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The Battalion • Page 3
Stew Milne / The Battalion
With help from mainstream bands such as Pearl Jam, vinyl records are making a comeback.
Vinyl records slip back into the mainstream
By Jay Knioum
The Battalion
V inyl records — memories of the black,
grooved shiny surface and the colorful art
displayed on the huge slipcase.
Long before magnets read the sound
from magnetic tape, long before lasers re
flected from the first compact disc, the
world had come to love the scratchy sound of the
vinyl LP.
For some, that love never died. Even with the
rise of cassettes and CDs, some people still held
onto their black vinyl. Some bands, hoping for ac
knowledgement, still recorded on it.
No longer the exclusive dominion of punk rock
bands and dance club disc jockeys, some popular
artists have turned back to the medium.
Pearl Jam’s “Vitalogy,” may be the best example
of vinyl’s return. The album was released on vinyl
two weeks before the CD release. It became the first
vinyl album to make the Billboard album charts
since CDs took over as the most popular medium.
Kathleen Araskog, of Epic Records’ College
Marketing Dept., said the band sold 66,000 vinyl
copies of “Vitalogy,” and the number is still climb
ing. But now that the album is on CD, the num
bers will begin to decline.
“It’s probably going to taper off,” Araskog said.
“The only people who buy the vinyl are collectors or
die hard Pearl Jam fans, but that will be a while.”
Sandy McNees, assistant manager of Camelot
Music in Post Oak Mall, said consumer requests for
vinyl have been strong, and that every record
Camelot stocked has been sold. She said Camelot
sold about 16 vinyl copies of “Vitalogy” before the
home office ran out of them.
Chris Penn, assistant manager of Marooned
Records, and a Texas A&M graduate, said vinyl
copies of “Vitalogy” and Pearl Jam’s earlier al
bum,“Vs.,” were bought up quickly. Marooned
has sold over a hundred copies of vinyl Pearl
Jam albums.
Todd Traylor, manager of Marooned records and
a Texas A&M graduate, said CD technology doesn’t
produce the ideal sound for some bands.
“(Vinyl sound) is a little rougher sound, which is
n’t necessarily worse,” Traylor said. “I hear someone
say they want the ‘crystal clear sound of Nirvana.’
Come on, it’s all feedback, it’s all thrown through 10
distortion pedals before you get it. It’s not that crys
tal clear a sound.”
Traylor said he could understand the need for
clarity when dealing with acoustic instruments.
“If it was a classical guitarist, or maybe an opera
singer, I can understand people wanting the clear
sound,” he said. “It’s nice not to have tape hiss from
a cassette. It’s nice not to have the needle sound
when the needle goes down,” Traylor said.
Traylor said people like CDs not because of supe
rior sound quality, but because they are easy to use.
“It’s being able to go from song to song with
out having to fast forward or pick up the needle
that makes the CD so much better in people’s
minds,” he said.
The appeal of vinyl rests with its age, Traylor
said. Some people like the medium simply because
it’s been around longer, and they grew up with the
sound, he said.
Although many hot bands are only recently hop
ping on the vinyl bandwagon, some bands, like
Green Day, never hopped off.
The band released 7-inch singles and developed a
cult following for seven years before Warner Bros,
took notice of them.
Other bands like Firehose and Fugazi have been
putting their sound on vinyl since their first release.
“Those bands never gave up on it,” Traylor said.
“It’s coming back around.”
Matthew Shaw, a senior journalism major who
plays a number of string instruments and frequent
ly records his music, said many artists appreciate
recording on vinyl for technical reasons.
He said vinyl plays smoother because it records
in a continuous spiral. CDs, however, develop a
barely audible pulse in the music during recording.
Shaw said that while most listeners won’t hear this
pulse, it annoys the artist.
“The big comeback is in natural sound —
acoustic,” Shaw said. “Everybody’s playing on MTV
Unplugged, making acoustic albums.”
Shaw said the Beastie Boys record on vinyl so
they can experiment with feedback.
“CDs, because the way they compress it, cut out
a lot of the feedback that you can get,” he said.
A&M students are kings of the road at new Northgate bar
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Ihe Battalion
dream of opening a bar is
about to come true for four
A&M students. King of the
Roadhouse, a new bar on
Northgate, is scheduled to
Friday.
e four co-owners are all current or
ormer Texas A&M students: Ray Pre
witt, a 1992 graduate; his brother Todd
Prewitt, a senior agricultural econom-
s major; Thom Bartkowski, a senior
civil engineering major; and his wife
Jen Bartkowski, a 1992 graduate.
