By the Life & Art editors

Bright Eyes
Lifted or The Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground
***1/2

Bright Eyes is the musical experiment of the highly gifted and prolific Conor Oberst, a young singer/songwriter from Nebraska. He grabbed the indie music world by the balls when he was just 14-years-old and headlined Commander Venus, singing and playing guitar. The band members started their own record label, Saddle Creek, which has released other Oberst projects, such as Cursive, Lullaby for the Working Class and three albums for the Bright Eyes collective. After working his musical potion for side venture, Desaparecidos, Oberst returned to the studio to create Lifted.

This third album includes a rotating line-up of musicians on each track, anchored by Oberst’s quaking, yet impregnable voice as well as his bittersweet lyrics and inspiring poetry. His impassioned, fervent delivery makes every song-headed by his poignant, strumming guitar and a conceptual orchestra in the background-convey a profound sense of meaning and leaves you, after each hear, with a soothing, cathartic feeling. His folksy guitar plucking and the high/low quiver of his vibrato, plus his tremulous accounts of teenage angst, have progressed reasonably since Commander Venus, yet what’s most impressive here are the authentic musical arrangements he has devised for this album. He gathers, for instance, an assortment of strings, slide guitars and a drunken choir to compose “Laura Laurent,” his words bleeding through the cracked holes of the tune, though the effects shaped by the orchestration are slightly stifled in order to not drain out Oberst’s piloting position.

On “Lover I Don’t Have to Love,” a ballad with an ethereal piano melody, he sings for an unconventional appraisal of sympathy: “Life’s no story book/Love is an excuse to get hurt/And to hurt/Do you like to hurt?/I do, I do/Then hurt me.” He croons as if standing on stage in a smoky, penumbral saloon on “Bowl of Oranges” and ignites our emotive sensations with tender lullabies, such as on “Nothing Gets Crossed Out,” delicately sewn together with fragile bells, flutes, a soft electric guitar and Maria Taylor’s embracing hymning. “Don’t Know When But a Day Is Gonna Come” burns slowly down your throat like taking a shot of Jack Daniels, the remote guitar strums whispering in the distance until drums, bass and a string section hit you hard and build up that tingly feel of pre-drunkenness.

Undoubtedly, Oberst’s chilling effort to mend together broken hearts, lost souls and lonely spirits with provocative, melodramatic tunes inside skillful arrangements is quite moving, but he wouldn’t care about what I’m writing anyway because, as he clearly says in the last track, “Let’s Not Shit Ourselves (To Love and Be Loved)”: “I do not read the reviews/ No, I am not singing for you.”

– OS

QUIX*O*TIC
Mortal Mirror
*

Singer and guitarist Christina Billotte, formerly of mod punk group Slant 6, is what makes this band sound somewhat genuine. Her gloomy, mournful chant is sweet and dark, accompanying well ominous harmonies of murky garage rock or mired, slowed-down Goth punk. However, the instrumentation is rather minimalist such as on “The Breeze” or “Tell it Like it Is,” which are typified by one-string notes on guitar or bass to produce melody, and sporadic cymbal-snare hits to keep an unobtrusive, steady rhythm.

QUIX*O*TIC has toured with fellow rockers, Sonic Youth, Papa M, Blonde Redhead, Fugazi and the Rapture, but Mortal Mirror lacks the dynamic, forceful energy of those groups, teasing your ear holes with 12 short tracks that fail to wash out your clogged-up ear wax.

The title song is perhaps their best and, with resonating, 1960’s psychedelic guitar sounds, as well as a deep, driving bass line, is reminiscent of a Pulp Fiction soundtrack. “Sitting in the Park” may sink you into a daydream for a few minutes, and has the melancholy charm of a song by The Mamas and The Papas, but doesn’t succeed in fully entrancing the listener. Moreover, the group decided to cover a number of tunes on this album, which displays their range of influences, but pilfers originality from their sound. “Ice Cream Sundae” scrounges from Syd Barrett’s “Love You” (“Ice cream sundae, I’ve seen you looking good the other day”). Their version of Aaron Neville’s “Tell it Like it Is” is nice and sugary, but their cover of Black Sabbath’s “Lord of this World” is weaker than the original.

Maybe if you line up this album with a black-and-white horror flick from the ’50s and add the sheer sentiment of power chords, it may keep your ears ringing, but we at least encourage this group for not falling into the pit of rock glam and staying true to indie label, Kill Rock Stars.

