Hasta La Gadget!

Four boys from Long Island just released a cover of Selena Gomez’s “Hands To Myself” today and you have to check it out. Exclusively debuting their amazing cover for The Huffington Post, they managed to take a fun song and make it even more wild than it was before. I got the opportunity to sit down with the guys and discuss friendship, Bobby Darin and what it was like to share the stage with Aaron Carter.

Hey Here’s To You. Thanks for the interview! Can you all introduce yourselves and what position you play?

Greg: Hiya! I’m Greg, I play guitar and do a bit of singing.

Stephan: Hi! I’m Stephan Stanzione and I play drums and sing a bit!

Charlie: My name is Charlie and I’m the lead singer, rhythm guitar and keys player.

Mike: I’m Mike and I slappa ‘da bass and sing!

I love your dynamic. How did you guys become a band? What was your relationship to each other?

Greg: We pretty much started in early high school. Me and Steph were in another band, so was Charlie. Stephan connected us and then later on I connected Mike!

Stephan: Greg and I are cousins and we were in a band together in middle school. I was always friends with Charlie in school, so once my band with Greg dissolved, I turned to Charlie to start a band.

Charlie: Once we got to high school we decided to jam and wrote some pretty interesting songs, and soon after recruited Greg. We’ve been together ever since.

It’s nice to see a connection between friends stay strong after high school. How was life growing up out in Long Island? What were a couple of fun things that you used to do while hanging out? Were there any venues that you enjoyed going to for shows?

Greg: Life on Long Island was interesting to say the least. At least when you’re in a band. ‘Cause you can see what the kids in the city are doing and see what the “LI scene” is up to. Figuring out what we were a part of really was kind of hard and we’re still trying to do that.

Stephan: It’s super suburban, but the city is so close, so you really get a taste of both types of lifestyles if you venture out there. Charlie and I used to love filming little skits for YouTube when we were younger. Greg and I have always shared a deep love for video games and considering we’ve known each other since we were children, that’s all we’ve ever done together. Back in the day, the main venues for shows we went to were The Vibe Lounge and The Crazy Donkey. We have a lot of great memories of playing and attending shows at both venues.

Charlie: The Crazy Donkey was my favorite venue growing up. I saw Silverstein and Bless The Fall there which was an insane show. I think my life changed after that night and I knew I wanted to play music that had the ability to move people similarly to how I was moved that night.

Mike:Long Island is where it’s at! There’s so many cool venues in the city like Webster Hall and Irving Plaza. And it’s even cooler when you get to play at some of the places that your favorite bands have played at as well.

Great selection of venues my dudes. Who are a couple of your inspirations as artists?

Stephan: We have so many influences, it’s not even funny. We all bonded and grew closer because of the love we had for a band called The Fall of Troy. Anyone that knows TFOT and knows us, realizes how wild that is. But specific artists that influence me are MuteMath, Bobby Darin, Vampire Weekend, and many, many more.

Mike: I’m into so many different artists and have learned so much from different artists of different genres, so it’s hard to list them all- but to name a few, there’s definitely John Mayer, Jason Mraz, Chris Thile (Nickel Creek, Punch Brothers), Paramore, Mayday Parade and many more.

Greg: The Fall of Troy, Carly Rae Jepsen, Owl City, Paramore, Jack White, Chon, Childish Gambino. I’ve also been loving Tame Impala recently. That’s like a tiny smidge of it.

Charlie: The technicality of The Fall of Troy really vibed with all of us, the catchiness of bands like A Rocket to the Moon, and the ability to give you chills like 30 Seconds to Mars all have their places in our music.

I needed to hear the name Bobby Darin in 2016. That’s awesome Stephan. This question is open to the whole band…Who are some of your dream collaborations?

Greg: Carly Rae Jepsen for sure. I was talking about this the other night. Or anyone from the last question. They’re all mad geniuses.

Charlie: If we could collaborate with Walk The Moon that would be sick. They always write catchy melodies and great lyrics, and I’d love to get an idea of their workflow.

Stephan: I would love to do a track with a rapper. Someone like Childish Gambino, or Anderson .Paak. Hip-Hop is all about the beats/samples, and beats are my specialty. Other than that, a collaboration with Damon Albarn (of Blur and Gorillaz fame) would probably be incredible.

Photo Credit: Nicole Mago

You guys have shared the stage with popular acts including The Click Five and Aaron Carter. Can you guys explain that experience to me?

Stephan: The Click Five show was great because it was at The Vibe Lounge which is pretty small. Everyone in high school was so impressed that we were playing with the dudes that wrote, “Just The Girl.” Aaron Carter was even wilder. Who gets to play with the dude who wrote “I Want Candy”? No one, that’s who. It was at The Crazy Donkey, and it was PACKED.

