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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 7, 1984)
1U Friday, Sept. 7, 1984 Local Bands Continued from page 7 each other in mock agony. "Texas Twist," a blues song Wilson wrote, has not been gleefully accepted by all mem bers of the band, but with a little compromise and a lot of work, they manage to polish it a little bit more this time. Even songs that the band picks up from other artists don't always go smoothly. "Whenever we pick up some one else's song," Wilson says, "we work with it a lot —we take it and, in our own way, mas sacre it or bastardize it or what ever. "We all listen to really differ ent kinds of music," Wilson says of the members of Four Hams. "We're a rockabilly and R&B (rhythm and blues) band, but Erik Kline, the bass player, likes heavy metal and plays part-time with a country band. Scott Oldner (guitarist and lead vocalist) originally played clas sical guitar, but now he's into punk, rockabilly and R&B." Once stabilized as a group, the musicians must do battle with nightclubs and the public to get their foot in the door. And if they succeed, and if they're lucky, they might make a little cigarette money in the process. The first few times Four Hams appeared as a group, Wilson says, they appeared for free. "The first profit we made was only about $50," he says. "That broke down to about a case of beer a piece." And even when a group starts to get booked regularly, problems will arise. After Four Hams declared a Monday rehearsal was over, they sat down for a cash-flow pow-wow. Their last show had netted them about $400 — their best profit so far, but they de cided it should have been more. "They (the management at the nightclub) deducted about 20 percent from the door re ceipts," Hank Allen, the drum mer, said. Four Hams was supposed to receive all of the door receipts for their show. 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The band decided that the club would have had paid for a person to be at the club, whether he worked the bar or the door, and the band shouldn't have had that money taken out of their pay, so next time Hank's girlfriend could help out at the door since she doesn't like the loud music. As for the commercial, the band decided that they didn't ask for it to begin with and they didn't want it anyway since the crowd that showed up to hear Four Hams play doesn't listen to the station that ran the com mercial. The band had a final opinion on the situation: "Well, all I've got to say is we've sure paid our dues in this town," Kline said — the others nodded in agreement. Even the few musicians who reach that a pinnacle of success aren't guaranteed a long stay at the top. John Sebastian, who was a member of the enormously popular '60s group the Lovin' Spoonful, has been out of the spotlight for some time, but has continued to make music his life. Sebastian has gone from headlining a rock group to writ ing movie soundtracks and playing the nightclub circuit. He says he still makes most of his living from live perfor mances, but his movie score work has been a big supple ment. "If you're gonna do this for a living," he says, "once the tide of fashion turns away from you, you find out what the music business is all about." "I gain a lot from both areas, but performing is still my favor ite. The road is a wonderful place to test new songs — the audience will tell you how your new song is, better than any re cord company could. The road is very valuable to a musician." But, regardless of the strug gle facing every would-be musi cian, dreams die hard and even the battle to see that dream come true can be rewarding, not to mention unforgettable. "We love what we're doing right now," Dm Wilson says, "but all of us want to go on to bigger things." Everything’s fresh at Fuddruckers,.. Our burgers are made with fresh, ground steak. 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