When Mikey Saladik '06 and Elliott May '06 are not screaming "Huck!" while running bare-chested with doe-like grace alongside other ultra-lush ultimate-Frisbee-playing golden gods (merely a very condensed paraphrasing of the general consensus of freshmen girls), they can probably be found dancing naked to "Dance Naked" (John Mellencamp) or other such ultimate-appropriate-sounding music.
Music figures largely in the day-to-day life of the two roommates, who may or may not proscribe to your stereotypes about what kind of music ultimate players usually listen to.
May, who was heavily involved at the radio station at his high school, said that he is constantly looking for good new music, usually through friends or at pitchforkmedia.com. He listens mostly to indie rock (think The Stills, The Cure, Interpol) and underground hip-hop, and is always up for hitting up the nearby concert scene.
"Dartmouth's concert scene isn't all that great, but Boston and Burlington, [Vt.] aren't that far away," said May. Frequent music haunts of May and company included the popular nightclub/restaurant Higher Ground, in Burlington, where some of the biggest names in the music industry used to stop en route for the comfortable ambiance and laid-back audience.
Unfortunately, the club was closed earlier this year, but is slated to re-open at an undisclosed location closer to the University of Vermont's campus.
While at Dartmouth, May has also attended bigger-name shows like the Badly Drawn Boy and Death Cab for Cutie concerts in Burlington. But May admitted that one of the absolute best shows he had ever seen was actually on campus when the Cunninlynguists played at the Tabard last Halloween. "They are my favorite hip-hop group and the show was awesome," said May.
Saladik, on the other hand, doesn't have as defined of a musical taste. "I'm the person who hears popular songs on the radio and has no idea what it is -- and people always say 'What! You've never heard this song?'" His favorite band is a Philadelphia-based group called Townhall, which he describes as "rock-jazz-bluesy." Before tournaments however, Guns 'N Roses' "Welcome to the Jungle" is the only song that gets him "really excited whenever I hear it for some reason."
A member of the Aires (he's the soloist for "Rosa Parks" by Outkast on the new Aires CD) and two classes shy of a music minor, Saladik currently listens to jazz almost exclusively, courtesy of the History of Jazz class that he is taking this fall.
"I don't really know much about Mikey's taste in music except for what I assume about it," said fellow Aires member Pete Simpson '05. Upon being asked what his assumptions were, Simpson elaborated, "stupid hippy Frisbee music".
In their Frisbee-bedecked two-room dorm in Wheeler there are occasional clashes about music, but also a lot of happy overlapping with bands such as American Analog Set and Death Cab for Cutie. Their third roommate is another fellow ultimate player Forrest Hanson '06, who, according to Saladik and May, "listens to anything and everything -- usually party shuffle on iTunes."
"I don't think either of them appreciate it when I listen to opera though," mused Saladik.
Upcoming new music and events on May and Saladik's calendar include the performance by jazz trio The Bad Plus at the Hop this Saturday, as well as the Interpol concert at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City this November (which also just happens to coincide with May's 21st birthday). They both also highly anticipate Elliott Smith's posthumous new album, "From a Basement on the Hill," which is slated to be released on Tuesday, Oct. 19.
