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■ BEST BET
Athens' newest dance club, Colorbox, located at the site of the
old Uptown Lounge, opens tonight at 8 p.m. DJ Jeff Halberson
will spin tunes until Mystic Boom Boom goes on at midnight. Ad-
misslon is $3 for legal people and $5 for youngins.
The Red and Black • Friday, May 25, 1990 • 5
A&E
Four-band show at Georgia Theatre to benefit Athens Humane Society
By COLEEN BROOKS
Entertainment Writer
Lend a helping hand to your
fellow animals and come see four of
Athens’ hottest bands play in the
first Athens Area Humane Society
benefit concert Saturday at the
Georgia Theatre.
The program of events, spos-
nored by the GA Theatre, MOT
Wair and The Entertainment
Agency, features performances by
White Buffalo, labrea stompers,
Tattooed Dogs and Wishing Wall
and intermittent speeches in
tended to educate the Athens com
munity.
The multipurpose concert will
hopefully recruit volunteers, in
crease community awareness and
raise money for the benefit of the
society, Lara Littlejohn, a shelter
employee, said.
‘There is always an overabun
dance of kittens in the springtime,”
Littlejohn said, “and the shelter
desperately nees the funds to spay
and neuter them to help control the
increasing animal population.”
The benefit was organized as
part of a public relations campaign
launched by a University Journa
lism 595 class. Kim Smith, accoun
tant executive for the campaign,
said that every quarter the class
does PR work for a non-profit orga
nization in order to get first-hand
experience in the field.
Smith said, “We are trying to get
the Humane Society’s name
around really well and do some
fundraising, too.”
The campaigns class is starting
a auxiliary branch of the Humane
Society for students in an attempt
to get them more involved, Smith
said. She said more volunteers
than ever before are needed to keep
the shelter running smoothly.
The shelter is presenting a
lineup of bands that represent a
variety of musical backgrounds,
with styles ranging from the
straight-forward rock and roll of
the Tattooed Dogs to the semi-psy
chedelia of White Buffalo.
Rand Pearson, the bassist for
The Wishing Wall, said, “If you’re a
music lover you'll really like this
show. It will appeal to people with
a lot of different tastes and ev
eryone will find something to
please their palate.”
The Humane Society benefit will
be the Athens debut for The
Wishing Wall, a progressive rock
band from Atlanta. According to
Pearson, the four member band
plays music that is “really
rhythmic and fairly simple but
with great composition.”
The labrea stompers are a local
band whose popularity has been
growing steadily since their start
in 1986. Singer and harmonica
player Jim Stacy said he felt doing
benefit concerts is a good way to
show support for worthy causes.
“We’ve basically done every ben
efit there is. Our first show was a
Rape Crisis benefit. I guess we’re a
very politically aware band and
this is a way for us to use our tal
ents and get involved,” Stacy said.
A stompers show is an eye
opening event. The band plavs a
high energy combination of blues,
folk and jazz that doesn’t fit squa
rely into any musical pigeonhole.
Stacy said,“We have a lot of dif
ferent influences. We’re not reallv
moody or artsy or hippie. I think
we’re kind of James Brown meets
Sesame Street.”
Despite the fact that the current
members of White Buffalo have
only been playing together for a
year, this upbeat, rock and roll
dance band is already making a
mark on the Athens music scene.
Guitarist Jimmy Merritt said the
band incorporates elements from
each of the members diverse back
grounds — including acoustic
blues, classical guitar, fast hard
core and funk.
Merritt said, “Our music is a
happy blending of compromises of
our musical tastes. We play songs
in most tempos and styles. It’s good
music if you’re into dancing and
good music if you just want to relax
and hear the band.”
In conjunction with the benefit,
Smith said tables will be set up on
College Square today and to-
White Buffalo: This popular band brings its psychedelic touch to the Georgia Theatre. Go
you Merry Pranksters, Go!
morrow from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m.,
with volunteers selling MOT Wair
t-shirts, giving out information
pamphlets and taking donations.
Members of the Humane Society
will also be urging people to sign a
petition against the annual dog
hunt in Vienna, Georgia.
“Every year they have the police
come out and shoot all of the unli
censed dogs in the area. We don’t
want to see this continue to
happen,” Smith said.
Treat yourself to an all night
jam session of great music and re
member that your donation can be
a lifesaver for the animals in your
community.
The show starts at 6 p.m. at the
Georgia Theatre and admission is
$5.
Georgia Renaissance Festival an imaginary world bursting with color
By MAURA CORRIGAN
Entertainment Writer
Traveling down the plain roads
of 1-85, one might not expect that
less than a mile off the interstate
lies a spot in the woods that seems
to be an imaginary world.
Medieval characters, wandering
musicians, jousts and sword fights,
Shakespearean plays, astrology
readings and much more make up
the 5th Annual Georgia Renais
sance Festival. The event offers a
kind of entertainment not common
to this century.
The theme for the festival cen
ters on King Henry VIII’s marriage
to Ann Boleyn. Touring England in
1533, villagers decided to throw a
massive celebration for the King
and Queen.
The windy gravel path from the
parking area to the festival does
not hint at what is found inside.
