Arts & Entertainment
Robert Fensler and Perry Drake, co-owners of The Edge, show the "birthday drink,” a white concoction called a "Cheesy
Discharge.”
Entrepreneurs living on The Edge
bar-,
—
By Chris Burchard
Staff Reporter
To avoid bars thatblast the same
banal top 40 music all night long,
get off the mainstream and head to
the Edge.
Lincoln’s newest bar. The Edge,
is located in the basement level of
227 N. 9lh St., filling the space
vacated by the Spinoza Italian res
taurant. Just look for the neon razor
blade above the front door.
Not a place for a chronic claus
trophobic, The Edge has low ceil
ings and dim lighting, which al
most give it a European pub feel.
Almost. This club is definitely
different, with louder, harsher music
and a huge toxic-radiation symbol
behind the bar.
There’s another difference —
the relative youth of the owners
and managers. Robert Fcnsler III,
president of Cutting Edge Inc.
(parent company of The Edge) and
manager of the bar, is 23. Perry
Drake, The Edge’s assistant man
ager and a pre-veterinarian student
at UNL, is 26. The head bartender,
Clay Nielson, a UNL actuarial
science major, comes in as the
youngest of the five employees at
21. His brother Shane, a UNL biol
ogy major and head of security, is
24.
The only employee who is even
30-something is Steve Schulz, the
bar’s music and entertainment di
rector. He’s 34.
While these guys may be lack
ing in years, they seem to know
what they’re doing, especially when
it comes to their reasons for open
ing the bar.
“There was a need for a good
alternative dance bar and another
place where people could go and
see alternative bands,” Schulz said.
The Edge has something differ
ent to offer Lincoln, Edge associ
ates say. Something the city lacks.
“We have an all-alternative dance
club compared to, say, the Under
ground or the Precinct, which are
pretty much top-40 dance clubs,”
Schulz said.
The Edge has had healthy busi
ness since its opening last month,
Drake said, partly due to the popu
larity of the alternative music it
ce-floor music features a
variety of heavy, industrial- and
techno-bcal music, from bands as
mild as New Order and Depeche
Mode to ones as hard as Nine Inch
Nails, The Revolting Cocks and
Ministry.
“I really try to mix it up,” said
Schulz, who is in charge of running
the disc-jockey booth. “I try to do
something a little bit different every
night.”
With more than 600 compact
discs to choose from at any given
time, diversity shouldn’t be a prob
lem, Schulz said.
In addition to playing alterna
tive music on the dance floor and at
the bar, The Edge crew said it was
planning to stage alternative bands
as well.
“We’re going to focus on new
bands that arc all original,” Drake
said. “We’re going to slay away
from cover bands.”
They’re also thinking of putting
on some all-ages shows, too, but
have yet to work out the legal de
tails.
They’ve already started fishing
for alternative bands and have had
some catches, Schulz said.
Kill Whitey, of Lawrence, Kan.,
will perform at The Edge in the
middle of this month. Schulz said
the group sounds like a high-en
ergy version of Soundgarden with
a female singer.
EJ. Quit, a Sl Louis band Schulz
calls “a cross between Miracle
Legion and The Replacements,”
will play in May.
The Edge also is looking for
local bands who w»u to play, Schulz
said, and already has been con
tacted by a number of interested
groups. Lincoln’s Deus Ex Mach
ina will play this weekend.
Despite the differences, The Edge
shares some things in common with
most bars, like a pool room and
limited munchies, including pop
corn, peanuts, chips and Tomb
stone pizza.
The Edge offers daily drink
specials, and a house-specialty drink
called the “Toxic Waste” is on the
way.
Other activities planned for The
Edge include Sunday Alternative
Video Nightand showings of alter
native movies and animated fea
tures.
Local artists are encouraged to
bring their works to The Edge for
possible display.
And there are other activities in
the works: fashion shows, local
dance performances and plays,
especially ones developed and
performed by UNL students, Schulz
said.
“I think we’re going to do well,”
Drake said. “Everybody likes the
place.”
Fensler added, “I think we’re
doing good now. I just hope it’ll
keep gelling better.”
