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Arts & Entertainment
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By Mark Up
Senior Ropwtar
staff
Red” are famous all throughout the stale,
and even in other places across the country
where college football is a big deal. There's
only one problem - the crowd never has
chanted4 ‘Go Big Red” in unison. The size
of the stadium and the large number of
people simply prohibits any kind of organi
zation of that scale, so that the group cheers
are rarely more than garbled, clumsy
sounding roars.
The hand also is usually a disappoint
ment I'm sure the songs it pfays sound good
in some context but the band also faces a
severe logistical problem - playing to
V6,0G0 people in lour general directions. .
R hat this means is that when the band is
Rpposed to be playing something like thsfi
ftg^ndtheme, there’s probably about!
tVBHHrann^one,sixsnare<^u^^l *
In fairnuMo the band, though, it pro
vides one £ the great aural joys of any
football Jflurday - its late in the game,
brassy^Maition of the Charlie Brown
jMjJrainvorst sound on Saturday at Memo
HpRadium is simply the general con versa
Jon of the crowd. In a society that has made
■ few major steps in attitudes toward race
Rid sex over the past few decades, a football
Sodium on game day is genet ally the most
"RThe best sounds are those that come in
spontaneous, immediate reaction to wliat
occurs on the field, and there arc a varie ty of
these reactions. The eoicst are the ononises
of boos that follow “bad” calls against the
home team. Or the hissing noise that greets
visiting evils like the Oklahoma Sooner? or
now-retired Alabama coach Bear Bryant
yelps, moans
• *# k
before dawn,
s wake up and
ight silence. If
yorll hear the first
have the morning air
t two minutes. Then
hear the next five birds, then the next
fifty, one hundred and then more,
e squirrels will get going in the
the acorns will start, to rain
The cars get up again, and by
’t believe how loud the world
is time of day.
time people all over Lincoln
tering the most hated, obnox
the world — an alarm clock of
it’s shut of f they ’ 11 marvel at
quiet, but you, of course,
will know differently.
Local bands consider cassettes most affordable option
9 la Hen m tkc ImiI cMKtttf m f
J the sWvw at Pickles, 1(371 St. i
tt/J mi Malcn, Mil 0 St jj
B and the Hot Notes, “back in wack” V
Roger Bene*, “Lie Awake”
xgFl The Blue Band. “One More Won't Kill Ya” ft
Bob‘n'J, “We Want Off the Planet”
: Bobby Carious, “The Paul Phillips Show”
& 'jk] The Cheatin’ Snakes “Snake Fascinated! ” fcjf‘
Christopher “The End of the Age” [El
. Dave Dickerson, “No More Land to Give hvj.
Elysium Crossing “Rhythm of the Rain” t
vii?l EroJca, “Babelogue” U$<
The Eoiksters, “what a poser” KpH
‘Jra Jared nod the Doo Rites, “How Do You Doo? j
\dr| The Lemmings. “Skoomba Loomba” Ryc':
^4 Lonesome Dave and Hardly Every Holm,4 ‘The Ballad
of Oral Roberts” ' Raj4
*3 Laurie McClain. “Gettin‘Out Alive” MS:
uwf John Moran, “The Taming Power of the Great f/Mpfl
w] The New Brass Guns, “White Dress”
tr4 * Daniel Newton, ”... somebody actually plays this stuff yho
Out of Habit. ‘'Flavors of Favors” „ pKJt
r$j Private Kangaroo, “Another Bad Day for Bobby McKay
The Return ^Olossingtown” |£kJ1 w
fi John and Jmon Shaw, “Flowers From Hcaven
yd “Staged! A Live Lincoln Sampler” featuring The New
i( Breus Guar, 13 Nightmares, Etysium Crossing, The Return,
hj Trottf Mystery, Mannequin Beach, Out of Habit, Charlie
Burton and the Hiccups
3 Scott Stewart, “Quiet Life” t „ KjwU
JJ Such Sweet Thunder, * ‘Jan Chamberlain PMg&m
3 Dave Sullivan, “Endless Road”
J Tone Def Crew. “Grand Def Audio” K Wjkj
H Tuna Fbh Jones, “Tuna Fish Jones” P+/hX (
I Who Doctor Who. "Sodden Do*" Co||||>fc<, ^ ^ ^ [j^
*£*•****
i— > —1 *"
By Mark Lag*
Senior Reporter
For aspiring Lincoln recording
artists the possible roads are vari
ous, many corne sliortly to dead
ends and the most common in
volve the cassette.
“Cassettes are by far the cheap
est to get out,” said Randy Wa
son. who besides leading the Lin
coln band The Return, has re
corded a number of local tapes
over the last few years at his own
Black Sea studio.
