On ‘Dear Science,’ TV On The Radio thumps and grinds, as ever
John LaFollette
Editor-in-Chief
When they made their major-label debut with “Return to Cookie Mountain” in 2006, TV On The Radio left many of their fans wondering if the group was capable of producing its brand of gritty, cerebral rock if it shared the Interscope imprint with acts like Soulja Boy and the All-American Rejects.
interscope.com/tvontherradio
TV On The Radio have managed to combine the funding and mainstream promotion of a major record label with the original offbeat style of music that fans orignally loved.
After all, the album, unlike TVOTR’s other work, was released to critical and popular acclaim.
“Dear Science” (released by Interscope last month) proves that TVOTR can, at the very least, survive in a non-indie (dare we call it mainstream?) working environment.
In fact, if the lyrics cohered a little better, their latest work could almost be called transcendent.
TVOTR has made an album evoking the potential for cheer that exists deep inside every music-loving gloom-and-doomer, while remaining devoted to the abrasive ethos that brought the band to this place.
“Dear Science” takes the listener to clear blue skies on the wings of a rusty propeller plane.
As is their wont, TVOTR harps on a set of themes throughout the record. This time, the band criticizes the self-aggrandizing nature of the news media, and, in turn, the masses for their sheepish submission.
There are sparing jabs at the rich, the powerful and the political elite, but the tone of these lyrics suggest an admission that swine will be swine.
On “Shout Me Out,” (this reviewer’s favorite for its patiently deliberate, melodic verses) lines of poetry echo each other throughout, but with slight and clever variations.
Halfway in comes the peak of the album: a two-and-a-half-minute guitar/drum hurricane that continues to the end of the song, and that, at a loud volume, chills the spine.
The album’s penultimate track, “DLZ,” is the darkest of the 11 songs.
It begins as hauntingly beautiful, but the listener who can continue without becoming distressed is an optimist indeed.
“Fortune strives to fill the vacuum that it feeds,” sings Adebimpe in a snagging falsetto. “But this is beginning to feel like the dog’s lost her lead/ This is beginning to feel like the long-winded blues of the never.”
“Golden Age,” the album’s signature track, but not it’s first single, is a funky, thumping number that mirrors and bears witness both to the quick-changing times in which we find ourselves and the promise of hope that seems to be almost in our sights. “Now we’re all allowed to breathe/ Walls dissolve with the hunger and the greed,” sings Adebimpe.
The electronic percussion and the samples imitate the clapping the song exhorts.
Adebimpe continues, “Oh and here it comes and it’s not so far!”
There is an overlap between the dark and the bright in TV On The Radio’s
sound.
The grey area they choose to inhabit is made a little narrower on “Dear Science,” which makes for slightly smoother listening (though this phrase should probably be qualified with “at least as much as TVOTR can be”).
TVOTR’s “Dear Science” is easily the band’s least obscure recording to date, and, were it not for the streamlined genius of “Return to Cookie Mountain,” it would also be their best.
Join the Newswire’s Independent Coffeehouse Tour
The Front Porch Coffehouse
5245 Glenway Ave.
Cincinnati, Ohio 45238
www.fropo.com
Housed inside a suburban home in Western Price Hill, Front Porch Coffeehouse has nurtured a community of coffee lovers.
The Front Porch retains the comfort of a lived-in house, while adding the atmosphere of a place where people can study, meet up with friends or just enjoy some freshly brewed coffee.
Prices at the Front Porch are similar to most other coffeehouses. It offers Fair Trade coffee for $1.50 with 50 cent refills. The menu also has a variety of unique Front Porch lattes. A 12 oz. latte, chai tea or a FroPoccino (FroPo is the locals’ nickname for the Front Porch) all run a little over three dollars.
For latte lovers, I recommend both the Milky Way and Turtle lattes. These beverages encompass the perfect blend of flavors, from quality espresso to sweeter ingredients such as caramel or chocolate.
On this particular visit I chose a Peanut Butter FroPoccino. I tend to find frappuccinos a little too sweet. They often taste more like a milk shake than a coffee infused drink. However, this drink left me pleasantly surprised.
My FroPoccino was expertly blended and had the creaminess of peanut butter, the sweetness of chocolate and a slight kick of coffee in the background.
During the weekdays the Front Porch is not terribly busy, although there can
be a lunch crowd because they also serve soups, salads and sandwiches.
After lunch things are usually quiet, so this would be a good time for studying,
introspection or communing with your cup o’ joe.
On weekends, the crowd tends to be younger and more boisterous. Perhaps this is due to the many local music groups that play at the Front Porch. Check the website’s music schedule for upcoming acts.
