I am writing in honor of President’s Day. Even though it was a few days ago I decided to actually observe the holiday (pay no attention that I decided to think about what President’s day actually is on a Tuesday and not on the designated day). I began to think naturally of our President and America’s history. I thought of obesity, free press, Toddlers and Tiaras, and racism. As a means to avoid all these American stereotypes, I tried to eat healthier by not pairing my quesadilla from the Tavern with French fries, wrote this article as a way to exercise my power, and only watched two instead of five episodes of Toddlers and Tiaras. But then there was racism that seems to be so prevalent in everyday culture.

Although the civil rights movement happened decades ago, I will say the desired result of an equal world is still not met. I still hear girls squeal, “That guy is hot for a black guy” or men disregarding a woman by saying, “Nah, I don’t do Indian chicks.” I called my grandmother to ask her if anything has changed with race since she was a young girl and her only response was to tell me to stop listening to my “liberal commie Hitler impersonator” professors.

I turned to Billie Holiday, a woman who understood that progress had not reached it’s fullest potential. Although the times of Holiday and myself are radically different, the feelings of her sadness have still lingered. In her most powerful song, “Strange Fruit,” Holiday sings of the lynching in the south by comparing the murdered bodies to fruit dangling from a tree, “Southern trees bear a strange fruit/ Blood on the leaves and blood at the root.”

“Strange Fruit” has been covered by the likes of Nina Simone and Jeff Buckley, but no one has quite got the somber and organic shakiness to her voice the way Holiday does. Rare videos of Holiday singing this particular song show her eyes glazing over with a beautiful contradiction of fear and bravery. Holiday sang this song in the faces of those who wanted to kill her. She shed light on one of the most disturbingly dark periods in American history.

We can all take heed of Holiday’s bravery. Sometimes I get too shy to tell someone I find his or her racist ideologies to be offensive, but I look to Holiday to give me strength. Billie Holiday has helped me become “that girl” (you know, the one who just can’t understand that it’s all a joke) at every party I go to and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

By Michelle Merica

It’s hard to find someone that Ghananian rap duo FOKN Bois don’t offend on their first official album and legitimate early bid for best rap album of 2012 “FOKN Wit Ewe.” But it’s even harder to dislike them.

Although M3nsa and Wanlov Da Kubolor have released a rather large catalogue of material both solo and together as FOKN Bois, FOKN Wit Ewe, released February 14, represents their most refined and impressive effort to date.

In between beats that nestle themselves between afro-beat rhythms, Timbaland bravado, and irreverent, hilariously clever rhymes, FOKN Bois establish themselves in this album as the undisputed kings of Africa’s rap scene- that is, if you can understand them. FOKN Bois, as their name suggests, rap in pidgin and pride themselves on this- their last big project before this album was “Coz Ov Moni,” the “worlds first pidgin musical.” When you can understand them, though, you’ll usually find them to be saying something mildly offensive, incredibly clever and ridiculously hilarious.

Despite their constant joking, I hesitate to relegate FOKN Bois to the genre of joke rap that I have a not-so-secret disdain for. That is because unlike others in this genre, FOKN Bois don’t prioritize comedy at the cost of rap legitimacy (The Lonely Island), nor do they hide a lack of talent behind a veneer of irony (Das Racist). Instead, FOKN Bois are top tier rappers who also happen to be hilarious.

Their brand of humor is crude and extremely sexual, attacking just about every untouchable issue with extreme irreverence. The album sets the tone with the “SINtro,” wherein M3nsa and Wanlov point out hot women in church over the audio of a Catholic mass. Highlights of crudity include the smooth R&B-flavored “Jesus is Coming,” which is not referring to arriving, the faux-party anthem “Laffin at Cripples,” the Arabic-beat backed “Sexin Islamic Girls,” and their biggest hit to date “Thank God We’re Not a Nigerians.”

While their humor may be low-brow, FOKN Bois use that humor as sincere social criticism, crafting an album that is not overly-political, but just political enough to be important and just ridiculous enough to still be enjoyable. And I mean really, really enjoyable.

In a way that only the best lyricists can, FOKN Bois craft hilarious, disingenuous songs that make legitimate statements about real issues like gay rights (“Strong Homosexual Guys”), race relations (“Want To Be White”), and, most poignantly, a track entitled “Help America” that comments on the Occupy movement and America living outside of her means while calling on Sudan, Somalia, and Mexico to send help. In a time when hip-hop rebellion is defined by Tyler, the Creator making up “shocking” macabre crimes, it’s refreshing to see a group that uses rap shock value as a mode of actual rebellion rather than a marketing ploy.

