Dylan Grosz – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com Breaking news from the Farm since 1892 Thu, 01 Jul 2021 02:13:04 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://stanforddaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/cropped-DailyIcon-CardinalRed.png?w=32 Dylan Grosz – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com 32 32 204779320 The class of 2020 by the numbers https://stanforddaily.com/2020/06/14/the-class-of-2020-by-the-numbers/ https://stanforddaily.com/2020/06/14/the-class-of-2020-by-the-numbers/#respond Sun, 14 Jun 2020 12:11:14 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1169468 The class of 2020 has dealt with one of the most unusual years in Stanford history. With COVID-19 forcing the mythical senior spring online, seniors have had their years and lives upended.

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Editor’s note: This is the first year The Daily has run a senior survey. We collected 327 responses, representing slightly less than 20% of the around 1,800 graduating seniors, so survey results should be interpreted with caution. We welcome feedback on the questions asked for future versions of this survey.

The class of 2020 has dealt with one of the most unusual years in Stanford history. With COVID-19 forcing the mythical senior spring online, seniors have had their years and lives upended. A quarter of seniors surveyed said they were less likely to live in a city post-graduation as a result of the pandemic, and about two-thirds of respondents felt the pandemic had a negative or very negative impact on their academic progress. Furthermore, 1 in 4 of them lost an internship or job opportunity due to the pandemic. 

Seniors view the administration’s response to COVID-19 with some skepticism as only 43% approve or strongly approve of the administration’s handling of the situation. Still, their view of President Donald Trump’s response is much more negative; 95% of respondents were unfavorable or very unfavorable. Despite the current situation, seniors are still generally positive on Stanford as a whole, with 80% of seniors either saying they agree or strongly agree that Stanford as an institution has a positive impact on society.

Navigate to each section of the survey data using the links below:

  1. Respondent characteristics
  2. Academics
  3. Housing and lifestyle
  4. Career plans
  5. Experience with Stanford resources
  6. Approval of the administration
  7. COVID-19
  8. Opinions on campus issues
  9. Politics

Respondent characteristics

Characteristics of survey respondents were not entirely representative of the senior class at large. While Stanford reports having classes with nearly equal numbers of male and female students, 61% of respondents to our survey were female, 36% were male, 3% were no-binary/third gender and 1% preferred to self-describe or did not respond. Of all students surveyed, 2% identified as transgender.

While gender identity data across respondents is skewed, the race/ethnicity data is approximately representative of the overall undergraduate population based on data from the University’s IDEAL dashboard. 

Of seniors who responded, 73% were heterosexual or straight, 14% were bisexual, 9% were gay or lesbian and 2% were asexual. While 51% of respondents reported not receiving need-based financial aid, other respondents received aid to varying degrees, including 16% receiving full rides.

Academics

The average reported GPA for seniors was a 3.75, whereas the median GPA was a 3.8. There was only a slight difference in average GPA between STEM majors (3.73) and non-STEM majors (3.79).

The top 5 most popular majors were computer science, human biology, symbolic systems, biology and English. About a quarter of seniors surveyed are graduating with honors.

About 69% majored in a degree classified as STEM, while 28% majored in a degree classified as non-STEM (3% did not respond or were unable to be classified), which tracks with the growing number of B.S.’s versus B.A.’s being handed out by Stanford. Of the 36% of seniors who are graduating with a minor, the three most popular minors were Economics, computer science and creative writing.

Over the course of their Stanford undergraduate careers, 65% of students reported witnessing cheating by anyone, including themselves. Among STEM students, 67% have witnessed cheating. Among non-STEM students, only 58% have witnessed cheating.

Half of seniors reported studying abroad at least once during their undergraduate career. The five most popular programs were Oxford, Florence, Madrid, Santiago and Paris.

Lifestyle and party culture

On average, seniors went out to parties or large social gatherings about 5.1 weeks per 10-week quarter. Out of the 31% who said they were part of Greek life, 20% said they felt forced to consume a substance due to their participation.

Each senior has been a part of 3.8 clubs on average. Only 3.6% of those who had been a part of at least one club felt forced to consume a substance due to their participation. While at Stanford, seniors dated one person and had two sexual partners, on the median. Drug culture at Stanford mainly involves alcohol and marijuana; nearly 97% and 66% surveyed have used these substances, respectively. Only 9% reported using adderall or ritalin, commonly used “study drugs.” Only 2% of students reported using opiates.

Career plans

Seniors tend to have plans for additional schooling. Of respondents, 57% indicated they plan to go to graduate school at some point. Of the 180 respondents who plan to work or intern post-graduation, the industries seniors will join are somewhat different than those students’ planned before entering Stanford. While 33% of students will enter technology, only 27% of those same students reported that they had intended to enter technology at the start of their Stanford careers. Furthermore, 14% will enter finance or consulting whereas only 6% had intended on those two industries at the start of Stanford. The sentiment of change is widely shared, as 67% of seniors say their post-graduation plans have changed while at Stanford.

Members of the senior class have high variance in expected earnings. Of those who plan to work or intern post-college, 30% say they will earn in the $70,000 to $110,000 salary range, 20% expect to earn $30,000 to $50,000 and $50,000 to $70,000 each, 11% of seniors will earn less than $30,000 and 18% will earn more than $110,000.

Experience with Stanford resources

Many seniors reported using one of the various University support offices. Among these are the Stanford Office of Sexual Assault & Relationship Abuse Education & Response (SARA) and Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS), which is part of the Vaden Health Center. 

A plurality of students (32.5%) reported that academics had a “somewhat negative” experience on mental health. Nearly half of respondents (43.3%) believe that Stanford “sometimes” covered their mental health needs. A majority of respondents have not used CAPS, but of those who reported that they have, 45.5% had a somewhat positive or very positive experience with the service. More than half (57.8%) of respondents who used CAPS reported that effects of academics on mental health were somewhat negative or very negative. 

About a quarter of respondents have a neutral opinion of Vaden Health Center for a service outside of CAPS, and another quarter have a somewhat positive view. In total, about 90% of respondents used Vaden outside of CAPS. 

Only about 13% of respondents used the SARA office, and 75.6% of those identified as female. About 8% of respondents reported a form of prohibited sexual conduct, with 19% of these individuals identifying as male and the remaining 81% identifying as female. Half of those who reported prohibited sexual conduct used the SARA office.

Approval of the administration

Seniors greatly disapprove of Stanford’s handling of paying workers and housing students during the COVID-19 pandemic, with 83% and 58% disapproving respectively. As in The Daily’s Stanford Community Survey, students prefer the student government’s COVID-19 response over Stanford’s, and seniors most approve of their academic department.

COVID-19

The pandemic gave the class of 2020 an end to its Stanford undergraduate career that no one saw coming. Due to the pandemic, about 8% of respondents took a leave of absence, and nearly half of respondents believe that the pandemic has had a negative effect on their academic progress. Of seniors taking a leave of absence, 76% believed that the pandemic had a negative or very negative impact on their academic progress. About 16% of seniors have had a parent lose a job due to the pandemic, and a tenth of respondents consider themselves to be part of the COVID-19 high-risk population. 

The ongoing pandemic has affected the post-graduation living arrangements of about a quarter of respondents. Some want to live in a cheaper city due to a worse financial situation or the ability to work remotely. Other respondents want to live in a less dense location. 

While the class of 2020 will not be returning in the fall as undergraduates, they offered their thoughts on how Stanford should reopen. The distribution is fairly even, with a plurality supporting the plan Stanford has announced, which would have the equivalent of two class years on campus for each of the four quarters in the 2020-21 year. Other well-supported options include bringing the freshmen back for the full year while rotating the other classes and bringing all classes back for a mix of online and in-person instruction.

Opinions on campus issues

Recent votes from the Faculty Senate and Board of Trustees struck down proposals for Stanford to divest from fossil fuels. Stanford seniors feel differently, as 82% agree or strongly agree that Stanford should divest from fossil fuels. Calls for divestment extend to other private prisons, as 83% of seniors agree or strongly agree with divestment. Interestingly, 52% of seniors agree or strongly agree that students should attend protests for racial justice despite the pandemic, whereas 40% of students are neutral. 

Despite Stanford’s investment decisions standing in contrast to seniors’ ideals, 80% of seniors believe the University has a positive impact on society, and 53% would consider or would definitely donate when older.

Politics

Shortly after the class of 2020 arrived at Stanford, Donald Trump was elected president of the United States. As the seniors get ready to start a new chapter, a presidential election is once again looming. Campus is strongly left-leaning, with 18.5% of respondents identifying as very liberal and 43.5% identifying as liberal. In contrast, only 3.7% of respondents identify as either conservative or very conservative. 

The class of 2020 holds an extremely unfavorable view of the president, with 85.5% having a very unfavorable opinion and 8% having an unfavorable opinion. Every respondent who identified as socialist held a very unfavorable view of the president. 

The distribution of opinions on Trump’s handling of the pandemic is essentially the same as the overall opinion of the president, as 87% hold a very unfavorable opinion. Seniors have an even more unfavorable opinion of Trump’s handling of recent protests sparked by George Floyd’s death, with nearly 90% of respondents having a very unfavorable view. 

The vast majority of seniors plan to vote in the upcoming election. Of those who are not, the most common reason is being a non-U.S. citizen. Among respondents, Joe Biden is the most popular candidate with about 85% planning to vote for him. The next most popular opinion is a write-in candidate named Gloria La Riva, a socialist activist. Only about 3% of respondents said they will vote for Trump.

An earlier version of this article displayed data for the ‘Class of 2020 on the Pandemic and Living Arrangements Post Graduationquestion as a pie chart. We have updated the chart to a bar chart to reflect the fact that respondents could select multiple options.

Please contact Dylan Grosz at dgrosz ‘at’ stanford.edu, Sophie Andrews at sophie1 ‘at’ stanford.edu, and Arjun Ramani at aramani3 ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Insights from the 1st Stanford Community Survey https://stanforddaily.com/2020/05/12/first-stanford-community-survey/ https://stanforddaily.com/2020/05/12/first-stanford-community-survey/#respond Wed, 13 May 2020 03:40:46 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1167521 From April 8-24, we staged our first survey: asking students about their opinions on various Stanford institutions, their Stanford experience, national politics and more.

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The Daily recently introduced the Stanford Community Survey (previously known as Stanford Polls), a joint initiative with the Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) to regularly survey Stanford students. From April 8-24, we staged our first survey: asking students about their opinions on various Stanford institutions, their Stanford experience, national politics and more.

836 students responded to the 1st Stanford Community Survey. About 60% of the respondents were undergrads, about evenly split between the four years. PhDs represented about 20% of respondents, and non-PhD graduate students made up about 15% of respondents. The remaining 5% were postdoctoral students, coterms, “super seniors” or self-described as “other.”

Stanford approval ratings

In the survey, students were asked how they approved of the Stanford administration, including specific members of it, and the ASSU. Since policies responding to COVID-19 have been a major focus of the Stanford administration and the ASSU, we also asked students how they felt about these bodies’ specific responses to the pandemic.

Of the more than 830 students surveyed, around 55% of students either approved or strongly approved of both the Stanford administration and the ASSU. While nearly 40% of students disapprove of the administration, the ASSU has only a 16% disapproval rating. When asked about Stanford’s COVID-19 response, students approved at about the same rate they approved and disapproved of the administration in general. On the other hand, the ASSU’s COVID-19 response efforts actually garnered much more enthusiastic approval from students when compared to the ASSU’s general approval rating, rising from a 55% approval to nearly 75%, with about 30% strongly approving.

Compared to other administration officials and the Stanford administration in general, President Marc Tessier-Lavigne sits at a slightly higher approval rating. However, administration officials that more closely interact with students in announcing and implementing somewhat controversial COVID-19-related academic policies see decently lower approval ratings. They also see similar disapproval ratings as compared to the administration in general, though more students have no opinion. Provost Persis Drell and Vice Provost for Student Affairs Susie Brubaker-Cole both hold a 45% approval rating, with 38% and 27% students disapproving respectively.

As COVID-19 continues to spread, the pandemic’s disruption to daily life stretches into May. Less than 20% of student respondents are still on campus, and nearly 75% stated that the COVID-19 pandemic has negatively affected their academic progress. Despite their academic struggles, students most approved of their closest academic department than all of the other institutions, policies and officials surveyed by The Daily.

Student opinions

Spring quarter grading

In mid-March, the Stanford Faculty Senate held a vote on which grading policy should be implemented for the 2019-20 spring term. The options were Universal Satisfactory/No Credit, Credit/No Credit with the option of standard letter grading and A/A-/No Credit. The final option was proposed by the ASSU.

Students’ first choice regarding spring quarter grading was equally split between all options proposed by the Faculty Senate. When one factors in second and last choices, students ranked Universal S/NC 1.93 out of 3 on average, with C/NC with optional grading and A/A-/NC both at average ranks of around 2.05. 

The spring quarter grading preference of undergrads is much clearer, with a plurality of undergrads ranking A/A-/NC as their first choice. The A/A-/NC grading scheme had the best average rank at around 1.66. Undergrads least preferred the current spring quarter grading policy, Universal S/NC, with an average ranks of 2.23.

Agree/Disagree statements

The survey also presented students with a series of statements about Stanford and their experience.

When asked about whether or not they would donate when they are older, students were pretty evenly split. Though willingness to donate does not change with students’ financial aid status, when looking at how students’ desire to donate changes across classes, undergraduates who’ve spent more time at Stanford are less likely to say they will donate. Ph.D.s are also less likely to donate when they’re older.

Based on these results, Stanford does not seem to be doing the best job of fostering an atmosphere of institutional enthusiasm among its undergraduate students. 

That over half of seniors surveyed said they will not even consider donating to their alma mater not only suggests underlying student concerns that have gone unaddressed, but also points to a missed opportunity for Stanford to funnel its students’ success into the next generation, as cultivating donations from its students is the backbone of how Stanford makes money. 

Among all the statements with which we asked students to agree or disagree, students most vehemently responded to Stanford’s handling of Chanel Miller’s plaque. In reaction to the statement “Stanford has appropriately handled the issue of Chanel Miller’s plaque,” two thirds disagreed, 40% of which disagreed strongly. When posed with a statement about sexual assault being a big issue on campus, only 10% disagreed, though 25% responded neutrally to the statement.

Undergraduates were also asked if they thought “the Stanford undergraduate experience was catered for the wealthier class.” The responses are especially salient given how COVID-19 has exacerbated academic and health disparities across socioeconomic statuses.

About 44% of the Stanford students surveyed receive no financial aid. Half of these students agreed with the above statement, while more than 60% of those who received a full ride to Stanford agreed, of which nearly half agreed strongly. When factoring in those who receive levels of financial aid that are less than a full ride, this difference appears to be a trend: Those who receive more financial aid tend to agree more that Stanford caters to the upper class. 

National politics

Unaffiliated with the ASSU, The Daily also asked students about their views on current national politics. A majority of Stanford students identify as liberal or very liberal, while 7% of students self-describe instead as socialist. Only 5% identify as conservative or very conservative. These leanings are manifested in the severe disapproval students harbor towards U.S. President Donald Trump. Nearly 90% have an unfavorable view of him; 70% view the president very unfavorably.

Despite Sen. Bernie Sanders’ dropping out one week prior to the survey’s release, nearly 50% of students supported Bernie Sanders as the Democratic nominee as opposed to about 35% who preferred Joe Biden, the current presumptive Democratic nominee. When it comes to the general election in November, nearly 90% of voting-eligible students plan to vote in 2020.

As The Daily continues to parse through the results of this survey, @94305 will be releasing more coverage of this survey in the near future. In the meantime, The Daily plans on conducting more Stanford Community Surveys. If you have any suggestions for questions or themes that should be addressed in future surveys, please contact The Daily’s Data Team at data ‘at’ stanforddaily.com.

Note: Two days into the survey, one of the answer options for the question asking about students’ year changed from “Graduate Student” to “Non-PhD Graduate Student” to make the distinction from the “PhD Student” option clear.

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A closer look at Stanford students’ COVID-19 petitions https://stanforddaily.com/2020/05/06/a-closer-look-at-stanford-students-covid-19-petitions/ https://stanforddaily.com/2020/05/06/a-closer-look-at-stanford-students-covid-19-petitions/#respond Thu, 07 May 2020 06:00:00 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1166861 Since March, students and faculty have voiced their concerns through petitions about topics ranging from housing to academics to workers’ rights. Here are a look at the petitions that have circulated since the beginning of March.

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While lockdowns in China began in January, Stanford students began to feel the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on their daily lives in the beginning of March. At first, some large lecture classes offered recordings so students could watch remotely. Since then, the administration has made a series of major decisions, a reflection of the rapidly changing global pandemic. Spring quarter is all online, commencement is postponed, summer residential programs are canceled and housing decisions for the fall have been postponed.

Students have also been grappling with several decisions made by Stanford’s administration regarding academics, housing and payment and protection of workers. Click through this interactive timeline to see the actions Stanford has taken and the reactions from the community in the past two eventful months. 

Since March, students and faculty have voiced their concerns through petitions about topics ranging from housing to academics to workers’ rights. Here are a look at the petitions that have circulated since the beginning of March. 

The table above is a list of petitions that have been sent out, the number of signatures as of May 6 and the current response from Stanford’s administration.

Once the first petition rapidly garnered signatures, students realized they had a tool to organize in mass and have their voices heard. The train of petitions picked up steam and did not stop. The Daily is now aware of 11 petitions with over 400 signatures each. 

Students quickly realized the potential for severe academic disruption. One petition sent around earlier in March demanded a change to the structure of payment and courses.

“[T]he ideal situation for many students would be to take a reduced course load,” the petition reads. “We are asking Stanford to make it an option this Spring quarter for students to pay by unit and enroll part-time, with proportional adjustments to financial aid.”

The petition was sent around in a Google Doc, and each respondent also provided their major. The Daily analyzed the relative share of majors in the petition and compared this to the overall distribution of majors at Stanford. The chart below displays the top 10 majors listed in the petition with all engineering majors grouped in one category. (Product design is not displayed, despite having the ninth-most signatures, because the most recent graduating class data does not include product design.) 

The proportion for each major in the petition broadly matched the proportions for Stanford as a whole, with some minor deviations. Engineering students were underrepresented in the petition relative to their actual proportion, whereas symbolic systems, earth systems and psychology were relatively overrepresented. The petition garnered slightly less than 500 respondents, so general conclusions about the interests of different majors should not be extrapolated from this sample.

One of the most widely circulated petitions over the past months was “Protect, inform, and fairly compensate workers during the COVID-19 outbreak.” While Stanford committed to pay continuation for regular employees, the policy did not at the time apply to subcontracted workers, hired through custodial service contractors like UG2. The petition called for the extension of the University policy to include those subcontracted workers and wage raises for food service workers and custodial staff facing increased vulnerability to the pandemic and its economic impacts. Stanford has since committed to working with contract firms to ensure that contracted workers maintain their income and benefits, although students and workers contend that this promise is misleading.

An analysis of petitioners’ self-identified affiliations shows dynamic patterns in the participation rate over the past five weeks. Using the raw data shared with the public, we cleaned the entries and sorted them into six categories. Some people identified themselves with more than one category (i.e. an undergraduate working as a residential assistant). In such cases, we prioritized their primary status. The last and the smallest group, “Misc.,” includes parents, community members and non-Stanford affiliated individuals.

Since March 7, the petition has collected over 2,600 signatures from various groups affiliated with Stanford. Almost one out of five undergraduates signed the petition. The rate of participation was highest during the first few days of circulation and showed another surge around the end of March. Starting from March 27, data show a higher rate of participation from alumni.

Outreach efforts of activist groups, including Stanford Students for Workers’ Rights (SWR), may have driven these trends. SWR started email blasting with an updated mailing list on March 25. This may have led to the uptick of undergraduate support we see from the graph on the same day. A gradual increase in alumni support beginning from the end of March may also have been due to SWR’s “more targeted outreach towards alumni groups,” according to Ethan Chua, a member of SWR.

“Our petition has been phenomenally successful, and really showcased broad community support for the health, well-being, and protection of all campus service workers, contracted or not,” Chua wrote to The Daily.

However, he believes that “the strength of a movement” does not depend on the number of petition signatures.

“Of course, petitions are a powerful tool for mass activism, but petitions alone don’t make movements,” Chua wrote. It is “really about making critical connections with those most affected, coming up with various ways to put pressure on decision makers in power, and building collective consciousness – all things SWR has been diligently working to achieve.”

Social distancing measures have prevented students from gathering to voice their concerns over Stanford’s action, but that has not prevented them from taking action. From petitioning for housing for students and equitable grading measures to engaging notable alumni to persuade Stanford to provide support for its service workers, students have used social media and petitions to engage the Stanford community and rally for change. 