But first, one must get music on
to a master tape, and there are at
least a couple of options in Lin
coln.
Mastcitrax, 1844 N Sl, is a 24
track full-time professional re
cording studio, said Jim Rupert,
co-owner. The studio's standard
fee is $40 per hour, plus additional
tape costs, Rupert said.
“The tape costs depend on how
much they use,” he said. “Some
people want twenty takes for three
songs, so it'll cost them a little bh
more.”
In addition to i* traces, me
Mastertrax recording studio fea
tures digital mixdown capabilities
and DBX noise reduction.
Watson's eight-track private
studio is unfortunately no longer
an option for Lincoln bands. After
five years of recording releases by
bands like For Against, 13 Night
mares, Trout Mystery, The New
Brass Guns and Chit of Habit,
Watson has decided that Black Sea
from now on will be the private
studio of The Return.
“I started it about five years
ago, and was just doing it for fun,”
Watson said. “But after a while
the economics just took the fun out
of it** .,
“People thought I was making
• tons of money cwrof it, but I was
just paying off new equipment/’
he said. Recordces’ abuses of his
fee policies and'unreliability in
payment (hove Watson out of the
Eiblic recording business once he
id all of his equipment pgid off,
he said. He might occasionally
break (hat policy, though.
“I might record with Out of
0
Habit again,” he said. *TH only
work with good friends, good
bands, or people I know that I can
work with/ne said.
Home recording is another re
cording option. Roger Benes took
this route to put out his “Lie
Awake” tape.
Benes said he spent about a year
at home working on his own 8
track recorder to produce the nine
song cassette. He also had a quar
ter-inch two-track machine so he
' could make his own master.
Which brings us to the n$xt step
in dm process - master tape in
hand, where does one go to get it
mass-produced and ready for the
market? .
Rupert, Watson, and Benes all
mention BQC - Best Quality Cas
sette - in Council Bluffs as a good
option for local musicians.
“We recommend BQC,”
Rupert said. “They do a real good
job.”
Watson said that 13 Nightmares
took its “Black Sea” recording to
Chicago to get records made, and
For Against went to California for
CDs, but his own band, The Re
turn, had 300 copies of ‘ ‘Glossing
town” produced at BQC
• Three hundred is the minimum
number they will make, and the
cost for that number was some
where between $400 and $500,
Watson said.
According to Watson and
Rupert, cassette is by far the easi
est format for Lincoln musicianptD
market their music, for reaaon^of |
economy and geography.
Rupert said that Masteruax
turns master tapes over the its
clients, and can recomend certain
places to take them.
The closest place Rupert has
gone through to get record copies
' made Is somewhere in Texas, and
he also knows of places in Nash
ville, Tenn., and on the coasts. CDs
arc even tougher to get made, as
there are very few places that do
that now, Rupert said. Both cost
‘rtnuch more than cassettes.
The final step, of course, is
sales. Many local record stores put
a variety of local releases on their
shelves on a consignment basis.
Pickles usually places five cop
ies of local cassettes for sale in
each of its three Lincoln stores at a
price set by the band, plus a general
service charge never greater than
$1, manager Mike Bullerman said.
‘ * After that it’s up to the artist to
check in and see how sales are,’ ’ he
said. If all the copies sell out. Pick
les will write the artist a check, and
then put more copies on sale. The
cycle continues until the artist
pulls out, Bullerman said.
Trish Duhas, manager of Twist
ers, said that the store also takes
local tapes on consignment, and
puts them on sale at the artist’s
designated cost, plus minor stick
ering and service charges.
Occasionally, with more estab
lished bands like The New Brass
Guns, Twisters will pay the band
outright, actually buying the cas
settes and then putting them on
sale, Dubas said.
Both The Return and Benes'
have had cassettes on sale at Twist
ers, Pickles and Project Imports.
The Return’s “Glossingtown”
‘came out at the end of last school
year, and has sold about 100 cop
ies, Watson said. The band, cur
rently without a drummer, has
found a permanent drum program
mer for recording work, and will
release a cassette single in a month
or so, “so that people will know
that,we are still alive,” Watson
'Seines* liLie Awake,” was re
leased about a month ago, and he
has managed to get it placed in
Lincoln, Omaha and Kansas City.
^ This is a result of Lie Awake,
the band, having played fairly of
ten in these cities, he said.
“We’re known there,” Benes
said. “But at the stores where we
weren’t, wt didn't get much re
sponse. It’s pretty tough to get your
tapes on sale if they don t know
who you are.”
“The sales are going great,”
Benes said. “1 think about 400
,have sold.’* ’ _
