R.E.M. Found Early Support in Columbia

When the rock band R.E.M. announced they were breaking up a few weeks ago, I really didn’t pay much attention. To be honest R.E.M. dropped off my radar screen around 1994 when “Automatic for the People” was gradually losing steam and a new album called “Monster” had people scratching their heads. Not that I no longer considered R.E.M. an important American band, their new music was just missing the mark for me.

But the more I’ve thought about the band’s decision to “call it a day,” the more I’ve realized it was a pretty big deal. For many music fans in the early 1980s, myself included, R.E.M. served as a liaison between more familiar mainstream rock and the brashness of punk. With their atmospheric mystery and hypnotic rhythms, R.E.M. provided the musicality desired for those not attracted to punk’s minimalism, while at the same time being artsy and weird enough to give the status quo a healthy slap in the face.

But for folks in these parts, there’s a special reason for recognizing the legacy of R.E.M. Columbia served as one of the first and most supportive places for the band to play outside their hometown of Athens, Ga. Guitarist Peter Buck said as much while sitting backstage after a show in the Russell House Ballroom in 1984.

“A lot of people in town here go to Athens and Atlanta, so they’ve heard us and seen us,” Buck said. “And also, we’re one of the few bands from Georgia who play here fairly regularly. We’ve played here, counting the days of Von Henmon’s, probably seven times.”

Ah, Von Henmon’s. The legendary indie-rock club operated by Rick Henmon on Santee Street in Five Points hosted all sorts of punk and new-wave bands in the early 1980s.

“That was a really nice club,” Buck said. “We played there three or four times.” In fact, it was a coterie of local indie-rock fans who provided the impetus for R.E.M. to venture over to Columbia for a gig at Von Henmon’s.

“One weekend, a group of us went over to Athens to see XTC play a club there,” the late Eddie Blakely said in 1997. “The band who opened for XTC that night was called R.E.M. People in Athens knew about them, but we were out-of-towners and had certainly never heard of them before.

“They were quite remarkable in the energy and presence they had. I don’t remember the material they did, but I remember some of it was cover songs. Needless to say, they definitely left an impression on us all.”

Blakely, who would later become a promoter on the Columbia rock scene, returned to Columbia and sang the praises of R.E.M. to Henmon. The club owner said, OK, I’ll give them a date, and R.E.M. was booked for one of their first shows outside of Athens.

“They all piled in their ratty old van and drove over and played for the door,” Blakely said. “At least two or three times (when they came to Columbia), they didn’t make enough money to get a motel room, but people who came to the show were gracious enough to say, ‘Hey, if you guys don’t want to drive back tonight, you’re welcome to have an empty spot on the floor at my house.’”

“The first time they played only about 20 people showed up,” Henmon said. “I gave them a case of Heineken and they thought that was so cool.”

From the very beginning, R.E.M. --- Bill Berry, Michael Stipe, Mike Mills, and Peter Buck --- found close and loyal friends in Columbia. Over the years, they would play here nine or ten times, including a 1982 show at Strider’s on Huger Street that turned me into a raving R.E.M. fan for the next five years.

So as R.E.M. exits the stage, I’d like to say thanks for the great music and wonderful memories. And Columbia should take pride in the role it played in kickstarting this remarkable American rock ’n’ roll band.

-- Michael Miller

(Mike Miller is an associate editor of Jasper Magazine. For more of Mike, go to www.jaspercolumbia.com.)

Creating Columbia: An Artistic Experience -- A Guest Blog from Sumner Bender

 

I have been involved with theatre in Columbia almost all of my life. It is an outlet, which from an early age, has given me more encouragement and excitement than almost any other activity in which I have engaged. After moving away to another country, I was without my theatre for an entire year. That was enough of that I knew. I decided that I would never live my life without the theatre again. One of the main things that I missed while in that foreign land, where I did not speak the native language, was a community. I had other foreigners, like myself, to joke and talk with and on a certain level connect. There is a bond built when you share an interesting situation like living abroad. But there is no community that I have ever felt more alive and involved then that of the theatre community. Upon my arrival back to the States I dove back into my old passion. I was barely in the country a week when I had signed on to do my next theatrical production, Reasons to be Pretty, at Trustus Theatre. And voila, I was back.

As I became more aware of my surroundings, and the reverse culture shock began to wear off I noticed that something had changed in Columbia. Well something had changed, but so had I. My eyes were opened wider than they had been before my departure and noticed this little city, that I had known all my life, opening up for me. All of a sudden there were artists of all variations wherever I went. I found myself traveling in packs of people I had never met before, but who spoke and looked liked the ones I had always known only slightly different.  Somehow this college town that seemed monotonous and trite and something to complain about had become a flourishing venue for the arts and a breeding ground for new experience. Where had they come from, had they been here all along? I don’t know and I don’t care, all I know is that it is here and it is now and it is all happening.

Working as a legal assistant most of my college career I spent plenty of time on Main Street hustling court documents and vying for stamps and certified signatures. Now I stroll down the street dipping in and out of various buildings hoping to see some inspiring work of art, whether an instillation at Anastasia’s or the ever changing scenes at Tapp’s. The first few times at gallery openings around town I noticed a large audience of my peers, people whom I barely recognized as someone who may or may not hangout at that bar I like to go to. In general there just seemed to be a thriving scene of interesting and interested people feeding off this new cultural frenzy taking place in our small southern city. Everywhere you look people are building and creating. It is vibrant and exhilarating to watch and feel.

Having been a part of the creative class of theatre folk that has been pounding on the door to this city for decades, I couldn’t help but want to combine the two. What separates the arts from one another? The genres of course, the performer, the visual artist, the sculptor, the musician…director etc. at the heart of each of these individuals lies the same bit of truth. Creation. Where there once was nothing now there is something, from a blank page, a blank wall or a blank stage each of these creators adds life to the lifeless. So why is it that we keep them all separate, one thing here another there and very little mixed in between. Arts in this climate, political and economical, are something that have to be continuously fought for, but one of the most important things in a community worth the fight.

To begin we must evolve these communities into one. Separately theatre, film and galleries have thriving followers. The would be regulars at the local bars, the ones we can count on to support us no matter what, but how much can we ask of the ones who already give us so much. We need to share with each other. Open our doors to collaboration between the arts. Introduce each other to the enriching beauty this city has to offer. Make it our mission as creators to build a bridge for our supporters to support each other creating a solid base for this city’s artistic class to not only stand on but rely on as well.

