Nanaimo Daily News from Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada • 12

2B Nanaimo Daily Free Press, Wednesday, October 2, 19 i vi i Bravo Vancouver showcases city's diverse arts Improvement Association, offers dance, music, film, theatre, literature and visual arts. Starting Thursday and running until Oct. 27, Bravo Vancouver is designed to promote awareness of the diverse arts activities in the city, from theatresports to Instead of fashions, electronics and sports gear, downtown shop windows will display costumes, props and musical instruments. Office lobbies will become art galleries and lunchtime performance spaces. An added incentive is ArtsX-Change where people can bring in ticket stubs from movies, video rentals, sports and cultural events, or specified retailers' receipts, and exchange them for discount arts vouchers.

An NBA Grizzlies ticket stub can get cut-price symphony seats. Bravo Vancouver includes more than 250 performances, exhibits, forums and special programs. H201E Dummies Brad Roberts and the Crash Test Dummies are one lucky group. They've done well on the international market orirv akin to nothing else on the market. cipaiiy Decause tney nave a sound New AlbumOk; IN ghosts haunting NOTES Madonna wants natural birth NEW YORK AP) The Materi-al-turned-Maternal Girl wants a natural childbirth.

The New York Daily News reported Tuesday that the singer-actress is taking birthing classes and may even have the baby at home. "She has a coach, the whole shebang," said spokeswoman Liz Rosenberg. "The more difficult, the better for Madonna. She wants the full experience." Madonna is also planning to breast-feed her baby girl and has bought a special chair for the task, the newspaper reported. The baby is due around Oct.

15. Few new shows for children TORONTO (CP) Five new children's shows have been added to the block of preschool programs that will begin airing on CBC-TV on Oct. 21. Sesame Park, Guess Wim-zie's House, Painting Pictures and Wiggly Pics join the critically acclaimed Playground. CBC Playground presents commercial-free, non-violent programs for preschoolers from 9 to 11 30 a.m.

five mornings a week and from 7 30 a.m. on Saturday mornings. The weekly lineup also includes Max the Cat, Works and Little Bear (in their second season) along with Theodore Tugboat, Fred Penner's Place, Mr. Dressup, Spot the Dog, Dig and Dug, Plastinots, Old Bear Tales and Sharon, Lois and Bram A toZ. From Harvard to biker chick BURBANK, Calif.

AP) Elizabeth Dole is the first biker babe to be married to a Republican presidential nominee. She roared onto The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on a motorcycle black helmet on her head and a black leather jacket on her back, bearing the logo Bikers For Bob. "I'm a biker from way back," she said Monday night. "I've come a long way man, from Harvard Law School to biker chick." Leno, a motorcycle collector and rider, drove onto his sound stage with Dole aboard after a post-monologue skit. In an interview, she told Leno her 73-year-old husband didn't mind being the target of jokes about his age.

"He doesn't mind at all, as long as you don't mind an IRS audit," she said. Sainte-Marie on CBC tonight TORONTO (CP) The hour-long special Buffy Sainte-Marie Up Where We Belong will air on CBC-TV at 8 p.m. with the aboriginal singing group Red Bull and world-champion powwow singers from Stoney Park, Alta. Inducted last year into the Juno Awards Hall of Fame, Sainte-Marie is also an Academy Award winner for the song she wrote for the film An Officer and a Gentleman. Up Where We Belong was a hit for Jennifer Warnes and Joe Cocker, but Sainte-Marie, who performs it on the show, never recorded it until recent- Open Wide returns next week TORONTO (CP) Open Wide, a half -hour series that showcases independent short films, returns next Wednesday to CBC-TV.

This is the third season for the series. New this year are co-hosts Evan Kroeker and Caelum Vatnsdal, two Winnipeggers making their network TV debuts. The program is produced by CBC Manitoba. AGO and BMW jazz up series TORONTO (CP) -The Art Gallery of Ontario and BMW Canada, in their first collaboration, present All That's Jazz, a series of 44 weekly jazz performances beginning Oct. 9.

The series features top local, national and international jazz performers and provides a platform for innovative talent from across Canada. Concerts are held Wednesday evenings, when admission to the Art Gallery of Ontario is free. The series also includes a number of gala performances requiring advance Crash Test Dummies VANCOUVER (CP) Whether it's ballet in a bank, opera in an office tower or chamber music in a mall, Vancouver's downtown core will be a giant showcase for the arts this month. Bravo Vancouver, presented by the Vancouver Cultural Alliance and the Downtown Vancouver Business Gilmour back for 40th year TORONTO (CP) Clyde Gilmour feels every second tick by. You can't waste a single moment once you reach a certain age, says the witty, perfectionist and slightly eccentric host of the long-running CBC Radio music program, Gilmour's Albums.

"You've got to husband your time. I don't know how much I've got left," says Gilmour, who usually has an eye on the clock or one of the two watches he always wears. "You never get enough time to do one-tenth of what you want." Two decades after most people would have happily accepted a gold retirement watch, the 84-year-old keeps working. "Boredom kills," he pronounces in the same measured baritone he uses on air. "Two hours of boredom can wound me so that I've got to go to bed for several hours when I get home to recover from it.

Gilmour celebrates his popular weekly show's 40th anniversary this Saturday. It's the longest running one-man show in CBC Radio history. At the CBC's prompting, he finally slowed down every fourth program is now a repeat after the death of his "lady love" last year. Barbara Gilmour, his wife of 45 years, was the silent partner on Gilmour's Albums. She ferretted out musicians biographies and answered listener mail by hand.

