Abigail Devora

Helen Cronin

Lizbette Ocasio-Russe

Jim Gallagher

Rega Jha

Amanda Katz

Anthony Benigno

Navjot Sobti

Carolyn Keogh

Editor

Edward Chu

Web Design

Shannon Geis

Devin Chanda

General Managers

Cody Thomas

Dominic Marcella

Ethereal vocals and poetic lyrics craft Beach House’s newly released Teen Dream. This is the third album by the Baltimore indie pop outfit comprised of Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally.

The duo creates calming compositions that put the listener at ease. In the band’s single, “Norway”, Legrand’s voice lightly layers itself on top of already beautiful drum and guitar instrumentals. Distorted, yet mesmeric guitar harmonies played by Scally add to the dreamy quality and accompany the chanteuse as she starts the first verse.

Beach House complements its ambient sound with expertly composed verses rivaling that of Lord Byron. “Lover of Mine” starts off with, “Hear my cry, lover of mine/no tear in my eye or fear in my mind/the forest is thick and you don’t recognize/we parted our lips and reached from inside.” Okay, nobody can compare to Lord Byron, but there is no denying the romanticism created and the Valentine’s Day dedication potential in this song.

Teen Dream provides great background music for such amorous times (according to its MySpace, next to “Sounds Like”, it says “making out”), but it also offers a soothing soundtrack for just lying in bed. Period. After listening to this album by Beach House, you will want to revisit it again and again.

Lady Gaga glowed onstage, kicking off the last leg of “The Monster Ball Tour” and her final night at Radio City Music Hall on January 24.

Wearing a flesh-colored costume adorned with lights, she opened the show with the song, “Dance in the Dark”. Gaga doppelgangers, mothers and their daughters and Whoopi Goldberg were among her fans or “little monsters” as she calls them.

They danced and sang along as she delivered her smash singles, “Poker Face”, “Paparazzi”, and of course, “Just Dance”. These songs all have that can’t-get-it-out-my-head quality, but what some might forget is that this girl has talent.

She showcased a dexterous command of the piano while belting out her beautiful ballad, “Speechless.” Each note and every poignant pause possessed power, proving professional prowess. Lady Gaga dedicated this song to the victims of the earthquake in Haiti to whom every cent made from the day’s ticket, merchandise and online sales was being donated.

She sometimes veered toward more provocative territory. At one point, she clenched her fist and moved it back and forth below her waist.

With numerous costume changes, including a golden ensemble with a Cleopatra-esque headdress, stellar stage setups and tremendous talent, Lady Gaga entertained – and was meant to. During an acoustic performance of “Poker Face,” she mentioned that she no longer “waits tables on Cornelia Street.” She made it all the way to the Avenue of Americas between 50th and 51st Street. Radio City Music Hall.

Two years ago, Lil Wayne’s cockamamie plan to make a rock album called Rebirth has raised a lot of eyebrows and a lot of questions. Does Wayne know the first thing about how to make a rock song? And even if he does, would it be any good? And even if it were, why would the self-proclaimed Greatest Rapper Alive decide to try his hand as an axeman?

The answers: more or less, yes, and because he felt like it. Wayne can structure a solid rock song as well as he does with rap; it’s his lyricism that needs work.

For the most part, Wayne takes a page from Fred Durst’s book and spins emo-esque tales of a high school loner and the girls who reject him. “Prom Queen,” the album’s first single and biggest hit, sounds like a seventh-grade dork anthem: lost, hurt, and a little confused. In other cases, it seems like he wrote a bunch of hip-hop lyrics and tried to sing them, which can make for some awkward moments. Rapping the line “hey Barbie/are you into black men?/hey Barbie/well I can be your black Ken, ” is a feasible task; it’s the kind of clever wordplay we expect from Lil Wayne. Slathering Wayne in Auto-Tune and having him singing those lines is a less appealing idea.

Still, even with the missteps, Rebirth is a mostly positive endeavor. It’s hard not to admire Lil Wayne’s tenacity and passion even for a project that, at least at the moment, is a little outside his range. And, when a song clicks, Wayne fires on all cylinders (why the eerie, funky “Hot Revolver” was dropped from the album remains a mystery). “Drop the World”, for example, is a solid rocker (minus that terrible hook) and features a furious guest spot from Eminem.

