We know Erykah Badu for her killer voice, her soulful blending together of funk, jazz, hip hop and R&B, her unique vogue (who could forget those head wraps?), and her naturally theatric mannerisms. Badu, ever a bundle of musical energy, put all of these qualities together Sunday night when she performed an exquisite set for the crowd at Level nightclub in South Beach.
With a lit stick of incense held in her teeth, the singer made her way onto the stage sporting a spectacular Afro wig (with a pick in it of course), sequined boots, and a denim artist’s apron. Then after settling comfortably between her drum machine and turntable, she proceeded to seduce the entire club and everyone in it with the kind of performance concertgoers long for.
She played two plus hours of music, including staples like “On & On” from her critically acclaimed first album, Baduism, and “Didn’t Cha Know” from her second, equally lauded album Mama’s Gun. Songs, reflections, drum beats, and dancing all melded beautifully together.
Part way through the show Badu suddenly tore off her Afro wig, uncovering her short, natural, twisted hair, singing the line, “This is how I look without makeup.” This segued into the song “Cleva.” Her songs broke into spoken word, fell under spells of percussion, and returned to song. Badu, always one to speak her mind, reserved time to ardently oppose war with Iraq, and voiced support for fellow artists and musicians -dubbing the concert the “Struggling Artists Tour.”
The audience was treated to a special appearance by soul legend Betty Wright, who accompanied Badu for the song called “A.D. 2000,” which pays homage to Amadou Diallou, who was shot dead by police in New York. Badu also revealed a new song from her eagerly anticipated third album, which is rumored to be near completion.
Recently, Erykah has earned kudos for a collaboration with eclectic hip hop artist Common on “Love of My Life (an ode to Hip Hop),” a hit track featured on the Brown Sugar soundtrack. Turntable by her side, Badu playfully spun tunes by artists like the Beastie Boys, NWA, Biggie Smalls and A Tribe Called Quest. She left the turntable and started rapping on her own, dabbling in a medley of classic hip hop songs including “Rapper’s Delight.” After one last song, she exited the stage.
During the encore, the audience clapped for her and chanted her name until she came back to the microphone for one last time, to croon “Bag Lady.” Glowing with energy, she danced, shooped, leapt into the air, and stood on her hands. She jumped off the stage and crowd surfed. All eyes were glued to her, this woman whose every move and every word emanated grace, authenticity and funkiness.

Liz Johnson can be reached at lizy_mcsaucy@hotmail.com.

Daredevil is in the difficult position of being the first comic book movie in a year crowded with them. With the upcoming releases of The Hulk, X-Men 2 and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, as well as the comic-inspired The Matrix sequels, 2003 looks to be the comic book fan’s dream.

Daredevil stars Ben Affleck in a surprisingly non-glamorous role as Matt Murdock, a struggling lawyer by day and a ruthless superhero by night. The film’s first 20 minutes feature Affleck narrating a flashback to his childhood, when he got splattered with toxic chemicals, leaving him blind at age 12.

When he wakes up in a hospital, the young Murdock finds that his other senses have become enhanced, and an excellent sense of sound provides him with a new ability. Sound waves bouncing off of objects create an environment sketch for the blind boy, and through years of experience, Murdock is later able to dodge bullets and move around with precision.

After the flashback, which ends with the boy witnessing (at least through sound) his father’s murder, we cut to present day, inside a church, where Daredevil falls to the ground and lays motionless. The main portion of the film deals with what led to this moment.

Murdock lives in solitude in a desolate apartment, where he sleeps in a coffin-like tube of water, a habit that never gets explained. His days are spent working at a small law firm with his friend, Foggy Nelson (Swingers’ Jon Favreau). Murdock’s insistence that the firm represent poor clients with high morals is reflected in his nighttime activities, which include jumping around building tops and beating up New York’s bad guys.

Murdock’s two lives soon become mixed, when he suspects that a crime boss named Kingpin (The Green Mile’s Michael Clarke Duncan) is responsible for most of the criminals he prosecutes during the day and beats up at night. Murdock’s life becomes even more complicated when Elektra Natchios, played by Jennifer Garner (“Alias”), enters the picture. What follows is a big dramatic mess involving Murdock, Kingpin, Elektra and Kingpin’s main goon, Bullseye (Colin Farrell).

Daredevil is not destined to be the next Spiderman, which shattered box office records and ended up grossing over $800 million worldwide. Spiderman was a light-hearted, bubbly version of a comic book, featuring cartoonish antics and a story line that appealed to nearly everyone.

