Bursting on the scene became a daily routine for this year’s Augusta GreenJackets third baseman.

Adam Duvall, the 22-year-old infielder out of Louisville, Ky., and the University of Louisville, belted 22 home runs during the regular season to tie for fifth in the South Atlantic League. In what was his first full year of professional baseball, Duvall hit .285/.385/.527 in 506 plate appearances.

Despite his name not appearing on San Francisco Giants prospect lists prior to this season, Duvall put himself in position to contend for the organization’s Minor League Player of the Year.

“I really worked hard in the offseason to get my body right, to get stronger and just really trying to stay mentally prepared for the long season,” Duvall said. “That’s a big key. I got a taste of pro ball last season in short season, so it kind of works into college season, and that helped me adapt.”

Duvall hit .328 and .327 in his two years at Louisville, although his .403 on-base percentage in his final year was relatively low for the batting average due to a low amount of walks. He earned All-Region honors in his first year as a Cardinal and was selected in the 11th round of the 2010 Major League Baseball Draft by the Giants.

After a .245/.318/.370 line in a brief taste at short-season Salem-Keizer following his college season in 2010, the Giants promoted him to Augusta for the 2011 season, where he blossomed in his first full year.

“He’s shown power from spring training, from the get-go,” GreenJackets manager Lipso Nava said. “He’s been able to put up his swing every day, he’s understanding more to have success at the plate and he’s able to understand what is needed to overcome every situation.”

Despite just 24 walks in his final full year of college ball, Duvall showed much better plate discipline at Augusta, recording 59 free passes at a rate of 11.8 percent. This, combined with a progression in power, resulted in a .401 weighted on-base average, which gives more productive hits higher value than does on-base percentage.

“One of my main goals this season was to try to maintain a close walk-to-strikeout ratio,” Duvall said. “I feel like I could have done a little better. When I go into slumps, I try not to strike out as much; that’s my key, just putting the ball in play and trying to find holes.”

Duvall played second base for most of his college career, including every inning he was on the field in 2009. However, his frame – he is 6 feet 1 inch tall and weighs 205 pounds – along with his developed power at the plate, led to him moving to third base this year for Augusta.

The move was met with mixed results, as Duvall recorded 27 errors at third, but Nava attested to his improvement as the season progressed, improving his range and footwork. The manager said he is a player who gets results from being a hard worker.

“It was a big change for me, because I had never played third base before, and it’s completely different,” Duvall said. “But I’ve done a great job getting better, because when I started this season I was below par at third, so just getting better every day, but I still have a long way to go. I’m adapting to it. One big key is just to feel comfortable.”

Minor league players often find their niche in the lower levels, whether it’s as a contact hitter, power hitter or defense-first player. Duvall has yet to settle for any of these categories, and it remains to be seen whether he can continue these numbers in the upper levels, so the book is still out on the third baseman as a prospect.

Duvall put together a season in which he was an SAL All-Star and Most Valuable Player of the game. He helped lead the GreenJackets to a playoff berth in the final games of the regular season and projects as a player with good makeup. This will only help him as he moves up the ladder.

“I address to him every day that he has to make adjustments,” Nava said. “He’s not being pitched the same, so he’ll have to understand what his job is, to look for certain pitches in certain situations. Like I said, this is a learning process, and he’s doing a hell of a job.”

The sounds of volleyballs hitting the ground, shoes sliding on the floor and the sight of a net in the middle of the basketball court can only mean one thing: volleyball season has returned.

The season began on Aug. 10 with seven new players, six of which are freshmen and one a transfer, and five returning players. According to the head coach, Sharon Bonaventure, the team practices for no more than four hours a day with a weight session in the morning and a court session that afternoon.

With half the team as freshmen, the transition to collegiate volleyball is a big adjustment academically and socially for the new players, said Bonaventure. But with seven new players, this season looks to be different from last year’s, especially with the makeup of the team.

“There are seven newbies and five returning, and we have a wealth of talent, especially with the seven new kids,” Bonaventure said. “They all come from establishing programs where they have won and done a lot all on the court and back home. So it’s going to be interesting to see how that translates onto the game court for Augusta State.”

