Journalist, Author & Syndicated Columnist
It’s Christmas Eve and Trudy Davis is alone. Not a big surprise, considering she’s a xenophobic bulimic who views food as “unmasticated vomit,” duct tapes her microwave shut and stocks her fridge only with Evian water. Trudy is a woman who needs a little fun in her life, and when she puts Elvis Presley’s “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” on her stereo, the King’s apparition answers her self-pitying call.
There is a heartache in Matthew Sweet’s voice that pegs him as a romantic who knows both the euphoria of being in love and the pain of breaking up. On his first Chicago gig as a headliner, Sweet performed a tantalizing midnight show Saturday at the Cabaret Metro where he and his tight backup band channeled his wisely ambiguous lyrics with playful abandon, letting the audience know that though he may have been beaten up emotionally, he’s not a whiner.
It is a rare band that can make the kind of musical impact the British band James did Friday night at the Cabaret Metro. Starting off a little shaky, the seven-man group eased its way into a spectacular 90-minute concert that made it clear why the buzz is so strong about this unpretentious band. The buzz has been a long time in the making, at least over here.
If they had to, the musicians in Teenage Fanclub could cloak many weaknesses with their sweet melodies and delicious harmonies. But when the vocals are as perfect as they were at the band’s Chicago debut Friday night at the Cabaret Metro, it really doesn’t matter how profound or inane the lyrics are. At their sold-out show, the group dished up the same savory vocals that are featured on its current LP “Bandwagonesque,” but with the added bonus of cranked-up instrumentation.
The only thing coy about Joan Jett Saturday night at the Cabaret Metro was the peekaboo lace catsuit she wore. With a guitar slung low on her hips and a sly sneer spread over her lips, Jett out-machoed the male guitarists she grew up emulating and took her fans through a gritty, 85-minute rock ‘n’ roll odyssey, where sweat and vitality were as essential to the show as a solid riff.
When an actor plays his role so well that his buddy’s mom refuses to speak to him, he knows he has done his job. “After the screening of `Juice,’ my mother couldn’t even look at Tupac (Shakur, who plays Bishop), much less speak to him,” said Khalil Kain, whose character, Raheem, has a tragic falling out with his friend Bishop. “Even though that’s an irrational feeling, I certainly understand it. Certain scenes between Bishop and Raheem were intense even for me, and I knew how everything was going to turn out.”
The banner behind the drum kit read “Be Silent. Consume. Die.” When Ned’s Atomic Dustbin made a return engagment Tuesday night at a sold-out show at the Cabaret Metro, the five young Brits took a similarly simple, minimalistic approach to their music, assaulting the audience with a barrage of sounds that joyously paid homage to punk, thrash and pop.
It has been a long time since David Bowie has felt this good about himself. The former David Robert Jones, Ziggy Stardust and Thin White Duke has carved out a new musical niche without creating a new persona to play it out. Bowie is in Liverpool, England, on this day, congenially promoting his group, Tin Machine. He’s newly engaged to the model Iman, and sips on a cup of hot tea, his substance of choice these days. Mentally scanning his flamboyant 25-year career, he comes to the conclusion that his life, as that of most musicians, would make a boring film.
In Hollywood, where every other person claims to be an actor, singer, model or screenwriter, actor Woody Harrelson doesn’t raise too many eyebrows when he jams with his group Manly Moondog and the Three Kool Kats. But when the “Cheers” star takes his 10-piece band out on the road, he attracts a crowd that’s made up of music lovers as well as a strong contingent of curiosity seekers who want to know if “the boy can really sing.”
“If I had my time again, I would do it all the same,” Mick Jones sang Saturday night at the Riviera. But with his superb band, Big Audio Dynamite II, Jones made it clear he had no interest in repeating anything musically. B.A.D. II’s guitar-heavy sound was augmented by a disc jockey and pre-recorded tapes that spit out hip-hop samples and keyboard tracks.