– OS

V/A
The Funky 16 Corners
***1/2

Long forgotten recordings never sounded so damn funky. Produced by Egon and his comrade, Peanut Butter Wolf, over at Stones Throw Records, this disc is an ancient medallion of jams. It’s the result of a massive crate diggin’ expedition that honed the fiery ambition and historical appreciation of Indiana Jones.

During their quest through milk crates the size of caves, the Cali duo unearthed and gently blew the dust off of 21 mint funk tracks (with a bonus by Cut Chemist) by various acts from the late ’60s and early ’70s, including Soul Vibrations and Billy Ball and the Upsetters.

Meticulously chosen, the tracks float and boogie down on genuine, deliciously thick, and often instrumental, soul.

Space won’t be used to dabble unjustly in the album’s vast background information. Instead rush over to www.stonesthrow.com, where each of these “unsung heroes of the funk revolution” is given their proper respect.

This compilation is highly recommended, and you might want to buy two copies as a safety precaution/gift, if your parents raised you on a strict religion of Soul Train and James Brown.

– HS

The Walkmen
Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me is Gone
***

The bewitching cover art for Everyone Who Pretended… – a crisp black and white photograph of three well-dressed, underage lads smoking cigarettes – is a whispered pledge for what rests inside.

The Walkmen are a quintet based in New York and it shows – hearing them is experiencing deja vu mined from an urban dream – the setting: a decade lost in permanent midnight, slight wind-chill, all bands are hypnotic and melancholy, and underground rock clubs serve as cozy caves for social hibernation (or something pseudo-poetic). It’s an escape that skims two-thirds of the usual NYC pretension for natural musicianship and is served chilled.

To specify even further, their music is a concoction of U2 and the Strokes (keep reading) wrapped up in the emotional syllable stretching sorrow of Joy Division. Even when the second track, “Wake Up,” practically exorcises the Pixies’ “Where is My Mind,” it comes off like a casseroled musical homage rather than hip theft.

The silvery guitars on the poignantly dope “French Vacation” drift far from range, only to be iterated like nighttime ripples from a boat’s wake. “We’ve Been Had” is the prerequisite coming-of-age song about moving to the city, but vocalist Hamilton Leithauser’s bittersweet charm and clever lyrics like “We’ve been had, I know it’s over/ Somehow it got easy to laugh out loud,” update it with fresh gusto.

Everyone Who Pretended… is an album that doesn’t have standout singles, and most certainly wasn’t recorded for that purpose. This works to create a gorgeous, overlapping, rainy day mood, but also makes things feel a little redundant and sleepy (not purposely). If a later track like “Rue the Day,” on which Leithauser opens the shades a bit, were found mid-album, this blemish would vanish.

At most that’s slight criticism – the group’s notable self-production allows each record to flow with a lustrous presence crafted in pianos, drums and keyboards – a rarity.

Few people residing outside of NYC are familiar with the Walkmen (circa 09-02), since it’s a three member incarnate of recent ex- “it” band Jonathan Fire*Eater. That band suffocated prematurely from a million dollar deal at Dream Works and the loud boasting of jump-the-gun rock journalists.

Judging from this classy, low profile disc courtesy of Star Time International, the Walkmen wouldn’t stomp out three cigarettes for more Xeroxed hype. Of course, they’ll attract it regardless, just as the album’s cover memorably suggests. Whether this is classic New Yorker a la mode is for you to decide, but the music’s merit is unquestionable.

For more info: www.thewalkmen.com.

– HS

In 1976, a group of blue-collar guys came together in England to form a band called the UK Subs. Little did they know that their popularity would span well over two decades, leaving their legacy branded on the canvas of punk rock history. With over 20 albums to their credit, the band’s lineup has gone through countless changes, boasting such temporary members as Frank Zappa, Lars Frederiksen (Rancid), and John Peel.

Last Saturday at Churchill’s Pub, the UK Subs shared the stage with fellow punk rock legends, the Vibrators, and locals, the Heat Seekers and the Mary Tyler Whores. What follows is a moderately sober recollection of UK Subs history with the band’s sole original member, lead singer Charlie Harper.

Q: For those of the readers out there not familiar with your band, why don’t you introduce yourself?

UKS: Charlie Harper. I sing and play accordion with the UK Subs from London, England and we’re here to do some Cajun Rock!

Q: Since 1976, do you think that band names have devolved? How did you guys come up with your name?

UKS: We’re the UK Subs because we were The Subs (first The Subverts), but there was a Scottish band with the same name, so we added the “UK” to differentiate ourselves. It helps for a band to have a catchy name. We see so many bands and we can never remember their names, so we just make up silly names for them.

