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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 15, 2004)
■ATION THE BATTALION 7B Thursday, April 15,2004 Breaking into the ‘biz’ ebut CD is gaining singer Toby Lightman notice By Tom Moon KRT CAMPUS I NEW YORK — In between rounds of stripes and solids at a toiy Chelsea billiard hall, the di ninutiye singer and songwriter Toby Lightman is almost giddy as she runs through the shocks she’s experienced recently. 'I Just that morning, Lightman heard herself on the radio for the first time. Her manager called in Ifenzy to tell her that contem- Jrary-hits Z100 was spinning evils and Angels,” the first gle from her just-released but CD, “Little Things.” “I’m like all excited, and I hear ■and it was soil of weird,” says ghtman, 25, now on the first ind of performances to help amote “Little Things” (Lava, 3 s out of four). ”1 don’t know |mt 1 thought I’d feel at that ament, but it wasn’t what I felt, jaybe I was in shock.” Then there was the time, a few weeks ago, when she was oi the phone with a friend while I TV's “Cribs” played in the lickground. I “It’s not my favorite show, it las just on,” she seems com pelled to say as she connects on Itricky bank shot. Lightman is •mething of a pool fiend: She jlliis her own cue, emblazoned lith the logo of her alma mater, |tho University of Wisconsin. “All of the sudden I hear the arin the beginning of ‘Devils id Angels’ and I’m like, whoa, reaming into the phone. It was ly 10 seconds, but that made it [most more trippy, because it [as so random.” In the last few months, the per- irmer’s defining musical idea — immed acoustic guitars and sygoing pop hooks supported crisply programmed, urban- ing beats — has begun to ichant music-industry tastemak- The strident, slyly philosoph- ;al relationship song “Devils and gels’’ is gaining steam on radio dhas been featured on MTV’s r ou Hear It First” and the all- deo M2 channel. In an indica- inthat early interest is spreading the general public, a few weeks o the song was one of the top e downloads on Apple’s iTunes Ite. Last week, Billboard maga- I ne declared her a “rising star.” I Lightman, who grew up in lie New Jersey suburbs of Piiladelphia, is trying to keep a Stewart’s lawyers kccuse juror of lying [NEW YORK (AP) - Pressing gain for a new trial, Martha Itewart's lawyers said Wednesday pey have uncovered more lies and nissions by one of the jurors who onvicted her last month. [According to the papers filed in pderal court, the former president a Little League organization llaimed juror Chappell Hartridge iiadtold him he embezzled money rom the group to support a locaine habit. jThe documents said Hartridge lid not disclose the allegations on uifc S3U^ sed wntSul te noth: lid new level head. “From living in New York for the last four years, I’ve learned that everything can change very quickly.” Lightman credits Peter Zizzo, the songwriter and producer who has collaborated with Avril Lavigne and Vanessa Carlton, with helping her nail down what started as an elusive sound. “I like soulful rock, like the Black Crowes, but I also like clas sic pop songs,” Lightman explains, adding that with the exception of Suzuki violin lessons when she was 6, her parents never pushed her in any particular musi cal direction. “I had these songs that weren’t really pop or urban, and some people I met with had very strong ideas about which way I should go. Peter just got it: He let the elements coexist.” Zizzo says that was easy. “Her guitar is very aggressive and rhythmic, and at the same time she’s coming from a very urban place as a vocalist. There’s some Lauryn Hill in what she does. It was my job to bring those things out in their purest form.” Music wasn’t a huge part of Lightman’s childhood. She did n’t have stage parents: Her father runs an environmental company, and her mother is a regional greeting-card represen tative. And though everyone rec ognized that she could sing, it was mostly an after-school- activities thing. “People keep wanting me to say I knew I was going to be famous when I grew up ... but that’s not true. I wasn’t that kind of kid,” she says. Lightman wasn’t a sullen jour nal-scribbling kid, either. Though she had a band with several friends from high school, she did n't start writing songs in earnest until college, where she studied communications. Looking back, she says she didn't have a sense of herself as a perfonner until after junior year, when she took a job singing in an in-demand band in Bangkok, Thailand. “My parents weren’t exactly thrilled, but that experience gave me confidence. And it was after that when I started to really write songs.” During a summer internship with Electric Factory Concerts in Philadelphia, Lightman began to develop a network of con tacts. She met Wyclef Jean’s brother, who encouraged her to Jonathan Wilson • KRT CAMPUS Singer and songwriter Toby Lightman hangs out at a pool hall in New York City on March 17, 2004. get a demo tape together. She crossed paths with other produc ers who helped her record her song “Voices.” Eventually, she moved to New York to begin the long process of breaking in. Lightman did everything from bartending to open-mike song writer things at the Bitter End, and despite initial nervousness, she sent her tape, photo and resume to industry executives. That led to a manager, and then to Zizzo. Once they had brought a few songs, including “Devils and Angels,” “Leave It Inside,” and “The River,” to a fairly polished state, Zizzo persuaded Karp and Lava president Jason Flom to check Lightman out. It wasn’t exactly a traditional showcase, Zizzo recalls: “It’s the middle of the afternoon, and they show up in softball uni forms on the way to a game. She NEWS IN BRIEF his jury questionnaire. Late last month, Stewart’s lawyers said that Hartridge had lied in failing to disclose a 1997 arrest on charges of assaulting a woman he had been living with. The defense has argued that it would have moved to have Hartridge stricken from the jury had they known about any of these facts from his past. The papers filed Wednesday asked U.S. District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum, who over saw the homemaking authority's trial earlier this year, to grant a second trial or at least a hearing on the Hartridge matter. Student charged with faking her abduction MADISON, Wis. (AP) - A college student accused of faking her own kidnapping last month was charged Wednesday with lying to police in what they suggested was a desperate attempt to get her boyfriend’s attention. Audrey Seiler, a 20-year-old sopho more at the University of Wisconsin, was charged with two misdemeanor counts of obstructing officers. Each charge carries up to nine months in jail and a $10,000 fine. Seiler disappeared from her off- campus apartment March 27 with- sings, and they’re blown away, talking a deal right away. I real ly had to convince her that Lava was legit.” “I’d been told to expect bid ding wars and stuff, and here were these average guys,” Lightman says. “But as we talked I could tell they were totally into what I was trying to do, and that they weren’t going to try and make me into another Mary J. Blige or something.” And that, she says, matters more to her than massive sales. “I’m one of those people who don’t think ‘pop’ is a bad word. But I’m talking about pop on my terms, what’s in my head as a singer and a songwriter, not the cardboard-cutout kind of pop that’s going on now. 1 have to do this and really follow it through, because I’ll always wonder what could have happened if. I want to know (that) at least I followed my instincts.” out her coat or purse. She was discovered curled in a fetal posi tion in a marsh four days later, and told police that a man had abduct ed her at knifepoint. But police concluded Seiler made up the story after obtaining a store videotape that showed her buying the knife, duct tape, rope and cold medicine she claimed her abductor used to restrain her. Seiler con fessed after she was confronted with the tape, according to authorities. “I set up everything. I’m just so messed up. I'm sorry,” they quot ed her as saying. 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