It’s almost like Death Cab For Cutie was born to play the Ryman Auditorium. Ben Gibbard’s lapsed Catholicism resonated just as powerfully as his band’s driving, atmospheric music within the…
At 3pm yesterday, I turned in the final assignment of my college career. Partially to celebrate and partially to distract myself from the terror of facing the adult world, I headed over to Exit/In with my friend Sparling to see Smallpools rock the joint. My sister loves the band and had turned me on to their music, so making her jealous was another great reason to go to the show.
We arrived at 7:30 to find the half-full floor dominated by people without the over-21 hand stamps. Any illusion I had of being able to escape feeling old vanished immediately. Pitying the venue for what promised to be a slow night of alcohol sales, I grabbed a Shiner Bock and snagged a spot in the crowd just behind a couple of girls taking selfies. Naturally, Sparling and I photobombed as many as we could.
If there are two things that we at WRVU care about more than music, they’re chicken wings and tortilla soup. Luckily, the guys in Portugal. The Man feel the same…
Lady Lamb, also known by the name Lady Lamb the Beekeeper, is a singer-songwriter from Maine who has been hard at work for several years as an independent artist. Her first record on major label Mom + Pop Music is a testament to her genuine songwriting talent. Mom + Pop, the label that backs acts such as Wavves, Sleigh Bells, and Fidlar, is no stranger to scuzzy, fuzz-pedal-driven punk rock. This production trademark rings through much of the music, but the production brilliantly focuses on the warm, pure voice of Lady Lamb.
If you’re up for seemingly no reason at all at 3AM or any approximate time, you probably should be listening to Oakland rap duo Main Attrakionz. If it’s 3AM (or around that time) and you’ve already made the necessary and vital steps of queuing up some Main Attrakionz tracks, you should especially give attention to the Main Attrakionz tracks that feature them rapping over looped-out masterpiece beats from Bay Area production duo Friendzone. If you’ve made all these steps then why not make the easy effort and commit to listening to only Main Attrakionz and Friendzone for the rest of your natural life?
Spring has sprung and that means Rites of Spring is upon us here at Vanderbilt. This two-day festival is the most anticipated music event of the school year. The hype got me thinking, while this may be one of the most exciting occasions in the Nashville area: what are the most interesting and unique festivals around the world? I began the search for the festivals that sounded too good to be true, exceeded expectations, and attracted people from all the around the world. While I am sure I missed many worthy names, the following list are a few of the events that really caught my eye.
Let it be known that when I last saw the Decemberists back in 2011, I successfully predicted that their first song would be “Apology Song” off their debut EP 5 Songs. Thus, when I predicted that they’d begin this show with the very appropriate “A Singer Addresses His Audience,” the Decemberists didn’t let me down and I am now two-for-two on my predictions. The Decemberists have never let me down: they’ve pumped out quality album after quality album, excellent live show after excellent live show. And Monday night, led by charismatic frontman Colin Meloy, was no different, even if Meloy and Co. had to struggle against an at times apathetic crowd at Ryman Auditorium.
At the end of every Vanderbilt academic year, on the verge of finals, anticipation starts to boil over for the annual Rites of Spring music festival. Recent years have seen EDM juggernauts, hip hop stars, and stadium rock bands alike take their shot at Alumni Lawn glory. So what has The Music Group brought us this year? We asked WRVU DJs for their favorite tracks from this year’s Rites artists, and here’s what they had to say.
Artist: Young the Giant
Set-time: Saturday 11pm-Midnight
Key Track: “Apartment”
As the school years comes to an end and finals begin to ramp up, it’s natural to think about everything other than academic responsibilities at hand. Naturally, it’s a time to dwell on memories, friendships, and, of course, our time here at WRVU. For me, this last blog post has got me thinking. While it’s incredibly sad I’ll be missing all my WRVU goings on for the next eight months, I’m beyond amazed at all the new stuff that’s been released in 2015.
As an ode to WRVU and this semester, I’ll be highlighting my ten favorite tunes of the semester, starting from the bottom (because Drake). If you happen to like electronica, check out some of the dopest of beats from early 2015 below.
WRVU is hosting its final giveaway this semester to give two lucky people a general admission ticket to CounterPoint Festival happening May 22-24 in Georgia! We will be announcing one…
On March 31st, Godspeed You! Black Emperor finally released their much-awaited followup to 2012’s ‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!, and, after having a few weeks to digest the band’s first album of completely new material since their reforming in 2010, I’ve made up my mind about Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress: it is sweet indeed.
With summer rapidly approaching and the semester nearing its end, we are all being confronted with the fruits of our labor. Some of us have already lined up jobs and internships, and have been working on that final paper all semester long. Some of us have procrastinated on all of those things and are currently freaking out. And above it all we have those second semester seniors with jobs lined up who honestly could not care less about their remaining educational obligations. No matter which category you fall into, however, we have a song to match your mood.
