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THURSDAY
August 1, 1 996
GGIE
Page 3
IQeinis in ^[jgigfeland
By April Towery
The Battalion
Lewis, a local band of Texas A&M se
niors, is beginning to see what it’s like to
achieve its goals and make its dreams
come true.
Drummer Gabriel Cortinas, a market
ing major, said they plan to take their mu
sic as far as it will go.
“We all want to get degrees, but eventu
ally we want to make music our career,”
Cortinas said. “A year from now, we’ll
reevaluate where we stand and see how
much we’ve accomplished.”
Although Cortinas will graduate next
May, he plans to remain in College Station
and delay other career opportunities if
things are going well with the band.
The other members are expected to
graduate in December 1997.
Bass player Jeff Truly, a civil engineer
ing major, said future album releases are
up in the air.
“We’ve talked to a gny in Dallas who
has a lot of connections,” Truly said. “We’ve
sent our demo around and have talked
about putting a single out.”
Lewis will be featured on a compilation
album to be released in August with sever
al other local bands.
Vocalist and gruitarist Brett Tohlen, a
biochemistry major, said the band has
changed a lot since it recorded its compila
tion album a year ago.
“We completed it in two days,” Tohlen
said. “We hardly ever play the songs on
that tape anymore.”
Truly said the band members were still
getting to know each other when the com
pilation album was recorded.
“Back when we recorded the tape, Brett
and Matt were doing a lot of acoustic stuff
on their own,” Truly said. “We were still
learning to play together and now it’s more
of a group thing.”
Vocalist and guitarist Matt Beaton, an
environmental design major, said the
band’s live performances are much better
than its recordings.
“We have a lot of energy, and try to pull
in the crowd,” Beaton said. “We haven’t
been able to succeed in doing that on tape.”
Lewis members are known for their on
stage theatrics, such as decorating them
selves in tinsel and Christmas lights for a
show at Northgate Cafe.
“When we first started playing, we were
just trying to get it right,” Cortinas said.
“Now we can express ourselves visually
and feel a lot more comfortable.”
Beaton said Lewis projects a different
image from most local bands because its
songs are intense and meaningful.
“One of my favorites is ‘Life Enveloped’,”
Beaton said. “I don’t know if it will be a hit
single or anything, but I really get into it.”
“Life Enveloped” tells the story of a per
son at the lowest point in life.
Tohlen said if everything is going
wrong, the song gets the band back
together.
“It’s about finding out what God means
to you, when reality really hits you in the
face,” Tohlen said.
Tohlen said there is more to Lewis’s mu
sic than just making noise.
“We focus on the arranging of music, an
art that’s been lost,” Tohlen said. “Instead
of just verse, chorus, verse, chorus, we try
to throw in something different.
“Our goal is to say what we have to say
through our music. We’re not trying to save
the world.”
Although several songs reflect the
band’s thoughts and ideas on God and Je
sus Christ, it does not consider itself a
Christian band.
“We’re all four Christians,” Beaton
said, “but we don’t use our music as
evangelism.”
Truly said the Christian music scene is
too limiting.
“There are good Christian bands out
ther^ like Poor Old Lu and Prayer Chain,
but no one knows about them because of
bad distribution,” Truly said. .
Truly said for now, they are having fun
with the new songs.
“We get really excited about playing
new songs, so those are the ones we
spend our time practicing,” Truly said.
“We can’t just pull out an old one we
haven’t played in months and play it
live without screwing it up.”
Beaton played in a band called the
Yellow Trucks in high school, but did
not come to A&M with the intention ol
being in a band.
He said the way the band members
come together shows that the entire experi
ence was meant to be.
“I was getting settled into my dorm in
Moore Hall my freshman year and was
playing Ned’s Atomic Dustbin on my
stereo,” Beaton said. “Jeff just walked into
my room and introduced himself and said,
‘Hey, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin. I thought
everyone here listened to country.’
“Since then I have never seen Jeff just
go up to someone like that.”