Q: Guns N Roses covered your song “Down On the Farm” on their 1993 release, The Spaghetti Incident. Did you enjoy their cover? What did you make of Axl’s fake British accent?

UKS: Yeah, one British newspaper said they sounded like Dick Van Dyke [laughs]. It’s funny because Americans can’t fake a good British accent. Americans like it, and the (GNR) album write-ups over here were good, but it didn’t go over well in England.

Q: Rumor has it you used to hang around the lesbian club called the “Shagarama.” When did you grow out of the “I need to dress like David Bowie” phase?”

UKS: [laughs] I don’t think I ever have. He copies all my moves and hairstyles all the time.

Q: Who are your favorite bands?

UKS: Clash, Misfits and Ramones. I do love The Damned, as well.

Q: What’s your most treasured vinyl? Or, if you had to leave your burning house in a hurry, what would you grab?

UKS: That’s a tough one. I’ve never thought of that. I’d try to grab as much as I could, probably grab stuff like Billie Holiday, and our old vinyl pressings, because it would be hard to find the rest of them.

Q: So who are the ex-members you miss the most, seeing as you’re the only original member?

UKS: (pauses) Nicky Garrett. I mean, there are two sides to every coin. Going on stage and seeing someone lose his mind every night is certainly exciting. He’s inventing things all the time. With that, the band goes forward very fast. With the kind of band where people just stand around while they play, the band goes backwards very fast.

Q: Did your parents ever ask you if this “punk rock thing” was going to pass?

UKS: They were completely normal and they were completely non-supportive. They were against us not having “proper” jobs, until they saw us on TV on “Top of the Pops.” Then it all changed.

Q: The band broke up and then got back together. What happened? You couldn’t handle a 9-5?

UKS: What happened is, we broke up and it was all I could think about. I called up the old Subs, from way back when we were The Subs, and it was a big battle. The rest of the guys wanted to be like a stadium band, you know, like Duran Duran or Flock of Seagulls. And they decided that they hated punk rock, they just turned their back on the whole scene. So I left.

Q: How do you currently feel about punk rock and politics?

UKS: Ok, well before punk rock came along, it was forbidden to sing about politics and religion. Punk rock broke those rules and kind of shifted the envelope. MTV still censors everything and everyone wants to be on MTV, but there are underground bands, like us, who don’t care about the commercial aspects of what we write and play, and go ahead with it.

Q: So you’ve played Miami a bunch of times, what do you think of the scene down here?

UKS: It looks pretty healthy. People are drifting in. Last time we played Miami it was brilliant actually. I can’t remember the name of the place. It was about 500 people. Just jammed! Some kind of Miami ska-salsa-punk band was on – they were pretty good.

Q: Considering that most of the people reading this article weren’t born when your band started, do you have any words from the wise?

UKS: Punk is not just music. It’s a whole movement. It’s an art form. Anything you like, you can express freely. Push the envelope a little bit further. Don’t bow down to censorship. We create our own world. You should be free and true and do what you want!

Jackie Weisbein can be reached at hurricanejackie@aol.com.

Popular Aussie actor, Heath Ledger, plays the lead character, Harry Feversham, in the soon to be released film The Four Feathers, directed by Shekhar Kapur (Elizabeth), and based on the 1901 novel by A.E.W. Mason. The film tangles with the emotional and physical journey of British officer Feversham, who is given four feathers by his fiancee (Kate Hudson) and her three best friends. The feathers serve as a symbol of his cowardice when he quits the army after being called to war. Feversham is overtaken by the idea that he must regain his courage and loyalty, so he goes undercover in the war, trying to amend his past decisions by helping the British Army defeat a large band of Sudanese rebels. Ledger took part in a telephone conference with several college publications, including The Miami Hurricane, to answer questions about The Four Feathers, acting and music.

Q: What music are you currently listening to?

HL: I am listening to Sting right now. But I like almost everything.

Q: What actors do you look up to as role models?

HL: Most people I work with become my role models, because growing up I didn’t watch many movies or anything, so I learn from them.

Q: Was it difficult preparing for this role?

HL: It wasn’t hard; there was an interesting four weeks where we discussed the movie and the script. I prepared by taking a clean slate and starting from scratch and getting an understanding of the movie by talking about it.

Q: Do you enjoy physical roles?

HL: Yeah I enjoy physical roles. I do my own stunts. It’s fun.

Q: What was your favorite part of the shooting process?

HL: Every Tuesday night we played drums with a Sudanese band, and got drunk on red wine.

Q: How would you describe your character?

