Nicholas Grasso, Author at The Stony Brook Press

In Music Aug 17, 2020

This summer, fans are eager to see their money back

Joe Villasana’s $641 vanished into the ether of the live entertainment industry.
He splurged for a ticket to see Rage Against the Machine at the 12,000-seat Don Haskins Center in El Paso, Texas, but the band’s reunion tour has since been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Villasana pleaded for a refund from two Ticketmaster representatives, but they thwarted his efforts. Instead, the pair ingrained in him their company’s new policy: “Ticketmaster cannot issue a refund until the concert is canceled.”

In Features Jul 23, 2020

The Blue-Blind Flower-Power Social-Justice Standoff

On June 6, the baby-boomer battles between left and right at a hallowed Long Island intersection collided with an outpour of younger people calling to end police brutality and systemic inequality. Over 250 peaceful protesters co-opted this battleground for a three-hour Black Lives Matter protest and unknowingly threw tradition by the wayside when nearly 100 of them crossed North Country Road — No Man’s Land — infiltrating the land held by the Patriots for nearly two decades.

In Music Apr 30, 2020

Singer-songwriter Leslie Mendelson knows how we’re feeling and asks us to ‘all come together’

In recent weeks the live entertainment industry has gone dark, including Mendelson’s own tour to support If You Can’t Say Anything Nice…, but she refuses to let that stop her from performing. She flips on her “party lights,” crystalline specks that electrify the gray curtain backdrop in her Brooklyn home, and arms herself with her keyboard, acoustic guitar and harmonica.

In Music Apr 25, 2020

Kevin Parker takes one more step off the beaten path in ‘The Slow Rush’

With The Slow Rush, Kevin Parker dwarfs his previous expeditions into psychedelia. The guitars that electrified InnerSpeaker and Lonerism are ousted by additional layers of synthesizer elements that expand his sound from psychedelic, to otherworldly.