Truly and Tohlen played together some
in high school in Fort Worth. In contrast tc
Beaton’s college plans, they had come tc
A&M looking to play in a band.
Tohlen said as freshmen, he and Beaton
played guitars in their dorms.
“We recorded a tape on the balcony 1
with this awful tape recorder,” Tohlen
said. “We would stay up until 4 a.m.
playing guitar, and then not be able tc,
go to class the next day.”
Cortinas had also been looking to join 8
band and saw fliers that Lewis was looking
for a drummer. But the band lost Corti
nas’s phone number.
“We didn’t rediscover Gabe until the
end of our freshman year,” Truly said. “Wc
lost his phone number and didn’t know his
last name. We had no way of getting ir
touch with him, then one day, just out oi
the blue, I saw him on campus.”
Recently Lewis has proved they are seri
ous about their music by playing out ol
town shows. Tohlen said, so far Lewis has
had a good response in Dallas.
“There’s not a lot of people there thal
don’t know us already,” Tohlen said. “Bu1
the people who have never seen us play be
fore have responded really well.”
103.9 announcer Mark McKenzie has
given Lewis radio coverage on his Sunday
night program, Exposure.
Beaton said Lewis is slowly gaining pop
ularity as a band.
“We’ve done pretty well for being un
known,” Beaton said. “We started out play
ing a lot of free shows just to get our name
out, but now we’re making, like, 25 cents s
day, collectively.”
Stew Milne, The Battalion
Lewis, a band comprised of Texas A&M seniors, will be featured on a compilation album this August along with several other
bands. The four members plan to stay in College Station past graduation if all goes well with the band.
Aggies Fool(s) for Love at Fallout Theater
Gwendolyn Struve, The Battalion
Haven Powers, a senior theater major, and director Todd Reynolds,
act out a scene in the play "Fool for Love" at the Fallout Theater.
By Shannon Halbrook
The Battalion
When four Texas A&M stu
dents learned the Fallout The
ater was going to be empty, they
decided to put it to good use.
Starting tonight, the stu
dents, all upperclass theater
arts majors, will present their
rendition of Sam Shepard’s
Fool For Love.
The Fallout Theater is a
“black-box” theater in 144
Blocker used mainly for dra
matic experimentation. The
show will run tonight, Friday
and Saturday of this week,
and then next week on the
same days. All shows will be
gin at 8 p.m.
“The seating has been
switched several times,” se
nior Todd Reynolds, director
and actor in the show, said.
“It’s a place where you feel
comfortable to do the out-of-
the-ordinary.”
Acquiring the theater was
an easy step.
Senior Haven Powers, who
has taught an acting class for
the past two summers, said
she knew the Fallout would be
unoccupied.
Fool for Love is set in a
seedy motel room in the Mo
jave desert, and focuses on the
loving and often violent rela
tionship between Eddie and
May, half-siblings who are
also lovers.
As the play opens, Eddie
has just located May after she
left him. The couple is forced
to confront their past when
Martin, a friend of May’s,
comes over to take her to the
movies. The only other charac
ter in the play is the Old Man,
a ghostly figure of Eddie and
May’s father. He drifts in and
out of the action, but the char
acters constantly feel his pres
ence because of the damage he
wreaked on the family.
The students play dual
roles on and offstage.
Reynolds said the students
have complete control, receiv
ing no production help from
the drama department.
“Everything’s volunteer,”
Reynolds said. “Everything is
100 percent our efforts.”
The planning began when
Powers, who plays May and is
the sound editor, was looking
for a monologue she liked.
“I’d never found a mono
logue that I felt comfortable
doing,” Powers said. “Then
Todd showed up on my
doorstep with this play and
said, ‘Take a look at this.’”
Reynolds said he had his
eye on the play for some time.
“My inspiration for doing
Fool For Love was about nine
years ago in an acting class,”
he said. “This girl ... did a
monologue from the play and
it really affected me. It stuck
with me for nine years.”
