and what I’ll always think of when I hear them

Dua Lipa, Future Nostalgia 

Dua Lipa’s sophomore album Future Nostalgia was released on my birthday in 2020, so of course I was bound to like it. The album was one of the first pop albums in a long time (maybe ever) that I really really loved upon its release.

Future Nostalgia is fun, and provided relief from the extremely stressful time that was March 2020 (and the following year). A few days before Lipa’s album release, Lady Gaga postponed the release of her highly anticipated sixth album Chromatica. In a time where people needed something to look forward to, Lipa’s decision to release her album a week early was respectable. And it paid off: in some ways, Lipa helped lead the way for musicians releasing music during the pandemic. Artists had to find new ways to showcase their music and connect with their fans, which Lipa spoke to NPR about. Now, going on Instagram Live and holding virtual performances are the norm, but in March 2020, many musicians were trying it for the first time.

The standout track to me when this album was released was “Levitating.” I also loved “Physical” and “Break My Heart,” but “Levitating” reminds me of my hometown where I would half jog, half walk and text a boy I matched with on Bumble in February who I planned to meet up with as soon as the pandemic was over and I was back in Washington, DC, to finish up my senior of college. 

I never met up with Bumble boy and I never returned to DC to finish my senior year. But Future Nostalgia reminds me of a hopeful time when I thought I would do both of those things and more in 2020 (like travel to Greece and Jordan in the summer, see Lukas Nelson in concert in Washington, D.C., see Lukas Nelson in concert in Pennsylvania, etc. etc.). And one day, hopefully I will. I’ll just listen to Future Nostalgia to give me that hope.

Victoria Monét, Jaguar

Victoria Monét’s Jaguar is probably my favorite release of 2020. The album was released in August and, like Future Nostalgia, has distinctive disco influences. 

Monét is a longtime friend and songwriter of Ariana Grande, and I have long wished for the day that Monét would get credit for her solo work in the same way that she does for her work on Grande’s albums (some of Monét’s recent songwriting credits include Thank U, Next [2019] and Sweetener [2018], both of which are Grammy-nominated). Jaguar is fun and sexy and is quite the departure from some of Monét’s previous projects, such as Life After Love, Pt. 1 and Life After Love, Pt. 2, where it is quite obvious that Monét is one of Grande’s main collaborators.

On Jaguar, however, Monét has a sound that is distinctively different. The title track is my favorite due to its heavy R&B and disco influences. “Experience,” to which Khalid lends his vocals, is another standout, and reminds me of the three-week stint I had over the summer waitressing at a pizza restaurant around the corner from my apartment building. I loved to play this song for my frat boy coworkers who exclusively listened to house music and absolutely nothing else. 

Long story short, that job didn’t quite work out. Soon after, I started working at a COVID testing lab, where I would play “Jaguar” whenever I had the chance to queue a song on Spotify. It was here that I made some of my strongest friendships in this city for the first time since the pandemic started. For me, Jaguar is an album all about risks and new beginnings– like moving back across the country in the middle of a pandemic and waiting to see what happens next.

Sojaboy, I Love You

Okay fine, this one isn’t an album. And no, it wasn’t released in 2020. 90 Day Fiancé fans already know this. Is this my favorite song? No. Was this song critically acclaimed? Also no, unless you count the two 5-star reviews on Amazon music (“I love this cd,” raved one listener). But nonetheless, “I Love You” by Sojaboy is absolutely a 2020 staple.

Released in 2019, “I Love You” gained attention in 2020 when Sojaboy, real name Usman Umar, appeared on season 4 of 90 Day Fiancé: Before the 90 Days with his then-fiancé Lisa Hamme. For reasons documented on the show–like Hamme’s jealousy due to dating a local celebrity 20 years her junior– Umar and Hamme didn’t work out. And like any good reality TV couple, they had a very public breakup and bashed each other on social media. 

But before there was trouble in paradise, Umar wrote “I Love You” about Hamme, and performed it live for her during her first visit to his home country of Nigeria, which was all documented on 90 Day Fiancé. 