Daredevil, on the other hand, is a very dark and dramatic film. It doesn’t help that almost all of the movie is set at night, which is when Murdock generally dons the costume. Affleck plays the blind superhero as a quiet and reserved man, something that makes the character less loveable than the Peter Parkers and Clark Kents of the past.

The most entertaining performances come from Favreau and Farrell, as well as a small role from Joe Pantoliano (The Matrix) and a cameo from Kevin Smith (Clerks). Favreau brings laughter to every scene he’s in, a welcome change from the overall tone of the film. Farrell is excellent in his role as the hammy villain Bullseye, and Pantoliano plays an important part as a snooping newspaper reporter.

Despite all of the movie’s flaws, director Mark Steven Johnson (Simon Birch??) handles the action nicely, bringing the scenes to life with innovative camerawork that stands out from the special effect dependency of most comic book films. The fight scenes are slick as well, but anyone expecting a ground breaking adaptation of a lesser known comic book will leave the theater disappointed.

Shawn Wines can reached at ShawnWines@aol.com.

Sol-illaquists of Sound
4 Student Counsol (Running from Precedence)
***

Immerse yourself into this subterranean musical cave, this hip hop outland with pure, organic designs, melodious vibes on the beat, lyrical analytics and obscure reflections-some imaginative music compositions with entrancing beat-making and steadily streaming rap flows. What must be said is that is some cerebral shit, i.e., these artists put a lot of thought into this album.
Coming out of Orlando, Florida (I know, I was surprised too), Sol-illaquists of Sound’s doing some soul-searching in their own creative grotto, delivering some real sagacious hip hop for a genre saturated in the mainstream by Ja Rule or “P.Diddy” offshoots. These dudes don’t have a real record deal yet, but they’re contemplating some deep thoughts over sick beats on this record (e.g., the multiplicity of being, such as a digital one who’s broken up into digits or an analog self taken in as a whole, or the idea of creation vs. destruction vs. re-creation-these guys are bugging out!). They stray far from the popular and tedious hip hop narrations about big titties, diamonds and glossy cars.
Along a cohesive track-course, Swamburger’s swift flow and incisive lyrical release attuned with Alexandragod’s balanced tone and relaxing rhymes, and with cameos by Tonya Combs and producer DiViNCi, 4 Student Counsol’s galactic trip shoots you up where you wanna go to get high. Hit up a nirvana with “EYECEA” and “S-P-A-C-E Away,” a euphoric carpet ride across chimerical grooves.
While the different songs are eclectic, scrupulously worked on as individual items, the
ork as a whole is befittingly concordant. Whereas “Ka’s Mos Dance” is cut up simply with brash African percussions and a melody created by Combs’ humming modulation, “2nd Nature” employs a jazzy beat with dense bass and temperate keyboards. “Collaborative Sol-o” has a swinging organ solo, courtesy of DiViNCi, and a Thelonius Monk-style sporadic piano tune. On “The Mark It Place,” the MCs play on the notion of the exchange of ideas in a society, analogizing it to diverse ways to place your mark in the world and the multitude of messages communicated to us each day (like with billboards and advertising).
As “3 Sided Light” speeds up the tempo with a drum-n-bass beat, Sol-illaquists appease us towards the end with “Theory of Proven Threats,” composed with an acoustic guitar and mellifluent vocals by Alexandragod, so pop in this record when you need a real shot of mind-bending musical flow. E-mail sol_illa@hotmail.com for more info.

– Omar Sommereyns

Rye Coalition
Jersey Girls [EP]
***1/2

I don’t care how many times people try to convince me, this band is NOT from New Jersey. Everything that is absolutely incredible about Southern rock is boiled down and poured all over Rye’s last two releases {Jersey Girls and last year’s On Top} like syrup on so many waffle house pancakes. This review is slightly biased by the fact that I saw Rye Coalition play Brooklyn’s Polish American Club this past November, but I was a fan before that. Basically any bias surfaces from my obsession with the transmogrification of the Rye Coalition sound.
Rewind a couple years to their 1999 release, The Lipstick Game, and you will hear an entirely different band. Wrapped in the stylistic restraints afforded by their black dress shirts and white belts, The Lipstick Game is a slightly danceable entry into the indie rock scene that put them alongside such bands as Piebald and The Faint (listen to The Faint’s Media and you will understand the comparison).
Somewhere in the midst of changing labels (from Gern Blandsten to TigerStyle), Rye Coalition stumbled towards a drunker sound with their ZZ Topless EP. By the time they released On Top in 2002, gone were the half-assed, half-danced drum beats and not so sweet guitar licks, and in came a dirty, redneck energy that few bands ever manage to get a reign on. The new material on Jersey Girls (tracks six and seven are from ZZ Topless, track two is from On Top) brings this creative force to a new level. The first and last tracks on this EP are like a promise to continue on booze-influenced tirades with hard driving melodies andass-kicking drum solos, in true American fashion.
Everything that makes rock and roll beautiful – drinking, fucking, fighting – is perfectly accompanied by this record. If you enjoy any of these activities, and you haven’t tried them listening to this album (or On Top), DO IT TODAY. Shit, Rye Coalition can add fun to something as mundane as eating chili.

