campus articles on MTV

A R T I C L E S on the MTV Invasion
MAB plans "MTV Invasion" for late October Concert features Garbage and Lit; Ticket prices up sharply Ben Schreiber News Staff From The Chicago Maroon Front page, Issue: Oct. 5, 1999	On October 23rd, MTV will invade the U of C's campus and, like all invasions, this one will come at a cost to the invaded. Bowing to student's wishes and rejecting their traditional format of a small show and low ticket prices, the Major Activities Board (MAB) has decided to instead book a full MTV Campus Invasion festival highlighted by performances by Garbage and Lit. The increased profile of the show has also triggered a huge increase in ticket prices. By booking the MTV Campus Invasion, MAB has broken new grounds in terms of scale. Never before has it been able to bring two platinum selling artists to the same stage. The tour will be covered nationally by magazines such as Spin and Rolling Stone, and there will be television coverage by MTV and radio airplay. According to Kelly Snow, chair of MAB, this is a unique opportunity to not only bring publicity to the show, but also to bring publicity to the school. MTV's invasion will include not only a concert but also a full day's worth of activities -- the likes of which no MAB event has ever seen. From 12 until five, MTV will have tents for both "Road Rules" and "Real World" auditions, a "House of Style" tent, a new music tent in which music participants will be able to preview up and coming bands, a stage containing both live music and a DJ and a Sony Play Station tent where students will be able to play video games. This free festival will take place on Bartlett Field and does not require the purchase of a concert ticket. The doors to the October 23rd concert will open at 7:00 and the concert will begin at 7:30 in Mandel Hall. Due to the popularity of the two performers and the added costs incurred by producing a festival and a concert simultaneously, the ticket prices for this event will be much higher than years past. Tickets will cost $18 for students and $25 for faculty, staff, and Lab School. Last year's Tricky concert had tickets for only $6. In defense of the increases, Snow stated that the tickets are in fact cheap for a show of this magnitude and feels that many students are happy about MTV's role in the concert. "We made sure that we were on the absolute bottom rung of ticket prices for other colleges having this event and, also, we are doing it in a thousand seat venue while most of the other nights are in much larger venues," Snow said. Snow can point to several facts which show that booking the show with MTV was the right choice. She said that ticket sales have been as strong for this show as for just about any show that MAB has given, and that it has also brought an enthusiasm towards MAB from the student body. This can be seen by the influx of people asking about volunteering for the show and about how to get involved with MAB. Snow said that MAB's decision to bring MTV to campus was in response to students' desires to have bigger and more mainstream shows come to campus. Some of MAB's previous shows which tried to introduce showcase eclectic music, such as Kurt Elling, did not draw large student support. One of the appeals of the Campus Invasions is not just the bands who are playing but the event itself. "This is the only opportunity we have to do something on this scale," Snow said, adding that MAB has gone to great lengths to make this a campus event. "Every other date on this tour is pretty much an open date from the getgo, but we didn't do that." Tickets for the show have been offered to students since the first day of school and will not be offered to the rest of the University until the 11th of October, so as to enable as many students as are interested to attend. Snow says that MAB's purpose "is to bring large scale entertainment to campus at a price less than what would be at a public venue." In order to achieve this, they heavily subsidize ticket prices from money allocated them to make them more affordable for students. "We are taking about the same size hit as we do for other shows -- since this is a much larger event there are a lot more expenses to be covered, so its not that we are turning a profit or even breaking even, its that we are doing a lot more. We have two artists instead of one, we have an all day festival," Snow said. While Snow was unable to give an estimate of how much the show would in fact cost due to the fact that the ticket sales have not been completed, she said that MAB is being responsible toward students and that after the show a report will be made available to anyone who wishes to see where MAB's money is going. While Snow feels that the Campus Invasion is very much a "one shot" deal, MAB is also exploring ways to bring larger scale shows to the University in the future. Possibilities being considered include following the lead of other area schools. Some schools, such as Northwestern, are taking shows off campus so that bigger crowds can be accommodated. Despite this attempt to increase the size and popularity of their shows, Snow promises that MAB has not given up on its quest to bring diverse music to the University.

