Raised by opera-loving parents in a rock ’n’ roll world, Rich Copley has parlayed his broad interests into his career writing about arts and entertainment. Since 1998, he has covered performing arts, film and faith-based popular culture for the Lexington Herald-Leader, the daily newspaper in Lexington, Ky. It’s a pretty broad beat, but Rich delights in finding influences of the past in the present and showing fine arts fans the value of pop culture, and vice versa. ~ Copious Notes is a blog covering that broad spectrum. If you want to read about specific areas of interest, such as theater or opera, click on one of the categories to the right and you will be whisked away to all posts in that category. Also, look around the blog for links; multimedia items such as photo albums, videos, and interviews with artists; and other nuggets. Have fun, and thanks for dropping in.
The header for this blog was designed by Danny Kelly and the illustration was drawn by Camille Weber.
Anberlin are drummer Nate Young, bassist Deon
Rexroat, singer Stephen Christian, guitarists Joey Milligan and Christian
McAlhaney. Photo by James Minchin, courtesy Universal Republic.
Anberlin | New Surrender
The press kit for Anberlin's Universal Republic debut, New Surrender, identifies the group as, "one of the truly viable indie-to-major success stories ready to blow in 2008." Of course, Christian pop fans know you could replace "indie" with "Christian," and still have an accurate statement.
Anberlin released its first three studio albums and one b-sides package on Tooth & Nail Records, the launching pad for acts such as P.O.D. and Underoath that have easily walked between the Christian and mainstream markets.
Anberlin has done that too, particularly with its 2007 release Cities.
The major label jump finds the Central Florida act as you would expect a band making this transition: sounding as confident, polished and nimble as ever. There is also no dilution of Anberlin's thoughtful meditations on life and faith, that have rarely been overt but always been challenging to those who took time to listen.
Anberlin is a neopolitan package of sounds from some solid post-punk pop to lovely acoustic-based vocal tracks such as The Unwinding Cable Car, one of the most inventive, sublime cuts on Christian radio in the past year.
New Surrender starts out on an aggressive note with The Resistence and rocks through the brainy and intriguing Breaking. The strongest signal these two songs send is that New Surrender will be owned by the guitarists Christian McAlhaney and Joey Milliagan. Considering they have just been together since the release of Cities, these axe men have become quite a pair in a brief time.
Being a major label debut, this disc does resurrect a previous hit, The Feel Good Drag from 2005's Don't Take Friendship Personal. It fits in, but also amplifies Anberlin's growth, seen in songs such as the symphonic Retrace and Breathe, poppy Burn Out Bright (Northern Lights) and Younglife, and apocalyptic Miserable Visu (Ex Malo Bonum).
New Surrender is an album that immediately starts to grow on you, and rewards repeated listenings with deeper insights and surprises, as well as a lot of fun. It's exactly what a band reaching out to a wider audience needs.
Also out today: Amy Grant's Christmas Collection releases today (we're going to do a Christmas disc roundup soon) as is Newsboys' Live in Houston. With Tobymac's live disc, Houston just seems to be the hip place to record in front of a crowd lately.
Centre College music professor Vince DiMartino, a ubiquitous presence in Central Kentucky jazz circles, is the recipient of the artist award in the Governor's Awards in the Arts. Photo from Centre.edu.
The 2008 Governor's Awards in the Arts will be presented at 10 a.m. Wednesday in the rotunda of the State Capitol Building in Frankfort.
This year's awards mark two big changes: The award presentations have been shifted from the winter to the fall. Also, it will be the first round of Governor's Awards presented by Steve Beshear, who was elected last fall. The recipients this year include a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, one of Lexington's highest profile musicians, and a Lexingtonian who heads up one of theater's most unlikely success stories.
Here are the recipients:
Retired Brown-Forman chairman and CEO Owsley Brown II wins the Milner Award, given for individual commitment to the arts. Brown was active with numerous Louisville organizations, including Actors Theatre of Louisville and the Kentucky Opera.
Fort Knox native and playwright Suzan-Lori Parks will receive the National Award for a Kentuckian who has had a nationwide impact in the arts. Among Parks' achievements are the Pulitzer Prize-winning Topdog/Underdog and the project 365 Days/365 Plays. She was also a 2001 recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant. Photo, right, by Stephanie Diani.
Vince DiMartino is the Artist Award winner. The Centre College music professor and trumpeter is a ubiquitous presence in Central Kentucky jazz circles both as a performer and educator, and he has performed on stages around the world. DiMartino is also co-founder of the Great American Brass Band Festival, each June in Danville.
Kentucky Repertory Theatre in Horse Cave wins the Community Artist Award. The 23-year-old professional
theater defied convention by opening and thriving in a town of just 2,000. The theater is directed by Robert Brock, a Henry Clay High School and University of Kentucky graduate. Photo from imagesglasgow.com.
Nicholasville's Charlie Hughes wins the media award for his twice-monthly Kentucky Literary Newsletter which promotes literary arts throughout the state. Photo from Wind Publications.
Louisville based ear X-tacy and its owner John Timmons get the business award for support of the arts.
The City of Covington wins the government award for utilizing the arts to revitalize its downtown.
Owensboro's Julie Ann White will receive the education award for her work in Owensboro Public Schools where she is a fine arts specialist and founded the school system's annual Fine Arts Festival.
The Cowan Community Action Group wins the folk heritage award for making traditional arts a centerpiece of its educational outreach.
All honorees will receive Upward Glance, a sculpture by Louisville artist William M. Duffy.
A month ago today, Sarah Palin was introduced as the Republican vice-presidential nominee, and she proceeded to dominate the Republican National Convention like she was at the top of the ticket.
She was the rock star Republicans had seemed to need, even while they mocked Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama's rock star status. For a week after the convention, Palin campaigned alongside Republican Presidential nominee John McCain and was given credit for attracting the campaign's swelling crowds. Clearly, they were going to put her out in front of the American people as much as possible.
But when Palin showed up MIA in the flurry of spinmeisters after the first Presidential debate Friday night, it was just the latest no-show in a Palin media blackout that has robbed the Republican ticket of its most popular face. Yes, she has been out campaigning. But going to Pennsylvania and giving your stump speech only earns drive-by coverage, at best, on the evening news.
"No vice-presidential nominee in modern history has been this
inaccessible to the media," the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz wrote, this morning.
Palin's inavailability to the media has generated some interesting responses, such as CNN's Campbell Brown denouncing the McCain campaign for sexist coddling of Palin. After Palin's painful interview with Katie Couric, Obama supporter Maru Gonzales told CNN's Rick Sanchez that by keeping Palin sequestered, the McCain campaign has shaken her confidence.
Confidence is something Palin sure seemed full of accepting that nomination, both in Dayton and St. Paul. Watching her convention speech, you had to think, "Big Bad Joe Biden isn't going to scare her in the vice-presidential debate."
But now, with that debate set for Thursday, expectations are very low. Some commentators point out that Biden, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, has had his share of gaffes recently, too. But those are gaffes, putting together words in a poorly chosen sequence. The questions about Palin are does she know what she's talking about when she gets into big issues about the economy and foreign relations?
Some of those answers may come Thursday in the debate, which could wreck or redeem Palin's candidacy.
But after this debate, it is the McCain campaign's responsibility to Palin and to the American people to make her more widely available for interviews and press conferences so that voters can get to know her better before they go to the polls.
No doubt, the press and even Democrats got off on the wrong foot with Palin, initially focusing on her family, though it is also fair to say that Palin and McCain put her family front and center from the get go. The Herald-Leader's Jackie Carfagno has an excellent column about that in Sunday's paper.
But since then in Palin's two interviews -- no, Sean Hannity's softballs don't count -- the mainstream press has shown it doesn't want to dwell on Bristol and Trigg. They want to ask serious questions that would be asked of any vice-presidential candidate, that have been asked of Biden in the nearly 100 interviews he's given since being named the Democratic veep candidate.
On Morning Edition last week, Steve Inskeep made the salient point, "Whatever you think of the media, they're among the few citizens in position to question a candidate."
Now, it's time for Palin to stop acting like a sequestered rock star and start answering some of those questions.
Photo, above: Alaska Gov. and vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin with her daughter Willow campaigning in Center City, Pa., Sunday. Copyrighted AP photo by Joseph Kaczmarek.
One of the best books I've read about political media is Eric Alterman's What Liberal Media?, which dissects the idea that the mainstream national media is left leaning (the link takes you to an article in the Nation that sort of previews the book). One of the theories Alterman advanced that has stayed with me is that in 2000 Al Gore lost the Presidential election to George W. Bush because the Gore campaign failed to forge a good relationship with the press. A surly press corps, Alterman contends, was less inclined to to give Gore the benefit of the doubt and willing to let things like the, "Al Gore says he invented the Internet," story fester.
This had occurred to me looking at the McCain campaign even before last week, when the Palin blackout became completely ridiculous and McCain campaign senior strategist Steve Schmidt was declaring the
New York Times was, "150 percent in the tank," for Obama and, "not by any standard a journalistic organization.” Even in August, when the McCain campaign was surging, the McCain spokespeople usually came across as angry and petulant, particularly Schmidt and campaign manager Rick Davis. If that's their public face, I have to wonder what it would be like to call one of them up to get a quote or check a fact. By contrast, folks like Obama communications director Robert Gibbs always appeared upbeat and genial, even while his campaign was being overtaken by McCain is the wave of Palinmania and controversies about bovine cosmetics.
Certainly, in any enterprise where you deal with the press, there will be ups and downs. But the if the press is a big part of telling your public story, why foster a chilly relationship? There are ways to tell people you don't think you're getting a fair shake without open hostility.
It sort of makes me wonder, if this election is as close as it looks like it might be, and Obama wins, if McCain's frosty press relations may be seen as one of the reasons why.
Photo, above: Robert Gibbs and Barack Obama on the tarmac in Memphis on Sunday. Copyrighted AP photo by Alex Brandon.
The financial crisis is sure hard for a lot of us to get our heads around. We know there's a problem, but what exactly? And why could it cause a problem that would effect us here in the heartland. Well, Friday afternoon, an excellent piece from NPR and This American Life on All Things Considered really helped me grasp what was happening by looking at the commercial paper market. What's commercial paper? Well, give this excellent piece a listen.
Another thing that seemed to be missing from a lot of the reporting on the Wall Street bailout negotiations was the public backlash against the bailout and anger at business leaders and lawmakers. But that was not missed on Rick Sanchez's 3 p.m. show on CNN. Sanchez (photo, right, from CNN) makes a lot of his use of Twitter, Facebook and other social networking tools to put together his show. Therefore, his hours usually have a much stronger man-on-the-street feel than a lot of programs. Last week was a real strong example of that as Sanchez's show was telling you a story you weren't getting anywhere else. It is well worth tuning in.