FOKN Bois claim that this album will either lead them to mega stardom or martyrdom. I don’t pretend to know which they’ll be in America, or even if they’ll break into American markets, but I do know that they’ve created an album worthy of global exposure and have set the bar for rap albums in 2012 extremely high.

By Sean Meehan

Thumbing though used CD bins at Smash Records in Adams Morgan last week, I happened upon “Hot Fuss” for only $3. $3!

Since then I’ve been on a Killers kick.

“Hot Fuss” is one of those albums that was great when it was first released and is still great whenever you choose to revisit it years later, or when iTunes shuffle decides it’s time to revisit it. Although the snarky, first single “Somebody Told Me” (my favorite track — the pre-chorus “hoo-oh-ooh’s” are impossible to not belt), undeniably catchy “Mr. Brightside” and building “All These Things That I’ve Done” were Top 40 hits, the songs’ and album’s quality outlasts the wave of mainstream success.

The Las Vegas band introduced themselves with “Hot Fuss” in 2004, and have since departed from their hometown-influenced, electronic rock roots and experimented with anything from Bruce Springsteen based sounds to new wave synths to poignant, inspiring messages. Any efforts in experimentation are done in vain as the freshman album is surely the band’s peak — an unfortunate situation for artists, but only because “Hot Fuss” set the bar so high.

The first half of “Hot Fuss” is no doubt the strongest, opening with perhaps the album’s best song “Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine,” which leads in to a slew of singles and climaxing with the piano and organ intro, gospel chants and uplifting guitar outro of “All These Things That I’ve Done.”

(Quick poll: Who didn’t have “I’ve got soul but I’m not a solider” in their AIM profile?)

The second half holds it together with “Andy You’re A Star,” “On Top” and “Midnight Show,” but only just. Compared to a such a strong opening track, the closer “Everything Will Be Alright” is plain boring.

Despite a lackluster finish, the power of the album’s first half solidifies it as an overall great album, not just for The Killers, but for alternative rock of the millenium. Eight years after its release, “Hot Fuss” still earns a top spot in my CD collection.

By Marissa Cetin

Indie rock experimenters and Elephant 6 veterans Of Montreal are back again with a new record Paralytic Stalks that is just as funky, self-deprivational, and plain interesting as anything they’ve ever put out. Staff Writer Richard Murphy recently spoke to bassist Davey Pierce about touring, cassettes, and the band’s street-gang stage show.

WVAU: How are you doing? What are you up to at the moment?

Davey Pierce: I’m doing good, I’m driving our sound guy to a hotel. Pretty exciting things happening here in Athens.

WVAU: Your newest record Paralytic Stalks features a lot of different sounds, just like a lot of Of Montreal’s other releases. Did these sounds come from specific influences, and if so, who?

DP: Well, I know he’s [band leader, Kevin Barnes] to a lot of like, Penderecki, a lot of neo-classical kinda noise composers stuff. It’s been kind of a weird journey for him really, I don’t understand a lot of it. I know that he’s been taking a lot from our violinist actually, Kishi Bashi, and they’ve been working a lot together, trying to get these things that he sorta hears in his head out. But then it’s weird, because he’ll have these like, you know, really weird moments, like exorcisic reading nights and all these weird little vignettes in there and then write “Dour Percentage,” which is a crazy kinda just roller disco, Steely Dan-sorta jam song. It’s hard to pinpoint where the influences are because I think they’re just all over the board with that.

WVAU: You guys start your tour in March. Do you have your costumes done yet?

DP: You know, we’re actually going a slightly different direction with this tour, we’re not going like, soul crazy, everybody jumping around in spandex and wrestling and pigs and all that. We’re trying a lot…I dunno, it’s going to be a lot darker than normal. We’ve developed a street gang that we are now members of called “Fleck and the Sleep-Rats” and it’s basically it’s modeled after like, Warriors. Actually, I like to think of it more along the lines of like Grease, but we’re basically going for an ’80s street gang thing.

WVAU: That’s awesome, I look forward to seeing that. Your albums are very ambitious sonically, do you guys try to recreate that exactly when you play live, or do you end up with something similar , or something just completely different altogether?

