natalie Maines shake and shimmy in a black leather outfit during an all-star jam of Bob Dylan's "Tombstone Blues." But nobody is watching her more closely than Keith Richards, crouched down over his Telecaster and matching her sassy sway with a wicked, co-conspiratorial grin.
"That's one of those things you never imagine is going to happen," says the twenty-four-year-old singer with a laugh two days later, while the Chicks are holed up in a New York hotel during tropical storm Floyd. "We met him Monday at the rehearsals, and Tuesday there were flowers in our trailer from Keith. The cool thing is, he said his daughters love us and that they're more impressed with the Dixie Chicks than they are with him."
The Rolling Stone's brood is not alone. Fly, the Dixie Chicks' second major-label album, moved 341,000 copies in its first week, to claim the Number One spot on the Billboard 200, a feat not even achieved by Shania Twain's 13 million selling - and considerably more mainstream - Come On Over. Wide Open Spaces, their 1997 debut, is still in the Top Forty and certified seven-times platinum. The past year has seen the unconventionally hip and irreverent trio nab two Grammys, while radio programmers have lunged at every Dixie Chicks track they can get their hands on.
"I talk to country-radio stations all week, and the most requested songs they have are anything by the Dixie Chicks," says Jamie Matteson, country editor for the music trade magazine Gavin. "Anything" includes not only album singles but left-field picks like their straight-up pop cover of "You Can't Hurry Love," from the Runaway Bride soundtrack, and the Western swing nugget "Roly Poly," from Asleep at the Wheel's Bob Wills tribute album, Ride With Bob. "Right now we're playing 'Ready to Run' [Fly's first single] every three hours and 'Roly Poly' every four and a half hours," says Rob Carpenter, program director for WCTQ in Sarasota, Florida. Carpenter says he hears six or seven singles on Fly, including the full-throttle rave-up "Sin Wagon," in which Maines belts out her hell-bent intention to do some "mattress dancing." "That song has frightening potential," he says. "If alternative and pop radio do not play that one, it may turn the fortunes of country radio around. It's a song that people are just going to want to hear, and it's going to clash really badly with pop or alternative, because of the banjos, but I think that's what makes it edgy. How many songs do we play at country radio that have banjo solos in them?"
"Sin Wagon" is one of the first cuts to fully capture the spirited intensity of the Chicks' live show, which in the past year they've taken from the stadiums of the George Strait Country Music Festival to the main stage at Lilith Fair. At a taping of Sessions at West 54th, their performance of the song is positively punk, like the Go-Go's running amok through the cornfields of Hee Haw. Maines even looks the part of vintage Belinda Carlisle, with a short, choppy do, a leather skirt and a baby T emblazoned with "Ugglygirl." While the other two Chicks, fiddle-and-banjo-playing sisters Martie Seidel and Emily Robison, rip through equally high-energy numbers like Bonnie Raitt's "Give It Up or Let Me Go" and the gleeful revenge anthem "Goodbye Earl," Maines stomps her feet and pumps up the band. The group is adept at ballads - Sheryl Crow calls their self-penned "You Were Mine" "one of the best songs ever written" - but more than anything, the Chicks like to rock.
"A year ago, my friends would say, 'Oh, I get this Dixie Chicks thing - they're like the Spice Girls, except country,' " says Brian Philips of Susquehanna Radio in Dallas. "If you go to see them, you think that for about thirty seconds - and then you realize that they're one of the most accomplished, tightest and best-sounding live acts that you'll ever see."
Fly co-producer Blake Chancey saw enough potential in the Chicks four years ago to give them a demo deal. He loved the virtuosity of Seidel and Robison, who had been playing fiddle, banjo and dobro in bluegrass festivals since childhood; but with lead singer Laura Lynch on board, the group was still a soft-folk act. After signing the Chicks, their manager informed them that Lynch was out in favor of a new singer, a "firecracker." Four months went by before Chancey heard the new incarnation. "When they kicked off the first song, it was just this upbeat, turbo-rocking song," he says. "It was unbelievable. And then Natalie opened her mouth and I went, 'Oh, we've got something here.' " "It was so different that it was either going to be huge or it was going to be virtually rejected, which is often the case in our format for things that aren't ordinary," says Allen Butler, president of Sony Music Nashville.
