This is an article that ran in the February 23rd Issue of The Acorn. I, the author have restored it to its unedited state as originally intended. Two main paragraphs (which The Acorn cut out) are highlighted in red. Many other words and sentenced were edited out or changed around by The Acorn. This point of submitting this article to The Nutcracker is primarily demonstrate the censorship that the executive editors employ over their writers, and secondarily as a shameless plug for my work in attempt to obtain feedback on my writing style. Ok, well, voila…
The Perks of Running a Legitimate Business
By Dan Bindschedler
Sharp guitar chords cut through fierce waves of a melodious horn section while a persistent walking bass line outlines the harmony. A steady drum beat rumbles below while heartfelt lyrics lay down an eternal credo: “We are the strong, the brave, the few.”
This is just a taste of the fast paced, gritty flow of powerful music coming from Legitimate Business, a band known fairly well among
Wozniak started playing bass when he was 14 and soon after picked up the guitar as well. He remembers his group forming at first as a way to kill time. Soon after, they then began performing seriously around early 2005 at which point Wozniak was actually playing guitar; around November of that year, he switched over to bass. Many other changes have occurred since their creation. For example, Steve and singer Mark Ambrose are currently the only two members remaining from the original line-up of Legitimate Business. “We’ve had problems with guys who couldn’t make practice several times in a row.” Well, it looks like these changes were for the better because somewhere along the line, Legitimate Business must have struck the right chord; anyone with a Playstation 2 and a skateboard should be familiar with their music. Their hit “80 on 80” is featured on the Tony Hawk Project 8 soundtrack. The story of this breakthrough, which Steve agreed, certainly helped propel Legitimate Business’ career is a golden plug for Myspace. “I knew a guy who was working with Eversoft (creators of the Tony Hawk game series) and he heard our song on Myspace and wanted it for the game.”
Legitimate Business then had their first serious recording session at a home recording studio so they could make a better recording of “80 on 80” for the game. It was here that Steve had his first encounter with some of the more disgruntling aspects of the music world. “The owners of the recording studio had all this really amazing hi-quality equipment but they had no clue what they were doing. They ended up getting drunk and accidentally deleting our recordings.” Well, that just sucks.
However, Legitimate Business obviously has moved on to bigger and better things. Wozniak remembers how much more easily gigs were made available to the band after having their name on the Tony Hawk Soundtrack: “Before Tony Hawk, we had been invited to play at this one music scene in Syracuse, New York but it wasn’t really worth it because the promoters wanted us to drive four hours to play and they weren’t even going to pay us, so we turned them down,” Wozniak said. “After Tony Hawk came out, they really wanted us to play and were offering to pay and feed and pamper us.” This two-faced attitude, along with many other incidents marked the beginning of Steve’s taste aversion for the false colors of the music world.
It may seem like Steve Wozniak is living the dream of every garage band, yet he himself is hesitant to agree. “When I’m on stage playing, and people have driven hours to see me, it’s the best feeling of my life. But when I’m offstage, it’s the best worst feeling possible.” This disgruntled attitude, Steve explains, is a direct result of critics, promoters, the corporate aspect of the music scene, and largely because he “hates Ska.” Yes, this is a shocking statement to hear coming from one of the founding members of a successful underground Ska-punk band that has received notable success in the underground scene.
However, Steve Wozniak’s justification is rationally heartfelt and genuine. “It’s a horrible genre,” he said. “The people suck and we are constantly taking verbal abuse and criticism from music elitists that judge our music without even listening to it.” Regardless of the fact that a community of pundits come hand in hand with any form of art, Legitimate Business seems to receive a certain amount of hypocritical bashing. “People see that we happen to have horns in our band and then say we’re not Ska enough.” Wozniak say that these critics don’t know their music. He clarifies that while “Ska-Punk” may be similar Legitimate Business, the band doesn’t really fall into that genre. Wozniak would describe it as a sound that is unique and distinct and that they are assumed to be part of the genres because of their horn section.