The Daily is now aware of 11 petitions with over 400 signatures each. Please comment or email us if we missed a petition.

Contact Patricia Wei at patwei ‘at’ stanford.edu, Won-Gi Jung at jwongi ‘at’ stanford.edu ‘at’ stanford.edu, Dylan Grosz at dgrosz ‘at stanford.edu and Arjun Ramani at aramani3 ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Visualized: COVID-19 cases in the Bay Area https://stanforddaily.com/2020/03/24/visualized-covid-19-cases-in-santa-clara-county/ https://stanforddaily.com/2020/03/24/visualized-covid-19-cases-in-santa-clara-county/#respond Tue, 24 Mar 2020 22:58:42 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1165461 As cases of COVID-19 continue to develop in Santa Clara County and at Stanford, The Daily is tracking the number of cases, including their reported causes and outcomes. All data comes from daily reports by Santa Clara County Public Health.

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Last updated July 28 at 12:00 a.m. PT

As cases of COVID-19 continue to develop in the Bay Area and at Stanford, The Daily is tracking the number of cases, including their reported causes and outcomes. All Santa Clara County data comes from daily reports by Santa Clara County Public Health and is available in full on the Stanford Open Data Portal. Other counties’ data are collected from their respective public health sites and are also available on the Stanford Open Data Portal. Check our live blog for updates on the coronavirus outbreak and Stanford’s response. For each of visualizations below, feel free to use the arrows in the top right corner to navigate to different views of the depicted data.

Bay Area COVID-19 Cases

Out of the Bay Area counties, San Joaquin County has surpassed Alameda County and Santa Clara County with the most cases, currently at 10,675 confirmed cases. Napa County has the fewest, at 766 confirmed cases. When adjusting case counts to each county’s population, San Joaquin County has the largest case density, with about 1,432 confirmed cases per 100 thousand residents. Since early to mid-June, confirmed case growth across the Bay Area has been increasing, growing the most in the counties of San Joaquin, Marin and Monterey over the past two weeks.

Santa Clara County COVID-19 Cases

Note: On April 20, Santa Clara County Public Health updated their methodology for assigning dates to confirmed cases of COVID-19. Rather than reporting the date of when confirmed positive result were reported to the California Reportable Disease Information Exchange (CalREDIE) system, cases are now reported “by the date of specimen collection.” All Santa Clara County visualizations have been updated with this new data. We update the present case count daily and refresh all data every Monday to reflect any changes in past case counts.

Outcomes & Causes

Before April, the number of currently hospitalized individuals had been steadily growing alongside non-hospitalized cases of COVID-19 in Santa Clara County. When April recently began, however, currently hospitalized cases started to stagnate at around 280 hospitalizations and began to decrease and halved by the start of May. Hospitalizations have remained under 100 since mid-May. Fortunately, COVID-19-related hospitalizations do not seem to be a major factor in causing Santa Clara County hospital beds to be at full capacity, although ICU beds are seeing significantly increased occupancy due to COVID-19.

The cause of infection in Santa Clara County seems to have begun with a relatively tiny spike in international travel, where other case causes were due to close contact with known cases. Afterwards, international travel became a minor cause of contracting COVID-19. Presumed community transmission and close contact with known cases quickly overtook as the leading and fastest growing causes. Starting on March 25, SCC Public Health stopped tracking case causes, citing the recent influx of newly confirmed cases as being “likely associated with community transmission.” Santa Clara County Public Health told The Daily on March 29 that it plans “to release additional elements of [its] data dashboard in the coming days.” Until then, we have frozen our reported causes visualizations.

To mitigate these causes, most Bay Area counties, including Santa Clara, announced “shelter in place” orders to begin on March 17. The state of California quickly followed two days later. With several other states issuing equivalent statewide directives, one in four Americans is now under “shelter in place” or “stay at home” orders. Over the course of late May and early June, these orders were relaxed.

Demographics

On April 9, Santa Clara County Public Health began reporting the race/ethnicity breakdown of confirmed deaths. The above chart shows the share of confirmed deaths for each race/ethnicity. Also shown is the share of each race/ethnicity in Santa Clara County as a whole estimated by the U.S. Census’s 2018 American Community Survey (ACS). The data show that Asian people represent a relatively smaller share of confirmed deaths compared to their share of the population, whereas Latinx/Hispanic people represent a relatively larger share of confirmed deaths compared to their share of the population.

Furthermore, on March 25, Santa Clara County began reporting the age breakdown of confirmed cases. To give context, the age distribution of Santa Clara County is provided as estimated by the U.S. Census’s 2017 American Community Survey (ACS), where the difference in age distributions represents increased or decreased risk of having a confirmed case of COVID-19. As expected, adults over 50 are more at risk, and younger people (under 30) are less at risk. However, even adults from ages 31-50 seem to be at similar increased risk, matching reports that a majority of confirmed COVID-19 cases in California are under 50.

Reports suggest that younger people are more likely to experience milder symptoms when contracting COVID-19, sometimes even experiencing no symptoms at all. Therefore, as a note of caution when interpreting these data, this distribution could possibly suffer from more of bias due to limited testing than the other data depicted in this article. With limited testing capabilities, those with milder symptoms will likely be less represented in this age breakdown, meaning that the reduced risk of younger people may be overstated in SCC Public Health’s data. In South Korea, where testing capabilities are vastly increased, about 25.6% of confirmed cases were in their 20s as of July 26, compared to 19.4% of confirmed cases in Santa Clara County.

Daily Cases & Hospitalizations

Based on current data, we see that the average daily growth rate of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Santa Clara County is about 0.62% over the past week. Assuming exponential growth, confirmed cases will double roughly every 3.5 months at this rate. For the total count of COVID-19 cases in Santa Clara County to be growing exponentially, the percent increase of daily cases should be relatively stable (and nonzero) and the daily number of COVID-19 cases should grow exponentially. For it to be growing linearly, the percent increase should be diminishing to zero and the daily number of new cases should remain somewhat constant.

Given the rapidly changing nature of testing in the Bay Area and across the United States, the confirmed case counts and their growth might not be fully representative of how actual cases, including those that are unconfirmed, are developing. Confirmed cases can grow not only because of the spread of COVID-19, but also “as testing capacity increases” according to Santa Clara County Public Health. One way to analyze how active cases are growing is to analyze the growth of hospitalizations; one can assume that a certain, relatively constant, percentage of people who contract COVID-19 develop cases severe enough to require hospitalization. When analyzing the hospitalization growth rate, we see an average daily percent increase of about 1.6% over the past week in Santa Clara County. If COVID-19 increases stress on hospital capacities across the Bay Area, hospitalizations may incrementally become less representative of actual case growth in the Bay Area.

In the data we have thus far, we see that the daily percent increase of confirmed cases has been fluctuating around 1% from mid-April to early June, a significant decrease from prior growth rates. However, since the start of June, case growth has been growing. Still, cases reported by Santa Clara County Public Health do not encompass everyone who contracts COVID-19, so the case counts could be larger. In order to determine this, we unfortunately must wait to see at which rate cases are reported in the coming days as testing expands.

Testing

Santa Clara County Public Health began posting testing data on April 2. As of July 6, a total of 342,619 individuals have been tested, 332,565 of which have come out negative. Test rates must match the growth rate of the virus in order to properly document the number of cases in a given area. Looking at the daily increases of tests, early to mid-March showed signs of a quickly expanding testing infrastructure, increasing around 50% every day from March 6 to March 19. Testing increase rates then began steadily decreasing, with daily testing stalling at around 850 until mid-April. Through May and June, the daily number of tests has been growing, peaking at nearly 9,000 tests in late June. However, daily testing began stagnating in July.

If there exists a ceiling on how many tests can be administered in a given day, the resulting strained testing infrastructure will exacerbate how much of an underestimate reported cases in Santa Clara County are. Another sign of a strained testing infrastructure is a high positive cases to total tests ratio. The CDC recommends that among any COVID-19 symptom level, testing should be such that less than 10% of tests return positive results. Santa Clara County has been below this threshold since mid-April. The positive results per test ratio had been declining until mid-June, bottoming at about 1.1 positive cases per 100 tests.

With a high amount of positive cases per test, there is a higher likelihood that tests are being used for individuals with more obvious and progressed symptoms, leaving out those with mild or no symptoms. While such a strategy is an efficient use of a low amount of tests, it is also imperative to test, isolate and report asymptomatic individuals with COVID-19 since such individuals can “expose a far greater portion of the population to [COVID-19] than would otherwise occur” according to a March 16 study in Science by Li et al. According to SCC Public Health, their reported number of cases “represent only a small portion of the total number of likely cases in the county.”

As more cases develop and more data is collected, The Daily will continue adding analysis to this post tracking the local spread of COVID-19. In other areas affected by COVID-19, the number of cases has grown at an exponential, not linear, rate. Precautionary steps such as staying home, washing your hands, and practicing social distancing can reduce the overall growth rate and “flatten the curve.”

A previous version of this article mistakenly attributed the 43 cases from March 9 to March 8. Cases from March 14 were also collected too early in the day, meaning 79 total cases were reported instead of 91. This led to a misrepresentation of how cases grew the following day. The article also briefly labeled the data on the number of deaths by racial/ethnic group as data on the number of cases. The Daily regrets these errors.

This initiative was started by Dylan Grosz and is currently maintained by him, Arjun Ramani, Claire Huang, Daniel Ma, Georgia Sampaio, Hannah Park and Patricia Wei. Contact them at data ‘at’ stanforddaily.com.

Contact Dylan Grosz at dgrosz ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Embracing Brockhampton https://stanforddaily.com/2019/11/18/embracing-brockhampton/ https://stanforddaily.com/2019/11/18/embracing-brockhampton/#respond Mon, 18 Nov 2019 11:15:30 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1160565 Several minutes after hearing BROCKHAMPTON’s especially playful mic check, their superfans rushed the meadow at Frost Amphitheatre. Most caught the ire of security personnel and slowed their all-out sprint, appeasing them by blurring the line between power walking and light jogging. Though the boyband was a couple hours away from performing, an especially lively lineup […]

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Several minutes after hearing BROCKHAMPTON’s especially playful mic check, their superfans rushed the meadow at Frost Amphitheatre. Most caught the ire of security personnel and slowed their all-out sprint, appeasing them by blurring the line between power walking and light jogging. Though the boyband was a couple hours away from performing, an especially lively lineup of 100 Gecs and slowthai elevated the night’s already restless excitement. A spooky green washed the stage as 100 Gecs entered from stage right with a pine tree similar to that depicted on the cover of their breakout album “1000 Gecs.” As soon as they began the set with “Stupid Horse,” the audience quickly divided into two camps: those who sang along to Dylan Brady and Laura Les’ autotuned croons, and those who hadn’t heard about 100 Gecs until just then. With a strong and playful performance of what could possibly be described as nightcore trap, 100 Gecs definitely left the show as the most googled artist of the night. 

As the stage set up for slowthai, fans began murmuring and wondering what would come from his performance. His quick rise was aided by his hypnotic verses on BROCKHAMPTON’s most recent project “GINGER” and Tyler, The Creator’s “IGOR.” BROCKHAMPTON’s tour is even named after “GINGER”’s track “HEAVEN BELONGS TO YOU,” a track only featuring a verse from slowthai, so fans who only came for BROCKHAMPTON already had a taste for what was to come. The stage lights flipped on to signal slowthai’s imminent entrance, and they painted the stage in an especially hazy red. This aesthetic set the mood for the ensuing performance, one that matched both slowthai’s energetic showmanship and the enraged malaise of his recent “Nothing Great About Britain” debut. Not one to shy away from his fans, the British rapper even brought up a fan to help him perform his hit “Inglorious.” With every passing song, onlookers quickly accumulate into ever-growing mosh pits until the final song of his set, the punk rap crossover “Doorman.” Then they mosh even harder.

After slowthai’s set, the crowd impatiently huddled for 30 minutes, occasionally screaming when a new figure — always security or tech personnel —  appeared from behind the black curtains. At last, the lights dimmed. A brief remix of Rihanna’s “Stay” boomed as a wall of LED lights filled the stage with an orange glow. Three large mirrored crosses hung from the ceiling, reflecting the stage below. Suddenly “ST.PERCY”’s beat drop revealed the man himself: Kevin Abstract, master orchestrator of the 13-person hip-hop boy band BROCKHAMPTON. He commanded the audience’s full attention as he calmly rapped the opening verse with die-hard fans chanting along.

Other members joined Abstract one by one at their verse, and soon, the six performing members of the band assembled as the self-proclaimed “greatest boy band in the world.” With every appearance, the audience grew more excited, and the brutal moshing drove out lots of panicked people who screamed “let us out” and jostled their way to safety. Knowing their fans are incredibly physical and eager to mosh, BROCKHAMPTON made sure to ask during every pause, “Is everyone alright? Is everyone doing okay?” Even though the audience in Frost’s front meadow was soaked in sweat and nearly suffocated, they were 100% committed to the band — they shouted a resounding yes.

Embracing Brockhampton
Photo: Dylan Grosz / The Stanford Daily

As the tour’s only Northern California stop, the concert attracted lots of college and high school students from The Bay – the age group was mostly late teens and early 20s, with a few rare late 20s and early 30s fans. Early on, Kevin asked, “How are we doing, Stanford?” then “Can I call you Palo Alto?” People were amusingly evenly split between “yes” and “no.”

The night’s setlist heavily featured songs from the band’s newest album, “Ginger,” but BROCKHAMPTON made sure to play beloved crowdpleasers from their debut “SATURATION” trilogy of albums released in 2017. “SATURATION III” standouts “ZIPPER” and “BLEACH” thrilled fans early on in the concert with their respective off-kilter production and earnest lyrics encapsulating themes of sorrow and guilt. “GOLD,” arguably the song that catapulted BROCKHAMPTON to fame, was a classic throwback to the first album of the trilogy, “SATURATION.” 

Constant audience participation kept the energy high throughout the night. When frequent collaborator Ryan Beatty stepped onto the stage, fans eager to hear “SUGAR” from “Ginger” whooped and applauded. At first, Kevin teased, “You know the song that goes like, ‘Spendin’ all my nights alone…’? We’re not about to do that one.” The crowd played along and protested, starting to sing Beatty’s chorus. Beatty joined in, and after a few repetitions, the instrumentals finally began playing to everyone’s delight. As the gentle guitars buoyed the Ryan Beatty’s tender chorus and Dom McLennon’s first verse, the crowd gently roared and swayed “back and forth” in unison as Abstract proclaimed the song’s bridge, easily one of the most touching moments of the night.

Though the concert equipment was simple, limited to changing light colors and smoke machine blasts at beat drops, BROCKHAMPTON’s commitment to reproducing the sometimes chaotic, frequently endearing, and always relatable charm of their songs made the concert thoroughly enjoyable. The group’s chemistry and erratic dance moves were infectious, and the members’ contrasting personalities also entertained, ranging from the more reserved bearface and Dom to the more energetic Joba, Merlyn, and Matt. 
The violent mosh pits might have been too hostile an environment for first time concertgoers. Strangely, Brockhampton encouraged several times, “Open it up in the middle!” perhaps because they knew there was no stopping the most passionate fans. Indeed, the most intense moment in the night was the “DISTRICT”-“J’OUVERT”-“BOOGIE” run near the end of the concert. As three of Brockhampton’s most abrasive and cathartic songs, this sequence helped maintain the night’s excitement until an especially tender rendition of “NO HALO” closed out the night on a more vulnerable note. BROCKHAMPTON surely delivered the show their fans deserved, even staying to take selfies with fans who clawed their way to the front of the crowd. Meticulously lit, planned and performed, BROCKHAMPTON’s performance art has come a long way since their early days on 2017’s “Jennifer’s Tour.” 42 released songs and a major record label deal later, BROCKHAMPTON could have entertained Stanford/Palo Alto all night, but the boys had a curfew to respect. BROCKHAMPTON concerts are guaranteed to be an unforgettable experience with an exhilarating atmosphere and music.

Contact Dylan Grosz at dgrosz ‘at’ stanford.edu and Nadia Jo at nejo ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Modeling the Draw https://stanforddaily.com/2019/04/19/modeling-the-draw/ https://stanforddaily.com/2019/04/19/modeling-the-draw/#respond Fri, 19 Apr 2019 21:16:10 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1153137 Modeling the Draw is a calculator that mimics Stanford’s annual residential Draw. Using linear regression on historical draw statistics from 2014 to 2018, Modeling the Draw estimates your chances of getting into your desired residence for the upcoming school year. Try the calculator now! Contact Lily Zhou at lilyzhou ‘at’ stanford.edu, Charles Pan at cpan22 […]

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Modeling the Draw is a calculator that mimics Stanford’s annual residential Draw. Using linear regression on historical draw statistics from 2014 to 2018, Modeling the Draw estimates your chances of getting into your desired residence for the upcoming school year. Try the calculator now!

Contact Lily Zhou at lilyzhou ‘at’ stanford.edu, Charles Pan at cpan22 ‘at’ stanford.edu, and Tiffany Shi at thshi ‘at’ stanford.edu. Or find us on Github!

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Student group protests Salesforce chief scientist https://stanforddaily.com/2019/02/27/student-group-protests-salesforce-chief-scientist/ https://stanforddaily.com/2019/02/27/student-group-protests-salesforce-chief-scientist/#respond Wed, 27 Feb 2019 08:32:49 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1150383 Ten students protested the invitation of guest lecturer and Salesforce Chief Scientist Richard Socher in “SYMSYS 1: Minds and Machines,” on Tuesday morning.

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Holding up signs that read “No Tech for ICE” and “Divest from Deportation,” 10 students protested the invitation of guest lecturer and software company Salesforce chief scientist Richard Socher in “SYMSYS 1: Minds and Machines,” on Tuesday morning.

The students, all members of the organization Students for the Liberation of All Peoples (SLAP), criticized Salesforce’s contract with Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Flyers distributed to audience members took aim at Salesforce and other large tech companies such as Amazon for “profiting from ICE” and contributing to “growing violence at the border.”

SLAP is a self-described “anti-racist, anti-capitalist” organization that aims to “mobilize students to fight the oppression of marginalized communities,” its mission statement reads.

Before beginning his lecture, Socher called on the protesters to open a conversation. The protesters then asked Socher about Salesforce’s involvement with Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE), to which he emphasized that Salesforce’s contract is with CBP, not ICE.

While both agencies exist within the Department of Homeland Security, CBP leads the Border Patrol and is mandated to enforce domestic trade and immigration laws at or near the physical border, whereas ICE primarily investigates and deports undocumented immigrants.

“[Socher] trying to make that distinction is not an excuse to not take responsibility for it,” protester Talia Flores ’21 told The Daily.

Salesforce’s contract with CBP allows CBP to use Salesforce Analytics and Service Cloud to modernize its recruiting process, manage its activities at the border and handle digital engagement with citizens.  

The discussion between Socher and the protestors lasted for about 15 minutes. Socher noted that he is “sympathetic to [SLAP’s] cause” and personally opposed to the actions of ICE, but that it is difficult for a corporation as large as Salesforce to “disentangle itself” from the U.S. government.

Given the lecture’s focus on the role and scope of AI, Socher elaborated that his and Salesforce’s AI research were not passed on to help CBP.

During its protest, SLAP mentioned a widely circulated letter, signed by more than 650 Salesforce employees, that urged CEO Marc Benioff to cancel Salesforce’s contract with CBP.

The Daily has reached out to Socher for comment.

At 11 a.m., a half hour into the 80-minute class, the protesters walked out of the class, chanting, “Cancel the contracts! Stop funding deportations!”

Luigi Sambuy ’18 M.S. ’19, a TA for SYMSYS 1, said he thought the question and answer session was “a very respectful exchange.”

“I’d love to see more of these exchanges at Stanford,” Sambuy said.

One student, however, saw the protest as an unfair attack.

“[Socher] didn’t even start his PowerPoint presentation until halfway through class because all the people that were protesting were asking questions about him and his life and working for Salesforce …  and attacking our guest lecturer,” Joanna Harber ’21 said. “And he was just trying to defend himself on the stage alone. I felt really bad for him. But he did a really good job of trying to understand where they were coming from.”

SLAP has begun circulating a petition to pledge not to work at Salesforce until it withdraws from its contract from CBP. A link to the petition was provided on their flyer.

“Advocacy organizations like Mijente and RAICES — led by and serving undocumented people — have explicitly and consistently asked you to cancel this contract and you have refused, citing that none of this technology enables the separation of families,” the petition states, addressed to Salesforce chief executive Officer Marc Benioff. “Unfortunately, family separation has been a hallmark outcome of this deportation machine for years.”

