You won't find a trombomophone anywhere else

COURTESY COMMODORE 64 James Yu, PC'99 and Thomas Shaw, DC '99, look on as Eli Horowitz, DC '99, kicks some major glockenspiel.

Like the Little Engine that Could, rockers Commodore 64 admit to small talent before they admit to small goals. Though co-founder and glockenspielist Eli Horowitz, DC '99, admits that he only plays the glockenspiel because he "can't play anything else," he insists that his ideology makes him a musician to be reckoned with. "We want to break down the false distinction between audience and performer," he said. "We're all just sailors in the boat of rock on the ocean of love. On so many levels of abstraction and concreteness, the audience [is] involved." Together with songwriter and co-founder Webster McBride, BK '99, cellist Hilary Owen, BK '00, trombomophonist James Yu, PC '99, and trumpeter Philip Gorman, TC '01, Horowitz aims to provide nothing less than "a transcendental experience" when C64 plays the Pierson common room on Fri., Apr. 23.

Such experiences have landed the group in trouble before. In the three years since its inception, C64 has built a reputation for combining instrumental innovation with lyrical plagiarism. In one memorable show last November, beloved Yale musician Pearly Sweets (Abraham Levitan, TD '00) bombarded the stage when C64 began an unapproved cover of his own "Khaki Girl." Horowitz dismissed the scandal as one of semantics. "That was not a cover, it was a collective experience we can all draw from," he said. "Is the transcendental experience copyrighted?"

As the group has grown, and its unique blend of originality and nostalgia has won a grudging appreciation from the campus community, C64 has made peace with unwitting contributors like Sweets. "It was a horrifying experience for everyone involved," Horowitz said. "But we've all put it behind us, and hopefully Pearly will be be among us Friday night." Such "verbal sparring" has in fact become a C64 trademark Horowitz likens to "the Bea Arthur-Angela Landsbury song in the musical Mame."

If the band's influences seem wide-ranging, it is due to the diversity of the group itself. Where Horowitz speaks often of "transcendence," Yu is more keen to "show the world that the trombomophone is a real instrument, not to be laughed at or used in sketch comedy," he said. Owen is "a redhead," which "makes for a good combination [with the rest of the group]," she said. Their musical melange embraces styles from glam-metal to elec-tronica to traditional Czech polka (motivating a possible guest appearance by the Yale Slavic Chorus at Friday's show), including a "10-song medley tracing love from kernel to kennel," according to Horowitz. Gorman thinks the recipe necessitates success: "It'll undoubtedly be a bigger blast than Honey I Blew Up the Kids." His invocation of the Disney film belies the truth of his C64 nickname-- according to Horowitz, "Phil is the baby of the group. When he gets excited he has potty accidents."

In fact, C64's eagerness to embrace its audience does not always extend to loving kindness within the band itself, indicating a frustration that seethes barely below the surface of the collective. "James is the professor," Horowitz said, "meaning he professes to know what he's talking about." Owen is appalled at an alleged harassment by McBride: "He climbed into the window of my Swing Space room," she complained. Horowitz smiled when questioned about McBride's impulsive romanticism. "Just ask the ladies," he said. Yu revealed a more troubling reason for the ill feeling that now permeates the once-tight ensemble. "Eli has been so strung out on mind-enhancing drugs that sometimes his performances are, shall we say, pre-prepared. If you watch closely, sometimes he doesn't even hit his glockenspiel."

Horowitz denies all such rumors, saying that his glockenspiel talents have improved significantly since C64's inception in 1997. "Now I have two mallets instead of one," he said. He went on to suggest that Yu is really to blame for the group's current lack of cohesion. "James is the son of immigrants," he explained, "and he brings a certain marginalized ethnic rage to the group." Indeed, from our conversation it seemed that Yu harbors a significant grudge against the Founding Fathers. "My parents came over in a 747 in the early '70s," he said. According to Yu, this explains why "I was not drafted last week ago into the NFL," and will eventually resort to "robbing banks by night and surfing by day."

The group's members are optimistic, however, that the love fostered Friday between audience and band will simultaneously rekindle the love the band has for itself. "We're cool," Owen insisted, and Yu seconded the motion with an emphatic "Go C64!" In a show of goodwill, Gorman called McBride's newest songs "like butter" to play, and Horowitz agreed. "I won't say he's a prophet," Horowitz said of the reclusive McBride, "but he's got something to say, and it's something big."

Advance buzz on Friday's show indicates that Yale agrees. With the guest-artist roster creeping past 50, C64 seems poised for a mainstream breakthrough. Horowitz is confident that the unassuming college band will resonate with a campus in need of, well, "transcendence. No pyrotechnics," he said. "It's all about what's inside, and what comes out. You could say it's about the ins and outs of rock."

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