The Wake, Issue 9, Spring 2012

Tuition Increases

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Guante

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Q&A: Phantom Vibration 02 - 16 april 2012

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Editorial

Production

Editor-in-Chief Maggie Foucault

Production Manager Ryan Webert

Managing Editor Alex Lauer

Graphic Designers Steph Mertes, Sean Quinn, Ryan Webert, Taylor Wichrowski

Cities Editor Alyssa Bluhm

Voices Editor Alicia Johnson

Sound & Vision Editor Zach McCormick

This Issue Cover Artist Jiun Kim

Photographers Maggie Foucault, Tyler Lauer, Zach McCormick, Erin Pederson, Habakkuk Stockhill, Ava Wichmann

This is probably the first and last time I will ever be addressing you fine people, as I’m not officially an editor, but rather a lowly designer. Your graphics editor is currently consumed with homework (aka playing QWOP), so he passed the baton to me for this issue and I am just thrilled because I love to yammer. So maybe you’re not getting the Ryan Gosling of lettitors, but I can probably give you a Chris Kattan.

Art Director Keit Osadchuk

Web Editor Eric James

I hate to break it to you, but finals are right around the cornerish. Instead of empathizing with you, I’m going to instead recommend to you a number of distractions. If I could empathize, I would, but at this point in my academic career, I’m incapable of emotion. Sorry…kind of.

Advertising Managers Cooper Henckel, Steve Sitek

Business Advisory Board James DeLong, Kevin Dunn, Courtney Lewis, Eric Price, Morgan Mae Schultz, Kay Steiger, Mark Wisser

Contributing Writers Mitch Ambrose, Cooper Henckel, Matthew Hourigan, Elizabeth Ireland, Alicia Johnson, Alex Lauer, Tyler Lauer, Elissa Mann, Zach McCormick, Justin Miller, Juan P. Ramirez, Kelsey Schwartz, Steve Sitek, Emily Trenholm, Logan Wroge

Established in 2002, The Wake is a fortnightly independent magazine and registered student organization produced by and for the students of the University of Minnesota.

—Dance Moms: This shit is off the chain. The women on this show are some of the midwest’s finest, crazy bitches. I love them and I hate them so much.

The best character is Cathy, a disgruntled dance mom/dance teacher, who uses phrases like “stab-in-the-back-rooski”.

—Target: I go in there for a carton of eggs and I come out with a box and matches and orange Tic Tacs. Have you checked out the toy aisle lately? No? Well now is the perfect time! I went ape shit in there last week. Maybe you can’t have it all, but Hello Kitty can. Just look at her fifty play sets.

—Quizilla: If you need a good laugh, Quizilla’s got you covered. This place is the mecca of teen angst and ridiculousness. What used to be a quiz site is now almost entirely made up of sleazy fan fiction. This shit is so beautiful, you'd swear it emerged from some mythological fountain fllled with Lip Smackers and Edward Cullen cardboard cut-outs. There's something for everyone: Harry Potter fan fiction, vampire zombie slaves, and I believe there’s an entire Draco Malfoy genre.

Illustrators Angie Frisk, Josie Keifenheim, Rachel Mosey, Keit Osadchuk, Sean Quinn, Steve Sitek, Taylor Wichrowski

©2009 The Wake Student Magazine. All rights reserved.

Hello there!

11:9 The Wake Student Magazine 1313 5th St. SE #331 Minneapolis, MN 55414

—Low Budge Shows: Last week, my roommate and I actively sought out high school productions. We were ready to drive a half hour to see a high school version of Oklahoma. Because they are the best. Sure, maybe they’re miscast. Maybe the screeches from the orchestra are a little too reminiscent of the Psycho soundtrack. But they’re all about love of the craft. And I admire that.

So if you were preparing to study or do homework, I hope I persuaded you to spend your time otherwise. Enjoy the issue!

Steph Mertes Graphic Designer, Cat Lover

(612) 379-5952 • www.wakemag.org The Wake was founded by Chris Ruen and James DeLong.

The Wake is published with support from Campus Progress/Center for American Progress (online at www.campusprogress.org).

disclaimer The purpose of The Wake is to provide a forum in which students can voice their opinions. Opinions expressed in the magazine are not representative of the publication or university as a whole. To join the conversation email mfoucault@wakemag.org.

voices

Affirmative Action: Cultural Welfare The double edged sword

By Cooper Henckel

Affirmative action policies are obsolete.

Given the political circumstances behind the creation of Affirmative Action policies, one can see why it was a seemingly good idea. In some right, Affirmative Action has been successful in allowing minorities, specifically blacks and women, to integrate themselves into parts of society that had been previously closed off to them. Doctors, professors, business executives, and other positions of power now belong to people of diverse gender, race, and ethnicity. The goal of Affirmative Action has been achieved, but at what cost?

Affirmative Action is a form of cultural welfare. It’s a redistribution of cultural power from the “wealthy” (in the United States, white males) to the “poor” (persons of color and women). It requires that the impoverished be given access to the world of the wealthy. In theory, it’s a brilliant idea. It changes the culture of those previously exclusive circles and introduces new ideas to an otherwise enclosed world. But Affirmative Action has proven to be as much a destructive force as a productive one, weakening the accomplishments of minorities and promoting discourses which foster racially motivated thinking. Instead of being successful because they’re successful, they’re successful because they’re the right color or gender.

Instead of being a student with a strong academic standing, they’re a student who has the right skin color to meet quotas.

angie frisk

Affirmative Action forces people to be evaluated by their race.

You apply to universities and some jobs with the knowledge that because of your race, you are more likely to be accepted.

You’re more likely to get scholarships. You’re more likely to given a position that, no matter how hard you worked, you never truly earned. It’s a very destructive mentality. Students who are accepted based on Affirmative Action can never truly

know why they were chosen. Not all minorities are chosen because they fill quotas, but some are. How can one feel a sense of accomplishment when there may be a chance that all they were able to do, all they are now, is based on their race?

Racially motivated thinking, whether promoting cultural minorities or majorities, is destructive.

Take for example two students applying to a university. One is an Asian female, the other a white female. Both are Americans and come from middle class families. They have similar backgrounds in terms of academics and behavioral conduct.

What should be a very difficult decision is made simple: because she has the right ethnic background, the Asian student is given the spot in the university over the white female. If she fills their quota and there’s space left, the other girl is given a spot as well. The University of Texas is being sued over a similar matter in Fisher v. University of Texas, which has been accepted to be heard by the Supreme Court.

This situation is problematic for two reasons: the Asian student feels that her accomplishment is diminished by the “merit” of her race and the white student feels as though she’s less valuable as a person because of her ethnicity. Racially motivated thinking, whether promoting cultural minorities or majorities, is destructive. Any policy which advocates for discrimination based on ethnic or racial background cannot be allowed to continue. The more we think in terms of race, the longer racism is allowed to exist.

So, kids are getting bigger.

By Alicia Johnson When I was little I played with dolls and did activities outside with friends. I honestly cannot remember the last time I saw a kid playing outside with a big group of people, just enjoying the little things in life. Kids are so focused on the latest inventions that it is greatly affecting them for the worse. We cannot sit aside and watch it happen. Something has to change.

It is no secret that obesity is becoming more and more of a problem. One out of three kids is now considered overweight in the U.S. Instead of trying to lower that number, people are more concerned with getting the latest and greatest technology not only for themselves but for young children.

I mean, seriously, my 5-year-old brother has a portable DVD player, a camera, and knows how to work the Wii better than I ever could. Kids nowadays are even getting iPads, cell phones, and other technologically advanced devices.

Fun fact: crash test dummies used to weigh 65 pounds for kid-versions. Not-so-fun-fact: starting in 2014 that weight will go up. The government has increased the weight to 66-80 pounds to ensure the protection of the larger children in today’s society. It is crucial to keep kids safe, and this is just the start of the changes to come for cars. Before we know it, sizes of seats will change and who knows what else.

Schools are also guilty of adapting to overweight children.

Some schools have special chairs and desks for large students who cannot fit into the normal-sized ones. The average desk is about 18-inches tall, but three years ago companies started making 19-inch tall desks that allowed the chairs to

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Obesity is a serious condition that can lead to worse health problems and even emotional problems. I think it is great people are making cars safer and school easier for bigger kids, but there are more important things we can do about this problem. Why give off the impression that it is okay to be obese? Shouldn’t we be teaching good eating habits and fun exercises or maybe even getting rid of fast food’s dominance? The people at risk are children who do not know any better. We cannot blame them, but we should try to help them.

They are our future after all. sean quinn

be deeper and wider. Since it can be embarrassing for some of the larger kids to have different school equipment, some companies are making adjustable chairs and desks so students can customize them and not look different from their peers.

Schools are obviously aware of the problem, so I am shocked they are not doing more to fix it. School is the place to learn, so why not have more gym and health classes at younger ages, and healthy food options?

voices

added, “They’re makin’ me a little hungry myself.” Another example of the “natural” trend is “Evo—the ancestral diet ” like a high-protein Atkins diet for pets. The choices also included, of course, gourmet. On one poster, a greyhound in a chef hat prompts, in Christopher Lee’s voice I imagine, “You should eat so well”--Low-Fat Liver Dog Treats and Chicken À La Veg Dry Cat Food, that is.

Who Exactly Let The Dogs Out?