This is the 27^th season at Trustus Theatre. We have been pushing the creative envelope since the doors opened in 1985. Yet as I stroll down Main Street I will meet many a people who have never set foot in the doors of the theatre, or any theatre in town for that matter. That has to change. Selfishly of course, I would do anything to keep our doors open because I believe in what we do, but at the same time I think we could offer those people a new experience one that they can keep coming back to and counting on. Just as I say that there are plenty of Trustus regulars who have never set foot in a gallery in this town. It would almost never occur to them to do so. It isn’t there style, it isn’t their interest. But isn’t it, really?

Think about it, we are all after the same thing even if we go about it in completely different ways. We are a family and right now we are estranged. That makes for pretty lonely Thanksgiving dinner. Wouldn’t it be much more fun to bring all the quirkiness together, all the eccentricities supporting one another like one big dysfunctional family? I mean it doesn’t get much more dysfunctional than trying to consistently create in a state that thinks the arts should be thrown out with yesterday’s trash. Well one governor’s trash can be one community’s absolute treasure. But it has to be one that we all share. No finder’s keepers, but finder’s givers. Tell us what is working for you and share your successes with everyone else out there trying to keep this cultural class in Columbia on the rise.

We have started off simply, by asking some of these visual artists to hang their work in our theatre. Help us turn our space where we sometimes hang art into The Gallery @ Trustus. So far we have bemet with overwhelming excitement from those involved. Next we are asking the writers who fill notebooks whilst sitting in small coffee shops to write a poem and enter it in our Spring Awakening Poetry Contest. We want you to enhance our audiences with your words, like our actors enhance them from the stage. Our goal is to make Trustus an artistic experience, but it takes you to make that possible. Enter your poetry, hang your art, come see our shows. Tell your friends. In return you can expect them same from us. We will go to your shows and look at, maybe even buy your art. We will listen to you sing and watch you mesmerize us with your dance. But all in all we have to do this together, let’s make Columbia an Artistic Experience.

~~~

The Spring Awakening Poetry Contest

 Trustus Theatre, in conjunction with this December’s production of the Tony award-winning Broadway hit musical Spring Awakening and Jasper Magazine, announces The Spring Awakening Poetry Contest. Share your own experiences, your own version of the coming of age experience through poetry. The winning poems will be published and winners will receive tickets to Trustus Theatre’s production of this award-winning play.

Winner of 8 Tony awards, including Best Musical, Spring Awakening celebrates the unforgettable journey from youth to adulthood with power, poignancy, and passion. Although our own experiences are individual, the coming of age theme resonates with all of us.  Whether it was tragic or transformative, the loss of innocence of the power of self-discovery, we all experience coming of age as a kind of awakening.  What did you learn (or not learn), and what can we learn from you?  What does it mean to you to come of age, to awaken, to discover who you are, to become an adult?

The Spring Awakening Poetry Contest will have 3 winners, one each in Adult and High School categories, and a third winner to be chosen as a Fan Favorite on Facebook.  The top 10 finalists will be posted on the Trustus Facebook page and the Fan Favorite selected through Facebook feedback.

Each winner will receive 2 tickets to Spring Awakening at Trustus and will have their poems published in the shows program AS WELL AS being published in the January edition of Jasper Magazine. Besides Fan Favorite the winners will be chosen by Ed Madden, literary editor for Jasper.

Effective IMMEDIATELY the entries are to be submitted online to thegallerytrustus@gmail.com as a Word document ATTACHMENT with the subject POETRY CONTEST. The deadline for entries is November 18 at 5 p.m. On Monday November 21 the Top 10 submissions will be posted on the Trustus Facebook page where voting will open for Fan Favorite. Voting will end at midnight on November 26. The winners will be announced online on Wednesday November 30.

Submission Guidelines: Work can be any form or style of poetry, but the poem should focus on the Spring Awakening coming of age theme.  Poems should not have been previously published in print or online, including personal blogs and internet web pages.  Only one entry per person. If you are entering the High School portion please tell us what school you attend!

Jasper Pint and Poem Walk Registration is OPEN!

The time has finally come to register for one of the

25 limited spaces

in the

Jasper Magazine First Annual Fall Pint and Poem Walk.

Join us on Wednesday, October 26th as we

Poetically Parade to 4 of Columbia's most Perfect Pubs where we will Passionately Partake of Precious Pints of the most Palatable Potation (i. e., beer) while Pigging out on Pretzels, Popcorn, and Peanuts.

~~~

Meet the Jasper Crew at a pre-designated spot in Columbia’s Vista where you will park your car and be shuttled to Main Street.

Start your evening of tippling with a tasting of up to a half dozen rare beers at the Jasper Magazine studio in the Tapp’s Arts Center.

Follow Professors Ed Madden & Ray McManus

—your pint and poetry guides—

as they, along with the Jasper Crew, guide you on a

walking, drinking and reciting tour of

4 of Columbia’s most venerable locally-owned pubs.

Registration is limited to 25 participants so register today at www.jaspercolumbia.net

Check Out Handcrafted Aliens And More This Week At Southern Pottery

A few years ago at a ceramics show at Vista Studios Gallery 80808, I fell in love with a colorful little bowl with a wonderfully retro-looking woman’s face on a blue background with a cartoon word bubble that said “Enjoy” and spoons floating around the perimeter. The purple rim had the words “EAT IT UP YUM” carved into the clay. Inside, I was greeted with another lush burst of green glaze. The whole work had this whimsical, imperfect feel to it, almost as if molded by a child, but this clearly was not a child’s work. It was the work of Georgia artist Vanessa Grubbs, the MFA-toting-accomplished-in-her-own-right daughter of celebrated Columbia artists Steve and Mana Hewitt.

I loved that bowl. I bought that bowl. And every time I look at that bowl (pictured), it makes me happy.

I can only imagine how it must feel to thrust one’s hands into cool damp slab of clay and shape it into something worthy of the kiln. I am so intrigued and amazed by the works of the clay artists we have right here in the Midlands, notably Anastasia Chernoff, Jeff Donovan, Sonia Neale, Paul Moore, Rita Ruth Cockrell, Mike Van Houten, Betsy Kaemmerlen, Diane Gilbert, and so many others.

So on a recent visit to Southern Pottery on Devine Street, I picked up a post card announcing the celebration of American Craft Week, which runs October 6-16. I know there are many choices for arts lovers this week. However, if you – like me – love pottery and the clay arts, you must make it out to Southern Pottery some time between today and Saturday, Oct. 16.

Tonight, Oct. 6, the Southern Pottery is hosting a reception from 6-9 p.m. for Cardinal Newman presents “Southern Icons,” hand-built clay works depicting social, religious, and cultural traditions through the eyes of teenagers. I know, it's First Thursday on Main, and there are shows at 80808 and City Art, too. But if you're a time-management wiz, you might be able to hit all of them.

