It's
apparent both in its publicity materials and in its recordings that
the Chicago-based band Tenki aspires to the epic.
Yet by that measure, the band's newest release - the second in its two-part CD series We're Not Talking About the Universe Are We (on the Quad Cities-based Future Appletree label) - comes up short. Aside from the intentional brevity of its running time - 33 minutes - the songs are too compact for the band to stretch its legs. Almost all the songs clock in at around three minutes, and they need to be longer.
Most
people think of bluegrass as music for old people, and Alex Kirt of
the Woodbox Gang doesn't disagree. He calls it "timeless," but
as a performer that has one big advantage.
When
soprano Janinah Burnett takes the stage with the Quad City Symphony
Orchestra this weekend, she will sing the role of Violetta, a part
she first performed five years ago. But it has taken those five years
for her to really develop this leading role in La
Traviata - one of opera's
most famous works.
The
fills.
Few
people in the United States have heard of it, but the Eurovision Song
Contest might be likened to an American
Idol for songs (rather than
singers) on a multinational scale. The contest
(
The
band's instruments - including mandolin, fiddle, banjo, guitar -
suggest folk and bluegrass. But the centerpiece of Hot Buttered Rum's
second studio album, last year's Well-Oiled
Machine, is "Waterpocket
Fold," an instrumental tune clearly built on the intricacies and
interplay of jazz and classical music.
Rock
and roll, in its conventional hard-rock form, seems to have all but
disappeared. Who practices this archaic type of musical expression,
with its earnest guitar-bass-drums-vocals format and no
acknowledgment of irony or speed metal, alt country, world music, hip
hop, emo, or any other musical fashion of the past 20 years except
grunge? Pearl Jam seems the last vestige of this noble tradition with
both credibility and market presence.
It's
no surprise that Jen Chapin was pulled in several directions.
With all due respect to The Departed, the actual best picture of 2006 was one that didn't come to a theatre near you ... or, for that matter, to a theatre near anyone else.