HL: The character is epic. It starts in one place and ends in another. He is labeled as a coward on paper, using his wife as an excuse. But I found him to be courageous because he stood against the systematic regime he was taught his whole life.

Q: How was it working with Dijimon Hounsou (Amistad, Gladiator)?

HL: He is my brother. He is such a beautiful soul and has this huge presence. At first he is intimidating because he is so massive, but then you get to know him, and he’s so sweet and gentle.

Q: Of all the characters you’ve played, which do you identify yourself with the most?

HL: All of them, but I have become attached to the role of Ned Kelly (Ledger plays the title character in the upcoming film The Kelly Gang to be released next year.)

Q: Do you think people will enjoy the movie despite the current outlook on military violence?

HL: I think they will. The timing is ironic, but I like that people are talking.

Q: Would you change anything about the script of the movie?

HL: Maybe… Nah, I think it’s brilliant!

Diana Pastrana can be reached @ godess_diana@hotmail.com

The recondite, often high-brow world of contemporary art seems to float along cryptic avenues, where aspiring artists, glowing industry heads and well-versed afficionados and connoisseurs, or their hip intellectual friends, flock to openings every week to indulge in free wine and stare reflectively at creative efforts that apparently want to convey some sort of meaning to the public. Ultimately though, art should reach out to as many people as possible and communicate something evocative and significant to them.

GenArt, a national arts organization that supports, promotes and showcases emerging talent all over the U.S., along with sponsor Chrysler, initiated their PT Studios event last Friday at the Ice Palace in downtown Miami, the first in a 7-month series of 60 events that will showcase 84 local, up-and-coming visual artists, indie short filmmakers, musicians, DJs and fashion designers-all of which are chosen by independent curators and an advisory board that reviews submissions in six markets, including New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin and Miami. The event will continue through March 2003 and plans to attain about 25,000 people.

“For too long, art has remained in this elite, exclusive circle,” explained the event’s visual arts curator, Amanda Richman, from New York. “Art in general opens its doors to a few, small groups of people, but it should be able to communicate to as many people as possible even if they don’t understand right off the bat what the artists are trying to do.”

Chrysler donated over $1 million for all of the GenArt events and Richman is glad to see a corporation supporting the arts, she said. An approximate 500-800 people showed up for the launch, which seems to want to assemble disparate crowds together by amassing different creative communities. Gigi Ganatra, head of GenArt Miami, noted: “We cross-promote art, along with fashion, film and music, and this can gather different organizations within the community that might not have worked together in the past.”

“Have you ever seen this many people at an art opening?” added Richman. “There’s an energy here that you don’t find in a stale art environment.”

The event opened with short movies by local indie filmmakers Harriette Yahr, Brian Bayerl and Jesus Rodriguez, then the local band, Hashbrown, played a funky set. However, throughout the 10,000 square foot space, only one corner bestowed place to display the featured visual art, while the rest of the area resembled more a swanky, modish ultra-lounge where SoBe’s fashionable beautiful people congregated to be seen and heard. As DJ Jody McDonald spun deep house and hip hop, goers migrated to and from the neon-lit bars, ordering Apple Martinis or Heinekens, then sprawled in white leather couches or socialized in colorful, plush seats, sipping Cosmopolitans and passing out business cards, sometimes getting up to catch a glimpse of the art or watching the glistening, new PT Cruiser on view.

The fashion show showcased designs by Ash Rana, Jennifer Block for Vixen XL5 and Dulce de Leche. Nonetheless, Miguel Ovalli, a fashion designer attending the show, dressed in a spacey navy outfit with a massive chain swinging from his neck, was not impressed.

“The designers could have pushed it a lot further,” he said. “They need to be more innovative. I want to be shocked, I want to see something new. I mean, it’s the 21st Century, we gotta start taking it beyond.”

Artist Frances Trombly became aggravated because many people, such as a waitress carrying a gigantic plate of beef skewers to serve the guests, kept stepping on one of her works, “I have nothing to say”-white fiber weavings spread across the floor and crunched up like thrown-away love letters. A few other people mistook an oversize table with a photo frame on top for, perhaps, a decorative counter, aloofly placing their beers and flyers on it, as GenArt staff had to then inform them that the piece was an artistic work in the exhibition.

Ali Prosch, a young photographer and video artist currently studying at the New World School of the Arts College in Miami, was among the three visual artists in the show. Her laminated color prints delve into the concepts of human greeting and closeness within social environments, all enriched with red-orange hues that create a strong sense of warmth in her pictures. “People Piles” presents blurred images of people laying on top of each other in a neutral social gathering. Her “People Ahhh!” shows the artist in a red dress-dark tones in the background-and she has an exclaimed, bolstered expression on her face. “Stranger Contact” is a close shot of different people mounded near each other, all with hazy faces, and one notices their strange imminence, as two arms touch nonchalantly or a guy’s elbow brushes against a red dress.

