A R T I C L E S on Tricky
Tricky trip-hops at Mandel Brooke Norman News Staff From The Chicago Maroon News Section, Issue: Nov. 20, 1998	Trip-hop rapper Tricky will perform at a concert presented by the MajorActivities Board (MAB) this Saturday, November 21, at 8 p.m. in Mandel Hall. Tickets are $8 for students and $10 for faculty.   "Tricky is a great musician," said MAB Chair Somya Bharathi. "We were really lucky that we could get him to come here since he is going to be in town performing at the Metro on November 26."   Tricky will be bringing his own opening act, Whale, who will also open for him at the Metro concert. According to Bharathi, this will be one of MAB's best quality shows. "Tricky is a great musician, and despite the fact that lots of U of C students haven't heard of him, he is a huge figure on the music scene," she said.   Much work went into getting a major artist like Tricky to come play at a venue like Mandel Hall. "Lots of musicians don't like playing at college campuses because they don't pay as much money and the audience is smaller," Bharathi explained.   Kelly Snow, one of MAB's talent buyers, was able to book Tricky by speaking extensively with agents and labels, and by offering a suitable contract. Because Tricky is going to be in Chicago for the Metro performance, his agents agreed to the contract, especially due to the fact that Mandel is a closed venue which does not compete with Metro ticket sales.   "This is an especially good concert for us," Bharathi explained, "because we don't have to pay for the airfare or hotels for the group."   Tricky is known as being the pioneer of "trip hop," which is defined as "incorporating elements of hip hop and techno. It is slower, bass-driven music that most closely resembles dub, but with elements of rap and dance culture mixed into it in a way that makes the music danceable..."   Tricky, whose real name is Adrian Thawes, is a native of Bristol, England. The trip hop genre originated from the Bristol based group Massive Attack, which Tricky was a member of.   He began his solo career with the album Maxinquaye, which he mixed using the vocals of Martina Topley Bird. He made two subsequent albums, Angels With Dirty Faces and Pre Millenium Tension.   Although Tricky's original sound was the trip-hop music that he became known for, his style is continually evolving.   "His new stuff is really different, and people may be unfamiliar with it," Bharathi said.   Because of this unfamiliarity, with feature pop artists such as Tricky, MAB has not seen the rapid ticket sales with this show that it has with past concerts like Beck, A Tribe Called Quest, and George Clinton.   Also, the tickets for the show arrived late and have only been on sale for a week. Even though not all the tickets have been sold, MAB expects that the rest of them will be sold at the door.   "There are a lot of people working to make this a great show," Bharathi said. "We are really excited about it."   Even though many students at the U of C are unfamiliar with Tricky's music, Bharathi said she encourages everyone to come out and see the show.   "MAB provides entertainment at about half the price of anyplace else, and students should take advantage of it and the other music resources on campus," she said. "Even if you have never heard of Tricky, this is a chance to come hear some interesting music."
