By Jayleen Rolon
Correspondent
The spring 2022 WTSR Underground featured a total of eight artists over the course of two days on Feb. 27 and 28. The lineup included artists such as The Preacher’s Club, The Lunar Year, Pillowinde and Objective Joyride. The event also featured Grant Claytor, NOT YER BABY, Peach Face and Worst Sumo.
WTSR, the College’s radio station, holds an event every semester called WTSR Underground, which is an opportunity for local artists to create professional recordings of their music. WTSR works in collaboration with Lions Television (LTV) to record videos of the live performances and interviews.
Chatter and laughter filled the studio as all the moving parts fell into place between takes, settling into silence once the cameras started rolling.
Objective Joyride performing at WTSR Underground (Photo courtesy of Stephanie Shen/Photo Editor).
“When we first walked in we weren’t really sure what to expect,” said Jaden DeMario, singer of the band Objective Joyride, and a junior at Rutgers — where all of the members of Objective Joyride met. “We came in, saw this big recording studio, and we were very amazed.”
Performers traveled to the College from as close as Philadelphia to as far as Maryland. The music itself was diverse as well, ranging from metal and rock to pop.
“I ended up getting reached out to by over 50 bands which was kind of overwhelming,” said junior English major Julia Landi, WTSR’s music director. “But they’ve all been really easy to work with and really nice.”
As with any production, there were a few hiccups throughout the event such as technical difficulties with camera and sound equipment, but the crew remained flexible and upbeat.
Traditionally, the event is open to College students to attend the live performances, however Covid-19 restrictions made the event exclusive to WTSR and LTV staff.
“It’s cool to gauge a smaller audience first and test them out on people before we play at a bigger show,” said Alison Ramirez of Baltimore-based band Peachface. Peachface’s songs “Midnight Lover” and “Delusional” were freshly released on Feb. 25 and had not been performed in front of an audience prior to WTSR Underground.
“I think it’s a really cool opportunity from both ends of getting to meet cool musicians and also getting to provide something for them with the professional recordings,” Landi said.
The recordings will air on the WTSR station in the next few weeks, as well as posted on the WTSR Underground YouTube channel.
