The biggest and blandest of music’s annual reunion The Grammys slap the backs of rock’s status quo

BY KIRBY FERGUSON | MUST ADMIT, | MISSED THIS YEAR'S Grammy festivities and had to search through every available newspaper, to no avail, before finally tuning in to TV's Entertainment Tonight (no doubt almost as tedious as the Grammys themselves) to get the scoop. ET seemed right at home in the midst of all the glitz, glamour and shallow. people, delighting in hobnobbing with all the big stars and perkily asking razor- sharp questions like “How do you feel?”. So, who was the night's big winner? Nirvana? U2? REM? Nope. Whitney Houston, whose

O fortune!

Bodyguard soundtrack has sold over ten million copies. A remarkable coincidence. Other critics’ darlings like Meat Loaf, Kenny G and

gang, Oscar-winning pictures are often the most important films of their time and are almost always well-respected. Apparently,

The Grammys publicize artists who don’t need it and, more often than not, don’t deserve it.

Marty Stuart bagged some gold as well. Most big entertainment awards tend to blend popular and critical perspectives into their criteria, hence something like the Oscars. Though the Academy is certainly not a daring

rock'n'roll is nota medium of equal seriousness. ls Grammy-winning stuff the music that matters to and moves people? Hardly. Grammy winners are white-bread bores; disposable radio fodder; monster-selling, mindless,

A night with the PEI symphony and the Mount A Choral Society

BY PATRICIA MACDONALD ON THE WARM WINTER EVENING OF Saturday, February 19, the P.E.I. Symphony combined with the Mount Allison Choral Society to stun the Confederation Centre’s packed auditorium with their rendition of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana.

The Symphony began the night with Richard Wagner’s Overture to Die Meistersinger, a short, forceful piece that set the stage for the intense brilliance of Carl Orff. Faithful Doors fans will recognize the introduction to Carmina Burana as the haunting chant-like accompaniment in the scene of the Oliver Stone movie The Doors where Jim Morrison

and Patricia Keneally get “married” in a witch ceremony. The Confederation Centre's audience members sat with mouths agape as Carmina Burana (actually a collection of late thirteenth century poems written by wandering scholars and monks) began, with a loud, strong boom from the percussion section. After the

intro, things quieted down a bit, but not for

long. Throughout the evening, the string and wind sections created beautiful bass-line harmonies, while the horns and percussions greatly accented the melodies of the choir. Soloists David Carle (baritone), Nancy Carle (soprano), and Douglas Rose (tenor) sang with great facial expression, sometimes even

provoking laughter from the audience. These solos were often answered, and sometimes joined by the chorus.

This performance was by far the most powerful and most intense | have ever experienced. The fact that Carmina Burana is sung in German and Latin only intensified its effect. The Symphony was incredible, the Choral Society was beautiful, and the combination of the two was breathtaking. Even those people who claim to never enjoy classical music would be just blown away. Watch for Carmina Burana in the future-- it will be the most incredible experience of your life.

heartless junk. The Grammys publicize artists who don't need it and, more often than not, don't deserve it.

So as Flavor Flav once said, “Who gives a fuck about a goddamn Grammy?” Bonnie Raitt once remarked backstage to Don Henley, “! don’t know about you, but winning a Grammy sure helped me get laid.” That’s good for Bonnie, but why would the rest of us care? If you're reading this, chances are you don’t, but the Grammys continue to snag enough viewers to justify their existence. So let me leave you with one word: boycott.

CIMN TOP [5 February 3, 1994

Artist Title

|. Crash Test Dummies God Shuffled His Feet 2. Cub Betti-cola

3. Sarah McLachlan Fumbling Towards Ecstasy 4. Ramones Acid Eaters

5. Nirvana In Utero

6. Meryn Cadell Bombazine

7. Down Syne

8. Lost Dakotas Sun Machine

9. Eric's Trip Love Tara

10. The Pogues Waiting for Herb

11. Pearl Jam Vs.

12. Ween Pure Guava

13. The Tea Party 14. The Liz Band S/T 15. Violent Femmes Add it up

Good day, here's the latest chart from CIMN, If you like music, tune into the station at 104.5 on your cable FM dial-- we're sure to have whatyou like. If you’rea real keener, head to the third floor of the barr, andcheckinto gettingashow, We havea fair number of openings which may fit your schedule. Youcan dointerviews, production work, or a music show, with no experience required. For those who have shows already, our T-shirts have been sent to the factory, and they should be done soon. Keep listening.