The season aired from February through June 2020, and was my go-to show through the first wave of the pandemic when I was home in the Bay Area. When I listen to “I Love You,” I think of sitting in lounge chairs in the backyard at my mom’s house in late spring with my best friend since high school (six feet apart of course), drinking lemonade mixed with Jack Daniel’s honey whiskey and talking about how we may as well enjoy our unexpected time off because the pandemic would soon be over.

This time is weirdly nostalgic to me. I never expected to be home for an extended period of time again. We naively thought everything would soon return to normal and tried to make the most of the time we had at home, despite our disappointment over our last semesters of college being cut short. 

It is a privilege to be able to make the most out of the pandemic. But in a time where there aren’t many options, the most we can do is listen to some good music and hope for better days.

Drew Beckman is transforming country music by telling stories. 

The Florida native, a 31-year-old newspaper reporter-turned-musician and creative force behind Drew Beckman + the Boundary Boys, is using music to tell stories of the queer experience, all through the perspective of a queer cowboy traveling West in the 1800’s.

“It’s very much concept-based music,” he said before his concert at DC9 on Thursday, drinking from a water bottle and wearing a burgundy button-up shirt, along with his signature cowboy hat.

Beckman and his bandmates have been making their rounds through the DC area; they’ve played several shows at DC9, Songbyrd, and were the subject of a Washington Post article. There aren’t many prominent country and bluegrass bands in the DMV area, but Beckman said that his choice to play country music was not accidental. “We’re subverting a traditionally conservative genre; probably the most conservative genre,” Beckman said of choosing to write about the queer experience through a genre that historically has men singing about women, women singing about men, and frequent references to Christianity. “At the end of the day, I’m telling stories. And I think country music is the best way to tell those stories.”

Beckman had no musical experience until the age of 28 when he woke up one morning and wrote a song. “I couldn’t get to sleep, and a song came to my head,” he said. He sang it for his high school friend and his family. “They were all shocked. It was like a little hit.”

Beckman then wrote another song, and then another song, before he began performing at a local open mic at the Boundary Stone, where he connected with the men who would later become the Boundary Boys. “I used to sing a capella because I couldn’t play any instruments or anything, and people would literally come up in the middle of the songs and start playing.” 

From there, things took off for Drew Beckman + the Boundary Boys; the four other men — Sean Hopkins, Dylan Fitchett, Reed Doherty, and Hank Murphy — took care of the instrumentation behind Beckman’s visions, which stem from his own experience growing up queer. The dynamic works out, as Beckman never ended up learning an instrument. “I need these guys, and they need me for this project. We just keep having fun.”

Undoubtedly, the Boundary Boys have made their mark on the DC music scene. While some concert-goers said that they were seeing the band for the first time, many said that they had seen them perform at Kingman Island Bluegrass and Folk Festival. Folk and country music aren’t plentiful in Washington, so it seems as though the band has built a following of loyal fans who come to see the band to get their country fix. 

Kiersten Kampshroeder, a DC resident, was drawn to the Boundary Boys’ soulful harmonies because it reminds her of home: her family currently lives in Alabama, and she also spent several years living in Louisiana. 

The DC music scene is small, so other fans, like Courtney Beglin, learned about Beckman through their association with the music scene. Beglin is an artist who has worked with local DC-based bands on their album art, and met Beckman through mutual friends and attending open mics, despite not being a musician herself. “The thing about the DC music scene is that, once you get in the door, you start talking to one band and it spirals from there,” she said. “All of a sudden you’re seeing great shows three times a week.”  

The word-of-mouth method seems to be working for Beckman and the Boundary Boys: Faye Hixenbaugh, a 25-year-old from Maryland who is familiar with the local music scene, heard about Beckman from volunteering with Sofar Sounds, which is an international organization that hosts concerts in unusual small spaces, such as apartments. She began going to his shows and also saw the band perform at the Kingman Island Festival. “I’m a big fan of them. I don’t actively listen to country music all the time, but there’s definitely a much bigger folk music scene in DC,” she says. “Pop, country: not so much.”

Beckman said that he was initially drawn to DC9 because of their willingness to step outside of their comfort zone and take a chance on smaller, up-and-coming artists. And it has definitely paid off: the concert’s audience of about 40 people sang the words to half of their songs. But for the most part, Beckman and the Boundary Boys are unusual for the venue. 

