For most of us, the last day of school once opened a world of possibility. The seemingly everlasting summer was for the taking to accomplish all the brilliant plans one's grade school mind could think of. Unfortunately, as the number of three-month-long summer breaks that we can enjoy dwindles, the euphoria of finishing finals fades fast with the quick onset of the realities of summer jobs, internships and the looming shadow of the "real world."
As we are begging for someone to hire us, the Tufts music scene is keeping the spirit of summer alive. These musicians use their months off doing what we always knew the summer was really for: pursuing whatever it was we dreamed of while we were stuck in a classroom for the past eight months.
The Harpoons, one of Tufts' most
recently-formed bands, may also be one of the best examples of using summer as a time to take on these goals. According to guitarist Jahn Sood, The Harpoons (all sophomores) came together when singer-songwriter Ezra Furman "decided he wanted to rock and roll."
Sood had been playing with fellow bassist Job Mukkada and drummer Adam Abrutyn in another band, which Furman admits he "hijacked." After playing together this semester, The Harpoons have recorded their debut record and are planning a tour currently scheduled to start on June 1 in Portland, Maine.
The Harpoons pride themselves on making "pure rock and roll for its own sake," as Furman says. Working off the strength of Furman's wealth of material and the band's previous experience together, The Harpoons boast that they sound like nothing you've ever heard before. Furman's vocals and lyrics are confident, mature and quirky, the closest comparison being to a "Highway 61 Revisited"-era Dylan. The already tight band has been experimenting with and expanding their sound in the studio, arguing over the volume of piano tracks and the relative merit of hand-claps.
After playing Portland, the band plans on working its way down through Boston towards New York, possibly playing in Canada, and then heading to the Midwest and Furman's hometown of Chicago. Embarking on what will be the first major tour for anyone in the band, they are confident they can keep their own style and a sense of where they're from.
This does not mean the tour will come without challenges. Furman remarks on how writing music on the road often falls into a familiar pattern: "People have their first album, then they have their second album about missing home and how it sucks being on the road."
The complications don't end there. Rock mythology is filled with future stars willing to sacrifice shelter in favor of the music. The list ranges from Bob Dylan roaming from coffee house to coffee house with "no direction home" to Jonathan Richman moving from Boston to New York to sleep on Lou Reed's couch, and it is a list that The Harpoons hope to join.
"We don't know where we are going to sleep on the tour," Sood said. If this wandering life, or, more importantly, the determination that drives musicians to it, is a precursor to greatness, then The Harpoons could be in luck. They may be broke at the end of the summer, but as Sood says, "We are doing it for the music and the incredible experience."
While The Harpoons will be bringing their music across the country, sophomore Amod Rajbhandari will be working on bringing music to people in a very different way. Rajbhandri, a classical guitarist, will be in Nepal for the summer working as a DJ at one of the country's largest radio stations, Hits FM 91.2, based out of Kathmandu.
Rajbhandri, who has worked at the station for the past two summers, hosts several programs, which he says focus on "rock and roll, classic rock, blues, R&B, flamenco, world music, Bossa Nova, jazz - everything, basically." On top of going on air as a DJ, he also scripts commercials, as well as providing their voice-overs and adding music.
Nepal may be facing a period of political turmoil, but it is also at a crossroads in terms of its musical identity. The region surrounding Nepal is dominated by the powerful and professional Indian culture, provoking Hits FM to work under a government directive to play at least 60 percent Nepalese music and the rest in any language they choose.
With the rise of popular radio stations like Hits FM, Rajbhandri has noticed an increasing fusion of Western and Eastern cultures, typified by musicians who are elevated to the level of celebrity for the first time.
Coming back to play at Tufts, Rajbhandri brings with him as much music as possible from Nepal, and he is especially interested by the music that arises from this fusion of Western and Nepalese music. Most of the Western world's knowledge of Nepalese music stops at the swarm of rock stars who flocked there in the late sixties and seventies, but the music scene today is much more diverse.
"The culture of rock and roll has stayed, but now people are playing Nepalese rock and roll," Rajbhandri said.
We often hear administrators brag about Tufts' global stature, but sometimes it seems hard to see this as anything more than having lots of IR majors. Rajbhandri's work at Hits FM is the perfect example of a Tufts student not just studying international culture but actually working to push it forward.
The summer provides student musicians with these types of opportunities to work with music, as Furman explained.
"Every once in a while you just want to drop out of school and be a rock star," Furman said.
With their dedication lying elsewhere, student musicians can become skeptical of the benefits of spending their time in a classroom. Mandolin player and senior Geoff Brown articulates the frustration that many musicians feel, especially those studying music in a classroom.
"If I were to tell someone how to get a music education ... I would tell them to go out there and start playing, meet people, and get a really good teacher," Brown said.
Over the summer Brown will have plenty of time to work closely with some of the greatest mandolin teachers available. He plans on attending workshops with some of his favorite artists, including B?©la Fleck, Edgar Meyer, Jerry Douglas and Mike Marshall, as well as world-renowned mandolin player and close friend of Jerry Garcia, David Grisman. Brown says that one of his main reasons for attending is "to meet other musicians, have some fun, and play music."
Now that Brown has finished with the structured learning of Tufts, he feels less limited in learning music the way he wants to. He will be recording a collection of his classical music written at Tufts, which will feature Professor John McDonald on piano. He will also be recording a self-titled album starting in the end of May featuring the music he has recently been performing for mandolin, guitar and bass.
Brown says that he likes playing music people enjoy because "I don't want to just lock myself in a room somewhere and play music; I want to share it with people."
Whether it is an enthusiastic, but broke, band in the Northeast or a DJ in the foothills of the Himalayas, Tufts musicians are finding a way to share music. Over the course of the semester we've come to understand how impressive Tufts musicians are, from John Lennon Songwriting Contest finalist Bridget Kearney to genre-bending Spring Fling openers Melodesiac, and while we spend our final summers working, either in a job or on our tan, these musicians are hard at work bringing their music beyond the Medford-Somerville campus.
