I have always found that the months before summer begins coincides with a serious lull in good concerts. Thus, I feel the need to share with you, my fellow music aficionados, some exciting news. Murder by Death, a rock band out of Indiana, will soon be making their way through San Francisco. Their music cannot be summed up in one word, but they bring a sound nearly anyone can enjoy. The band will be at Slim’s this coming Thursday (4/8/2010, 9pm) to promote the release of their new album, “Good Morning, Magpie.” For more information check out Slim’s website, http://www.slims-sf.com/slims-bin/showcal?date=2010-04-08

On the judges panel some notable figures were Manny Lawson from the 49ers and a former Lakers player. Each chapter had a theme ranging from the Black Panthers to futuristic Lady Gaga-esque, for the step performance. At this regional level $43,000 was up for grabs but only one sorority and one fraternity walked away with lottery size checks. UC Berkeley Delta Sigma Theta Sorority and CSU Dominguez Hills Iota Phi Theta Fraternity each took home $21,500 for their sisters and brothers.

The rising hip-hop artist that USF has already had the privilege of hosting, B.o.b., kicked off the event with a performance. He sang his most well known songs including “I’ll Be in the Sky,” “Haterz Everywhere,” and “Generation Lost.” But when he sang his hit single, “Nothin’ On You” from his debut album “The Adventures of B.o.b.”, the Greeks stormed the stage and got down like only a group of hip-hop dancers could. Later in the evening, Kid Cudi gave a performance that got everyone in the crowd jumping and stepping once again.

Most audience members were there to support their fellow Greeks, and in some cases start battles of their own in the pit. Snakes of sisters and lines of brothers divided the crowds and competed to show who had the most pride for their organizations. Local DJs gave the score of beats for the stepping Greeks to show off, for they too were battling amongst themselves for best disc jockey each representing a different McDonald’s hamburger. The audience was more than happy to oblige DJ Rob Stevens a.k.a. Double ¼ Pounder with Cheese when he called out, “If you’re sexy and you know it clap your hands” from “Dance With Me” by 112. DJ Willy Will or Angus made the floor rumble with “Say Aah” by Trey Songz and created a consensus between the men and women with the lyrics of “I Look Good” by Chalie Boy. Last up was DJ Famous, or Big Mac, who took home the title with a mash-up of all the greats (Biggie, Snoop Dogg, Tupac, Dr. Dre, Ludacris) and won them over with “California Love.”

The Sprite Step Off competition is more than a chance for sororities and fraternities to earn scholarships or even showcase their talents as dancers. It may be the nature of the stepping competition or because it was in San Francisco, but the entire atmosphere was hip-hop. The dancing, both on and off stage, the music, the djs and the fashion all described a style of living that is often found in sororities and fraternities, pride for the community and respect for individuals. At the end of the day, all the Greeks were dancing without care for who was standing next to them.

Chris Crowley | Staff Writer

The third installment of the annual Treasure Island Music Festival just across the Bay bridge continued its’ tradition this weekend of being a landmark festival destination for concertgoers, who were graced by big name indie, hip-hop and electronic acts including The Flaming Lips, MGMT, and MSTRKRFT.

Treasure Island, a smaller scaled down festival compared to the likes of Bonnaroo and Coachella, has built a solid reputation over the last three years with awe striking views of San Francisco and the Bay offering attendees two days of high caliber upcoming and familiar artists spanning multiple genres, and two stages that switch off in between acts, thus not creating schedule conflicts.

This year did not disappoint.

Treasure Island’s festival pattern is to reserves day one for electronic and hip-hop based acts, and day two for the more stripped down indie based artists. The formula seems to be working well, with sellout crowds on Saturday and a near sellout on Sunday.

Saturday saw some of the “must see” artists stumble with less than average performances, while some of the ‘little guys’ cemented their place in Treasure Island Festival history.

Introducing, Dan Deacon. Deacon, who took the stage mid afternoon with a large band, playing his own crazed distortion infused style of electronic music, engaged the audience into a full crowd dance contest, a mid show interpretive dance routine to his quirky song “Of the Mountains” (you have to Youtube it), and finished the set by coming into the audience to instruct the crowd how to make multiple human tunnels during his hard hitting finale.

If you were there you couldn’t stop talking about it, if you weren’t you sure heard about it.

