Oasis: Where Professionalism Goes to Die

By Naheil Qudah
Staff Writer

Dear Liam and Noel Gallagher: I know that you both have egos the size of the sun, but your God complex hasn't rendered you completely insusceptible to criticism. So, listen here: man up, quit your whining and stop polluting the music industry with your trivial arguments. What, you can't appreciate the obscene level of fame that your Brit-rock band Oasis has reached without giving in to the need to publicly cry about each other? Fine, but give me your tears so I can sell them on eBay for a hefty sum, you whiny, world-famous girls.

Have you seen these two at it? Liam and Noel (the band's lead singer and guitarist, respectively) are like the poster children for sibling rivalry, save Cain and Abel. I wouldn't be surprised if more ink has been spilled over their constant personal issues and power struggle for leadership of the band than has been over their music. The two had their final family feud last week when Noel quit the band (AGAIN) in the middle of a tour (AGAIN). The public statement that he released on the band's website read that he "simply could not go on working with Liam a day longer".

It's completely understandable for a band's offstage tension to manifest itself in the public scene, and I'm definitely not saying that they should have stuck together forever. Did they make great music? Absolutely, which makes their decision to let talent take backseat to an intense public display of unresolved childhood competition just that much more obnoxious. But once the magic in a band is gone, it's gone. And if the two leaders were really at the end of their ropes, it's likely that whatever music they produced in the future would lack the comfortable passion that everyone bought and loved.

But REALLY, Noel? You simply could not go on for a few more days and avoid disappointing thousands of international fans by holding it together for three more sold-out shows?

A Rolling Stone article stated that they actually broke the news at a concert, where the audience had already gathered. It blows my mind that the musicians would disappoint so many people over a problem within the band, deep-rooted as it may be. Maybe they've forgotten what it feels like to be a fan who has shelled out several paychecks and waited with breath abated for months to hear one of the biggest names in the industry, but it's hard to respect anybody who would make a move like that.

Union Grounds "Unplugged"

By Matt Speanburg

TCU kicks off the school year with yet another unique event, The Union Grounds “Unplugged,” which gives students the opportunity to kick back, drink some coffee, and take a break from their studies to enjoy music from their own classmates. Robin Darcy, a junior graphic design major, opened the event Wednesday night with her unique style, acoustic guitar and soft voice.
Darcy mic checked at 10 p.m. right outside of the Union Grounds Coffee shop, and didn’t stop for a half hour, mixing in her original music with covered songs such as, “Save Tonight”, “Beautiful Soul”, and “Come On Get Higher.” With just an acoustic guitar, a roll-away speaker and a microphone, Darcy entertained a fairly large group (for an opening night) until she ran out of original songs and sheet music. “I’ve been writing and playing guitar since middle school,” said Darcy, “But I’ve never actually performed in front of anyone besides my dad until my senior year of high school.” Darcy has been given the opportunity to record the song “I Love You” in three weeks down in Austin. “It’s a great opportunity for me, and we’ll see where it goes from there,” Darcy said. Apart from singing, Robin is a member of the Pi Beta Phi sorority and is originally from San Diego, California. To listen or download some of Robin’s music, check out her MySpace page, and look for her on ITunes.
The Union Ground “Unplugged” music event will be held every Wednesday night at 10 pm and will feature a new TCU student every week. Also, Thursday nights at 10 pm, 1873 will be hosting “Open Mic Night” for anyone who wants to come and get up in front of a crowd and entertain. Come out, relax, and get your mind of all of that reading.

Dethklok and Mastodon Embark on Face-melting Metal Tour

Fake band. Real music.

On the show "Metalocalypse," the band Dethklok enjoys near unanimous support from literally billions of fans eager to give their lives to give a sacrifice at the altar of heavy metal.

On late-night's Adult Swim on Cartoon Network, Dethklok is both a funny satire and a tribute to heavy metal bands with all its cliches still attached.

Now they will be touring again on the heels of their second album, the aptly-named "Dethalbum 2" that releases on September 29th. Song titles include "I Tamper with the Evidence at the Murder Site of Odin" and "Laser Cannon Deth Sentence." If you don't know what kind of music they make judging a book by its cover, I will just say that it's "brutal."