One of those new players is Kristen Koch, freshman biology major, who has been playing volleyball for seven years.

“Coming into a new team was different, but not too hard, because everybody on the team was nice and showed you the ropes, and you get into it really quickly,” Koch said.

With this new season, Koch said she is looking forward to playing collegiate ball because she has been working toward that for the past six years. The reason she chose Augusta State University to play volleyball was because she likes the coach, teammates, and the gym they play in, and for the academics, it helps that the medical college is down the road.

To get ready for this season, the team is spending more time working on fundamentals because of how many new players there are. The team is also working on their offensive system and defensive system, along with the two new setters who are running the offensive system. This means that there is a lot of communicating, instruction, learning and teaching going on with the team right now.

A returning member of the team, Mandy Irizarry, junior business major, has been playing volleyball since eighth grade. This season is different compared to last in regards to the depth of talent on the team. This makes it easier to practive drills, and because the new players came in ready to compete, that made the returning ones ready to compete, too.

“I’m looking forward to actually surprising people,” Irizarry said. “Last year, we had a few surprising games like beating Armstrong, but this year, we’re a team that will have a lot of upsets, and I think people will be there for us.”

This attitude of surprising people is shared also by coach Bonaventure. The team is ranked seventh for the preseason, and that’s a good thing in the eyes of coach Bonaventure, because it means that the other teams are underestimating them, but there is a lot of talent on the team this year that will surprise others. This season looks to be an exciting one for the team, because this year Augusta State is hosting the Peach Belt Conference and hopes to win that and head to regionals.

“It’s going to be a fighting season,” Bonaventure said. “I think people should come out for the home matches because there’s going to be a lot of action going on as well as in the stands.”

The first home game will be on Sept. 13 against Lander and will be the first of 11 home games.

With the 2011 cross country season underway, the Augusta State University men’s and women’s teams already feel a sense of accomplishment.

Despite the men’s and women’s teams leaving the Appalachian State Invitational on Sept. 2 with 10th and 11th finishes, respectively, head coach Adam Ward said they did exactly what they came to do.

“I knew when I chose the event we would be going against some top level Division I teams,” he said. “I wasn’t so concerned with seeing how we match up against them. What I was really interested in seeing is how we matched up against King (College), who was picked to finish No. 2 in our region for both men’s and women’s teams. We were head-to-head with them.”

Sophomore runner Dustin Ross, who led the men with a 48th place finish, said the men’s strategy for the meet could be attributed for the success at the meet.

“The guys packed up and ran as a group,” he said. “We were feeding off each other, not letting anyone down. We had a group of four or five guys that picked people off starting from the back as we moved up and almost knocked off the No. 2 team in the region in the process.”

Senior Lyndsay Nichols, who led the women with a 60th place finish, said the women’s team had a similar approach.

“Our goal going into the race was to see how well we stacked up against King [College] because of their ranking in the region,” she said. “Only the top two teams in the region are invited to go to the nationals. We ran in a pack like the men’s, but it wasn’t as close as we wanted. We know if we can tighten up a little, then we will be able to compete with teams like King.”

On a conference level, both teams are expected to finish high in the standings. The men’s team is picked to finish fourth in the Peach Belt Conference while the women’s team is picked to win it all. This marks the first time since 2007 that a team other than Columbus State University was the preseason favorite to win the women’s conference championship.

“Our goal is to win conference,” Nichols said. “It is motivating to know that other people have that confidence in us, and we feed off of it.” Ross said he views the men’s ranking as a way to prove the ability of the men’s team to the rest of the conference.

“We view our fourth place ranking as, ‘OK, we see what you guys think of us, and when we go out and win conference, you will feel ridiculous,’” he said. “Our goal is to knock off the three teams ahead of us. With our group of guys, if we can stay in a pack, we will win conference.”

The men’s and women’s teams return to action on Sept. 17 at the Bridgestone-Pacer Invitational hosted by USC-Aiken. They then travel to the Charlotte Invitational hosted by UNC-Charlotte on Sept. 30.

