The Battalion
Page 3
Wednesday • September 11, 1996
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Singers and songwriters test the
sound systems and bare their
talents at Open Mike Night at
3rd Floor Cantina
By Brent Troyan
The Batt alion
H is hand shakes as he
adjusts the microphone.
The stage lights hum
through the silence. Somewhere
in the audience, a leather-
backed chair scoots across the
hardwood floor.
Mike Ethan Messick, a junior
biology major, takes a deep breath
and begins to sing.
Songwriters like Messick gather
for Open Mike Night at the 3rd
Floor Cantina in Bryan on
Wednesdays to bare their musical
talent to the crowd.
“It’s a great chance to hear
brand new stuff, something differ
ent,” Messick said.
Roy Gene Munse, a morning
disc jockey for KORA, is the official
host of Open Mike Night.
Munse said he started the
singer/songwriter night to give
amateur entertainers a forum to
play original music without the
pressure that new musicians
sometimes face.
Anyone can play music at Open
Mike Night, but the songs have to
be original material.
Munse said the artists’ mater
ial ranges from rock ’n’ roll to
blues to country and western,
and they range in experience
from seasoned veterans to first
time performers.
“Playing here takes the edge
off,” Munse said. “There’s a real
community feeling.”
The community also has its
own spiritual leader, though the
Rev. AI Mays is not the typical
holy man.
The ordained minister rides a
’76 FLH Police Special Harley
named “Baby Doll.” His vest
ments are a black leather vest
and a red bandanna.
“Whether it sucks or whether
it’s great, it’s fun,” Mays said. “This
ain’t no talent contest.”
Patrick Ressler, a Texas A&M
oceanography graduate student,
started coming to Open Mike
Night last month.
“I feel like this is a good
atmosphere,” he said.
“Everybody’s real supportive.”
The performers in the audience
also offer more than applause.
Munse said many of the artists
invite other regular participants to
sit in on their sets.
Last week, Mays improvised
on his harmonica to Messick’s
acoustic guitar, and Mays
called Munse to the stage dur
ing his set.
“Performing is not something
I set out to do,” Munse said, “but
I like it now.”
Munse said that he started
writing music when he was 12
and picked up the guitar 20
years ago so he could hear what
he had written.
Open Mike Night at the 3rd
Floor Cantina began last
November after Munse saw
other singer/songwriter events
in Austin and Nashville.
See Singers, Page 4
Tim Moog, The Battalion
Patrick Ressler plays for Open Mike Night.
1
Something backfired for Headcrash with
Overdose on Tradition.
The band’s anti-corporate groove rock must
have seemed a promising formula for appeal
and success.
Too bad the “tradition” here is that
Headcrash’s approach has already saturated the
pop rock scene. It certainly has overdosed on the
angst of the decade, and the result is a boring
apd uninspiring attempt at social commentary.
Overdose on Tradition is disappointing, even
before the bjjtylTing .begins. Headcrash’s brand
of repetitive distorted guitar and syncopated
drumming has long been exhausted by bands
like Helmet and Orange 9mm. Synthesizers are
employed in a failed attempt to fuse an elec
tronic and industrial influence with this style.
In a press release, the band’s label compared
Headcrash to Rage Against the Machine, which,
unfortunately, is a valid judgement.
The social commentary of Headcrash’s lyrics
is as overdone and annoying as Rage’s. The
world needs, at most, one rap-slash-metal-
slash-pissed-off-at-the-rich-and-powerful band
at any given time, and Rage was popular first.
Headcrash loses.
Headcrash’s mission opens a world of irony.
According to the press release, “The message is
clear — corporate brainwashing is stealing our
souls ... the system doesn’t work.”
Oh, please.
This attitude, though somewhat noble, is
Generation X-ish and among the bands that
should have faded with grunge and teen
angst fads. It sounds like someone forgot to
tell Headcrash.
The band is anti-industry to the point of
absurdity in songs like “Imitation of Life’.”
“In eternal servitude to a stable salary / Sign
the dotted line and prepare for starvation /
Once an individual, now a company clone.”
Speaking of the “dotted line,” singer Allen
Wright surely considered his animosity for what
he calls the “American nightmare,” when his
band signed to this Warner Brothers-backed
label. Quite the anti-corporate move.
Next time, Headcrash should try overdosing
on substance and originality. D - John LeBas
The Jerky Boys
The Jerky Boys 3
Mercury / Ratchet
Records
The bad boys of comedy albums are back with
a vengeance, but they missed their target by a mile.
Johnny Brennan and his sidekick, Kamal, are
bringing the country their third series of prank
comedy in The Jerky Boys 3.
The album consists of 29 prank calls per
formed by Brennan and Kamal. In this recording,
eight of the calls are incoming, advertisement
response calls from unsuspecting people.
The comedic pranksters fill the album with a
variety of characters ranging from a hip-hop rap
per, Curly G., to a confused woman by the name
of Sol Rosenberg.
The album is flat and will probably leave its
audience in tears instead of guffaws.
The character of Sol Rosenberg is the album’s
high point.
In a call titled “Sol’s Chainsaw Shock,”
Rosenberg receives a call from a woman
responding to her chainsaw advertisement.
As Rosenberg gets up to see if her husband
has sold the chainsaw, she has a terrible acci
dent which leaves her ankle bone protruding
through the skin.
The sympathetic caller, not knowing the con
versation is a phony, continually asks if Rosenberg
is okay and advises her to see a doctor.
The other characters on the album are cre
ations that should have stayed in Brennan and
Kamal’s imagination.
Compared to their two previous multi-plat
inum selling albums, the new release from The
Jerky Boys is a complete waste of listening time.
The Jerky Boys must be working without a
dictionary, because album No. 3 is a far cry from
the meaning of funny. F
- James Francis
till
,
i 1
■Life’s
Circus
Free!! Food
& Drinks
tudent
punseling
ervices
Live
Music &
Performances
Provided
by:
^.ritry
Dunk these local celebrities
at our Dunkin’ Booth!!
Carl Baggett
Polly Bell
Fred Brown
Darryl Bruffet
Bill Kibler
A&M Yell Leaders
Door prizes donated by
over 75 university organizations
and community businesses.
1 student to pickup 2
$40 per school yeu f
Express, call 845-26'
iring the fall andsp^j
(except on Univeisi/
tage paid at
i, 230 Reed McDofr':
Aggie Wranglers Kappa Pickers
Don’t miss the biggest student appreciation day ever!!
Thursday, Sept. 12th, 2-6 pm
Henderson Hall a adjacent grassy areas!