Section A · Page 8
The University Daily Kansan
Wednesday, October 13, 1999
Entertainment
Musician has style all his own
Billy Ebeling, Lawrence resident, plays with the Late for dinner band every Wednesday Night at Sports Page Brewery. The 40-year-old musician has toured across Europe and played in Aukland and New Zealand. Photo by Chad Cummings/KANSAN
Mixing instruments, local band has unique background, sound
By Emily Hughey writer @kansan.com Kansan staff writer
He's not a typical Lawrence musician.
For one, Billy Ebeling doesn't read music. He doesn't need to — he feels it.
"I just like playing guitar," Ebeling said. "I had lessons, but I always quit. I think there are two ways of music. The mathematical way where you've got everything mapped out and it's numbers. Otherwise, you just go 'this sounds good,' and play."
Ebeling, longtime Lawrence resident, has been playing music since junior high when he started teaching himself how to play the guitar.
Secondly, his parents aren't putting him through college, he doesn't party like a rock star with the kids and he thinks cigarettes are pointless.
Since then, he's developed his style into a fusion of blues, jazz and zydeco. He plays his style with the Late for Dinner Band every Wednesday night at Sports Page Brewery, 3512 Clinton Pkwy., on some Friday nights at Pat's Blue Rib N'Barbecue, 1618 W. 23rd St., and every once in a while at venues in Kansas City, Mo.
Billy Murray, manager at Pat's Blue Rib'N and Overland Park senior, said the bar almost always filled up when Ebeling played.
"He always brings in a good crowd," Murray said. "He's cool. He's huge in New Zealand and Australia, and he's a really nice guy. I mean, the guy plays guitar, harmonica, the accordion, slide guitar, keyboard — the guy is amazing."
Katie Holmes, server at Pat's, said the bar always got crowded when Ebeling played.
"It gets crowded but not really with a college crowd," Holmes said. "He kind of has a following. The only night we have a bar crowd is when his band is playing."
While the traditional home of blues musicians is not a sports bar, Ebeling said the pay was better than at most of
the local clubs.
Ebeling is a 40-year old musician who plays in Lawrence bars not just because he loves to but because he has to make a living.
"I've got two separate parallel reasons — of course to make a living," Ebeling said. "And on the recording side, to have some messages I'd kind of like to use to open people up to some of my ideas."
Upon returning from his around-the-world travels last year, which he began in 1890, Ebeling said he had a new perspective.. And some of the things about the United States that troubled him have become the subject of some of his songs on his new CD. Don't Look Away.
"After living in America and living outside, I thought there were some problems that we were imoring." he said.
From racism to violence to tobacco smoking, Ebeling said he tried to get his message across through his music. However, hypocrisy, he said, was not his bag. In the last line of his song "Smoking," he admits "on occasion I do like to get high, but I do not smoke just so I can die."
"I tried to smoke when I was a kid, and it just made me dizzy. I just don't see the point," he said. "I don't want to be a hypocrite. I'll smoke a joint for kicks."
But that's not the only thing that gives him a high. Traveling, spending time with his wife and family and playing music also send him soaring.
His favorite place is Port Douglas, Australia, but he's also toured across Europe. In Auckland, New Zealand, he played for a post-Pink Floyd concert party.
"We were in Auckland, New Zealand, playing outside with battery powered amps and a drum set," Ebeling said. "As part of our ritual, we'd always open our set thanking Pink Floyd for opening up for us. We didn't know they were in the audience getting a kick out of it."
He said Pink Floyd guitarist, David Gilmour, stopped him
as he was passing his hat through the crowd and asked him if he wanted to play his after-show party.
"I said, 'yeah, sure.' Here's our number," Ebeling said. "It turns out it was David Gilmour, and I didn't know it was him until I saw him on stage that night."
Despite his relative fame in Australia and New Zealand, where he said it was easy for an American to be a star, he said he was drawn back to Lawrence, where his family and friends were. One member of the Late for Dinner band, drummer Paul Matthews, has been a friend since high school. Ben Shult rounds out the trio as the bass player.
Ebeling said he was happy to be back in Lawrence playing music, and although he wouldn't mind living the posh life, he was content where he was.
"I have fun here," he said.
"I've been gone so long. I'd like to keep doing everything I've been doing, just on a nicer level."
— Edited by Jamie Knodel
CBS series for next summer based on show with tragic end
The Associated Press
Survivor, a CBS program that will strand contestants on a remote island to compete for a $1 million prize, has been promoted by its producer as putting only the players' egos at risk.
But a Swedish version of the show began with a dark incident: In the initial season of Expedition Robinson in 1997, the first contest to be declared a loser committed suicide a month after returning home.
The network that aired the highly popular program in Sweden denied any responsibility, but the man's widow blamed the show then and still does. CBS said it believed the program was not a factor.
