VINYL

VINYL No. 1 Volume 1 34

Dear Readers, Thank you for picking up the wonderous magazine that is Vinyl. It is better than any other magazine you will ever read, and it is lovely and filled with beautiful people. Inside will be magical adventures full of dragons, princesses, and super cool swords. Just kidding. There will be stories about music and art and life. If you are reading this, we are sorry for almost making you think we would have dragons. But wizard rock bands and horoscopes are just as good, right?

Sincerely, The VINYL Staff Elizabeth Conlon Anne Kat Alexander

art

Table of Contents

Biographies 1

5 Under the City 7 A Story of a Creator 11 The Case for Fine Arts

music

15 Timeline of Beatle’s Albums 18 Roll Over Beethoven, The Beatles Are Here 19 Beg, Steal, or Borrow 21 Biking the Road to Success 23 Vinyl Heaven 27 Which Wizard Rock Band are you?

29 Taken by Trees 31 So I hear you need an album...

33 Rage Against The Machine

life

Horoscopes 37

Flight of Fancy 39 Thanks 44

Photo (this page) by “Varmano” on Flickr Cover photo by “*katz” on Flickr Back cover photo by Christine Alfrey No. 1 Volume 1 34 Barcode by Jeff Cormier

Biographies Mayrose is a 15-year-old with the mind of a 3-year-old.

She enjoys singing in class, foreign countries, hitting people, technical theater, Harry Potter, telling people they are wrong, Monty Python, and listening to the Beatles on her brand new, very old record player. She hopes to find the cure for cancer by the age of 27, then marry Rupert Grint (or another ginger, preferably from Ireland) and live in Estonia while working on her debut album. She often goes by her title of The Estonian Jumping Elephant when she is fulfilling her lifelong dream of becoming a world famous blogger of rants. She also thinks Darren Criss is totes gorgeous and hates hipsters.

mayrose

elizabeth

Elizabeth is fifteen and has an extremely large pile of interests building up in the recesses of her mind. She often stresses about her future because she’s interested in, well, everything. In her spare time (what spare time?) she plays piano. Her plans for the future involve making friends and trying not to sound terribly antisocial all the time. She also aspires to knit at least ten blankets for dogs in animal shelters. But at this particular moment, when she isn’t running or studying, she’ll just use her free time to drink almond milk.

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anne kat

Anne Kat is a fifteen-year-old with the spelling habits of a Brit and the writing style, she hopes, of someone moderately famous who manages to make a living by writing this way. She has a bad habit of stalking random people on Twitter for a few hours, followed by a few hours of Doctor Who and a couple thousand words of writing. Her greatest ambition is to live in the smallest, cheapest apartment she can find in London, writing novels out of local coffeehouses and tube trains.

Or maybe she’ll go crazy and work in some West End theatre for change. Until then, though, she’ll settle for writing for NaNoWriMo on her parents’ couch.

Claudia is a 15-year-old girl who talks more like a lecherous old man. She enjoys listening to Swedish dance music and writing fanfiction about Voldemort wearing sparkly gold halter tops. She spends all her money on cupcakes and clothes that are impractical to wear to school, like jewel-covered ankle boots with 5-inch heels. Her goals for the future include being dirt poor and either moving to the UK and spending all her time going to raves or writing novels. As for now, she’ll just stick to frighteningly angsty blog posts on her secret blog whose URL she plans to take to the grave.

claudia

No. 1 Volume 1 2

Background by “SomeDriftwood” on Flickr Photo by “Svenwerk” on Flickr

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No. 1 Volume 1 34

W

hat would school be like without art or music classes? As an artist, I find the idea of school without art, which includes the visual arts, band, orchestra, choir and theatre, unfathomable and can only visualize how colorless it would be. But many education systems, in-

cluding the Austin Independent School District (AISD), are considering cuts to the arts programs as they are plagued by budget woes. Though some dispute the importance of fine arts, the government should consider the benefits of these programs before drastically reducing their funding. AISD has not reduced music or visual art funding yet. But as the budget deficit grows, residents of Austin may see more extreme measures taken by the school district to save money. While we watch the government tighten its belt and become more stingy, we have to wonder: Can our students afford to have the arts taken away? The answer is no.

The Case for

Fine Arts

Words by Elizabeth Conlon Photo by Katie Knutson

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Exposure to music reduces stress, therefore improving health. In a 2001 study published for the Journal of Music Therapy, Wendy Knight, an Australian researcher at Monash University, found that music is incredibly useful for preventing adverse health affects caused by anxiety.

According to the study, “These stress-induced increases [in blood pressure, anxiety and heart rate] were each prevented by exposure to music, and this effect was independent of gender.” Stress can negatively affect students’ performances in school, but offering classes like band could help to decrease this form of tension in the student body. This stress reduction is only the beginning of the benefits children can reap from fine arts.

Engaging in musical and artistic activities regularly improves childrens’ cognitive functions, which include acquiring knowledge and understanding. When students focus on an art form, their attention is sustained for the duration of the artistic activity. In the study, “How Arts Training Improves Attention and Cognition,” researchers from the Dana Foundation published that strengthening attention networks in the brain translates to improvements in cognitive abilities. With an increased attention span comes boosted academic development, as students are able to concentrate for longer periods of time. If arts programs, including band, art, theatre and orchestra, are eliminated at schools, the full potential of students may never be realized. According to a 2001 report from the National Entrance Examination Board, students in music classes scored an average of 51 points higher on the math and verbal sections of the SAT. Increasing funding for the arts is the best thing for schools to do if they wish to see improvements like these in student performances, but in this economic situation, that suggestion is hardly viable. Rather, the most reasonable course of action is to maintain the current situation of the arts

programs so as to continue encouraging the academic growth and development of students.