As of Tuesday evening, 79 students have signed the petition.

Richard Socher is scheduled to speak at CS 224N: “Natural Language Processing with Deep Learning” on March 5. SLAP intends to repeat the same protest.

 

Contact Dylan Grosz at dgrosz ‘at’ stanford.edu and Julia Ingram at jmingram ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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As length of presidential campaigns increases, 2020 might follow suit https://stanforddaily.com/2019/01/22/as-length-of-presidential-campaigns-increases-2020-might-follow-suit/ https://stanforddaily.com/2019/01/22/as-length-of-presidential-campaigns-increases-2020-might-follow-suit/#respond Tue, 22 Jan 2019 09:45:58 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1148459 Election Day 2020 is 651 days away — and while this may appear to follow a trend of presidential bids coming earlier every election year, data on historical presidential announcement dates show a more complex story.

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January is nearly over, yet Democratic hopefuls Kirsten Gillibrand, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Tulsi Gabbard and Julián Castro ’96 are gearing up to run for the 2020 presidential election. Castro — a former Obama Housing and Urban Development Secretary, San Antonio mayor and ASSU Senate member — and Senator Harris have officially announced their candidacy, while Gillibrand, Gabbard and Warren have either declared a presidential exploratory committee or scheduled an official announcement in the coming few weeks.

Further potential announcements are also expected to follow from the likes of former Vice President Joe Biden, Senator Bernie Sanders, Congressman Beto O’Rourke, Senator Amy Klobuchar and Senator Cory Booker ’91 M.A. ’92. As of this article’s publication, Election Day 2020 is 651 days away — and while this may appear to follow a trend of presidential bids coming earlier every election year, data on historical presidential announcement dates show a more complex story.

An especially exhausting 2016 campaign began in mid-March of 2015, when the first major Republican candidate Ted Cruz kicked off his campaign 596 days before Election Day. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, upon becoming nominees of the two major parties, both began their general election campaigns with 15 weeks remaining.

Pundits and laymen alike feel that elections are creeping earlier and earlier every election cycle, and the 2020 narrative is no different. But one’s definition of when an election cycle truly starts either challenges or confirms this narrative.

Examining how long before Election Day the earliest major candidate announces their presidential bid reveals a slight downward trend in the earliest major candidate announcement for the past 44 years. For the purposes of this analysis, a major candidate is a non-incumbent presidential candidate that secured any delegates or at least 5 percent of the popular vote in their respective presidential primary.

The numbers form a politically rigid ceiling to how long before Election Day a major presidential candidate can declare: running at around 650 days, especially in recent elections. 

However, this ceiling does not imply that it would be unprecedented for currently declared candidates to be major candidates: Mo Udall set the record for a major candidate announcement at 710 days before the 1976 election. A then-unknown Jimmy Carter announced just a few weeks later, going on to win the election.

At the same time, the early set of candidates could just be perennial outliers that do not necessarily dictate when an election cycle begins. A more accurate and robust definition of when a cycle starts may instead be when most major candidates have entered the race. The median days before Election Day that major candidates announce their bid form a relatively sizable upward trend.

The feeling that campaigns are getting longer and more exhausting may not come from how early the first candidate announces their bid. Rather, the perception that the campaign season has fully begun may be correlated to when most candidates have announced, which has been growing the past 10 presidential election cycles. This stronger trend more accurately serves as an explanation for an exasperated outlook on the ever-increasing length of the American presidential election campaign.

However, this trend is not strong enough to predict when most of the major players will announce their candidacy for the upcoming presidential election. Given the inherently limited data provided by four-year election cycles and increasingly unprecedented politicking in the Trump era, forecasting how the wave of 2020 campaign announcements will compare to previous elections becomes difficult.

Regardless, the length of U.S. campaigns stands significantly ahead of fellow large democracies across the world. The last major French, Brazilian and Indian general election campaigns were restricted to about five, 10 and five weeks, respectively. Technically, the United States’ general election campaign starts after party nominees are officially declared, about 10 to 15 weeks prior to Election Day. But primary season can feel just as loud as the general election campaign, especially compared to the much less public primaries in India and Brazil. A country like France can see major candidates announce their presidential bid a similarly long time before Election Day, but unlike in the United States, these announcements are generally regarded as symbolic, since heavy campaign finance regulations restrict spending, including many television advertisements, to five weeks before Election Day.

Whether we like it or not, the 2020 election cycle is either already upon us or looming on the horizon. Though we cannot be sure if any of the declared candidates will turn out to be major candidates, a growing number of presidential exploratory committee announcements point to a long 2020 presidential election cycle. 

 

Contact Dylan Grosz at dgrosz ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Treasure Island Music Festival features a variety of awesome acts https://stanforddaily.com/2018/11/09/treasure-island-music-festival-features-a-variety-of-awesome-acts/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/11/09/treasure-island-music-festival-features-a-variety-of-awesome-acts/#respond Fri, 09 Nov 2018 14:00:06 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1146541 Eight hours of raving, roaming and manmade dust storms weren’t enough to stop people from crowding the main stage of the Treasure Island Music Festival. The main act that night was the ever-psychedelic Tame Impala, and despite the groovy stylings of Jungle on the second stage, a strong contingent of Tame Impala hyper-fans skipped their […]

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Treasure Island Music Festival features a variety of awesome acts
DYLAN GROSZ/The Stanford Daily

Eight hours of raving, roaming and manmade dust storms weren’t enough to stop people from crowding the main stage of the Treasure Island Music Festival. The main act that night was the ever-psychedelic Tame Impala, and despite the groovy stylings of Jungle on the second stage, a strong contingent of Tame Impala hyper-fans skipped their performance to get a marginally better view of frontman Kevin Parker. Without much provocation, a fellow fan turned to me and shouted, “I made this for him,” as he proudly touted a shirt with “Fuck Trevor” sharpied across the chest, a reference to a character from Tame Impala’s hit “The Less I Know The Better.” Waiting for the last act of festival, we both realized we had equally enjoyed and endured several hours of fantastic, and at times erratic, performances.

Starting with the second act on the first day of TIMF, I knew I was in for an ecstatic, exhausting experience. After a solid DJ set by electronic duo Gilligan Moss, Baltimore rapper JPEGMAFIA took to the adjacent stage, immediately seizing the crowd’s energy by playing his fiery feature on Denzel Curry’s “VENGEANCE.” Peggy had boundless energy, jumping over the divide and moshing with the crowd to his own songs. In between songs, he was no stranger to controversy, discussing his disappointment in Kanye and Drake and reiterating his hatred for Morrisey and rock in general.

After JPEGMAFIA’s engaging and erratic performance, George Fitzgerald’s live set proved an effective EDM palette cleanser. The rest of the day fell into this intended pattern, where an electronic artist would reset the mood with various mixes of house, trap and EDM pop after one or two hip-hop/R&B artists riled up the crowd. After watching Moses Sumner’s mesmerizing performance of “Rank & File,” attendees would trek to the other stage to watch French duo Polo & Pan’s softer touch on EDM, ending the afternoon with their sunny, hypnotic set.

Hiatus Kaiyote’s subsequent performance drew much hype because they had not released any songs since 2015’s “Choose Your Weapon.” Optimistic fans were sure that the group would debut new music, and the group did not take long to satisfy. Over the course of their 50-minute set, vocalist/guitarist/bandleader Nai Palm and company revealed three new songs, ranging from their recognizable neo-soul sound to what could only be described as jazz fusion-metal. As fans processed Hiatus Kaiyote’s new material, Laff Trax (Toro y Moi & Nosaj Thing) returned everyone to the club with their interpretations of old school Daft Punk, and Santigold’s smooth R&B let attendees unwind or dance depending on their mood.

As the sun set, Amine took to the stage, fresh off the success of his “ONEPOINTFIVE” mixtape. To his credit, the rising rapper was able to coherently mix the lush and introspective sounds of his debut “Good For You” with the sparse trap of “ONEPOINTFIVE.” As his set came to a close, EDM fans began flocking early to the other side of the festival. Silk City, consisting of the legendary Mark Ronson and Diplo, served as the crown jewel of the day’s EDM acts. The melding of Ronson’s nostalgia and Diplo’s experimentation was endlessly danceable. Their set spanned genre and age, peppered with exciting original material.

Hip hop legends Pusha T and A$AP Rocky were left as the final two acts of the night, promoting their albums “DAYTONA” and “TESTING,” respectively. As King Push took the stage, it didn’t take long for him, in all his braids and glory, to declare “’DAYTONA’ album of the year” and nearly play the entire album in order. It’s usually perceived as cocky and confrontational to push an entire new album on fans. Yet, the strength and concision of the 7-track “DAYTONA,” paired with his hits on older projects and Clipse, led to one of the tightest set lists of the festival.

Despite Pusha T’s fantastic performance, many festival-goers attended strictly to see the night’s headliner, A$AP Rocky. Rocky was scheduled to perform for 90 minutes, but as 30 minutes passed, fans began to grow restless, yelling for “Dr. A$APtual Rockeford” to take the stage. Right before restlessness turned into frustration, the stage’s curtains opened to reveal a 30-foot crash test dummy. In a show full of pyrotechnics, Rocky spanned highlights across his entire discography, spitting and scaling up and down his dummy’s head. With a final blast of fire and a shout out to Bay Area legend Lil B, day one was over.

After such an exhausting day full of EDM and rap, the second day of TIMF served to soothe and relax. Nowhere was this mood more apparent than in the second day’s first act, serpentwithfeet. An ethereal vocalist and BROCKHAMPTON collaborator, serpentwithfeet provided early festival attendees a brief but powerful set, with many of his songs combining croon and conversation. To bring up the energy, Pond took to the opposite stage and bombarded the audience with their particular style of hard psychedelic rock. The group, based in Perth, Australia, features a rotating lineup that includes members of fellow Peth natives Tame Impala, so many also viewed this set as a precursor to the day’s headliner. The group dabbles in psychedelic experimentation. Members would constantly mess with sound textures mid-song, leading to a head-spinning array of sonics in just one jam session. Almost as if Pond’s psychedelics were a cue, absurdly costumed folks began cropping up everywhere.

TIMF was definitely a music festival first, but it also boasted a respectable selection of local shops and food vendors. Cynically, these selections capitalized on the festival’s isolation in a harbor designed as a port to load container ships. Not so cynically, they provided and promoted a vast array of local threads, tastes and art. While watching Soccer Mommy’s aloof set and Alex Cameron’s purposeful sleaze, you could take a musical break and observe local artists engaged in live paintings or putting on button-making workshops.

Easily the most surprising act of the festival was Shame, a post-punk band out of London who was little known to festival-goers. Their electrifying punk attitude ran rampant throughout the show. In quick succession, singer Charlie Steen went on a diatribe about the “four-chord future” before preemptively using his mic stand to “conduct” the crowd seemingly to prepare them for his subsequent stage dive. For a crowd that even Shame admitted had little knowledge of the band’s prior work, they seemed pretty won over by the end of the set, transported to raving and moshing by the raw energy the group injected into them at three in the afternoon.

Though Sharon Van Etten brought the mood back down with a much more soothing set, U.S. Girls and Courtney Barnett rekindled the crowd’s punkish energy in their sets. With new tracks off of her new “Tell Me How You Really Feel,” Barnett slammed the crowd with pure, unadulterated, guitar-driven rock. She was a punctual performer with no filler, reaching back to her lyrically-sprawling indie hits off of her first “Double EP” release before returning to the sharp commentary on her latest record. Closing out in a raucous rendition of “Pedestrian At Best,” Barnett left the crowd bustling with energy, which only a group like Cigarettes After Sex could properly mellow out. Their take on dream pop never ceased to lull and sway the audience, who in the middle of the group’s slowed-down guitar solos, saw the beginnings of the sunset, leading to a beautiful arrangement of dudes separately realizing the hiding sun and shouting, “Woah…”

Hype for the night’s headliner began brewing as Lord Huron subsequently took the stage. As they fumbled around their older discography’s more generic rock aesthetic, Lord Huron later settled on their recent album’s own niche, which can only be described as a sci-fi noire covered in neon lights. Exhibiting much more distortion and cosmic lyrics, Lord Huron truly displayed their expanding range as a group while staying true to their earlier singer-songwriter roots. As their set closed out, half of the crowd remained and decided to skip Jungle’s set. Though they probably got a slightly better view of Tame Impala, they truly missed out on a set riddled with the very funk and soul influences that likely got them into Tame Impala in the first place.

As Jungle closed out, the final act of the festival was finally upon us; The Moment was here. Without much of a wait, Kevin Parker and company took to the stage and tantalized the audience with absolutely remarkable psychedelic visuals before launching into Parker’s opus: 2015’s “Let It Happen.” Seasoned Tame Impala concert-goers had warned of “sick lasers” and “crazy smoke effects,” and these sophisticated descriptions did not disappoint. Parker’s musical perfectionism definitely bleeds into his audiovisual vision, and every bass or drum hit flipped between diversely psychedelic palettes. Thanks to Tame Impala’s tight performance and Prop 64, fans were left in utter awe as the festival came to a close in Oakland. God, getting back to campus was a nightmare.

Contact Dylan Grosz at dgrosz ‘at stanford.edu.

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Damn, Peggy: The Stanford Daily talks with JPEGMAFIA https://stanforddaily.com/2018/11/06/damn-peggy-the-stanford-daily-talks-with-jpegmafia/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/11/06/damn-peggy-the-stanford-daily-talks-with-jpegmafia/#respond Tue, 06 Nov 2018 20:14:09 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1146384 In an interview ranging from new music to our favorite 90s Nickelodeon cartoons, The Stanford Daily got a chance to speak with rapper JPEGMAFIA over the phone on his birthday while he was eating at Chili’s. Coming off of the success of his new project “Veteran,” JPEGMAFIA and his deconstructed take on trap music has […]

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Damn, Peggy: The Stanford Daily talks with JPEGMAFIA
JPEGMAFIA (Courtesy of TIMF)

In an interview ranging from new music to our favorite 90s Nickelodeon cartoons, The Stanford Daily got a chance to speak with rapper JPEGMAFIA over the phone on his birthday while he was eating at Chili’s. Coming off of the success of his new project “Veteran,” JPEGMAFIA and his deconstructed take on trap music has seen the stage at numerous festivals, including the recent Treasure Island Music Festival in Oakland. He’s also been hard at work on new music, telling The Daily that he plans to release a loose single called “Puff Daddy” on November 7. “Puff Daddy” is produced by Kenny Beats, who is just coming off of producing Vince Staples’ “FM!”

This transcript has been lightly edited.

 

TSD: I want to start off this interview with the beginning for you. When did you start rapping and making beats?

JPEG: I think I started when I was 14, 15. I started making beats after I heard The Diplomats, Cam’ron and all those dudes making sample-based beats. I didn’t understand sample-based beats at the time, so I spent most of my time trying to figure out how they made that chipmunk noise, and then I realized they were sampling other music. That was fascinating to me, and that’s when I started producing.

I think I started rapping when I was 17 when I first heard Ice Cube. I wanted to rap about political stuff, but I didn’t know you could rap about it and not be all head-ass and conscious and like “Read books, n––.” You could just talk about whatever you want.

TSD: That’s actually something I wanted to touch on. You’re a very vocal and political rapper, which has become a very interesting role as time has passed and hip hop has morphed. Given the election of Donald Trump and the public rise of the alt right, hip hop is in an interesting spot right now. Obviously hip hop is rooted in politics and protest, but now it’s the most popular genre in America, so I was wondering how you navigate being a political rapper, especially during these times.

JPEG: I think you’re right. It’s interesting we’re in a weird time right now, especially with [politics]. All the climates, every form of entertainment, every form of everything is in a weird paradigm-shifting moment right now. I think hip hop is at a stage where it’s shifting to something else. I don’t know what it is, but I’m interested to see where it goes. I was just thinking about this the other day: Hip hop is now the most popular genre in the country. It has overtaken; it has now become the mainstream. [Hip hop] is now pop music.

I think the way I navigate [being a political rapper] is trying to approach it from the Ice Cube perspective. Ice Cube was very mainstream, very popular, very brash and very unapologetic, and a lot of people respect Ice Cube to this day. The way I maneuver is, well, I’m just here, man. I’m just reporting it and living in it. I’m actively here with you.

TSD: From “Communist Slow Jams” to your most recent “Veteran,” you obviously have an experimental and engaging production style, so how did you develop this aesthetic?

JPEG: Just naturally. It’s just an amalgam of who I am now. Amalgam? What’s the word I’m looking for? Amalgam … Amalgamation! Amalgam, that’s such a dumbass word. Who I am now is an amalgamation of all my past experiences living in the South, the inner city in New York, deep bumfu— nowhere in the trenches in Baltimore or being in the desert in the f—ing Iraq war. All of that encompasses how I developed [my sound] naturally. I’ve just been a lot of places I guess.

TSD: I want to dive a little deeper into that because it’s literally the name of your album “Veteran.” How has your background as a veteran influenced your music?

JPEG: It affected it in a way that it gave me a rigorous work ethic, nothing really more. It didn’t really affect [my music] creatively because when I was in the military, I didn’t really learn anything new. I learned things I already knew, like I learned work ethic and how to have a routine, that kind of thing. The only real thing I took away from the military is that it just reinforced all the things I already thought about the underbelly of America, like how racist it is. So, it didn’t really affect my music literally, but it affected the way I work on it.

TSD: Now I want to ask you about “Veteran,” which was obviously a huge success for you. In your opinion, what is the difference between your new record and your previous releases like “Black Ben Carson” and “Communist Slow Jams?”

JPEG: All my albums are like snapshots of where I am as a person at the time. “Black Ben Carson” is definitely more angry and harsh because I was really broke in Baltimore. With “Veteran,” I think the difference with the older [records] is that, with those, I think I had an idea of what I wanted. But with “Veteran,” I didn’t. I just kind of made whatever I wanted to at the time, and that’s why it’s all over the place. It’s literally a snapshot of what I was doing at the time.

TSD: “Veteran” definitely pulls from a lot of places as well. What influences did you have in mind for “Veteran?”

JPEG: I listened to a lot of anime soundtracks when I was making it originally. Also country music, Miranda Lambert, “The Life of Pablo.” When I take from my influences, it’s rare that I do it literally. I feel like when people take their influences, they wear them like skin. For me, taking influence means I’m listening to something and think it’s cool, and then maybe one day I’m working on something of my own. It’s just a feeling I get from [my influences] that I’m trying to replicate in the music when I’m making it.

 

Damn, Peggy: The Stanford Daily talks with JPEGMAFIA
JPEGMAFIA at Treasure Island Music Festival (Courtesy of Dylan Grosz)

TSD: Now I want to ask you about your live performances. Either under your current JPEGMAFIA name or something else, what was that first show like for you?

JPEG: My first live performance was when I was in the military. I went to some bar, and they had open mics. You could just sign up and perform. Nobody cared. Nobody liked it. The people were very hostile, and I was rapping about political shit. So my intro to performances was being booed, so being cheered now is cool. It’s a nice change of pace.

TSD: Maybe it was a good humbling experience to be booed first so now the cheering sounds way better. So before I close out, I’d really like to ask you what up-and-coming artists you’re enjoying right now.

JPEG: My homie Butch Dawson from Baltimore. Got another homie CRASHprez. Fire. From Wisconsin of all places. Who else is coming up? I have to look at my damn phone… There’s this new n––, his name is Kendrick Lamar.

TSD: Oh yeah, I’ve heard good things.

JPEG: Nah, I’m just playing. There’s also Snail Mail from Baltimore as well.

TSD: Awesome. So to wrap up the interview, what’s the next direction you’re thinking of taking your music? Should we expect new music soon?

JPEG: I mean my next album is going to be nothing but straight ABBA covers.

TSD: You could call it Mamma Mia 3!

JPEG: That would be insane. What if I made that, and it was actually fire though? But when I’m ready to drop, I’ll drop. I’ll be around. I have some new shit coming. Nothing but throat music. I am dropping a song on the seventh though. It’s called “Puff Daddy.” Kenny Beats produced it. It’s a loose single; it’s not going to be on an album or nothing. I just wanted to put some shit out.

TSD: Great! Well thank you so much for your time, so you can get back to doing what you’re doing.

JPEG: Yeah man, I’m at Chili’s. It’s my birthday.

TSD: Happy birthday! Thank you for taking this call!

JPEG: I appreciate it. I’m old, man. How old are you?

TSD: I’m 20. I’m a junior.

JPEG: Damn. You were born in 1998?

TSD: Yeah, 1998.

JPEG: Bro, I’m 29. I was born in 1989. I literally watched Rocko’s Modern Life on live television. I’m f—ing old. I literally saw new episodes of Rugrats.