Bill Spieler, who has been a business partner for the venue for 15 years since its opening in 2004, said that the venue hasn’t strayed much from what they do now: “it’s more of an original indie rock kind of format. That’s the bulk of our calendar.” However, the venue hosts everything from rap punk to electronic bands. While country music isn’t big right now in DC, Spieler said that hasn’t always been the case. “It’s funny because in the 70’s and 80’s, WMZ [a country radio station] was the top radio station in the market.”

In any case, Spieler thinks that the quiet presence of country music is not enough to hold Beckman back: “If he can market himself and the band, I think there’s some big things that he can do,” Spieler said.

While Beckman is certainly impacting the local music scene, he isn’t the only one making waves in country music: Lil Nas X, a 20-year-old country/trap/hip-hop artist best known for his viral single “Old Town Road,” has quickly become a prominent figure in the music of Gen Z. “Old Town Road” gained recognition in a way that shows the changing nature of how music is shared: it went viral on the social media app TikTok and ended up becoming the longest-running No. 1 song in history on Billboard’s Hot 100 charts. 

On the last day of pride month this year, Lil Nas X came out as gay while he was still holding the No. 1 spot. He kept the slot for the next 7 weeks until Billie Eilish’s “bad guy” dethroned “Old Town Road.” Beckman himself is a fan of Lil Nas X, and said that he’s glad to see a queer artist occupying so much space in the music industry. “He’s so important for rap and country music,” said Beckman of Lil Nas X. “Gen Z is going to devour us in the best way. There’s no rules and they don’t give a fuck.”

Beckman said that he was surprised by how things took off for him. He and his band earned their reputation largely through performing around the area, a concept that seems almost unique in an era where many musicians gain recognition through Instagram. “It’s completely wild that I’m so embraced and accepted now. As a kid, I couldn’t even have dreamed of having a room full of people wanting to listen to my stories about the queer experience.” 

At the DC9 concert, the band went through several genres: they sang an upbeat folk song about missing loved ones. “And still I roam,” Beckman sang alongside his bandmates. They put a modern country twist on Eddy Arnold’s “Make the World Go Away.” They harmonized on several tracks as though it is second nature. All of their songs, however, come full circle and have undertones of country music. 

While Beckman’s musical persona is a mysterious, lonely queer cowboy, it seemed as though he couldn’t help but let his personality shine through onstage. He offered witty commentary to introduce songs that were always met by cheers from the audience. “If you got an ass, shake it!” he said before the band performed a song that strayed more towards rock and roll than the bluegrass folk music heard in some of their earlier songs. 

It’s almost hard to believe that Beckman has only been performing for less than three years: it’s easy to see why his fans are drawn to his charisma. Performing is what the band is known for, and why people come to see them time and time again. 

Beckman said that he is going to continue to use his platform to tell stories about the queer experience, and won’t let the conservative nature of country music hold him back. “It’s kind of the sign of the times. Just being like, ‘what are you going to do about it?’ This is what I want to do. I want to tell stories that haven’t been told before.”

Sam East has been performing for about as long as he can remember, whether it be singing in church or writing and reciting poetry. However, “I didn’t actually start singing until the end of high school,” says East, a 22-year-old political science major / music minor from New York. 

“I grew up playing a bunch of instruments and writing a lot,” as well as singing in church. The impressive list of instruments that East knows how to play include the cello, piano, guitar, drums, and bass. East says that he decided to start singing seriously as he was applying for a music scholarship program at GW. “I was planning on going in with cello,” he says. But he had a change of heart after a conversation with one of his high school music directors. “He was like ‘you should do something that you love.’ And instead of auditioning for cello, I auditioned for voice.”

From there, East realized that he could express himself through music and songwriting, which he previously did through poetry. “That’s why I fell in love with singing,” he says. 

As for his sound, East does not want to develop one specific sound, which he learned from his musical background. “From classical stuff to the church stuff to hip-hop stuff to R&B; a lot of people think they’re different, but they’re all kind of the same. It’s all music.” As for influences, he cites everyone from Frank Ocean to Michael Jackson to James Brown to Luciano Pavarotti. “I’m just trying to take everything that I know and make it into something amazing. It has no genre.” 

