Backgroundofwhatyou’llneedtoknowtounderstandAlyssa’sbrilliance:
-Alyssa and I have the same phone.
-We’ve also had the same text ring.
-This is super confusing because when we’re in the same room and one of us gets a text the other always thinks she has a text too and checks her phone awkwardly.
-It’s really just me who’s checking awkwardly because Alyssa is more popular than I am and is always getting texts.
-Alyssa actually changed her ring BECAUSE OF ME.
-Alyssa and I are fans of the greeting “Oh hey!” for each other. (I’ve never quite figured out how this happened, but I’m guessing it’s her fault.)
We were at Six Flags eating lunch (err fries) at Johnny Rockets, and I got up to take a few photos of our goofy friends and left my phone on the table. I got back, sat down, and I get a text message. FROM MYSELF. My phone beeped and the text symbol said “Zoe Gorman.”
I picked up the phone, and the message said, “OH HEY!”
Then Alyssa gave me back my actual phone.
I was hysterical. Like crying I was laughing so hard.
Alyssa innocently contemplating her straw
And I was thinking aren’t I so lucky that I get to stay on campus this week and listen to Salivating Eyes and hang with my Yale friends who prank me. You’re probably not as lucky as I am and are already off doing cool things outside of the Have.
But YMS doesn’t have to end with your departure from campus. There are some EPs coming out this summer (when Yalies have time to work on them) that I’m really excited about and will be reviewing as they’re released.
And there might be some other, more informal posts too, but I’m going to keep those secret for now.
Hopefully you’ve all downloaded Blue Noise by now, or picked up a hard copy at Spring Fling, so you’ll have something to listen to this summer before the EPs come out.
Speaking of which, Spring Fling was awesome!
You might not remember it for one reason or another…
But all three student bands exceeded expectations. So I’m going to tell you about each of them while giving out “awards,” starting with Sister Helen.
My expectations for Sister Helen, who opened Spring Fling, were prettttty loooowwww. I didn’t enjoy them at all at Battle of the Bands. When they were doing their sound check (and stalling a bit) I was watching them alone, and I was thinking wow, this is sad; I’m the only one here, and I don’t particularly want to be. But they really stepped it up, and after a minute or so of jamming the gates of Old Campus began seeing some traffic.
Sister Helen brought a lot of energy while tightening their performance a bit. Even though the lyrics are still repetitive and honestly quite creepy (and pitch isn’t really important to most of the vocal parts), I can appreciate that each of the musicians, especially the guitarist Chris Krasnow, is talented. Frontman Nathan Campbell ES ’14 continued to pump up the crowd by jumping around on stage like a madman, but he flailed less and didn’t strip.
I talked to Nathan afterward and he said he didn’t strip because I said in another post I didn’t want to see it. So to all the girls who wanted to see Nathan strip, I apologize; it’s my fault.
Sorry, girls.
Award time!
The Most Stoic in the Face of Technical Difficulties award
First place: guitarist guy in Sister Helen (
Honourable mention: Nathan Campbell, frontman and only Yalie in Sister Helen
Both these musicians had issues with their equipment during the show and didn’t falter at all. The guitarist’s strap came off SEVERAL times during the performance while he was soloing. Once Nathan went over and fixed it. Teamwork! The other time, one of the stage managers fixed it as the guitarist was crouching down and soloing.
If you don’t believe me here’s a vid.
WHOAH HOLD THE PHONE (not you, Alyssa. hands off). I’m sitting in Blue State writing this blog post and a group comes on with three part vocal harmony and violins and guitar and I’m like, I SWEAR that’s Eliza singing, this is so Plume Giant. Who else sounds like this? I didn’t recognize the song, and honestly I don’t think the Blue State people’s Pandora plays YMS bands, so I was like who is this professional group that sounds exactly like Plume Giant!? I’m tight with the Blue State people (because I practically live here), so I ask them what the band is, and Pat is like “Oh, that was Plume Giant. Yeah, my band Brown Bird plays with them a lot.” Yep. Blue State just played “All of it Now” from the Plume Giant EP. (which I obviously need to be more familiar with, so I’m listening to it now on my ITunes). Sweeeeet.
Ok, now that I’ve sufficiently discussed Plume Giant in a post that has nothing to do with them…. Back to Sister Helen. Major props for dealing so well with your strap falling off and keeping the show going, guitarist dude!
Nathan gets second place because his mic cord got wrapped up in the make stand during the song where he keeps talking about my friend Gonzo (who only showed up for Gets the Girl despite the fact that Sister Helen seems to have dedicated a song to her.) He managed to unwrap it during breath breaks. Nice! He doesn’t get first place though, because the fact his mic cord was wrapped up was totally his fault in the first place. Nathan is just too crazy for normal equipment to handle.
Check out Nathan singing about Gonzo. (Disclaimer: Sister Helen and Gonzo don’t actually know each other, and I’m not sure what the song is actually about.)
"Appropriately Named Gonzo"
I really like that Sister Helen tries to make their bass parts interesting and complex. This adds a lot to the songs rhythmically and helps the group maintain its musical energy. Usually this works well for them, but sometimes it comes at the cost of losing the grounding aspect of bass for their songs, and since the guitarist plays awesome solos and rarely chords, it’s important to watch this.