And Friday, Oct. 7, the Southern Pottery will host another reception from 6-9 p.m. to celebrate “We Are Here,” clay and fiber works by Leanne Pizio and Paige Cox depicting aliens, UFOs, and quirky extraterrestrial visitors. Also on Friday, visitors to Southern Pottery are invited to participate in the “Made in China” mug swap. Those who donate their intact Chinese-made mugs (limit 4) will receive 20 percent off an American handcrafted mug.

The following week, on Friday, Oct. 14, Southern Pottery will feature artist demonstrations by Tuula Ihamaki-Widdifield and Susan Tondreau-Dwyer from 6-8 p.m. And on Saturday, Oct. 15, you can enjoy more demonstrations by Diane Gilbert and Paul Moore from 12-2 p.m.

Who knew? I urge you to check out some of this awesome clay-oriented action over the next 10 days. For details, visit www.southern-pottery.com or call the gallery at 803-251-3001. And tell them that Jasper sent you.

-- Kristine Hartvigsen

(Kristine Hartvigsen is an associate editor for Jasper Magazine. Read more of Kristine's work at www.jaspercolumbia.com)

Jasper Recommends -- Black Light, Black Night ... An Ultraviolet Light Experience

 

As much as we love galleries and museums, we here at Jasper are absolute junkies for fleeting, ephemeral instances of art that can never be repeated -- demonstrations that, even if captured electronically, can never be experienced as fully as they were by the lucky onlookers who got to witness the event first hand.

And, hey, we love to party, too.

So it looks as if we have hit the jackpot tonight.

