Seasoned UC Davis students and alumni may remember Rock It!, a Thursday night rock addition to the Davis nightlife. They may also remember its conclusion when Rock It! creator Jordan Smart ended the event after a year-and-a-half long run.

But now – over a year later – Smart is trying it out again. Rock It! will return to the Davis dance scene tonight at 10 p.m. at the Davis Graduate, located at 805 Russell Blvd. Tickets are $7 for 18 and $3 for 21 .

Rock It! was founded in late 2005 by Smart, a UC Davis alumnus, as an indie-rock dance night. Smart discontinued the event in the summer of 2007. He listed declining attendees and the difficulty of running and maintaining a regular event as reasons for the yearlong hiatus.

“It is a lot harder to keep some kind of regular event running in Davis with student turnover and finals, midterms and people leaving for the summer,” Smart said. “All of these different factors make the Davis population transient.“

Thoughts about a Rock It! return began as the Graduate and Smart both expressed interest in another shot. However, Smart sees the first night as a trial run, and both the Grad and Smart want to test tonight’s turnout.

Smart, a former DJ at KDVS, will DJ the entire night. Although he primarily DJs the event by himself, others have also contributed to Rock It! in the past, such as KDVS DJ Mr. Glass.

“The original idea – and the idea I’m maintaining for this time around – is just to really have a place in Davis where people can dance to music that’s not sort of the kind of music you’re going to listen to at regular Top 40 clubs or bars in town,” Smart said.

Smart’s interest in creating an 18-and-over event was a fundamental part in his desire to start Rock It!, partly due to the limits of a 21-and-up event. It also directly led to his choice of the Grad as the regular venue. Smart listed its ability to accommodate both 18 and 21 crowds, its large setup and DJ booth as some of its main benefits.

“I think the Grad has a reputation that’s sort of unfairly labeled them over the years as being a jock place to hang out,” Smart said. “Certainly some of their nights are mainstream Top 40 oriented, but they also have experimented with a lot of different stuff over the years. I think they deserve a lot of credit for that.“

Smart plans on playing new and old alternative and indie music throughout the night – a selection that has gained the support of previous attendees.

“I knew [Smart], so I started going when I was a freshman or sophomore – it was kind of fun to go and see someone that I know go DJ,” senior technocultural studies major Emma Burton said. “I like the music that he played – most of my friends were going, and it was just kind of a nice way to get together with people and dance.“

“The genre of music is maybe not the most 100 percent popular, but it gets the crowd going,” said UC Davis alumnus Rob Roy, who regularly attended Rock It! in the past. “The dance floor gets pretty packed, but it never really gets meat market packed, which I definitely enjoy. You’re able to actually dance instead of getting packed in like sardines.“

Rock It! will be held tonight at the Davis Graduate at 805 Russell Blvd. Music starts at 10 p.m. Tickets are $7 for ages 18 to 20 and $3 for those 21 and above.

JUSTIN T. HO can be reached at arts@theaggie.org. 

Got something to say? Poetry may be a perfect outlet. The UC Davis Poetry Slam Team is holding auditions today at 7 p.m. in Griffin Lounge, located on the first floor of the Memorial Union.

For those who may be unfamiliar with slam poetry, it is “spoken word poetry that is conditioned for the competitive performance experience,” explained senior international relations major Elyssa White, president of Sickspits, another slam poetry group on-campus.

“It has its roots in the beat generation poets, the urban experience and the hip-hop movement,” White said in an e-mail interview.

The UC Davis Poetry Slam Team is composed of six members in total (four core members and two alternate members) who individually perform original works of poetry under three minutes long.

“The ultimate goal is to encourage audience interaction,” said junior Alex Gonzalez, who’s been on the team for the past two years. “Five audience members are randomly selected to judge each performance on a scale from one to 10– one being ‘you sucked you can go home‘ and 10 being ‘you just changed my life.‘”

The audition process will consist of two rounds of performances, and the top five scores will determine who is accepted on the Davis Slam Team.

The team has placed first at the regional poetry slam competition and fifth in the nation two years in a row. In addition to competing with other UC teams, the UCD team has traveled to Michigan, New Mexico and Texas.

So what makes slam poetry so unique?

“It’s a completely different style than page poetry,” Gonzalez pointed out. “Slam poetry requires a poet to be a good performer and a good writer.”