The Augusta GreenJackets wrapped up their regular season recently in exciting fashion, earning a playoff berth in the final days. The 2011 regular season was another thrilling one for the team and city.

According to GreenJackets media relations director and radio broadcaster, Eric Little, the popularity of the hometown minor league baseball team has not always had the distinct presence in the community that the current organization possesses.

According to the GreenJackets, the organization fell under the ownership of Cal Ripken Jr six years ago. Since this change, attendance has skyrocketed, filling the nearly 5,000-seat stadium and breaking attendance records year after year.

Some of the first changes were improvements to the facility, as the Ripken organization took what was once an average baseball park and transformed it into a top-grade minor league stadium. According to Little, thick green turf from a company used before by the Augusta National Golf Club was brought in to improve the infield.

Jerry Kothera, a 10-year GreenJackets usher, said the first addition was a party deck, followed by covered batting cages, a picnic pavilion, cool area with misting water and powerful fans.

“We did have a fun zone prior to Ripken,” Kothera said. “Prior to (the current fun zone), what we had were a couple swings and a slide.”

Kothera said the playground was transformed into an outdoor climbing jungle equipped with inflatable jumping castles and playground personnel who monitor the children in the fun zone, allowing parents an opportunity to enjoy the game.

Little said improvements in staff have made a significant difference in the quality of the baseball organization. He also mentioned one of Ripken’s investments in the minor league team was an increase of qualified staff. This staff has been able to make significant improvements in advertising and marketing, and fans have noticed these improvements.

David Hunter, pastor of the Lutheran Church of the Resurrection and long-time GreenJackets season ticket holder, said he believes the improved quality of the staff has played a big role in the organization’s overall improvement.

“The most significant change is staff,” he said. “Ripken Baseball hired more people, and people who have some knowledge about what they’re doing. The reason there are more fans in the stands than there were under the Red Sox management is simply there are more people in group sales, and in marketing and customer service. They are all college graduates. I have known several of them over the years. They are bright young people.”

Also, because of the improved staff, the baseball team has developed a greater visibility in the surrounding community. According to Little, the organization has made efforts to become more involved with organizations that are important in the community. They often do so in creative ways. Playing off the hype of a 15-game suspension of pitching coach Steve Kline this season, the GreenJackets designated one game as “Free Steve Kline Night.”

“We passed out buckets collecting bail money, to pay off his fine, but what the money actually went for was donated to the league’s ‘Strike Out Hunger’ campaign,” Little said. “We turned a 15-game suspension into something that is going to raise money for people at the food bank, to feed many people.”

Another effort of the GreenJackets baseball team is to connect with, and lend a hand, to the community with novelty jerseys. Throughout the season, GreenJackets players wore novelty jerseys in connection with military holidays, the Boy Scouts of America, the Fourth of July and other events. After the jerseys are worn, they are auctioned off. Profits, as well as ticket sales from many promotional games, go toward charities and organizations within the community’s interest.

Credit for a bigger, stronger program also goes to the players. Kothera credits the players for drawing in a larger audience; former players like Hanley Ramirez, who is now an infielder for the Florida Marlins, and left fielder, 18-year-old Rafael Rodriguez.

“Hanley Ramirez came here and made a terrific splash,” Kothera said. “The (fans) come to see the exceptional players. When they perform on the field and have a winning record, that has contributed dramatically to the increase in fan base.”

To celebrate the success the organization has had, the GreenJackets baseball organization celebrated the milestone of their 1 millionth fan under Ripken ownership. According to Little, the 1 millionth fan was awarded an all-expenses-paid trip for four to Disney World, sponsored by the Augusta Vascular Center.

“You hit a milestone and celebrate,” Little said. “This is our way of celebrating and giving back to the fans, and creating some excitement for them.”

Following a second Peach Belt Conference Championship in three years, the Jaguars men’s basketball program had the task of replacing the core of its team this offseason.

