I actually have two posts two write about when it comes to making music with a good friend of mine, Tom Murphy. I felt like after tonight, with his band, far more talented and successful than anything we ever created together, winning the campus battle-of-the-bands for the spot of opening for MGMT on spring weekend, I should write about something related.
Coming into college, there were 21 of us from my high school class entering Fordham as freshman. I don't know for a fact if that is the most from one school, but I would have to imagine it must be close. Funny thing about that is that it was not a school around here. We aren't from the West Coast but we are also much further than some other schools with close ties to Fordham, especially Fordham's own Prep school which shares the same campus.
I was rooming with a very close friend of mine from said high school and had a couple other close friends of mine who were part of that 21. But there are some kids in this group that I had known, spent time with, and become friendly with in high school but never got really close. Tom Murphy and Warren Rati and not people who I would have expected to get closer with in coming here.
Two weeks into the school year, and they were the people I was seeing the most. Warren lived down the hall from me and Tom in a different dorm building, but they basically were my 3rd and 4th roommates. I think I can actually remember a few times where I came home from class and they, at least Tom, were already in. They learned, early on, that with a student ID card you could easily get my dorm room door open.
We made a lot of music that year. It was never developed or planned or anything like that. We had a keyboard in the room, and sometimes two, and a few acoustic guitars, and we would all just jam for awhile. Someone would decide on a chord progression or maybe just a key and that would be enough guidance for 20-30 minutes at a time. It didn't matter who was talented or not, we just played off of what the other person was doing. There was a time where we developed a serious obsession with 'Lux Aeterna' which is the famous piece of music composed by Clint Mansell for the film Requiem For A Dream.
Whether it was on two separate keyboards or double teaming one keyboard, Tom and I would play the full quartet's worth of string pieces. This was intense stuff, too. If you've never heard the piece, or if it's been awhile - do yourself a favor and check out it out on youtube. It is fantastic.
This rendition of ours was so intense that everyone would just sit in silence, we would turn the lights off, and then we'd just go at it, and when it reached the climax it was like a rock song, but it was just two dudes playing synth strings on a cheap keyboard. All you had to do was close your eyes and you could get there, letting it engulph you.
Tom and I took a few stabs and creating our own music as well. One night in our first semester, we carried over my computer, some speakers, a bunch of cables, my electric guitar, and some other things and set up in a music room in one of the buildings on campus. We played a lot of different things and were probably down in that 8 by 10 room for several hours playing nothing in particular. We did manage to get something recorded that night. It is nothing exceptional and most of it was done in one take, but it's just a reminder of that whole dynamic. I don't think there was ever more than one day off between our spontaneous music sessions. I loved every second of them. There was never any pressure to create something or to impress anyone. Instead it was just a natural occurrence, with anywhere from 2 to 5 people contributing to music that had never been created exactly how this was and would never create it that way again. There is something incredible about situations like that, as quickly as the moment occurs, and the music is made, it is gone, and never reproduced.
I really do miss those sessions.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Manhattan
When I first came to Fordham, it was the Spring of my senior year of high school. I would come to the campus one more time before move in day. These were my first two encounters with New York, and neither of them brought me anywhere close to midtown.
I do not remember the exact day that I moved in. I remember that it was the end of August. Less than a week had passed before the gates of the campus could no longer hold us in. I had met a few people and it was time to go to the city. It may have been the first weekend following classes, about 10 of us walked that long, long walk from Alumni Court North (or South - for a few!) all the way up to the Grand Concourse D Station. This was also my first encounter with the very intimidating New York Subway System. It felt almost like I had gone to this massive for-grown-ups playground, a playground nonetheless, and been left there to discover everything on my own. There was no guide, there was no experienced member in the group, and certainly no parent or guardian. The ten or twelve of us, probably looking like prime targets, or at best, stupid tourists, shuffled onto a car in the subway, and we were off. The mission was discovery, and the journey was as colorful as any trip on the Subway can be.
The D stop in Manhattan is about a block from Times Square. The second you reach the street level you can see the light. It's like there is still an area of the city where the sun's light has been trapped, keeping it perpetually day time. In a way, that is almost how Times Square is. There are more people there walking around into the morning than there are in many other places during the day. Luckily, because 42nd and seventh is so bright it might as well just have a spot light beam shooting up from it a la Vegas. This helped guide us to the promised land, or at least that is how it feels the first time you see it.
I remember walking into Times Square, past the ESPN Zone, turning the corner and being pummled with flashing lights, monster-billboards and t.v. screens. It was like a cliched movie moment, totally touristy, and I did not care. I just looked up, walking slowly, and just soaked it all in. I had been in college about a week. I still talked to my parents probably every day, and so I was not totally convinced I had moved on, yet. But when I got to Times Square, it sunk it. I was in New York City. Arguably the most incredible city in the world, the center of the universe. Not only was I here, but I was no tourist (though I did not hide it well). I was here to stay for the next four years of my life, and this, all of this, was to be my backyard.
I don't think we made it anywhere other than up and back down the strip of Times Square and then back to the D. All the while we would stop and take pictures, documenting, proving that we were here and this was ours. That night I discovered that in NY people don't just ask for money on the subway, but they perform for it. I learned that stores can have Ferris Wheels in them and that be normal. And I learned that I was in college in the best possible place to spend my first four years on my own. It did not matter that we saw 1% of the city, or that we saw the most tourist attracted, busiest, and least interesting (when you get past the glow) area. I know every one of us in that group got back on the subway and felt aboslutely ecstatic at the realization that we were here and no where else.