Cognition is not the only area where improvements are seen in students taking art classes. Participating in music courses can improve a child’s performance in math. Proof of this can be found in a Harvard study by Elizabeth Spelke titled “Effects of Music Instruction on Developing Cognitive Systems at the Foundation

{

...students in music classes scored an average of 51 points higher on the math and verbal sections of the SAT.

}

of Math and Science.” In this publication, Spelke shows how music affects math achievements. The study involved testing children and adults with a series of assessments involving the identification of numerical and geometrical patterns. The test scores of those with musical experience showed that music training improves students’ performances in geometry. This conclusion that music affects mathematical understanding is not a fluke. In a classic experiment performed by University of California researchers Gordon Shaw

and Xiaodan Leng in the 1990s, college students who listened to a Mozart sonata before a math exam did significantly better than students who did not listen to the sonata. This study realized a short-term effect of exposure to music. Imagine the beneficial possibilities of long-term music classes, such as band or orchestra.

Music is not the only area that affects academic performance. Brian Wandell and his colleagues at Stanford were able to connect the visual arts to reading fluency by monitoring neural activity through a type of brain scanning. The brain scans identified connections between different regions of the brain related to reading and art. They also accumulated preliminary data showing that participation in visual arts courses improves mathematical proficiency. Scientists are currently conducting experiments to verify that the visual arts relate to the development of connective networks in certain areas of the brain. The connection of music and art to geometry may seem negligible at first because fine arts may not seem at all comparable with math. But arts and math are more closely related than one might originally think.

All three involve counting and recognizing patterns, whether numerical, visual, or musical. Involvement in the arts could help an otherwise unskilled math student improve their academic performance. The influence of the arts extends well-beyond the metaphorical easel.

As schools search for ways to save money in these economically harsh times, many see the arts as disposable. But based on numerous studies, it can no longer be said that the arts have no impact on academic performances with evidence of increased cognitive abilities and lower stress. Fine arts programs are key to students’ success.

No matter how costly these programs may seem, schools are in no way prepared for the fading student performance that will surely follow the removal of art. V

LES NOMBRES

{84,000,000} The number of people in the US who play instuments

bolzcenter.org

[26,000]

{48%}

The number of arts associations in the US

of US households have an instrumentplaying member No. 1 Volume 1 6

Austin is a place best known for its art and music culture. But, what about the other parts? The underbelly, the infrastructeral bits that no one ever sees? Well, we decided to go exploring...

Shoal Creek Under Northwest Park

words ia Cutter Words and photos

by Claudia Cutter

Assorted Graffiti. Top: Pedro’s Creek, Anderson Lane. Bottom: Train Car

Drainage Creeks, Allandale

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Railroad Tracks, Great Northern Blvd.

No. 1 Volume 1 34

a story of a CREATOR Words and photos by Elizabeth Conlon

S

unlight spills in from the windows, illuminating the otherwise dark room. An earthy-toned painting of a cup rests above the sofa, hanging simply without a frame. It’s mid-day, and the house is bustling with activity. A young boy enjoys his Star Wars video-game, leaping around the living room with a game controller. Outside, a man in his thirties bends over a green Toyota. A metal garden frog calmly regards him from the grassy lawn. This is the home and family of marketing director Christina Bennett, who manages the advertising and communications aspects of the Austinbased company, Surveying and Mapping (SAM).

Bennett graduated from the design program at the University

of Texas (UT) in 2002, after several years of learning design techniques. Because her current position at SAM doesn’t involve any design projects, she uses her free time to indulge her creative side. Her artistic flair is noticeable in the decorations of her house, from the numerous paintings (some her own) to the accessory flower vases and garden ornaments. Bennett sees her need to create as essential to her well-being.

“It’s a requirement,” Bennett says. “It’s just a therapy or a re-

lease, getting that opportunity to just think about what I want to make and only what I want to make.”

When she began college, Bennett thought that she was going

to major in studio art. Once school started, however, Bennett found she was dissatisfied by her classes. Because there was not a portfolio requirement to get in to the UT studio art program at the time, anyone who wanted to could participate in the program, and Bennett was disappointed by the lack of passion for art in class.

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“I didn’t really jive with [the situation] very well,” she says.

The UT design program became increasingly attractive to Bennett as she progressed with her studio art studies. She applied and was accepted in one of nineteen openings available in the program.

“It ended up being one of the best lucky things I stumbled upon,” Bennett says. “It really aligned well with my creative side and my hyper-analytical side because it really focused a lot on the process and thinking about designing things for the world around you, not just yourself.”

Bennett was exposed to a variety of design fields at UT, including furniture creation and 2D design. At the time, bookmaking was her favorite branch of design. As an intern at the campus photography lab, she had the freedom to explore her interests in the letterpress there.

“I just played and made tiny books and huge books and toilet paper books and all of that,” Bennett says.

The program focused mostly on the process of designing rather than the outcome. For a certain project, the class spent weeks observing the space outside the art building. It involved testing things like the light and traffic patterns and noting how people used the area. “[Designing is] a long series of just investigating before you get in to trying to figure out what the solution to your problem is,” Bennett says.

