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(04/14/05 5:19am)
Opera lovers, ballet seekers and orchestra attendees are often familiar with the sound of the harp. But occasionally, the string instrument can be as relevant to daily life as the background of a Bjork song rotating on an iTunes playlist. \nThe release of Bjork's album "Vespertine" inspired junior Clare Canzoneri to take on the harp. Encouraged by her aunt's previous endeavors to try the instrument and motivated by "Vespertine" harpist Zeena Parkins, Canzoneri said she started taking classes the second semester of her freshman year.\n"I really love the way the harp sounds," Canzoneri said. "It's a beautiful, elegant instrument." \nGraduate student in the harp department Marina Roznitovsky-Reznik said she agrees. \n"I love the harp for its uniqueness and beautiful sound," Roznitovsky-Reznik said in an e-mail. "It is a harmonic instrument, which allows you to play a wide variety of music, styles, textures and accompaniments rather than melodies only." \nSusann McDonald is the only professor in the IU harp department and a former chair of Julliard's harp department. McDonald was the first American to receive the prestigious Premier Prix de Harpe. According to the School of Music's Web site, McDonald also serves as the artistic director of the World Harp Congress and is honorary president of the Association Internationale des Harpistes in Paris.\n"The IU harp department has the largest number of harp majors, 20 to 25 gifted young harpists from throughout the world," McDonald said. \nIU also holds an international competition for harpists in July, which serves as a good measuring stick of how well IU students perform on an international scale, McDonald said.\n"The USA International Harp Competition, perhaps the most prestigious harp competition in the world, is based here," McDonald said. "It attracts large numbers of gifted harpists every three years, and serves as a springboard for concert careers and instant international recognition. Our IU students have been among the top prize winners." \nRoznito said she finds the program challenging in terms of time management and the amount of effort required.\n"Many of us stay at school all day," Roznitovsky-Reznik said. "In general, time is a constant enemy and lack of sleep is not an unusual thing." \nHaving only one professor in the program also serves as an obstacle.\n"I feel not anyone can handle being here and fit in this system," Roznitovsky-Reznik said. "Being one of more than 20 students of one extraordinary professor doesn't give you too much personal attention. One needs to be very prepared for each lesson, as there's no time to waste, having one 50-minute lesson per week."\nIf students don't come prepared, they're scheduled less frequently, and are guided by the assistant professor, Elzbieta Szmyt. Szmyt is director of the Pre-College Harp Program as well.\nRegardless of the quality of the program, it's in the nature of being a music major to have an uncertain future; different students deal with this uncertainty in different manner.\nCanzoneri, not being a music major, but being involved in the harp community in Bloomington, said she is aware of what often happens after graduation.\n"Many I know are auditioning all over the country for orchestra jobs, or have weekend gigs, for example, at weddings," she said.\nJunior Maggie Grove, on the other hand, said she has specific goals for herself.\n"I think a lot of the harpists here want to play in orchestras or have solo or recording careers after they graduate, but my goal actually is to be a studio harpist for movie soundtracks," Grove said. "My plan is to stay here at IU until I get my masters and then go to London and study with Skaila Kanga, the head harp professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London. I have no idea what will happen after that, but I'm determined not to give up until I've gotten where I want to be."\n-- Contact Staff Writer Christine Jang at chrjang@indiana.edu.
