Archives - Jeffrey Howard
Culture
‘Rambler Channel’: reinventing nostalgia
Like a talking naked mole rat, Disney's tween culture is endearingly repulsive. I would know – at the crux of my own tweendom, lovable and conscientious Cody from "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody" became a go-to model for rendering my crippling fear of authority socially attractive. If Cody taught me anything, it […]
CT Recommends
CT Recommends: Ibibio Sound Machine – “Ibibio Sound Machine”
Ibibio Sound Machine, a 2014 afrobeat dance collective fronted by Nigerian singer Eno Williams, knows its stuff, but not necessarily in the way you'd expect. The band doesn't do songs with ambitious structures that extend over six minutes. It doesn't have a field day with vocoders and drum machines in the way that's practically expected […]
Culture
Jesse Denaro: embracing real struggles, finding real answers
Vulnerable, urgent, tender and raucous, Jesse Denaro's "Dear, Love" LP is real. On the album, set to drop May 13, Denaro combines unvarnished rage with delicately voiced 11 chords and the kind of songwriting smarts that made John Mayer's "Room for Squares" so immaculate. Denaro as an artist captures a special sense of balance […]
Culture
‘Undergraduate Musicians Council’ broadens presence
On Friday, April 11, UR's Undergraduate Musicians Council hosted its first annual showcase at the Interfaith Chapel. The showcase presented an opportunity for UR student musicians to perform for their peers in an environment more formal than that of other on-campus music outlets – for example, No Jackets Required's open mic or Starbucks's “Friday Night […]
Culture
Turkuaz: dancing the distractions away
They say today’s music looks to the past to move forward, but does it really? In a sense, sure – Daft Punk and Robin Thicke scored the biggest hits of the summer by embracing 1970s pop textures. But perhaps we’re not moving forward at all. Just take a listen to Pharrell’s new LP: the bass […]
Culture
Stadium-sized ambition, small town soul
On Tuesday, April 8 the X Ambassadors, a Brooklyn-based alt-pop quartet, played Rochester's Bugjar. I interviewed the band's frontman, Sam Harris, a few weeks ago. We discussed the band's diverse set of influences. To reiterate, the X-Ambassadors bring together anthemic stomp-clap beats fit for large stadiums, a modern keenness for atmosphere and watery textures, […]
Humor
Student buys Starbucks’ Ham and Cheese Square for some incomprehensible reason
On Monday morning, UR freshman Chandler Ross ordered a Ham and Cheese Square from the on-campus Starbucks just before running to his 9:40am computer science class. Sources say Ross did indeed eat the repulsive breakfast item, but not before painstakingly cutting it into bite-sized squares, thus cutting a precious ten minutes out of his morning […]
Humor
‘Go Yellowjackets!’ post reveals incoming freshman knows nothing about UR
Incoming freshman Chad Hunter could hardly contain his enthusiasm when he posted “Go Yellowjackets!” on UR’s “Class of 2018” Facebook page this Tuesday. The post has been met with much hostility from the UR student body, thus eliminating Hunter’s chances of ever making a friend at the University. Sophomore Eli Zuckerman explains why Hunter committed […]
Culture
D’Angelo’s live reissue and why it could change everything
Is there a “jazz is dead” movement? I guess not — it’d have made its voice amply loud on social media by now. Evidently, the jazz community doesn’t see it appropriate to unite over collective consternation towards the state of modern music. Good for the jazzers — rallies, campaigns, and movements breed ignorance, even when […]
Culture
X Ambassadors: taking from the past, looking to the future
Jeff Howard interviews X-Ambassador front man Sam Harris. Read More