TSD: I know I’m young because I watched Rocko’s Modern Life and Rugrats on Boomerang.

JPEG: Oh my god, I watched that show on Nickelodeon. I used to come home and go, “Oh, Rocko’s is on. Let’s go!” I remember when Catdog first came out. Y’all remember Catdog?

TSD: Yeah, who doesn’t love Catdog?

JPEG: Yeah, kind of random, but I appreciate [the interview].

TSD: No problem. Can’t wait for the new music. Thank you so much.

 

Contact Dylan Grosz at dgrosz ‘at’ stanford.edu

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9 Acts to check out at Treasure Island Music Festival https://stanforddaily.com/2018/10/10/9-acts-to-check-out-at-treasure-island-music-festival/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/10/10/9-acts-to-check-out-at-treasure-island-music-festival/#respond Wed, 10 Oct 2018 12:00:39 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1144558 In less than a week’s time, I will be heading to the Treasure Island Music Festival (TIMF) as it kicks off this Saturday in Oakland. With headliners A$AP Rocky and Tame Impala, TIMF boasts an extremely exciting and high-energy lineup even compared to previous years.   In no specific order, here are nine acts to […]

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In less than a week’s time, I will be heading to the Treasure Island Music Festival (TIMF) as it kicks off this Saturday in Oakland. With headliners A$AP Rocky and Tame Impala, TIMF boasts an extremely exciting and high-energy lineup even compared to previous years.

9 Acts to check out at Treasure Island Music Festival

 

In no specific order, here are nine acts to look out for at TIMF.

1. JPEGMAFIA

9 Acts to check out at Treasure Island Music Festival
JPEGMAFIA (Courtesy of TIMF)

JPEGMAFIA, known to his fans as “Peggy,” gained attention in rap spheres with his erratically experimental “Veteran” this year. “Veteran” perfectly deconstructed SoundCloud rap and pushed the boundaries of hip hop, getting co-signs from fellow avant-garde rappers like SoundCloud rap legend Denzel Curry, who featured Peggy on his recent “Ta13oo” project. Lyrically, JPEGMAFIA fearlessly delves into themes of identity and hostility in America’s current political climate. Although he’s cemented his punk sound in the hip hop scene, he has a backup plan: his Masters Degree in Journalism. Damn, Peggy.

2. serpentwithfeet

 

9 Acts to check out at Treasure Island Music Festival

 

The rather silent rise of serpentwithfeet is one to behold both on stage and on tape. The immediate popularity of his “blisters” EP and “soil,” his debut LP, has landed the vocalist critical acclaim and even a featured writing credit and performance on BROCKHAMPTON’s “iridescence.” Though his initial goal was to become a classical singer, his avant-garde take on gospel and R&B make many thankful he stuck to paving his own style.

3. Hiatus Kaiyote

9 Acts to check out at Treasure Island Music Festival
Hiatus Kaiyote (Courtesy of FLICKR/villunderlondon)

This neosoul quartet simply oozes with talent. Nearly every song they create features a blend of prog rock level with vocalist/guitarist Nai Palm’s simple soulful stylings. Their sophomore effort “Choose Your Weapon” was one of most emotional and best arranged records of 2015, with instrumentals so powerful they were sampled in many recent hit records, including Kendrick Lamar’s “DAMN” and Drake’s “More Life.” Since then, the group has stayed relatively quiet except for a solid Nai Palm solo record last year and a theme song for a short-lived Hannibal Buress late-night show for some reason. Regardless of whether or not they have new music to perform, Hiatus Kaiyote will surely deliver their self-described “multi-dimensional, polyrhythmic gangster shit.”

4. Aminé

Amine

With hits like “Caroline” and “Spice Girl,” this former XXL Freshman created a quirkily optimistic record in his debut album “Good For You” in 2017. While he’s developing his studio followup, Aminé has dropped a project in the interim, appropriately titled “ONEPOINTFIVE.” For a tideover project, it definitely packs a punch, including standout tracks “REEL IT IN” and “BLACKJACK.” Aminé’s performance at TIMF will be his first since having both projects out, so expect a varied and exciting setlist.

5. Pusha T

Pusha T

 

King Push himself will take a little time off of managing G.O.O.D. Music and grace TIMF with his presence. Coming hot off of the success of the Kanye-produced “DAYTONA”, Pusha T’s cold and cool delivery about his drug-dealing past and disgust for inferior rappers is as strong as ever. The concise seven-track album distills Push’s kingpin persona in a tight 21 minutes, leading to some of his best tracks to date.

6. Courtney Barnett

9 Acts to check out at Treasure Island Music Festival
Courtney Barnett (Courtesy of TIMF)

 

After busting into the indie scene with “The Double EP” in 2014, Courtney Barnett’s unique blend of Dylan-esque lyrical verbosity and charming wit manifested beautifully in her two solo studio albums, most recently “Tell Me How You Really Feel.” With songs ranging from melancholy to charming, Barnett boasts an admirable range in her songwriting, which should surely translate into a dynamic live show.

7. Silk City (Mark Ronson + Diplo)

9 Acts to check out at Treasure Island Music Festival
Silk City (Courtesy of TIMF)

On their own, Mark Ronson and Diplo had an amazing past couple years, with Ronson producing the new Queens of the Stone Age record and Diplo releasing hit singles with his other groups LSD and Major Lazer. After debuting at the Governor’s Ball this year, music listeners were surprised to learn that two of the music industry’s most esteemed producers were teaming up under the moniker Silk City. To date, they have only released four tracks, featuring artists like Dua Lipa and GoldLink. They’re performing for an hour, so expect them to reveal some yet-to-be-released songs.

8. A$AP Rocky

 

9 Acts to check out at Treasure Island Music Festival
A$AP Rocky (Courtesy of Wikimedia)

Without a doubt, A$AP Rocky is bringing a lot of the hype that is surrounding TIMF’s lineup this year. Never short of new material, Rocky is coming off of the release of his own “TESTING” and his posse’s “Cozy Tapes 2.” “TESTING” served as a grand statement for what has been an especially transformative year for him. Relative to his more straightforward older work, the aptly titled record ventures down a much more experimental and psychedelic path in its production and overall execution. The exploration of these new sounds should lend itself quite nicely to a fantastic headlining performance by Lord Flacko himself.

9. Tame Impala (+ Pond)

9 Acts to check out at Treasure Island Music Festival
Tame Impala (Courtesy of Wikimedia)

 

9 Acts to check out at Treasure Island Music Festival
Pond (Courtesy of TIMF)

Tame Impala needs not much of an introduction. After releasing the blue psychedelia of “Lonerism” and the crystallized pop of “Currents”, Kevin Parker is currently plotting his next move, but in the meantime, he has provided great production work for artists outside of his genre, including Kali Uchis, Travis Scott and co-headliner A$AP Rocky (kind of). When performing live, Parker and his live band are notorious for translating their psychedelia into mesmerizing visuals. Since Parker handles the entire Tame Impala creative process, many members of the live band direct their creative output towards a separate venture called Pond, which takes the rock and psychedelia of Tame Impala in a rawer, more jam band-y direction. Be it Tame Impala or Pond who’s performing, get ready for a trip.

 

Tickets are still being sold for the Treasure Island Music Festival here.

 

Contact Dylan Grosz at dgrosz ‘at’ stanford.edu

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The Breeders: a cross-generational appeal https://stanforddaily.com/2018/05/14/the-breeders-a-cross-generational-appeal/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/05/14/the-breeders-a-cross-generational-appeal/#respond Mon, 14 May 2018 09:54:16 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1140883 Kim Deal howls a muffled siren as Jim Macpherson taps out the start to “Cannonball.” With a bass lick from Josephine Wiggs and a groovy riff from Kelley Deal, The Breeders of 1993’s seminal “Last Splash” are reunited at last. As “Cannonball” bangs on The Masonic’s vaulted ceilings, the sleeping cells of youth in the […]

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Kim Deal howls a muffled siren as Jim Macpherson taps out the start to “Cannonball.” With a bass lick from Josephine Wiggs and a groovy riff from Kelley Deal, The Breeders of 1993’s seminal “Last Splash” are reunited at last. As “Cannonball” bangs on The Masonic’s vaulted ceilings, the sleeping cells of youth in the middle-aged audience begin shoving their way to the front as Kim Deal glances down in a combination of confusion and confidence, quivering her distorted acoustic guitar as the indie rock mosh pit intensifies.

As frontwoman of The Breeders and essential songwriter and bassist of Pixies, Kim Deal is important to the alternative rock wave of the 90s that listeners have seen revived again and again to varying degrees of success. Touring behind their new record “All Nerve,” The Breeders curiously began their set with “New Year,” a relatively deep cut on their popular 1993 album “Last Splash.” “New Year”’s fuzzy and off-kilter groove begins with Deal’s smushed delivery of the line “We have come for light.”

Indeed, The Breeders have been wholly out of the spotlight since 2008’s “Mountain Battles,” but their latest album does not find them clamoring for attention. Instead, the “All Nerve”-era lets their askew take on alternative rock speak for itself, with little extraneous crowd banter or stage tricks. Weaving in and out of older tracks, the group let their performance’s minimalist theatrics prove through raw performance that “All Nerve” deserves a place in their celebrated discography.

“Wait In The Car,” the first single from “All Nerve,” followed smoothly after “New Year.” Written as a literal wake up call, “Wait In The Car” added urgency to the audience members returning from their long-awaited bathroom break after Post Pink’s opening riot grrl performance. As on the rest of “All Nerve,” Kim Deal’s experimentation with a more abrasive vocal delivery on “Wait In The Car” translates as well live as it does in the studio.

Most of the world got to know Kim Deal for her ethereal background vocals for Pixies and the first few studio efforts for The Breeders. Kim Deal’s especially soothing voice worked especially well on “Fortunately Gone” off of their 1990 debut “Pod” and the group’s cover of Ed’s Redeeming Qualities’ “Drivin’ on 9.” For the latter, Kim and Kelley Deal hyped up and brought on a local female violinist to play its middle section.

The Breeders’ duality of poppier, happier rock and more abstract arrangements wove throughout their set: the delicate “No Aloha” and “Divine Hammer” were balanced by the punchy “Nervous Mary” and “I Just Wanna Get Along.” In each mode, The Breeders seemed as tightly knit as their “Last Splash” heyday, which has never truly been lost on them.

Though the group played well as an equitable-unit, Kim Deal actualized her role as The Breeders’ frontwoman on arguably the band’s second-most popular song “Off You.” As she played the first few chords of the set’s most sleepy, melancholy ballad, the audience began to cheer, almost purely out of the collective recognition of the song. “Off You” brought no moshing — a departure from the raucous audience during “Cannonball.” Instead, the crowd resigned their excitement and introspectively swayed to the song’s rhythm as Kim reflects on loneliness and invisibility.

As a nod to her days at Pixies, Kim Deal closed the main set by picking up her signature bass guitar and treated the audience to “Gigantic,” one of the few Pixies songs she wrote and sang lead. Though tender at first, the song’s noisy finale shook The Masonic’s thick stone walls, and with Kelley Deal’s final stringed blow left the audience cheering as The Breeders took off with a few final expressions of gratitude.

The crowd (median age: 45) wanted more. As Kelley and Kim embraced to celebrate yet another successful show. Fully grown adults attempted to vault themselves over to the stage to reach over to the twin sisters in admiration. But alas, The Breeders were out of sight.

In a beautiful expression of cross-generational appreciation, the crowd erupted in encore chants, craving more even if they weren’t alive when The Breeders released their debut. With a respectful delay, Wiggs, McPherson and the Deals returned to the stage. Without hesitation, they smoothly began playing a few deeper cuts off of “All Nerve.” Before the encore turned into a full-fledged new set, the band left the crowd on “Saints,” a hard-hitting anthem off of “Last Splash.” Finally taking off, Kim waved to the crowd to see the young and old respond in unison, thanking her for her show, her work and her eternal place in the history of alternative rock.

You can listen to The Breeders’ “All Nerve” on Spotify, Apple Music and Google Play now and can catch them on tour by visiting their website.

 

Contact Dylan Grosz at dgrosz ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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A look at BROCKHAMPTON, a hip-hop anti-collective All-American Boyband https://stanforddaily.com/2017/11/14/a-look-at-brockhampton-a-hip-hop-anti-collective-all-american-boyband/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/11/14/a-look-at-brockhampton-a-hip-hop-anti-collective-all-american-boyband/#respond Tue, 14 Nov 2017 10:00:43 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1133265 Last week, BROCKHAMPTON stormed Camp Flog Gnaw painted blue, pompously rapping their truth to a crowd of thousands, but just a year ago, their dreams remained locked away behind starry eyes. Rather explosively, BROCKHAMPTON has taken over as indie hip hop’s darling, thanks in part to their consistently enthusiastic fan engagement and acclaimed releases of […]

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A look at BROCKHAMPTON, a hip-hop anti-collective All-American Boyband
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Last week, BROCKHAMPTON stormed Camp Flog Gnaw painted blue, pompously rapping their truth to a crowd of thousands, but just a year ago, their dreams remained locked away behind starry eyes.

Rather explosively, BROCKHAMPTON has taken over as indie hip hop’s darling, thanks in part to their consistently enthusiastic fan engagement and acclaimed releases of SATURATION & SATURATION II last summer. Many publications thus far have classified this group as what they appear on the surface, a rap collective, maybe the second coming of Odd Future if they play their cards right. However, the group insists that BROCKHAMPTON is a boyband, and I agree. For the Odd Futures of the world, the rap collective could be argued to be an entertaining promotion scheme for each of the artists involved. As seen in the demise of Odd Future in the wake of solo success for members like Frank Ocean, Tyler The Creator and Earl Sweatshirt, the endgame is a solo career. Collectives like A$AP Mob feature artists with loosely similar creative visions, but each artist retains too much of their individualism, and desire for individual success, to call the group’s work cohesive.

“The thing is about BROCKHAMPTON is that it’s a group,” explains creative director HK on the first track of the group’s debut mixtape, “ALL-AMERICAN TRASH.” BROCKHAMPTON, a collection of rappers and creators, rejects the concept of the rap collective. Off in South Central LA, the members of BROCKHAMPTON live together in a one-story house full of couches, dubbed “The BROCKHAMPTON Factory.” From ideation to promotion, this home remains at the center of it all, of their dreams and fraternity. The 15 creative members of BROCKHAMPTON constantly work off each other, seamlessly integrating each of their strengths into a solidly connected discography.

Though they are redefining what it means to be a boyband on the surface through a subversion of genre, like any boyband, BROCKHAMPTON’s goal is to open themselves up to their adoring, screaming fanbase. (Unlike many boybands, though, this vulnerability is authentic, produced sans focus group.) Each member has a story… and an archetype, so before they close out 2017 with the final installment of the SATURATION trilogy, let’s begin by meeting the founders of BROCKHAMPTON, 2017’s All-American Boyband.

 

Kevin Abstract — “The Leader”

As the founding member and creative frontman of the group, you can find Ian Simpson, better known by his stage name Kevin Abstract, involved in nearly every track BROCKHAMPTON releases. On top of his deeply personal lyrical matter, Abstract leads many of the group’s most infectious hooks, namely on “GOLD,” “SWEET,” “GUMMY” and “BOYS.”

Though he influences a lot of BROCKHAMPTON’s musical output, Kevin Abstract’s creative influences can also be seen throughout the visual aesthetic of the band, most notably in their music videos. In a documentary surrounding the release of “SATURATION,” Abstract details his fascination with cinematography and storylines and his desire to expand hip hop’s unique storytelling abilities into another medium.

Quite explicitly, Simpson’s lyrics explore his own identity, be it with coming to terms with his homosexuality on tracks like “JUNKY” as a member of BROCKHAMPTON and “Miserable America” as a solo artist. While an extroverted storyteller, Simpson holds his sexuality very close to his heart, submerging the listener in his own emotional experience. When listeners began asking him why he continuously rapped about his gay experience after the release of “SATURATION” and his recent solo album “American Boyfriend,” he came back on “SATURATION II”’s “JUNKY” and directly responded with “Why you always rap about bein’ gay? / Cause not enough n***as rap and be gay / Where I come from, n***as get called ‘faggot’ and killed.” Much like his LGBTQ hip hop contemporaries Frank Ocean, Syd and iLoveMakonnen, Abstract knows that his growing platform is an opportunity to speak out about the intersectional nature of his gay and black experiences.

Defining Line: “That n***a Kevin can’t rap, he too sappy with his shit / He don’t rep me with his shit, he on that teenage bullshit / And he ’bout 20 and shit? When he let go of that shit?” – GUMMY

 

Ameer Vann — “The Bad Boy”

As BROCKHAMPTON’s other founding member, Ameer Vann has one of the most distinctive voices and acts as the face of the SATURATION trilogy album covers so far. Of the bunch, Vann probably had the roughest path to fame, a fact he opens up about quite often in his verses. Before teaming up with Abstract to create BROCKHAMPTON, Vann admits he felt “lost.” He held various jobs to make ends meet, working in a slaughterhouse and collecting trash, all while running with a troublesome crowd. Fortunately, Vann eventually turned to Christianity and BROCKHAMPTON, climbing out of what he thought was an inescapable rut.

Vann’s confident, laid back flow deals with racism and run-ins with the law. Self-aware, Vann seems to rap as his past self on a lot of tracks, causing him to lead a pretty pessimistic view of the world. He trusts no one, frequently turning to vices to feign a brighter worldview. Like Abstract, Vann’s style and subject matter isn’t constrained to his BROCKHAMPTON work. Vann has quite a few popular solo singles to his name, like the elusively dark “High Tolerance.”

While Vann’s gritty realism acts as a foil to Abstract’s emotional idealism, both BROCKHAMPTON founders are rooted in the American implications of their own identities.

Defining Line: “I got my finger on the trigger, I’m a project baby / A free lunch felon, and I’m hungry every minute / Empty stomach, weed smoke can’t fill it” – “TEETH”

 

Through a Kanye West fan forum, Abstract and Vann assembled a team of diverse musicians with similar creative visions. After forming in obscurity in 2015, BROCKHAMPTON has controlled its own truth against the traditional music industry, subverting and redefining. They seize the title of boyband in the face of a pop music history of that term dominated by five-piece choreographed models singing glitzy tunes slickly manufactured in the studio and polished in focus groups. They release three albums in the span of six months without regard for drawn-out album cycles. They just create.

This is BROCKHAMPTON, 2017’s All-American Boyband.

“I’m going to say the name 1, 2, 3 times.
BROCKHAMPTON.
BROCKHAMPTON.
BROCKHAMPTON.”

 

 

Over the past few months, BROCKHAMPTON has developed into a self-made group to be reckoned with, developing a fanbase as raucous as Odd Future’s and as obsessed as One Direction’s. Though founders Ian Simpson (a.k.a. Kevin Abstract) and Ameer Vann control a fair amount of the group’s vision and image, much of BROCKHAMPTON’s musical and stylistic diversity comes from the rest of its main members. Let’s meet the rest of the boyband.

 

Matt Champion — “The Heartthrob”

On fourth track of the first SATURATION, Matt Champion wanted us to know that “low-key [he’s] a heartthrob and [he] ain’t drop an album yet.” Champion’s smooth, Drake-like flow touches the most on sex and relationships in the group. Rather than objectifying women as is common in some areas of hip hop and the entire music industry, Champion actually spends a few verses commenting on rape culture and toxic masculinity both in his life and hip hop, most prominently on “JUNKY.”

Defining Line: “I hate these shady folk that want a ladylike / But don’t treat lady right, but they be sayin’ like ‘just the tip’” — “JUNKY”

 

Merlyn Wood — “The Wild One”

Leaving architecture school to pursue his dreams with BROCKHAMPTON, the self-dubbed “ThatsSoMerlyn” brings the most energy to his verses, with a signature Ghanaian accent. Wood himself admits that he enjoys writing lyrics about his personal experience, even if it runs against he believes is hip hop’s convention to rap about “sell[ing] hella drugs and shoot[ing] people.” 

Wherever he’s included, his erratic flow can up the track’s hilarity and urgency. As a contrast to Matt Champion’s calm delivery, Merlyn Wood’s wild delivery doesn’t follow any single blueprint, making each of his verses unpredictable and each of his featured songs exciting.

Defining Line: “Don’t call me stupid / That ain’t the way my name pronounced.” — SWEET

 

Dom McLennon — “The Older Brother”

The oldest rapper of the bunch, Dom McLennon bolsters Ameer Vann’s aggression with some added cynical sarcasm. McLennon’s maturity and previous solo endeavors lend greatly to his technical proficiency, most notably in his verses on “SWAMP” and “HEAT.” McLennon is also quite vocal about mental health on and off his verses, a refreshing take in an industry and overall society that tends to overlook the grave consequences of mental illness.