Several additions over the summer, including a Tulane University transfer, signaled a new chapter in Augusta State University basketball as the team will carry five freshmen and two new transfers on the roster in 2011-2012.

“We’re in a unique situation in that half of our roster will be freshmen, which is unusual, but it’s kind of the way the cards are dealt,” head coach Dip Metress said. “I think that, coupled with the two we redshirted last year, we have a very good freshman class, but young. They’ll be out in the fire a lot more than is usual with freshmen.”

This was the result of losing Franck Ndongo, the leading rebounder for the Jaguars, and George Johnson, an All-American, to graduation, as well as role players Caleb Brown and Howard Brown. Ben Purser, who averaged 7.7 points per game last season, left two weeks prior to the fall semester, leading to another open spot for a freshman to take.

The first announced signing over the summer was Kelth Cameron, a 6-7 forward from Tulane who saw little action for the Green Wave in two years with the team. Cameron has two years of eligibility remaining, and he poses a likely threat in the paint for a Jaguars team lack- ing in size. Aside from Cameron’s listed weight of 259 pounds, the next heaviest player currently on the roster is another transfer, Harold Doby, at 209 pounds.

“(Cameron) is a big body, (and) can rebound a little bit,” Metress said. “The main thing is we need a guy with some strength so we can enable Travis (Keels) to play in- side and outside. We knew we were kind of looking for a big body guy and we got that in him.”

Doby, the most recent signing, is a 6-5 forward from Georgia State University, and he excelled locally at Laney High School. He averaged 2.5 points and 2.1 rebounds per game while averaging 12.3 minutes per game for the Panthers last season.

The second addition this summer was Jay Manning, a 6-3 guard from Arlington Christian in Fairburn, Ga. Manning was All-Region and GISA All-State in his senior year, averaging 22 points and 11 rebounds per game. He also recorded four 30-point games.

“They’re a bunch of winners, and they want to get back to that national championship state, and that’s where I want to go, too, even as a freshman,” Manning said. “So I’m looking to contribute right away, and that’s really what brought me here.”

The Jaguars followed the Manning signing with two more guards in Devonte Thomas and D’Angelo Boyce. Thomas, a 6-5 guard from North Point High School in Waldorf, Md., is an outside threat that recorded more than 170 3-pointers in his prep career. Boyce is another prod- uct Metress plucked from the northern Virginia pipeline. He is a 6-1 guard from Annandale High School in Annandale, Va., who averaged 15.2 points per game in his senior year.

Roman Hill became the fourth guard signed by Metress. He is a 6-3 sophomore from Cincinnati, Ohio, and Cincinnati State Community College. He averaged 11 points and seven rebounds per game last season.

“He was MVP of his junior college as a freshman,” Metress said. “When Purser left two weeks to go before school started, that threw everything out of whack for us. So we picked up Roman. Physically, he’s athletic and has done some good things in his career.”

The lack of big men signed this offseason is likely a testament to the two forwards redshirted last season and their expected impact as freshmen. Devon Wright-Nelson is a 6-5 forward from Washington, D.C., and Charles Robinson is a 6-8 forward from Charlotte, N.C. Both players have a year of experience with being around the team, and Metress figured both will have an impact this season.

“Charles is kind of an inside-outside athlete; Devon is a kind of an all-over-the-place guy,” Metress said. “Those were the guys that have been with this a year and have physically matured where we want them. They’re bigger guys that will help us out, hopefully.”

Augusta State was forced to load up on freshmen after several key losses, and Metress appeared confident with how the roster shaped. However, he was quick to caution that while recruiting classes are ranked annually on potential, it is not known how strong the class is until it graduates.

“You never can evaluate a recruiting class until their careers are over,” he said. “We think we have good pieces, the guys we redshirted, we think the freshman class is strong, but it’s hard to say. I’ve been doing this long enough to know some guys develop better than others.”

In the past ten years, the Southern Christian rock group Dayz to Come, has been shaped and molded into something unimagined.

What started as a group of friends coming together and learning music for a youth camp has become a ministry that none of the members ever imagined it to be, according to Curtis Carver, senior music education major.

