By Zac Taylor
Managing Editor

Kate Chadbourne

Lauren Passarelli and her friend and colleague Kate Chadbourne treated the Red Room attendees to an inspiring clinic on coaxing out your muse last Tuesday, February 23. Passarelli, a professor in the guitar department, and Chadbourne, a songwriter, pianist and harpist, unabashedly revealed personal strategies about their respective writing processes with regards to creative islands of time as well as stubborn droughts that any creative person is bound to experience.

“I love listening to bootlegs of my heroes,” said Passarelli. “You get to see how great of editors these artists were. They’re just like us.” The discussion eventually included questions and responses from people in the audience, many of whom were students and faculty. “If you can muck around, you can make music,” Chadbourne said.

The discussion veered into the often fickle territory of the creative process. “Give yourself music like you give yourself vitamins,” Chadbourne said, who also teaches at Harvard. She encourages her students to push the envelope with regards to what they consume on the literary side of things, including children’s books, scholarly articles, newspapers, and lyrics. “Coast, and then push,” she said.

Lauren Passarelli

The two songwriters played only snippets of their songs in an effort to save some time and to point out certain aspects of roadblocks they encountered, and how they broke through them. “Don’t let anyone ever make your instrument into your enemy,” Passarelli said. “If someone gives you advice that makes you feel like writing more,” Chadbourne chimed in, “then it’s good advice. If it makes you feel like shutting down and curling up into a little ball, then it’s bad advice.” The two mentors bid good afternoon to the fellow creators in the room with a duet entitled “What Does the Wind Say?,” with Chadbourne on harp and Passarelli on guitar.

Russell Lacy performs at the Red Room. Photo by Zac Taylor.

By Zac Taylor
Managing Editor

This past Saturday at the Red Room was a rootsy, soulful evening of blues-infused indie Americana. Opening the show was Russell Lacy, who’s often a lead gun for hire for a handful of country rock bands in the neighborhood. He welcomed the crowd by playing all by his lonesome, accompanying himself with either a 6-string or 12-string acoustic guitar, sultry fingerstyle pickin’, bluesy harmonia riffin’, and boot heel-stompin.’ Audience members sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the stage, and stood in the back, to take in the heartfelt tunes likes “Sweet Virginia” and “Angelina.” Imagine Ray Lamontagne took some delta blues guitar lessons and sang with a little more old-timey twang. Pedal Steelist Tommy Bohlen sat in on a couple of numbers, which was a welcomed addition to this tasty appetizer of acoustic blues.

Next up were local darlings Nini+Ben, who have since morphed into a quintet, since guitar slinger extraordinaire Johnny Duke is Nashville-bound. Their Americana-meets-Norah Jones sound has been perfected over the last few months with relentless touring in support of their debut LP The Reasons We Try. Tommy Bohlen’s pedal steel melts into the thumpin’ groove provided by bassist Derek McWilliams and drummer Jake Cohen. The chemistry between lead singer Nini Fabi and her beau Ben Gebert is undeniably moving. Crowd-pleasers “Shine” and “Mother” held a firm grip on the audience, many of whom were singing along to just about every tune.

New York-based trio the Spring Standards closed the evening with an energetic set of lead-singer-switching indie pop. The experience of James, Heather, and James definitely comes across with their impeccably-crafted tunes and engaging performance.

Music Business Chair Don Gorder, Gerry Barad, and Jeff Dorenfeld. Photo by Cierra Walker.

By Zac Taylor
Managing Editor

“I always subscribe to the theory that luck is hard work disguised,” Gerry Barad said at David Friend Recital Hall Friday afternoon. As the COO of Live Nation Global Touring, Barad was invited as this year’s Zafris Distinguished Lecturer to talk to a crowd of music business-savvy students. The bulk of the lecture was mediated by Music Business Professor Jeff Dorenfeld, who has been working with Barad in the touring industry since 1978.

“The entertainment field has been very good to me,” Barad said, a Vancouver-native who worked his way up to COO after working in practically every avenue of the industry. He gave anecdotes about booking a show with the Police in the late 1970s in front of 600 people, trying to manage dodgy punk bands, and how the touring industry has changed over the last 30 years from being mainly regional, then to national, and now, global.

Barad oversees the current U2 tour, which is the largest scale live show production to date by a landslide. The gigantic display that careens over Bono’s head weighs over 200 tons, with a single bolt weighing 40 lbs. A single ticket at any seat in the house for this U2 show could have fetched a few hundred bucks (many of them did), but Barad explained the pricing structure and the fan-friendly strategy in rates, as decided by the band. “At the end of the day, the artist controls what the tickets are sold for,” he said.