Defining Line: “Talking ’bout release dates, I’m trying to make it to tomorrow / Internal honesty could be the hardest pill to swallow.” — HEAT

 

JOBA — “The Baby Brother”

Despite his baby face, JOBA has been in the music game for quite a few years. Before he broke with BROCKHAMPTON, he struggled as a musician, as detailed in his monster verse in “SWEET.” Usually, JOBA throws in vocal harmonies to Kevin Abstract’s hook, adding to the cohesive musical feel of the group. Though he doesn’t normally rap, he has adapted to a heightened vocal role in the group, mixing his Timberlake-esque vocal style with traditional rapping cadences. While JOBA has taken on an increasing amount of the group’s melodic performances, he also handles production, mixing and mastering on all of BROCKHAMPTON’s projects.

Defining Line: “One might say I was doomed from the get-go / But those same people assume, ’cause they’ll never know / What it’s like to be called to what’s not set in stone / I am one with the ebb and flow, that’s all I know” — SWEET

 

bearface. — “The Shy One”

Never rapping, bearface is a loner within this tight-knit group, writing and producing completely separate tracks that close out each album. Performing alone on record and onstage, bearface is able to channel the melancholic nostalgic crooning of a Blonde-era Frank Ocean. His two closing tracks “WASTE” and “SUMMER” are both reminiscent of Ocean’s “Godspeed” and “Self Control.”

Defining Line: “Was I more than it’s worth / Or will you see my name and I’ll fade?” — WASTE

Behind the Scenes: While BROCKHAMPTON is perhaps best known for its colorful cast of rappers, their distinctive sound and creative aesthetic — including their inventive music videos — would not be the same without the producers and creative directors associated with the group.

 

Romil Hemnani — Producer, DJ

Hemnani is behind a vast majority of the beats in BROCKHAMPTON’s and Kevin Abstract’s discography, including BROCKHAMPTON’s hit “GUMMY.” While the group is on tour, Hemnani acts as the group’s DJ.

 

Q3 [Jabari Manwarring & Kiko Merley] — Producers

Usually working together under the moniker Q3, Manwarring and Merley have collectively produced some of BROCKHAMPTON’s biggest hits, like “GOLD,” “STAR” and “SWEET.”

 

HK — Creative/Art Director

At the head of much of the visual art surrounding BROCKHAMPTON’s image, Henock “HK” Sileshi controls BROCKHAMPTON’s inseparable visual aesthetic. While he collaborates with Kevin Abstract on the general vision of the group’s visual identity, HK follows through by directing music videos and creating the graphic designs seen across BROCKHAMPTON’s website and album artwork.

 

With all the interlocking talents of BROCKHAMPTON, you can witness all members’ best work on display here.

BROCKHAMPTON plans on releasing “SATURATION III” before the year goes out and will begin their “Love Your Parents” tour mid-January. Catch them in San Francisco on March 3 at The Warfield.

 

Contact Dylan Grosz at dgrosz ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Exclusive: Four very real and serious takes on the new album ‘Reputation’ by music artist Taylor Swift https://stanforddaily.com/2017/11/10/exclusive-four-very-real-and-serious-takes-on-the-new-album-reputation-by-music-artist-taylor-swift/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/11/10/exclusive-four-very-real-and-serious-takes-on-the-new-album-reputation-by-music-artist-taylor-swift/#respond Fri, 10 Nov 2017 09:30:22 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1133136 Note: this piece is a satirical article. Taylor Swift’s “Reputation” is the most anticipated pop album of the year, and we at the Daily were so excited to review it that we didn’t even have time to listen to it. Instead, we used our advanced music reviewing algorithms to generate all possible reviews of “Reputation.” […]

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Exclusive: Four very real and serious takes on the new album 'Reputation' by music artist Taylor Swift
A recent image of American country music singer Taylor Swift, who makes music (EVA RINALDI/Flickr).

Note: this piece is a satirical article.

Taylor Swift’s “Reputation” is the most anticipated pop album of the year, and we at the Daily were so excited to review it that we didn’t even have time to listen to it. Instead, we used our advanced music reviewing algorithms to generate all possible reviews of “Reputation.” From all four corners of Taylor Swift’s fan-base (including her lovers and her haters), here are four distinct, unique and well-thought-out takes on Taylor Swift’s upcoming album “Reputation.”

Honestly, I am very excited for this new Taylor Swift album despite the fact that I do not listen to her all too often. I like music, though. Although this Taylor Swift album is very different from the other albums Taylor Swift has released before this album, this change is very brave, which makes this album very different; she has changed. This change is very unexpected, and as I have previously said about the album before this one, this change will, indeed, be very different and new. I am blindsided by Taylor Swift’s new direction, and I do not think I can handle it, but I trust my own music taste; I listen to Kendrick Lamar, who had a good verse on “Bad Blood,” which is a song by Taylor Swift. The new singles were weird, but different. I’ve been told that I’m a different guy myself, so I think I will give this new album a shot. Although I said this for the previous Taylor Swift album, I do not normally listen to Taylor Swift, but just this once, I am intrigued by Taylor Swift and her new album, and I will listen.

Honestly, as a longtime fan of Taylor Swift and official “Squad” member in my heart, I am very scared of this new Taylor Swift album. Although Taylor Swift is the same person, I am scared that she has changed. She used to be a country girl, with a guitar and a voice. But now, she has discovered new instruments and writers. Why has Taylor Swift changed when the version of her on the previous album was so good? I don’t like this new direction Taylor Swift is embarking upon. I am very offended she did not consider my input in this, for I am part of her squad. Although I said this for the previous Taylor Swift album, I am not sure I will like this album, and I fear that this will be the end of my tenure as a part of the “Squad.”

Honestly, Taylor Swift is slaying. Her lead single “Look What You Made Me Do” is absolutely savage. I like the new single, which is really good and deserves to be No. 1 on Billboard forever. I really liked the part of the song where she said “the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now” because it sounded like she was actually on the phone. Taylor Swift is finally addressing all her haters in a verse, slaying them in a chorus and then shaking them off in the end. I do not understand why people will not like this new Taylor Swift album. It is good. However, I cannot tell you about her most savage songs on this new album right now because I have not listened to the whole thing yet. Although I said this for the previous Taylor Swift album, the old Taylor Swift is dead, and I am sure that this new album will be her best and most savage yet; continue to slay, T-Swizz!

Honestly, I do not like Taylor Swift; she is a snake, who slithers. Taylor Swift used to be so genuine when she was a country girl on her first couple albums, so I am told. I will listen to her music soon. Fame has changed Taylor Swift, and I am appalled that a change to Taylor Swift’s life has changed Taylor Swift. I cannot believe that Taylor Swift has done this, released music that is. Taylor Swift is not a good artist and is just a puppet of major labels. What even are these new singles? My friends told me they sounded very different and had trap beats. I cannot believe Taylor Swift is using different drum sounds; these drum sounds are not her sounds. “…Ready For It” just sounds like Taylor Swift heard a random track a few years ago off of Kanye West’s “Yeezus” – “Yeezus” is an album that I am aware of the existence of – and put what she vaguely remembered about it into a pop song format. I am mad. Taylor Swift is just changing her sound because the genre this new album is emulating is what is popular right now, which is not the point of pop music. Why can’t she be more like other genuine pop acts, like Bruno Mars or Ed Sheeran? I like Bruno Mars and Ed Sheeran, but not Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift is not good. Although I said this for the previous Taylor Swift album, this album will be her most sellout album yet; I did not expect this, and I am very surprised and also disappointed (not to mention mad).

 

Contact Dylan Grosz at dgrosz ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Personal, not political apocalypse on Queens of the Stone Age’s ‘Villains’ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/10/05/personal-not-political-apocalypse-on-queens-of-the-stone-ages-villains/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/10/05/personal-not-political-apocalypse-on-queens-of-the-stone-ages-villains/#comments Fri, 06 Oct 2017 06:26:34 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1130691 Most relevant hard rock groups are acts of survival rather than revival. Other than a few groups like UK’s Royal Blood, most currently relevant hard rock acts were born out of 90s scenes like grunge or the sludgy drone of the Palm Desert Scene. Queens of the Stone Age (QOTSA) are no exception to this […]

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Personal, not political apocalypse on Queens of the Stone Age's 'Villains'
Queens of the Stone Age perform at the Fuji Rock Festival 2017 (TAKAHIRO KYONO/Flickr).

Most relevant hard rock groups are acts of survival rather than revival. Other than a few groups like UK’s Royal Blood, most currently relevant hard rock acts were born out of 90s scenes like grunge or the sludgy drone of the Palm Desert Scene. Queens of the Stone Age (QOTSA) are no exception to this trend — the group began in 1996 and have spectacularly maintained mainstream relevance through a 20-year career, 15 of those years after propelling themselves into rock’s spotlight after their 2002 opus “Songs for the Deaf.” Part of QOTSA’s continued success stems from their ability to constantly reinvent their sound without ever conforming their rock to pop fads à la Maroon 5.

Much of the group’s motive to constantly change stems from QOTSA’s artistic desire to explore new sounds outside of their genre yet within their perceived canon. Yet it’s impossible to ignore the added incentive to evolve their sound to stave off the slow fade of repetitive obscurity that so many other rock acts have fallen into (see: the increasingly tedious dad rock of the Foo Fighters’ past four albums).

After seeing the slow demise of rock in part due to a genre-wide stagnation, QOTSA symbolically released “Villains” in the year that saw hip hop finally overtake rock as music’s most popular genre. To maintain relevancy and continue their rock revolution, QOTSA entered the “Villains”-era knowing that they had to respectfully reject their maximalist and dreary “…Like Clockwork,” despite that album’s critical acclaim.

“Villains” trades maximalism for minimalism, or at least as much minimalism a five-piece can muster. At its core, “Villains” sees frontman Josh Homme, Troy Van Leeuwen and Dean Fertina etch the entirety of record in treble and flat guitar tones. Rather than tantalizing the listener with a diversity of guitar tones, QOTSA coerce their listeners to their abrasive sound through a greater focus on diversity of riffs and instrumental interaction, from the funk-laced “Feet Don’t Fail Me” to the guitar-bass battle of melodies mid-way through “The Evil Has Landed.” The post-punk and krautrock-inspired “Head Like a Haunted House” poses as a prime example of the merits of pitting the band against itself: Guitar, bass and vocal melodies violently fight for the listener’s attention.

Since QOTSA put so much effort in maintaining this relatively minimalistic aesthetic, “Villains” unfortunately fails when it indulges itself, as seen in the final track “Villains of Circumstance.” While the verse maintains the Halloween-in-September vibe seen in “Un-Reborn Again” and the start of “Feet Don’t Fail Me,” the band then launches into an uncharacteristically sentimental and grand chorus. While “Fortress” and “Hideaway” teased this level of tenderness, “Villains of Circumstance” comes off as too saccharine for “Villains”, belonging more on “…Like Clockwork,” if anywhere in their discography, despite acting as “Villains”’ pseudo-title track. Fortunately, a (literal) last-minute jam returns the record to form and closes “Villains” out without a significant loss of sonic identity.

“Villains” is the first QOTSA album to see Homme out of any production role in the liner notes; instead, Homme ceded most production duties to DJ and pop producer Mark Ronson, most notable for his work with Amy Winehouse and the omnipresent “Uptown Funk.” Though Ronson steered the record’s sound away from the fuller sound of previous Queens’ albums, Homme still retains notable influence in the production, as seen through the record’s similarities to Homme’s previous production role in Iggy Pop’s “Post Pop Depression.”  The stomping bass tone of “Domesticated Animals” plays like a further realized version of Pop’s “American Valhalla.”

Coming off the massive success of his funky “Uptown Special” record, Ronson was employed to give the album a poppy and danceable edge, a counter to Homme’s tendencies towards desert dreariness and lyrical malaise. As the two intended, their battle ends in a draw by the record’s end. For what will surely be a live staple for the rest of the band’s career, “Feet Don’t Fail Me” is a fearless testament to the Ronson-Homme duality: Homme starts the listener in a cave of eerie black noise that nervously creaks open a side door to a hellish synth-driven Gregorian chant, growing in urgency. After the chants crescendo into an all-out shout, “Feet Don’t Fail Me” unexpectedly transitions into Queens at their funkiest as Ronson takes the wheel and steers the song in a direction that turns and bobs heads. Rather than compartmentalizing Homme and Ronson’s dueling styles, lead single “The Way You Used To Do” features QOTSA’s signature desert rock riff seamlessly meshed with a signature Ronson syncopated bass drum pattern reminiscent of Ronson’s minimalist drumbeat on “Valerie” with Amy Winehouse.

Overall, Ronson and Homme get along well on the record, smoothly trading the second fiddle across all nine tracks. While Homme’s songwriting is about as solid and inventive as listeners heard on “…Like Clockwork,” the record can fall short due to its relatively narrow soundscape, which could be generally assumed as Ronson’s choice (as seen in his previous rock production work with Black Lips’ “Arabia Mountain.” Without a doubt, this flat sound accents the minimalism of “Villains” and gives it a distinguishable identity. However, more times than not, it can leave listeners wondering what could become if the songs were opened up past their narrow alleyway, giving Homme’s expansive songwriting room to breathe.

In Homme’s classic style, “Villains” is rife with self-contained, thoughtful quips and comments on personal demons and relationships. For the record as a whole, Homme is able to balance head-banging vocal riffs (“Feet Don’t Fail Me”) with sentimental analogies (“Fortress”).

By the time the nine tracks have expired, QOTSA have made a compelling counterpoint to an ever-growing demand for politically conscious music that has only accelerated after the events of 2016. Despite Homme’s seething anger towards the current political climate and administration, he vowed to continue QOTSA’s relatively apolitical lyrical stance, dubbing “Villains” an “escape” from politics akin to an “arcade.” Steering away from politics isn’t too much of a stretch for a commercially successful hard rock band — hard rock as a genre usually bends in an apolitical direction.

Yet despite Homme’s promise of escapism, “Villains” sounds apocalyptic. To many listeners, this doomy aesthetic may be hard to disassociate from society-at-large. While one can easily chalk the record’s sound to QOTSA’s anxiety with America’s current social and political climate, the record’s sonic palette, like its lyrics, is very likely still centered around Homme’s own personal issues, an extension of themes in QOTSA’s previous record. At Homme’s insistence, “Villains” is “about now,” personally not politically. Be it a cop-out or a genuine artistic choice, you have no choice but to take Homme on his word and on his groove.

Essential Tracks: “Feet Don’t Fail Me,” “Domesticated Animals,” “Head Like a Haunted House,” “Un-Reborn Again” and “The Evil Has Landed”

Mediocre Tracks: “Hideaway”

 

Contact Dylan Grosz at dgrosz ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Reflections on funk and punk https://stanforddaily.com/2017/06/08/reflections-on-funk-and-punk/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/06/08/reflections-on-funk-and-punk/#respond Fri, 09 Jun 2017 05:13:56 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1129145 Emblazoned across the wall adjacent to the stage were trippy colors flowing back and forth between audience and performer. On the docket for the night were California-based funk bands Atta Kid and Thumpasaurus, hosted by Stanford’s own Jazz Consortium in the living room of 576 Alvarado. With an hour each, both bands took similar musical avenues […]

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Emblazoned across the wall adjacent to the stage were trippy colors flowing back and forth between audience and performer. On the docket for the night were California-based funk bands Atta Kid and Thumpasaurus, hosted by Stanford’s own Jazz Consortium in the living room of 576 Alvarado. With an hour each, both bands took similar musical avenues to communicate their passion for the groove, yet each group utilized the audience and the venue’s surroundings in vastly different ways. In terms of sound, while Atta Kid more directly emulated James Brown and Motown-style funk, Thumpasaurus, for better or for worse, injected their own firebrand irreverence into funk’s emphasis on anticipation, percussivity and rhythmic complexity.

Many attendees, brought together by the Stanford Jazz Consortium mailing list, were well-versed in the genres of funk and jazz, and most came in knowing what to listen for. With regards to rhythmic anticipation, funk deals quite a bit in syncopation, tantalizing and challenging the listener’s ear, which expects a simple 4/4 “kick-snare-kick-snare” beat, common in rock and pop. As listeners’ bodies lurch back on the kick drum, many expect a snare to pick them back up a beat later. However, funk’s syncopated drumming style screw with this expectation, confusing the mind with snare hits that “feel” too late or early, — yet all the while it maintains contagious danceability.

However, the most recognizable trait of funk is the increased percussivity of every single instrument, layering new rhythms to fully saturate and enliven the song’s overall groove. Built around the drum’s swingy backbeat, each member of the band uses instruments usually meant to carry melodies or harmonies as a sort of pitched percussion instrument. Bass guitars utilize slaps and pops, which in different ways slam the bass’ strings against the fretboard, creating a percussive, almost snare-like, sound. Guitarists scratch their pick across muted strings and strike chords sharply, never letting a note ring for more than half of a second. Horns, especially the baritone and alto saxophones, add blaring emphasis at the end of a measure and help launch the band into the next one. All the while, the bass and keyboard members display rhythmic and harmonic flourishes to add an even deeper layer of groove.

With these traits in mind, the crowd welcomed the first to take the stage, Atta Kid, a relatively older band from the Bay Area. After a quick greeting to the crowd, the lights panned over to the six-piece, and they began their set. At the sound of keyboards first chord, each instrument, save for the horns, started to contribute equally to the dynamics of the songs, each sharing an equal portion of the groove.

On all their songs, Atta Kid started off with a riff;  some had a repeating melody, and all employed a  looping, syncopated rhythm. Atta Kid centered their sound around one of the centerpieces of funk: the groove. In other words, Atta Kid’s rhythm section – drums, bass, guitar, and keyboard – sought to create and maintain a driving rhythm, the drums offering a messy backbeat while the other rhythm instruments offered their own pitched staccato hits. These grooves almost always exhibited some form of swing, and their idiosyncratic rhythmic styles urged the crowd to tap their feet and nod along.

Towards the end of the show, Atta Kid began toying with the audience. They injected playful pauses into the final songs of their set, bringing the audience to a point of near discomfort before the drummer struck his snare and they resumed right where they left off. The group put the crowd through many bouts of mild musical anxiety and relief, and after one final swell of noise, they thanked the crowd and left.

In the intermission, tracks by the popular funk band Vulfpeck played over the speakers to keep the audience moving. As some in the front row tried to maintain the leftover energy from Atta Kid’s set by crazily dancing, five shadowy figures, all seemingly college-aged, carried equipment toward the stage. Eventually, the audience started to realize that they were the next band, Thumpasaurus, and subsequently cheered in recognition. After taking their time to set up, the guitarist/vocalist screamed into the microphone, “Are you ready, motherfuckers!” This show was going to be different.

As they launched into the track “Dance Like It’s Your Life,” Thumpasaurus immediately applied a Parliament-Funkadelic-esque groove, employing a relatively simplistic and heavily electronic rhythm that permeated throughout most of the song. Both bands featured funk’s generic instrumental setup: horns, guitar, bass, drums, keys and sometimes vocals.  But in contrast to his counterpart from Atta Kid, the bassist from Thumpasaurus flowed back and forth between rhythm and lead, sometimes taking center stage to perform a bass solo.

As the band continued, the groove was noticeably less mathematical and complex than Atta Kid’s James Brown-esque stylings, yet it was arguably more danceable and hard-hitting. The sheer weight of the electronic keyboard and baritone sax produced an irresistible groove. The drums ditched messy backbeats for simplicity. Although basic, the beat centered around a swingy kick – open hihat – snare – open hihat pattern, almost forcing the bodies in the crowd to bounce, slumping on the kick and the snare and perking up at the sound of an open hi-hat. As the song continued into its chorus, all the members would shout “Dance like it’s your life!” at the end of each measure and in the first beat of the measure that followed. However, halfway through the chorus, the drums switched into a syncopated rhythm. At the end of each measure, all the members would shout “Dance like it’s your…” and while the crowd expected “life” to immediately follow in the next beat, the drum waited a half-beat and resumed on the first upbeat, backed up by a powerful keyboard flourish, almost toying with the audience’s anticipation of where the song was headed.

A louder and more interactive stage presence than the part-time singer from Atta Kid, the lead singer/rhythm guitarist from Thumpasaurus riled the crowd up again with another playful insult as the projection on the wall left of the audience sparked up to show a live feed of the performance through trippy filters of the band performing. The next song “You Are So Pretty” proved the most jarring departure from standard funk. Beginning with the keyboards repeating a three-note riff in a synth tone resembling an overdriven electric guitar, “You Are So Pretty” nearly took on a rock quality, with a combination of straight drums, electric guitar, synth and bass. But as the song launched into its verse, the vocalist approached the microphone, and for the first time sang solo — or, rather, chirped. While jarring at first, the lead singer’s staccato falsetto eventually melted into the groove of the song.