(03/24/05 5:09am)
When a director puts up a casting call about forbidden love and religion gone too far, theater students come running. Although many tried out for the part, only seven spots were cast for the latest production of "The Scarlet Letter" by the IU Department of Theatre and Drama. Adapted into a play by Phyllis Nagy, the book was originally written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. \nThe play opens Friday and features a cast with a wide range of experience to conquer the emotionally heightened drama. "The Scarlet Letter" is about the "dangers of mixing religious fundamentalism and the halls of government" and the "shattering effect this combination can have," according to a statement. \n"(Phyllis Nagy) bases the play closely on the novel," said Jonathan Michaelsen, theatre and drama department chair and director of the play. "She does try to bring imagery and language into contemporary setting. It's not an updated version, but she brings it closer to home."\nThe wide range of talent\nIn a tale about a woman sentenced to public humiliation for private affairs, the play explores the dynamic between characters in the midst of social change. But Michaelsen said, "The Scarlet Letter" is not a large production, with a cast of just seven. The production encompasses an unusually large array of experiences, including undergraduates and an MFA student with professional acting experience. \nSophomore Melanie Derleth plays Pearl, the daughter of Hester Prynne, the condemned woman.\n"She's very focused and committed," Michaelsen said of his youngest cast member, "She has very good instincts." \nThe experience of being in a production with more seasoned cast members is something Derleth is not used to. As the youngest cast member, she takes it as a learning experience, she said.\n"I've never been involved with anything as professionally done as 'The Scarlet Letter,'" Derleth said. "It's very humbling to have so many talented people working with you."\nAs for her character, Derleth views Pearl as a challenge. \n"I feel as if I will never be able to pin her down completely," Derleth said. "She's a complicated and tormented girl, full of insecurities and questions ... Jonathan told me once to think of her as a caged animal. This image really helped me to understand her."\nBrendan Pentzell, a graduate student studying theatre and drama, cast as Master Brackett, already has had experience working on a professional set. Having been on WB's "Roswell" and Comedy Central's "Primetime Glick," said he knows the difference between working as a professional actor and being on stage in an academic theater. \n"You're dealing with a business," Pentzell said in an e-mail, "and like any other business, you need to be aware of the market: what type am I, what are reputable theater/film companies to work for, in what cities can I best market myself given the amount of experience I have ... You need to go into the profession already equipped with a strategy." \nHe said he decided to return to school after 10 years in the industry.\n"I felt stuck in a rut with my day job and wasn't happy with my lifestyle," he said. "So much of an actor's professional life is about self-esteem and endurance and you finding what it is you need to do that will allow you to stick with the profession."\nThe benefits of the major\nIn a major that carries a lot of uncertainties about the future, Michaelsen said he has distinct notions of what is required as a theater student.\n"There's a great amount of lessons to be learned here," Michaelsen said of the department. "It requires remarkable discipline and time commitment. Students need to be prepared and focused." \nThere are also the requirements of creativity.\n"Acting and theater requires creative thinking," Michaelsen said. "You need to be able to conceptualize a written script and make it into something." \nThe cast members of "The Scarlet Letter" generally had a positive attitude toward the IU theatre and drama department.\n"In a single year, I have the chance to be considered for musicals, comedies, dramas -- a lot of schools cannot offer that," said first-year MFA student Eric VanTielen, who plays the Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale. "(The theatre department's) connections to the music school are important to me as well, as I do a lot of musical theater."\nSenior Elizabeth Cronin, in her first appearance on the IU stage, has traveled between drama and musical acts as well. A member of Singing Hoosiers and Ladies First, Cronin, like VanTielen, plans on moving to New York after graduation to pursue music and theater.\n"It's scary to think that I'm moving to such a big city without any certain job set, but it's also exciting," Cronin said in an e-mail. \nVanTielen has ambitious plans for New York as well.\n"There is just no other place on earth that compares to it as far as opportunity in the arts is concerned," he said. "I refuse to die without having performed in a Broadway show." \nPentzell appreciates Indiana for what it is.\n"Coming to Indiana was a nice change of environment to the big city hustle and bustle of Los Angeles. When I'm finished here, I might go back to L.A. or I might try New York, where I've never been," Pentzell said. "The most important thing is to keep acting a part of my life in some manner."\n-- Contact Staff Writer Christine Jang at chrjang@indiana.edu.
