Here at Ivygate we like to put a critical eye on things. You readers are smart; if all you wanted was feel-good propaganda you wouldn’t bother visiting us – you’d turn to one of China’s state-controlled newspapers or your alma mater’s alumni magazine. Sometimes, however, we come across men and women like Joey Cheek and Alicia Sacramone, individuals who are so un-Vayneresque that we temporarily lose our capacity for snark and vitriol.

The same holds true when we discover intelligent and inventive bands like Miss Vintage. Fronted by lead singer and guitarist Jason Min, Penn ‘05, Harvard GSE ‘07, the band’s sound falls under the genre of art rock, a term that allmusic defines as having “experimental or avant-garde influences” and being “intrinsically album-based, taking advantage of the format’s capacity for longer, more complex compositions and extended instrumental explorations.” (If all this music jargon is addling your brain, just think Explosions in the Sky with vocals or Coldplay without as many pop-y hooks).

Since forming in Philadelphia in 2006, Miss Vintage has played at over 150 rock venues and college campuses, mostly on the East Coast, and has released one album entitled Runways. The band’s second LP, Our Lives Are Not Through Just Yet, will not be released until later this month, but we were able to finagle two of its tracks for your enjoyment: “Trains,” and “The Last Time We Cried”.

Miss Vintage - Trains

More review and another song after the jump.

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Harvard University, which I guess is a college in Massachusetts, is continuing its proud tradition of accepting dubiously qualified celebrities and musicians into its ranks. Following in the (significantly bigger) footsteps of Tom Morello, Rivers Cuomo and Natalie Portman is guitarist Mike Einziger of mediocre rockish band Incubus. Incubus is that band on the radio that sounds like other bands on the radio. The acoustic K-ROCK version of “Pardon Me” kicks ass though. Congrats to Mike and to everyone at Harvard, who will hopefully be treated to many years of very boring concerts.

This leads me to wonder: which musician or band would YOU most like to have attend your Ivy League school? Most creative answer wins an IvyGate gift certificate!

It’s Monday morning, chappies. Maybe this week you’ll do a little more work and spend a little less time screwing around on the internet. But why would you do work if the internet exists? Would you still exist if the internet didn’t exist? It’s an existential dilemma.

Last night New York was a good place for young rock and rollers and genial lesser- Ivy bashing. The Mercury Lounge played host to Glen Rock, New Jersey heroes Titus Andronicus, along with spazz cuties Ponytail and the recently Pitchfork-approved Abe Vigoda. It was just about the most fun one could have on a Sunday night without going to church, especially when Titus Andonicus crashed into their song “Titus Andronicus” and everyone almost had a heart-attack.

Andronicus’s lead singer, Patrick Stickles, who is very tall and has a beard, was seen outside of the club slagging off Columbia prior to his band’s set, wondering aloud if it was ranked 13th (try 9th!) and noting the inferiority of its students and events. As a point of comparison, Harvard’s graduation ceremony was highly praised. It apparently included a gaggle of trombones and a resplendent JK Rowling “emerging from beneath her invisibility cloak.” Columbia’s graduation, it should be noted, featured Joel Klein (!) and , uh, lots of students not protesting for a change.

All comments were spoken in good humor, of course (probably), but I can’t help but feel that someone should step forward to defend Columbia’s honor against marauding young lead singers with no respect for tradition and gentility. I’m trying to think of an indie rock band who went to Columbia that has enjoyed some degree of success recently. I think it might rhyme with Campfire Beacon.

But seriously: VW vs. TA. If anyone’s going to Chicago next weekend for the Pitchfork fest, let us know who wins. TA is certainly louder and more ass-kicking, but don’t underestimate Vampire Weekend’s… connections.

ivyTunes is back! This week, Penn audiophile James Yu checks in with Filligar. If you are in or know of a band worth covering, send links and/or MP3s to tips@ivygateblog.com.

A somewhat telling admission: since November 27, 2006 - the date Filligar appeared on our very first installation of ivyTunes - “Venice World’s Fair (c. 2138 AD),” a catchy, deliberately nonsensical song off their earlier album, has played a whopping 61 times on my computer. That puts it easily within the top twenty of my most played tracks.

