Student-run venue gains popularity

Opened earlier this semester at 2000 N. Broad St., the Broad Street Lounge offers a venue for students and musicians to enjoy music for free. Upon entry into the Broad Street Lounge, the first noticeable trait is how long the room is. It’s something of a walk to get to the couch-filled main area where [...]

Music Issue: Summer festival season

Festival season means one of two things: One sits and cries about all of the amazing festival line-ups that they’re reading about the day after, or one has the time of their life listening to a random sampling of 10,000 of their favorite bands alongside a random sampling of 100,000 of their new least favorite [...]

Emerging musicians fill Philly soundscape

Columnist Kevin Stairiker concludes his “Fear of Music” series with a satirical take on how to be an unsuccessful musician. At this very moment, it’s never been easier to be an unsuccessful musician, especially in Philadelphia. As more and more people let loose their musical inhibitions, it seems that more people are finding themselves puzzled [...]

Artists share Philly, common connections

Columnist Kevin Stairiker explores the similarities between two Philly-connected artists – the Roots and Bruce Springsteen. A couple weeks back, Bruce Springsteen celebrated the release of his newest album, “Wrecking Ball,” with a grand, week-long stint on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. The week ranged from tributes by far-ranging entities like John Legend and Elvis Costello, [...]

Listener reconsiders ‘bad music’

Columnist Kevin Stairiker advises that music lovers shouldn’t write off music too quickly. How easy is it to decry the music of LMFAO? You’re probably not even thinking of that as a real question right now. The music of LMFAO is sort of like a mystery to me – a code to crack or decode. [...]

Music shapes memories

Columnist Kevin Stairiker celebrates his birthday by recalling musical moments. Turning 20 isn’t a big deal. Assuming that you’re skimming through this article on the date of its release, I’m currently “celebrating” my 20th. Birthdays in general are a weird tradition. What exactly are we celebrating? Surviving the world and all of its increasingly strenuous [...]

Anthem draws new fan to genre

Columnist Kevin Stairiker says that Toby Keith’s ode to college may have changed his opinion of country music. In general, I don’t know very much about country music. I know even less about recent country music. I know that “You Belong With Me” by Taylor Swift is pretty great, and “I’ve Got Friends In Low [...]

Love songs convey what words can’t

Columnist Kevin Stairiker says there are some love songs worth listening to on Valentine’s Day. I have mixed feelings about Valentine’s Day. To have anything more than a passing like or dislike about any sort of holiday is probably in poor taste anyway, but people can get completely crazy about Valentine’s Day. Some people love it [...]

Beyonce’s “Countdown” becomes party anthem

Columnist Kevin Stairiker argues that while “Countdown” may not have topped Billboard charts, it possesess a universal appeal. During winter break I found myself driving a lot. Driving to Wawa, to friends’ houses, to nowhere at all – it didn’t really matter where. The thrill of driving after a semester of relying on my feet [...]

Oldies dominate airwaves

Columnist Kevin Stairiker says that the oldies aren’t always the ‘goodies,’ and encourages readers to seek out modern rock. For roughly the first decade of my life, my entire musical existence was based on Y102. For the uninitiated (read: those not from Reading, Pa.), Y102 was, and still continues to be, the No. 1 source [...]

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