The Michigan Daily-Weekend etc. - December 3, 1992-Page 3
The Hannibals ain't another no-name band
by Jayne Wawrzyniak
Four years ago, members of two
former East Lansing bands joined
forces to form what is today one of the
most promising local bands to come
0 Putof Michigan. They call themselves
the Hannibals, and the members of
this unsigned quartet have been dedi-
cating a measureless amount of time
recording, touring, and building a
name for themselves in the Midwest.
DeI
4 _
From the start, the Hannibals had
points in their favor. Instead of play-
ing a lot of covers while working on
their own material, like many bands
start off, the group immediately took
three months off to write music.
"We wanted to be an original band,
so the first time that we played, we
would have plenty of material," said
lead singer Chris Johnston. "The only
way you get anywhere is by writing
your own stuff."
A unique band they are, character-
ized by Johnston's heartfelt vocals,
.bss player Dave Christie and guitar-
ist Chris Geherin's rich harmonies,
drummer Matt Aljian's driving beats,
Christie and Aljian's intriguing meter
changes, and Geherin's poetic lyrics
and unforgettable choruses. It pays to
be an original band nowadays, espe-
icially when the odds are against you.
"EastLansing still isn't, and never
has been a great breeding place for
briginal music. Itj ust doesn't support
that kind of scene," Johnston said.
However, the local band scene in
Lansing is healthier now than it was
four years ago because bands like the
Hannibals have worked hard to set a
precedent for playing their own mu-
sic and having opening bands.
"The hardest part is getting into
clubs and playing in a live situation
because bars ... don't want no-name
bands in there," Johnston said. "So
that's the mostfrustrating part. It takes
years to build up a rapport with bars
and build your name up.'
And that's exactly what the
Hannibals have been doing for the
past four years. In addition to writing,
recording their three releases, "Ham-
mer of Rain," "From Can to Can't,"
and their latest "Monkeysuit," the
Hannibals have spent an exceptional
amount of time promoting their mu-
sic and their name.
"I think that the only way a band
like us will getbigger is to havealabel
get behind us and push us to the next
level," said Johnston. "We can't do it
ourselves. We'vebeen touring region-
ally nonstop for two years, consis-
tently playing lots of different places,
and we've really taken that as far as
we can take it. We enjoy it, but the
next level is something that is out of
our hands, and we're just, I guess,
waiting for it."
"It will take lots of feathers in our
cap to get the right attention," Johnston
said. "We've been doing the right
things, but it takes a while, we found,
which can be frustrating."
THE HANNIBALS will be perform-
ing this Saturday night at the Blind
Pig. Call 996-8555 for more info.
Too bad - if the Hannibals weren't so damn good, they'd have a fine career ahead of them modeling lawn furniture.
Hand on the pump
Ever have one of those urges to kill Bambi's mom?
________________________________________________________________________________________ 'I
Mr. Stadium
Coin Laundry and
Dry Cleaning Service
"The Home Of The ('lean
Machine"
"What have I done? I've killed the
vabbit. Poor little bunny. Poor little
wabbit ..."
-Elmer Fudd, "What's Opera, Doc?"
So the other night, I'm at Twenty-
36, the hip new Detroit club right
across the street from Club X -"X"
a in cutting edge, not Malcolm, and
lit me tell you, if "X" equals cutting
edge, then Twenty-36 should change
its name to Twenty-XXXVI, or even
XX-XXXVI, it's that close to the
edge, probably too close for most -
bytme, I'm playing itcool, leaning up
against the wall on the Art Gallery
level, sipping a Smart DrinkTM -
ground up Flintstone vitamins and
Evian? ormaybejusttap waterpoured
But, like I said, all the window
seats were taken. So I leaned against
a wall and consoled myself with
thoughts of the trip I'd be taking in a
few short hours: Deer hunting. Me
and Dad. A couple of shotguns. Up
against Nature. Howling at the moon.
Drinking warm animal blood. Eating
raw meat.
No more of these girly, intricate,
paragraph-long sentences. I'd become
Hemingway. (Or at least his obnox-
ious little brother, the one with the
learning disability.) I'd cut through
all the bullshit.