There’s also “Ground Zero,” the album’s best track and one of the few that manages to blend his rap lyrics and rock-star style into something that works. Over a pounding drum beat and squealing guitars, Wayne snarls, “walk on air/show me to the edge and I’ll walk off there.” Maybe that’s a clue as to why he tried something like Rebirth; who knows? In any case, it’s applicable. He doesn’t quite fly this trip off the edge, but chances are he’ll take the leap again, so it’s probably best to think of Rebirth as a test run of sorts.

Ready to shock-rock like it’s 1999? The late ‘90s are long gone, but Rob Zombie, one of the patron saints of horror metal, is still hard at work pumping out kitschy, thumping arena-shakers with titles like “Werewolf, Baby!” and “Mars Needs Women.”

As if to illustrate his point, he’s named his latest record Hellbilly Deluxe 2, a sequel to his 1998 solo debut. These days Zombie is less known for his music than his budding career as a cult filmmaker, but HD2 shows he’s still going strong as a rocker.

Granted, there’s nothing here as iconic as “Dragula,” but Zombie at least does the smart thing and overloads the record with as much schlock as he can; the big misstep of ‘06’s Educated Horses was trying to play it straight.

This also means that nothing on Hellbilly Deluxe 2 is particularly new. In fact a lot of it is basically retread; most of it has been done better before by Zombie or others. Still, there are pleasures to be had. The single “What?” is perfect mosh-pit fodder, and in a perfect world, the chorus “Mars needs women/angry red women” would be the new “Pants on the Ground.”

It all adds up to about what you’d expect, which turns out to be both a knock against the album as well as a mark of its success. Hellbilly Deluxe 2 is kind of like those cheesy haunted houses at carnivals: they’ve long lost their luster as something genuinely unsettling, but there are still worse rides out there. In any case, it’ll make the Ozzfest crowd go nuts just the same.

“I think getting back together would take the lid off…and possibly change what to me [seemed] like the perfect lifespan [for] the band. I can’t think of any reason to mess with that.”

The above would be a short extract of Cornell’s statement just a good three years ago, post the disbanding of Seattle-based Soundgarden. From a group that had coalesced from the tiny bits and pieces of the Shemps, a.k.a. the cover band they first formed as, they treaded musical grounds much vaster than your average radio single popper (let alone local cover band). Taking shape within the movement and subculture of grunge as it were, the band graced fans with the psychedelic-meets-metal canvas of Ultramega OK and the equally somber compositions on Superunknown. “They came, they saw, they conquered:” a cliché adage that would wrap up the career path of these cats pretty well, until that sad day when the band parted ways and the craptastic tunes otherwise known as Chris Cornell’s solo work began to fill the airwaves.

Years passed, and Soundgarden’s singles slowly climbed the billboards; little did I know, two years old at the time and observing the inverted colors and trippy camera work of “Jesus Christ Pose” on my television screen, that this band would become a sonic staple in my own life. Come middle-school, when I grew out of the manufactured auditory garbage otherwise known as Linkin Park, I began to confide in such introspective, Cornellian lyrics as, “down in the hole, Jesus tried to crack a smile / beneath another shovel load.”

The emotional connection with music that bands like Soundgarden fostered in me only catalyzed my ascent into the world of heavy metal. What’s more was my frustration that I’d picked up Superunknown a bit too late, that I’d been born in the wrong decade: discovering the band so late as to merely be able to catch Chris Cornell live, solo (a snippet off of the original package: yes, the original package – Soundgarden – who’d been playing the stages of NYC while I was twiddling my thumbs, frying a few dozen neurons in an SAT exam room, circa spring 2006…That horrible day when the band decided that they, as so eloquently described by Cornell, had reached their last creative half-life.)

All of this seemingly melodramatic textual buildup, for me to happily type into this Microsoft word screen that Soundgarden has reunited. So, least to say that my regrets of my late conception, prolonged exposure to crappy pop music, etc., all significantly abated.

So, for now, I’m going to flip off my skepticism (of the members’ old ages and Chris’ recent musical track record) to rejoice in this.

“Paparazzi” was an interesting choice for a cover, considering the venue. When L2 performed the Lady Gaga song at the Bitter End this past Dec. 30, it paid homage to the pop star in more ways than one. For those who do not know, Lady Gaga performed at the Bitter End a handful of times during her brief enrollment at NYU.