When East makes his music, however, he has no set process. “When I’ve tried to force it, it usually doesn’t work. Whatever that genuine feeling comes from is what I go with,” whether it begins with guitar or with lyrics. East also looks for influence in other parts of his life. “I’m literally nothing without the amazing people around me. Everything is completely dependant on the people who have cultivated my tastes,” he says. “Music with the band guys, love life, family, my race. Being an Asian-American is huge. All of that is all thanks to other people and my faith.” 

Recently, East also started working with a band called the Standard Issue, composed of Zach Blankstein (guitar), Jeff Armstrong (drums), Gavin Preller (piano), and Eric Boulter (bass). “I was just doing stuff on my own and then I met a group of guys who are also amazing musicians.” While East and the Standard Issue are separate, they often collaborate on various aspects of the music process. “We recently just made a song together.” But East will also ask them for their input on songs that he makes, and vice versa. “I consider us more as a bunch of solo artists that work together,” he says. 

So, why study political science? “I was into it because I also like the performance aspect of speaking in front of people,” says East, before realizing that music was something he wanted to pursue. “With music, I would prefer to be a performer and singer, because that’s what I love. But I also love almost every single aspect of it. I wouldn’t mind being a session musician, a producer, a writer, a marketing guy.” But more than that, East says that he simply likes creating. “Being the creative lens behind the project, I love that almost as much as performing.”

So, what’s next? As East prepares to graduate, he is producing and releasing a single about once per month, which can be found on Spotify. Everything that East has released on Spotify up until this point is by him and “usually one producer friend,” he says. However, he’s looking to expand his network of musicians and producers that he works with. “In the fall, I’m planning on going to Philly. It’s kind of the halfway point between New York and D.C. I also have a big crew in Chicago that I love, so I’m probably going to go there and work with those guys, writing for them.” But in D.C., East says, is where he has the most amount of gigs, as well as the band. 

As for what to expect at the Songbyrd performance on May 1, East says to expect a bit of everything. “I’m really trying to take performing to a different place. I’m really trying to have a hybrid that combines all of my flavor palettes.” But don’t expect to hear his songs exactly how they sound on Spotify, he says. “I’m taking my originals that are super electronic and hip-hop based and I’m making them into jazz fusion hip-hop. We’re trying to take it to a cool place of originals that you will only hear once.”

Nobody for sure knows what the future holds for music; one thing’s for certain though, Sam East is here to stick around. 

It’s Friday afternoon, and the Searcher Records showcase is less than a month away. But pop singer-songwriter Ari Krasner is hardly nervous, despite his unfamiliarity with performing live. “Performing live and gigs are definitely newer to me,” said Krasner, 22. “I’ve been focusing a lot on the creative process, like writing and producing, more than the live stuff.”

For the past two years, Krasner has focused largely on producing content online, while still being a full-time student at GW, majoring in international affairs with a minor in music. Despite growing up singing, he performed in a solo setting for the first time at an open-mic during his sophomore year. “I guess it really resonated with people,” he said. “It made me realize that this is what I’m passionate about and that I want to do.” 

From there, Krasner began writing songs and playing as many shows as he could around D.C. He also taught himself guitar during this period, and improved his piano. “It just kind of spiraled from there,” he said.

As of late, Krasner has been working with producers on his own original content. While his music generally falls in the pop genre, he is also largely influenced by R&B and hip-hop. He has an expansive list of influences, including the Killers, Ed Sheeran, Ryan Tedder and Benny Blanco. 

As for writing, Krasner is inspired by his personal experiences: “it’s primarily everything through my eyes.”

One of Krasner’s goals is to develop a distinct sound. And what sets him apart, he said, is his wide vocal range. “I don’t really stick to a certain set range. I’m, like, all over the place.”

As for his future plans, Krasner plans to release an EP. While he said that he already has an album of songs written, the next step is finding collaborators and releasing it. Long-term, Krasner ultimately wants to devote his life to music. “Call it a career, or a hard passion, but I think that none of those words sum up quite what it is for me.”

So, why study international affairs? “I did not know that I wanted to pursue this as a career when I came into school,” Krasner said. “When I give myself to something, I give myself to it 150 percent of the time. So I figured I could do both.” 

