Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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CONTACT US MTY . Story ideas? Questions? Comments? I V I I / % ceases to be a subject of controversy, E-mail us at gamecockmixeditor(gjJiotmail.com » —■ ^ M it ceases to be a subject of interest.” Is rock dead? i ■iiiai Min i i ■ by CHARLES TOMLINSON the gamecock “Rock is dead, they say,” the Who sang r in its early ’70s anthem, “Long Live Rock.” It’s something critics have been saying for decades. And for a while, it ac tually looked like the raucous distortion would lapse into silence. After the mid-’90s, the ripped jeans of grunge rock were finally tossed to the back of the mainstream closet. Fiannel shirts guises of boy bands, saccharine female singers and the Bon'Jovi of the late ‘90s, Creed. Rap-metal and nu-metal followed, not improving things a bit. And through out it all, gold-toothed rappers fronted to “bling-bling” their way onto MTV. But around the end of 2001, something started to change. At the 96 WaveFest concert in Charleston, the ground was littered with promotional CDs of an un , heard of band, which shortly thereafter would earn Spin magazine's 2002 band of the year award — the Strokes. With a lo-fi sound reminiscent of ’70s acts such as the Velvet Underground, the Strokes were a surprise hit in late 2001, forming the cadre of rock’s 2002 revolu tion. A triumvirate of bands with “the” names followed the Strokes’ rise to pop ularity: the Hives, the White Stripes and the Vines. The Hives, a Swedish punk act, are the most frantic of the new crop of rock stars. Singer “Howlin” Pelle Almqvist rants over trashy three-chord guitar riffs on the band’s breakthrough hit, “Hate To Say I Told You So.” But compared to the rest of the songs on “Veni Vidi Vicious” — which was ac tually released in 2000 — “Hate To Say I Told You So” is pretty slow. “A Get Together To Tear It Apart” blasts off with a searing drum roll and doesn’t let up for an entire minute and 45 seconds. “Outsmarted” and “The Hives Introduce the Metric System in Time” have similarly blistering tempos. The only problem with the Strokes and the Hives, however, is that their albums are too short. The Strokes’ “Is This It” lasts barely longer than 30 minutes. And the Hives’ “Veni Vidi Vicious” lasts a meager 28 minutes, despite having 12 songs, one more than the Strokes’ album. In the days of such bands as Led Zeppelin, albums might have had only eight songs, but they still lasted at least 40 minutes. The White Stripes’ album “White Blood Cells” has 16 songs; they .might be short, hut they add up to 40 minutes. The album also won 2002 album of the year from Spin. The band earned popularity with the short blast of “Fell in Love With a Girl,” the meek schoolboy fawning of “We Are Going To Be Friends” and the Led Zeppelin-esque guitar riff of “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground.” “Expecting” shows further Zeppelin in fluence, this time in a Robert Plant sounding vocal by Jack White. “Highly Evolved,” the Vines’ debut, wasn’t as raging and wild as the first sin gle, “Get Free,” led the record-buying public to believe. Front man — or rather, mad man — Chris Nicholls screamed, mmm i mmmm looked like he was going to vomit and smashed a drum set on “The Late Show With David Letterman.” Nicholls’ fre netic behavior, however, belies the sen sitivity and dynamics of other Vines songs such as “Autumn Shade” or “Country Yard.” But a late bloomer waits in the wings to take part in the rock revolution: Burning Brides. In fact, they want the revolution to be bloody and take no prisoners. With such song titles as “Stabbed in the Back of the Heart” and an album titled “Fall of the Plastic Empire,” the Brides are darker than the Strokes and company. The album, which was actually record ed in singer-guitarist Dimitrj Coats’ base ment, was originally released on the in die File 13 label. But the V2 label, also home to the White Stripes, picked up the Brides and rereleased the album last year. Just recently, the raw “Arctic Snow” made its way onto Columbia’s WARQ ♦ ROCK, SEE PAGE 6 BOOK REVIEWS Davis makes impressive debut “GIRLS’ POKER NIGHT" By Jill A. Davis ★ ★★★ outof'£rsir#<r* BY BRIAN RAY THE GAMECOCK You take a risk every time you shell out 15 bucks for a book, but there’s no gamble with Jill Davis’ new novel, “Girl’s Poker Night.” Davis deals a funny story with ■», strange characters and small truths about life on every page. This novel will even please guys. Ruth Capote sends 30 of her best humor columns and a six pack of beer to the “New York News” and scores a new life. She leaves her weird boyfriend in Boston and reunites with her old friends over a deck of cards in the Big Apple. Despite her one courageous act, Ruth learns that she’s afraid to lose and hates risks — especially emotional ones. As Ruth’s boss, Michael, falls for her, she can’t move past preliminary make-out sessions in the elevator and week end trips to health spas. Job stress and the metamor phosis of her poker friends inspire a trip down the hallway of memo ry. Ruth remembers her parents’ divorce, her'strict upbringing and her father’s death in a car acci dent. Meanwhile, her friend Lily comes out of the closet, her friend Danielle has twins, and her new flame Michael reveals his own troubled history. Everything works out, of course. Ruby overcomes her emo tional drawbacks — and there are a lot of them — in order to go for the relationship she wants with Michael, rather than something “safe” with her ex, Doug, or some other mediocre man. Davis even entitles the last chapter, “Happy Ending.” So far, “Girls Poker Night” might sound like another light ro mance, but details make the novel There is a Scandinavian model named Skorka who drinks liquor out of the bottle, barely speaks English and likes to dance alone. Doug, the old boyfriend, has 300 twist ties stashed away in his kitchen drawers, likes to walk around his apartment naked and calls his sports car “The Grape.” And one of Ruby’s friends keeps more than 40 tubs of butter in her refrigerator. By the end of “Girls Poker Night,” Ruby Capote has attend ed a Sister Goddess meeting, gone out to a lesbian bar, been sexually assaulted with a magic marker and witnessed the death of New York’s oldest doll collector, Midge. Everyone, regardless of gender, can identify with Ruby. She seeks