Devotees and First-Time Filmmakers from Syracuse to Strasbourg Keep Super 8 Alive in the Digital Age

Under a bright afternoon sky in mid-March, Brendan Rose stood on the walkway of his sister’s Syracuse, N.Y. home fiddling with a borrowed Super 8 camera. His sister, Vanessa, eased herself onto the front stoop holding her infant [...]

Automatic Speleology adds light, color, and excitement to the Warehouse’s Window Projects

The bearded Jesse Stiles peers at a laptop on a folding table in the middle of the Warehouse Gallery in Downtown Syracuse. Three rapidly changing projections of random images play on the whitewashed walls around him. Computer chips, microprocessors, LED spotlights, and slabs [...]

Mark Monette leaves the trash behind and enters the studio

Mark Monette’s chirping walkie-talkie echoed throughout the deserted classroom in the Physics building. “I have to keep it on because in case something goes wrong, I’m technically on the clock,” he explained from behind black-framed glasses.
Monette works for Syracuse University in Business and Facilities Maintenance Services [...]

Artistic Confessional

“I felt like I was on a cloud, and I didn’t even know if I was in the building,” said Seneca Wilson, describing the night he launched the Underground Poetry spot.
The Underground is located in the New Fuji Buffet Restaurant in Syracuse, and brings students and community members together to perform their poetry on [...]

Singer-songwriter Andy Gruhin wants to be the next “Boss.”

Two years ago, Andy Gruhin got dumped. So, he picked up his guitar and wrote one of his first songs. Now, at 18, he may become the new face of Hollywood Records. This self-proclaimed “brand new kind of singer-songwriter” is attempting to single-handedly save the dying [...]

To know Karen Greenfield is to know a fantastic contradiction. A nine-to-fiver with a free spirit, Greenfield’s administrative assistant job at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications complements her flare for peacock button sculptures. But don’t let her bashful smile and soft-spoken tone fool you — Greenfield has modeled nude for figure-drawing classes since her college years.

Closer Still stayed optimistic even though The Lost Horizon appeared nearly empty. The place looked like a deserted Mexican cantina; a mere twenty people had shown up to see them play during a snow-swept January storm.

But, as they say, the show must go on.

Tim Reynolds answers Jerk’s questions on writing, inspiration, and going solo

In an office space above the Westcott Theater, Tim Reynolds explained that he can’t sit for fear of falling asleep. He had just woken up from a nap and struggled to stay awake as he sipped furiously on a cup of coffee from Recess Coffeehouse. [...]

Bandier meets drama, the musical marriage begets The Fly.

Spectators question whether to gleefully cheer on The Fly or to fear for their own safety as the duo performs. Keith Smith regularly wraps the mic chord around his neck, flailing his limbs, all while passionately singing, even shouting, the lyrics. Farasha Baylock spits rhymes furiously, dancing [...]

A Night with Trixie and her Dolls

“I got to pee. This is so inconvenient it’s not even funny,” the seductress said to me backstage, moments before she steps out onto a makeshift stage in the lobby of the Hotel Utica.
Flaunting eight-inch heels and an off-white bustled Victorian gown with a sleek, crimson [...]

An afternoon with Genuine Charlie Sam — shooting electric fire, speaking French, and creating art.

Genuine Charlie Sam perches on a ladder in front of a huge mural of his name in old-fashioned circus-style writing. He shakes a can of spray paint. “It’s very important to proclaim one’s name. I’m Charlie Sam, by the way,” [...]

Two student em-cees plan a guerrilla takeover.

Juice Jam Interview

At the finale of Juice Jam 2009, SU students struggled to shift rage-gears in the middle of the day, leading to the most awkward dance party any of us Jerks have ever experienced. Gregg Gillis, aka Girl Talk, didn’t seem too fazed when he took a few minutes to chat with Jerk [...]

The True Nature of Cake Decorating

From television to movies, bookstores to the state fair, the Foodie craze is everywhere. But you don’t have to sit in front of the boob tube or attend Bobby Flay’s book signing to get your Foodie fix — you can check blogs.
Food blogs focus on those who love food: [...]

The Goonies redefine local hip-hop scene

When was the last time a skinny white kid raised his asthma inhaler in the middle of a hip-hop show and the audience went crazy?
“It’s always been kind of a joke,” said Peter Cappelli aka Clam Weezy, half of Syracuse’s hip-hop duo The Goonies. “It’s not that serious. I [...]

Syracuse film scene grows — one zombie at a time

Sunny Sawhney shuffles down the street and halts when a body stirs within a pile of zombies lying in the middle of the road. A trapped cop wrestles himself out of the gruesome heap, escaping the bloodthirsty undead. The zombies try to rip chunks from his [...]