Whether it was a conscious musical choice or one brought on by the youth of the band, the Thumpasaurus’s performance style exhibited a sort of postmodern irony and a certain level of punk attitude. Towards the end of the set, the singer lost his voice, and notified the audience through song. Most singers would have attempted to hide this blemish any way they could, but he utilized his ailing voice to add strain to his scatting. At the center of the groove, the drummer, face hidden behind shaded Lennon glasses and shoulder-length hair, paused at the end of a measure, grinding the entire group to a halt. As he stood up and raised his drumstick to the air, the drummer turned his face to the audience and lightly mocked them with a grin, waiting for the crowd’s cheers begging him to resume to reach a crescendo.

Despite their similarities, each band made vastly different uses of the space and created an environment that catered to their own interpretations of funk and the groove. While Atta Kid was more reserved and respectful of the audience, generally sticking to their roots in James Brown style old-school funk, Thumpasaurus stomped on stage with an idiosyncratic Parliament-Funkadelic vibe, jokingly insulting the audience and adding a refreshing punk energy to the mix. As audience members poured out of the house, many argued over whose show was best. The diverse performances produced a divide among the concert-goers between those who valued the tradition of “old school” funk and those who saw a future in this new brand of punk funk.

As a proxy battle for the future of funk, the friendly sonic clash between Atta Kid and Thumpasaurus served as a reminder of the genre’s ever-changing sound. Where Atta Kid relied on nostalgia and respect for the classic roots of old school funk, Thumpasaurus sought to partially subvert this formality and add a punk attitude. Only time will tell if one of them will go extinct.

 

Contact Dylan Grosz at dgrosz ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Father John Misty gets it half-right on ‘Pure Comedy’ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/04/26/father-john-misty-pure-comedy/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/04/26/father-john-misty-pure-comedy/#respond Wed, 26 Apr 2017 20:37:54 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1126458 Under the moniker “Father John Misty,” Josh Tillman has spent his last two records sarcastically musing about himself. Tillman’s experiences and relationships hold the central focus of 2012’s “Fear Fun” and 2015’s acclaimed “I Love You, Honeybear.” On these records, he exhibited a calculated abuse of simplistic and fun lyrics about his experiences, weaving nuanced […]

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Father John Misty gets it half-right on 'Pure Comedy'
(Side Stage Collective, Flickr)

Under the moniker “Father John Misty,” Josh Tillman has spent his last two records sarcastically musing about himself. Tillman’s experiences and relationships hold the central focus of 2012’s “Fear Fun” and 2015’s acclaimed “I Love You, Honeybear.” On these records, he exhibited a calculated abuse of simplistic and fun lyrics about his experiences, weaving nuanced and often cynical critiques of love and Hollywood excess into his songs.

In “Pure Comedy,” his newest full-length release, Tillman instrumentally and thematically expands the focus of his lyrics. He roots himself less in personal experience and more in the role of abstract cultural commentator. He acts as a fly on the wall, critiquing society, so disillusioned that he has removed himself from its tapestry.

The album begins with a flawless four-song run. In the near-perfect opener “Pure Comedy,” Tillman very clearly broadcasts his feelings about man, attacking religion and “their sacred texts/Written by woman-hating epileptics.”

Father John Misty’s views themselves make sense, and they don’t pose much of a break from his pretentious, cynical character. However, rather than message through personal storytelling like on his previous efforts, Tillman begins with an impersonal lecture on the beginnings of humanity, setting a tone of blunt directness for most of the record.

To soften the blow of this major change in character, Father John Misty returns to his ironic “I Love You, Honeybear” form with the energetic “Total Entertainment Forever.” Father John Misty thinly veils his pessimism about humanity’s growing superficiality by exclaiming “can you believe how far we’ve come/In the New Age?”

As an alternative, in “Things It Would Have Been Helpful to Know Before the Revolution,” Tillman proposes a world where the system is overthrown, preventing the dystopia of “Total Entertainment Forever.” However, Father John Misty, rarely one to be pleased, actually misses the easygoing lifestyle of the past, since in this post-revolutionary world, he must now truly live and grapple with raw humanity.

Again, Father John Misty returns to the drawbacks of human advancement in the falsetto-ridden “Ballad of the Dying Man.” Here, Tillman details the final moments of a slacktivist in the golden age of information. As the dying man reaches his final moments, he fervently refreshes his phone, trying to get the final breaking news updates of society as a whole. By portraying a man who chooses to check society’s pulse instead of his own, Father John Misty implies an overarching fear of news and social media: He dreads the loss of a sense of self in the face of the Internet’s growing hive mind.

By “Birdie,” the record slows down in what can be chalked up to a purposeful break, but as the listener reaches “Leaving LA”’s dreary 13-minute meditation, “Pure Comedy” begins to turn on itself both in theme and in quality. Although Tillman justifies the song’s spareness by insisting that “I never learned to play the lead guitar/I always more preferred the speaking parts,” the byzantine backing instrumentation previously taken for granted is sorely missed, traded for a lulling guitar and string section.

Understandably, “Leaving LA”’s minimalist long form lets the listener focus on Tillman’s grand tale of self-criticism, but its lack of melodic variety in any one instrument or voice recoils the punch of the opening tracks and signals the beginning of a relatively lackluster second half. Save for the moving “When the God Of Love Returns, There’ll Be Hell To Pay” and “The Memo”’s country twang and odd songwriting, the second half of “Pure Comedy” feels slightly vapid, somehow redundant despite tackling new concepts and telling different stories.  

In the final six of an exhausting 74 minutes, Father John Misty finishes with a spare, foreboding end, declaring that, “in 20 years/More or less/This human experiment will reach its violent end.” Tillman doesn’t necessarily back down on his prediction, but in a rare feat of hope and optimism, he ensures us that he – and presumably we – will be fine, as he eyes his lover and realizes humanity’s redeeming qualities. There’s nothing to fear.

Despite the outward lyrical content, Father John Misty’s third effort is still as much of a character study as its predecessors, retaining the ever-present self-reflective and critical nature of his previous efforts. We see, however, a partial demise of his sarcastic positivity, the void replaced with a genuine pessimism for the deteriorating superficial world around him.

Though the main focus of his records are overarching intangible concepts, Father John Misty’s unique lyric style and inescapable sarcasm make it nearly impossible for the listener to divorce Tillman’s character from the literal subjects of his songs. Though the middle of the record divulges a bit of the artist, there is a severe lack of narrative and “I”s, with even fewer “I”s that directly refer Tillman himself.

Self-reference operates more as a corrective rather than a focal point. At many points, Father John Misty undermines himself so as not to seem overtly preachy and objective, calling himself “Another white guy in 2017/Who takes himself so goddamn seriously.”

However, the strength of Tillman’s previous albums, especially “I Love You, Honeybear,” stemmed from the personal stake held in each of them. In “Pure Comedy,” the incessant dictation of humanity’s hypocrisies and shortcomings can make the record play like a list of grievances, angsty Spotify clickbait. This album’s theme of uncertainty and conflicting views on the human condition is undeniably powerful, yet at some points the record crumbles under the pure density and gravity of its message.

In especially divisive times, such a conscious album from such an acclaimed artist would surely be important to our cultural lexicon, reflecting what humanity has come to and where it will go. Quite handily, this record succeeds in achieving a “this is an important album” status, featuring some of 2017’s most poignant lyrics and sentimental production. It just fails when Father John Misty knows it.

 

Essential tracks: “Pure Comedy,” “Total Entertainment Forever,” “Things It Would Have Been Helpful to Know Before the Revolution,” “Ballad of the Dying Man,” “When The God Of Love Returns There’ll Be Hell To Pay,” “The Memo”
Weak tracks: “Leaving LA,” “Smoochie”

 

Contact Dylan Grosz at dgrosz ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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The Red Hot Chili Peppers bring the hype to Oracle https://stanforddaily.com/2017/04/11/red-hot-chili-peppers-oracle/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/04/11/red-hot-chili-peppers-oracle/#respond Tue, 11 Apr 2017 21:59:00 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1125681 After funk-rocking for nearly 35 years, the Red Hot Chili Peppers have certainly accumulated a diverse fanbase. Last month, parents and children, fans alike, flooded into Oakland’s Oracle Arena, most donning red-asterisk T-shirts from performances past. Whether they were carrying a drink already or patiently waiting to overpay for one, the older fans started to bubble with […]

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The Red Hot Chili Peppers bring the hype to Oracle
Flea and Chad Smith performing with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. (Ben Houdijk, Flickr)

After funk-rocking for nearly 35 years, the Red Hot Chili Peppers have certainly accumulated a diverse fanbase. Last month, parents and children, fans alike, flooded into Oakland’s Oracle Arena, most donning red-asterisk T-shirts from performances past. Whether they were carrying a drink already or patiently waiting to overpay for one, the older fans started to bubble with anticipation, talking up the Red Hot Chili Peppers live exuberance to the uninitiated masses.

As show time neared, expectant eyes turned to the stage, and a hooded figure approached. Who is this menacing figure? Oh, it’s Flea. Grabbing the microphone, the renowned bassist enthusiastically introduced the night’s first opener, Jack Irons, who was the Chili Peppers’ founding drummer in 1983. While he was replaced for the band’s first two studio efforts, he returned to help record 1987’s “The Uplift Mofo Party Plan.” However, on account of the unexpected death of guitarist Hillel Slovak, he left and was soon replaced by current drummer Chad Smith, right before the band’s breakout record “Mother’s Milk” launched the group into a nearly 30-year mainstream career.

Despite Irons’ role as the Chili Peppers’ Pete Best, not many seemed to know what to really think of him, and given Flea’s vague introduction, only well-versed fans knew his RHCP past. As he took the stage, the lights revealed a drum set and a laptop. Rather than mimic the iconic Red Hot Chili Pepper sound he helped create, Irons played with sonic and visual psychedelics, with the large screen behind him overlaid with trippy, kaleidoscope color effects and old scenes from cinema’s Golden Age.

Although much of the performance was based on the anachronistic combination of ‘30s films and ‘60s visuals, Irons managed to sound fresh and modern while still playing off the old-fashioned graphics. The combination of his drumming and his pre-made instrumental phrases created a sound that ranged from chill steel drumming to industrial electrorock, reaching electronic levels nearing dubstep at some points. After starkly ending his set and offering some authentic gratitude to the crowd, he quietly stepped aside.

Soon after, Trombone Shorty and his band, Orleans Avenue, took the stage in a whirlwind of jazz and hard rock. Where Irons hid behind his drum set and laptop, Trombone Shorty immediately engaged the crowd and brought them to their feet. Playing through a diverse set list that included completely reworked versions of Green Day and Rage Against the Machine tracks, Trombone Shorty delivered an energized performance to the point of literal exhaustion, at one point holding a trumpet riff for nearly two minutes in one breath. Shorty and company gave it their all to create a sound heavily focused on exploiting the most primal aspects of jazz and metal, an apt opener to electrify the crowd before the Chili Peppers took the stage.

After several minutes of today’s hits played over the PA system between acts, the audio and lights abruptly cut out and the audience began to cheer in anticipation. A nearly shirtless figure approached the stage. Who is this menacing figure – oh, it’s Flea again. Joined onstage by the fully clothed drummer Chad Smith and guitarist Josh Klinghoffer, Flea initiated a smooth psychedelic intro jam, feeding off the psychedelic energy Jack Irons previously fostered in his set. Setting a pattern for the rest of the night, the band seamlessly transitioned the jam session into their first song of the evening.

Singer Anthony Kiedis, also fully clothed, joined the rest of the band to play the “Californication” 1999 hit “Around The World.” As the band launched into the song’s familiar chorus, the lifeless lights that had loomed over and perplexed the audience illuminated for the first two sets and began to move – yes, really move.

The swarm of lights moved as one and accentuated the performance. At many points, the lights extended the images displayed on the main screen, fully taking advantage of their unique motor ability to create a truly mesmerizing wavy effect. Although distracting at first, the movement of these lights helped add a unique, albeit slightly gimmicky, dimension of audience engagement.

The rest of the performance went off without many hitches. Each song was hilariously punctuated and introduced by intra-band banter, very often including an ever-unhinged Flea. The home state show likely meant a lot to the band, as California worms its way into much of their lyrics and even the title of their 1999 hit record “Californication.” While the Chili Peppers performed the strongest cuts off of their most recent album, “The Getaway,” released last year, they kept their relatively unknown new material at a minimum, purposefully leaving out songs from their lackluster 2011 effort “I’m With You.” The Chili Peppers came to entertain longtime fans rather than promote new material, opting to perform nearly two-thirds of their set list from their more well-known, 20th-century material.

As Kiedis finally indulged the audience’s shirtless expectations and took off his tee for the expected encore, one couldn’t help but reflect on the authenticity of the band’s control of the show’s energy. At some points it felt a bit too calculated and stilted, be it through seemingly rehearsed “impromptu quirky band banter“ or the almost pander-y shoutouts to “Oakland!” Either way, while I will never forgive Oracle Arena security guards for not letting people dance during “Give It Away,” Red Hot Chili Peppers without a doubt established themselves, at an average age of about 50, as one of the most consistently exciting, wild live acts in rock music today. 

 

Contact Dylan Grosz at dgrosz ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Thundercat’s ‘Drunk’ offers a sobering message on escapism https://stanforddaily.com/2017/03/14/thundercat-drunk/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/03/14/thundercat-drunk/#respond Wed, 15 Mar 2017 06:14:24 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1124745 Coming off the acclaim of his work on Kendrick Lamar’s “untitled unmastered” and his own “The Beyond / Where the Giants Roam” mini-LP, bass virtuoso Stephen Bruner, better known as Thundercat, turns to a clear lyrical message on “Drunk,” his first full studio album in four years. Clocking in at about 51 minutes and 23 […]

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Thundercat’s 'Drunk' offers a sobering message on escapism
(Justin de Nooijer, Flickr)

Coming off the acclaim of his work on Kendrick Lamar’s “untitled unmastered” and his own “The Beyond / Where the Giants Roam” mini-LP, bass virtuoso Stephen Bruner, better known as Thundercat, turns to a clear lyrical message on “Drunk,” his first full studio album in four years. Clocking in at about 51 minutes and 23 songs, the record makes frequent use of instrumental interludes and brief tracks that explore bass riffs and offer morsels of the record’s greater theme.

While I don’t normally obsess over mathematics when it comes to music, the brevity of the songs on “Drunk” is unusual, with a majority listed under two and a half minutes. Thundercat had a lot to lose with this choice: Very short song lengths can hurt an artist by creating a complacency that allows for unformed lyrical themes, half-hearted instrumentation and ineffective segues in tone.

But while “Drunk” sometimes suffers from these issues, Thundercat is (mostly) able to stay on message. As implied by the record’s name, the theme of drunkenness is threaded throughout the track list. While he sometimes explicitly references alcohol as his ticket to insobriety, listening to the album makes clear that “Drunk” is not simply a reference to frequent drinking. Rather, the “drunkenness” portrayed on the album generalizes the word’s meaning even beyond its association with alcohol.

According to Thundercat, to be “Drunk” is to find escape and avoid coping with the harsh realities of everyday life. Despite the short track’s tendency to scatter an album’s concept, “Drunk” clearly delivers its message and transforms the short format into an asset. At many points, Thundercat seems to play with the idea of short songs as a mirror of his and his company’s darting minds as they consider the different facets of life that warrant getting drunk – that warrant escape.

“Rabbit Ho,” the opening track, invites the listener to descend into the drunken rabbit hole. “Captain Stupido” features Thundercat’s trademark humor as he describes his routine of escapism, a constant cycle of sleeping, partying and … masturbating. After a strong showcase of Thundercat and producer Flying Lotus’s instrumental capability in “Uh Uh,” the glittery “Bus in These Streets” offers a brief narrative that has Thundercat touting the interconnectedness of technology until he loses it when he realizes the merit of disconnecting and dealing with the world as is. “A Fan’s Mail (Tron Song Suite II)” strongly considers how much better life would be as a cat, acting as a sequel to “Tron Song,” the ode Bruner wrote for his cat on his last album. This seemingly tangential idea still illustrates Thundercat’s growing animus towards reality, as he hopes he can turn into a carefree cat to rid himself of the hardships of sentience.

Helming the album’s positivity is the star-studded lead single “Show You The Way.” Featuring ‘80s yacht rock stars Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald, this track functions as a welcome light at the end of a long stretch of somber songs. With each artist contributing a verse, all three are able to assure the listener that “on the edge of dark, there’s the brightest light,” showing some positive wisdom in the face of the general feeling of despair that fuels Thundercat’s need to get “Drunk.”

Songs like the short tracks “Lava Lamp,” “Jethro” and “Blackkk” help bring the listener back to the main focus on life’s harsh realities. Most effective at delivering this message, however, is “Walk On By,” featuring Kendrick Lamar. This track retains much of the highly acclaimed jazz sound Thundercat contributed to Lamar’s two previous studio efforts, leaving Lamar’s strong verse sounding like a wrongfully excluded “untitled unmastered” B-side (which I guess would make it a “To Pimp a Butterfly” C-side).

Of the few songs that deviate a bit from the main theme of “drunkenness,” “Friend Zone” and “Tokyo” easily stand out as the strongest tracks, containing levity in their instrumentation and lyricism. “Friend Zone,” despite producer Mono/Poly’s serious, hard-hitting instrumental backdrop, provides a pretty humorous story of Thundercat telling a girl that if he’s stuck in the friend zone, he’ll have to pass so he can play video games. “Tokyo” features some of Bruner’s most hilarious lyrics, in which he details his love for anime, a topic that actually helped him bond with Flying Lotus, his main collaborator and producer, when they first met.

Then we see Thundercat deal with issues of loneliness and violence, further expanding on issues of race in the almost sarcastically positive-sounding “Jameel’s Space Ride” and “The Turn Down,” which is very reminiscent of the jarringly happy closing track to alternative hip-hop group clipping.’s recent “Splendor & Misery.” In almost all these cases, Bruner never actually wants to deal with these issues head-on. Instead, he yearns to escape to space (later on, “Drink Dat” refers to spacing out and getting wasted).

In the record’s final third, we see a shift in Thundercat’s perception. Previously released on his previous mini-LP, “Them Changes” proves essential to the album, marking the moment he experiences a massive shock of heartbreak and anguish. As he goes through denial, he is unsure how to feel, and by the end of the song, he’s absolutely hopeless. As the album enters “Inferno,” we hear Thundercat fall in almost every sense. Flying Lotus’s thumping bass drums and teetering strings generate a dramatic falling sound surrounded by an air of confusion. Thundercat’s voice clears the air to inform the listener that they’re descending “into the fire.” As the song veers off and fades away, we learn through Bruner’s repetition that the fire represents madness, confirmed in the following track, the all-too-short “I Am Crazy.”

In the engaging yet off-putting titular track, Thundercat finally sobers up and realizes that he has just been trying to escape from reality all this time. He makes a promise to himself, insisting that it is better to live than to be “dead alive.” Throughout “Drunk,” Bruner ponders whether it’s easier for him to live in a world full of inevitable hardships or to leave the world entirely, lost in his own mind. This choice is central to the concept of escapism, with Thundercat citing constant overwhelming existential dread as a reason to get drunk.

Thundercat fears this line of reasoning has affected too many of us, and on the final track of the album hopes that we all get a “DUI,” sober up and live in reality. However, in a twist foreshadowed by its reprisal of “Rabbit Ho,” he can’t help but look at the bottle the same way he did in the beginning, tempted to escape in a gulp. In this humbling turn of events, Thundercat realizes he too is burdened with the choice of continuing to be “dead alive,” and as the album crescendos and drones with a heightened sense of urgency, he passes that choice onto you.

 

Essential tracks:

“Uh Uh,” “A Fan’s Mail (Tron Song Suite II),” “Show You the Way,” “Walk On By,” “Tokyo,” “Friend Zone,” “Them Changes,” “Drunk.”

 

Contact Dylan Grosz at dgrosz ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Interview: Moon Hooch Makes “Energy Music” https://stanforddaily.com/2017/02/16/nterview-moon-hooch/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/02/16/nterview-moon-hooch/#respond Thu, 16 Feb 2017 10:18:09 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1123081 In the wake of Moon Hooch’s new EP “The Joshua Tree,” I chatted with founding member Mike Wilbur about his Brooklyn-based trio. From their roots busking in the subways of New York, they have since translated their urban performance efforts into three studio albums and, now, an EP. Wilbur and his bandmates James Muschler and […]

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Interview: Moon Hooch Makes “Energy Music”
Moon Hooch performing in 2015. (Brett Hartman/TED)

In the wake of Moon Hooch’s new EP “The Joshua Tree,” I chatted with founding member Mike Wilbur about his Brooklyn-based trio. From their roots busking in the subways of New York, they have since translated their urban performance efforts into three studio albums and, now, an EP.

