1990-04-27 Article About the Chromatics Singing For

T h e D a il y T ex an Page12 Fnday.Aprii 27.1990 ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT STILL SINGING WITH MITCH Spry bandleader reminisces, mocks the Stones and flirts with Texan' photographer Sha Tsur sang it. And then they sung hvmns exar b*a~ on Sunday night around the piano, MITCH MILLER so it's an old tradition.'' WITH THE AUSTIN / j -1 r here are no W ell, the days when Mom, Pop and the rest of the family would CHORAL UNION original ideas Where Palmer Auditorium gather around the Stein wav to belt anyw here, it s When Saturday Ca«476-5461 for how ou execute out She Uore a Yellou? Ribbon are long details L’a r i a them claims since gone, replaced bv the age of Mitch Miller MTV and politically conscious rock v% hen asked stars. It seems as though the transi George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, about the origin tion from the popular music of the Cole Porter ... and who do vou have CHOIR of his > ng Along late 40s and earlv 30s w’ould have now. You have Steve Sondheim shows ir the been rough on someone like Miller. and Llovd Webber." mid nOs. He seemsto be a relic ot And. although it is widely said that Miller makes it perfectlv clear that an ear.-.vr age, likeyour great-uncle Miller was one of rock's first critics, the diminutive English composer Shlomo, with his open, friendly he takes exception to that character rK'h 8°y Jo*s not rank high on his persona and bushy Van Dvke ization. list. "I guarantee you can't sing me beard in hi- iate ~0s or earlv80 s Everybody thinks I was against four bars of any one of Webber's his bio doesn'tspecify). Miller is rock music. I was against radio sta songs. So you have only Steve Son still livelyand animated waving his tions all playing only rock music. dheim. And so there's a paucity and trademark cigararound and flirting This was before FM. Now with FM you go to a Broadway show and with theTexan photographer in his you have your choice, which is all you come out singing the scenery. gravelly.Brook!vn-accented voice. people ask for.” In fact, Miller has It's either derivative, third-rate Puc Although it is now somethingof a rather outspoken views on the cini as it is with Pkantoh of the Opera genre. television footnote,between No? — well, he steals from everybody ac and i% , s :ng Along was popular A ou have artists like Rav Charles tually — but you have wonderful tare on the tube. Mitchand orches or Aretha Franklin, they're fabu stagecraft and people are hustled tra took the traditionof the movie lous. i ou must remember that rock into it." house bouncing ball sing-alongs of in America and in England was Miller, however, does seem the '30s to bring such classics as nothing more than a rip-off of black amused by the revivalist trend of to A-:en the Red Red Robin Comes Bet. music. The public wasn't ready to day's rock where the '60s wash-ups Bob Bobbin Along andHome m the accept it from black musicians so drag their rusty old bones out on Range to the homesof the American they took watered white-bread ver tour again. viewing public. Althoughlvrics the sions from white musicians." It s verv interesting also that vou were captioned Miller stresses that Rock music aside, for his appear have guys now in their 40s or 50s, he no. er had a bouncing ball.”You won t catch cultural icon and stogie-smokin Mitch Miller in line to buy tickets to see those furbails in Cafsance with the Austin Choral Union, vou know, KISS is coming here," he The Sing Along shows werejust Miller has arranged an evening of chuckles. Those guys are all 40 music focusing on the great Ameri another step in the career of Mitch Half Price Books or in the stacks of Tt wasn't an easv sell because years old. And the Rolling Stones — with their songerbunds, vou had can musicals and composers. It ap Miller. A classically trained oboistwax at your grandparents' house, [the network] said, 'You have no a couple of them are 50 years old. who toured with George Gershwin the Italians singing for every occa pears to be a testament to the last sold incredibly well (in fact his 1958 stars. What thev didn't realize is The way you judge rock music is in the 3t s, Millerwas working as sion, you had the Swedes with their ing popularity of the composers of Christmas album is still in demand that if you re good on television, what will be around after they've the nead of Columbia's Popular Mu Saint Olaf's Choir, even body sang. the early part of this century, as and will soon see re-release by then you're a star overnight." Before radio