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[theloyolan]

Void: Where Are They Now?

Hunter Flynn, Junior

It’s 1980. A huge punk rock music is beginning to form in the DC area. And at Loyola, three friends – John Weiffenbach, Chris Stover, and Sean Finnegan – are forming a band with their neighbor, Bubba Dupree. It’s called Void, and it will go on to become a vitally important band to the DC Hardcore scene.

After a successful demo and a classic split with The Faith, the band began incorporating elements of thrash metal into their sound. Before they could release a new LP, they went their separate ways. But the influence of Void can be felt to the present day, laying the foundation for more commercially successful bands such as Soundgarden and The Melvins.

Weiffenbach works in construction on Cape Cod. Finnegan in film, until dying of a heart attack on the Eastern Shore in 2008. Bubba Dupree is still in music, having guested on Dave Grohl’s heavy metal side-project Probot. Stover is in software.

This is Stover’s interview.

Q: How did Void form? Only one in the band, Jon, didn't attend Loyola, how did he come to join the group?

A: Void formed after seeing Teen Idols play at Oddfellows Hall in Towson. What we saw was so different so crazy that we knew something was going on. After that, the boys from Columbia and William Dagher and his brother started going to shows in DC. That became our social scene.

Around this time, I started jamming with Bubba. We thought we had a drummer but he flaked. Sean volunteered. Bubba and Sean jelled like PBJ. We needed a singer and John had quite the yell, so we asked him to join. We started playing shows 1-2 months after practicing.

Q: Did the Loyola environment contribute to the band's frantic, frenzied sound? Are there any faculty members who you particularly remember (perhaps Mr. Stewart)?

A: Most definitely. A group of us took a bus out to Towson everyday in the early early AM. The return bus was not until late afternoon/early evening. We spent those afternoons pleading with seniors for a ride home, attempting to hitchhike, played frisbee or something else, and maybe did homework. We were stuck between two worlds, Loyola and Columbia/DC. It was tough.

I remember Mr. Stewart, Father Novotyny, and Father McDonough. When our fashion started to change (ie, shaved head, engineer boots, etc..), I am not so sure they knew what to do with us. Sometimes it was good. Sometimes it was bad.

Q: What sort of students were you and the other members at Loyola? In other words, were you going from class to class quietly or bringing some of that stage presence into the classroom? How did being in a punk band alter your social status? Grades-wise?

A: For the most part, we were goods students. John is crazy smart, so he did really well. Our social status started to change when people could not understand the music we were listening to. It was completely beyond them. You had your groups (the hippies/stoners, the jocks, and geeks), but we now had set up a new group, the punks. The pinnacle was when Sean and I came back from a Saturday Night Live appearance with Fear. Everyone took notice then. For the most part, it was pretty quiet. When there was confrontation, it was loud and some people were hurt.

Q: What sort of music had you been listening to at the time, regardless of how it influenced Void's sound? 

  A: Initially, it was your basic New Wave and Punk. When we started to hang out in DC, friends there would turn us onto all kinds of music that was not even close to the mainstream. We really got into the stuff that was loud and fast, whether it was considered metal, thrash, punk, hardcore, what have you. That's what we were listening to.

Q: How did Sean's passing affect you?

A: Crushed. He is an integral part of my memories at Loyola. All of my memories with him were fantastic and at the end of the day I have to smile.

Q: You were a part of an extremely seminal musical movement, out of which many punk and rock legends such as Ian MacKaye and Dave Grohl emerged. Are you proud of the mark you left on the music world, or do you perhaps associate that style of punk music with your lack of maturity at that time? Ultimately, how do you look back on Loyola and Void?

A: I am proud of what happened then. We never thought anything of what we were doing other then play tight loud fast music and having fun. Looking back, I think we were trying to push the music we learned and push it to the extremes. Think outside of the box. The days of Loyola and Void were good times.

[theloyolan]

Mr. Raffi Wartanian: Where is he now?

Mr. Raffi Wartanian is a Loyola Blakefield alumnus and Fulbright Research Fellow from the class of 2004. I had the chance to interview Mr. Wartanian and learn about some of his accomplishments. I noticed that much of what he does focuses on volunteering and helping people. He says, “Volunteering became really important for me in high school.” He also stated that other aspects of Loyola Blakefield impacted him. Kairos and the idea of “Men for Others,” he told me, were important in his formation. He said he loved the teachers at Blakefield, especially Mr. Mohler, whom he saw debating with a student during a  recent visit. It reminded him of how Mr. Mohler really makes one think about one’s beliefs. At Blakefield, he participated in the early years of Project Maryland, a summer service project.

