The Battalion • Page 3
Monday • August 7, 1995
Benjamin Knox autographs a print of one of his drawings at his gallery in College Station.
By Amy Uptmor
The Battalion
B enjamin Knox’s successful art career
in College Station is almost a miracle.
Then again, so is the fact that he is
still alive.
Knox, class of ’90, was living in Crested
Butte, Co. when half of his condominium
was crushed by an avalanche last February.
T left the back room to answer a phone
call from my nephew who was calling to see
if I was alive since I hadn’t written in so
long/ he said. “Fifteen seconds later, the
ijpQrn collapsed from snow.”
Knox said the near-death disaster
prompted him and his fiancee, Claire Ochoa,
to make College Station the hasp for his
growing art business.
“We decided College Station would be a
good home base since it’s where my work
took off,” he said.
Knox’s art career began in 1988 as a
sophomore in the Corps when he began de
signing T-shirts and logos for his Corps out
fit. He expanded his work to include A&M
traditions and made Reveille and the Corps
two of his first subjects.
Since then, Knox has painted scenes for
cities such as San Antonio and Crested Butte.
Knox’s latest project involving A&M is a
series of paintings that traces the complete
history of the University.
The paintings will be arranged into seven
series, each depicting a different stage in
A&M’s history. Starting this fall, Knox will
display a different series each semester in
his College Station gallery. A book of the en
tire collection will be released in 1997.
“My goal with the collection is to provide
a tie to A&M’s history so people can appre
ciate what A&M was, is and is to become,”
he said. “Everyone has a role in what A&M
is to become, but they must first under
stand the past.” # t
Knox has donated several prints of his
work to Fish Camp to raise scholarship mon
ey, a topic he holds very close to his, heart.
“I donate a tremendous amount of my
profit to scholarship funds because I would
n’t have made it through college without the
scholarships I received,” he said.
Other current projects include many com
missioned paintings, such as an Aggie Moms
painting, a frequently requested depiction of
“The Last Corps Trip,” and a painting of the
A&M football team, “hopefully saying ‘Na
tional Champs,”’ he said.
Knox said his greatest contribution to
A&M lies in his future plans to build an art
center in College Station.
“There’s a lot of energy around here in
artists and people who want art to have a
presence in College Station,” he said. “I want
to channel that energy into an art center.”
Knox said the center will bring together
the work of local and national artists and
that he hopes construction will begin in late
1997. The center will also offer art classes,
which Knox hopes will eventually receive
University credit.
Knox said he hopes to put his environ
mental design degree to use and become an
architect, which he sees as yet another step
ping stone in his evolving career.
“I don’t ever want to stop growing,” he
said. “Art, like any other career, is some
thing you constantly build and work on. It
doesn’t just happen.”
But one thing is on the top of Knox’s list
of future plans — marriage. Knox said his life
wouldn’t run nearly as smoothly without
help from Ochoa, who is also the executive
director of his art gallery.
“Claire and I just click,” he said. “I’m the
pilot and she’s the navigator: She makes
sure everything works out.”
Lollapalooza
Jesus Lizard gains exposure
By Michael Landauer
The Battalion
For David Yow, lead singer
of the Jesus Lizard, the most
memorable part of this year’s
Lollapalooza tour has been
getting arrested for indecent
exposure after he got off stage
in Ohio.
“We were trying to expose
ourselves to a new audience,”
he said.
And this year’s
traveling festival is
doing just that for
the band. Alter- ,
native music fans i
in Texas will be I
exposed to the '
Jesus Lizard
along with the rest
of the Lollapalooza
acts and festivities
Thursday in Austin and
Friday in Dallas.
Although nudity draws the
attention of the media and the
police, Yow said his favorite
stage antic was when he set
his pants on fire in a show last
year.
“That was good because it
was a slow, sorta pretty song,
and when it finished, I was
still smoking,” he said.
For Yow, Thursday’s show
in Austin will be a homecom
ing of sorts. Yow, the son of an
Air Force officer, played in the
I y
band Scratch Acid in Austin
for six^years before moving to
Chicago in 1988.
“That’s where I was when I
got into punk rock, and punk
rock changed my life,” he said.
Having the festival at
South Park Meadows will suit
the band’s style, Yow said.
