ON ROTATION

Author: Benjamin Golze

Two events of note happened last week.

#1: Meowsker, live at Pub Night
Let's face it: for all its popularity, Thursday night Pub Night at the Grill hasn't been the best place to hear music at Middlebury. Campus mainstays like the Easy Answers, the Dark Horse Candidates and the Doughboys put on good shows, of course. They actually get people to cross that invisible line formed by the second story overhang and, on occasion, dance a bit. The off-campus bands, for me at least, have been a bit lackluster. In fact, they've made such an impression that I can't even remember a single one, besides one group from California that wore trendy designer jeans. I don't really know why I remember that.
Such are the circumstances that promoted my extremely pleasant surprise last Thursday night. I must preface the rest of this paragraph by saying that I'm not sure any of this information is true. I merely pieced it together from snippets from people attending, friends of the band and stuff I found online. The newly formed group is called Meowsker, previously the name of the the keyboardist/lead singer's solo act (Matt Rudnicki). The other two members (Chicagoans Michael Cheever and Jeff Neuberger) are from another band called Osos something. They currently reside in Boston, but they are all about to move to Brooklyn to pursue music in as much of a full-time manner as possible.
Which, by the way, I think is a good idea. If you haven't guessed already, Meowsker is the best band to have played at Pub Night all year, and the best new music that I've heard in a long time. Their arrangement - keyboard, drums and bass - creates a quirky sound that falls somewhere around the likes of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!, brought to full effect by Rudnicki's vocals. His singing doesn't immediately bring to mind any easy reference (which I hope is a compliment), but they do have a carefree feeling that fits perfectly.
The huge variety of the set on Thursday night was impressive as well. The band handled everything from lounge-style crooners to old-time dance numbers. Several times the music slipped into a bland kind of indie rock that didn't play to their strengths and actually exacerbated their weaknesses (no guitar). Even still, those songs weren't bad, especially considering the performance the band put on. Fake crowd noises between songs and a countdown to New Year's 2007 marked the beginning of the set, an audacious move with only about 20 non-fans in the Grille at that point. I can only imagine how well they'd play to a full, eager crowd. Check 'em out on Myspace.com.

#2: Opera, live at CFA
I didn't expect to write so much about Meowsker, so I'm going to have to keep this one undeservedly short. On Friday, Daniel Donnelly '06 rocked CFA old school style with his senior project: directing Claudio Monteverdi's "Il Ballo delle Ingrate." I'm not sure what exactly to call it, but it's pretty much a mini-opera without a plot. The premise is that Cupid and some other goddess of love or something have a whole discussion with the lord of the underworld about the fate of women who don't, ahem, succumb to their suitors' advances. Or something.
The reason I'm not too clear on the background is because I was too busy being blown away by the performance. Jenna Boyle '06 and First-year Amanda Kleinman were impressive, but I think Scott Guenther '06 stole the whole damn show. I had no idea anyone at school could sing a bass part like that, all in Italian no less. And his costume as the dark lord included spats. Where do you get those? All in all, the entire thing sounded like a professional production. Kudos to Dan for a job well done.