We usually talk about political comedy in this space. There were other fish I wanted to fry this week, but I would be remiss in not mentioning two things:
After an off night Sept. 20, Saturday Night Live killed this week with three great pieces:
Another Tina Fey as Sarah Palin masterpiece, with Amy Poehler playing a feverishly blinking Katie Couric. The best moment in the scathing parody was when Fey's Palin asked for a "life line," a la Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
A debate parody, written after Friday night's debate, in which McCain suggested suspending the campaigns to have a pie eating contest and nude or semi-nude town hall meetings.
The pièce de résistance was Darrell Hammond, who had played McCain in the debate sketch, playing President Bill Clinton on Weekend Update. Seth Meyers grilled him on why he would not give Obama a ringing endorsement, and Hammond's Clinton never gave an inch.
David Letterman ended up in the middle of a controversy when McCain, according to Letterman, called and cancelled his Wednesday night appearance because he had to rush back to Washington to work on the bailout. But McCain, it turned out, was actually in another CBS studio being interviewed by Katie Couric for the Evening News. For the next two nights, Letterman was merciless castigating McCain (the McCain stuff starts 4:40 into the clip, but there's also some great Chris Rock stuff before that) in rants that were amplified by being rerun by numerous news shows.
UK Symphony Orchestra conductor John Nardolillo conducted the National Symphony Orchestra with Arlo Guthrie earlier this month in the same program the UK Symphony recorded last year. Photo courtesy of the National Symphony Orchestra.
Friday night is the season-opening concert by one of Lexington’s most active recording artists: the University of Kentucky’s student orchestra.
The student designation for the University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra seems like a mere technicality as it has made several world premier recordings in the past year that have made it to the desks of influential critics.
“Playing Pasatieri’s skillful orchestrations under the assured leadership of conductor John Nardolillo, they sound more like a professional orchestra than a student one,” Opera News critic Joshua Rosenblum wrote in a review of the UK Opera Theatre and UK Symphony’s recording of Thomas Pasatieri’s Hotel Casablanca.
Recommending the same recording, “with enthusiasm,” FanFare magazine critic Henry Fogel wrote, “It is wonderfully encouraging that this production is from a university’s opera program, and that their student orchestra plays at such a high level as well.”
In 2006, it seemed like a pretty huge deal when the UKSO recorded Music of the Horse for Keeneland. Since then, the orchestra has recorded three more albums: In Times Like These with folk legend Arlo Guthrie, the world premier recording of Epoch: An American Dance Symphony by George Frederick McKay, and the Hotel Casablanca recording, also a world premier.
Discussing an upcoming project -- a production of George Gershwin’s Porgy & Bess to be presented during the World Equestrian Games in 2010 -- UK Opera Theatre director Everett McCorvey called Nardolillo, “My soul mate in big ideas.”
Indeed, the University of Kentucky Symphony director is pursuing the same sorts of projects that helped the opera programs’ star begin to rise in the late 1990s and early 2000s:
■ Bringing in big name talent to work with students. ■ Pursuing high profile projects. ■ Getting the group on stages outside of Central Kentucky. ■ Getting the group recorded, so even if I’m in some far-flung locale with Bill Kurtis, as long as I have a wi-fi connection, I can listen to UK’s musicians.
John McCain, left, and Barack
Obama, center, shake hands with moderator Jim Lehrer at the finish of a
presidential debate at the University of Mississippiin Oxford, Miss., Friday, Sept. 26, 2008. Copyrighted AP photo by Charles Dharapak.
Friday night, I watched the first Presidential debate with a politically, ethnically, generationally and even linguistically diverse group of people.
No, I wasn't on assignment at Grand Central Station. I was actually sitting in front of my TV with my laptop tuned to Twitter. For the uninitiated, Twitter is what is called microblogging. You can post anything as long as it's no more than 140 characters. You see the Copious Notes Twitter up in right hand corner of this blog. I primarily use it for relaying arts and entertainment news, but lots of people use it to tell their friends what they're doing and what they're thinking. People follow other Twitterers and other Twitterers follow them.
To give credit where it's due, I had not thought of following the debate on Twitter until Thursday morning, when I went to a breakfast given by the Social Media Club of Louisville, and Brendan Jackson of Creative Alliance suggested it was how he had followed the conventions.
To do it, I just went to the Twitter election page and picked from the topics about the debate, designated by people putting a phrase like #debate08 in their posts to be part of specific conversations. At the beginning of the evening two popular ones were #obamashot and #mccainshot suggesting drinking games for the debate, like take a shot each time Obama said, "change," or McCain said, "My Friends." Those threads seemed to tail off a little during the evening -- wonder why?
Anyway as the debate got doing, you got a sense that it was an ideologically diverse group of people in the numerous groups talking about the debate, from hardcore proponents of each candidate who thought the other could do no right to people just watching for entertainment or curiosity.
"Eyes up, Obama," one poster wrote, coaching the candidate from his keyboard.
"McCain is wearing my grandfather's tie," another wrote.
A lot of the early posts were on style points, like heavy makeup on Obama and lines in McCain's granddad tie that looked like they were moving on a lot of TVs, including mine.
As it went on, there were more people weighing in on issues and points mere seconds after they were uttered. Obama supporters were going nuts as he continued to say McCain was right on a number of issues, and viewers were picking up McCain not looking at Obama, though the format was supposed to include direct exchanges between the candidates.
They also picked up on issues such as McCain's declaration that he'd consider freezing the Federal budget. One progressive, who didn't like Obama talking about taking troops into Afghanistan, wrote, "I hate it when Obama tries to be all hawky." Some even tried to spin Twitter, saying it was too pro-Obama, like they were finding the liberal media even in this new media. I thought there were plenty of people speaking up for both candidates.
A number of posters were scoring at home, giving and taking away points for each candidate as the evening progressed, and sharing a final score when it was over.
There was a small presence of spinmeisters from the actual campaigns in the conversations, but it was a really intriguing look at how real people were ingesting and reacting to what they heard and saw, frankly much more interesting than the campaign spokespeople and pundits the networks and cable news nets trotted out after the debate.
There were also conversations you wouldn't hear anywhere else. Like, as I write this, a hot topic is whether McCain uttered a profane phrase describing what horses occasionally leave on the track during the debate. Maybe not terribly substantive, but amusing.
I don't know that I'll watch every debate with a laptop in hand, but it will be tempting to look in and see what the tweets are saying.
Photos above: Top: During a viewing party of the
presidential debate, Shelley Young, left, and
Kelli May, right, react in Sandy
Springs at the Fulton County
Republican Party headquarters, in Atlanta. Copyrighted AP photo by Jenni Girtman. Bottom: People watch the presidential debate on a large screen at the Apollo Theater in New York. Copyrighted AP Photo by David Goldman.
Of course, others were also keeping up in real time: The New York Times' The Caucus blog has become one of my favorite running campaign chronicles, and they uncorked this gem in the midst of the debate:
What’s the threat from Iran?
Mr. McCain says: “It’s an existential threat to Israel.” They’ve
used this phrase before, meaning that it is a threat to Israel’s
existence. But they ought to explain it, otherwise it sounds to voters
like we’re trying to protect Jean Paul Sartre.
Most political news outlets -- major papers and cable news networks -- had at least a debate blog going.
One approach I didn't get was a live commentary at CNN.com. It was actual commentators talking about the debate as it happened. I stayed with that for about a minute, but seriously, I'm not going to forgo listening to the debate to listen to a running commentary. Reading tweets is one thing, but that was quite another.
With the annoucement that Legally Blonde -- The Musical is closing Oct. 19, we asked Lexington's Laura Bell Bundy, the original Elle Woods on Broadway, for her thoughts. This was her reply:
"It is a bit sad because it is such a great show and makes so many people happy!
"We
made a family at Legally Blonde and we spent a significant part of our
lives creating the show and keeping the show (and each other) alive.
"But,
we had a good run, we broke ground for Broadway and made people who
were never interested in theater before interested! I think our
producers were very bold in putting our show on MTV, and I know from
the responses I have gotten and still get) from fans that it really
meant something to them and made life better or more inspiring in some
way. That is what it is about! I feel so proud to be a part of this
show and this group of people! My life was truly blessed and changed.
We, Legally Blonder's, will always be in each others lives so I am
not worried about that. It's just sad to think that I won't be able to
go to the Palace Theater to see them all at once!
"I stopped by last
night and even though people were a bit melancholy I think everyone is
very proud of the show and of each other. They are going to go out
with such a BANG! That is just the spirit of this group! The reality
is, there are very few shows that last this long on Broadway! And even
fewer shows that actually ever make it... Everyone should feel very
fortunate and proud. And, I think we all do."
Laura left the show in July and now resides in Nashville where she is working on her recording career, and a zillion other things.
I should tell you: Frankfort's Will
Chase as Roger connects with Renée Elise Goldsberry as Mimi in Rent Filmed Live on Broadway.Below: Adam
Kantor as Mark sings for the cameras. Bottom: Tracie Thoms as Joanne and Kantor in The Tango Maureen. Copyrighted photos by Casey Stoufer for Sony Pictures.
This is how Rent should be seen on film.
In 2005, the Rent movie came out with great anticipation, and, to a lot of viewers like me, great disappointment. Chris Columbus' film did have great moments. La Vie Boheme and Jesse L. Martin's reprise of I'll Cover You stand out to me as iconic movie musical scenes.
But the movie picked apart the flow of Jonathan Larson's creation, making it more of a standard issue movie musical than the rock opera that it was, and the film as a whole felt hollow.
It left a lot of us telling people who wondered why we are so enraptured with this show, "You have to see the stage version."
Well, the Broadway production is closed now, but this weekend, you can see Rent Filmed Live on Broadway at movie theaters around the country. The film was made during some of Rent's final Broadway performances, earlier this month. As a bonus for we Central Kentuckians, Frankfort native Will Chase plays Roger, the rocker struggling to connect with others while he faces the inevitability of AIDS.
Chase's interpretation is different from the Broadway Cast Recording and film Roger, Adam Pascal. He's a bit more subtle, with less of an angry edge. But the internal struggle is clear, and we can hear why Chase has become a go-to-guy for Broadway rock musicals.
He has a strong counterpart in Renee Elise Goldsberry as Mimi, who enters with a gorgeous, full voice in Light my Candle, and never flags.
For the uninitiated, Rent is a Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical about residents of the Alphabet City neighborhood in New York in the early 1990s. It is based on Giacomo Puccini's opera La Boheme, and these Bohemians struggle with poverty, AIDS and personal travails while trying to pursue their artistic ambitions. Adding to Rent's legend was lyricist and composer Jonathan Larson's tragic death from an aortic aneurysm hours after the final dress rehearsal for Rent's Off-Broadway opening.
All of the film cast is strong, and embodies the energy that made this show go for 12 years on Broadway. Rentheads will have no problem locking in on the story, while people more oriented to the movies may have to work a little bit to wrap their heads around some of the representational theater that takes place.