"Penny for your thoughts," some
club chick leaning next to me said,
smiling. I smiled, too.
My dad was up by three-thirty that
morning and we were on the road by
four, so I didn't bother going to sleep.
We were on the way to his cottage in
Deckerville, a good two hours from
metro Detroit. His new gun - a big
Benelli (honest - and no, no rela-
tion) with a laser scope - sat behind
us, waiting to be broken in.
I was, too wired to sleep, so I
thought about the only other time I'd
been hunting, when I was about
twelve, up at my friend Mole's dad's
cottage. We were hunting frogs, which
doesn't sound like much of a chal-
lenge, I'll admit, but all we had were
BB-guns, so this was no Trout Farm.
At first, even at 12, I was hesitant
about senselessly killing something. I
mean, deer hunting's one thing, if you
eat the meat, which my dad does.
Same goes for rabbit, pheasant, fish,
duck. But we weren't about to wade
into the pond and scoop out our dead
prey to fry up some frog-legs, espe-
cially since Mole's dad didn't know
about our little hunt.
Igotovermy initial squeamishness
soon enough, though. This was some
nasty stuff, "Lord of the Flies" with-
out the British accents. I remember
keeping a rough body count, which
I've since forgotten or repressed, but
it was definitely in the ballpark of at
least 50 or 60. We gathered up about
nine or 10 dead ones and put them on
a sharpened stick, as a warning to the
other frogs, I guess.
Apparently, we pretty much wiped
out the entire frog population of that
little pond in just a few hours. Mole
told me he only saw a few the follow-
ing summer, and that the flies and
mosquitoes were worse than they'd
ever been, without the frogs to keep
their breeding in check. Mole's dad
would eventually sell the place, par-
tially 'cause of all the damn bugs.
And so here I was, on my way to
hunt once again, thinking, "The fact
that I helped destroy an entire ecosys-
tem doesn't bother me as much as it
probably should."
.I didn't end up killing Bambi's
mom or anything like that. As I men-
tioned before, I was pretty wired that
morning, but sitting in the cold for a
few hours mellowed me out quite a
bit. In fact, my dad found me asleep
on a rock when he came looking for
me - it was time to go inside for
lunch, and he hadn't seen anything
either.
When he woke me up, he inter-
rupted a dream I was having about the
Benelli. In my dream, it'd been de-
clared the Best Gun of 1992 by "Guns
and Ammo," "Soldier of Fortune"
and "Vanity Fair." Soon, Benelli was
a household name, as synonymous
with firepower as Colt or Magnum. A
shady alcohol company began mar-
keting BENELLI malt liquor to the
inner cities. Schwarzeneggar toted a
Benelli in T3, and the new 007 traded
in his Walther PPK for one. Gangsta
rappers began rhyming it with lines
like "turn your insides tojelly," "blast
ya in the motherfuckin' belly" and
"put ya down like Old Yelly." I woke
up sweating profusely, even though it
was quite cold outside, and normally,
I wouldn't sweat under such condi-
tions.
SFREE
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STAC!'M I
from an Evian bottle to make me
believe I'm getting my money's
worth? - feeling slightly smarter,
but still kind of pissed off about all the
window seats being occupied by
bored-looking Beautiful People dis-
playing their alienated, post-modern
selves as if they're carefully-primped
* storefrontmannequins for some Royal
Oak boutique ... Le Pretentious Dog,
perhaps - but I'm pissed because,,
quite honestly, I want to be the one
being seen by every loser walking by
outside, I want an audience for my
existential brooding, my deep, pain-
fml drags on my cigarette (even though
Im not smoking, but I would be if I
hada window seat), my moody, empty
stares, every angst-filled toss of my
hair.
,The Office of Minority Affairs
is now taking applications for
Student Program Hosts for
the KING/CHAVEZ /PARKS
College Day
Spring Visitation Program
Application deadline is
January 15, 1993
Student Program Hosts are responsible for
supervising and developing work schedules for
teams of student leaders who will work with
students from middle schools visiting the univer-
sity during KCP Spring Visitation. Applications
AT THE POWER CENTER, ANN ARBOR
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