Krasner says that people who he’s met at GW have been the people who helped him discover his passion for music. Otherwise, “I don’t think I would’ve come to the same realization,” he says.

What can be anticipated for the upcoming show in February? A little bit of everything, says Krasner. “I’m definitely going to do a couple of covers,” he says, as well as a number of originals. Either way, “I’m planning on bringing the heat,” he says. “As a performer, you should always perform each performance like you’ve got everything to lose.”

See Krasner live at the Searcher showcase on February 24 at the Mason Inn. Follow him on Facebook at @arikrasnermusic or on Instagram at @arikrasner.

Searcher Records recently signed a new band comprised of both GW and American University students. I sat down with Hunter (keys, bass), Niko (drums), and Blake (lead vocals, guitar) to learn more about their band, Smith Gardens. 

Searcher Records: How did you guys meet and get started as a band?

Niko: Well, it was Blake and me since we were like, nine or ten years old, just jamming together and messing around in his garage. And then we met Hunter in high school and just started messing around. And then it just got more and more serious, and we started recording.

Searcher Records: Describe your music. 

Blake: I’d say it definitely has some surf-rock influence. It was kind of just learning how to put stuff out since it was our first album that we ever fully recorded. All the songs kind of have a similar style to them, but I’d say it’s more surf rock, pretty hazy, kind of dream pop-ish. 

Searcher Records: What’s the studio process like? 

Blake: The studio process for this first album, we recorded most of this during the summer. We had kind of like a detached garage in my yard, and it was a really nice space. 

Niko: You can definitely hear it, it was really, really exhausting. That’s pretty much what we did all summer, was just hours and hours of recording and hours and hours in front of the computer. 

Blake: Niko mastered the majority, actually pretty much the entire album.

Niko: Yeah, I was mainly the producing end. We just had a few pieces of equipment that made it so that we could get bad-sounding stuff on the computer.

Hunter: Yeah, it’s tough recording in a garage, but it’s kind of nice because you get that sound.

Niko: Yeah, I’m so glad we did it, I mean it was really exhausting but it was definitely rewarding. It’s crazy how rewarding it is to put a song together having spent the entire summer on it, and then have an album to show for it. 

Blake: Yeah I think the sound of the album, I mean it was kind of good that it was in a garage because it captured what we were trying to do at that moment. And then after we mastered it, it sounded much more clean. 

Niko: We definitely learned a lot too. We would just sit at the computer and I would play a track and then we’d just get feedback and try to make it sound like how we wanted it to. 

Hunter: Yeah, they usually started with the drums.

Niko: Yeah, they sound like trash cans before they’re produced. 

Searcher Records: Who are your greatest musical influences?

Hunter: Real Estate, definitely everything that we listen to kind of molds together. 

Blake: I’d say we get a lot of influence from older music, too.

Niko: I get drum influence from, do you know American Football? Well I get drum influence from them a lot. 

Searcher Records: If you guys could collaborate with any musician or band, who would it be?

Niko: That’s a really good question, I never even thought of that.

Hunter: Wilco. But there is an age gap there.

Blake: I would say Twin Peaks. They were also one of our good influences, just because they’re pretty similar in age to us, and they’re doing a lot already, and it’s really nice to see a band like that get that kind of momentum. 

Niko: Yeah, and they’re touring with Wilco right now. They’re living our dream right now. I would love to jam with Mac DeMarco. That’d be amazing. Jake, the guitarist that we play with live, has a pretty similar style to him.

Hunter: Yeah, it’s kind of bluesy, jazzy, super smooth. 

Searcher Records: Let’s talk about your new album, Shades Lane. Is there a story behind that album? How did it come together?

Blake: We released an EP prior to Shades Lane, and it was our first Smith Gardens project. And it was four songs that we just put out with the same recording style as Shades Lane. And then after we made that we decided to write a full album but we used songs from the EP too that we wanted to add to it. But I’d say, I guess, there’s not really a story to it. The songs kind of just captured how we were living at the moment. I think that it kind of captures living in the suburbs and just making music all day. 

Hunter: Yeah, like losing our minds in the suburbs in the summer. It embodies that, but in a good way.