MTV + MAB = BAD From The Chicago Maroon Editorial Section Issue: Oct. 5, 1999	Last year, MAB's first-quarter show didn't go well. Tricky walked off stage after 20 minutes, and a few hundred tickets had to be refunded. The best thing we can say about this fall's concert is that it will go on. That is also the worst thing we can say about it. After a 1998-99 year of solid talent bookings but poor turnouts, MAB has decided to bring on a little anti-flop insurance. MTV, the anti-culture itself, will bring its "Campus Invasion" to the U of C later this month, marking what we hope will only be a brief hiatus from an otherwise golden era of the Major Activities Board. From a musical standpoint MAB has occasionally booked a dud in the past; but this quarter's event is a stinker for several different reasons. First of all, Garbage and Lit, the "talent" scheduled for the October 23rd concert, only meet the loosest sense of the word. That they aren't any good is a pretty subjective complaint - but we can say for sure that neither band comes anywhere close to being interesting. If MAB's bookings in recent years haven't necessarily been the most popular, no one can argue that Blackeyed Peas, Medeski, Martin and Wood, George Clinton and company weren't, at the very least, innovative. Second, the ticket prices for this concert - $18 for students, $25 for faculty, staff and Labbies - are nearly triple that of a typical MAB event. It used to be that going to a MAB show was so cheap it didn't even matter if you knew anything about the act - you can't beat eight bucks for live music. For $18, you can get into almost any club in the city, and chances are the music there will be a whole lot better. And finally, the very idea of bringing MTV to campus is extremely disturbing. Maybe, if having MTV sponsor the event meant more money for booking, we could understand. But just the opposite is true: students pay higher prices for a lower-quality show. So, as it turns out, we pay for the privilege of hosting the most brain-dead, obnoxious and vapid people in the entertainment world (Puff Daddy excluded). Not to sound pretentious, but we'd like to think that, if anyone should actively loathe the likes of MTV, it would be U of C students. So MAB dropped the ball on this one. In light of its recent history, however, MAB has earned the benefit of the University community's doubt. We hope this MTV deal is just a bump in the road, and that MAB will be back on its cutting-edge track come winter quarter. If not, we're losing one of the few remaining protectors of good music in Hyde Park.

MTV? Pull the plug John K. Wilson Viewpoints Staff From The Chicago Maroon Issue: Oct. 22, 1999	MTV is invading our campus tomorrow. A group of students, calling themselves NOMTV (Never Obey Multinational Telecommunications Villains), are going to resist this "campus invasion" next to Bartlett Gym. Some students may be puzzled by the response; after all, Garbage doesn't really suck, does it? But this isn't about Garbage, or Lit, or any other band. It's about cultural and economic monopolies. MTV is a subsidiary of Viacom, which last month announced a merger with CBS to become the largest media conglomerate in human history. The issue isn't having Garbage and Lit play, but whether MAB should spend student fees in order to assist MTV (and its corporate co-sponsors) in taking over a large chunk of campus next to the Reg for a self-promoting "interactive day village." Of course, it's not possible to thoroughly mock the idiocy of the MTV invasion without witnessing every synergized product placement and commercial disguised as a "village." But based on the advance publicity, it's hard to discern any intellectual, cultural, or musical value from hosting the MTV "village." The "Interactive Day Village" (apparently it takes a village to sell out - and sell to - the people) promises us "Tips from 'House of Style'" (perhaps as a return courtesy, fashion-impaired U of C students like myself can offer intelligence tips to the MTV representatives); "Real World auditions" (wow, I could expose my life to the world by rooming with a bunch of losers chosen because we'll piss each other off and make good television); "DJ instruction" (now there's my true ambition in life: becoming an MTV-certified DJ with marketable skills like playing bad pop music ordered by the corporate programmers and making inane remarks while trying to look hip); "The Latest Music Videos" (which you can't see very much on MTV); "The Newest Video Games" (not surprising, since Nintendo is a co-sponsor); and "lots of free stuff" (the ultimate lure of corporate marketers who have nothing of value to offer). Please, stop me when I get to something worth selling out for. It's bad enough that we have to suffer through this cookie-cutter "campus invasion" that will be repeated on more than 20 campuses around the country this fall. But if MTV wants to invade our campus, we shouldn't be paying them for the privilege. Even with a sold-out concert and jacked-up ticket prices, I have no doubt that MAB is losing tens of thousands of dollars on this MTV event. MTV offered MAB a sweet deal: an easy way to bring big-name popular bands to campus, all tied up in a neat package. But there's a price to be paid for corporate cultural domination. We're already witnessing the kind of thought control exercised by mega-corporations; part of MAB's deal for the MTV invasion included giving total control over the content of MAB ads and posters to MTV's corporate flunkies. (MTV is accustomed to such power after many years of ordering videos dumbed down and homogenized in its two-decade quest to control the cultural desires and shopping habits of teenagers.) It's absolutely intolerable for any student group to turn over its autonomy to a mega-corporation and provide a campus location for an ingenuity to find good bands, as it has done in the past to bring us U2, the Ramones, Public Enemy, Beck, Liz Phair, and a lot more lesser-known quality music. If the changing music industry demands consolidation for us to hear good acts, then MAB, not MTV, should take the initiative, form a cooperative with the MABs of other campuses with similar venues, and use the buying power to negotiate a tour at a good price without selling out to MTV. Unfortunately, the Administration doesn't let Student Government have the power to truly govern and requires that a certain portion of student fees go to PCC, which then divides the money among itself to fund MAB, COUP, DOC, UT, and WHPK. There's no student control and very little oversight, which is one reason why nobody raised objections to MAB's plans for an MTV invasion of our campus. In an era when corporations are exerting greater control over our lives and our universities, it's important for students to resist on every battleground. Anybody who wants to see MTV's self-proclaimed "lifestyle-oriented activities" can turn on cable TV. MAB and the University of Chicago ought to try for something better.