Splendor Solis

More turkey

continued from last page

he somehow manages to speak with both a fake cajun accent and his real Mississippi accent at the same time, resulting in complete incomprehensibility. Then, you laugh because the director turns him into an action star... and brother, you ain't never seen anything this stupid in your life. Every time he shot somebody, drank somemoonshine or inadvertently copped a feel off Yancy Butler | wanted to jump up and shout, “It’s the right thing to do, and a tasty way to do it!”

The second flaw is the writing. It’s absolutely riddled with holes and bad dialogue. A real gem is the following scene, shown in every review ever done of this flick: Yancy: What kind of a name is Chance?

Van Damme: My Mumma took one.

The setting is equally ridiculous. It's a chase through a bayou, right? Well folks, this has got to be the driest bayou this side of the Gobi. Except for one mud puddle, a river and one snake, there's none of the

tangled overgrowth you'd expect.

The third flaw is the directing. James Woo is famous in Hong Kong for his wonderful touch with violence, but he’s never made a film in America before. It Shows. He’s never had a budget of more than four million dollars before. It Shows. He doesn’t speak much english, and has a poor ear for english dialogue. It Shows. But the most glaring flaw of the whole sordid mess is that Woo has apparently never had slow-motion before, either. He's like a kid with a new toy-- every time something hits something else, he goes into slow motion.

Fortunately, Woo's touch for dramatic, hyper-violent comic-book-like action shows through. There are lots of nifty little scenes that are totally impossible in normal physics... but hey, this is a movie. Personal favourite: van Damme kicks a can full of gasoline into the air and shoots it, causing an explosion so powerful it blows a motorcycle and rider thirty feet backwards through a window... but leaves van Damme completely unmarked; and there are a lot of scenes wherein someone jumps through a window and passes a grenade in midair, or van Dammehigh-

kicks somebody and foliows through by emptying two handguns into them. Physics violations and ubiquitous slow motion aside, the action scenes are very well done. They are also weirdly realistic in spots (wealthy Japanese businessman ATTEMPTS to kill someone witha large automatic weapon but succeeds only in damaging nearby statuary and hurling himself to the ground) and bizarrely fantastic in others (Chance jumps onto the hood of an oncoming truck, and, in blatant defiance of the laws of inertia, does not shatter every bone in his body).

Scenes to Watch For: As with any action film, watch for the action scenes. There are lots of guns, both big and little, and they make loud bangs and never run out of ammo unless the hero has a pause to reload them. The grenades make big booms, anda shot truck always explodes. Also, keep an eye out for that one snake, ‘cause the trap Chance sets with it is a doozy. | just wonder how these so-called hunters could miss the tripwire.

It couldn’t be more obvious if it bit them...

oops, spoiled the fun. Sharp-eyed viewers will also enjoy a scene that parallels the Dukes of Hazzard by somehow blowing up a

(x.press march eighth 1994 page 15 __|

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still with an arrow.

And any scene with Brimley in it is good for a laugh, especially if he happens to be shooting and talking at once. You'll never eat oatmeal with a straight face again.

Favourite Line: “These men who after you mad at you for business or pleasure?”-- spoken in that wonderfully awful accent, it took me three viewings to figure out this much of the line.

Bottom Line: Takes too long to get to the real action (i.e, Our Hero vs. the Bad Guys) and has far too much plot. Fortunately there’s plenty of good, solid, wholesome blood, death and violence to keep things movingalong. Action fans, Van Damme fans and bad movie fans will absolutely love it. | know | had a good time, because it’s the right thing to do and a tasty way to do it!

Available At: Any video store. It's fairly high-profile.

Next Week: It’s time to return to the genre that spawned this column. Be here for strong, violent women, lots of violence, nuclear wastelands and the Television Guide Worshippers when | rent and maybe even watch Phoenix Warrior!