Although graduating from Loyola Blakefield is quite an accomplishment, Mr. Wartanian has participated in a wide range of post-high school activities. He attended Johns Hopkins University, where he majored in history, but he also took classes in psychology, film, writing, and theater. During college spring breaks, Mr. Wartanian handed out meals and worked on service projects in Costa Rica. He also participated in bicycling across America, which helped raise money for cancer research. Participants would bike up to 80 miles a day for two months. He did it again after college, and when he finished, spent time in San Francisco with a theater company, Golden Thread Productions. It is one of the few theater companies in America that focuses on Middle Eastern plays. He walked across Spain on the Camino De Santiago trail, volunteered on a farm in Portugal, and built cement walls, which made him appreciate manual labor. Mr. Wartanian told me that he felt such labor, such as mixing cement and building walls, was a good formative experience. Later he participated in a creative writing workshop in New York. There, he talked with successful play-writes and screenwriters. He participated in a program in which he went to France and wrote a report on French memory laws. He spent three months in Armenia volunteering. While in Armenia, he started to have an idea for his Fulbright scholarship.

To become a Fulbright Scholar, one needs to have a strong résumé, letters of recommendation, a personal statement, letters of affiliation with an in-country institution(s), language evaluation, and a proposal for a project he or she wishes to accomplish. Mr. Wartanian does research in Armenia, specifically on civil society. As a Fulbright research fellow he receives a grant from the State Department, which he uses to research formal volunteerism in civic society. (Formal volunteerism is any form of organized volunteering by an institution, organization, company, or other organized body meant to advance their work, which often overlaps with the overall wellbeing of its surrounding community.)  He sends surveys to beneficiaries, volunteers, stakeholders and philanthropists. From the surveys, he learns about the attitudes and perspectives associated with volunteerism. So far, he found there are great experiences associated with volunteerism, but Mr. Wartanian says that he gets the sense that people participating in volunteerism feel they cannot make an overall difference. Although he is not finished, Mr. Wartanian believes that until the volunteerism becomes more politicized, especially at the grassroots level, Armenia will not overcome its major problems. He says, “If it doesn’t promote civic engagement, it can coexist with these very corrupt structure that are holding the country back.” The corrupt structures in Armenia include the oligarchs who control the different industries. Oligarchs have direct ties to parliament, making them politically powerful. Mr. Wartanian said they are not all harmful to Armenia, but many of them feel they are the elite of society. They often ignore laws and regulations from driving rules to international regulations. Many of their industries hurt the environment because they ignore regulations.

Fortunately, Armenia has many media companies that are openly critical of the government and oligarchs.  One of them is called Civilnet.  A respected parliamentary member heads Civilnet, but recently other parliamentary members accused him of money laundering in order to discredit the company. Luckily, the citizens fought back. Through his Fulbright fellowship, Mr. Wartanian is affiliated with Civilnet’s parent company, the Civilatas Foundation, which is “dedicated to promoting civil society in Armenia.” Armenia has a population of 3 million and is about the size of Maryland.  Since the country is not very large, Mr. Wartanian has found Armenia’s environment quite refreshing for the work he does. He has met many amazing people, and on his walk to work, he walks past the Chinese Embassy, the Syrian Embassy, the President’s House, and the parliament. He said Armenia is very accessible for one who wants to become involved in something they find interesting.

Mr. Wartanian also interviews Syrians who are fleeing the war about the experiences they have had. He said he is also likely to start teaching English classes to Syrian children who have fled with their families to Armenia. He is currently writing a short fiction film in which a beggar tries to return to his home country of Georgia. The film will be in Armenian, but will have English subtitles.

Mr. Wartanian also plays the guitar and the oud, a cousin of the lute. He travels Armenia giving presentations on same sex marriage, recreational marijuana, and academic life in the United States, as well as playing his original music. Look for his album on iTunes soon called “Pushkin Street”.  I had the chance to listen to it and it is really good.  Pushkin Street is refreshing to listen to because it has some unique elements, but it also has characteristics one might find in today’s rock. He also writes poetry, which can be found in The Armenian Weekly. 

