‘Big Stadium’ Sound

A high-energy rock band from Williamsburg called Jessie Diamond and the Thousand won the Five-Borough Battle of the Bands at Grand Army Plaza on Sunday. They beat out runners-up Faith, Paul Brill, and seven other bands at the concert, presented by BrooklynBest 2005 and College Music Journal.“What really makes the band special is their enthusiasm,” said one judge, Shirley Braha, who produces a music video show called “New York Noise.” “The audience picked up on that.” Another judge, Adam Shore, general manager at Vice Records, said of Ms. Diamond: “She’s been the star all day. She’s been dancing to all the other bands. We didn’t know she was a performer until the ninth band.”Ms. Diamond, 22, graduated three weeks ago from New York University, where she studied avant-garde Chinese cinema. Lead guitarist John Wlaysewski, known as “Dirty Vlay,” broke a $3,000 guitar while playing a Madonna song onstage. He borrowed keyboardist Alisdair Lee’s $99 guitar to continue to play songs like “Firecracker.”Bass guitarist Carl Gibson, who joined the band two weeks ago, and drummer Colin Schiller, who has werewolf and court-jester tattoos, are also part of the band, which is called the Thousand. Mr. Schiller is also a rock ‘n’ roll karaoke host. Ms. Diamond, the lead singer, was born with the last name “Cole,” which helps explain the origin of the band’s name. As Mr. Wlaysewski said, “If you apply pressure to ‘coal’ you get a diamond.” Mr. Lee described the band’s sound as “Blondie meets AC/DC.”Mr. Lee described the band as having “big-stadium sound with a fun female vocalist.” Ms. Diamond added, “It’s kind of hard to achieve the stadium sound without the actual stadium, but we do what we can.”Stadium or not, their audience will grow. As winner, they will get a premiere performance at the 2005 CMJ Marathon and at the 2005 Brooklyn New Music Festival.***WHET YOUR WHISTLE International whistling champion Steve Herbst entertained the mostly young rock ‘n’ roll audience while the judges were selecting Jessie Diamond and the Thousand as winner. The Flatbush born performer whistled Stevie Wonder’s “Sir Duke” as well as “Summer time” from “Porgy and Bess” and “St. Louis Blues.”In April, Mr. Herbst traveled to Louisburg, N.C (near Raleigh), for the 32nd annual International Whistlers Convention. He won Entertainer of the Year for an unprecedented third time.There are different kinds of whistling. Mr. Herbst is an instrumental whistler who recreates musical instruments. He performs Franz Liszt and Dave Brubeck. His whistling repertoire includes the sounds of flutes, oboes, trumpets, violins, and even musical saws.Bing Crosby was a warbler and bird whistler who used trills. Al Jolson was a finger whistler, which means he blew while holding his fingers in his mouth. There’s also hand-whistling (cupping one’s hands and blowing through the thumbs) and throat-whistling (making sounds from the back of the mouth, which remains open), as well as tongue-and-palette style, in which the lips are not involved. But the most common form of whistling is “pucker style,” with lips pursed.“There’s been an upsurge in interest in whistling in recent years,” Mr. Herbst said. One of the biggest challenges he has is getting people to realize that whistling is a “legitimate musical art form and not some kind of novelty act.”The golden age of whistling lasted from the 1930s into the 1950s, he said, when whistlers traveled with big bands of that era. The whistlers would perform solos just as the other instrumentalists did.Over the years, Mr. Herbst said, “technology got in the way, and people stopped entertaining themselves. With all this extra time people have, they don’t have time to enjoy simpler pleasures.” People used to whistle while they worked, he said. “For me, whistling is my work.”Mr. Herbst has turned his passion for whistling into a career. His CD is called “Broadway and Beyond.” His whistling was heard last month in the season finale of Fox’s “Malcolm in the Middle,” in which one of the characters performed in a pageant. In the past year he also has whistled on commercials for Rockaway Bedding and Verizon DSL. And he narrated a recent film, “Pucker Up: The Fine Art of Whistling,” which appeared in the Seattle International Film Festival last week.He also coaches whistling. In five minutes, he said, many people can greatly improve. While some people cannot whistle, many who think they cannot whistle really can.The Knickerbocker asked why it seems more men whistle than women. “It’s a simple question with a complex answer,” he said. Historically, women were discouraged from whistling, he said. Like smoking, whistling was considered unladylike. But it is pretty clear, he added, which one would have been better for their lungs.Another reason may be a lack of role models. He said people will remark to him, “My father or my grandfather used to whistle.” He said very rarely will they say, “my grandmother or my aunt.”Does his whistling ability have practical uses? “I can’t whistle for a cab,” he said. “I have to raise my arm like everybody else.”

‘Big Stadium’ Sound

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