Director Michael Warren and his camera crew did seem to have a little trouble capturing some of the full-stage ensemble numbers, particularly the title tune and the Christmas Bells that leads into Over the Moon. But Moon is one of the pieces that is captured exquisitely -- even got some in the crowd mooing on Thursday night at Fayette Mall --
in addition to Tango Maureen;One Song Glory, where we see how beautifully stage director Michael Greif isolated Roger on stage; Contact, filmed to accentuate its ghostly wildness; Will I? and Without You.
The last two, from Larson's music and lyrics to Warren's camera work, really help illustrate the big themes and personal stories that helped Rent pave the way for Broadway to address topics that were once taboo and make people see themselves and their friends in this New York story. That's the theme we also see in Seasons of Love,Rent's signature song that takes those huge topics of love, seasons and a year and breaks them down into 525,600 minutes. The final rendition of Seasons in this film also features the original Broadway cast of Rent.
Hopefully a DVD of Rent Filmed Live on Broadway is coming. If asked, "what is it about Rent?," the best answer still is to tell people to try to see it live. But this film is a solid document of this piece of musical theater history.
~ In addition to Will Chase, read more about Kentuckians in the national spotlight in Lu-Ann's Kentucky News Review.
Brian Regan talks about the minuscule serving sizes on food labels.
This week, I talked to comedian Brian Regan to preview his Friday night show at the Singletary Center for the Arts. Comedians are always interesting to interview, because you're never quite sure what you'll get. Some go into performance mode, and you feel like you're getting a one-on-one show. For instance, maybe my favorite answer to a question ever came from Chris Rock when I interviewed him years ago. Rock was not too far removed from Saturday Night Live, and we had just seen a bunch of movies based on SNL characters. Rock said he'd like to make a movie about his character, Nat X, the militant who had the only 15-minute talk show on television because, "The Man wouldn't let me have 30 minutes."
What, I asked, would Nat X do for a 90-minute movie?
"He'd be a hell of a lot funnier than Stuart Smalley was for 90 minutes," Rock said, referring to Al Franken's character who believed, "Gosh darn it, people like me" -- Franken hasn't gotten much love at le blog this week.
Anyway, Regan was fun to talk to, but he was also somewhat contemplative of his craft. Here are a few clips from our conversation.
Fireflight lead singer Dawn Richardson performs with the band at Lexington Christian Academy on Sept. 24, 2008. Below: Me in Motion's Seth Mosley. Photos by Rich Copley | LexGo.
Wednesday was a school night. But hey, if you had your homework done, there was nothing wrong with rocking out for a couple of hours.
That seemed to be the philosophy behind a concise and energetic show by Fireflight and Me in Motion at Lexington Christian Academy last night. The concert was booked at the last minute by Ichthus Ministries when a date opened on the Orlando band's schedule.
That put one of the hottest bands in Christian rock on the LCA stage to perform a just-over-hour-long set topped by their smash Unbreakable, an interpretation of the adulterous woman story from the Gospels. Led by charismatic frontwoman Dawn Richardson, the band wasted little time getting on stage and getting cranked up -- school night, after all -- showing the harder edges of a group that's been getting a lot of radio play this year.
Stand Up, early in the set, got the crowd going with its descending riff that even sparked a mosh pit for a few minutes. So Help Me God kept the energy going until the band slowed it down for a brief Bible message and its power ballad Forever.
Fireflight is still a relatively young act, enjoying chart topping success while still asking for donations to a tour bus fund. An hour seemed to be the right length for the group, rounded out by guitarists Justin Cox and Glenn Drennen, bassist Wendy Drennen (Glenn's wife) and drummer Phee Shorb. Their energy never flagged as they seemed to feed off the largely teenage crowd in the the theater, and their songs were distinctive, largely thanks to Richardson's theatrical interpretations. She did momentarily go flat, though since that vocal kerfuffle also befell Me in Motion's Seth Mosley, you had to wonder if it was a glitch in the sound system.
Anyway, Me in Motion, based out of Ashville, Ohio, got the evening off to a spirited start. The trio did not appear much older than the kids they were playing for. But they did have a grasp for the basics of post-punk pop rock that should serve them well as they grow.
Here are some more pics from last night, and there are others if you hit the "continue reading" link.
Fireflight bassist Wendy Drennen whips into a number.
So, you’re a Cincinnati theater company preparing to bring one of the greatest plays ever to your stage. Who do you turn to? A pair of Central Kentuckians, of course.
Actor Matt Johnson and director Brian Isaac Phillips are well established in the Queen City theater scene.
But allow us a moment of Bluegrass State pride as we note these two Central Kentuckians are leading the Cincinnati Shakespeare Co.’s production of Hamlet to the stage.
Phillips, the artistic director of Cincy Shakes and director of Hamlet, grew up in Lexington and Nicholasville. Johnson, the company’s associate artistic director who is playing Hamlet, hails from Georgetown. Both are graduates of Morehead State University.
The production opens Oct. 17 and runs through Nov. 16. For this production, Phillips is drawing on the film noir tradition to build Hamlet’s world of paranoia.
Dawn Richardson and Wendy Drennen of Fireflight perform June 12 at the Ichthus Festival. Copyrighted photo by Rich Copley | LexGo.
Less than a month after hosting Jars of Clay, Lexington Christian Academy is back in the local Christian rock scene hosting Fireflight and Me in Motion at 7 p.m. Wednesday. This concert is brought to us by Ichthus Ministries, and Fireflight was indeed part of last Summer's Ichthus Fest, closing out the first night on the Deep End Stage with a scorching set.
While Fireflight was in Wilmore for Ichthus, we spent a few minutes with the band on their tour RV, a nice air conditioned living room on the road, which was one of their perks for having a great year with the success of their hit album and single, Unbreakable.
With the band coming back to town, it seems like a good time to share a few clips from that interview, in which we talked about some of their favorite songs from the album and what it has meant to the group's career.
I apologize for the audio not being the greatest, but the comments -- mostly from lead singer Dawn Richardson, bassist Wendy Drennen and guitarist Glenn Drennen -- are well worth putting up with the background noise.
On their favorites from Unbreakable:
On the success of the album and song, which was featured in the ad campaign for NBC's Bionic Woman series:
Shaw will manage the business side of operations at Actors Guild, allowing artistic director Richard St. Peter to concentrate on AGL's theatrical endeavors.
Shaw is a Lafayette High School graduate who has a master of fine arts degree from Columbia University. She comes to Lexington from Princeton University, where she was assistant director of operations at Richardson Auditorium. Shaw is a former research assistant with Actors Equity, the stage actors union, and her credits include Broadway, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the New York International Fringe Festival.
“After conducting a six month national search
and interviewing several well qualified candidates, the board voted unanimously
to offer the position to Kimberly Shaw," AGL Board President Jim Dickinson said in a news release.“We are delighted she has accepted. We believe that she will be able to
substantively impact the business side of our organization and will assist in
allowing our artistic ambitions to continue to grow.”
Alicia and Everett McCorvey at a May event preceeding UK Opera Theatre's Grand Night for Singing. Alicia had just finished singing Can't Help Lovin' that Man from Porgy & Bess, which the UK Opera will present during the World Equestrian Games in September 2010. Copyrighted photo by Tom Eblen | LexGo.
"We will have all of these people coming over from Europe who hear European opera all the time," said Everett McCorvey, director of the UK Opera. "I was trying to think of a quintessential American Opera, and Porgy & Bess popped into my mind."
That shouldn't be surprising, as McCorvey has sung in more than 600 performances of Porgy & Bess and met his wife, Alicia Helm McCorvey, working on the Metropolitan Opera's production of Porgy in 1984. It's an opera that McCorvey has long wanted to present in Lexington, and the coming of the Equestrian Games in September 2010 provided the perfect catalyst.
This is the first performing arts event that has been announced for the
games, though numerous groups are planning to present events during the Equestrian Games. LexArts has already announced a second edition of HorseMania that will be on exhibit during the games.
This Porgy will involve numerous other organizations. It will be a co-production with the American Spiritual Ensemble, which McCorvey directs. The group will also be performing in Lexington during the games. Porgy will utilize the chorus from Kentucky State University, the UK Symphony Orchestra conducted by John Nardolillo, and be presented elsewhere in the state before and after the games, including performances in Madisonville, Elizabethtown and Owensboro at RiverPark Center.
One or all of those centers may be involved in building the sets for the new production of the 1935 opera, which tells the story of a crippled man trying to save a woman from the clutches of her pimp and drug dealer in a Charleston, S.C., slum.
Other opera news: The UK Opera Theatre's March event, originally announced as a gala to honor retired UK voice professor and former Metropolitan Opera star Gail Robinson, has been expanded into a full-scale production to honor her: Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor March 6, 7, 13 and 14, 2009. Lucia was one of Robinson's signature roles.
Last week was remarkably unfunny. So after ingesting hours and hours of bad news, we needed some laughs. Sometimes we found them, sometimes not so much.
SNL DOA: Last spring, particularly after the writers' strike ended, Saturday Night Live got on a roll satirizing things in the Democratic primary such as the debates and the 3 a.m. phone call ad by Hillary Clinton. This year, the show shot out of the blocks with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler's Sarah Palin-meets-Hillary Clinton act. But this weekend SNL stumbled and just avoided falling flat on its face with two political skits, neither involving Poehler or Fey, and a remarkably unfunny show overall.
The show opened with a skit that was reportedly inspired by former SNL writer and actor-turned-Minnesota U.S. Senate candidate Al Franken, who may be making a good move trying to land another day job. In the skit, Republican presidential candidate John McCain is portrayed by longtime cast member Darrell Hammond as adding the, "I'm John McCain, and I approved this message," tagline to an increasingly ridiculous set of attack ads. One insinuates that Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama's desire for universal healthcare means he wants healthcare for everyone in the universe, including Osama bin Laden. It was amusing, and definitely had a point. But it was nowhere near the gut-buster and chatter churner the Fey-Poehler bit was.
But at least it wasn't as awful as the bit after the Weekend Update segment that portrayed the New York Times preparing to send a bunch of clueless, Manhattan-bound reporters to Alaska to report on ridiculous rumors about Palin and her family. It was unfunny, occasionally gross and poorly executed -- guest host James Franco kept flubbing his lines.
Neither of the bits made the chatter show rotation the way last week's SNL did. The McCain and Times bits were MIA on Morning Joe Monday, while last week, they were talking about Fey as Palin more than they were talking about Palin.
On the heels of its political success, SNL decided to open this season with four consecutive new shows and some prime time specials. But if Seth Meyers and his writers uncork another clunker like this week, Saturday Night Live will be irrelevant by October.
