iTTAI.ION • P;
ay • July 18,1
ecori
Jick Rodnicki,Th;:
Feam has ho?:
aut the trail
them parti,
[inze said.
; facility like
elps us toS:-
• GREAT
rack and fie,
’.en home to
of all time.
exas
26-10 1/2 fee:
ck record, ft
nd Browns a:
VJFL.
^ersity
set the
71-4 2/4 fee
rhich he
liversity
i the world of’
y Burrell and
a 100-meter i
onships.
d bac
They rei
ly starti-
fans the;
back afl
said “ E:
William^
tie
EXE,
t
<!■«
hi.
s for
The Battalion • Page 3
Tuesday • July 18, 1995
Fanclub, start your engines
Band kicks off tour to
promote Grand Prix
By Kyle Littlefield
The Battalion
W ith its latest album. Grand Prix,
just hitting the record stores.
Teenage Fanclub is revving up
for its tour with Weezer which starts
this Friday.
By embodying the melodic highs of
the Beatles, the jangle of the Byrds and
the naivete and vulnerability of ob
scure ’70s band. Big Star,
Teenage Fanclub has
gained fans for four
years who have seen
past the popularity
of Nirvana or Pearl
Jam.
The band, which
hails from Scotland,
surfaced on the
British and Ameri
can independent ^
scenes with 1990’s A
Catholic Education. The album’s first
single “Everything Flows” appeared on
the indie top 15, and the album hit No. 3
on the indie charts.
In 1991, the band’s quick start got it
signed to DGC, and its album Band-
wagonesque landed them a performance
on “Saturday Night Live” and the re
spect of Spin magazine, which called
the record “the best record white people
have made this year.”
In 1993, the band spent eight
months recording its third album “Thir
teen” which received mixed reviews,and
obscured the band’s image in America.
For Grand Prix and the coming tour,
the band has enlisted a veteran produc
er and replaced its original drummer.
EOPLE IN
Shepherd drops $2.8
million on new villa
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ac
tress Cybill Shepherd can moon
light as a wine taster, car collec
tor or even sharpshooter in her
new S2.8 million home.
Shepherd recently purchased
a Mediterranean-style villa on
1.5 acres in Encino, 17 miles
northwest of Los Angeles, the
Los Angeles Times reported
Sunday.
The 9,000-square-foot home
boasts a panoramic mountain
view, six bedrooms, a tennis
court, basement wine cellar, a
courtyard that can accommodate
more than 10 cars and a pistol
shooting range.
The house was recently leased
to actor Burt Reynolds for
$20,000 a month.
Shepherd, who found televi
sion stardom on the comedy hit
“Moonlighting,” stars in the CBS
sitcom “Cybill.”
Therapy helps
O'Connor change
LOS ANGELES (AP) —
Sinead O’Connor feels so differ
ent.
After three years of therapy,
the Irish singer is back on the
music scene,
sporting a pix
ie-style hair
cut and a new
outlook on life.
O’Connor,
28, is per
forming this
summer with
other acts as
part of the
Lollapalooza
’95 tour.
It marks
her first U.S.
appearance since the then-bald
singer was booed at a Bob Dylan
tribute concert three years ago,
after tearing up a photograph of
Pope John Paul II on NBC’s
“Saturday Night Live.”
O’Connor is now singing
about her struggles as a victim
of child abuse.
“I was in a bad way as a re
sult of what was going on within
my family, so I had to take a few
years to recover from that basi
cally,” she said.
“The thing that saved me was
therapy.”
Flutist sees show's
cancellation as a sign
WANTAGH, N.Y. (AP) — A
violent thunderstorm halted
The Chieftains’ first concert of
their U.S. tour to promote The
Long Black Veil.
“It’s the first time in 32
In a telephone interview before
boarding a plane to the states, Ray
mond McGinely, guitarist for Teenage
Fanclub, took some time to talk about
the band.
Because it can either attract or
scare away fans, McGinely said he
sometimes has to explain how the
band got its name.
“We just wanted to get something re
ally stupid sounding that would eventu
ally become associated with the
band,” McGinely said. “It
doesn’t mean anything.”
Teenage Fanclub
has a history of pok
ing fun at itself. In
1991 the band
recorded Madon
na’s “Like a Vir
gin,” and the title
of the album
Bandwagonesque
^ is a slight to the
music business.
The title of the new album Grand
Prix is' a contradiction that fits with
this history.
“We thought that the sort of irony of
the imagery of formula-one car racing
was exactly the opposite of everything
that we’re like,” McGinely said.
Recording Grand Prix, which was pro
duced by veteran producer David Bianco,
who has produced Mick Jagger, Tom Pet
ty and Frank Black, was a virtually
stress-free process, McGinely said.