The anniversary is bittersweet because she isn't around to celebrate it. "We had to let the tape roll in silence three or four times before I got the wobble out of my voice," Gilmour says as his eyes fill with tears. Gilmour has turned down interview requests for a few years, saying he likes being an "anonymous old geezer" on the subway. But he was already thinking about his 40th year on the air a couple of years ago and agreed to talk in 1994 but with an unusual condition: the story had to be held until now. "I don't like talking about myself," he said back then as he vigorously attacked a plate of wiener schnitzel at a downtown Toronto restaurant.

Gilmour's Albums was born Oct. 5, 1946 with a contract running a mere 13 weeks. "I just absolutely took it for granted that would be the run of the show," he chuckled. The contracts kept coming. His anniversary special runs Saturday at 11:08 a.m.

on CBC Stereo and again Sunday at 12:08 p.m. on CBC's AM network. Powered by 20 hefty mugs of coffee a day, Gilmour spends hours listening to music in the basement office of his west-end Toronto bungalow. Everything played on G.A., as he affectionately calls it, comes from his floor-to-ceiling collection. 91 Chapel St.

(Fiesta Centre) ema Info. 754-3534 Cinema TRAINSPOTTING RESTRICTED EVENINGS 7:10 9:10 JACK MATURE EVENINGS 7:00 9:15 6631 Island Hwy At Woodqrovp Centre Clnmma Info. 3905021 FIRST WIFES' CLUB MATURE EVENINGS 7: lO 9: 10 INDEPENDANCE DAY MATURE EVENINGS 7:00 9:40 TIN CUP MATURE EVENINGS 7:05 9:30 CP PHOTO odd melodies, wacky key signatures, and chord changes," says Roberts. "The more I write the more I can afford to experiment. "When.

you're just getting your feet wet, it's hard to stray from the conventions because you're not comfortable, with them yet. In order to break the rules in interesting ways you have to first manage to follow them." That said, there's also a certain conservatism about the Dummies' music that keeps a wide range of radio listeners open to them. According to Roberts, if the band is experimental, it's experimental within the realm of mainstream pop. Although he's moved to London, Roberts says mass success has had little effect on his work ethic. Still, A Worm's Life frequently hints at being a hapless recipient of good fortune, particularly on the title track and the lead single, Overachievers.

"I sat down and conceived the idea for the title track in five minutes," Roberts says. "It was meant to be just a whimsical little story about this little worm who has a pretty good time. Blind Date deadpanned before he, bassist D'Ar-cy and guitarist James Iha pounced into a deafening rendition of Tonight, Tonight. The crowd roared its approval for Rocket, a blistering single from the band's 1993 breakthough album Siamese Dream, as Corgan and Iha sawed off droning, wall-shaking guitar chords throughout a set slated to last 90 minutes. Other Pumpkins faves the lilting ballad Today, 1979 and Bullet with Butterfly Wings from the album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness failed to materialize.

The band's successful Canadian tour came to its unofficial end Saturday after shows in Calgary and Edmonton. They return north of the border for a show Jan. 8 in Vancouver. The Smashing Pumpkins world tour was tinged with tragedy from the beginning, when a 17-year-old girl died at a Pumpkins show in Dublin after being crushed in an out-of-control mosh pit in front of the stage. TORONTO (CP) Brad Roberts is one lucky rock star.

His Winnipeg band, Crash Test Dummies, won over audiences with their infinitely quirky 1991 debut The Ghosts That Haunt Me. In 1994, they chalked up an international hit with the defiantly quirky God Shuffled His Feet and the single Mmm, Mmm, Mmm, Mmm. Now, the singer travels freely, unrecognizable to many fans thanks to a not-so-quirky haircut. In all fairness, Roberts and Crash Test Dummies have more on their side than luck, namely a sound akin to nothing else on the pop charts. They could use some good fortune this week for the release of their new album, A Worm's Life.

Seeing that the band's second album was such a huge success, the Crash Test Dummies have a lot to prove with their third effort. "We sold five million records last time," says Roberts. "We'll probably sell about a million records even if we don't have a hit, just by virtue of touring in the markets where we were popular last time. Contrary to how this may sound, Roberts is not overconfident. This Week A million records may sound like a bonanza to most.

But Roberts points out the record industry logic, which would be at home in one of his songs. "By record industry standards, us selling one million copies would be an utter failure," he says. "Not the kind of growth that corporations like to see, which is quite understandable. But it's more records than I ever thought I'd sell. "And I like writing music.

I like my job. In the long haul, things will befine." Roberts has an admirable dedication to writing the kinds of songs he wants to. His croaky baritone voice is just one of the more oddball Dummies elements that doesn't seem geared toward mass culture, but winds up there anyway. "I think it's the climate of the music industry right now that has been favorable to what we're doing," he says. "If we'd put these albums out 10 years ago, it would've been a lost cause.

We wouldn't have sold a sausage." A Worm's Life is probably the most offbeat Dummies album yet. "This record does go a little further than the other ones in terms of The winners of Molson Canadian's latest Blind Date contest a series of secret concerts staged throughout the summer had their hopes confirmed when frontman Billy Cor-gan's bald head suddenly glimmered onstage. "Hi, we're Metallica," Corgan call 751-0102 FOR A FREE CONSULTATION WEEKS i FREE! Ml 1 PURCHASE I FUU I I miogimn I I T- I Pumpkins smash Calgary CALGARY (CP) It turned out to be the city's worst-kept secret. The Smashing Pumpkins arguably the biggest alternative rock act in North America took to a tiny Calgary stage Monday night to the delight of about 300 contest winners: No pre-packaged food Experience with over 9000 overweight persons easy Physician endorsed One on One COURTNEY CONSULTANTS WEIGHT CONTROL 6-2150 BOWEN and learn to keep It off forever WITH 7 Trf Of.