In the copyrighted NBC photo, above, from last season, Hammond plays McCain (second from right)along with Fred Armisen's Obama, Bill Hader's Robert Byrd, Andy Samberg's Carl Levin and Poehler's Clinton.
The best line of the night came from Amy Poehler in Weekend Update. After rattling off a list of companies at the center of last week's Wall Street meltdown, she said that if your company's commercials run during golf tournaments, you're done.
The best joke about the campaign came from NPR's Wait Wait . . . Don't Tell Me. In a segment of the news quiz recounting how Deomocratic vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden accidentally asked Missouri State Sen. Chuck Graham, who is confined to a wheel-chair, to stand and be recognized at a campaign stop, host Peter Sagal riffed, "It's just a shame it wasn't Sen. Obama who asked Graham to stand up from his wheelchair, because then, he would have suddenly been able to."
The Daily Show seemed to be in a similar lull to SNL as it settled back into New York after its knockout convention editions. But Thursday night, Jon Stewart got the elixir for his Denver-to-St. Paul hangover from Sean Hannity's soft-pitch interview of Sarah Palin. It wasn't necessarily Stewart at his finest, but his silent explanation of Fey's SNL skit to Palin was priceless (video, above).
The Hannity interview was, again, a demonstration of why interviews by ideologically identical partisans are pretty useless. I didn't think much of Keith Olbermann interviewing Obama, either. Most of the questions in these forums can be summarized:
"Doesn't your opponent suck?"
"That's a great question. Yes, he/she does, because . . . "
Obama's interview with Bill O'Reilly was dominated by O'Reilly's ideology, but at least it challenged Obama and resulted in some lively exchanges where the candidate and the commentator had to articulate their positions. But the best interviews are usually with the straight-up journalists such as Tom Brokaw or Charlie Rose who do their homework and explore sans agenda.
Speaking of straight-up journalists versus ideologues, we get our first look at David Gregory (photo, right, by Virginia Sherwood for NBC) the anchor Friday on MSNBC.
The mini-peacock outsted the duo of Olbermann and Chris Matthews from the anchor chairs after embarrassing turns at the conventions, with on-air squabbles and partisan rants over the two weeks. From a journalistic standpoint, it was probably the right move, though as television, some of those awkward convention moments were highly entertaining.
Friday's Presidential debate will be our first look at longtime White House correspondent Gregory anchoring an event, though he does anchor Race for the White House every weeknight at 6. We'll see if his debate work is compelling TV or a good excuse to surf to the other dozen or two nets carrying the debates.
Of course, all this week we'll hear plenty of punditry and commentary about how the candidates will need to do in the debate, with the campaigns likely tamping down expectations to the point they'll declare it a victory if Obama and McCain can string a noun and a verb together.
Lisa Clark (front, center) is one of five actors who play Ida B. Wells
and other characters in Actors Guild of Lexington's production of Constant Star. Behind her are (L-R) Sylvia Howard, Mia Harris, Cathy
Rawlings and LaNora Faye Long. Photo by Rich Copley | LexGo.
She stands in the middle of the stage, with four interrogators around her. The accusations fly:
Getting married was a distraction.
Having children showed a lack of commitment to the cause.
How can she be a wife and mother and still be a powerful agent of change?
A mother belongs at home.
No, those are not scenes from the first play about Sarah Palin play to hit the stage.
This scene actually takes place about 1900 in Constant Star, Tazewell Thompson’s spiritual musical about journalist and activist Ida B. Wells that opened last weekend at Actors Guild of Lexington. It draws more than a few knowing laughs and deep breaths as we contemplate how things have and have not changed.
On the change side, Constant Star reminds us that less than a century ago, black people were routinely murdered in community spectacles. Now, we could be on the verge of electing a black man as president of the United States or a wife and mother of five as vice president.
On the other hand, the show reminds us that many of the issues faced by women and African-Americans are still alive and well in the 21st century.
Ripe for Change (above) is the first film to stop in Lexington on the Southern Circuit – Tour of Independent Filmmakers. Director and producer Jed Riffe (below) will come to town with his film.
The Southern Circuit – Tour of Independent Filmmakers will make six stops in Lexington this arts season, starting at 6 p.m. Monday in the theater of the Central Branch of the Lexington Public Library, 140 East Main Street. The aim of the tour is to bring in filmmakers to show their work and engage with local filmmakers and film fans. The first feature is Ripe for Change by
Jed Riffe, which explores the politics of food production in California.
Upcoming films in the series are:
Oct. 25:Counting Backwards, Aprill Winney, director: A man is diagnosed with a terminal illness the same day he meets the woman of his dreams.
Nov. 15:The Meaning of Tea, Scott Chamberlin-Hoyt, director and producer: This film explores the ways tea figures into cultural traditions around the world and how the market for tea threatens those traditions.
Feb. 21:Member of the Club: A New Orleans Cinderella Story, Phoebe Ferguson, director: A look at black social clubs in the South focused on a girl groomed from birth to be a New Orleans Mardi Gras queen.
March 28:All About Us, Michael Swanson, producer: The story of two African-American filmmakers who go to Mississippi.
April 18:A Man Named Pearl, Scott Galloway, producer and director: A documentary about self-taught topiary artist Pearl Fryar.
All screenings are free, open to the public, and will include a question and answer session with the director.
Waseem Touma talked about his new mural on Vine Street at a press conference on Monday. Copyrighted photo by David Stephenson | LexGo.
Yesterday, an alert reader saw our story about the new series of murals being commissioned by LexArts and asked if there was any way they could be protected against vandalism, specifically graffiti.
Actually, LexArts already thought of that.
"We
will be using two layers of permanent clear coat that will protect the murals
from UV rays and allow for graffiti to be removed," LexArts community arts manager Nathan Zamarron said in an e-mail.
Zamarron said they had to take the conditions the murals would be displayed in into consideration when selecting a protective coat. The mural at Al's Bar on North Limestone, for instance, will have the most sun exposure, so they selected a specific combination of protective materials that will help keep the mural from yellowing over time.
"The employees at Golden Art Supplies are very good at suggesting specific
materials for a given situation," Zamarron said.
There is also a bit of an ethical protection too, Zamarron said. In talking to other communities, he said they heard graffiti artists tend to respect artwork and leave it alone. That's a nice attitude, and hopefully it proves true in Lexington.
Note: The North Limestone Neighborhood Association is having a dedication celebration for the Al's Bar mural, painted by Michael Burrell, from 5 to 9 p.m. Saturday at 6th Street and Line. Musicians will include Lexington jazz legend Byron Romanowitz, and the mural will depict the musical heritage of Limestone. The event will be a fundraiser for a music stage in Duncan Park and musicial outreach programs for childreen in the community.
Underoath are vocalist Spencer Chamberlain, keyboardist Christopher Dudley, guitarist Tim McTague, bassist Grant Brandell, drummer Aaron Gillespie, and guitarist James Smith. Copyrighted photo courtesy of Tooth & Nail Records.
While Christian rock is now readily accepted, even in churches that don't use it as part of their worship, hardcore metal remains a genre a lot of listeners have a hard time wrapping their minds around as a product of faith. How do you find the message is music where the vocalist sounds like he or she is in the very act of retching and the music sounds so angry?
Even as someone who listens to music for a living, there have been times I've walked away from a metalcore set, say at Ichthus, thinking the fans are hearing something I don't get. I have to add though, that when you sit down and talk to a lot of these groups, hardcore describes their faith as well as their music.
For several Underoath albums though, there has been no doubt where they're coming from, and the Tampa band's latest disc is masterpiece of faith-based metal.
One of the things Underoath is constantly credited with is finding melody in the madness, a trick that can be largely credited to drummer Aaron Gillespie, who had a hit of his own in 2007 with the debut of his side act, The Almost. And melody certainly is an aspect of the band's sound, something that makes it accessible to people unwilling to endure 45-minutes of punishing sound to find a message to hold onto. Even in Underoath's accessible world, their music is still an acquired taste.
But more than melody, Underoath finds majesty. It finds majesty in how it pairs melody with howl, the firmness of the rhythm section of Gillespie and bassist Grant Brandell, and the intricate harmonies and melodies the rest of the band lays on top of their base, worthy of comparison to John Bonham and John Paul Jones.
Most of all, in this album, this album finds majesty in a deeply explored theme of searching for God in the midst of despair and loss. That is ultimately what makes Lost in the Sound of Separation a Christian rock masterpiece, and it puts to rest any question whether metalcore can convey a message of faith.
Superchick'sRock What You Got was reportedly used on MTV's The Hills this week, and the band's music is also featured on race car driver Danica Patrick's website.
Last week the political media was mainly about the women: Sarah, Tina, and Rachel.
Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin has become a GOP rock star but eluded sitting down face to face with an actual journalist until late last week. Charles Gibson of ABC finally got her on the hot seat, grilling her like she'd been caught cheating on her exams.
I don't watch a lot of Gibson interviews, so maybe this is more of his style than I'm aware of, but he did have this exceedingly grave tone. (Copyrighted photo, left, by Donna Svennik for ABC News.)
It was interesting to finally see Palin respond to questions that have come up since she was tapped, like why Wasilla was debt free when she became the town's mayor, and she left it $22 million in the red, and what all happened with the Bridge to Nowhere. Not that the answers to those or any other questions will likely change any partisans' minds, but maybe they could be informative to people on the fence.
Surely, this will not be Palin's only pre-election interview -- if it is, that raises extremely serious questions, regardless of what McCain campaign manager Rick Davis says about respect and deference -- and we'll have more chances to see her on the hot seat.
Live from New York: Questions about whether Tina Fey would indeed get her Palin on were answered when Saturday Night Live signed on Saturday with its own dream ticket: Fey as Palin and Amy Pohler as Hillary Clinton (video, above). Fey had some great moments -- "I can see Russia from my house" and the rifle pose -- and so melted into Palin's look and accent, it took a moment to be sure it was Fey. But Pohler retained her title as SNL's supreme political impressionist, portraying Clinton as many suspect she is: fuming at how close she is to not being the first female President of the United States. There was also a pointed message to the press in there.
Even though Clinton is not still in the race, Saturday Night needs to figure out how to keep Pohler's impression on the show. And they also need to get Fey back on the SNL payroll, at least throught November. According to the New York Times' Caucus blog, Palin found the impression, "quite funny." You will also find a lot of commenters who need to grow a sense of humor. Or, I could lend them mine.
Mad about her?: The third big debut in politics this week was MSNBC pundit Rachel Maddow's new show. Over the past few months, Maddow has grown into the Political Peacock's most effective liberal voice, articulating the left's position with passion, but minus the often strident tone of Keith Olbermann. Let's face it, those "Special Comments" can be painful to watch. So, it was welcome news that she was getting her own show to replace . . . well . . . they ran something at 9.
