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Music Video Reviews
The Ivy Walls “Getaway Driver” Review By Samantha Ponoroff
Newcomer, The Ivy Walls’ music video for their single “Getaway Driver” is unoriginal. The video employs the done-over and boring format of juxtaposing the safe and calmness of a band playing on a rooftop with a dangerously dramatic world, located a mere twenty stories below, on the ground. As the video continues, and the real world characters lead us from a robbery to the desert, the audience cannot help but cringe: haven’t we seen videos like this a million times?
Despite The Ivy Walls’ good sound, the “Getaway Driver” video is tedious and boring; once the audience sees the girls running away incognito with suspicious black bags they know what will inevitably occur, an escape to a place (in this case, the desert) where they think no one will find them. And even worse, The Ivy Walls, in thinking they made an artistic break-through, covered the entire end of their video with successively darker stages of the color yellow: no, the color yellow did not make me think of the girls’ final state of complacency as they reach their personal nirvana, it made me think that the director did not know his way around Final Cut Pro.
The Futureheads “Heartbeat Song” Review By Samantha Ponoroff
Finally, something I can listen to without cringing. Although their lyrics may not be of the highest quality, The Futureheads have a very unique sound—a sound that intrigues their listeners. The video accompanying “Heartbeat Song,” again not stellar, definitely has its moments: their retro-inspired game show is very cute-sey. All in all, The Futureheads have potential, but definitely need work: their lyrics need major retouching and their videos need to have more of a story life. But, needless to say, The Futureheads are much closer to fame than many of the other struggling bands and artists out there.
Blowing Trees “Goblins” Review By Samantha Ponoroff
After watching this video a few times, I have come to the conclusion that the star is not the lead singer, Chris Madden; the star of this video is its director, Ryan Scheer. While the band delivers music reminiscent of a bad high school sponsored concert, Scheer makes use of stunning visuals through his manipulation of light, televisions and angles. Because of his artful manipulation of the camera and light, Ryan Scheer is who should be remembered when one watches this video: he is the strongest artist in association with this lackluster band and their lackluster song, “Goblins,”
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Introducing Jaiko
by Morgan Catanzaro
If you were to imagine the major cities of America by a genre of music, I’m fairly sure you would generally see New York City as being a hub for underground music of all genres; Los Angeles as the hang out for the ska and punk rockers; Nashville as, obviously, the country music haven; Atlanta’s infamous hip hop and rap scene; and Miami as, well, a large mixing pot of culturally influenced music. If you want a good pop song with a Latin beat, or maybe a Bob Marley inspired reggae band, Miami is the place to be. Many popular artists like Nelly Furtado, Akon, Sean Kingston, Shakira, and Rihanna thrive in this area because of their cultural backgrounds and music.
Jaiko, an up and coming artist from the Barbados, is a musician I could possibly see becoming quite popular in the Miami area, as well as with the rest of the US. Caribbean beats are infused with a poppy hip-hop beat and laced with catchy lyrics to create something that ultimately reminds me of the early music of Rihanna, along with Sean Kingston, Akon, and even Chris Brown. Although some of the beats and lyrics are somewhat cheesy and almost juvenile in a sense, reminding me of something that would be on the Disney channel or Kids Bop, he does seem to have some redeeming qualities in his debut album entitled “Can I.” Jaiko has a good voice, perfect for the genre of music he’s getting into. And I can tell from many of his songs that he has radio potential, which is extremely important as it is one of the hardest methods of advertising music now a days. I would recommend this album to those who only listen to music on Y100, or love anything on MTV.
Tim Barry Show
“Standing in Line to See the Show Tonight”
By Diana Ciuca
With my flower headband on and shiny European shirt, I felt out of place at the Thursday Night show. It wasn’t filled with the usual crowd of wasteful teenagers that have nothing better to do on their Saturday night. Instead, hardcore fans and devoted musicians composed the line outside the doors of The Culture Room. After my down-to-earth interview with Tim Barry, one of the opening acts, I joined anxious rockers in the smoke-filled room. Few sported Against Me! Shirts (a taboo, since it is beyond lame to wear the shirt of the band to their concert) while most fashioned the usual tight black shirt with another similarly cool group on them (i.e. Bad Religion, Anti-Flag…) while featuring their badass piercings and tattoos. My Vans flip flops stood out in the mass of converse All-Stars like a hot air balloon at a Blue Angels Air Show.
Ninja Gun, from Georgia, was the first group to hit the stage. With evident energy, they played their short songs to less-than-responsive group. People don’t react too warmly to opening bands. Yet, after every strong round of applause, the lead singer, a cute fellow (who resembled Elmer Fudd a bit), uttered, “ ’preciate it.” Their songs might have failed to get the crowd moving beyond an occasional clap party due to the lack of intense instrumentation, but mostly, I believe, to the light airy feeling of the music that would attract more of a pop/folk following than necessarily punk/folk.
Tim Barry, from Richmond, Virginia modestly walked onto the staged, grabbed his guitar and started jamming, without need for much explanation. Swaying passionately back and forth, he recalled memories of his hometown, past relationships, and even politics. The audience went wild as their connected to Tim based on their collective fallibility. Tim Barry sang of the misrepresentations of society along with the mistakes of human beings. With subjects like those, along with heartfelt thank you’s to the thrilled crowd, he won over even the most dispassionate spectators. He finished with an ad-lib.’d “Thank you guys again, I’m gonna go walk my dog now. She’s been waiting in the van for me.”
