Every Monday, Arts: It’s What’s for Blog will present “From the Vault.” Each post will focus on a different classic artist. This week’s artist is Serge Gainsbourg. Listen to Arts & Entertainment writer Rajesh Srinivasan talk about Serge Gainsbourg’s Histoire de Melody Nelson on Houndbite.

Lucien Ginzburg, later and more commonly known as Serge Gainsbourg in households all around Europe, possessed an array of odd characteristics. He was a witty man who enjoyed satire and poetry. At the same time, Gainsbourg was also slovenly and perverted cad who, despite his unattractive appearance, would become France’s greatest playboy and marry one of the era’s most inarguably beautiful women, Jane Birkin. But above all this contradiction, he was a musical genius who would take Europe by storm with his deep, smoky voice, unique arrangements and controversial themes. (more…)

Simon Jones, bassist for the band the Verve, revealed today in an interview that he expects the new album to be released sometime around August. He said that there is currently no name for the album but said he believes it to be the best Verve album yet. The article about the interview can be found here.

- Raj Srinivasan

Image Source: Seattle Weekly

You thought Awards Season 2008 winding down. Well, I am happy to inform you that you thought wrong! In addition to the Tonys (June 15th), there is another, lesser known round of awards coming up. It may not be The Oscars, but everyone’s favorite boredom banishing website, YouTube, is putting on its own little round of awards. This is the second year that YouTube will be honoring the best and brightest (and craziest) of the millions of submissions that the sight hosts. The 2007 YouTube Video Awards is not actually an awards show, but a website where user-generated video submitions have been nominated under twelve catagories, such as, comedy, creative, short film, and instructional. But hey, all bets are that it will be a whole heck of a lot more entertaining than the Golden Globes were this year, or (cringe) The Peoples’ Choice Awards. And in fact it is. I spent sometime this morning clicking around the site, and it is definatley fun to surf through all the categories, watch a couple videos, and vote for the ones you like.

The videos on display represent a mix of very well-known videos–like the “Let me Borrow that Top” episode of the Kelly videos that even my Disney-channel-crazed-1o-year old sister has watched– to less famous but still intriguing videos– like the one under “Creative” of a guy who draws the Mona Lisa on Microsoft Paint. Although while watching the videos I found myself wondering: who chose the nominees? The site doesn’t really say. Oh well, it’s YouTube, right? Whatever.

Interesting as well is the category “Eyewitness”, which recognizes excellence in being at the right place at the right time, with a camera, and capturing something unbelievable–like a close up of a lightning strike. Now, you don’t find stuff like that at the People’s Choice Awards.

Voting for the videos continues through tomorrow, March 19th– so fulfill your civic YouTube duty now– have some fun and vote while you still can.

–Arielle Little

Some people choose to spend concerts lip-syncing, staring dreamily into the lead singer’s eyes or head-banging. However, we at the Daily Cal prefer to sit back and observe the lip-syncers, daydreamers, head-bangers, and the bands they worship. Here are those entertaining and embarrassing moments that never made it to print. (more…)

Friday, Feb. 22, 2008

8 pm, 155 Dwinelle

$5 student, $10 general

A cappella is great. Knowing that you’re supporting a cause while listening to harmonized melodies? Even better.

Some highlights from the show:

Perfect Fifth
-Although normally specializing in medieval and Renaissance music, they sang a fun bit of gospel for us.

The UC Men’s and Women’s Chorale
-They joined together to make a massive interpretation of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You.” The meter for the verses felt a little strange and rushed, but the chorus paid off with so many singers.

Cal Jazz Choir
-sucked the audience in with a super-catchy, energetic “Don’t Mean a Thing if it Ain’t Got That Swing”

DeCadence
-Wow, Muse’s “Starlight” is actually a pretty song… when not performed with buzzing guitars and a super-nasal voice. Props to them for making it sound so lovely—who knew it was possible?

UC Men’s Octet
-As always, it was impossible to watch them without grinning and falling in love with their energetic, silly antics, especially that night’s version of “Help!”

In general, red, black and white seemed to be popular with the performers. Same with air guitar-ing and Beatles songs. But hey, a little extra “Hey Jude” or “When I’m 64” never hurt anyone.

Things were looking grim for a while there, but with the WGA strike finally over, the Oscar ceremony will go on as planned. Tune in to ABC at 5 p.m. tonight to watch the show live. Or you could just read about it here!That’s right—I’ll be liveblogging the Academy Awards for your reading pleasure. Refresh your browser frantically for up-to-the-minute announcements of the winners. Sure, you could just check IMDB, but they simply can’t offer the same snarktastic commentary. (Snarktastic commentary contingent on the ceremony itself, but given how over-the-top the Oscars are every year, I think we can count on something to mock.)See you all in 40 minutes! (more…)

We don’t consider it often, but music is really scientific. Although Paul McCartney often composed in his sleep, music is made up of many complicated elements—melody, rhythm, texture, and timbre among other things. It’s just as much about numbers as it is notes. This truth is expressed in the final scene of Amadeus when Mozart is dictating “Requiem” on his deathbed for Antonio Salieri. As you watch Mozart volley his ideas to Salieri and reach a mutual understanding of the piece with him, you acquire a good sense of how music follows certain rules and principles that allow musicians to open the doors to the rooms where their colleagues create music.

But the aspect that makes music special is the human element (yes, that’s from the DOW chemicals commercial). All art is a product of human thought, experiences, and, most importantly, feelings. And without emotion, music is just a computer program that has no function or a math equation that solves no problem. For all the utility of polyphony and poetry, music is nothing if it doesn’t move people.

It is in this realm that Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea succeeds like only the best records do. (more…)

So I know a lot of you went to the Berkeley Art Museum Student Committee’s opening party for Enrique Chagoya’s Borderlandia, but let’s be real: amidst the huge crowds, free food, and “see and be seen” vibe, you probably didn’t get to view as much of the art as you would have liked. This is precisely why you should go back to BAM and immerse yourself in the artist’s provocative images of Mickey Mouse, cannibals, and biting-yet-hilarious social satire. Oh yeah, and Chagoya himself will appear at the museum a whopping three times before the exhibition ends– on February 17th, March 16th, and April 13th. Get excited!

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I used to be obsessed with classifying my musical tastes in list form, my personal desert-island-top-n. Even so, I won’t be indexing my Top 10 of 2007, and not just because it’d take me until April to figure it out. Pazz & Jop, as well as Idolator’s spin-off Jackin’ Pop (right, the name’s been changed, much thanks to the commenter—Ed.), ostensibly aims to reach the critical consensus through a roll call of hundreds of established writers—the creation of the official pop canon. But at what point does the institution become arbitrary?

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On my way out of the student store the other day (after an excruciating experience purchasing over-priced textbooks) I came across a bin full of those lovely little bookmark shaped Berkeley Rep fliers, but this time with Carrie Fisher’s smug-looking face on them. Yes, Carrie Fisher as in Princess Leia from Star Wars. At first a bit bewildered, I picked up the flier only to become a bit more bewildered after reading it. Fisher, whose career was arguably ruined by the success of the Star Wars franchise, is to perform her one-woman show Wishful Drinking at Berkeley Rep starting February 8th. I have to admit my first thought was something along the lines of: “Hmm, sounds like something Lindsay Lohan might produce 20 years from now”. That is if she makes it 20 more years.

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