By Emily Trenholm

And for those who have pampered your pet plump, there’s always “Ultimate Air Dogs! Where dogs fly” or at least leap into a pool to pursue a ball or chew toy. “Get your dog in the pool and off the couch!.” Our first competitor was Rouser, who practiced the “chase technique” by first starting with his own tail, then following a ball with his gaze for the entire 22 feet, 10 inches. Next came Dex, a Jack Russel Terrier who ran enthusiastically the length of the ramp, only to skid to a halt just before the water’s edge. His owners manically ran toward the pool and slid to their stomachs. They tried splashing him, pushing him from behind. Someone cued that transspecies inspirational classic “Don’t Stop Believin’.’” Nothing. Looks like it was his day in the doghouse. As Dex exited the arena and the competition heated up, “Who Let the Dogs Out” came on, and I swear the ever-present dog-barks grew twice as loud.

photos by Maggie Foucault

“I have to get outside. Don’t make me cross my legs,” mindreads a dog owner. Despite the overwhelming fluorescence and the rarity of Astroturf in the Minneapolis Convention Center, Pet Expo 2012 proved to be quite the menagerie. But as the day went on, the line between human and animal began to blur as I asked myself: Who’s really holding the leash here?

There were almost as many animals as people, and just as pet owners swapped stories, so did their pets growl or sniff at each other. And as we evolve in our 21st century world, our pets come along for the ride. But who’s domesticating who here? And who, exactly, let the dogs out? Attention pet parents, I’m talking to you.

Start with the wicker basket-cribs and toys covered in bells and binkies for your pink cockatoo. All the way to Bound

By Time’s personalized cremation urns and pet sympathy cards or Pawtraiture’s “Custom heirloom portraiture.” Like any self-respecting pet parent, you’re going to pamper your pooch—just as much, if not more than, your other project in domestication, children. Around the corner is the equivalent of a Pet Outlet Mall. Bins filled with raincoats, sweaters, fleece booties, and no-skid pet socks, to keep your quadruped ready for the elements. Indulge in a Cat Veranda (a cage placed in the window radiator-style.) Invest in some cat collar bling. Get classy with bandannas with taglines like “Bitches [heart] Me.”

dogs have cropped ears, a growing number of Dane owners are calling the practice a relic from the past. And, finally, for the first time I was forced to ponder the question: what exactly are the complications of dressing a Siamese cat in a sushi chef costume?

The biggest debate of all seems to be not what’s on the outside of pets, but rather what we put in them. The latest trend for pets, like their human counterparts, is “natural” food, though opinions on what this means exactly differ, from elk antler bone-alternatives to “whole food” products like the hand-made concoctions of “The Doggie Bag”: Bacon & Cheese Bagel Wraps, Chicago Style Puppy Pizza. The latter was developed because the owner “got tired of my damn Border Collie stealin’ pieces of my pizza. Go ahead, take a sniff,” he

Finally, just as people have lost their homes through the economic downturn, so has the dog rescue movement grown.

Organizations like Homeward Bound K9, have increasingly been responding to “owner surrender”—when an owner dies, downsizes, or has a house foreclose. Another aspect of pet rescue is addressed by the non-profit Basic Animal Rescue Training, which trains firefighters in pet rescue, recognizing that while human safety comes first, a pet emergency can quickly become a people emergency if a pet owner does something unsafe to save their pet. As an organization head pointed out, “human-pet relationships complicate things.”

People do crazy things for their pets—and vice versa. When it comes down to it, we’re all just a bunch of domesticated party animals, and the party was pumpin’ at Pet Expo 2012. Although perhaps, puppy love aside, we humans can’t ever completely ape “the unconditional love and loyalty of a pet—a unique and frequently elusive trait.” Who let the dogs out, indeed.

From the Twin Cities Miniature Schnauzer Club to the Northstar Rottweiler Club, there were enough different breeds for a full-on dog fight. And the tensions didn’t end there. The Minnesota Purebread Association boldly proclaimed on a scroll “Breed the best and spay the rest,” while close by the rag-tag Muttville Comix bumbled their way into our hearts. And when encountering a Great Dane that was almost as high as this reporter’s shoulders with bandaged ears, I learned of the great debate in the Great Dane world: Cropped v. Not. Ears were traditionally cropped to avoid mauling by the wild boars Danes traditionally were used to hunt. Though most show

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Tuition: A Generational Crisis How do we stop the rising cost of education?

By Logan Wroge Let’s talk about rising tuition. I know what you’re saying, ‘Haven’t hundreds of people done this same old spiel (well maybe you wouldn’t say spiel since you probably weren’t born in 1953) time and time again, but tuition keeps increasing?’ The answer is yes. Many people have ranted about tuition and tried to make the student body aware of the growing costs, but it seems like no one wants to pay attention until they’re caught in a situation that grabs them, shakes them, and forces them to be aware of how much we are actually paying.

It doesn’t matter if you wear Ray Bans, salmon colored shorts, skinny jeans, or backwards snapbacks; we are all in this struggle together.

We don’t have to jump in a time machine to explore the tuition woes, or lack of, for students of the past. The University of Minnesota conveniently shares, with all students willing to find them, the tuition rates from 1960 to present. To begin our exploration in the rising cost, let’s check out the first amount listed. It’s the fall of 1960, and as a student you would have been required to pay $213 for the entire year. Now, that doesn’t

Taylor Wichrowski

sound like anything, but inflation needs to be taken in account, right? When the numbers are calculated, all you would be paying for your tuition would be $1,638 today. That is one seventh of what we are paying for this current year.

If someone from 1960 were to work a part time job of twenty hours a week for minimum wage, which was $1.00, during the entire year, they would have made $1040 a year.

Not only could they have easily financed their own schooling, but they could have paid for nearly four other people’s tuitions. No worries about loans or debt, just getting good grades and maintaining a job. Let’s keep this idea of working twenty hours a week at minimum wage, and you see that even in 2001 you could have gone here with no need for loans if you did not spend your money on anything else.

A difficult challenge has been presented to us. The world is global, where education is essential to compete.

Also, the price of tuition is rising faster than wages and inflation, causing students to rack up higher debts. Those debts in turn reduce the possibility that an individual will pursue a career that they have a passion for but instead one that promises strong financial returns.

The Former Power of Minimum Wage $14,000 Actual Tuition

$12,000

Working 20 Hours at Minimum Wage

$10,000 $8,000

Students of the University of Minnesota, this is our challenge. It doesn’t matter if you wear Ray Bans, salmon colored shorts, skinny jeans, or backward snapbacks; we are all in this struggle together.

$6,000 $4,000

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08-09 11-12

02-03 05-06

96-97 99-00

90-91 93-94

84-85 87-88

66-67 69-70 72-73 75-76 78-79 81-82

$0

60-61 63-64

$2,000

The pursuit of higher education should not be a question of if you can afford it, but what college

you want to attend. We are in a historical time where the opportunities that thousands of other Americans had before us are now being threatened by rising tuition prices. Just remember this, it is challenges presented and the actions taken that define a generation and change the world.

What can you do? Anything. Email your representative, call Al Franken, write an article, or talk to President Kaler.

Fun. Poster Giveaway You know them for their youth anthem “We Are Young.”

They were going to play the Varsity Theater on April 13th, but that sold out. So they moved venues to The Brick…and that sold out. Tickets are far gone, but The Wake is giving you a chance to win a poster signed by all the members of the band!

How to win: Send an email to ALAUER@wakemag. org with the title “Fun. Poster Contest” and be sure to include your full name and mailing address.

“Like” The Wake Magazine on Facebook to get in on more upcoming giveaways.

ournameisfun.com

cities

The Black Whole of Coffman A tale of intriguing events, empty seats, and how to fill them again

By Justin Miller It’s Friday night. The pre-gaming is commencing and the nighttime extracurriculars are being formulated. What’ll it be? Drinking in Dinkytown? Perusing Downtown? Heading out to Uptown? When going to a place like the University of Minnesota, surrounded by a large urban area, the weekend social opportunities are seemingly limitless. So it seemed odd and maybe even a bit forced to find myself in the basement of Coffman, watching some country and folk music at the Whole Music Club at 10 p.m. on my precious Friday night. Now let’s make this clear: I’m not known for being picky about the details or whereabouts of my weekend exploits, but they sure as shit never happen anywhere on campus—especially not deep within the realms of what I perceive as the sober capital where weekends go to die: Coffman Union.

My point was illustrated perfectly when I tried to convince my roommates to venture out to the Whole for this journalistic adventure of mine. “Dude, I swear we’ll only stay for like twenty minutes tops. Believe me, I don’t wanna go either.

But I gotta write this article about whether or not the Whole sucks.” That was my pitch in an attempt at convincing anyone to come along for the ride. If you looked five minutes later,

you would have found me by myself, disgruntled, biking to Coffman alone. Those pieces of shit can’t even be bothered to come out for twenty minutes.

But I digress. This isn’t just a rant about me and my roommates and how booze and other vices must be used as a “carrot at the end of a stick” encouragement to do many things.

My story of going to get the gist of the Whole on a Friday night and all that it entailed speaks a lot about why I think the Whole Music Club is an irrelevant social black hole. I’m not saying it is a bad place, or that there are no efforts to promote it as a pleasant place to enjoy a night of music. Moreover, I find that the perception of the venue and the stigma that is attached to on-campus social events is, unfortunately but truthfully, “lame.”

The Whole doesn’t have a problem bringing in good talent; it has a severe problem bringing in good crowds.