(03/08/05 3:56am)
Tapestry of Song, the brainchild of Nasrin Hekmat-Farrokh, is in honor of Women's History Month.\n"(It is an) overall celebration of womanhood," the press release states, "a concert that brings together the diverse genres of the vocal repertoire performed by woman."\nHekmat-Farrokh, an Iranian woman and the director of the show, conceived the idea years ago, she says. \n"This is to bring women together who have not always had the chance to freely and fully be creative," she said. \nHekmat-Farrokh referred to a passage on the concert pamphlet that refers to woman as the "second sex" saying, "Women have been hampered, they have not had a chance to use their potentials fully." \n Doctoral voice student Heather Nicole Winter pointed out the feel of femininity, including the title of the show, was intentional. \n"I wanted the show to be in kind of a way where it's happening, where one (act) floats into another," Hekmat-Farrokh said. "They would congratulate each other on stage, they would change clothes on stage." \nThe curtains only went down during intermission and at the end; in between each performance were constant interactions between the performers, in one case, changing costumes in front of the audience. Thea Smith, a senior in early music vocal performance or music performed before 1800, performed and went through different stage identities.\n"She has her costume changed, as if a nun turns into a courtesan," Hekmat-Farrokh said. "The two dancers in masks were representing her two personalities, and they try to convince her that there's more to life, but in her sadness, she pushes them away. And eventually they cry on her shoulder for this."\nThe interactions between acts were also significant in representing womanhood by providing a sense of giving support, Smith said.\n"It was providing a network of support," Smith said. "It was showing appreciation for each other."\nSarah Daughtrey, a doctoral student in voice, noted similar sentiments.\n"In the advertisements for this show, there's a quote that I like that says, 'Woman power is a formidable force,'" Daughtrey said. "I think we established a powerful connection." \nHekmat-Farrokh said she was also careful of whom she selected to be in the show.\nWinter, who was part of the project when it was conceived two years ago, said Hekmat-Farrokh was adamant about having only female performers.\n"Nasrin was careful about bringing empowered and independent women," Winter said. "There was this incredible vibe of having all these empowered women in one production." \nJaniece Jaffe, who gave performances in jazz, said there was a diverse range of music covered in the show.\n"All sound is healing on some level," Jaffe said. "It was wonderful hearing the sounds of different vocal productions."\nThe diversity of the show was not lost on the audience, either. \n"I think this campus needs more collaborate efforts like this concert; it puts into action the diversity this university actively promotes," said audience member Amanda Cisk.\nAs the intermission curtain rose, the duet performance of Clara Perry and Nelly Pazo came into sight, their casual presence on stage accompanied by their softly spoken Spanish words. \n"Latin music tends to be happy," Perry said later. "Everyone really got into it." \nThe audience gave the performers a standing ovation afterward. \nThe various taste of music presented to the audience was tied together and Hekmat-Farrokh said the diverse music at the end is not so different after all.\n"Even in these different genres, they share the same emotions: love, grief, sorrow," she said. "Music of the world, music everywhere, share the same human emotions, the same soul."\n-- Contact Staff Writer Christine Jang at chrjang@indiana.edu.
(03/04/05 4:48am)
Many child prodigies become forgotten as they grow of age; they taste the sweetness of fame in their childhood, but the public eye eventually moves on, and they're unable to adjust to their new "common" status. \nSome talents shown in childhood are merely a symptom of accelerated growth rather than possessing an extraordinary gift, but a few fit the definition of genius. \nAna Vidovic, one of the "youngest virtuoso guitarists in the world," according to a press release, will perform at 8 p.m. Saturday at the John Waldron Arts Center. The Bloomington Classical Guitar Society has had the show booked for 18 months, said Mark Bisesi, the society's director. \n"She's truly one of the great guitarists of our time," Bisesi said.\nVidovic picked up the guitar when she was five in her hometown of Karlovac, Croatia, and began playing internationally at age 11. Now 23, she has won international competitions and given more than 1,000 public performances. \nBefore her busy touring schedule picks up, Vidovic has been taking a break at home in Baltimore. \n"I'm enjoying it very much," Vidovic said of her touring. "I plan on doing it as many years as I can." \nShe began attending the National Musical Academy in Zagreb, Croatia at age 13, where she was the youngest student to attend, and was invited to study at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, from where she graduated in May 2003.\n"Practice was intense," Vidovic said. "It was usually five to six hours of practice, sometimes three to four hours; it's as long as you able to hold up." \nHer years of training combined with talent seem to have paid off, as she's been reviewed nationally and internationally. \n"Her reputation is tremendous," Bisesi said. "She's been featured in major guitar magazines and is voted in international polls as one of the greatest young guitarists out there."\nHer career has taken her from London, Paris, Vienna and Rome to San Francisco, Dallas and St. Louis, to name a few, and within the last month, she toured Japan. For the next few days, Vidovic will perform in Evansville and Bloomington, which is quite a change from the bigger cities she has toured, she said. \nIn addition to her performance in the John Waldron Arts Center, she'll also conduct a master class from 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday in the JWAC Auditorium. \n"We're trying to bring performers and expose the community to classical guitar," Bisesi said. "Bloomington is just a great place for music."\n-- Contact Staff Writer Christine Jang at chrjang@indiana.edu.