Blake: We live in Annapolis on the Chesapeake Bay, and in the summer it’s pretty lazy, there’s not much to do. So making music is a kind of a nice pastime. I think the songs embody the whole idea of us living in Annapolis in the summer.

Niko: But in a positive way. It was kind of our last summer living the easy high school life. The name Shades Lane though, and the name Smith Gardens, well my grandpa ran a greenhouse in Cumberland, which is where my dad grew up. And it was called Smith Gardens, since that’s my last name. And then Shades Lane is the street it was on. We didn’t even think of the name, really. My grandpa did, so props to him. 

Searcher Records: Walk me through the songwriting process for “Sleeper,” the first track off of Shades Lane. 

Blake: Usually we just, when we write anything down on recording we name the logic file a random kind of thing. And this song we slept on for a really long time, so therefore “Sleeper” was the appropriate name. We got the guitar and drums down, and then for a couple months we didn’t really look at it, we kind of did other songs and didn’t go back to it since we didn’t know what direction we wanted to go with it. And it was kind of one of the last songs we finished on the album.

Hunter: I think after we could kind of come back and make it what we wanted, because we needed a strong album opener. 

Niko: There were actually no lyrics to it at first. And then you [Blake] wrote verse 1, and I wrote the chorus in verse 2, and Hunter did the bass. 

Blake: In the end, now, I’d say it’s one of my favorite songs off of the album. 

Niko: There is a flipside to that though, like “Out of Time,” like that one, Blake and I wrote one day in like six hours, just sitting there. So sometimes, that’s how it goes, and sometimes it’s like “Sleeper” where it takes months. Inspiration comes pretty randomly. But sometimes, it just happens.

Searcher Records: Do you guys have songs that you wrote that didn’t make the album? How do you decide which songs make the cut?

Niko: We kind of just go with our gut feeling.

Hunter: When it comes to the album, too, I think we’re just trying to get like a fluid sound.

Niko: Yeah, a song could be great but if it doesn’t fit with on the album then we’ll either just hold onto it for later or just let that sit on my hard drive forever. 

Blake: Yeah, we didn’t want an album of just like singles, we wanted it to be like an album where it kind of has like a certain tone to it. 

Searcher Records: Do you have any other hobbies that influence your creativity, or where does that inspiration come from? 

Hunter: Well, I think the album is kind of fueled by the summer haze, you know. 

Blake: A lot of late nights, and a lot of influence from other substances as well. 

Niko: Yeah, I don’t search for influence really, it kind of naturally comes from the way we live. I mean the three of us, we were like best friends all throughout high school, so the album was also I guess fueled by friendship if that makes any sense. It was definitely, like, a bonding experience to record the album.

Blake: Moving to a new city definitely has a lot of impacts on influence and stuff like that because living in the same place, growing up together, and having that same kind of influence and that same environment, it definitely changes a lot when you’re in a brand new city. I’m sure the next album is going to have a much different sound and a kind of dramatic change from before. That’s what we’re looking to do, at least. 

Searcher Records: So have you started working on your next album or writing new material?

Blake: Yeah we’ve been writing. No recording yet, but we’ve been writing a lot of songs for the new album. 

Hunter: That’s usually how it is, too. We get a lot of ideas together and then bring it in at the end to the recording studio whenever we find space.

Blake: It’s really just trying to find the best space to record. I think this time, hopefully we’re going to look for a real studio to record it in and just to get a different sound than the last one. Because the home-style recording sound is obviously a lot different, and I think we’re trying to do something a little more professional with the next one. Something different, because we decided we don’t want to make the same sounding album again. 

Searcher Records: Did any of you guys have stage fright before you started performing?

Blake: There was definitely a little bit of stage fright, especially playing in our hometown just because Annapolis is a very small kind of town, and there’s not really a huge music scene, and playing for a really small crowd of people that like don’t really want to see you, and are just kind of there, it’s a lot different than playing a show in D.C. where you have people who are actually coming out for you. Playing there was fun, it was a great place to experiment with what we wanted to do, but I think after playing there a couple times and now playing in D.C., we definitely have gotten a lot better at playing live and kind of like handling it.

