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December 01, 1986

Sharp and Shiny

Filed under: Archive,Music

Joe Jackson
Thebarton Theatre

When Look Sharp, Joe Jackson’s first album appeared in 1977 all manner of sobriquets were bandied about his distinctive sound – “powerpop” and “spiv rock” among them. Like Graham Parker and Elvis Costello, he offered a churlish wit and a tight rock sound – urgent, knowing and non-sectarian.

Of the three only Jackson has conquered America. Parker sounded too much like a New Yorker to begin with and nobody ever got over Elvis Costello’s ironic …

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June 13, 1986

Wagner’s Depths Explored

Filed under: Adelaide Companies,Archive,Music,National Times,Theatre

The Flying Dutchman by Richard Wagner; director Bernd Benthaak; with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. conducted by John Matheson; at the Opera Theatre. Adelaide, until June 21. Cast: Malcolm Donnelly, Beverley Bergen, Arend Baumann and Thomas Edmonds.

Commentators have often been swift to chide and slow to bless The Flying Dutchman when comparing it to the consummate accomplishment of Wagner’s later work.

Certainly its mechanical division between aria, recitative and ensemble is typical of operatic form which Wagner himself was later …

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March 28, 1986

Anderson shows the essence of pop amid hi-tech legerdemain

Filed under: Archive,Festival,Music,National Times

Very few performance artists have made the leap to pop with such spectacular success as Laurie Anderson whose concert in Adelaide’s Festival Theatre opened her Australian tour and coincides with the release of her newest album, Home of the Brave.

All of the paradoxes of Anderson’s achievements are evident in her opening monologue, Progress. The eclectic, hi -tech relativism of her work exactly mirrors the processes she rails against as heartless progress. Anderson’s is a triumph of style …

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March 01, 1986

Sisters

Filed under: Archive,Music

Sisters
Kate and Anna McGarrigle
Festival Theatre

Kate and Anna McGarrigle first gained attention as songwriters in the early Seventies when Maria Muldaur recorded Kate’s “The Work Song”, and Linda Ronstadt used-Anna’s “Heart like a Wheel” as the title song for her 1974 album.

The McGarrigles began recording their own material in 1975, rapidly gaining attention for their fetchingly artless vocals and whimsical arrangements. On this tour, eleven years later, the McGarrigles are still being whimsical and fetchingly artless and …

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