The biggest disappointment was that The Rachel Maddow Show is essentially cut from the same formula as Hardball, Race for the White House and MSNBC's other shows: a host and a series of talking heads. She did try to distinguish herself with some different guests and stories. It was a relief to tune in Wednesday and see her not lead with the "lipstick on a pig controversy." But her "scoop," along with The Nation magazine, of McCain appearing to board a yacht in 2006 with Anne Hathaway and her then-boyfriend Raffaello Follieri, who was convicted of wire fraud, money laundering and conspiracy last week, was a bit overblown, to say the least. Maddow (Copyrighted photo, right, by Virginia Sherwood for NBC) does appear to have tried to be a little imaginative in her segments, like "Talk Me Down," in which a guest apparently is supposed to talk Maddow out of being upset about something that's got her riled up. I like the idea of her chats with her "fake Uncle Pat" Buchanan, both because they proved to be good sparring partners during the conventions and it reflects the often divided politics in our families. But the opening night chat got downright vicious discussing Palin's religious views.
Ultimately, the best night of Maddow's debut week was Thursday and a bit of an unofficial Maddow show, as she anchored coverage following a Columbia University forum featuring Republican Presidential nominee John McCain and Demoratic nominee Barack Obama. It showed that while creating a show may still be a work in progress for Maddow, she does have analysis down pat.
Moment of the week: Chris Matthews' rants can be as grating as Olbermann's. But when well placed and executed, they can be a thing of beauty, such as last week, when he got Republican strategist John Feehery on the mat and would not let him up while discussing McCain's short-lived ad claiming Obama had used the phrase, "lipstick on a pig," to describe Palin. "John, you're allowed to say, 'Uncle,' on this show," Matthews said. "You're allowed to say, 'My party, in this case, is full of bunk." It is exactly what anyone trying to defend that ad deserved.
This is the ad, by the way, that was quickly pulled after CBS claimed it violated copyright by using a Katie Couric clip.The McCain campaign has got to tighten up in its grasp of copyright law.
Washington and Lee University journalism professor Ed Wasserman has an excellent column in the Miami Herald saying that the media is spending too much time reacting to the whims of the campaigns: "Nowhere is it written that news organizations must cover whatever the campaigns decide they want to fuss about," he writes.
It's that most wonderful time of the year: the start of the fall arts season.
Like every year, we have put together an arts preview edition of the Arts+Life section of the Herald-Leader packed with calendars for arts groups in Lexington and all over the Central Kentucky region. We love the web, and you can check out a lot of our arts preview at LexGo. But if you love the arts, I do highly recommend getting a copy of the actual paper.
One thing we did make exclusively for online is the slideshow above, based on the five area artists we profiled to take a look at how people make a living, or a portion of their living, from their art, and how feasible earning your income from art is. In addition to the comments and pictures, you can hear the Lexington Philharmonic's Clyde Beavers playing J.S. Bach's Suite 1 in G Major for Cello.
"It's an easier job when you're playing for friends," George Zack told the audience in the Singletary Center for the Arts before conducting his final piece with the orchestra. "It's an easier job when you're performing with friends."
It is not often a conductor steps down from the podium after 37 years on the job conducting the same orchestra in the same town. Zack's grand finale turned out to be a warm evening -- not just due the humid weather that's invaded Lexington -- with a few unusual moments.
After the first movement of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, Zack and soloist Aaron Rosand received a standing ovation. Applause between movements is getting to be more common, but the standing O seemed to be a reflection of the evening's high emotions.
Before going onstage for the second half, Zack noticed Rosand's chair was still onstage. He told orchestra manager Shannon Cline it needed to be removed, but little did he know it was there for him. Zack was treated to a performance of Aaron Copland's Celebration Fanfare, conducted by Philharmonic violist Paul Englebrecht. After that, he was presented with the score, signed by Copland in 1977.
After the first movement of Brahms' Symphony No. 1, Zack momentarily left the stage. Overcome with emotion? Not quite. He left his glasses in his dressing room.
At the end of the second movement, he and everyone in the hall stopped because of musical tones that were filtering into the hall. No one could identify the source, but Cline said they guessed it might be related to a resynchronization of clocks on the University of Kentucky campus at 9 p.m.
Zack was honored with a party after the concert in a tent next to the Singletary Center.The tables were adorned with figures in tails and music was provided by Jay Flippin, a frequent collaborator with the Phil. Our Howard Snyder went to the party and will have a report next week. Also, a photographer from our photo website, Snapped, was there.
Speaking of photos, here are the rest of Matt Goins' images from last night's concert.
Zack gets a hug from orchestra manger Shannon Cline as she presents him with roses.
We visited the Lexington Philharmonic's rehearsal Monday night to talk to music director George Zack and some of the orchestra's musicians about his final concert at 7 p.m. Sept. 12 at the Singletary Center for the Arts Concert Hall. Here's what we brought back.
Cathy Rawlings plays journalist and activist Ida B. Wells and other characters in Actors Guild of Lexington's production of Taezwell Thompson's Constant Star. Photo by Rich Copley.
The 2008-09 arts season gets started this weekend with a rush of activity, including a milestone in Lexington arts history Friday night: George Zack's final concert conducting the Lexington Philharmonic as its music director. We have thoughts and some stats about Zack's 36-years with the orchestra here and at LexGo.
Graeme Hart as Robert, Randy Hall as Bernard, and Lisa Welch as Jacqueline in Studio Players' production of Don't Dress for Dinner. Photo by Larry Neuzel.
For years, Gary McCormick was a mainstay of the Lexington theater scene, particularly in productions at Studio Players.
But after Crimes of the Heart in 2003, he went on a hiatus during a career shift that has landed him as general manager of Berea’s historic Boone Tavern and Hotel. Overseeing an $11 million renovation can be time-consuming, but McCormick had the itch to get back into the theater.
“I read a bunch of plays and I kept coming back to Don’t Dress for Dinner,” says McCormick, who compares the show to another British farce, Noises Off, and the perpetual hit Greater Tuna. Don’t Dress for Dinner is about a man’s failed attempt to spend a weekend in the French countryside with his mistress.
“It goes very fast,” McCormick says. “The audience won’t have to think about what it’s trying to say.”
And that’s the way McCormick wants to come back.
“I enjoy making people laugh,” he says, “and I hope that’s what this show will do.”
Tazewell Thompson has directed all but two productions of Constant Star, his spiritual musical about journalist and activist Ida B. Wells. He'll be in Lexington this weekend to see Sidney Shaw's take on the show at Actors Guild of Lexington. Photo courtesy of Actors Guild.
For the past decade, Tazewell Thompson has been introducing theatergoers to Ida B. Wells.
Most people don’t know much about Wells when they settle into their theater seats to see his musical biography of her, Constant Star, which opens this weekend at Actors Guild of Lexington for a four-weekend run. Thompson really just knew the name when he watched a PBS documentary on the civil rights and women’s suffrage advocate who launched a relentless campaign against lynching in post-Civil War America.
“I was channel surfing, and I came to PBS, and this documentary had just started on Ida B. Wells,” Thompson says from his New York apartment. “I had heard of her, and I knew that she was a newspaperwoman, and she was connected to an anti-lynching crusade. She had just dazzled me in this documentary, and I couldn’t stop thinking about her.”
A year later, he was directing Shakespeare’s Cymbeline at Playmakers Repertory Theatre in Chapel Hill, N.C., and during his stay, he was offered a commission for a new work. It gave him a chance to look deeper into Wells’ life.
He found a few books, including a biography, and a diary, giving him deeper insight into Wells’ feelings and mission.
Initially, he started writing a conventional play, but then things started happening.
“In all the scenes, she kept coming out as someone who took over, and the men in those scenes appeared diminutive in her presence,” recalls Thompson, who is coming to Lexington for the show and will give a pre-show chat Saturday night. “I realized I could have a cast of three or four women to play all the roles.
“Once I discovered that, the play completely opened up for me and I discovered I could write it any way I wanted.”
Krystal Meyers shown celebrating her birthday in Tokyo. Photo courtesy of Provident Music Group.
Krystal Meyers | Make Some Noise
Listening to the first couple of dancy, chirpy tracks on Krystal Meyers' Make Some Noise, your eyes drift ahead to track four, S.O.S. "Is this really heading to an ABBA remake?" you think. But actually, the new tune, co-penned by Meyers and iconic Christian modern rock producer Ian Eskelin, is one of the big signs that Meyers' third album is a charm.
Give a lot of credit to the influence of collaborators such as Eskelin as well as producers Doubledutch (Josiah Bell and Robert Marvin) who bring 20-year-old Meyers out of her rocker girl persona into the dance hall with steady, deep beats. There are throw aways such as the title track that makes you think, "Didn't Superchick already record this song several times?" But there are also nice pieces of crafts-womanship such as S.O.S., a weepy lyric set to a much more anthemic score. Beautiful Tonight -- there is a rash of recycled song titles on this disc -- is another excellent piece of rock drama.
In mainstream and Christian pop, teen stars often have trouble growing up and bringing their audience along. But Make Some Noise shows Meyers maturing as an artist and creating music that can be embraced by a wider audience.
Audio Adrenaline mission project devastated: The Hatian orphanage run by Audio Adrenaline's Hands and Feet Project has taken the worst of hurricanes Fay, Gustav and tropical storm Hanna, and it has put out a desperate plea for funds to help rebuild. According to a news release, all 48 residents of the project have been regulated to living in one room while they begin rebuilding. In the video above, Audio A frontman and Owensboro native Mark Stuart describes the devastation.
SCC TV: Steven Curtis Chapman (photo, right) will appear on the CBS Early Show Wednesday morning to perform his new single, Cinderella, live for the first time. The song was inspired by Chapman's daughters, including Maria, who died in a tragic accident in late May. The Early Show airs from 7 to 9 a.m. EST. Chapman will also be on Fox & Friends Sept. 22.
Pushing Seabird: Christian artists often tout use of their music in mainstream venues such as TV shows, but this one hits fairly close to home. Rescue, by Northern Kentucky's Seabird, is being used in promotional ads for ABC's Pushing Daisies, probably the best show to be lost to the writer's strike. It returns Oct. 1.
People need more than People: I feel compelled to mention this because it happened on Christian radio, and it really disturbed me. I was listening to K-Love Saturday night, and the DJ came on and started talking about how he and his wife were out one night, and they had wanted to know more about Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin. So, he said they bought the People magazine with Palin on the cover and thought it was neat that she knew she was having a baby with Downs Syndrome, but chose not to abort him, and that she apparently has a thing for shoes. Now, it is great that he wanted to learn more about a new candidate in the Presidential election. But I certainly hope that the DJ (I didn't get his name) will scratch deeper than the pages of People to get his information about Palin and all of the Presidential and vice-presidential candidates. Find out their stands on the issues, the legislation they've supported, the issues they've fought for, and don't limit your criteria to things like, you and Palin like the same shoes or the Obama girls are cute. This election is too important. People is great for what it does, celebrity lifestyle journalism, but there are plenty of places to get more in-depth information about the candidates and decisions they may make that will ultimately effect you.