(02/16/05 5:06am)
At 77, Patricia Murphy Pizzo still has the energy to play baseball with her grandchildren in the backyard during their frequent visits. She has demonstrated that kind of energy throughout her career, said her daughter, Fiora Pizzo Alicea. Pizzo created the Friends of Art Bookshop 37 years ago, volunteering for 14 years there to generate numerous scholarships for fine arts students. \n"It's surprising how energetic she is at 77," Pizzo Alicea said.\nMurphy Pizzo has been a longtime community member dedicated to artistic development in Bloomington, said Tom Rhea, director of the Friends of Art. \nIn the Bloomington Area Arts Council's effort to recognize leaders of the art community, the organization will present Murphy Pizzo with the Arts Advocate Award today, which honors excellence in supporting the arts. She is among many people being honored at the second annual BAAC Arts Leadership Awards. \nOriginally from the suburbs of Chicago, Murphy Pizzo has been a Bloomington resident since 1951. From renovating theater buildings such as the Buskirk-Chumley Theater to serving as a board member for scholarship committees, she has played a large part in shaping the culture of this community. \nA strong woman with a dominating attitude, she's known as a committed leader, Rhea said.\n"She's very forceful in opinion, which is great at board meetings, and as a leader, she doesn't show indecisiveness," he said. \nMurphy Pizzo has contributed to politics and community education, but the art scene dominates her achievements.\n"Art opens minds and hearts," Murphy Pizzo said. "It's about being able to help people who produce art and to enable the public to access art."\nCreating grants and scholarships has served as a source of motivation, she said. Her consistent effort to create opportunities for others dates back to her childhood.\n"To my mother, it's about finally being in a position where she can provide opportunities that she never received as a child" Pizzo Alicea said. "My mother did not have a blessed childhood. They were poor, she had unhealthy, sick parents ... the stories you hear. She had a nightmare of a childhood." \nMurphy Pizzo's involvement with art came as an accident, however.\n"I was a religion major," she said. "I went to the registration office at IU, and I was pressed on time -- I had to pick up my daughter from kindergarten. They told me I was a fine arts major, and I didn't have time to argue with them."\nShe never corrected them. \n"I decided to stick to it for awhile, and that changed my life."\nHer history with the art community ranges from when she was down on her hands and knees helping renovate the Buskirk-Chumley Theater to her time as a docent at the IU Art Museum. She also has participated in opera and theater circles, attended numerous art openings and sponsored performances, and she has been a part of the Monroe County Library's Arts Council for 15 years. She also is a charter member of Friends of the Lilly Library.\nAlthough she said she comes home "exhausted" more often than not, she's still not one to talk about her accomplishments. \n"With my mother, her actions speak louder than words," said her son Seth Pizzo. "She doesn't go about patting herself on the back for the things she does. She sees it in the context of having a good time."\nHer daughter agreed.\n"My mother doesn't think she deserves this award," Pizzo Alicea said. "She's still embarrassed that I nominated her." \nIn a community she describes as "tremendously rich" in culture, Murphy Pizzo has supported Bloomington's art scene and is being recognized for her life-long commitment to arts advocacy.\n-- Contact Staff Writer Christine Jang at chrjang@indiana.edu.