With that being said, I was expecting the Music Madness: Country/Folk Night on this specific Friday to be filled with some sober-ites and the remains of a few Friday night plans that had fallen through. My prior expectations were based on previous experience, not preconceived notions. Instead, upon entrance to the venue I could’ve sworn I was trying to get into a Wu-Tang show in Brooklyn. I had to empty my pockets and walk through a metal detector while a judgmental UMPD cop eyed me down.

But instead of a few wandering souls inside, I saw the biggest crowd I have ever witnessed in the Whole. I was slightly shocked and a little disappointed that I couldn’t use my Fri-

Upcoming Events @ The Whole April 3rd @ 8 p.m. : Shabazz Palaces & Malitia MaliMob April 6th @ 8 p.m. : Sims, Astronautalis, & the Syndicate April 13th @ 8 p.m. : Rubber Soul (Beatles cover band) April 20th @ 5 p.m. : Spring Jam Battle of the Bands

day adventure to the Whole as further evidence that nobody goes there for entertainment. This threw me off for a bit. It was a night for amateur country and folk bands to show off their skills in hopes of making it to a place on the U of M’s Spring Jam bill. The event was booked mostly with band names I’ve never heard of and it was filled with more people than the last three times I’ve been there combined. And those included some pretty big local names like Ryan Olson from Gayngs and Peter Pisano of Peter Wolf Crier.

So why, besides talent shows with mobs of supportive friends, is the Whole a desolate social wasteland? I hate to be so harsh on something with such good intentions, but it’s true. Usually my first feeling when walking into the Whole is slight optimism that it will be better than the last time, followed by the familiar feeling of letdown and disappointment.

Then I just feel really bad for the artists. They show up and take the time out of their busy schedules to pour their hearts out in front of a crowd that can’t even be bothered to fill up the first row. This doesn’t help build the Whole’s reputation as a good venue with a great college crowd.

A case in point is the Making Music series. Despite a painfully awkward host, it is a great opportunity to hear your favorite local artists talk about their musical backgrounds and play a couple songs. Slug, POS, Dessa, Jeremy Messersmith, and many other big names have all graced the stage. I’ve even heard stories from an older co-worker of mine talking about the good ole days in the 60’s when a young Tom Waits played on stage, drinking and smoking the entire time—four hours. Now that is a place I would want to be. But every time I’ve gone to one of the shows in this series, it has been a painfully barren crowd.

Regular concerts at the Whole are a similar story. The concert-goer with a taste for booze is not likely to go to the Whole when they can go to almost any other venue and get drunk at the show. And the concert-goer that isn’t focused on their blood alcohol content will still want to go elsewhere because the crowd and atmosphere is sure to be more enjoyable.

We are talking about some awesome bands coming, the least we can do is show up. As U of M students, we have a blessing in the form of a cheap music venue right on campus that is chock full of both established and up-and-coming acts. With a huge pool of music fans in the area, it is almost unfathomable that the Whole isn’t perpetually bumpin’.

This venue doesn’t have a problem bringing in good talent; it has a severe problem bringing in good crowds. If a sterile and near-lifeless environment or stigmas and perceptions are keeping you from going, then be prepared to miss out on many opportunities to see some great music in the future. All it takes is for you to start showing up. Once you go, the rest shall follow and we can once again have ourselves a great oncampus venue.

photos by habakkuk stockstill

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Havens + Hart In The House

By Juan P. Ramirez

Disco, house, soul, and deep house are some of the genres that characterize Aaron Bliss and JD Havens’ music, known together as Havens + Hart. Havens started DJing at the age of 13 and was shortly introduced to the Minneapolis’s rave scene. He was brought up on acid house and Chicago house, but really fell in love with deep house when he lived near Los Angeles for four years while studying photography. As for the other half, Bliss is currently a member of Particle People Mpls, an event promotions group in the city, and has been promoting events locally for the last 15 years. Currently he and partners Jesse Jakob and John Chamberlin host BLACK, a dance night that happens every Saturday in the legendary First Ave Record Room. If you are in love with electronic music, think you are a party animal, but have never heard of these two amazing DJs/producers, check out BLACK ASAP. It’s not only hosted by these two amazing talents but also a number of local DJ troops from around the city.

I had the opportunity to have a beer with these two guys and talk about their beginnings in music and future projects.

Wake: First of all, when did you meet each other?

Aaron: JD and I both have been living here in Minneapolis for years, but how we actually met was through music. Back then I was throwing two parties a month at BLACK so I saw him a lot. We would always run into each other and chat about mu-

sic, you know, just having a break outside or something. Then he hit me up on Facebook and we started to share some music we were working on. It was two different types of music but similar taste, you know what I mean? We spoke about working on music many times after that but after a year or so of talking about it we finally just did it. We met in the studio and within an hour we were already creating music.

JD: It was obvious that Aaron and I from the very beginning had something going in the studio; we brought different strengths to production. In some things you know, I am stronger than Aaron and in some other things Aaron is stronger than I am. It’s just a perfect balance.

If they are good DJs, they are good DJs. If they are shitty Djs, they are shitty Djs. W: When did you start making music?

JD: We started working… I actually just looked it up in my computer [laughs]. We did “Crush Groove,” our first track, on May 9th of 2011, so a little less than a year.

W: How would you describe your music? Is it this dark techno or the new deep house that has been coming up in the last few years?

JD: I think it kind of sits in a little bit of that grey area somewhere in between the triangle of house music, deep house, and that kind of new… I don’t want to call it nu-disco but something really close.

A: Sure, I’ll say it’s like that new house that’s coming up for a couple of years now, but I think we do tend to add a bit more of a traditional house/deep house on top of it.

W: Who are some of your biggest musical influences?

A: Prince, The Time, what I like to call “the Minneapolis funk era.” We listen to everything from Sade and Todd Edwards to Led Zeppelin and Plastikman, but if you turn on my radio right now, it’s either on The Current or it is on K.M.O.J, or on 92KQRS listening to classic rock. Just a mix of it all.

JD: Zapp & Roger, The Cruzeros. There is so much stuff in jazz fusion that influences what I do... Apollonian definitely.

W: Tell us about your new album, track, and label.

A & JD: “Think” is the name of our new track that just came out on Stranjjur. We are very happy to start with this label.

They are fresh and new but the people running it are not just newbies, they have been in the music business for a while now and are very professional. One really cool thing about the label is the fact that [the artists] are all pretty new. Because a number of us are new to releasing music, the label has a feeling of home, like a family or a crew. In April we have the EP coming out.

W: How do you see the electronic scene in the Twin Cities?

Is it growing?

JD: Ahh…I think it’s on the up now. For a while people were getting a little bit tired of where things were going. There is still a lot of techno in Minneapolis, but I think house is coming up.

W: Do you think the weather in Minneapolis influences it somehow?

A: Absolutely [laughs], people want to hear techno in the winter in Minneapolis. Minneapolis is a techno town, and that’s how we finish all of our parties. House starts the groove but we in the Midwest like a mix, I think.

I always call Minneapolis “the baby of Chicago and Detroit.”

W: What is the main difference between the electronic scene in cities like NY, Detroit, and Chicago compared to Minneapolis?

A: Minneapolis is right behind them. People forget that Minneapolis is between two big cities that are known for creating these sounds—Chicago and Detroit. Most of the electronic music came from these two places and that could be why techno is such a big influence here.

JD: I always call Minneapolis “the baby of Chicago and Detroit.” So that’s what we get here. Detroit is techno and Chicago is Chicago house, not just any house, Chicago house!

W: What can we expect from Havens + Hart in the future?

A & JD: We have like 5 tracks coming up on Stranjjur, two featured on compilations, the EP that contains three original tracks, an edit of a classic funk track that will be going out for free, and two remixes from some amazing artists—Vidrina and Homeboy vs. Pytzek. From there we have a remix coming up this summer on Sleazy Deep followed by an EP on Sleazy Deep, a remix for local heroes Monte Hilleman and Bryan Gerrard as well as a few other irons in the fire. It’s crazy. We started making music less than a year ago and we have a bunch of projects coming up [laughs]. We feel very blessed.

Keit Osadchuk

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Find them on Facebook at Havens+Hart

cities

What You Missed At SXSW A Minneapolis kid finds his way to Austin, brings you the bands you need to know

By Alex Lauer

If you’re don’t know who they are, and you go to school in Minnesota, you need to catch up quick. Poliça is fronted by Channy Casselle, previously of Roma Di Luna, who is the entrancing vocalist and main focal point. But it is the rest of the band that makes their music, and their live shows, instantly unforgettable. Bassist Chris Bierden’s palpable energy and the two drummers’ (Drew Christopherson and Ben Ivascu) controlled fervor pierce you as much as Channy’s smooth, melancholic assertions.

I saw them at Brooklyn Vegan’s showcase at 1pm which started off as a ghost town. Being out and about at 1pm during a festival where shows can go until the sun rises is near impossible for most people, but by the time they finished the crowd had quadrupled and they were all enthralled. Even the totally out-of-place couple next to me with their cargo shorts and neon sunglasses were awestruck.

The Front Bottoms [ poliça ]

Spring break seems so far away now that it sometimes feels like it never even happened, but SXSW isn’t something you easily forget. THAT’S RIGHT DUDEZ, I was lucky enough to find a way to get down to Austin, Texas for the essential “who’s going to blow up this year” music festival. I thought I’d share the best of what I found in that mess of a week.

