I was surprised to find out that more people haven’t read Where The Wild Things Are than I thought. So when I showed them the epic Arcade Fire’s “Wake Up” version of the trailer, I was disappointed that they weren’t as moved as I was.

Mind you, I had been anticipating the premiere of this movie ever since Warner Brothers broadcasted the release date – I bought my tickets on Fandango.com, listened to Karen O and the Kids (OST “Worried Shoes!”) on repeat, changed my desktop background to one of Sendak’s book illustrations and re-read the book countless times.

So there is much to say about the adaption of this 37-page book into a full fledge feature film. First, let me just say this: I hate first impressions. Which is why when I wasn’t wowed the first time I watched it (and yes, I watched it twice) I had hope that the second time around, my thoughts on Spike Jonze’s interpretation of one of my favorite children’s books of all time, would be different.

But it wasn’t. Unfortunately, the problem with turning a children’s book that had limited dialogue and plot line to begin with is that you don’t have much to work with besides the illustrations and a few catch phrases here and there.

In the book, Max is sent to bed without his supper. His bedroom begins to turn into a forest as he sails away to a place where hairy looking beasts make him their king. After sending the beasts to bed without supper, he returns home to find his own supper waiting for him.

I realized now that I didn’t actually understand the message of Sendak’s book as a child or even the significance of his supper being “still hot.” I probably enjoyed the silly beast illustrations and the fact that it was clearly an easy read. Being able to watch Jonze’s version of the book as a college student, I have to say the movie ebbed a darker tone then I remembered. It made me wonder if the movie was actually intended for children, and if not, it was a little on-the-verge boring for adults.

It was clear that Director Spike Jonze had his own aesthetic vision of Maurice Sendak’s book – just as any artist would, naturally. So don’t get me wrong. I think, visually, it was a masterpiece.

Lance Acord’s cinematography left a lasting impression, just as the book’s illustrations did so long ago. I appreciated the angles in which the camera followed Max’s perspective (played by debut actor Max Records) and the realities of a neglected child with divorced parents.

But, the way Jonze portrayed the beasts with freakishly whiney voices (played by James Gandolfini, Lauren Ambrose, Paul Dano, Forest Whitaker and Chris Cooper) took away from the playfulness I had originally envisioned for these characters. The beasts were scary-looking, even for me.

And I think the reason why I was a little bored when watching this movie was because there was no driving force or climax in the plot. This isn’t Jonze’s fault, per se, but let’s just say it is. He probably would have received a lot of criticism from die-hard fans if he added to the nature of the book. Even so, there was so much potential for creativity that was disappointingly unmet.

Jonze failed to explore the depths of the imagination of a child but instead took a profoundly heavy message about childhood that was originally absent from the book. He adapted a beloved, classic children’s book into a thought-provoking feature film.

We follow Max’s looming sadness, disappointment, fears (big and small) and anger that hang over him throughout the entire film. It is the absent father, negligent sister, preoccupied mother and lack of attention thereof that makes this film hard to watch – for any adult who could relate.

I think the movie was too heavy for a seven-year-old child and had too many silent pauses (that Jonze purposely left for moments of reflection). But it did speak to the wild things in all of us.

So did Jonze achieve what he set out to do? Absolutely. It just wasn’t what I was expecting from the trailer. I was misled into thinking that it would be a children’s movie; instead, it was a movie about childhood.

KAREN SONG can be reached at arts@theaggie.org.

The Temper Trap

Conditions

Glassnote Records

Rating: 4

The soulful and gospel-like vocals make The Temper Trap unlike most indie rock bands out there today. Most distinguished for their track “Sweet Deposition” featured in the indie film (500) Days of Summer, there’s no denying the attempt that The Temper Trap, an Australian-based band, makes to enter into the mainstream wave.

Yet, there is an undeniable charm and originality that seeps past the predictable power chords and climactic pauses – both of which are commonly seen in most impressionable rock songs. The compilation of deep resonating bass, distorted guitar riffs and soaring falsetto from front-man Dougy Mandagi combine to produce the overall hypnotic sound of Conditions.

From the hand-clapping intro of title track “Love Lost” to the purely instrumental vision in “Drum Song,” Conditions makes for an exploration of varying lyrical and instrumental arrangements.

Give these tracks a listen: “Soldier On,” “Love Lost”

For Fans Of: Passion Pit, Florence, The Machine

-Uyen Cao

The end of a decade usually signifies a time of reflection and assessment. What the hell happened in the last 10 years? What’s changed since we apprehensively watched Dick Clark deliver us into the new millennium? The simple and correct answer is technological progress. But just as the future never goes quite according to plan, technological progress is also never without backlash.