The closing night cast of the Broadway musical Rent included
Frankfort's Will Chase as Roger, Michael McElroy as Tom Collins, Eden Espinosa as Maureen, and Rodney Hicks as Benny. Copyrighted photo by Casey Stouffer for Sony
Pictures' Releasing.
Rent's grand finale appears to have created one of those wish-you-were-there moments you can really only get from live performance.
The groundbreaking Broadway production closed Sunday night after 12 years and 5,124 performances at the Nederlander Theatre.
Of course, 525,600 minutes is what Rentheads truly care about, the time being the measure of a year and the show the story of struggling artists in New York's East Village battling AIDS, addiction, poverty, society and some fading dreams of glory.
Most shows close quietly with a notice and a last bow in front of the dwindling audience that prompted the end of the run. But Rent became a cultural icon, and by numerous accounts closed in front of an adoring audience that got to see original cast members join the current performers for a rendition of the hit Seasons of Love.
~ The Associated Press reported that last night's performance was dedicated to Jonathan Larson, the creator of Rent who died right after the final dress rehearsal, just like the first show. Reflecting on Larson, producer Allan S. Gordon told the AP, "I don't miss what he didn't write. I feel bad that he isn't here to enjoy what he did."
Both of their pieces remind me of the value of arts journalism and beat reporting as the first draft of history.
The closing cast included Frankfort's own Will Chase as Roger, and though Rent has closed on Broadway, we will get to the see the show. The final cast was filmed, and the it will be shown in movie theaters Sept. 24, 25, 27 and 28. The Lexington Theatres will be Regal Hamburg Pavilion and Fayette Mall Cinemas.
George Zack studied the score in his dressing room before he conducted the
Lexington Philharmonic in Handel's Messiah at the Singletary Center for
the Arts Dec. 14, 2007. This was the last time Zack conducted Messiah, which he calls "Man's
masterpiece". Photo by Charles Bertram | LexGo.
When George Zack came to Lexington in 1972, he was told that he might want to bring some books.
Yes, he was going to be the conductor of the Lexington Philharmonic. But they had only a handful of concerts, and other than those, he might need to find some ways to occupy his time.
Certainly, Lexington was not bereft of cultural offerings before Zack arrived. Studio Players, the Lexington Singers, Lexington Children’s Theatre and other groups were all going concerns.
Since 1972, the Lexington arts community has risen steadily from indigenous enterprises to a fairly professional profile, and the Philharmonic has led much of the way.
A key component of the growth was Zack as a charismatic leader and proponent of the arts. In 1990, Herald-Leader arts writer Kevin Nance dubbed Zack “the people’s maestro,” based on his observation that Zack could be a controversial figure in the orchestra and among musicians, but he always enjoyed unwavering support from the audience.
Jon Stewart (left) with The Daily Show cast: (L-R) Samantha Bee, Aasif Mandvi, Jason Jones, John Oliver, and Rob Riggle. Copyrighted Comedy Central photo by Gavin Bond.
Before bidding the conventions a final adieu, a little notebook cleaning:
Like we said last week, keeping up withThe Daily Show along with all of the other convention coverage was a bit difficult. But it was well worth catching up, online or on Comedy Central.
(Note on all the links below, in this section: I didn't embed any of the clips because,
frankly, all of them have a certain level of raunchiness and this is
a blog associated with a family newspaper. So, if you click, understand, you may hear
some bleeped proafnity and graphic language.)
There were also priceless moments such as host Jon Stewart playing Freebird on air guitar as Rudy Giuliani invoked 9/11 in his Wednesday night keynote speech.
My favorite moment was when Stewart responded to Giuliani and Palin's mocking of community organizers.Yes, it's on Obama's resume, and no, community organizer in and of itself is not a qualification to be President. But for the party who's 1988 Presidential candidate praised people trying to better their communities as "a thousand points of light," to denigrate thousands of community organizers across this country from its biggest stage was really offensive. Stewart's retort was pitch perfect (It starts at the 7:25 mark).
The best sport award has to go to former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who was the subject of a graphic joke at the beginning of the Thursday's episode but proved to be a cordial, funny guest at the end.
Over its two-week road trip to Denver and St. Paul, The Daily Show cemented its reputation a the smartest and sharpest political satire show out there. Take it as seriously as you want.
McCain came out on top in the Nielsen ratings after all. His speech Thursday night attracted 38.9 million people, 500,000 more than tuned in Obama's Aug. 28 speech. Palin was close behind the ticket toppers with 37.2 million viewers on Wednesday. NBC had the most watched broadcast of the speech with 8,663,000 viewers.
Heart's cease and desist notice to the Republican party to stop using their song, Barracuda, followed Van Halen's request that their Right Now not be used in conjunction with Palin, a VH fan whose nickname as a high school basketball player was Sarah Barracuda. Since we actually read song lyrics in this corner, we should point out that in Barracuda, the title fish is not portrayed in a complimentary light. I suspect if the GOP had gone with the obvious follow-up to Palin's speech, John Mellencamp's Small Town, they would have had a similar problem.
It all takes pop culture vultures back to 1984, when Bruce Springsteen asked President Ronald Reagan to stop invoking his Born in the U.S.A. in his re-election campaign. Not that Springteen stays away from politics. Born in the U.S.A. and his recent hit, The Rising, have both been used by the Obama campaign with no protest. In fact, there was a hot rumor that Springsteen, who has endorsed Obama, was going to play at the final day of the Democratic National Convention in Mile High Stadium, but he did not appear.
Anyone have any ideas for a campaign song for Gov. Palin?
That video screenwe talked about earlier this week turned out to be a bit of a clunker for the broadcast of McCain's speech. Viewers at home mostly just saw the colors behind McCain steadily changing through his speech while delegates in the Xcel Center were seeing giant images flash behind him. One bad choice was a school with a vast green lawn in front of it. (AP photo, right, by Ron Edmonds.) Viewers at home saw McCain in front of what appeared to be a green screen like weather forecasters use. It was actually a photo of Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood, Calif., which brought up a number awkward questions and situations:
Did the RNC intend to use Walter Reed Army Medical Center and get confused?
The school's principal issued a statement saying permission to use the school's image had not been granted, and it should not be inferred as an endorsement. (Upside, it may be the most famous middle school in America, now.)
The green lawn was reminiscent of McCain's early summer speech in front of a similarly uncomplimentary green backdrop on the night Obama claimed the nomination.
That actually -- bringing this post back to Comedy Central -- inspired a Colbert Report contest to see who could come up with the best background for the green screen. All of it begs the question of why convention producers got this cool toy, but didn't figure out the best ways to use it for the live and television audience.
Republican Presidential candidate John McCain
acknowledges the crowd as he he gets ready to speak at the Republican
National Convention in St. Paul, Minn. Copyrighted AP photo by Paul Sancya.
Last week, the Democratic National Convention moved from an arena to a stadium to give Presidential nominee Barack Obama, the great orator, a huge stage for his acceptance speech.
Last night, the Republican National Convention made more subtle changes to its stage, but they were also designed to play to the candidate's strengths. The stage was thrust into the audience, putting Sen. John McCain among the people, which is where he's most comfortable. After all, this guy has been proposing town hall meetings with Obama. Why? Because that's a forum that works well for him.
And McCain was comfortable last night, speaking simply in front of the simple backdrop of a flag waving on a pole, making an effort to portray himself as a maverick who wants to take his party back from a corrupt GOP.
The reviews weren't great. CNN's Jeffrey Toobin called McCain's speech, "shockingly bad." The National Review's Byron York called it "flat" on Charlie Rose. On Fox News, Bill Kristol defended the speech saying, "I was done so plainly, which is appropriate for McCain. That's how he talks."
And that was right. Maybe it wasn't the best follow up to Obama's big address last week and vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin's barnburner Wednesday night. It was anticlimactic, but it did seem authentic.
Documentary: The John McCain introduction video certainly tried to pump up the candidate the way any good campaign video does. But in the gravely voiceover and gritty archival footage, it had more of the feel of a PBS or History Channel documentary than most of the campaign videos we've seen this year, conveying a sense that this is a candidate of history.
Nielsens: Palin's speech Wednesday night drew 37.2 million viewers, just shy of the 38.4 million who tuned in Obama's speech last Thursday.
Piper TV: Prior to McCain's speech, cameras from several networks seemed to linger on 6-year-old Piper Palin, hoping for another quintessential cute moment like her hairstyling scene Wednesday with baby brother Trig.
Hail to the . . . oh, well: I kept switching over to see how my Redskins were doing on the NFL's opening night, and they didn't give me much to cheer about.
Gotta have Heart: I never ever, ever, ever thought I'd hear Heart's Barracuda played in a political convention. Never even considered it. But, with the nomination of Sarah "Barracuda" Palin -- her high school basketball nickname -- as vice-president, I guess it was inevitable. Wednesday night, I expected to hear John Mellencamp's Small Town after Palin's speech.UPDATE:Heart has denounced Palin and asked the Republicans to stop using Barracuda.
Obama meets O'Reilly: Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama actually got some airtime last night sitting down with Bill O'Reilly on Fox News. O'Reilly has been angling for this interview for a while, and since it would likely be his only chance to sit down with the senator, he seemed to want to address
longer-term questions than any news of the day. It was a spirited exchange, and a few times I really wanted O'Reilly to get out of the way and let Obama give complete answers -- this is a gripe I have with the interview styles of several broadcasters, NBC's Matt Lauer in particular.
Last night's interview focused on national security. Subsequent portions of the interview will be aired Monday through Wednesday and will focus on other issues including Obama's controversial association with William Ayers, former leader of the Weather Underground, a 1960s and '70s organization the FBI labeled, "a domestic terrorist group."
The one major sticking point O'Reilly and Obama had was over a conservative sore point: the belief that Obama won't admit the recent troop surge in Iraq was a success, and he was wrong in voting against it. Obama did say, through O'Reilly's interruptions, that he did believe it was a success in reducing the violence. But he didn't believe that it was successful in getting Iraqis to take more responsibility for their country, and he stood by the vote against the surge because he didn't trust the Bush administration to successful prosecute the surge. But, O'Reilly wanted Obama to say, "I was wrong," and since he didn't say that, the conservative commentator said in a chat after the interview segment aired that Obama hadn't answered the question. That's a hazard of submitting to an interview with a partisan on either side of the aisle. It will be interesting to see the next installments of this exchange. (Photo, right: Obama campaigns in Dillonvale, Ohio, Wednesday. AP photo by Alex Brandon.)
Funny: On Charlie Rose, Newsweek's John Meecham compared Palin to Fortinbras, the character in Hamlet who comes in at the end and makes everything all right. Funny thing is, the last time I saw Fortinbras, a comedy based on the character, performed in Lexington, the title character was played by one of the most devout liberals I know.
