Music City isn’t just for country fans, and Belmont students will be out to prove it at Sounds From Underground rock festival come Sunday night. Spearheaded by student-founded booking company Drop Tuned Entertainment, Nashville’s Exit/In will come alive at 6 p.m. for the hard rock and heavy metal faithful. The Sounds From Underground will feature a lineup of seven Belmont bands. Sugar in the Gas Tank, Open Casket Wedding, Rockslide, The Fangs, Keep the Eleven, Kevin Bull Jr.

There’s thunder in his lungs and lightning in his limbs. When he pinwheels to center stage, bell sleeves flying, to sit at his little white piano, his legs are too long to fold up underneath, so he falls to the stool in a graceful, split-legged lunge, or otherwise he stands to play. He pounds at the keys like he wants answers from them. At his sold-out show at The Basement East in Nashville, the largest he’s ever headlined, Jake Wesley Rogers is 6 feet, 4 inches of glitter an

Decked out from head to toe in a motion capture suit, Kaylee Franzen opened her mouth to make her TV singing debut, and her vocals soared from a teal-skinned, magenta-haired avatar displayed a screen away. Psychology junior Franzen — or Aster, as she is known on Fox’s “Alter Ego” singing competition — introduced herself to a national audience as one of 20 contestants on a reality show made for a digital generation. Singers on “Alter Ego” perform with their identities hidden b

Standing among crates of vinyl records and soon-to-be-filled shelves, Jacee Badeaux, manager of the Boulevard Record Shop, prepares for the store’s grand opening Friday. The store located on Belmont Boulevard is a student-run operation like the trendy clothing store ‘House Of’ located next door. However, what used to be the BLVD Music Shop will become the Boulevard Record Shop. Formerly an instrument consignment and accessories store, Boulevard Record Shop will now be selling

A Belmont sophomore is stepping outside the boundaries of traditional music and is producing inspiration-driven beats and collaborations with just one tool: his laptop. Kyle Buckley– who goes by the stage name Pink Slip– is an Atlanta native who began experimenting with the production side of music during his sophomore year of high school. When he discovered he could capture everyday sounds such as a click of a pen or the “ahh” of a voice, Buckley was inspired to use the endl

In partnership with Communion Music Publishing, the Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business sent five students to Brooklyn, New York over fall break to further advance their songwriting skills and education. Hosted by The Patch In Brooklyn, Belmont students spent five days in a fully-furnished brownstone, with unlimited access to Sour Patch Kids, a recording studio and creative spaces to write. “There were Sour Patch Kids everywhere, I think I ate my weight in Sour P

Jackson Wells has hit the music scene, emerging as a rock star on a local and international scale in the unlikeliest of places. Garnering 1.8 million YouTube views internationally, Wells has toured China and established a sizable fanbase. Wells is living the dream, whether running with his three Rhodesian ridgeback dogs on his parent’s alpaca and cattle farm in Leiper’s Fork, Tennessee or running from throngs of screaming girls in Chengdu, China. “My friends joke that it’s th

Belmont boasts a top-notch music program–maybe you have seen the billboard that says, “Our grads are on your playlist.” People come from all over, many with the hopes of one day making it big. But what happens when you start to make it big during school? This is a question that Belmont bands Mocha and The Hart Strings have had to grapple with. The members of Mocha all are full-time students and are currently playing two to four gigs per month. “We’re not to the point where we

Senior leadership decided this summer to convert the Hitch and Massey Performing Arts Center parking lot on 17th Avenue into a visitors-only lot this summer–thus closing its 43 spots to the students and faculty the lot once served. And many of them are not happy about it. “It’s a slap in the face to staff in particular,” said art professor Jim Meaders. Meaders teaches in the Leu Center for Visual Arts, one of the buildings affected by this decision; the others include the MPA

Belmont-based band Better Eyes was chosen to play at the Nashville stop on the Vans Warped Tour this summer. “We were all just kind of shocked and we didn’t really believe it at first when we were invited, because we hadn’t even been a band for a year yet,” lead guitarist and Belmont sophomore Tyler Welles said. The band played their set at the Nashville Fairgrounds on July 1. The Warped Tour is known for switching the stages and set times artists play at each stop on the to

