Excelsior

Media Credit: Myspace.com/FirstMenInSpace FIRST MEN IN SPACE: A power group of four sweeping through CUNY and Macauly

After posting "want ads" on the bulletin board in the basement of Boylan, undecided major freshman Steve Flannery lugged his hard black guitar case up the stairs outside to cloudy skies and a sea of moving people.

Flannery, who began playing guitar at age 14, was accepted to Brooklyn College as a Music major but dropped out of the Guitar Ensemble to focus on doing his own thing. He was lucky to meet Mike Kokirtsev, a freshman Business major, and together they have set out to form The Mercurial Effect. Kokirtsev sings and plays guitar, and there's a keyboardist. That leaves only a bassist, a drummer, and maybe a saxophonist to create the experimental and progressive rock/jazz sound they dream of.

Brooklyn College is bubbling with creative and musical talents in an underground scene that has not quite been able to pop its head above the surface and take its first breath of fresh air. The scene is elusive to many, but if you know where to look, you will find a number of amazing bands.

"Everyone is always coming and going, either getting on a train, or bus going somewhere," said freshman Steve Flannery. "People are more concerned about getting back home rather than school it seems."

"A club for musicians would really connect a lot of people, and give a lot of musicians at Brooklyn College a reason to hang around school," said Flannery.

The Brooklyn College campus has left a more positive impression on some other likeminded musicians, though.

Victor Gurbo, a sophomore Fine Arts English major in the Macaulay Honors College, began writing songs since he was 16. He found that the diversity at Brooklyn College and especially his English classes have helped him musically.

"I am a poet before I'm a musician," he said as he tuned a backpack guitar on the sofa in the English major's office.

Victor met Salim Hasbimi through the Macaulay Honors College and joined First Men in Space. Hasbimi is an undecided sophomore set on landing his career somewhere in the music realm.

First Men in Space play "Hendrix/Zeppelin-sounding" tunes and have played at the Macaulay Arts Night held at the Macaulay Honors headquarters and at Polytechnical University. They will be playing at a charity at City College, date to be determined.

Gurbo performed a solo acoustic set in the English major's Open Mic and the Honors College Political Open Mic. It sometimes seems as though people walk by wearing horse blinders, but, "the only roadblock is finding that one step up to talk to people," said Gurbo.

The Welcome Back Bash in the past three years brought a band with a similar story: Find Four. Signed to Bright Star Records, Find Four just released their debut album entitled "Eureka!", which is available to buy at BestBuy, FYE, and iTunes. Brooklyn College alum and employee Derek Rada is the drummer for the high-energy pop punk band. When asked about the music scene at Brooklyn College, singer/guitarist Mike Silecchia said, "Each year we come back, the reaction has been bigger, so there must be something going on!"

Finding Four got their break when they played in the Emergenza Festival, a world-wide Battle of the Bands. Though they just missed the National Finals, they were impressive enough to land a contract with a label. The band is currently working on their first music video.

When Michael Benedetto attended Brooklyn College four years ago, his cousin Anthony Benedetto was president of the Italian Club. He met some other musicians there and that gave him some ground to stand on. If there is a music scene at Brooklyn College, "it's very diverse," said Benedetto. "It's hard to break into."

Even before then, he'd been playing in the band Rattrap Bumpkin, a genuine New York rock band.

"We've played everywhere. You name it, we've played it."

Benedetto quit his job as a sound technician because he "just couldn't sit down anymore." He's now a full time "busker," or street performer, doing what he loves seven days a week: playing music. Last August he went down to New Orleans, when he got caught in Hurricane Gustav and was forced to evacuate. The experience was caught on tape and became the video for "Down the Drain" which you can watch on his myspace page at www.Myspace.com/MichaelBeMusic. He just released a new solo album entitled "Within the Fire." Rattrap Bumpkin will play at Otto's Shrunken Head on April 3rd and Benedetto plays solo at the Stain Bar in Brooklyn on April 10th.

You may know freshman TV and Radio Production major Rob Pompa as the voice of WBCR's The Vortex, Mondays 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. He is also the drummer of the progressive metal band Turbulence (www.Myspace.com/TurbulenceRules). They have an EP for sale, entitled "Turbulence", and you can also watch live concert videos on their Myspace page.

Pompa is devoted to music.

"If it makes noise, it inspires," he said as he tapped the metal part of the microphone and listened its hypnotic ring.

While he loves music like nothing else, he knows it's not all fun and games.

"If you want it to work, you got to put your music out there, you got to put it everywhere."

This includes posting flyers, using Craigslist as a tool, and just always networking. He even threw a Turbulence CD onto the lap of a guy on the bus because he could hear metal music coming from his iPod.

"You never know," said Pompa.

On finding potential bandmates on campus, he said, "The choice is yours. There's every opportunity in the world."

The music scene at Brooklyn College is becoming increasingly visible with the first Battle of the Bands on May 5th at 8 p.m. on the Quad.

"The Student Center is still gathering bands and is open to all types of music," said Mark Faiena, President of CLAS and involved in organizing the event. Bands interested in competing can email him at mark.faiena@gmail.com.

Faiena also said that if anyone is interested in forming a music club to visit Student Development in room 302 of SUBO.

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