Charlie: Going into those shows was really crazy, we’ve heard these names our whole lives and think they’re like superheroes. But then you kinda realize they’re just regular dudes who started out similarly to us.

Greg: That was super sick to do. We’ve had some great shows in the past, especially the festival-type ones like Bamboozle and SXSW. Kevin Spacey was at our last Nashville show.

You know you guys are on to something when Kevin Spacey shows up to your concert. What was the process like recording “Love Me or Leave Me?” It’s been about a year since the release of the album. How much has changed in your lives between then and now?

Charlie: “Love Me Or Leave Me” was in the works since we were in high school, so a lot has changed since the release and especially since we began writing it. Our style has totally changed, and we’ve all developed as musicians quite a bit. But the experience recording the album was amazing. Nashville was amazing, and the crew that helped us were awesome. Getting a feel for the way things are done in a professional studio gave us a priceless experience.

Stephan: “Love Me or Leave Me” is a collection of songs completely inspired and written from our high school experiences. We released the album a bit later on, but LMOLM contains such fun and poppy songs that showcase our youth (not that we aren’t still young) and I love it. We’ve definitely grown up since these songs, but they still hold a special place in my heart. I mean, how could they not? We’ve literally been playing these songs for the past six or seven years. The songs went through so many changes over the years, but when we finally laid them down at Blackbird Studios in Nashville, it was an awesome, yet grueling, experience. Much has changed since that album, mainly because we’ve been doing the whole college thing and we’re just older. The next album is definitely going to be a 180 for most fans and listeners, but it’s still going to contain our pop roots.

We are all looking forward to the next album! For the time being, what do you like the most about doing cover songs from different artists?

Mike: One of the reasons doing covers is so cool is because it helps you reach a really broad audience. Everyone in the audience is into different music, so meeting the listener where they’re at is a great way to keep everybody included and excited in our set.

Greg: The surprise that comes to people’s faces. Most times it’s hard to imagine a song in a rock or indie format if it’s not one already. We love flipping songs upside down like that.

Stephan: Cover songs, for us, are one of our specialties. It’s so awesome to play these songs that other artists have poured so much time and effort into. When we learn these songs, you can feel and hear all of that effort put into the songs. It’s always good to just stay true to the original artist, but it’s also awesome when we go a little ‘out there’ with the covers. But for the most part, having fun with the originality of the song, and adding just a dash of our HTY Spice™ always produces great results.

Speaking of great results, you guys just released your cover of “Hands To Myself” today. Congrats! Why did you decide to release this cover of the big Selena Gomez hit?

Charlie: We decided to pick something that was trending now and thought we could do some interesting things with. We changed up the workflow a bit on this one and focused on the production side first before putting the instruments in our hands, because the original is very electronic based. We took instruments and dug in.

Greg: “Hands To Myself” is mad catchy, and I just love how it sets the mood perfectly with it’s sonic canvas and lyrics.

Stephan: Honestly, maybe it’s a boring answer, but covering a popular song on the radio is the best! Everyone knows it. It’s on the radio for a reason, ya know?

Mike: A group of four guys doing a cover of a Selena Gomez is definitely unexpected, so the shock factor is probably a cool part.

I think listeners will always have an appreciation for the unexpected. Before I let you guys go, what can we expect from the band in the future?

Mike: Some awesome new songs with some fire beats! A lot of cool synth production and collaborations of different genres.

Greg: Brand spankin’ new songs. More shows. More videos. Trying to just be everywhere!

Charlie: We have stuff that’s finished and we are really excited to put out one it’s recorded, but in the mean time YouTube covers like this and shows are what’s expected during the hectic fall season.

Stephan: You can expect a lot. We’ve been at this for hella’ long, and although life throws a lot of junk our way, we’re going to keep on truckin’. Expect a new album, a new sound, an ever-expanding live show, and overall, positivity. We’re always trying to bring smiles to everyone who listens to us or sees us live.

Thanks for your time guys. If people want to follow along on your crazy adventures, they can do so by going to your facebook, twitter and Instagram pages, right?

Greg: That’s correct. Thanks a lot brother! We appreciate it.

Photo Credit: Nicole Mago

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A ceasefire has come into effect in Colombia between the main leftist rebel group and the government, ending one of the world’s longest insurgencies.

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In its recent decision in Columbia University, the National Labor Relations Board by a 3-1 vote granted graduate student assistants at private universities the right to form labor unions and to collectively bargain. For all but a few short years, the NLRB had consistently held that degree-seeking graduate students were more student than worker and, thus, excluded from the National Labor Relations Act’s coverage. In Columbia University, the Board returns to the short-lived national experiment of applying the Act to graduate students. The decision itself and the follow-on commentary have all focused on benefits that such bargaining can bring to these students turned employees. However, academia’s ivory tower may soon be shaken not so much by collective bargaining, but by the application of the Act through the Board’s unfair labor practice jurisdiction.