When The Bullseye closed down,
I Todd Prewitt said the the location
as too good to pass up.
“One of the things that will make
this place different is that it’s four col
lege students that own it,” Todd said.
We’re opening it because our house
got too small for parties.”
Thom Bartkowski said the Road
house will start brewing their own
beer by March. There will always be a
light beer, a dark beer and a different
type brewed each month, he said.
“We’re going to be really small
scale — and if people request a cer
tain beer, there’s a good chance that it
will get brewed in the next couple of
weeks,” Thom said.
Thom said he believes he can balance
going to college and owning a bar.
“I guess I’m not going to get a lot of
sleep,” Thom said. “I don’t think it
will be too tough. I’ve been in school
for so long that I don’t screw around
as much as I did.”
Ray Prewitt said that obtaining
permission to brew their own beer
was quite an accomplishment.
“People don’t realize that we
have to do the same paperwork
as Budweiser does when they
open up a plant,” Ray said.
Todd Prewitt said they named
the bar after Roger Miller’s song,
“King of the Road.”
“We thought King of the Road
was really cocky,” Todd said. “We
like the Roadhouse because we
used to throw a lot of parties at
our house, which was pretty
much the only house on the road.
Now we just went commercial.”
Eventually, the bar will serve food,
Todd said.
The menu will start off small and
expand once the owners discover peo
ple’s preferences, he said.
“I hope to have the best burger in
town,” he said.
The big deck behind the bar should
contribute to a relaxed atmosphere,
Todd said.
“We’re the only place on Northgate
with such a big back deck,” he said. “We
have as much square footage outside as
we do inside.”
Todd said good relations with cus
tomers are going to be a top priority.
“Without customers, it doesn’t exist,”
Todd said. “We just want to make every
one happy.”
Todd said he is looking forward to see
ing how crowds react to the new bar.
“On Northgate, people stereotype dif
ferent bars. I’m kind of curious to see
what they’ll stereotype ours as.”
' Ray Prewitt said he also wants the
bar to have a versatile purpose.
“We want a place you’re not afraid to
bring your parents to during the day but
you’d have second thoughts about bring
ing them here at night,” he said.
"We want a place you're not
afraid to bring your parents to
during the day but you'd have
second thpughts about bringing
them here at night."
— Ray Prewitt
Co-owner of The King of the Roadhouse
Roger Hsieh / The Battalion
The King of the Roadhouse bar is set to open this weekend.
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Boyz II Men, Ace of Base, Michael Bolton win big at American Music Awards
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The soulful
vocal group Boyz II Men won three
honors at Monday night’s 22nd annual
American Music Awards on the
strength of their sensuous single “I’ll
Make Love to You.” /
The Swedish pop group Ace of Base,
balladeer Michael Bolton and country
stalwart Reba McEntire claimed two
trophies each, as awards were given in
22 categories representing a broad
range of music.
Boyz II Men was named favorite
group in the soul-rhythm and blues cate
gory and the single “I’ll Make Love to
You” collected trophies for favorite pop-
rock and soul-R&B singles.
Mari ah Carey was one of two leading
nominees going into the night but was
awarded just one trophy — favorite pop-
rock female artist.
Bolton, who had won four previous
AMA trophies, topped Boyz II Men and
Carey in the competition for favorite
adult contemporary artist and was
named favorite pop-rock male artist.
Ace of Base, which has a hit with “The
Sign,” scored favorite pop-rock group and
new artist.
Snoop Doggy Dogg won his first
American Music Award, for favorite rap-
hip hop artist.
The Award of Merit went to the
artist formerly known as Prince, rec
ognizing “outstanding contributions to
the musical entertainment of the
American public.”
The closest the show came to any con
troversy was when the artist formerly
known as Prince gyrated with a scantily
clad dancer during one number.
The producers avoided trouble by
cutting during key moments to several
long camera shots taken from the
back of the auditorium.
In the country categories, McEntire
won favorite country female artist and
her “Read My Mind” won the country al
bum honor. She now has a dozen career
American Music Awards.
Garth Brooks won the favorite male
country artist award, boosting his ca
reer total to seven.
Vince Gill won the favorite country
single award for “Whenever You Come
Around.”
Alabama was named favorite country
group for the 13th straight year, bring
ing its career total to 18.
Nirvana, which lost leader singer
Kurt Cobain in a suicide last year, was
named favorite artist in the heavy metal-
hard rock category, besting Pearl Jam
and Stone Temple Pilots. The remaining
members of Nirvana did not attend.