Hunter: It’s just about doing it more. 

Blake: I think that we’re definitely getting a lot better now and getting more accustomed to it. It feels a lot more natural now to play on stage than it did before. 

Searcher Records: What are your favorite songs to perform live?

Niko: Mine definitely is “Shades Lane,” since I go wild on the drums in that one. 

Blake: We usually open with “Greenberry Point,” which is I’d say one of my favorite songs off the album.

Hunter: It’s a crowd pleaser too. I feel like we try to do more upbeat songs when we play live, depending on the venue and what’s going on. 

Searcher Records: When’s your next show?

Niko: October 19th at Songbyrd! 

See SearcherRecords.com for updates on Smith Gardens. To listen to their debut album, visit SmithGardens.bandcamp.com.

I sat down with Samuel Pfister, president of the Student Musicians Coalition, to discuss its merger with Searcher Records and what it means for GW’s music scene.

Searcher Records: Tell me about your organization, Student Musicians Coalition.

Sam: It’s a student org that was created a few years ago by the university to oversee the practice spaces that are in the basement of Shenkman Hall. And so we operate five practice rooms and one for storage equipment etcetera.  We’re sort of the alternative to the music department because the music department is very specific; you can study jazz, you can take lessons, you can be in band, but there’s not really opportunities for non-music majors or minors to have a place to play or have equipment to use, which is a serious issue living in the city, since you can’t just put something in your dorm and jam in the dorm. So we provide practice spaces for bands, anywhere from two to fifteen member bands. And right now I think we have about twenty different bands that use our space, including the Colonies, who play at a few places around D.C., and Ben Koolen, who are some GW alumni and they’re actually playing at Firefly this year, so that’s really cool. 

We also provide equipment rentals for student organizations and non-student organizations around campus. For example, if one of our bands has a gig at 9:30 Club, we’ll give them a PA system etcetera to bring with them so they don’t need to rent that stuff. We’re kind of seeing to the needs of the bands on campus because it’s really expensive and really hard to do yourself, and so that’s a really good opportunity to have literally hundreds of students play that otherwise wouldn’t get the chance to. 

Searcher Records: What is the size of your organization right now? 

Sam: Right now we have a little over a hundred members at any given time that are involved in the 20 or 22 bands that we have currently. 

Searcher Records: How did you get involved with the organization?

Sam: I’ve been playing piano since I was seven. I taught myself and everything, and then senior year of high school I joined our jazz band. Then when I came here– we actually have a really good jazz studies program in the music department, so I joined one of the jazz combos, went to jazz jams every week, things like that. But then at the end of my freshman year– at the end of the spring 2015– they slashed the music department to the point where, unless you were a music major or minor, you couldn’t take lessons. And half of my music professors couldn’t teach anymore since they weren’t on budget. 

It kind of sucked that there were very few opportunities for me to actually play unless I declared a music major or minor– which for a time I did, but it just wasn’t for me. At the time I was also in a band in the Musicians Coalition, and I just kind of decided to take a bigger role in that organization. I started doing rental manager things my freshman year, ended up doing finance last year and now I’m the president of the organization. And in the past, it sort of had a very small role on campus where we’re just sort of confined to the members we have. But in the past year and a half I’ve really tried to increase the outreach of the organization by playing around campus, setting up concerts in the basement of Shenkman– or on March 25 we’re playing in Square 80, we’re gonna have a few bands playing there, reaching out to more student organizations, other musicians that I know of that are looking for places to play and sort of expanding our role on campus and sort of engaging the music community. 

Searcher Records: What are some of SMC’s current goals?

Sam: We actually have a few goals. It’s our goal by the end of the semester to turn one of our practice rooms into a recording studio. Right now we do have a recording studio on the Vern, but it’s woefully understaffed. The university mismanages it because they’re the ones who oversee it. They don’t know how to work with students to get what they want at the recording studio. I think literally they staff it two hours a week, so unless your schedule fits those two hours, you can’t use the space. And it’s in West Hall on the Vern, so you have to go up to the Vern, which is the worst part. So they have this awesome fully-equipped recording studio that’s really going to waste, and so we decided that we’re going to do that in one of our practice rooms. We’re putting up foams on the walls, we’re going to buy the equipment and everything. It’s going to be completely free to our members, which is really important because recording fees can go up to $400 an hour at some of the cheaper places around D.C.