In order to grant bargaining rights to graduate students, the Board necessarily found them to be employees under the NLRA. While classifying these students as employees provides them with the right to organize and bargain, that definitional change will have serious consequences to the relationship between the university and the graduate students beyond the bargaining table. The Board’s unfair labor practice jurisdiction and the lines of cases created by applying the Act to industrial workplaces is poised to drastically alter the relationship in at least three ways.

First, this definitional change likely just blew up university honor codes and other university policies regulating the conduct of students. Importing the NLRA to graduate students will require universities to avoid interfering with the graduate students’ right under the Act to engage in “concerted activity” for “mutual aid or protection.” The NLRB has, with increasing vigor, taken an expansive view of the effect of an employer’s policies on that right. The Board has been quick to find even unenforced policies unlawful if they could be read by an employee in a way that chills that right. Thus, policies requiring “harmonious relationships” and that ban “disrespectful,” “negative,” “inappropriate,” or “rude” conduct toward others at the company have been found to unlawfully interfere with the right to engage in protected concerted activity. In fact, the Board has tolerated some unprintable words and acts from employees in the name of the “rough and tumble of labor relations.”

Universities’ attempt to create “safe spaces” for their students and to create civil environments for discussion and debate are likely on the NLRA chopping block. As one example, Princeton University’s Policy on “Respect for Others” is dead on arrival if it ever comes before the Board. Its policy banning “abusive or harassing behavior, verbal or physical, which demeans, intimidates, or injures another because of personal characteristics or beliefs or expression” would whither under Board scrutiny. Likewise, Princeton’s statement that it “attaches great importance to mutual respect, and it deplores expressions of hatred directed against any individual or group” certainly conflicts with rights under the NLRA. If you doubt that conclusion, visit the next labor picket you see.

Second, this definitional change will require either the elimination or substantial alteration to graduate student councils. Converting graduate students into employees also brings the Act’s prohibition against dominated labor organizations into the academic sphere. Under the Act, it is unlawful for an employer to interfere or dominate any labor organization. The term labor organization has never been limited to formal unions. Instead it covers “any organization of any kind” in which “employees participate” and which deals with the employer concerning grievances, disputes, wages, hours, etc. Mimicking the faculty governance structure which many graduate students hope to someday join, universities have established graduate student councils which represent graduate student concerns to the administration. Thus, for example. Harvard University’s Graduate Student Council claims to represent through elected representatives “graduate students in academic, administrative and residential matters . . . with an increasing focus on lab and labor conditions.” The website goes on to describe how the GSC meets with “administrators to address some of the most pressing issues graduate students face.” Hopefully Harvard has a good labor lawyer on staff because, assuming that the university created and funds the GSC, Harvard is violating section 8(a)(2) of the NLRA by dominating a labor organization. Never mind that a GSC supports a university’s academic mission by training the graduate students in the concepts of academic faculty governance, when the ivory tower meets the industrial National Labor Relations Act such pedagogical niceties are unlikely to survive.

Third, this definitional change is bound to intrude on the university’s academic relationship with the graduate students. One of the cornerstone NLRA protections is the right to be free from discrimination based on union activities. Imagine a graduate student who is seeking to organize a union suddenly receives a poor grade in a course. Will that student be able to allege that the poor grade was in retaliation for his or her union activities? Will the Board review the grade and determine for itself whether it was the appropriate mark or if it was motivated in part by antiunion animus? And, if the Board were to get involved, would it order the university as a remedy to change the grade? While the Board’s case load has been at historical lows, I cannot imagine it is overly excited about filling its docket with grade challenges.

Whether this trio of issues should have caused the Board to exercise its discretion to withhold employee status from the graduate students the way that it did from college athletes is open for debate. However, what should trouble both labor and management is that these three easily predictable problems informed no part of the Board’s decision-making process, despite the years that the Board considered the matter. We should expect more of our expert administrative agencies like the NLRB. If we are going to invest so much authority into these unelected and unanswerable administrative bodies, changes in course should be about more than just about returning to a short-live case issued by the previous Board of your political ilk. Having failed to fully think through the consequences, there will be much clean-up along the way as the rules for regulating the employment relationship are now applied to the student-teacher relationship.

Mr. Mastrosimone is an Associate Professor of Law at Washburn University School of Law in Topeka, Kansas. He teaches labor law, employment law, and legal research and writing in Washburn’s nationally ranked legal research and writing program. Prior to teaching, he was the Chief Legal Counsel for the Kansas Human Rights Commission, a Senior Legal Counsel to the Chairman of the National Labor Relations Board, and represented management in labor and employment disputes at two national law firms.