Other artists who delivered notable performances Saturday included LA hip-hop artist Murs, who assured the crowd “Fuck it, music is free—steal everything, motherfuckers!” The statement was reciprocated with a roar from the crowd who found the day’s first energy during Murs hits such as the Crooker’s remix of his collaboration “To Protect and Entertain” with Ed Banger artist Busy P, and “Better Than The Best.”

Passion Pit’s highly anticipated Saturday set fell a bit flat, with lead singer Michael Angelakos sounding vocally wounded and worn out, but some highlights included fan favorites “Sleepyhead” and “The Reeling.”

Saturday’s headliner could have been any of the three remaining acts of the day with the duties split amongst Girl Talk, MSTRKRFT, and MGMT.

MSTRKRFT stood above all and took down the Bridge stage with a massive crowd that seemed to visibly double last years Saturday headlining act, French electro duo Justice. And with all eyes on them, MSTRKRFT delivered a blasting hour-long set of electro and house leaving the crowd of over 10,000 in desire for more finishing with a remix of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

Girl Talk continued his reign as the king of the mash-ups with an energetic late night set which ended with a dazzling fireworks show leading into neo psychedelic synthpop gods of the hipsters, MGMT.

MGMT came on stage to sold out cheers from attendees who waited all day for the east coast natives. “ It’s our last show for a while so we’re going to play our first album straight through” lead singer Andrew VanWyngarden stated before diving into the Oracular Spectacular’s first song “Time to Pretend.” The band completed the album, and did an encore that included three new songs off of their anticipated upcoming album “Congratulations” and the classic song “Destrokk.”

Day two brought very relaxed calming vibes to the island as many two-day attendees appeared to be recovering with joints and drinks from the ecstasy induced dance party of day one.

Large crowds finally gathered around 4 p.m. to see Brooklyn based band Grizzly Bear, for their experimental folk rock filled set. Grizzly Bear captured the crowd and the essence of the cold fall day next to the water placing themselves near the top of the best sets of the weekend.

Following Grizzly Bear, the next big act of the day came from Beirut, who finished their widely successful year of touring at Treasure Island early Sunday evening. While Beirut may have been the only band throughout the two days to make use of accordions, trumpets, and a tuba solo simultaneously, their live performance showed their maturity and rise to prominence opening with “Nantes” and closing the year with “My Night With the Prostitute From Marseille.”

After Beirut the wait for The Flaming Lips began, and with Sunday’s cold temperature and winds, the wait seemed long but no one really remembered once they took the stage to explosions of orange and yellow confetti, and iconic lead singer Wayne Coyne rolling into the crowd in a life-size hamster ball less than two minutes into the show.

Coyne spent a great deal of his banter on the band’s deep roots in San Francisco, looking at the city skyline he reflected on San Francisco being one of the first music markets to accept The Flaming Lips.

“For the longest time people thought we were from San Francisco, said Coyne, who told the crowd to consider this a homecoming show.

The Oklahoma city native, backed by his band, turned the quiet day on its head yielding the best party of the weekend with an elaborate stage setup that included the band coming on stage out of a vagina, and never ending shots of streamers and confetti into the crowd. Their set included special renditions of “Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robot Pt. 1,” and encore version of “Do You Reaize,” with some new songs “Convinced of The Hex” and “Silver Trembling Hands” thrown in too. It was a great way to end a great weekend of music.

The Treasure Island Music Festival continues to live by the phrase “if it ain’t broke, then don’t fix it.” Minus long shuttle bus lines, and even longer cab lines which managed to spark a few fistfights, this year’s festival was an enormous success. If maintained this festival is bound to gain national exposure as not only one of the Bay Area’s premiere music festivals, but also one of the premiere festivals of the country.

If you were a teenager in the nineties you probably had a crush on hottie-extraordinaire and Sugar Ray front man, Mark McGrath. His Rolling Stone cover was most definitely looming somewhere on your poster-covered walls, and your Sugar Ray CD was undoubtedly scratched due to how often “Every Morning” was played on repeat. Apart from this being a very accurate description of myself in my tween years, the bands’ triple platinum record tells me there were definitely other obsessed fans like myself.

