Page 3
Wednesday • November 20, 1996
they had it
C Luster sa; 1
astating for
Yudience mayhem powers punk rock trio Fastball
By John LeBas
The Battalion
iers seei
jpaypli ^■Ihere will be no “hump it” at Vertigo
AP) — Alio,, I tonight, but Fastball guitarist and vo
ters to seth® calist Miles Zuniga still wants the
urt poor Te ' ovv d to make plenty of College Station-
verruled, a noise. Fans here, Zuniga said, get
vocates cha >Wl ^ er than people in the power-pop-
ay, )ck hand’s hometown of Austin — and
rs Union Si istl a N thrives on that energy,
ice, Consup: hke people who are vocal and loud,
oerica andt usually in College Station the group
blic Utility ial t comes to see us is pretty boisterous,”
tderal Com un '^ a sai h- “1 love Austin, but the people
ision. len ' listen to you and just kind of clap po-
the 5th Ut te T l n College Station, at least, the peo-
als in New C l 13 ^ been drinking tequila.”
i pec's de h takes a little audience mayhem to
y pt-, one serv ®|g out the best in Fastball, Zuniga said,
action earlier “^ooietimes, we’re tired and don’t really
I it this mo 3e l I'k 6 playing,” he said. “We always try to
o the extra mile, but a good audience
B^Kes a lot of difference.”
IWastball began in 1994 as Magneto USA,
/hich played in Austin for about a year
Highs &Lcnd a half. But there was already another
iand called Magneto, Zuniga said, so the
llay’s Expec'-fjo had to change its name to Fastball.
85°F hat didn’t make it any easier to part with
heir original, well-loved name, he said.
iday’sExpect “it’s hard to rename a band because
64°F ou get used to the name and nothing else
eems as good,” he said. “It’s like taking a
imorrow'sfiftd who’s been named ‘Jack’ for the first
High ive years of his life and then saying, ‘Oh,
85°F
there’s a kid next door named ‘Jack,’ too, so
we have to give you a new name.’”
The band members were not enthusi
astic about the name change, and unfortu
nately, some fans lost track of Magneto
USA when it became Fastball, Zuniga said.
Zuniga does not want Fastball’s where
abouts to be a mystery again. Forget about
becoming a “one-hit wonder” and fading
from memory after a few weeks of success,
he said — Fastball’s in the game for “the
long haul.”
“We live in a microwave age, where
bands come up real fast and then disap
pear — bands like Jesus Jones and EMF,”
Zuniga said. "It’s not like we want to be this
overnight sensation. We want to have a
whole series of albums where each one is
better than the last.”
Fastball’s debut album, Make Your
Mama Proud, was released earlier this year
on Hollywood Records. According to a
press release, Fastball delivers “terse, edgy
bursts of power punk/pop blending equal
parts sweetness and savagery” on the 14-
song effort. But publicity rhetoric aside,
Zuniga simply described Fastball’s music
as rock ’n’ roll.
“We’re a rock ’n’ roll band along the
lines of a little Squeeze, a little KISS, and
The Who, maybe,” Zuniga said. “It’s all
kind of mixed in.”
Being on a major record label has not
changed the music, Zuniga said, but does
limit the band’s control over what it does.
“Any time you’re talking about a major
record label, there’s a certain amount of
control taken from you, just because of the
number of people involved,” he said. “But
I don’t like to think about things like that
because I just like to play music. As far as
the music goes, we haven’t compromised.”
But Zuniga said a record contract
makes it easier to concentrate on the mu
sic — the company arranges interviews for
articles, handles publicity and sets up tour
dates. And it’s a good thing Hollywood
handles the incidentals, Zuniga said, be
cause Fastball is usually too busy touring
to have time to do much else.
“Touring’s pretty fun, but you don’t
have time to do anything,” he said. “It is
n’t like you get to go to all these places
and see the sights. We spend most of our
time driving to the town, setting up our
stuff, playing, and driving to the next
town again. There’s no time to write mu
sic, either.”
Zuniga said touring gets old after a cou
ple of months, but playing in a band is a
great job.
“You get to sleep late, you get free
drinks most of the time, and you don’t
have a boss,” he said.
Unless, of course, the fans qualify as a
collective boss. After all, Zuniga said, his
job as a performer is to make the crowd a
part of the show— and to try to get people
as rowdy as possible.