the courage to make life what she wants. Her mind is in limbo, and even if Ruby doesn’t attain nir vana, she nails a good job and a solid relationship. So, she’s also a hero. And even if she isn’t the most stable person in the world, she still lets her distraught friends crash on the couch at 4 a.m. Ruby embodies everything people are and want to be. Ruby is also a realistic charac ter, not perfect by any means. She sinks into the background at so cial gatherings, never says the right thing at the right time and * has difficulty engaging in adult conversations. To her, these dia logues feel like arguments. Readers forgive Ruby, though. She constantly flagellates herself for her shortcomings, so nothing needs to be said. Jill Davis demonstrates a re markable sense of style for a first novel. She delves into her charac ters’ psyche without getting too heavy or emotional and keeps the story humorous without overdo ing it. The short chapters and wit ty prose are reminiscent of Kurt Vonnegut’s “Cat’s Cradle.” In many ways, Jill Davis is a real-life Ruby Capote. Before moving to New York, she wrote a humor column for a small metropolitan newspaper. Her writer’s resume includes sev eral short stories, network pilots and screen plays. Davis was also a writer for the “Late Show,” for which she received five Emmy nominations. Comments on this story?E-mail gamecockmixeditor@hotmail.com Two sisters share journey into past “IN HER SHOES” By Jennifer Weiner ★★★ out of BY CRISTY INFINGER THE GAMECOCK From the author of the best-selling novel “Good in Bed” comes another hilarious book about an insecure wom an looking to find her place in her own life. “In Her Shoes” is a story about two com pletely opposite sisters thrust together in a search for their past. Rose and Maggie Feller, along with some interesting , geriatrics and a quirky dog, travel to Florida from Philadelphia in search of the grandmother they never knew, but both end up finding more than they ever hoped for. Rose, a serious attorney at an established Philadelphia law firm, dreads coming home every day when her younger sister, Maggie, unexpectedly takes up residence in her apartment. Maggie insults Rose’s fashion, steals her money and shoes and is caught by Rose in a very com promising position with Rose’s new boyfriend. Maggie, whose highest ac complishment has been hav ing her hip in a Will Smith video, constantly disappoints herself and her family. Although she loves her sister, she doesn’t understand Rose’s need to succeed. Maggie suf fers from a learning disability and finds that hiding it is her best defense from criticism. wnen Kose ana Maggie part ways, their journey is just beginning. Rose quits her job at the law firm and follows the path of the disgruntled pug, Petunia, by walking dogs for a living and running er rands for traveling dog own ers. Maggie ends up at Princeton, Rose’s Alma mater, and lives in the library until a student finds her out. While Rose learns the value of slowing down, Maggie finds an invaluable self-confidence when she realizes that she can be part of the crowd, but not the center of attention. Maggie finds years worth of birthday cards from a grandmother she never knew she had and a family secret ♦ BOOK REVIEW, SEE PAGE 6 When music snobs attack BEN ANGSTADT '* GAMECOCKMIXEDITOR@HOTMAIL.COM Like many people, I’m inun dated by the entertainment me dia. I write articles about music; I watch movies in my free time. I sell CDs and DVDs at work so I can pay for my car. My home is popular culture. Conversely, there are a lot of peo ple ready and willing to condemn anything having to do with popu lar culture. - While there is no crime in hav ing original tastes, there’s also nothing wrong with happening to enjoy the same movie or band as the next guy. It seems ridiculous to nle that there are people out there willing to criticize the ma jority of us for having similar tastes. The worst thing about a snob is you can never be sure who he is or when he’s about to strike. These obscurists among us, these elitists, these snobs criti cize mainstream radio listeners simply for enjoying popular mu sic. One minute, you’re happily talking about your favorite new . song—and the next, he’s opened his mouth, and he’s telling you: Your opinion is inherently wrong. Were music snobs to think about the way that fhey pursue their tastes, they would realize that they are guilty of the very crimes they accuse us lowly main stream fans of committing. For one, the music snob is shortsighted. He can see com plexity in music, but he can’t ac tually see depth. Obscurists rant on and on about some brilliant song that attempts some convo luted statement about saving the whales or freeing political pris oners. Never mind that these mes- . sages are often delivered with the same overplayed cliches found in the music of their peers and con sist of little tangible substance. ~ Music is art, and as any good crit ic would tell you, it’s foolish to judge art for its purpose, rather than for the way it achieves the purpose. So, labeling a piece of music as superior because it conveys some esoteric message is ulti mately as shallow as liking a song because it’s the one most played on the radio. And sur prisingly enough, there are droves of mainstream artists who have the self-understanding to emphasize the quality of their performance rather than mere ly the words they sing. Furthermore, the music snob is just as much of a follower as those of us that they label main stream. Have you ever noticed how every music snob keeps men tioning the same band over and over? That’s no accident. Rather than listen to what ev eryone else is listening to, ob scurists avoid following the lead er and just listen to what others aren’t. There’s nothing wrong with this; it’s simply that music snobs has no credibility to con demn others for their own sins. I’ll admit it: I have my fair share of obscure CDs. But I bought those because I enjoy the music, not because the guy at the store had never heard of them. And they sit on the rack right next to scads of flavors-of-the week and mainstream rockers. So to the music snobs out there: Think about what you’re listening to. You’re making groundless remarks when you criticize mainstream music fans. Stop picking out CDs because they’re the dustiest ones on the shelf. Angstadt is a second-year political-science student.