That celebratory spirit contributes a lot to L2’s stage presence. A more commanding attribute of their performance, though, may lie in their ability to complement each other. They are sisters after all.

“In real life, I’m more outgoing,” said Jessica Labbadia, 17, a high school senior and the younger of the two. “On stage, Melissa is more outgoing.”

L2, formerly known as the Labbadia Sisters, was formed by Jessica and Melissa, 20. They currently live in Norwalk, CT but have recently made an effort to establish a presence in Manhattan’s heralded music scene. The duo has also graced the stage with well-known pop acts like Ryan Cabrera and Anberlin. It’s safe to say L2 has picked up steam since their humble beginnings.

“Music has been a part of our family since we were so little,” said Jessica. Indeed, Melissa was involved with musical theater at 3.

“We sang together at home, writing music,” said Melissa, referring to their childhood together. The sisters decided to combine their passion for music around middle school age, forming the first incarnation of L2. The sisters began performing consistently when Melissa was only 15, starting with school band nights that slowly evolved into NYC club gigs.

L2 has, admittedly, gone through their fair share of different styles. Recently, the girls have tried to add something new to their pop-rock sound. “We’ve added dance beats,” said Jessica. “It sounds like Katie Perry meets Lady Gaga.” Melissa went on to list more influences; Kelly Clarkson, Pat Benetar, and Joan Jett all included.

Incidentally, with the new sound came newfound success. Recently, their shows have been so well attended that they decided to start hosting meet-and-greets. “The coolest was when we were recognized on the street in New York,” said Melissa, who credited their New York street team as a big part of the process.

The increasing popularity has been a result of hard work, but it doesn’t mean the sisters can start to take any time off. Melissa decided to postpone college in order to do more work for the band, and things have been stressful for Jessica at times, considering that she is also dealing with her last year of high school. “But it’s what I want to do,” said Jessica. “It’s worth the late nights.”

“It’s our life, and we’re used to doing it,” said Melissa.

“It is sad, though,” joked Jessica. Melissa chimed in to help finish the sentence, saying, “When there’s no time to bake cookies for Christmas.”

L2 made one thing clear. They were committed to their music. The most telling sign may have been the freezing cold back room the girls were enduring at the Bitter End. For them, playing in New York was well worth the price. “We love New York,” said Melissa. “It’s so alive.”

While the City is a satisfying place for the girls to broaden their horizons, their goals are much more ambitious. “We would love to tour,” said Melissa. She added that the final piece of the puzzle would be to land a record deal.

While Jessica admitted that she thinks about using her musical abilities to pursue other careers (both girls are still involved in musical theater, and Melissa just finished up her lead role in the off-Broadway performance of “Cleopatra” this summer), Melissa had a different take on the process. “I want to go at music full force,” she said. “Instead of a backup plan, that energy could be used towards the ultimate goal.”

Originally from small-town Jersey, and now a sophomore in Steinhardt, Brent Butler knows for certain that despite any odds, music will be a part of his career. “I guess when you’re a musician in a small farm-town, you have a lot of time to sit around and write songs,” he openly admits.

“I’m not in Recorded Music, I’m not in Composition, I’m not in any of those majors where kids make music for homework and are gearing themselves towards a specific career. For me, it’s always been a ‘free time’ thing. But I know that if I’m going to go anywhere with this, I have to believe in myself. Lil’ Wayne swears he’s the best rapper alive, whether he is or he isn’t, and it’s that confidence – almost arrogance – that allows him to keep putting music out like a fucking monster, like a machine,” he says reverently.

A pertinent question at this point would be: at a school like NYU, where musical talent is more prevalent than much else, what makes Brent Butler relevant? In a school where everyone claims to be a songwriter, and in a city that makes us all artists, why pay any attention?

Butler’s claims to fame include playing at the CAS Block Party 2010, busking at several Subway stations and Washington Square Park, being selected for the finals of Ultra Violet Live 2010, and most recently (and most significantly), recording a live album at The Bitter End, New York’s oldest rock club with “Winter North and Night,” a band that he plays bass for. The album is slated to drop a month from now, before which the band has a host of shows scheduled in both Manhattan and Brooklyn, including UVL on February 25th. Although playing bass is new to Butler, who usually markets himself as a solo act, he acknowledges that “the more aspects of music that I hone in on at different times in my life, the more I will have to feed into, and they’ll help my ability to write songs as a composer.”