After the Main Street art crawl -- or really, it's a parade, isn't it? -- you'll find much of the Jasper family in line at anastasia & FRIENDS for her Black Light, Black Night .. an Ultraviolet Light Experience in her gallery and throughout the space at the Free Times Building on Main. Tickets are $20 if you buy them in advance. Here's the info below. straight from the crazy mad genius woman's mouth via Facebook. See y'all tonight!

 ~~~

For October's first Thursday opening at Anastasia & Friends, a very special show is planned with my co-hosts Paul Kaufmann and Jennifer Baxley. This show will be quite different from most of our openings as the evening will be divided into three parts - Black Light, The Intermission and Black Night.

Black Light is an ultraviolet art experience where everyone and everything will be completely immersed in black light. The windows of the gallery will be blacked out, and the gallery will be completely transformed into a sea of black light that will illuminate a combination of paintings, sculpture, mixed media and photography that are all black light reflective.

DRESS BLACK LIGHT REFLECTIVE!

Our Black Light artists are Amy Alley, Bohumila Augustinova, Jennifer Baxley, Michael Bolin, Anastasia Chernoff, Corey Rocbottom Davis, Scott Denis, Nathan Fiveash, Robin Gadient, Kara Gunter, Jonathan Inkley, Cade Kaufmann, Paul Kaufmann, Michael Krajewski, Amanda Ladymon, Whitney LeJeune, Dre Lopez, Sammy Lopez, Lauren Maurer, Lucas Sams, Jason Stroud, Joseph Tolbert, Lindsay Wiggins and Roe Young.

You'll see the fabulous Fred Gldfngr in both the Light and the Night, molding his music medium into an artistic audio experience all night long!

Around 7:30, in front of the gallery, get ready for Unbound Dance to perform Thriller from their upcoming party "Carpe Noctem." It's a HUGE treat you'll not want to miss. (If you've seen them perform before, then you know what I'm talking about, and if you haven't - boy, oh, boy are you in for a surprise!)

Libations for Black Light will be sponsored by The Roe Young State Farm Agency. (Thank you, Roe Young, for your continued support of the first Thursday openings.)

So then we thought, hey! We've gone through all this time and expense to create this happening, we don't want it to end yet. Why not take it a step further, create ANOTHER experience in the back of the building and include a party after the opening? Black Night was born!

A brief intermission will take place from 9:00 to 9:30 and we will ask everyone to clear the gallery so we can prepare to reopen our doors for Black Night at 9:30.

Black Night will be a masquerade, after-party experience that takes place from 9:30 to 12:30 with beer and wine, food, complimentary masquerade masks, music and even more surprises.

BIG THANKS to Maria Kennedy Mungo who will sponsor the gourmet delicacies for the Black Night portion of the evening.

Tickets for Black Night are $20 in advance and $25 at the door and can be purchased at http://www.blacklightblacknight.com/. Check it out and get your tickets soon as we have a limited number available.

Here's to an evening filled with art, light, laughter and loads of surprises!

New Local Music: The Unawares – When The Trees Are Empty

Okay, okay—it’s not really “new” (the record came out in February), but we here at Jasper just got rolling, so you’ll have to forgive us for reaching back a bit. The Unawares are a three-piece rock band fronted by guitarist/singer John Watkins and backed by bassist James Wallace and drummer Rhett Berger. And these guys have a very particular, and awesome, notion of what rock and roll should be.

Actually, you know that band Jack Black supposedly joins in High Fidelity? The Unawares are what that band would have sounded like in real life. These guys synthesize a whole host of elitist-record-clerk favorites from the 1980s, most notably groups like the Pixies, Guided by Voices, and the Meat Puppets. And, hey, there’s really nothing wrong with that. In fact, it sounds pretty great—delightfully odd rock tunes full of crunchy guitars, indecipherable-yet-catchy vocals, and an emphasis on keeping it short but sweet (3 out of 15 songs break the 3:00 mark) can really pay some strong dividends. The group has released two full-lengths and an EP prior to this, but it seems like When The Trees are Empty has finally captured the “big” rock potential of this garage punk three-piece, kind of like the way New Day Rising did for Husker Du. The band has always had succinct little rock fancies that hit you over the head and disappear shortly thereafter, but this time you kind of get the feeling that these tunes would work just as well in the outdoor theater or hip concert hall as  in the sweaty barroom clubs and dives that this kind of music is normally found it. Kudos to Chris Wenner, who records the band’s records and provides the magical glue that re-creates their live sound on tape.

Anyway, aside from all my musings, Columbia really should (and often does) count itself lucky to have a rock and roll band of the style and caliber as The Unawares. Check out the band’s website here: http://theunawares.com/index.

http://youtu.be/rXkmQIJWEjs

-- Kyle Petersen

(Kyle Petersen is the music editor for Jasper Magazine. Read his most recent article on Josh Roberts and the Hinges in Jasper Magazine Volume 1, Number 1 at www.jaspercolumbia.com.)

New (formerly) Local Music: Hannah Miller - O Black River

 

Although singer/songwriter Hannah Miller began her music career in Columbia, she recently left the Capitol City in the hopes of breaking it big in Nashville. Still, we here at Jasper tend to hang on to our ex-pats, cheering on their careers and welcoming their new output and hometown returns. We hated missing her record release party last Friday (a surfeit of wonderful arts options that night!), especially because her new record is absolutely amazing.

Recorded with the help of top-notch producer Neilson Hubbard, who has worked with the likes of such accomplished singer/songwriters as Matthew Ryan and Garrison Starr, O Black River’s 6 songs are easily the finest of Miller’s recorded output. While she has had great production work in the past on 2008’s Into the Black (Mitch Dane) and last year’s Journey to the Moon EP (Ian Fitchuk and Justin Loucks), this time the sound fits the songs like a glove. From the muted trumpet playing on “To the Swift” to the foreboding drums and ominous guitar riffs on “Bleed Out,” Hubbard matches each tune with a full-but-not-overbearing accompaniment that shows a care and attentiveness fitting the song rather than just coloring in the white space—which is one of the hardest things to avoid when trying to flesh out solo performer-oriented folk-pop tunes.

Hannah Miller O Black River

Even more fortunately, Miller has evolved into a first-rate songwriter, and every song here deserves attention. Beginning with the gospel-inflected title track, Miller also shows off her mastery of the slinky pop in “To the Swift” and “Elijah,” introspective balladry on “Elijah” and “Refuge,” and gets damn near indie rock on the throbbing “Bleed Out.” She’s always had a penchant of unorthodox genre mixing, but it has never come across so effortlessly natural until now.

So, while Miller sounds quite happy in the Music City, we can only hope that she remembers where she came from and that she comes back often—and we encourage you to support an artist who has been so thoroughly dedicated to her craft that we might soon be talking about her in national rather than local terms.

You can find more information about Hannah Miller’s music @ hannahmillermusic.com.

- K. Petersen

(Kyle Petersen is the Music Editor for Jasper Magazine -- contact him at kpetersen@jaspercolumbia.com)

J. Spencer Shull at First Thursday

 

There are many fine parts to the puzzle that makes First Thursday on Main Street the delightful experience that it is. Here's a look at just one of the happenings being presented on Thursday, October 6th at S & S Arts Supplies on Main Street.

This October's First Thursday on Main event is sure to be filled with thrills, chills, and cute n' creepy creatures! This amazingly talented local artist has a HUGE show in store for you! In addition to the crazy fun artwork inside, there will be many more surprises as well! You can dance the night away on Main street to the musical stylings of DJ Dr. Scott Padget, or play dress up and get your photo taken with Red Road Portraits photo-booth!

J. Spencer Shull is a self taught artist born and raised in South Carolina. His style incorporates aspects of cartoon illustration, pop surrealism, and lowbrow art. Along with his wife Kelly Shull, J. Spencer runs Jellykoe, an art collective. The husband and wife duo specialize in making one of a kind plush monsters as well as original 2-D artwork. Together, they have exhibited their work at art shows, festivals, and conventions in over eleven states. You can view more of their work at: jellykoe.com.

(Thanks to Amanda Ladymon for the above post.)

Jasper asks, Do you remember what it was like to discover love and sex and who you are?

Jasper is working with Trustus Theatre to present:

The Spring Awakening Poetry Contest

Trustus Theatre announces, in conjunction with this December’s production of the Tony award-winning Broadway hit musical Spring Awakening, The Spring Awakening Poetry Contest. Share your own experiences, your own version of the coming of age experience through poetry. The winning poems will be published and winners will receive tickets to Trustus Theatre’s production of this award-winning play.

