On Nov. 8, UNR’s Film Club collaborated with Musical Therapy Club and bands In Between The Dogs & I and Tiller, putting on a show at Midnight Coffee Roastings in Midtown for the Film Club’s “Soundtrack” fundraiser.
Trinity, a junior at UNR and the Film Club event coordinator, touched on how the world of music and world of movies collide to inspire this live music fundraiser.
“We just wanted to do it because we love films, but we also all really like music, and we thought it would be fun to call it ‘Soundtrack’ because, like, it’s the soundtrack of a film, you know? So yeah, that’s how it came to be,” she said.
The guitarist of Between The Dogs & I, Peyton, originally pitched the idea. Peyton is a junior at UNR and is in two bands based in Las Vegas: Between The Dogs & I and Sunday Mourning.
“I had pitched to my best friend, like, hey, let’s do a show together. It could be a film flip fundraiser, and we could bring my band up, and we could get some other bands, and it’ll be so cool. And so then I was meeting with Trinity from Film Club, and she’s the other main organizer of this event. And for the past couple of months, we’ve been having little meetings, checking out venues, spots, talking to bands,” they said.
According to Trinity, the other performers at the fundraiser were chosen by asking around: “ Tiller is from Roseville, California, and I am friends with Jack the guitarist. So we asked them if they wanted to play, and then we asked (…) Musical Therapy Club from UNR because I saw them perform at API Night and I think they were at the Filipino Festival as well.”
The Musical Therapy Club was the first in Soundtrack’s set. They covered songs by Paramore, The Foo Fighters and much more. The club’s members rotated for each of the nine covers played, with each song performed by a different lineup than the rest.
According to the president of Musical Therapy Club, Adrian, this is something new for their club. “We mainly just perform at, like, on campus events or either, like, off campus at, like, nursing homes. So doing a show like this is something super out of our comfort zone, but we’re definitely more encouraged to do this again (…) in the future.”
Despite this being a new event, the club executed it well. The crowd seemed pleased with the set, and so was Adrian. When asked how he felt the event had gone, Adrian said, “I’m super proud of it. It went so good.”
The Musical Therapy Club weren’t the only new performers, though. Next in the events setlist was a band called Tiller. Jake, one of the band’s guitarists, described their music as “a mix of, you know, old ‘60s rock, but also, like pop punk and alternative rock. Kind of, yeah, it’s a really, really wide selection of genres that we all kind of melt together, but it all kind of falls into it like rock.”
Like their predecessors the Musical Therapy Club, Tiller also did song covers for their set, tackling songs by bands such as Weezer and Turnstyle, to name a few. They had no trouble hyping up the crowd and, shockingly, Tiller had only played one other show before. Fortunately, Tiller’s second ever show was without a doubt a successful one.
The final set of the night was none other than Between The Dogs & I. The event’s headlining band was rowdy as they performed their songs “Fake Wrestling,” “Keys?”” and more.
The songs were somewhat reminiscent of the hardcore punk scene of the ‘80s and had a similar sound to bands like Gorilla Biscuits and Minor Threat. However, the band’s guitarist Peyton hesitates to categorize Between The Dogs & I under a single genre.
”We’re the silliest band in Vegas. That’s what we say. We really bounce around on genres a lot. We very much are inspired by whatever we’re listening to in the exact moment that we decide to make a song. So it’s really hard, I feel like, to classify us, like, as one genre. So I just tell everyone we’re some sort of alternative garage rock with everything in between,” she said.
Peyton said the crowd really enjoyed the sets performed by each band.
“ They [the crowd] were awesome. They were singing. They were dancing. They were joining in on songs that they didn’t even know. It was great,” she said.
The Soundtrack fundraiser was a smash hit that left those who made the event happen more than satisfied. Peyton from Between The Dogs & I enthusiastically reflected on the outcome of the show, saying that “It was way bigger of a turnout than I could have ever expected. We sold everything, all our shirts, all our buttons, all our stickers, like, literally everything. Well, not all our stickers, almost all our stickers. It was such a great turnout. I literally could not have asked for anything better.”
UNR Film Club president Conrad expressed similar sentiments about the night’s event.
”Everybody seemed to be enjoying themselves. Everybody was really getting into the music. The bands seemed to have a lot of fun, and the atmosphere was just golden,” she said.
Conrad spoke for Film Club saying that the event “was just really exciting, to know that we were collaborating with local groups and people that just are really passionate about music and wanted to collaborate with Film Club to make this whole thing possible.”
Ella Strobo can be reached via email at el********@***il.com.
