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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 21, 1979)
ONVid am iv qnvh am Sound of Music An evening of music and fun is planned for March 6 when “The Sound of Music’’ is presented in Rudder Au ditorium. The show, which will start at 8:15 p.m., stars Sally Ann Howes, who has just finished a season at the Lon don Palladium in “Hans An derson.” She has also ap peared in the movies “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” with Dick Van Dyke and “Brigadoon” with Robert Goulet. ‘The Sound of Music” is based on the autobiography of Maria Von Trapp. focus THE BATTALION COVER Actually, the pigs involved in the experiment do not play an active role in making people friendlier, but when a Polish scientist teamed up with Texas A&M researchers in developing new methods for study ing animals and their nutritional needs, a few friend ships naturally occurred. Focus is published every Thursday as an entertainment section of The Battalion. Policy: Focus will accept any stories, drawings or photographs that are submitted for publication, al though the decision whether to publish lies solely with the editor. Any pieces submitted, whether printed or not, will be returned upon request. Contributing to this issue were: Larry Chandler, Mark Hancock, Lyle Lovett, Victor Sylvia and Frank K. Vasovski. EDITOR Gary Welch Alvarez, Hand Picked Alvarez guitars reflect the quality in tone, touch, and craftsmanship you’d expect in the most expensive guitars, yet they are reasonably priced at KEyboARd Center other guitars and accessories stocked Layaway Monthly Terms Baldwin Factory Terms Baldwin Pianos and Organs offer high specifications, greater tonal qualities and more. Come by for more de tails. KcyboARd Center Manor East MaII Bryan • 779-70B0 Randy Stuart, Owner OpcN 6 Days Til 6 PM WHAT’S UP Thursday, February 22 CEPHEID VARIABLE: “The Point.” (1971) An animated film of imagination and comedy about a kingdom in which everything and everybody has a point — except a young boy named Oblio. At 8 and 10 p.m. in Room 601 of Rudder Tower. BASKETBALL: The women will compete in the TAIAW State Championship through Saturday in College Station. SWIMMING: The women’s team will compete in the TAIAW Cham pionships in Lubbock through Saturday. Friday, February 23 AGGIE CINEMA: “FM.” (1978) Michael Brandon and Eileen Bren nan star in this contemporary story of behind-the-scenes goings-on at a popular FM radio station. At midnight in Rudder Auditorium. TENNIS: The team hosts Southwest Texas State University at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, February 24 AGGIE CINEMA: “Coming Home.” (1978) Jane Fonda, Jon Voight and Bruce Dern star in this tale about wounded Vietnam veter ans. At 8 p.m. in Rudder Auditorium. TENNIS: The team hosts Southwest Louisiana at 1:30 p.m. JUNIOR BALL: The Class of '80 Ball will take place from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. on the second floor of the MSC. The theme is “Around the World in 80 Days.” Tickets may be purchased in the MSC, or at the Rudder Tower Box Office. Sunday, February 25 AGGIE CINEMA: “Jonathan Livingston Seagull.” (1973) Based on the bestselling novel by Richard Bach, this movie brings into focus the intense determination of Jonathan to find a world where one does more than live in order to survive. The voices are those of James Franciscus, Juliet Mills and Hal Holbrook. Musical score by Neil Diamond. At 2 p.m. in Rudder Theater. Monday, February 26 ACCOUNTING: The Accounting Society will hold a meeting at 7 p.m. in Room 701, Rudder Tower. SOCIOLOGY: The Sociology Club will have a meeting at 7 p.m. in Room 607, Rudder Tower. The speaker will be Dr. Jane Sell. Tuesday, February 27 AGGIE CINEMA: “Small Change.” (1976) An intricate mosaic built around the lives of several children in a small provincial town. At 8 p.m. in Rudder Theater. PLANT SCIENCES: Dr. Jan A. D. Zeevart of the Department of Energy will speak at 4 p.m. in Room 601, Rudder Tower. His program is entitled, “What Makes a Plant Flower?” HUMANICS: The American Humanics Student Association will have a meeting at 6 p.m. in Room 502 of Rudder Tower. The meeting features Dr. Louis Fry from the College of Business, who will speak on “Selection of Your Organization and Typing Your Personality.” CHAMBER OF COMMERCE: Congressman Phil Gramm will be the featured speaker at the Bryan-College Station Chamber of Commerce Banquet at 7 p.m. in the new Brazos Center, east of the Highway 6 loop on Briarcrest. Tickets are $5, and may be obtained through the Chamber of Commerce, Box 726 in Bryan, or by calling 779-2278. FOLKDANCE: The TAMU International Folkdancers will hold a meeting from 7:30 to 10 p.m. in the MSC. Wednesday, February 28 AGGIE CINEMA: “Adam’s Rib.” (1949) The courtroom combat be tween a lawyer, played by Katherine Hepburn, and her district attorney husband, played by Spencer Tracy, intrudes into their domestic life when he prosecutes and she defends the same case. At 8 p.m. in Rudder Theater. This movie is the first half of tonight’s Spencer Tracy Film Festival. AGGIE CINEMA: “Inherit the Wind.” (1960) Spencer Tracy stars as attorney Clarence Darrow, defender in the notorious “Monkey Trial,” in this drama of conflicting moral systems. At 10 p.m. in Rudder Theater. This film concludes the Spencer Tracy Film Festival. l&UjDUO LlOieui uuu ,// y/ aao w ojig/vi IMOISIA3^J- Fromholz. to perform Pere STEVE FROMHOLZ and Michael Murphey attended North Texas State University at the same time and played together in a band called the Dallas County Jug Band. Fromholz was Murphey’s opening act in the 1976 Bonfire concert at Texas A&M. Fromholz