Sponsored by the School for University Studies, musicians from the Alan Parsons Project and Indian music ensemble As Kindred Spirits took the stage at Hofstra’s Adams Playhouse last Friday to commemorate the late George Harrison’s impact on the worlds of pop culture and spirituality.

Hosted by Hofstra’s own Joshua Greene, an instructor of Hinduism, “Here Comes The Sun”—which is based on Greene’s biography on Harrison of the same name—also included images and videos detailing the life, music, and ideologies of the quiet Beatle.

Greene, who studied yoga with Harrison in the 70s, employed four world-class musicians to help tell the story of Harrison’s mystical journey through music. The band—which included Godfrey Townsend (guitar), John Montagna (bass), Tommy Williams (Guitar) and Michael Bellusci (Drums)—ran through classic Harrison numbers like “Taxman,” “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” and, of course, “Here Comes the Sun.”

As Kindred Spirits, who are rising stars in the world of kirtan and Indian spiritual music provided meditative chanting as well as a stunningly beautiful rendition of “Within You, Without You.”

As music usually does, these songs perfectly depicted the different stages of Harrison’s complex life and his illustrious career.

In 1965, Harrison began to immerse himself in Indian culture, spirituality, and music. Oddly enough, when he first heard the sitar playing of the legendary Ravi Shankar, Harrison felt an unusual familiarity, as if he had heard it before.

The story is that, while George was still in her womb, his mother would listen to Indian music on the radio, Greene said.

Whether one chooses to accept this astonishing story, one cannot deny that Harrison was largely responsible for bringing Hinduism and Indian music into the Western consciousness.

“When you discover something great, your first instinct is to share it with your friends. Harrison decided to share the power of Indian spirituality with the rest of the world,” Greene said.

Although Harrison is most known for his time with The Beatles, it was this commitment to yoga and spirituality, which he believed could improve lives and protect the planet, that set him apart.

“Even though Harrison loved being a member of the biggest pop band of all time, he still felt like there was something more,” Greene said.

Perhaps it was because he felt overshadowed by the Lennon-McCartney dynamic, but Harrison, in a way, embraced the dissolution of the Beatles because it allowed him to grow both as a solo artist and a distinct personality.

In 1971, Harrison made yet another significant contribution to the music world: he became the first musician to conceive of a benefit concert, the Concert For Bangladesh. Organized to spread awareness of the conflict in East Pakistan at the time, the concert featured legendary musicians such as Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton.

Here Comes the Sun has been touring the country for the last three years, playing to sell-out shows across America.

“I can proudly say that ‘Here Comes the Sun’ was by far the biggest event held at Hofstra’s Adams Playhouse on a Friday in November that commemorated the life and times of a Beatle,” Greene said jokingly.

Ben Harper and Relentless7 – White Lies for Dark Times
Michelle Hart

It is said that a tiger can’t change its stripes. While Ben Harper may have employed a different backing band, White Lies for Dark Times sounds exactly like the old Ben Harper. In the span of fifteen years and eight albums, no sign of growth from Harper is evident. Throughout his entire career, Harper has weaved a remarkable tapestry of different music styles including rock, blues, funk, soul, and reggae. More often than not, however, his career reads more like a music appreciation class than a solid and coherent evolution. In attempting to be unpredictable, Harper’s music remains as predictable as ever; he continues to experiment with different genres for each song, crafting music that highlights his Rastafarian-meets-Thom-Yorke-meets gospel vocals over the actual music.
Harper’s newest lineup came about from a long-time friendship between him and guitarist Jason Mozersky from the band Wan Santo Condo, who only produced one album before breaking up. Mozersky and Harper remained friends ever since, and, while Harper was in the studio recording Both Sides of the Gun in 2005, he recruited Mozersky to lay down some guitar tracks. Naturally, this chemistry led to jam sessions, which led to recording sessions, which ultimately led to White Lies for Dark Times four years later.
While his band—Mozersky, drummer Jordan Richardson and bassist Jesse Ingalls—are irrefutably talented, the problem with Relentless7 (why are they called Relentless7 when there are only four members?) is that Harper’s vocals don’t mix well with the garden-variety rock on this or any other of his albums for that matter. To be sure, though, Harper thrives in a live setting. Surely he must be doing something right when he’s playing live, for he plays every single summer festival, every single year. For some reason or another, the same passion he utilizes for his live shows does not translate onto his albums. This problem becomes increasingly clearer with each subsequent album, as more focus is put on rocking. Quite frankly, Harper’s vocals are too soulful to be complimented with raucous rock music.
Indeed, the best cuts of the album are either blues jams or ballads. For instance, the funky blues of “Lay There and Hate Me” and the mournful “Up to You Now” are both passionate and affecting. Similarly, the best song on the album, the acoustic, boot-stomping “Fly One Time” provides Harper’s unique and dramatic voice with the perfect background to shine. Harper is at his best when he is mellow.
Still, this is no different from the rest of Harper’s discography. The best songs on all his previous albums were the slow jams like “Burn One Down” from Fight for Your Mind and “Diamond’s on the Inside” from the album of the same name. What at one time felt so original and unique feels incredibly formulaic and tired. In the aforementioned “Fly One Time”, Harper sings, “I’m caught in between what I can’t leave behind, and what I may never find.” Yeah, that sounds about right. C+

