Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Summer tours conquer road

Originally published May 21, 2008 in The Orion.
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On part of Chico punk group Gruk's 2007 summer tour, audiences heard guitarist Scribles simultaneously play guitar and bass. He did not perform a contortionist trick, but when the band's bassist unexpectedly left the tour, Scribles covered by playing through both a bass and guitar amp.


Band members leaving midway through a tour is one example of the sudden adventures that bands face while on tour, said Rachel Loveless, Gruk vocalist. In order to have a successful tour, band members have to think on their feet and quickly come up with creative solutions.

But unforeseen problems are not stopping Gruk and other Chico bands from travelling the United States this summer.

Gruk, which also includes drummer Sean "Hipmo" Cummins and new bassist Logan "Ziptie" Keyser, have been on five national tours but will visit cities this summer they have never played, Cummins said. The band will grace Knoxville, Tenn., and Waco, Texas, with its fast and gritty punk music for the first time.

Loveless and Cummins booked all the dates themselves and are excited to spend time with friends across the country that they rarely see, Cummins said.

While Gruk's tour will reach the East Coast, The Shimmies and Social Concern plan to stay west for their summer tours.

Social Concern, which includes bassist Ami Rose, guitarist and vocalist Sarah Shintaku and drummer Bryan Lyon, is taking its punk rock sounds up the West Coast, but will venture out to Montana, Idaho and Utah.

Dreamy indie-rockers The Shimmies, is comprised of Jack Gingerich on drums and brothers Jimmy and Sean Galloway on guitar and vocals and Stephen Galloway on bass. The band will travel to Seattle and down to Los Angeles, said Sean Galloway. With the help of a friend, band members also booked the tour themselves.

This summer marks The Shimmies' first tour, but Sean Galloway did not have trouble booking shows in other cities, he said. Band members have made friends with touring bands that play in Chico, and when members of The Shimmies decided to go on tour they called upon their friends.

Gruk used the same strategy, but the booking process was a little harder than most tours because the band plays a lot of house and basement shows, Loveless said. It's hard to get in contact with people because they move or no longer host shows.

Social Concern had similar booking issues with venues and also discovered dates fill up fast because so many bands plan summer tours, Shintaku said.

While booking shows may be time consuming and frustrating, there are benefits to touring during the summer.

Attendance at Gruk shows is higher during the summer because students do not have to worry about school, Loveless said.

Members of The Shimmies are looking forward to escaping the Chico heat, Sean Galloway said.

Selling band merchandise also helps cover tour expenses, said Jimmy Galloway. All three bands will be selling T-shirts and CDs.

The bands are committed to reaching out to other cities, but Chico musicians will miss some things.

Both Loveless and Scribles miss taco trucks, friends and inexpensive beer, they said.

Members of The Shimmies miss the laid-back Chico atmosphere, Jimmy Galloway said.

"The stress level is higher in some cities, and I start thinking how people in Chico are napping."

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Album Review: Xiu Xiu - Women As Lovers

Originally published May 14, 2008 in The Orion

Xiu Xiu
Women As Lovers
Kill Rock Stars, 2008
3/5 stars


Listeners who are not prepared for the dark and chaotic sounds of Oakland's Xiu Xiu may question the band's sanity.

After several listens, music lovers can appreciate the quirkiness of the dissonant sounds and find honesty.

The band is known for its avant-garde spin on indie rock and an array of instruments that seem to crash into each other. The opening track, "I Do What I Want, When I Want," seems innocent with sweet touches of xylophone and whistles, but loud bursts of saxophone interrupt the peace.

Songwriter Jamie Stewart alternates from haunting vocals to sincere whispers. Stewart is able to portray every emotion in his voice. In "In Lust You Can Hear the Axe Fall," he cries out lyrics, making listeners feel his pain. "No Friend Oh!" is a more delicate tune with piano lines and gentle vocals.

"Women As Lovers" is out of the ordinary and may not be for everyone, but those who have the patience to listen to it more than once will dig Xiu Xiu's creativity.

