After hours and hours of pouring through that biology textbook, an exhausted Binghamton University student sneaks away from his studies to retrieve his most prized possession from the back of his closet. He sits on his bed, carefully handling his dad’s old acoustic guitar and imagines strumming those strings in front of thousands of people. Although it’s just a dream now, don’t lose hope, rock star aspirant; Binghamton has been an inspiration for quite a few alumni who have now made it big in the music business.
Lee Ranaldo, guitar and vocals of the popular band Sonic Youth, was greatly influenced by his time here at Binghamton. He attended the University from 1974 to 1978 and resided in Dickinson Community for three semesters before moving off campus. He was an art major and studied with many of the same art professors that are still a part of the faculty today. Ranaldo was involved with the Food Co-op and in his free time he made art and played music.
“There wasn’t really much of music scene,” Ranaldo said about the Binghamton area.
However he enjoyed listening to the University radio station, WHRW. Ranaldo and a couple of his fellow students started what they say was Binghamton’s first new-wave band, the Flucks. They played at local joints, the bars and the University’s Susquehanna Room.
After graduating, Ranaldo and his band moved to New York, and it would just be a couple years before Sonic Youth would take the world by surprise.
“I just found that my whole world opened up,” he said about his time at Binghamton. “I felt lucky enough finding a field that I felt really strongly about. I don’t know if everybody is that lucky.”
Sonic Youth has created more than nine hit albums and the band is getting ready to write music for another. They recently had a track on the soundtrack for the Oscar nominated movie “Juno.” Ranaldo has created music for quite a few films, but the “Juno” soundtrack was the first album he was ever involved with that hit the No. 1 spot on the Billboard charts.
Despite Ranaldo’s musical success, he was most influenced by Binghamton’s art program.
“It had a huge impact on my life,” he said. “I developed a really strong rapport with the professors.”
He said he spends a lot of his time drawing and creating video sculptures and collages. This past fall his work was displayed at Spool MFG, an art gallery in Johnson City, N.Y.
A more recent Binghamton student to find his way in the music industry is Ido Zmishlany. Zmishlany is an up-and-coming artist who is in development with Universal Records. Also a resident of Dickinson, Zmishlany only attended Binghamton for his freshman year in 2002.
“It was great,” he said. “I met my girlfriend. I’m still with her.”
Like most students, Zmishlany went Downtown and attended parties, however he spent a lot of time jamming with friends in a music room in the basement of Newing College. He also had his own radio show on WHRW.
Like Ranaldo, he found there was not much to gain from Binghamton’s local music scene.
“The biggest shows were through the [University] programming board,” he said. “Not really the local bands.”
Zmishlany’s time in Binghamton was cut short when opportunity called for his band, Last Week. The band was on the rise, had big touring plans and major radio play.
“That’s when I left,” he said. “We were doing really well. It was a difficult choice.”
Although Last Week’s success was keeping him busy, Zmishlany went back to school and studied at CUNY Baruch. In 2006 he went solo, and this past summer he toured with the YouTube Summer World Tour, playing songs from his self-titled album “Lion of Ido.” He put together a band and “Lion of Ido” is now touring the East Coast as work with Universal Records is well under way.
Zmishlany said that although his stay here was brief, Binghamton did have an influence on his career. He said that it was a great starting point.
“It gave me a great opportunity to see what was out there,” he said.