You may ask, why am I reminiscing about that insanely awkward stage of our lives? Aside from taking us all back to a simpler time, this flashback is more than warranted. Sugar Ray has recently dropped a spanking-new album titled “Music for Cougars.” The title isn’t the only amazing part of this new gem. After six horrible Sugar Ray-less years they are back with music that evokes what made them famous.

To promote the release of their new album the group has begun a US tour and thankfully is making a stop in our lovely home, San Francisco. They’ll be trekking to our neck of the woods September 15th where they’ll be playing The Regency Ballroom at 7pm.

The Ecstatic Tour flows through San Francisco on the night of Thursday, Sept. 3 at Davies Symphony Hall. The show includes highly regarded New York MC Mos Def, R&B superstar Erykah Badu, and the up-and-coming MC Jay Electronica.

Mos Def is a Grammy winning artist and activist from Brooklyn. He is known for MC-ing alongside Talib Kweli in a super group called BlackStar and doing his own solo work including albums “Black on Both Sides,” “The New Danger,” and “True Magic.” His most recent album “The Ecstatic” was released June 9, 2009. In the newest album, Mos Def continues his rhyming about current events such as “Workers Comp,” pushing forward using new technologies to mix beats for rhymes and songs.

Erykah Badu, who is originally from Dallas, has recently released her newest and most long-awaited album “New Amerykah Part One: 4th World War.” The album consists of songs closely related to R&B and funk with Erykah Badu singing lyrics that are written from her own thoughts. In an interview on the program “Rehearsal Space,” Badu explains her newest album as “the mental aspect of where I am” and that it is an album that she has wanted to make all her life, but only now had the time and technology to work on. The newest album from Badu is, as even she claims, her entrance into the future of technology. Badu explained how a majority of her ideas for the songs in “Part One” were recorded on the computer program Garage Band after her son had taught her how to use the program.

Jay Electronica is most known as a producer and MC from New Orleans. There is not a lot known about Electronica’s music simply because he has yet to complete and release a full album. Electronica is most known for “Act 1: Eternal Sunshine (The Pledge)” that was released on Myspace in 2007. This song consisted of 15 continuous minutes of music with no drums and Electronica’s raps over the background.

Thursday March 12 - Monday March 16
Studio Theater, 8 PM

DUST…a play about the Eve in all of us

Created and performed by the PASJ ensemble and directed by faculty
member Christine Young, this play explores the impact of the figure of
Eve and her legendary apple-biting moment on our attitudes about
learning, knowledge and creative thinking.  Tickets are $5 for students,
$10 general admission.  Email PASJTickets@usfca.edu to reserve.

Heather Spellacy | Staff Writer

Sky Madden and Chris Moore of Women of the Tenderloin play a gig at a local house party. (Photo Courtesy of Lulu McAllister)

Last week I, Heather Spellacy, ventured into the depths of a tiny apartment somewhere on Fulton for a local house party. Big announcement, huh? I’m a college student, that should be my weekend ritual. Well, house parties aren’t my thing. No, in no way… especially in San Francisco. Houses, or more often than not apartments, are so small already. Besides the wall-to-wall people, the person I usually am stuck in front of is someone I don’t want to talk to or have never met. Thus, I wiggle in and out, knocking peoples drinks, falling into walls trying to escape the awkward staring.

So, what, I’m a masochist? I enjoy paining myself by attending events I can’t stand? Not usually. Generally I’m very level-headed, I stick to the usual. But this house party wasn’t your average run of the mill kegger where god-awful rap music is played from an iHome. This house party boasted live music from on-campus performers Sky Madden and Chris Moore’s band Women of the Tenderloin.

Chris Moore gets his noise on. (Photo courtesy of Lulu McAllister)

I knew I had to go the minute Sky shot me an invite. (The flyers were pretty awesome) I’d seen them perform at an Ignatian event sometime last semester. They were, how could I even describe it? They were weird. Really weird. I don’t think I ever knew what was going on during the set; I suppose it added to the intrigue, though.

I knew they’d spent many hours practicing prior to the party, and I think I might have actually heard the term “set list” uttered from Sky sometime the week before. Set list meant that they had actual songs this time. So all I could do was drink some coffee and maybe a Red Bull or two and drag myself to this party, a half-hearted smile plastered on my face.