From Day One, a key to the Dixie Chicks' success has been their determination to follow their instincts - and the relative leeway given by their label has allowed them to do so. "They have great business sense," says Natalie's father, Lloyd Maines, the accomplished Texas producer and steel guitarist who plays on both Chicks albums. "On the first album, they got a little resistance on 'Wide Open Spaces,' but the girls held fast and it paid off."
"We do have to fight some battles, but they're getting much less since we've had the success," says Maines. "But they underestimate us all the time, still. We just do what we want to do. We were sort of naive when we were making Wide Open Spaces, and I think we want to keep that."
Asleep at the Wheel's Ray Benson, an early supporter of the Chicks, says he has faith in their ability to maintain their integrity even as the record company kicks into marketing overdrive. "It is amazing to watch the machine take over," he says. "But if their convictions are there, which I think they are, they'll do fine. I applaud them. If you can be successful in mainstream music and still have a musical identity, that's a real trick."
But how long can the honeymoon last? Kyle Young, director of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, has little doubt about the Chicks' staying power. "When I think of them, I think of people like Willie Nelson and the Judds and Garth Brooks, who have taken something, built on it and created something new. When that happens, it's almost an assurance that they'll have longevity."
For now, the Chicks are looking forward to an overdue vacation before their first headlining tour, next summer. "We're going to take time off, because we're sick of the Chicks and we don't want people to get sick of it," says Maines. "We are going to give the album a chance to breath without all the hype, and we need time to gather ourselves and to be human. I'm thinking of dying my hair black or getting extensions so I can be incognito for a while."
Kiss, Offspring, Dixie Chicks Join the Who in Vegas
Acts added to iBash '99 include Kiss, the Dixie Chicks, the Offspring, LeAnn Rimes and more
Offspring get a job.
When it was announced last week that the headlining act at Pixelon.com's iBash '99 would be legendary rockers the Who, there was little doubt that the other acts at the event would be any less than major stars. Today, the Internet broadcast technology company announced a list of performers for its Web site's Oct. 29 launch party that includes Kiss, the Dixie Chicks, the Offspring, LeAnn Rimes, the Brian Setzer Orchestra, Faith Hill, Tony Bennett and Chely Wright.
The event, held at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, will actually consist of a number of separate shows over the course of the day. The first will be called "Hottest Divas of Country" and will feature Wright, Rimes, Hill and the Chicks. Later, the Offspring and Kiss will play at the MGM Grand Adventure Theme Park; Bennett and Setzer, meanwhile, will play a swanky show at the casino's Grand Garden Arena. Capping off the night will be the Who's first reunion show.
Tickets are only available to the public for the divas show and the Who concert, and they can be purchased beginning today for a mere $10 each, per show, by calling Ticketmaster at (702) 474-4000 or visiting www.ticketmaster.com. If you can't make it to Vegas, the event will be webcast live at www.pixelon.com, utilizing multiple camera angles for each performance, as well as backstage footage of the event.
JENNY ELISCU
Really Randoms: NIN, Madonna, Michael Hutchence Trent Reznor seeks female singer, Madonna threatened, Hutchence's father unveils memorial Web site & more
Trent wants you!
Listen up, ladies: Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor is accepting demo tapes from female singers. According to the band's official Web site, interested parties can send materials to P.O. Box 16948, Cleveland, OH, 44116. Meanwhile, anyone else wanting to get their tape into Trent Reznor's hands should send it to P.O. Box 161095, Cleveland, Oh, 44116...
