Yalies can be rock stars too

COURTESY ANDREA LYNCH AND TURNBUCKLE RECORDS Deluxe, at bottom, sallies on as Sunday Puncher

The success of underwhelming, former college-rock acts like the Dave Matthews Band has given people the wrong idea of what college rock stands for. What happened to naïveté? What happened to learning to play your instruments sometime after your first show? What happened to putting out a record before coming out with a T-shirt or a marketing plan? Yeah, Yale has plenty of funk bands that can provide all the soundtracks to your drunken near hook-ups at frat parties. But if you look a bit further, you'll find some bands that do shows at Yale with the intent of forming songs, not just cool bass licks. Aspiring Yale troubadours can find good role models in a number of established musicians, past and present.

Mia Doi Todd, BR '97, went home to Los Angeles during winter break of her senior year with a self-released seven-inch and came back to the East Coast a newly-minted, full-length recording artist. Todd's record of starry-eyed, chanteuse-like solo musings came out on X-Mas Records in 1998. Another Yale band that met with post-graduate success is Sunday Puncher, a math-rock foursome that called itself Deluxe during its tenure at Yale. Sunday Puncher has now released three CDs on Turnbuckle Records and toured the U.S., recently re-visiting Yale with TransAm. Also worthy of mention is Sea Ray, who released an eponymous album last year.

Recently, Yale saw albums by curent student bands hit local stores. Garbage Czar, the label founded by David Slade, TC '01, released Pinstripe's Astronomy CD in February. The record quickly found its way into heavy rotation on WYBC-1340 AM and helped the band land dates for a short East Coast tour. The label celebrated the end of the academic year by minting several hundred CDs of Pearly Sweets and the Platonics' debut, That's What All the Girls Say. Slade is unfazed by the financial tribulations of rock czardom. "Every single do-it-yourself guide says the same thing: expect to lose your shirt," he said. "And right now we're having a lot of fun losing a lot of money."

Other, non-Slade-affiliated releases of 1999 included Gaslight's self-titled album and Arcaro's (formerly Cassius) debut single on Pensive Records. So don't despair: by the time you arrive in the fall, the indie forces of rock will have forged a formidable armada, poised to take over New Haven, NATO, and then the world. Be all that you can be.

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