After college, Bennett was hired as a graphic designer at a landscape architecture firm. There, she created the company’s logo and produced its website to improve its image. This position provided Bennett with valuable experiences that helped her learn about the profession.

“Looking back now, I didn’t know anything when I first started working,” she reflects.

From her college and job experiences, Bennett discovered that one of her biggest challenges is working for other people.

“There is this inherent ego in a designer that wants to do what they want to do, and it’s hard to work with another client and try to see things from their perspective and make them happy,” she explains.

Today, Bennett’s work involves a lot of writing. She started her career at SAM as a receptionist and worked her way up by doing useful things, like editing proposals and updating the company website. Now, though she isn’t a designer, her knowledge of design is still valuable at SAM. “Design is the foundation of how I approach a problem or a project, the process that I do to it and trying to think about things from all different sides,” Bennett says, “Aspects of marketing and advertising and all of those things that I just kind of learned on the fly come together with that to do what I do today.”

Bennett’s occupation at SAM and taking care of her family leaves her little time to make things for herself. She paints on her own when she has the opportunity. But she doesn’t regret the decisions that led her to her current position.

“I mean, if I had to do it all over again, I would still do the exact same thing I did,” Bennett says. V

THIS PAGE: Various paintings Bennett recently painted in her spare time.

OPPOSITE: One of the posters from Bennett’s senior project in college.

No. 1 Volume 1 12

Photos by Elizabeth Conlon

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No. 1 Volume 1 15 34

I

a e A g g R

t’s become quite the cliche by now: the old grandpa waves his cane angrily, loudly proclaiming that the youngsters these days have no idear what good music really is! The malarkey they listen to nowadays is makin’ his ears bleed!

Every generation has had its share of protest about how their music isn’t “real”. Jazz was considered obscene in the early 1900s, the sixties gave rise to “those damn hippies!” and punk was all about offending the elderly. However, the newest magnet for criticism from advocaters for so-called “real music” is electronic dance music. While no one can disagree that music hasn’t changed immensely over the last few decades, that doesn’t mean it’s gotten less valuable or less “real”. So, let’s try and prove that point to Grandpa.

First of all, the term “electronic music” is an all-encompassing term that can refer to any genre of music where electromechanical instruments, like, say, synthesizers, are used. This means dance music, rave music, house and techno can all be called electronic music. But, hey, according to the Music Genome Project, so can Lady Gaga.

That’s right, recently electronic music has evolved from being more of an underground club movement all the way to being on the radio. And, it’s not just Lady Gaga, who currently holds the top song on iTunes as I type this, but many of the most popular artists today are using electronic influences. This strange, robotic-sounding music

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seemsto seems to have become something people really like. It’s fun to dance to and it makes people happy, and isn’t that what music is for after all? In fact, popular artists from Katy Perry to Rihanna and the Black Eyed Peas all have been said to use electronic influences, according to the Music Genome Project, a program which groups and classifies music based on thousands of unique traits. Of course, it’s true that just because something is popular doesn’t automatically make it good, but being liked by a wide variety of very different people certainly does hold some merit.

The popularity of this music isn’t the only thing contributing to its potential to be amazing. I would say that the thing that makes music good is when it has the power to deeply affect people. All those great movements I talked about before, the jazz and the hippies and the punk had such big impacts because they didn’t just affect people’s records or iPods, but their entire lives. Once music has the ability to change the way you dress, the people you hang out with and the places you spend time at, that is when it is something truly powerful. And electronic music really does seem to have quite the effect on people.For example, during the rave movement of the 1990s, people would risk getting arrested to congregate at fire code-violating clubs and party to this particular brand of wild dance-inducing music. Dance music subgenres have even started their own outrageous, colorful styles of dressing.This music seems to affect people in many different ways.

M a h T e

a t s g in be e l p o Why pe

c music? i n o ec tr l e n n’ o i t a h

One argument I seem to run into quite a bit these days is that music is only music if it uses traditional instruments, like guitars or drums.

But, we have to remember that everything, including music and the instruments that make it, evolves. Actually, guitars and drums themselves would be considered strange and radical instruments during, say, the Renaissance era when everyone played lyres. But, we all got used to those weird guitar things, and nowadays they’re not so weird at all. Electronic music just hasn’t been around so long, so of course it’s going to shock a few grandfathers. One of the most fantastic things about culture is that it is ever changing, and music is a lovely expression of that.

Of course, people are going to like whatever music they are going to like and hardly any argument is going to convince someone to change their tastes, however poor. All I ask is that people give all different sorts of music, including electronic music, a fair try, keeping in mind that many people do enjoy it, that it affects people as powerfully as other varieties of music, and that popular instruments are always going to keep evolving and we should accept this and enjoy the variety it offers us. V

ac hi ne Words by Claudia Cutter

No. 1 Volume 1 16

Electronic Music Reviews...

Netsky is kind of different in that the music contains electronic music mixed with instruments like piano and drums. The overall sounds is really relaxed while still dance-able and just really...pretty.

It’s somehow both peaceful and energetic, as well as being very versatile, with ventures into all different genres of electronic music.

Listen to this: Secret Agent

Justice is a duo from France who play really chaotic, exciting rock-ish dance music with a kind of scary-sounding edge. Although some songs can get repetitive, some you can listen to again and again and keep picking up on new things you hadn’t heard the first time.

Listen to this: Let There Be Light

Basshunter is crazy energetic techno music that makes me ridiculously happy every time I hear it!

