Vidgle Covers The Coffee House!

By Niki Cruz

February 28th was an event to remember. The Coffee House hit the ground running, with over fifty guests attending and a flowing list of performers, from singers to poets and drummers.  The performances were high with energy. Bands like Brothers of Destruction made their debut as a band on the Downbeat’s stage where the event was held, while other performers let their demons out and the audience in to the very intimate thoughts. Topics ranged from self-acceptance to the destruction of a family at the end of a tumultuous divorce.  These performers left it all out on the stage and gained respect with the audience cheering on for more. Cake and coffee were served and the always motivationally present and professional Professor Brett headed up the event.  “It started around April of 2006″ said Brett. “Professor Kapp and I wanted to create a literary event or a literature club because we noticed there wasn’t anything like that for students. There was nothing devoted to writing so we wanted to create something like that and also incorporate music with the literature as well.” 

There are many performers and entertainers at Five Towns. We’re always hearing about the perspective from the artist, but as a Professor at FTC Professor Brett’s perspective of seeing her students perform is of a different point of view. ” I’m always excited to see them in a different setting outside of the classroom. I’m always astounded when they get up there and everybody is very talented whether they’re reading their poetry or doing their own original music. To me it’s very exciting and I’m always glad when there’s a good turn out.” said Brett.  One of the highlights of the event was freshman soul singer Matthew Thomas, who sang a spiritual cover called “Open My Heart” by Yolanda Adams.  Although the seasoned performer seemed to look chill and at ease on stage he had his own take on it. “I think I did well I was a little nervous at first but I got a good reception from everyone so it was cool.” said the mellow Thomas.  The reception went well for him and with people lined up at the back yelling for him to continue. This first experience for Matthew Thomas was motivational. “This is my first time doing The Coffee House and I’ll definitely be back doing it again!”  The list of performers seemed to go on forever, running the event a half hour over time but the audience kept on growing as people filtered into the down beat to see what the fuss was about. Junior Marla Brathwaite expressed her enthusiasm about the event. “I think it’s important to have events like this because we are a music school and we’re creatively charged. It’s a great event because it’s brings people together as artists where as we wouldn’t normally be all together in one room. It gives people a reason to relate to one another and I think that’s important.” a strong opinion with a very relevant point, Brathwaite wasn’t opposed to naming her favorite musician of the night. “I have to say that even though everyone was good my favorite was Ed Demirer performing “Such Great Heights”. It was great to see someone sing with the piano and to do a good cover and then perform two of their original songs, it was very cool to see and I enjoyed that a lot.” stated the enthusiastic Brathwaite.  

 There were a lot of first time performers and one of those was a band called Brothers of Destruction. Member Vinny Barcia (Guitar) described their music as ” a jazzy bluesy feeling with some rock in there too.”  The members, who are all from three separate bands, also include Jason Levy (vocals) and Tracey Ali (also vocals). The band had a conventional start, “We’re friends since last year and we decided to come together and rock.  We owe it all to our musical influences, Metallica, Pantera and Guns & Roses” added Ali.  The band performed two original songs, “Bruised & Abused” and “Stance”, Jason Levy gave an insight on the process behind the songs, “we basically wrote them yesterday but we feel confident enough to jam out to them today for fan reaction”, he said.  It was a good move on their part because the fans seemed to like it. With the big turn out, the entertaining performers and another Coffee House coming to Five Towns in April, the sky is the limit for this event. “If there was an interest to branch out and had enough people together and wanted to take it to a town or maybe do a reading in a local restaurant on a bar that would be great!” said Brett.  Well, it seems like The Coffee House and it’s performers are going places, only time will tell next time, in the words of Jason Levy (Brothers of Destruction) “Rock on!” 

By Niki Cruz 

Whether it’s seeing your friend put mentos in an explosive soda bottle or blog watching of your favorite user, we have all been guilty of spending hours behind our computers watching youtube videos. Youtube, which was started in 2006 by three paypal employees, has become the epicenter for getting a foot in the entertainment industry. Justin Timberlake discovered popular amateur singer, Esmee Denters on the site and instead of singing in her bedroom Esmee is now signed to Timberlake’s record company. It doesn’t just stop with Esmee – comedians and other aspiring entertainers have received the attention and fuss that us Five Town students strive for. As a school that prides itself in being a supportive arts community it’s a no brainier that students are taking advantage of this phenomenon. I recently caught up with FTC third year professional filmmaker and current Youtube uploader Randy Sobel to see his take on the five minutes of fame via youtube.