When I say the week was a “mess,” I mean it in the best way possible. I was able to stay healthy and on-the-go the entire time, which was good because we walked two miles into downtown every day, but I can’t say the same for some of the people with me. They found a bar that was selling mason jars full of anything you wanted for $5. You can guess how that turned out.

Besides the free or cheap booze that everyone talks about, other especially amazing moments included running into Jack Black, somehow getting into a back-alley developer rave, eating fried avocado tacos, and The Shins putting on a free outdoor show with the downtown Austin skyline as their backdrop.

All of those moments were unplanned. You can RSVP for as many shows as you want, plan out where you’re going to go every day, where you’re going to eat, but the best part of SXSW is all the random shit that happens. Someone told me that exact same thing before I went and I didn’t believe them.

Look at me now.

Likewise, the best performances of the week were from musicians I hadn’t planned on seeing. I saw two of them at a loft that was definitely not built for shows, one outdoors while drinking poison, and the other in one of the official venues surrounded by people who had access to unlimited free booze. You should probably (ie. definitely) find a way down to Austin next spring break.

Show You Suck A rapper out of Chicago, there’s no way you cannot like this guy. He’s one of the few up-and-coming rappers that doesn’t take himself too seriously but is serious about putting out awesome music. And my introduction to it couldn’t have been any better.

Let me break it down for you: he appeared on stage with fellow Chicagoan Auggie the 9th (and by “stage” I mean the space a few feet in front of me in some loft), both in black cutoffs, got the whole crowd into a back-and-forth chant, and then rapped about pizza. Yes, pizza. How much does Show You Suck like pizza? Well the two albums that he has released so far, both free on Bandcamp, are called OneManPizzaParty and OneManPizzaParty2: Mo Slices Mo Problems. Yup. If you’re going to listen to one song, check out “Mom Jeans.”

The chorus is so ridiculous that you and your friends will be blasting it all summer. I know I will. “In high school you was the prom queen, now you here in mom jeans.”

whysowhite These guys were the biggest surprise of all. They played with Show You Suck, BJ the Chicago Kid, YP, and locals The Tribe & Big Cats!, Wide Eyes, and the Get Cryphy DJs. But they were a nine-piece band amidst rap crews. From what I heard, they were supposed to be sort of funk, sort of rap, sort of jam band-y. Let’s just say I was skeptical.

What came out during the show was the best possible combination of those three genres, and an utterly unique, undeniably danceable sound. It was nonstop energy and good sweat the entire time. They were the obvious favorite of the night and most talked about amongst my group.

I saw this young trio play at 1am on my last night there, and they were opening up for hellogoodbye, Motion City Soundtrack, and Doomtree. With that amazing lineup it wouldn’t have mattered if they totally sucked. But at the beginning of their set that’s all I thought.

First of all, lead singer and guitarist Brian Sella soundchecked in gym shorts and long white socks without shoes and then came back to play in the same thing. So I’m like, “Ok, we get it, this guy doesn’t give any fucks.” Then once they started playing, with Matt Uychich on drums and Drew Villafuerte on bass and keys, I completely lost it. Brian instantly reminded me of Tom DeLonge. I honestly tried to hate them simply because they felt too much like a younger blink-182, but I couldn’t do it. For the first few songs I wrote them off as a bunch of wannabes, but they won me over in the end.

I was just bitter because what they are doing right now is not a copy of blink-182, it’s what I wish those guys had done instead of “Neighborhoods” (even though I like that album).

They sing about the mundane and the everyday in the such a youthful way that you want to dance even if they’re singing about washing your hands. Then there’s the lyrics that mix teen angst and immaturity lyrics like, “There’s comfort in the bottom of a swimming pool, holding my breath for you,” and, “I will remember that summer as the summer I was taking steroids, ‘cause you like a man with muscles, and I like you.” I won’t say they’re the blink-182 for this generation, but...

Random facts about whysowhite—Charlie Moonbeam is the name of the guy on keys and vocals, his actual name (he goes by “Moon”). One of their members began hitchhiking to Alaska to play a folk festival when SXSW ended. This was their first show as a complete group in about seven months because one of their members was in a horrible bike accident resulting in major surgery. They are playing in Minnesota on April 19th!

Poliça Even though they are from Minnesota and I had seen them play before SXSW, I couldn’t resist including the band that everyone is talking about. They made multiple “who to see at SXSW” lists and even more “who was the best at SXSW” lists. And the thing is, they deserve all of it.

[ whysowhite ] photos by erin pederson

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09

feature

Minneapolis Visionaries Series:

GUANTE

www.guante.info

I spoke with Kyle Myhre, better known as Guante, the day after doing a spokenword show at the University Northern Iowa. The week before, he participated in an MPR roundtable while continuing to work on and promote his new album with Big Cats!, and the week after that he is doing a performance and workshop at Carelton College. He is proof that if you are passionate about something, you never have to limit yourself.

The Wake: You just had a show at the University of Northern Iowa. How did that go?

Guante: It was great. I mean, it’s the best thing to be able to go somewhere new and do all of my old material that I can’t do in the Twin Cities anymore because everyone’s heard it.

It’s really nice. That’s what I’m doing a lot these days is just traveling, particularly to colleges.

BEGINNINGS AND MINNEAPOLIS W: Let’s back up a little bit. You’re active in the spoken-word community, the hip-hop community, and you’re an avid activist, among other things. How did you get into all of this? Was it the poetry that everything else branched out from?

G: It definitely comes from one place inside of me. It just was circumstance that when I went off to college all these differ-

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ent factors...I went to school in Madison and this was at a time when the spoken-word scene in Madison was just kind of jumping off and the hip-hop scene was reaching a point where there was a really positive, supportive community going on.

And Madison has a long history of being an activist campus.

So I was able to plug into all three things at the same time and look for places where there is synergy too, but, at the same time, they’ve always been three separate parts of my identity.

I just got lucky that the circumstance allowed that to happen and I’ve been really lucky to have community around me both in Madison and here in the Twin Cities. That’s been really supportive and helpful.

W: Why did you pick Minneapolis? Because with your broad range of interests you could easily be as actively involved in a larger urban city. What keeps you here?

G: A lot of it was, again, about community and personal connections. Like when I was living in Madison Shá Cage and e.g. bailey, who run Minnesota’s Spoken Word Association here in the Twin Cities, were coming down once a month or so to do work in Madison and I met them. We hit it off and they invited me to join their crew, their record label, and it was based in Minneapolis called Tru Ruts. I had been wanting to make the move anyway and Minneapolis is just a bigger community, there are more opportunities, more things going on. Even though there are bigger communities out there I think Minneapolis is a really great place to do what I do as a spoken-word artist and a hip-hop artist and an activist—there are those communities going on. It made a lot of sense to move up here.

I’m not actually on the label [Tru Ruts] anymore, but I still really appreciate everything that they did.

CHANGING IT UP W: You have a ton of upcoming events like a workshop and a performance at Carleton and then you have Hip Hop Against Homophobia at Central High School, and things like that. I hate to ask people, “How do you do it? You’re so busy! How do you handle it all??” But it’s not like you’re in a band playing the same songs every night, it’s always a different sort of performance or different material, so how do you stay grounded?

feature

G: It may seem counterintuitive but I think it actually helps that every time I do a show it’s very different, because it’s always a new challenge. It never gets boring. Like last night all I did was spoken-word and then I went and workshopped a speech team, basically, who were practicing for their speech nationals, and that sharpens a certain of my brain. And another night I’ll just do a hip-hop set with a DJ and that sharpens a different part of the brain. It’s fun. On one hand, it’s the constant challenge on the artistic side, but also, just as a small-business person or whatever, being able to be versatile like that has opened up a lot of doors to me. And then on top of that, being able to do workshops—whether that’s teaching or talking about poetry and performance or whether that’s a social-justice-oriented thing—being able to do all three in any given situation has been a blessing.

be coming out in a couple months that she’ll be pushing and I have the next Guante and Big Cats! album which I plan on pushing for a very long time. It’s a really, really big release.

So if we ever do a follow-up to A Loud Heart it won’t be for quite a while.

A LOUD HEART

G: Right now it’s just Fall 2012, so I’m thinking October but it’s still up in the air in terms of the specifics.

W: So you’re invested in spoken-word and in hip-hop, but you have this group with Claire Taubenhaus called A Loud Heart which is this mix of folk and rap. Where did this nontraditional mixing of genres come from?

G: I think the impetus behind that project, and this relates to poetry and hip-hop too, is that I am very much a concept person. For me, not just my own stuff but the stuff that I listen to, I care most about the words and the substance. I’ll listen to a rapper who has wack beats if he’s saying something interesting. And I’m also much harder on artists who, even if they’re brilliant artists, aren’t saying anything. I really care about substance and I think that lines up with spoken-word and hip-hop but it lines up very much with folk music which traditionally is not about having the most complex guitar progressions or the most beautiful, perfect singing voice—it’s about saying something and about foregrounding the content and the substance. So I’ve always wanted to experiment with that and when I met Claire she was really down to do something similar too. It was a very natural partnership. I’m happy with —actually, it’s gotten a lot of bad reviews—but I’m really happy with how it turned out.

W: Really? Because, well, I guess I haven’t looked into the reviews, but I’ve only heard positive things from college kids and those I’ve talked to in the poetry community.