Mr. Wartanian has done a lot, and I found my interview with him inspiring. A few words of advice he gave were to be open to new experiences, work hard, and give back. He said even when you’re scared of doing something just push yourself. “Everyday has a potential to be a huge formative experience,” Raffi quips.  He plans to go to graduate school after he completes his project in Armenia. He told me he is nowhere near where he wants to be.

As a final thought, I’d like to share something he said I found that was inspiring: “Sometimes we are told things to believe, but I think grappling with a specific issue or even putting yourself out of your comfort zone is a great way to really learn about something specific.”

Sources:

http://www.armenianweekly.com/2012/11/09/five-poems-by-raffi-wartanian/

http://civilnet.am/

http://raffijoemusic.com/

[theloyolan]

German Exchange Students Visit Loyola

On the morning of Thursday, February 14th, many observant Dons noticed something unexpected and unprecedented in the hallways of Burk and Wheeler: girls. No, it wasn’t a mirage, or an illusion. There really were girls on the Loyola Blakefield campus. This February, Loyola hosted a group of 23 exchange students (five of whom were girls) from the Dienstenhofer Gymnasium in Bamberg, Germany for 10 days. Dr. Brugh, the new head of the German program this year, organized the exchange with Mr. Auer, an English teacher at the Dienstenhofer Gymnasium. The exchange gave the students the opportunity to improve their English as they lived with American host families and attended classes at Loyola. The Germans took a wide variety of classes, ranging from Digital Media with Mr. Zimmerman to American History with Mr. Dziedzic. The students quickly integrated into the Loyola community, eating with the dons at lunch and hanging out in the library. Over the weekend, they took a trip to the Inner Harbor, visited the Capital building, saw the Smithsonian Museum of American history, and some even saw their first lacrosse game. Despite their jam-packed schedule, there were few complaints. As one of the German students put it, “The only problem is that it was too short.” Many of the Americans share the same sentiment. The Germans departed from Blakefield Friday morning, donned in their newly-bought “Blue All Day” t-shirts. In spite of their short stay, they will be missed. Loyola plans to send a group of dons to the Dienstenhofer Gymnasium this summer. 

[theloyolan]

Blakefield Baseball Eyes Back-to-Back Playoff Appearances with Shot at Championship

Tom Brennan, Senior

After a run in the playoffs last year ended abruptly by Calvert Hall, the Dons are focused on another playoff run and bringing home a championship to campus.  Senior Brandon Arvon asserts, “Well, our goal is clearly to make it to the championship this year and come home with the title. We have a lot of returning strong players and strong underclassman and have a great chance to accomplish our goal. We just have to stay focused and play hard every game and if we do that then we can achieve our goal. Over the offseason our team has worked hard both in the weight room and during weekly workouts.  We’ve been not only getting stronger and developing our skills, but we have also been growing closer as a team; we have developed a brotherhood. It’s important to form this bond and it will help us during the season.”  The Dons will need to rely heavily on a group of talented and experienced seniors whose play and leadership will contribute heavily to the success this season.  “Well, of the returning seniors there are myself, Mike Wright, Bruce Zimmerman, Conor Reynolds, Eric McDonough, and James O’Malley. I believe that the team is going rely on all of us seniors to lead this team. Although clearly Reynolds, O’Malley and Zimmerman are our top players and leaders other seniors will have to step up and be leaders as well. All the seniors this year are going to have to not only lead by example on the field but also be leaders off the field and help the team grow. We have such a strong group of seniors and underclassmen that this season should be very interesting to watch.”

[theloyolan]