Well, my preconceived notions of what to expect at a house party were in no way wrong. The house was packed. There wasn’t breathable space anywhere, in any room, in the entire place. The only hope for sub-sahara temperatures was the door leading to the balcony/fire escape.

I spent most of my time outside waiting for band to begin. Call me a party-pooper, I could care less. Twelve packs of cigarettes later all the lights in the house went off and I heard amps crackle to life. I pushed my way through the crowd, which was reaching around 200 by now, so I could better see Sky and Chris.

Sky Madden in a dress. The result... bueno. (Photo courtesy of Lulu McAllister)

I suppose it’s important to mention that one of the most incredible things about the evening was seeing Sky in a dress. Yes, Sky Madden was wearing a dress… amazing, I know. Though, I would be remiss in not mentioning Chris’ apparel as well. He looked spiffy as usual in a crisp button-up, tie and jeans. Not forgetting the bloody (fake… I hope) patch of gauze tucked between his eye and his pair of old-school glasses (one lens MIA).

As the music began it was clear that this show was quite the departure from the last. Each of their electro-noise (what are they calling it these days?) beats was synchronized with one another and the lyrics actually pertained to the music I heard. I started dancing without even thinking, as did many of the other partygoers. The set lasted about an hour (maybe I’m wrong, I lost track of time) but was never dull. The small setting allowed for remarks from both the band and the crowd. 

All in all I enjoyed every minute of the music… not so much the crowd. Women of the Tenderloin… play at a venue, please!

Staff Writer | Brita Thompson

This Valentine’s day was the first one I spent single in three years. Instead of having a man pay for a romantic dinner, I worked backstage for the Vagina monologues which raised over six thousand dollars for the v-day campaign this year.

Despite my happiness, the holiday forced me to think about my own singleness and the singleness of others. And so I felt compelled to write an anti-Valentine’s day top ten dedicated to those poor souls living with broken hearts. I consulted the experts at Amoeba Music and Aquarius Records and the sweet guys who answered the phone compiled brief lists of songs that they would recommend for the newly lonely.

At Aquarius I spoke to employee Allan Horrock. He took a brief poll of his fellow employees who recommended the following albums: Death Cab for Cuties’ Transatlanticism, Bon Iver’s For Emma Forever Ago, an album called Autumn to Ashes by emo band Too Bad You’re Beautiful, Devotion by Beach House and finally Marvin Gaye’s Here My Dear.

Over at Amoeba I spoke with a chap by the name of Greg Gardner who recommended the following songs: Bob Dylan’s “Idiot Wind” from Blood on the Tracks, Neil Young’s song “stupid girl” from Zuma, everything ever written by Towns Van Sant, Leonard Cohen and Hank Williams.

Okay. Leonard Cohen, Marvin Gaye and Bob Dylan are the most famous examples of albums written while signing divorce papers. Bon Iver and Death Cab also are more recent examples of very sad music written by the heartbroken. But there was something wrong with the list. I realized that very few of theses songs would actually make me feel better if I listened to them while heart broken. And I realized this is because I am a woman.

When I hear “Stupid Girl” I do not identify with Neil Young, I cannot help but identify with the stupid girl. “Here my Dear” is inextricable from its reputed back-story: that Marvin was forced by the divorce judge to dedicate the album to his ex-wife. Anyways, I wanted to hear heartbreak sung with a more feminine perspective.

And so I decided to create my own little response. Although a male friend told me the other day that man-hating is “more than a little cliché” I proudly present to you:

The Ultimate Cliché Girlpower Mixtape: For post-Valentine’s Day Blues

Track One: Beyonce – “Single Ladies” The reason I love this song is because I misheard it. I heard Beyonce shout out to her ladies: “if you like it, then you shouldn’t put a ring on it”, as in: “If you like being single, don’t get married!” I still prefer my version and try to ignore the music video, which feels like a caffeinated Barbie exercise video.

Karen Dalton – “Katie Cruel” I want Karen Dalton’s vocals to haunt my apartment. The song dates back to the revolutionary war, with possible Irish folk roots, but the lyrics still resonate today to a generation of students forced to read The Scarlet Letter: “When I first came to town, they called me the roving jewel, now they’ve changed their tune, call me Katie Cruel”

The Blow – “Babay (eat a critter feel its wrath)” Not only is this song incredibly catchy, but it is also sung from the point of view of a turd. With lines like: “I thank my lucky stars everyday for indoor plumbing, nobody knows where I’d have ended up without it” and “Out I dropped and here I lay steaming” singer Khaela Maricich verbally turns herself into a metaphor both stomach turning and more than a little bit brilliant.