Wilbur and his bandmates James Muschler and Wenzl McGowen met in The School of Jazz at The New School in New York. A stroke of fate placed them on the same floor, and from there they started busking, building chemistry and making money. After recording and mixing their self-titled debut in just 24 hours, Moon Hooch leaped from spontaneous street performance to planned gigs.

TSD: What’s the biggest difference between playing in a subway for random people and playing for people who came to see you in a show?

MH: Very different energy when people are not expecting to hear or even want to hear you blow your saxophone as loud as you possibly can. You know, it’s … a very different dynamic. Sometimes in the subway we pissed a lot of people off. We made a lot of people happy, too. But usually in shows everybody’s there: They want to hear it. They bought tickets. They know what they’re in for, or, at least they know what they’re getting in to. I’d say that’s the main difference. There are no cops coming up on stage harassing us. There are no homeless people hanging out with us, which is kind of a bummer. Homeless people in the subways are pretty chill, actually, for the most part. It’s a different scenario, man. Playing in the subway is a pretty weird reality. There’s constantly changing people in and out. The audience is changing all day long — the variety of reactions changes all day long. You can also really tap into what people like, what people want to hear, more like what the most people want to hear … not that we’ve necessarily figured that out, but we figured out what some people like.

Moon Hooch put their street performance to tape on their first record, even naming songs based off of the hand signals they would give each other before playing each song “so we didn’t have to stop because [we] were trying to have a dance party, play like a DJ would.” As they began to mature as artists and push past just playing tenor sax, baritone sax and drums, they started to experiment with different instruments and genres with varying degrees of success.

Moon Hooch is tough to define, even for its members. The scaffolding of their sound is jazz, evidenced by the members’ shared jazz school alma mater. Terms have flown around to try to encapsulate their unique sound. Their basis in jazz usually has critics filing them into the wide umbrella genre of nu jazz, which can range from Flying Lotus to Dave Douglas to King Krule. To try to pinpoint their sound for the critics, Moon Hooch members themselves insisted after their first album that they played “cave music,” that their sound and what it invoked within its listeners was something undeniably primal, like cave paintings that are simple in concept yet complex in execution.

The latter is definitely more accurate than nu jazz, but I was still not satisfied. To implore artists to define their sound is a clichéd, almost silly, convention of music criticism, akin to yelling at a Van Gogh demanding it tell you what brand of Impressionism it is. But Moon Hooch is different. They create a curious sound accompanied by instruments and songwriting techniques of different musical styles. With one of the sound’s creators before me, I asked Wilbur for an updated take on his own band’s work.

MH: I don’t really know how I’d describe it other than energy music. We’re just putting energy and almost invoking something deeper. At least that’s what we’re going for.

Moon Hooch is not a consequence of their sound but rather their intention. Whenever performing, be it at a festival or at an NPR Tiny Desk concert, they’re just putting out energy. What comes out is a medley of genres, a consequence of spending years spontaneously performing for strangers, subtly molding their sound to bring a smile and an urge to dance to subway-goers’ faces. Their work encompasses the hard-hitting jazz fusion of “Number 9” on their eponymous debut, the alternative rock-esque “Shot” on their 2016 album “Red Sky,” the heavy metal jazz of “Improv” on “The Joshua Tree” and the dubstep of the aptly-titled “Contra Dubstep” on “This Is Cave Music.”

While Wilbur clarifies that their recent work in “The Joshua Tree” and “Red Sky” is “our most rehearsed record[s],” he also believes that what “energizes [him] the most is improvising,” a key aspect to the energy of their sound. It’s a vicious cycle of vitality: In energizing their listeners, they energize themselves. The cycle continues until you press pause.

Moon Hooch is playing The Fillmore in San Francisco on Feb. 24.

 

Contact Dylan Grosz at dgrosz@stanford.edu.

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Review: Homeshake’s ‘Fresh Air’ is an ode to failed communication https://stanforddaily.com/2017/02/08/homeshakes-fresh-air/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/02/08/homeshakes-fresh-air/#respond Wed, 08 Feb 2017 09:02:23 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1122606 A modulated voice introduces the artist’s sophomore full-length “Midnight Snack” by adding a question mark to his name: “Homeshake?” Who is Homeshake? On first listen, Peter Sagar seems like a slightly underproduced solo artist, a naive descendent of a possibly saturated slacker rock genre, simply a former touring guitarist for the successful Mac Demarco. However, […]

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Review: Homeshake's 'Fresh Air' is an ode to failed communication
Peter Sagar of Homeshake (right). (Courtesy of Omnia Music Group)

A modulated voice introduces the artist’s sophomore full-length “Midnight Snack” by adding a question mark to his name: “Homeshake?” Who is Homeshake? On first listen, Peter Sagar seems like a slightly underproduced solo artist, a naive descendent of a possibly saturated slacker rock genre, simply a former touring guitarist for the successful Mac Demarco. However, with calculated instrumental and lyrical naivete, Sagar’s Homeshake has created music that, while sometimes experimentally awkward, is able to navigate a man’s attempt to declare his love, only to be squandered by his own emotional repression. “Fresh Air” introduces Homeshake’s growing chops as a producer as he expands his use of R&B electronics.

His first album, “In the Shower,” details a man doubly trapped. He eyes a beautiful girl, and while he lusts for her, he remains in denial of even a physical love, let alone one of emotion. He is stuck alone, in his shower, in his home. His following album, “Midnight Snack,” sees the man turn to themes of tension and hedonism as he embraces his lust for this woman. While he gets the girl, he remains passionate yet impassive, diving into sex and substance with his partner, ambiguous as to whether it’s for recreation or for emotional numbing. As the album ends, he desires something deeper.

Enter “Fresh Air.” Rather than see a peaceful continuation of their relationship, a new problem emerges that inhibits nearly all relationships: communication. The first conventional song and lead single “Call Me Up” introduces through soft horns his emphatic desire to listen. While the album is cheery up to this point, “Not U” introduces a sonic mood shift, with a shaky keyboard riff teetering on the edge as Homeshake contemplates his love.

“Wrapping Up,” a downtempo take on Noname and KAYTRANADA instrumentals, introduces a new aspect of Homeshake’s sound. Emphasis on bass and swelling keyboards over programmed drums creates a soundscape of faded contemplation as Homeshake begins falling back into soft drugs to sully his inner conflict. As the song lulls listeners to sleep, they are quickly jolted awake by a vibrating phone as “Getting Down Pt II (He’s Cooling Down)” is the first full song to center around Sagar’s guitar — or at least his synthetic depiction of it — as the track mirrors “Midnight Snack’s” “He’s Heating Up” in its off-kiltered guitar arpeggio.

On “Timing,” Sagar’s voice proves too brittle for such an encompassing, robust instrumental backdrop. Many of his points about his obsession with saying the right thing at the right time fall flat as the superseding synths completely distract from delivering any of Homeshake’s vocal emotion. Luckily, the weakness of “Timing” is recovered by an extraordinary second half. “TV Volume” comes from Frank Ocean’s bedroom, simply produced with Blonde-esque minimalist R&B. At this stage of the record, Homeshake is still at odds with his partner, insisting he should lower the TV volume despite her unfazed disregard.

Where “Timing” failed to deliver a relatively grand beat to accompany Homeshake’s vocals, “Khmlwugh” effectively blends Sagar’s limited vocals with more dominant instrumentation. Serving as the crescendo of the album, “Khmlwugh” sees Homeshake consider how their love has become routine, reduced to simply “Kissing, hugging, making love, waking up, and getting high.” As the song ends in a swirling soundscape of confusion, Homeshake transitions outdoors, as he finally leaves his home for a walk to clear his head. By no coincidence, “Fresh Air” also transitions to its title track. Its ominous winds and chorus of oohs represent a laid-back emotional break from the instrumentally straightforward tracks that preceded it. Over this six minute-long interlude-of-sorts, the mood shifts. As the airiness of “Fresh Air” cuts abruptly to the off-putting “Serious,” Homeshake is despondent, calling back to the drug-induced emotional coma that Homeshake employed in “Midnight Snack:” “So he’s gonna take a few of those pills / To be serious … I know what’s easier / Just to pack it up, pretend it ain’t you.” “So She” serves as the most genuine song on the record, as it is the only song to feature solely tangible instruments. With an earworm of a chorus, this track reinforces that when they’re with each other, their conversation is superficial, oxymoronically together alone: “She’ll be her, I’ll be me, we’ll be alone.”

The relationship is moribund, slowly poisoned by Homeshake and his partner talking past each other. However, “This Way” offers a final glimpse of hope as Homeshake makes a final case to his partner — or maybe just to himself at this point — bemoaning the state of their relationship, desperately begging his partner “I don’t wanna feel this pain / So why you gonna live this way?” Over conventional bright R&B keys, the listener is swept by another breeze and veered off into the album’s short instrumental epilogue, unsure if the record’s end also punctuates their love.

 

Essential tracks: “Call Me Up,” “Every Single Thing,” “TV Volume,” “Khmlwugh,” “So She”

 

Contact Dylan Grosz at dgrosz ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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A Slacker Rock Revival https://stanforddaily.com/2017/01/29/slacker-rock-revival/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/01/29/slacker-rock-revival/#respond Sun, 29 Jan 2017 09:36:23 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1122048 You have to try in rock despite what you’ve recently heard on your alt rock radio. The rise of slacker rock acts like Mac DeMarco and Kurt Vile has communicated a more laid-back approach to the industry, through its subdued instrumentals and seemingly easygoing lyrical themes. Born out of the 90s, our group of unconcerned […]

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You have to try in rock despite what you’ve recently heard on your alt rock radio. The rise of slacker rock acts like Mac DeMarco and Kurt Vile has communicated a more laid-back approach to the industry, through its subdued instrumentals and seemingly easygoing lyrical themes.

Born out of the 90s, our group of unconcerned slackers — not to be confused with my Millennial alma mater — draws heavily from the success of the first wave of slacker rock in the mid-90s. To wrap up nicely the progression from 90s slacker rock to its 2010 revival, the end of this article includes a playlist that explores the genre.

We begin in the late 80s. In reaction to the tryhard genres of hair metal and party rock, college campuses and youth culture reacted with the advent of grunge, beginning the fall of the saturated 80s genre. Crystal synths were ditched for muddy overdrive; high-pitched wails for emotional rasp; flower costumes for flannels. The rejection of the “sell-out” look and sound of 80s rock bands led to an acceptance of the seemingly haphazard, punky production of alternative rock’s first pioneers. Perhaps musical purity was not to be found in pristine production. By the early 90s, rock had been taken over, reclaimed. 90s rock had been dominated by grunge until the untimely death of cultural icon Kurt Cobain in 1994. The rock world was sent reeling, and while it tried to reclaim the classic grunge sound in its underwhelming, post-grunge resurrection (led by Dave Grohl), grunge’s aura of societal apathy and edginess was exchanged for more radio-friendly stadium rock.

Mere weeks had passed since the devastating death of Cobain and grunge when Beck’s incisive refrain, “I’m a loser, baby, so why don’t you kill me?” climbed into the Top 10, a commercial triumph for a new genre in the making. Beginning in the early 90s in the underground — or as underground as music on sea-level college campuses can get — the obsession with aloof coolness imported from the Cobain rocker in part transformed into an idolization of the “slacker.” The slacker rocker  was paradoxically detached yet socially accepted, lazy yet actively curating their cool aesthetic. Slacking became a superficial virtue among young adults, sometimes purposefully feigned to outstretch an arm begging for self-gratifying pity. The genre surpassed the sound; like 80s hair metal, a genre initially meant to subvert the rock persona became all about the character.

The basic genre surrounding the slacker vibe is anything but rigid. To preach their slacker sermons, early icons dressed down and crammed together genres that had previously lived apart; sometimes the energized lyrical density of rap was paired with low-tempo folk, or a simple soft rock song structure was hugged tightly by R&B sonics. Beck easily explored the most — from his major label debut “Mellow Gold” which mixed rock, folk, and hip hop, through to his last truly slacker-rock record in 1998, when he started throwing in a bit of psychedelic and electronics. In another sphere, Pavement, Ween and Guided By Voices more closely emulated the more direct alternative rock take of the early 90s slacker rock phenomenon across campuses, lending more of their sound to the lo-fi, guttural grunge that now preceded them. While their sounds widely differed, the slackers intersected in their discussion themes of recreational drugs, casual love and laziness, usually with pinches of sarcasm and absurdity.

However, since the the grunge phenomenon faded, leaving rock music more out of favor with culture and the charts, there was a slacker diaspora as the slacker persona grew out of favor, growing into overinflated pop and pristinely produced rock. Beck evolved out of it, sprawling into myriad genres, like funk and acoustic in 1999’s “Midnite Vultures.” Pavement pushed on until its 1999 dissolution, with later albums beginning to show the first signs of the slacker rock transformation. Songs like Pavement’s “Major Leagues” and Ween’s “Freedom of ‘76” presenting a laidback approach to the instrumentals as well, relaxing the guitar fuzz for a clean guitar approach with a more prominent, head-bopping bass and softer vocals. Almost prescient of the next decade’s revival of their genre, the former song ends with an uncharacteristic electronic epilogue of programmed 808 riffs, while the latter boasts a soulful arrangement of background vocals and instrumentation.

The 2010s brought a slacker rock revival, as seen in the commercial success of Mac DeMarco (a hazily-produced multi-instrumentalist with a smoking habit) and Kurt Vile (a folksy lo-fi rocker) and the further genre-defining work of Homeshake and Connan Mockasin. While 90s teenagers had the angst-driven grunge as their spokesgenre, the early 2010s found their solace in variations of R&B from the stylings of Beyoncé, Drake and Frank Ocean. Just as 90s slacker rock grew out of grunge’s heyday, today’s “new slacker rock” also draws from R&B’s success as a major influence; the “new slacker rock” puts vocals and lyrics further in the foreground against a silky instrumental backdrop, exemplified  in Connan Mockasin’s “Feelin’ Lovely” and Homeshake’s new album “Fresh Air.”

Mac DeMarco’s former touring guitarist, Peter Sagar (stagename Homeshake) and Jerry Paper further blur “slacker rock” genre with their hip hop instrumental experimentation. While they no doubt inherit the off-kilter smoothness of Mac, there is no doubt some “jizz jazz fusion” in their heavy use of drums machines and much more keyboard-driven, synthetic production techniques that exhibit an even stronger hip hop/R&B inspiration.

But even among strict alternative rock listeners, the growing acceptance of Mac DeMarco’s less edgy yet sexier sound was accepted as the new slacker rock sound. The audience for these “neoslackers” has grown far past the 90s slacker college campus appeal, reaching the ears of high schoolers and mainstream radios alike. DeMarco’s self-dubbed “jizz jazz” consists of jangly, reverbed guitar with a vocal delivery that channels just enough Lennon and soul to deliver nasal,  blurry, subdued emotion. Rather than listening to the straightforward punchiness of Dinosaur Jr.’s hard-hitting rock, new slacker rockers like Mac DeMarco perform from behind an indeterminate haze, singing soothing words into your ear from a distance.

While 808s and early Pavement records seem to have nothing in common, the wide variance in sound and style between 90s slacker rock and contemporary slacker rock all converge  on a common vibe and lyrical theme about the slacker character that remains constant amid the continual redefinition of the “new slacker rock.”

 

Loser – Beck

Gold Soundz – Pavement

Tropicalia – Beck

I Am A Scientist – Guided By Voices

License To Confuse – Sebadoh

Feel The Pain – Dinosaur Jr.

Freedom of ‘76 – Ween

Major Leagues – Pavement

Freaking Out the Neighborhood – Mac Demarco

Doo Dah – Homeshake

Do I Make You Feel Shy? – Connan Mockasin

Another One – Mac Demarco

Chameleon World – Jerry Paper

Tesselation – Mild High Club

Every Single Thing – Homeshake

Feelin’ Lovely – Connan Mockasin

Secret Xtians – Unknown Mortal Orchesta

Warned You – Good Morning

Pretty Pimpin’ – Kurt Vile

Caramel – Connan Mockasin

Homage – Mild High Club

Give It to Me – Homeshake

Goodbye Weekend- Mac DeMarco

The Bread – Travis Bretzer

Never Run Away – Kurt Vile

Cab Deg – Good Morning

Relax – Vacations

Horse Hot Wee Wee Water – Mac Demarco

 

Playlist:

 

Contact Dylan Grosz at dgrosz ‘at’ stanford.edu

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Interview: Vulfpeck’s Jack Stratton talks production and confidence in changing sound https://stanforddaily.com/2016/12/08/jack-stratton-vulfpeck-interview/ https://stanforddaily.com/2016/12/08/jack-stratton-vulfpeck-interview/#respond Fri, 09 Dec 2016 05:16:34 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1120811 I sat down with Jack Stratton, separated by the length of California, for an extensive telephone interview on November 6, ranging in discussion from his production techniques on certain tracks to fan theories about his birth. The bandleader of the funk band Vulfpeck, Stratton comes fresh off of the band’s new record “The Beautiful Game,” […]

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I sat down with Jack Stratton, separated by the length of California, for an extensive telephone interview on November 6, ranging in discussion from his production techniques on certain tracks to fan theories about his birth. The bandleader of the funk band Vulfpeck, Stratton comes fresh off of the band’s new record “The Beautiful Game,” a solid record that really advanced his use of post-recording and mixing techniques.

Before even talking about their new album, Stratton detailed Vulfpeck’s rise, which on its own is an inspiring one, especially to college students. Beginning as an off-the-cuff jam session between some separately freelancing music school students, the group has since risen to much greater prominence, playing at the likes of Bonnaroo and “The Late Show” and hitting the Billboard charts with their newest effort. To understand their current rise, we must understand their origin and exposition. The beginning of Vulfpeck is one of simple admiration and college bonding.

The Stanford Daily (TSD): Before we get into “The Beautiful Game,” I would love to just start from the beginning and get kind of a brief history as to how Vulfpeck met.

Jack Stratton (JS): Sure. I stayed in Ann Arbor a year after college, which I recommend to all Stanford students, to spend a year in Ann Arbor. I’m just kidding, but it was a glorious year, and that’s when I put the group together. I’ve always wanted to play with Theo [Katzman] and Woody [Goss], and I had been in a band with Joe Dart and made it my life’s mission to spread the good word of Joe Dart from that point forward.

And so we got together for a session, and the school studio put it on YouTube. Someone in the comments demanded we put it on iTunes. I logged in. … There was a couple hundred bucks, and we spent that on the next.

TSD: So that was the song “Beastly”. That was your first jam session?

JS: Yeah.

TSD: Wow. So, did you guys kind of get your start in music in college?

JS: We were all in the music school, doing our different things, and professionally, I grew up playing in my dad’s klezmer band. As far as having my own group really working, it started to really click when I was 25, as far as it potentially being a career rather than freelancing. But yeah I’ve been doing music professionally with my dad for a long time, and everyone in [Vulfpeck] was working, doing gigs and stuff throughout college. We were all itching to get out of college and play music professionally, but it was also where we all met, so it was totally part of the story.

Focusing more on the new record, Stratton not only cites his growing mixing prowess to the new sound on the record, he also attributes the difference in production styles from those of previous albums to just having more money to spend on equipment and session musicians.

TSD: What’s the biggest difference [in sound] between “The Beautiful Game” and your previous records?

JS: I mean I got actual studio monitors [after our last album], so the mixes sound quite a bit different, kind of more studio-monitor-like, you know. That was a big shift, letting go of any idea of cogency stylistically. I mean it’s so hilariously all over the map, just trying to honor any given style vocabulary all throughout. Gotta keep doing crazy stuff, and we’re already thinking of more crazy stuff. … Yeah, I mean there are musicians on here that I wouldn’t have wanted to make them do a session without the proper session fee, so I spent quite a bit more on it. Like with Jamire Williams, you do not want to waste his time. He’s a complete legend. So in that sense, as it’s growing, I’m going to keep doing that, and that’s a big part of what I want to spend the money on, on legends.

Central to Vulfpeck’s greater vision is the idea of the 60s rhythm band, à la Motown. While Vulfpeck has released records showing off their own instrumental expertise, their ultimate goal seems to be to go further than that, to “[provide] instrumentals that can stand on their own, backing up great singers with great songs.” Vulfpeck seeks to become a modern version of The Funk Brothers, the phenomenal, largely ignored backing band of numerous Motown number-one hits.

