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Freesound provides practice space, equipment

by Patrick Ritter

Last semester, about 15 people gathered in Music House to watch student band Open Throat Surgery perform. The crowd dwindled to three during the set, but that did not stop the musicians from grinding out punk metal beats and riffs.

"My band doesn't play music that a lot of people on campus listen to necessarily, [but the three people who stayed] were just having fun," said drummer Kenny Allison '07. "They were just rockin' out."

Open Throat Surgery is one of around a dozen active campus bands, according to Freesound leader Eric Rohn '08. With the help of Freesound, Grinnellians can find a student show on campus about every other week. Gardner and Loose lounges, Music House and Bob's Underground frequently serve as venues.

Garrett Shelton '01 formed the student group in 1998 with the primary mission of helping musicians meet other musicians. The necessity for practice space, common equipment and campus shows soon expanded the group's goals. Freesound also now releases an annual campus bands compilation CD at the end of the academic year.

Musicians are still meeting each other through Freesound. Drummer Chris Knap '08 and his friend, guitarist Robin Culter '08, met keyboardist/vocalist Mark D'Agostino '08 through the group's meetings and mailing list. They went on to form Vegetable Medley 23 with bass guitarist Jeff Winer '08 in fall of 2004.

Since then, they have played a handful of times around campus, including some Freesound-facilitated concerts. They have used Freesound equipment, and the available expensive and bulky equipment like the PA system and drum set have been particularly helpful to them and other bands, said Knap.

Allison believes that providing working equipment is the most important function of Freesound. "I don't have my own drum set here," said Allison, "[and] it's unreasonable ?to bring drums to a practice, so having a common drum set that everyone can use is nice."

Knap said that he thinks Freesound is doing a good job overall, but he hopes that in the future there can be more concerts, with the majority being "smaller shows with a smaller number of bands, [with] each band playing a little longer."

Rohn said meeting the group's goals has been difficult at times, mainly because of low funding and a lack of support from SGA, which many in Freesound feel stems from many instances of broken equipment in past years. Freesound has been operating with around $900 per semester, which Rohn says makes it difficult to fund repairs and replacements of instruments. "We have about one of everything [working], and we've got about one of everything broken," he said.

SGA Treasurer Matt Cleinman '06 said that Freesound spent just $326 of their $900 budget during the fall semester and stressed that?Freesound receives some of the highest funding from?SPC of any non-sports group.

Rohn said that the money went unspent last semester because an order was postponed by the seller past the end of the fall semester due to delivery difficulties. He said that he had planned to spend the entire budget and is trying to get some of the unspent money reallocated to spring semester.

Music House has hosted practices this year, but there are concerns about security, the location's inconvenience for North Campus residents and the future fate of the arrangement.

Both SGA and Freesound agree that keeping equipment secure and in working order are keys to justifying future funding. Last year, a keyboard and drum set in the Norris space were vandalized, and there was a similar-but less expensive-incident at Music House this year. Some inexpensive items like guitar cables have been found missing. Rohn feels that a monitored and controlled access practice space would help prevent future vandalism and theft.

In addition to improving security, "having [practice space] in a space like the new campus center or Harris would be optimal because students would be able to access it and not have angry residents [because of the noise]," said Rohn.

He added that the administration has communicated with Freesound about possible practice space in those locations.

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