Just before the entrance a lady in a
long, billowing skirt with an old
English accent handed out flyers
which contain a list of the 151 at
tractions in the “Marketplace.”
Someone remarked that they
didn’t fly very well and the lady
said, “Yea, well they’re 400 years
old. You’re almost to the village,
sir. Enjoy your day.”
Wandering around was a musi
cian whose character name was
Pluck. Wrapped around his neck
and waist were six instruments: a
tenor and a soprano recorder, a
crum horn, a psaltry, a lute and a
classical guitar. He didn’t have his
hurdy gurdy with him that day —
an instrument that sounds like a
bagpipe.
Pluck was dressed in knickers,
long white socks, and a long-
sleeved white shirt with frills on
the front. He switched back and
forth between instruments and
eventually concluded by playing
two recorders at once — one
through each nostril.
Pluck’s real name is Paul. He
learned to play these instruments
when he was a kid.
“Five years ago when the Re
naissance Festival first came to
town they got names of people who
play Renaissance instruments.
They called me and I’ve been
playing every year. University stu
dents should come out to the fest.
There’s plenty of beer here,” he
said.
Passing under the entrance, a
bridge with a tower on either side
and plenty of haystacks around it,
the sounds of a flute and a group of
singers could be heard. In the mar
ketplace was Sword and Armor
shop and next to that a wishing
well. Across the path was a Harp
and Cherub shop.
The people running the shops
were dressed in medieval clothing
and oflen talked with old English
accents, contributing to the medi
eval atmosphere. Some of the at
tendants were also dressed for the
occasion, and many of them had
their hair fixed in special braids
and flowers at the Fantasy Hair
Weavings shop.
One scary-looking man was
dressed in a black cape with a hood
and was carrying a staff. He had a
multitude of chains around his
neck and waist and several rings
on his fingers, including some skull
bones and spiders. He looked like
the character Death, or like some
evil character from Dungeons and
Dragons.
An obnoxious pickle salesman
was selling pickles out of a barrel
and singing, “I am so beautiful to
me” to ladies passing by and then
asked them if they’d like to buy a
runaway pickle.
The Atlanta Shakespeare Com
pany performed a comical 30
minute version of “Romeo and Ju
liet." The play was a cute mockery
of the original Shakespearean
work, and it focused on the battle
between the Montapewes and the
Crapulets.
The actors called for audience
“precipitation” by dividing the
viewers into Crapulets and Monta
pewes and requesting that they
“boo,” cheer for, or thumb their
noses at the opposing families.
They also changed some of Shake
speare’s words like the line,
“Romeo, Romeo, where o fart thou
Romeo?”
Jousting matches also were com
ical. Two horsemen prepared for
the battle by riding around a card
board dragon at the center of the
ring and then practicing with their
swords by chopping up water
melons. After throwing words back
and forth, the two knights finally
fought, both on and off of their
horses. Although the audience
chanted that they wanted “more
blood and gore,” the leader pro
claimed that “no lives would be
taken on festival day.”
The cultural event of the day, de
signed to educate the less fortu
nate, was ‘Those Outrageous
Bedlam Beggar’s Mud Show At the
Mud Pit.” Spiny Nodules and
Bubba, the two beggars, battled
wits to see who could be more dis
gusting. Spiny Nodules proclaimed
that he would “put my face into the
mud to disgust my opponent and I
will then kiss a young man.” He
then put muddy water into his
mouth, spit it into the air, and
kissed a man in the audience, cov
ering the spectator’s cheek with
mud.
A guillotine was in the center of
the commotion. If trapped in the
guillotine, Seymour, the owner of
the weapon, would let the victim
choose from his main menu to ei
ther sing a song with him, kiss a
maiden, listen to a bad joke, tell a
joke, or be romantic in order to es
cape from the guillotine. While
Seymour was victimizing one lad
he announced to the public that
“Fair Glenn is in the guillotine and
his punishment is to give loud an
tagonizing screams of torture and
to listen to me tell a bad joke to get
out.”
The site for the Rennaisance
Festival is permanent, although
the festival only runs for six week
ends of the year. Michele Lund-
gren, who runs a shop there
containing original oil paintings at
the festival, said “during the off
season the shops stay but the fair
closes down. There are other Re
naissance Festivals in suburban
areas throughout the country such
as Minnesota, New York, San
Francisco, Baltimore and Detroit.”
Located south of Atlanta at exit 12
off of 1-85, the festival costs $9.95
and runs until June 3.
Spending the summer in
SAVANNAH?
You can earn college credit this summer
and still have time for vacations, summer
job, and long, leisurely weekends.
Armstrong State College's flexible summer schedule
• 4-week sessions that meet M-F (evenings meet M-Th)
• 8-week session that meets M-Th (evenings meet 1-2 nights)
Classes begin June 19 (4 8f 8 wk.)8r July 1 7 (4 wk.)
All you need to do is complete an admissions applicaUon and get a letter of
good standing from your home institution.
miArmstrcng
fm \ College
Call (912) 927-5275 or
1-800-633-2349 for details.
A senior unit of the University system of Georgia
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