Garbage and Lit play to sold-out Mandel Hall in MTV Invasion Jessica Kirstein News Staff From The Chicago Maroon Issue: Oct. 26, 1999	Garbage, accompanied by special guest Lit, played Mandel Hall on Saturday, October 23. Doors opened for the show at 7:00, and the show began at 7:30. Garbage performed songs from its most recent album, Version 2.0, as well as earlier music, including No.1 Crush, Paranoid, Only Happy When it Rains, and Push It. The group also performed the new theme song for the next James Bond movie. Shirley Manson, the lead singer of Garbage, briefly stopped the show twice to make announcements to the crowd. The first time Manson stopped the concert was to warn students to remain beyond the barrier at the front of the stage, and to not get hurt on "my behalf." The announcement came after an audience member who was crowd surfing was pushed back to behind the barrier. Manson apparently felt that security was a "little rough" with the crowd member, but the Major Activities Board (MAB) sent a board member down to check on the situation. According to Kelly Snow, chairperson of the MAB, "no one was mishandled, no one was punched." Manson made a second announcement to the crowd because she believed that an audience member was bootlegging the show. Again, MAB sent a member down to the audience to assess the situation. In fact, the headphones with wires that Manson assumed were being used to illegally record the show were actually headphones that were provided to MAB board members to reduce the noise. Despite the two interruptions, Garbage had a nice rapport with the audience. Manson even allowed a woman in the crowd to come up on stage to perform with the rest of the band. With Manson looking on, the fan sang "Milk". Lit, the band that opened for Garbage, did not appear to have as good of an audience dynamic, as the crowd was considerably less lively before Garbage took the stage. Lit performed several songs, including their first single "My Own Worst Enemy" and "Ziplock." Many students enjoyed Garbage's performance, although most were not impressed with Lit's performance. "I thought Garbage rocked. They were really good. Lit wasn't that good, but I think that might have been because the crowd wasn't into it," said second-year in the College Sue Torke. "Manson was totally into it, and the energy of both bands just added to an already spectacular mood. The show was choice. I expected much less and have to admit that I was [pleasantly] surprised, although the atmosphere while Lit was on was not what I would call jump-around-concert-type stuff," Tom Osiecki, a second-year in the College, said. "I was high, hence I was satisfied," said a student who wished to remain anonymous. Indeed, many of the students at the concert were there only to see Garbage. "I'm a fan of Garbage. I got my ticket the first day they started selling [them]," third-year Ran Xu said. "I've never seen U of C students so worked up at any other concert. Most were really enthusiastic about Garbage. I really liked the concert. Lit was okay, but a little too heavy for me," Xu added. Torke also commented that the style of music might have been the reason that students were so enthusiastic about seeing Garbage, but notably less excited to see Lit. Students also felt that seeing Garbage on stage was exciting because the sound was a bit different live than recorded. "It was interesting to see them live because their sound is so highly produced," Julian Berke, a third-year in the College said. "It was hip to see them in concert," Xu agreed, "It was really different to hear them on stage. Her voice was much deeper [than on the albums]." MAB was also pleased with the concert. According to Snow, "the concert itself, from beginning to end, was spectacular. People I've spoken to loved it. People that board members spoke to loved it. It made me really proud." The concert was recorded by MTV. The network is compiling footage from Campus Invasion concerts and will air specials on the tour. The University of Chicago, said Snow, has already been mentioned on MTV, and in Rolling Stone. In addition, press from outside of the University was contacted in order to "maximize exposure of the event and our school," Snow said. The Chicago Tribune, The Reader, and other local newspapers were among those contacted. MTV Campus Invasion typically visits larger colleges and universities in the country, so the fact that the University of Chicago was able to book such a major show was quite an accomplishment, according to Snow. "MAB was really glad to have the opportunity to bring this event to our school and our students as well as to get exposure for our school," Snow said. Although the show was called "MTV Campus Invasion", the show was a MAB production. Snow pointed out that although MTV arranged for Garbage and Lit to perform together as part of the Campus Invasion, MAB actually worked with an agent to bring the show to campus. The planning that went into this show was similar to that in the other shows that MAB normally puts on, although Snow did say that this show was more work. In selecting performers to bring to the University, MAB takes into account three factors: availability, financial feasibility, and desirability. Other universities that will be visited by the "Campus Invasion" are: University of Delaware, Indiana State University, Syracuse University, SUNY-Binghamton, SUNY-Delhi, Tulane University, and University of Northern Florida. Snow added that MAB is interested in learning what students thought of the show, and those who are interested in sharing their opinions should visit the MAB website (www.mab.homepage.nu) and let the board know what they think.