"There is no evidence to suggest a connection between the young man's tragedy and the show," CBS representative Chris Ender said Monday in Los Angeles.
Survivor, scheduled to air next summer, will bring 16 American men and women together on a South China Sea island, with the promise of $1 million for the last contest remaining on Palau Tiga off Malaysia's Borneo coast.
The group is whittled down by secret ballot, with members voting every three days to expel a fellow contestant. When the final two contests are left, those most recently voted
out of the game will decide who ends up the winner.
Contestants will discover why they were blackbailed when the 13-episode series airs.
Expedition Robinson, which airs on the Swedish public broadcaster SVT, began filming June 1, 1997, in Malaysia, with Sinisa Savija the first one kicked out by his team.
"He was a glad and stable person when he went away, and when he came back he told me. "They are going to cut away the good things I did and make me look like a fool," Nermina Savija said.
Mrs. Savija appealed to SVT to pull the series after his death; instead, footage of her husband was largely edited out of the program.
"He was aware of the conditions," Pia Marquard, the then-head of SVT's entertainment division said in 1997. "When you enter something like this you have to take some personal responsibility, too."
Survivor contestants will be scrutinized by medical professionals throughout their participation. CBS' Ender said.
"The safety of the participants will be paran-mount," he said. "All the contestants will have background checks, medical screenings and psychological evaluations. We will make sure everybody headed for Malaysia is ready for the experience."
Millennium eve doesn't merit traveling for many Americans
The Associated Press
ANAHEIM, Calif. — It's 79 days and counting till the clock strikes 2000, and for all the predictions of a party for the ages, there's still plenty of room at the inn.
Hotel rooms, though pricey, are still available at such New Year's carousing headquarters as Times Square, New Orleans and the Disney parks in Orlando, Fla., and Anaheim.
Cabins remain open for millennium ocean cruises. Revelers still can line up a limo in Las Vegas or a baby sitter in Manhattan.
Many travelers may be in a holding pattern, hoping exorbitant hotel prices will drop as the new year approaches. Some fear to travel because of possible problems from the Year 2000 bug, in which some computers may fail to properly recognize the change of century.
Others want to spend New Year's quietly with family and friends. And some have a sense of millennium malaise, viewing the Year 2000 as just another flip of a calendar page.
"New Year's is overrated, even this one," said Tanyah Hotovek of San Francisco, who plans to be at home. "It turns midnight, it's all over."
Surveys by Travel Weekly, a trade publication, and the Travel Industry Association found about four-fifths of Americans did not
plan to travel this New Year's. In the Travel Weekly survey, 43 percent of respondents who did not plan trips said the millennium meant nothing to them.
"People think the Earth is ending, but it's going to come and go real quick," said Chris Gibson of Paramus, N.J., who plans to jam with some musician friends on New Year's Eve. "The next day it'll be back to the same thing as any other year. Trying to remember to write 2000 instead of 1999."
No one's calling New Year's a bust. But expectations of a book-early mentality among millennium revelers have faded.
"There was maybe an attitude of get your champagne now because you won't get any later," said Beverly Gianna of the New Orleans Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau. "But reality has set in."
Reality is that travelers are not making millennium plans much faster than for a typical New Year's. Some people planning big blowouts booked early, while others simply remain undecided about what they'll be doing.
"If you can afford to be on the Concorde flying around the International Date Line, you've booked that already," said Erik Elvejord, a spokesman for Holland America cruise line.
Staying put, though, will be a favorite choice for many Americans, she noted.
CheerioHare
Starting November 1st Daily Non-stops from O'Hare to London's Heathrow Airport!
Great rates available!
Call Council Travel!
(785)749-3900
622 W. 12th Street
Right next to Yello Sub!
Council Travel
Wed., 10/13, First UMC, 10th & Vermont
6:30-7:30 Wesley Fellowship, Stress Relieves & Pizza
7:45-8:30 Celebrate! Alternative Worship at an Alternative Time! Live "Celebration" Band. Informal. Open communion.
This Week in United Methodist Campus Ministry
Fri., 10/15 6:30 til... Call for Directions
Dinner & a Movie
This Week: 6 Degrees of Separation, starring Will Smith
Sat., 10/16, "A Day Away Retreat" for Students Spend a day at the Franciscan Prayer Center. Bring a blanket & a good book and leave the rest to us (lunch included).
For Information on These or Other Programs Contact Campus Minister Heather Hensarling United Methodist Campus Ministry
Benefits CASA, Court Appointed Special Advocates
946 Vermont
841-8661
United Methodist Campus Ministry is a "Reconciling" Ministry Open to All
KappaAlpha Theta's 16th Annual Sun Run
Sunday, October 17
Sign up Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at Wescoe
$12 Student, $15 Non-student includes T-shirt
We want you!
STUDENT THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS SENATE
Student Senate Meeting October 13,1999 6:30 p.m. Delta Gamma