Showcase shines spotlight on talent

Tuesday, May 28, 1996

Six campus acts run gamut from comedy to musicBy Rodney
Tanaka

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

Fame. Fortune. Glory. Therapy.

"Showcase ’96" offers UCLA students a forum to highlight their
talents in front of family, friends and talent agents. Six acts,
including a punk band and a comedian, will bounce their sounds and
jokes off the walls of Ackerman Grand Ballroom tonight. The evening
offers a chance to vent stress as well as impress entertainment
professionals.

"I think our performances are a cathartic experience," says
Brian Korgel, lead singer and bassist of the band Hair Shirt. "In
grad school there’s more pressure to do stuff. We have all this
anxiety built up inside of us, and when we play it just comes
out."

Korgel has played with his band mates, guitarist Ivan Stanish
and drummer Steve Weissman, for four years in different
incarnations. The trio formed Hair Shirt one year ago and continue
to grow into a cohesive unit with each performance. Their name
describes their style of music, described by Korgel as punk with an
energetic feel.

"Monks used to wear hair shirts in the Middle Ages made of horse
or camel hair," Korgel says. "They were doing penance and sinners
wore them too. They’re uncomfortable and scratchy."

One of their more popular songs covers a topic leaning more
towards warm and fuzzy. "Superman" represents Hair Shirt’s
distinctive style, with a mellow opening followed by a melodic
chorus which gives way to a punk, thrashing part.

"I wrote it for my wife," Korgel says. "It talks about all the
things that this person would do for a lover: ‘I’ll make you my
religion, I’ll make you my queen, I’ll bury you inside me but I’ll
never make you kneel, just tell me I’m your Superman.’ This person
wants to do all these things for this person, but all they want to
know is if they’re this special person, so that they’re not doing
it for nothing."

Korgel says he hopes "Showcase" will give his band exposure, but
he knows, at the very least, the performance will offer an escape
from the rigors of graduate studies. He and Stanish are working on
their master degrees in chemical engineering. Weissman is working
on a Ph.D. in Slavic languages.

"It’s a release, we get away from all the required things we
need to do," Korgel says. "Plus, I think there’s a ton of music
inside of us."

The parents of featured comedian Nathan Siedman learned that
their child possesses a ton of hot air inside of him. Siedman
remembers entertaining his parents at the age of eleven with a
balloon and a talented nose.

"I remember running down the stairs and telling both parents to
look at this," Siedman says. "I put a balloon in my left nostril,
closed off my right nostril, and inflated it with my nose. They
went, ‘great, we’re going to have this for how many years?’"

His childhood wackiness has since translated into entertainment
at the expense of USC. He first tasted anti-‘SC energy at the Beat
‘SC rally prior to the annual football game in November. He was
then asked to write anti-USC skits for Spring Sing.

"I wrote this skit where Tommy Trojan comes out and says, ‘For
so many years we’ve written top ten lists and we’ve all heard why
USC is worse and bad and we understand that becomes trite,’"
Siedman says. "It goes on with this long thing about how we should
accept USC for who they are and be able to embrace the Trojan as
our brother."

"Why fool around with it?" Siedman adds. "I’m saying, here’s the
symbol of USC, just beat the shit out of it with a bat."

Siedman views "Showcase" as an opportunity to entertain the
audience on hand. Opportunities beyond this would be appreciated,
but not expected.

"Hopefully I’ll be successful and happy but with no guilt,"
Siedman says. "I want to be Nathan, and if people know who I am,
fine. If they don’t, fine. The world still spins around."

A veteran comedian of "Showcase" returns to host the event.
Sulli McCullough, also the host of the first "Showcase," returns to
his alma mater six years wiser and experienced. He graduated with a
political science degree in 1990 and has since appeared in the
motion pictures "Terminal Velocity," "Don’t Be a Menace to South
Central While Drinking your Juice in the Hood," and the upcoming
"Cable Guy" with Jim Carrey. His success comes from a drive that he
brought with him from school.

"I was pretty focused," McCullough says. "I took the bus down to
the Improv with my backpack and studied while I waited to go up on
stage."

McCullough’s big break came when the UCLA Comedy Club won a
contest where the prize was a live performance by Jerry Seinfeld.
Seinfeld’s managers saw McCullough’s act and signed him. Now his
return to campus may initiate others into the entertainment
field.

"It should be a funny show and very entertaining," McCullough
says. "I’d say come out or regret having to hear about it from
someone else."

EVENT: "Showcase ’96," tonight at 7:30 p.m. in Ackerman Grand
Ballroom. Admission is free. Tickets available at CTO. For more
info., call (310) 825-2101.