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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 2, 1977)
age Page 8 THE BATTALION WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1977 T -1 51 k ‘T^ fritl jfvS VI ai ^ab o s Cex OC Dil < : \a jipl ind ?ivt squ is, 1 ch? Taylors play on emotions; Grimes, on guitar Husband, wife play at Basemeff n Guitarist got late start By RUSTY CAWLEY Battalion Assignments Editor In a field saturated with child prodigies, classical guitarist David Grimes is somewhat of a phenome non. He started playing guitar at age 20. Bored with mathematics his junior year at California Tech and heading in no particular direction with his life. Grimes was exposed to classical music. A friend invited Grimes to his apartment to hear some records by Andres Segovia, the great Spanish classical guitarist. It was, as Grimes says, “a rea wakening.” He had never studied a musical tat instrument. His musical education AS consisted of singing choral music in tio high school. sit But he was obsessed. m< “I just got some music and a Ex guitar and started playing, ” he says. Fifteen years later, through sheer toi diligence, determination, and tal he ent, David Grimes has emerged as pl one of America’s finest classical ic i musicians. G His tours have taken his music to Ai j colleges and universities in Texas, Louisiana, Washington, Oregon, Of Idaho, Montana, California, and ei parts of Mexico. 41 He heads the guitar department •tx of California State University at Ful it lerton. k He is in demand throughout the e United States as both a performer H and a teacher. I He has come a long way from being the bored mathematics major from Cal Tech. Fifteen years ago. Now, on a chilly Thursday night, Jan. 27, 1977, general panic has set in among the stage management at the Rudder Theatre. It is 7:30 p.m. and Grimes has not appeared for his concert at Texas A&M University. He was to have been escorted from his tiny guest room in the Memorial Student Center at 7:15. The program is to begin at eight. Workers test and retest the mi crophones, the lights, and the sound system, and every “one-two- three testing” is followed by some one saying, “Where is he?” 7:37 p.m. David Grimes and his escort ar- The stage manager gives them that where-the-hell-have-you-been look that stage managers have been giving performers since curtains first started to rise. “We had trouble finding him,” is the escort’s explanation. Grimes looks at the escort, then at the crew, then back at the escort. He shakes his head, smiles, and says, “No.” The subject is dropped. Grimes is dressed in a black tuxedo. He carries a huge black guitar case in his right hand. An iron footstool with a red, cushioned top is tucked under his left arm. II e is led to the stage of the empty theater. The guitar case is placed on the floor and opened. He pulls out his guitar, which is much smaller than the case that seems to swallow it. The case is so large because of the amount of pro tective padding that lines its inter ior. He sits on a black cushioned piano stool, places the footstool under his left foot and cradles the guitar in his lap. He warms up slowly, beginning with scales and arpeggios. He plays the same exercise over and over, gradually gaining speed until his fingers travel confidently along the frets. “How’s the sound back there?” he yells to a crew man in the back of the theatre. “Fine,” comes the answer. Unsatisfied, Grimes sends three attendents to the top of the theatre in different directions. “How does this sound?” he says. He plucks the strings and pro duces a barely audible, pianissimo note. Fine. Great. Super. “How about this?” he asks and forces a metallic twang from the guitar. Fine. Great. Super. It is obvious from his face that he would like something more than “fine, great and super.” “Okay,” he says, and gives up. He adjusts the tuning once more, puts the guitar back into its case and goes to his dressing room to wait. When he returns, the doors have been opened and his audience has filtered in. He is led by an attendant with a flashlight through the dark and dreary cavern behind the curtain to the other side of the stage. He swings his arms back and forth, breathing deeply. “Deep-breathing exercies help me relax before a concert,” he says. He insists he is not a nervous per former. “I’m not like some opera singers, who’s regular routine is to eat a big steak dinner and then go throw it all up. “I do get butterflies in the stomach, but not enough to make me sick,” Grimes says. “Besides, if I’m not a little nervous, I might as well not show up.” He pulls the guitar from the case and waits patiently for a signal from the stage manager. Receiving it, he wanders onto the stage, takes his seat and, without a word to the au dience, begins to play. The first set is a neat, compact but grueling program of 18th and 