The Front Porch is open Mondays and Tuesdays, 6:30 a.m.-9 p.m., Wednesdays and Thursdays, 6:30 a.m.-11 p.m., Friday 6:30a.m.-12 a.m. and Saturday 8 a.m.-12 a.m. The Front Porch is closed on Sundays.
—Stephanie Metz
Coffee Emporium
entry level of Gallagher Student Center
www.coffee-emporium.com
Xavier’s Coffee Emporium consistently provides students, faculty and employees alike with daily supplies of caffeine and sweets.
Like most coffeehouses, the Xavier outpost of Coffee Emporium has multitudinous offerings of coffee, espresso, lattes, teas and more. In fact, the menu can be a tad bit overwhelming on your first visit, but baristas tend to be knowledgable and willing to make recommendations.
Their prices are typically no more or less than other coffeehouse competitors. A regular cup of coffe runs $1.65 for a grande (16 oz.). Lattes and specialty drinks will cost you about three dollars for a small.
Hot tea is a little over a dollar. There are enough tea choices for a variety of flavors, but not so many that you cannot pick one.I recommend the plum flavored tea.
Another perk about the extensive menu is that it offers seasonal drinks. My current favorite on the fall menu is the Autumn latte: a spicy, but not ostentatious, mix of cinnamon and hazelnut with espresso, of course.
Coffee Emporium also has an appropriately-sized drink for any coffee emergency. An average morning wake-up call may only require a grande. However, the final weeks of the semester, or a horribly rainy Cincinnati day may call for the truly enormous mondo-sized coffee, which only the brave of heart should attempt on any kind of regular basis.
The atmosphere at Xavier’s Coffee Emporium is usually lively, with studiers sprinkled around tables and around the fireplace, as well as groups of friends hanging out at GSC. Serious studiers may want to take their work over to the library. Anyone with light reading, or work they really do not want to do, might welcome the distractions of GSC.
Coffee Emporium is open Monday - Thursday 7:30 a.m.-11 p.m., Friday 7:30 a.m.-6 p.m., Saturday 8 a.m.-1 p.m. and Sunday 10 a.m.-10 p.m.
—Stephanie Metz
‘Joseph’ promises solid performances
Felipe Garcia-Wasnich
Staff Writer
The rock opera has been a prevalent fixture of music culture and theatre for several decades. “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” is among these pop-culture phenoms that have entered our national domain.
Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber has made a career out of rock operas like “Jesus Christ Superstar,” and “Starlight Express,” not to mention “Joseph.” He has written 13 musicals total, including Broadway and West End blockbusters like “Phantom of the Opera,” “Cats” and “Evita.”
Andrew Lloyd Webber collaborated with Tim Rice on “Joseph” when he was 20. The two had already written “Jesus Christ Superstar,” and the Broadway production of “Joseph” was billed as “Superstar’s” sequel. In many ways his inexperience shows.
The emasculated and secularized take on a classic Old Testament tale is shallow, safe and unoriginal. It is void of the deep traditions affiliated with the story, and is as far from a true piece of art as NASCAR is from an actual sport.
Still, Webber’s take on the Joseph story upholds the positive aspect of an amateur work. Xavier’s production of the show maintains the rawness and passion that Webber seems to have intended.
Under the direction of Danny Manning, Xavier’s “Joseph” takes few liberties in running away from the script, save a sparse few moments of brilliance.
Touches of genius will be seen in the portrayal of Potiphar by senior Preston Gabay, who doesn’t hold back when it comes to flamboyance.
There are even moments that suggest a deeper, more meaningful level behind the glitz and glamour of “Joseph.” Sadly there is not enough evidence to support this theory. However, the fault falls more in the hands of the creators, then anyone associated with Xavier’s production, who do what they can with what they have.
Freshman Michael Platt promises to be stunning in the title role— overly enthusiastic to the point of annoyance. He is all the right things most of the time, cycling from creepy, to cocky to irritating, to occasionally affable. Unfortunately, his charisma does not show enough.
Platts counterpart, junior Michelle Anguiano is sure to deliver an above-average performance as the narrator of the Biblical story.
Other solos should prove to be entertaining to say the least, including senior RJ Thieneman’s rockabilly performance as the Pharaoh. Webber is said to have based the Pharoah’s character on Elvis, of whom he was apparently a huge fan. Senior Mike Sause’s turn as a comical John Waynesque soloist also looks promising.
This weekend, the Xavier Players will present “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.” Performances will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 16-19, with a matinee at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 18 in the GSC Theatre.