I assume everyone is familiar with the cassette tape. This once popular and convenient musical format, beloved by our parents, has been all but abandoned. Adorning bargain bins across the U.S., it quietly reminds us of the devastating effects of the digital revolution.

Recently, though, cassettes and cassette culture have been undergoing a grassroots revival. As more and more mainstream record stores close, more and more music specialty stores and microlabels open. As CD’s continue to collect dust at Walmart, artists like the Dirty Projectors sell out cassette releases of their newest album. All signs point to a new cassette culture on the horizon.

The movement had its peak in the late 1970s up to the early ’90s, quickly becoming a fixture in the underground music community. Several factors contributed to the emergence of the cassette culture; recording equipment was becoming more portable and inexpensive. Musicians could record, duplicate and distribute their music cheaply, without the trappings of studios and A&R personnel. It was a democratization of musical production. As a result, an abundance of independent, cassette-only labels sprang up on both sides of the Atlantic. These musicians and labels found exposure in the medium of college and non-commercial radio, gaining attention during the period. By the ’90s, the advent of CD-Rs and eventually MP3s sent cassette tapes into obsolescence.

Ben Johnson, a local DJ and Davis alumnus explained some of the reasoning behind recording onto cassettes in an e-mail interview.

“One of the main things I use them for is recording musical ideas or mixes when I practice DJing,” Johnson said. “My tape deck usually sits on the desk right by the turntables – you just turn it on and hit record. To record into a computer, you have to boot it up, load up a program, choose a place to save your files and then you have to watch the levels all the time since overloading a digital recorder sounds like garbage instantly. Tapes you can clip a bit and they still sound fine, it’s more forgiving.”

Cassettes are not without flaws. They hiss. They often suffer from what is known as wow and flutter. The tape gets jammed and mangled. Tape decks are no longer ubiquitous. The Internet is overrun by free, high fidelity recording software. And considering that the use of tapes in the ’80s was out necessity rather than choice, why exactly has cassette culture come back into vogue?

The current underground cassette movement is as much pragmatic as it is reactionary, says Rick Ele, a long time KDVS DJ and avid music collector.

“For some people, having an MP3 doesn’t satisfy the need to own something on an enduring format,” Ele said. “CD-R’s, as we’ve found out, have an average life cycle of five to ten years. This new cassette underground is following in the tradition of the older CD-R’s, with the same homemade, do-it-yourself aesthetic. In spite of the hiss and other flaws of cassettes, a lot of fetishists appreciate and cherish that effort.”

Ele said the movement is also reactionary to how lackluster and “unspecial” the MP3 format is.

“The MP3 has changed people’s listening habits. Now, when buying or listening, no effort is required. You can preview songs, download the ones you want, delete the ones you don’t. It has taken all of the patience out of enjoying music.”

“Cassettes have been abandoned and disregarded,” said Simi Sohota, KDVS 90.3 FM DJ and cassette connoisseur. “People, who have acquired massive collections, sell them for dirt cheap. They often don’t even know the worth of what they’re selling.”

Sohota said the romanticism of listening to one side of a tape at a time, in the style of playing a record, is a bonus to the cheap, analogue cassette format.

“The over-efficiency of MP3’s and even CD’s makes you uninvolved with the music,” Sohota said. “The interaction of fixing the tape, flipping it, searching through songs somehow makes the experience more gratifying.”

BORIS FREYMAN can be reached at arts@theaggie.org.

Executive Director Don Roth has implemented a creative goal for the UC Davis’ Mondavi Center by moving towards an artistic, educational and operational vision for the past three years. Muse interviewed him on Tuesday.

Tell me about the duties of the Mondavi Center Executive Director.

The heart of the job is shaping, (with my Associate Executive Director Jeremy Ganter) our programs and programming – to help bring the Mondavi Center team together around a vision of programming that achieves our goals.

What are those goals? To make it as easy and accessible as possible for everyone, regardless of age and arts “experience” or education, to connect with what’s happening on stage, to have their hearts and brains open to the music, the dance, the theater, the film, the speech.

Accessible might mean having programs that help us “get it” better (podcasts, pre-performance lectures, post performance Q&A’s). Accessible might mean making it affordable as we do through the $5 Curriculum Connections tickets for students. Accessible might mean having a wide range of art from the “classical” to the “popular.” Accessible might mean having one of the largest arts education programs for K-12 students in Northern California. Accessible also means getting our audience to trust us that everything we do will be worth their time and to get them used to [being] challenged to go beyond their comfort zone in the arts.