DP: Well, obviously we try to recreate it, but a lot of the stuff is just, it’s not really possible to recreate live without, like, a band of 50 musicians, and right now we have eight, which is a good amount of people and everybody is doing everything they possibly can. Everybody is playing multiple instruments, two or three instruments apiece, just to try to be able to fill out all of these pieces that just need to be there for little bits. It always winds up sounding different, it always ends up its own animal because a lot of it it just impossible to recreate live, and we don’t really like using backing tracks and stuff like that. But, on some of these things, we figured out that we kinda have to to get the point across and not have it just be a dude squealing on a violin and a dude squealing on a saxophone with all this noise behind it. We try to find middle ground just to make it, sonically, sound like we think the album should sound like live and still have it be completely live.

WVAU: A re-release of all of your guys’ previous material was recently put out on a cassette box set. In this day and age, can I ask why?

I think it was more of just a novelty than anything else, but at the same time, I, my partner Dobby and I have..we only listen to cassettes in the van, so to me, it’s like ‘This makes perfect sense, why wouldn’t we do that?’. So, I have the box-set in the van, I’m probably not going to listen to it anytime soon, obviously, because I’ve heard it all a billion times. But for me, it sounds awesome, it’s a great format, and I think that it’s kinda sad that everybody is forgetting what they are. There are probably kids that listen to your radio station that have never actually owned a cassette. It really is an amazing format, they don’t last forever, there is a definite time limit on them, but they sound infinitely better than like, and mp3 or a CD. They have a warmth and a personality to them.

WVAU: Going off of that, do you think that cassettes are going to have some kind of resurgence like vinyl has had recently?

Nah, I doubt it. There are people like me that love them for what they are because they were a huge part of my childhood. I remember trading mixtapes, and going out and buying, like Pavement, Slanted and Enchanted, on cassette, and it was like an amazing thing for me. So it’s more nostalgia, I don’t even think they make cassette players anymore, do they?

WVAU: I think it’s mostly specialty stuff at this point, I think.

DP: Yeah, you can probably still find like, an audiophile, Nakamichi set deck thing, but nobody is going to spend $700 on a cassette deck. So, I doubt it. I really don’t see there being a huge resurgence of cassettes, but I’ll probably still buy them if people keep putting them out.

WVAU: When you guys recorded Paralytic Stalks, you used studio musicians for the first time in your history as a band. Did this have a noticeable effect on the record, or was this just another tool that you all used?

DP: I think it’s more just another tool. Matt Chamberlin played drums on False Priest, and Kishi Bashi, our violinist, did all the orchestral stuff. For the most part, if you add in our saxophonist that tours with us now, Zac Colwell, that’s really the only studio musicians he used. There was a bassist that did stand up bass on one song, and that’s pretty much it. For the most part 99% Kevin. It’s just the things that he physically doesn’t know how to play that he gets somebody to do.

WVAU: Again, you guys have a tour coming up and you have one stretch that’s going to have you perform 12 concerts in 12 nights. How do you start prepping for something that’s going to be that arduous?

DP: The funny thing is, it seem like 12 shows in 12 nights is going to be a pretty long stretch and a pretty big deal, but at the same time, that’s what we do. My other band, we were out on the road, we actually did more shows than Of Montreal did this year, almost double them. We would go 35 nights in a row, and it’s fun. It doesn’t feel like a job. It doesn’t feel like something where you have to get up and be like “Oh, I have to go play another show.” You get excited about it because that’s your whole day, that’s what you look forward to in the morning. That’s what you’re working towards all day. So, it’s not really that arduous, and the prepping is really just practicing and just jamming. It’s more just that our band works as a unit, so it’s not just that we have to get in there and simply learn all the songs.

WVAU: Do you have any albums that you’re looking forward to being released anytime soon?

DP: Funny thing is, I have been so out of it lately, I have no idea what’s coming up for release. I’ve just been told that Dr. Dog is apparently putting out more records that I didn’t know about, so that shows you how out I am from the modern release schedule these days. We all have just been so busy getting ready and prepping for this, getting ready and building stuff. I haven’t been able to really pay attention to anything recently.

WVAU Capital Punishment 2010 veterans Javelin return to town on Saturday, February 25 to play the postcard-sized Red Palace. If you were lucky enough to attend their disgustingly danceable show in Kay Basement a few semesters ago, you know what Javelin’s infectious brand of synth-pop is all about. If you’re not familiar with the Brooklyn-based duo, there’s no better introduction to Javelin than their live show, so get your tickets while they last. Come to Javelin on Saturday night for their remixes (Bollywood meets Snoop? Mariachi “A Milli???!!”) and stay for their original Dilla-huffing-helium beats.

Read more at the Red Palace site and buy tix here.