(12/10/03 5:13am)
The SoFA gallery, located within the School of Fine Arts, currently has on display experimental works of four visiting professors, each specializing in different studio areas. Collaborating to present a diverse face of art to its audience, their work became open to the public Friday and will run for a week. \nVisiting Professor Cristina Gonzalez contributes to the show the traditional taste of oil painting and drawing. According to her profile on the Fine Arts Web site, she creates work that is "figurative and highly personal."\nOn display, she has three paintings from a series of self-portraits. They show the frontal figure of a female placed in different backgrounds; the female is portrayed in traditional "Western-European" style. \nThe third painting in particular, subtitled "La Mantilla," ties in with her ambition to incorporate her cultural heritage with her art, she said. The floral pattern in the background is from a lace veil given to her by her grandmother, originally from Spain. \nThe subtle process of the floral patterns from the wall flowing down to her bare neck reflects her attempt to integrate elements from different cultures, she said. \n"I'm trying to show a Mexican-American perspective in a Western-European culture," she said. "I became aware of my heritage at college, where out of 1,200 students, only 10 to 15 of them came from similar cultural background." \nShe refers to her years at Yale as a period of social and political awareness. \nHer heritage continues to support her "in form of family." She said her pride as a Mexican-American continues to reflect itself in her work. \nVisiting Professor Chuck Jones, a Chicago based artist, said he focuses on humor. In comparison to Gonzalez, he takes on a more modern style.\n"As a media artist, I am interested in the paths that viewers use to access all forms of culture," he said.\nFor example, as part of a series of monsters drawn over pop culture images, Jones drew a monster over an image of George Bush, demonstrating his bluntness and preference for nothing less than "totally direct."\nHe said there is a leeway of interpretations.\n"Sometimes the paths I create towards communication may not be especially easy to follow or may not lead to the places I have suggested," he said.\nHe gets his art philosophy from his professor at University of Illinois, Kerry James Marshall, whom Jones referred to as a genius.\n"You want to go where it almost seems like it's not art," Jones said.\nHis video, 50+1, is made of 51 one-minute clips from movies and documentaries set or shot in each of the 50 states, with an addition of Washington, D.C.\n"My plan for this video is to invite viewers into a dialogue about the United States that isn't about right-wing 'ideas' about patriotism," He said. "[But] instead is about the way America as a place, as a geography, alters the way we think and communicate." \nLike most of his works, he added humor to this video, he said. \n"It's also one of the only videos where you can see Judy Garland get hit in the head moments after a man in an orange dog suit does the worm on top of a tractor," he said. \nHe said he doesn't have one point he wants to get across to his audience. \n"It's also a really funny video, and if that's all you get from it, that's fine," he said. \nHis portfolio can be viewed at his Web site, www.babygorilla.com. \nVisiting Professors Galo Moncayo and Mike Wsol, are faculty members of the sculpture department, and add three dimensionality to the display. \nAccording to the Fine Arts Web site, Moncayo explores technological artifacts in his work. Instead of using them to create "electronic sculpture," he uses them to tie it in with human qualities, creating situations comparable to everyday life. \nThe display will be up at the SoFA gallery until Friday.\n-- Contact staff writer Christine Jane at chrjang@indiana.edu.
(10/07/03 5:09am)
Jessica Hernandez began her speech at the opening of HablARTE with the sentence, "What I want to talk about is love."\nHernandez stood in front of a crowd at Mathers Museum Saturday afternoon, contemplating the results of seven months worth of dedication to her program.\nThe program, HablARTE -- the Spanish words hablar (to talk) and arte (art) strung together -- is Hernandez's creation. Hernandez is a graduate student pursuing her Ph.D. in sociology. \n"HablARTE: Talking through Art" at the Mathers Museum was a celebration of two new exhibits at the museum. \nHernandez, who works for Bloomington's Community and Family Resources, said she wanted to create an artistic space for Latino teenagers.\n"There aren't many public spaces where immigrant adolescents are very valued," Hernandez said.\nShe said she was hoping to initiate an after-school program that would help them discuss their migration experiences. \nThrough research, Hernandez discovered the book "Miracles on the Border: Retablos of Mexican Migrants to the United States" by Jorge Durand and Douglass Massey. Retablos are paintings on wood or tin on various artistic themes. Although retablos are unpolished art, Hernandez found them simple, yet powerful, and the appropriate vehicle for the adolescents to display their experiences and emotions. \n"(The program) started off as a couple of Latin teen dances," Hernandez said of how she gathered the group members. The group has met every Friday since March, which has mostly focused on getting to know each other. The discussion topics differed from what it's like being an immigrant in Bloomington and in the United States to the difference in lifestyles between the states and their native country. They started studying the history of retablo paintings.\nThe teenagers started painting, and as Hernandez said, "it opened a window into the lives of the students." \n"It was a remarkable project," Hernandez said. "It was a project I personally invested in, as well as many other people." \nDuring her speech, she said "love that branches out to the community" was the driving force behind this project. \n"I hoped the program humanized (the immigrant adolescents) to the greater community," Hernandez said.\nHer goal was to challenge the common assumptions of who or what an immigrant is. \n"The (teenagers) are a part of the community," she said. "I was hoping to foster understanding and respect and to be caring." \nThe event incorporated various workshops, including retablo painting for children, Mexican corridos (ballads), poetry reading, and other activities that illustrated the Latino culture. \n"I was impressed by the diversity, both of the specific programs and workshops and of the audience who took part in them," said Geoff Conrad, director of Mathers Museum. "Saturday's event went very well." \n"The students who participated in the HablARTE project come from a different cultural background than most of their classmates, but through the project, they've shown that they share many of the same concerns as their fellow students," Conrad said. "The project is a graphic expression of both the diversity of individual cultures and the unity of human culture itself."\n-- Contact staff writer Christine Jang at chrjang@indiana.edu.