Mario gets a political makeover with Ayres exhibit

Originally published May 14, 2008 in The Orion.
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For two weeks, Chico State had its own arcade with classic Nintendo games.

Groups of people wandered into Ayres Hall to scope out the games as senior Ryan Fitzpatrick hosted the reception for his bachelor of fine arts culminating exhibition Thursday. The exhibition, called "Eeprompaganda," included three well-known Nintendo games with a political twist.

Fitzpatrick reprogrammed the beloved "Super Mario Brothers" and turned it into "Super Democracy Brothers: The Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism." Instead of Mario and Luigi hopping over pipes and fighting creepy creatures, players were able to choose from President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to fight Iraqi men.

The two men run around the desert, encounter men in turbans and hop over oil bins with Exxon Mobil labels. Every time Bush acquires a token, he grows taller and becomes a cowboy. The detail on the game is impeccable. The blocks the players jump on are decorated with U.S. flags.

Senior Ama Stewart had trouble picking a favorite video game, but ultimately chose "Super Democracy Brothers" because the war in Iraq is an important and timely issue, she said.

"It's a great way to get people who aren't political to see our country in a different way," Stewart said.

Republicans were not the only political party portrayed in the exhibit.

Another game in the Mario series dealt with universal health care. "Dr. Mario" was transformed into "Doctor Democrat." The words "Hillary Care" stretched across the top of the screen and players became Dr. Hillary Clinton. The object of the game was to arrange pills into a medicine container, similarly to "Tetris."

The third game in the exhibit was called "Minuteman Civil Defense Headquarters Presents: Border Stampede," inspired by the "Millipede" video game. As the game began, the words "use your binoculars to stop the invasion," flashed on the screen.

The issue in this game was immigration, and players were presented with two lands. On top, the screen was covered with desert land and cacti. The lower half was a bright green land. Scorpions, snakes and little brown men scurried down the screen and shuffled around the cacti. The player received points for every shot. If the player was unsuccessful, the game ended with the statement, "the border has been overrun."

The war in Iraq, health care and immigration are all controversial, but the games were created in good taste. The games did not show a preference for one political party, but they hinted toward changing the state of affairs.

Fitzpatrick was afraid people would miss the comical aspect of the exhibit and find the games offensive, he said. He made sure his exhibit statement was visible so people could read about his intent. In the statement, he wrote about his curiosity with American culture symbols and the influence they have on thinking.

He came up with the idea of using video games as a way to deliver his message after discovering the game Fitzpatrick said. The U.S. Army uses the game as a recruitment tool, and it is available free online.

Fitzpatrick was also influenced by political talk shows on AM radio, he said. Instead of focusing on content, hosts work to elicit responses from listeners.

"They dumb down the issues to a ridiculous level," he said.

Depicting issues through video games is a way to mock the simplification used on radio shows, he said.

However, the process of reprogramming the games was not simple, Fitzpatrick, said. The name of the exhibit is a combination of the acronym EEPROM and the word propaganda. The acronym stands for "electrically erasable programmable read-only memory." Fitzpatrick spent a year altering the memory chips of Nintendo games. The game system ran the games as if they were the originals.

The altered games had the nostalgic feeling and entertainment factor of the original games. Gallery viewers were not hesitant to play the games.

Senior Tamara Webb attended the reception and played all three video games, she said. She admired the way the games contained context regarding political issues.

"I've never seen a gallery so full at all times."

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Album Review: Foals - Antidotes

Originally published May 07, 2008 in The Orion

Foals
Antidotes
Sub Pop Records, 2008
3/5 stars


Foals' debut album plays out like a sad tale on the dance floor.

The band from Oxford England, follows the lead of Bloc Party and Arctic Monkeys with a subtle yet powerful dance-punk sound. The instrumentation is sleek and bright, but the album has an alarming sense of nostalgia. Lead singer and guitarist Yannis Philippakis adds tension with exerted and alert vocals.

