Rowan College - Oak Yearbook (Glassboro, NJ)

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If it wasn't for the single bead of sweat running down the side of Flex Fowler's cheek, you'd swear the whole thing was effortless. Aztec Two Step is an almost meek group that doesn't try to impress you with a lot of flashy theatrics. Their concert Sunday night at Esby Gym was casual and low-key but very very good. Neal Shulman and Flex Fowler are the core of Aztec Two Step, and they complimented each other nicely in a number of ways. While both play acoustic guitar and sing, Fowler is by far the better vocalist and Shulman the better guitarist. Yet there was no vying for the audiences attention. They played as a duo, with tight, precise harmony. Fowler is the country boy from Maine and Shulman the New Yorker. This accounts for the contrast in style between songs like Baking , a down home country tune and A Conversation in a Car, a ballad which in- cludes reference to the New Jersey Pike and Jim Lowe-'s MiIkman's Matinee . About half way through the concert came the Tradi- tional Seeds and Stems tlay backi portion, which in- cluded a song called t'Humpty Dumpty . lt's a story of how Humpty asks Cinderella out but she turns him down for the prince, we are led to believe that Humpty may have jumped off that wall rather than fallen. Who's to say? As an encore, Aztec sang The Persecution and Res- toration of Dean Moriarty which is one of their best cuts, based on Jack Kerovac's novel On the Road. The name Aztec Two Step, by the way, is not the way Q. io the bathroom in Mexico after drinking the ' comes from a poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. O it , 2 .,b,. 1 iv V

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Waits: Not the Boy Next Door Tom Waits is not the kind of boy you want the folks to meet. He is unshaven, uncouth and ungroomed. But on Oc- tober 13th he successfully combined these qualities with a unique musicianship to capture his audience. To anyone who was not familiar with a Waits perfor- mance, his appearance at first served as a bit of a shock. A wrinkled gray suit, scarred with white smudges, hung limp on his emaciated body. His skinny black and white tie and the decrepit black hat comically com- plimented Waits as he strode on stage, grabbed the mike, and began the late night performance. Step Right Up , a fastpaced jazz number, was deli- vered inthe classic Waits style-rasping from the back of his throat and finger snapping to a syncopated beat. Puffing on his Marlboro cigarette, Waits discussed many of his feelings about love with a tinge of defiance in Emotional Weather Report. He puffed on to tell the story about Small Change who got rained on with his own .38. A singer Waits is not, but his affectiveness as a poet was evidenced in many of his songs dealing with the unhappy lives of whores, drunks, and the lonely. A sol- itary sailor dreams of a waitress with Maxwell House eyes, marmalade thighs, and scrambled yellow hair, Waits crooned. One of the highlights of the singer's performance, The Piano Has Benn Drinking, a comical ballad relat- ing the effects of too much alcohol, was sung to discor- dant notes on the piano. Waits concluded his second GSC appearance with WaItzing Matilda, a song filled with as much human understanding as the man himself.