Band brings ‘The Mighty Zep’ to UF

What happens on stage at a Get the Led Out concert is something unlike anything any Led Zeppelin fan has ever experienced.

It is something probably not even “The Mighty Zep” themselves could have envisioned.

But it must be made clear ­that concert goers are not in for an impersonation of original Led Zeppelin shows, or even something like a studio session.

“It’s like it’s 1975 all over again,” said Paul Sinclair, lead singer and one of the three original band members of Get the Led Out, one of the country’s “premiere tribute bands.”

The band will make its Florida premiere Friday at 7:30 p.m., at the Curtis M. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts.

Unlike the original format of Led Zeppelin, Get the Led Out consists of six members (instead of four), and a female vocalist, Diana Desantes, who comes onstage for the song “The Battle of Evermore.”

The band, which is hailed as the “American Led Zeppelin,” started five years ago when bass player, Paul Piccari, called Sinclair.

Piccari heard of Sinclair’s hard-rock style and of guitar player Paul Hammond and wanted to put together a Led Zeppelin show with them.

But the guys didn’t want to be like other tribute bands that dress up in costumes, learn, play and repeat long improvisational jams.

“I wanted to do something entirely different,” Sinclair said. “We want to give [the fans] all the solos, the sounds, the guitar riffs — what they’re asking for.”

Sinclair said there is a whole subculture of tribute bands, and the competition is fierce.

But the tribute scene implies impersonation, a term they don’t like.

Though the band members’ goal is to perfectly recreate the sounds and moods of Led Zeppelin, their performance and perspective toward the music have changed throughout the years.

“One thing I learned was that when Led Zeppelin recorded their songs, it was about capturing a moment,” Sinclair said. “It wasn’t as thought-out as I thought it was.”

He said it is a real exercise in memory to learn someone’s improv from start to finish.

“They jammed around those musical ideas and created something unique,” Sinclair said. “Recreating that is something next to impossible.”


So long as everyone does their homework, it takes only a couple rehearsals to master some songs, as is the case with “Nobody’s Fault But Mine.” But of course, every song is different.

The music gets smoother, better and closer to the record each time they play live, Sinclair said.

To this day the band still revisits songs it learned five years ago.

Recently, they learned how to play the main guitar riff in “Whole Lotta Love” even more like the original. This was a particularly difficult song, and to them, one of the biggest rock songs of all times.

“With the pursuit of perfection and the enthusiasm of the audience it doesn’t feel like we’re playing the same songs over and over again,” Sinclair said. “Trying to make it that much closer for the fans makes it a challenge every single time”

Sinclair approaches the music as a fan.

“The experience of a concert to me is pretty thrilling,” Sinclair says. “If I weren’t singing, I’d be watching in the audience ‘cause these guys are so awesome.”

Drummer Andrew Lipke, is well known in Philadelphia for his internationally acclaimed ‘80s pop-rock band, Hit the Ground Running.

Lipke is considered by fellow band members to be a prodigy and a musical genius. He plays the harmonica, the banjo, electric and acoustic guitar and keyboards. He also does selected vocals and percussion for the band.

Sinclair himself also plays the harmonica for the band and on his own time plays drums, guitar and keyboards. But professionally, all his energy is focused on singing and managing his band.

“It’s like having five girlfriends,” he said.

Managing a crew of 17, that is eternally on tour is taxing, he said.

“Sometimes you wonder, ‘what did I do, I could’ve become a doctor, a lawyer,’ but when you’re on stage, and you’re looking out at 1,000 people who are huge Led Zeppelin fans, for those moments, it is total and utter bliss,” Sinclair said.

When the band plays for more familiar crowds, they will sometimes introduce original songs.

“People are hungry for this kind of rock,” Sinclair said.

Their own music has a strong inLed Zeppelin influence. Singers like Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin and Steven Tyler of Aerosmith are the reason, Sinclair said he made his life the mess it is.

Sinclair and guitar player Paul Hammond have been playing together since they were kids.

They are now traveling all over the country and have had offers to go abroad.

“Now, the sky’s the limit,” Sinclair said.

The band members want to take the sound and fury of “The Zep” across the country and around the world to the big arenas where Metallica, Aerosmith and other greats have played.

“Doing this is a freaking joy,” Sinclair said. “I plan on doing this until my last gaping breath.”

Hookah Smoking Increases in Gainesville, ‘Deadly trend’ Underreported

Natasha Alvarez had enough. She threw away the cigarettes and began a new life.

As part of her plan to quit smoking, she started smoking hookah to help with her addiction.

She didn’t realize she was probably harming herself even more with this decision.

Alvarez, 21, a Santa Fe College graphic design major, used to smoke one pack of cigarettes a day, every day.

“I couldn’t even walk fast because I would get tired, or I couldn’t go up a flight of stairs because I would almost pass out,” Alvarez said. “The bad smell, bad skin, bad teeth, all of it – I got fed up.”

She then started smoking about two hookahs per day.

“I thought I could smoke 1,000 hookahs and it would even be better for me,” she said.

Alvarez is not alone.

