TJ Ruzicka

Women to watch for March 17: Karen Ruzicka

TJ Ruzicka, Arts and Entertainment Editor | March 17, 2020

The Lancer Spirit is celebrating the women of Londonderry during the month of March in honor of Women’s History Month. For each day of the month, LSO will be highlighting an inspiring woman within the...

Young the Giant leaves alt-rock rivals suppliant

TJ Ruzicka, Arts and Entertainment Editor | March 1, 2020

New Politics preach new way of thought with alternative rock

TJ Ruzicka, Arts and Entertainment Editor | February 29, 2020

Rascal Flatts become country music’s big cats with country-pop bops

TJ Ruzicka, Arts and Entertainment Editor | February 17, 2020

Open roads, American-made steel muscle cars and wind blowing in your face. The only thing you’re missing is the perfect playlist to get you through trip around the land of daisy-dukes and cowboy boots. ...

Oldies But Goldies: Aretha Franklin champions womanhood with funk and soul

TJ Ruzicka, Arts and Entertainment Editor | February 16, 2020

The kingdom floods into the halls of a great castle. A castle with walls that tower so high they scrape the clouds. Through the steel gate peasants and squires, nobles and jesters all rush to the courtyard. In...

Oldies But Goldies: Dave Brubeck gives 50’s jazz worldly pizazz

TJ Ruzicka, Arts and Entertainment Editor | February 15, 2020

Listen to Dave Brubeck in the playlist below and check out all the other great pieces in the A&E section of Lancer Spirit Online!

The Glorious Sons win heart of modern rock

TJ Ruzicka, Arts and Entertainment Editor | February 14, 2020

The sun shines down bringing a veil of gold over the northern Canadian forests. A shimmer of light breaks the tree line and a faint harmony echoes through the pines. Not a susurrus swirl nor babbling...

AJR brothers go from college meals to record deals

TJ Ruzicka, Arts and Entertainment Editor | February 13, 2020

Oldies But Goldies: Miles Davis changes jazz with basics

TJ Ruzicka, Arts and Entertainment Editor | February 12, 2020

Oldies But Goldies: Stevie Wonder wonders world of music with Motown soul

TJ Ruzicka, Arts and Entertainment Editor | February 11, 2020

Ke$ha turns Kesha in resolute rennaisance

TJ Ruzicka, Arts and Entertainment Editor | February 10, 2020

Country classic crafting proves to be a cinch

Your guide on crafting the next big country hit

TJ Ruzicka, Arts and Entertainment Editor | February 9, 2020

Everyone wants to be a Rockstar, but very few have the musical chops to get it done. Luckily for the musical dreamers of the world, there is a genre of music that takes almost no artistic ability to...

Oldies But Goldies: Bob Dylan makes killin’ as pigheaded politics’ villain

TJ Ruzicka, Arts and Entertainment Editor | February 8, 2020

Like music stories? Check out all the other great pieces on your favorite artists in the A&E section of Lancer Spirit Online.

Oldies But Goldies: The Beatles bring bops despite breakup upheavels

TJ Ruzicka, Arts and Entertainment Editor | February 7, 2020

People tend to give what they have in abundance. Love or hate. Scorn or care. Hope or sorrow. As for four bowl-cutted boys from Liverpool, the thing given with such abundance was music. Accumulating...

Oldies But Goldies: Al Green pens love songs better than ever before seen

TJ Ruzicka, Arts and Entertainment Editor | February 6, 2020

He wanted to move us. He wanted to cross the bridge between exchanging pleasantries and seep down into our souls. He wanted to say hello and make us shake because every simple greeting from him was...

Oldies But Goldies: Billy Joel gives piano soul over thirty years of action

TJ Ruzicka, Arts and Entertainment Editor | February 5, 2020

Keyboards, hammers, dampers, a bride, soundboard, and strings. These are the essential parts of the piano. But what does it take to make a “Piano Man?” Simple: a bodacious discography, the...

Dividers provide privacy, end bathroom anxiety

A satirical poem to honor the new dividers in the boys' bathroom.

