In the 1940s someone made candy at 4
Elton Street. But since September, Jake Glasgow, Brad Johnson, and six other
instructors have been making music there.

inTune Contemporary Music &
Production has four private lesson rooms, two classrooms, and a studio. Glasgow
and Johnson renovated it from the dank warehouse it was; now the brick walls
and high ceilings lend themselves well to an impending resonance.

Glasgow and Johnson both attended
Boston’s Berklee College of Music and are veteran Rochester musicians. They
both played in Milkhouse, King Binjj, and currently are with jazzer Marcus
Robinson in Private Stock.

“We’d been playing for so long and
then decided that wasn’t for us, the touring and whatnot,” Johnson says. The
two gravitated toward teaching, but they encountered some deficits.

“We ran into a number of kids that
just didn’t have the proper skills,” says Glasgow. They also saw kids that
didn’t know what to do with what they had. inTune was set up to fix that.

“It’s a modern approach to
everything,” says Glasgow. “Not just playing your instrument but learning how
to do studio stuff or MIDI application and how to take your instrumental skills
and add it to all of that.”

What’s offered is a far cry from the
stoic piano lesson from the old lady down the street. inTune offers individual
instruction in nine instruments and class instruction (in 12-week sessions) in
music technology, theory, and ear training.

“A kid comes in and says ‘I want to
play that Clapton solo,'” Glasgow says, “But you have to learn some basics
first and steer them in the direction they want to go.”

But some kids want to play Clapton now.

“You try to convey to them that it
doesn’t happen overnight,” Johnson says. “If I could wave a magic wand I
certainly would. I keep encouraging them. It’s just a matter of finding the
right piece.”

Glasgow and Johnson are now trying to
secure grants to get involved with the Rochester City School District, where
they feel music programs are hurting.

Information:
271-5980 or www.intuneonline.com.

— Frank De Blase

Tsunami relief

Most major aid groups are accepting donations, but here also is a
list of local groups organizing efforts.

St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church
(800 East Ridge Road, Rochester, 14621): collecting donations through January
16 to be forwarded through the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. Info:
266-2240.

Sikh Gurdwara (temple) in Penfield
(2041 Dublin Road, 14526): please call 377-2771 for information on how to
donate.

ลšrรญ Vidya Temple (6980-6970 East
River Road, Rush, 14543): accepting donations to help survivors of a destroyed
Sri Lankan orphanage, which the Temple has been helping to support. Donations
can be made online at www.srividya.org. Info: www.srividya.org, 533-1970.

Islamic Center of Rochester (727
Westfall Road, PO Box 23266, Rochester, 14692): Indicate on the check that the
donation is for tsunami relief. Info: 442-7164, www.rochesterislamiccenter.org

Hindu Temple of Rochester: collecting
checks payable to the Temple. Write “Earthquake Relief Fund” in the memo line
and mail to PO Box 20061, Rochester, 14602. Info: 427-8091,
www.hindutempleofrochester.com.

Jewish Community Federation of
Greater Rochester: collecting donations on behalf of the North American Jewry.
Donations accepted online at www.jewishrochester.org.

And you can attend the following
special events:

A relief event will be held Saturday,
January 8, at Visual Studies Workshop, 31 Prince Street, at 8 p.m., with
musical performances and an art auction. Tickets are $5 at the door. For more
information, contact Bleu Cease at bbcease@yahoo.com

A Sri Lankan singer-songwriter, P.W.
Gopal, will perform on Wednesday, January 19, at First Baptist Church, 175
Allens Creek Road, at 7 p.m. Admission is free; donations will help victims.
Info: 244-2468.

Howard’s
due

It’s
payback time.

And
it’s only fair after all. Ever since GOP state Assemblyman Howard Mills was tapped to challenge New York’s senior
senator, Albany’s pundits have been speculating about what he was promised in
return. That’s because no one ever even gave Mills the benefit of the doubt
against popular incumbent Charles Schumer. To add insult to injury, the state’s
Conservative party chose to use the apparently unwinnable race to flex their
muscle and teach Republicans a thing or two about where their loyalties lay.
Instead of endorsing the centrist Mills, they ran Long Island Physician Marilyn
O’Grady. Even though O’Grady siphoned off only about 3 percent of the vote,
Mills still lost, garnering slightly less than 25 percent of the vote to
Schumer’s record-setting 70.7 percent.

Those
numbers landed Schumer a seat chairing the Democrats’ Congressional reelection
committee. And Mills? Last week Gov. Pataki announced his reward for
undertaking that Sisyphean task: Mills is nominated to succeed Greg Serio this
month as the state’s insurance superintendent.

If
that doesn’t sound like a plum appointment at first glance, consider that, if
confirmed, Mills will have ultimate policing power of a $2 trillion industry.
That’s trillion with a “T.” Even the usually terse Pataki press office called
the job “one of the most important regulatory positions in the financial
services industry.”

And
considering the man occupying another such position — state Attorney General
(and Pataki gubernatorial rival) Eliot Spitzer — Mills likely hasn’t landed
all that far from the action.

This article appears in Jan 5-11, 2005.