For WVAU.org’s newest feature, we quizzed DJs about their shows, their most embarrassing on-air moments, their favorite 8th grade tunes, and everything in between. First up is Luisa Armijo, the host of Chido Cheverisimo with with Ana Sabalvarro on Mondays from 4am-6am.

Three artists played most on Chido Cheverisimo

Manu Chao, Kinky, and Yelle

Favorite current rack spin

Right now, I really enjoy PAPA’s EP, A Good Woman Is Hard to Find.

Most embarrassing on-air moment

On my very first show for the first 50 minutes, I was using the wrong button for the microphone. Almost all my show, when I thought I was talking, I wasn’t.

Favorite song in 8th grade

The Killers – “Mr. Brightside”

Favorite song all-time

Queen – “Bohemian Rhapsody”

Dream band dinner date

I would take a Mexican band called Mana to Guapo’s. We would talk about how there is no good Mexican food on the East Coast.

First album you ever bought

The first album my mom every bought me was Christina Aguilara’s first album.

Favorite thing about WVAU

My favorite thing about WVAU is the music opportunites, like concerts and free music.

Haaaaaaaay Justin,

Too much, I know. Allow me to try again,

Dearest Mr. Timberlake,

We can all agree that 2011 was a pretty great year for you. You were still riding the hype-waves from “The Social Network” through awards season. Your name made top-billing on two successful summer comedies and one not-quite-successful fall action flick. The June finale of SNL you hosted earned the show its highest ratings all season. And you seem to think buying part-ownership of MySpace (MyBlank?) was a smart business move, so let’s add that to the list, too.

Do you know another great year for you? 2006, when you brought sexy back with FutureSex/LoveSounds. Another great year? 2002 when you broke out solo with Justified. I’m going to ignore the fact that “Justified” is a decade old and I can remember listening to it on repeat on my portable CD player. I won’t ignore that six years is much too long to wait for new music from you, good sir.

Ever since you were a youngster, like every other kid, you were told to follow your dreams. And it’s great, admirable even, that you have a lot of dreams. Who am I to tell to you not to follow them? Well, speaking as a now-20-year-old-original-NSYNC-teenybopper-who-picked-up-both-of-your-solo-albums-when-they-first-dropped-and-saw-the-FutureSex/LoveShow-tour-in-2007-and-purchased-shorts-at-the-merch-stand-that-have-“SexyBack”-written-on-the-ass-because-I’m-so-cool, I strongly advise you to put your most recent career dream of acting on the back burner.

Pretty, pretty please with sugar on top: can you make more sexy, sexy groovin’ tunes with your sexy, sexy signature falsetto and sexy, sexy booty-shaking beats? And you’re more than welcome throw some beatboxing in there if you so wish.

Also, a new album means new singles, which means new music videos and a new tour — the latter two require you to dance, which is really great for everyone.

Sure, you are pretty good in movies. But you’re megafantasticalbrilliantawesome at music. I’m not saying I never want you to act again. But please do not leave us hangin’ for six years without any new jams in which you make listeners swoon every time you slip a “giiiiiiiiiiiiirrrl.”

The last time you released new music in 2006, OK Go had just started prancing on some treadmills. The last time you released new music, animated penguins tap danced into our hearts when “Happy Feet” came out in theaters. The last time you released new music, the world was introduced to Justin-Bieber-hair via a lip-syncing Zac Efron in “High School Musical.”

It’s been too damn long.

If you’re still adamant about not going back into the studio, then you are welcome to continue your acting career, but please do so exclusively on Saturday Night Live. You are funny. If you’re not going to make me dance, you might as well make me laugh. Plus you sing every time you appear on SNL. (Loophole!)

Sexy regards,

— I mean —

Sincerest regards,

Marissa Cetin

Join Electric Factory with Louise Brask today from 6pm-8pm for an exclusive DJ set with Chris Nitti (Lost & Sound, D.C.) Nitti is a rising local DJ who is slated to open for Ewan Pearson 2/22 at U Street Music Hall next week. He is a resident DJ at DC’s very own biweekly Lost & Sound, founded by Nitti and Matt “Bonkerz” Lipsit who was also featured on Electric Factory in December

Chris Nitti will be spinning tunes and wearing a tank top. If you want to get in on his tank top action, you can watch us on UStream on the Electric Factory UStream page during the broadcast. Or if you’re on campus, you’re welcome to stop by and watch the set live in WVAU.

