Dan Frazier - Contributing Writer

Tomorrow night, the Appalachian Popular Programming Society (APPS) Club Shows council will host the second annual Battle of the Bands at Legends. The council chose four bands to compete after listening to 20 bands that submitted material for the contest. The four bands that were picked by the council are Pency Prep, West Of Was, Phallum and Earth Blues.

It will be the first time for any of these bands to compete in a "Battle of the Bands" contest. "Battle of the Bands is always something to look forward to," says APPS Club Shows Chairperson Brendan Rooney. "It's a great event that gives local and student bands an opportunity to get some exposure and play in a major venue such as Legends. I'm glad that the contest has turned into an annual event."

The bands will each be given 30-minute sets and will be judged on "Stage Presence" (performance ability), "Audience Participation" (crowd reaction), "Musicianship" (instrument talent), and "Originality" (song material).

Four judges were picked from various clubs and organizations at Appalachian State University and Boone to give a wide range of taste in music within the judges. The judges will be Appalachian's college radio station WASU Program Director Chris Higginbotham, The Appalachian's Entertainment Editor Kara Hodge, Murphy's Restaurant and Pub's band-booking supervisor John Rush, and a representative from the Music Entertainment Industry Student Association (MEISA) chapter at Appalachian whose name was not available as of press time. The bands' various music styles will create a good mix to fulfill the judges' and audience's various musical tastes.

Pency Prep (PP) is the newest band to be added to Boone's indie rock scene.

PP blends various forms of rock to create an original and indescribable sound. They took their name from the private high school from which main character Holden Caulfield was kicked out of in J.D. Salinger's book "The Catcher In The Rye." The band started as a high school project in Concord. After graduating from Central Cabarrus High in 2000, founding band members Jason Roberts (lead guitar), Brian Harding (vocals, rhythm guitar), and Matt Cole (drums) all came to Appalachian in the fall of 2000. Here they picked up Chris Hutelmyer to replace their lost bass player.

PP has already begun playing several shows around Boone including Ferrara's Pizzeria, Caribbean Cafe, and "The Jailhouse." They will soon be extending their shows to larger cities such as Chapel Hill, Winston-Salem and Charlotte, according to Roberts. PP is signed to Hero Records based out of Winston-Salem. The label recorded, produced and mastered the PP's first album, "The 1983 EP." The label also included them on their second annual "Resource" compilation, which is a benefit for orphaned children in India.

"One of our goals as a band is to expand Boone's music scene beyond jam bands and bluegrass. We hope to establish a more broad scene of indie rock in Boone," said Roberts. "But basically we're just a bunch of nerds trying to play music to get women," added Hutlemyer.

The Battle of the Bands will be West of Was's (WOW) first performance in front of a live audience. WOW consists only of two band members Ryan Choate and Stuart Edwards, both playing acoustic guitars. Choate, an Appalachian freshman, and Edwards have been long-time friends but have only been playing music together for three months.

They chose their name as a statement to express their desire to escape their hometown of Rocky Mount. "If we went any further east [of Rocky Mount], we would run into the [Atlantic] coast, so we could only go west, and "was" is where we were and don't want to go back, and "is" is where we are," explains Choate. "People always get confused when I try to explain that."

WOW claims Dave Matthews Band as a heavy influence on their music. And after hearing their complex acoustic guitar songwriting, you can tell. "We are really excited about this (the Battle of the Bands contest) but a little nervous because it is our first show ever," says Choate. "We didn't even really plan on getting picked (by APPS Club Shows to compete), we just came together and wrote some songs and thought about submitting some music (for the Battle of the Band contest); it was actually my roommate that believed in me and my music who turned the tape in." Earth Blues (EB) is not a jam band. They play "improvised oriented rock funk fusion," according to lead guitar player/vocalist and Appalachian Junior Evan Ackerman. "We're always trying to do something different with new musical ideas." EB, which also consists of Appalachian senior Syke McLeod (drums) and Appalachian Senior Dennis Berndt (bass guitar), is the most established band in the Boone music scene of the bands participating in The Battle of the Bands.

