Rock Lovers Displeased with PACE Board's Hip Hop Monopoly

What do hip hop, slam poetry and WPUB interludes all have in common? If you answered bangin' ghetto beats, you'd be right but still wrong at the same time. No, the correct answer, and you can take this to your GRE prep class, is that they are all completely overused at Pace events. Though the DJs at WPUB play music from hip hop and Reggaeton to the broad spectrum of rock (screamo to acoustic), the listeners are barely in double digits for most shows and consist mostly of friends of the DJs.

As its name suggests, the Programming and Campus Entertainment (PACE) Board, an organization that receives one-third of each student's $76 student activities fee (SAF), is primarily responsible for being the largest producer for entertainment on campus. Though PACE Board's movie series provides a wide variety of films from Bad Boys II to Enron, their music performances differ as little as one generic radio-friendly rapper to another.

Co-director for College Rock at WPUB Heather O'Shea said, "We were upset because a lot of Pace events cater to one type of person. We wanted to do something different."

So, if an event by the radio station put together on a minimal budget can rake in a capacity crowd in the Spotlight on a Thirsty Thursday, the situation begs why PACE Board with an exponentially larger budget wouldn't put forth effort to obtain a rock band to change up the pace (pun intended).

Junior communication studies major Sabrina Wong said, "Any sort of variety would be nice because we have been bombarded with typically rap and hip hop artists… They have been very popular among the Pace community, which is great, but I would not mind getting more variety."

Sophomore history and sociology major Ben Stewart offered some advice for PACE Board: "Try to recruit from a variety of genres to reach out to the entire student population."

"In particular, I'd like to see Jack Johnson or Death Cab for Cutie," Stewart said.

But, variety in the musical artists recruited by organizations such as the PACE Board is not the only thing missing. Junior education major Erin Mark recommended having a comedian: "A real big one," she said, adding, "not Godfrey like last time."

"Maybe Dane Cook or Stephen Lynch," she suggested.

Freshman communication sciences/disorders major Jimmy Viscardi said, "There are a ton of local bands who would kill to perform in front of a whole bunch of college kids and not just local. Even some big name semi-local bands would kill for a shot."

For an organization that receives an indisputable third of the SAF, meaning money automatically awarded to them without jumping through hoops with Budget Allocation Council (BAC), PACE Board's choices are clearly not representative of students' taste. Sure, most people don't mind bopping their head to some So-Co (Southern Comfort-my affectionate title for rap and hip hop music because it reminds me of growing up in the Deep South), but it tends to get tiresome.

If price is the problem, consider hiring local bands. For example, Last Week, a Long Island-based band, had a song featured on Z100 for two summers. They have won Z100's version of Star Search, making them a fairly liked band on the local scene. Besides that, Last Week has played on Warped Tour for two years.

Despite several in-person attempts to schedule interviews to discuss the way they choose performers, executive PACE Board members did not respond as of press time