19th century guitar pieces. Forty- five minutes of almost nonstop play ing. He rocks gently on his stool. His head moves from side to side as he watches his right hand pick the strings and his left guide the music. After each number, he stands and bows from the waist. His guitar dangles from his right hand. Intermission. Grimes stands backstage. Beads of sweat have formed along his hair line. He wipes them with his hand and tosses them off. He bites his nails, then holds them away to look at them disgust ingly. “My biggest handicap right now is really lousy nails,” he says. He considers his nails too thin to achieve the wide variety of sounds demanded by his music. “I’ll be playing and hear a ‘click’ from my nails. It throws my timing off and I spend the rest of the piece trying to catch up,” he says. Despite his fatigue. Grimes stands during the 12-minute inter mission. “I sit to practice, I sit to play, I sit to travel, I end up sitting most of my life,” Grimes says. “I find standing up to be relaxing.” A music critic from the local paper comes backstage. She asks Grimes the standard questions: How old are you? How long have you played the guitar? Blah, blah, blah. Grimes must have been asked these questions over and over again as he has toured the United States. Still, he answers them with the same polite tone he uses for all questions. He seems absolutely delighted that someone cares. “Two minutes,” the attendant tells him. As the critic leaves, he calls to her, “If you have anymore ques tions, be sure to come back after the show.” He reopens the guitar case. He takes a sheet of fine-grain sandpaper and rubs his calloused fingertips. He dips some handcream from a jar and spreads it over his hands. Taking the guitar in one hand and blowing into the other, he again steps onto the stage. The second half of the program is shorter than the first: about 30 min utes, including an encore. Three curtain calls, and it’s over. Grimes stands backstage, sur rounded by members of the audi ence who bear compliments and ad oration. A few ask for his autograph. He chats with them for about fif teen minutes, smiling and rocking on the balls of his feet. “After a concert is when I’m really up,” he says. “I rarely sleep well afterward. I keep replaying the concert over and over in my mind. No concert is like the last.” A student asks Grimes to auto graph his program. “I’m a guitar player, but I can’t decide if I’ve got the talent to dedi cate myself like you have,” the stu dent says. Grimes looks the student in the eyes. He uses his fist to accent his words by hitting his open palm. “You have to tell yourself, ‘DAMN IT, I’m going to do it and let nothing stop me.’ “If you don’t do that. . . .” He shrugs and lets the words die off. The masters say it takes 30 years to become a great classical guitarist. David Grimes has done it in fif teen. So much for the masters. By JOHN TYNES Battalion Staff James Michael Taylor is not very glamorous for a musician. He’s not especially handsome. He’s not rich. He doesn’t possess an overdose of sex appeal. He’s just plain Jim Taylor, and that’s more than enough. Taylor, a guitar player/singer/ songwriter, is popular at clubs and college campuses around Texas but he rarely performs in public. His recent appearance at Texas A&M last weekend was his first public show in more than a year and, although Taylor seemed a bit rusty and stumbled over a few lines, he was certainly not a disappoint ment. With his wife Barbara harmoniz ing, Taylor played an amazing as sortment of songs that ranged all over the scale of emotions and provided a rare look at the in tricacies of human relations. “My music is a natural outgrowth of my life,” Taylor said in a conver sation before the performance. “I’m convinced that the source of what I write is some kind of a peaceful existence.” His peaceful existence consists of living on a 36-acre farm near Mansfield, Tex. and working at jobs unrelated to music so he can support his wife and four children. Most re cently, he has been helping a friend build houses. Taylor said he changes jobs fre quently and avoids demanding po sitions so that he will not develop obligations that would force him to neglect the music. The thought of becoming a music superstar, however, does not appeal to him. “I wouldn’t want to sing every night. I don’t like singing that much,” he said. “I don’t have the urge to be known on the street.” Taylor’s attitude toward his talent may be the secret of his popularity. His audience feels at ease when he is onstage because he lets them entertainers. They are really conde scending to their audience.” Taylor said he prefers to act com pletely natural onstage. “It’s a real temptation in perform ing to bullshit,” he said. “You tend to fantasize.” Taylor’s musical exposure began when he took violin lessons in the third grade. He played