Not to mention that it is made by lovely SWEDISH PEOPLE so when there are songs with lyrics in them, they are in SWEDISH which is just unbearably fantastic. It’s just really fun electronic dance.

Listen to this: DotA

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Magical Mystery Tour

Hard Day’s Night The White Album

1968

Yellow Submarine

1969

1963 1964

With The Beatles

The Beatles released 12 studio albums plus one EP during their very short career. Here they are, in order.

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

1967

Please Please Me

1966

Timeline of Beatles Albums

Revolver

1965

Beatles For Sale

Help!

Abbey Road*

Rubber Soul

Let It Be*

1970

* The album Let It Be was actually recorded before Abbey Road. The Beatles, however, were not satisfied with it, so they disregarded it and moved on to Abbey Road.

In 1970, they found out they were bound by a contract to release it.

Roll Over Beethoven, T Almost fifty years after releasing their first album, the Beatles are still popular and influencing music.

F

or as long as I remember, I’ve known who the Beatles were. My mom played one of the group’s many albums as she cleaned up the house, and every time a Beatles cover band played at the Oasis, Nutty Brown Cafe, or other local venues, you could see my family, little sisters and all, dancing along to the beat of “Come Together” with many other people who still appreciate the music that the Beatles made 50 years ago. Unlike my family, though, some people think that you “had to be there” to fully appreciate Beatlemania or that he band is going out of style. If you looked at popular culture and people today, however, you’d see that they still love the Fab Four.

If you really think that the Beatles are going out of style, just pick up an album by Oasis. Don’t listen to Oasis? Then how about Elton John, The Stone Roses, Elvis Costello, or Offspring? All of these bands have credited the Beatles as a musical influence. Because of the band’s unique mixture of pop, rock, psychedelic, and Indian style music, they are able to influence many old and new artists. The Boo Radleys, a band from the 90’s, are said

by BBC’s Julie Glassman to have the Beatles’ same pop and psychedelic sound, whereas Oasis has mostly adopted the rock aspect. Elton John very obviously has the same sort of popish sound that the Beatles’ early music had, as does Elvis Costello. Offspring seems to has of the same guitar techniques. Even bands that weren’t directly influenced by the Beatles have a certain style of music because of them. The Beatles started a musical revolution.

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on iTune’s most downloaded albums list than Taylor Swift’s Speak Now and Justin Bieber’s My World. The fact that a band that is no longer releasing music, and hasn’t for forty years, is ranking higher on download charts than modern artists that teen girls scream over is quite the accomplishment. And not only are the Beatles recognized by many people and the musical community as influential, they have now been noticed by the academic community. There is now a program at Liverpool Hope University where twelve people are majoring in the Beatles. No other band has made this much of an impact on the academic world, if any at all.

Finally, the Beatles have had the ability to unite generations.

Evidence from a survey sent out to LASA students shows that not only do teenagers like the Beatles, but their friends and parents do too. When I asked people about other artists such as Ke$ha and Bruno Mars, most people might say that they like them, but parents have no clue who they are.

The Beatles, on the other hand, are popular across generations, from little kids to their grandparents. Their music is so diverse that they can appeal to kids who want cheesy music to grandparents who lived in the 60’s and remember the “hippie era”.

}

After just a week of being available for download, the Beatles sold over 2,000,000 songs.

The statistics on iTunes also show that the Beatles are still popular and that their music is valued as much as bands who are winning Grammys. According to Apple, after just a week of being available for download, the Beatles sold over 2,000,000 songs, and the compilation LOVE ranked higher

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The Beatles may not have affected everyone as much as my family, but they were still very influential. Their music, style, and lyrics still reach people, whether it’s a teen who wants to hold someone’s hand or a fool on a hill who thinks they’re going to get a tan from standing in the English rain. John Lennon and George Harrison were not buried along with their names as many artists’ were, while many people still enjoy Paul and Ringo’s shows. The band was so widespread and influential, it’d be impossible not to notice their timeless changes. V

The Beatles Are Here

Words by Mayrose Porter Photo by Amazon.com

No. 1 Volume 1 34

Beg,Steal or

Borrow

tr ial s in mu sic aqui sition

Three a.m. and you just found out that your very favourite band finally released their new record--in E u r o p e . T h e r e i s n’ t e v e n a r e l e a s e d a t e s e t f o r t h e U S y e t .

Now you have a choice. Download it now, or wait a couple months. Which do you choose? If you’re like many other people around the world, you’d download it first, maybe buy it later. Though some claim that fans would always wait for their music, the fact of the matter is that by putting boundaries on Internet releases, music companies actually lose money to pirates who would usually buy it legally.

Probably one of the most irritating things in the music world is when finding a great artist you enjoy only to discover that their music isn’t available in your country. Sellers of physical products--think CDs--and Internet services-iTunes, et cetera--both define borders for their releases based upon location--something that makes sense for physical

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CDs and vinyls, which need to be fabricated and shipped, but is significantly less sensible for digital downloads, which

days to a few months to over a year. For truly devoted fans, the international shipping and exchange rate costs to import

Imagine, you could be this.

do not require any fabrication.

In some areas, this means the music is never for sale, as is generally the case with foreign language music here in the US. In other cases, there is a delay, ranging widely from a few

a disc might not be too much to ask. For most casual listeners, though, it’s often another story.