“If I just play a show and don’t inter
act with the crowd, I haven’t done a
good job,” he said.
Fastball
loinorrow.Vi
Kxpectedl
63°F
courtesy of W
Mastercard contest seeks best vocal act in Aggieland
By Aaron Meier
The Battalion
t is not every day that a college student has a
Chance to win $15,000, but 10 Texas A&M
student acts will compete tonight for a
hance to take the grand prize and make
luable contacts.
I m.O aj MSC Variety Show sponsors the Master-
^^/Mard American Collegiate Talent Search
| \CTS), a contest which aims to find the
est student performers in the country. The
Unlyijjllompetition, which will be held tonight at 7
t68-DAX ' Redder Auditorium, has attracted singers
H |nd stand-up comedians
said. “I want to win this thing.”
Lucas will perform a song from an
album she recently completed.
Lucas said winning $15,000
could open many doors for her
music career.
“If I won, I might get a
cover done for my
r*4-DlYY/
Tonight’s competition stands as a first
.tep towards the grand prize. Whoever
ft cm ins the local competition will advance
Ctnftt ||the regional competition at South-
146-DXVl rn Methodist University. Two acts
6 Gtorltiii be selected to represent the re-
lush Or. ion at the national competition
»96-DXYl i Philadelphia.
Dave Salmon, adviser to MSC Vari-
______—4y Show, said the winner of the
^ollege Station competition
r g{- or 0 as a g° od chance of going
- Shop!
i tals
st Games
I
b Philadelphia.
jWe will have some of
he most talented student perform-
rs at the show,” Salmon said. “The
/inner has an excellent chance of ad-
ancing to nationals.”
ow Charts ■ p) e t>t>j e Lucas, a country singer
nd sophomore animal science
rams
3EE
.najor, said she has high hopes
arjtonight’s competition and
he national competition.
||l want to go all the way,” Lucas
album, maybe even put it toward a music video,’
Lucas said. “I could always pay back my parents.”
Performers see the local contest as a chance to
gain visibility in the Bryan-College Station mu
sic scene.
Craig Hanna, guitarist and singer of
Texas blues band Throw Away People
and a senior geography major, said
he does not expect to be making
the trip to Philadelphia.
“We’re not going there to
win,” Hanna said. “We just
hope to play, have fun, and
deliver some soul food to
hungry people.”
Hanna said the
Bryan-College
Station music
scene is a frus
trating one to break
into, with a limited
number of venues and
an ample supply of bands
willing to fill them.
He said MasterCard ACTS lets
the contestants showcase their var
ious talents to the community at one
of the largest venues in the area.
With a wide spectrum of performers
scheduled to appear, the show seems to have
something for everyone.
Salmon said alternative rock bands, country
and western singers, an a capella group, a stand-up
comedian and someone who is going to perform a
song from the Broadway musical Phantom of the
Opera all will perform tonight.
Katie Groff, chair of MSC Variety Show and a ju
nior elementary education major, said the variety
of musical performers at the MasterCard ACTS
proves what a diverse campus A&M possesses.
"We’ve recruited a diverse group of students with a
wide variety of acts that will entertain everyone,” Groff
said. “I am impressed with all the acts.”
Lucas said the MasterCard ACTS offers more
than a group of bands playing the same type
of music to win the contest.
“There are so many different people
competing here,” Lucas said. “Every act
“^^0pot w * d de memora ble, as opposed to
just the last person being the most
memorable simply because
they were last.”
Groff said the advan
tage to this talent show,
as opposed to the
one put on by MSC
Variety Show
during Parent’s
Weekend, is that
the performers
have a chance to ad
vance to a national
competition where they
may meet agents or people
with record labels.
Gina Miori, director of adver
tising for MSC Variety Show and a
sophomore speech communications
major, said this is the third year Master-
Card has sponsored the nationwide talent
search, but this is the first time A&M has
hosted the event.
“MasterCard was really interested in having a
local contest here,” Miori said. “A&M has such a
large student base, with a diverse campus to pull the
various acts from. It was easy to see why they want
ed to come here.”
Lucas said whoever wins the competition will
have earned the honor.
“This is not a competition to see who is good
and who isn’t,” Lucas said. “This is a competition
to see who is the best.”
going there to
win. We just hope to
play, have fun, and
deliver some soul
food to hungry
people/’
-Craig Hanna
guitarist and singer of
Throw Away
People
> Ires 11-30-96
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