BU Today Sessions: Milk
Return of popular series featuring BU’s best musicians
It’s 11:50 on a Saturday morning at Dean Elmore’s house, and the band Milk has just arrived for load-in for “BU Today Sessions,” a professional 10 minutes early. Inside, the video crew is running late.
Keyboardist Samuel Taber (CAS’13), drummer Jesse Galkowski (COM’13), bassist Luke Savoca (CAS’13), and singer-guitarist Matthew Brady (CAS’14) leave their backline of amps outside and enter quietly. In honor of the occasion, Brady comes dressed in a Star Wars–themed T-shirt printed by Spitzer Space Telescope’s folk-acoustic alter ego, Dan McDonald (CFA’10), one of the performers of the inaugural “BU Today Sessions” from 2008.
“Back when we were just getting started, we all used to listen and look up to Spitzer,” says Brady. “We used to watch him play ‘River Styx’ on ‘BU Today Sessions.’ We all thought that song was phenomenal.”
Milk’s performance kicks off this year’s “BU Today Sessions,” shot entirely on location at the home of Kenneth Elmore (SED’87), dean of students, and featuring performances by musicians, bands, and songwriters from the BU community.
Listen to “When I Go Home” by Milk.
Milk began five years ago as a collaboration between Brady and Galkowski, who were neighbors at Warren Towers. A year later, Savoca and Taber joined in on the band’s clandestine practices in CAS 424, and the lineup was solidified. “We obtained one of those rolling yellow carts,” recalls Taber. “We used to ship the equipment into the elevator at CAS late at night. The custodians all dug it; they’d come in and give us the thumbs-up. We’d move out of the way when they needed to clean the whiteboard, and we’d move everything back.”
Taber admires the tastefully decorated living room that serves as the day’s venue. “To find nice spaces like at 808 Comm Ave, and to use Dean Elmore’s house,” he says, “it’s a positive thing for the arts community at BU.”
Milk rips through three songs from the group’s upcoming album, Et in Arcadia, showcasing arrangements they describe as a matured and cohesive evolution from their previous efforts. “I think that in the early days, we would hack away at our instruments until something sounded okay, and then write a song around it,” Brady says. “Today our focus on the new music is 10 times what it was from our earlier songs.”
Check out BU Today over the next few weeks as we feature four more new installments of “BU Today Sessions.”
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