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TUESDAY, JANUARY 30, 2018
PACK N THE EVENTS THINGS TO WATCH OUT FOR THIS WEEK By Joey Thyne
By Joey Thyne
In the summer of 2016, 49 people were killed at a gay nightFREEQUENCY club in Orlando, Florida. At the time, it was the deadliest mass DATE: Wednesday shooting in the country’s history, and as a result, Reno band TIME: 6 p.m. Fine Motor resolved to help out LOCATION: Nevada Lounge the local LGBTQ community and began planning a benefit INFO: Poet Mwende concert for the then recently“FreeQuency” Katwiwa opened OUR Center. is performing at the first Earlier this month, a skiinstallment of UNR’s masked vandal threw rocks into coffee house series the front windows and door of of 2018. If you don’t OUR Center, shattering the glass. come for the awesome After the concert had dwelled in poetry, come for the free limbo for a year and a half, Fine snacks and coffee. Just Motor finally held their benefit a head’s up: This is not on Jan. 26, at the Holland Project, raising over $1,500 for the a rally to help release organization. anyone named Quency Tickets cost $5 and 100 perfrom prison. That’s next cent of the proceeds went to Wednesday. OUR Center. Nom Eats provided burritos. Other local indepenMARSHALL dent bands Boys, Pry and Surly performed. DATE: Thursday Fine Motor consists entirely of UNR faculty. English profesTIME: 6 p.m. sor Dan Morse plays guitar and LOCATION: JCSU Theatre sings, English professor Chris Mays plays guitar, creative INFO: “Marshall” tells the writing grad student Casey Bell story of an early trial in drums and sings and journalism the career of Thurgood professor Ben Birkinbine plays Marshall. It is certified fresh bass. Morse and Bell primarily with 83 percent on Rotten write the songs. Tomatoes. I’ve never seen Since opening its doors, it but it’s the best movie OUR Center has supported the Reno LGBTQ community with of the year. Josh Gad is resources, education, advice, in it. Josh Gad is like that guy you didn’t invite to the counseling, meetings and a safe space.They also assist in party, but stays all night orchestrating such events as the and then helps clean up Northern Nevada Pride Parade afterward. What were we & Festival, the Harvey Milk Day talking about? annual event, National Coming Out Day, the Outwest Film Fest BILL BURR and the Guerilla Queer Bar Reno. DATE: Friday “The fact that this place was just vandalized shows that there TIME: 8 p.m. are people who still don’t want to LOCATION: Silver Legacy see this center exist,” Birkinbine said. INFO: Comedian Bill According to the 2018 Point in Burr is stopping by Reno. Time survey, 51 percent of the Tickets are already sold homeless youth ages 18 to 24 out so I don’t know why report losing their housing over I’m telling you about this. sexuality or gender identity. It just seems cruel, really. “Some of these people have Maybe you can find some been kicked out of their homes creepy scalper outside the for who they are,” Birkinbine said. “Some of the families don’t show to buy tickets from. agree with who they are. This You don’t want to miss just reinforces the point that out on Burr discussing there needs to be a place for topics ranging from being these people to go to be cared an angry football fan in for, to get advice, to get help and Boston to being an angry whatever they need to navigate alcoholic in Boston. the difficulties they are facing.” It makes sense that this benefit BRAD PAISLEY would take place at the Holland DATE: Saturday Project, a nonprofit music venue. TIME: 7 p.m. “We like to play the Holland LOCATION: Reno Events Project because it’s an all ages, independent venue, which Center will support local artists and INFO: Brad Paisley is musicians,” Birkinbine said. “It’s stopping in Reno as a part of basically run by volunteers. The his Weekend Warrior World reason we like that is because
Tour. Brad Paisley sounds like Keystone Light tastes. Openers are Dustin Lynch, Chase Bryant and Lindsay Ell. Tickets range from $55-$119. You should bring your roommate who voted from Trump and likes to wear a sombrero and drink tequila on Cinco de Mayo.