Piracy is already dealt with loosely. Many people believe

that nobody ever gets caught, and even if they know of the occasional lawsuit, many, many people still pirate anyway. Charles Moore of Applelinks, citing the Pew Research Center’s 2003 study, reported in his article “Is Music Piracy Stealing?” that about twothirds of participants interviewed by Pew said they did not care about copyrights. The results were nearly the same for questions on caring about copyrights between file swaps or music downloads from the Internet. Within my own experience surveying my own peers, that statistic is much greater. The fact of the matter is that the majority of people already don’t care enough about pirating music to stop-why must the music industry insist upon giving them another reason to do it?

Beyond connecting the dots, proof that pirating can come from inability to buy the music legally is displayed for all to see on public forums. On one such thread on MacHeist, multiple people commented that they pirated music because they couldn’t find it in their countries, be it anywhere from Sweden to Australia. One MacHeist user went so far as to say, “F*ck the music industry. [...]

To get music I like, I have to 1) pay $30 in shipping [or] 2) buy foreign grey-market iTunes gift cards. And the only way for me to get any exposure to new stuff I like is through illegal means.”

Though this was just his own testimony, the sentiment was repeated wherever I looked across the Internet. Clearly, marking boundaries isn’t making the music industry any money, nor friends.

Why, then, does the music industry insist upon clinging to old-fashioned, physical standards in a brave new digital world, antagonizing fans across an increasingly small globe?

If the industry could just change the way release dates are thought of, making digital releases less bound by physical boundaries, more music would be legally available to fans--fans who then could honestly buy the music they want, instead of being forced to become pirates in that quick, 3AM decision. V

Words by Anne Kat Alexander Photo by Jonathan Watts

pirating b y t he num b e rs

36 million

surveyed Americans say they have illegally downloaded music

19% 28% 48%

say they download from others’ music

say they download from emails or instant messages

say they have used services other than peer-to-peer sharing or legal downloads to acquire music

42%

say they do not believe government enforcement of pirating would work very well No. 1 Volume 1 22

The story of one band and their journey to fame Words by Mayrose Porter Photo by Angus MacRae

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A

lready at his drums, Suren de Saram of Bombay Bicycle Club waits for the rest of his band to join him on stage. The small crowd of hipsters cheers when every band member takes the stage and every guitar is tuned. Lead singer Jack Steadman begins to quietly sing, gaining energy with each note. By the end, he’s headbanging during the guitar solos. After the show, many of the listeners offer to buy the band drinks, but they decline. The musicians of five years aren’t even of legal age in the United States.

Bombay Bicycle Club is an indie band from the UK, comprised of guitarist and singer Jack Steadman, guitarist Jamie MacColl, bassist Ed Nash, and drummer Suren de Saram. At the age of 15, their rise to fame began with winning a competition called Road to V. Since then, Bombay Bicycle Club has gained over 150,000 fans on Facebook and made its way onto the international music scene, performing at festivals around the world. Before that, however, the four members were just young teens playing at a school talent show in London, England.

“It’s really good to hear when people tell us that our songs have had a positive effect on their life,” de Saram said. “It’s also nice when someone tells you that you inspired them, whether that’s as a band or if one of us inspired someone to start learning an instrument or something.”

As with any occupation, there comes actual work - however, for Bombay Bicycle Club and most other bands, the work is songwriting. The process is different for everyone, whether they’re just jamming out on instruments until inspiration strikes, or if everything is methodically planned. For Bombay Bicycle Club, lead singer and guitarist Jack Steadman often writes the songs.

“Sometimes he will bring a song to the band that is pretty much fully formed and then we will maybe make a few tweaks as a band to finish it,” de Saram said. Other times he will bring a couple of ideas for a song like a melody and bass line and then we will finish the song as a band. Lyrics are always written after the music is written... usually at the very last minute.”

“Focus on writing good songs and not on your image or any of that crap. Just try and get out there.”

“We all played in various bands for fun before Bombay Bicycle Club started,” de Saram said. “At the time we didn’t really have plans to become a permanent band.”

After that, they went on to participate - and win - the 2006 Road to V contest, a competition held by Virgin Mobile to pick the best new artists and feature them in the V Festival and on TV. “That was the probably first time a lot of people heard our name because we got exposure on TV,” de Saram said.

Over the past five years, the band has released two full albums, I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose and Ivy and Gold, in lieu of going to college or finding a stable job at home. They have grown to be great friends, a result of spending their time in a small tour bus as the travel the world to perform and constantly living together... always.

“It can also get a bit claustrophobic doing a long tour on a tour bus... you start to miss your personal space,” de Saram said.

Despite the lack of space, the four members of Bombay Bicycle Club continues to do what they love: make music. Practicing almost every day, this is their life. But with their job, they know they’re influencing others.

After the endless hours of rehearsing and writing comes the concerts, bringing travel along with it. As much fun as traveling the world to do what the band members have dedicated a quarter of their lives doing, it does have downsides.

“The worst part is probably missing friends and family when you’re on the road,” de Saram said.

However, traveling does come with crazy stories. When you play as many gigs and concerts as Bombay Bicycle Club does, funny stories that live on in the minds of the musicians are bound to happen.

“Jack smacked a girl who was in the front row at a gig in Brussels in the forehead with his guitar (by mistake),” de Saram remembered. “We saw her again a few months later and I think she has a permanent scar.”