– James Hush

Zwan
Mary Star of the Sea
**

Within the melancholic ocean of whirring, electric guitars that feedback waves of longing, ache and desire, lays this new rock quintet assembled by The Smashing Pumpkins’ frontman Billy Corgan. Let’s not get into how both bands may have a similar underlying feel, but how this is Corgan’s endeavor to plow into the enigmatic tunnel of love and loneliness.
The songs and lyrics vacillate between the surface and the profound deepness of love: Corgan chants, “Maybe we were bound to love each other” on “Declarations of Faith,” then changes to cynicism on “Ride a Black Swan” (“The things I want keep me sinking down”) and to irony on “Baby, Let’s Rock!” (“Baby, I’m the greatest thing you got”), while finally reaching a buoyant closing and positive outlook on the last track, “Come With Me.”
Although Corgan’s warbling voice and tormented lyrics will soak up a bit of emotion from you, many of the enduring, cyclical guitar progressions may overindulge your eardrums (in a bad way, that it.) Once in a while, guitarists Corgan, Matt Sweeney (former member of Chavez and Skunk) and David Pajo (Slint, Tortoise) impress with their sonorities, like on “Jesus, I/ Mary Star of the Sea,”-a 14 minute long experimental track that fluctuates from electrifying solos and intense, raging melodies to placid note plucking, so gentle they could lullaby a baby to sleep.
Honestly though, perhaps the best song (or the one that holds best as a congruently-built track) is their single, “Honestly” (strangely enough), embossed with tender and emotive harmonics and an embryonic guitar in the background ready to explode when Corgan exclaims, “There’s no place I could be without you honestly.”
Watch out though: listen to this album too many times and you’ll O.D. on a surplus dosage of droning cries for love and longing and then drown in the deep blue sea of melancholy.

– Omar Sommereyns

50 Cent
Get Rich or Die Tryin’
**

Say hello to marketing, I mean 50 Cent. If you’re deaf (not def) and blind and you managed to cop a braille edition of the Hurricane, you probably still have heard about this guy, it’s impossible not to.
With the deaths of Big and Pac well out of the way (and to a lesser extent Big L), the powers that be have elected a new rapper to set himself up for life via death. Granted, being shot nine times (once through the cheek, which coincidentally does not help his flow) adds a bit to the “street credibility” image of Fiddy; but does image make a rapper? I think, sadly, we all know the answer to that: yes. If you wanna disagree, go ahead – but think of all those rappers who’ve somehow pushed a million plus thanks to a gimmick. If I have to start citing people, you’ve never heard a rap album in your life.
Get Rich or Die Tryin’ is the clearest example of a manufactured artist in a long time. The beats are there, with production from Dre, Eminem and Rockwilder amongst others, but with lyrics like “I’m 50 Cent I write a little bit but I pop nines” it’s easy to see where 50’s “talents” lie. If you haven’t heard “Wanksta” you a wanksta, seriously, this is what his whole album is about: braggadocio bangers with no replay value. But that shit works, period. With a marketing campaign a million men deep, Dre and Eminem backing him and beautifully airbrushed liner notes (where’d the bullet scars go on the last page?); Fiddy (complete with custom Gucci Gat Grabbers), now properly polished and sellable, is ready to flip airbrushed thug music into “Bling Bling” profits for a few months.
So enjoy each single as it drops one month after the one before it and watch as America turns 50 Cent into 50 mil, unless he gets shot and dies, then multiply that figure twice. Bling blaow!

– Sven Barth

If you really disagree e-mail HurricaneAccent@hotmail.com.

Put on your flashiest suit, shine up your pointiest shoes, and spark up a Lucky Strike ’cause we’re about to go back to a time when cats played the murky clubs on piano, drums and horns among an opaque cloud of smoke. Offsetting the omnipresence of pain during the 1940s and the US involvement in WWII, music gave people hope for brighter days and a quick end to Hitler’s fascist regime. Digging deep inside their souls, artists devised a musical language called jazz based on the principles of swing and improvisation. Now samples of their tunes appear on hip hop and pop records as well as on commercials.

