’Nova nation compilation rocks campus

Everyone knows the School of Business is the No. 7-ranked undergraduate business program in the nation. Everyone knows about local legends Mendel Doug, Kathy the Omelet Lady and the University's unofficial mayor, Chris Marroletti. Everyone can name at least a handful of the players on the basketball team.

But how many know about all the students that walk the campus day after day with incredible musical talents? While the University is a prestigious institution with a high level of academic and athletic prowess, the fine arts are one aspect the University too often overlooks. 

Junior Kevin O'Leary, head of the CAT Music Committee and Live Music Thursdays in Connelly Center, decided last semester that it was time to recognize these students. After hearing countless acts perform at these open mic nights, O'Leary devised a plan to release a compilation CD of students' original works. 

He asked regular performers if they would have any interest in contributing to the album. Having some experience in music production himself, including the full recording and release of his own album, "Pieces of a Story," last year O'Leary offered to assist with the recording process for anyone who requested it. 

The result was an 18-track mix that is heavy on acoustic guitar, but includes everything from folk to rap. The album contains 12 different Villanova performers in all, including O'Leary's own synth-pop band Lucky Street, as well as acoustic guitarists Shawn Welch, Meredith Ahlmeyer, Kevin McClure, Eddie Klein, Christopher Long and Colin Keane, rappers JHurls (Jack Hurly) and C-Irv (Chris Irving) and folk artists Jordan Bickhart and Nicholas Werth. 

The album even features a rock band by the name of Lions Club, and though only the drummer,  Louis DiGiacomo, is a University student, O'Leary felt the band added some diversity to the album's overall sound and was deserving of a spot.

McClure, along with Ahlmeyer and Klein, took O'Leary up on his offer to assist with the production side of the project. 

While this was not McClure's first experience recording his material in a semi-professional environment (he had assembled a demo CD with his band in high school, though they broke up soon after), he certainly appreciated O'Leary's help. 

"Working with Kevin was great," McClure said. "He definitely knows what he's doing when using Garage Band and such. 

He was really patient and hands off, which is what you like as an artist."

The importance of being left alone to foster creativity is certainly something that O'Leary understands a great deal. Lucky Street, despite its misleading name, is actually a solo act in which O'Leary sings and plays all of the instruments himself. In describing the evolution of the project, he explained how all the bands he had been a part of in the past were met with the same fate as McClure's--breakup.

"I found it tough to get everyone in a band to get together and work hard enough to actually write and record a full album," McClure said. Being the sole member of Lucky Street allows him to call all of the shots and make sure each track comes out sounding exactly how he envisioned it, a major perk to working independently where the artist has full creative control. 

Shawn Welch also emphasizes the idea of not letting too many people, or even the wrong people, get their hands on his product. Welch, who is a member of the Villanova Spires, the University's oldest all-male a cappella group, has incredible talent both vocally and on the guitar. 

Welch has previously recorded a professional album, but was less than impressed with the final product. He has expressed his dissatisfaction with production that sometimes has the tendency to transform a piece into something entirely different from what was initially envisioned. Welch is very much a believer in the concept that music is an expression of the self and that it may serve as an outlet to express one's emotions, but only if the integrity of the work is maintained.