“Too many of the shows
have reserved seating, and
that’s kind of a drag for us,” he
said. “It’s difficult to
bridge the gap — we
like the personal in
teraction with the
crowd.”
I * The Jesus
Lizard brings its
aggressive sound
' to a lineup that al
ready includes Son
ic Youth, Hole and
Cypress Hill. A press
release quotes a 50-year-
old mother of two as saying
the band is “not so bad” but
might be better if Yow “didn’t
scream all the time.”
But Yow has no plans to
change his style, even if it
means having some people
dislike the band’s music.
“I guess it would be really
nice if people walked away lik
ing us,” he said. “I would prefer
that they like it, but I can’t ex
pect people to like it. I don’t see
how any musician can expect
people to like their music.”
Hum shoots for the stars on 2nd stage
By Michael Landauer
The Battalion
Matt Talbott is not looking
forward to the drive between
Dallas and Phoenix, Az. but he
said landing a spot on the Lolla
palooza tour is worth the effort.
Hum, whose members are
from Champaign, Ill, will per
form on the second stage for a
few of Lollapalooza’s shows
starting in Austin on Thursday.
Talbott has yet to embrace a
rock star persona. He carries
five or six books in his briefcase
when he is on the road, and he
bought his first CD player when
he signed with RCA Records
last year.
Since signing with RCA
Records, Hum has gained a na
tional audience with its song,
“Stars.”
But the label has the band on
a tight schedule, and Talbott
said it is making the increased
exposure come at a high cost.
“It’s driving us crazy,” he
said. “Lots of political bulls—t
goes on that, in the long run,
doesn’t have anything to do
with what we’re trying to do.”
What they have done with
the label is sell more albums
each week than they sold in one
year on 12-inch Records, the
band’s independent label, Tal
bott said.
“I can’t complain,” he said.
“You take the good with the
bad.”
Talbott isn’t complaining
about the band’s first album,
You’d Prefer An Astronaut. He
said RCA helped them create
the kind of album people can
listen to all the way through.
Talbott said that not taking a
song-by-song approach in cre
ating the music makes listen
ing to the album a more per
sonal experience.
“I like to just sit there and
listen to the whole thing,” he
said. “Since that’s my favorite
way to listen to records, that’s
the way I make records.”
Balloon: Festival floats despite setbacks
Continued from Page 1
at the largest event in the
Brazos Valley.
April West, a festival vol
unteer and former tourism
science student at A&M, said
she didn’t think the festival
would draw the 50,000 people
organizers expected.
“I wish more people were
here, but it’s so hot,” she said.
Weather has been such a
problem for the festival that
the event was moved from
June to .August this year to
avoid spring weather. *
Balloon Classic- Chairman
Terry Boike said .the week
end proved to be unpre
dictable with the onset of
Hurricane Erin on the Flori
da coast Friday.
“We moved the event to
avoid bad weather, and now
we have a hurricane,” he said.
The hurricane threat passed
as the weekend arrived but the
Texas summer weather re
mained as unpredictable as the
weather in spring.
Jim Crump, a senior indus
trial engineering major and
vendor, said the 95-degreeheat
and the lack of a swimming
area kept college students from
coming to the festival.
“I think more would come if
we could get into the water,” he
said. “All we can do right now
is look at the lake and sweat.”
The Balloon Glows and
music drew larger crowds, but
a short rainstorm and wind
caused problems for the bal
loon pilots.
Thomas Atwell, a balloon
pilot for Pretty Balloons Un
limited in Houston, said
weather conditions are vital
to balloon flying. Conditions
this year were better than
last year, when high winds
kept balloons on the ground.
“We weren’t sure if we
•'were going to go up again this
weekend,” he said after the
Saturday rain. “We just had
to sit and wait.”
Patience with the weather
was not the only price crowds
had to pay.
Julie Slider, a vendor from
Dallas, said she wasn’t sur
prised that people didn’t show
up for the event because of
the $5 admission fee. Al
though free parking was
Sterling Hayman, The Battalion
Austin Young flies his balloon, "Zoopendous," in the 5th annual
Balloon Classic Sunday morning.
Stew Milne, The Battalion
Amateur jet skiers round a corner to the front straightaway in a
race on Lake Bryan at the Balloon Classic and Hydro-fest
available, some people also
spent $10 to park in the park
ing lot nearest to the festival.
