From suburban garage to Calhoun's basement

In spite of limited performance space, student bands rock the house.

BY ELIOT ROSE AND NICK WEBB

What does a musical Yalie look like? The average man on the street probably imagines a chin-stroking classical gasser in tux and tails—or, even worse, a baseball-capped slice of Dave Matthews white bread. A thriving rock scene behind the ivy-covered walls? Unthinkable. But Yale "is full of mock sobriety," recent graduate Abraham Levitan, TC '00, said. "There are a lot of resources hidden within [the University] that are worthy of exploitation." Levitan knows what he's talking about. As "Pearly Sweets," leader of "amphetamine soul" quartet the Platonics, he won a devoted following during his stint in the Elm City and is now pursuing stardom full-time in Chicago. Life as a Yale rocker can be tough—bands have to put up with, among others, an uncooperative Administration, a lack of performance spaces, and a disjointed, if hard-working, community of musicians. The most determined bands will eventually find an audience; as Levitan explained it, "People just have to learn to change the scope of their goals."

ERIN I. LEWIS/YH The Davenport courtyard has been invaded by Yale musicians. From left to right, Daniel Silk, SY '01, Gooden bassist; Sam Grossman, DC '03, Gooden guitarist; Chuck Colman, TD '03, singer-songwriter; and Joe Grimm, JE '01, of Cabeza de Vaca and 33.3.

Yale's Administration may be supportive of "high art," but when it comes to rock 'n roll, they're still shaking their heads over Elvis' hips. "For some reason," Uno Dos Vamonos guitarist David Slade, TC '01, said "you can hold a classical music recital at 11 p.m. on the night before finals start, but getting a good space for a rock show and making it a community event is next to impossible." Citing noise concerns, residential college deans are reluctant to open their facilities to rock shows. In addition, the residential college system's characteristic squeam ishness toward New Haven residents prevents many Yale venues from opening their doors to local scenesters, limiting the possible audience.

The only space that is consistently available to bands is the Yale Women's Center, which lacks a stage and is not much larger than the average classroom. The venue has a certain low-budget charm; Slade is grateful to the Center for providing a "place where people can come very peacefully and present a show." Nevertheless, he noted that "things get very hot and cramped" in the low-ceilinged, semi-subterranean room, esp-ecially during a high-energy rock concert.

Bands who are willing to play shorter sets can perform at Six Feet Under, a music revue held occasionally in the Calhoun Cabaret. SFU shows are especially popular with newcomers to the Yale rock scene, since they provide unknown bands with a ready-made audience. Levitan described Six Feet Under as a "good resource for meeting other musicians," a useful starting point for aspiring rockers who are having trouble assembling bands. Some musicians point to Yale's strong theater community as another good resource for making connections; Levitan met his bandmates through their mutual involvement in a stage tribute to David Bowie.

Still, finding like-minded musicians remains difficult. Singer/guitarist Dan Sobo, SM '03, came to Yale hoping to form a standard bass-drums-guitar group, but he's had a hard time tearing people away from other extracurricular activities. "People don't seem to think [playing music] is important enough," Sobo said. "There are so many people who think being in a band simply means telling people at parties, `Hey, I'm in a band.'"

This year, members of metal act Skin The Goat founded Turn It Up (TIU), a student group which attempts to unite Yale and New Haven's scattered scene by organizing regular shows at the Women's Center. "It was really frustrating to start out," Skin The Goat bassist and TIU co-founder Simeon Papacostas, BK '02, said. Yalies interested in poetry, painting or drama have student groups to turn to, but there was nowhere for rock musicians to congregate. So far, TIU has been relatively successful; several TIU-run shows brought together Yale bands and Connecticut acts for well-attended Women's Center performances, while the networking opportunities it created have spurred the formation of several new groups, such as the Phish-influenced jam band Milo.

Once bands get underway, they can take advantage of Garbage Czar, Yale's student-run record label. Last year Garbage Czar released albums by Pearly Sweets and the Platonics and the one a.m. radio, the solo project of Hrishi-kesh Hirway, MC '00. "Garbage Czar is the best thing that's happ-ened to the Yale rock community," Levitan said enthusiastically. "It turns each record release into a comm-unity event." Co-founder Slade is a bit more humble about his label, emphasizing its historical value. "We're just trying to make sure that bands don't dissolve and leave Yale's consciousness once they end their four-year tenure here," he said. Garbage Czar isn't the only option for student bands looking to distribute their albums—Sobo released an album, At The Tone The Time Will Be, on his own CD-R label Son of Freud, while post-rock ensemble 33.3 landed a record deal with Chicago-based label Aesthetics.

Unfortunately, producing an album isn't very rewarding if the community isn't open to hearing it. "I wish the album would have sold better," Levitan sighed. And even if a band is successful, Yalies don't always have their ear to the ground when it comes to rock. Sam Grossman, DC '03, the guitarist for power-popsters Gooden and a Dylan-tinged solo performer, finds the Yale audience "lukewarm," and Slade agreed that "there's an atmosphere of mixed receptiveness." Still, Slade said that "a lot of kids are favorable to live music" and that bands just need to advertise heavily in order to spread the word. Sobo, on the other hand, has taken a different track, playing several small impromptu shows in friends' suites to build support, while Pearly Sweets, believing Yalies are "more receptive to subtlety," filmed a Spinal Tap-style mockumentary entitled Pearly Sweets: A Decade in Music.

Another obstacle on the path to building a strong rock community at Yale is the tension among fans of different genres. In particular, Slade perceives a rift between the indie-rock community and fans of more mainstream styles. "Everybody's coming in with this attitude that only what they're doing is legit and pure," Slade said; each band "claims that their mission is the same," but he doesn't see many groups supporting each other. Although most groups puts on shows at the Women's Center, there aren't any "regulars" who attend them all. Yale's indie scenesters tend to avoid the hard rock and metal of the TIU crowd, who rarely show up for the indie-rock concerts put on by WYBC.

There's one surefire way to win over Yale music fans, though: get them out on the dance floor. This year saw the rise to local stardom of the Cabeza De Vaca Latin Jazz Revue, which began as a one-off project for members of 33.3 and Arcaro. The band came together to play a Cuban-themed party at the Drama School and were overwhelmed by the audience reaction. "We didn't really know what we were doing, and we didn't know what to expect from the crowd," Matt "Sticky" Dunkel, JE '01, Cabeza's key-boardist and screamer, said. "But people reacted. They moved their asses." By the end of the year, the band's rump-shaking mambo grooves had won them a large, diverse following and a headlining slot at Toad's.

It's important to keep in mind that the University has always rocked in fits and starts. During the early '80s and mid-'90s, Yale sustained a vibrant rock community full of creative bands and frequent concerts. It's only a matter of time before some fresh group of musicians kicks off the next golden age, and the artists we interviewed, in spite of their struggles, are full of advice for those willing to try. Sobo encouraged rockers to "start finding people to play with early in the year," and Grossman added, "Try to be as open-minded as you can, because everybody has different opinions on music." Slade remains optimistic, advising incoming musicians to just "throw on those shirts with band names on them. Eventually, someone's going to come up to you and start a conversation."

Graphic by Shawn Cheng.

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