The Charlotte Observer from Charlotte, North Carolina • 65

Hot buttons POPS AL FRESCO my Vv jT- t- tff Island Records Last year the Charlotte Summer Pops series moved from Freedom Park to SouthPark This year moving on the calendar While the summertime tradition used to fall in late June the free concerts begin Monday and continue for three Sundays after that On Monday conductor Peter McCoppin will lead a salute to veterans that will include replete with cannons and fireworks Folk-jazz singer-songwriter Daryle Ryce will perform Picnics welcome refreshments on sale Dean Smith Summer Pops Series begins Monday and continues June 4 1 1 and 1 8 on the lawn at SouthPark corner Morrison and Sharon roads Warm-up acts begin at 71 5 orchestra at 815 Free Details: 332-0468 9 am-5 pm weekdays SNEAK PREVIEW Want a sneak preview of this NC Music Showcase? Two Charlotte bands chosen to play the showcase are onstage this weekend Sound of Mine a quartet that plays chunky melodic rock with a bluesy foundation (heard on a recent self-released debut CD) hits tonight Iodine an intense post-punk trio that just released its debut single plays Saturday at Those groups will join four others in representing the Queen City at the annual event June 1-3 at Mad Monk club Kenneth Johnson Sound of Mine 10 tonight 4329 Park Rd (in front of Park Road Shopping Center) Admission- $5 Details 527-661 1 Iodine 10 30 Saturday Aardvark's 5600 Old Concord Rd Admission: $5 Details: 596-1342 PIPE DREAMS Alexander the Great: Alox Paterson and his Orb visit The Edge club Monday Orb recharges music scene By KENNETH JOHNSON Stall Writer There are few true ground-breakers left in the usic world Alex Paterson however is one of them Mastermind behind the electronic band the Orb which appears Monday at The Ed ge played a major role in eveloping a new style of music calle And he's one of the few if not the only one to take it to the stage on extensile US tours Paterson was part of the late-'80s rave scene in England notorious for its all-night dance marathons in clubs stuffed full of sweaty kids bent on grooving to tunes until their bodies could taike no more Paterson who had beem in the KLF and served as a roadie for Killing Joke began experimenting with ambient or "chill-out music as a DJ in London clubs Generally ambient is created from records and recorded bits of music sound and dialogue Devised with the idea helping a body unwind after a might of raving it combines strange noise samples with slower beatis The result has a somewhat psychedelic feel The debut siingle "A Huge Ever-Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules From the Center of the Universe" is cited as the definitive ambient single Just out is its new CD Terrarum" a 79-minute effort that recently scored a four-star rating in Rolling Stone magazine Paterson talked about the US tour and other tidbits in a recent telephone interview from London: What kind of music does the Orb A On a polite level music you can chill out to at home It goes on long enough as well so you can get into it a bit I purely for escapism What abou the music live? A When we play we reconstruct the whole track It becomes more Please see Ort) page 4F another free activity for filling up summer leisure time without emptying your bank account: organ recitals The Charlotte Chapter of the American Guild of Organists has presented a summertime recital series for 1 7 years it features some of the best professional organists at churches throughout the area Covenant Richard Peek kicks off the 14-concert series on Sunday and it continues every weekend through Aug 27 Dean Smith American Guild of Organists' Summer Recital Series beginning 8 Sunday at Covenant Presbyterian Church 1000 MoreheadStFree Details: 567-1004 9 a m-5 pm weekdays JAZZ LIVES There is not surprisingly a perpetual innocence about a town whose reputation began in the '20s (as a good place for outdoor oyster roasts) blossomed in World War II (Coast Guard members stationed offshore would plunk down a dime for a bushel of oysters) and was secured by a boom in family vacations fame bloomed in bubbles of hot oil small shrimp for example dipped in milk and dusted with flour were dropped in and scooped out golden essentially the same for decades Other seafood too but exactly what depended on when you went originally was great" says Joe Peed who owns Crabby Oddwaters a restaurant at Sunset Beach line up and not know what you were gonna have 'til the boat came Later there were menus and what was on the menu you could always get For tourists that meant reliability not loss of adventure: You knew you could spend the day strolling the beach or browning your skin go back to the house shower up dress and drive into the neon-bright cluster of restaurants that was is Calabash And if you felt like having a huge flounder fillet golden