Joining the entourage of U2, Sting, Peter Gabriel, the Eagles, the latest addition to Barad’s prestigious clientele is Lady Gaga, who is planning a world tour of Madonna-sized proportions. “She’s the best artist I’ve seen in 20 years,” he said. “We need to find more artists like her.”

He also touched on a fairly new concept to live touring called dynamic pricing, which the Eagles are using on their current tour. “I call it ‘Robin Hood scaling’—the rich can pay for the poor,” Barad said of dynamic pricing, which theorizes that the front row should cost more than the second row, and the last row should cost less than the next to last row. Barad also stated that he was a fan of “all-in” pricing, which would make the price of a ticket singular and transparent, without any extra charges after the listed price.

Many of the students inquired as to what they should be focusing on as young artists and entrepreneurs; Barad’s message was simple: “There are no shortcuts. You have to do the work.”

By Zac Taylor
Managing Editor

Scorcese and Leo are back together in the uber creepy genre film Shutter Island. Based on the novel by Dennis Lehane (author of Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone), rest assured that there will be no rest in the dire and tragic nature of this compelling mystery. Set on an island on the Massachusetts’ coast, the film welcomes you with Federal Marshall Teddy Daniels (DiCaprio) vomiting in a closet-sized washroom on a boat en route to Shutter Island, accompanied by new partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a very dangerous patient. After finding out that the premises is nothing more than an asylum for the criminally insane consisting of three buildings: one for men, one for women, and one extra scary one for the most vicious of inmates…er…patients, an aggressive storm overtakes the island, and a Jurassic Park-like scenario breaks out; the power lines go down, insane criminals run amok, and it rains like hell.

 Throughout the film, Teddy is not well. He suffers from migraines, has dreams about his deceased wife, and is often overwhelmed by his hunch that he is being lied to by the entire staff of the asylum, especially head physician Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley). With all of these factors weighing on his brain, he begins to wonder who he can trust: his partner, the patients who know about his past, or even himself.

Why did he have to surrender his gun when we got to the island? How did the serial killer patient disappear through the steel door? Why is everyone so uneasy around him? What goes on inside of the guarded lighthouse? Prepare yourself for some sharp left turns.

The film is not so much scary as it is creepy. Scorcese’s masterful direction and Laeta Kalogridis’ screenplay adaptation of the novel have a merciless grab on the hollow in your chest. While some creative liberties were taken, and some of the action became droning, rainstorm after rainstorm, the film is nonetheless consistently compelling. Excellent performances by DeCaprio, Ruffalo, and Kingsley will make you glad it’s over when it is, but also want to see it again after the many sleight-of-hands.

Michael Greenberg: Blue
By Zac Taylor
Managing Editor

If Sublime reunited for an unplugged show produced by Coldplay with some splatters of sequencing, you might get an idea of Michael Greenberg’s debut LP Blue. The record kicks off with the title track that grabs you with a crisp arrangement and slick harmonica playing. The young songwriter shows a mature voice with this upbeat tune about growth, and follows it with a smooth, R&B-tinged groove “Song to Remember.”

Greenberg sings with a subtle Chris Martin inflection on “Best of Us Die,” and it may sound like a Coldplay tune if it weren’t for the reggae groove, which steers it into Jack Johnson territory. The tune would be impeccably crafted for the pop medium, were it not for a very live-show-feeling arrangement including a breakdown (“Bring it back now”) and a lengthy acoustic guitar solo, but hey—you got to get the licks in somewhere.

The next couple tracks are perhaps the most ambitious of the collection. In “Death of a Son,” Greenberg narrates a solemn tale of a fallen hero over an 8-piece string section composed and conducted by George Woods; “We Need Help” is just over two minutes of ominous pleading over MIDI sequencing. These two sonic tapestries nicely offset the more straightforward songs.

“Portrait of Katy” is a bona fide hip-hop track. Songs like this rarely work, and usually fall into the despicable genre of lame white-boy rap. But this song’s honesty and cleverness is consistently engaging, centering around the hook, “it’s hard living with the fact that you’re running around my mind and not my body.” The delivery, rhyme, and instrumentation would impress G-Love or even Hova himself.