It is problems like this that cause Wozniak, after approximately two years of playing with Legitimate Business to look at the aspects of making a career out of his band with much less eagerness. “I would be interested in seriously pursuing LB if the music world wasn’t so corporate. I hate sucking up” On the upside, Wozniak has gotten to get on stage and actually play along side bands that influenced Legitimate Business such as Big D and the Kids, The Pie Tasters, and Arrogant Sons of Bitches. “We’ve pretty much gotten to play with just about every band I’ve grown up listening to.” Wozniak also jumped at the opportunity to give some insight and support for another influential band called Bomb The Industry. He explained this unique group as more or less the musical equivalent of Communism. Fans of Bomb The Industry can get their hands on all the music and lyrics for free on the official website, and while there is no official merchandise, the band encourages fans to bring blank t-shirts to concerts where artists, using spray paint and stencils will create put Bomb The Industry designs on the shirts for free. All that Bomb The Industry asks in return is tips, food, shelter and a little appreciation for dirty commies. Other possibilities with music are intriguing to the young star. Wozniak expressed a possible interest in playing with other people and branching out into different in genres like folk-punk. He named a few other powerful noises of interest including World/ Inferno Friendship Society, Outkast, and The Beastie Boys (the Baddest Hebes this Side of Tel Aviv).
Wozniak is happy to be at Drew, but he admits that since he’s been off at college, finding time for everyone in the band to get together and crank out practice sessions has become a struggle: “It’s definitely become a lot harder at college. We’ve got two guys at William and Patterson, and two in high school who are going off to college next year.” Due to location and scheduling conflicts, Legitimate Business is forced to practice off campus. And of course the lack of space available for musicians to rock out at
In fact, Wozniak is among a large community of rock n rollers at drew who continue to reiterate that the music scene on campus, while abundant in potential, is lacking the means to help a whole slew of artists flourish. Yet, a vivid young fan hears hope in the echoing wails of Legitimate Business: freshman Joe Maron and No. 1 Superfan of Mr. Wozniak glorifies his esteemed college and Legitimate Business decrying that they “bring a certain element of musical energy that is lacking at Drew.” Mr. Marron whole-heartedly emphasizes that this quality, which surely many other talented musicians on campus share, necessitates an on campus “jam space.” Mr. Maron, who knows Steve Wozniak personally, guarantees that the star is dedicated to his fans and that “if enough people come to his shows, I will get him to play topless.” Well, clothed or not, Steve Wozniak and Legitimate Business are talented new addition to
5 comments:
Both this article and this blog are something that people should really pay attention to, and not just because the writing is better than most of the writing for The Acorn.
The censorship that is seen in The Acorn is disturbing and slightly appalling to me as a writer. My first personal experience with the censorship and "editing" of The Acorn was last year when one of my friends had recommended me for the "student spotlight." First, it was all of this done in an unprofessional manner - the meeting was scheduled by my friend rather than The Acorn and the member of the staff that came to interview me was late. I admit I have a busy schedule, so I scheduled the meeting thirty minutes before a class because I was told that was enough time. It may've been if the staff member had not been ten minutes late. Once the interview began the writer would ask some questions, then would "space out" until they realized I was talking and write down whatever portion of my answer they could remember. I wasn't too thrilled with the experience, but I figured that it was one of the writer's first assignments and gave them the benefit of the doubt.
The picture that was to be taken was scheduled for a time when I taught a workshop, so they could showcase that facet of me as well. I didn't mind, but the photographer lingering outside the door during the first 20 minutes of my workshop on the phone didn't thrill me. Nor did the fact that they seemed to forget the camera battery, so the "photoshoot" had to be rescheduled. A different photographer met me two days later (the night before the paper came out) at the library and proceeded to take the pictures of me while I was in a tutoring session.
When the article came out I was curious to see what was printed, and found that they had not only thought I was in "DUCKS" and not "DUCS" and that Tri-Beta was a BioChem honor society, but I had been misquoted twice as well. I think that if the writer had been paying attention or had a tape recorder she could've gotten her facts straight. Most of the artice was decent, but poorly edited. All in all I wasn't too thrilled with the experience and have yet to work with them again even though I've been asked to write a few articles since.
