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| February 4, 1998 | Arts | Volume XXIX Number 13 |
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By Sylvie Lekarakos The local New Brunswick music scene has exploded in recent months. There are a slew of new bands that have come to the area, searching for an audience, shelter and god. New Brunswick, in its own right, has become a new hot spot for talent. Many bands have been around for years, slowly honing their music and developing their style. Others are new, but each have begun to carve their own niche in the N.B. Hub City scene. Spaztikolon is one band that is out to define a new level of style and reality. Their repertoire consists of a drummer, a bassist, a sax, three vocalists and an occasional trombone. The vocalists do everything from rap, ska skat, harmonization, and B-bop. They have no guitar but they manage to sound complete, with a unique hybrid of funk, ska and rock. They have been together for a number of years. Some of the members hail from Rutgers and connected to the local scene. Their efforts have improved over the years, obviously, because they were able to put on a great show while they were totally fucked up. It didn’t even show. Now that says they have their shit together. They played at the Golden Rail last Friday and I say it was good. They were able to be funny and musically entertaining. They are rather brash and crude, but that’s part of their signature. But most importantly, their sound is fresh and new, while still comfortably familiar. I really do suggest you go see them. They will be playing at the Plum St. Pub on Tues., Feb. 10th at 10:30 p.m. and Friday, Feb. 20th at 10:00 p.m. and at Maxwell’s in Hoboken Sat. 28th at midnight. They are currently working on their CD and should be out soon within the next month. Feel free to e-mail me your opinions or for more info about Spaztikolon at vaso@eden.rutgers.edu. Enjoy. by Tony Chow Yup, those damn Brits are invading us again. But these Brits don’t sip tea at their dinner table. This army of five drum and guitar wielding men, led by Liam and Noel Gallagher, call themselves Oasis. They first invaded Camden (of all places) on Jan. 8. Then they trashed our nation’s capital and moved on to Pittsburgh. I was lucky enough to be there when they arrived at the Continental Airlines on Jan. 12. After starting out with two lesser known songs, Oasis got the crowd going with their first hit single, Supersonic. A few songs later, Noel Gallagher went solo for the next four songs including a crowd pleasing rendition of Don’t Go Away. I don’t know why Noel did the solos. (Or why he thinks he’s The Beatles. -arts ed.) I guess the rest of the band was taking a dump or smoking or something. (Probably trying on fancy lingerie or tossing mice. –personals ed.) Noel finished his role as the lead singer with Don’t Look Back in Anger when the rest of the band came back. That was the beginning of a string of singles (with a few lesser known songs thrown in) that took Oasis to the end of the set. They finished the show with a very long version of Champagne Supernova before coming back for an encore. I thought it would be their new single released on the day of the show, All Around the World, but they capped off the night with Acquiesce. The show didn’t sell out but it was a loud audience. The crowd was very much into the music throughout the concert mostly because of all the girls screaming and offering themselves to the band. (I think they’ll be bigger than Jesus an I love the White album. Yeah and the part in the Terminator where he said I’ll be back, that was cool. -personals ed.) There was moshing for about 30 seconds early in the show before security broke it up and nobody really tried again after that. Crowd surfing was non-existant since you have to be pretty fucked up to mosh or surf to Oasis. As for the opening act, they call themselves Cornershop and they sucked. Some people were saying stuff like what the fuck is this or get the hell off the stage. However, I did overhear a few people saying that they liked them. So to those people, you suck too. One 12 year old girl summed it up nicely when she said that was the worst opening band I’ve ever heard.” Brimful of Asha, which is played regularly on MTV, was the only tolerable song of the six or seven that they played. The rest was a bunch of crap. Two or three of the songs were sung in some kind of Indian language. Don’t get me wrong, Indian music has its place somewhere, but just not at an Oasis concert. Sitars just weren’t meant to be played with drums and guitars. The other songs were mostly instrumental with Tjinder Singh (the lead singer) walking around, drinking his Evian, and muttering a few words. Despite the 75 minutes of torment served up by Cornershop (Hitler would have played the Cornershop CD in his death camps had they existed back then), the performance by Oasis was excellent. So the $30 I paid for the tickets was money well spent. Click here for more arts Back to the main page |