Winner of 8 Tony awards, including Best Musical, Spring Awakening celebrates the unforgettable journey from youth to adulthood with power, poignancy, and passion. Although our own experiences are individual, the coming of age theme resonates with all of us. Whether it was tragic or transformative, the loss of innocence or the power of self-discovery, we all experience coming of age as a kind of awakening. What did you learn (or not learn), and what can we learn from you? What does it mean to you to come of age, to awaken, to discover who you are, to become an adult?

The Spring Awakening Poetry Contest will have 3 winners, one each in Adult and High School categories, and a third winner to be chosen as a Fan Favorite on Facebook. The top 10 finalists will be posted on the Trustus Facebook page and the Fan Favorite selected through Facebook feedback.

Each winner will receive 2 tickets to Spring Awakening at Trustus and will have their poems published in the shows program as well as being published in the January edition of JASPER Magazine! Besides Fan Favorite the winners will be chosen by Ed Madden, poetry editor for JASPER.

Effective IMMEDIATELY the entries are to be submitted online to thegallerytrustus@gmail.com as a Word document ATTACHMENT with the subject POETRY CONTEST. The deadline for entries is November 18 at 5 p.m. On Monday November 21 the Top 10 submissions will be posted on the Trustus Facebook page where voting will open for Fan Favorite. Voting will end at midnight on November 26. The winners will be announced online on Wednesday November 30.

Submission Guidelines: Work can be any form or style of poetry, but the poem should focus on the Spring Awakening coming of age theme. Poems should not have been previously published in print or online, including personal blogs and internet web pages. Only one entry per person.

Columbia City Ballet's Off the Wall -- Go for the end of the show

OK, everyone who really knows me knows how I feel about the state of dance in Columbia, SC. Not to beat a dead horse but, as you've all heard me whine too much, sometimes I feel like we're stuck in the nineteen-eighties or whenever the last time was that Columbia's big two dance company ADs went to see a show that they weren't staging themselves. It's frustrating that the only new and innovative dance and choreography opportunities tend to come out of the university setting.  

So, with all these caveats out there I want to express how pleased I was with what City Ballet did with Off the Wall tonight at the Koger Center. Yes, Act I was the longest single ballet act I have ever sat through, and yes, the numbers themselves went on for way the hell too long. But when Act II came around, it was like we were sitting in a different theatre, with a different audience, watching a different company perform a different ballet.

While some of Act II was a retread of previous Off the Wall performances, artistic director William Starrett has added a new scene this season, set in the congregation of a church and, this time, he has scored and scored big. The new church scene starts off with a heart-and-gut twisting rendition of Amazing Grace, sung by a soloist with the Benedict College Gospel Choir whose name I do not know. If anyone knows this young woman's name, then please, pass it along to the rest of us because I don't ever want to miss an opportunity to hear her perform again. As outstanding as she was, her performance was just a precursor of the wild and crazy gospel choral ride the audience was in for as the remainder of the act unfolded. It was, to be completely candid, one of the best performances I have seen in Columbia. (And yes, Bonnie danced in this piece but only for a handful of minutes and in a decidedly standard corps role.)

The choir was over-the-top and athletic in their performance and the dance choreography was innovative and surprising. Dancers seemed to pop out of the pews of the church like hot kernels of corn. But by far, the most exciting thing to me was the fact that there on the Koger Center stage were three different arts disciplines -- ballet, choral music, and the visual art of Jonathan Green -- coming together to present an all around sensory overload that left the audience all but on fire. In a word, it was a success.

So, to those of you who were not planning to attend Columbia City Ballet's performance of Off the Wall and Onto the Stage, my advice is that you reconsider your decision. To be honest, act I may not be for everyone -- in our party, two people loved it and two people thought it drug on fairly mercilessly. But whatever your complaints or lack thereof with Act I, Act II will, by far, make up for any unhappiness with the early part of the show. There are three more chances to see this version of Off the Wall -- Saturday afternoon and evening and Sunday afternoon. For more information go to www.columbiacityballet.com.

-- cb

Catch Shakespeare Under The Stars This Weekend at Saluda Shoals Park

What a delight it was last Saturday at Saluda Shoals Park to catch the SC Shakespeare Company perform a reading of The Most Excellent and Tragical Historie of Arthur, King of Britain, a play within a novel by New York author Arthur Phillips.

To hear the robust delivery of Shakespeare’s lines amid the occasional hoot of an owl or hum of crickets is a rare pleasure, providing an example of the outdoor theater experience that can become a regular source of enjoyment for Midlands audiences if fund-raising for a proper outdoor venue is successful.

Before the performance, Phillips gave a talk about his novel, The Tragedy of Arthur, copies of which were available for purchase, with proceeds going to the park’s planned “Nature’s Theater,” a grand outdoor performance venue, the plans for which include a covered stage, seating for 500 with a lawn to accommodate 500 more, and a rooftop event space. I get really excited at the thought of seeing the SC Shakespeare Company and other esteemed performers regularly on a glorious outdoor stage cradled in nature’s womb.

Until that happens, however, you can see the SC Shakespeare Company open its 2011-12 season with one of the Bard’s earliest and funniest plays, The Comedy of Errors, this weekend at Saluda Shoals Park. Directed by Scott Blanks, the production will put a decidedly modern, World War II twist on the play, which gets so many of its laughs from hilarious episodes of mistaken identity and slapstick. Performances run nightly through Saturday, October 1, at 7:30 p.m. at Saluda Shoals Park, in conjunction with unearth: a celebration of naturally inspired art (culminating on Sunday, October 2,  from 1-5  p.m. with performances, poetry readings and art being created outdoors at the park).

Tickets for Comedy of Errors are $10 for adults and $5 for children 12 and under. If you can’t make those performances, the Company also will perform The Comedy of Errors at Finlay Park from Wednesday through Saturday, October 12-15, at 8 p.m. nightly. For more information, call 803-787-2273.

Coalescence Reminder -- Photography and the Word

Photographs, like the one below by Kirill Simin, are coming in and the deadline in approaching -- send us your shots, Photogs!

The first event in the series, Coalescence: Volume 1 – Photography and the Word, will turn the process of illustration on its head as the Columbia area’s excellent local writers are invited to respond in short prose form (500 words or less) to photos submitted by our best local photographers. The result?  A journey into the imagination of the literary artist as it is stimulated by that of the visual artist in photographic form.

Here’s how to get involved.

Photographers – please select your most evocative, narrative-rich photographic images for submission. While portraits are not prohibited, they may be less likely to induce imaginative response, and therefore, not chosen for this project. We encourage you to choose photographic submissions that depict action or interaction; pictures that show distance, proximity, mannerisms, emotions, relationships, or response. Look for potential clues to the action in your images. Can you can find one or more stories in the image you submit?

A few more things to consider:

If your submission depicts an individual, have your model sign a standard model release form (available at jaspercolumbia.com).

Submit only high-resolution photography to editor@jaspercolumbia.com.

The deadline for photography is October 15, 2011.

Writers – stay tuned to jaspercolumbia.com and the announcement of the winning photographic images selected for your compositional pleasure, and follow the directions you find there.

Photography and the Word will coalesce in December 2011. More details to come at jaspercolumbia.com.Remind

The Jasper Gallery

Jasper hates to brag but, what the hell, when you've got artists like we do in Columbia, there's just no need for fake modesty. To be honest, we're pretty proud of the growing assemblage of images we've collected thus far in our very own cyber exhibition space, The Jasper Gallery.

Among the artists represented in The Jasper Gallery, you'll find Justice Littlejohn, Amanda Ladymon, Kara Gunter, Lisa Puryear, and more.

You or your favorite artist could be represented as well.

