Music Madness tour hits campus tonight at HUB

By SCOTT SWINDELLS
Collegian Staff Writer

Babe the Blue Ox, The Interpreters and Trinket, three up-and-coming bands on the RCA Records label, will bring their rock show to Penn State tonight.

The three acts will make their stop as part of the Music Madness Spring Tour at 8 p.m. in the HUB Ballroom. Admission is free and the first 25 people through the door will get a free compact disc.

Still somewhat unrefined and smacking of the garage-band rock that emerged from the ashes of the grunge music movement, The Interpreters and Trinket, along with art-rockers Babe the Blue Ox, have been billed as three of the most "cutting-edge" bands of 1999 by RCA and other tour sponsors.

Babe the Blue Ox deserves RCA's press release platitudes. An art-rock trio with weird, dissonant beginnings, Babe charmed indie-rock kids in the early '90s with its first two records, Box and Color Me Babe, the former released on Babe's independent label, Homestead Records.

The band's first RCA release, People, demonstrates Babe at its best -- its male-female vocal harmonies smooth over Babe's penchant for odd rhythms, providing a little something for everyone. Unfortunately, the group's newest record, The Way We Were, is a disappointment, a collection of uninspired pop songs and nostalgic drivel. If you go to the show, yell for Babe to play the old, weird stuff like "There's a Hole in the Crotch of My Work Pants" instead of the new, boring stuff like "Sheila."

The Interpreters are also a much sought-after young trio that generated lots of industry buzz even before it released its first record, according to RCA. The band was clearly pursued for a few of its powerful and well-knit songs, but its latest release leaves room for improvement.

Many of the CD's songs sound similar and repetitive. But they've got a great mod-chic image including matching stage apparel that gives them a The Who-esque appeal. And the band's songs synthesize different segments with a heavy guitar buzz on its major-label debut, Back in the U.S.S.A.

Trinket followed up its independently released 1996 album Your Head is a Shimmer with this year's self-titled album, chock full of hard rock and rhythmic experimentalism.

Trinket, which hails from R.E.M.'s birthplace of Athens, Ga., worked the Music Madness shows into an extensive spring schedule and will continue touring in New England after Music Madness concludes on Saturday at the Mercury Lounge in New York.

All three bands performed at Kent State University last night and will head on Thursday and Friday to the University of Delaware and Temple University, respectively, before making their final stop in New York.

Collegian staff writer Jason Fagone contributed to this report.