brown with crunchy hush puppies and slaw you could always get it If you preferred scores of popping-sweet shrimp and a handful of oysters falling off the plate you could have that too The first Calabash restaurant? Well Please see Calabash page 6F A few Calabash eateries detailedpage 6F By HELEN SCHWAB Restaurant Writer CALABASH Taste to butcher a phrase is in the buds of the devourer True here maybe more so than most places The neon either casts a smoky glow or glares The Formica tables and framed sailing prints and fish tanks are charmingly simple or simply junky Tiny shrimp taste this spectacular only here or are marginally different (if at all) from the deep-fried stuff you get anywhere Welcome to Calabash the Once and Future King of seafood Or is it Once and Past or Once and Only one of those things that can never compare to the way you remember it? Your answer depends on your perspective When a large platter is delivered to the table and you stare into mounds of fried shrimp fried scallops fried oysters and fried fish do you see joyful abundance? The Cheer of Vacations Past? The romance of a one-stoplight T-shaped town the southernmost in North Carolina whose top rests on the banks of the Calabash River and whose heart overflows with restaurants? Or do you see your cholesterol ballooning past 250 and your weight doing the same? Are you the sort of purist whose appetite deflates at the thought that these foodstuffs were not all swimming free just outside the restaurant's door an hour ago? The Calabash of the past of eagerly awaiting the boats of thoughtless eating to overstuffedness is dead So Calabash becomes a symbol of sorts a throwback To enjoy it fully requires a suspension of guilt and to a degree a suspension of expectation Music of the spheres Who: The Orb When: 9 pm Monday Where: The Erfge 4369 Tryon St (near Wock Hawn and 1-77) Tickets: $14 advance $16 at the door AvallabJ at Repo Records Ernie's Music Milestone Records and Superior Feet Details: 525 -13343 anytime Charlotte jazz fans still mourning the loss of the annual Jazz-Charlotte to money problems can take heart: Main Street Jazz Festival is just down the road The annual jazz fest starts tonight with a concert featuring guitarists Tal Farlow Russell Malone and Bucky Pizzarelli Concerts Saturday and Sunday feature all-star bands that include trumpeter Clark Terry clarinetist Eddie Daniels trombonist Bill Watrous and pianist Dorothy Donegan Dean Smith Main Street Jazz includes concerts at 8 pm today ($10) 3 30 pm Saturday (free) 8 Saturday (10) and 5 pm Sunday (benefit $100) Columbia Is 90 minutes south of Charlotte on 1-77 For details call Elite Epicurean Restaurant one ol the festival sites at (803) 765-2325 1 0 a m-1 0 pm any day NIGHT LIGHTS ALPHILLIPSSlaf! mixes lore gore Kilt in action: Catherine McCormack and Mel Gibson enjoy a quiet clinch as Scottish lovers In the 13th century but this scene Is hardly typical of the stirring action-filled and unusually violent Movies EZS3IEI LAWRENCE TOPPMAN Hard rock and mind-numbing laser lights Sounds like a concert at the coliseum right? Wrong find them both at Discovery Place which recently updated its laser light show with music by Aerosmith Stone Temple Pilots and Metallica And fear not: The presentation featuring tunes by Pink Floyd the band responsible for marrying rock and lasers in the first place is still running Kenneth Johnson "Laserlflc In 3-D" 5pm Frldays-Sun-days "Aerosmith" 8pm Frldays-Sunday "Stone Temple Pilots" 9pm Fridays-Sat-urdays: "Metallica" 10pm Frldays-Satur-days "Dark Side ol the Moon" 11 pm Frl-days-Saturdays Discovery Place 301 TryonSt Admission $7 $6 for students end eenlor citizens $3 for children younger than 5 Details 372-6261 8 30 a m-4 30 Mondays-Saturdays'H 30 Sundays el Gibson's "Braveheart" is bad history good movie-making and bloody exciting in both the British and American senses of the word: a rousing adventure that rarely drags over two hours and 45 minutes as a parade of skull-cracking Scots spills more gore than the night shift at a slaughterhouse I call Gibson's movie because he co-produced directed and stars as William Wallace whose fellow Scots put "sir" before his name after he whipped English occupation forces at the end of the 13th century Gibson is about a decade too old to play the rebel who's in his mid- to late 20s for most of the film When he tells lovely Murran (Catherine McCormack) that he has thought of her every day through years of exile you wonder how that might Please see Gibson next page Mel Gibson Braveheart ifiKir Star: Mel Gibson Patrick cGoohan Director Mel Gibson Rating: (graphic battle violence profanity brief nudity) -Good 4rAvrigt Poor' No tart Wrefchad thowtngat Arty 1um DHi ThaMovtoa MovIm tt Lftfct Park Tar- it owr Piac Unton bguar Urdvaraity Plaot ANDREW COOPERParamount Plcturea I I.