STEREOTYPED 101 DATE: Monday TIME: 6 p.m. LOCATION: KC Rotunda INFO: Comedian and
speaker Karith Foster is coming to the UNR campus. She will discuss homophobia, classism, racism, diversity and inclusion. This is event is FREE to all (woke) students. You should bring your roommate who voted from Trump and likes to wear a sombrero and drink tequila on Cinco de Mayo.
Joey Thyne can be reached jthyne@sagebrush.unr.edu and on Twitter @joey_thyne
[we] grew up in cities or towns where that was an important part of our youth. We would go to shows and see bands and get exposed to different kinds of messages.” Morse shares this love of the Holland Project. “It continues to amaze me that it exists, that it’s so well-run,” Morse said. “There are always DIY spots throughout the country popping up and then closing down. The Holland Project is the best-run, best-organized DIY spot I’ve ever seen in my life. And it has good sound too which is incredibly rare. So for us, it’s this magical place where we don’t have to compromise.” As an incentive to get people to come, Fine Motor handed out free vinyl records of their self-titled album to the first 50 people who showed up. “I still enjoy the sound that comes off a vinyl record instead of streaming or anything else,” Birkinbine said. “It may sound cliche, but I think it’s just a warmer sound. It just sort of fills up a room more than other stuff.” Fine Motor mixes dream pop, surf rock and shoegaze, taking inspiration from bands like Yo La Tengo, the Velvet Underground and My Bloody Valentine. On his process of songwriting, Morse said, “It weirdly starts out as singer-songwriter type stuff. A lot of times me and Casey will sit on the couch with acoustics and come up with something. Then after that, we make a point of trying to mess it up somehow... Just trying to do something strange to the song structure or just added some sort of dissonant element. That comes from our love of 90s music, where on the one hand, bands were sort of accessible, but also kept the audience at an arm’s length. We perhaps foolishly and totally outmodedly try to retain that. We’re operating within a pop vernacular, but at the same time trying to challenge the audience rather than just give them what they want.” Erin Miller, better known as Surly, kicked off the night by strumming and serenading the crowd with some low-fi tunes. Next, Pry came out with their post-punk rage. Then, Boys had everyone dancing with infectious jams like “I Hate Boys.” Finally, Fine Motor took the stage, performing a few new songs as well as a cover of “In Heaven” from the film “Eraserhead.” When asked about the connection between performing music and lecturing as a professor, Morse laughed. “I think it’s very, very, very tenuous...I suppose for large lecture classes, it’s easier to think of it as a performance. This isn’t really me, it’s sort of me, but it’s me playing this role. Just creating that kind
of distance is helpful...It’s like 50 minutes. You have to get in the right mind space beforehand, and then you perform, and then you leave.” With over 130 attendees, it was a full house. Cameron Beck, UNR student, Music Director of Wolf Pack Radio, and bass player with Pry said it was one of the biggest crowds he has performed for. “Music transcends a lot of barriers and a lot of people are able to connect through music,” Beck said. “Music is able to bring people together for a common cause. When we’re all able to unite under a certain cause then have some fun in the process, that’s always an important thing.” Morse isn’t as quick to equate music with social awareness. “To Cedrick Alcala/Nevada Sagebrush be honest I think it’s potentially a fraught thing,” Morse said. Casey Bell drums and sings in Fine Motor at the Benefit for OUR Center. “I think there’s this too easy assumption that music is necessarily politically progressive and that’s not always the case... It’s uncomfortable because if your music is just a political statement then it ceases to be music. We prefer to operate in a community-based scenario. Part of the community will necessarily involve raising money for other people in the community.” As for the future of independent music and DIY culture, the future is unclear. “It’s hard to say,” Morse said. “After a show like this at the Holland Project, I feel really optimistic. At other times, I feel really pessimistic. There’s this saying in punk: ‘Your band is not a brand.’ But it feels to me often times that people do feel that their band is a brand. They’re very open to partnering with companies and Cedrick Alcala/Nevada Sagebrush doing commercials and trying to monetize what they’re doing. Singer-songwriter Surly starts the show. I can totally understand the instinct of wanting to make a living from your art and your craft. But, at the same time, I think there’s a big argument to be made for amateurism, precisely because it frees you from these market restraints.” One thing appears certain, though, nights like Jan. 26 are worth cherishing. “Before we did this, we were worried if anyone would come,” Morse said “We were so amazed, not just by the number of people, but the vibe at the show. The way everyone was pulling together for this cause. It really made us appreciate how special the Holland Project is and how special Reno is, at least in this moment.” For those who were unable to make it to the concert but would still like to help, check out the OUR Center website for other opportunities. Joey Thyne can be reached at joeythyne@gmail.com and on Twitter @joey_thyne.