“It was the experience that he (Bian
co) brought that meant that we could
just relax, because we knew it would
sound good,” McGinely said. “There
wouldn’t be any problems on any tech
nical or stupid level, so we could just
Vertical Horizon
has the love but
lacks the lyrics
Raymond McGiney and Teenage Fanclub start touring this Friday with Weezer.
get along with recording the songs.”
When Teenage Fanclub released
Bandwagonesque, critics accused them
of not only being influenced by bands
such as Big Star, but of copying those
bands as well.
“I think we just made an album
naively, which is the way we always try
to approach things,” McGinely said.
The band members even met the
man behind Big Star, Alex Chilton, who
told them that he was accused of simi
lar musical crimes.
“He (Chilton) said to us, ‘You know, I
don’t think you ripped us off at all. Peo
ple used to say I ripped off the Kinks
See TEENAGE FANCLUB, Page 4
Album Review
Vertical Horizon
Running On Men
Rhythmic Records
(out of five)
By Libe Goad
The Battalion
Keith Kane and Matthew Scannell
could write a book about love.
The simple, four-letter word appears in
almost every song on Vertical Horizon’s
new 14-song release, Running on Ice.
The acoustic duo that found a follow
ing while touring with crowd-pleaser
Jackopierce, enhances its simplistic love-
struck songs with the addition of bass
guitars and drums.
From the welcomed skills of talented
guest artists springs a musically di
verse album.
Carter Beauford of the Dave
Matthews Band joins the journey and in
tensifies the band’s soft acoustic sounds
with his steady percussion.
Beauford’s well-seasoned drumming
escalates the happy-go-luckiness of “Fa
mous” and “Candyman.”
The upbeat rhythms in both songs
add a welcome layer of happy emotions
over the duo’s straightforward lyrics
about the L-word. “Candyman” especial
ly contrasts the soft sound of the band s
first album. Back and There Again.
Jack O’Neill and Cary Pierce of Jack
opierce also appeared on the album in
“Reprise,” a short and inventive hidden
track. The choral effect of harmonizing
voices gives “Reprise” a twist of darkness,
creating a hope that Vertical Horizon will
experiment more with future songs.
See VERTICAL HORIZON, Page 4
Movie ads can deceive
“AlSj
O'Connor
years we’ve ever missed a con
cert,” the Celtic band’s
spokesman, Charles Comer,
said Sunday.
The Chieftains were in the
middle of their fifth song at an
outdoor theater Saturday night
on Long Island when the storm
hit. Officials quickly sent home
the 9,000 fans.
Flutist Matt Malloy took the
thunder and lightning with
good humor.
“You see, God was listening
to me with my flute,” Malloy
said. “It was a sign of heavenly
approval.”
The Chieftains continue
their tour on Tuesday at Great
Woods in Mansfield, Mass.
Evert never went
easy on Bush's tennis
NEWPORT, R.I. (AP) — For
mer President George Bush may
have a mean swing, but how’s his
backhand?
He got to
demonstrate
Sunday at the
International
Tennis Hall of
Fame, after he
presented the
hall’s newest
member, Chris
Evert, with
her enshrine
ment certifi
cate.
Bush told a
packed stadi
um that he and Evert have
played tennis at the White
House, Camp David and his
home in Kennebunkport, Maine.
He said his sometime partner
always admonished him: “Bend
your knees. Stay behind me. Get
up to the net.”
“As president, people would
give me long putts,” Bush said.
“When I’d throw up a lousy lob,
people would give me back a
kinder, gentler return. Chris
Evert never understood that.”
Bush and Evert later moved to
a practice court where they de
feated her husband, former
Olympic skier Andy Mill, and his
partner, Pam Shriver.
Queen Latifah
survives carjacking
NEW YORK (AP) — Two
gunmen commandeered rapper
Queen Latifah’s car in Harlem,
critically injuring a friend, po
lice said.
Queen Latifah, who stars on
Fox television’s “Living Single,”
and a third person in the car
were not hurt, but one of the
carj ackers shot and critically
wounded 22-year-old Sean
Moon, said police spokesman
Valerie St. Rose.
Michael
Landauer
Aggielife
Editor
‘“MOVE OVER BATMAN,’
IT’S THE ‘EXCELLENT,’
‘SUSPENSEFUL,’ ‘ACTION-
PACKEDf,’ ‘FEEL-GOOD
MOVIE OF THE SUMMER’ ’
THAT ‘THE WHOLE FAMILY
CAN ENJOY.’”
T oo often, movie advertisements sound
like the one above and could make peo
ple think the movie must be the next
Forrest Gump. But it could also be the next
Ishtar — we just can’t tell until we
go see it. Or can we?
