Countless talented artists are enrolled at USC, but professors aren’t the only ones who have noticed. This Friday, SceneSC will host a showcase at New Brookland Tavern featuring several USC based bands.
SceneSC is a nonprofit group aiming to support the South Carolina-wide music scene. Aside from blogging, streaming podcasts, posting reviews and keeping readers in the loop about upcoming shows and festivals, the organization puts on plenty of shows of their own, providing support to local artists.
Throughout this fall, David Stringer, founder and operator of SceneSC, has been working alongside Kalyn Oyer, fourth-year Public Relations student and Public Relations assistant for SceneSC, in a campaign to develop a stronger connection between the organization and the students on campus.
“This is the first show we’ve done with specifically USC student bands,” Oyer said. “We have some good bands here, and it’s always good to feature them.”
While they do plenty of work with bands across the state, SceneSC is based in Columbia and holds a special connection to its home and the university. Columbia has a sizable music scene in itself, but SceneSC aims to get more USC students involved.
To finish out the fall semester, SceneSC will host a showcase at the New Brookland Tavern on the last day of classes, exclusively featuring bands made up of USC students. This Friday, electronic project Callosum, the high-energy rock band Casio Mio and five-piece indie group Corbett Alexander will take the stage.
Mason Youngblood of Callosum, a fourth-year biology student and the music director at WUSC-FM , is thrilled to perform in the inaugural student showcase — the relationship between SceneSC and musicians is mutually beneficial, to say the least.
“[SceneSC] creates a platform for musicians who are students at USC to receive exposure from a regional music blog but also helps expand SceneSC’s viewership,” he said. “It just helps everybody involved.”
Although SceneSC is making an effort to reach out to Gamecocks specifically, the community has been growing all along — shows like this one are all about maintaining the relationship. cq erika -cm CQ-D
During his first year at USC, Youngblood recalled the scene’s divide between the city and the campus, but in just four years the change is noticeable.
“Students from USC have made a much greater effort to incorporate themselves into the scene,” he said. “Now it’s a lot more cohesive, and there’s more of a community between the school and Columbia’s scene.”
While this is SceneSC’s first time hosting events dedicated to musicians at USC, it doesn’t look like it will be the last.
Musicians attending USC have made serious connections with artists and musical outlets in the surrounding area, but shows like this one are aimed more toward students that would attend the shows themselves.
“I think most students at USC aren’t really aware of the music that is happening here locally,” Youngblood said. “It’s helpful to spread the word with them within the school’s community and make the music community larger as a whole.”
More Like This
New Brookland Tavern to host comedy/music flood relief show
By Meagan Blakesley | Oct. 12, 2015