G: That’s great. I mean, I expected it to get some bad reviews because I want everything I put out for people to either love it or really, really dislike it because there’s so much that’s in the middle. There’s so much B+ hip-hop out there, that does everything right but doesn’t do anything great, that a big part of that project was trying to reach beyond that and just try something new and of course that’s going to turn some people off. But I’m really proud of it. I think some of those songs are some of the best songs I’ve written and Claire did a really, really great job.

W: A Loud Heart released one album, but do you have any plans to go further with it or do any more shows? You have one coming up, but anything beyond that?

G: We’re going to keep playing shows and promoting the album we have. The thing is, part of being involved in a lot of stuff is that it’s tough to find time, particularly to do a follow-up to that one. Claire has a solo album that’s going to

GUANTE AND BIG CATS! W: Guante and Big Cats!, the latter also know for The Tribe & Big Cats!, you guys are releasing—this is your fourth release, right?

G: Yeah, I guess, technically. It’s our second album album, but in between that we put out an EP and a mixtape.

W: So the new album is called “YOU BETTER WEAPONIZE.” Do you guys have an official release date for that?

W: What can we expect from this album compared to your other releases?

G: I know every artist will say this, but it’s definitely the best thing that I’ve ever done and I think it’s some of the best work that he’s ever done too. He’s been doing some really amazing stuff with The Tribe lately, but in terms of the production it’s right up there with The Tribe stuff. Then for me it’s been kind of the culmination of everything I’ve been working on for the last five years, in terms of songwriting, like being able to frame the message that I want to put across in an interesting way but also understanding pop songwriting. Not “pop” as in it’s a pop album, but just the idea of how verses and hooks build and the dynamics of songs. In terms of the substance of it, it’s a very challenging album, but in terms of the sonics of it, it’s, I think, a very traditional album. It’s 16-bar verses and 8-bar hooks, but they’re catchy and they’re funny. The thing that I’m really excited about with the album is that just about every song, I think every song except for one or two, is a concept song. They’re songs about stuff, which seems really stupid, like, “Isn’t every song about something?” But so much underground hip-hop isn’t about anything, it’s just like, “This kinda sounds cool.” It’s just stream-of-consciousness.

There’s nothing wrong with that, but this album is definitely a statement of: if you’re going to be a songwriter you can only benefit from having a hook or a concept or some kind of central thesis. And they’re interesting too. There’s a song about the way that sexuality is used in American politics. There’s a song about being mixed-race. There’s a song called “The Pragmatist’s Guide To Revolution” about forgetting the whole conspiracy theory bullshit and just talking about where change really comes from, and everything is around this kind of theme.

ON ACCESSIBLE CONCEPT MUSIC W: You talk a lot about social and political issues in your poetry and your music, I mean, pretty much everything you’ve done is a concept piece. But there’s sort of a stigma around this sort of music that, a lot of the time, tends to make it not the most popular form. What has been your experience putting it out?

hand, I think a lot politically-oriented music isn’t very good.

It’s just kind of yelling and preaching to the choir and a lot of rhetoric and platitudes that don’t really challenge people or push people. So what I’ve tried to do as a songwriter for all the new stuff, and even the stuff I’ve been writing for the past couple years, is go beyond. It’s one thing to say, “Don’t trust the government blah blah blah the President is bad,” or whatever. It’s something else to try to dig deep into these issues and not just hit them from a surface level, so that’s where I think the challenge comes from. And on the other side of the argument, there are always going to be people who just aren’t trying to hear that, people who don’t want to listen to that stuff. So you can kind of say, “Well forget you then,” to some of them, but then on the other hand if you can write a song that, despite its content, is still an engaging song and sounds good and is fun to listen to—you can reach some of those people too. So I’m lucky to have Big Cats! who is a phenomenal producer and who has a really great ear for pop music, for what people want to hear. It’s a balance of the concept being challenging or substantive and the music which just by itself is really great.

UPCOMING PROJECTS W: What are the projects that you’re most excited about coming up?

G: I mean, definitely the Guante and Big Cats! album is the best thing I’ve ever done and I’m really excited for people to hear it. Beyond that kind of stuff, I’m helping to found this website that’s...I don’t know how to explain it really. It’s really, really short, simple answers to commonly misunderstood social-justice concepts. It’s like 600-word articles on what is “identity,” what is “privilege,” why the term “reverse racism” isn’t really a thing, talking about rape culture, talking about feminism—these things that people routinely get wrong in Facebook arguments or Twitter arguments or in real life. I want it to be a resource so if you’re in one of those Facebook arguments with someone you can just post a link to a page that will hopefully break it down in as simple language as possible. So that’s something I’m excited about. It’s not public yet, so people can follow me on Facebook or Twitter and they’ll hear about it.

Follow GUANTE Twitter: @elguante Facebook: www.facebook.com/GuanteSolo Show listings and tons more: www.guante.info

G: I think there’s truth on both sides of the argument. On one

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11

mind’s eye

Watch Out Aliens and Meteorites Progressive space travel looms near

By Steve Sitek Sure, the space race is no longer clogging up the media headlines. Sputnik and satellites are no longer the buzz of the planet; they are just another common element of our life. Satellites are linked to television and cell phones, and therefore as a society we are tied to these objects that orbit our planet. Unless you scour reddit daily, most of the American public does not hear much about the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) unless they put humans into a massive spacecraft and launch them into the deep, dark universe. NASA is simply not funded enough to be in the headlines everyday. However, last week the NASA budget made news within Washington Politics. NASA administrator Charles Bolden was called to testify before congress to defend the NASA budget. Last November, President Obama signed off on the NASA budget, which entailed $17.8 billion. While this number appears high, it is 2.5% less than the previous funding, and accounts for only 0.5% of the United States budget.

The funding trouble stems from the national debt crisis, which has affected important yet often ignored programs like those at NASA. The government has compromised “luxury spending” for more pressing needs, but to call NASA a luxury is outlandish. Yes, maybe the space race isn’t all that relevant, but that doesn’t mean we should forget about the universe we live in. It doesn’t mean that we should throw in the towel on plans to reach Mars. President Obama made sure the American public was aware of this sentiment in 2010 by signing the NASA Authorization Act, which is suppose to expand many NASA space programs.

tire planet, though the odds are unlikely. It is well documented in a favorite 90’s children movie, The Land Before Time, that dinosaurs were nearly all wiped out from a massive meteorite that hit earth 65 million years ago in the Yucatan Peninsula. Logically, a meteorite is bound to hit the earth again.

Thanks to NASA, we now know when that may be. In 2004, NASA scientists discovered a huge meteorite that will fly very close to the Earth in 2029. They also discovered that this meteorite could be pulled closer to earth through a “keyhole,” which would spin the meteorite into a position to hit us only a few years later. The “keyhole,” which was described to me from a TedTalk lecture, is a discovery that could ultimately save the earth. Even though the odds of this specific meteorite hitting us are slim, it is nice to have an idea of what is going on just outside our atmosphere.

In 2004, NASA scientists discovered a huge meteorite that will fly very close to the Earth in 2029.

This brings us to the point of a new hypothetical: what about a moon base? Republican presidential nominee Newt Gingrich supports a moon colony. He promised a United State’s colony by the end of his second term. Gingrich is on record as a space fanatic. He supports Mars missions and private sector space taxis. Most of Newt’s claims are only political promises that won’t amount to anything more than a flash in the pan, because he doesn’t fully understand how he will pay for these space adventures. Arguably the world’s most popular astrophysicist, Dr. Neil Degrasse Tyson supports Gingrich’s overzealous sentiment regarding space travel, because he claims we have the technological means. He also corrects Gingrich’s flawed reasoning by explaining that private industry will not pay for our space development. No, Mr. Gingrich, that is NASA’s job. Therefore, if by some appalling reason Gingirch is elected, he will have to expand the NASA budget (yes, expand a government program) if he plans to live up to his political promises.

NASA’s mission statement is to be the leading research and space-exploring agency in the world. Innovation is their number one priority, and they are arguably the most innovative group of scientists in the world. In the fifty plus years NASA has existed, they have discovered intelligence that has shocked our world by changing the landscape of technology. Everything from hand held vacuum cleaners to satellite television are products of NASA’s research. Likewise, NASA has tapped into the big question, “are we alone?” They have discovered roughly 10 billion earthlike planets in our galaxy.

They help us dream big. They inspire us.

Gathering information about extraterrestrials, stars, and things that fly throughout space is nice. It’s even better when we can apply the intelligence to our daily lives, and improve our safety. Thanks to NASA, we now have a better understanding of meteorites. Believe it or not, these big rocks that float through space are dangerous, and could wipe out our en-

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Steve Sitek

While Tyson makes a great point about the innovation of humans, when looking at the social and political factors revolving around the situation, it is easy to see why people don’t support a moon colony. People have a hard time supporting funds for space travel when we can’t take care of our own country. In an interview with Bill Maher on his TV show, Tyson explained the progressive nature behind the rational of space exploration. It ultimately begins with a commitment to NASA. Like the colonizers from Europe, our world is inching closer to sending astronauts into the universe. However, forget bigots like Christopher Columbus. We will be sending a breed of astronauts more similar to Han Solo and Captain Kirk.