Thanks so much for your support of Electric Factory. We’re so excited for Chris Nitti! #turnontheradio #getweird - Louise Brask

RSVP for the event on Facebook
Chris Nitti on Twitter Chris Nitti on Soundcloud

Poliça- Give You The Ghost

I’d call it post-rock, but somebody sings. I’d call it R&B, but it’s got too much drumming. I’d say it’s Bon Iver, but the singer is a girl. And yeah, she sounds a lot like Justin Vernon, probably because Poliça (pronounced po-lisa) is the band responsible for the weird R&B Gayngs project that he took part in during 2010, and there was probably some influence shared there.
But this album is far more “together” than that one was, with definite grooves underlying the stratospheric autotuned wandering of the chilling vocals. The songs themselves are sinister, languid post-trip hop productions, with minimal structure but rich melody and a full soundscape completely their own. The biggest surprise is the drumming, a dynamic powerhouse (with mixing courtesy of Spoon’s Jim Eno) that grounds the ethereal music and eventually entices it into climaxes of epic proportions. -Jesse Paller
RIYL: Bon Iver, Gayngs, Portishead, Katy B
Recommended Tracks: 2, 4, 6, 8

Royal Baths are nothing if not unconventional. Their live performances are unpredictable and spontaneous, with very clear disregard for how things are supposed to be done. Their drummer sits atop what is, apparently, a small tall wooden side-table, and there is not a tuner to be found on-stage, despite the complex open-tunings used. This unpredictability comes through admirably on their records, full of distressed lyrics and sprawling song structures. I recently phoned Jeremy Cox, singer/guitarist of Royal Baths, about touring, influences, and Animal Collective.

WVAU: How are you guys doing? How are your travels at the moment?

Jeremy Cox: Good, we’re on our way to Greensboro, North Carolina from Washington D.C, and we’re hopefully not gonna run out of gas, because we already ran out of money, but I think we’ll be all right.

WVAU: For those who aren’t familiar with you guys, who would you say are some of your largest influences on your new record Better Luck Next Life?

JC: I’d say at the roots of the songs…we were listening to a lot of delta blues, a lot of Skip James, Flying Willy Johnson. And, more, I guess, stylistically speaking, the guitar style has some pretty obvious influences, I guess. Specifically, Link Wray and Neil Young.

WVAU: Are there any common themes or ideas that run through your songs? A lot of the music press says that your band has a lot of paranoia in your tracks.

JC: Well, we don’t persue them, each song, lyrically speaking, I think each time we make a record, Jigmae [Baer], he writes all the lyrics, tries to create a rounded idea of what he’s trying to say, so I think that was achieved in this record. But we don’t like to try and lean too far into one direction, pigeonhole ourselves. I like how it’s that open to interpretation.

WVAU: You guys recently relocated from San Fransisco to New York – why and has it had any effect on your musical output?

JC: We decided to move, but San Fransisco is one of my favorite cities in the U.S., most people would agree, it’s a beautiful city, we love it. But we’ve been there for a while, and after coming through New York on tour a couple of times, we were really excited about being there, people were really receptive about what we were doing so that kinda brought us out here. Also, a change of scenery, and New York is very fast paced, so that’s really exciting for us. That was another thing that brought us out.

WVAU: Has that had any effect on your music at this point?

JC: Regarding this record that has just been released, all those songs were written in California, and those were recorded on the West Coast as well. But we’re pretty stubborn in our writing process, so I don’t think it’s had too much impact. Sonically, I don’t think it’s really going to change us much, we’re really stubborn. Or at least I am, I don’t know about everybody else.

WVAU: What is the songwriting process for you guys? Does one of you come up with one aspect and then you just build off that, or is it more of a jamming kind of thing where just go with what works?

JC: It’s usually Jigmae and I will sit down for a few hours and get a kind of basic backbone for lyrics, brainstorm ideas for what we’d like to write about, and Jigmae does all the lyric writing. I usually have a guitar, figure out all the chords for that. And from there we’ll kind of keep coming back to it, try and work out the kinks. The jamming usually occurs when we bring in the full band and it’s more of an energy based thing at that point. We try and just figure out what’s going to occur next, structurally.
.
WVAU: Do you or you guys as a band have any sort of venues that are your favorite to play? Do you like the basements, or bigger venues, or smaller clubs?

JC: You know, we’re not strictly DIY, we’re not strictly all ages or anything. Personally, I like to play anywhere that the people involved in running the show are actually excited about what’s going on. My least favorite thing is coming to a club and feeling guilty for playing a show there because the sound guy really doesn’t wanna be there, and has no interest in what we’re doing and wants to go home, that’s really what I hate most. I love it when, in any venue or DIY space, when the people working there are truly excited to be there and really want to help be involved.