Pop Goes the Culture

It’s finally happened. The Facebook frenzy has gone too far. Here’s why: director David Fincher (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (Charlie Wilson’s War) have teamed up for a movie about the founders of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, and Sean Parker.
When I first saw this news in [...]

Q&A with the Cool Kids

 
3 p.m. – I’m backstage at Juice Jam 2009 with my friend and journalistic comrade Nathan Mattise (Nate for short please). Nate and I are walking over to The Cool Kids’ bus and I’m starting to feel nervous–I’m about to encounter their entire posse in a cramped space with just one [...]

An Arts Journalist’s Road Trip to the Toronto Film Festival

A mere four hour drive north of Syracuse stands Canada’s metropolitan behemoth, Toronto. The city is a multi-cultural smorgasbord that never sleeps, much like NYC. They’ve even gone so far in recent years to emulate the Big Apple by carving out their very own Times Square [...]

The Noisemaker

Fuck You Juice Jam 2009. Fuck You.
It’s not that you’re featuring Technicolor electro-hop duo The Cool Kids or pian-emos Jack’s Mannequin, but Girl Talk, the least talented homosapien since Carrot Top. I mean Kelly Osbourne.
Bands like Jack’s Mannequin are superabundant, a dime a dozen, disposable. The Cool Kids are the show’s real draw, [...]

Novak’s Noise

White After Labor Day immediately gained popularity when it burst onto the Syracuse University music scene in 2007. But when the innovative pop-rock five-piece signed with Marshall Street Records last year, the development of the band took on a new dimension.
The band, comprised of singer/songwriter and pianist Anthony Cacace, guitarist Kevin Muldoon, bassist Phil [...]

Once a vacant warehouse, the Gear Factory could reshape Syracuse’s creative landscape

In mid-60s Manhattan, The Factory served as Andy Warhol’s studio, a place where the iconic pop artist produced many of his famous silkscreens. But it also became a gathering place for fashionable creative types, celebrities, and social oddities. The Velvet Underground played there. Sometimes [...]

The Sound Scores of Andrew Deutsch and Stephen Vitiello

“Click, click…” say the frogs. “Click click click….click.”
Staccato static tickles sound artist Stephen Vitiello’s ears as he walks across a windswept clearing of marshy green just outside the dense alcove of the woods. Trees adorned with audio speakers outline the forest. Vitiello applies pigments of varying shades [...]

Bob Halligan, Jr.’s long and Celtic music career

In addition to an affinity for hairspray and bad perms, Cher and Michael Bolton share another bond: they dated for a brief period during the ’80s. But love lives and grooming habits aside, they’ve also both sung hits written by Syracuse University professor Bob Halligan, Jr.
Halligan, who teaches [...]

If you need an acoustic/ambient/rock fix, local group The Icon And The Axe is dropping their debut album on April 18. For those who haven’t heard of the act, its MySpace page says Propaganda offers a sound that conveys the passionate search for truth paired with the melodies of a bygone era. And they ain’t playin’ either.

I am looking at an image of a man/beast-like creature hunched over as drool oozes out of his teeth. His hands are hovering over his head and his fingertips slightly scratch the surface of his skull. Planted on top of this zombie-looking beast are sev¬eral transmission line towers.

It is 8:40 p.m. on a Saturday and the place is practically empty. A blond woman in a black-and-red-striped shirt sits at the bar waiting to be served by a 20-something bartender with tattoos on her arms and chest. Stacks of empty beer boxes sit on the floor behind the bar. On the other side of the venue, a band begins setting up for tonight’s show. The club is unusually quiet.

Josh Blair, 25, spends his days going to the library for story time and to the park for play dates. But as soon as the clock strikes eight, he puts his 2-year-old son Ian to bed and plugs into his 4-year-old low-fi Dell desktop for a long night.

An interview with drummer Damon Che from the band Don Caballero.

Online reviews of records including: “Blue Moon,” Smoke Gets In Your Eyes,” and “A Rainy Night In G.”

“If I’m not back by 9 call the cops,” I add, only half joking. I throw on my shades and grab my camera. I am out the door and in the car, cruising down Erie Boulevard. My thoughts wander. What did Windwalker mean when he said that he needed to “consult the voices” before our interview?

It’s a treasure trove of antiquities and a time machine for music lovers. Valued at just over $1 million, the 200,000 records of the Savada Record Collection recently found a new home at Syracuse University’s Belfer Audio Lab. Donated by the late Morton J. Savada, owner of the Manhattan store Records Revisited, the acquisition nearly doubles the size of SU’s previous collection. Now it’s second only to the Library of Congress.