That's it: Well, seven nights of conventioning are over. Now both campaigns head out into the wild frontier of the campaign trail, away from the embrace of the faithful. I'm tempted play campaign manger for a moment. If I were heading McCain's outfit, the rest of the campaign's theme would be portraying McCain and Palin as "The Mavericks." If I was Obama's messenger, I'd go to Chicago and create a series of ads on what a community organizer does. There's probably a reason no one is paying me to run their campaigns. But, I am a political junkie with a blog, so Copious Notes will continue to keep an eye on how Campaign 2008 is being covered and file posts when interesting things come up, including the debates and election day.
The talking heads seemed to all agree that right now, this election is about the personalities of the candidates, which is interesting considering the issues the nation faces. This has already been the nuttiest election I've seen, and older friends concur, so this is gonna be fun.
Alaska Gov. and Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin delivered a sharp, snarky speech at the Republican National Convention Wednesday night. Copyrighted AP photo by Susan Walsh. Below: Mitt Romney's speech was carried on CNN and MSNBC, but not Fox. AP photo by Ron Edmonds.
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told us she "is not a member in good standing of the Washington elite," last night. But in virtually the same breath, the presumptive Republican vice-presidential nominee showed she had learned a time-honored Republican tactic: Blame the media.
"Here's a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators," Palin said.
"I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion. I'm going to
Washington to serve the people of this country,"
She was hardly alone yesterday, as an anti-media sentiment swept through the Republican National Convention, mostly fueled by a perception Palin was being unfairly pilloried by the press, and colored coverage of the event.
That led to numerous reminders from members of the media that presumptive Republican Presidential nominee John McCain once called the media, "my base," and enjoyed glowing press coverage. Chris Matthews on MSNBC and Anderson Cooper on CNN both advocated that the media has simply been doing its job in researching the background of the Alaska Governor, who few knew before Friday and by many accounts had been lightly vetted by the McCain campaign before being named to the ticket. Tom Brokaw in particular went on a spirited monologue before the action got started Tuesday trying to marginalize the anti-media stance as an old saw.
"It has
worked particularly well I think for the Republican Party," Brokaw said. "They
always feel that this country is held captive or held hostage, if you
will, by what they would call the eastern liberal press establishment . . . So I think we`re going to see
this pattern throughout. It`s been going on for a long, long time. In
1964, it was probably the apotheosis of this at the Goldwater
Convention when John Chancellor was let off the floor and had that
memorable line "John Chancellor reporting from somewhere in custody."
We're grown ups. We'll have to deal with all this.
I
think it`s important for our audience to know that what we have been
reflecting here in the last 24 hours or so is what we have been hearing
and not just from Democrats. A lot of Republicans, members of the
establishments, even members of John McCain`s most ardent supporters
are raising questions about Sarah Palin."
If you think it's an old saw and attacking people for doing their jobs, you probably liked the brush back from Brokaw & Co.
If you think the media are in the tank for Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama and unfairly savaging Palin, you had to love the Governor's speech as she commanded a national audience for the first time tossing out conservative red meat with a wink and a smile. She was at ease in front of a crowd and showed passion and good ol' snark that indicated she may be like Tina Fey in more than just looks.
She also showed why she was really brought onto the ticket: excitement. It is highly doubtful any of the men on McCain's presumed short list would have excited the crowd as much as Palin, and you have to wonder if the guy at the top of this ticket will. It will be interesting to see what ratings are like Wednesday night compared to Thursday night, because many people undoubtedly tuned in last night to get a first look at -- to borrow the Mother Tongue's nickname for Palin -- "The Thrilla from Wassila."
No dead air: Once again, while the Democrats left wide swaths of time between speeches last week, the Republicans packed the evening tightly together, particularly at 10, when the broadcast networks signed on. Gov. Palin strode on stage just seconds after former Presidential candidate and New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani strode off, giving the talking heads little time to dissect his fiery speech before Palin started her historic address.
Off the air: This was really interesting. Last night, CNN and MSNBC, two of the networks the Republicans have been throwing stones at, were showing the speeches by former Presidential candidates Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and lesser-known figures in the Republican party in full while Fox News, the Republican network, stayed on The O'Reilly Factor and Hannity & Colmes. The latter show even had Barack Obama's communications director Robert Gibbs on delivering a spirited critique of the Republican convention thus far, while Romney was speaking. Weird.
Romney's speech was roundly criticized, even by Republicans. After Romney's rant about how liberal Washington was, David Gergen, former adviser to three Republican Presidents and President Clinton, asked what decade Romney thought this was, pointing out Republicans have been in the White House eight years and controlled congress six of the last eight years. On Charlie Rose, New York Times conservative columnist David Brooks called Romney's speech, "borderline insane."
Carter country?: CNN kept throwing its broacast to Anchorage, Alaska, and Palin's sister Heather Bruce and brother-in-law Kurt. The location of the interview: The Peanut Farm Restaurant. How 1976.
Or just country?: Palin's speech was followed by country stars Cowboy Troy, John Rich and Gretchen Wilson delivering a combination of the Star-Spangled Banner and the pledge of allegiance followed by Rich performing his campaign anthem Raisin' McCain.
Cute kids, RNC style: The Obamas had their video family moment last week. Wednesday night, it was 6-year-old Piper Palin's moment in the spotlight as she cradled her baby brother Trig in one arm and licked her palm to wet down Trig's hair with the other hand while mom spoke on stage. (Photo, right: McCain talks to Piper Palin while Sarah Palin's husband, Todd, holds Trig. AP photo by Ron Edmonds.)
The Daily Show: Wednesday's Daily Show still had that "liberal salon" vibe, as Brian Williams described it on Tuesday, but there was a genuine Republician in the guest chair. Newt Gingrich joined Jon Stewart for a spirited discussion about Sarah Palin and abortion legislation. The second segment of the show featured a typically brilliant clip package, followed by a very amusing Gingrich response.
Three days: The Republican National Convention was delayed by events beyond anyone's control, but it advances an interesting idea: chopping the conventions back by a day. Here we are, only two days into this, and we've already had the veep speech and we're heading to the grand finale tonight. The Democrats ended on a high note last week, but that four days was a haul. The World Series only demands three straight weeknights. After the Olympics and the conventions, I'm going to bed at 10 p.m. every night next week.
Top 40 pundit: We don't usually tune in The Cat (WLKT FM-104.5) for political analysis, but Dave of the Dave and Jimmy show summed up one campaign controversy pretty nicely this morning. Talking about the "experience" argument between Palin, a half term governor, and Obama, a two-third term senator, Dave said neither candidate, "needs to be pimping the experience argument."
Barack is back: Some Democrats may be wondering when Obama will have a chance to respond to all the GOP love. It will actually be Thursday night at 8 p.m., when Obama enters Bill O'Reilly's "No spin zone" on Fox, where they seem to love their Democrats.
Don't forget to check out dispatches from Kentucky delegates to the RNC at PolWatchers.
Fred Thompson speaks in front of the giant video screen that is the centerpiece of the Republican National Convention's set. Copyrighted AP photo by Rex Arbogast.
One thing that intrigued me about the Republican National Convention last night was the giant video screen that makes up the backdrop of the main stage. As Fred Thompson spoke about presumptive Republican Presidential nominee John McCain, images of Sen. McCain showed behind him, giving the actor and former senator's speech a theatrical flair.
It'll be interesting to see how they use this screen the next two nights and if they have other ideas for enhancing speeches with photos and video imagery. I also wonder if they offer delegates those rippling flag stripes we usually see on the jumbo monitor as a screen saver.
President George W. Bush's video address is cheered on by the Texas delegation to the Republican National Convention, Tuesday night. Copyrighted AP photo by Charles Dharapak.
Nobody flipped a coin at the beginning of the Republican National Convention's second night, and first real night of politics, but the Grand Old Party seemed to start on defense.
On CNN, coverage began with the "best political team on television" discussing how Hurricane Gustav, polling showing Democratic challenger Barack Obama did indeed get a bounce from his just finished convention and new questions about vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin got the Republican convention started on a sour note.
"Why so gloomy?" conservative icon Bill Bennett said when finally given the mike. "May we make our case?"
Soon, the Republicans were making it, headlined by current President George W. Bush giving a hearty endorsement of presumptive nominee John McCain and Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman, who eight years ago ran against Bush, endorsing McCain and appealing for bipartisan unity.
"What is a Democrat like me doing at a Republican convention like this?" Lieberman asked, and went on to tout McCain. All the while he was egged on by yelling from a guy who sounded like an escapee from a Twin Cities bar.
At one point, Lieberman tried to get applause for accomplishments of President Bill Clinton, which the Republicans seemed a bit reluctant to cheer.
The Republicans overall seemed to have a more concise schedule that fit into the major networks' allotted 10 to 11 p.m. block than the Democrats last week. Though President Bush's comments actually took place before 10 Eastern time, ABC, CBS and NBC all squeezed in part or most of his address and aired Lieberman's speech. Fred Thompson spoke between the two, and while CBS and ABC's attention wandered to pundits and interviews, the former Law & Order star got attention from the Peacock.
On Charlie Rose, Bloomberg News' Al Hunt praised the speech by the former candidate for the Republican nomination saying, "He woke up eight months too late for his own campaign."
Vetting: There's been a lot of talk about vetting of vice-presidential candidates in the last day, which reminded me of Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine's interview on The Daily Show last week. Discussing being vetted as a potential running mate for Obama, Kaine said, "People know a lot of things about me I never thought I'd reveal, you know, your high school girlfriend's middle name. Then you give a name, and then they come back and tell you she said she was never your girlfriend."
The angry left?: Even President George W. Bush utilized the term "angry left," to describe the Republicans' opposition. But consistently, it was conservative pundits and figures who came across as embittered when they were given a microphone yesterday. In an interview with CBS' Katie Couric, Steve Schmidt, a McCain campaign adviser, said voters would "angrily reject," what he characterized and unfair attacks on vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Figures such as Rudy Giuliani and hosts such as Fox's Sean Hannity and MSNBC's Joe Scarborough were spitting venom at any suggestion that the pregnancy of Palin's 17-year-old daughter was a legitimate story. Who's angry?
From the stage Tuesday, Republicans came across as proud and optimistic, but one-on-one, they often seemed less appealing last night.
Discipline: One stark contrast between the Republican convention and last week's Democratic convention is the consistency of delegates. While correspondents had no trouble finding delegates to discuss misgivings about Barack Obama, express support for Hillary Clinton, etc., at the Dems' affair, Republican delegates didn't give an inch to any of the controversies ranging outside the Excel Center -- questions about Palin, President Bush appearing via video instead of in person and things of that sort.