WVAU: Do you have any favorite records from last year or any records you’re particularly looking forward to being released?

JC: Well, our drummer says he’s very excited about the new Animal Collective record that’s coming out, whenever it comes out.

WVAU: Him and a lot of people.

JC: Heh, yeah, I guess that’s not the most indie thing, talk about name dropping. I don’t really have anything…I’m just kinda stuck in my own world, I don’t pay as much attention as I should to the music scene (Laughter).

Royal Baths’ newest record Better Luck Next Life is recently out on Kanine Records and is currently on the rack.

By Richard Murphy

Neil Young has spent almost half a century compiling a catalog that is nothing less than extraordinary. It’s difficult to explain exactly what is so extraordinary about his music without blatantly contradicting myself: it’s straightforward, yet imbued with hidden meaning; it’s impulsive and disjointed, yet always seemingly true to a singular vision; it’s intensely personal, yet completely universal. However, perhaps the most extraordinary thing about the music of Neil Young is that almost everybody comes around to it eventually. Whether you discovered him on the internet, through your cool older brother, in your parents’ record collections, or on the radio in 1972, I can pretty much guarantee that you either are already a fan, or will be someday.

It almost goes without saying that any investigation into the world of Neil Young requires a visit to his fourth album Harvest, which just turned 40 this month. What is it about Harvest that has kept people coming back for 40 years? I would argue that the pure clarity of Neil’s songwriting is what initially draws people in. “I need someone to love me the whole day through;” “Let me fill your cup / with the promise of a man;” “I wanna live / I wanna give,” etc. These songs make it painfully clear that Neil is a human being with needs, desires, the ability to hurt and be hurt. Upon closer listening, it becomes apparent that Neil isn’t sure how much he really wants the things he is searching for; his fear of commitment is surpassed only by his fear of being alone. There are no convoluted metaphors or storybook endings here, only ten simple songs brimming with real doubt and emotional insecurity that are bound to mean something to you at some point in your life.

The real secret weapon of Harvest is melody. It’s easy to underestimate the weight of this statement in 2012, when “melodic” has essentially become shorthand for “catchy”. This isn’t to say that the lead lines from “Heart of Gold,” “Out on the Weekend,” or “Are You Ready for the Country?” won’t lodge themselves in your head after a few listens, but the melodies of Harvest offer so much more than mere familiarity. Throughout the album, the melodies that Neil chooses give his voice the shape and definition it needs to completely rip your heart out. Listen to how the melody in “A Man Needs a Maid” allows Neil’s signature warble to briefly open up before being dragged back down as he sings “I don’t know who to trust anymore.” Or, how the pre-chorus of “Alabama” gradually preps his voice for the primal, open-syllable howling of the chorus. Essentially, Neil shows incredible restraint in allowing his songwriting to direct his dynamic voice rather than the other way around, and I honestly think people subconsciously pick up on this aspect of his music and are thankful for it at a time when “the song” has frequently been downgraded to a vehicle for vocal acrobatics.

Sadly, as the prime of his career slips further and further into antiquity, it is only natural that fewer new listeners will make the pilgrimage to fill their cups with the promise of Neil Young. However, as long as Harvest has the chance to be heard, it will continue to open young minds to the life and works of an extraordinary man.

By Peter Gill

I have been in love very few times in my life. It is odd to say a few times because every happily married couple I have met (only one and they are my grandparents) has said they have only been in love once and that’s only if you’re lucky. To them the mere thought of loving anyone else is inconceivable. Initially I found this thought romantic, but upon further thinking I have come to realize that we are all screwed. Not in the kind of way you’re screwed if you accidentally and drunkenly run into your professor in CVS at noon on a Wednesday. But the kind of screwed where a life without the other person is a life not deserved of living. The kind of screwed of such enormous proportion that it’s paralyzing.

True love means giving your life away to someone, albeit in the most beautiful and heroic way possible. You lose yourself in an abstraction. You don’t see yourself through your own eyes, but rather through your loved one’s perception of you, which makes you painfully vulnerable. Which leads me to think I don’t know why I love being in love. I’m sick to my stomach most of the time either in longing for the other person or in fear that they are going to wake up one morning and realize I’m not who they think I am.