MTV established beachhead at Bartlett Field; MTV invaded the University Saturday, providing an opportunity to examine the common core of pop culture Benjamin Schreiber News Staff From The Chicago Maroon Issue: Oct. 26, 1999	The small throng of black clad students set to defend their University and their culture couldn't keep out the MTV invaders, but perhaps the cold--or impending exams--was the reason for the seemingly small number of students who greeted the intruders at the festival part of MTV's Campus Invasion this Saturday. MTV invaded from noon till 5:00 with tryouts for the popular MTV programs The Real World and Road Rules, beauty tips from the House of Style, a bank of Sony PlayStations where students could play video games while wrapped around DJ's playing music, two couches where students could learn tips on how to VJ, and a ten-foot high inflatable MTV sign. In contrast to the decidedly corporate nature of the invasion, the University's moral defenders, mostly females, held strong with a plethora of black clothing and cigarettes, a tent on the lawn across from the Reynolds Club, and signs with catchy, and philosophically enigmatic, slogans such as, "MTV steals your culture and sells it back to you." All in all it was a scene that seemed to leave many feeling cold. Attendance at the Invasion was not all that large at any one time, but there was a constant stream of people coming through. MAB Director Kelly Snow said that the event was a success, "Certainly it was freezing, but we were lucky that it didn't rain or snow, and we had hundreds and hundreds of people show up." But many of those in attendance felt that the festival was not only devoid of people but also of activities. As second-year in the College Felix Woolfinger put it, "There wasn't anything to do. But if more people had shown up, then there would have been huge lines to do nothing." Second-year John Flack agreed, "I was very unimpressed, it had a big blow-up MTV sign and not much else." If the festival didn't catch the hearts of the students, neither did the protestors. Despite their best efforts, they couldn't keep students away from the festival and seemed to engage more curious bystanders, tourists who had come to look at the University or the site of the first self-sustained nuclear reaction, and had then noticed the protestors. Third-year in the college Julian Berke said, "I thought it was kind of dumb. When I was in high school I went through this faze where I hated everything that was popular, and then I realized that if you don't like what is popular, then don't buy into it." The protestors were led by Andrea Pastor, the founder of a campus group calling itself NOMTV (Never Obey Multinational Telecommunications Villains.) The group opposed the so-called "corporate culture" of MTV, and called for MTV to "leave musical cultures to those who created them." "I respect their right to protest as long as they respect our right to have the festival," Snow said. The main draw seemed to be the Real World tryouts, although why the University should have to pay for the chance to have its students make money for MTV was something that many were unclear about. According to Lisa Lucas, who volunteered at the Real World tent, more then two hundred people auditioned for The Real World, and at least two of those auditioning have been called back with the chance that others might be called as well. Despite the large number of people trying out and the fact that only two people could audition at a time, people came evenly throughout the day and thus the line never got too long. The bank of Sony PlayStations was constantly filled, but the people who were using them seemed too young to be University students, despite MAB's stated attempt to keep the event university oriented. The free products that were promised consisted mostly of the cosmetic variety, and according to Snow, MAB decided at the last minute to cancel the live music that they had been contemplating. Perhaps the highlight of the entire thing was that it couldn't be heard from inside the Regenstein and thus didn't interfere with school so that, unlike most invasions, it could just be ignored. Since this is the first time that MAB has tried both a festival and a corporate partnership, they are asking for students to voice their opinions about both the show and the festival at their home page www.mab.homepage.nu so that they can gauge the reaction and better serve the students.