Alums' music site ‘what the musk’ breaks down NYC’s concert scene

“We try and have a diversity of shows and genres,” Pollack said. “We don’t really like to do the biggest shows, but instead feature shows that aren’t sold out and that might be for bands people haven’t heard of yet.”

“What the musk” posts information about a concert taking place in New York each night of the week. The sites home page is composed mainly of images of cover art and band photos, each of which represents a different day of the week. The blog launched almost a month ago, Pollack said.

“I really liked the idea of seeing everything visually laid out,” Pollack said of the site’s design. “I work with a lot of graphic designers so I get inspiration from them.”

In November, Pollack started working on an earlier version of the blog that wasn’t specifically focused on concerts, but instead included reviews and featured new music he’d heard.

“I was interested in kind of curating — New York City is crazy, there’s so much going on, so many concerts, so I wanted to have a way of filtering through all that and highlighting cool shows,” he said of the shift to the new site’s focus.

Pollack works on the site with Catherine Emil ’10 and Eugene Podborits, a graduate of Wesleyan University, who all work on the project part-time. Pollack said he works full-time doing marketing for a video agency, but will be moving to a music public relations firm later this year.

Pollack was involved in Dartmouth’s music scene while at the College, as he and David Friedman ’10 briefly kept a music blog called “Songs of the Humpback Whale” while they were undergraduates. Pollack also worked on concert booking for both Friday Night Rock and Psi Upsilon fraternity, he said.

“For people in the New York area it’s super helpful, but even outside that it’s a great way to learn about music,” Pollack said about the site, suggesting that Dartmouth students have something to gain from “what the musk” even if they’re not headed to the city for the weekend.