and television vou had gone. Where with all these guvs sic division when he recorded the Time-Life records, a deal Miller was well as a statement on the problems that I mentioned to you [Cole Porter first of theSing Along albums. And, he explains, "America is a the piano in the house, vou went to with musical theater todav. working on dunng the interview), singing nation. All the ethnic et al.J, their music rises to the top The albums many of which can the five-and-dime and listened to a "Well, I'll give you a good exam well enough to spawn the TV pro groups that came here huddled to and stays there like rich cream and shli be found in the record bins at song and bought the sheet music ple, ' he explains. "In one genera gram several years later. gether so you had the Germans and went home and played and no one's promoting it, just the ex tion you had [great musicians like] cellence of their songs." •Vacation’ strays Chromatics secure with ties that bind Michele Bowman too far from home Daily Texan Staff The entertainment world Jarmusch s first film lacks life, sly humor has always been fascinated with sibling performers. Jeff Turrentine From the Everlys and Os Daily Texan Staff PERMANENT monds to today's Zappas and VACATION Penns, audiences seem to get Starring Cfrstopher Parker an extra thrill from seeing I s there a Director Jim Jarmusch FOLK familial units in the arts. And war on?” asks Playing at Union Theatre, Friday when siblings appear in the the crazed, in and Saturday, 7:30 p.m. same band, as with the Aus stitutionalized Rating ★ ★ (out of four) tin s Chromatics, family ties create a unique and mother of main refreshing venture in music. character Alov- with the boy's homeless existence, From their humble beginnings around their sious Parker in devoid of emotional connections, mother s piano and in an Austin church choir, FILM Jim Jarmusch's separated by a wall of Cool from Svnde and Saffron Parten found that their voices Permanent Va any who might make up an ersatz sounded good together, and w'hether genetics or cation. family or circle of close friends. their musical environment was to credit, these Everything about this film Jar Aloysious' life (and presumably two young women grew up singing. They musch s first, suggests that it's formed a simple act about seven vears ago which taking place in some sort or battle Christopher's), as he puts it, resembles a "connect-the-dots:" a consisted of Svnde and Saffron plaving acoustic zone; images of abandoned and guitars and singing. Add brother Stacy (Synde's decrepit lower-Manhattan build perpetual process of starting and stopping, a transitory existence twin) on vocals and guitar, and Tito Walsh on ings, scenes of the psychologically bass, and a primarily acoustic-based sister act infirm babbling and singing to contingent on constant motion and the avoidance, at all costs, of evolved into a full-fledged band. themselves, a pervasive Zeitgeist settling down. or desperation and hopelessness. An earthy vet punctuated blend of folk rock The war though it may have only Thus the movie consists of noth and country blues is the result of this collabora existed in the minds of its scarred ing but the fragmented events of a tion. The two women's voices match perfectlv, The Parten clan will never have to find a band to play their family reunions and weddings. veterans ha- taken its toll. two-day odyssey: Allie visits his and with Stacy's added bass, the vocals on their debut album, Never Enough, are richly layered. mother in the institution, haunts taken to punk and pop bands such as Joy Divi Fans of Jarmusch s other films Session player A1 Billings' electric guitar work THE CHROMATICS may wonder at first whether Vaca an old burned-out building he sion and U2. used to call home, meets a beauti puntuates songs like Say What and the title song Where; Colorado Street Cafe, 705 Colorado St.; tion was actually helmed bv the With the recent addition of an avid fan- ful lunatic and a junkie and a sax and adds a certain flamboyance to the primarily ureen Mesquite. 1400 Barton Springs Road. same director who has brought au When Friday, 8:30 p.m.; Saturday. 7 p.m., furned-manager and the excitement of inclusion player (Jarmusch regular John Lu folkish acoustic guitars of the sisters. diences such idiosyncratic gems as respectively in South by Southwest, the band has come a Stranger than Paradise, Dozen by Law rie), steals a car, sells it to a fence The album is a collection of songs whose long way in just two short years.

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