trombone in high school and picked up the banjo a short time later. Eventually he learned to play guitar and today he plays a custom-built guitar valued at more than $2500. His skill with the instrument is obvious from the first chord he strikes. He has developed an ap- pealling style of changing beats and alternating soft, finger-picked notes with crashing strums. Taylor’s wide range of guitar techniques are only slightly larger than the wide range of his voice. Al though a little rough around the edges, it is very smooth and per fectly complemented by the crystal clear vocal accompaniment of his wife. His songs betray a wide expo sure to feelings and ideals of the people he has met. They do not all fall into any one category of music. He said he has made an effort to anne dear avoid being stereotyped as i type of musician. Ifir. Do He added that a performpBinted t constantly adjust his style loBJartme different audience. “If you’re singing to dmi necks, it’s different than siai drunk longhairs,” he said, Taylor has written four hundred songs but he form many of them anymoti said he continually changes!* portoire as he changes peis Ip'S and, as a result, most of what! Barbara perform now was» within the past two or three H< nageri Trini Raisi fcusslei Slee] fchristi Ston The Taylors spent last yeai ing an album with help fromi cian friend named Michael Jill Taylor is financing the albtl himself, but he said he dotf plan to promote it heavily. Taylor has a rather unusin!i? ns of his own role in society, The ** . Srdma “Whatever I am hasn’t b« The vented yet,” he said. Tmk si a p for an effective way of re» More! across to other people.” Cere “We’re all different," he; jv^lor “and if we’d all do our d! Voyr things right, all the gaps wot Qctc filled.” know that he is just like them, not a remote or different type of person at all. “Music isn’t a one-way thing,” he said. “You don’t do something at an audience or to an audience. You do it with them.” “I’m there to interact with people in a conscious and constructive manner,” he added. “That’s one thing I don’t like about a lot of KANM album playlist HITS Joni Mitchell Hejira Linda Ronstadt Greatest Hits The Doobie Brothers Best of the Doobies Electric Light Orchestra A New World Record Boston Boston A1 Stewart Year of the Cat Elton John Blue Moves The Steve Miller Band Fly Like an Eagle Stevie Wonder Songs in the Key of Life George Harrison Thirty-three and a Third Rod Stewart A Night on the Town Wings Wings over America Stephen Stills Genesis Wind and Wuthering Burton Cummings Burton Cummings Streisand-Kristofferson A Star is Born Foghat Night Shift Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band Night Moves Kiss Rock and Roll Over The Enid in the Region of the Summer Stars Gary Wright The Light of Smiles Kansas Leftoverture Ted Nugent Free for All Fleetwood Mac Fleetwood Mac Led Zeppelin The Song Remains the Same NEW ALBUMS Rool Pass rises heeh’ You: iVayne Blin The 3ver Jombi The Rite Bloc fhomi To] Bellow The Leon. Let Dorotl Battalion photo by Joiilstifiec ‘Best of albums reviewer* 1 ' RISERS Tomita The Planets ZZ Top Tejas Saturday Night Live Saturday Night Live Stephen Stills Still Stills-The Best of FADERS Frank Zappa Zoot Allures Stanley Clarke School Days Lynyrd Skynyrd One More from the Road Linda Ronstadt Hasten Down the Wind Peter Frampton Frampton Comes Alive Boz Scaggs Silk Degrees Dave Mason Certified Live Gordon Lightfbot Summertime Dream Elvin Jones The Prime Element Kim Carnes Sailin’ The Don Harrison Band Red Hot Tom Chapin Life is Like That David Laflamme White Bird Nuggets: Original Artifacts from the First Psychedelic Era — 1965-1968 Mark Ashton Mark Ashton New Riders of the Purple Sage Who are those Guys? Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Keith Jar- rett, and McCoy Tyner Corea, Han cock, Jarrett, and Tyner Cap Mangione Gap Mangione Groundhogs Black Diamond Ronstadt, Taylor, Kottke A&M sponsors Warcon III War games create fantasy world By MICHELLE SMITH Where can you slay a seven headed dragon, sink the entire Spanish fleet or conquer Rome in one exciting evening? The Gromets war gaming society sponsored the third Warcon con vention at Texas A&M this past weekend. More than 150 men came from Bryan, Houston, and as far away as Iowa to meet for active par ticipation in fantasy. From 6 p.m. Friday until 2 p.m. Sunday, bombs exploded and swarms of Panzer tanks converged on Bulgaria on the second floor of the Memorial Stu dent Center. “War games are really more his tory simulation than actual games,” said Jess Fillman, a competitor from Houston. “You can reenact any bat tle in history from the standpoint of one of the leaders, but you have enough latitude to decide what you would have done differently,” Fillman explained. allows great scope and the range of possible encounters is unlimited,” said Douglas