(10/02/03 4:00am)
Every band starts from the beginning,\nwith local recognition usually being the initial step of success. However, most bands get filtered out in the process of ascending the industry hierarchy, and few are fortunate enough to experience anything beyond the local music scene. Searching for a local band with a karma drawn to success parallels the experience of scanning a thrift shop, searching for quality among a broad, lesser-known collection in which nothing but the possibility of finding a piece of perfection is guaranteed. The range of talent within a music scene runs wide, but there's always a treasure, and Bloomington has found one of its own.\nLocal band Right Side Down comes out with their debut album, Jackpot, tonight at The Bluebird. With some songs written nearly two years ago, the album contains a rich blend of funk and rock. Funk-rock, distinguished from mainstream rock music through its emphasis on rhythm, with accentuated groove and catchy melody, is exciting at the very least; if not anything else, the album will certainly get the party going, not to mention exceed most expectations of a local band.\nOriginally called Myst, Right Side Down consists of three of the original members -- former student Colby Miller, the lead singer and soul behind the acoustic guitar, Benny Appleby on bass and senior Rob Herbert (also of the Leonard Brothers) on drums. After two of the guitar players from Myst left, an additional guitar player was added -- junior Josh Gilmore (also in Twenty Minutes to Park) -- with the change of the band's name from Myst to RSD. \n"We spent weeks writing down meaningless words, and it came down to three that we liked," Herbert says. "We knew we had to change from Myst." \nMiller, who was already involved with his former band Myst, didn't pair with Appleby until a year later. \n"We played together for fun, but it wasn't until the summer after our freshman year, when we were at a concert, that I asked if he wanted to join," he remembers.\nHerbert and Miller met as fraternity brothers. Gilmore was a native from Nashville, Tenn., like Herbert, with whom he attended high school.\n"(Josh) had been sort of a fan and we had him do a tryout, (and) he was very qualified," Herbert says. Thus, the member lineup was complete as of November 2002.\nAxing one of three guitars, Miller says, simplified RSD's sound. \n"We got tighter as a band," he says, after the transition from Myst to RSD. "During the writing process, there was room for each of us to write our parts and not step on each others toes. It was too chaotic before -- too much going on." \nRight Side Down performed in most of the Kirkwood venues, including Vertigo, Rhinos, Uncle Fester's, The Bluebird and Kilroy's Sports, and have ventured off to various other nearby locales, including Indianapolis. \nMiller contributes most to the song writing, but emphasizes that it's a collaborative process. Someone will come up with a line or melody during practice, he says, and then they each try to expand upon it. \n"Everybody puts down something different to the table," Miller says, which would explain the wide range of genres the band explores. \nRecording began this summer, aided by producer Russ Castillo. \n"Our producer made us a better band," Herbert says. "(He) made us concentrate on the details of the song -- recording gave them a whole new life." \nIn their own words, the guys say their music sounds reminiscent of the Black Crowes or Red Hot Chili Peppers -- another band famous for their contemporary funk sound. \nThey've been inspired by Pat McGee. But there's a collective sound to them that goes beyond the simply'category of 'funk-rock,' permitting them to leave "something for everyone." And as a local band, it's easy to assume promotion is the hardest part. "[It's hard] to have people take you seriously," Miller says. "It's difficult to play original music and be appreciated." \nHowever, Herbert, a business major, listed the business side of the game as being an obstacle. Time management in general was important for him, between juggling class and his commitments to his music.\nFor now, it seems like RSD's future is fairly clear. Herbert and Gilmore are still in school, but after graduation, they plan on sticking with the band. \n"We're legit and real," Miller says. "I'm just happy to have our album out; it was a milestone for us."\nThey also have ideas of relocating as a band to a bigger city; possibilities include New York, Chicago and Minneapolis. \nThere will be a CD Release Party at the Bluebird tonight. Doors will open at 9 p.m. The show starts at 10 p.m. with Run of the Mill as the opener. Cover is $3, with beer specials all night. For those under 21, they'll be having a show for all ages Saturday, Oct. 4, at T.I.S. Music Shop, from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., entry free.