White said that “slam poetry is difficult because it traverses a thin line between a personal and public you.“

“Anyone who can write can slam,” she said. “Learning how to write honestly for a critical public, however, is a task that for many takes time to master.”

Generally, slam poets cover personal experiences within their own lives.

“I’ve found poetry slams to be an accessible and great platform to share ideas,” senior biochemistry and molecular biology major Ruby Ibarra said in an e-mail interview. “I also try to raise awareness by exploring topics that are rarely discussed, such as injustices in the Filipino and Asian-American community.”

Lexer Chou, program coordinator for Campus Unions and creator of the UCD Slam Team, expressed her support for the team

“I felt like Campus Unions needed to provide students with the opportunity to have their voices heard,” she said. “Most importantly [the poets] were a part of a community where they were able to learn from each other and be inspired by other peers.”

At this week’s auditions, Chou hopes “to see new faces and hear new voices.“

“Hopefully [they will] challenge us to think about things we’ve never thought about before,” she said.

Ibarra, a former member of the slam poetry team, shared a similar sentiment.

“I really encourage people to attend at least one poetry slam,” she said. “The pieces shared are always so diverse in content, but they will certainly leave you feeling inspired or empowered.”

For all the first-time slammers auditioning, White offered a final piece of advice.

“Bring your heart, energy, positivity, and spirit,” she said.

JULIA MCCANDLESS can be reached at arts@theaggie.org.

The Davis community got a peek inside the world of local radio through the Davis People’s Free School course, pirate radio. Taught by Davis resident and radio enthusiast Mark Chang, the class will meet again to set up an antenna and broadcast a radio show throughout Davis. Contact Chang about the upcoming broadcast or future pirate radio classes at toptriode@gmail.com.

The term pirate radio, which refers to unlicensed radio transmissions, comes from the first broadcasts of music in England in the ‘60s. According to Chang, a group of people boarded a ship and broadcasted music from just off shore.

“Maybe that’s where the word ‘pirate‘ first comes from,” Chang said. “They were broadcasting from a boat.“

The class overviews the fundamentals of radio, including the theory of making radio waves and an explanation of the parts that go into making a radio. By the end of the course, Chang will teach his students how to set up a full time radio show and broadcast a short signal from anywhere – even a bicycle.

“People [may] have specific questions about how to make a transmitter, so they can ride a bicycle around have other bicycles play the same music,” he said.

Radio has always been an interest to Chang, a UC Davis graduate. He set up and hosted his own pirate radio show in Davis from 1993 to 1999 called Davis Live Radio. In addition to playing music, Chang would broadcast roving reports, speaking to locals such as a drunken woman at a laundromat to people at the Jack-in-the-Box drive through, all from the confines of his living room.

“It was almost like I was cruising around town meeting people, but I was just sitting in my living room just talking,” he said. “I wanted to have a sense that people out there were participating and get people excited about it.“

The pirate radio class draws on Chang’s experiences and goes into the details of setting up a mini studio. He will explain how to use parts like antennas, transmitters and amplifiers – equipment that can be bought online.

While creating a broadcast signal has become increasingly straightforward, staying on the air is a more difficult task. With the Federal Communications Commission giving preference to commercial stations, there is “not much more room left on the radio dial” for a pirate radio show, according to Chang.

“The airwaves are controlled by the corporations,” he said. “The FCC isn’t really protecting the low power radio stations.“

KDRT, a volunteer-driven radio station in Davis, recently won a bout with the FCC to avoid being pushed off the air, which shifted their broadcast from 101.5 FM to 95.7 FM. According to production manager and radio host Autumn Labbe-Renault, the Davis community “stepped up” to protect local radio.

“It would not have happened without the support of the community and our elected officials,” she said. “We are here to fill a void in local content.“

The Davis People’s Free School, a non-hierarchical learning project established in the 2007, contacted Chang about teaching a pirate radio class. Marguerite Wilson, a fourth-year Ph.D. student in the School of Education and one of the founders of the free school, believes the pirate radio course falls in line with their values.

“I think that pirate radio, among many other things, is a great example of people learning how to do and know things themselves rather than relying on institutions,” she said in an e-mail interview. “I think Mark’s class is a great way to make something that is normally inaccessible to most people – i.e. radio technology – accessible to wide group of people.“

For more information about the Davis People’s Free School, check out their page on Davis Wiki or e-mail davispeoplesfreeschool@riseup.net.