MADONNA and her daughter, Lourdes, received a police escort Sunday night after they got off their British Airways Concorde flight. The airline reportedly had received a call threatening the singer, who had flown from New York to London to continue work on her next album. About six police officers and a police dog surrounded the singer as she walked into the Heathrow's Terminal 4, according to AirNews, a news agency based at the airport. She was still under police protection when she was helped into a limousine, which sped from the airport. London's Scotland Yard said in a statement that, "as a result of information received," police were present when a woman arrived on the Concorde flight. "There was no incident during her arrival." British Airways said that they are forbidden to give out information about individual passengers. Madonna's record label, Warner Bros. refused to comment, calling the incident "a non-story." This is not the first time the singer has been the center of a such controversy. In May 1995, Robert Dewey Hoskins was shot scaling a fence at the Madonna's Hollywood home, and jailed in March 1996 after the singer was forced to testify against him. He is currently serving ten years in prison. Soon afterward, Madonna sold the house in the Hollywood Hills. Last November, the singer's bodyguards threw out a group of fans who followed her to the BBC studios outside of London, where she was to perform on Top of the Pops. According a Top of the Pops spokesperson, the group was considered a "security risk" . . .
MICHAEL HUTCHENCE's father, Kelland, has created an online memorial for his son almost two years after his death by hanging in a Sydney, Australia, hotel room. The elder Hutchence has launched a memorial Web site for his son (http://www.michaelhutchence.org) -- with the help of two fans in Switzerland -- to coincide with the release of the INXS's singer's posthumous solo album which comes out tomorrow in the U.K. (due Feb. 20 in the U.S.) The elder Hutchence provided family pictures for the site, including one of the singer's daughter, Tiger. Kelland Hutchence tells fans that he is still struggling with his son's death, explaining, "Somehow I always feel he is not far away -- just out there fairly close with a smile on his face and missing us as much as we miss him." Also included are tributes from friends and musicians including BONO and BOY GEORGE . . .
Tickets went on sale Saturday for most of the stops on JIMMY BUFFETT's upcoming mini-tour, which kicks-off Nov. 30 in Tampa, Fla., hits Orlando (12/2), New Orleans (12/4), Houston (12/7), West Palm Beach (12/9, 12/11) and culminates with the all-night "Buffett at the Beach" millennial party at the Universal Amphitheatre in Los Angeles on Dec. 31 . . .
IGGY POP is putting on his traveling shoes again, and will kick off a small, five-city tour of his North American strongholds before embarking on a tour of the European capitals. He'll set out on the road on October 25 for a two-night stand at the El Rey Theater in Los Angeles, and ten days later, he'll pick up his passport and head for the City of Lights. Along the way, the Iggster will be one of the presenters for the MTV's European VMA's in Dublin on November 11. Pop's tour dates are as follows:
10/25, Los Angeles, El Rey Theater Their cover of "Jump, Jive and Wail" may have catapulted the BRIAN SETZER ORCHESTRA to mainstream celebrity, but bandleader Setzer was rockabilly way before the Gap made it trendy to wear cuffed blue-jeans. For proof, look to the upcoming Brian Setzer Collection: 1981-1988, which documents his years with the STRAY CATS and his pre-Orchestra solo albums. The album is due out on Nov. 16...
WILL SMITH is looking to be the Donald Trump of Philadelphia. The rapper/actor is planning a new hotel, "Hotel W," in downtown Philadelphia. The structure is expected to open in 2002. Smith's new album, Willenium, hits stores Nov. 16 ...
FIONA APPLE is offering free downloads of "Love Ridden" and "Fast as You Can," at www.launch.com. The two songs are from her verbosely titled upcoming album -- which we'll call When the Pawn Hits. The album hits stones Nov. 9 ...
MICHAEL JACKSON was planning a Y2K thriller, by ringing in the New Year on two separate continents. The King of Pop was to play a concert in Sydney, Australia, and then jump on a jet to play in Honolulu, Hawaii. However, because he wants to concentrate attention on his new album, Jacko has cancelled both shows...