After forming in the winter of 1999 from knowing each other through school at Appalachian, they have played all over town including Cottonwood Brewery, Geno's Sports Lounge, Ferrara's Pizzeria, Murphy's Restaurant and Pub, and "lots of living rooms," said Berndt. "We're the band that you see at a party, and you don't know who we are until you see us again playing at another party," said Berndt. EB has had the opportunity to open for Boone local favorite The Larry Keel Experience and Asheville's Lint.

EB never plays with a set list and will commonly play a song at a show that has never been rehearsed. And according to Ackerman, "that song usually ends up being the best song of the show; we just play for the moment." Future plans for EB include recording and releasing their first album before the end of the semester. According to Berndt they will "continue to play long after they graduate (from Appalachian), or until they're broke and poor, but that doesn't make any sense because we are already broke and poor and we still play anyways."

Phallum is an alternative rock band whose band members are all students at Western Carolina University. Phallum's music reminisces the sound of the early 1990s alternative rock phase, very similar to Hum. Phallum was not available for an interview as of press time. Go check out these bands as they fight for a title in The Battle of the Bands brought to you by APPS Club Shows Wednesday, Feb. 21. Tickets are $4. Doors open at 9 p.m. This event is BYOB six-pack limit with proper ID.

Marimba player Janis Potter joins Philidor Percussion Group in concert Feb. 26

ASU News Bureau

BOONE Ñ The Philidor Percussion Group will perform Monday, Feb. 26, at 6 p.m. in Broyhill Music Center's Rosen Concert Hall at Appalachian State University. Admission is free.

Philidor Percussion Group members performing are John R. Beck, Appalachian's School of Music professor Rob Falvo and Wiley Arnold Sykes III. Guest artist Janis Potter will join the group on marimba. Other percussionists participating in the concert are Heather Brown on vibraphones, Jeff Butterfield on hi-hat cymbals and snare drums and Jason Jordan on marimba.

They will perform "Piru Bol" by John Bergamo, "Rhapsody In Blue" by George Gershwin and arranged by Potter, "Figure Ground" by Bob Becker, "Polka in Treblinka" by Stuart Saunders Smith and "Marimba Spiritual" by Minoru Miki. Potter is a staff sergeant and percussionist with the U.S. Marine Band in Washington, D.C.

She received her bachelors and masters degrees in music performance from The Juilliard School where she also is a faculty member and coordinator for the Summer Percussion Seminar for high school percussionists. Potter performs approximately 20 solo recitals each year, many of which are sponsored by The Piatigorsky Foundation, and presents master classes at universities throughout the country. She has expanded the repertoire for marimba by commissioning, transcribing and arranging new works including her marimba duos.

The Philidor Percussion Group is named after 17th century kettle drummers Jacque and Andre Philidor. The group primarily performs music composed for percussion instruments. Beck is a member of the faculty at the North Carolina School of the Arts and a percussionist with the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra.

A former member of the U.S. Marine Band, he also performed regularly with the National and Baltimore symphonies, the Washington and Baltimore operas, and the Theater Chamber Players of the Kennedy Center. Falvo is an associate professor of music at Appalachian, where he heads the percussion department, teaches applied lessons and directs the New Paradigm Percussion Quartet and the university's Percussion Ensemble. Falvo also is a member of the Asheville Symphony Orchestra.

He performs regularly with the North Carolina Symphony, the Greensboro Symphony and the Masterworks Chorus and Orchestra in New York. Percussionist Sykes is versed in the drumming traditions of India and West Africa, American jazz and Western classical music.

He performs on tabla, mridangam, jembe, drum-set, mallet instruments and symphonic percussion in both traditional settings and his own transcultural creations. A founding member of the Philidor Percussion Group, Sykes has presented chamber ensemble concerts, workshops and educational programs throughout the United States.