Yet, I truly believe it is all worth it when it’s real and not just a projection of my loneliness. I knew I was truly in love when I saw him kick off his shoes while playing ukulele and I saw his socks. My breath left me. I considered myself the luckiest person just to get a mere look into the most intimate, but not hyper-sexualized, aspects of his life. I love his socks more than any random hook up.

The look-alike spawn of Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, Lana Del Rey, pays homage to the man she loves and who supposedly the entire album, Born to Die, is written about. In the song “Video Games” Rey beautifully sings about the object of her affection playing video games. She opens the song by setting the scene with simplicity. Her and her lover are just enjoying beers and playing videos. This leads to her proclaiming that “It’s you, it’s you, it’s all for you/Everything I do/I tell you all the time/Heaven is a place on earth with you.”

The grandiose parts of love are okay, i.e. love letters, make-up sex, and gifts. But, as Lana Del Rey proves the beauty of love comes in the moments not normally sung about in love songs. There are very few things as wonderfully unnoticed as two people in love sitting on a couch who are comfortable in their own silence. Louis Armstrong in the American rendition of “La Vie en Rose” said that when you’re in love, “everyday words seem to turn into love songs.” Thanks to Del Rey, that sentiment has never seemed so plausible and obtainable. Her dedication to the man she loves is not sad or pathetic. It is real. “Video Games” is not fluff. It is a testament to the sheer amazingness of how screwed up love is. The dedication to a single human being and the dependency she feels. But how lucky we all would be to get screwed like that.

By Michelle Merica

Dr. Dog – Be The Void

Let’s be clear, Dr. Dog aren’t reinventing the wheel here. Their latest release follows the same psychedelic, ’60s-style rock radio as their previous releases. It might seem easy for this band to grow tedious by their seventh full-length, but there’s something we always forget about Dr. Dog; they are damn good at what they do.
The album opens with bluesy track “Lonesome”, filled with stomps and slide guitars. “That Old Black Hole” changes things up a bit with a disco style soul and backing bongos (BONGOS? BONGOS!). When “These Days” kicks in, you might think Dr. Dog has gone garage rock with its octaved guitars and drums that would make a Ramones fan jump in their seats. Yet, these newer sounds fit in perfectly with their pre-established style.
What Dr. Dog flaunts best on Be The Void is their atmospheric and “dancey” songs, such as “How Long Must I Wait” and “Heavy Light”. The influence of afro-pop and hip-hop melds perfectly with the psychedelia of their early work. Dr. Dog proves yet again that their is still plenty of mileage left in their wheels, you might as well enjoy the ride. -Mike Creedon
Recommended Tracks: 1, 2, 3, 4, and 8
RIYL: Wilco, My Morning Jacket, Delta Spirit, Portugal. The Man

This Friday, December 10 at 8:30 p.m, WVAU is hosting the semester’s first Capital Punishment, featuring three of WVAU’s finest student bands for one night in Kay Basement. Headlining is the Neologians, the afro-funk legionnaires who we first saw last semester stealing the show in Kay Basement before the Psychic Paramount. The nine-piece band includes DJs Jesse Drucker, Chase Hambley, Colin Wick, Jesse Paller and Charlie Actor.

This special event also features Western Affairs, a dream-pop group featuring DJ Alex Lee, and our very own Music Director Maxwell Tani performing original songs.

WVAU is honored to showcase our DJs’ musical talents, so RSVP on Facebook here and we’ll see you at 8:30 on Friday night in Kay Basement! It’ll be wild, we promise. A big thanks to Art Director Carrie for the fantastic poster!

Winter break is over, and all we have to show for it is a stack of books to read, memories of sleep, and stale Christmas cookies. This depressing state of affairs led me to listen to almost exclusively slow, quiet Paul Simon songs. Fortunately, there are only so many days I can roll out of bed cursing the world and every class before 2:35. At the end of this dark, sleepy tunnel there is a light, and that light is Bunnygrunt.

At the beginning, my main attraction to Bunnygrunt was based on the fact that we were both from good ol’ St. Louis, Missouri. Not too many musicians make that claim, other than Nelly and Tina Turner. The band was formed in 1993 by Matt Harnish and Karen Ried, and has included many other members over it’s 17-year career (11 years, if you take out a six-year break between 1998 and 2004). Right now that have a full time drummer ever so cooly named Eric Von Damage, and rotation of other guitar players depending on the night.