Butler was a small-town boy, born and raised in South Jersey (no, not Detroit), where his mother brought him up with country music (he claims to be able to sing along to multiple Dixie Chicks’ albums), while his father barraged him with cutting edge rock n’ roll. “I think him blasting Greenday and Weezer when I was 5 was what made me want to play guitar. I don’t know how that fits into things with a country mom, but that combination probably defines me,” he laughs. Now a singer/songwriter of the pop-rock persuasion, Butler also admits to “an undeniable compulsion to rap from time to time.”

As for the future, Butler knows that one way or another, music will feature in his professional life. “I love, love, love, love, love performing,” he asserts. “But, as a slightly more realistic option than being a breakout music sensation, I want to be a songwriter. Not to set the bar low – if I can make a living out of performing, then that’s awesome – but if not, I could have a very, very fulfilling career doing what the Dream or Kanye are doing.”

Winter North & Night website: www.wnanband.com

Brent Butler’s Fanpage: Search “Brent Butler” on Facebook.

UVL info: http://www.skirballcenter.nyu.edu/calendar/uvl_2010

It’s no surprise that hearing names like Elvis, The Beatles, or David Bowie bring certain melodies to mind. But in a time when an image helps many musicians propel to stardom, memorable songs and choruses do not stand alone. The legacy of many music icons lies not only in their music, but in their persona. Before his white, sparkly suits Elvis had his thrusting pelvis. Before their shaggy beards, the Beatles had their mop hair-dos. And before marrying Iman, Bowie had androgyny down to a tee. Throughout these musicians’ careers, their image played a role almost as paramount as their sound.

With the exhibit, “Who Shot Rock ‘n’ Roll: A Photographic History, 1955 – Present,” which ran from October 30, 2009 to January 30, 2010, the Brooklyn Museum examined the inextricable link between rock and roll and photography. The collection of music videos, concert photos and portraits on display proposed that since its beginnings, the way rock music looks has been almost as important as the way it sounds. Through a collection of famous music iconography, like photos of Mick Jagger, Tina Turner and Michael Jackson, the exhibit showed how integral photographs have been throughout the formation and continuation of rock and roll culture.

Organized into six sections, including ones entitled “Starting Out” and “Fans and the Crowd,” the exhibit pointed out the importance of photographs and video in many musicians’ rise to fame. In fact, the first piece on view in the exhibit was a video of Elvis singing and shaking those infamous hips. Taken by William “Red” Robertson in 1955, the video footage showed how very much music may owe to the pictures and video that put famous musicians on the map.

But besides widely seen photographs and famous footage of rock icons, never-before seen photos were also on view; such as one of Amy Winehouse laying in bed on her wedding night. Photographs like these revealed another aspect of music and photography’s relationship: the intimacy shared by many performers and photographers. An intimate photo of Paul McCartney taken by Linda McCartney was on display next to an impromptu shot of Madonna on the streets of New York.

Although the exhibit ended in January, intimate photographs like these can still be seen in the book, Who Shot Rock ‘n’ Roll: A Photography History, 1955 – Present, written and compiled by Gail Buckland. The book was published in late October and was the origin of the exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum. Buckland, historian and author, served as a guest curator of the museum’s display; which showed some of the 250 photographs that are included in her book. The book touches upon the same central concept as the exhibit: imagery and photography’s undeniable importance in creating the culture and legacy of rock and roll.

Chrissie Hynde, lead singer of the new wave band The Pretenders, once said in regards to rock n’ roll, “It’s not just the music – there’s music and there’s attitude and there’s the image.” The Brooklyn Museum’s “Who Shot Rock ‘n’ Roll” addressed this notion that in rock n’ roll, maybe it is not just about the music.