'Impossible Marriage' brings woes of love to Valborg Theatre's main stage

Kara Hodge - Entertainment Beat

"Impossible Marriage," the first main stage play of the semseter, will run Feb. 21 - 26 in Valborg Theatre.

Written by Beth Henley, "Impossible Marriage" is a comedic drama that looks at sex, family, duty, desires, aging, and of course, marriage.

The play is a story of southern love set in Savannah, Ga. The whimsical play revolves around love lost and foundÑoften in the strangest places.

The story is as follows: Pandora Kingsley (Caroline Sharp) is engaged to marry the aging writer Edvard Lunt, played by Ross Bryant, despite the protests of her mother Kandall (Kari Krein) and pregnant sister Floral Whitman (Brandi Ryans).

Set in the garden of the Kingsley family's Savannah estate, "Impossible Marriage" suggests a southern cross between writers Anton Chekhov and Tennessee Williams. Just as the Kingley women are the epitome of the perfect southern belle, Floral's husband Jonsey Whitman (Lynn Wilson) is the perfect southern gentleman with no sexual desire at all. Which leads the audience to askÑwho is the father of Floral's child?

The answer to that question and the consequences of Pandora's wedding-which is disrupted by the appearance of Edvard's son (Ryan Ledwig) and a senile but well meaning priest played by Marcus RiterÑare just two of the reasons to see this comedy.

"Impossible Marriage" is Ed Pilkington's final directing project as a faculty member here at Appalachian State University. He has been at the university since 1970 and has directed approximately five plays in addition to spending 20 years at Horn in the West. The spring 2001 season marks his retirement from teaching as he leaves to reactivate his career in acting.

According to Pilkington, "(Ms. Henley) gets her laughs not because she tells sick jokes but because she refuses to tell jokes at all. Her characters always stick to the unvarnished truth at any price ... And the truthÑwhen captured like lightning in a bottleÑis far funnier than any invented wisecracks." The production has been designed by theater and dance faculty designers Joel Williams and Frank Mohler.

Martha Marking is the costume and makeup designer. Lauren Eller serves as the stage manager and is assisted by Sarah Byerley and April McEachern. "Impossible Marriage" will perform Feb. 21-26 in Valborg at 8 p.m. nightly. Tickets are $4 for students and $6 for non-students. For tickets call the Valborg box office Mon- Fri from 2-5 p.m. at 262-3036.

ASU News Bureau

Acclaimed poets Mary Adams and Michael White will read from their works on Thursday, Feb. 22, at 7:30 p.m. in the Linville Falls Room of Appalachian State University's Plemmons Student Union.

Adams will read from her first book of poetry, "Epistles from the Planet Photosynthesis," a collection of sonnets, sestinas, villanelles and blank verse arranged to expose her knowledge of poetry's traditional core.

"(Adams) transmutes her precursorsÑWallace Stevens, Elizabeth Bishop, John AshberyÑ into something rich and strange in this splendid first book of earthly displays and discoveries," said Edward Hirsch, author of five poetry compilations. Adams is the director of the professional writing program at Western Carolina University.

Her poetry has appeared in "Shenandoah" and "Asheville Poetry Review."

White, winner of the 1998 Colorado Prize for Poetry, is the author of "The Island" and "Palma Cathedral," two collections of carefully crafted poetry designed to provide readers with vivid imagery.

"There is a Wordsworthian grandeur about (White's) poems, a rhetorical and emotional fullness that is breathtaking," commented Mark Strand, former Poet Laureate of the United States.

White is an associate professor in the University of North Carolina at Wilmington's MFA creative writing program. His works have appeared in the "New Republic," "Paris Review" and "Ploughshares." Parking for the event is available in any university lot after 5 p.m. Lots closest to Plemmons Student Union are near the intersection of College and Howard streets, behind Whitener Hall and through the opened gate. Parking is also available near the university post office. Call the university's traffic office at (828) 262-2878 for more information.