CHRIS RUE can be reached at arts@theaggie.org.

The newest art pieces by retired Chicana/o studies and art professor Malaquias Montoya are now on display at the Pence Gallery in downtown Davis. The exhibit – which features 23 paintings and prints – is titled “Globalization & War: The Aftermath” and will be open for viewing until Dec. 21.

He will be speaking at the Pence Gallery – located at 212 D St. in downtown Davis – about his exhibit on Dec. 5 at 7 p.m. The event is free.

Montoya, a graduate of UC Berkeley and one of the founding members of the Mexican American Liberation Art Front, said that the works attempt to confront the effects of globalization and war through art.

“These works deal with the brutality of war and the conditions that are created by globalization. There are people all over the world whose cultures have been disrupted by global capitalism,” he said. “If you could look down at the world from somewhere up high, you would see thousands of people searching for better lives away from home because their lives have been disrupted by globalization.“

Montoya said that he saw the problems with globalization reflected in the stories of torture and prisoner abuse in Iraq at Abu Ghraib.

“I started working on both of these ideas – globalization and war – and decided that they were pretty much inseparable,” Montoya said. “Globalization is another form of colonization. Wars are also a form of colonization.“

Montoya said he first began to combine political ideas with art after he graduated from Berkeley and founded the Mexican American Liberation Art Front with other artists in 1968.

The MALAF was a group of young Chicano artists who wanted to use their art to help the cause of Mexican-American farm workers and workers in general, Montoya said.

“We started to have meetings and get together and talk about what our role was as artists. We had to do more than just make artwork; we wanted to do something useful with it,” he said. “We – the MALAF – became the visual side of the farm workers movement, the student movement and the Chicano people in general.“

Melanie King, a UC Davis graduate who majored in cultural anthropology and took a number of classes with Montoya, said that he taught his students that art had a social purpose.

“The most important thing I learned from [Montoya] was that although art springs from the creativity of the individual, it must speak to the heart and consciousness of the […] community,” she said in an e-mail. “Art must be used as a tool for social betterment […] even if in doing so, the images it employs remind the viewer of existing injustices and wrongs committed.“

King said that Montoya’s class on the “History of Chicano Art” introduced her to Chicano artists who had skillfully blended art and social agendas.

“He opened to me a whole world of art [that was] used as a tool for clearly speaking [about] particular social ideals,” she said.

Natalie Nelson, the Pence Gallery director, said she first saw an exhibit in the Nelson Gallery by Montoya about the death penalty.

“His work is very critical of established norms and the current political situation,” she said. “His art is meant to provoke an emotional response – whether it’s to feel empathy for his subjects who are often poor and from developed countries or to make us think about ourselves as taking part in the oppression.“

Montoya said that the goal of the exhibition is to make people think about the structure of the world today.

“I hope it raises questions and I hope that people think about what we are doing in the world.“

ZACK FREDERICK can be reached at arts@theaggie.org.

According to some statistic presented by some magazine, the average height for a woman aged 18 to 24 is 5-foot-4. That being said, being a mere two inches below this average shouldn’t make that much of a difference, one would think.

Wrong. Falling just short (tehe!) of the median presents a huge problem. Though I would consider myself far from tiny (if anything, I would be on the taller end of the short spectrum), I’m just short enough – short enough to have to get my pants hemmed, not tall enough to be able to take full advantage of the purpose of miniskirts, small enough to always be stuck sitting on someone’s lap when the car’s crowded and apparently just little enough to be blocked by a trash bin while waiting on the sidewalk for the bus, thus being late for class.

There are also the physical levels of precariousness to keep in mind. I’m talking about the afflictions the vertically challenged are faced with at concerts, parties and crowds in general. We’re the ones cursed with the optimal height of face-to-someone else’s-potentially-smelly-armpit, burdened with the increased risk of getting hit in the eye with a wayward elbow and the pint-sized targets of those looking for easy people to use for crowd-surfing.

To those showgoers who got the short end of the stick (haha again!) in height, don’t let your size get in the way of good times. For all you wee ones, I provide for you a couple of pointers:

First off, heels are never a pragmatic solution. Think about it: you’re going to a place where you’ll be standing for hours and running the risk of being thrown around if the crowd gets rowdy. Teetering on skinny heels – no matter how fierce the pair is – is far from ideal.

