Penn State Intercom......November 8, 2001

Alter-egos

After hours, University employees
trade desk jobs for instruments

By Julie A. Brink
Public Information

A partial list

One of the brightest moments in Tom Mallouk's career as a rock 'n' roller came when his then-10-year-old daughter Laura hopped on stage at the Friends School Fun Fair in State College to sing "Twist and Shout."

"She really belted it out and everybody stopped what they were doing and came over to listen," he recalled.

For Jeremy Cohen, it was while he was with the now-defunct campus band Voodoo Poodle playing a gig in the Carnegie Auditorium on the University Park campus. The band was really smokin' that night and "several students up front pulled out Bic lighters and started waving them around."

For John Bardi, it was when Steve Winwood came to his house to jam with him. Bardi plays guitar solo and in different bands as well as performing in his own cable-access television program, "The John Show."

It may have been great, but these guys are keeping their day jobs.

Mallouk is DuPont professor of materials chemistry, Cohen is associate vice provost for undergraduate education and Bardi is a lecturer in philosophy at Penn State Mont Alto. They are part of a loosely knit fraternity of musicians across the University's campuses. Some play in professional bands. Others jam in basements.
President Graham B. Spanier is part of that brotherhood. He thumps on a washboard and clangs a cowbell with the Deacons of Dixieland. So is Tom Harmon, director of University Police, the drummer with the Little German Band. He once performed at a party for Jimmy Carter.

"It's just a way of remembering there are other sides of our lives," said Cohen, the bass player in Diminished Seventh, a group that gets together on Saturday mornings in Cohen's living room to play folk, jazz, ballads and standards. "Sometimes we pretend that we're 16 and throw in some Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan."

The lineup is Deborah Meder, assistant controller, vocalist; James Hamilton, assistant professor of speech communication at Mont Alto, who sits in every time he gets to University Park, on banjo or guitar; Richard Barton, professor and associate dean in the College of Communications, mandolin; William Ritzman, coordinator of ADA programs, keyboards, squeezebox and accordion; and Walter Seaman, associate professor of education, lead guitar.

"We play in the real spirit of folk musicians and music, which is sharing stories and friendship, instead of reliving a teen-age fantasy," Cohen said. "We've graduated to using smaller amplifiers instead of bigger ones."

Mallouk says he plays bass guitar for the fun of it. "We've arrived at the stage in our lives where we don't have much fun anymore," he said. "It's very different from what we normally do."

The Friends School Rock and Roll Band (motto: "The fourth-best band of the Friends School"), includes George Lesieutre, associate director of the Center for Acoustics and Vibration and professor of aerospace engineering. The band is nominally professional in that it plays venues -- the Fun Fair, fund-raisers, parties and 40-something friends' weddings -- but members don't get paid for their work.

"We've never actually accepted money for our services," Mallouk said. "It would be unseemly considering how bad we are and the nature of our day jobs."

"When someone hands me $40 after a gig, it's just astonishing," said Ali Carr-Chellman, associate professor in the College of Education, who sings in Back Ali, a jazz/pop band. Back Ali has played at The Nittany Lion Inn, the Creamery, at Fischer Plaza, private parties, receptions and the Faculty Staff Club's annual newcomers reception.

Carr-Chellman, the vocalist, said, "All the talent is behind me." That includes Andrew Jackson, an instructor in education, who is involved in a number of musical groups both on and off campus, and plays drums in Ali. Rounding out the band are George Pavlik, a University alumnus who works in the State College School District, bass; Ted Mannino, a doctoral-degree candidate in instructional systems, lead guitar; and Wes Lipschultz, senior undergraduate student adviser, keyboards.

The band has been together in one form or another for about three years, although some of the personnel have moved on.

"We have this series of rotating keyboardists, like Spinal Tap's exploding drummers," she joked. "I'm hoping Wes will stick around."

John Bagby, professor of business law, has been playing bass with The Cloners since 1995. Bagby doesn't particularly like a USA Today reference to "geezer bands," baby boomers who played in high school garage bands, who are returning to their artistic roots, but he admits the reference is apt. Bagby and his co-horts -- Martin Petrucha, director of the Science Technology and Society Program, vocals; Mark Guiltinan, professor of plant biology; and Chris Lee, chief executive officer of Columbus Chapel and Boal Mansion Museum in Boalsburg, vocals, guitar and keyboards -- play classic rock. The band's name is a nod to Guiltinan's research and a pun on the fact that they're a cover band. Steve Fales, a founding member and guitar player, just left Penn State to take a position at the Iowa State University.

Bagby lives for moments like this past Memorial Day when The Cloners played at Boal Mansion and everything clicked.

