Living & Arts

'Osiris Grave' Rivas bringing sexy back to the WSRN

In print | February 14, 2008

You may not know it, but at this moment Swarthmore is home to a budding music mogul, whose taste for glam and flair makes him all but poised to become the pop world’s next best thing. And he’s got a kick-ass name to match his promise — Osiris Grave. Don’t believe me? Look up his facebook profile. You know facebook never lies. Timbaland? Dr. Dre? Pharrell? Psh, your time is ova.

Okay, that lead was a little overly indulgent, but it’s the written expression of everything that gets me really excited about one of WSRN’s radio shows for this semester, which will be inviting all different musicians in the Swarthmore community to perform and then mixing their work into polished productions ready for the Billboard charts. “The Osiris Grave Show,” airing on Saturdays at 4:00 pm, is the brainchild of one of Swarthmore’s most eclectic personalities. He goes by Sergio Rivas ’10 by day, Osiris Grave by night, and I sat down with his more mysterious side one night to discuss his show and get a sneak peak at some of his works in progress.

Music production has been a hobby of Rivas’s for nearly a year. Armed with nothing but the music software program Reason 4.0, Rivas doesn’t even have to leave his dorm room to infuse a Chopin Nocturne with industrial and ambient beats or to give Smashing Pumpkins’ “1979” a synth-laden New Wave tinge.

Rivas’s musical background is far from conventional. “I don’t know how to play … any real instruments actually,” Rivas said. “I took music theory AP in high school, and basically everything I make is pretty much based on the knowledge that I got from that one class.” Instead, Rivas found his interests and talents lied in “just adding things onto an original idea. That usually ends up being my best work is when I take an idea and then add a bunch of stuff to it.”

It’s a creative process that Rivas hopes to bring to his new show. Rivas will have musicians “either perform live or just show music that they have recorded, and then we talk about their influences, have a short interview and play some music from their influences … Then, on the second half of the show, we basically create something new on the air, as sort of like a collaboration.” Rivas came up with the concept when the WSRN finally opened up its newly renovated Studio B at the end of last semester. A project overseen by Wren Elhai ‘08 and Roger Shaw ’08 should be bringing the live performance back to our fiercely independent radio station’s new future. The studio is equipped with high quality recording microphones and a computer that has the more professional Pro Tools as well as Reason 3.0.

“Originally, I just wanted to use the recording studio to basically just record some stuff on my own,” Rivas said. “But one thing I realized from my own personal experience with my synthesizers is that I’m really good at adding things onto musical ideas. And so, I basically made the show that way I can have the chance to work with a large variety of different types of musicians and that way I can get some more experience at doing production and layering on instruments and … synthesizer parts.”

Rivas is excited to work with a variety of musical styles. He has everything from electronica by Zack Waterfire ‘10 to a brass band to acoustic guitar by Jon Peters ’09 lined up. Rivas is particularly interested in working with acoustic music because it’s one of the few sounds he can’t easily simulate with his sythesizers. Rivas also hopes to work with the genre of hip-hop because “I like hip-hop music, but I haven’t really been able to really make anything on my own. I don’t know why I just can’t really come up with any sort of hip-hop idea to put stuff on top of.” Rivas would love to work with any hip-hop musicians, but he laments, “I think Swarthmore needs a larger hip-hop scene … [There’s] too much indie kids, indie rockers.” Given the genre’s heavy link to sampling, hip-hop might just be Rivas’s next big territory to cover.

And almost as fun as the show’s concept itself is the creativity and intensity with which Rivas has been working on publicizing the show. On top of distributing flyers, Rivas has fleshed out his alter ego Osiris Grave, giving him a facebook group and a sequin-studded Venetian mask to wear during the show. “I just like the whole anonymous thing because it gets people more intrigued,” Rivas said. “Having mystery makes things more interesting and gets people talking … It’s more of a publicity stunt than anything. Just to get publicity, get more listeners.” Words from a true pop star at heart.