Caught in an abstract reality of smoke, light and music, greats like Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, and Duke Ellington have been immortalized in black and white photographs by renowned photographer Herman Leonard, currently on view at the Barbara Gillman Gallery

The space provides an intimate introduction to these nocturnal images frozen in time by Leonard’s lens. With its cleverly claustrophobic and enormously effective set-up- a small staircase with each of the pictures adorning the wall-you’re forced to take in the most intimate aspects of each shot.

As each of his subjects are in some way cloaked in mystery by the darkness of the room around them, light and shadow play an integral part in Leonard’s photography. The figures appear idolized and surreal in their poses but never devoid of raw human emotion, whether your looking at Frank Sinatra’s legendary smile exuding genuine delight or Billie Holiday’s face as she sings so passionately into the microphone.

In the ’40s, the correlation between cigarettes and lung cancer was hardly in public knowledge. Everyone smoked back then to soothe their nerves and the bright texture of this smoke is evident in many of Leonard’s photos. An especially poignant picture features an illuminated Billie Holiday set against a darkened background. She moans sensually into a microphone as smoke twists elegantly over her left shoulder. Her hands reach forward slightly, almost grasping the mic pole but stopping short with fingers curled and ready. Her face is wrenched with so much emotion that you can almost imagine her channeling the intense pain of her life by belting out “Strange Fruit” as you inspect the photo.

Another look into Leonard’s artistry of the camera is one shot from 1948 of Dexter Gordon at the Royal Roost in New York City. Sitting with legs crossed, his cigarette, mostly ash and almost smoked to the filter, dangles from his left hand resting gently on the sax in his lap. His head is tilted slightly back as smoke unfurls from his mouth across to the other side of the room.

Herman Leonard has captured the part of jazz that people often talk about when speaking of the beginning of an era in musical recreation. He has caught each emotion of both the artist and the era and turned them into photos that affect not only the senses, but the soul of the musician in each of us as well.

Images of Jazz is on view at the Barbara Gillman Gallery, 5582 NE Fourth Ct. #5, Miami. Call 305-759-9155 for an appointment.

Chris Howard can be reached at BBHMM3234@aol.com.

Tonight

Yeah, yeah, it’s Valentine’s Day. Buy some flowers, take a walk by the water, eat some overpriced food by candlelight and wine, all that lovey-dovey shit, then hit up the Revolver party at Soho Lounge,175-193 NE 36th St., Miami, with The Mercury Program (these dudes use some crazy vibraphones and bells), and a CD release party for the new album by Nick Cave and Cat Power’s “You Are Free” single. 305-576-1988.

We can’t get enough of English brews and good tunes at Churchill’s, 5501 NE 2nd Ave. All is Well, Dear Starlet and Wasted Circle on stage. Cover varies. Call 305-757-1807.

Saturday, February 15
Satisfy your artistic eye at an opening at the Daniel Azoulay Gallery, 3900 A. NE 1st. Ave., Miami. Look through photographs of Marilyn Monroe by Douglas Kirkland and sensual shots of nudes and other by Horst P. Horst. 305-576-1977.

We know at least half of you readers like to pamper yourself to SoBe’s lustrous club scene, so if you do, check out this new spot called Jade, 1766 Bay Road, Miami Beach. This is some upscale, chi-chi type shit, but we’re letting you know because we like to cater to all readers at UM (tongue-in-cheek).

But if you’d rather stick in the know with the alternatives, make your way to Poplife at Piccadilly Garden, 35 NE 40th St., Miami, and jam to Sunday Driver performing live and hear a sneak preview to Postal Service’s new album as well. Call 305-573-8221.

Sunday, February 16
Henry Rollins savages the mic at the Carefree Theatre, 2000 S. Dixie Hwy., West Palm Beach. It’s 20 bucks and starts at 8 p.m. 561-833-7305.

Friday, February 21
Santana performs at the American Airlines Arena, 601 Biscayne Blvd., Miami. $35.30-65.50. Opens at 7:30 p.m.

Ed. – For examples of Mr. Garbaukas’ work, see this issue’s “Aesthetic” article.

Americans can depend on the comic strip. The art form’s traditional simplicity – a fixed number of characters who rarely change clothes, style limited to panel(s), and a snappy oft-humorous message – is comforting and generally urbane. Elliott G. Garbauskas’ comic strip, Buttercup Festival, gracefully exemplifies each of these techniques, all the while pitching intelligent curveballs in a batting cage reserved for seekers of the absurd.

