Student ARTS Fest

I'm making my first blogging debut live from the Student Arts Fest! Usually Brenda, our lovely Publicity Chair is the dedicated program board blogger, but tonight I've been itching to contribute. So HELLO! I'm Lily, your PB president for the remaining few weeks of this spring semester.

There's a cozy community of NYU kids sitting indian style on the floor listening to musicians from our campus. There has been some amazing original music, and some classic covers (shout out to weezer). We've been treated to very diverse acts, including a 4-member smooth jazz ensemble, and of course a handful of soft-spoken acoustic performances.




I'm quite impressed with the talent we've seen tonight. It takes serious guts to put yourself out there as an artist in front of a discerning audience, and these performers have been great!

Allie Nudelman, our briliant Student Arts Chair put together this entire show. Thank you Allie! It was a great opportunity for NYU musicians to put themselves out there and be heard. She organized a refreshing line up of about 12 acts who each played for only 15 minutes. Check out some of tonight's performers on the Interweb Highway:

Tree Union
Kristen Barry and her band LMNOP
Chris Frank
Richie Aufrichtig
Grace and Julian

THANKS TO ALL THAT SHOWED UP TONIGHT. I LOOOOOVE HANGING OUT AND EATING TREATS WITH MY LOVELY PROGRAM BOARDERS (and the occasional WNYU representative)

P.S. Check out WNYU, a lovely girl named Kayla Cohen has a lovely New Afternoon Show full of sweet new jams on Monday afternoons.

XO

So you were pretty lame for missing Anne Elizabeth Moore and I hope you feel super bad...

On March 10th, 2008 Anne Elizabeth Moore came to talk to 200 hundred people.

About 15 showed up.

And it's sort of ironic more than anything else if you were present that night, listening to the things she had to talk about. The things that not a lot of people pay attention too, the things that eat away at our culture and very soon, our future.

She pretty much summed up her new book, "Unmarketable: Brandalism, Copyfighting, Mocketing, and the Erosion of Integrity" with great imagery (in the form of an old school slide show), touching upon brand marketing that literally steals its ideas and tools from urban underground forms of expression, and in the end sells it back to us.

Remember when Sony PSP first came out?




*images used for educational reasons only, not to promote the Sony brand in any way.*

These "Graffatti" ads were sprayed on buildings nation wide. Moore talked about the difference of advertisement and expressionism, and the line that has become quite blurry. Using this instance as an introduction and examining cases where young graffitti artists in Chicago were prosecuted for displaying their art in public, faced fines, and a threat of prison time if caught in the possession of art supplies. We're talking markers and paint folks. Pretty damn absurd. All the while Corporate advertisers were not held accountable whatsoever for graffatti ads that were purchased for legal adverstisement space.

Pretty 'Effed up Right?

Moore also had a lot of interesting things to say about things we can do as artists and thinkers. She maintained that we should keep our ideas secret so that corporations don't steal what is ours and try to make money off of it. Moore then raised awareness to the notion of labor rights regarding viral marketing... rights I never knew existed and should be fought for.

This goes out to all the interns, street team leaders, and even hard core fans around the country who put up flyers and hand out stickers with out any sort of compensation.

Watch out and Don't be a sucker.

Moore concluded the night on a light note and a final slide of a unicorn floating in front of a rainbow. a distracted and enlightened group of fifteen learned not loose hope and to keep on doing the only thing we can do:

keep on creating something.
Any kind of something.


Please Visit her site and Check out her Book.
edited by: brenda malvini

Shows of the Semester Thus Far. They Were Cool. Part II.

March 6th, 2008
Megafaun and Akron/Family brought everyone a little closer.

Megafaun



Akron Family


Photos by Maxwell Zorick*

Horray for Mallory Greitzer and The Nu Music Committee for setting up a major Love Fest.

Megafaun brought North Carolina to the big city.
Akron/Family brought some soul back to E & L.

It all happened at Load In when a few girls headed out to the loading dock to help 8 or so bearded men unpack their mini vans:

The bands shook everyone's hand and never forgot our names. They smiled and were totally gracious. We even continued to hang out back stage. I kept bringing them random things like Swiss Miss Cocoa Mix and Hot Water Thermases n' shit because I felt people as laid back and chill as these guys really needed something warm.

Megafaun played a beautiful set and got everyone to sing, a choir of 200!
I sang so hard that I pulled/strained my vocal chords and had to see a doctor over spring break.

Akron/Family rocked the crowd as hard as humanly possible:
All of a sudden I was listening to the band and then I was in some sortof dance battle with some kid I barely new.
I'm still not sure if he was cute or not and I don't really remember looking up from our feet.
but it hardly matters because
I won.

And by the end of the night we were worn down to a pile of sweaty hoodies and flannel shirts.
It was all worth it.

Here! Here!

edited by: brenda malvini

Shows of the Semester. They Were Cool. Part I.

February 28th, 2008, E&L Auditorium.

This was the biggest deal of the semester. Maybe because it sold out and Ticket Central had to open up 200 extra tickets and there wasn't really room to breath or anything.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you:

Maps & Atlases


Phosphorescent



The National



Photos by Maxwell Zorick.

Cheers to Mad Gomez and Concerts Committee for setting this shit up!

Awkward moment of the day was spent assisting/sitting outside the OSA copy room while the violinist from The National (who forgot his sheet music at home, yes it happens to the best of us) took about 30-40 minutes frantically copying and taping his part together. I tried to make conversation with the dude, ease the tension, and spill my knowledge about Syballius with him, at least try and bond about being in music school or something. He graduated from The Manhattan School of Music and really wasn't impressed or in the mood for conversation. I stopped talking after a while, rejected, and let him do his thing. Sigh, I'm sure he gets that stuff a lot from plenty of music nerds. Whatever his name, he could've thrown me a bone or something. thanks rockstar.

Maps & Atlases (Chicago) was my favorite surprise of the night, not only because our very own Sandy Gordon plays the vibes ever so awesomely, but because the lead singer sings with a faux carnation attached to his guitar strap. Oh, and for the record, their music is effing awesome. More awesome than your wildest dreams. And maybe even awesomer than that.

Phosphorescent was a treat and I'm happy they're local. Mad Gomez befriended the boys and is continuing her relationship with them post E & L. This is because Phosphorescent is composed of really kind hearted gents who make really great music. Matthew Houck is an incredible song writer. His songs really hit home but I felt as if they were holding out. Maybe because we had to keep asking them to stop drinking beer in front of the security gaurds. I wanna see them less inhibited so I highly suggest you come out and see them once they're back in town.

I'm just gonna put this out there:
I wasn't a big fan of The National.
I think as musicians they're really strong and connected but I didn't really buy into all of the hype. I think some of their songs were pretty but I dunno... there wasn't anything special that stuck out to me. I'm sure millions will disagree with me about this, for sure. But I wanted to be blown away by them and it just didn't happen. I don't have much more to say other than I don't understand why so many people are into them.

All in all, Mad Gomez and Concerts pulled off a spectacular show, the bands got paid, and people had a great time.



Edited by: Brenda Malvini