TJ Ruzicka, Arts and Entertainment Editor | February 4, 2020

There is a hallelujah in my heart, That at a whisper never ceases, And an open air that blows, Between us and all our pieces. All the rogue stares, That fall between my thighs, This indecent exposure, Brings...

Oldies But Goldies: Sinatra stylizes sound to stand out from crowd

TJ Ruzicka, Arts and Entertainment Editor | February 3, 2020

Men of steel still can melt, if their hearts are burned. His music burned hearts, set kingdoms afire, and the world ablaze. And he did it all with silky-smooth baritone vocals and a steely blue-eyed...

Oldies But Goldies: Bowie personifies magic in music with many personas

TJ Ruzicka, Arts and Entertainment Editor | February 2, 2020

With how different each individual is, it’s as if the human body is its own world. Each different, yet still the same. With storms inside, and oceans floating land. Yet for one man, his body...

Trans figures transcend intolerance in world of music

TJ Ruzicka, Arts and Entertainment Editor | February 2, 2020

Their life was like the ocean. Some waves drove them away from the shore. But ebbs were always accompanied by tides. And while it may have been difficult, once their love for the ocean was greater...

Oldies But Goldies: Dead Kennedy’s satirize enemies with punk-rock sound

TJ Ruzicka, Arts and Entertainment Editor | January 30, 2020

They’re unruly, recalcitrant, and absolutely antithetic to any establishment. They’re the masters of rebellious satire in music. They’re the Dead Kennedys (DKs). The DKs rocked the music...

Oldies But Goldies: ‘Come as you are’: Nirvana cleanses prejudice with grunge

TJ Ruzicka, Arts and Entertainment Editor | January 9, 2020

It’s 1993. A grunge-rock star is doing an interview with John Savage. The apoplectic rocker makes sure everyone in America knows what’s on his mind, saying, “I just felt that [women] weren’t...

‘bad guy’ Billie Eilish makes sad music stylish

TJ Ruzicka, Arts and Entertainment Editor | January 7, 2020

They say if you want to see living art, then watch a poet cry. They say they have a way of making pain beautiful. I know this to be true because I experienced it first-hand. All thanks to a 17-year-old...

Leaving ‘that phase’ pays for Paramore and Panic! At the Disco

TJ Ruzicka, Arts and Entertainment Editor | January 6, 2020

You can sound confident and have anxiety. You can look healthy, but feel awful. You can look happy and be miserable inside. You can be good looking and feel ugly. You can be a band intrinsic...

Chords, keys & memories: A decade in music.

Audrey DeAngelis and TJ Ruzicka | December 19, 2019

As the decade comes to a close, we as high schoolers can look back on the songs that have shaped our teenage years. Each year brought a different iconic playlist that has burned lyrics into our brains,...

Oldies But Goldies: ‘The Boss’ creates blue jean music with champagne lyrics

TJ Ruzicka, Arts and Entertainment Editor | December 6, 2019

His lyrics compared to those of his time were something beautifully out of place, like fireflies twinkling in graveyards. His stories compared to those of his time were something beautifully trite,...

Mavericks of music MGMT ‘stick it’ to the mgmt.

TJ Ruzicka, Arts and Entertainment Editor | November 19, 2019

“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded sun.” -from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams Far...

Let the Aquanet fly. Modern hair band The Struts rocks ‘n’ rules with its classic sound.

TJ Ruzicka, Arts and Entertainment Editor | November 14, 2019

Play 'em at rowdy ragers, for some lead-footed driving, or when you just wanna lose it when you’re home alone. They’re the daydream you’ve always had of breaking free from suburban life. They’re...

Welcome to the Rhapsody. How My Chemical Romance channels a Queen classic.

TJ Ruzicka, Arts and Entertainment Editor | October 21, 2019

Bell bottom jeans, a new fear of killer sharks, Gerald Ford, and a mishmash of operatics, ballads, and hard rock in a single track; the year is 1975, and Queen just released their decade defining, symphonic...

Why cage a songbird? My time in a psychiatric unit.

TJ Ruzicka, Arts and Entertainment Editor | September 26, 2019

I’ve spent the past few days cooped up in a room at Walden Behavioral Care, wallowing in my own sadness. Letting my angst and despair fester and metastasize. Yet, the other night I genuinely smiled...