Mark Hosler, best known as one of the mad geniuses behind U2-baiting conceptualists NEGATIVLAND, has set his sights on an even bigger target than Bono's rock-star butt. Hosler, sans his mates, is taking a crack at the whole darn advertising world via a series of lectures on what he likes to call "culture jamming." He'll be kicking off his crusade at New York University on October 27, and if we're lucky, the whole shebang won't stop until each and every one of the folks who's sold a song for use in salad dressing commercials is tarred, feathered and made to wear silly spandex pants in public...
You know what ticks us off more than anything? Well, okay, the fact that the bozo from SUGAR RAY came up with some Rock 'n' Roll Jeopardy answers we couldn't get is pretty close...but what really gets our goat is feeling unnecessarily confused. As such, we must thank the fine folks over at the La-Z Boy furniture company for setting their lawyers loose on a New York instrumental-rock band that's been performing under the name LAZY BOY for the past several years. Since we know that countless folks have been duped by thinking that you could get hurricane relief at Redd Kross shows, and see famous aquatic mammals when Flipper came to town, it's about time that the reclining-chair kings went after the surf-loungesters on behalf of folks who saw those club ads and expected a group sit. In any event, the band, which has a handful of releases to its credit, will henceforth be known as Big Lazy (as opposed to their first choice, Lazy Girl, which the chair-men also nixed)...
BILL CRANDALL, JENNY ELISCU, DAVID SPRAGUE
Performance: Ani Difranco Ani Difranco gets righteous and funky in Austin, Texas
Folk hero.
It did not take long for those naïve fans who brought blankets, hoping to claim a private space in the pre-show land grab, to realize that this was not going to be a lightly attended picnic with a folksinger. The Ani Difranco legion was out in force on this ideal quarter-moon Friday night in Austin, Texas, and the Backyard was at near capacity. Blankets could still be found, but they were shared among a dozen strangers. The scene was particularly beautiful with the imposing Oak trees behind the stage lit up like a backdrop from a Tim Burton film.
Accompanied by drums, bass and various types of keyboards, Difranco loaded the first half of the set with upbeat, slinky and funky tunes that kept the audience bouncing. Particularly strong were "Freakshow," which she opened with, and the beautiful "Providence," both of which are on her new album, To The Teeth. When Jason Mercer put down the stand-up bass and played the electric bass, the band even sounded like Stevie Wonder, circa 1976. Difranco was visibly heartened by the enthusiasm of the Austin audience and repeatedly referred to the previous night's fans as "cardboard cutouts." "It's like, you know, they didn't respond to environmental stimuli."
The pace changed for a mid-set pairing of Difranco and Julie Wolf (accordion) on the song "Angry Anymore" from Up Up Up Up Up Up, with harmonies that sounded just like the Indigo Girls. Needless to say, the crowd loved it. . Equally impressive was the percussion and vocal interlude, which had the entire band at center stage singing "Every State Line" with maracas and hand held drums.
An expert at connecting with audiences, Difranco's light-hearted free association ramblings were often as entertaining as the music. After noting that Public Enemy was playing the same night, she thanked the audience for showing up, suggesting that she would have had a hard time choosing between herself and Flavor Flav. At one point, after ten minutes of a giggling monologue about a V.I.P. tour of the White House, the American Revolution and the historical implications of a portrait of George Washington, she looked down at her feet and said "Focus. Focus."
The only mildly serious musing came in reference to the sodomy laws of Texas, which she speculated "were on the crusty old books because no politician wanted to be the one to repeal them. They don't realize what a hero they would be to us all." The cheers lasted for two minutes even though everyone knew that it's unlikely any Texas politician is interested in being such a hero.
While her songwriting has been the usual focus of music critics, from her live show it becomes apparent that one of the most overlooked aspects of Difranco's talent is her ability to play guitar. With the label of "folksinger" comes the assumption that the songs are more about lyrics than guitar virtuosity. Watching her play makes one realize just how complex her songs really are. The deception is increased by her ability to lead the band with subtle cues that give her the freedom to improvise and communicate with the audience.
The set ended with Kurt Swinghammer, the opening act, joining the band to play electric guitar on the title track of To The Teeth. While she didn't mention her own upcoming release, Difranco was particularly effusive concerning Swinghammer's new album, which she said sounded "unbelievable, spacey, like mutants are running through it."