Through that whole period of 17 years, Bunnygrunt has remained based in St. Louis, and have included references to their hometown city in several songs, like “S. Kingshighway Bubblegum Factory” and “Southtown Famous”. Really though, I don’t love Bunnygrunt just because we both call the Gateway City our home. I love Bunnygrunt because it’s impossible to not love them. Bunnygrunt perfectly straddles the line between twee pop and punk rock in that they are adorable with an edge. The band reportedly hates the twee label, even after they were call the World’s Cutest Band by Allmusic.

Bunnygrunt made plenty of 7”s and EPs in their first two years, and finally released their first full length album in 1995 on No Life Records called Action Pants! The album is was only about twenty minutes long, but it was a start. After a few more years of 7”s and EPs, Bunnygrunt came out with Jen-Fi and actually got a good amount of press for it. It seemed that once the band got in the spotlight, the first thing they wanted was to get out. After Jen-Fi, the band went on a semi-unexplained six year hiatus, occasionally performing as The See-Thrus.

For five years, no one heard from Bunnygrunt. Then in 2003, one of the songs from an early, Christmas themed 7” was featured in the movie Bad Santa. The song, Season Freaklings, perfectly captures the enthusiastic garage band sound that is Bunnygrunt. The band experienced a surge in popularity after the movie, which prompted Harnish to release a collection of old and rare tracks called In the Valley of Lonesome Phil on his own label, The Bert Dax Cavalcade of Stars. After the band played a show at a house party to celebrate the release of Bad Santa, they decided to reform. They released their album in 2005 Karen Haters Club on Happy Birthday To Me Records, and played the Athens PopFest (which they have continued to do every year).

Most recently, Bunnygrunt released Matt Harnish & Other Delights, which is perhaps their furthest move away from twee yet. It’s harder, faster, tougher, and grittier than before. The songs are steeped in guitar solos and bass riffs, and even Ried’s sweet voice doesn’t sugarcoat the album into something that could be called cuddlerock. The very last song on the album “Southtown Famous” is unmistakably rock and roll, complete with heavy drum beats and a guitar solo that lets you know that Bunnygrunt isn’t going to ever really go away. They might change their style or go on hiatus, but Bunnygrunt might just outlive us all.

By Alice Quinlan

Ambient music is always something that I’ve appreciated, but never fully engaged in. My first real experience with the genre was on a late night drive back from Philadelphia with my dad, when we could find nothing else on the radio to listen to but the excellent John Diliberto-hosted Echoes on NPR affiliate and independent radio station WXPN.

Though individual artist and song names have been long forgotten, I remember how calm and soothing the music was, really accentuating the darkness and surreal beauty of the mostly empty highway we were driving on. Despite this captivating experience, however, my attention has never again been fully captivated by other pieces of ambient music, despite their quality. My consequential exposures never quite had the same magic as the initial.

Enter Nicholas Szcezpanik’s (pronounced, to my knowledge, ’skitz-uh-pan-nik’) Please Stop Loving Me, an album which singlehandedly renewed my interest in ambient music. This one-track, 47-minute-long journey is more fierce, more lush, and more engaging than most fully developed, traditional albums. Released last year, the album is not a difficult listen. The sounds are pleasant to the ear, never attempting distortion or over the top experimentation. And, while one almost hour long song may seem initially intimidating, the album does not feel long by any means. Nor, however, does it feel short; it just seems to be whatever length it wants to be, as it allows no reference points by which to measure its length. It has seemingly just begun, yet is always about to be concluded.

While easy to listen to, this should not be taken as a measure of it’s depth. Szcezpanik has a masterful understanding of his craft, shown in his precise attention to detail seen over every inch of the record. He understands the importance of variation, providing swells, chord modifications, and volume changes at precisely the moment you are about to become content with what is occurring. There are points of immense volume, and points of almost deafening quiet. The sounds are in once sense soothing, while at the same time ferociously engaging. This is not homework music. This is music to experience, to delve in to, to listen to multiple times and still find something new with each and every repeated listen.

I cannot say what Szcezpanik intends with the title of the album, Please Stop Loving Me. It is a heartbreaking sentiment, calling for someone to cease caring and move on from what they love. While there are no lyrics to deconstruct, no mood to convey from a singers intonation, what we can hear in the synthesizers and drones of the album is an astonishing amount of emotion that will likely take you off guard upon first listen. There is something about the construction of the music which is narrative, evoking pictures of lovers, skies, and an entire plethora of such images. You will not know precisely what emotions are being felt while listening. You will be both distraught and blissfully content, and have no reason for this.

At it’s end, Please Stop Loving Me will nearly make you break down and cry. Whether these are tears of happiness, saddness, or something in between, will never truly be known.

By Richard Murphy