The O-town Scene - Oneonta, NY
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/31966
Music People: Mark Pawkett Mark Pawkett teaches at SUNY Oneonta and is involved in several area bands. He graduated from Hartwick College in 1997, and began work- ing at SUNY Oneonta in 1998. Did being so young make that transition difficult? It was weird at times, just because there were people in my class who were older than me (laughing). I was 22, so most of the students there were either around my age or little bit older or younger. But, on the other hand, it worked because I was just teaching pop guitar stuff. You direct and perform with The Mother’s of Intention, SUNY Oneonta’s Frank Zappa cover band. How did that come together for you as the professor in charge? That was later. When I started here, what happened was that the influx of students was so huge from the ’90s into the early 2000s that the number of people in this department just blew up. When I first came here there was basically just a jazz band, an R&B band, a wind ensemble and a classical guitar ensemble. There was no funk, no blues, no jazz octet, no rock combo and nothing like the Zappa Band. So were you asked to start your own ensembles? Dr. Barstow [the former chair of the music department] asked me to start a rock combo program, so I created that. And the same thing happened with the Zappa Band, mainly because of my love of his music. We actually created it as a faculty ensemble first, and we did it like that for a year. But everybody was so busy because of the amount of time we had to put into it, and we weren’t really getting paid, so a year after that dissolved I decided to just do it as a class. Contributed As a student, was your career goal just to perform, or did you always want to end up teaching? I wanted to teach, actually. I got a degree in music education: pre-K to 12, and I wanted to become a high school band director. What changed that focus in order to lead you to a college? When I got out school, I realized how difficult it would be to actually become certified in that field. You have to take a whole bunch of tests, and then you have to get your master’s within five years. When I finished school, I just ended up staying here in town for a year. I was cooking at the Autumn Cafe. At the end of that year, Dennis Turechek [another SUNY One- onta guitar professor], who was my teacher at Hartwick, offered me a chance to teach a class because he didn’t want to keep teaching pop/rock styles at that point. That was the Fundamen- tals of guitar class, which I still teach now. I started doing that class, and I realized that it was really great: I had just graduated from college, and I was teaching a college class, which is pretty awesome. Is it ever a strange experience working simultaneously in a creative and academic setting with the Zappa Band, or do you feel as if it’s just the best of both worlds? It’s definitely the best of both worlds. And it’s good not only for the students because they have to sit down and learn these parts without any written scores, but it’s a great thing because no one’s really playing this music anymore. There are Zappa tribute bands out there, but no one else is really doing that in this area. And I just love listening to it, and I want to keep playing it. So it works out: it’s great for the students, it’s great for me, and I get paid for it (laughing). So, in general, do those dual perspectives of creative and academic work tend to feed each other in terms of your own positive progression as a musician? They do. I actually just posted a message about getting a new original band together for what would be the first time in years for me. I have three ensembles right now that I play with: the Zappa Band, Krisco Fist and Eye Jazz Eye. But the thing is that the large majority of the tunes I play with those groups are cov- ers. The last original band I was in was actually a rockabilly/ psychobilly-based band called The Swindlers, and that was about four or five years ago. I have tons of tunes that I want to play now, but the problem with getting something started is that I’ve been so busy with work on campus. I’ve decided to dedicate this summer to finally start playing my own stuff again, so I’m out looking for a band now. What, in your opinion, are the most noticeable changes that have taken place within the overall environment of Oneonta since you started working here? The music scene has gotten a lot better in the past couple of years because The Black Oak has done a great job of book- ing good shows. But there was a huge void for 10 years. When I first started playing out for gigs around here, the [General Clinton] Pub, the Autumn [Cafe] and the Oak were pretty big, and they paid. You could go out and make $500 to $1,000. Back in the late ’90s, I remember playing a show at the Autumn where we made $1,300 at the door. Fifteen years ago, people would pay a $5 cover. Now, they won’t. Do you think that has anything to do with the fact that people aren’t as readily or frequently exposed to that kind of live music now? I think so. And I think it’s because they’re broke. I also think that some of venues have lost a certain degree of motivation when it comes to putting on good shows. I think it’s coming back, though. You teach group and private lessons at all levels, and do you feel that it’s more rewarding to work not only with the advanced ensembles but with beginning students? It’s actually really nice to the lower classes, and some of those classes are my favorites because they’re made up of people who haven’t played before and are really excited about learning. Also, when you teach those kinds of classes, you can really build them up and understand their skills; when they come back next semester, you know what they know, and it’s easier to work with them. The nice part about my job is that I don’t assign papers. There’s no homework; it’s just practicing. I like that because I can get the performance aspect of going out and playing while teaching at the same time, and I don’t end up sitting at home grading term papers (laughing). I never wanted to do that. So do you feel like a professor when you come to work? No, not really. I’m here to teach people how to play guitar, and I don’t see much of a separation between the students and myself. Being respected is a very nice thing, and that should happen, but I don’t really try to separate myself from them and/or my colleagues. Is rock ‘n’ roll still alive? Of course it is! It’s coming back. It’s always been here. It never really died, it just morphed into … well, something bad happened to it in the late ’90s/early 2000s that lasted up until a couple of years ago. Basically in terms of the creativity, I think. There were a lot of bands doing the same kinds of things, but just calling it different names: pop-punk, emo, hardcore, etc. There weren’t a whole lot of those bands that stuck out. Over the past couple of years, there’ve been a lot more newer stuff hitting the scene, which is pretty cool. With bands like The Black Keys, for example, you get cool guitar riffs that feature a simpler rock structure and really show off the influ- ence of classic rock/Led Zeppelin stuff. And guitar solos! And singers that can sing! Queens of the Stone Age is another one. There are some bands out there that are taking it back it to the roots, and they’re playing it really well live. The truth is that it never went away. People just tried to ignore it. _ Sam Spokony May 19, 2011 O-Town Scene 15