To complete the cast and
crew, Reynolds approached
two of his friends in the drama
department.
Dan Grimm, a junior who
plays Eddie and also serves as
set designer, said he jumped
at the chance to appear on
stage, which he hadn’t done
since high school.
“(Todd) said, ‘Dan, I’ve got
this project I want to do and I
think you and Haven would be
great as the leads,’” Grimm
said. “‘And you can also be
technical director and whatev
er else you want to do.’ He was
approaching me to act, which I
haven’t done since I’ve been
here, except in a few classes."
Reynolds cast junior Billy
De Leon as Martin. Though
De Leon said he is “a play
wright by nature,” he also has
experience as an actor, sound
designer, assistant stage man
ager, and even a weapons ex
pert for such plays as Othello
and Of Mice and Men.
The students rely on
method acting, which involves
using their own experiences
and feelings to shape their
characters.
“I chose my actors very
well,” Reynolds said. “Pieces of
the script remind them of
things in their own personal
lives. They get into it, and
sometimes you have to spend
10 minutes holding them and
helping them recover.”
Grimm and Powers agreed
that the acting is often gruel
ing. De Leon said he drew
upon his first college date to
accurately portray Martin’s
nervousness.
None of the players have
seen a professional production
of Fool For Love, which was
first performed in 1983. But
they feel their lack of experi
ence with the play helps them
forge a fresh interpretation.
“I was in a production in
high school of Death of a
Maiden, and we did all our
blocking before we saw the
movie,” Grimm said. “If we
had seen the movie (before),
we would’ve been corrupted by
its ideal. You don’t want to do
something the way it’s been
done before.”.
See Fallout, Page 4
Alcohol poisoning can
lead to sickness, death
By James Francis
The Battalion
College life at Texas A&M and
other universities across the nation
may differ in various ways, but are
united in some.
Elements linking students to
gether include clubbing, throwing
or attending parties and hanging
out with a group of friends.
It is no secret that these social
gatherings are connected among
themselves by a common bond —
alcohol.
The rate of alcohol consumption
and alcohol
poisoning in
college seem
ingly never
decreases.
Students
go out, have a
few drinks
and become
intoxicated,
and some
times these
actions have
fatal results.
Charley
Benbow, oper
ating manag
er at the Bra
zos County
Alcohol Edu
cation Center,
said alcohol
poisoning
stems from in-
troducing
more alcohol
into the sys
tem than the body can handle.
“Your body processes roughly
one drink an hour, any faster
and you become intoxicated,”
Benbow said.
Benbow said vomiting is the
body’s way of signaling to an indi
vidual that there is too much alco
hol in the system.
The stomach attempts to purge
the body of the alcohol, which usu
ally has already moved into the
bloodstream.
Benbow said, alcohol remains
in the body’s system overnight and
a hangover can result, which is
similar to going through symptoms
of withdrawal.
“If you drink enough where you
have a hangover the next day,” he
said, “you drank too much and
abused the alcohol.”
Benbow said the relationship be
tween age and alcohol-imbibing be-i
havior is prompting many to focus. |
“The most dangerous age in
your lifetime is 19 years old,” Ben
bow said.
“You see businessmen and pro
fessionals go out and get a DWI butj
you don’t see'
them having:
chug-a-lug
contests and
taking shots
as is common
with college
students.”
Benbow
said at 19
years of age,
students
deaths occur
mostly be
cause of alco
hol consump
tion and inex
perienced dri
ving. He said
to prevent
death and oth
er mishaps
with alcohol,
measures to
be taken.
“[Students
should] slow
down in their consumption per
hour and cut down on the strength
of the drink,” Benbow said.
One factor is the popularity of
new beer products with higher
than normal percentages of alcohol.
“There’s a lot of difference be
tween a six-pack of Icehouse and
Miller Lite,” Benbow said.
In addition to watching alcohol
levels, Benbow said students
should always know exactly what'
they are drinking.
See Alcohol, Page 4