elwis

buried under use-
less excesses; check out Almost Blue and Get
Happy !, for examples. Often Costello is ham-
pered by his own cleverness in turning catch
phrases into neatly packaged double enten-
dres that have little bearing on the subject he
is ranting about.

cont’d from page 7

in an overview of his “artistic” output up to the
present, it could be discerned that after his
initial three or perhaps four LP releases, he
has floundering. Stylistic shifts from Stax/Volt
soul, to country, to Tin Pan Alley tunesmithing
abound, meeting only limited success (cre-
atively and financially) at best. It has only
been since about Punch the Clock, when Cos-
tello started concentrating on his voice that
things begin to get interesting again. When
he stops, for the most part, dicking around
with vapid lyrical ditties and pays more atten-
tion to the message instead, the light at the
end of the tunnel seems within reach.

King of America released in 1986 would
seem to indicate this to be so. At the same
time, by renouncing the Costello persona,
McManus places his past work within a possi-
ble context of being indicative of the (to use
his architectural reference) Post-modernist
pilfering of the times. On this particular album,
he has basically forsaken his backup band,
the Attractions for a more diverse cross-sec-
tion of session musicians, many of whom offer
a more intimate connection with the Amer-
ican musical forms (R&B, country, jazz and all
their derivatives) than the Attractions could
ever attain. With less derivative backing, he
has also dropped the Elvis Costello cliche and
relegated the hate-filled impotent cretin into
the same anachronism as the eternally pubes-
cent hairy-chested misogynists and the “fuck-
me-|’m-sensitive” twits. Unfortunately, it’s not
an absolute clean break for he still panders to
rather vacuous turn of phrase. But all in alll,
the LP seems to indicate a positive step to-
wards McManus’ fruition at being an artist of
some import.

Alas, that may have been just a false step.
Blood and Chocolate, McManus’ (billed now
as Napolean Dynamite) latest release finds
him again chained to his former backup
band. The more realistic portrayals by Mc-
Manus as commentator of human foibles has
once again been subsumed by the self-pity-
ing, whiny Costello. Sometimes McManus
does surface and there exists a weird symbio-
sis of the personas which are often intriguing,

CONTRIBUTORS

Anna Barton
Dianne Carr
Violet Finvers
Jane Ford
Brooke Hannah
Patrick Ho
Todd Inouye
Mike Lee
Glenda Mathew
Martin Stein

but otherwise, basically become regurgita-
tion of former output.

Musically, he is back to his old thefts. The
entire LP is drenched with background vocals
which originated at least twenty years ago
with the Beatles. McManus, himself, lifted one
phrase of voice at the end of the song, Blue
Chair, straight from Lennon’s interpretation
of Anna in 1962 ! And other such examples
abound throughout the album.

It is not even a holding pattern, as Punch the
Clock or Goodbye Cruel World could be
called. Blood and Chocolate is definitely a
couple of steps backwards in McManus’ dev-
elopment.

Still, if one enjoys the music, do so with aban-
don, but if one declares the relevance of this
“artist”, please don’t bother, at least, not yet.

state -finwers

the library, the
administration and the cafeteria (which may,
in reality, be a blessing). And, this, more than
anything is just an inconvenience rather than
a major issue to the majority of painting
students.

cont.’d from page 4

The separation of the Painting Department
from other areas of study is almost insigni-
ficant in terms of interaction between disci-
plines. Painting students, in general, have little
interest in what, for example, design students
are doing and the reverse, | feel, is also true.
Neither group, therefore, can miss an ex-
change which is virtually nonexistant. Stu-
dents rarely, if ever, venture out into the
unknown but exist within their own nucleus.
In reality, the college exists as a series of
individual units and as an entirety only in
terms of physical structure and unfulfilled
administrative delusions.

The advantages of the division outweigh any
disadvantages. The painters are provided
with more adequate space and are appar-
ently getting more work done in a studio said
to be “impressive and even inspiring” and
departmental expansion within other areas is
made possible with their departure. Better for
everyone concerned.

| haven't even noticed that the painters are
gone.

at