The Visiting Writers Series is sponsored by the North Carolina Arts Council, an agency funded by the State of North Carolina and the National Endowment for the Arts; Appalachian's Office of Academic Affairs, College of Arts and Sciences, Office of University Advancement, University Bookstore, Equity Office, and Office of Multicultural Student Development; The Appalachian Journal, the Hubbard Center for Faculty and Staff Development, the Richard T. Barker Friends of the University Library and the Friends of the Watauga County Public Library; business sponsors Gideon Ridge Inn and Red Onion Restaurant; and community sponsors Carol Anne Coe, Gil Verbit, Mildred Luckhardt and Robert Moren.

Film series focus: women's history

ASU News Bureau

The Women's History Month film series, "Women's Realities," will open at Appalachian State University on Wednesday, Feb. 21, with the documentary "Two Dollars and a Dream."

The film series is free and open to the public. Films will be shown at 7 p.m. in I.G. Greer Auditorium.

Dr. Trudier Harris, the J. Carlyle Sitterson Professor of English at UNC-Chapel Hill, will lead the discussion following the film.

"Two Dollars and A Dream," filmed by director Stanley Nelson, is a biography of Madame C.J. Walker, a child of slaves, who became America's first self-made female millionaire. Her fortune was built on skin and hair products marketed from coast to coast to African-American women. Walker and her daughter became important patrons of the Harlem renaissance, and their friends included the rich and famous of the '20s.

Harris received her bachelor's degree from Stillman College and Ph.D. from Ohio State University. She has published extensively including most recently "Fiction and Folklore: The Novels of Toni Morrison" and "The Power of the Porch: The Storyteller's Craft in Zora Neale Hurston, Gloria Naylor, and Randall Kenan." She is also co-editor of "The Oxford Companion to African American Literature." She has lectured throughout the world including the United States, Europe, Jamaica and Canada.

Before becoming the J. Carlyle Sitterson Professor of English at UNC-Chapel Hill, she taught at The College of William and Mary and Emory University. This year she received the William L. Friday/Class of 1986 Award for Excellence in Teaching.

The film series continues Feb. 28, March 7, 21 and 28.

This series is supported by a grant from the North Carolina Humanities Council, and funding from the Women's Studies Program, Humanities Council, Department of History, Department of Interdisciplinary Studies, School of Music, Reich College of Education, College of Arts and Sciences, Walker College of Business, College of Fine and Applied Arts, Multicultural Center, Women's Center, Belk Library, Department of Family and Consumer Science, Sustainable Development, Asian Studies Committee, Asian Student Association, and Latin American Studies Program. For more information on the series, call the Women's Studies Program at (828) 262-7603 or Dr. Neva J. Specht at (828) 262-6879.

'Pinocchio' comes to I.G. Greer

ASU News Bureau

BOONE Ñ Appalachian State University's Hollywood Classics Film Series will show Walt Disney's feature-length animated classic "Pinocchio" (1940) on Thursday, March 1, at 8 p.m. in the I.G. Greer Theater.

The showing will be a chance for the community, including kids, parents and students to see the legendary animated feature on the big screen. Admission is free and the public is welcome.

"Walt Disney's brilliant, timeless animated cartoon feature, based on the Collodi story about an inquisitive, tale-spinning wooden puppet who wants more than anything else to become a real boy," as described by film critic Leonard Maltin.

"It is technically dazzling, emotionally rich with unforgettable characters and some of the scariest scenes ever put on film (Lampwick's transformation into a jackass, the chase with Monstro the whale). A joy, no matter how many times you see it. The songs are the icing on the cake, including the Oscar-winning 'When You Wish Upon a Star."

"Pinocchio" features the voices of Dickie Jones as Pinocchio, Cliff Edwards as JiminyCricket and Christian Rub as Gepetto. Trivia buffs look carefully, the scenes of the woodlands and forest fire were later used in the Walt Disney animated feature "Bambi" (1942).