Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / Nov. 18, 1986, edition 1 / Page 6
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6The Daily Tar Heel Tuesday, November 18, 1986 Artists design the Jerry Moses and fellow graduate student Stephen Portoghese had an artist's dream. Ten days ago this dream became a tangible reality. Now it has dis appeared into thin air or, more truthfully, into a Dempsey dumpster. Moses and Portoghese con structed a gigantic air-filled paper sculpture and hung it in Hanes Art Center. It was displayed for a week, and then the men cut it down Nov. 15. The sculpture two huge paper pillows with cones sticking out of them connected by an umbilical cord was mainly Moses' idea, accord ing to Portoghese. But since Moses primarily enjoys Scruffy The Cat to bring a 'high octane revival' to the Cradle By ALEXANDRA MANN Staff Writer So you say you want to have fun. You say you want to dance. You say you want to hear some good rock 'n' roll. Then look no farther than Cat's Cradle tonight when Boston's latest underground sensation. Scruffy The Cat, takes the stage for the first time in Chapel Hill. This five-man band, armed with their first record on a New York independent label, has recently embarked on its first real tour of the eastern half of the United States. Not only that, but the record, High Octane Revival, almost immediately occupied the number one spot on the "Rockpool" independent record ' 1986 AT&T y AMERICAN GREETINGS CORP Laura Lance Campus Personality drawing, sculpture work is a little out of the ordinary. Both the Student Union gallery and the Hanes Art Center have had shows displaying Moses' work, and he is currently displaying a collection of drawings in a Durham gallery. Moses said he also enjoys working with paper and that he will continue to create paper sculptures, only on a much smaller scale than the project he just finished. While Moses was an undergrad uate at Washington State University, he became interested in working with chart when it came out two months ago. Octane has also received its fair share of airplay on both college and commercial radio stations. "At this point, I think ' they're ready to break out of the small club scene," says Michael Krumper, head of publicity for Relativity Records, Scruffy 's label. "But they still want to take things one step at a time. The most important thing to them is to play a lot, as much as they can, and that's what they're doing." As for what Scruffy The Cat sounds like, it's not so easy to say. This, of course, means it does not very easily fall into any category, and it does indeed exhibit a certain amount of innovation and original 1 J 1 l l 1 Mi m MM l L- 1 MmImmV mm J - , mm mm J M f nil ll l U 3 VMUA IVA.r-VM 1 v 11 lJ .rnJLI Yl..zU 1 V J 1 1 tJ a) Five minutes into "The Lawrence Welk Show" b) About a week before your birthday. c) When you just want to tell them you miss them, and that you ate the last of Grandma's chocolate-chip cookies this morning. VrV 7' . IHIiiSili w "if h " 'thing' plastic to create inflatable sculptures. Someone donated him paper, so he began experimenting with creating sculptures out of it. In the summer of 1985, he came to Chapel Hill to attend the graduate program at UNC because "the price was right and because I wanted to see a different part of the country," he said. "I chose this school pretty much without any knowledge of the atmosphere and of how the arts are viewed." Here, he continued his interest in paper sculpture. The "thing," as Moses and Por toghese call their recent sculpture, was a collaborative project among 35 students in Moses' beginning drawing class and Portoghese's basic sculpture class. ity. In addition to the regular lead guitar rhythm guitar bass drums lineup, the band sports one or more of the following on any given song: harmonica, electric banjo, organ and accordian. Such instrument combi nations add up to an interesting and danceable sound. "1 see them as a country Creedence band," Krumper said, "but they're really tough to describe. They're a good rock V roll band, and people dance when they hear them." The band members themselves, however, who managed to fit their entire history on three sheets of paper for the purpose of a little publicity, prefer not to think of their There's nothing grandparents like better than a call from a grandchild in college. But if you do accidentally happen to interrupt Lawrence, you ought to have something worth telling them. For example, you could mention that you called using AT&T Long Distance Service because you can depend on AT&T's high quality service and exceptional value. Arid then you can tell them that AT&T gives you immediate credit if you dial a wrong number. And that you can count on AT&T for clear long distance connections. Finally, of course, you should quickly reassure them that you're eating enough, then let them hurry back to the TV to catch the rest of the Lennon Sisters' Blue Oyster Cult Medley. The right choice a monster paper Moses' class sketched gestures on the paper used to construct the "thing." "The kids got a little wild and started writing stuff on the paper, which -explains all of the graffiti," Moses said. Portoghese's class created the net frame for the sculpture and taped the work together, which in itself took a week to do. They also accepted the help of anyone who walked by and was interested in helping. "By working together, we gave the work a col lective identity," Portoghese said. "This gave people a chance to work on a really big sculpture." The finished piece was inflated and hung from the ceiling of the Hanes art gallery Nov. 9. It took 10 hours to inflate and hang. Even though the music as country rock. The term apparently makes them "think of trailer homes, inbreeding and loud drunken arguments in the middle of the night, culminating in gunshots." So banjos and harmonicas aside, the country rock label should be taken rather lightly. What should not be taken lightly is the fact that Scruffy The Cat is worth listening to. Songs to take note of on High Octane Revival include "Tiger, Tiger" and "Land of 1,000 Girls." The album has a sound almost guaranteed to uplift any spirit. Plans for another album are already in the works, this one to be "thing" was about 12 feet high, 35 feet long and 18 feet wide, Moses guessed it weighed only 50 pounds. "It was a very light and fragile piece." he said. Both Moses and Portoghese enjoyed taking the sculpture down almost as much as they enjoyed putting it up. "We climbed inside of the bags and played around," Moses said. "They were sort of like big toys." "It was a temporary thing, and we knew that when we first started the project," Portoghese said. "So it wasn't sad to see it go." While it hung, the sculpture elicited many comments from its lofty place. "I've heard lots of people talking about it in the Student Store and their comments were positive," produced by Chris Butler. Until then, Scruffy will continue to make appearances in major cities like Chicago and Madison, Wise, as well as a number of college towns, Chapel Hill being just one. Finally there's the band's name, which is unique, at the very least. Sir Great American Smokeout-Nov.20 Kt , ..-Mil VV Cv if : IV I sculpture Joe Chino, a graduate art student, said. "I think it's appropriate, exciting and invigorating to any art department." Senior Jennifer Anderson, a psy chology major, had a different opinion. "It's weird. I don't like something if I can't figure out what it's supposed to be." Senior English major Beth Sisel was neutral. "It's okay," she said. I think it's pretty interesting." Portoghese, 25, critiqued the work. "We're not working with aesthetics here," he said. "The aesthetics involved were much more in the line of getting a community effort together to create a really big sculpture. It's kind of like the work of Christo, the guy who goes around and wraps islands, bridges and stuff." It simply comes from bass player MacPaul Stanfield's cat. A lot of people, it seems, greet the name with a laugh, but, the group says, "After you remember that two of the best bands of all time were named after bugs and rocks, then it doesn't seem so silly, does it now?" m CANCER SOOETY
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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Nov. 18, 1986, edition 1
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