Curtis and his brother Gordon Carver, senior sociology major, were two of the founding members of the group Dayz to Come that started in the fall of 2001.

Curtis played percussion and Gordon sang lead vocals and played guitar. Both have kept those positions in the band as other members have come and gone.

Their cousin Jonathan Knight, senior political science major, helped work lights and sound when Days to Come first started but eventually moved to playing lead guitar for the group after surprising his cousin’s with his musical talent, Gordon commented.

Caleb Wilkerson, senior music education major, is the most recent member of the group, who joined to play bass for the band only a couple of years ago after Gordon and Curtis met him in the Jazz Ensemble at ASU.

The origin of the group’s sound has come from a collaboration of music each member has listened to separately, according to Curtis.

“We came together and it was kind of a like a melting pot of everything we had heard,” Curtis said. “But we still kept an inspirational, Christian twist.”

The group made efforts to distance themselves from the ‘cheesy’ Christian music that people were use to.

“We didn’t want to be like everybody else when we first started,” Gordon stated. “Our goal was to not make anymore corny Christian music, because that’s what turns people off.”

According to Wilkerson, the band has a strong focus toward younger individuals.

“Our purpose is basically to be a ministry to other people, to get the name of Jesus Christ out there to younger kids,” Wilkerson said. “That’s why we do the type of music we do, not only do we like this type of music, but its appealing to the younger generation.”

By appealing to people through their style of music, Dayz to Come also hopes that once people listen to their music they are touched by the words and messages they offer.

“The only difference in our music and say, what the world calls ‘secular,’ is, we talk about the same situations and the same instances it’s just the outcome is different,” Gordon said. “Instead of turning to drugs or alcohol we always put the focus back on Jesus Christ; always.”

Each member is passionate about the ministry they are now a part of and not at all concerned about getting the name of the band in public view for popularity or money.

“Basically our approach is to be a ministry, to be the hands and feet of God,” Wilkerson stated. “Make it about building the kingdom of God and not about building the name of Dayz to Come.”

The most important objective to the band is to touch people with the words and the talent God has given them.

“It’s more about the message in the music instead of anything that’s being put out there about our name,” Curtis said. “We are not trying to push it on anybody.”

Unlike a lot of bands, Dayz to Come takes a different approach to promoting their products and their music.

“You can actually go on our website and download our music for free,” Gordon said. “At concerts, if younger kids don’t have the money we don’t charge them for a CD or a t-shirt. I couldn’t imagine what they would think if they think ‘I really want this’ and we just turned them away.”

The members of Dayz to Come have not only come to know God with the group, but as individuals they have had to build their own relationships with God. That has not always been an easy task, according to Knight.

“I’ve been at a point where I was turned off to it,” Knight said. “But thankfully I have come to know God by myself, not through my family.”

The group puts an importance on each member to know God and have a relationship with him that is growing.

“So many people are raised in the church and people think that’s going to make you a Christian,” Wilkerson said. “The scripture clearly says you have to find out your own salvation through fear and trembling. No one can work it out for you.”

Through their talents and beliefs Dayz to Come has come together to touch the lives of other people.

Not staying away from where they have come from, the band makes sure to play to the best of their abilities no matter the size of the crowd, according to Gordon.

The group does not only desire to reach a crowd through music, but they also hope to use other types of ministry to show people the love of God.

Love Will is a ministerial tool that the band has started in an effort to show God’s love through everyday actions, interaction and relationships they build with the people they come in contact with.

“Love is what’s going to help change this world. It’s about connecting with someone on a life long journey, not just a day or a week,” Gordon commented. “It’s about connecting with someone on a different level, not just because its what’s everyone else is doing.”

The purpose of the ‘Love Will’ movement is to do things for people and connect with them through random acts of kindness.

Unlike the idea behind ‘Pay it Forward’, ‘Love Will’ is a ministry where people consistently do nice things for people and stay in contact with the people they are helping out, according to Gordon.

“We don’t go around trying to save the world”, Gordon stated. “We make sure that we’re taken care of, and then hopefully by someone looking at our lives, they’ll be like ‘hey, let’s try this out and see if it works’ and it always does.”