The show closed too soon for most of the fans, who were hoping for a long series of encores. However, the roaring audience reaction throughout the show was an indication that no one was disappointed. And even though Difranco refers to herself as "just a folksinger," carries the requisite acoustic guitar and sings songs that could be played in a joint passing circle, she is more like a hero to her fans. They would forgive her for anything, realizing that tonight she was probably in a hurry to catch the last couple of Public Enemy songs.
CHARLIE ROADMAN
Tube Rock A weekly guide to rock and rap on the small screen
Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Eminem perform on Saturday Night Live.
Courtesy of RockOnTv
MONDAY, OCT. 18
HBO Larry Sanders PORNO FOR PYROS guest.
ABC Monday Night Football MEAT LOAF performs the national anthem at tonight's match-up between the New York Giants and the Dallas Cowboys.
VH1 Legends A look at the phenomenal career of DAVID BOWIE.
VH1 Storytellers DAVID BOWIE performs before an intimate crowd.
PBS Charlie Rose MARC ANTHONY guests.
TUESDAY, OCT. 19
WB Buffy The Vampire Slayer BIF NAKED guest stars.
HBO Reverb Performances and interviews from SUGAR RAY, CITIZEN KING, 2 SKINNEE J'S and SHOWOFF.
ABC Politically Incorrect CHUCK D. joins tonight's panel.
NBC Tonight Show with Jay Leno JOHN POPPER of Blues Traveler performs.
WEDNESDAY, OCT. 20
SYN Queen Latifah SLICK RICK guests.
CMT All Access: LeAnn Rimes An up-close-and-personal look at country superstar LeANN RIMES.
MUCH USA Intimate & Interactive with Mary J. Blige The Queen of Hip-Hop Soul MARY J. BLIGE performs at MuchMusic World Headquarters.
BRV Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach: Because It's A Lonely World A one hour documentary celebrating the collaboration of two musical giants on their Grammy award-winning album, Painted From Memory.
MTV BIOrhythm A look at the career of TLC told through interviews and music.
NBC Late Night with Conan O'Brien: BUSH performs and MEAT LOAF talks about his acting career.
THURSDAY, OCT. 21
WB Charmed Special musical guest star DISHWALLA perform.
NBC Tonight Show with Jay Leno JEWEL performs.
NBC Late Night with Conan O'Brien JIMMY'S CHICKEN SHACK performs.
SYN Donny & Marie JOEY McINTYRE guests.
FRIDAY, OCT. 22
SYN Rosie O'Donnell LUCIANO PAVAROTTI performs.
MTV FANatic Fans interview 98 DEGREES and LIL' KIM.
SYN Motown Live Featuring performances by BRIAN McKNIGHT, CON FUNK SHUN and BLAQUE.
HBO Chris Rock ME'SHELL NDEGEOCELLO performs.
SATURDAY, OCT. 23
BET Teen Summit MOBB DEEP and MEMPHIS BLEEK guest.
VH1 The Concert of the Century for VH1 Save The Music Legends of the blues (B.B. KING, ERIC CLAPTON), country (GARTH BROOKS), ROCK (JOHN FOGERTY, JOHN MELLENCAMP, BONO) and Latin (GLORIA ESTEFAN) team up with some of the new stars of the Nineties (SHERYL CROW, LENNY KRAVITZ, 'N SYNC), and other surprise guests to perform their own hits and classic songs from the American Century.
BET DocuGroove: 24 Hours with Mary J. Blige Spend two days in the life of MARY J. BLIGE promoting her new album, including an in-store signing, a radio interview, doing the Tonight Show and going to the Source Hip Hop Music Awards.
PBS Sessions at West 54th ROBERT CRAY and KIM RICHEY perform.
NBC Saturday Night Live Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Eminem perform.
SUNDAY, OCT. 24
CNN World Beat RICKY MARTIN kicks off his tour in Miami; MARC ANTHONY is interviewed.