Lacrosse’s Keys to Success: Experience, Leadership and Heart

Tom Brennan, Senior

Mark your calendars Blakefield!  The much anticipated 2013 lacrosse season is set to begin March 8th on Hargaden Field against Penn Charter.  Some key matchups against the Dons this year include: Calvert Hall, Gilman, Boys Latin, Malvern Prep and Haverford, among many others.  Entering another season as head coach, Jack Crawford and his coaching staff are just some of many pieces that help to attribute to the team’s success.  Since taking over the program in 2002, Crawford, a former team captain in 1988 at Johns Hopkins and longtime assistant at Landon, brings an immeasurable amount of knowledge and experience to the program.  Crawford is complemented further by a committed and focused coaching staff, which includes Tim Sullivan, Bob Wright and Joe McFadden, among others.  However, the key piece to the success of the Dons is the abundance of talent and senior leadership.  Crawford and his coaching staff will rely heavily upon the play and example set by the senior members of the team including: Bennett Bradley (U.S. Military Academy), Jake Clise (University of Maryland), Mike Freiji (St.Mary's College of Maryland), Kevin Jackson (Roanoke College), Tyler Llewellyn (Fairleigh Dickinson University), Cole Luthy (Sacred Heart College), Devin McNamara (Villanova University), Blaise Connor, Victor Licata, and Kevin O'Toole (Johns Hopkins).  Additionally, the Dons will also have to rely on the play of underclassmen including Ryan Conrad, Parker Sessions, Ryan Gillis and Mike Meurer, to name a few, in order to further contribute to the success of the program.  In short, leadership, experience and heart are the key factors that will determine the success of the Dons this season.

[theloyolan]

Warm Bodies Movie Review

Mitch Butler, Junior

Released on Friday February 1st, “Warm Bodies,” entered theaters and promised to be a clever new spin on the prototypical American romantic comedy because it throws zombies into the mix. Better yet, it tries so desperately to be a modern rendition of Romeo and Juliet. Not to my surprise, the film doesn’t come close to living up to such a promise. The movie is built upon the incessantly recycled formula that plagues nearly all American romance films. Boy meets girl. Boy likes girl. Girl doesn’t like boy. Boy works hard to make girl like him. Boy gets girl. In the end, they’re sitting together, holding hands, and kissing in the sunset. It’s all too nauseating.

I’ll admit, for the first twelve minutes, I thought director Jonathan Levine was really on to something. The film opens with undead male protagonist R musing about life as a zombie. A philosophical zombie? Interesting enough. Probably, the highpoint of the movie is a conversation consisting of a series of grunts and head movements between R and his “best friend” M. A quasi-human interaction between zombies.

However, the film ostensibly starts to circle the drain when human girl Julie crosses paths with R. Except for her skill with a shotgun, she’s a typical teenage girl who overtly defies her father, de facto leader of the remaining human civilization. R and Julie meet in the aftermath of a brawl, which left only both of them alive. Instantly, R starts to pine over her, and he coerces her into leaving with him. Fearing for her life, Julie follows R back to the zombie airport headquarters. R puts her up in a remote 747 where he hopes no one will find her.

Hours fly by and Julie falls asleep in coach, so R goes up to the cockpit to do some musing. Since, as the audience is expected to know, zombies can’t sleep, R’s metaphysical side manifests itself again. He sits in silent thought while munching on some leftover grey matter. When a zombie eats brains, interestingly enough, he can see the brain’s thoughts and memories in his own mind. Turns out the brains belong to Julie’s (former) boyfriend Perry. Oops. A twist so unriveting that it propelled me further back into my seat.

Later that night, R feels unfamiliar warmth in his heart, which begins to beat. It’d been kick started. By Julie. Soon after, all the zombies, except for the “bonies” which are somehow more undead, feel their hearts beating. Not only that, they begin to turn back into humans. It was at this point that I wished R had eaten my brains instead of Perry’s.

Suddenly, the film’s plot undergoes a cloying volte-face. The “bonies,” which, for the first half of the film sat idly in the shadows, emerge as the new antagonistic force. The zombies face an uphill battle to avoid the “bonies,” which will eat anything with a beating heart, and to convince the humans that they’re “the good guys.”

Eventually, Julie starts to fall for R although she struggles to come to terms with the fact that he ate her boyfriend’s brains. A turn of events that’s unsurprising, yet still disdainfully disappointing.

At one point, R finds himself calling to Julie from below the balcony that overlooks her backyard. Of course, this scene cried violently out “SHAKESPEARE,” as if the names “Julie” and “R” weren’t on the nose enough. I found myself looking at my watch regularly from that point on, desperate to exit the theater.

The film ends with a glaring bow and, literally, a bang. Julie’s father shoots R, still unconvinced of his humanity, only to find that he bleeds. Miraculously, he’s convinced that all the zombies are “okay,” and he has his troops join with the zombies to destroy the “bonies.” In the closing scene, Julie and R sit together on the edge of a rusty bridge, watching the demolition of the wall dividing the humans and zombies. The literal and figurative breaking of barriers. Simply painful to watch. 