Tickets may be purchased at the GSC Theatre box office, or online at the Xavier Players website, www.xavier.edu/student_life/players/.
‘Duchess’ plunges into horrible marriage, historical scandals without any apologies
Stephanie Metz
Arts & Entertainment Editor
Tailor-made for fans of stylized costume dramas and celebrity scandal, “The Duchess” delivers enough eighteenth-century intrigue to make modern gossip girls pale in comparison to the Duchess of Devonshire.
“The Duchess” is based on historian Amanda Foreman’s biography, “Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire.”
The movie details Georgiana’s public and private travails during her disastrous marriage to the Duke of Devonshire. Although considered a perfect match because of the Duke’s wealth and title, the actual marriage left much to be desired.
The Duke (Ralph Fiennes) loves his hounds more than his wife and cannot understand why Georgiana (Keira Knightley) has such difficulty producing a son, a crucial agreement of their marriage contract. Georgiana attempts to divert herself from her marriage with trendsetting clothes, powerful friends and a blossoming interest in politics; she campaigned for the Whig Party although she could not vote.
To further strain the marriage, the Duke’s illegitimate daughter, Charlotte, is brought to reside with the couple and raised by Georgiana alongside her own children. The Duchess also takes in Lady Elizabeth Foster (Hayley Atwell), who, estranged from her husband, has no place to live.
The Duke permanently installs Elizabeth as his live-in mistress, despite Georgiana’s protests.
Her own dalliance with future prime minister Charles Grey (Dominic Cooper) is promptly curtailed when the Duke gives Georgiana a Hobson’s ‘choice’ of either continuing her affair or never seeing her own children again.
History buffs have pointed out the comparisons between the Duchess of Devonshire and her descendant, the late Princess Diana.
Both public figures were loved by the British people and devoted to their children, but had tenuous relationships with their husbands and were plagued by other people intruding into their marriages.
While the film’s dialogue is a mix of both period and modern speech, the soundtrack is much more staid. Filmmakers chose instrumentals to evoke the period, rather than trying to entice audiences with pop music laid over historical scenes.
In general, “The Duchess” was much darker than anticipated, and although interesting, there were several disturbing moments. Despite the film’s focus on an eighteenth-century ‘it’ girl, it is by no means fluffy.
Beatifully staged and shot, it captures the emotional and physical violence of a desperately unhappy marriage and a life lived in the public eye.
Interestingly, director Saul Dibb’s last film, “Bullet Boy,” depicts British gang culture and could not be more different from “The Duchess.” However, he seems right at home with this genre. Dibb injects realism into a film that could have easily descended into melodrama.
The Duchess was known for her outlandish fashion and admits to the Duke that it is her sole way of expressing herself.
As expected from a costume drama, each character is expertly rendered down to the most minor details— no small feat considering the elaborate wigs and dresses which were different in nearly every scene. Knightley alone had thirty costume changes throughout the film. The film’s eye candy alone could keep a less-than-thrilled viewer occupied for much of the two hour showing time.
Knightley was impeccable as usual. During the movie’s initial moments I worried she would be unable to differentiate this performance from similar period roles in “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Pride & Prejudice.” I was happily proven wrong. Knightley clearly excels in this type of film. This performance was still interesting and enjoyable, not a mere repeat of her other roles. Her character emerges fully formed onto the screen and captures the charm and despair of this historical figure.
Ralph Fiennes is also admirable as the Duke, although the character never becomes more than the hated villain. He executes the role well, but does not make the audience sympathize with him in any way. Fiennes also gets under your skin as Voldemort, the Dark Lord of Harry Potter’s universe. Coincidence? I think not.
Despite the weighty subject matter of “The Duchess,” superb performances, gorgeous cinematography and elaborate costumes make for a rich experience, leaving viewers with a taste of life lived in the fast lane, eighteenth-century style.
Catherine Stahl
Diversions Editor
Italian Film Series
The Italian Film Series presents “Cinema Paradiso” at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 15 in the World Views Lounge on the 10th floor of Schott Hall. The award-winning film, a story of friendship, love, loss and the magic of cinema, is in Italian with subtitles.
Autumn Evensong
At 8 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 17 in Bellarmine Chapel, Harmonia Sacra Xavieriana will host an hour-long service of scripture, song and silence. The 12-voice professional ensemble will perform works by Bach, Casals and Rossi. The event is free and open to the public.
Math Club Game Night
The Math Club invites you to an evening of math-themed games at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 15. Come to the Clock Tower Lounge for games such as Set, Scratch and Bridge. Other games are welcome. Drinks, chips and pizza will be served.
