The Busy Nothing plays at Kafe Kerouac for a previous MCo show. Courtesy of Mike D’Alessio.
Kanye West, Modest Mouse, Sufjan Stevens and The Cure will be performing together in concert. Well, kind of.
On Saturday night, local artists will emulate their favorite musicians for the first MCo-MEISA Mash.
This is the first time that Musicians’ Collective and Music & Entertainment Industry Student Association, both Ohio State student organizations, have joined together to put on an event.
“I don’t know why we haven’t in the past because their interests are pretty close to ours,” said Mike Avdey, a third-year in operations management and president of MEISA.
MEISA is an organization that has weekly meetings to discuss recent album releases, concerts and hear from speakers in order to foster jobs in the music and entertainment industry. As part of this, it put together shows of its own.
According to vice president of Musicians’ Collective, Mike D’Alessio, a fourth-year in marketing, one of the purposes of the group is to give bands feedback on their performances and help them grow and improve. That is why it was important to put on some live shows this semester.
“We wanted to get more opportunities for MCo artists to play in front of other people. It’s important to learn the skill of performance, to get used to being on stage,” said D’Alessio.
Three of the four bands on the bill came together through the members’ involvement in Musician’s Collective. Discount Tents will cover The Cure, The Busy Nothings will cover Sufjan Stevens and The Sports will cover Modest Mouse. These are the people who are currently involved in or alumni of the group.
Brady Costigan, a second-year in linguistics and vocalist and guitarist for the three-piece “bedroom pop” band, The Sports, said that choosing to cover Modest Mouse was a relatively easy choice.
“Between us, we like a lot of really good bands, but not a lot of them are as well-known as Modest Mouse, so we thought we’d do something we really love and that people would be able to recognize,” Costigan said.
Costigan said that the band’s set will be composed of half Modest Mouse covers and half original songs.
The band hopes to channel the Modest Mouse spirit.
“We’ve been really working on getting the energy up and I think there will be a lot of older Modest Mouse-reminiscent screaming,” he said.
In addition to the MCo-affiliated bands, MEISA members invited They’re Coming They’re Coming, who chose to cover Kanye West, to be a part of the show.
“We had them out for one of our shows last year and we really liked them, so we’re having them back for this one,” Avdey said.
Though the band’s sound leans more toward rock ‘n’ roll, lead singer of They’re Coming They’re Coming, James Anderson, said he and his band are hip-hop fans.
They can also identify with Kanye West’s life philosophy.
“Our philosophy is that we don’t care what anybody else thinks. We’re going to do it our way or we’re not going to do it at all, and that’s the same kind of thing that I feel like Kanye West is. He won’t shut up. He’s always doing things that are outrageous, but he doesn’t give a s— what anybody else thinks,” Anderson said.
Anderson said to prepare themselves for the show, they’ve been listening to a lot of West and they plan to dress like him as well.
Like the artists performing, attendees are encouraged to wear costumes. There will be Chipotle gift cards as prizes for the scariest, funniest and overall best costume.
Kafe Kerouac will also be offering a drink special for the event: $4 for hot cider with spiced rum.
D’Alessio insists that anyone can go to the event and hear some familiar songs.
“People know the artists that they are covering … if you listened to the radio in the past 10 years, you probably know one or two tracks,” he said.
Besides giving experience to student bands and just having a good time, D’Alessio said they want to show off the venue, Kafe Kerouac.
“It’s a really interesting place, between a coffee shop and a book store and also a bar. It’s really eccentric and interesting. Besides having the performance, we thought it’d be cool to show people this venue as well. It’s not your typical venue for a show,” D’Alessio said.
Doors will open at 7 p.m. The event is 18+ and the entry fee is $5.
