800-4-Coffee: Why Send Flowers When You Can Send Coffee… and Music

If you are like me, then you know what an important role coffee plays if your life. You anticipate that latte in the morning, and you struggle to make it to your midday shot of espresso. 800-4-coffee is a coffee gift basket business that offers a break from the ordinary gift baskets and holiday treats, and instead fulfills our love and need for caffeine. Founder Jenn London stresses the health conscious side of sending a coffee basket as opposed to a candy and cookie filled one; having battled with weight issues as a child, she identifies with the perks of a break from the holiday food rush. Read more

A Night Of Music And Art In The City That Never Sleeps

New York has always been a place for artist to showcase their talents, photographers, musicians and filmmakers; all who want to introduce themselves and their work to their community. On Thursday, October 16, an Armenian as well as local New York Artist, photographer, musicians and filmmaker, Haik Kocharian, showed the world what he is all about.

The Venue of Kocharian’s showcase was Drum Lounge, which is located on Avenue A between 5th and 6th streets. Upon arrival at Drum, Kocharian took a look at the video screen, waited for his event to pop up and once the event popped up as “happening tonight Haik Kocharian” he pointed to the screen and said with an enormous smile, “look, it is me.” Read more

Music and the Middle Schooler

As a teacher of middle school students I’m always interested in students tastes in music. It is no surprise to me that my school has its share of Jonas Brothers t-shirts on the backs of many middle school girls and that is the level of musical interest I expect. But there are some students who surprise me with their interest in Nirvana and one student in particular who has a deep admiration for Aerosmith and Steven Tyler. He draws pictures of him all the time and gives them to me to hang on my wall, which I graciously do. Read more

Is Ska Dead?

During the mid to late 90’s, after almost every teenager was through being angry at the world (thanks to the grunge movement fading away), the movie Clueless helped expose an old genre of music, but new to the mainstream and most of the American culture, otherwise known as the up-beat genre of SKA. It had the pop and alternative style that American kids enjoyed, but with the sounds of a horn, trumpet, trombone and other brass instruments that made it different from other types of music. Read more

Guitar Hero: Bringing Back The Old School Rock and Roll

“What goes around, come around.” Not only are those catchy Justin Timberlake lyrics, but also a heavily ignored fact. Every day I discover that more and more people have resorted to neon colors and bigger hair. Personally, I favor their style, even though others may shiver when they see teens in a Rolling Stones shirt and tight pants that look like they were knitted into their skin. Read more

American Idol Stars: Is There a Recipe for Success?

Did you ever notice how some contestants who win American Idol seem to fall off the face of the planet after the season is over? Then there are other “Idol” winners who become huge successes. Ever wonder why this happens? Read more

How Will We Categorize Our Current Decade of Music?

We all know that the 70’s was the decade of classic/arena rock, the 80’s was the decade of hair metal/synth pop and the 90’s was the decade of grunge/alternative rock, which brings up a question that a lot of music lovers must wonder: how will we categorize our current decade of music? Read more

What Does it Take to be Musically Offensive?

I was having a drink with a friend at a local bar one early evening after work and she was explaining to me how someone had, as she put it, ‘musically offended’ her.  I thought that was a great reaction to a person who I considered had bad taste in music.  What she explained was that it wasn’t necessarily the artist performing the music, but more so the artist who wasn’t really anything but a mouthpiece for someone else’s work.  The artist was, therefore, musically offensive to her because they didn’t produce any of their own material. Read more

Life Before the Internet?

Remember the good ol’ days before the whole dot com explosion, you know, the days when, instead of downloading your favorite song via iTunes, you actually (*gasp*) waltzed into a store and bought the actual CD? Remember the days when you engaged in a face to face conversation with the person sitting in the cubicle next to you instead of emailing or IMing them? I know, I know, it’s hard to believe that there was a time when humans actually functioned without the use of iPods, email, IM, MySpace, hell, even cell phones. Read more