Last Sunday I hosted a phone interview with Neat—a lo-fi, punk band from Southern Louisiana. Neat’s unrelenting fuzzy sound and rich guitar harmonies bring us back to a time when…
When my mom found out Stevie Wonder was coming to Nashville, she wanted me to go so badly that she helped me pay for the tickets. Not that I wouldn’t have tried to go anyways. Stevie is 64 years old, so who knows how long he’ll be touring? And word was that he would be playing his seminal 1976 album Songs in the Key of Life in full.
From the moment I found my seat at Bridgestone Arena I knew the show was going to be an extravagant production. On the stage sat two drum kits, two percussion arrays, seats for a ten-piece string ensemble and six-piece brass section, risers for a horde of backing vocalists, several keyboards and guitars waiting to be played, and of course Stevie’s setup front and center: his signature Hohner Clavinet and a Yamaha electric grand piano.
There’s been a lot of talk about grunge since Kurt Cobain’s death in 1994. According to mass media and popular modernized sentiment, the grunge scene put Seattle on the map and revitalized rock music. Bands like Nirvana, those based in the Northwest and perpetuating this innovative sound, are said to have unleashed a new form of culture – grunge – that still carries remnants today.
“Deep house” is kind of a catchall term for laid-back, slower-paced house music using live-sounding instruments. The genre is a contrast to electronic dance music characterized by manipulation, distortion, and “bass”, and features jazz solos, string loops, tropical drums, alongside other sounds plausibly produced by physical objects. This list is about some of the memorable instruments that pop up in deep house tracks, and also serves as a countdown of my personal favorite tracks related to the genre.
6) Omar-S — “The Shit Baby” (2013)
Instrument Featured: Piano
In the middle of Omar S’ modest 2013 album Thank You For Letting Me Be Myself comes the unexpectedly fun piano jam-out “The Shit Baby”. For the uninitiated deep house fan this track is a great place to start: it starts with hi-hat/hand-clap triplets and a standard background bass kick, before someone hops on the keys for an impromptu crowd-pleaser.
RIYL: “Plastic Dreams”, pre-programmed keyboard beats + mad keys playin’ skills
Every year, tens of thousands of music fanatics the world over gather on “the farm” in Manchester, Tennessee for Bonnaroo. Also, it has become tradition to see which sets have left the greatest mark on the festival-goers. Showmanship, the timing of the show, and the size of the artist’s existing fanbase serve as key factors in determining which artists leave Tennessee with the most positive response. In 2014, most of the news and opinions arose from Elton John’s closing set, Kanye’s polarizing rants, and Ukranian group DakhaBrakha’s outlandish stylings. Let’s take a look at which artists are poised to leave their mark on this year’s fest.
This is rap gone Technicolor, if you’re not a fan of Autotune (maybe you’re Jay-Z) you may want to look the other way. Chicago bop duo Lil Trav and Lil Ceno have another stack of elastic high-energy tracks that paint rap in a melodic bloom of colorful effects anchored by bouncy beats.
Coming off some infectious tracks, (“Remy Rick”, “Fiesta”, “Young Heavy”, and “Round N Round”) Sicko Mobb carry on in the latest progression of Autotuned rap-singing melodic rap. Their weird, catchy sound is reminiscent of the hazed out hedonism anthems of Future and pretty boy ego trips of Soulja Boy, though while Future has been chasing around demons and inverting the melody of Autotune to soundtrack his own self-torturing abandonment, Sicko Mobb are flourishing in the elasticity of rap-singing.
“TIDAL for all.” That’s the slogan for Jay Z’s new high-fidelity music streaming service, Tidal. But with a $19.99 a month service fee, it probably isn’t for everyone, especially those…
Since the dawn of the digital age, the music industry has succumb to a new form of shoplifting – online piracy. While pirating music is not a new concept along with the Internet, downloading music without paying for it is occurring at a much greater magnitude than the pre-internet days. As an Economics major, I wonder how much this phenomenon affects the music industry. So I ask the question: Should you really be torrenting?
It’s hard to believe it, but 2015 is already a fourth of the way done. It was not a light musical quarter by any means: in the past month we’ve seen high-profile releases from Sufjan Stevens, Kendrick Lamar, Death Grips, and many more. But what tracks stood out above the rest? We asked our staff to tell us a little bit about their pick for favorite song of 2015 so far. Read on for their selections, and be sure to check them all out in the Spotify playlist at the end.
Dan Deacon — “Feel the Lightning”
“Feel the Lightning” by Dan Deacon makes you do just that — feel an electrifying force pass your entire body. It is the perfect mixture of upbeat and hypnotic, catchy but complex, and successfully maintains the typical “Dan Deacon vibe” of collectively bizarre, yet intriguing electronic music.
–Julia Anderson