The lone reoccurring character in Buttercup Festival is a kooky everyman dressed like a slouched, unthreatening Death. Always on a Socratic mission to inexplicably baffle, he travels (more like transports) to forests, marshes, and places obscured totally by white space to converse with animals, plants, unidentified voices, and himself. In the world of Buttercup Festival, nothing is what it seems, or perhaps, its one resident is just insane, lame, or chronically sarcastic. Either way, Garbauskas, who resides near Boston, has created a unique forum to subtly comment on the human mind’s irreverent concerns.

Unlike most novels and art cheapened by demographic targeting, Buttercup Festival, which Garbauskas solicits to college newspapers, is not overly pompous, territorially indie, or cynically hog-tied. It’s more like a shrug that says or represents whatever one’s imagination prefers. Imagine the dry, random wit of Larry David banished to the zoned-out fantasy land of Sam Keith’s The Maxx, skim it down into three illustrated panels and you have…

This is a Life & Art interview with mysterious creator Elliott Garbauskas.

Q: Several of your strips focus on small things like dirt, birds, and aspirin. Is this triviality symbolic?
EGG: A lot of jokes, both mine and other humorists’, come from absurd groupings of ordinary things, as the ideas associated with those things collide and interact. Aspirin isn’t funny, and pizza isn’t funny, but a pizza piled high with aspirin has a humor to it — there’s some sort of chemical reaction there.

Q: Is irony very much alive in your everyday life?
EGG: I think I have a love-hate relationship with irony, although that’s an overused and watery term now. Nearly all of my jokes take their energy from an exaggeration of simple irony – whenever the character holds something and says he’s holding something else, or takes something and uses it to some absurd end, or entirely misreads a situation, there’s an ironic element that tension between what is expected and what actually happens, or what is expressed and what plainly is. At the same time, however, I don’t want irony to run across the character’s expressions of joy. When he’s looking up at the sky, waxing poetic about the birds or whatever, there’s no irony there — the expressed and the real are one and the same. Sincerity is important. Sincerity creates lasting importance. That’s why I don’t take irony very seriously in my comic — it’s a means to silliness.

Q: What is the story behind the title?
EGG: It’s a simple play on the fact that the only character is so Goth that he dresses like death. Putting so grim a character in a strip called Buttercup Festival has set the tone of the comic since day one, and it really hasn’t changed at all. It’s also a reflection of how fond the character is of the world — despite dressing as he does, he’s always taking great joy in simple things like birds and rain showers and whatever. Nature’s one big festival for him.

Q: When the character eats a blueberry pancake flying in the sky for example, it renders a very childlike semblance. Does your imagination run wild 24-7?
EGG: I try to let it. A lot of the time when I write I’ll just stare out the window, running ideas through my head, turning them over and over as they get increasingly absurd, and suddenly, after an hour of not moving muscle, I’ll write a week’s worth of jokes in 20 minutes. I try to look at things from a place of complete ignorance and confusion.

Q: There’s a slight pessimism that jogs throughout the strip, yet there’s also a love for nature and the four seasons. Does this mirror your outlook on life?
EGG: Absolutely. That’s exactly me. I don’t think any reasonably aware person could live in this world and not succumb to pessimism now and then, but it’s very important for me to continue to take joy in the world, not to give in to the pessimism. If nothing matters, what’s the point? Why bother doing a comic and sharing it with others? It’s important to me that I think of the world as a place of beauty and significance. And I’ve always loved the outdoors — wandering around in the forest is a regular pastime of mine. I make no apologies for all the time the character spends watching clouds pass and conversing with birds. This is important stuff. More people should take it up.

Q: The action in the panels barely shifts from strip to strip, why the simplicity?
EGG: If I were to develop the character at all, or introduce any consistent elements to the comic’s world, or have story arcs, it would begin to limit the sort of jokes I could use. Right now I can do anything, introduce any element necessary for a gag or idea, and not worry about having it ruin some larger design.

Q: What is your main goal for Buttercup Festival?
EGG: The strip itself I’m pretty satisfied with. I have plans for the future. I’m working on a 21-page mini-comic I plan to have ready for sale maybe mid-March. I’m spending a lot of time on the art, and the writing is more than just a long string of the usual Buttercup Festival absurdity. It has a strange sort of sadness and whimsy mixed together, with a few quieter jokes here and there. I’m extremely pleased with how it’s shaping up, and can’t wait to finish it.

For more info, visit www.buttercupfestival.com.

Hunter Stephenson can be reached at HurricaneAccent@hotmail.com