Established 1826 — Oldest College Newspaper West of the Alleghenies

Sam Adams

Catherine Couretas, Editor in Chief

Over the past few years, Brick Street Bar has had its fair share of performers, from Luke Bryan and Love & Theft to Chiddy Bang, Gavin DeGraw and Mike Posner. Now, who's hiding in the upcoming line-up for the bar? The next Asher Roth, that's who.

Sam Adams will hit Brick Street for shows Sept. 6 and 7, both of which are sold out.

Brick Street owner Will Weisman said the bar received requests from students back in the spring to bring Adams, but there wasn't enough time to get him here before school let out for summer.

"He really fits the profile for the Miami music demographic and we are all about giving the students what they want," Weisman said.

I Hate College

Adams is just a guy who unintentionally started writing hits in his dorm room.

"I was just sort of messing around writing songs, the song ‘I Hate College,' and then I don't know," Adams said. "It just sort of took off."

Adams first attended Hobart and William Smith in New York but transferred to Trinity College in Connecticut. He kept writing and writing and getting rave reviews from his friends.

Both verses of his first hit, "I Hate College," were written in class.

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"I was just sort of messing around and I came up with the chorus in my room and I just sort of didn't like it," Adams said. "After I saw the responses and stuff, it started to grow on me and then gave me confidence that I could write songs that people, you know, could react to."

Driving Me Crazy

Next came "Driving Me Crazy," after one of Adams' best friends suggested he put something together using Annie Lennox's "Walking On Broken Glass."

"I experimented with it for like probably three or four weeks and I like couldn't get it right and I almost gave up on it," Adams said. "Then I just sort of hit the jackpot in terms of the actual composition of the beats that I wrote. Once I got into it, it was really fun to write the song."

Senior Jess Mitchell, a huge fan of "Driving Me Crazy," was excited to hear Adams would be in town.

"I love that song," Mitchell said, mentioning she first heard it on the radio this summer. "I thought it was a cool jam and knew I wanted to dance to it at Brick Street."

Mitchell didn't find out about Adams' shows, though, until after they had sold out. She still hopes she'll be able to get a ticket if more are released.

"I think he'd be pretty good live," Mitchell said. "It sounds very authentic, not like T-Pain or anything that's digitally remastered."

What's up, Oxford?

Adams' stop in Oxford is in the midst of a tour of college towns, venues that Adams said are a blast.

"The kids are just great to perform in front of, especially college towns because you know kids like to go out and drink and get drunk," Adams said. "And so I'm like messed up for the concert, so it's a really fun energy. Going to all these college towns, you know, it's what we love to do."

Between shows, Miami University students can expect to find Adams around uptown.

"I like connecting with people, especially people that like my music, people that are fans," Adams said. Even people that don't even know me, it's cool to just sort of hang out. When people don't know you, it's great, because you can just spread your music and people get to, like, know who you really are as a person, not just the person on the CD cover or person in the interviews."

Though the shows are sold out, look out for Brick Street to sporadically have a few more tickets on sale or perhaps some at the door.

"We really hate to turn anyone away and at least the second show allowed us to accommodate more  students," Weisman said.

Also look out for ticket giveaways at Brick Street Sept. 3 and 4.

"The drawings will be later in the night, so hopefully we will make some students happy," Weisman said.

Overall, Weisman hopes to make Brick Street and Miami a must-stop place for rising artists.

"Students play a huge role in this effort," Weisman said. "Over the years, many artists have said once they come to Miami they want to come back because the students were great and made them feel very welcome."