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the Racquette
Arts & Entertainment
March 25, 2016
Dad Culture Records Showcases Variety Rebecca Augustine Staff Writer
Dad Culture Records is a Potsdam Community Record Label that was founded by SUNY Potsdam students Abby Cowan, Liam Kingsley, William Suarez, Israel Payero-Cabral, Mike Bruns, Luke Butterfield, Bobby Rosato, Sarah Chappell and Jake Cohen. Dad Culture Records is not only a record label, but also puts up house shows in different locations throughout Potsdam. It started with frustrated musicians with bands that wanted to play, but had nowhere to go. Before DCR, there was Gillian Orwell, who was once a member of the band “Max and Jillian.” They started the snow ball of hosting house shows in different locations where local bands could jam. One of these bands was “Josie and the Neverending Sadness,” a band that consisted of many of the DCR founders including Kingsley, Bruns, PayeroCabral, Rosato and including Potsdam students Sam Lasky and Devyn Halter. “And then all of a sudden, bands started forming in Potsdam,” Kingsley said. Before the sophomore year for the DCR founders, and before Orwell started hosting shows, Kingsley said that there were only really two options for expression: playing at either Hurley’s or at the Battle of the Bands. “You really had to work hard in a pretty unrewarding environment,” Kingsley said. The founders were highly active in music scene before coming to Potsdam. Suarez said that he played regularly in his high school. He
Dad Culture Records brings people together for the love of music.
also said that his transition from his high school music environment was challenging. “To not have a venue or an outlet to do any of that [music] was very frustrating and [to] have people who obviously cared, but no place to put them on was very frustrating,” Suarez said. When Orwell graduated, the founding nine felt partly responsible to keep the music scene alive. “There needs to be something else,” Kingsley said. “We can’t just stop now. We were all really into that.” Kingsley said that the idea behind DCR was talked extensively about in two long car rides to two different shows, one between Kingsley and Payero-Cabral and another between Kingsley and Suarez.
When brought up to the other founding members, Kingsley said that “everyone was cool with it, and we voted on a name for the record.” What makes DCR important to the music community in Potsdam is that it is an organization. Specifically focused on the fact that soon the founders will graduate, most of them are seniors right now, the community needs to continue on, which resides in the fact that it was so frustrating for the young artists in the beginning. As an organization, DCR is also able to hold the seven values very close to the purpose of their record label: Fostering, Enhancing, Facilitation, Acceptance, Promotion, Encouraging Artistic Community and Safe Space. DCR’s seven values are meant to “undermine oppres-
Ari Roman
sion”, to welcome diversity, and to make it so that, “everybody can feel as though it is their community. Not just tolerates them, but welcomes them and how,” Kingsley said. Racism, sexism, transphobia is not welcome at Dad Culture Records. Cowan said that oppression and value judgments are far too common in American culture today. “There are certain genres of music that are inherently oppressive or sometimes there are bands or even songs that can be oppressive,” Cowan said. How they decide on what band’s to sign is a pretty relaxed process. Following their seven values is their only request, Cowan said. “We want someone practiced and original,” Cowan said. “We don’t want someone to come play covers.”
They not only host and support the local bands, but they also bring up out-of-town bands. Bands that have played multiple shows including Meal and Flex, Nylon Otters, Bleeding Gums, Boy Goliath, Linda Garzia, Sunflo’er, Marco Polio, Coyote, and Pete Something, We Build Tomorrow. They meet every Tuesday at 8:00 p.m. in locations not determined until that day. In order to be a member, Cowan said that people must show up to three consecutive meetings. Kingsley said that it is important to the club that the community knows that they are open to the public. Member privileges include the ability to help make decisions about what bands to bring up to play in Potsdam. “Dad Culture records is supposed to be a resource for the community,” Kingsley said. “So it’s not about people that are in it. We hope that in five years, there is a Dad Culture Records that has none of the people that are in it now.” For audience members, Dad Culture Records shows are an amazingly unique college experience. “It’s a really open, amazing environment,” said Starr Williams, a sophomore at SUNY Potsdam. “Going to a Dad Culture show is a real experience, the music is always incredible and it kind of makes who you were and who you want to be drop away so it’s just you and the music and nothing else matters.” Check out their facebook page for events and updates.
A Musical Affair with a Latin Flair Alexis Donnelly Staff Writer
There always seems to be a buzz of energy in a concert hall minutes before a performance begins. People examine the program, chat with their friends and shuffle to find open seats. The Sara M. Snell Music Theater was full of this electric excitement at 7:25 p.m. on Friday March 18, right before the Crane Latin Ensemble began its concert. At some performances, such as that of a solemn requiem, this energy may disappear when the music begins, but at a Latin Ensemble event it remains for the whole night. The name of this concert was “¡Ven Baila con Nosotros!” which is Spanish for “Come Dance with Us!” This title was fitting, as the jazzy music prompted many people to dance in the aisles at various points
throughout the performance. It is difficult to resist the temptation to let it all hang loose when the trumpets blare, the bongos boom and the hips of the vocalists shimmy with the beat. Though I enjoy any performance I attend at the Crane School of Music, I am especially drawn to the Latin Ensemble because my knowledge of the Spanish language allows me to form a deeper connection to the music. While the members do a wonderful job of translating a portion of the lyrics before each song begins, I still feel a rush of rebellion when I listen to the vocalists sing, as if I know a secret of which almost no one else is informed. However, I know by the smiles on the faces of the rest of the audience members that anyone can immensely enjoy the music of the Latin Ensemble.
Though sometimes someone’s sheet music may fall off a stand while a soloist goes to stand in place, a note may crack as a trumpet player reaches the height of his range, or a vocalist’s dance moves may remind an audience member of a baby velociraptor, no one can deny the talent that this group of twenty-four musicians exudes. Each note is made with pure beauty and transports the listener to a Latin American country, where there may be hardships but there is also love and joy. One of my favorite pieces of the night was “Qué Lío,” which means “What a mess.” Brian Schuh, the vocal soloist of this song, said before the song began that it told the story of a man who couldn’t marry the woman he loved because she was romantically involved with his best friend. What a mess! Most of the songs in the
concert featured Schuh and two talented women vocalists, Jessie Moran and Melisa Baena. However, this song employed four male instrumentalists as back-up voices instead, in order to create the right mood for the piece. In addition to the vocals, there were parts for the piano, trombones, percussion and bass. As with all of the songs, the musicians who were not performing in the number left the stage. “Qué Lío” stood out to me not only because of the unique back-up singers, but because of the mood the song set. Schuh’s voice seemed to echo throughout the theater, creatively a hauntingly beautiful resonance. Unfortunately, one can’t simply look up the song on the internet, because no recording will have the same impact as being in the room where it happened.
Despite my attraction to this specific song, I was pleased by all seven songs on the program. Each introduced a new melody and a new experience to the audience members that kept them wanting more. The ensemble recognized this desire for more and satisfied it by playing an encore after their last official song, “La Vida es Carnival.” People went crazy as the music began again and the instrumentalists made their way into the crowd. Some stood on the stairs, others in the rows of seats, playing “uno más” for the excited listeners. Unfortunately, no performance can last forever, and this additional song truly was the last one of the night. However, the passion of the musicians and the energy of the audience will continue to lift my spirits until I am one day able to see the Crane Latin Ensemble perform again.