Belmont bands and music management companies are uniting on Saturday to not only fill the crowd’s ears with music but to also fill local shelters with food. Hooligan Recordings and Innovo Management LLC are sponsoring a concert at the High Watt where each band will donate a portion of its proceeds to Rock4Hunger. Bands participating include Mr. B & The Tribal Hoose, Royal Hoax, Us & Them and Auction the Secret. Royal Hoax started Rock4Hunger in 2009, and since then the band h

As part of Belmont’s Up ‘Til Dawn child cancer awareness week, the Beaman Tuesday night felt less like a student center and more like a scene reminiscent of “8 Mile.” But instead of losing themselves in the music, students were selfless as they rapped to end childhood cancer during the “Rap it Up: Rapping Up the Battle with Childhood Cancer” event. The event, which served the dual purpose of promoting both Up ‘Til Dawn and Belmont’s hip-hop community, also helped raise funds

Escape the freezing winds of winter by losing yourself in the romance of one of Shakespeare’s most beloved comedies, “Twelfth Night.” The Nashville Shakespeare Festival’s winter production follows the story of twins Viola and Sebastian who have been separated by a violent shipwreck. After washing up on the shores of an unknown land— and believing her brother to be lost forever— Viola disguises herself as a man and finds work as a page in the house of Duke Orsino. Set in the m

Belmont students Channing Moreland, Makenzie Stokel and Seth Clarke have undertaken the task of starting up the company What’s Hubbin’ that compiles all of the musical events happening in the Nashville, Tenn. area in a one-stop calendar for consumers. The three students released their first site a year ago, and this week the team plans on releasing an updated site with a new design and more mobile-friendly features. The idea first came to the group after it first arrived in N

Since the first day of classes, Belmont musical theater students have been “character building” as they rehearse for their fall production of “Oklahoma!” “The first step of developing a character is knowing the material,” said senior musical theater major Suzanna Champion. Champion has been acting since she was three and will be performing the lead role of Laurey in “Oklahoma!” “Even close to opening night there will always be a few people who still don’t know their lines, an

In April of 2014, Ian Kendall, Mike Crecca, Grayson Schweers and Michael Rasile solidified a bond over a love for the raw sounds of Led Zeppelin. Earlier that year, in January, Ian, Mike and Michael began to talk about their musical influences as well as jam together. “Me, Michael and Ian just started playing Zeppelin in garages,” said Crecca. “I think our first [potential] name was Let’s Just Play Zeppelin.” It can be very difficult to try to place the band’s sound in a genr

OK Go may be a four-piece group, but in their performance Friday night at Mercy Lounge, a sold-out crowd of 500 people might as well have been added to their lineup. The band, touring in support of its new album “Hungry Ghosts,” took the stage for almost two hours and never once allowed the energy to decrease or the crowd to not be entertained–or, for that matter, not be involved. “It was great,” said lead singer and guitarist Damian Kulash. “We had a fun time–sweaty and deli

“I think I Googled ‘website to start a website,’” said Belmont sophomore Acacia Evans when recalling her journey to creating her successful alternative music promotion website, Big City Thoughts. At age 15, Evans began discovered her passion for music promotion when she started Big City Thoughts. Now, four years later, she’s found herself running a successful website managing around 20 interns across the country. “I’m still trying to figure out how it even happened,” she said

Two Belmont University alumni, Nathan and Whitney Meyer, well- established in the musical theater scene of New York City are returning to Nashville for the month of Oct. to visit their alma mater and perform in “Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.” The Meyers graduated from Belmont in 2009 and almost immediately moved to New York City to pursue a career together onstage. After five years of building their careers in and around New York, the talented couple has ret

Students and visitors alike crowded in the Curb Event Center Saturday night for the 2014 Urban Pop Showcase, a concert characterized by the diversity and energy of its acts. Performers included Annie Bany, Morgan Bosman, Monica Moser and the showcase’s winner Cam. Accompanied by wildly talented background dancers, Annie Bany, dressed in a shiny pink skirt and silver high-tops, opened the evening with a high-energy act. Her party anthem lyrics and dance moves proved her weight