Artist: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
Album: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

Someone once said that there was nothing new under the sun. This hypothetical someone might or might not have been a nineties indie rock enthusiast. That someone may or may not have also been listening to The Pains of Being Pure at Heart’s self-titled album. The Pains of Being Pure Heart takes all the elements of some of the greatest underground rock bands from the previous decade—Belle & Sebastian, My Bloody Valentine, Jesus & Mary Chain, etc.—and craft an album so blatantly unoriginal that it just so happens to be remarkably fresh and exciting.

When My Bloody Valentine released Loveless, their magnum opus, they put one of the most original and most annoying musical genres ever on the map: shoegaze. For the uninitiated, shoegaze as a genre refers to the excessive use of a guitar’s tremolo bar guitar, heavily-sampled drum loops, and vocals that are so low in the mix that they fade somewhere into the background. Unfortunately, shoegaze has resurfaced somewhat into a new, even more horrid musical form known as ‘noise-pop’. For reference of this, go and listen to No Age and Crystal Stilts.

Needless to say, shoegaze can be used for good as it is on The Pains of Being Pure at Heart’s self-titled debut. What My Bloody Valentine lacked most of the time—that pop sensibility, the ability to buoyantly transcend the obscurity of the noise—PoBPaH have flawlessly incorporated it into their sound to create a fuzzed-out jubilation that also manages to transcend its influences.

Most of the pop on the album comes from the dual male-female vocals of bassist Alex Naidus and keyboardist Peggy Wang-East. On the quirky “Young Adult Friction”, PoBPaH take a cue from Belle & Sebastian and establish less of a harmonizing relationship between vocalists and more of a dynamic point-counterpoint melody. With this style, they are able to create hooks that manage to pierce the fuzz

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart is an incredibly blissful album, allowing its listeners to be transported back to the good old days of naïveté and unadulterated youth. Sings Naidus on “Teenager in Love”: “And if you made a stand/I’d stand with you until the end/But you don’t need a friend/When you’re a teenager in love with Christ and heroin.” Aptly named, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart represent exactly what their name implies: that being a kid is hard to do, but growing up is even harder. They celebrate youth in much the same fashion as MGMT did last year on their hit song “Time to Pretend”.

The album is hardly subtle in telling what its intentions or influences are. “Contender”, the album’s opener, begins with a blast of guitar feedback that leads right into a sugary, drum-less pop song that is no less immediate than the pounding drums and vibrant major chords of the subsequent track “Come Saturday”. To bookend the album, “Gentle Sons” ends with an epic two minutes of primitive drums and screeching reverb-drenched feedback.

On their debut full-length, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart channel their influences in such a derivative way that they are almost celebrating them. Instead of trying to conceal those derivations, they amplify them. It’s like they know what they’re doing is unoriginal and that revelation is precisely what makes The Pains of Being Pure at Heart so original. B+