We are halfway there with the approval of the James Webb space telescope. This telescope is the first step towards understanding how our universe was formed. So once we are ready to explore it, how much more effective would our world’s space travel be if we had a colony on the moon? Obviously nationalism and geopolitical factors are the driving actors in the world we live in, this means significant space exploration may be unlikely until a paradigm shift in thinking is pervasive throughout the world. NASA is the type of organization that contributes to the paradigm shift. Behind the political rhetoric on the surface of NASA, there is a collective altruistic goal behind NASA’s mission statement. By this, I mean NASA is an organization fixated on advancing the human race. Investing in space intelligence opens the door for other countries to follow. If we hold back on exploring the vast frontier, we are doing a disservice to future generations, while simultaneously stymying our quest for further understanding the universe we live in. Tyson calls out for Space exploration to be a new way for America to innovate.

He also understands how the world is evolving, and for space exploration to be success, cooperation amongst the world is a necessary. Since the birth of the Internet, shouldn’t that be easy? America already has a contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency regarding transportation and staffing at the International Space station. Mutual understand like this will allow NASA to keep on innovating, that is as long as our government is mindful of its funding.

mind’s eye

The New Most Valuable Natural Resource: Data A look into why you are being mined for information

By Mitchell Ambrose In case you haven’t been formally greeted yet, welcome to the information age. Take off your coat, sit down and get comfortable. You won’t be leaving anytime soon. In fact, you’ll probably never leave.

Many of us are delighted to live during a time when the world is, in a very literal way, at our fingertips. However, a growing number have become increasingly worried about how the tools of the information age are not simply passive devices.

For the first time in history, tools can have a sort of memory.

The interaction between user and tool is no longer always unidirectional. To help highlight this key difference, imagine if screwdrivers remembered where they were used, when they were used and how many times they were rotated. Bizarre thought, right?

And yet this sort of memory is a prominent feature of information age tools. In constructing systems which allow users to search for and send information, it was only a trivial addition to collect information on those doing the searching and on what was being sent. It is now possible to analyze the use

Zoo Universe and Citizen Science Where everyone becomes a scientist

BY Elissa Mann For many liberal arts students, the word “science” brings to mind lab coats, beakers, the periodic table, and impossible tests. Simply put, for much of the general public, science is hard, boring, and makes a lot of people think, “I am never going to use it, so why bother?” But with the advancement of technology and the help of the World Wide Web, science has (perhaps) become more interesting, relevant, and accessible for those of us who are more interested in pondering the relevance of Twilight in pop culture.

The concept of “Citizen Science” refers to scientific research done by regular, everyday citizens, as opposed to professional scientists. This idea is a fairly new one, and it has recently gained a lot of success through the Internet. A citizen science website called Zoo Universe uses the input of not just scientists, but anyone who wants to further our understanding of the natural world and the past. The original site, called Gal-

of certain tools and the people using them on scale previously unimaginable. One name given to this process of collecting data on tool usage on a massive scale is “data mining.”

The most obvious reason why this sort of information is valuable is that most businesses today need effective advertising in order to be successful. Data mining makes it much easier for companies to target ads at people who are most likely to be interested in their products. The place where the influence of data mining is perhaps most visible is on Facebook. In the side bar of my Facebook news feed, these were the headlines of the ads displayed the last time I logged in: Spring Jam 2012, Study Abroad with CAPA!, Mid MO Solid Waste Management District, UMN Student Apartments, Start Your Legacy (a fraternity ad), Buffalo Wild Wings and DSST Credit by Exam Program. I have no idea why that third ad was displayed, but nevertheless it is clear that Facebook at least knows that I am a student at the University of Minnesota.

Knowing that in this scenario Facebook had, in a way, read the message to my friend is a bit disquieting to me no matter how you spin it.

Do I care that Facebook knows this and has shared this information with other companies? The short answer is no.

After all, this is fairly innocuous information, something that I would gladly share with a stranger. In fact, part of me appreciates that the omnipresent and annoying ads are usu-

axy Zoo, was started back in 2007 with the purpose of classifying one million different images of galaxies. Since then, the renamed Zoo Universe has added eight more unique projects including the original Galaxy Zoo, Ancient Lives, which studies ancient Greeks, and the Milky Way Project, which looks at understanding the dusty particles in the Milky Way. There are over 600,000 people from all over the world contributing to the projects by analyzing pictures, charts, and graphs. People’s time and effort in producing new analysis and research is important and valuable, and the organization makes that very clear. One of the points the site mentions is a “commitment to producing real research - so that you know that we’re not wasting your time…”

Zoo Universe is a user–friendly site that has a lot of different project options to choose from. For instance, I started by looking at the Old Weather project, which involves looking over old

Josie Keifenheim

Angie Frisk

ally somewhat relevant to me. However, I will start to get somewhat concerned when, for example, I mention to a friend that I really need a new tuxedo for a wedding I am going to and then the next time I log in I see ads about wedding attire.

Knowing that in this scenario Facebook had, in a way, read the message to my friend is a bit disquieting to me no matter how you spin it. Facebook might actually currently do this, I really don’t know.

In the end, however, what is needed is a change in mindset toward information age tools. People need to realize that they are not like other tools. We use them but they use us as well.

We have become a resource to be tapped in that information about ourselves and our usage history is valuable. Let’s just hope that those in charge make it such that this new natural resource is not squandered, neglected or abused.

ship logs. On each log page, it mentions a date and a location, as well as what the wind and weather was on that particular day. The job of the participant is to type in what they see in the log for the date, the location, the wind conditions, and any other useful information that was hand–written by sailors one hundred years ago. The idea is that people look over the logs and type in what they see. As the handwriting is often difficult to read, the more people that can agree on what the log says, the better consensus researchers can get on what the weather was like on that particular day in that particular location. Scientists can then take this raw data and use it to analyze past weather patterns and compare them to help predict weather patterns now. This is just one of the many projects available for citizen participation.

A citizen science website called Zoo Universe uses the input of not just scientists, but anyone who wants to further our understanding of the natural world and the past.

Thanks to Zoo Universe and other citizen science websites like it, you don’t have to get a degree in astrophysics or biochemistry to still be involved in a fascinating part of relevant science research. So whatever degree you pursue, whether it involves analyzing Mediterranean noir novels or the Laffer Curve, keep in mind that science is no longer limited to those in laboratories or institutes.

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13

sound & vision

Bringing The Fun(k) To Downtown Of Montreal at First Avenue

By Elizabeth Ireland On tour to promote their dramatic new album Paralytic Stalks, Of Montreal delivered an upbeat, frenetic dance party at First Ave on March 27. Their newly severe and distracted tracks were funkier and happier live, and old upbeat favorites were wildly energetic. Of Montreal is known for entertaining shows, and Tuesday’s performance did not disappoint; they had a blast onstage and spread the joy to the crowd.

Of Montreal has been around since 1996, and at sixteen, the band was older than many of the attendees. The room was packed with all ages of people; a mass of high school and college-age kids danced alongside middle-age hipsters. There were even a few fans young enough to be rocking (oddly appropriate) light-up sneakers.

The night was a foray into the delightfully bizarre.

The electric, throbbing set opened with the first track off Paralytic Stalks. Though slow and brooding, “Gelid Ascent” was served with a side of funk and psychedelia that got the crowd ready for the dive into a deliciously upbeat rendition of the normally depressing “Spiteful Intervention.” Barnes chirped the same gloomy lines from the album with a strange elation: “Lately I’m rotted in the filth of self-offered agonies that really should fill me with shame/but all I have is this manic energy.” Manic, indeed. Barnes was irresistible, bouncing around

the stage and leading the rest of the band into a dance-y euphoria that never stopped rising.

A white stage, complete with blank screens in front of the musician’s stations, created a large display for the colorful and often dizzying video projections that made up much of the lighting. The trippy visual show complemented the weird, bouncing music wonderfully, especially songs like “Helmdalsgate like a Promethean Curse,” a crowd favorite that fairly demanded to be viewed with mood-altering substances (“Come on, chemicals!”).

The night was a foray into the delightfully bizarre. Violinist Kishi Bashi looked as though he had escaped from a concert orchestra, guitarist Bryan Poole could have warped in from Woodstock, and Barnes was ready for 80’s prom. The oddity escalated when the band was joined onstage by men in bodysuits who battled puppets, created human TV screens, and crowd-surfed all the way to the balcony and beyond.

The second half of the show was full of dance-heavy, electrified crowd favorites like “She’s a Rejecter.” The final song of the set was a cool, quiet rendition of “Authentic Pyrrhic Remission.” But it couldn’t calm the crowd, which demanded an encore and was rewarded; first by two men in 17th century garb and pig masks who led a few crazed cheers, and finally by the band itself. It was easily the best part of the night; the crowd raged along with the on-stage dance party, which ended the night with huge renditions of “Id Engager,” “Grondlandic Edit,” and “A Sentence of Sorts.”

Of Montreal was joyful, frantic, and funky – a welcome surprise, given their dark and dreary turn in Paralytic Stalks.

First Ave throbbed with pure, unadulterated fun during the entertaining, wild, and dance-friendly set led by the enthusiastic Barnes. Takeaway: never miss a chance to see this band live, because they know how to have a good time.

Paralytic Stalks Of Montreal’s latest album is darker and messier than their earlier work, but worth a listen From just the first few songs of their new album, it’s clear that Of Montreal’s swirling, psychedelic sound is very much intact – but darker, gloomier, and messier than the pumping pop of albums past. Singer/songwriter Kevin Barnes isn’t shy about angst lyrically, either. In “Spiteful Intervention” he spits out pained lines like “It’s fucking sad that we need a tragedy to occur/To gain a fresh perspective in our lives/Nothing happens for a reason/ There’s no point even pretending.” Paralytic Stalks takes Barnes’ frenzied, pulsing musical style and injects it with manic depression.