According to the Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program, one study found that 91 percent of weekly hookah smokers and 51 percent of daily smokers said they could not quit, “which highlights the addictive nature of hookah smoking among myriad factors.”

People can develop an addiction for hookah as severe as the one for cigarettes and can develop cancer just as easily as well, said Dr. Jane Emmerée, Health Promotion Specialist for GatorWell Health Promotion Services at the University of Florida Student Health Care Center.

Emmerée provides smoking cessation coaching for students enrolled at U.F. She also provides help quitting any type of tobacco product.

Almost 13 percent of U.F. students reported using hookah pipes within the 30 days preceding the Healthy Gators Student Survey Report conducted on the spring of 2008.

People are not aware of the apparent higher rate of cigarette smoking within hookah smokers, Emmerée said.

“Some students can just smoke socially, and you can’t predict who will become nicotine dependent,” Emmerée said. “But we do know people are at risk of dependency whether it is from nicotine in cigarettes, smokeless tobacco, hookahs, etc.”

People who smoke hookah are exposed to more smoke and nicotine because of longer exposure time, according to the American Lung Association Tobacco Policy Trend Alert February 2007 issue, An Emerging Deadly Trend: Waterpipe Tobacco Use.

One hookah lasts a minimum of 45 minutes, which is the amount of time it takes for the tobacco to burn out.

But a more typical one-hour long waterpipe smoking session involves inhaling 100 to 200 times the volume of smoke inhaled with a single cigarette, according to the World Health Organization Advisory Note “Waterpipe Tobacco Smoking: Health Effects, Research Needs and Recommended Actions by Regulators” (2005).

The WHO Advisory Note urges waterpipes and waterpipe tobacco products to be “subjected to the same regulations as cigarettes and other tobacco products,” to “include strong health warnings,” and to prohibit misleading labels that imply safety.

One approach to solving this public health problem is to regulate the establishments that provide access to hookahs, Emmerée said, a task that is left up to the states.

In Florida, for example, restaurants have to be smoke free, but bars don’t, she said.

Whether a business is deemed a restaurant or not, depends on percentage of food sales versus percentage of alcohol sales. So hookah bars can avoid the strict regulations surrounding smoking in-doors if they don’t sell or allow cigarettes and their food sale percentage is high.

With limited regulation and an exotic and increasingly popular trend, hookah businesses have blossomed.

Gainesville, for example, had no hookah bars until two and a half years ago.

Now, there are four.

“But they are not competition,” said Sharvee Mia, 22, professional pilot, and owner and manager of Hookah Hutt, 1029 W University Ave., who after the publication of an earlier version of this article on a blog, asked for his quotes to be changed or removed.

The previous location on University Avenue and Sixth Street was too small, he said, so they moved in December to their new location on University Avenue and Tenth Street.

“It is definitely more popular now than when we started,” Mia said. “Now it is closer to campus, so we get a lot of foot traffic.”

Mia said an average of 60 customers visit his hookah bar on a busy night. They usually stay from 45 minutes to one hour and a half.

One of the reasons students like to go to hookah bars is the atmosphere.

Mia said his customers enjoy the hip-hop music he plays, unlike other hookah bars that play Arab music and Arab TV programs.

And this is precisely why Alvarez enjoys going to Hookah Nite Café, 2614 SW 34th St.

For the past month, she has been smoking hookah there three times a week, for up to two hours. She stays there hours at a time watching Arab soap operas, Arab music videos and Arab music contests American Idol-style – though she doesn't speak a word of Arabic. She knows the owner of the place – they know her favorite hookah flavor and when to bring in the baklava.

“Even though I know hookah is bad, I keep doing it,” Alvarez said. “Probably out of boredom, because it’s cheap, and you can talk with friends, relax and have a good time.”

This social aspect may be another underreported health risk factor in hookah smoking.

Infectious diseases like H1N1, hepatitis, tuberculosis or herpes can be transmitted by sharing mouthpieces –a problem cigarette smoking does not have, Emmerée said.

"In general, people underestimate the harm of things,” she said.

Students have shared with Emmerée that they feel hookah establishments are sending the message – which marketing perpetuates – that hookah is not as harmful as cigarettes, she said.

When questioned about it, the owner of Hookah Nite Café, who after the interview asked for his name and comments not to be used, said hookah is not as harmful as cigarettes because it uses natural tobacco, contains no tar, no chemicals and has a small amount of nicotine.

All of these statements were later dismissed by Emmerée. Both the WHO Advisory Note and the American Lung Association Tobacco Policy Trend Alert report that hookah smoke actually contains about 100 times the amount of tar and up to 70 times the amount of nicotine in cigarette smoke.

It is also a myth that the water in hookah pipes cleans any toxins or impurities out, Emmerée said, although both the owner of Hookah Nite Café and of Hookah Hut expressed this to be true.

Even after it has passed through water, the hookah smoke contains high levels of cancer-causing chemicals, more than 4,000 harmful toxic compounds such as ammonia, mercury and carbon monoxide, and heavy metals such as arsenic, lead and nickel, according to the WHO Advisory. The wood cinders and charcoals used to burn the tobacco produce these as well, which are likely to increase health risks.

