From introducing the public to Feist’s “1234” to popularizing Chairlift’s “Bruises,” Apple Inc. advertisers are certified professionals when it comes to discovering hip, up-and-coming artists and sharing their music with the rest of the world.
The Submarines, whose single “You Me & the Bourgeoisie” was featured in an iPhone commercial late last year, will be performing with Red Cortez tonight at the ASUCD Coffee House. The show takes place at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $10 general admission and $5 with a student ID.
The ASUCD Entertainment Council is ending the school year with this double feature. The show will be the last in the Coho before the 13-month long Memorial Union renovations begin this summer.
For those who are unfamiliar with the Submarines, husband-and-wife duo John Dragonetti and Blake Hazard had been intermittently playing music and touring together until they officially became a band a few months before they released first record, Declare A New State, in 2006. According to Hazard, their music can be generally described as electronically influenced indie pop.
“We started inadvertently – we had broken up and wrote songs about each other and got back together … it was a long process. We became a band in late 2005, four months before the record came out and we had never really played live together [as the Submarines],” Hazard said.
Since then the Submarines have grown to tour and play live sets in addition to recording new albums and compilations.
“Touring can be a strain but it can be an amazing time. [There are] so many amazing people having a great time together, it’s incredible,” Hazard said. “We’ve been touring since before we were the Submarines, [and] we’ve toured in each other’s bands but I think we’ve been touring in a more focused way in recent years.“
The pair returned to California on Monday afternoon fresh from the three-day Sasquatch! Music Festival in Washington. Entertainment Council director Thongxy Phansopha wanted to bring the Submarines to Davis earlier this year when they had a set at the Noise Pop Music Festival in San Francisco.
Tonight’s show will be the Submarines‘ first show in the Davis area.
“They aren’t really big yet, they’re up and coming and they were playing a lot of festivals. I wanted to get them before they got big,” Phansopha said.
Although the iPhone advertisement featured “You Me & the Bourgeoisie,” and exposed the Submarines‘ delightful tunes to a larger audience, Hazard said it’s still difficult to tell if the fan base has in fact grown due to high rate of illegal downloading and file sharing. However, she added that the crowds at their live sets have definitely grown over the recent years.
Sophomore genetics major and frequent concert-goer Michael Dorrity heard about tonight’s show through friends.
“I was first turned on by the Submarines by frequently hearing the song in iPhone commercials – which probably everyone would recognize by now,” Dorrity said. “Shows at the Coho have a different atmosphere, there’s a more intimate experience to the point where you can even greet the artist after, whereas that wouldn’t happen at Freeborn Hall.
“This show may well be the highlight of my life before it becomes a pathetic mess during finals,” he added.
SIMONE WAHNG can be reached at arts@theaggie.org.