Where's Big O?: Monday and Tuesday night, MSNBC's liberal icon Keith Olbermann was broadcasting from New York. Will he make it to the Twin Cities for the Republican convention? According to an NBC source, Olbermann is staying in NYC to anchor hurricane coverage when Hanna makes landfall on the East Coast late this week. Seriously? Since when is Olbermann a general news anchor? He has always been a partisan pundit. Hannity had the nerve to show up in Denver. Olbermann should be in Minnesota. Rachel Maddow is there, articulating a liberal position despite a less than supportive crowd surrounding the MSNBC outpost.
Democratic oasis?:The Daily Show has gone to the Twin Cities, but judging by the audience reaction, it seems Jon Stewart's faux news show is probably a main attraction for the Democratic response team that set up shop across from the convention and liberal protesters. The audience hooped an hollered as Stewart and Co. shredded the Republican's line about, "taking off our Republican hats and putting on our American hats," and generally mocked the past eight years. Also, while last week's episodes featured Democratic leaders, the first guest this week was NBC News anchor Brian Williams, though their exchange couldn't have been testier if Williams was Karl Rove. "It must be nice to have a little liberal salon," Williams said near the end of their interview.
Wednesday night: We hear from the Governor of Alaska. What wine goes best with mooseburgers?
Chris Tomlin (center) with bandmates (L-R)
Matt Gilder, Travis Nunn, Jesse Reeves, and Daniel Carson. Photo courtesy of EMI Christian Music Group.
Chris Tomlin | Hello Love
I really wanted to love Chris Tomlin's new album.
Seriously, despite our curmudgeonly reputations, critics love to see or hear something great, and where should you expect that more than from someone who has already proven their greatness? Chris Tomlin is ostensibly the voice of Christian music today, an artist responsible as much as anyone for merging the worlds of the church and contemporary Christian music. I have enjoyed his music and learned to play some of his songs myself, so it seemed like a good day when Hello Love arrived in the mail.
But after a few listens, it seemed like someone needed to give Tomlin a little push.
This isn't a bad recording. There are a number of terrific songs here including Sing, Sing, Sing and God of This City, which we heard earlier this year on the latest Passion CD, and a gorgeous new rendition of an old hymn, All the Way My Savior Leads Me. There's also Jesus Messiah, the hit single that preceded the album. It's all good.
It also sounds very familiar, a stringing of melody, chorus and vertical lyric that is starting to sound repetitive as praise and worship settles down from hot trend to establishment. Tomlin just seems a bit too comfortable as Tomlin, so while there are definitely some nice songs here, there's nothing as compelling as, say, How Great is Our God or Made to Worship. Granted, no one writes a blockbuster every time, but it would feel a bit better hearing less compelling Tomlin if we were in turn finding some adventure like we do in his fellow Texan and Passion artist David Crowder.
Unfortunately, Hello Love, even with its standout tracks, sounds a bit too much like the complacency that ails contemporary praise and worship.
Questapalooza photo album: Photographer Gabriel B. Tait and I were out at Questapalooza Sunday with our cameras, and I put together a little photo album you can see by clicking here (If you're checking in early Tuesday, I need to get into the office to get Gabriel's photos in). We saw legions of you with cameras out there, and if you've got photos you'd like to share, upload them to our new Snapped service and give Questapalooza a presence there. (Photo, right: Kutless' James Mead and Nick DePartee jam at Questapalooza. Photo by Rich Copley | LexGo.)
Kutless gets the crowd waving their arms in the late afternoon sun of Questapalooza. Below: Faces of Kirk Franklin at Questapalooza. Bottom: Henry Shrader (left) took on Kutless guitar player Nick De Partee (right) in Guitar Hero and won. Photos by Rich Copley | LexGo.
At Questapalooza, you had to keep reminding yourself this was an event put on by one church.
From the stage set to the video work - complete with steady camera on a crane - to the solid sound to the solid lineup, this was a purely professional Christian music show.
Another reminder, of course, was the lineup that attracted an estimated
6,500 people to a field next to the Quest Community Church property
Sunday. Questapalooza, in its third edition, presented gospel legend Kirk Franklin along with chart toppers Kutless and needtobreathe.
Questapalooza
started in 2006 with a head-turning but modest lineup including Shaun
Groves and Tait. Last year, it upped the ante with a certifiable
superstar in TobyMac. This year, they went for a genuine legend in Franklin.
Franklin
was also a cross cultural move, and indeed, Questapalooza attracted as
diverse a crowd as you'll see at a Christian music event.
The
man proved worthy of the draw in a set marked by dance moves out of James Brown's playbook, a tight ensemble including Lexington's Terry
Baker
on drums, and hits such as Revolution, Hosanna and Imagine Me.
One
thing that you are reminded of seeing Franklin is he is not a
traditional singer. In fact, his few moments singing had the modest
sweetness of Kermit the Frog singing It's Not Easy Being Green. Franklin
is more of a frontman, rapper, hype man and even preacher. Though he
was the biggest star of Questapalooza's history, he may have also done
the most to fulfill Questapalooza's goal of building community,
stopping numerous times to exhort people to come together to hug and declare
things they want to give up in 2008 so they can live a more Christian life. Franklin was connecting to the back edges of the temporary amphitheater, which
goes along way toward telling you why he's enjoyed 15 years of success
in Christian music and crossed racial barriers that others haven't
cracked.
By the way, Terry Baker got a big introduction, and then
there was one of those moments that can only happen on a hometown show,
when Baker's 15-year-old daughter Amber sat in at his kit, and I'm here
to tell you, keeping the beat runs in that family.
Another thing
to love about Questapalooza is they give all the bands a good long time
to play. No 30-minute sets, which are common to festivals, here.
So Kutless
got to honestly show us what we missed when they got rained out
Ichthus, and that would be a tight arena-rock set including Take My Pride Away and Show Me the Truth to get the crowd pumped and Sea of Faces to slow it down. John Micah Sumrall went for the very cheesy ending of punting an open water bottle into the crowd, but it worked as 20-year-old Dustin Lanier fielded it like he was on special teams or something.
The band also provided a fun interlude with guitarist Nick De Partee taking on Quest Kid Henry Shrader in a Guitar Hero contest. Shrader had won a Guitar Hero competition in the festival site during the day. The two faced off over Pat Benatar's Hit Me With Your Best Shot, Shrader's guitar skillfully shredding, De Partee struggling with clunky amp sounds.De Partee said before the competition he'd only played Guitar Hero three or four times.
South Carolinians needtobreathe opened the musical portion of the festival with their bluesy sound and a healthy serving of new material, including Girl Named Tennessee, which really got the crowd dancing.
Despite oppressive heat today, it was well worth being out at Questapalooza for the music, and you have to think organizers have set the bar pretty high for '09.
In it's third edition, Questapalooza attracted 6,500 people to Quest Community Church in Lexington, Ky., on Aug. 31, 2008. The music lineup was Kirk Franklin, Kutless and needtobreathe. In addition to the tunes, festival goers enjoyed carnival attractions, contests, heard a sermon and witnessed baptisms.
The 2008 Ichthus Festival was a roller coaster ride. The week started with the first project by Ichthus Ministries' environmental initiative: ECOS (Earth Commission, Operation Simplify). Then there was the severe thunderstorm June 9 that leveled 14 out of 19 tents at the festival site, with only two days left to open. And it did open, earlier than ever with a Thursday morning battle of the bands. That was followed by one of the hottest Ichthus days ever, and we aren't just talking about Skillet's set the night of June 12. The next day was Friday the 13th, and it turned out to be unlucky for the fest, with thunderstorms scuttling the evening lineup. But as it often has, Ichthus rallied with a fun and worshipful Saturday. The Herald-Leader crew was out there all week. Here's our photo album.
May 19 to 29, 2008, the University of Kentucky Wind Ensemble is taking a trip to China, where it is scheduled to play six concerts and visit seven cities. The tour finds China eagerly anticipating the 2008 Summer Olympics while also mourning the loss of tens of thousands of its citizens to a devastating earthquake on May 12. This photo album begins with images taken by the Herald-Leader's Whitney Waters at event's leading up to the ensemble's departure.
Actors Guild of Lexington's early spring production is Tom Stoppard's brainy drama, Arcadia. The show is a mystery over several centuries involving math, science and literature. Here's a look at some images from the show, which runs through April 6 at the Downtown Arts Center, by Herald-Leader photographer Charles Bertram. The photos are copyrighted by the Herald-Leader.
After years of going to -- excuse us while we clear our throats -- Louisville, Winter Jam finally came to Kentucky's true big house, Rupp Arena, March 6, 2008. That gave Lexington a heaping helping of MercyMe, BarlowGirl and Skillet, as well as others. This is a little record of the event.
The University of Kentucky Opera Theatre is presenting its production of Engelbert Humperdinck's "Hansel and Gretel" through March 8, 2008 at the Lexington Opera House. To give more students a shot at the stage, and for the sake of the singers' voices, two casts were fielded for this production. University of Kentucky photographer Tim Collins shot both casts. Here's a selection of those images.
Lexington Native Amber Rhodes is a budding country star, shopping a hit independent release around the country, hoping to land a recording contract with a major label. To take a peek into the life of an aspiring country star, and to see how much work it is, I went down to Nashville to spend a day with Amber, as she works to get her name out there. Here are some pictures from that trip. All photos are copyrighted by the Lexington Herald-Leader.
Between June 21 and Aug. 2, eight new plays or musicals opened in the immediate Lexington area. That was an extraordinary number of shows for a summer in the Bluegrass State. Here, we offer a photo album from behind the scenes and on stage.
Ichthus 2007 took place June 14-16 at Ichthus Farm in Wilmore, Ky. Among the featured performers were Switchfoot, Relient K, Newsboys, Third Day and Phil Keaggy (photo, above).
On April 29, 2007, Lexington native Laura Bell Bundy realized her dream of creating a role in a Broadway musical when she took the stage of New York's Palace Theatre playing Elle Woods in 'Legally Blonde.' It's a goal she'd been working toward since age 10, when she played monstrous child star Tina Denmark in the Off Broadway hit 'Ruthless.' Her 'Legally Blonde' performance earned Bundy a Tony Award nomination for best leading actress in a musical. Over the years, Herald-Leader photographers have chronicled Bundy's career. These are some of their best shots, along with a few other photos.
Superchick's Generation Rising Tour came to Winchester's Central Baptist Church, May 11, 2007. Joining them were DecembeRadio, Krystal Meyers, Nevertheless and Group 1 Crew.
Photos by Rich Copley.
Stephanie Pistello graduated from Lafayette High School and Transylvania University. She went to New York to pursue an acting career, but returned in August 2006 with her New Mummer Group to present Tennessee Williams' "Candles to the Sun" at Actors Theatre of Louisville.
Since 1999, the Herald-Leader has previewed the Lexington Shakespeare Festival with profiles and environmental portraits of the actors or directors involved in each show. This is a gallery of those fantastic images.