These cancer-causing chemicals go deeper into the lungs and stay there longer because compared to cigarettes, a single puff of shisha, as hookah is also called, lasts about twice as long, and the suction pressure required to inhale the smoke is about four times stronger, according to a Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program 2006 newsletter.

So contrary to belief, there is nothing healthy about hookah smoking. The fruit used to flavor hookah tobacco is no more healthy than the cherry in Cherry Coke or the fruit in Fruit Roll-Ups.

For decades, fruit flavorings have been added to tobacco in order to sell more products, until Oct. 22 this year, when the Food and Drug Administration banned the sale of flavored cigarettes.

The ban intended to end the sale of tobacco products with chocolate, vanilla, clove and other flavorings that lure children and teenagers into smoking.

According to the ALA, a 2004 survey found that 20 percent of 17 to 19 year-old smokers had tried flavored cigarettes in a 30-day period, compared to the 6 percent of smokers over age 25 who had done so.

Even though candy-flavored tobacco products such as hookah are mainly aimed at them, Emmerée always tells her students to think about what they want to accomplish, their goals and dreams – and then to think about tobacco, she said.

“The idea of putting something harmful into your body may be not be best idea because it won’t allow you to be all you want to be,” Emmerée said.

Though there is a lot of misinformation in the public, she said, more research is being conducted on the subject.

“I expect GatorWell and U.F. to do more in the near future to educate students about this issue,” Emmerée said. “It is important for all U.F. students to make choices about U.F. and beyond, and using any kind of tobacco product, including hookah, may not fit with that.”

VOLUNTEERS GO ABROAD TO HELP CHILDREN IN NEED

Pablo could have had anything he wanted for Christmas - toys, clothes, money.

But he didn't want any of it.

Angelica Suarez, 25, told 8-year-old Pablo, a boy from the slums of Medellín, Colombia, to ask for whatever he wanted, and his "friends" from the University of Florida would do anything to get it for him.



"I want a hug," Pablo said.



Pablo's answer changed Suarez's life.



A year before Suarez met Pablo, when she was vice president at UF's Colombian Student Association (COLSA) in 2003, she found she "had a very big problem," she said. "I didn't like throwing parties for no reason."



COLSA was renowned for its parties, which attracted scores of people and raised hundreds of dollars. 



She decided to use this money for a good cause, and Children Beyond Our Borders (CBOB) was born.



CBOB started as a small committee. 


It then developed into a UF student organization. 



Now, six years later, it is a nongovernmental organization (NGO) planning its sixth trip to Colombia from August 8-22, 2009. 



Suarez, founder and now vice-president of CBOB, said in her first trip with CBOB she found the inspiration to keep working hard for the organization.



"It changed my life," she said. "Pablo made me understand my reason for living."



CBOB's first trip was in the summer of 2004. 



Five UF students took 300 pounds of clothes and 200 pounds of toys to Medellín, Colombia, which they had raised during the school year.



The NGO carries out two annual projects in Colombia: one to Medellin, in August, and another in Cartagena, in May.



"I am debating who has more fun, the kids or the volunteers," she said. "The kids teach us more things than we can teach them." 



Musician and singer Sandra Esmeralda Rivera also started her own not-for-profit initiative. 



She created Más Allá de las Fronteras, or Beyond Frontiers, a traveling musical workshop in towns around Colombia's borders for children who have been displaced by civil war. 



In 2003, Rivera traveled with her husband, John Triana, and other members of her band, to Puerto Obaldía, a Panamanian fishing town that can only be accessed by boat. 



The town was a ramshackle collection of about 50 huts, with no water or electricity, Rivera said.



"Many of the kids couldn't read or write -some of them could barely speak right," she said. "These children were basically growing in the wild." 



For two weeks, Beyond Frontiers taught children how to play different instruments, Rivera said. 



These instruments- guitars, flutes, tambourines, maracas, and others - they gave to the children as a present at the end of the workshop. 



Though Rivera gives these instruments to the children, the effects of volunteering many times "are not tangible," said Rew Woodruff, life skills coordinator and career counselor for University Athletic Association (UAA) student athletes at UF. 



Woodruff helps coordinate activities between student athletes and children from local schools.



"It's more of an emotional thing," Woodruff said. "You can always say you're too busy, but in reality, there's always time."



Students who want to volunteer helping children abroad can register with CBOB in November for the May 2010 trip to Cartagena. 



Volunteer service can also complement students' careers. 



At CBOB, students can work in public relations, marketing, program development and grant writing.



The level of involvement depends on the student's enthusiasm, Suarez said.



"We try to see the person's individual skills," she said. "The experience is not only to go outside the country and see places; it also allows you to expand your creativity."



Suarez said volunteers who travel undergo a transformation. Sometimes, the effect is more amazing in the volunteers than in the children.



This is especially true of Suarez, who decided to do her master's degree in public administration because she understood this was the way to help children like Pablo.



"I know I can die in peace now," Suarez said. "I know someone will continue helping these children."