The Jasper Gallery is a juried, online gallery for new, provocative, and outstanding visual art created by artists local to Columbia, South Carolina and its environs. To submit your original artwork for possible inclusion in The Jasper Gallery, please e-mail your work in JPEG format to editor@jaspercolumbia.com.

In the meantime, check out The Jasper Gallery as well as our other galleries (Friends of Jasper, the Making of a Centerfold, and images from our launch party -- Happy Birthday Jasper) all at www.jaspercolumbia.com.

Woodworks at McMaster Gallery

Of all the canvasses with which artists work, there is a warmth and depth to wood that makes it hard to compare to other materials. Maybe it's because of its organic nature; maybe its because wood is such a part of our daily lives, evoking so many images -- from shelter to forests to fire.

McMaster Gallery on the campus of USC at Senate and Pickens Streets is hosting, this week for the last week of a month-long run, an exhibition in wood by an impressive set of international artists. The likes of Jasper were found to be wondering the halls of the McMaster building this weekend, so we stopped by the small gallery for a gander at the exhibit. We found whimsical sculptures, functional vessels, and naturally-occurring burls on objet d'arts so beautiful they could make a strong woman weep. The only problem we had was in resisting the temptation to touch!

Artists represented include Derek Bencomo, Hunt Clark, David Ellsworth, Harvey Fein, Ron Fleming, Todd Hoyer, John Jordan, Robert F. Lyon, Michael Mocho, Hilary Pfeifer, Binh Pho, Betty Scarpino, Mark Sfirri, and Leah Woods.

The exhibition closes on Friday, September 30th, but the gallery is hosting a day-long workshop on Wednesday, September 28th, beginning at 9 am in room 102 of the McMaster Building. An artist talk will follow from 3:30 until 5 and, after that, a closing reception from 5 until 7 pm.

For more information visit http://web.mac.com/mcmastergallery/McMaster_Gallery/On_Display.html

Review -- Third Finger, Left Hand

Randall David Cook's clever, funny, and comfortably bizarre play, Third Finger, Left Hand, is a production that could benefit from the addition of both time and space. A portion of the Jasper entourage had the opportunity to attend a late night show on Friday, for the next-to-the-last-performance of the play's Columbia run, as we snuggled into the intimate confines of the Trustus Black Box Theatre along with a few dozen of our closest friends. An efficient configuration of the seating in the black box area created something of a theatre-in-the-round arrangement and, as is the way with small space productions, we all became a part of the show.

With a cast of five strong women and one delightful man, (Joe Hudson plays the part of Mark Luke Matthews, a church organist with a penchant for sound effects), the play catapulted the audience into the overlapping conjunctions of sad but hysterical drama from the first word. In the part of a sappily sweet-mouthed wedding planner, Dell Goodrich embodied the socially constructed worst of Southern womanhood as she contrived and manipulated, and said one thing but meant another, all from a plastered smile evoking images of the proverbial serpent in the garden itself. While it is disturbing to see this stereotype perpetuated in the theatre, the reality is that those bitches are still out there and maybe the best way to rid the world of them is to expose their likes on the stage for all to see. Sumner Bender, Kristin Wood Cobb, Ellen Rodillo-Fowler, and Denise Pearman, under the direction of Larry Hembree, fashioned a well-balanced ensemble cast that fed off one another like a dysfunctional and somewhat sapphic sorority.

The 75 minutes of Third Finger, Left Hand were filled with all the laughter and cringes appropriate to a modern-day gothic tale of the worst of humanity dressed up all pretty in the guise of family lore, but we couldn't leave the theatre without feeling as if the play itself needed something more -- the luxury of time and space. While we enjoyed the intimacy of the black box setting, Third Finger, Left Hand is the kind of play that really needs to spread out and take off its Spanx. We would like not only to see the play on a larger stage with a less minimalist set, but also in two extended acts. Several of the most important components to the creepiness of the conflict were delivered to the audience like a slap on the face, but with the economy of the forward motion of the play, we were given little time to process them. A few extra moments for both the actors and the audience to catch our collective breath -- and realize how disgusted we really were -- would have been helpful and much appreciated.

That said, thanks to Randall David Cook for bringing  his special kind of crazy back home to South Carolina. We like it when successful people don't forget where they came from. And we like it even better when they come back. You have one more night to see this engaging play. Do it. Then call, facebook, or email Randall David Cook and ask him to bring it back to us again -- same cast, same director -- but this time on the main stage.

Palmetto Pointe Project - Guest Blog

Local photographer captures spirit of ballet dancers amid Columbia’s landscape By Rebecca Krumel

(Special to What Jasper Said)

Jason Ayer is a Columbia native and creator of the Palmetto Pointe Project which will be highlighted starting this Friday at Cool Beans Coffee Shop on College Street through  October 30.  His unique and captivating photography collection showcases local dancers in unconventional settings far from the confines of the dance studio.

When asked why he chose to photograph dancers, he laughs and says, “Taking pictures of beautiful women is never a bad thing!” But, the father of two added jokingly, “If I were twenty years younger I’d do it for the women; now I do it for the art.”

Ayer’s interest in photographing dancers began as a high school student in Charleston. He did technical work for the Youth Company in Charleston, and moved back to Columbia in the 1980’s and tried his hand in theatre by performing dance and musical roles at Workshop Theater for a decade. “I did a little bit of everything--singing, dancing, and acting.” Now, Ayer is the photographer for the USC Dance Program as well as the Coquettes.

At first glance, the Palmetto Pointe Project is reminiscent of New York’s Ballerina Project which has received widespread recognition from the Wall Street Journal to the Australian ballet blog Behind Ballet. Quite popular on Facebook, The Ballerina Project is inspiring photographers nationwide, although Ayer says his aim is not to mimic the successful venture which focuses on photographing dancers amid elaborate cityscape. His artistic vision spotlights the dancer rather than the setting. “In The Ballerina Project, the landscape often overpowers the dancer,” he says. Ayer prefers to match the setting to the dancer by drawing out their personality in each image, or for a more bold approach, taking them out of their element. Ayers’ process for a  typical photo shoot involves meeting with the dancer at a location in the Columbia area, and then focusing his lens as her inner creative spirit is revealed through choreography and movement.

Ayer seeks to get the dancers involved in the creative process as much as possible. “What ends up on the canvas relies on them.” He says dance photography is about capturing the personality of the dancer, and oftentimes this is achieved by placing them in settings that may contradict their personality or challenge their creativity. Not only do the dancers drive the photo shoot with their artistry, they are given the final say on all the photographs. Ayers will not display an image that the dancer has not previously approved. “If the dancer doesn’t like it then I’m not going to use it.” The dancer also shares in the profits of any images sold in which they appear.

Ayer and his ballerina subjects are making something unique to Columbia. His photographs are site-specific and therefore nostalgic for Columbians. Palmetto Pointe Project is uniquely South Carolinian and true to the artistic setting and lives of the dancers it portrays. His slogan is, “See some familiar and not-so-familiar places in Columbia through the eyes of a dancer.” While he seeks out niches of Columbia for his backdrops, the dancers are central to the art. Each image is named for the dancer and not the place. Most of his subjects are performers with the USC Dance Company, but Ayers is interested in expanding the project to include other local dance companies as well.

Goals for the project include a website (already underway), a  calendar, and you can check out Palmetto Pointe Project on Facebook now. Friday’s opening will offer the public a chance to meet Ayers, purchase his prints, and meet the dancers featured in his new photographic works.

Jasper has been busy

Jasper has been busy and we'd like to take a moment to share what we've been up to with you, our loyal readers.

To start with, we released the inaugural issue of Jasper Magazine - The Word on Columbia Arts in print form last Thursday night at a lovely party, hosted by one of our favorite places for imbibing, Speakeasy on Saluda Street in Five Points. It was a grand night, and we were overwhelmed by the kindness and support of the arts community. Thank you all so very much for your kind words and your presence at our birthday party for Jasper. Thanks also to Speakeasy for hosting us and Josh Roberts for entertaining us.

