In Radiohead’s “In the Basement” session, the band was filmed recording its entire album in a studio while surrounded by a few friends.

It was that concept that inspired Corey Jordan to create a documentary web series after his initial idea — a comedy web series — proved difficult to fund. His project involves finding local bands in the central New York area and talking to them about their experiences.

“The area of central New York — it’s not exactly a hot spot with the (music) business — but with talent, there’s a lot of talent, and a lot of awesome people trying to do awesome things,” said Jordan, a 24-year-old music performance major at Onondaga Community College.

The episodes of his “rockumentary,” titled “Syracuse TV,” is planned to incorporate two parts. The first involves Jordan following a band and interviewing its members about being a band in Syracuse. The second part involves filming in the studio with the band, to also showcase local recording studios.

“The best part is helping out artists going through the same crap that I went through and still am going through,” Jordan said. “Instead of focusing on myself, I’m hoping to get them exposure, and hopefully make a difference.”

The first episode of “Syracuse TV” will be about the Spring Street Family Band and will also feature SubCat Studios. Jordan said for the second portion of the first episode, the team plans to interview SubCat, because he thinks the local recording studios are just as important as local artists.

The studio portion of the show covers what it’s like being a local studio as well as how the studio helps promote and support local artists. The band will be filmed performing one song live in the studio, which Jordan said will be a part of the band’s promotional packages for performing in venues. Jordan added that the documentary series will provide publicity to both the artists and the studios, helping the artists book gigs and showcasing the studio’s sound quality.

“Any artist’s story is relevant and important to be told because artists are more able to convey their emotions in certain aspects of life,” Jordan said. “Especially in this area, being a small-town musician, a small-town anybody, we all go through the same stuff — we’re all trying to work towards the same thing, which is being happy.”

The first episode is set to release May 25, after which Jordan and his team will film the next episode and will release it this summer.

Jaime Ransome, a member of the series’ production team, said she looks forward to combining the audio and visual components of music in the series.

“I’m excited to get creative with how people visually experience these bands and artists, as well as enjoying the music and interviews,” said Ransome, a senior film major at Syracuse University. “I think the performances will give good opportunities to showcase more than one art form at a time.”

Several artists in the area have contacted Jordan and his production team with interest about being featured in the series, a fact that Brian Hughes, a friend of Jordan’s who works on the documentary with him, said has been one of the best parts of the process of making this series.

“Seeing the interest in all the bands that contact us, and seeing their talent so far is really amazing,” Hughes said. “For an idea we haven’t gotten off the ground with fully yet, I think it’s really great.”

“Syracuse TV” will be available on YouTube, Facebook and the SubCat Studios website. Jordan said that he is working on creating a website dedicated to the web series.

Said Jordan: “Watch it, because you might know these people, and you might not have any idea that they’re capable of this amazing talent — they’re out there under most of our noses.”

Published on April 13, 2015 at 10:22 pm

Contact Isha: idamle@syr.edu