Alanis Morissette – “You Oughta Know” My eleven-Year-Old self loved this song and my twenty-one year old self still does.

P.J Harvey - When men find out you listen to P.J Harvey, their scrotums tighten ever so slightly in fear.

Bikini Kill – Entire Discography. With songs like “I Don’t Need You” and “Suck My Left One” Bikini Kill is kind of like Black Flag for girls. Perfect for nights spent praying to be turned gay.

Bjork – “Human Behavior”. If you feel like being single is missing out on some weird human mating ritual, don’t worry. Bjork feels the same way. “There is definitely, definitely, definitely no logic to human behavior,” Bjork yodels, making everyone feel more comfortable about feeling awkward.

Heather Spellacy | Staff Writer

Transmission:

Looking for good music and a $13 trip to the future? Well you can stop searching. Slim’s, a local venue found at 333 11^th street, is embracing our favorite space-trekking posse. The Phenomenauts, a pyschobilly band out of Oakland, will be gearing up in their futuristic duds this coming Saturday (1/24/09) in hopes of entertaining us mere earthlings. Doors open at 8pm with the show starting at 9. The Re-Volts and Jason Webley will be opening. So strap on your creepers, squeeze into your skinny jeans and make sure your pompadour is looking spiffy.  See you there!

Oh….

End Transmission:

Most students at USF are probably already familiar with Tandy Beal’s work, whether or not they’re aware of it. If you’ve ever marveled at the elegant way Jack Skellington, the protagonist of Tim Burton’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” moves, you’ve enjoyed some of Beal’s work.  The choreographer and artistic director of the Tandy Beal Dance company has had an incredibly  varied career working with animators, multi-media stage creations and circuses. Her latest endeavor brings her right here to USF, where she’s working with students from the USF Dance ensemble for the upcoming spring show, “Traces.”

San Francisco Foghorn: So the piece that you’re working on is called “Here after Here”
Tandy Beal: The section that we’re doing is called Compass Rose.  This is kind of the celebration dance in [Here after Here]. 

SFF: It’s within “Here After Here?” I was reading a description about it that said it’s about the afterlife or what happens after we die. 
TB: That’s part of the larger nature [of the piece]. This is kind of the celebration dance in there. This section is called Compass Rose and it’s with seven dancers. It’s a very kinetic dance with original music by Jon Scoville. 

SFF: You’ve been working with a group of seven dancers who are all USF students? 
TB: That’s correct, seven wonderful USF students

SFF: How did you come to be involved with this project and what has it been like working with students here?
TB: Well I got involved because I’ve known your department chair, Professor  Gallagher for years and we’ve had a wonderful friendship through the years and she invited me to do this dance. The students at USF are so intelligent, very focused..very purposeful. I love working with them. We have loved [working with them]–because there’s been this wonderful woman working with me– teaching the dance to them. I’ve been coaching and she’s been teaching the counts, the steps. Her name is Rebecca Blair. The students have had two very different teaching styles with us. Rebecca used to be the ballet mistress for Chicago Ballet. She came in with a very clear and wonderful professionalism to teach your dancers and they received her information very cleary, very rapidly and very richly. They’ve been great to work with.

I feel very privileged, not only with these choreographers and these dancers, but also with the faculty–some of who are choreographing and some who have supported, nurtured and trained all of these beautiful dancers. You’ve got a wonderful faculty there that is due a great deal or respect and admiration for all that they’ve accomplished. Kathi’s certainly been a beacon in the dance world.

SFF: What’s it like having created something and then handing it over, and sort of losing control over it? 
TB: That’s an excellent question. It goes into the heart of much of the process, because I think dance-making is always a collaboration. In many ways you are always adjusting the intonation of what you are doing depending on who the people are. The tricky thing is when a piece is already choreographed, it’s this body of knowledge that you’re then imparting but I still find that with the solo sections or the duet sections I will change them so that it fits the accent of that dancer, so that they can speak it with the accent that [has] the most clarity for them, to help them find their way in. It’s a very different process than doing a straight shot choreography. Also, this is a very different kind of space [Studio Theater on Lone Mountain], and so we had to change a bunch so that all three sides receive information in a way that is elegant and purposeful.