But before any of this, they were just kids, just high schoolers attempting to get noticed, like many high school students nowadays. De Saram, having already been in this situation and made it out of the abyss that is a lack of fans, gives advice to them: “Focus on writing good songs and not on your image or any of that crap. Just try and get out there.” V

No. 1 Volume 1 24

Photos by Mayrose Porter, Kendall Graham, and Random Ginger Chick

vinyl heaven a story about a record store Words by Anne Kat Alexander

T

here’s always music playing in Waterloo, at just the right level for listening--loud enough so you can’t hear the other shoppers, yet quiet enough to concentrate.

Four employees stand near the cash registers, chatting while their eyes casually follow the few customers milling about, working their way through the near-endless rows of CDs and LPs. Here, music is not counted in albums or racks, but in feet of bins. The air is lightly scented with the smell of vinyl, new and old. It’s been a music fan’s Nirvana. Since 1982, Waterloo Records has been offering one of the largest selections of new and used vinyl, CDs, and other miscellaneous musical knickknacks in town to customers of all different persuasions.

“There’s all sorts,” says Matt McCarroll, a manager at Waterloo. “You get the big aficionados, the people who think they’re big aficionados... and the vinyl people,”

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he adds. “The vinyl people are generally pretty cool.”

might not have been around when vinyl was big the first time.

The vinyl people, which, according to McCarroll, are becoming all the more common.

“It’s something we’ve been noticing increasing interest in, in the young kids.

That’s always great, for the most part, and they might not really know why they’re doing it, some of it’s kind of fad-ish, a lot of might be kind of fad-ish, but I’m okay with that!”

After all, he explains, it is the younger crowd that is keeping the store open for business, buying up the more expensive vinyl LPs at an ever-increasing rate, though CD sales still make up the majority of the store’s revenue.

“They call it the Vinyl Resurgence,” he says with a cocky sort of smile.

The Vinyl Resurgence, he explains, is the influx of younger people interested in purchasing vinyl--people whose parents

“CDs make up probably the majority of our sales, however their sales are declining, whereas records are increasing. So while we might not be selling as many records as CDs, it’s still one of the healthier parts of the store.”

Though the store may be fascinating on its own, being thirty years old and containing the largest selection of LPs in Austin, the people must also be accredited with making it what it is today--and keeping it open to even get to today.

“There used to be a place called Sound Exchange, which was a great record store, used to go there all the time when I was growing up... Thirty-Three Degrees closed down, unfortunately, Snake Eyes closed down, Sound on Sounds closed down,” McCarroll says, sadly naming off record stores that are no longer. The list goes on.

The interest in vinyl isn’t only the faddriven younger crowd, of course. A vinyl enthusiast himself, McCarroll explains the benefits of a traditional LP over a CD or mp3 with hand gestures and faster speech.

“You always hear that vinyl sounds warmer, and it does depend on the rig that you have, like if you have a really nice rig that, I’d say, [was] made in the sixties or seventies when they were really making really good rigs and stuff like that, you’re gonna get a really nice sound... it’s completely worth it. And plus, you get the satisfaction of having something physical you can hold.”

The feeling of holding the large, square cardboard sleeve and the slick black record inside, McCarroll believes, has certainly aided in Waterloo’s sales--the romantic nature of the record store that pirating from YouTube or even purchasing from iTunes can’t provide. Currently, Waterloo Records also has an mp3 store, which McCarroll says they are in the process of shutting down.

“It didn’t sell well. I mean, when you’ve got iTunes and Amazon doing their stuff...

We were hoping that, with the trends towards digital music being the norm, we were hoping to boost some of those sales, but unfortunately this wasn’t the case.”

Not to say that Waterloo is being hit hard with this one loss. After the past three decades, Waterloo has developed a firm standing as an Austin landmark, and hosts a plethora of in-store events and shows throughout the year to draw in more perspective customers.

“In between South By [Southwest], ACL, Christmas and all that, there’s a huge gap, so we try to get people in the store by having events like in-stores and stuff like that, and they can be smaller acts... that don’t have a lot of fanbase, or they can be much larger acts,” McCarroll says.

With the price of vinyl going up, pressing factories scrambling to meet demand, and the economy shutting down small businesses across the country, it’s not the best time to be a record store. McCarroll believes Waterloo is a little bit safer, though.

For South By Southwest this year alone, Waterloo hosted over a dozen acts on their outdoor stage, with back-to-back shows starting at noon and lasting into the evening. After three years of working at Waterloo and over ten years as a loyal customer, McCarroll has countless stories of people who have come in and shows that have been played in the landmark store.

“Austin’s been, obviously, a great town to be a record store in... It’s a musical town, we’re a music store, it’s kind of handin-hand that we’ve been able to ride out stormy weather.”

“Nirvana played here, a long time ago, back there near the checking counter, right as Nevermind just hit. That was packed,” he recalls. “Well, so I heard,” he adds, being less than ten years old at the time of the show itself.

Waterloo Records is located at sixth and Lamar.

May the audiophiles of Austin hope together that this may be true--long live Waterloo Records. V

Photos by (clockwise from top left): cam quach, Mayrose Porter, Charlie Llewellin, Annie Mole.

Which Wizard Rock B Wizard Rock is a rising genre of music that focuses on one thing....Harry Potter. Songs about Harry Potter. Just Harry Potter. So which of these fantastic bands if for YOU?

What is the best way to spend a day?

Hero or villian?

A) Dance party!

A) Whoever’s cuter.

B) Torturing people into thinking I’m always best.

B) Villain

C) Writing fan fiction.

C) I like animals.

D) Chilling with my friends.

