Wednesday, January 26, 2000
Music takes center stage at Sundance
BY MARGARET A. McGURK
The Cincinnati Enquirer
PARK CITY, Utah — Peter Gabriel made a surprise appearance at the Sundance Film Festival before a tiny but enthusiastic audience on the third floor of the Elks Club building on Main Street.
That's where ASCAP, the music licensing organization, is sponsoring the Sundance Film Festival Music Cafe showcasing artists and small groups in 40-minute sets. One of them is Joseph Arthur, an Akron-born singer-songwriter who records on Mr. Gabriel's Real World label.
Mr. Arthur called Mr. Gabriel to the stage on Sunday afternoon before a full house — about 50 people — in the music cafe. Mr. Gabriel, head shaved nearly bald and sporting a gray goatee, sang along on “In the Sun,” a song he previously recorded as a solo on a tribute album for Princess Diana.
Even so, he used a crib sheet to remember Mr. Arthur's lyrics. The two also sang a duet on another song that will appear on Mr. Arthur's upcoming album Come to Where I'm From.
Visitors to the music cafe also got an earful of John Popper (Blues Traveler singer and harmonica player) late Sunday when he visited the composer's forum in the same building. Doors separating the two rooms were thrown open, so festival-goers admitted to the music cafe could listen in along with the invitation-only audience in the composers' room.
John Popper and his band were expected to draw a gigantic crowd to a major “premiere night” party tonight at the Snow Park Lodge perched at the end of a winding road high above Park City.
ONE-MAN BAND: The hardest working musician in Park City this week appears to be Arthur Nakane “1-Man Band,” the subject of Secret Asian Man, a 17-minute black and white film. He came to Park City with the Rube Goldberg contraption he designed and built so he could play keyboards, drums, guitar, harmonica and tambourine simultaneously.
Mr. Nakane set up his kit, donned his distinctive costumes — often combining a cowboy hat with a loose jacket covered in Japanese characters — and performed before all seven screenings of the short film by Mike Sakamoto, which was shown with the documentary feature The Eyes of Tammy Faye.
In the film, the musician confesses his lifelong but so far thwarted dream of appearing on The Tonight Show.
After witnessing Mr. Nakane's performance, one awestruck listener told her companion, “Man, I sure hope Jay Leno hears about this.”
PRIOR ENGAGEMENT: Stanley Tucci was supposed to be the guest of honor Monday when the Creative Coalition and the Hollywood Stock Exchange threw a party in honor of his new film, Joe Gould's Secret.
But the director-producer-star of the film was long gone by the time the first hors d'oeuvres were served. He had rushed back to his New York home where his wife had just given birth to twins.
RUBBING SHOULDERS: Sundance runs on volunteers, 900 this year, many of whom travel cross-country for the chance to work long hours herding audiences in and out of screening rooms or running errands for filmmakers and festival officials.
In return, they get to the chance to see plenty of films and rub shoulders with movie industry movers, shakers and wannabes.
Many are in show business themselves, like actor Mathew Shapiro. Though he lives now in New York, Mr. Shapiro grew up in Clifton. “I think about moving home,” he said. “The longer I'm away, the more I appreciate it.”
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