VH1 Storytellers LENNY KRAVITZ performs before an intimate studio audience.
MTV Making The Video Behind the scenes with GARBAGE.
Performance: Laurie Anderson
Laurie Anderson explores the philosophical seas of Moby Dick
Anderson's big fish tale.
Performance artist Laurie Anderson, the doyenne of New York's downtown scene, opened this year's Next Wave Festival, a month-long exploration of new artistic works, with a meditation on life. The multimedia presentation, Songs and Stories From Moby Dick, delves into the issues Herman Melville explored in his novel -- specifically, religion, natural selection and domination, obsession, humanity and mortality.
Rather than deconstruct Melville's masterwork, Anderson ponders the issues she has long held dear, many of which, coincidentally, parallel Melville's concerns. Anderson uses the novel as a springboard to question values -- sometimes obliquely and sometimes head-on -- that drive late twentieth-century Western culture. A stage-length screen fronted by a platform occupies upstage, leaving the foreground bare for the stylized but simple choreography and Anderson's walking musings. At the opening of the piece (which runs about ninety minutes with no intermission), Anderson stands alone downstage, while Tom Nelis (as Ahab) stands, erect and immobile, seemingly impervious to the sea raging behind him on-screen. Melville's words flash on the screen, and Anderson weaves Melville's original text into her introduction.
Then the performance really takes off. Anderson as the Reader (she also takes up the role of Pip, and the Whale) tells us -- while sitting in an oversize Lily Tomlin-like chair -- of Melville's friend Nathaniel Hawthorne's lukewarm reaction to Moby Dick and Melville's bitter disappointment. Ahab roars his intentions to find and kill the great whale while worldbeat rhythms and a thumping backbeat signal both the human spirit and the folly of obsession. Alternately, the Cook, Second Mate and Running Man (Price Waldman) and Anthony Turner and Miles Green (Standing Man and Falling Man, respectively) comment on the novel and today's society through simply choreographed moves, solos (Waldman's winning solo as the knowing Cook) and harmonizing trios. Throughout, bassist Skúli Sverrison, onstage for virtually the entire show, provides the steady accompaniment. Anderson also provides instrumental coloring, playing electric violin, keyboards, guitar and talking stick, a wireless electronic instrument that can record and duplicate any sound.
Songs and Stories From Moby Dick moves from novel to the mundanity of today with no regard for linear development; plot is forsaken for the fluidity of sound. Like the novel she chose as inspiration, Anderson moves from narration to storytelling, telling us, for instance, of a meeting with a worm specialist who heads an oceanic department at an English university, then moving without interruption into relating the life of the Whale and Melville's relationship with his characters. Her music echoes the novel's schizophrenic jumps from theme to theme; the sounds are sometimes lyrical, sometimes as violent and choppy as the seas the dominate Melville's story, sometimes danceable, sometimes dark and brooding and malevolent.
Anderson indulges her musings cleverly, using movement and symbolism to propel the ninety-minute piece, never belaboring any one point or overdoing visual tricks. The Spartan stage comes alive when she and Sverrison duet over prerecorded sounds and blips and arrangements. The cast understands Anderson's motives and shares her love of economy of movement and voice, inhabiting their black clothing like ghosts. Nelis's Ahab and Explorer (who has two wonderfully staged solos involving a moon and fish lens, respectively) are strident and sometimes overbearing, as were Melville's characters; Waldman ably moves the Cook from buffoon to wise man. Anderson's music is engaging and layered, melding different rhythmic cultures (African, club-worthy beats, Western pop, Asian musical scales) seamlessly.
But no questions are answered. Has man outgrown the usefulness of a God? Will man's quest to control the chaos of nature ever end? Does love conquer anything? These themes are explored again and again in literature and music, and Anderson doesn't shy away from these heavy subjects. But Songs and Stories From Moby Dick delivers no panacea. Melville's crew dies without knowing the true motives behind Ahab's tragic quest. One hundred and fifty years later, the world is as chaotic and unexplainable. Anderson flirts and taunts, promising nothing while again raising these questions, leaving us to weigh the consequences of our choices as a society. Only our consciences can lead us, Anderson seems to be saying. Maybe there are no answers. And that, as Melville also must have well known, isn't what we want to hear.