A new band is preparing to take the Central Savannah River Area music scene by storm, John Berret’s LaRoxes.

Made up of, John Berret, lead guitar and lead vocals, Tim Shepard, bass guitar and vocals, and Mike Dansevicus, drums and booking agent, the LaRoxes musical repertoire ranges from covers of 60s classic rock to current music. The LaRoxes also add in a slew of their own bluesy, acid rock original songs, such as “A little bit of.”

After having less positive experiences with other bands and much to the relief of Berret, the band has a great level of cohesion only having formed in January 2011,

“My old drummer got a DUI,” said Berret. “My old bass player was a… slacker. I go through band mates like babies go through diapers.”

According to Dansevicus, he and Berret met while in the free-form band Paraphernalia, only to later break off and form their own. Dansevicus and Berret had another bassist in the band but the situation did not work out according to Berret.

Dansevicus then asked Shepard to come out and “jam” with the band.

“Me and (Dansevicus) worked together so he asked me to come out and jam, but it was really a tryout” Shepard said. “There were 40 cover songs that I had to learn. Now we are up to 60 (cover songs) and 10 original.”

According to Dansevicus, the band meets once a week to practice and make sure the band is constantly adding new songs to keep their set growing and then goes out to play at venues about two times a month.

“We do not ever play with other bands,” Barret said. “Not that there is anything wrong with it, but when we start playing, we do not want stop. We want to get up there and play the whole night.”

According to Dansevicus, there are downsides to constantly playing.

“(The downside is) we do not get off the stage to meet the people that come out to see us,” Dansevicus said. “But if there are people and as long as they appreciate (the music), we will play to 2 am.”

The love of music has been a lifelong presence for everyone in the band. According to Berret, he was introduced to music his father and his friends who were musicians, as well as having a love for Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.

According to Dansevicus, he played the drums since he was eight and continued in the Drum and Bugle Corps in high school.

“I started playing because I had a couple of brothers that were pretty talented,” Shepard said. “One was a drummer; one was a guitar player so they forced me to play bass. I played with them for about eight years, then I gave it up for 20 (years).”

Dansevicus has a girlfriend and Berret is recently married and is expecting a child which keeps the band more grounded and mellow, according to Dansevicus. The band is also recording four to five songs to be released on CD around Thanksgiving.

According to Berret, the band does not expect a country wide tour to come out of the release

“Realistically, we probably will not hit the big time, but there is a lot of bands with talented people that will never make it,” Shepard said. “But we offer an opportunity for people to come out in the local area to hear damn good music and have fun.”

Having day jobs and significant others have made it difficult to travel too far outside of the CSRA area for shows and the pay is not great according to Dansevicus and Shepard.

“As long as we get paid more than our bar tab, life is good,” Dansevicus said.

“Deep Purple” by Highway Star, “Red House” by Jimi Hendrix, and “War Pigs” by Black Sabbath are some of the favorites amongst the band.

“If you like seeing some guitar playing, some blues, rock, and just kicking butt, come out and see us,” Berret said.

Featured on television shows such as Russell Simmons HBO Def Poetry Jam, BET’S Lyric Cafe and BFC’S show Spoken, The Asia Project descended upon the campus of Augusta State University (ASU) on Wednesday, September 07, 2011 to a crowd of over 163 people.

Asia Samson is a spoken word artist and motivational speaker who believes that life is a constant collection of creation and revision. “I am still a work in progress,” states Asia who began his performance with an explosive poem entitled Breathe. Accompanied by guitarist Jollan Aurelio, Samson’s brother in law, the act encompassed topics about Asia’s relationship with his father, women loving themselves, Asia loving his wife, reminiscing about the 90s, Asia’s battle with cancer and striving for one’s dreams.