Consider a solid pair of platform boots instead, specifically the knee-high leather lace-up styles a la Hot Topic. Not only will you gain a couple of inches, you’ll look super hardcore to boot. Even if they are heavier than your normal shoe, at least you’ll be able to anchor yourself or use your foot as a weapon.

A smarter solution would be to take advantage of your fun-sized height. When you’re small, you take up less space – work the sympathy card. In other words, make the taller folk in the audience feel like horrible people for obstructing your view and ruining your good time. However, usually there will be people nice enough to let you through so that way you don’t have to spend the whole show standing on your tip-toes or peering through their elbow.

Then again, sometimes playing the cute and tiny card doesn’t work. To that, I recommend being the douche bag! It’s a lot easier to slink through the audience to get your desired spot on the floor with minimal fear of repercussion when you’re petite.

Another solution to dwarf your problems: Bring a tall friend or two with you. A towering companion can always come in handy in these situations, whether it be conveniently providing you with a human shield against a wild crowd, acting as a bodyguard to protect you from the person you just cut in front of or giving you a pair of shoulders to climb if you’re way in the back of the crowd.

With all that being said, I guess what all you shorties out there could do is just show up early and simply beat the crowd to the front of the stage. But where’s the challenge in that, I ask?

RACHEL FILIPINAS could always use some taller friends. Get in touch with her at arts@theaggie.org.

MUSIC

Jeremy Jay, Jake Mann, J. Irvin Dally

Today, 8 p.m., $6

Luigi’s Fun Garden in Sacramento

The more mature (read: older) readers of Artsweek should be no stranger to the music of Jake Mann: The UC Davis alumnus started out in local music staple The Zim-Zims and has worked with familiar Davis figures such as Payam Bavafa of Sholi, Garrett Pierce and Andy Lentz of Mad Cow String Band.

Elliot Randall

Friday, 10 p.m., $3 to $5 md], 21

The G St. Pub

Don’t confuse this dude with the lead guitarist of Steely Dan – besides the fact that he’s sans one “t” in his name, he’s also way younger, way less beard-y and sounds nothing like the aforementioned group. San Francisco-based Elliot Randall is an Americana troubadour whose influences range from roots to rock to country.

Connecticut, Olive Drive, Build Us Airplanes

Saturday, 8 p.m.

Primary Concepts

Whether or not local band Olive Drive actually took inspiration from the tree-lined street in Davis is unbeknownst to me. One thing that I can confirm, however, is the band’s utterly cool and understated pop.

Silver Darling, Chris Robley, Whispertown2000, Not an Airplane

Saturday, 9 p.m., $7, 21

Old Ironsides in Sacramento

Fans of other mainstream indie acts like Rilo Kiley, Bright Eyes and The Postal Service, this one’s for you: Los Angeles-based group Whispertown2000 balances Cat Power-esque vocals, sparse synths and rootsy guitars to make for a delightful folk-rock outfit.

Mickey Avalon, Dirt Nasty, Beardo, Big B, The Dirtball

Tuesday, 7:30 p.m., $20 in advance

The Boardwalk in Orangevale

Mickey Avalon: So bad, it’s good. The former drug dealer and heroin addicted male prostitute has made a name for himself as a rapper with hits like “Jane Fonda.” Dirt Nasty, also known as B-list actor Simon Rex, is just another exquisitely trashy addition to the bill.

Minus the Bear, Annuals, Helms Alee

Tuesday, 7:30 p.m. $20

Empire Events Center in Sacramento

You all are probably familiar with the finger-tapping prog rock of Minus the Bear, but what about fellow Seattle-ites (Seattlese? Seattleans?) Helms Alee? This trio, which features two gals and a guy, gives a new – not to mention loud – life to the kind of music we expect to come from a city that begat acts like Nirvana.

The Morning Benders, Social Studies, Love is Chemicals, Timothy Rabbit

Wednesday, 8 p.m.

UC Davis Coffee House

There’s nothing like sunny California pop to brighten the cold days of the approaching winter. Berkeley foursome The Morning Benders have a love for ‘60s pop, an affinity that has found its way in covers of songs like the 1996 hit “Lovefool.“

AT THE MOVIES

Rachel Getting Married

Today at the Varsity Theatre on Second Street

How misleading! This is precisely why I hate it when characters in films have the same name as me.