MARIE ELSIE ST. LÉGER
Christina Aguilera Mickey D's in a stretch & other tales of teen fame
The Christina Aguilera Story
Watch this exclusive video in Apple QuickTime 4.0
By Anthony Bozza
Christina Aguilera is strapped into the back seat of a black stretch limousine like a sapphire ring in a jewelry box. She is tiny - five feet two in heels - with white-blond hair, swimming-pool-blue eyes, a waist as big around as a football and hands that look small enough to fish a contact lens out of a drain. She is being chauffeured through Westchester County, New York, on her way home to a new apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side. And after a long day of being a pop singer on a promotional tour, she is in dire need of some Mickey D's. "I love my fast food," the eighteen-year-old New York native says, her voice clear and wispy. "Wendy's is my favorite, but McDonald's will do." The driver navigates the stretch around the curves of the drive-through and stops when the singer's window is next to the speaker. She orders a five-piece McNugget meal with hot mustard sauce and a supersize Coke. The staff, all Aguilera's age and younger, climb over each other at the pickup window like a pile of curious ferrets to peer into the dark car. They look both awed and suspicious; if they recognize the Lilliputian blond girl, they don't say so, though smart money has it that they have heard her Number One song, "Genie in a Bottle," on the radio. Her eponymous debut album entered the Billboard charts at Number One, (beating out Puff Daddy's Forever), and since then, Aguilera has crisscrossed the country on a forty-five-day, nonstop promotional tour. She's strong enough to go forty-five more, but she's ready for a break now - or at least a nap. Jet lag and nervous excitement kept her up until 3 a.m. last night, just hours before her 6 a.m. call at a New York radio station. After a full-day photo shoot, she is heading home for the evening. But it's not over: Tomorrow, Aguilera will appear on The Late Show With David Letterman, and the next day she'll travel to the teen-pop Holy Land, MTV's Total Request Live, where "Genie in a Bottle" is chronically the Number One most-requested track. Her mother, Shelly, little sister, Rachel, 13, and half-brother, Robert Michael, 3, are visiting New York and Christina to join in the proceedings.
At the pickup window, Aguilera pulls four bucks from a tiny wallet, forks it over and dives into her bag of food. "They forgot my mustard sauce," she moans as the car stops, blocking the exit ramp.
"That's the fiftieth time they've done that," she says, looking at me. "Can you get it for me?"
Aguilera is used to asking people to do things for her. She has been ready for a showbiz life since she first serenaded strangers with "The Sound of Music" on city buses in Pittsburgh.
"I've always felt a need to be in the spotlight," Aguilera says, her tone a combination of chummy divulgence and practiced patter. "When my family lived in Japan, my mom taught English to this one guy who brought over his paintings. He spread them on the floor and, just to steal the attention away, I started playing hopscotch all over them. I'm just like that." Her mother, who is Irish, and her father, who is Ecuadorean, met in college. Her father joined the Army and became a sergeant. Aguilera was born in Staten Island, New York, in 1980, but after that the family lived wherever the Army sent them - Texas, Japan and New Jersey - before her parents split up when Aguilera was seven. Shelly then brought her two daughters back to her hometown of Wexford, a Pittsburgh suburb. Now remarried, Shelly says she encouraged her daughter's talents early by placing her in local talent shows.
"When she was two, I knew what Christina was going to do," her mother says. "She'd line up all of her stuffed animals and sing to them with my little majorette baton - that was her 'ikaphone.' She was too young to pronounce microphone! I've never seen anybody so focused. When she was older, if there wasn't a block party or somewhere for her to sing, she'd get irritable."
