With three weeks of this quarter already gone, students are heading into the busy weeks packed with midterms and essays. There’s hardly time to catch a break. Luckily, the Entertainment Council has found the perfect solution to help students relax, have fun and forget about studying for a while. Through the month of October, various bands will be playing in the Quad every week. Some are local Davis bands, but others are from out of town, and there are plenty of different genres and styles of music represented.
Writer
Today
The band Writer is from San Diego. It consists of two brothers, James and Andy Ralph. They started playing music together as kids and have continued it since then.
“Our style of music is like a garage rock style with a kind of heavy distorted style; we’re kind of limited with our instrumentation so we have to be creative in how we use them and make our sound louder, etc,” Andy said.
They are getting ready to relocate to the East Coast so their concert at Davis is part of their tour up and down the coast of California. They are also playing at many other colleges this month. They have played in Davis before at Sophia’s Thai Kitchen and will be performing there again the same day as their concert on campus.
“We’re playing with a pretty cool band named Waters. It should be a fun day. We’re excited to perform and see how it’s going to go down and how the crowd will be. Colleges are different than playing at a venue because it’s usually outdoors and we’re playing as people are going to class and walking by; it’s more laid back,” said Ralph.
Sleepy Feet
Monday
Sleepy Feet is a band composed of college students from Pitzer College in L.A. They are mainly a folk, bluegrass, funk town band and have been together since the spring of 2009. They have about five members now. They started playing in the L.A. area last winter and this summer we played all over New York. Davis is the furthest north in California they have played so far.
“We played a lot on campus,” said Nick Morris, the guitarist for the band. “But when we play at other places we see all sorts of people and there’s plenty of older folk jamming along to the music.”
Their sound draws from the country and rock tradition. “People have called us the retarded child of My Morning Jacket, I took that as a compliment because I like that band,” Morris said.
The Souterrain
Oct. 20
The Souterrain is a local Davis folk rock trio. They did an international tour recently and are now back in Davis and performing locally again. At their show they’ll perform some new songs they’ve been working on since they finished touring and a preview of their album recorded in Sacramento this summer. They’ll even play a cover of their favorite summer radio pop song – Souterrain style.
“Hopefully we’ll get some Davis sunshine and it’s early enough in the quarter that students will feel good about hanging out with us for an hour,” said lead singer, Lauren Norton.
They have a very unique sound inspired by each other and many contemporary artists such as Lisa Hannigan and Mick Flannery.
“There’s a lot of listening involved when we practice, maybe that’s where the ‘soul’ of the music is found, in the relationship between us as performers and the level of patience it involves to wait for the appropriate moment to hit a symbol or strum a chord,” said Norton.
Finish Ticket
Oct. 27
Finish Ticket is an alternative, indie, pop band from Alameda, California. They are made up of five musicians and in September 2009 they released their EP, entitled “Life Underwater.”
They’ve played with many popular bands before such as My Chemical Romance and Phoenix.
“We don’t want to say we sound like any other band, but we are heavily influenced by bands like The Killers, The Strokes, Manchester Orchestra and Coldplay. You will definitely hear some of those influences in our music but we have worked hard to make our own sound,” Finish Ticket said.
Students can expect a lot of energy at their show and a lot of great music. So, don’t just pass by. Stop and listen.
PAAYAL ZAVERI can be reached at arts@theaggie.org.