And with good reason. Filligar, composed of Dartmouthian brothers Johnny (’11), Teddy (’09), and Pete Mathias (’09), and childhood friend Casey Gibson (Hamilton ‘09), is fun and clever, but never nauseatingly so. Like Vampire Weekend, the Columbia band that rode the blogosphere to become the indie rock darlings of 2008, Filligar has the chops to explode into the next big thing.

The amount of positive exposure these four Chicagoans have received is impressive, especially in light of the fact that they are all full-time students in the wilds of New York and New Hampshire. They’ve been reviewed by the Chicago Sun-Times, have seen airtime on major radio stations such as WXRT Chicago and WFNX 101.7 Boston, and have had their song “Big Things” play on this season’s premiere of MTV’s The Real World.

All the Same - Filligar

After the jump: More review, and two more tracks.

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When we asked our friend Andrew to write ivyTunes for us, he agreed on one condition: that after picking the best (those were Filligar, Vampire Weekend and The Main Drag, sort of), he’d get to do one final hatepost. It takes a lot of guts to submit your heartfelt music for public evaluation; naturally, we need to betray those hopes and dreams without further delay.

Hello. Did you miss me? No? The feeling is mutual.

In days of yore, ivyTunes was a fixture ’round these parts. “Bands” and “artists” from all across the Ivy League would eagerly send me their best music, and I would avoid listening to it for as long as humanly possible.

Yesterday, however, I received an email informing me that my “mailbox [was] over its size limit.” Guess what was taking up all my server space, other than receipts for penis enlargement? That’s right! Your MP3s. I decided to give them all one last listen before scrapping them forever. What follows is a list of the bands that most made me regret this decision.

Armageddon Monks: Cornell’s Armageddon Monks believe in one thing above all else: how much they rock. Their MySpace page lists “Rock” as their primary genre, and describes Aamir Bashir’s vocals as “modern rock.” It goes on to claim that the band is “all about rock n roll” and that they “put on hard-rocking shows” for “fans of rock music, pure and simple.” All in all, it says, Armageddon Monks manage to produce “enough rock to beat scissors AND paper.” I’m not sure I agree. Sure, they shred on axes shaped like big V’s and rely on agitated fonts that look as if each letter has weathered a post-apocalyptic maelstrom. And Bashir sings like someone who has become constipated after eating too many steroid quesadillas. But the laws of ro sham bo are inviolable, sirs, and if they were to change, it wouldn’t be for the likes of you.

• Armageddon Monks [MySpace] 

Prospect 11: My theory about middle-of-the-road “modern rock” acts who choose to combine a meaningless word and a meaningless number when naming themselves is that, most of the time, the number tells you how good they are compared to other bands with similarly formatted names. Now, I know that Prospect 11 named themselves after a drinking game in which participants aim to chug a beer in each of Princeton’s 11 stately eating clubs — so the meaningless thing might be, like, a little harsh — but I think my theory holds true for them as well. If my calculations are correct, Prospect 11 is 171 worse than Blink-182, 30 worse than Sum-41 and nine worse than Matchbox 20. Oh wait, nevermind. They’re also worse than Stroke 9 and Eve 6. Sorry. English major. [Ed.: Bonus! Prospect 11 is the band these guys are in.]

• Prospect 11 - Jackie Ryan [MP3]
• Prospect 11 - July 1st [MP3]
• Prospect 11 - Please [MP3]

Travis Nelson: I’m sure that Travis Nelson is a nice person. I’m sure that his dog is very fond of him. Which is why I feel like criticizing “Label,” a plaintive lament about a relationship gone wrong, is a bit unfair. On the other hand, Travis saw fit to submit his song to ivyTunes in the hope that I would share his heartbreak with the world, and criminals like him must be stopped. So if you’re a dude with an acoustic guitar and a dream, please take note: arhythmically singing  “When I went to bed / I thought of your smile / And all of those times I spent with you / And I began to realize that the only time I’d see you now / Is if I look through my mind’s eye” in a wheezy, tone-deaf voice over middle-school strumming makes the rest of us wish that your ex had broken something a little less metaphorical than your heart.

• Travis Nelson - Label [MP3]

Anton Glamb: People allegedly enjoy Anton Glamb’s “music.” How can you spot them? They’re the folks who also enjoy growing mustaches and dressing up like aerobics instructors.