I know a bunch of people visit New York at some point in their lives, and I know some within that group had already seen what I was seeing. I know they still felt what I felt because before they were visiting, and now they weren't. This was home. This is home. At least for a few more weeks.
I do not remember the exact day that I moved in. I remember that it was the end of August. Less than a week had passed before the gates of the campus could no longer hold us in. I had met a few people and it was time to go to the city. It may have been the first weekend following classes, about 10 of us walked that long, long walk from Alumni Court North (or South - for a few!) all the way up to the Grand Concourse D Station. This was also my first encounter with the very intimidating New York Subway System. It felt almost like I had gone to this massive for-grown-ups playground, a playground nonetheless, and been left there to discover everything on my own. There was no guide, there was no experienced member in the group, and certainly no parent or guardian. The ten or twelve of us, probably looking like prime targets, or at best, stupid tourists, shuffled onto a car in the subway, and we were off. The mission was discovery, and the journey was as colorful as any trip on the Subway can be.
The D stop in Manhattan is about a block from Times Square. The second you reach the street level you can see the light. It's like there is still an area of the city where the sun's light has been trapped, keeping it perpetually day time. In a way, that is almost how Times Square is. There are more people there walking around into the morning than there are in many other places during the day. Luckily, because 42nd and seventh is so bright it might as well just have a spot light beam shooting up from it a la Vegas. This helped guide us to the promised land, or at least that is how it feels the first time you see it.
I remember walking into Times Square, past the ESPN Zone, turning the corner and being pummled with flashing lights, monster-billboards and t.v. screens. It was like a cliched movie moment, totally touristy, and I did not care. I just looked up, walking slowly, and just soaked it all in. I had been in college about a week. I still talked to my parents probably every day, and so I was not totally convinced I had moved on, yet. But when I got to Times Square, it sunk it. I was in New York City. Arguably the most incredible city in the world, the center of the universe. Not only was I here, but I was no tourist (though I did not hide it well). I was here to stay for the next four years of my life, and this, all of this, was to be my backyard.
I don't think we made it anywhere other than up and back down the strip of Times Square and then back to the D. All the while we would stop and take pictures, documenting, proving that we were here and this was ours. That night I discovered that in NY people don't just ask for money on the subway, but they perform for it. I learned that stores can have Ferris Wheels in them and that be normal. And I learned that I was in college in the best possible place to spend my first four years on my own. It did not matter that we saw 1% of the city, or that we saw the most tourist attracted, busiest, and least interesting (when you get past the glow) area. I know every one of us in that group got back on the subway and felt aboslutely ecstatic at the realization that we were here and no where else.
I know a bunch of people visit New York at some point in their lives, and I know some within that group had already seen what I was seeing. I know they still felt what I felt because before they were visiting, and now they weren't. This was home. This is home. At least for a few more weeks.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Very Soon!
I will be posting my college moments very soon. I need to get through this one major assignment first. Hopefully I will have something for you tomorrow night.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Welcome!
Hello!
For the next two months this space will serve the purpose of allowing me to put down, for myself and others, some moments over the past four years of my life that stand out. About a week about, a friend of mine had mentioned making a 'Greatest Hits' list of college. This being inspired by Charlie's Greatest Hits list from the television show Lost. Prior to this, I had been thinking about college, about my time here, and how fast you can lose four years of your life. That is not to say that my college years are 'lost' or at all to be looked at as 'wasted'. Instead I use the word lose in the sense that, despite all of these memories, I still sit here, 6 weeks from graduation, and wonder how it is that I am graduating college, that it is 2010, that I am into my 20s, and am searching for a job, and not just one for the summer.
I can't begin to try to briefly sum up my college experience, nor can I try to rank the events in my life that have transpired while at Fordham. That is where I got the idea of creating a series of entries that would reflect on individual moments that stand out to me. As such, they will be in no particular order. I have thought about this for a little while now and have a strong preliminary list. It is not a complete list, however, as I hope that the next 6 weeks will spawn several more.
Starting tomorrow, I will be posting about an entry a day, chronicling what this all has been like. I still intend to keep my other blog site running, posting my BREADCRUMBS and blogging about life in general. I just felt it was more appropriate to separate these entries from my regular blog.
I hope you enjoy!
For the next two months this space will serve the purpose of allowing me to put down, for myself and others, some moments over the past four years of my life that stand out. About a week about, a friend of mine had mentioned making a 'Greatest Hits' list of college. This being inspired by Charlie's Greatest Hits list from the television show Lost. Prior to this, I had been thinking about college, about my time here, and how fast you can lose four years of your life. That is not to say that my college years are 'lost' or at all to be looked at as 'wasted'. Instead I use the word lose in the sense that, despite all of these memories, I still sit here, 6 weeks from graduation, and wonder how it is that I am graduating college, that it is 2010, that I am into my 20s, and am searching for a job, and not just one for the summer.
I can't begin to try to briefly sum up my college experience, nor can I try to rank the events in my life that have transpired while at Fordham. That is where I got the idea of creating a series of entries that would reflect on individual moments that stand out to me. As such, they will be in no particular order. I have thought about this for a little while now and have a strong preliminary list. It is not a complete list, however, as I hope that the next 6 weeks will spawn several more.
Starting tomorrow, I will be posting about an entry a day, chronicling what this all has been like. I still intend to keep my other blog site running, posting my BREADCRUMBS and blogging about life in general. I just felt it was more appropriate to separate these entries from my regular blog.
I hope you enjoy!
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