The ska is the limit

by Jessica Snow sports editor

Less Than Jake signed with Fat Wreck Chords. This sounds like a big accomplishment for your average six-piece ska/punk ensemble based in Florida, but what makes their story different is that the members of this outfit left the major label Capital Records to sign with an independent one.

"What can I say. They didn't like us anymore. They wanted us to leave and we did," Roger, Less Than Jake's bassist, said. (Apparently the members of the band do not have last names.)

This decision seemed inevitable to many fans on message boards and websites because of the group's independent nature and respect for their fans, which often did not mesh with a large corporation.

"Well I really don't know if it matters at all so, but we try to keep our prices low for records and our shows," is a line from the song 'Johnny Quest Thinks We're Sellouts" on "Losing Streak", which was released by Capital Records.

•

These fans that Less Than Jake fight for were waiting for the newest release to arrive in August, but it was held up because of the switch to Fat Wreck Cords. It is the amount of time that was spent on their new album that makes it different from the band's other releases, especially those on Capital, according to Roger.

"We sort of almost got anal about it.. "Rockview", our last record, we wrote in two weeks and recorded in three weeks. We did "Losing Streak" in a ridiculous amount of time, like three weeks. And this one was actually months of writing, and a month of just kind of hanging out together and just working it out and then two months of actually recording it," Roger said.

This recording may be different from the band's other releases, which number over 130, but the live show has not changed much according to Roger, since "unpredictable" is still the best word to describe a Less Than Jake show.

The band has not headlined its own tour in over a year and a half, but after a stint with The Warp Tour, it has been traveling across the United States for 1O weeks. A New Found Glory, The Ataris and Zebrahead are among the bands that toured with them. The Suicide Machines, Pollen and One Man Army were with them for a Sept. 12 show at The Electric Factory in Philadelphia. The show was hot. Flames decorated the stage and the finale included Vinnie playing with flaming drumsticks. It was not the kind of show the insurance people at Capital would have enjoyed. The band can now return to other antics its fans appreciate and expect.

"I just go to the grocery store and buy like 300 bucks worth of food and just stay at home and never leave, ever. I play 'Tony Hawk', relax, collect toys on the internet, be dorky, pet the cat," Roger reports. The cat's name is Jake, completely by coincidence.

There are several stories about how the band actually got its name. The most widely accepted is that Chris, the lead singer and one of the three founding members in 1992, had a dog named Jake as a child whom his parents spoiled and everything else in the family's house was said to be "less than Jake."

Along with Chris, Roger and Vinnie, the drummer, the band now consists of Buddy and Pete on trombones and another Pete on the saxophone. Derron recently left Less Than Jake and was replaced on the baritone sax by JR.

''That's been cool. A new face hanging out on stage," Roger said lookinh towdard the door as he lounged across an old couch in the Electric Factories Backstage area.

The band and its loyal audience are responding in a positive way to all of the changes happening on the brink of "Borders and Boundaries'" release. The album is scheduled to arrive in stores Oct. 24 and the band is anticipating the date as much as the fans are.

"Now we can go back and start doing wacky stuff like the old 'pizza box 7 inches' and weird cover records and stuff like that with out having to deal with the major label issues that came into play every once in a while,''. Roger predicted like a little boy on Christmas Eve.

"Expect to see wacky vinyl from our band soon."

Less Than Jake will get its time to start these projects after three dates in Japan and three weeks in Europe. In their off time the guys usually "sit around, watch some TV, eat some fast food from Gainesville" and do not see much of each other, according to Roger.

"It sounds way better than anything we've ever done. I really think that the songs are way better than anything we've ever done. I'm really stoked on it. We didn't cut any corners. When it came time to do it, we never went 'ah, that's ok' we always went 'all right, lets fix it' So I am really excited about it and I can't wait for it to come out actually," Roger said.

Anything can happen with Less Than Jake in its newly independent future.

"Now I want to tour with like Ricky Martin or somebody. Tap into the Latin market, sell records to people like my mom," Roger joked. "Actually, we might tour with ICP. We'v~ been talking about doing the Australian Warped ff our." The possibilities seem endless.

by MichaelA. K,uniian staff writer

Picture "Whose Line Is It Anyway" without Drew Carey,s basketball shaped head and you have Cabrini College's Improv Troupe.

Going by the name "On the Spot," the troupe is composed of Cabrini students who try their hand at improvisational comedy routines like that found on ABC's mildly successful program (highly successful if you stick Regis in Carey's place.)

"On the Spot" performed on Wednesday evening, Sept 13, at the Great Room in Xavier to an audience made up of about 25 people who like to hear themselves talk even more than listening to the show, which isn't entirely bad, based on the fact that the performers routines are based almost entirely on audience suggestions.

The show consists of several different "games" that challenge the participants to come up with unrehearsed performances that have some rather unusual topics such as foreign films, porn suggested themes and even one about Samurai Cooking Grandmothers, or whatever that was.

"There isn't much that we can't do,"

Matt Holmes, the leader of the troupe, said. "Since we're basically run by ourselves there aren't a lot of restrictions."

Wednesday night's show consisted of four players: juniors Matt Holmes and Jessica Snow, senior Tony Barrett and sophomore Kit Dewey, which is one of the smallest groups that the troupe has had to perform with.

"When there are more people it can be more fun, but having a small group of people has its advantages," Snow said, who is in her third year with the program. Speaking of more performers, there will be open auditions held in early October. Auditions are open to all who aren't afraid of embarrassing themselves and taking a bit of criticism in front of a large group of people. In fact Snow also said that getting over "stage fright" is also a good way of prepping ones self for other real-life situations like interviews and being around other groups of people.

Want to see the troupe? They usually perform the first Friday of each month in the theater at Grace Hall. Admission is usually very inexpensive. Simply put: if you can afford to come here you should be able to part with a buck or two. The troupe is also speaking with other colleges about getting together with their improv teams and performing together at different colleges. But that's not the biggest concern of the troupe right now. The concern now lies in getting more people interested in the shows.

"The more people there are, the more fun the shows are," Holmes said. And to all of us who can be bought easily, candy is given out before the show.

So if you can't splurge for the plane ticket out to California to see Drew and company, be on the lookout for flyers posted just about everywhere you turn for the troupe's dates and show-times. And remember free candy.