Cedrick Alcala/Nevada Sagebrush
Punk trio Boys jams at the Holland Project.
Buy low on ‘Corporate’
By Will Keys A TV show is an investment. Get in on the ground floor of the right show and you can ride it straight to the top, like someone who bought 100 shares in Microsoft in 1975. You might happen upon the pilot episode of the right show on a late, drunken night and find that you’ve struck gold. You’ll text your friends about it, and once it hits peak popularity, they’ll praise your eye for television forever. The only problem is those kinds of shows only come around so often. But here’s a little insider tip: this year, that show is “Corporate.” “Corporate,” which airs on Comedy Central Wednesday nights at 10:30, takes the American cubicle-culture paradigm established by comedies like “The Office” and “Workaholics” and beats
it over the head with a water cooler. The show’s co-creators, Jake Weisman and Matt Ingbretson, play junior executives Jake and Matt, a pair of vitamin D-deficient office dwellers who split time between trying to climb the ladder at work and longing for the sweet release of death. Their corporate overlord is called Hampton DeVille, a conglomerate of mass manufacturers and war profiteers spearheaded by their despot boss Christian DeVille, played perfectly by Lance Reddick, whose credits include the ultrastoic lieutenant Cedric Daniels of “The Wire.” Jake and Matt’s first task in the pilot episode is to fire a co-worker who crafted a tweet from the official Hampton DeVille Twitter account making light of a recent hurricane. Still having an ounce of humanity intact, or perhaps
just trying to exploit an opportunity, the two delay the culprit’s termination in exchange for a tour of all of the company’s office parties that day so they can “fill the void” with cake and chocolate syrup. Sure enough, the soulless higher-ups at Hampton DeVille fire the tweeter themselves, leaving Jake and Matt responsible for talking him off the ledge, literally. Over the course of the next two episodes, “Corporate” really starts to hit its stride. Matt constructs a presentation to entice the U.S. government into a weapons contract to arm them for their secret coup in Bolivia, and is praised for his PowerPoint skills: “Your decision to use bullets as bullet points… genius.” Later on, in the third episode, Jake parlays spinal surgery into a better standing around the office, trading prescription
painkillers for luxuries like a new office and a new suit while Matt nearly loses his mind digitizing Hampton DeVille’s scores of workplace death records If “Corporate” sounds nihilistic and unfathomably dark, that’s because it is. It’s also morbidly hilarious, though. The show deftly makes light of some of the most nightmarish elements of the modern work environment and the cutthroat non-ethics of international conglomerates like Apple, Amazon, or Walmart. Buried beneath the scathing satire of corporate America are the makings of a subtle buddy comedy by the stars and creators, Ingbretson and Weisman. The two joke about their hyperspecific taste in porn (Matt watches P.O.V. videos of ex-girlfriends apologizing) and whether or not they’re destined to become racist
by the time they’re 50 years old. To put it simply, there’s nothing quite like it on television today. “Corporate” is simultaneously terrifying, depressing, enlightening, and hysterical. Given its dark nature, there’s a chance it might not reach the heights it should, but it’s worth getting in on early. And, of course, if it’s unceremoniously axed the day after you tell all of your friends to sit down and watch it, you can just say that it was “misunderstood” or “too ahead of its time” like “Arrested Development” or “The Dana Carvey Show,” which will only boost your TV cred. So go all in on “Corporate” and allow the laughs to roll right in. Will Keys can be reached at joeythyne@gmail.com and on Twitter @willkeys6
TV Review ‘CORPORATE’ Release Date: Jan. 17 Genre: Comedy