Music mag by the bands, for the bands

Many before him have tried and failed. History is against him, time is against him--even the Sudler Fund is against him. Yet Rajeev Muttreja, SM '00, pledges to prevail. Nothing, neither PR-politics, nor rapidly approaching deadlines, nor a total lack of monetary support will keep him from bringing Yale what he knows it so desperately needs: a new music magazine.

"There hasn't been a real music magazine at Yale, at least not one with a big presence," Muttreja said. He and his co-editor, Philip Kimball, PC '00, plan to change all that with a new journalistic enterprise mysteriously titled 1%. Shooting for a FallFest debut, their goal is to helm a monthly publication profiling Yale bands and reviewing national releases. It will offer humor, commentary, and news about that art form that makes us sing with praise, dance for joy, and clap for credit.

According to Kimball and Muttreja, 1% promises to be a marked departure from such national acts as Spin and Alternative Press. "You may recognize certain elements [from those magazines], but no exact copies," Muttreja said. While he did refer to "Rolling Stone-style interviews," he doesn't want to be as critical of the Yale music scene as Rolling Stone is of Lisa Loeb.

"The Yale music scene has a great deal of potential, but not a great deal of coverage," he said. "We want to hype it up, take it to a new level. A lot of students hang out with people and have classes with people without even knowing they have this great sound." If Muttreja sounds uncritical, he admits that he is. "We won't be necessarily reviewing the [student] bands as much as covering them. First we need to introduce them, and that will be the first main focus of the magazine: introducing Yale bands and reviewing mainstream bands."

The idea, naturally, has support from Yale's musicians. "I'm in favor of anything that helps create a musical community and at the same time accelerates our rise to the glamorous world of rock stars and fashion models," Eli Horowitz, DC '99, glockenspielist for the student band Commodore 64, said. And, as Muttreja puts it, "Publicity is rarely a bad thing, especially when it's in a good light."

The publicity couldn't come at a more opportune time; the advent of 1% parallels a sort of renaissance in the Yale music scene. "Right now there seems to be a lot going on," Muttreja said, referring to Society Electronica, the Turntablists Society, the Musicians Cooperative, and the growing popularity of an assortment of student bands.

Less support has come from Yale's generous-to-a-point Sudler Fund, which stopped funding campus publications this fall. "Not getting Sudler funding was an unexpected obstacle," Muttreja said, "but we'll still come out. We're looking at advertising and a benefit concert" scheduled for Sun., Nov. 8 at the GPSCY, which will be organized with the help of campus bands.

Muttreja is no stranger to musical adversity. As the music director of WYBC last year, he was one of many students dismissed from the FM station in December. "I was pretty heavily involved in WYBC. That was my outlet; when we were cut, that outlet was gone," he said.

The magazine's first issue will establish several permanent features, including an in-depth profile of a student band, national news and opinion, and a more lighthearted approach to musical identity. "We have a `desert island discs' feature where you ask someone if they were stranded on a desert island, what music would they bring," Muttreja explained. "We've asked [Professor Peter] Salovey, [football head] coach Jack Siedlecki, and Wayne at Mory's. They're people you've never looked at in a musical light, but we want to bring out that side of them." Also included is a point/counterpoint section that this month will ask if the swing resurgence is good for music. Muttreja promises that future issues will address meatier questions like "Is rock dead?"

Muttreja wants the new magazine to be as diverse in content as Commodore 64 is in instrumentation. The main thrust of 1% may be to support Yale indie bands, but Muttreja said, "If someone wants to write about classical or country music, that's okay too." The audience for such articles, while undoubtedly small, should take heart; it's for them, after all, that the magazine is named.

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