jUflfl 6.2ÛÛ3 '
MUSIC
PEACE
Queer as music
CHURCH
Ju st In time
for Pride Month,
two heavy hitters
hit Portland
• We are an open Christian church that
welcomes people of all races, genders,
sexual orientations, abilities, ethnicities
and ages.
ou r in n o v a
Û U /ib U b n u
fhen you’re talking about
Buzzcocks, it’s reflexive to
mention The Sex Pistols
and The Clash in the same
breath. All were well regarded
and relatively popular groups from
the first (c. 1976) English wave of
punk— that stripped-down, sped-
up pop that set a new standard of
fast, loud, catchy, succinct and smart.
In hindsight, though, it’s fitting that Buzzcocks’
W!
• We follow Jesus’ teachings by continuing
our 300-year Brethren history of peace
and service work.
• We invite those who are drawn to a
people of joy and action, of reflection
and hope, to visit our congregation.
• We believe the Bible has preserved
and supports different perspectives of
Christian faith.
D
Buzzcocks, June 11,
Berbati's Pan
BRETHREN
Justice • R e c o n c i li a t i o n • S im p lic it y • W e l c o m i n g
Tracy Chapman, June 8,
Keller Auditorium
on’t underestimate Tracy Chapm an.
As much a social activist as she is a
singer/songwriter, the five albums she’s
released since her groundbreaking 1988 dehut
haven’t amounted to much— if you’re a bean
counter. But if you count the hairs rising on
the hack of your neck, C hapm an has produced
her share of emotional “hits” (e.g., “All T hat
You Have Is Your Soul," “Crossroads”).
The exception? “Give Me O ne Reason”
from 1995’s New Beginning. T he song was a
stylistic anomaly for Chapm an; that the bluesy
har tune took the album gold and reintroduced
the understated folk rock goddess to her audi
ence was a hit of a fluke. But C hapm an’s ride
has been topsy-turvy from the start.
Remember the album cover of her first
record? T he light brown background, the tight
ly cropped dreadlocks, eyes cast downward.
“Fast C ar” got a lot of attention (and airplay).
For a mostly white audience eight years deep in
the bleak Reagan-Bush era, C hapm an repre
sented the G reat Underdog.
A young, soft-spoken black woman discov
ered in the coffeehouses of Boston, she drew us
in with her vulnerability, her quiet wisdom.
And we whispered, do you chink she’s queer?
W ith her music, she’s been bold enough to take
a creative road some would consider commer
cial suicide. But when it comes to her private
life, Tracy C hapm an stays silent.
Released amid the needle-poking grunge
craze, the second album, Crossroads, went greatly
underappreciated as sales limped in comparison
to her stunning dehut. By 1992, the critical and
commercial apathy toward her third album, Mat
ters of the Heart, made the songwriter seem irrele
vant. Folk was dead (again). The big buzz quiet
ed. And that probably suited Chapman just fine.
She might have disappointed record execu
tives and alienated critics, hut the singer did
not km' sight of that other measure of success:
personal integrity. She kept on, writing songs
about the interior of relationships, the inequal
ities of political and economic systems, the sub
tleties of being human.
Maybe the only issue she’s never addressed
head-on is the one we’ll always wonder about.
Word on the street is C hapm an’s a knock
out live. Tickets for her June 8 show at Keller
Auditorium are $31.50-$45 from Tickets West.
And he sure to arrive early to hear the opening
act, eastmountainsouth, a soothing, melodic
Americana duo touring on their dehut record.
— Con Taratoot
OF THE
12727 SE M a r k e t St.
P o rtla n d , O regon
w w w .p e a c e c o b .o r g
K e r b y L a u d e r d a le , p a s t o r
A ll EMI, A ngel
legacy, while lower-profile, also feels more dignified
and less nostalgic. Those other prominent punkers
might have seemed more defiant, and they were
inarguahly liberating and seminal in their own
ways, hut Buzzcocks.. .they were another sweeter,
richer, maybe more important story.
They subverted their way, song by song, to
the heart of post-sexual-revolution romance,
love and sex— topics virtually anathema to
their peers— from a casually but actively bisex
ual POV. (Lead singer/guitarist Pete Shelley
and singer/bassist Steve Diggle were lovers for a
while in the hand’s early days.)
Their work was of its moment yet singularly
timeless; even today, no teen-ager or closet
romantic from anywhere on the gender/orienta-
tion spectrum can hear those breakneck guitar
melodies or Shelley’s voice frustratedly squeaking
lines like “If passion is a fashion, then emotion is
a curse” without feeling a pang of identification.
Their gender-neutral, fatalistic, funny, tender sen
sibilities were the missing link between the sex
rebels of the early ’70s (David Bowie, Iggy Pop,
New York Dolls) and The Smiths, who borrowed
their fluid sexual tone and tease realist/romantic
dichotomy almost directly from Shelley and Co.
After a fallow ’80s, Shelley and Diggle
reformed the group with a new rhythm section,
mounting a successful revival during the past
decade. Though Shelley’s voice has lost a little
of the androgynous, petulant charm of yore, and
the production values of their ’90s releases lack
the magic of the earlier ones, the new material
still demonstrates an unmatched, unique brand
of worldly-wise, heartache-prone acuity.
Buzzcocks play Berbati’s on June 11 to pro
mote the just-released Buzzcocks (the first
eponymous title in their catalog), and new songs
like “Jerk” and “Stars” won’t seem at all out of
place alongside the classics. (I’m
crossing my fingers for “Ever Fall
en in LoveT’ and “Promises.”)
Tickets are a cheap $13.50 from
TicketsWest.
Anyone who’s pined and tri
umphed in the less repressed hut
still volatile minefield of modem
love— and that probably includes
all of us at one time or another—
should be there to experience the
perfect soundtrack for it.
— Christopher M cQuam |T1
and
W o r s h ip : 11:00 A M
P h o n e : 5 0 3 -2 5 4 -6 3 8 0
V irgin C lassics T itles O n S ale !
Vivaldi - Four Seasons
Fabio Biondi/Europa Galante
$13.49 CO
Sarah Brightman • Harem
New Release Arriving on 6/10
$14.99 CO or $9.49 Cassette
Bizet - Carmen
Alagna/Gheorghiu/Hampson, etc.
3 CO Set • $40.47
Mozart - Violin Concerto #3/Symphony *41,
Itzhak Periman/Berlin
lln Philharmonic
$13.49 CO
T h o u s a n d s oi T itles O n S ali : F r o m :
EMI
CLASSICS
k
%
'
Maria Callas Forever
$13.49 CO
w
-
3%
Grieg/Schumann - Piano Concertos
Sviatoslav Richter/Lovro von Matacic
$9.99 CO
mm
nw tw iv fa s t* # a
Schubert * Quartet #13 “Rosam unds", etc.
•elcea String Quartet
$13.4« CO
The Very Best of Montserrat Cabell«
2 CO B e t-$13.49
V isit E ither C lassical M illennium L ocation and S ign U p to W in a F ramed M aria
C allas P oster . N o P urchase N ecessary to P articipate , D eadline to E nter —J une 30 th
♦
< )N S \ l l
Till«
>1
(.il «Il
NI
ôOlll ♦