Against Me! finally decided to show up around 10:30 pm, after an extensive ‘instrument check’ and fog-set up. While waiting, the crowd did not grow too dissuaded, as many joked, “I remember when they used to tune their guitars on the own, not have someone else do it for them,” and “You know that a band is more popular based on the amount of time it takes between opening bands and their show time.” My favorite comment was from the back, someone ludicrously shouting, “I’m so excited for the Jonas Brothers! This is the Jonas Brothers Concert, right?” The sarcasm eased the tension as we all knew that the show was worth waiting and that (Thank God) this is not a Jonas Brothers concert – where a fully decorated Jo Bros shirtwould not be uncommon.
The band came on. The audience goes crazy. As if the place wasn’t already stuffed, with waves of pushing knocking people over, people started bouncing around once the first drum was beat. For not being the biggest Against Me! fan, I could recognize and sing along to most of their songs. However, there was not too much singing going on as the ‘bigger’ guys started crashing into each other in the center of the pit. I got pitted a few times – most of my own volition. Other instances, a rogue wave hit me, and I was ingested into the sweaty, pounding center. It was a good idea that I had left my camera with the merch guy, or else it would have suffered the same fate as my flip flops. Granted, my shoe choice was a horrible idea, almost as bad as paying $100 to see the Jonas Brothers last year. Nevertheless, they were gone, lost into the muck of the mosh pit. Guys started taking their shirts off, sweat everywhere… Music became of secondary importance to survival. A show is only as good as the energy through the audience; that energy was engulfing. Against Me! finished their set with mostly songs from New Wave, and even a few from As The Eternal Cowboy, along with Reinventing Axl Rose.
After pleas and lyrical demands from the audience, they finally concluded with a 4 song encore. Fretfully, I stared at my watch, knowing that it was way past my bed-time. Yet, all the agitation and waiting was definitely worth it. The pop/punk/folk/country/punk show left me with a couple of bruises, notably on my feet, but also a desire to explore the welcoming realm of punk-folk music.
The Evils of the Merger
by Alexandra Rivera Boca Raton Community High School
Recently, the United States Department of Justice confirmed the merger between two of the largest ticket retailers in the country, TicketMaster and Live Nation. For avid concert-goers like me, this is probably the worst decision ever made in the world of music. Is any good going to come out of it?
The world of government anti-trust issues dates all the way back to the mid-1800s, post-Civil War era, when corporate giants such as John D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan broke onto the scene with trusts and mega-corporations in the oil and banking industries. Fast-forward to 2010, and the predecessors for our anti-trust laws and governmental control over some companies sparked the beginning of this awful merger that victimizes fans across the country.
The merger clearly brings the two companies together and is now being called “Live Nation Entertainment, Inc.” to incorporate the titles of the two as well as to “reflect the combination of Live Nation’s concert promotion expertise with Ticketmaster’s world-class ticketing solutions and artist relationships,” according to the DOJ (whatever THAT means). The DOJ also states that “Through this merger, the parties believe that the combined company will have the tools to develop new products, expand access, improve transparency and deliver artists and fans more choice. This will drive greater attendance at live events and bringing more value to all major constituents in the industry. The combined company also expects to pursue significant growth opportunities in markets around the world.” I rolled my eyes at the end of that statement.
As previously stated, I am an avid concert-goer. I attend at least three shows per year and sometimes the numbers increase, and ticket prices are already expensive to begin with, especially in the economic state that our nation is in. Throw all of the extra “service fees” and “processing charges” on top of a General Admission price and your $15.00 ticket shoots up to about twice of what it’s worth. I usually buy my tickets from Live Nation, and they charge the same fees, but the prices are usually not that bad compared to TicketMaster’s. Thus, TicketMaster merging with Live Nation is going to make the prices of tickets completely skyrocket into the clouds while simultaneously downsizing the amount of people that are going to spend their hard-earned money on tickets. TicketMaster’s so-called “ticketing solutions” are just ways to make people spend more money than they have to.
Also, how is this merger going to increase the attendance at shows? When I go to shows, they’re usually at smaller venues, such as Culture Room (Ft. Lauderdale) or Revolution Live (Ft. Lauderdale), and even then the venues don’t reach their maximum capacities. As a matter of fact, Culture Room receives more shows because they sell their tickets so cheap that it costs Revolution too much money to hold a show there. But, this merger won’t increase attendance, it’ll just decrease it, because no one has the money to go see their favorite artists anymore, and if they do go to shows then they will attend them at smaller venues that sell tickets for more affordable prices. The days of shows at sold-out arenas and theaters are far from over, and the times of shows at underground clubs or bars are ever-present.
Aside from the merger directly affecting fans, it also directly affects bands. From their perspective, the merger means less and less fans at shows since the price of renting venues is constantly increasing and also because ticket sales are so low. According to Yahoo, artists and bands are not thrilled about this at all:
“Bruce Springsteen, already furious with Ticketmaster for directing fans to a subsidiary selling tickets for above-face value, recently posted a statement on his Web site saying a deal with Live Nation could end up ‘returning us to a near-monopoly situation in music ticketing.’”
Clearly, this merger poses hundreds of problems and it hasn’t made people very happy. America is supposed to be a democracy, which also means that mega-corporations cannot monopolize and break our anti-trust laws just to get more money to line their overstuffed pockets. With that said, although we as fans may not have a lot of power to do something about this, the only thing we can do is continue to support our artists and try not to let the merger get in the way of what we want as an audience—real live entertainment.