Whenever one hears screeching, their first instinct is to turn down the sound. Last Saturday night, the musicians felt like doing just the opposite — make it as loud as possible. Over the weekend, Fanclub Collective presented two free-noise groups, Wasteland Jazz Ensemble and the Bill Nace and Paul Flaherty Duo, as a part of a series of concerts that the club is organizing to showcase the different approaches to improvised music. Even though the performance was hosted in the cramped, fluorescent-lighted offices of the Toboggan Lodge, this allowed the musicians to fully submerge the audience in myriad of complex, diverse and unworldly sounds. 

Guest columnist Anna Autilio discusses the fine line between fan, and obsessed. 

Catchy and fun Brooklyn fuzz poppers Beach Fossils came up to Ithaca Saturday night for an energetic show at Wildfire Lounge.

Spring break has come and gone. I traveled to London, and although I saw none of my beloved British bands, I did manage to pick up two weeks worth of NME and Q with no import costs attached! But like I said, spring break has come and gone, which means it’s truly the countdown to the real world for my fellow seniors and me. While I’ve learned a great deal during my time at this wonderful institution, there’s one musical mystery that I haven’t been able to put my finger on and it’s been the bane of my existence for some time now. 

On Friday evening students from Ithaca College and Cornell University, as well as less local live music fans, made their ways downtown to The Haunt in order to see Tally Hall perform. Down past the Commons and halfway to the Pyramid Mall, The Haunt is a neat little bar and grill known for its live music. In fact, much of the audience had traveled all the way from Rochester for the Michigan band.

It is amazing how, with modern technology, it only takes a few people to produce elaborate compositions. On Friday night, three acts from all around the country gathered at the Theta Delta Chi mansion for an evening of serious electronic music. Electric Mayhem and DJ Jaminic supported the headlining band, Big Gigantic.

The 1980s were a fertile time for American underground music, where the loose punk rock rules that had been laid down the decade before were disregarded and added to. The Meat Puppets were at the forefront of this scene, with a sound that mixed the burgeoning punk rock movement with a Dixie twang. The band performed at local bar Castaways on Thursday night for their Ithaca debut, with openers Dynasty Electric and Kirkwood Dellinger.

It’s incredible how much music you can make just using some drums and electronics. In a blend of the primal and the technological, four distinct performers brought their unique blends of genre-defying music to the William Keeton House last Saturday night, courtesy of Fanclub Collective. These four musicians, DJ Dog Dick, Ed Schrader, Adventure (the three of whom are in the midst of their own tour) and Cale Parks, doing a one-off solo show, brought the goods to a crowd eager for any opportunity to dance. The performers delivered, making for a night filled with blips and bleeps and quick-footed dance moves.

Tucked away in a side street off the Ithaca Commons is the new Wildfire Lounge. The exposed brick walls and industrial piping that greet you after you walk up the steps to the bar seem out of place in a décor marked by mini-chandeliers and couches with oversized pillows. This was the perfect venue to see Why the Wires and A Sunny Day in Glasgow, who played the Lounge last Sunday night. Both bands took traditional genres of music and added their own style and flavor to it, although one group had more success than the other.

Throughout my childhood, I spent an undeterminable amount of time driving from here to there in my father’s forest green Ford Explorer. It was during this time that my musical preferences first began to take shape, as my dad had a static selection of albums that I was forced to listen to time and time again. Of course, there was the classic assortment of adult favorites: the Talking Head’s Stop Making Sense, Elvis Costello’s My Aim is True and Paul Simon’s Graceland. Besides these, my dad’s music taste seemed to deviate from the norm (read: The Phantom of the Opera). Finally, there was his brief foray into the country world with Lyle Lovett’s 1989 album Live in Texas.