Rather than resign to liner note obscurity, Vulfpeck is a standalone instrumental band first, both to honor and practice uniquely emulating the 60s rhythm band, and as Stratton and the band have progressed in confidence and sound, they have taken on more “style vocabularies,” bringing on more and more instrumental and vocal guest artists, expanding their reach and stylistic prowess. Though their chemistry as a quartet has advanced to impressive levels, Jack Stratton acknowledges that there is a lot of room to grow, especially in instrumentally accompanying a vocalist.

JS: … Also figuring out what translates is fun, like I don’t think we’ve given Antwaun [Stanley] a proper song yet. He covered “Simply Beautiful” by Al Green and completely destroyed harder than I’ve ever seen any performer, so we need to give him a serious ballad. So yeah, as the records go on, we’re trying to learn the whole A&R of getting people the right song.

However, Vulfpeck’s tall order of properly venerating their vocalists instrumentally doesn’t scare Stratton off from moving in the direction of more vocals.

TSD: Do you think that Vulfpeck is moving towards becoming more vocal-focused, backed by your instrumentation?

JS: Yeah, I want people to perceive it as we put in the time to get tight as a rhythm section instrumentally, and now we’re ready to start backing up these amazing vocalists, provide a nice tight groove for them because we put in the work trying just on our own. I’m very excited about that, and it was kind of a part of the initial vision to be backing people up.

Upon asking what vocalists they’d be willing to back, I brought up a recent mashup album of Vulfpeck instrumentals and popular hip hop songs that has been circulating widely among fans and if he’d be willing to work with a rapper.

TSD: I was wondering if you guys ever considered maybe featuring a hip hop artist or working as a featured performer for a rapper?

JS: Oh yeah, absolutely. We want to do some of that. I always thought we’d be sampled by now, but that’s just not happening. Yeah, I’m a big fan of Anderson .Paak and Knowledge and Kendrick Lamar’s new albums. So yeah, I’m open to it. I’m not too knowledgeable, so it would have to be someone else kind of calling the shots, but definitely.

SD: So if you guys feel comfortable with it, maybe a part of Vulfpeck’s future?

JS: Yeah, we’re trying to get sampled somehow. I don’t know how it works. Some of this stuff, like Fugue State and basically that “Vulfmatic” record, proved it. [Our music] is great for sampling, so hopefully it’ll get in the hands of the right producers.

In Jack Stratton, we see a man who embraces the risk of musical dynamism, a man who is simultaneously and successfully growing his band in three dimensions. He seeks to widen his band’s sound, be it through their openness to new genres and playing styles or their ever-expanding list of guests. Everywhere they widen their sound, they deepen it with their sonic chemistry and their yearning to honor each “style vocabulary” they encounter. In the end, one is left with a Vulfpeck that looms taller than most in the musical industry, casting a swelling shadow that should capture and inspire more and more artists to follow suit.

Contact Dylan Grosz at dgrosz ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Vulfpeck more seriously explore post-recording production in ‘The Beautiful Game’ https://stanforddaily.com/2016/11/21/vulfpeck-thebeautifulgame-album-review/ https://stanforddaily.com/2016/11/21/vulfpeck-thebeautifulgame-album-review/#respond Mon, 21 Nov 2016 08:40:45 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1120255 Just like their name’s near homophone, Vulfpeck plays as a wolfpack, as a tight cohesive unit whose only goal is to follow its alpha: the groove. “The Beautiful Game” is no different, inheriting the pithy funk of all its LP and EP predecessors. Before their LPs (silent and loud), Vulfpeck released 4 EPs every year […]

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Just like their name’s near homophone, Vulfpeck plays as a wolfpack, as a tight cohesive unit whose only goal is to follow its alpha: the groove. “The Beautiful Game” is no different, inheriting the pithy funk of all its LP and EP predecessors. Before their LPs (silent and loud), Vulfpeck released 4 EPs every year beginning in 2011, 24 tracks more or less recorded “live” with minimal post-recording editing. With such a bold recording technique and such talented members, Vulfpeck and their guests introduced to the world a unique take on pop and funk.

The band’s founder Jack Stratton serves as one of the band’s drummers and keyboard players (and also an occasional meandering, stomping guitarist); however, one of his most important roles in the quartet is serving as the band’s producer and mixer. Starting with their first “talkie” studio album effort in “Thrill of the Arts,” listeners saw Vulfpeck moving into a more post-recording direction, and it did not disappoint. Tracks like “Rango II” were lifted with expertly crafted post-recording additions that led to an astounding crescendo of sound that simply could not be achieved with their original “live” recording style. “The Beautiful Game,” although struggling to follow a sonic concept like the previous EPs and “Thrill of the Arts,” still proves that Jack Stratton is improving his already impressive production chops past live-recording while also heightening the band’s instrumental cohesiveness and expertise.

  1. The Sweet Science

Oddly enough, this album starts out with a near two minute clarinet solo over muted keyboards. It sounds almost as if it were coming from a snake charmer, as if Vulfpeck is trying to get us into a trance before the album really starts. Save for two minutes, this track almost achieves its goal but overstays its short welcome and begins to leave us impatiently looking at our watch phone wondering when this track will lead into the real Vulf.

  1. Animal Spirits

Immediately when that first piano riff introduces the track, we know this song will have the classic energy pop that we’ve become accustomed to since guitarist and drummer Theo Katzman’s vocal debut on “Thrill of the Arts.” As Vulfpeck ascends festival posters, “Animal Spirits” will become a concert earworm just as their popular “Back Pocket” has.

  1. Dean Town

Exciting as a single and a standout on the album, if listeners ever get tired of the new, produced Vulf, “Dean Town” returns to the old-school “Mit Peck”-era Vulfpeck as one of the few mostly live-recorded songs on the record. Without question, Joe Dart drives this track forward with his virtuoso Fender bass skill, but an unsung hero on this track is keyboardist Woody Goss’s ambient keyboard accompaniment, which Stratton has run from one ear to another.

  1. Conscious Club

The instrumental version of this track on “Thrill of the Arts” easily became a fan favorite (and a Joe Dart favorite) as it perfectly displayed each member’s instrumental ability, so when the track list revealed that the band was releasing a vocal version, it seemed as though Vulfpeck would yet again be able to add another equally weighted “instrument” to the mix. But while “Conscious Club” features strong non-speaking vocals from Laura Mace and added instrumentation, it unfortunately suffers from audio saturation and overkill. While Jack Stratton’s spoken word in the middle of the song is bearable, his incessant vocal samples spun in the middle of the verses (featuring eye-rolling chipmunk vocals) and the conversation at the beginning (with a particularly Dora-esque speaker) make this track something that I never thought Vulfpeck was capable of musically allowing, cringe.

  1. El Chepe

Where “Conscious Club” suffered from too much, “El Chepe” almost suffers from too little. Starting with a sample of a moving train, this track at best serves as an uneventful yet smooth ride to the second half of the album, conducted along by impressive bluesy piano riffs from keyboardist Woody Goss and a softened rhythm section to support them.

  1. 1 for 1, DiMaggio

We finally hear from Antwaun Stanley, Vulfpeck’s original and most frequented guest vocalist. It inherits the energy and high velocity funk of “Animal Spirits,” but this track has a little more. While it doesn’t fully showcase Antwaun Stanley’s impeccable voice, this track is just fun; the added quips and short conversations in the middle, unlike the speakers in “Conscious Club,” serve to effectively display the quirky, lovable side of Vulfpeck, often seen in their live performances and music videos.

  1. Daddy, He Got a Tesla

Featuring Jamire Williams’ scattering, infectious drumming, Pegasus Warning’s oddly placed vocals, and Joe Dart’s connective bassline, this track serves as the LP’s most experimental. Although it’s at times confusing to listen to and suffers from Goss’s weird piano runs, “Daddy, He Got a Tesla” is without a doubt an interesting, entertaining listen that at many times just flows. I’m excited to see Vulfpeck expand on this part of their sound.

  1. Margerie, My First Car

This track is a contradiction that shouldn’t work, with its spacey vocals from Christine Hucal laid on top of the tight funk instrumental from their 2013 track “My First Car.” Somehow, this track succeeds, and Jack Stratton is again able to prove his mixing prowess. By throwing in instrumental flourishes and altering the vocals and instrumentals just slightly enough, this song serves as a solid testament to Vulfpeck’s ability to recycle and revitalize their own music.

  1. Aunt Leslie

For the first time on a release, Vulfpeck double-dips with the Antwaun Stanley feature, and unlike “1 for 1, DiMaggio,” we see this song fully highlight Stanley’s best vocal attributes: tenderness and range. Here, we return to the Stanley’s EP days, the Stanley we saw on “Wait for the Moment” and “1612.” Although LP cuts like “Funky Duck” and this album’s “1 for 1, DiMaggio” were solid and fun, “Aunt Leslie” and tracks like it are Stanley and Vulfpeck at their best and comes closest to returning to the 70s funk era that Vulfpeck so dearly desire to emulate.

  1. Cory Wong

Expertly, Stratton is able to mix together a live and studio recording of this song, which features new guitar contributor Cory Wong. And just like on tracks like “Rango II,” at first we actually see the Vulfpeck quartet take somewhat of a backseat as they let another vetted instrumental maestro take center stage while they effectively offer a sensational rhythm for their guest to riff off of. However, as Theo stomps the Vulf-compressed kick and snare towards the end, we hear challengers from the original band: Joe Dart’s bass, Woody Goss’s keyboard and Jack Stratton’s rhythm guitar almost begin to musically battle with Wong to see who can have the funkiest run at the end of each measure. In the end, the listener is left with one of the strongest instrumentals on the album and a strong hankering to attend a live show to see if this groove is real.

As Vulfpeck continues to grow and thrust itself into the mainstream, they are able to amass new techniques to create their own take on the standalone sound of ‘70s backing rhythm bands. They mostly succeeded in their previous efforts, but “The Beautiful Game” uses the band’s skill and instinct to further explore new ways to more deeply entrench their sound behind their inspiration while still making their sound undeniably Vulfpeck. Here we hear Vulfpeck, more specifically Jack Stratton, comprehensively explore post-production. We hear more vocal tracks, thanks to the efforts of Vulfpeck’s own Theo Katzman and guests Antwaun Stanley, Christine Hucal, Laura Mace, and Pegasus Warning. We hear an increasingly tighter quartet out of Vulfpeck. “The Beautiful Game” offers a 10-point argument for a new pivot in Vulf’s sound, and for the most part, it succeeds.

 

Contact Dylan Grosz at dgrosz ‘at’ stanford.edu

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Pixies live in concert: Setlist outshines performance https://stanforddaily.com/2016/11/08/pixies-concert-review/ https://stanforddaily.com/2016/11/08/pixies-concert-review/#respond Tue, 08 Nov 2016 18:10:23 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1119431 After unsuccessfully trying to sneak my way in to cover this 21+ concert, I sat outside Santa Cruz’s The Catalyst wondering what I would be missing in a Pixies’ live show. After growing accustomed to listening to the same late ’80’s and early ’90’s studio material while staring at the same four static album covers […]

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After unsuccessfully trying to sneak my way in to cover this 21+ concert, I sat outside Santa Cruz’s The Catalyst wondering what I would be missing in a Pixies’ live show. After growing accustomed to listening to the same late ’80’s and early ’90’s studio material while staring at the same four static album covers (let’s not include Indie Cindy), I thought that their new “Head Carrier” indeed offered new studio material, but a live show would have offered something different. Here, I could have experienced this band’s music with senses beyond hearing. I could see how they visually expressed the raw emotion they belted on their studio tracks.

I finally managed to finesse my way into the concert after making some calls. Shaking away my FOMO daze, I made my way into the concert. A great enthusiasm enveloped the crowd as the opening act Waterstrider played with a passion that could prime any audience for the main act that was to come.

Don’t get me wrong, I had my doubts. With a band as old as Pixies (their frontman aged 51) releasing a new comeback album, I couldn’t help but fear the worst: Would it be a promotional tour or a fanservice show? What would the setlist be? A constant call to the audience informing them that “this next song is off our new album”? A playthrough of their greatest hits album?

As I grew increasingly wary of the main act, Pixies strolled onstage to the applause of a diverse crowd. With the lights fully up, I saw them for the first time. UCSC frat boys dominated the front and center of the floor, ready to mosh at the insistence of any guitar chord or bass drum kick. It’s an odd cycle. Pixies rose as a college rock act, many critics pegging their musical trope as an asymptote to their quality. Even Steve Albini, the producer of their first full album, remarked that Pixies were “a band who, at their top-dollar best, are blandly entertaining college rock.” Eventually, they transcended this prophecy in their short career. And between the time they broke up in 1993 and fully reformed 20 years later, they had jumped a generation. The class of ‘93 college students who flailed in their flannels at the live debut of “Debaser” and “Velouria” now stood in the back of The Catalyst, wrinkled in pocketed khakis with a beer in hand, leaning back ever so slightly in unexpecting judgment.

They quickly gave the crowd a look and picked up their instruments. Black Francis glanced at the setlist next to David Lovering’s drumkit, eyed Paz Lenchantin on bass and Joey Santiago on guitar, and nodded as the band began playing “Gauge Away.” A song with such a raspy chorus, “Gauge Away” made me realize my other fear for the Pixies: their age. Without the benefit of multiple takes in the studio, how would Black Francis’s guttural screaming sound live?

As the band collectively plunged into the chorus with an unexpected strength, my fear was cured. A crowd-favorite from the acclaimed “Doolittle,” “Gauge Away” very smoothly transitioned into “Head Carrier”’s lead single, “Um Chagga Lagga.” For the remainder of the concert, old gave way to new and vice versa, as Pixies had a secret weapon to deliver their new album to the masses. Rather than explicitly inform the audience of their new album by playing a lot of new songs in a row, Pixies had the gall to place their new music right next to acclaimed fan-favorites, an attempt to force some “Head Carrier” songs into the Pixies canon. And it worked. Songs were perfectly placed together, equally drawn from different portions of Pixies’ career. The greatest testament to their confidence in their setlist came at the very end of the show. As they came back onstage after the audience cooed them back for an encore, fans expected them to play one of their biggest hits, “Debaser.” However, as the Pixies strutted back on stage, they smugly glanced at each other and played a deep cut B-side, “Into the White,” originally sung by Kim Deal but now replaced by Paz Lenchantin.

Unfortunately, as for the show itself, it never came anywhere near the masterfully crafted setlist. Lights aggressively flickered and flashed behind the quartet, inaccurately insinuating a likewise lively performance. Although Pixies are known for not having the most animated shows, their Santa Cruz performance was undeniably more standstill than normal at many points. There was rarely any interaction between the band, even less with the crowd. The only real movement came from Black Francis at the end of each song, when he’d meander back to Lovering’s drumset to take another look at the setlist to see the next song they had to play. Some songs even featured uncharacteristic wrong notes and false starts from the precise Joey Santiago and perfectionist Black Francis. Lenchantin, trying to fill void left by Kim Deal in both vocal skill and stage presence, came a little short on both accounts, offering mediocre vocals and moving at most from the microphone to a few steps behind it.

However, the errors and lack of enthusiasm are forgivable. The Catalyst was their first show with “Head Carrier,” described as one of four North American “warm-up shows” for their 2016 European tour and yet-to-be-announced North American tour. Assuming these errors are corrigible and the setlist somewhat remains constant, the upcoming Pixies shows will become increasingly engaging and will showcase a wonderfully diverse set of songs for listeners old and new to discover and la la love.

 

Contact Dylan Grosz at dgrosz ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Pixies’ ‘Head Carrier’ makes messy progress https://stanforddaily.com/2016/10/18/pixies-headcarrier-album-review/ https://stanforddaily.com/2016/10/18/pixies-headcarrier-album-review/#respond Tue, 18 Oct 2016 09:12:51 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1118048 Pixies once had a monopoly on the loud-quiet-loud song structure, a late ’80s revolution in a seemingly established rock music landscape. Tame, at times tender, vocal performances from Black Francis and Kim Deal would usually blast open into a chorus of angst and discord. Frontman Black Francis brought in the raw with his bipolar voice […]

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Pixies once had a monopoly on the loud-quiet-loud song structure, a late ’80s revolution in a seemingly established rock music landscape. Tame, at times tender, vocal performances from Black Francis and Kim Deal would usually blast open into a chorus of angst and discord. Frontman Black Francis brought in the raw with his bipolar voice and messy rhythm guitar and songwriting. Kim Deal brought a soothing balm with her siren singing and simple, proper bass-playing. Joey Santiago on guitar and David Lovering on drums each brought a crisp, quasi-surf-rock expertise. After four short, seminal years and four acclaimed albums, Pixies’ galvanization of alternative rock came to an end. Though they didn’t achieve much fame in their productive period from 1988-91, artists like Nirvana and Radiohead, as well as fans, have made the Pixies oeuvre one of the most celebrated of the alt-rock canon.

As time marched on, this quartet of alt honeys reclined as they watched other musicians refine and tame Pixies rawness — to the point that it became a saturated convention of alt-rock. When the Pixies returned in 2014 with the promise of their first album in 23 years, fans rejoiced: Was a second genre revolution on the horizon? But as fans spun the trio of EPs and its compilation “Indie Cindy,” what came was not a twisting of music convention, but a vapid submission to music extant — a sound they founded, but which they can no longer master.

With expectations lowered, Pixies fans expected “Head Carrier” to be more of the same, bland same. Surprisingly, this album succeeds due to how little we expected of it.

Where we expected comatose vocals from Black Francis, we get a sign of vocal vitality, like in the seething angst of “Baal’s Back.” But unlike “Indie Cindy,” in which listeners were left cheated by the hole left by Kim Deal’s quitting of the band, “Head Carrier” contains more than Francis’s singing: We finally hear Kim Deal, or at least as much Kim Deal as new bassist and occasional vocalist Paz Lenchantin can proxy. Lenchantin’s much-needed appearance adds the calming, grounded vocals severely lacking from their previous “comeback” album. “All I Think About Now,” an immediate standout, is both a showcase of Lenchantin’s enchanting vocal ability and an apology letter to the now departed Kim Deal.

As the void of Kim Deal partially closed, another one opened. Joey Santiago, well respected as the band’s lead guitarist, is renowned for providing perfect countermelodies to Francis’s muddy rhythm. He’s not consistently prominent on a Pixies record; when he is, though, it adds a level of skill to a song whose frontman writer sometimes suffers from having a “punk” mentality towards instrumental ability. While the beginning of the album’s first track opens with a promising guitar lick, as the song leads into the outro, Santiago plays a solo that seems awfully too simple and naive for a guitarist of his past and stature. Some “Head Carrier” songs pile up a slew of cringe-worthy riffs, to the point that it almost discredits the song. Luckily, though, other songs feature a decent Santiago, whose guitar sounds as fresh, quirky and stylistic as it did in the early ’90s.

Unlike the confusing sound of “Indie Cindy,” “Head Carrier” seems to be actively searching for the right new sonic direction to travel. “Oona,” “Tenement Song” and “Um Chagga Lagga” features a grungier take on the normal off-kilter crunch listeners are used to hearing from the band. They still feature Pixies signatures, like Santiago’s overlaid guitar and Lovering’s roomy drumming. Unfortunately, they also suffer from being slightly pedestrian and droning — something reserved for Black Francis’s solo work as Frank Black.

Other tracks mildly surprise the listener in their return to the Pixies’ nearly unanimously-praised late ’80s/early ’90s output. “Bel Esprit” stands out especially as their best “old sounding” song; however, one can easily identify its nearly identical chord progression to “The Happening” off 1990’s “Bossanova.” Then there are songs like “Talent” and “All the Saints” that seem to exist just as hastily made filler, short songs without attitude, a concept that never would or could cross the collective mind of “old Pixies.”

Then we have pop Pixies. Older records featured this version of the band, such as their hits “Here Comes Your Man,” “Gigantic” and “Velouria.” But this record’s taste of sugar, especially “Classic Masher,” quickly turns saccharine as the once-distinct instruments mesh into a forgetful, clichéd chord progression. But “Plaster of Paris” proves that there is some hope that the band hasn’t lost their pop touch.

Alternating between pushing into a direction of soft grunge and some pop rock, this record at least presents a consolidated search for sound, unlike the debilitating sonic confusion of “Indie Cindy.” The search yields inconclusive yet promising results. Black Francis declares in “Talent” that “if I had a certain style, then stuff would start to happen.” And I agree. If they have a certain style, stuff could start to happen.

 

Contact Dylan Grosz at dgrosz ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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