(10/01/03 9:29pm)
Every band starts from the beginning,\nwith local recognition usually being the initial step of success. However, most bands get filtered out in the process of ascending the industry hierarchy, and few are fortunate enough to experience anything beyond the local music scene. Searching for a local band with a karma drawn to success parallels the experience of scanning a thrift shop, searching for quality among a broad, lesser-known collection in which nothing but the possibility of finding a piece of perfection is guaranteed. The range of talent within a music scene runs wide, but there's always a treasure, and Bloomington has found one of its own.\nLocal band Right Side Down comes out with their debut album, Jackpot, tonight at The Bluebird. With some songs written nearly two years ago, the album contains a rich blend of funk and rock. Funk-rock, distinguished from mainstream rock music through its emphasis on rhythm, with accentuated groove and catchy melody, is exciting at the very least; if not anything else, the album will certainly get the party going, not to mention exceed most expectations of a local band.\nOriginally called Myst, Right Side Down consists of three of the original members -- former student Colby Miller, the lead singer and soul behind the acoustic guitar, Benny Appleby on bass and senior Rob Herbert (also of the Leonard Brothers) on drums. After two of the guitar players from Myst left, an additional guitar player was added -- junior Josh Gilmore (also in Twenty Minutes to Park) -- with the change of the band's name from Myst to RSD. \n"We spent weeks writing down meaningless words, and it came down to three that we liked," Herbert says. "We knew we had to change from Myst." \nMiller, who was already involved with his former band Myst, didn't pair with Appleby until a year later. \n"We played together for fun, but it wasn't until the summer after our freshman year, when we were at a concert, that I asked if he wanted to join," he remembers.\nHerbert and Miller met as fraternity brothers. Gilmore was a native from Nashville, Tenn., like Herbert, with whom he attended high school.\n"(Josh) had been sort of a fan and we had him do a tryout, (and) he was very qualified," Herbert says. Thus, the member lineup was complete as of November 2002.\nAxing one of three guitars, Miller says, simplified RSD's sound. \n"We got tighter as a band," he says, after the transition from Myst to RSD. "During the writing process, there was room for each of us to write our parts and not step on each others toes. It was too chaotic before -- too much going on." \nRight Side Down performed in most of the Kirkwood venues, including Vertigo, Rhinos, Uncle Fester's, The Bluebird and Kilroy's Sports, and have ventured off to various other nearby locales, including Indianapolis. \nMiller contributes most to the song writing, but emphasizes that it's a collaborative process. Someone will come up with a line or melody during practice, he says, and then they each try to expand upon it. \n"Everybody puts down something different to the table," Miller says, which would explain the wide range of genres the band explores. \nRecording began this summer, aided by producer Russ Castillo. \n"Our producer made us a better band," Herbert says. "(He) made us concentrate on the details of the song -- recording gave them a whole new life." \nIn their own words, the guys say their music sounds reminiscent of the Black Crowes or Red Hot Chili Peppers -- another band famous for their contemporary funk sound. \nThey've been inspired by Pat McGee. But there's a collective sound to them that goes beyond the simply'category of 'funk-rock,' permitting them to leave "something for everyone." And as a local band, it's easy to assume promotion is the hardest part. "[It's hard] to have people take you seriously," Miller says. "It's difficult to play original music and be appreciated." \nHowever, Herbert, a business major, listed the business side of the game as being an obstacle. Time management in general was important for him, between juggling class and his commitments to his music.\nFor now, it seems like RSD's future is fairly clear. Herbert and Gilmore are still in school, but after graduation, they plan on sticking with the band. \n"We're legit and real," Miller says. "I'm just happy to have our album out; it was a milestone for us."\nThey also have ideas of relocating as a band to a bigger city; possibilities include New York, Chicago and Minneapolis. \nThere will be a CD Release Party at the Bluebird tonight. Doors will open at 9 p.m. The show starts at 10 p.m. with Run of the Mill as the opener. Cover is $3, with beer specials all night. For those under 21, they'll be having a show for all ages Saturday, Oct. 4, at T.I.S. Music Shop, from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., entry free.