Arts & Culture

With Halloween comes the candy, masks, slutty outfits, fake blood and the inevitable mass of freshmen wandering campus to make use of their Saturday night. But look no further. Performing at Coachella, Pitchfork music festival and now Freeborn Hall, it's time to listen to one of the UK's best-kept secrets.

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Warning - side effects of listening to Rodrigo y Gabriela's 11:11 may include uncontrollable foot-tapping, head-bobbing and clapping. Listen at your own risk.

In their debut album, I Had the Blues But I Shook Them Loose, UK-based band Bombay Bicycle Club combines alternative rock, experimental and blues elements with Strokes-esque rhythms and melodies to bring an enticing mix of sounds to the soi-disant indie rock genre.

A challenge often confronting eccentric, visually arresting musicians is the task of transferring the spirit of frenzied and elaborate live shows onto a recorded medium. And they rarely come as weird as Baltimore's Nuclear Power Pants. The guitar-less nine piece includes two very bearded lead singers, three female backup singers, a synth player, a keytar player and a dude that jabs a mic into an amplifier.

The Blueprint 3 is supposedly an anthem to Jay-Z's innovative mark on the music industry. Jay-Z ambitiously sets out to release an album entirely centered on the idea that it will be a template for future originality - something he took literally in some tracks with its futuristic sound.

Last week I wrote about why illegal downloading is understandable, at least in certain cases. I don't recommend it, but hey, I'm not going to judge you if you do.

Written and directed by Theatre and Dance Department professor Jade Rosina McCutcheon, contemporary theater piece Elephant's Graveyard combines the three elements of dance, song and drama onto one stage.

For many artists, having an original work displayed proudly in a museum or gallery, gazed upon and admired by art lovers and fellow artists alike, is the ultimate dream.

Friday, Oct. 30, 8 p.m.-2 a.m.

Vinyl records would seem obsolete and outdated in this new age of technology. This is actually not the case - rather, quite the opposite for a certain select group of audiophiles.

Any disease with the nickname "the silent killer" is one that people shouldn't be kept in the dark about.

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On a daily basis, college students face the conundrum of balancing frugality with exorbitant and often lavish excess. We'd all love to be wise money savers to keep up with the poor student image, but in the end, a four-dollar beer really does go well with a nine-dollar meal at Burgers and Brew.

Elephant's Graveyard Oct. 23-24, Oct. 30-31, 8 p.m.