In reality, the band is headed up by show creator Brendon Small on guitar with a slew of veteran metal musicians like guitarist Mike Keneally (Frank Zappa) drummer Gene Hoglan (Testament, Opeth) and bassist Bryan Beller (Steve Vai).

Fictional bands who enjoy mainstream success are nothing new. Gorillaz were started as a side project by Blur frontman Damon Albarn and "Tank Girl" cartoonist Jamie Hewlett. Even before them, the Archies (based on the comic "Archie" and all its spinoffs like "Jughead") and Josie and the Pussycats (based on the 1970's Hanna Barbera cartoon) played their infectious bubblegum pop for pre-teens before the Disney Channel made pre-packaged stars out of Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers.

And who could forget Alvin and the Chipmunks, the first "virtual band." Even after years of Electro-shock therapy, I cannot.

In addition to being headquarters of Adult Swim, Atlanta, Georgia is also home to Mastodon, the critically acclaimed band that shares the bill with Dethklok.

"The Soloist" Review

The formula seems perfect: Take a director pedigreed in Oscar-nominated period pieces like "Atonement" and "Pride and Prejudice" and give him two Oscar-nominated performers in Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx for a remarkable true story. Sounds like a surefire candidate for Best Picture right?

Maybe.

Robert Downey Jr. plays LA Times columnist Steve Lopez, a brash constantly put-upon man in a newspaper industry that's axing veteran writers left and right. He finds an idea for a story in Nathaniel Ayers, a disturbed homeless man who also happens to be a musical prodigy playing for passing cars on a busy street.

The problem with the Soloist is that while Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx's performances are great, the film itself seems to be pulled in a lot of different directions. One minute it's an ode to the love of music and the next it's a portrait of a gifted but troubled genius before finally becoming a meditation on the issue of homelessness in America.

Any one of these topics would have worked on their own, but together the film feels cluttered and a little unfocused. It's through no fault of director Joe Wright, whose delicate touches are refreshing in a film that could've just hammered the audience with overwrought symbolism. The screenwriter Susannah Grant had a lot to work with from Lopez' book of the same name and it feels like she tried to hit all of the high notes.

While it's not really important that the film gets an Oscar nod like the rest in Wright's stable, the film has a good message, if only a little messy in getting its point across.

Grade: B+

The Good, the Bad and the Bizarre: Found Footage Festival

One man's trash is another man's treasure.

From cheesy 80's promotional videos for restaurants like Chick Fil A (pictured at right) to 17 sexual harassment training videos pared down to a "Best of" montage of reenactments and a music video made by a couple of wrestlers who call themselves the Fabulous Ones, the Found Footage Festival is a national tour showcasing the weirdest videos scraped off the floors of restaurants and only the highest-quality thrift stores and garage sales.

The videos have a "so bad it's good" quality to them. The washed-out color and VHS quality gives the footage a kind of public-access TV charm. The humor is mostly unintentional like the seriousness and earnestness of sexual harassment reenactments and also there's "Murder She Wrote" star Angela Lansbury in her skivvies.

The minds behind the festival are Nick Prueher and Joe Pickett, whose writing credits include the Late Show with David Letterman, reputable stalwarts of internet journalism the Onion and conservative savior The Colbert Report.

With video contributions from David Cross (Mr. Show with Bob and David) and Chris Elliott (Saturday Night Live),

The pair will take their show on the road to Dallas' Lakewood Theater on Friday May 8th at 8 p.m. Tickets are ten bucks and I'm sure it would be worth it just to see the instructional video on how to toilet-train cats (it's funny and informative too!).

For more info, check out the website at www.foundfootagefestival.com

Valentine's Day in April?

By Naheil Qudah
Staff Reporter

That's correct! But think less roses and greeting cards, and more guts and glory. I'm talking about the four-stint reunion tour that self-proclaimed alternative band My Bloody Valentine kicked off this week after performing at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in California. They showed Texas some love by hitting up Austin Music Hall in the state capital last Tuesday, April 21 before playing the Palladium Ballroom in Dallas the following night.

You know the band's unmistakable sound, but what about their performance?

Reaching their peak in the early 90's, the band is widely attributed as generating and influencing many of the decade's "shoegazing" bands. The genre got its name from the inanimate nature that its musicians took on when performing and the crowd at the My Bloody Valentine concert took on the same look, standing dumbstruck while the band invaded the room with its experimental tunes and unassuming stage presence.