Sorry for the length of the response but I figured it was something that your readers would appreciate.
It is a newspapers right to editr any of the material that is submitted to it, and you're obvious lack of knowledge for the journalistic process is no excuse to villafy the people who are trying to connect the student body, hold the administrators responsibile for their actions, and inform the community as to whats going on. The student population takes the Acorn for granted. You expect to read all the important news of the week, and have it delivered in perfect condition, but I think you seem to forget that it is students, 16 credit-taking, busy with other things, normal college students putting this together. Most of the acorn staff works 20 hours a weeek interviewing, laying out pages, and dedicated their valuable time in order to provide a service for the drew community. They don't get paid, don't get credit, and work solely of their own personal satisfaction, something that is underminded by ignorant comments. Dan, do you actually think The acorn can publish every single word that is given them? Would you rather them call you up at midnight on a wednesday night in order to get your un-trained opinion for what you would think would be best to cut? thats the purpose of an editor. And you know what? why don't you actually take these concerns TO THE ACORN. You know, right in letters to the editor, email someone, give them a call on a thursday night (they're in there until 3:30 in the morning anyway), not just complain about it on some website. You can complain as much as you write about the writing in the paper, but do you write anything yourself? do you try and change what you don't like? you don't practice what you preach, you complain to no end about the horrors of the Acorn, when in actuality it does everything in its power to do the best job possible, as fully loaded college students already. They aren't professional journalists, they're students. They sit next to you in class, and they want to serve the community. How dare you say that their hard work isn't worth anything? If the community said anything like that about any other club in the school, it wouldn't be tolerated, but the acorn has the public eye and takes the risks necessary in order to bring something to the commons every weekend. Let me see you do better. The thing is, you complain about the staff members in the acorn's poor professionalism. But they are students justlike you, HOW can you expect them to be up the standards of a paid journalist when they get absolutely no compensation for their efforts. Chances are they had 50 different things going on that day and can't be the perfect human being in order to appease your un-informed idea of what perfect journalism is. If the acorn held students up to standards like the ones you impose on them, then we would be demanding 4.0s and criticizing students for missing classes.
think before you insult your fellow students, you're entitled to your complaints, but do something about your complaints.
No offense to you my friend. Our problem is not with you. Keep on doing what you're doing. More power to you. You do what you do. We'll do what we do.
I don't think it's necessary to bash The Acorn. I think that this is an awesome idea. A blog allows free flow of ideas and it has the luxury of quick, unlimited access. It also has the benefit of infinite space to publish articles in their absolute entirety. Unfortunately, The Acorn can't do that. I think that using this as a forum to bash The Acorn cuts the legs out from under the entire blog. What's the purpose of this to complain about what there is or to create something new?
I think The Acorn and The Nutcracker compliment one another a great deal. Here, people have the freedom to publish things anonymously, which means they may say things that they would not say if their name was attached to it. That's great, but it also means that there is very little accountability to what is being said. You have no idea who I am and I have no idea who half of the people on this blog are. I don't even know who the administrators are because they have chosen, quite within their rights, to use pseudonyms. Part of the reason we can sit here and criticize The Acorn is because we know who they are. We know who wrote every story and who edited every story and who put together every graphic.
Both complete freedom of expression and slightly more formal and accountable writing have their places at Drew, and I think that this publication is selling itself short if it decides to spend more time complaining about Acorn censorship than it does actually talking about issues at Drew.
I see that other people have posted about other issues, and that's great, but to create a blog for the sole stated purpose of thwarting The Acorn seems unnecessary. If you guys have something to say, say it. Don't start off talking in the negative, especially at the very top of the blog.
I'm impressed with the people that have been participating in this. It gives me hope for the "apathetic" student body. Good on ya for starting it. I just hope that we all use it for what it could be (an amazing outlet for communication in the Drew community) instead of defining it by what it's not (The Acorn).
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