The Jasper staff and family has been busy distributing magazines throughout the city. But if we haven't gotten to you yet, not to worry -- we're diligent and we still have more than half of our inventory on hand. That said, we're happy to take your recommendations of spots where you would like to see Jasper distributed. By week's end, we should be all over the Columbia metropolitan area, including Camden, Chapin, Prosperity, and Newberry. And soon, you'll be able to find us in Greenville and Spartanburg, as well.

Lenza Jolley, our web maven, has also been hard at work building our brand new website. If  you haven't had a chance yet, please visit us at www.jaspercolumbia.com. We hope to make jaspercolumbia.com an extension of the print version of Jasper Magazine. To that end, please find more music by Josh Roberts, more art by David Yaghjian, more poetry by all of our featured poets, well ... more of everything, we hope, at our new cyber home.

As you may know, Jasper comes out in print form once every other month on the 15th of the month. If the 15th falls on a weekend, then look for us on the Thursday prior to that date. Our next issue will release on Tuesday, November 15th, for example, but the following issue will release on Thursday, January 12th -- and yes, we plan to celebrate every single issue that hits the streets! But the reality is that Jasper wants to see his arts buddies more than just six times per year. That's just one of the reasons we will be coming to you on our off-print months with various projects and events.

• On Wednesday, October 26th at 7 pm, please join us for our first ever Pint and Poem Walk. Look for more information on how to sign up for one of only 25 spaces on this one-of-a-kind walk in the coming week at jaspercolumbia.com.

• On Monday, October 31st, Jasper will host our first ever Ghost Story Salon as part of 701 CCA's Halloween Night Costume Bash. We're busy gathering all the great tellers of tales of ghosts and ghouls from around town to entertain you, via candlelight and creepy tunes, upstairs in the Olympia Room at 701 Whaley CCA.

• The first stage of our first ever Coalescence Project is well underway as photographers throughout the midlands are submitting their work to Jasper Magazine Coalescence Series - Volume 1: Photography and the Word (http://jaspercolumbia.net/blog/?p=357). October 15th is the deadline for photography and which point local writers will be invited to come try their hands at creating 500 word or less stories to "illustrate" the photographic images. The completed project -- Photography and the Word -- will be unveiled in December.

Finally, we have moved into our studio office downstairs at the Tapp's Arts Center on Main Street and we are in the process of tidying up and making pretty. Please join us for a little open house on Thursday, October 6th as Jasper Magazine happily becomes a part of the First Thursday Arts Crawl community. We'll get back to you before then with more information on the treats we'll have in store as we welcome you to our new creative home.

Until then, thanks for reading Columbia. And thanks for giving us so many good works to write about.

Cheers!

(Photos courtesy of Jasper associate editor Kristine Hartvigsen)

Jasper has a thing for the work of Ron Rash

Jasper is not afraid to admit that he has a bit of an addictive personality. He gets a little taste of something and has trouble letting go. Sometimes it's a yummy bourbon -- Woodford Reserve has his attention these days -- and other times it's a great choreographer or director. (Case in point -- our recent post on David Mamet.) Lately we've been almost overcome by our hunger for the writing of Mr. Ron Rash. One of our own, Rash was born in Chester, SC and raised in Boiling Springs, NC. He Went to Gardner-Webb University and then to Clemson, and now he serves as the Parris Distinguished Professor of Appalachian Culture at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, NC.

Although we had read many of Mr. Rash's short stories in the past -- actually, one of our short stories was included alongside one of Mr. Rash's in a 2001 anthology  (Inheritance, edited by Janette Turner Hospital and published by Hub City Press) -- we hadn't picked up any of his novels until this summer. Serena changed all that.

Set in the North Carolina mountains of 1929, Serena is the story of a badass female protagonist, as malicious as Simon Legree and more capable than most men then or now. Although decidedly sexual, Serena does not use her sexuality to bestow her brand of evil on the people and land she exploits -- Rash has too much respect for her as a villain to make her formulaic. And though he affords us glimpses into her history, he doesn't invite the reader to justify her immorality by casting her as a victim. She's just bad -- and from an odd angle of feminism, that makes us happy.

Our next foray into Rash's novels was Saints at the River, a book Jasper is campaigning for as the next One Book, One Columbia selection. The story is set in the upstate but the main characters are a writer and a photographer from Columbia, who often return to our neck of the woods when not actively investigating an environmental conflict in the upcountry. We won't give much more away here lest we step on our other committee members' toes or let the cat out of the bag or some other cliché. Suffice it to say that we are confident enough to recommend Saints at the River to several thousand of our closest friends.

Third on our list of Rash books was The World Made Straight, which may be our favorite thus far. It's a story of a boy and a field of weed and an unlikely mentor, but most of all it's a story of guilt and how we can inherit it just by being born. One of us at Muddy Ford wasn't even able to finish this book before her fellow traveler started reading it himself.

Luckily, One Foot in Eden, another of Rash's novels is already waiting on the nightstand upstairs. After we're through with it, we may have some problems though -- we'll let you know. In the meantime, here's a Ron Rash essay we nabbed from Amazon. Enjoy.

The Gift of Silence: An Essay by Ron Rash

When readers ask how I came to be a writer, I usually mention several influences: my parents’ teaching by example the importance of reading; a grandfather who, though illiterate, was a wonderful storyteller; and, as I grew older, an awareness that my region had produced an inordinate number of excellent writers and that I might find a place in that tradition. Nevertheless, I believe what most made me a writer was my early difficulty with language.

My mother tells me that certain words were impossible for me to pronounce, especially those with j’s and g’s. Those hard consonants were like tripwires in my mouth, causing me to stumble over words such as “jungle” and “generous.” My parents hoped I would grow out of this problem, but by the time I was five, I’d made no improvement. There was no speech therapist in the county, but one did drive in from the closest city once a week.

That once a week was a Saturday morning at the local high school. For an hour the therapist worked with me. I don’t remember much of what we did in those sessions, except that several times she held my hands to her face as she pronounced a word. I do remember how large and empty the classroom seemed with just the two of us in it, and how small I felt sitting in a desk made for teenagers.

I improved, enough so that by summer’s end the therapist said I needed no further sessions. I still had trouble with certain words (one that bedevils me even today is “gesture”), but not enough that when I entered first grade my classmates and teacher appeared to notice. Nevertheless, certain habits of silence had taken hold. It was not just self-consciousness. Even before my sessions with the speech therapist, I had convinced myself that if I listened attentively enough to others my own tongue would be able to mimic their words. So I listened more than I spoke. I became comfortable with silence, and, not surprisingly, spent a lot of time alone wandering nearby woods and creeks. I entertained myself with stories I made up, transporting myself into different places, different selves. I was in training to be a writer, though of course at that time I had yet to write more than my name.

Yet my most vivid memory of that summer is not the Saturday morning sessions at the high school but one night at my grandmother’s farmhouse. After dinner, my parents, grandmother and several other older relatives gathered on the front porch. I sat on the steps as the night slowly enveloped us, listening intently as their tongues set free words I could not master. Then it appeared. A bright-green moth big as an adult’s hand fluttered over my head and onto the porch, drawn by the light filtering through the screen door. The grown-ups quit talking as it brushed against the screen, circled overhead, and disappeared back into the night. It was a luna moth, I learned later, but in my mind that night it became indelibly connected to the way I viewed language--something magical that I grasped at but that was just out of reach.

In first grade, I began learning that loops and lines made from lead and ink could be as communicative as sound. Now, almost five decades later, language, spoken or written, is no longer out of reach, but it remains just as magical as that bright-green moth. What writer would wish it otherwise.