• Anton Glamb - Subway [MP3]
• Anton Glamb - Take It Slow [MP3]
• Anton Glamb - Take It Slow [YouTube]
  

Thus concludes my rampage. I will say, for the record, that I’m not really an evil person. I just play one on the blogs. And I suppose that after ripping on all of you, it’s only fair to offer up my band, Normandy, for you to rip apart as you see fit. Feel free to listen to our EP at www.myspace.com/normandy and rake us over the coals in the comments; or, if your hatred is particularly unbridled, come to our show and berate us in person this Saturday at Union Docs in — how typical — Williamsburg.

• Normandy - Time I’ve Wasted [MP3]
• Normandy - Sweatshop [MP3]
• Normandy - Her Eyes Don’t Water [MP3]
• Normandy - Kentucky Isolation [MP3]

Sincerely,

Andrew

In our third installment of ivyTunes, we witness an epic battle of the bands that, shockingly, interests some people outside the Ivies. Our critic has the mic:

In case you don’t know, Bishop Allen is a Brooklyn-based indie band beloved by the MP3 blogosphere for its polite, quirky pop and gimmicky plan to release one EP per month for all of 2006. (They’re two short with 11 days to go. Cram, guys, cram!) To be honest, Bishop Allen’s stuff doesn’t bother me — it’s well-crafted and charmingly off-kilter, if completely inoffensive and somewhat samey-sounding (listen here). Which was a pleasant surprise considering that BA cofounders Justin Rice (of Andrew Bujalski fame) and Christian Rudder graduated from, um, some school up in Boston. Well, in Cambridge actually. No, not MIT. The other one. I mean, look at these people. –>

… and hello The Main Drag, the new “Song Search” victors. Not that a whole lot has changed. In a surprise turn of events worthy of M. Night Shyamalan (I mean that pejoratively) the Main Drag is — spoiler alert! — also heavy on the Harvard. The winning song, “Jagged Gorgeous Winter,” was written by John Drake (recent alum), Matt Boch (senior) and Adam Arrigo (who just graduated from some school called “Tufts”). Although the group cites pretty much every cool indie band as an influence — Arcade Fire, The Books, Animal Collective, Broken Social Scene — they’re clearly obsessed (to the point of shameless imitation) with the uncoolest indie band of all: Death Cab for Cutie. Arrigo, the singer, was either born with the same thin, sweet, desperate voice as Ben Gibbard or has labored mightily to perfect his impersonation. Really, it’s a little eerie. On the plus side, the songwriting is accomplished, the arrangements dynamic and the production packed with smartly skewed electronic elements. 

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s the second installment of ivyTunes, our new music column. Our critic has the mic:

Okay. I admit it. I’m addicted to snark. Which isn’t unusual for a twentysomething, male, Ivy League Lower Manhattanite desperate to hide his surburban breeding beneath layers of ironic pop-culture expertise and expensively distressed clothing. But your MP3s are seriously aggravating my condition. Like “The Guns,” by Silencer (Yale ‘03). I, for one, wish this song sounded more silent.

But don’t get me wrong. From time to time even I fall in love with a band — truly, madly, deeply. And Columbia’s Vampire Weekend (three ‘06ers, one ‘07) is one of those bands. Usually, Ivy League acts are bad because they’re Ivy League. You know: competent but uninspired. No rough edges. Irrationally sure of themselves. And totally derivative. If you’re smart enough, talented enough or connected enough to get into an Ivy, you probably don’t need rock ‘n’ roll to save your life. At that point it’s just another extracurricular.

But Vampire Weekend manages, against all odds, to make its Iviness a virtue. In rock, brainy usually means bad. Here, it’s thrilling. “Oxford Comma” borrows its name from the superfluous punctuation mark, then rhymes it with “lama,” “English drama” and “Dharamsala” (a town in northern India, according to Google). “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” harnesses the loose energy of 1980s Congolese dance music to do the girl-meets-boy thing — complete with cameos from Louis Vuitton, reggaeton, Peter Gabriel and the United Colors of Benetton. And the preppiest VW number, “Walcott,” reads like a map of coastal New England, namechecking Hyannisport, Mystic, Wellfleet and Provincetown. On all three tracks, the percussion is simple. The keyboards are simpler. And the melodies are hardly Mozart. But it’s such sturdy, well-arranged and absurdly catchy stuff that I found myself hitting repeat for hours on end.

