Arts & Culture

There’s no better place to celebrate Arbor Day festivities than at the Arboretum, UC Davis’ gem of a gorgeous plant and tree garden collection. On May 2, UC Davis and the City of Davis will be co-hosting Oak Discovery Day at the Shield’s Oak Grove. The event, funded by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, will be unveiling the Art/Science Fusion projects as well as the newly installed Oak Discovery Trail.

MUSIC Dead Western Trio, Cole Moldy, Poppet, Ghost to Falco Today, 7 p.m., donations to KDVS encouraged 802 Villanova Ave. Support campus radio station KDVS 90.3 FM and be there for Dead Western Trio’s album release party and performances by Cole Moldy and Ghost to Falco. Visit the bands’ Myspaces for previews. Jib Kidder, Megazord, Grandmother Ham Today, 8 p.m., $5 Technocultural Studies Building

Stu Cook, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer for his bass playing with Creedence Clearwater Revival, turns 65 this Saturday. And he’s still rocking. Cook and fellow Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Doug “Cosmo” Clifford are on tour with Creedence Clearwater Revisited – the original band’s reincarnation project. The Aggie had a chance to chat with Cook before the band plays in Dixon on Saturday, May 8.

Kristian Matsson, better known as the Tallest Man on Earth, has released a second full-length album that has garnered him comparisons to the legendary Bob Dylan. The Wild Hunt features elements of ragged melodies and engaging lyricism that highlight the striking similarities.

In the massive move toward computer-based sound, it is easy for soul to escape most electronic music. Yet there is something incredibly raw, affecting and organic about Pretty Lights. Pretty Lights is producer Derek Vincent Smith, and his new EP continues and furthers his use of complex sampling but includes a more defined, funky edge. Whereas musicians like Girl Talk and the Hood Internet make mash ups out of just a few songs, Smith layers many different individual music samples and voice clips to create a whole new sound.

An album dedicated to misery and emotional stasis isn’t what we’d expect to see from an artist like Erykah Badu, whose repertoire is founded on a persona of a self-empowered neo-soul earth mother. In New Amerykah Part 2 (Return of the Ankh), Badu all but abandoned the politics and revolutionary drive of Part 1 and opts instead for a sound that is atmospheric and intimate – dripping with pathos and melancholy.

On Mar. 30, Vallejo’s very own E-40 released Revenue Retrievin,’ which features two separate albums whose songs relate through their titles and cover shots. The first album, Day Shift, contains a plethora of interesting sounds to cruise or dance to, while Night Shift is more club-oriented and relaxed. E-40 is well-known for his ‘hyphy’ Bay Area music, involving lyrics that speak mainly about the urban lifestyle. These albums only add to his incredible reputation, featuring artists such as Snoop Dogg, Gucci Mane, B-Legit, Too $hort, The Mob Figaz, Mistah F.A.B. and more.

In an all-too-familiar move last week, the state of Georgia passed a budget that will potentially eliminate the Georgia Council for the Arts. Thousands rallied at the Georgia capitol to protest the budget on Monday, addressing the overwhelming sentiment that arts are almost always first on the chopping block. As whimsical as it may sound, it’s truly unfortunate that the arts are generally first to go when it comes to budget cuts. And I don’t mean to simply whine – it’s unfortunate because arts and culture are inextricably connected to a country’s economics and social well-being.

Pianist Vladimir Feltsman will perform at the Mondavi Center’s Jackson Hall on Saturday, Apr. 24 at 8 p.m. Tickets start at $17.50 for students. Feltsman will play Beethoven’s “Sonata No.8 in C Minor,” J.S. Bach’s “Parita No.1 in B-Flat Major” and “Four Ballads” by Frederic Chopin at Saturday’s show.

For English majors and creative writers, poetry is a part of daily life. But even if the last time you read a poem was in your high school language arts class, tonight’s poetry reading at the John Natsoulas Gallery at 8 p.m. will offer the chance to rediscover this unique art form with some of today’s most promising young poets. Tonight, the Poetry Night Reading Series will host some of the featured poets from independent poetry publishing house Flatmancrooked’s latest publications. These include Not About Vampires: An Anthology of New Fiction Concerning Everything Else and The Slim Anthology of Contemporary Poetics, both of which are due in 2010.

Just hours before they hit the big stage last Wednesday, Passion Pit drummer Nate Donmoyer and keyboardist and guitarist Ian Hultquist sat with the Aggie on the blue benches outside Freeborn Hall. Passion Pit, whose music has exploded in the electronica, indie pop and alternative dance music scenes, played a sold out concert in Freeborn Hall that night, presented by the ASUCD Entertainment Council. Despite their relative success, it appeared that these were just two completely normal guys ready to have a good time doing what they love.

MUSIC The Speed of Sound in Seawater, Buff Clout, Golden Arm, Jesus and the Rabbis Friday, 9 p.m., free The Bomb Shelter, 720 Anderson Road Experience the Bomb Shelter, an actual 1960s underground bomb shelter built in the backyard of 720 Anderson Rd. that now plays host to musicians around the country thanks to the concrete bunker’s natural reverb. Concerts don’t get more intimate than this. Jake Mann and the Upper Hand, Mist and Mast, J. Irvin Dally Friday, 10 p.m., $3 Sophia’s Thai Kitchen