Run DMC, G-Love top off Fling ticket

Two more bands -- one well-known and one up-and-coming -- will complete the ticket for the Spring Fling concert Saturday, April 16, co-Director of the SPEC Spring Fling Committee, Gil Beverly announced last night. Run DMC, a rap/hard-rock group, and G. Love and Special Sauce, an alternative rock/rap group, will join Cypress Hill and Mudhoney to make one of the biggest Fling concerts in recent memory. According to Beverly, the Spring Fling Committee and the Concerts Committee -- both part of the Social Planning and Events Committee -- still had money in their budgets for another group after they picked Cypress Hill and Mudhoney. "We searched around for the best group possible with the money we had," he said. "For pure name recognition and reputation, we couldn't beat Run DMC." Spring Fling Committee co-Director Kofi McCleary said G. Love and Special Sauce was picked because it "has a lot of loyal fans around Penn" and "it's just a name that came up." G. Love's bandleader, Garrett Dutton, hails from the Philadelphia area. And his sister, Jaime, was recently admitted into the University's Class of 1998. Jaime Dutton described her brother's music as "kind of a hip-hop rap with a strong blues/jazz undertone," accompanied by all acoustic instruments. Dutton, who is currently a senior at Germantown Friends School in Philadelphia, added that the band's lyrics -- unlike other rap-like groups -- are "not really making a point or trying to send out a message." "The things that they're singing about are things he enjoys?the things that are around him," she said last night. Beverly said the uniqueness of this up-and-coming band will add to the show. "They are not as established as some other bands, but once people?get a chance to hear them, they will warm up to them really quick," he said. Beverly described Run DMC as "one of the pioneers of rap music [and] probably the first rap act to make it big." "They first gained recognition because they pioneered a rock and rap cynergy," he added. The band is most well-known for its smash hit "Walk This Way," which it performed with Aerosmith. Other popular songs include "Peter Piper," "You Be Illin'" and "It's Tricky." McCleary said the four-hour concert will begin with G. Love, followed by Run DMC, Mudhoney and Cypress Hill. He added that the concert will be "almost as big" as a Simon and Garfunkel concert at Spring Fling in the early 1970s, and "hopefully bigger" than any other Fling show. Tickets remain on sale for $12.50 at the Annenberg Center Box Office and on Locust Walk until the day of the concert.