As a member of the Association for the Promotion of Campus Activities (APCA), Samson has taken the Asia Project to 35 states and has performed at over 185 collegiate shows. Focusing on his personal triumphs from cancer and other personal struggles, Asia’s goal is to inspire others to follow their dreams and to become better people. During one of his poems, Samson told the crowd, “Don’t follow the money, follow your passion and the money will follow you. I don’t mean quit school, I only mean choose to study something that you love.”

Veronica Lahens, the ASU Jaguar Activities Board (JAB) Live Entertainment Chairperson, was in charge of putting this event together and said that after she saw Samson perform at a national APCA event in March 2011, she knew that The Asia Project would bring something new to ASU. Lahens commented, “I want to bring more diversity to the student population and after seeing the affect the performance had on our JAB board members, I knew that it would make a similar impact on our students.” Lahen decided to give the event a “Date Night,” theme by having the event catered and by encouraging students to bring significant others to the event and by encouraging single students to participate by mingling and networking with other single people.

Lahen, who is a senior majoring in French, states that because of her advisor Jessica Haskins, the Assistant Director of Programs for Student Activities, and the support from other JAB members, such as, member at large, Shanese Nixon, who envisioned the idea of displaying student artwork on lighted easels at the event, The Asia Project was a success.

Andrew Tran, an ASU Sophomore majoring in Biology and his brother Aort Reed, a Junior majoring in Art, provided the paintings that were displayed in the ballroom during the performance. “The show was virtuous and I took a lot from it,” commented Reed, “Instead of visual art it was spoken art set to music.”

According to Latricia Sanders, an ASU Junior majoring in Nursing, “I came out tonight because I thought that it would be fun to hear some poetry. The performance was amazing and I didn’t think that it would be that good. I loved it and they should definitely come back to ASU!” Gerald Hitchcock, a 2009 Communications Film graduate, stated, “I saw a flier and that is why I attended tonight’s show. I am glad that they had something different because usually they don’t have food at the events. However, I think that they should have used a larger space and less food because they ran out of places for people to sit and chairs had to be brought in for people.”

Lahen says that comments like Sander’s and Hitchcock’s are welcomed because they assist the JAB Board in planning and improving student events each semester. Because of the student activities fee, ASU students are general members of JAB and are encouraged to attend monthly meetings to make recommendations for future student events held at ASU. For JAB meeting dates and times, please contact the Student Activities Center located on the first floor in the JSAC building.

“Tonight’s crowd participation was awesome and each school is always soo different,” stated Samson, “and that is why I treat my act like I treat sex. You can’t just give up all of your good moves in the beginning because there will be nothing left for the crowd to look forward to!” Samson ended his act by telling the audience,” The moment that you stop caring about what others think, then in that moment you will discover what freedom really means.”

For more information about The Asia Project, please visit www.theasiaproject.com.

A new band is preparing to take the Central Savannah River Area music scene by storm, John Berret’s LaRoxes.

Made up of, John Berret, lead guitar and lead vocals, Tim Shepard, bass guitar and vocals, and Mike Dansevicus, drums and booking agent, the LaRoxes musical repertoire ranges from covers of 60s classic rock to current music. The LaRoxes also add in a slew of their own bluesy, acid rock original songs, such as “A little bit of.”

After having less positive experiences with other bands and much to the relief of Berret, the band has a great level of cohesion only having formed in January 2011,

“My old drummer got a DUI,” said Berret. “My old bass player was a… slacker. I go through band mates like babies go through diapers.”

According to Dansevicus, he and Berret met while in the free-form band Paraphernalia, only to later break off and form their own. Dansevicus and Berret had another bassist in the band but the situation did not work out according to Berret.

Dansevicus then asked Shepard to come out and “jam” with the band.

“Me and (Dansevicus) worked together so he asked me to come out and jam, but it was really a tryout” Shepard said. “There were 40 cover songs that I had to learn. Now we are up to 60 (cover songs) and 10 original.”

According to Dansevicus, the band meets once a week to practice and make sure the band is constantly adding new songs to keep their set growing and then goes out to play at venues about two times a month.

“We do not ever play with other bands,” Barret said. “Not that there is anything wrong with it, but when we start playing, we do not want stop. We want to get up there and play the whole night.”

