I had to do some real digging to research the story behind this one, because apparently Ben Haberland of Brooklyn, NY’s Onesie based “Meetcha at Minnies (The Captain’s Song)” off an incident that took place at his “upstate New York alma mater”. As someone with deep roots in that area, my curiosity got the better of me.
First, the story: On December 14, 1994, 26-year-old Ralph Tortorici took 37 students hostage in a lecture hall at the State University of New York at Albany. (As someone with a SUNY Albany alumnus in the family: Go Danes.) Thomas Taglienti, then 20 years old and nicknamed “the Captain”, was one of the students in the lecture at the time, and along with Jason McEnany was instrumental to saving the lives of his classmates.
The story is unfortunately far too wild and intriguing to retell in short, so please do yourself a favor and read more about it here. But in “Meetcha at Minnies”, Halderman and the rest of Onesie – who have put out fantastic tunes for the better part of a decade – cite details of the story in the lyrics. They hint at Tortorici’s schizophrenia, which made him believe he had a microchip implanted in his genitals. They note the duffel bag in which Tortorici had the rifle, with which he used to terrify the students and shoot McEnany in the groin. They even provide a small mini-biography of Taglienti, telling how he “came up from the island” (meaning Long Island) “for mortuary science” (which Taglienti studied for two years at SUNY Canton before transferring to SUNY Albany to major in marketing and management.)
One might think such a tale would invoke some dark musical tones, but instead, Onesie have cooked up their blend of 70s power pop, 80s glam, and 90s DIY indie to put the Captain’s story into song. The somewhat poppy sound highlights the heroic elements of the events of over thirty years ago, making Taglienti’s experiences sound more like the stuff of legend. As Haberland first attended SUNY Albany in 1995, the year after the hostage situation took place, he only heard about it from fellow upperclassmen in hushed whispers and joking tones, removed from the larger issues of mental health or rampant gun violence. After three decades, Haberland and his bandmates have finally put the story in their own words, not only to come to terms with those events after so much time, but to comment on the current culture of violence, which has made most of society somewhat desensitized to such events.
Onesie includes Haberland (vocals/guitar) as well as Rob Lanterman (guitar), Jason Bauers (drums), and Ernie D’Amaso (bass). “Meetcha at Minnies (The Captain’s Song)” also features Greg Vegas of the label Declared Goods to blow a mean saxophone over the bridge. And if while listening to the track you feel Onesie’s sound is hard to categorize, thank recorder Travis Harrison, known for his work with Guided By Voices and Built To Spill, bands who also love messing with genre.
I’ve gone on far too long about this musically, informationally, and historically rich single, so I’ll finish with three final things:
One: “Minnies” doesn’t refer to a place, but to SUNY Albany itself, where a seven-foot-tall statue of the goddess Minerva towers over the main campus. To say “meetcha at Minnies” means that through the song, he’s returning to a major place in his past and reflecting on its history.
Two: “Meetcha at Minnies (The Captain’s Song)” will appear on Way Thousand Bump To The Sky, Onesie’s upcoming record, which will drop this summer on California-based Sell The Heart Records. You’ll want to look out for it.
Three: One more time, with all the love for Upstate New York in my heart: Go Danes. (And Go Orange. Sorry. Old habits die hard.)
Take a listen to “Meetcha at Minnies (The Captain’s Song) below.
Written by Will Sisskind