Overall they were about three times better than I thought they’d be. Listening to them wasn’t actually painful. Fantastic.
Gets the Girl was even better. A lot better.
Although they do a lot of slow songs well, I really liked the faster songs, especially in this setting, and I wish they’d play more. I always enjoy listening to Gets the Girl, but I find it hard to remember their songs afterward. Adding some more high energy numbers with catchy riffs would help to boost the memorability factor, and I am confident that Gets the Girl will not let this interfere with the quality of their orchestration.
A slow song, "Dreams in Green" that was great.
"The Lights," one of Gets the Girls faster songs and my personal fav.
Last time Gets the Girl packed the Battle of the Bands stage with a string section (umm Plume Giant) and a trumpet in addition to their five usual members. Fire hazard.
The Spring Fling stage was a lot bigger, so this wasn’t a problem. But it did mean that the trumpet and string section was really far away from the keyboard and the rest of the band. It was as if the guest musicians had their own little posse clustered in one corner and the core Gets the Girl band was in front and to the right.
Hi posse.
I’m sure there’s a way to solve this stage presence problem (perhaps with a staggered formation), but I haven’t quite figured it out.
Despite the positioning issues, Gets the Girl still looked good on stage. They were easily the best dressed band, which brings us to the 1st annual Spring Fling fashion awards. Omg. No she didn’t.
Best Outfit goes to Nathan Prillaman JE '13 of Gets the Girl.
Here’s a man who’s not afraid of the power of primary colours. He wears a bright red, classic t-shirt, bright blue jeans, and brown loafers. The All-American (if not so capitalist) man. To add a touch of originality, Nathan also sports a flashy pair of green shades. I also love that his guitar is purple and pink and that his strap is black with white sillouettes all over it. Colourful yet artsy. He was definitely noticed at Spring Fling. And not just for his behind the head guitar solo.
Most Elegant: Eliza Bagg SM '12. (Of the Plume Posse.)
Duh.
This opera singer/violinist always wears dresses. Props. I’m a fan of that deep blue that brings out her intense yet reserved (musical) personality.
Best Music Model Pose: John Brandon MUS ’09
Sexy stuff
Dreamiest gaze: Ellis Ludwig-Leone TC '11
Outfit I’d most like to wear.
Clearly.
Back to the music.
Jamestown blew me away. All of the songs they played were excellent and super catchy. I can't wait for the EP. One leg-up that Jamestown has over Gets the Girl is that while they incorporate a lot of instrumentalists, their songs are simple enough that you're always left humming them and wanting to hear more.
As soon as they opened with "Superhero," which they didn't play at BATB but I mentioned I wanted to hear in my preview, I knew this was going to be the best 20 minutes of finals week.
Jamestown saw similar staging issues as Gets the Girl, but they were less pronounced because Jamestown didn't have an entire string section to make a corner cluster and spread everyone out throughout the big stage about equidistantly. I'd like to see the drummer brought forward in this setting, which would both cut down on space between musicians and give him more (well-deserved) play.
The fact that the keyboard was really far from the trumpet, however, did not always deteriorate from the musical experience. In "For You My Dear" Jamestown trades keyboard and trumpet solos. The effect was a rush of sound coming from stage left and then stage right, and then stage left — almost indicative of a surround-sound system.
"For you my dear"
Jamestown was my Spring Fling highlight. No lie.
Time for the music awards. Most of these involve Jamestown, surprisingly.
Spring Fling MVP: Will Hutchison ES '12 (to express his legit MVP status I'm going to colour his name for the rest of this post)
It's hard to pick one musician as MVP, espcially for groups in which each member is an integral part of the team. But Will Hutchison stood out to me for consistently carrying Jamestown through its set and adding precise yet enthusiastic fills. If the catcalls from the audience are any indication (they aren't) of Will's excellence, the people next to me were screaming "Yeah, Will Hutchison!" and "The drummer's sexy!" throughout. The stickbanger made ample use of his kit's variety of symbols. Without him, Jamestown would be a different group.
Will finally get to use the toms in "Troubled Child"
Most consistently awesome soloing: Jacab Paul SM '13, trumpet in Jamestown
He didn't hit every note perfectly, but 90% of them were sharp, clear and crisp. The way trumpets are supposed to sound. It also helps that Jacob gets all the good parts in Jamestown songs.
Honorable mentions: Will Morritz TC '12 (especially in "Indigo") and Chris Krasnow
Raddest Solo: Nathan Prillaman. Hard to argue with the guitar behind the head solo.
Honourable mention: Keys of Jamestown Mark Sonneblick MS '12 in "For you my dear"
Most awkward stage presence: Jamestown backup singers Brenden Ternus TC '12 and Emma Barasch PC '11.
Please give this poor duo something to do. Give them a tamborine or something. When they're not singing, they just look like bouncing munchkins —although this might not be a bad thing...
Most ridiculous number: “Weekend”
Did he just seriously photograph the audience???
This song is so much ridiculous. Notice the full 360 trumpet pirouette and the fact that the munchkins seem to be swimming and that the bassist and drummer seem to be the only sane ones on stage. Jamestown explosion. I was singing this to myself throughout reading week, but instead of the "weekend," it was more like the entire reading period. Oh oh oh oh I don't know. Where did the whole week go?
Have a great summer everyone, and don't be strangers.
Where did the year go?
Z