“I am not your friend, and I won’t settle for foe,” is the first line of “See You Through,” a slow groove that could function as a Justin Timberlake B-side in both its sensuality and plainness.

Greenberg brings the reggae back on the Jason Mraz-y “Say Something Useful” and closes out the record with “Keep On,” a well-rounded, optimistic anthem that would not be out of place on Steve Miller’s Greatest Hits.

Blue is a satisfying first installment from this talented musician, who clearly has the writing, playing, and singing chops to get the material out of his heart and into a tune.

Every band and artist on the new roster of Heavy Rotation Records sat down with BerkleeGroove.com to talk about their lives, music and dreams of success. Click on their name and picture to read their full interviews.

By Ann Driscoll
Associate Editor

Air Traffic Controller has been packing clubs around Boston with their post-Beatles, pre-Radiohead brand of good ol’ fashion pop/rock. The brainchild of lead singer/songwriter Dave Munro (who was an actual air traffic controller in the U.S. Navy), the group garnered some significant buzz when MTV nominated them for the 2009 Best Breakout Boston Artist Award. Their late-2009 debut LP The One is loaded with the characteristics that make their live shows so engaging: charmingly direct melodies, rousing shout choruses, earnest lyrics, and the vocals of Munro, whose likable yet cynical timbre and well-controlled intonation may qualify him as one of the best male vocalists in Boston. 

Dave Munro of Air Traffic Controller. Photo by Sergei Pyuro

Produced by power-pop purveyor and Berklee alumnus Bleu (who has worked with Jellyfish and Boys Like Girls), The One is graced with a radio-ready sheen, and Bleu brings in heavy background vocals that amplify the Traveling Wilburys influence already apparent in ATC’s repertoire. “Can’t Let Go” boasts enormous amounts of antiphonal background vocals stacked upon themselves with a propulsive snare drum backbeat, much like the Wilburys’ “The End of the Line.”  The album’s catchy stand-out track “You Think You Know” features whirring U2-like lead guitar and more intensely layered, shout-vocals which build the arrangement in unpredictable ways. “Bad Axe, MI” whose chorus shouts “One more song! One more song!” (you can guess where the band places this one in their set-list) features at least 30 vocalists. Dave’s brother Rich drums with muscular simplicity, giving the songs space for production embellishments.

Munro’s lyrics are nostalgic for one’s youth but accepting of adulthood, lightly focusing on love lost and rarely veering into dark territory. The title track is emblematic of the lyrical content at large: “The one I loved, the one I hated/I guess I should have appreciated/Can you feel me reaching toward ya?/In this song, I wrote it for ya.” With self-deprecating asides, “I may be sounding like an ass/But I’m just behaving like a man” (“Don’t You Tell Me What To Do”) and self-reflexive wit, “It’s plain good rock ‘n’ roll/With Beatles influence” (“Bad Axe, MI”), the emotional tone of the record is unpretentious and good-natured. 

The One nods towards classic rock without reaching. Bleu’s production keeps the arrangements fresh and unpredictable without drawing too much attention to itself. Most importantly, Dave Munro’s crystal-clear vocals sing melodies worthy of his influences: Tom Petty, Fleetwood Mac, and The Wilburys. Though Munro sighs with resignation, “Maybe this Boston music scene is just a myth,” on one tune, Air Traffic Controller is bringing much-needed national attention, talent, and sincerity to local music. The One will likely bring the band fresh licensing opportunities and more national exposure.

By Phillip Lewis
Contributing Writer

The dynamic English pop and R&B singer Leona Lewis is back, better than ever. On November 17, she released her second album Echo under J Records in the U.S. and through Sony Music worldwide. She first rose to fame in 2006 after winning season three of the British television series “The X Factor,” a show similar to “American Idol”. In November of the following year, she released her first album Spirit, which became a huge success.

Similar to her first album, Echo is emotionally moving with “dance floor anthems” and ballads that touch the heart. Lewis’ vocals sound fantastic on this album putting her all into every record. The music is not only great to listen to but gives powerful and positive messages. The first single “Happy” encourages people to not hold back and do the things that make their lives better.

In a recent interview with Variety magazine, Leona said, “I wanted the album to have a bit more of a live feel to it, with more live instrumentation.” Produced by One Republic’s Ryan Tedder, “Happy” does just that. It’s a ballad that begins with piano and heavy yet beautiful strings. Live drums are added in the chorus that complements her voice well. Echo gives the world a clear understanding of who Leona Lewis is and what she believes.