The band was in a similarly trance-like state: they addressed the audience only once, when guitarist Bilinda Butcher coquettishly waved and replied to an overexcited fan, "We love you, too!" At all other times the members were focused solely on producing a cohesive and emotional sound through their instruments and microphones. The show was a bigger tribute to instrumentation than anything else- you could hardly hear the vocals, but you knew something must be coming out of frontman Kevin Shield's and guitarist Belinda Butcher's mouth movements- so listeners who feel the need to connect with a performer through the sound of their voice would likely be left unsatisfied.

But the hard-hitting music! You know you're going to hear something intense when the doormen issue you earplugs upon entry (true story). The sound was wild, tremendous and fierce and the audience stood motionless, allowing it to pulse through them. World's calmest crowd, or the embodiment of ripping reverence? Answer choice B, please.

And the biggest highlight? Just before the concert ended, the sound approached a volume level that at once petrified and delighted the audience. In the middle of their final song, You Made Me Realise, all four members entered a zone of concentration and delivered an explosive sound that literally shook the room, playing an ear-splitting and vocal-free rhythm that stayed steady for the most part but slowly introduced intricate nuances. A wall of feedback. Hypnosis at its finest. The 13 minute auditory stare game left audience members unsure of whether to headbang or shoegaze. Instead, everyone buried their fingers in their ears, squinted their eyes, contorted their faces and moved forward, loose-limbed and slack-jawed.

When the emotional cacophony was over, a cursory glance around the room showed open-mouthed listeners whose shocked and hungry faces were illuminated by uneven strobe lights. Even more impressive was the way that the band picked up where they left off before the sound-off and completed the melodic song without skipping a beat.

Their performance seemed like something from outer space, and the audience member in front of me astutely hypothesized that this must be what it sounds like to be sucked into a black hole. Loud enough to make the earplugs necessary, vicious enough to make your hair and clothes literally vibrate throughout the entire performance.

More than just a concert, seeing My Bloody Valentine live was a full-body audiovisual experience for spectators' minds and senses.

"What the hell just happened?" I wondered out loud after the show.

"I think I saw Jesus!" the guy on my left exclaimed.

If you ever get a chance to see the band live, don't just take the opportunity; take a friend and spread the V-Day love. It will be a greater experience than either of you are possibly able to expect.

Metal Band Lamb of God Stick To The Formula That Works

Listeners might think Lamb of God is a Christian rock band judging by the name of their band, the biblical tinges in their music and the first track off their newest album "Wrath."

Bu then they would be in for an unpleasant surprise.

The lull is short-lived and the full-blast barrage of “In Your Words” begins. It’s almost as if the band wanted to get some calm guitar passages off their chest before things get heavy and the band doesn’t let up until the end.

The themes of destruction and rebirth are constant. The band even reaches for a political post-9/11 song with the closer "Reclamation" which features lyrics like "Humanity's a failed experiment, walking the path to extinction, spinning it's wheels endlessly. Grease them with oil and uranium."

Kind of a downer, but if you have listened to them before, you should know by now what to expect, which leads to me to my only criticism of the album. Fiercely technical and lean in the fretwork without sounding sterile and robotic, the band doesn’t waste any time in saying what it wants to say and nothing more, nothing less but this virtue also turns out to be the band’s greatest vice.

There’s little filler to be heard and the songs are solid enough to be memorable, but at the same time there’s little room for experimentation. If you like your heavy metal traditional and to the point, you won’t have a problem with it but those expecting the eclectic mix of styles from bands like The Dillinger Escape Plan or Mastodon will look elsewhere.

The band started in 1990 as the instrumental group Burn the Priest. They got a new name, a vocalist and the since the move they have enjoyed mainstream success on their 2004 album “Ashes of the Wake." That album yielded a critical and commercial hit with “Laid to Rest.”

Lamb of God has often seen comparisons with the local and legendary Texas metal band Pantera for their emphasis on rhythm and syncopation of the drums, guitars and bass rather than style points like many metal bands seem to be aiming for nowadays.

All in all, the highlight tracks for me are "In Your Words," "Set to Fail," and "From Everything to Nothing."