I also want to have a technician staff in the SMC who will be able to help them with recording and everything like that, so getting quasi professional recording would be so amazing for so many students who want to be able to do that. So that’s one of the goals, and I also want to increase community engagement and have more concerts. One of the things that I think merging with Searcher Records will help with is the ability to get Student Musicians Coalition bands playing gigs across DC at 9:30 Club and other places, because I know Searcher has a lot of connections and we can sort of combine our connections for the benefit of the musicians in our group. 

Searcher Records: How do you think the merger will benefit SMC and how will it benefit Searcher?

Sam: I think the benefits for Searcher Records is it gives them sort of a home. We have a physical space for equipment, for gear, for people to practice, and Searcher Records prior to this did not. It will really be awesome for them to sort of be landed and have a place where they can have something as simple as have meetings, or a place to store their equipment or to be able to have access to our equipment and everything. And for us, it helps us with outreach for our membership, giving them opportunities to play, meet other bands, be part of a record label, and have the ability for someone to be able to promote them. And also, in the past, really it’s been a struggle to find people who are willing to help manage the space. And it takes a lot to manage five, six rooms with, you know, equipment in them and everything. Searcher coming in has really re-energized and brought a new crowd of people who are willing to contribute and help upkeep the space and make it continue to function and grow. 

Searcher Records: What do you think the merger will accomplish overall? 

Sam: I hope moving forward we can continue to have a larger role in the music community at GW. I think one of the best things is playing in public on campus. At the end of my freshman year in response to the budget cuts, we put on a 24-hour protest concert, and we had some of the jazz bands play, we had the pit band play, we had different DC musicians come and play, and we went through the night and everything, and I think that was really cool. That was definitely one of the best experiences I’ve ever had at this college, and I kind of want to make that a consistent thing. A couple of weeks ago we just set up in the basement of Shenkman and just started playing for like three of four hours, and no one told us to leave, it was great. And so that’s kind of something I wanna keep doing, because people love hearing live music.

I also really hope merging with Searcher will give more opportunities to SMC bands to go play shows, because a lot of people don’t even know how to reach out to a venue to say, like, “hey can we come play here?” And Searcher knows exactly how to do that, they have connections, it’s great. And I hope it just bolsters the overall sense of comradery among musicians, and in the past it’s been very weak. But really in the past year and a half I’ve started noticing that all the musicians here know each other, they all play together at different times, and I kinda wanna continue that unification of musicians at GW. I think it’s just a really beautiful thing.

Almost exactly one year after their debut album, Enough Thoughts for Two, the Colonies released the lead single to their follow-up album, “Battle Cry.” The group, currently consisting of Pete Stevens (guitar, vocals), Joey Mamlin (drums), Jordan Mullaney (bass), and Dylan Trupiano (guitar) said goodbye to the band’s keyboardist earlier this year, and this is the first single they’ve written since. The band had to adjust, slightly changing their sound in the process. 

“Battle Cry” is carried by a colorful riff on the rhythm guitar, and the combination with the bass melody underneath a bright snare on the drums lends the song a uniquely youthful melody reminiscent of bands like The Strokes and The Walkmen, where Pete says most of the album’s influence came from. The absence of the keyboard solos commonly heard in their previous album leaves room for an abundance of guitar solos that effortlessly carry this song, and that will likely carry the rest of the album, according to lead singer and guitarist Pete Stevens.

“Battle Cry” moves more into dream pop territory than the band’s previous album, and Stevens said that listeners can expect even more mellow songs on the upcoming album. For fans, this may mean fewer songs like the catchy blues-inspired “Toxic” on Enough Thoughts for Two. 

Despite the band’s evolution, they remain consistent with their signature live-studio sound that makes their songs sound so personable and authentic. According to Pete, the rest of the album will have a similar sound to “Battle Cry,” although the lead single serves as the first recorded song after the departure of Luke. “The album is written, but we still have to record the rest of the songs,” he said. 

The Colonies’ second album is expected to hit the shelves this upcoming fall.