As the last notes of Randall Woolf’s Motor City Requiem faded away, one couldn’t help but admire his clever, effective use of electronics with piano and string quartet. The samples from Motown songs and beats evoked the dynamics of a bustling city, and as they faded away, leaving only a mournful violin melody over a droning string background, one could see the city fading. Of course, for Mr. Woolf, the use of electronics and influences from other genres to shape the landscape of his pieces is nothing new. However, each of the four pieces members of the Brooklyn Philharmonic performed January 24th as part of the Music Off the Walls series at the Brooklyn Museum showed what diverse results can arise from similar methods. As Mr. Woolf explained in later conversation, he rarely does the same thing twice. This has led to projects like composing a ballet based on Where the Wild Things Are in 1997 and premiering a concerto for rappers and orchestra in Chicago later this year. It has also lead to Mr. Woolf’s position as composer mentor to the Brooklyn Philharmonic’s unorthodox composer fellows- hiphop DJ Evan Vytal and jazz bassist Ryan Brown.

January 24th’s offering was the first in a series curated by these three composers based around a particular gallery at the Brooklyn Museum. Mr. Woolf took Patricia Cronin’s realization of unfinished works of artist Harriet Hosmer as his inspiration to create a concert entitled “Distant Partners, Distant Portraits.” Each work on the program was a collaboration between Mr. Woolf and artists he had never met.

Motor City Requiem was composed for Woolf’s hometown of Detroit, a Motown-inspired piece that mourned the city that once was. Woolf listened to lots of Motown both to find samples and to become familiar with the style so that he could compose a piece based around it. He went back and forth between many different samples, before the right ones fell into place and were orchestrated (back to back, the samples only occupy 20 seconds!) What is interesting in this piece is that the relationship between the live musicians and the electronic sounds is constantly shifting. At the beginning of the piece it seems as if the musicians are accompanying single words (“and”, “please”, “away”), while later there is a call and answer, or the sounds are just part of the background. The quintet part changes between fast dance parts and slow ballads, all strongly in the style of Motown. Woolf, who used to play rock and jazz, considers “classical” a way to prescribe everything that is usually improvised in other genres. While he admits that something is lost in this approach, the cohesion of one person’s vision makes for strong pieces. Although he approaches every piece from a classical perspective, he aims to blur genres instead of forcing one into the box of another. The effect, in this piece, is a fusion of the best of both worlds.

The second piece on the program was Franz Schubert, for string quartet. The piece was inspired by Franz Schubert’s sonatas that successfully integrated songs into strict classical form. Feeling that melody is largely lacking from most modern music, Woolf decided to create a piece that had a minimalist texture but strong melodies. He played around with several different melodies before finding a seamless structure that combined singable melodies with a dense, minimal background. The piece was something of a departure for Woolf in that it involves no electronics. It surprised him that this is becoming one of his most frequently performed pieces though it involves no electronics, proving that it can be difficult to gauge what audiences appreciate. Woolf tries to consider the audience when he composes while staying true to his own aesthetic, though he would not write music that no one likes. Franz Schubert proved successful at achieving Woolf’s vision while also being likable and refreshing.

Played between these pieces was a performance of Debussy’s Hommage a Rameau, itself an interaction between artists, which was then remixed live by pianist Kathleen Supove, bassist Ryan Brown and DJ Evan Vytal. The performance, Woolf’s brainchild, took influences from jazz, hiphop, and modern music, mixing them together to create otherworldly and occasionally sublime reworkings. While jazz and classical music have a history of crossover, it was quite interesting to see a DJ in the mix. Woolf described himself as “rabid” about the turntable and lamented the lack of DJs in classical music. Many DJs he knows are interested in classical music, and Woolf is working on a system of notation so that DJ’s might be better incorporated into the classical music world.

The final piece on the program, Revenge! was a live film score accompaniment to the first stop-animation film created in 1912 by Ladislav Starevich, entitled The Cameraman’s Revenge. After watching the film several times, Woolf decided to compose a tragic and dramatic score, as opposed to the cartoonish Klezmer-style music other composers had used. Writing a score to an already established film as opposed to creating film for a piece was a challenge for Woolf, though the already established contours did cut down on the number of decisions that needed to be made. Unfortunately, the performance was slightly marred by technical problems, but for Woolf that is part of the struggle to integrate electronics into classical music. While electronics are easy to use with the right setup, that set up almost never exists and Woolf has struggled with everything from finding extension cords to malfunctioning click tracks. As he philosophically stated, “anything you don’t do over and over has problems.” However, the expansion of sonorities that occurs when electronics are added as well as joy of experiencing something new and unexplored make the technical difficulties worth the pain.

Mr. Woolf’s compositions have the unique quality of being both stimulating and accessible for those who shy away from modern music. Check out www.randallwoolf.com.