According to Dansevicus, there are downsides to constantly playing.

“(The downside is) we do not get off the stage to meet the people that come out to see us,” Dansevicus said. “But if there are people and as long as they appreciate (the music), we will play to 2 am.”

The love of music has been a lifelong presence for everyone in the band. According to Berret, he was introduced to music his father and his friends who were musicians, as well as having a love for Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.

According to Dansevicus, he played the drums since he was eight and continued in the Drum and Bugle Corps in high school.

“I started playing because I had a couple of brothers that were pretty talented,” Shepard said. “One was a drummer; one was a guitar player so they forced me to play bass. I played with them for about eight years, then I gave it up for 20 (years).”

Dansevicus has a girlfriend and Berret is recently married and is expecting a child which keeps the band more grounded and mellow, according to Dansevicus. The band is also recording four to five songs to be released on CD around Thanksgiving.

According to Berret, the band does not expect a country wide tour to come out of the release

“Realistically, we probably will not hit the big time, but there is a lot of bands with talented people that will never make it,” Shepard said. “But we offer an opportunity for people to come out in the local area to hear damn good music and have fun.”

Having day jobs and significant others have made it difficult to travel too far outside of the CSRA area for shows and the pay is not great according to Dansevicus and Shepard.

“As long as we get paid more than our bar tab, life is good,” Dansevicus said.

“Deep Purple” by Highway Star, “Red House” by Jimi Hendrix, and “War Pigs” by Black Sabbath are some of the favorites amongst the band.

“If you like seeing some guitar playing, some blues, rock, and just kicking butt, come out and see us,” Berret said.

In the CSRA., traditional radio is still going strong, but popularity of online radio is creeping from behind.

92x, a North Augusta, S.C., based online radio station, has battled with hundreds of stations on the radio and the Internet to currently find itself in the top 100. According to the station’s program director, Bernie Harper, they have previously reached top 20.

Although traditional radio is still holding its own, Internet radio is becoming an increasingly popular option for listeners. According to a study by the American Media Service (AMS), many people listen to Internet radio in their homes. Of those people, many expressed interest in having wireless Internet service in their vehicle. The AMS found that people would pay an $8 monthly subscription to listen to online radio in their vehicle.

One of the biggest complaints with traditional radio is that the playlists contain a small amount of songs that seem to be on repeat. While artists like Ke$ha play for the sixth time today, online radio may not have played them at all.

Harper said listeners feel like they hear the same songs over and over, because they do.

“With regular radio they have a list of up to 200 songs that they go by that they play regularly throughout the day.” Harper said. “Internet radio can play up to thousands and thousands of different artists, independent artists to signed artists.”

Megan Steinberg, a senior communication studies major, is one of the many listeners that prefers online radio because it plays a greater range of music.

“I like LastFM because there’s no hour cap, and they know Man Overboard.” Steinberg said. “(Other stations) know less artists. I like top 40 music but they play the same garbage every two hours with little variety. I love online ra- dio because it plays like a mixtape. I can skip a song if I hate it and I can ban certain songs too.”

One more gripe with online radio is commercials. Harper said one of the differences between Internet radio and traditional radio is that there are virtually no commercials.

Recent Augusta State University graduate Demetrius Minor is a program director for 1380 WNRR, a local talk radio station. He said his station does not seem to air as many commercials as other stations.

“We have commercial breaks at the top of every hour,” Minor said. “They last for maybe five minutes.”

One more difference Internet radio has compared to traditional radio is that the disc jockey has more control over his show. “You have so much going on, what to talk about, what the FCC wants,” Minor said. “You can’t say certain stuff with the FCC.”

Harper agreed Internet radio has fewer rules dictated by the FCC than traditional radio.

“There aren’t as many rules and regulations. You don’t have to have to worry about what to play and when to play it,” Harper said. “There is a lot more freedom.”

With more liberties for programming, Harper is able to play rock from the 70s, 80s and 90s all the way up to today’s rock. It is almost like a musical time machine.

“I keep my music fresh to try gain a bigger crowd,” Harper said.