“The parking should be
cheaper,” she said. “I’ve seen
people pull up, find out the
costs and then leave.”
Crump said the cost also
deterred college students
and families from coming to
the event.
“I wouldn’t come here if I
wasn’t working,” he said.
“This was advertised as a
family event, and they have to
pay $30 before they buy any
thing else.”
Volunteer Robert Schlechte
said that moving the date to
August may also explain the
small turnout.
“There are a lot of people
on vacation this time of year,”
he said.
Despite the problems, par
ticipants in the festival said
they enjoyed the events and
the sense of community.
Brandi LaRue, a senior bio
medical science major and
balloon crewmember, said she
enjoyed having something to
do outside the University.
“Everywhere you look, there
is no A&M,” she said. “It’s nice
to see something big that’s not
associated with A&M.”
The event combines the ef
forts of citizens of Bryan and
College Station.
West said college students
should volunteer to be in
volved in the community.
“It’s fun and exhausting,
and I’m meeting a lot of people
in the community,” she said.
Boike said the proceeds
will benefit area charities
like Phoebe’s Home, Still
Creek Boys Ranch and Habi
tat for Humanity.
“The community’s bee
good to me, and this is a
to give back to it,” he said.
Blind Melon drowns with Soup
is gone
The buzz
By Rob Clark
The Battalion
The sophomore slump strikes again.
Blind Melon exploded onto the
music scene in 1993, becoming
MTV’s poster children for the alter-
native-Buzz Bin generation. The
cause of this was, of course, “No
Rain,” ’93’s sunny summer feel-good
song complete with the now-infa
mous “Bee Girl” video.
The band’s self-titled debut album
shot to the top of the charts, but due
to massive exposure, the world quick
ly tired of the familiar “No Rain” re
frain and the Bee Girl’s incessantly
annoying dance.
Now back with Soup, Blind Melon
seems to be trying way too hard to
avoid the massive exposure and atten
tion by making a wildly uneven and
unsatisfying album.
Soup fails where the band’s debut
album succeeded — by misusing the
strengths of lead singer Shannon
Hoon’s vocals and the guitar
melodies of Christopher Thorn and
Rogers Stevens.
Hoon’s vocals are as high and pierc
ing as always, but it’s gotten to the
point of extreme annoyance.
A bizarre twist is “Skinned,”
sounding much more like Primus
than Blind Melon. Backed by a back
porch harmonica sound, Hoon sings
Album Review
Blind Melon
Soup
Capitol Records
★★ (out of five)
Blind Melon
of realizing “this skin I’m in isn’t
mine” and making rib cages into cof
fee tables. Hoon’s attempt at humor
fails wildly, as Les Claypool could
teach him a few tricks on bizarre, yet
funny music.
Hoon’s lyrics do provide some in
trigue, especially on “Car Seat (God’s
Presents),” a response of sorts to the
Susan Smith murders. “My brother
sits by me,” Hoon sings, as the haunt
ing music reminds of the tragic
drowning of Smith’s sons.
A bright spot is “Galaxie,” the al
bum’s first single. The chorus is a wel
come throwback to the band’s debut,
with a melodic chorus soothing the
frantic verses. “Galaxie” seems to re
spond to the massive exposure the band
received after “No Rain.” Hoon sings “Is
this the place where I want to be? Will I
keep on the cutting edge?”
Sadly, no. The cutting edge is re
served for up-and-coming bands with
something new to say and a new way
to say it. It’s an obvious attempt at
shunning commercial success, some
thing only Pearl Jam has managed to
do successfully.
What makes Soup so disappointing
is that it fails to reach any of the po
tential of Blind Melon’s last album. Ir
resistible tunes like “Tones of Home”
and “Sleepyhouse” are replaced by
Soup snoozers like “Mouthful of Cavi
ties” and “Lemonade.”
Being the alternative to alterna
tive is an unrealistic goal for a band
like Blind Melon in 1995. Records
won’t sell without MTV, as the Bee
Girl has proven.
It’s been a few years, but if Soup
fails, the band E^rh^^^^mrying to
find her phone neH^^^^HSragi
a comeback attempt.
* again for