IN OTHER A&E:
Second B.F.A. Exhibit: Probing the spaces, between language, life, and art

Rock pioneer Liz Phair come to Calvin

Wilco: ‘the best-kept secret of Americana’

members.tripod.com Burnett smiles for no camera, Bucko.

T Bone Burnett is fed up with stardom. He is tired of the business of producing, tired of the commercialism and hype, tired of seeing young musicians’ lives ruined by instant fame. Despite success as a record producer, Burnett wants to record his own work again, and is setting out to create a new kind of honest, real-life music.

The FAC is no stranger to honesty, but on Friday night, its stage held a new brand of musical truth and reality. Playing his two guitars through a portable amplifier that was simply miked into the house system, he sang about “sex and crime in the third dimension -- my three favorite things,” emphasizing the dark side of life.

This was his first concert in six years -- “Welcome to my first rehearsal,” he said as he walked onstage -- and it showed. Yet througha ll the cracks of unpolished vocals and interrupted songs, an unpretentious honesty seeped through, giving the performance an authenticity that no polished musician will ever achieve. Burnett sang with the conviction of a performer who has been through all the hype and has forged his own ideas and identity.

The whole concert was a critique of today’s popular hit-radio, mega-concert performers. The presentation was about as un-slick as you can get, and had the feel of a counter-cultural performance art event, more than a concert. Perhaps the best and most telling moment caeme when T Bone launched into an improputu chorus of “My baby does hte hanky-panky.” He sang this chorus over and over, separated by by guitar solos heavy on chords and short on creativity. This imitation of today’s generic, commercially-driven hit songs brought home his point -- pop music is nothing but mass-produced garbage -- and, by extension, sarcastically spotlighted the contrast between pop music and Burnett’s own music, which seems to say “I have something real to give you, something that is art, not despite, but because of, its imperfections.”

For at least one evening, we experienced an artist as he should be -- a real, honest human being. Leaving behind the artificial trappings of a normal, polished musical performance, T Bone invited us to enter a world of authentic art filled with the pain and suffering of ordinary people -- a world where we can touche the blood of Christ, and, fingers dripping red, turn to our neighbors and offer them a real hope in this distracted world of false reflections.