Anthology
offers insight
into women’s
challenges
The Writer on Her Work
Volume II: New Essays in New Ter
ritory
Janet Sternburg, Editor
W.W. Norton & Company
By Mark Baldridge
Senior Reporter
“The Writer on Her Work” origi
nally was published in 1980 End ed
ited by Janet Sternburg. At the lime,
no other anthology existed on the
origins and struggles specifically of
women writers.
Sternburg said in her introduction
to that volume that she began to work
on it because she “needed to read it.”
It turned out to be something a lot
of women needed to read. In those
days, the struggle for a “room of
one’s own” was being hard-fought as
more and more women found they
had something to say.
Literature was more exclusively
male-dominated in those days and the
essays reflected on how difficult it
was for a woman writer to be taken
seriously.
Today, merely a decade later, the
struggle of women writers has shifted
to another front.
Several of the writers whose works
are collected in “The Writer on Her
Work Volume II: New Essays in New
Territory” express surprise that a
writer’s gender is even taken into
consideration anymore.
It s true that the days are over
when a critic would be ignorant enough
to write off a work because it was
made by a woman.
And it seems the struggle to be a
writer is more evenly distributed among
^ men and women; that is to say, it is
almost impossibly difficult for every
one.
The writers in this collection seem
to have shifted awareness from the
fight for legitimacy in the world of
letters to the more fundamental mat
ter of why they feel compelled to
write at all.
Virtually all the authors claim to
feel this compulsion. They believe
they have something to say, or some
thing they must say, regardless.
The essays collected here come
from a broad variety of writers, and
an equally broad spectrum of view
point and opinion.
Included in the collection are such
writers as Margaret Atwood, author
of “The Handmaid’s Talc" and Luisa
See BOOK on 10
Saxophonist returns with experience, fame
conp^
By Dionn* Searcey
OWIW COITOf
Johnny Reno was back in town
Tuesday night, singing out to a crowd
at P.O. Pears as if tne concert was five
years ago at the Drumstick.
Reno and the four members of his
band played to about 100 fans at P.O.
Pears, 322 S. 9th St. The band stopped
in Lincoln during a six-week tour that
took them to Chicago and Minneapo
lis, among other places.
Reno’s smooth moves and saxo
Johnny Reno’s concert mixes new, old tunes
phone playing provoked fans to dance
to the Texas-style R&B tunes from
his latest album, “Third Degree.”
“Here’s a couple from the old
Drumstick days," he said as he started
in on tunes from his oldest album,
“Bom to Blow.”
Reno’s no stranger to Lincoln. The
39-year-old Fort Worth, Texas, na
tive played often at the Drumstick in
1986-87, he said.
“I’ve been coming up here for quite
a while actually. Great place. It’s
always had a good music scene, espe
cially in the mid 80s. The Drumstick
brought a lot of bands,” he said.
The Drumstick, which closed sev
eral years ago, was the best place for
Reno to play, he said.
“I’m telling you it was a legendary
place. All the bands that I know would
go, ‘Are you playing Lincoln? Oh,
man, the Drumstick, what a great
place.’”
Now Lincoln doesn’t have a club
that’s as well-known, he said. This
makes it tough for less popular bands
to get noticed, Reno said.
“In order to have a good music
scene you’ve got to have a good place
where bands can play and learn how
to play,” he said. But Reno didn’t
need the Drumstick to boost his popu
larity this year. He has been busy
playing with Chris Isaak. “It’s a good
show with Chris. Musically, it’s a lot
of fun. It’s good music.”
Because he’s done stows with Isaak,
he said he’s gotten noticed.
“I’ve gotten a lot more exposure to
people. I’ve had a real successful
year. I’ve gotten a lot of attention out
of that,” he said.
Despite doing some new work with
a different artist, and shifting gears to
pursue T.V. and film projects, Reno
said his goals haven’t changed.
“My goals havealways been pretty
much to play music and travel... and
to play music to people that like our
stuff,” he said.
“It is the life. It is. I’ve been very
fortunate in that sense. I’ve been very
lucky to get to do what I want.”