The rest of my job is to make sure we have the funds available to support our programming and vision – by working with our team on fundraising and marketing, on budgeting and oversight of spending.

Shortly after its opening, the Mondavi Center became a nationally and internationally renowned performing arts center. How do you orient your vision in the programming and image of such a world-class hall?Jackson Hall is a big plus for programming. Artists who may never have heard of Davis (or even Sacramento) before want to come back. This is true of cellist Yo-Yo Ma, Mexican singer Eugenia Leon and singer-songwriters Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt – they all marvel at both the beauty and the acoustics of that space. Others love working in the intimate space of the Vanderhoef Studio Theatre – especially when we set it up like a nightclub or cabaret. The choice is fantastic – a great 1,800 seat concert hall or a cool 200 seat club.

For Jeremy Ganter and myself, the key is to never, and we mean never, program anything not worthy of our space. It is easy to be tempted by bringing someone who will sell a lot of tickets, but we don’t think it is the very best, or sometimes even very good. We just won’t do that – our promise to you is that each artist we present represents the best at what they do, whether it is twang or taiko as our ads say!

How does one bring together classical music, which many students might find foreign or distant, into a college atmosphere?In many other countries, what we call “classical” music is “popular” music. Italians and Germans will line up around the block to score tickets for their favorite opera. I’ve been to sold-out “classical” concerts in Germany on Christmas Eve. There are only a couple of reasons why students think of classical music as foreign or distant.

First, we don’t hear it on the radio or see it featured on iTunes – the recording industry and artists aren’t putting the large amounts of money to promote it that go into “popular” music. Second, film, comics and other sources have created this image of classical music and musicians as stuffy and distant. Third, much of the best classical music requires a longer attention span – symphonies average 30-45 minutes in length – than most popular music (not jam bands like The Dead or Phish).

How to overcome this? Pretty simple I believe – all I would ask is for students to try out some classical music. [Attend] one of the symphonies we present, or the UCD Symphony Orchestra – without prejudice (I ask the same thing of some of my older patrons when I encourage them to try out Lyle Lovett). Don’t feel forced to like it but don’t feel forced to dislike it. Let the music carry you (much of it is way more powerful and louder than a lot of rock) and if you are bored for parts of it, don’t worry. The more you listen, the more you will hear and the fewer parts will leave you behind. If you want to, attend the pre-performance lecture or read the program notes online in advance – but none of that is necessary. You don’t have to be “educated” about it, you just need to have open ears!

You clearly have a very strong background in classical music. What made you want to write for Rolling Stone?

A conductor I know once talked about how, at a concert, the music is to each audience member as a book is to a reader – each person receives it in their own direct way. What I love about music, all music, is that it speaks directly to our emotions (heart and soul). I grew up with rock and roll, became avid about classical music when some musician friends started dragging me to concerts in high school (in NYC) and started hitting jazz clubs at 18 – the boundaries really didn’t matter. I could get as worked up about the Rolling Stones as Verdi and Wagner.

In the early days of the Rolling Stone magazine, they lived off of unsolicited manuscripts and paid about 10 cents a word. They published three pieces of mine: one about a rhythm and blues version of Shakespeare’s Othello (I liked it), another about a jazz festival in Austin Texas which included Miles Davis and a third about the late Texas Blues singer Big Joe Williams (my favorite). Probably the best thing I ever wrote was with a friend of mine, Jan Reid, for Texas Monthly about the beginnings of the music scene in Austin in the 1970’s when Willie Nelson moved back to Austin from Nashville. We’ve been told that this article was the inspiration for the long-running PBS series, “Austin City Limits.”You have had the opportunity to work with the most talented people in the world. What do you think this does to your visual scope for the Mondavi Center and how do you think you have done this?

I have been very fortunate to have had a long career where I worked with many wonderful artists. My biggest thrills were holding Martha Graham’s hand right before she introduced a performance by her company – she appeared, as if by magic, on a kind of throne. She was 91 years old and still incredibly elegant. Another was meeting Ella Fitzgerald before she sang with the San Francisco Symphony.

Because I have been around [for] a while, there are a lot of artists whose work I love and it is my intention to bring them – in many cases introduce them – to our Mondavi Center audiences in the years ahead. This year, for example, the amazing Russian pianist Vladimir Feltsman comes in April. He is so fantastic and has never been to the Mondavi Center before – and since he loves sushi, I know he will be happy to stay in Davis!