~~~~~

We're building a new website

but until we do, please visit us at

www.jaspercolumbia.com

American Whiskey Brother Gun Plow Revue Preview

Sometimes the best places to go see live music are the least likeliest of venues. Case in point in the crazy Southern soiree going down in Rosewood Sunday—over a half dozen acts associated with a practice space off of S. Edisto are going to be throwing down starting at 3 in the afternoon. Performances will be both inside and outside the space, with a down-home atmosphere that will see Plowboy leader Tom Hall grilling burgers, a keg of beer being tapped, and a donation jar getting passed to help raise money for the performers (suggested donation is $5).

Groups like Say Brother and the Plowboys will play rollicking acoustic music that fits right in with the lazy Sunday vibe of the day, while singer/songwriters Noah Brock and Will Pittman will also be playing in between full band sets. Whiskey Tango Revue will be delivering some of its rough-hewn outlaw country (the group has just put out their debut full-length, Seersucker Soldiers, and should have some copies for sale), while some of Jasper’s buddies in American Gun will be trying out some Afghan Whigs covers in preparation for their cover show on Oct. 15^th, in addition to some of their more roots rock-oriented material.

The party will also feature one of the first live performances by the new Columbia band The Fishing Journal, fronted by ex-Death Becomes Even the Maiden drummer Chris Powell and featuring some energetic, Superchunck-inspired tunes. These are the kind of bands that everyone can love, and the loose vibes and casual atmosphere should make this humble musical bash the place to be this Sunday.

-- Kyle Petersen

Jasper loves vintage spaghetti westerns - a guest blog by August Krickel

Jasper loves vintage spaghetti westerns. But would you believe...a paella western?

By Saturday, you may already be worn out after attending the Jasper Launch Party, openings of three plays (at Workshop, the USC Lab Theatre and the Trustus Black Box) and the new H. Brown Thornton exhibition at if Art Gallery.  So before you head out to the Greek Festival or the USC game, you might be looking to relax with a good ol' fashioned movie to watch on tv.

AMC runs the Charles Bronson-Toshiro Mifune film Red Sun at noon on Saturday 9/17, and yes, we did say Bronson and Mifune!  Technically an Italian/Spanish/French co-production, the movie was shot in the Andalusia region of Spain, but in English, with an almost entirely European cast, by a British director, and released overseas in 1971 as Soleil Rouge.  And did we mention Toshiro Mifune turns up as a lethal samurai warrior?

It's unclear exactly how this film came together, whether the story was the brainchild of its four credited screenwriters (most with backgrounds in American television including westerns, and one, William Roberts, who co-wrote the screenplay for The Magnificent Seven) or if the producers simply had some available international stars and a location, and started from there; Ted Richmond was a veteran American producer of westerns, who had recently done Villa Rides and Return of the Seven, and went on to produce Papillon with the same French partner as this film.

All of that said, the international cast actually works very well. Bronson - who wasn't quite enough of a pretty boy in his youth to be a big leading man in the US, but made a fortune playing Americans in European films - portrays a traditional, loveable bad guy named Link, on the trail of an even badder bad guy, "Gauche," played by French actor Alain Delon. A reference is made to Gauche (i.e. a French version of a cowpoke named "Lefty") being from New Orleans, but it's unclear if he's supposed to literally be a Cajun or Creole, or just a Frenchman who has come to America. Either way, he dresses as more of a slick, refined gambler, while Bronson has more of the traditional cowboy look, and so it works just fine.  Along the way they interact with several ladies of the evening, played by French temptress Capucine and Swiss beauty Ursula Andress. Again, it makes sense for foreign girls to be working as prostitutes in a new nation of immigrants, and Capucine has a fairly Latin look anyway, so honestly, you assume she's Mexican (her character is called "Pepita") and the nuances of her accent don't matter.  Many of the supporting cast are clearly Italian, with names like Barta Barri, Guido Lollobrigida and Gianni Medici.

(You can just imagine that pitch to distributors:  'We've got Lollobrigida!"  "Great!  Gina?"  "Errr...no....Guido Lollobrigida.")

Since only the leads and a very few supporting cast members have any lines, and since the scenes alternate between regular "desert" scrub brush, snowy Rocky-ish mountains, and some really convincing tall grass (I mean convincing as in "wow, we have grass just like that in Missouri") you really would assume this was shot in the US. It's directed by British filmmaker Terence Young (best known for Bond films like Thunderball, From Russia w/ Love and Dr. No, which introduced the world to Andress a decade earlier.)   Mifune turns up when visiting Japanese dignitaries are robbed, and he vows to avenge them.  If you think he and Bronson may cross paths, fight, engage in several clashes of culture, and eventually develop respect for each other, you know not just Hollywood, but film conventions in general.  Both were in their early 50's when this came out, and it's interesting to note that it's the only time that a member of the 7 Samurai and one of the Magnificent Seven did a project together.

Oh, and did I mention that Comanches attack, and everyone has to band together to fight them off?  There's a really neat climactic battle scene in the middle of that tall grass that's extremely well shot and edited.   Music is by Maurice Jarre (The Longest Day, Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, Ryan's Daughter, even Fatal Attraction) and is excellent. Parts are the very familiar "western" type theme we hear in so many films, with swooping strings, punctuated by French horns and trumpets. But at other times there's an intriguing jazz score, much like the Planet of the Apes theme, with primarily percussion, possibly a little bass, I think some percussive banging on the very lowest keys of a piano, possibly even some xylophone in there, but all sharps and discordant notes.

According to Mifune's IMDB bio, "Even though Mifune worked hard to learn his English-speaking roles phonetically, his voice was always dubbed in the American films in which he appeared."  If that is indeed the case here, it's an excellent dubbing job; Mifune was speaking every word, and matching them with appropriate emotions just perfectly.

Red Sun, aka Soleil Rouge, airs this Saturday (9/17) at high noon on AMC.

-- August Krickel