THE RECORD: When you search on youtube, what do you usually look for?

Randy Sobel: I always search for episodes of old television shows that don’t air anymore or music videos I haven’t seen since I was young. I’m not into seeing other peoples work unless I know them personally.

TR: Would you say that youtube is opening up for filmmakers, actors and other aspiring artists?

RS: Absolutely. It’s an easy access to getting your name out there and I think if you’re serious about it, you can get some important people to see your work. If you were to apply for a film job or an acting role, would the producer rather watch a demo reel sent to them to clutter the piles upon piles on his table? Or just click a link on a website? You will get much more attention that way.

(more…)

Let’s go back to the 1930’s, where radio rules the world and clear channel didn’t exist. Sounds better already, right? There were no Howard Stern’s or Wendy Williams, shock jocks did not exist. In fact, radio disc jockeys didn’t exist period. There was no television so that meant entertainment was received via radio. Yes, you had your music and announcers but Radio Theater exploded and exposed a whole new world to the masses. People thrived on entertainment and the radio provided that in storytelling, fully equipped with sound effects for the imagination to aid the short or continuing stories from last weeks show.

So with Five Towns College being the epicenter for Long Island entertainment amongst students it only made sense to bring back that age and feeling that only radio theater possessed, before Britney Spears shaved her head and before payola existed. Wednesday night’s performance was history in the making. Five Towns brought together most of their featured majors together for one performance. The performance was split up into three segments, Johnny Got His Gun, The Hitchhiker and The Adventures of Superman.

Johnny Got His Gun may be the most anti-war piece ever written. Written by Dalton Trumbo this touching story is about a soldier who goes off to war only to be placed in a hospital bed after he loses his arms, legs, ears and most of his face in combat, and is now left haunted by his own thoughts. Michael Desjardin (Joe) gives a chilling performance of the soldier – a man who is stuck inside of himself, only left with banging his head in Morse code to communicate what he has to say. The text in his play was heavy, making a strong political statement, and whether you agreed with the libertarian perspective, you couldn’t help but feel horrible for the desperate and lonely Joe (Desjardin) who had only his memories to keep him company. Desjardin not only portrays the inside thoughts of a soldier beautifully but also raise powerful questions such as “Were the young men thinking about liberty as they died?” It takes an individual with range to dig deep inside, and Desjardin definitely dug deep. Up on the stage behind the microphone, Desjardin wasn’t an actor holding a script, he represented a son, a man, and a friend who had gone out to fight for liberty but ended up losing everything in the process.

The second segment, “The Hitchhiker” is a comedic and twisted story about Ronald Adams (Randy Sobel) a man who treks from New York to California and mid way along the trip dangerously encounters a Hitchhiker (Kevin Story) whom he almost hits. Obsessed with the encounter Ronald envisions the hitchhiker multiple times, which leads him to believe he’s being haunted. The marvelous twist comes when Ronald calls his mother only to find out she’s been sedated because of the death of her only son (the caller himself). Randy Sobel was made for this role and gives wonderfully comical and eerie performance of a man slowly going insane. Another well-earned performance was by Jennifer Spears who portrayed the woman character who encounters the paranoid Adams, and wants no part in his journey to rid the Hitchhiker. Jennifer brought the unnamed character to life with her colorful amusing performance and was definitely a highlight of this story. Lastly was “The Adventures of Superman”. The tone of this story was definitely different from the first two pieces but we all needed to be saved by the hero after the dark pieces before. This was such a treat and the highlight of the piece were not only the superhero’s Superman (Kevin Story) and Batman (Jeff Wise) coming together but the sound effects that were used right on stage to portray the actions as the heroes saved the world.

From the thought provoking pieces to the childhood fantasy acted out right on the FTC stage this performance not only reaffirmed the talent that exudes from our very own home but it almost makes you want to get lost in the 1940’s – they definitely knew what entertainment was all about.