|
CONTENTS
HOT
SPOTS
|
Lifestyles Of The Not-yet Famous
More than a garage band, these guys are touring, recording and trying to make it big
by Erin Kosnac
photos by Tim Harrison
 The Party of Helicopters fills Europe Gyro with noise on a Tuesday night in Kent. |
They slowly make their way to the stage and become part of the homogenized mass, leaving behind their pool games, conversations and seats at the bar. They appear to have fallen from a Calvin Klein ad or the streets of Greenwich Village and straight into Kent's Europe Gyro. Clad primarily in black and dark denim, they all stand, feet shoulder-width apart. With arms folded across chests, or hands on hips or shoved in pockets, they motionlessly watch the band on stage. Green and blue amoebae-shaped blobs dancing on a screen behind the drummer.
Their faces reveal nothing. They seem unimpressed, unmoved by the band playing before them. One girl in a long white jacket stands out. One of her shoes, with a 3- or 4-inch wooden platform, suddenly begins to tap on the brown tile floor littered with cigarette butts. One tap. Two taps. Movement ceases. She returns to a state of idleness with the others.
Even when the band finishes a song, there not much audience reaction – no eruption of applause and no screams or shouts. They just continue to look contemplative, as if they are in a gallery looking at a piece of art. And the title of this piece: The Party of Helicopters.
The Party of Helicopters is just one area band getting the chance to live out the rock 'n' roll dream. Putting out records. Touring. Just making music. And behind this dream is one Kent State student and his record label.