D) Hero

What is your ideal date?

What do you want to be when you grow up?

A) Someone who’s cute, exciting, and fun, and doesn’t mind my eccentric personality. They should also like dance parties!!

A) I want to travel the world, finding whatever work I can.

B) Someone super hot and enjoys hurting other creatures. I’m pretty specific though, most of the girls in Slytherin are fugly.

C) I want to be liked.

C) A cat... who really knows how to push my buttons ;) Maybe a werewolf.

B) I want to be the evil dictator of the universe.

D) I want to have a job where I can be around people whose company I enjoy and my friends.

D) Someone caring who has really cool hair. They should get along with my friends.

What’s your favorite food?

What is your favorite kind of music?

B) The blood of my enemies.

A) I like pop! And electronic! And music that allows me to have dance parties!

C) Fertilizer. Did I say fertilizer? I meant... dirt.

B) Angry music. Stuff that gets me in the mood to beat up my peers.

C) Something... interesting. Like my personality.

D) Chill, classic and soft rock.

A) Anything sweet!

D) Whatever’s placed in front of me.

What’s your ideal pet?

A) A pony! Or a puppy! Or a bunny! Or a kitty!

B) A dragon who could eat my enemies.

C) Birds who can occupy my branches.

D) Wolves are cool.

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Band Are You? The Results Are In....

Ministry of Magic!

You are Ministry of Magic! You’re happy, popish, and like to have dance parties with hot girls like Kristina Horner. You like sugar... probably too much. Ponies are cool too.

Draco and the Malfoys!

You are evil, angsty, selfish, and hate everything nice, especially puppies. You hate Harry Potter and think he’s a selfish little kid who needs to get over the death of his parents, and much prefer the bad guys in stories.

The Whomping Willows!

You are the oddball. You are often refered to as the person who acts like a tree.

Animals are better than humans to you, but everything still finds you weird.

The Remus Lupins!

You are supa fly, and you know it, but you don’t flaunt it. Chill is your favorite word, and you’d rather hang out with friends than kill people.

Quiz by Mayrose Porter and Claudia Cutter

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Musicians all do their own thing; that’s what makes them famous. Victoria Bergsman is a Swedish singer with the alias of Taken by Trees. Here is a little insight into her musical life.

How old were you when you first started to realize you wanted to be a musician?

I don’t look at it that way, I am a creative person and it is in me to express myself creative[ly], whether it’s through music or something else. And I have always been a very creative person, as long as I can remember.

Why did you decide to break off from the band and start your solo career?

I wasn’t enjoying compromising and being creative in such a big group. I felt a strong need to follow my vision fully and that I couldn’t do within a group.

What are the best and worst parts of performing and being a musician in general?

The love/hate of getting attention and recognition, it is a very strange feeling.

What are the most rewarding and thankless parts of being a musician?

To make people feel something real and beautiful. I can’t think about what would be the thankless part of it.

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Can you please briefly describe the songwriting process?

I don’t believe in talking about that, it is too personal and also would take away the mystery, kind of.

Can you please briefly describe what it’s like to perform?

Terrifying, amazing, all depending on how I feel when I am on stage and the feedback from the crowd.

What do you think/hope will happen in the future with your music?

I hope I will always wanna make music and always feel passionate about it.

If you weren’t a musician, what would you be?

Probably a chef, I love cooking.

What’s the craziest thing that’s ever happened to you while performing/after a performance?

Not sure, it is kind of crazy already to perform so I am kind of in another zone...

If there’s any advice you would give to aspiring musicians, what would it be?

Keep it real, and believe in yourself.

Words and Photo by Mayrose Porter

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So I hear you ne Um, no.

Synths are cool, right?

But British chicks are, right?

UPBEAT!

Upbeat or

Sounds good.

Um.

Ireland forever!

Scotland

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eed an album...

You’re a very affirmative person, aren’t you? Don’t answer that.

ST AR T

HE RE

YES.

Words by Anne Kat Alexander

Want to feel infectiously happy for any reason?

low-key?

something softer...

YES.

Not really, I just want a really great album.

Favourite UK province?

Northern Ireland

England

Wales is cool, right?

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Photos by Elizabeth Conlon

No. 1 Volume 1 34

Gemini

may 22 - june 21

Libra

sep. 23 - oct. 22

Cancer

Scorpio

Leo

Sagittarius

Virgo

Capricorn

june 22 - july 22

july 23 - august 22

august 23 - sep. 22

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oct. 23 - nov. 21

nov. 22 - dec. 21

dec. 22 - jan. 19

Aquarius

Aries

Pisces

Taurus

jan. 20 - feb. 18

feb. 19- march 20

march 21 - april 20

april 21 - may 21

SC PES

Photos by Elizabeth Conlon

H RO

fancy

flight of

Austin’s own Feathers Boutique

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is a lovely way to shop vintage

A

tangle of antique gold necklaces clang softly against shiny mile-long strings of pearls. Old floorboards creak under scuffing footsteps. The musty smell of cinnamon and well-loved clothes fills the air, drifting on the gentle breeze that wafts in through the glass door, making the many peacock feathers scattered throughout the store wave like hands, greeting the few customers stylish enough to know of this store’s existence.

Welcome to Feathers: a small vintage store on South Congress Avenue, a locally owned style paradise, and a haven to all those who never grew out of playing dress up. Feathers is the place to find such gems as lace-up platform boots, forties-style swimsuits, and sequined jackets, all hand picked by the small staff of style-obsessed Austinites.