SFF: How has having to work with the three-quarter view informed how you’ve adapted this piece?
TB: It was originally made for what we call a proscenium stage. It was intended to be seen from the front. Finding out that we were going into that three quarter round, I tried to change spacings on a number of things. I think that the most difficult thing for all performers is that when you’re performing with someone one foot away from you, as they will be there, that’s a unique performing situation. There’s no privacy in a way. 

SFF: I was looking online at some of the circus work you’ve done in the  past. Even outside of work you’ve done with the circus, it seems like there’s a move towards thatriciality and spectacle. Is that something that still influences your work today?
TB: On that website it’s mostly about corpproate events and thats why they push on there the more flashy things, on that particular website. I think that my work has two strains or two threads to it and one is about wonderment on every level. I think that there’s the celebration piece which is the circus, the Nutrcracker, the work I’ve done with Bobby McFerrin.They’re celebration works, they’re joyful. The work I’ve done with children is celebration work. It’s about wonder. I think the reason why I got very thrilled in working in circus–I thought I’d only get asked to only make one circus work and then suddenly I did fifteen years of it– it’s a way for adults to come into a state of wonder and I think that’s something that we–you know our cynicism or our culture, or whatever it is, we feel that it’s not an adult attitude towards life, to have wonder. But I think you lose your capacity to experience life if you lose your sense of wonder and I find that however you can initiate that wonderful… (laughs) I used that word again, that “wonderful wonder,” you bring people back to that state of experiencing things anew. We experience that astonishment of being on the planet or being full of joy–just being here in this crazy life. So I think it’s celebration work, and then there’s more poetic investigations which the whole work that Compass Rose is taken from is definitely about It’s looking at what people think happens after we die and I’ve done works on insomnia and there’s a lot of other different works that I’ve done that are much more poetic speculations or ways where you’re looking at it in in a quieter more internal sense of questioning. But I think it’s still coming out of a state of wonder: “Why are we here on this planet? what is going on?” I think we forget about it as we daily get involved with the necessities of life, getting food on the table and who said what to whom and all these things that we get distracted by when I really think we should be always in a moment of wonder and just astonishment and gratitude. 

SFF: Do you feel that with this piece, Compass Rose, that even though it’s not on a huge theatrical scale and it’s in a small intimate space, that you can still create a sense of wonder or approach things in a more investigative way?
TB: This dance has more  of a kinetic vitality: An expression of the forward momentum of our being and kind of a joyful movement through time and space. A Compass Rose is that little emblem on every map that shows you where North, South, East and West are and I named it that because partly the dance has a geogrpahical [element] in it and it has a sense of directionality in there. It’s also about, “Well, where is your true North? Is it infront of you? Is it above you? Or is it between two people?”

SFF: I’m a really big fan of the Nightmare Before Christmas, so I have to ask you what your involvement with that was. It seems so interesting to me that they would bring someone in to, I guess, choreograph clay?
TB: I was a fantastic project I completely loved doing it. What they did was they gave me the initial drawings of who they thought the characters were going to be and the would give me the initial music sketches and the script. So I choreographed each of  [Danny Elfman's] songs with a character in mind and then after a while they had me go in and talk with the animators and then I’d improvise each song and I improvised who I thought the characters [were with]. I found out towards the end that they had a whole reportoire of.. you know, these are ’sad Sally’s hand gestures, ‘this is ‘Oogie Boogie’s walk’ and there were just different ways, where, apprently, I had done them and it was a wonderful experience. The animators were amazingly inventive and had a kind of vivacity about them that I adored. 

As a closing thought, Beal shared a thought from Rabbi Nachman, “If you are a melancholy person, persuade yourself to dance, for it is an achievement to struggle and pursue that sadness, bringing it into the joy.” Beal added, 
“The quality of sadness is a part of everybody’s life, but it takes enormous courage or dancing or art-making to transform it.”

“Traces” will be performed Friday and Saturday, December 5 & 6 at 8:00 p.m.
Studio Theater on Lone Mountain
$5.00 with USF ID / $10 General Admission
For more information, call the USF Dance Program at 415-422-3888