The Rising Storm: Andover Band Garners Cult Following Student-Led
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Wanted: Personal Assistant VOL. CXLI, No. 8 Veritas Super Omnia APRIL 13, 2018 Student-Led Alumni Walkout House: A Will Protest Gender- Gun Inclusive Violence Home HARRY SHIN RACHEL CHANG On April 20, 1999, Colum- bine High School in Colorado Every day, 11 students walk experienced what was, at the towards Old Abbot Campus and time, the worst high school stop at a regal brick building shooting in U.S. history. The supported by four white pillars. massacre killed 13 people For these students, this build- and wounded more than 20, ing serves as both a living space and its perpetrators, two stu- and a community of closely knit dents, committed suicide af- peers. ter shooting the others. Alumni House in Abbot Clus- Next Thursday, from 10:05 ter has served as Andover’s first a.m. to 2:50 p.m., a student-led all-gender dorm since last fall. walkout will take place to rec- The dorm currently hosts 11 stu- ognize the 19th anniversary of dents and one House Counsel- this massacre and to protest or. For many of its inhabitants, R.PREM/THE PHILLIPIAN congressional, state, and lo- Alumni serves as a safe, open More than 160 people gathered in the Smith Center last Sunday to pack meals for the non-profit Rise cal failure to prevent gun vio- space in which students can live Against Hunger. Each meal will provide for a family of four. lence in the U.S. together and be themselves. According to Jennifer El- After its inaugural year, liott ’94, Dean of Students and Emma Staffaroni, House Coun- Residential Life, the admin- selor in Alumni and Instructor in istration has decided not to English, reflected on her experi- Over 25,000 Meals Prepared by Members grant free cuts or day excuses ence of moving into and living in on April 19 as a means to moti- an all-gender dorm. Of Andover and Local Community vate authentic student partic- “Having previously lived for ipation. four years in a ‘girls’ dorm (I the amount of meals packed last ent communities and experiences “The point of a walkout is use quotes because we only as- NEWAZ RAHMAN year, the event’s coordinators also — and we’re all coming together to miss intentionally, and de- sume the students were girls but reached out to the local communi- for two hours on a weekend.” liberately, required events. So you can’t see someone’s gender ty and brought in additional vol- Hana Illikkal ’19 participated we understand what the act is identity), I see that some of the The sound of a gong resonated unteers, a major change from last this year and enjoyed the fact that and their approach in terms of toxic aspects of single-gender in the Smith Center to mark every year’s meal packing event. the local community was wel- trying to raise awareness. And spaces do not exist in Alumni. It time 1,000 meals were packed by Mangai Sundaram ’19, who comed into the event. we understand those tactics could be because we are mostly hundreds of volunteers on Sunday organized the event, said, “This “I like how many people came and historically, peaceful pro- Seniors and therefore a rather afternoon. year we doubled our size; every- like from all over the area. I had tests and peaceful demonstra- mature group, but I also think For the second year in a row, thing was twice as much. We had people from middle school, from tions have affected change,” it’s because gender stereotypes Andover hosted a meal packing so many people turn up — we had Methuen, Lawrence, Andover. It’s said Elliott. and roles are actively not rein- event in collaboration with Rise 160-plus people come out this crazy that everyone came togeth- “It would not be activism forced in our living space,” wrote Against Hunger, an international year. We packaged above 25,000 er. Definitely fun. I did it last year, if the school canceled classes Staffaroni in an email to The Phil- hunger relief non-profit organiza- meals. It was just so much big- so I was excited to come this year. for them [the students] or the lipian. tion, with the goal of feeding more ger [because] we got more peo- I didn’t want to miss it,” said Illik- administration shut things Staffaroni wrote that Ando- than 100,000 people. Each meal ple from different communities… kal. down… Teachers get to decide ver plans to continue supporting packed will help feed a family of This time we got hundreds of peo- Other students had similar how they submit attendance. all-gender dorms in the school’s four. In comparison to last year, ple outside our Andover commu- sentiments about the meal pack- I think the important piece residential system. this year’s event saw an increase nity, and that was