NEWS photo Bob Mackin

STABBING Westward’s Walter Flakus (left), Mark Eliopulos, Andy Kubiszewski (with alien) and Jim Sellers will
be at the Rage in Vancouver. Singer Christopher Hail (missing) completes the roster of the L.A.-based quintet.

sand tak

@ Stabbing Westward and Placebo,
with Flick, play The Rage at the Plaza
of Nations on Sunday. Tickets are
$18.50 plus service charge at
Ticketmaster or at the door. Doors
open 8 p.m.

Bob Mackin
News Reporter

Stabbing Westward is perhaps
more famous for the bands it
has toured with than for its own
music. But that’s beginning to
change.

The quintet will be in Vancouver at
the Rage Sunday, co-headlining with
Britain's glam “flavour of the month”,
Placebo.

Last time Stabbing Westward piayed
Vancouver was at the Pacific Coliseum in
December near the end of Depeche
Mode’s comeback tour.

In 1996 Stabbing Westward opened a
pair of shows on KISS’ comeback tour at
GM Place, just weeks after 2 series of
shows with the reunited Sex Pistols.

Stabbing Westward now has three
albums of hard rock/indusirial fusion to
its credit, including 1998s Darkest Days,
produced by Dave Jerden and mixed by
the band..

Singer/guitarist Christopher Hall and
programmer/guitarist Walter Flakus
started the band in the mid-80s while

both attended Western Illinois
University. Not until 1994 did they
record Ungod, their first album, with
Jim Sellers (bass), David Suycott (drums)
and Stuart Zechman (guitars).

Drummer Andy Kubiszewski replaced
Suycott on drums for the second album,
Wither Blister Burn + Peel and took a
collaborative role with Hall. On that
album, all members of the band, includ-
ing Kubiszewski, took turns on guitar.

Kubiszewski’s musical pedigree is rich
and varied. He spent time with Nine
Inch Nails, The The and Crowded
House. He even spent four years with
the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra while
studying for a music degree.

After finishing The The’s 1993 rour,
he kept in contact with a former The
The tour manager who had been con-
tracted to guide Crowded House on its
tour for the Together Alone albunt.
Kubiszewski had attended the band’s
concert in Cleveland and expressed inter-
est in sccing them again in Columbus,
Ohio. He received a call the day before
the Columbus show, but the cour man-
ager didn’t offer him tickets. “He said,
‘Do you want to come down and play
it?”

Drummer Paul Hester had abruptly
quit the band, so Kubiszewsid played on
the remainder of the tour, which includ-
ed a cross-Canada journcy.

Kubiszewski’s luck didn’t end there.
The day after Suycott left Stabbing,

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es Stab at stardom

Westward, he received the call to join the
band. He eventually co-wrote most of
the songs on Wither Blister Burn + Peel
with Hall when guitarist and songwriting
partner Stuart Zechman was fired.

Darkest Days doesn’t stray lyrically
from the misery-loves-company themes
of the previous two discs. But it ends on
a hopeful nore. Kubiszewski savs the
band’s angst could someday be spent and
then he'll have to explore other themes
with Hail. But don’t expect Stabbing
Westward to follow-up Darkest Days.
with a paean to the Beach Boys’ sunny
California sound — even if four mem-
bers of the band now live in the Los
Angeles. (Sellers home is still
Washington, D.C.)

“We're not about to do something.
that’s really happy,” Kubiszewski says.
“You have to gradually get to those
places. It has to make sense musically
and thematically.”

The band, which also includes gui-
tarist Mark Eliopulos, may self-produce
its next album. Jerden produced and
mixed Darkest Days, but the band decid-
ed to remix the album. The experience
enabled Hall and Flakus to produce an
album by New York’s Drill.

“It just takes a while for the people at
the record label to have enough faith and
enough trust in any band to be able to
say here’s a huge sum of cash, don’t
screw it up. I think we've finally reached
that point,” Kubiszewski says.

Friday, April 9, 1999 — North Shore News — 21

Gomez bring it
on to Vancouver

Michael Becker

News Editor
michael@usnews.com

B xkxkkx%* Gomez — Bring It On, Virgin Records
1998, 724384559229

Five fresh Scottish laddies shua the flashy Britpop scene,
rummage through the vaults of American music as once
expressed by the likes of the Band and Little Feat cartier in
the 1970s, layer in some weird Beck-like effects and come
up with a fabulous disc.

Bring It On isa relaxed, ambling, affair that works it
mojo slowly, inexorably. The style is primarily acoustic folk-
rock, with much of its evocative depth drawn trom a deep
well of blues. Frontman
Tom Gray is blessed with
one of those Rod Stewart-
ish whiskey soaked voices.

This dise picked up
England's Mercury Music
Prize in 1998, beating out
CDs by Pulp, Massive
Ateack, the Verve and
Cornershop.

Gomez is currently work-
ing through its first U.S.
headlining tour and shows
up in Vancouver Saturday
May | at the Starfish Room
along with Mojave 3 from
Britain.

xxx Andrea Bocelli
—— Sogno,
Polydor/Insieme Srl
1999, 547222-2

The blind man from
Tuscany with the golden set
of pipes seems to be every-
where — the Academy
Awards show, Letterman,

Regis and Kathy Lee,
Canada AM, Pamela Wallin,
the works.

Tr didn’t hurt that be teamed up with the terribly lithe
yet ubiquitous Canadian singing sweetheart Celine Dion to
warble through the David Foster-penned The Prayer, a tune
featured in the animated motion picture Quest for Camelot.

There are more fruitful alliances to be found on Segue. O -
Mare E Tu with Dulce Pontes, flows with the counterpoint-  ~
ing of Pontes with acoustic guitars and the formidable
orchestral pyrotechnics of the Orchestra Filarmonics Italiana
backing Bocelli.

Onc bone to pick: the use of synthesizers to beef u
some of the string passages and flesh out some of the bal-
lads detracts from the pleasure of Bocelli’s voice.

There is a tremendous appetite for this kind of music.
Bocelli’s previous disc, Romanza, sold 1.1 million copies in
Canada alone.

We can thank fellow tenor Luciano Pavoratti for bring-
ing operatic ability to the masses by mixing it up with artists
from other musical genres.

Bocelli’s concert at G.M. Place April 19 promises to be a
nourishing affair. For an extra $38.95 concert-goers may
partake in the consumption of buffet items including roast-
ed prime rib; seared sea bass served with citrus segments
and chive butter sauce; roasted lamb with cous cous cakes
served with mint demi giace and spicy onion crisp; and veg-
etable strudle, spinach, grilled peppers, roma tomatoes an
fennel in phyllo pastry.

To reserve dinner tickets call 899-7525. Tickets are still
available for the show.

G
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Allphy. stock velue to $1298ea. "Members

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