Soundbites, brief exclama
tions created by
“TVff vrrn”
SLESP
Bush
yanking small
phrases from
other people’s
work, are the
cornerstone of
modern movie ad
vertising.
No one wants to
read an entire movie
review these days, so
the nice advertising ex
ecutives read them for us and tell us what
they say by pulling out one or two key words.
This service is unnecessary and often decep
tive.
There is nothing wrong with pulling
quotes from reviews to sell a product as long
as the quote is reprinted in all capital letters
with as many exclamation marks as possi
ble. Otherwise, readers get confused and
think the reviewer is not too excited about
the movie. Of course, maybe they aren’t.
SVC”
The way the ads are now
presented makes potential
audiences think reviewers
are really excited about the
movie when the opposite
could be true.
Someone could calmly sit
down and write, “Movie X was
a huge disappointment, but
the original score was excel
lent and deserves an Academy Award.” This
shows up in Movie Xs ads as, “EXCELLENT
... DESERVES AN ACADEMY AWARD!!!”
Most reviewers find something nice to say
about any movie. Although a review may be
entirely negative, it could get the
proverbial “thumbs up.”
For example, Siskel and Ebert
gave Under Siege II “two thumbs
up” but didn’t say much positive
about the film. They merely said
viewers in the mood for sense
less violence who could
overlook weak acting
and direction might
enjoy the film. But
the ads won’t say all that.
To get the whole story, movie
goers need to go about things the
old-fashioned way — they need to
read and think for themselves.
Too often we are guilty of only
seeing films in terms of stars and
thumbs, but words can say so
much more.
A good reviewer anticipates
what the reader wants to know. They
don’t just write in anticipation of having a
few words chosen as a soundbite. Reviewers
go into detail about the aspects of a film
that make it good or bad.
TH,i >LL£B$ Ns Ei
Reviewers do
more than tell you that a movie
“sizzles” — they tell exactly why it sizzles
and if that sizzle is enough to make it
worth seeing.
No one can look at stars or thumbs and
say, “Well, it looks like another solid perfor
mance by Keanu Reeves” — especially since
Reeves has been in several entertaining
films without ever turning out a solid per
formance.
Audiences should be careful with what
they read, and they need to be neurotically
doubtful about soundbites. Taking the time
to read about a movie’s strengths and
weaknesses before casting judgment on a
film will help audiences choose films they
will enjoy.
Reviews actually
say something. Sound
bites try to, but what
exactly is a sleeper? It
means nothing to be
the “feel-good” any
thing.
To find out what writ
ers meant by these
terms, audiences have to
look beyond the sound
bite. Just because a movie
is “action-packed” does not
mean that it is entertaining.
We should at least act like we can think for
ourselves without soundbites — that would be
a performance worth two thumbs up.
“A FIRST-
CLASS
WINNER
FROM START
TO FINISH!”
Student Appreciation Night
Every Wednesday
Free Pool w/ college ID
7 pm-1 am
Happy Hour 4-7 pm M-F
$1.00 Draft
$1.25 Longnecks
$2.00 Chuggers
$1.75 Well
OPEN DART TOURNAMENT
Every Ttiesday starting at 8:00 p.m
$5 entry fee • Double elimination • 1st, 2nd & 3rd place prizes
• Bud Light Chuggers $2.00
‘One thing true Aggies shouldn’t be without’
O RDER YOUR COPY of the 1996 Aggieland when you register for fall
classes. Don’t miss the chance to own the nation’s largest yearbook —
an 664-page record of the 1995-96 Texas A&M school year. Simply select
fee option 16. Just *30 + tax.
1996 Aggieland
INFECTED WOUND
STUDY
VIP Research is seeking individuals
with infected cuts, scrapes, or
sutured wounds for a 3-week
research study of an investigational
antibiotical cream. Qualified
participants will receive free study
medication, study supplies and
medical exams. $100 will be paid to
qualified volunteers to enroll and
complete this study.
HERPES VACCINE STUDY
VIP Research is seeking couples to
participate in a 19 month research
study of an investigational herpes
vaccine. To be considered for study
participation, one partner must have
genital herpes while the other partner
must not carry the virus which cause
genital or oral herpes (cold
sores/fever blisters). $500 will be
paid to each qualified couple that
enroll and complete this study.
VIP Research, Inc.
For more information call
(409) 776-1417
4
K
London
Paris $329*
Madrid $389*
Frankfurt $396*
Tokyo $478*
Costa Rica $170*
Caracas $199*
•Fares are each way from Houston based on a
roundtrip purchase. Restrictionsapplyand taxes not
included. Call for other worldwide destinations.
Council Travel
2000 Guadalupe St.
Austin, IX 78705
512-472-4931
Eurailpasses
issued on-the-spot!