Long-time listeners know that Of Montreal is always somewhat bizarre, and Paralytic Stalks pushes this into more chaotic territory than ever. The fourth track, “We Will Commit Wolf Murder” is reminiscent of older pop tracks like “She’s a Rejecter” – but undergoes a dramatic, nightmarish shift halfway through. Nightmarish is a good way to describe the entire album, especially eerie tracks like “Exorcismic Breeding Knife”. The chaos breaks for the strangely elevator-musicish “Maleforic Dowery” and the pleasantly rock-heavy “Ye, Renew the Plaintiff.” But these breaks can’t balance out the weirdness of the confused “Wintered Debts,” which starts as a quiet acoustic number, develops a honky-tonk feel, and finally ends as a piano ballad.

Paralytic Stalks is a descent into madness – synth-heavy, genre-confused madness – but in the best way possible.

Old fans will find familiarity in the bizarre, and catchy tracks like “Dour Percentage” make it worth the time of new listeners.

Ava Wichmann

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Do You Hunger for The Hunger Games?

Then hunger no more...

Rachel Mosey

By Kelsey Schwartz Let the games begin! The Hunger Games movie premier weekend pulled in over $155 million, making it the third largest debut in North American history, right behind Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 and The Dark Knight.

Clearly the movie was a big hit, but the real question is: did it do the book justice?

Having read the book a few months before the movie opened on the big screen, I fell into the frenzy of hysteria that surrounded the movie, but being a strong believer that books are better than the movies made about them, I had my doubts.

Some of those doubts were met, but over all the director and producer stayed true to the core themes of the book.

The Hunger Games is based around a country called Panem located in the former space of North America. The Capitol city is surrounded by 12 districts. Each district has a specific purpose to further the Capitol’s superiority and support the nation as a whole. The yearly Hunger Games are a reminder to the districts of the uprising led by the former District 13, which the Capitol destroyed as a way to end the war. “The Hunger Games” is a tournament that selects one boy and girl from the ages of 12 to 18 in each district to fight to the death until one is left standing and declared the victor. All the districts are mandated to watch the events play out on TV as they happen, so that the districts are scared into being controlled. The book focuses on the two tributes from District 12, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark, and their families and Hunger Games team.

In the book, Suzanne Collins interweaves many layers of symmetry to our world and government, while putting a new outlook out on how the government could go bad or how the upper class could eventually take over. The movie gives no reason as to why the government is the way it is except for a short video in the beginning about the war, only giving a reason for the creation of the Hunger Games.

The locations in the book are also important to the plot and the theme. For the most part they were exactly the same. The arena and Capitol in the movie matched the detailed descriptions in the book. The ruggedness of the Hunger Games arena was well portrayed in the movie, giving it an empty, wild feel.

The characters were portrayed very accurately, but the only thing that I had a problem with was the President of Panem. He is supposed to look like a very intimidating,

sharp toothed, almost predator-like man, who reeks of blood masked by the overpowering smell of roses. I know that they haven’t invented smell-o-vision yet, but the character could have been more menacing. Instead he looks like someone’s grumpy old grandfather, no offense Donald Sutherland. I must admit, when I found out that Woody Harrelson would be playing Haymitch, the District 12 tributes’ mentor, I was skeptical. In the book, Haymitch is portrayed as an overweight drunk who spends most of his time in a stupor. I was delightful surprised that, even though he didn’t fit the books image exactly, he played the character extremely well!

I know that they haven’t invented smello-vision yet, but the character could have been more menacing. Instead he looks like someone’s grumpy old grandfather, no offense Donald Sutherland.

I did have a few major problems with the movie. My first major problem is with the pin that Katniss, the female tribute from District 12 and main character, receives from a women in the beginning of the movie. This was not how it went in the book; Katniss never received the pin from the woman, instead she got it from the mayor’s daughter when she came to visit Katniss before being shipped off to the Capitol for the Hunger Games. This doesn’t seem like a huge thing, but in perspective of them potentially turning the next two books in the trilogy into movies too, they cut out quiet a large part of

history that connects the dots in the emotional gap between Katniss and her mother.

Another piece that I had a problem with is that fact that they cut out or squished much of the time in the Hunger Games arena. Katniss is supposed to almost die of dehydration within the first few days, and begs Haymitch for water from her sponsors, but he doesn’t give it to her and she takes it as a sign that she is close to water. This is a major part of the story because it sets up Haymitch and Katniss’ relationship. At the end of the Hunger Games, there is a scene where the final three tributes are pushed together by “Wolf Mutts.” In the book these beasts are supposed to resemble the other dead tributes mixed with wolves and are supposed to have the dead tributes actual eyes. Instead they were just large doglike beasts, which I feel took away from the terror the Capitol was trying to force upon the tributes and the districts. The last thing I thought need to be improved in the movie is the limitation on gore. I understand that they wanted to make the movie available to a larger audience, but the traumatic bloody details that happened within the book kept you hooked into the story and theme.

Overall the movie wasn’t too off from the book, but I believe they did miss many key points that linked to important factors in the next two books. I understand that it’s hard to fit every detail of the book in a two and a half hour film, but I know that fans of the books were more then a little disappointed in the omission of key details within the movie. I recommend this movie, but being the book worm that I am, I highly recommend reading the book first.

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Q&A: Phantom Vibration

By Zach McCormick

Having covered the college-music beat for the last 10 years, if The Wake has learned anything from post-secondary musicians it’s this: “school can REALLY fuck up your band sometimes, man.” Somehow, amidst juggling massive amounts of homework, volunteering and day jobs, the undergrads in Phantom Vibration still find time to make high-quality DreamPop that’s reminiscent of the best of that genre’s 1980’s heyday and still manages to sound fresh and contemporary. We caught up with 2/3rds of the band, since one of them was (guess what?) studying for a test at his out-of-state college.

Zach McCormick

Wake: Where do the origins of Phantom Vibration lie? When did you start playing music together?

because we had a disagreement about whether The XX made a good record.

G: I don’t think it’s something we’re trying actively to highlight... [laughs]

Dan Clinton-McCausland [Vocals/Keyboards]: Henry Mackaman [Guitarist] and I had Economics class, among other things, together in high school and at some point during senior year we decided we wanted to continue working together. We were in a blues-rock band before that, I was their singer and he just brought me in because he wanted to focus more on guitar-playing or whatever. We started jamming that summer, and then I took a year off and just started writing really intensely for the project. I knew Gunnar through a mutual friend, we met and immediately clicked

Gunnar Kauth [Drums]: I met Dan through a foreign exchange student that was a friend of mine, we went to different schools but I ended up hanging with him a lot because we had a lot of similar tastes in stuff.

D: But it’s a fitting name, I think, for our sort of style. It’s very...dreamy.

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W: Why call yourselves “Phantom Vibration?

D: We don’t really play this up at all because it’s sort of comical, but it’s just a reference to what happens when you leave your phone on vibrate too often. People don’t really make that connection, I think.

W: What are some of your band’s strongest musical influences?

D: That shifts from record to record, the first EP [Kids], I’m not even gonna pretend like it wasn’t influenced by Beach House intensely. But I like 60’s music a lot, I geek out over the British Folk Revival, bands like Fairport Convention and Vashti Bunyan, and Neko of course...

G: I think it’s just pop music in general, not necessarily “radio

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pop” but Dream Pop, like Cocteau Twins, Kate Bush, and others. I think we listen to a lot less Surf-Pop, which a lot of people lump us into because of one of our songs.

D: When they hear “Summer Blood,” they immediately think like “This is...jangly?” like Jangle-Pop, which isn’t really true

having jobs, we’re just bombareded at the last moment and we have to work really, really hard in practice to stay focused and crank our set out. Which has been difficult because we can’t really expand all that much, at least at the moment, but when Henry’s back for the summer it will be different.

cially with our music, we wouldn’t fill a big room all that well.

D: We’re not racous, we’re not brash, so if we can bring people down into our mindset while we’re playing music that’s the ideal situation.

W: All of your albums have a great handmade aesthetic. Who makes the art?

D: See, and we’re cool with that.

D: We’re definitely more comfortable with our set than we used to be, I mean we can play through it and we’ve added nuance. But relative to other musicians, if it were the case that we had everyone here, I feel as though we would be a lot more comfortable with our set and would be free to do a lot more expansion and expirimentation.

G: Yeah, that’s a compliment, those bands are cool!

G: 14 minute-long effects pedal jams.

D: I was bored at some point and just decided, “oh, I wanna design packaging for this,” so I designed the prototype and then Henry improved upon it. Basically we thought “we don’t wanna pay for packaging”

W: How does your songwriting process work? Is it a topdown thing or are y’all collaborative?

D: Or epic “My Sharona” covers! [laughs]

G: No one wants plastic crap.

W: You’ve recorded a series of EPs now, “Kids” and “Growing,” how did you put those together?

D: And we wanted to differentiate ourselves a little bit. That’s not the main reason but I feel like, strategically, if someone is looking at a release they’ll say, “oh, this is cool, they put time into this!” and obviously they’ll be more intrigued by it.

W:That’s funny, when I heard that song I thought of more of a Vampire Weekend or Surfer Blood Afro-Pop kind of feel.

D: Well... I sort of refuse to acknowledge myself as the band-leader, I don’t want that position, I really don’t. But Henry and I write the basis for the songs, independently, and then we’ll present it to the group and see if people are tepid about it or see if it’s really good. I can only speak for myself in terms of how I actually write songs, but I don’t really start with a riff, or vocals, it’s just sort of...continuously forming...