Alright, this is making me uncomfortable. Please return to sending in crap music. I know you have it in you.

RIGHT-CLICK TO DOWNLOAD: 

Vampire Weekend - Oxford Comma [MP3]
Vampire Weekend - Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa [MP3]
Vampire Weekend - Walcott [MP3]
More: Official site | MySpace
Debut album out later this month.

Want your band to be considered for ivyTunes? Email tracks to ivygate@gmail.com.

It’s the first installment of ivyTunes, our new music column. Our critic has the mic:

There’s nothing I like more than spending a sunny, unseasonably warm weekend in front of my laptop, headphones on, listening to MP3 after MP3 of incompetent rock, rap and [shudder] folk — especially when those MP3s were created by coddled, over-credentialed Ivy Leaguers like myself. Except, perhaps, ripping off my arm and clubbing myself to death with it.

So a big shout-out to all the acts that participated in our first ivyTunes cattle call. The only thing worse than being Nickelback is paying $40,000 a year to pretend to be Nickelback — and we here at IvyGate think that such a monumental achievement deserves a little recognition. Thankfully, you generous souls have provided me with enough material — white rappers, a cappella side projects, cellos — to last for weeks to come. I eagerly await the opportunity to crush your dreams.

But first, an admission: not all of you are completely untalented. A few of the MP3s I received were “not horrible.” A few were “listenable.” And one or two were actually “good.” The best of the bunch: Filligar, (pronounced “fill-uh-gurr”), a Chicago-based quartet featuring brothers Pete, Teddy, and Johnny Mathias, and fourth-wheel Casey Gibson. Pete and Teddy go to Dartmouth. They’re 19. Johnny, the singer, is only 17. Teenagers or not, Filligar is remarkably mature — they’ve got that crucial blend of pop precision and effortless weirdness down pat. The new CD is called “Succession, I Guess.” It’s hardly dangerous stuff — fellow yupsters (and Chicagoans) Wilco would be proud. But it’s not like Ivy Leaguers are particularly strong in the sex and drugs departments anyway. One out of three ain’t bad.

Two choice cuts:

RIGHT-CLICK TO DOWNLOAD — HELP US CONSERVE BANDWIDTH: 

Filligar - Apricot Jam [MP3]
Filligar - Venice World’s Fair (c. 2138 AD) [MP3]
More: Official site | iTunes

Want your band to be considered for ivyTunes? Email tracks to ivygate@gmail.com.

When the editors of IvyGate approached me and asked if I would handle a new feature called ivyTunes, I slowly and calmly backed away, making sure never to break eye contact. This was only partially because of how they smelled. I resisted at first mostly because the idea sounded insane: 1) call for submissions from Ivy League bands, 2) actually listen to these submissions and 3) comment on the most interesting ones. Number two in particular. I listened to plenty of Ivy League bands at my alma mater. They tended to cover “What I Got.” By Sublime. And I tended to want to poke them with a knife.

Campus bands got it rough. Best case scenario: they open for the big spring concert performer — in which case everyone just wants them to get off stage so J5 can start. Worst case scenario: they play Thursday night black box shows for an audience of friends who come more out of guilt than fandom. Maybe that’s why most campus musicians ditch instruments altogether.

Toiling away in obscurity, theirs is a quiet fight. And we think it’s time they got some recognition. (As you know, around here that can be a good or a bad thing.) Introducing ivyTunes, our newest feature: an occasional auditing of groups … with some sort of Ivy tie.

With that massive handicap working against them, most won’t get past the finely calibrated hammer, anvil and stirrup of our guest reviewer. (More on him later.) But who knows? Maybe we’ll find some Ivy groups that don’t suck. We’ll have MP3s for download, and as always, the hydrochloric acid of our comments section. First deadline for submissions: Monday, Nov. 27. Who’s excited!? It’ll be like American Idol, ‘cept with careers to fall back on!

Want your band to be considered for ivyTunes, or whatever we call it after Apple’s trademark lawyers find out about this? Email tracks to ivygate@gmail.com. Your band must be sorta-kinda Ivy (we’re desperate flexible), and you must be okay with us posting the MP3s for download.