“We travel all over Texas to find the merchandise for our store,” says Masha Poloskova, co-owner and -creator of this oasis of creativity. “Anywhere from thrift stores to people’s private homes. We also buy from the public daily, so there are always new items coming in.”

It’s true that much of the merchandise at Feathers is a little eccentric- to say the least. But, Poloskova believes that’s part of what makes the store such a clothing paradise.

them with t-shirts or other youthful items, just to breathe new life into them,” Elizabeth says. “If one wishes to have articles of clothing that few other people have, then vintage stores are definitely the way to go!”

This attitude seems to be a trend all over Austin. Every day, fashionable shoppers crowd the racks and dressing rooms of vintage shops like Cream, Blue Velvet and New Bohemia, all scrambling to find the one rare treasure to trump them all.

Of course, even in this competitive atmosphere, Feathers still seems to be coming up on top. They’ve been voted best vintage store in town two years in a row at the Austin Fashion Awards, after all. No easy feat in a place with such copious amounts of heavily-frequented vintage stores..

“[Vintage stores] offer so many unique items, and allow people to shop in all different decades,”

“Our customers are looking for something that stands out for them. They love to be different,” she says. And besides, she says, it’s all in the way you wear the unusual pieces that can be found at Feathers.

“To wear vintage, you have to know how to mix it in to your wardrobe with new pieces. This way you will always look current without ever having the same outfit as someone else,” says Poloskova.

Elizabeth C., McCallum freshman, Feathers frequenter and all-around expert on the strangest of clothing also extols the praises of the unique clothing that can be found at Feathers as well as at other vintage stores. “[Vintage stores] offer so many unique items and allow people to shop in all different decades instead of just the ones during which they are alive; I mean, I certainly don’t have time-traveling powers to buy super pretty dresses from the 50’s. I especially love buying earrings from numerous decades ago, to wear

Elizabeth agrees that no other city can quite match up. “The other vintage stores I’ve shopped at outside of Austin focused less on the quality or the state of their items, and less on the fashion aspects, as well. The vintage stores in Austin will almost always guarantee a good buy quality- and fashion-wise,” she explains.

It’s not just the lovely costume-y clothes that can be found at these places that make them so special, though. Elizabeth says there is a certain atmosphere to vintage shops that just makes them more special.

“Vintage stores either smell really nice, like a sweet old herbal medicine man’s home might smell, that is, like a field of lilacs or a pool of vanilla extract, which is lovely; or they will smell like your elder relatives. I mean, not gross, but like your grandma who wears a floral perfume, or has an attic filled with family treasure,” Elizabeth says.

Feathers certainly seems to have more character than your typical department store. It exudes old-world glamor mixed with the wild insanity of the young world. The jewelry is displayed on skulls, a fan of peacock feathers is arranged around a pair of shoes, and vintage Playboy magazines are strewn about the ancient-looking coffee tables. If you’re looking for something unique and beautiful that no one else will be wearing, Austin’s vintage stores, especially Feathers, are definitely the way to go. V

Words by Claudia Cutter Photos by Feathers Blog

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T

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Words by Pablo Picasso Photo by Katie Knutson

Thanks to...

Ms. Young, for being our spiritual guide in this journey we call The Life of Ezine,

Elizabeth Campos for giving Claudia an interview in which she talked about “oldsters who need their Depends changed”,

Ms. Brosche, for teaching us how to make formal outlines,

Clay Cutter for being so freaking adorable in every photograph ever,

Ms. Fuller, Ms. Cothorn, Ms. Flores, and Ms. Backhaus for teaching the group the alphabet, Mr. Loewenstern and Mr. Moody for showing us where Estonia is, The custodians for cleaning up the pieces of our hearts when our magazine had issues, Ms. Earnhart for letting us carry a spoon when we had to pee, and teaching us the science dance, Our mothers for carrying our weight through all the doorways, Bombay Bicycle Club for being totally hot, Taken By Trees for speaking English and not answering in Swedish, The Beatles for being the best band the world has ever seen,

Victor for sending us good Myspace pictures and making our magazine suck less, Vinylrecords@gmail.com for receiving our weekly spam emails full of pictures of elephants, chickens, rabbits, pandas, and whales.

Whoever you are, we love you, Twilight for giving us an example for how not to write, Wired and The New Yorker for reminding us that we’re not the most brilliant people out there, And thank you to whoever managed to actually read this whole thing through...what kind of supernatural being ARE you?

And no thanks to Celeste for having a baby right before the vegan came to get cupcakes. I mean, who does that?

Christina for getting Elizabeth a glass of water, Ke$ha for her inspirational music, The panda drinking by the ocean just because, Platano el Unicornio y el Señor Manzana el Dinosaurio, porque ellos son fantasticos (ellos pueden tocar la guitarra y cocicar tacos),

Sincerely, The VINYL Staff

Les étoiles, qui mangent bien, Deborah Hallock for being the same person as Claudia, Arnav for always bugging us and being stupid and stealing our chair, Cy Cutter for being second only to Justin Bieber on Juanita’s list of hotness, A teacher who will not be named here for giving a Youtube password to a student who will not be named here so we could continue our musical education all through class,

Anne Kat Alexander

Elizabeth Conlon

AISD for waiting just a bit longer before blocking Pandora (how would we have made it through class without Pandora Radio?),

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VIN

NYL

No. 1 Volume 1 44

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