[theloyolan]

Loyola Hosts Red Cross Blood Drive

Niccolo Dosto, Senior

An open gym with hospital beds. Coolers full of smoothies and tables with pizza and candy. Helpful moms running around asking one question: “Can I get you something?” Not the typical scene one imagines when thinking of blood donations.

The far side of the Four-Court looked exactly like this when Loyola hosted its annual Red Cross Blood Drive on Friday, February 15th. Dons 16 and over braved the intense questions and inevitable needles to do their part in saving lives. Of course, the refreshments and snacks were nice bonuses, but the real reward came in acting out Loyola’s motto, “Men for Others,” through the Dons’ selfless donations that Friday afternoon.

Every two seconds, someone in the U.S. needs blood. However, less than 38% of the population is eligible to donate. This means that there is always a great demand for blood since hospitals need to keep adequate supplies. A car accident victim alone can require as much as 100 pints to survive an operation. People with Sickle-Cell Disease need regular blood transfusions to prevent serious, life-threatening complications. Patients undergoing chemotherapy need to replace the platelets they lost during treatment. Donations are extremely vital to those suffering from such ailments. Thus, the Red Cross holds drives like the one at Loyola to meet the need for blood around the country.

When one donates, the blood is sent to a facility that tests it for every disease known to man. Then, the blood is centrifuged and separated into three parts: red blood cells, platelets, and plasma. This means that a single donation has the potential to save THREE lives, as all parts of the blood are used. The statistic makes blood drives more significant when one considers that a person gives one pint during a donation. Blood is always in great demand, but is often in short supply.

The biggest fear that Dons expressed when signing up for the drive was the needle. Many had never donated before, and the needles that the nurses wielded were larger than those used in vaccinations. It is okay to feel nervous before giving blood; the intense questions by the nurses do not ease the experience. However, one can always take comfort in knowing the impact a single donation has in saving lives. Take it from Will Bruns, junior and first-time donor: “I felt anxious at first, and they asked me a lot of questions which really made me nervous. But in the end the experience was worth it. I felt completely fine afterwards; the moms took great care of me, and I got to save some lives.”

The donations by Dons were true displays of selflessness and courage. Blood transfusions are used to help a variety of patients in need, but stocks are often limited in hospitals and blood banks. The Red Cross depends on drives like this to replenish the supplies consumed each day. That makes the effort by Dons on that Friday afternoon all the more special and important.

[theloyolan]

My Bloody Valentine: m b v

Hunter Flynn, Junior

My Bloody Valentine's previous album, Loveless (1991), defined the sound of the 90s for many -- dreamy, melodic, and simultaneously discordant. Through the release of this record, the Irish rock group also managed to establish many of the key features that define the genre of shoegaze; namely, distortion, synthesizers, and vocals that take a backseat to produce a single, cohesive, enchanting sound. Loveless is an album that's held dear by many, and widely regarded as one of the very best to come out of the decade.

Twenty-two years later, its successor has finally been completed. Simply titled MBV, the band's latest release sounds exactly like their last. Seriously. It is exactly what many long-time fans of the group were hoping for -- more My Bloody Valentine.

Something I noticed immediately upon starting the album is that it sounds identical to Loveless. In other words, the production hasn't changed one bit. The music still runs a little quiet, which requires the listener to turn the volume up to what would be an unreasonable level. But such actions are necessary to get the full experience of these remarkably dream-like songs that reverberate around your head.

Don't get me wrong -- this is certainly new material. Aside from the occasional borrowed riff, there was not a single moment for which I felt that the song I was listening to was very much like any particularsong off Loveless. No, My Bloody Valentine's better than that.  Moreover, out of all nine tracks on the LP, only one struck me as something that probably wouldn't have been released twenty-two years ago -- the instrumental "Nothing Is." But, at the same time, this song's pulsating, slightly mundane riffs felt right at home on this record.

As soon as you've listened to the first track, "She Found Now," you'll have a pretty good idea of what you're getting into. An enchanting blend of heavily altered guitars and female vocals into which it is entirely too easy to lose oneself. In fact, I found that MBV actually has more going for it than the iconic Loveless. For those to whom the latter was the soundtrack to their teenhood, however, it simply won't be the same. Nevertheless, MBV is an immensely enjoyable album and the first that's really caught my attention of this year.