Despite the melancholy mood, "Antidotes" is undoubtedly dance party material with screeching guitars, stirring bass lines, spacey keyboards and chipping cymbals. The sporadic use of trumpet, trombone and saxophone stretches out songs to give them a lot of breathing room and allow listeners to indulge in the music.

While songs such as "Cassius" are exciting and catchy, most songs on "Antidotes" sound solitary.

Foals is off to a great start, but needs to add more personality.

Jazz X-Press to groove for benefit at Nick's Night Club

Originally published May 07, 2008 in The Orion.
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Graffiti is welcome in few places on campus, but associate professor Rocky Winslow proudly displays his decorated office walls, tagged by distinguished jazz musicians including Bobby Shew and Lori Bell.

Winslow is the director of the jazz studies program and the student ensemble Jazz X-Press. Since joining the music faculty in 2002, Winslow has helped bring big-name performers to Chico, allowing students to learn from the jazz veterans. However, Jazz X-Press will go directly to the action in June, traveling to Telluride, Colo., for the Telluride Jazz Celebration.

Jazz X-Press will be the only university-affiliated group sharing the stage with artists such as The Neville Brothers, McCoy Tyner and Joe Lovano, Winslow said. Winslow has played the festival on other occasions, but the executive director of the festival, Paul Machado, invited Jazz X-Press to perform after watching a video of the ensemble on YouTube.

One perk of playing the festival is backstage passes, which will allow students to interact with all the festival performers, Winslow said. Before the students get there, they need to raise about $16,000 to cover bus, housing and food expenses for the 25-member ensemble.

The university has been a big supporter, but the group has held performances and sought help from the community, he said. Jazz X-Press will be playing a benefit show Saturday at Nick's Night Club.

The benefit show proves Winslow is not the only person with connections because it was organized by one of the students.

Tino Marrufo, grad student in ethnomusicology, plays percussion for Jazz X-Press, but is also a member of various rock bands including Mute Witness, he said. He has worked on several rock shows with Katie Perry, founder of Chico's Devil Kat Rock Productions and booking agent for Nick's Night Club, so it was natural for him to reach out to her on behalf of Jazz X-Press.

"That's what's cool about the Chico music scene, we build relationships," he said.

The show will be a new experience for both Jazz X-Press and Nick's Night Club, Marrufo said. Jazz X-Press is used to playing venues on campus such as Harlen Adams Theatre, while Nick's Night Club usually hosts punk and metal shows. Marrufo thinks it will be a great experience and add diversity to the music scene.

Winslow sees the show as a road test, he said. The Nick's Night Club stage is much smaller than the Harlen Adams Theatre stage, so the ensemble will have to learn to adjust. The situation is much like touring, where bands usually do not know what to expect from one club to the next.

"It's going to have a big education factor," Winslow said.

Learning to be flexible will be helpful when the ensemble performs at the Telluride Jazz Celebration, which has a diverse audience, he said. Jazz X-Press is scheduled to play more than one set at the four-day festival, and Winslow hopes the group will get a chance to play a variety of compositions.

Watching how other musicians work also serves as a learning experience, because with backstage passes students will be able to talk to other musicians, Marrufo said. Jazz is known for its roots in oral tradition, and students will have the opportunity to hear stories from many of the artists that they learn about in their classes.

"The experience will be educational, spiritual and social," he said.

With such a large ensemble, good social skills are a necessity.

Tanner Johns, a senior music education major, plays lead alto saxophone for Jazz X-Press and depends on his band members to add to the learning experience, Johns said.

In order for the group to sound professional, all the members have to be committed, he said.

"You just can't miss class," Johns said.

An experienced director is also a big factor in the educational experience, he said. Johns hopes to go into teaching and is learning rehearsal techniques from Winslow. He appreciates Winslow's balance between constructive criticism and encouragement.

Spending so much time with each other creates a strong bond among the group and makes performing fun, Johns said.

"Every day is an adventure," he said.

Winslow sees the trip to Telluride as a big adventure, but the accomplishment reflects well on the university, he said.

"It's a feather in the cap for the whole college."