KAREN SONG can be reached at arts@theaggie.org.

Hornet Leg

Ribbon of Fear

K Records

Rating: 5

In this album, Hornet Leg captures an older, playful punk feel that I haven’t come across in a long time. The songs are mostly melodious, featuring an unrefined production factor, raw vocals and amazingly funny and creative lyrics that really make you want to thrash and groove.

The tempo of the tracks moves along at a steady crawl. This sing/speak method is very reminiscent of groups like The Dead Milkmen and Angry Samoans, and it’s one of the traits that gives Hornet Leg the old raw punk feel without being as fast, furious or abrasive as a lot of other iconic bands.

The songs are just fun to listen to. It’s music that actually makes you want to move, and honestly, I get a little kick out of singing along to songs like “Savage” because I get to yell things like, “We want to celebrate you in the back of our car” and “I’m better than average / I f*** like a savage.”

Give these tracks a listen: “Ribbon of Fear,” “Savage,” “We’re so Ugly”

For fans of: Angry Samoans, The Dead Milkmen, The Cramps

– Elena Buckley

Parachute

Losing Sleep

Mercury Records

Rating: 2

This debut album from Parachute delivers simplicity, predictability and hackneyed lyrics – but not much more.

While these boys from Charlottesville, Virginia have mainstream appeal and catchy songs, they don’t push any boundaries lyrically, instrumentally or melodically. Lead singer Will Anderson’s voice is generic and his lyrics barely scratch the surface. Two of the songs have background instrumentals that sound like they were copied and pasted from Maroon 5’s “This Love.”

The album is cathartic, however, if not innovative – with gentle vocals, soothing guitar riffs and steady drumbeats. It’s good music to listen to for a few times, but it lacks long-standing appeal.

In short, there is nothing that stands out from the album enough to make it memorable. The strong tracks are outnumbered by mediocre ones, causing Losing Sleep to disappear in the mass of forgettable pop-punk albums.

Give these tracks a listen: “Back Again,” “She Is Love”

For Fans Of: Boys Like Girls, Maroon 5

-Eleni Stephanides

Artist: Karen O and the Kids

Album: Where the Wild Things Are

Record Label: DGC/Interscope

Rating: 4

It’s a great year for Karen O. In addition to spending roughly a year traveling to various locations around the U.S. to create the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s March release of It’s Blitz!, O recently helped provide tunes for the motion picture soundtrack, Where the Wild Things Are.

O, together with guitarist Nick Zinner, drummer Brian Chase, Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox, the Bird and the Bee’s Greg Kurston and two of the Raconteurs, mainly took an acoustic approach of music production to complement the night-time lullaby-esque feel to the plot of the story.

The soundtrack features sound clips from the film and a chorus of kids that together succinctly create a carefree and innocent atmosphere. O also weaves dreamy, escapism-themed lyrics into her songs that draw in older audience members who may have grown up reading the book. O’s voice flows sweetly through endearing melodies as she takes us to the land of the Wild Things.

Give these tracks a listen: “Hidaway,” “All is Love”

For fans of: Yeah Yeah Yeahs

– Simone Wahng

Growing old is often a daunting task that can leave anyone bewildered, perplexed and perhaps, at some point, abandoned in a depressingly isolated nursing home. And if you don’t believe it, check out Sideshow Physical Theatre’s latest play, Elephant’s Graveyard.

The play, written and directed by Australian scholar Jade Rosina McCutcheon, delves deeply into the lives of two women – Esme (a lonely mother and grandmother) and Eve (her busy and career-obsessed daughter).

The play starts out in gloom as Esme desperately pleads Eve for the least bit of love and attention. Esme’s raw stress of emotions and desire for love is carried out by the songs of her soul – yes, her soul – sung by Australian singer and actress Kim Deacon.

On the surface, the play may seem to reflect the issues of aging and abandonment, but it also directs the limelight onto real social issues that we rarely think about today.

“It’s not so much the fear of old age,” McCutcheon said, “But in 2030, we’ll have more than 30 million people over 65 years of age, and we don’t have the utility to handle that.”

McCutcheon said at the same time, scientists are still working on solutions.

“Nursing homes may be the popular choice, but I don’t think it’s a very compassionate thing to do, and I don’t think it’s the way to go to be abandoned by your family,” McCutcheon said.

By exposing the public to the issues presented in this play, she said that she hopes Elephant’s Graveyard will be something for everybody to carefully consider, no matter what age.