has written songs recorded by Willie Nelson, John Denver and Michael Murphey. He has appeared on “Austin City Limits” twice and is scheduled for another ap pearance this year. By Ly/e Lovett Editor’s Note: Over the years, Steve Fromholz has managed to elude recognition by the masses. He has also managed to elude The Battalion. For days he even eluded one of his agents, who also eluded The Battalion. Fromholz was finally tracked down in Fort Worth Tuesday night, but said he didn’t have time to talk. Steve Fromholz will play Sun day to a sold-out audience of 200 at Grins Beer Garden and Chile Parlor, 4410 College Main in Bryan. Steve Fromholz...I’ve heard of him...I think. The name sounds familiar, but associating it with anything in par ticular is hard for most. He’s coming to town? Great. Now what exactly is it that he does? Oh yeah, he writes songs and plays guitar. I knew that. And he's an actor? Oh yeah, I knew that, too. Fromholz is a story-teller- comedian-singer-songwriter-music business survivor who’s been playing hide-and-seek with the big-time for nearly a decade and a half. In spite of a tour with Stephen Stills, four albums, a number one country single recorded by Willie Nelson — “I’d Have to be Crazy” — and a part in the movie “Out law Blues,” the 34-year-old Fromholz has managed to elude national recognition. He was recognized as a major force in Texas music in Jan Reid’s “Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock,” a book published in 1974 about Austin’s “progressive coun try” movement — a movement which in fact never progressed. But that recognition did Fromholz little good in terms of amassing a record-buying public. Reid’s observations are as ac curate today — three albums, a hit single and a movie part later — as they were then: “Many performers of lesser talent than Steve Fromholz were making a living off their records in 1973, and many people knew that. ... People attached them selves to Fromholz because he was the best entertainer in town. “...Unfortunately, stage pres ence did not always translate into recording effectiveness. The banter between songs of a good stage act got lost in the scratch ing silence between cuts on an album, and the music had to stand alone. ... When he got into a professional studio, it never seemed to work out. “His music was hard to define, and his producers had a difficult time fitting it into popular forms.... Fromholz seemed the most luck less musician alive.” Reid devoted a whole chapter to Fromholz and other Austin- based musicians like Jerry Jeff Walker, B.W. Stevenson, Willis Alan Ramsey, Bobby Bridger, Rusty Wier, Kinky Friedman, Michael Murphey and Willie Nel son. The hope of catapulting Texas country-rock into national promi nence was to rest with these ar tists. But they were either ab sorbed by already existing forms of pop music, receiving national recognition through conventional means, or left playing to esoteric folk-audiences, slipping back into relative obscurity. Fromholz hits somewhere in the middle. Though his last album was blatently directed at the Nashville music market, most of his support comes from his al ready cultivated fans. “He’s tryin’ to hit a new mar ket,” his agent said Tuesday, “And ‘Heroes’ (the single from his latest release) was on the country charts for three or four weeks.” But the Nashville pedal steel and almost-God-forbid-Mickey Gilley-style honky-tonk piano don’t do justice to Fromholz’s' style. As Reid implys, Fromholz is at his best in a live performance, where the anecdotes and haunt ing lyrical realities don’t get lost in the shuffle of a Nashville studio. “Steve doesn’t really have a nitch,” the agent said. But Fromholz calls his music, “tree- form, country-folk, rock-science- fiction, gospel-gum, existehtial- bluegrass, guacamole-opera music.” He also likes to joke about his obcurity. “I’m back to workin’ towards my eventual disappearance,” he says. He named his first two solo al bums “A Rumor In My Own Time,” and “Frolicking In The Myth.” Fromholz says he loves the “mystique and confusion” surrounding his career. So, Sunday Steve Fromholz disappears to Bryan where at least 200 people have heard of him. He’s to perform solo and will assuredly display the talents that have made him one of Texas’ premiere nobodies. Reid captures a classic bit that typifies an aspect of Fromholz’s on-stage attitude: “You know there’s some friends of ours who help us out from time to time as we go along the roads of our lives. I’d like to pay a special tribute to them now. I’m speaking, of course, of my friends the makers and manufac turers of those delightful Dimmy Jean Pore Puke Sauce Linkages. “Dimmy Jean’s Pore Puke Sauce Linkages, the only pore puke sauce linkages made before your very eyes in Plain- view...Texas. Friends, made from only the finest available sows and hostages known to mortal man this side of the Great Beyond. “We encourage you, each and every one of you that is, to rush on down to your neighborhood Hoggy Woggly or A & Poo Feed Store and pick up on some of these fine Dimmy Jean products. “Along with Dimmy Jean Pore Puke Sauce Linkages you may also purchase Dimmy Jean Hbt Long Foot Dogs, not to mention'; a brand new product just out on the market, Dimmy Jean Saucy Pat- tages. We know you’ll enjoy them as much as they enjoy being enjoyed by each and everyone of you. “And remember friends, added at the factory for your health and well-being is just a touch of horse hide and respoiled cardation, so you know our sauce linkages are fresh, fresh, fresh; straight from the piggy’s butt to your table every mornin’. “You can hear ’em singing in the factory there every Friday Af ternoon come paycheck time: ]