Ferguson, a graduate student in theology at Texas Chris tian University. “A friend of mine used the com puter at school to build his dun geon,” Ferguson said as he thumbed through a stack of com puter cards five inches thick. War gaming is not restricted to any age group. Allen King, a lawyer from Houston said, “I gave my 3-year-old son his first war game on his birthday. It was a game about the fall of Rome. He promptly cut up the map and, of course, made sure that Rome fell immediately.” King has come to the Warcon at Texas A&M for the last two years. He has been playing war games for the past 15 years and wants to go to the national convention in New York City this year. miniatures. Fifty scale models of World War II battleships waited in formation for attack. The French, American and British were fighting the Japanese, German, and Italian fleets. Men crawled around the wooden floor, scuffing their Flor- sheim shoes and wearing holes in their sports slacks, while they calcu lated the exact degree of angle propulsion for their torpedoes and depth charges. . The naval miniatures division could not be included with the offi cial competition because of techni cal problems in determining actual winners. The main attraction for it and war games in general is the fan tasy fulfillment simulation offers. “The players remember that it is only a game,” King emphasized. “One of the most accurate things I’ve ever heard about war was in Gen. Sherman’s letter to Gen. John Bell Hood during the Battle of At lanta. “Gen. Sherman said, ‘War is cruelty, it cannot be refined. It is not a fascination with war that inter ests war gamers, but rather an interest in history and enjoyment in competition that keeps them play ing,” King said. By PAUL MUELLER Many performers, after recording several albums’ worth of original material, eventually put together a package of previously released songs and re-release them in the form of a “best of’ album. Such a collection, if properly as sembled and packaged, serves two purposes: 1) it allows fans to obtain a recording of many of the per former’s well-known songs, without having to buy several previous al bums; and 2) it lets the performer keep his (her) name before the pub lic while new material is being pre pared. “Best of’ albums often come out toward the end of the year, and last year was no exception; today I’ll look at those released by Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor, and Leo Kottke. Linda Ronstadt’s Greatest Hits is a good collection of the music that made her famous. The album repre sents her entire solo career, and the songs are well chosen to illustrate the variety of musical styles she uses. These include the sad ballads that first brought her recognition. ;rms i pekm; 'We said ere.” Asti fro such as “Long Long Time Has No Pride,” “It Doesnt Any More,” and “Desperado shown by “Heat Wave,”“Y® Good,” and “Tracks ofMyl rock n’ roll, as in “Thatllfi Day” and “When Will IBeL ncUpi country, represented by Threads and Golden Needles a couple of cuts that don’t res ietan these categories but are un® ink bly Ronstadt: “Love Is A “Different Drum. Whatnw need to say?” Greatest Hits by James Ta? good cross-section of this(|artec career. Like Ronstadfs one covers Taylor’s solo caret the beginning. From his come such songs as “Fin ewm Befo dines iarted Rain,” “Sweet Baby James, 1 lardii the ere i nd hi Tesi ‘Cuckoo’s Nest’ producer says changed society’s views try Road,” and Carole Kings “You’ve Got A Friend.” Tb selections include “Somei The Way She Moves,” “0 In My Mind,” Walking! losit “Don’t Let Me Be Lone! t lea; night,” “Steamroller,’ “Mexico.” Taylor’s recenti be he are represented by “How S' Is” and “Shower The People which illustrate his shift more elaborate arrangemetf artec instrumentation. Again, of these songs are well! 1 known that no further explain needed. movie “The player comes to a point in history, like the Battle of Gettys burg, where he has read a lot and knows the mistakes that Lee and the Union made. He can make the deci sion about whether or not to make Pickett’s charge and weigh the ef fects. Just because Lee lost in reality does not mean the player has to lose in war games,” Fillman added. Tournaments for ten games were arranged and competition was based on point accumulation. Among the games, one called Dungeons and Dragons had the most participants. Dungeons and Dragons is a role- playing fantasy game in which players fight monsters and search their way through an underground complex where they find treasure, magical power and romance. “The extent of your imagination “My favorite game is U.S. Navy. It’s a complex game in the Pacific Theater of World War II. I like it because production, politics and diplomacy are all involved and it is very realistic,” King said. The Warcon is an opportunity for people with a common interest