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It’s doubtful you’ve ever performed with your ex at Radio City Music Hall, but Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony seem to be better at moving on than you. 

Fans at an Anthony show in New York City over the weekend got a surprise when it turned out to also sort of be a J.Lo show. Judging from the high-pitched screaming from the crowd, it seems the reunion went over well.

Watch the two exes perform together:

Lopez and Anthony were legally married from 2004 to 2014, but announced their separation in 2011. The two have 8-year-old twins together, Emme and Max. Anthony has since remarried while, last week, Lopez and her longtime boyfriend Beau “Casper” Smart reportedly broke up.

At Radio City, the duo performed their 1999 joint single, “No Me Ames.” After the song, Lopez left the stage and Anthony said, “The queen!”

Here are the pictures the two singers shared on social media: 

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Twenty-five years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, America’s relations with Russia have reached a post-Cold War low. Russia’s interventions in Crimea and eastern Ukraine have exacerbated tensions with the U.S. and much of Europe. Distrust and sharp rhetoric have reached new levels.

But Russia is an active player in areas of great strategic importance. For the United States, maintaining effective policies toward Russia will be essential but not easy.

Politically, Russia has moved a long way from its communist past, but it isn’t clear what direction the country is heading. What is clear is that Russian President Vladimir Putin calls the shots.

Putin has consolidated power in his own person. He acts as if he believes that he alone stands between order and chaos. His leadership style is autocratic and brooks no serious competition. Civil society in Russia has been decimated. The parliamentary system is a façade.

Russia is a very hard country for Americans to understand and deal with. Despite Putin’s apparent ambitions, it is not a global superpower. It has a kind of hollow power. It is not a revolutionary force in the world. It is a declining state, seeking to restore its former influence.

But Russia must be taken seriously, because it has the world’s most extensive stockpiles of nuclear weapons, separated plutonium and highly enriched uranium. In a world of many risks, nuclear weapons present the gravest threat to our security and our future.

Economically, Russia is struggling. It has serious institutional and demographic weaknesses, including low fertility rates, grim health issues and a population that is projected to decline. Its GDP equals that of Italy, a country with less than half as many people.

Prices for oil exports, which helped make Putin popular early in his presidency, have fallen. The sanctions imposed by the United States, the European Union and other allies in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 have hurt. Living standards continue to fall.

It is hard to determine what Putin is up to with the takeover of Crimea and intervention in eastern Ukraine, which he frames as an attempt to support ethnic Russians in the region. It may be that he is trying to distract Russians from the country’s economic troubles.

The worry, of course, is that he will intervene further. For now, it seems unlikely that Russia will engage in new, major offensives in Ukraine and elsewhere in Eastern Europe. But Putin certainly gauged correctly that the U.S. and its allies would not be willing to fight his actions, that our response would be nonmilitary.

Some in the U.S. government identify Russia as the top security concern for our country today. Certainly the relationship is important and challenging.

But there are areas where we need Russia’s cooperation, such as the conflict in Syria, Iran’s ambitions and avoiding a disaster with our nuclear arsenals getting loose and ending up in the wrong hands. Afghanistan is another area where both the U.S. and Russia want greater stability.

We have worked with Russia to resist terrorism and stem the spread of narcotics. It is not in our interest to have chaos in Russia or to see Russia cease to function effectively as a state.

However, we should not be complacent. We should maintain economic sanctions as a powerful nonmilitary tool to influence Russia’s behavior and continue to exclude Russia from the world banking system. Its economy is quite dependent on Western trade and investment, and it doesn’t have any effective means to counter the sanctions.

We should also strengthen our ties with NATO. The countries of Eastern Europe, especially, need reassurance that they will not be left vulnerable. But NATO should make clear it does not intend to expand to Ukraine and Georgia, actions that Russia would see as a severe provocation.

We must keep open and, if possible, deepen the lines of communication with Russia, but we should not set aside our differences. We should cooperate where we can but stand up to Russia where necessary.

For example, we should stand behind the Ukrainian government in Kiev, providing it with bilateral and multinational aid. And we need to sustain international opposition to any effort by Russia to weaken or break off Europe. We should strongly object to any violation of international law.

We certainly should not have any illusions about Russia – or its wily and calculating leader.

Addressing the security concerns presented by Russia is one of America’s most difficult foreign policy challenges. Even our best efforts will not produce quick results. It’s going to take a lot of skill and patience.

Lee H. Hamilton is a Distinguished Scholar, Indiana University School of Global and International Studies; Professor of Practice, IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs; and Senior Advisor, IU Center on Representative Government. He served as U.S. Representative from Indiana’s 9th Congressional District from 1965-1999.

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