G: There’s a lot of hand-motions involved. [laughs] D: Yeah, a lot of gestures, trying to convey ideas to them that I assume they can hear too!

G: It’s definitely not like a “let’s just jam it out” kind of thing, because that doesn’t work. At all. And it works a lot better if I just let Henry and Dan work everything out before I even touch the drums, because it’s not easy to play super minimal drums all the time. Like, obviously I wanna play more but at the same time, I don’t want to crush the rest of the band since there’s just two other people. It’s more of a group process when we write to play live than when we write to do a recording.

W: What was the first song you wrote together that you felt really captured your band’s sound? What’s the story behind that song?

G: That’d have to be “Intrigue” or “Glowphite” from Kids.

D: I wrote the riff for “Glowphite” first...I think. At that time I was just getting my bearings on the piano again, I hadn’t played it really actively for a while...like, years.

“Gilded,” “Intrigue” and “Glowphite” on the first EP all came at around the same time and formed in the same sort of... pulse of creative energy [laughs].

G: I can’t pinpoint a specific song, but because I was at school in Indiana until May and we put out our EP in March, I don’t think we had even played together as a band yet. They had the EP done, and Henry’s little brother drummed on it, before I was even asked to join.

We didn’t really play it until the start of last summer, we weren’t really ready to play live until July, so it was a process, really.

W: How often are you able to practice and perform together? Is having a band member a state away difficult?

In Unison: Yes. G: It’s not so much that it’s hard to find time to practice, it’s just that every time we have a show, Henry commutes, and every time, because of all of us being students and

G: The first one came together all over the computer, completely. Emailing back and forth tracks and the second EP was a lot more of playing together, more of a group effort, which was cool.

G: That’s all Henry!

G: It’s fun to have a physical product, and it’s all recycled materials.

D: It’s a concept-series, it’s not an incredibly imposing concept, but we sort of wanted to do three vignettes of life.

There’s Kids, Growing, and Aged [their forthcoming EP]. For the song that I wrote, at least, just by the nature of when I was writing them, they’re sort of affected by the seasons, because I am a lot. So the last song on the third EP is going to be this song of release and excitement about spring. I got really reclusive when I was writing songs in my year off, and so that was the “running back outside and it’s beautiful and everything is good again” type of song.

D: We get cardboard out of dumpsters!

W: So, were the EPs a bedroom project?

G: We’re playing May 19 at The 7th Street Entry, we’re also touring, late July through August. We currently have a proposed tour with 15, 16 dates, something like that. We’re going out to the east coast and back. We’re really excited because our friend Mickey who’s in the band Olsen Twinns is coming along. I’m really stoked because he’s getting a lot of the respect he deserves for his new stuff.

G: Basically, yeah, it’s like a “household project” if you wanted to call it that.

D: We recorded vocals in the shower for the first two EPs, because we discovered that tiles make really great reverb. I really want to have a tiled room in my dream house so I can record vocals in there.

G: Make a studio entirely out of tile! But we’re lucky enough that Henry’s dad is really into music and had already built a little space for his dad-rock band to play and we just kind of inherited it. It’s perfect for us, and we’ve done a lot of recording there.

W: What’s next for the band? What’s the future hold for you?

D: We’re recording our third EP next week. It’s going to be a lot darker...

G: Heavier, longer, stretched out...

D: And after that, we’ve already been working on songs for an album for a while. And that’s starting to take shape, but not exactly in the way that I think any of us expected it to.

D: It’s especially exciting because it feels like we’re on the same sort of “wave” of music in the Twin Cities.

W: Do you guys prefer working on an album to playing live?

G: It’s really fun to record!

D: It is, it’s really tedious too, and I tend to be a perfectionist about things. This EP has taken a lot longer, because of schedules and whatever, so it’s stressful to not be able to focus solely on something like that. Unfortunately, it makes the process a little stilted sometimes, like I would love to focus on just this and let everything come out and record it but...

G: 20 hours of homework! [laughs] D: We’ve had really good experiences playing live though, we actually haven’t played that many shows but we’ve managed to get on some awesome ones.

G: We’ve started playing a lot more houses too, we’re playing our fourth house show this week, and those are my favorite, of course. It’s a better setting in someone’s living room than being lifted off the ground under weird, hot lights and stuff. Espe-

You can check out Phantom Vibrations latest EP on their Bandcamp page.

phantomvibration.bandcamp.com

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Punk Is Not Dead

ognition because there is still something within people that appreciates their “Fuck You” mentality.

OF is punk. It’s unashamedly brutal. It’s ignorant. It’s stupid. It’s just pure thought streaming from the minds of these young kids who want nothing more than to fuck shit up. If you don’t think this is punk then you need to stop living in the past. It’s a mindset.

Odd Future Tape Vol. 2

By Tyler Lauer Punk as a specific musical styling may be dead, or at least forever altered by the changing times, but as a mentality in the collective musical consciousness it is making a comeback with the post-cool, kid-group Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All (OFWGKTA). Some wrote off OF at the beginning of their success as all hype and no substance, but since the tumblr frenzy has died down, the fan base has remained.

Of course, it must be noted that this frenzy didn’t make an impression on the mainstream masses as a whole, despite the seemingly endless publicity OF has gotten. When Tyler, The Creator won a VMA for Best New Artist Facebook blew up with status updates asking who this guy was (and if you still don’t know, he’s the unofficial leader of the rap collective.

Or, at least, the most popular member at the moment). Even now in the wake of the release of Odd Future Tape Vol. 2 a good amount of the mainstream has never heard of them.

They couldn’t even hold onto a place in the iTunes top 10 albums for the week after its release. That being said, this is OF’s fault entirely. I mean, where are people supposed to hear their music? It (arguably) isn’t danceable and is definitely not radio-friendly. Even the crew’s most mainstream-tailored artist Frank Ocean, who appeared on Watch The Throne and is touring with Coldplay in Europe later this year, admits, “I don’t know how to play this radio game. Imma just make my albums.” Less bashfully, Tyler cuts loose on “Hcapd,” cussing out all mainstream executives and DJs, telling them he doesn’t give a fuck about collaborating or working with companies to cross-promote. For these guys, money is not an excuse to change anything. In this attitude they are entirely punk, and instead of considering why they haven’t reached mainstream-status, we should be thinking about how they came to be notable at all.

put themselves out there and are making it clear they don’t need to change.

Some songs are shit, in my opinion. Just listen to “We Got Bitches.” In my defense, they say right away in the song that “this shit ignorant as fuck,” so I think they knew exactly what they were doing. But then there are the tracks like “Rella,” “Forest Green,” and “Analog 2” that show they’re better than that, they just don’t want to be. The way these guys let the less “professional” tracks onto their album is what separates them from the other artists topping the iTunes charts. They honestly don’t make their music to please anybody. They’re no Maroon 5, and Tyler’s no Adam Levine. Of course they’re happy about their success and keep creating in order for it to continue, but they will not change anything about themselves in order to please more people. So, besides the fact that they make good music, since tons of people make good music and never get popular, how are they popular at all? They got rec-

Now, in comparing this music with punk, there is one glaring difference that has to be taken into account: the materialism. Punks have been known to be anti-brand and thrift store aficionados. OF on the other hand tout Supreme and are now hawking their own clothes at pop-up shops, most recently one here in Minneapolis. This difference is accounted for since rap/hip-hop is a materialistic culture. It’s run by kids who came from nothing who then use material items to show they’ve made something of themselves. Plus, OF’s clothing is overtly tacky. The only reason they sell this stuff is because people want it. They’re not shoving it in anyone’s face trying to promote it. It’s not “cool.” In the Minneapolis pop-up they spray-painted dicks all over the walls. On the Vol. 2 album cover that got banned by Best Buy, there are crudely photoshopped images of floating vaginas and a butt shitting. They can’t be more clear about how they are not trying to impress anybody. They are not cool.

For these guys, money is not an excuse to change anything.

With this latest release, Odd Future is officially putting themselves out there, seeing if people will still continue to respond to their shenanigans. What it comes down to is this: if you want to listen to the polished, mainstream-tailored, easylistening, non-confrontational artists of the Top 40 charts, DON’T LISTEN TO ODD FUTURE TAPE VOL. 2. This is punk.

This is selfish music done in the best way. It’s not made for you. If you like it, great. If not, great, get fucked.

They got recognition because there is still something within people that appreciates their “Fuck You” mentality.

Those who have heard of OF, at least in passing, may be surprised to hear that Vol. 2 is their first collective record that you actually have to buy. In the past, except for Tyler’s Goblin, all crew collective and solo releases have been free to download. This group is DIY, not relying on anyone else to help them out or make them popular. They’re bent on fucking shit up above all else. In this model, free releases were not just practical but stylistically imperative. No punk group started off by trying to make it on the radio or on the CD shelves at Target. They started by making music, giving it out, playing shows, and showing they could hack it. Now that the crew has shown their ability and is releasing their first “official” record, you might think they would try to rise to the occasion to produce a more polished, mature, musically advanced effort that rises above the crude, hostile offerings of their free mixtapes. But they didn’t. They already

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02 - 16 april 2012

tyler lauer

AR

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THE BAST

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LAST MEETI NG OF TH E YEA R!

April 16 (Monda y Night )

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akema

g.org