a big part of the is that the administration is of over 15,000 meals packed. event — to bring people together Continued on A4, Column 4 Continued on A4, Column 1 Besides more than doubling from different facets of life, differ- Continued on A5, Column 4 2018 Asian-American Footsteps Conference Features The Rising Storm: Workshops and Wong Fu Productions Andover Band Garners Cult Following lical authority behind us — that a ALEXANDRA LEBARON remnant would come and do great things, and we could become a Living together in Bishop great rock band.” House South, the members of the The band renamed itself the Rising Storm never could have Rising Storm during their Senior imagined the enormous success of Fall, also finding inspiration for the band they formed at Andover. the new title in an Andover class. But now, 50 years later, they have “The thing is, one of the rock gained worldwide recognition. bands that we idolized was called Their album “Calm Before” is the Remains. We started our ‘Calm now considered a prime example Before’ album with one of their of 1960s garage rock, and an orig- greatest songs, ‘Don’t Look Back.’ inal copy can go for 7,000 dollars We decided that the Remnants on the collector’s market. A docu- was too close to the Remains, and mentary about the band is set for Senior Year we had to take Ameri- release before the end of 2018. can history. One of the headings in The band consists of Tony our book was ‘The Rising Storm of COURTESY OF DONALD KOST Thompson ’67 on lead vocals and Revolution.’ We thought it had all Andover students travelled to Deerfield last Sunday to take part in the 2018 Asian-American Footsteps Confer- guitar, Bob Cohan ’67 on guitar, sorts of wonderful connotations, ence. Above, students and faculty pose with Phillip Wang and Wesley Chang of Wong Fu Productions (standing Todd Cohen ’67 on bass, Charlie so that’s how we got the name,” eighth from the right and third from the right, respectively). Rockwell ’67 as the keyboardist, said Weinberg. Tom Scheft ’67 on drums, and During their time at Andover, Natalie Shen ’20, a board portant space to create, espe- Richard Weinberg ’67 on guitar the band would often practice in AVA RATCLIFF member of Asian Society, also cially given stereotypes like and vocals. The group still gets Graves Hall. Rockwell says they attended the conference. Shen model minority and expecta- often had to break in to do so. In together regularly to rehearse and With over three million sub- participated in preparing for tions that we have for Asian stu- perform. their opinion, the rehearsal spaces last year’s conference, which dents here,” said Lim. in Graves were reserved for classi- scribers on YouTube, media The Rising Storm formed out was held at Andover. Shen said Workshops gave of the Bishop Buddies Association cal musicians, and the Music De- company Wong Fu Productions partment was not welcoming to were this year’s keynote speak- she was excited to attend AAFC Asian-American students a plat- Jug Band (BBA). again at Deerfield after her pre- form to discuss issues specific Cohen said, “We were all in rock bands. ers for the annual Asian-Amer- Rockwell said, “Rock and roll ican Footsteps Conference vious experience. to students at schools like An- Bishop South, and the entire dorm, “The idea of holding a con- dover. One issue that students I’m guessing it was maybe 20 peo- was not looked upon favorably, (AAFC), which took place at so the rehearsal spaces in Graves Deerfield last Sunday. ference where people like me discussed was the lack of Asian ple, had a jug band. We played all could get together as a commu- representation in school leader- kinds of strange instruments, like were essentially for the cellos and At Deerfield, Andover stu- a washtub bass — a big jug filled string quartets, and so we would dents were joined by other nity and talk about some serious ship positions. with water that you blow into to sneak in there to practice. To secondary schools in the New and lighthearted issues sound- “I think there is a really big make a sound — mouth harps, do that, one of us would go into England area. Throughout the ed incredible to me. I wanted population of Asian students harmonicas, a guitar. I think Tom Graves, go downstairs, and unlock day, these students, in addi- to be engaged with this event here at Andover but very little drummed on a guitar case. It was one of the windows. And then tion to interacting with Wong to help all the kids from other Asian student leaders… There’s just that kind of a band.” at night, of course, no one was in Fu Productions, attended var- schools feel comfortable and a lot of struggles unique to us After the BBA performed one Graves.