to get together and play, said Keith Gross, chairman of the program. Also, war games are sometimes hard to find in local stores and the convention is a great place for people to buy new games and sell the ones they are tired of, said Glenn Spicer, a Gromets member. War games can be an expensive hobby. “The largest game. War In Europe, retails at $40.00 and has a 49 square foot map,” King said. “However, most games cost around $8.00.” Across the room from the official competition, men played with naval By DEBBIE PARSONS Battalion Staff A change in the attitudes of soci ety had a great deal to do with the success of the movie, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” producer Michael Douglas said Friday night. Aggie Cinema and the Great Is sues Committee sponsored a live twenty-minute telephone interview with Douglas after the showing of the movie in Rudder Theatre at Texas A&M. The conversation was hooked up to the sound system so the audience could listen. Freeman Fisher, vice-chairman of Aggie Cinema, interviewed Douglas by calling him in Washing ton from the theatre. Douglas answered questions given to Fisher by people in the au dience, as well as questions that Fisher already had. He talked about the movie as well as his personal life as an actor. “Attitudes about craziness (insan ity) have changed a lot,” Douglas said. “It was something that was in the closet in the ’60s and sort of got out in the open in the ’70s. “I think we all realize there’s a little bit of craziness in all of us. The humor and the movie itself was much more acceptable in the ’70s, whereas in the ’60s much more people found it in bad taste.” The book, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” was written by Ken Kesey and has sold more than three million copies in soft-cover. While action in the book is seen through Chief Bromden’s eyes, the movie adapts a more general point of view. “In a two-bour movie, you’re going to lose certain elements from the book, and it is always hard to decide what you are going to lose,” Douglas said. “We decided that the story as a whole was more important than telling it from one persons’ point of view.” Ken Kesey was initially hired to write the screenplay for the movie, but they ran into problems because Kesey had never written a screen play before. Kesey wanted to tell the story from Chief Bromden’s point of view, and he wanted to incorporate some of the hallucinatory effects that are expressed in the book. “I don’t think I’d hire an author to write a screenplay again because he can’t help but be hurt or offended when you change things,” Douglas said. Kesey was taken off the screen writing and was given a percentage of the picture. He didn’t like the percentage, and sued the film. He then realized that he didn’t have suf ficient grounds, Douglas said, and he took the percentage, which total led $1.5 million. Two thousand actors auditioned for the parts of the inmates of the mental hospital. Eighteen were chosen; nine from New York, and nine from Los Angeles. No inmates from the hospital were in the movie, everybody in the movie was an actor or actress. “After we picked the right people, we just let them get at it,” Douglas said. “It was a real pleasure on the first day at the hospital, when we couldn’t tell the players without a program.” Douglas said that everybody working on the film got along ex tremely well. “It’s very rare that people get along as well as we did, and then on top of it, have a big success,” he said. Douglas appears on television with Karl Malden on “The Streets of San Francisco.” He said that he would like to try many different types of work. “Acting is difficult because you always have to rely on someone,” he said. “I’m going to get into directing and all different kinds of work.” The telephone interview with Douglas was the first of its kind at Texas A&M University. The total cost of doing the interview was al most $30. Douglas did not charge anything to be interviewed. If no explanation is last two albums, then is possible for Leo Kottke0 Did You Hear Me? Kottlf acoustic guitar, often witlii vocals, and his style is diJ describe. His music spans variety of categories, from rock to bluegrass to almost-d Although Kottke’s main is in his playing and not in ing, the vocal songs on this are quite good. The bestisf 1 “Pamela Brown,” which is» way of looking at disappoints love; Kottke describes losing feet girl,” only to find that‘ fers his freedom anyway. ' Me Why” is another song same vein, this time asking planations of all the trite 1 ' tions he hears when his s' breaks up. There really isn’t muchl to describe the instrumentals album, except to say the> of a lot of fine acoustic guits ing, either alone or accom^ piano, bass, and drums, ven t discovered Leo Kottke album is a good place to st ecul ;nitec The talfn Exx late arge ock i Nei V 1