The cast’s intimate performance is earnest yet humorous at the same time, permitting us to question the realities of elderly life in a nursing home. Where will our children be when we die? What will happen to our souls? What is the importance of religion, or having our families nearby?

Because really, as cliché as it may sound, what exactly is the point of living life without love, knowing that the inevitable outcome of death is awaiting us?

Bella Merlin is an actress trained in the UK and Russia. She plays Eve in Elephant’s Graveyard.

“We’ve all been children, and we’ve all had parents,” Merlin said. “We know what’s coming.”

There are also many moments of ridiculousness in this poignant mother-and-daughter story that explore the complex emotions involved in one’s passing of age.

In one scene, a deeply unsettling yet oddly entertaining dance depicts the darkness of life in a nursing home where a team of pharmacists and nurses are seen as villains in the eyes of the elders.

“I think it’s impossible for the play to not have [a] dark comedy effect,” McCutcheon said. “Sometimes, we just have to laugh at these things because we feel so powerless.”

The play, which combines with artistic tapestry all the different styles of theatre – layering music, dance, realism and costume – is what Merlin describes as “epic.”

The impressive creative team ranges from Emmy Award-winning lighting designer Thomas Munn to costume designer Maggie Morgan, who has worked with costumes on well-known sets such as Mona Lisa Smile and Men in Black.

“The young people working on this are terrific, considerate and talented,” said Dorris Beresford, who plays one of the many elders. “That being said, I’d be happy to turn the world over to them.”

Elephant’s Graveyard, full of great artists and actors, will premiere its first show Saturday, Oct. 23 at the Mondavi Studio Theatre. Don’t forget to take your friends, parents or elders – as they will be sure to laugh and cry.

More information about the show can be found at theelephantsgraveyard.com.

VANNA LE can be reached at arts@theaggie.org.

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.

Though finances sincerely limit many students, others play it cheap only when they find it most convenient. Sure, consistency is generally an admirable trait, but being selectively cheap has its perks.

An easy example is the purchasing of music – an act where being cheap is increasingly valid. Why pay $10 for a CD at Dimple (or $16-20 at Borders) when you could pay nothing for the same thing? After all, it’s hard to afford the burdens of a physical album collection when you just bought a parking permit and you drive to class everyday. Life’s tough sometimes.

Sure, downloading music can be risky business. Most people know (or at least should know) downloading tracks off Limewire is about as incredibly unsafe as it is unforgivably stupid. But it’s not hard to beat the system – nobody’s stopping you from putting four gigabytes of high-quality album rips onto a flash drive and passing it around like a blunt, or unloading a hard drive’s worth of music onto someone else’s computer. In minutes.

Buying music sucks. I don’t want to spend any more than eight or nine dollars on an album because I know the songs are just going to end up in iTunes and the jewel case shelved alongside my Mac OS X install discs.

It’s true that bands need money – a point that anti-Communist moral leaders love to harp on and on about. But if they really want compensation for their work, they should deserve it, because downloaders aren’t going to respond to anything else. Put in the effort to make a product worth buying.

Ask anyone with a musical taste born before the ’70s – vinyl purchases used to be awesome. Records were a trip and album artwork rivaled the music in quality. But let’s be honest – the term “artist” is a stretch for many, many bands. Metallica’s 1996 Load cover art was nothing more than a semen-blood amalgamation between two pieces of glass. I saw what was essentially Animal Collective’s optical illusion artwork for Merriweather Post Pavilion on ebaumsworld.com six years ago.

Subjective? Sure. Complete shit? Definitely.

Artists don’t put nearly as much effort into their physical releases anymore, and that’s probably never going to change. Vinyl still exists, but hell, even Alicia Keys sells records now. And besides the fact that album packages themselves are bland and mundane, you just can’t fit anything substantially interesting in a tiny jewel case.

So where can you fit it? In a compressed file that users can download. Bands, the RIAA and Lars Ulrich will never be able to stop the pirating monster, so they should accept it and utilize it. Keep fighting for expensive purchases and you’ll end up like the jewel case – shelved and disregarded.

The trend some musicians are going towards – releasing their own music digitally and putting out a nice frilly deluxe edition – might work. True fans, they argue, would pay the money (often upwards of $150) for the extra photos and 5.1 stereo mixes. But I wouldn’t, no matter how much I liked the band. Does that mean I’m not a true fan?

Buy an album when a band is worth spending money on. Otherwise, our friendly internet-based alternatives are by far the better choice.

JUSTIN T. HO knows physical formats trump digital files, and buys used albums whenever he can. Agree with him at arts@theaggie.org.