She made the jump to the big time when she landed a spot on Star Search. "I was eight, and I sang Whitney Houston's 'Greatest Love of All,' " she says, daintily munching a McNugget. "I've always loved her. My first talent show was in first grade, and I sang 'I Wanna Dance With Somebody.' " But that love couldn't overcome the vocal prowess of the twelve-year-old bard who beat Aguilera to the Star Search winner's circle with a stirring rendition of Eddie Holman's "Hey There Lonely Girl." "I was told it was fixed, but I'm not going to hold a grudge," she says with a singsong chuckle. "I was a good sport about it. My mom made me go back out and shake his hand and tell him I was happy he won. Tears were running down my face. Awful."
No matter. Aguilera lost the battle but won the war. At the age of ten, she was already known in Wexford as "micro-diva." When junior high was still a far-off future, she sang the national anthem at Pirates, Penguins and Steelers games. Around this time, Aguilera also auditioned for The New Mickey Mouse Club; she was finally asked to join two years later, when the producers felt she was old enough. The show's cast proved to be a petri dish of germinating teen talent: Britney Spears, Felicity's Keri Russell, and 'N Sync's Justin Timberlake and J.C. Chasez were all on board. "It was really great energy," she says. "It was great to be around other kids who were as passionate about their careers as I was. It's funny - I always thought Keri Russell was going to be the one that became this sexy thing, but she's gone on to Felicity, which is a very downplayed role as far as looks go. Britney and I really looked up to her. She had the big hair and the tight-fitting clothes that were always cute. She was sixteen and could drive and had the cute sports car. It was cute like that." Cute figures big in the Aguilera vocab: "My fans are so cute"; "I do a cute routine for 'Come On Over' "; "Eminem and I would make a cute couple, no?"; "It's cute to have guy groupies, but some of them get out of hand."
Anyway, The New Mickey Mouse Club was a safe haven for Aguilera. "Going to a public school in a small town and not being around kids who did what I did made me feel like an outsider," she recalls. "I even had to switch elementary schools after Star Search. The jealously got really bad. People just felt threatened." When Aguilera was chosen to sing "Reflections" for the Disney animated film Mulan and when the video for that song began to run on MTV, she didn't win any more friends around town. "Kids didn't know how to deal with seeing their peer on TV," she says. "You learn the hard way who your friends are. Plus, my circle of friends was the cheerleader clique, so there was already a lot of back-stabbing. It made me introverted." Aguilera landed the Mulan gig after her manager, Steve Kurtz, sent Disney a demo of her singing Houston's "I Wanna Run to You" recorded on a boombox in her family's living room.
The track caught the ear of RCA Records, and Aguilera was signed in 1998. "She is a badass genius of singing," says Ron Fair, the A&R man who signed her. "She was put on this earth to sing, and I've worked with a lot of singers - the O'Jays, Natalie Cole, Dianne Reeves. When Christina met with us, she didn't care that she was auditioning for a record deal; she got into a performance zone that you see in artists much more mature than she is, like a k.d. lang." The label spent the next year and a half and a rumored $1 million (a figure that RCA representatives will not confirm) on songwriters, producers, voice lessons and marketing - it's a sum they will easily recoup in worldwide sales. "We didn't spend any more on Christina than we would to launch any other artist," says Jack Rovner, executive vice president and general manager of RCA Records. "It was enough to get it started." Down the line, the label plans to expose other sides of Christina. "It will be as if she's growing up, by virtue of the singles we put out," Rovner says. "You need an introduction and to be embraced by a fervent fan base, so we went with the more youth-oriented song, but ultimately we'll be getting to the big ballads."
Aguilera's introduction, "Genie in a Bottle," is sugary pop - once heard, never purged - but it doesn't showcase her vocal strength or control. Unlike most teen poppers, Aguilera can cut it without a multitrack studio. Imagewise, she isn't the typical red-cheeked kid next door, either. She's a teen diva, a kind of legal Lolita, proffering precocious "Oops, did I say that?" innuendo and belting songs like her life depends on it. She comports herself like a pro, as if she were born with a mike in her hand, donning platform booties.
Anthony Bozza
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