“It’s about anxiety and how physical interaction in social environments creates barriers in relationships between people,” said Prosch. “I’m really interested in the cheek kiss, the handshake, the booty shaking, the touching of strangers. Everyone becomes more comfortable after touching.”

Leyden Rodriguez-Casanova, an installation artist and photographer, has moved between Cuba, L.A. and Miami, and likes to explore relationships with family, often juxtaposing his background with a typical 1950s American family in digitally manipulated photographs. He likes investigating culture, he said, putting together family scenarios to discover one’s identity and the influences of one’s upbringing. His “Untitled (barbecues),” a lambda digital print, shows separate families-a Hispanic one roasting a large pig and an American one cooking hot dogs and burgers-that seem to become ensnared together even though they come from different backgrounds. “Untitled (pets)” is a photograph of, on one side, two white kids-one of them looking elated as she touches the drool of a cow-and, to the right, of an older white woman sitting on a couch petting a fluffy white dog, while a Hispanic kid is hugging the animal longingly.

Frances Trombly weaves fabric into notebook paper and showcases them in frenzied installations, trying to portray the beauty of ordinary or handmade objects, such as with “Letter No. 3,” a fabricated letter with a woven-in fiber line that represents words and elongates onto the floor in a large, muddled pile of string. Both Trombly and Prosch participated at “The House at MoCA” exhibit and Rodriguez-Casanova has shown at the Dorsch, the Fred Snitzer Gallery and the Carlos Betancourt Studio. He is a co-founder of Box, an artist-run space in Miami.

Around 11 p.m., the guests, well-fueled from the alcohol and socializing, began to leave and headed to other social gatherings, some feeling possibly enlightened by what they saw or happy they met some influential people in the fashion or art industry. A number of galleries in the PT Studios program in Miami, such as the Beach House, Latin Arte and the Barbara Gillman Gallery, will display more local talent until the end of October, and the event will carry on into other cities. Unfortunately, the program neglects a vast pool of talent all over the country because it only makes stops in major cities and is selective in what they choose to exhibit. The series might give people a small peek into the world of contemporary creativity, though most invitees will just come around to flaunt their own style and sip on sweet Martinis with too many fake cherries inside.

For more info, go to www.genart.org

Omar Sommereyns can be reached at SOASIS@aol.com

British establishment blights and vigorous punk rockers, the Sex Pistols, played their first U.S. concert in 6 years in L.A. last Saturday and rowdy fans gave them a warm (or cold?) welcoming by showering the group with beer.

The San Sebastian Film Festival in Spain celebrates its 50th anniversary and will begin on Sept. 19th, honoring actors Dennis Hopper, Jessica Lange and Bob Hoskins with lifetime achievement awards.

Motley Crue singer Vince Neil is being sued for $1 million by a Los Angeles record producer over an alleged violent altercation that took place in April. Neil is accused of battery, intentional infliction of emotional damage and negligence. Rock on.

A year after the 9/11 tragedy, new photography titles appear in stores by a number of gifted photojournalists, including Faces of Ground Zero by Joe McNally, Here is New York: A Democracy of Photos gathered by nearly 1,000 people from the city, Stepping Through Ashes by Eugene Richards, and Above Hallowed Ground by the photographers of the New York Police Department.

Faith Evans claims Biggie cried when he heard about Tupac’s death and many rap figures such as Ja Rule, Lil Cease and Def Jam founder, Russell Simmons, are asking the public to not believe everything they read.

The “Red Velvet” photo collection, which depicts a nude Marilyn Monroe, will go on sale once again. Ventura photographer, Tom Kelley, Jr., inherited the pictures from his father, who took the photographs, when he died. He’s currently looking for a buyer.

Rolling Stones’ guitarist Keith Richards is enraged at his fellow bandmate, Mick Jagger, for accepting knighthood and threatened to pull out of their tour. He expressed “cold, cold rage at [Jagger’s] blind stupidity,” since his new identity, “Sir Mick,” contradicts the rebellious, hedonistic rock lifestyle that they stamped in the ’60s.

Brad Pitt just bailed on Darren Aronofsky’s upcoming sci-fi flick, The Fountain, just two months before production was to start in Australia. The film is being put back on the shelves because they couldn’t find a leading man at such a late date.