"At that moment I realized that we were a band," he said. The group plays for fun, rehearsing sporadically as schedules allow.

On-cho Ng, who fronts the Department of History's band, Irreconcilable Differences, had played in high school rock bands and was a lounge singer in Hong Kong before his career as an associate professor of history took over and he sold his guitars. Ng was inspired when colleague Dan Beaver, associate professor of history, bought a drum set.

"I walked into a music store in town, bought an electric guitar and amplifier and days later, we started jamming," he said.

Dan Letwin, associate professor of history, joined them on guitar and Bill Pencak, professor of American history and a classically trained pianist, started playing keyboards. Soon, they were joined by Barry Kernfield, adjunct lecturer in music, and Matthew Restall, associate professor of history, both on sax. Graduate student Charlie Yood and Ng's wife, Mary Ann Mazlak, who teaches comparative education at St. John's University in New York and is a classically trained flutist, share duties on bass.

The band's name comes from what Ng refers to as their "hodgepodge" of musical backgrounds. The band calls itself a blues/light jazz group and it plays for weddings and the annual departmental picnic, among other gigs.

"We play for our own enjoyment," Ng said.

For some of the University community, their positions truly are day jobs. Chris "Cole" Hons, writer/editor in Outreach, fronts a band called Street Carnival Saints that plays rock and originals. He's been in bands since 1987 and is exploring the possibility of putting a songwriting demo together.

Then there's Judson Mantz, editing technician at WPSX, and Topher Yorks, associate producer at WPSX. Mantz sings and plays acoustic guitar in 3-D Betty, a rock band that plays around town.

Yorks is lead singer, rhythm guitarist and keyboardist in Milkshake Mojo, a modern rock cover band. He is part of the acoustic duo Toph and Ben, and composes scores for films, television, dance and theater. Yorks was nominated for a Mid-Atlantic Regional Emmy in 2000 for a documentary produced by WPSX titled "Mission Accomplished," highlighting the championship season of women's volleyball team.

"Working at Penn State helps put food on the table and being a musician keeps me sane," Yorks said.

Kristine Allen, program director at WPSU, is a one-woman musical dynamo. She sings in The Bloom Consort, an a capella madrigal group that performs at Pennsylvania and Maryland Renaissance fairs. In 1999, Allen founded Myrthe, an early musical ensemble that plays renaissance, medieval and traditional music on a variety of period and modern instruments. Toby Carlson, professor of meteorology, also is a member of the group. If that's not enough, Allen also plays fiddle in local folk groups and sings with a musical revue group in State College.

"I work on music every night for a couple of hours one way or another," she said. "It's a part of daily life."

Donnie Rhoades, audio engineer for WPSX and assistant lab coordinator for the College of Communications, made his living for some years as a professional musician before joining the 9-to-5 crowd.

"I realized that peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches and Spaghettios only taste good for a certain amount of time," he said. Rhoades plays drums in 3-D Betty and with Cliff Turner and the Afterburners.

Being a part-time bandsman can have its low points. Ask Bardi.

"Once I was playing back in the '70s in a disco band that got booked into a country music bar," he said. "It was the grossest misbooking possible. They hated the whole idea of disco."

But Mantz has the best story about the rigors of professional music. While playing in a downtown drinking establishment on a rowdy football weekend, someone barfed in the bass player's amplifier.

A partial list

No one is keeping tabs on how many faculty and staff are musically inclined, but here are a few that popped up in an informal survey:

* Jerry Zolten, assistant professor of speech communication at Altoona, plays the blues and studies black musicians;

* Linda Littleton, Center for Academic Computing, and Celia Millington-Wyckoff, Outreach and Cooperative Extension, are part of Simple Gifts, instrumental music;

* John Lamancusa, professor in mechanical engineering, performs with Crooked Stovepipe;

* Lou Campbell (vocals/guitar) and Neal Myers, (sax/keyboards), both research staffers in the College of Engineering, perform in Superglide, a rock band;

* Connie Gensimore, finance director at the Center for the Performing Arts, is part of the Phyrst Phamly;

* Gary Abdullah, writer/editor in the College of Agricultural Sciences, plays bass guitar with Andrew Jackson, instructor in the College of Education, in Urban Fusion. Jackson also plays with Earthtones and other groups;

* Gretl Collins, a designer in the College of Agricultural Sciences, plays fiddle in Danny Boy;

* Kevin Nolty, admissions officer at Penn State Hazleton, plays bagpipe in Ceol Mor Pipe and Drum Band; and

* Sehoya Cotner, instructor in biology, David Witmer, manager at the Applied Research Laboratory, and Jill Buchanan, a nurse in University Health Services at University Park, are members of the Nittany Highland Bagpipe Band.

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