Saturday, November 21 From The Chicago Maroon Voices Section, Issue: Nov. 20, 1998	MAB's decision to get Tricky for their Fall show is an inspired, if curious one. It's curious because Tricky is set to play the Metro less than a week after his appearance at Mandel Hall. But the reason why it's inspired are far more myriad. Since his first foray into solo work (Tricky left the Bristol trio Massive Attack in 1993, halfway through production of the group's now classic Protection), Tricky has cast a unique and inimitable shadow across about half a dozen genres. Neither rap nor trip-hop nor rock, Tricky has avoided the missteps of those who would've mixed those genres (remember Bodycount?) through plain, old-fashioned (well, really postmodern) weirdness. After 1994's relatively poppy Maxinquaye, he moved into deeper, denser territory, enlisting the aid a dozen or so minor celebrities (the biggest name among them was Bjork) to create Nearly God, a really ponderous record. Several of the tracks oozed a slow, rich sensuality; more of them sounded a little half-formed. After Nearly God, Tricky lost some of his fans, who lumped him into the seedier end of the trip-hop pool alongside Portishead and their ilk. But he pricked the ears of more than a few critics who saw in his visceral, shuddering rhythm structures vision and staying power. Tricky's last two albums, 1997's Pre-Millenium Tension and this past Spring's Angels With Dirty Faces, apply the Nearly God formula with polish and aplomb.   Maybe the most appealing thing about Tricky is the dynamism between his own voice and that of Martine, his recording partner and the mother of his daughter. Tricky spits his lyrics with an asthmatic's wheeze that's more than a little bit cockney, while Martine's turns tend to sound more like a sigh than a song. Beneath it all runs broken beats, stripped-to-the-marrow funk samples, and sharp guitar riffs that lurch like a reanimated corpse. It's a difficult, elusive, and wonderfully electric combination.   On stage, their energy is palpable. For this tour, Tricky plays with a full rock band; a few of the members look like they take their heavy metal very seriously indeed. If you're familiar with Tricky's material, expect a mix of material from all three albums, with more from Maxinquaye than you'd think. Also expect a lot of new material and alternate versions of old songs. When I saw him in Austin this Summer, he and Cath Coffey (who fills in for Martine on tour) did some covers, including a few well-adapted Eric B. and Rakim tracks, and a bizarre rendition of (!) "Heart of Glass." So pluck up your courage and go, already. If you don't come out with a black eye or a new outlook on life, you'll come out with both.
Tricky walks off stage, disappoints fans Brooke Norman News Staff From The Chicago Maroon Issue: Nov. 24, 1998	Proving to be trickier to keep onstage than his opening act, trip-hop artist Tricky left the Mandel Hall stage and sent word through his road manager that "technical difficulties" would not allow him to continue to perform, ending the Major Activities Board's (MAB) fall concert last Saturday half an hour after it began.   As disappointed U of C students cheered for Tricky to come back out, MAB members attempted to rectify any "technical difficulties" that might prevent Tricky from continuing to perform. But word was quickly sent from Tricky's tour bus that "the artist's mood was not conducive to a performance at that time," said MAB Chairperson Somya Bharathi.   Concert goers waited in Mandel Hall to see if Tricky would come back out after the initial announcement, which was not made by MAB personnel.   "The first announcement about technical problems was not ours," said Kelly Snow, MAB talent buyer. "Tricky's road manager made that announcement to buy some time to see if he could convince Tricky to come back out, but by that time he was already on his tour bus."   While the audience waited, MAB members continued to try to arrange for Tricky to come back out to perform. MAB members were then allegedly told that "Tricky is a complex artist and there is really nothing you can do if he decides he doesn't want to perform anymore," according to Snow, who booked the Tricky show.   The audience continued to cheer for Tricky until MAB made the announcement that the concert was over.   "Basically, there were no technical problems," Snow added. "Tricky and his people had been there all day working out the sound and the lights. It wasn't a technical problem and there was really nothing we could do to make him come back out."   Eager concert goers were disappointed by the eclectic artist's abrupt exit. "It was disappointing," said third-year student in the College Sarah Hagevik, a long-time Tricky fan. "That's the kind of thing little kids do when they don't want to get dressed or something. It's really lame to go hide in your tour bus."   Because Tricky didn't fulfill the requirement of the contract that he signed with the U of C and MAB, which obligated him to play a one and a half-hour set, he was not paid. "Tricky's road manager told us flat out that nothing we did made Tricky leave the stage and nothing we could do would make him come back," said Snow.   Tricky's opening act, Whale, played a full set and were paid by MAB.   "Whale was cool," said Hagevik. "It's too bad they couldn't come back out when Tricky ran off."   Despite the fact that they were not responsible for Tricky's cancellation of Saturday night's show, MAB is giving full refunds, with a ticket stub or pit bracelet, to everyone who purchased tickets for the show at the Reynolds Club box office.   "It's very unfortunate but it won't affect the upcoming MAB shows, and we hope this won't happen again," Snow said.   MAB will sponsor another small fall quarter "Electronica Festival" on December 9. MAB plans to hold a winter quarter concert and a large spring quarter show.