Throne of Blood

Monday, 6:30 p.m., $10 general admission, $5 with a student ID

Studio Theatre in the Mondavi Center

This quarter’s “Focus on Film” series at the Mondavi Center concentrates on works from good ol‘ Billy Shakes. For more information on the upcoming screening of Akira Kurosawa’s classic Throne of Blood, see page __.

ART / GALLERY

30 Chairs 30 Days

On display now at The Basement Gallery

Art studio major Jason Dunne created a chair a day for 30 days. He’s probably accomplished more in one month than I’ve ever done in one whole year. A reception will take place tonight at 8.

Globalization and War: The Aftermath

On display now at the Pence Gallery at 212 D St.

UC Davis professor emeritus Malaquias Montoya portrays the consequences of manmade conflict and destruction through his oil paintings. For an in-depth look at the exhibit, see page __.

COMEDY / MONDAVI

Theatre Rice

Friday, 7:30 p.m., $8 in advance, $10 at the door

Social Sciences 1100

The guys behind the Asian American Association Film Festival invited UC Berkeley improv group Theatre Rice to Davis to provide a night of laughs.

The Velveteen Rabbit

Sunday, 3 p.m., $25 general admission, $12.50 with a student ID

Jackson Hall

A toy rabbit turns into a real rabbit through the power of love. I hate to be the Debbie Downer, but real-life bunnies are a lot less affectionate.

RACHEL FILIPINAS can be reached at arts@theaggie.org

Editor’s Picks:

Connecticut, Olive Drive, Build Us Airplanes

Saturday, 8 p.m.

Primary Concepts

Silver Darling, Chris Robley, Whispertown 2000[Whispertown2000 md], Not an Airplane

Saturday, 9 p.m., $7, 21

Old Ironsides in Sacramento

Undergraduate students have the potential to do great things. This year’s THIRDeYE Theatre Festival, entirely put on by undergraduates, is not one of those great things.

The first play of the festival, The Readers by Joe Ferreira, threw together important plot elements at the very beginning. The mysterious silhouetted paper passers, the barking dog and the franticly cleaning artist started the show off, dare I say, dramatically.

The play seemed full of promise at that point, and the audience recognized the potential for these disconnected elements to come together. They did eventually, but not before the play spent the majority of its allotted time focusing on arguing. It was positively tiring to watch and achingly mundane.

After these three people are finished acting horridly to one another (and in terms of performance, acting poorly in general), the play finally saw a resolution to the problems revealed at the very beginning, involving an unexplained use of magical realism that was never fully addressed.

There was a line near the end of the play that most accurately summarizes what I believe the writer’s message to be. To paraphrase, our ideas of perfection are bound by what we know. I may not know much about theater, but what I do know deems this unentertaining mess far from perfect.

Next, the audience was greeted with the interestingly titled When Marcelli Met the Dream Maker, by Carolyn Duncan. What we met, however, was mostly confusion. The play began in a seemingly normal living room, and abruptly and recklessly jumped into the world of the supernatural.

The result of this echoes slightly of the film What Dreams May Come. Similar to Robin William’s role, the main character Allie (played by senior dramatic art major Amber Nolan) was led to explore worlds of the mind’s creation. How unfortunate that I made this connection early on, since this fractured play fell so short of the film’s magnificence. Impressive acting from students Nolan and junior physics major Kyle Robinson could not help make sense of it; this strange suspension of reality used imagination as a crutch.

I spent the whole 45 minutes wondering if the play, much like the first, was some sort of allegory that the audience would not fully understand until the end. What I got instead was an abstract and unclear portrayal of unexciting inner struggle.

The festival was rescued by Julie Friedrichsen’s A Piece of Water, which arguably had the most compact and direct approach to theater. The parallel stories of two present-day journalists and two 20th century Hungarian women unfolded clearly with a natural pace.

The actors had a calm power that never called attention to the acting itself, but rather directed attention toward the developing plot. The play patiently contrasted passion and pragmatism by intersecting and overlapping the narratives.

The tone of the play was more quiet than outlandish, allowing it to avoid the misstep of self-importance. It is precisely this misstep that the previous two acts had wholeheartedly committed, resulting in profoundly imperfect performances.