The Davis house show scene shows initiative in light of closing Freeborn Hall, lack of “one size fits all” venues

The Mondavi Center, Third Space Art Collective, Sophia’s Thai Kitchen, the Pavilion — Davis certainly does not lack a variety of music venues. But after closing Freeborn Hall (once known as UC Davis’ premiere music venue) and Chance the Rapper’s recent performance inside the makeshift Pavilion-turned-arena, the Davis music scene must ask itself: there may not be a shortage of venues, but is there an inadequacy?

Every music venue in Davis has its own niche, whether it be providing a formal location for large-scale artists at the Mondavi Center, hosting local KDVS musicians at Third Space, or providing background entertainment for the night scene at bars like Sophia’s and G Street Wunderbar. And while Davis musicians are dedicated enough to find places for sharing their art, the town still lacks an established “one size fits all” venue.

Jeremy Ganter, the Mondavi Center’s associate executive director and director of programming, detailed the performing arts center’s role in the Davis music scene. Having been with the Mondavi Center since its inception 15 years ago, Ganter noted that the Mondavi Center is a premiere venue not only in Yolo County, but in all of Northern California.

“Part of our role in the music scene is diversifying it,” Ganter said. “We present a very wide array of music genres, ranging from classical to indie rock, with a special commitment to classical music, jazz and other American musical forms, and world music. That said, our hope and our goal, every year, is that our contributions to the local music scene go beyond the excellence and diversity of the music we present.”

The Mondavi Center has its niche and excels at it. But most UC Davis students are drawn to genres not often hosted by the Mondavi Center — hip-hop, pop, garage rock. Ganter also recognizes this, and stresses the importance of an audience-centered ideology.

“Good venues are important to the experience, of course, but the most important element of a healthy music scene is a clear point of view about what artists are chosen, and why,” Ganter said. “If you have a focused perspective on your work that resonates with your audience, it can be a pathway to more venues, or improved venues, or the kind of venues that better serve the local music scene.”

There is no shortage of venues, therefore, to Davis students willing to pay for a ticket at a sit-down venue and hear world-renowned musicians like Yo-Yo Ma, Julian Lage, Philip Glass and others. (Not to mention that students receive 50 percent off most tickets at the Mondavi Center.)

E.J. Palacios, a Davis resident and third-year human development major at Sacramento City College, frequently organizes local Davis house shows. He believes there is a distinction to be made between the Davis music scene and that provided by UC Davis.

“[House shows are for] just a lot more lesser known, indie-groups — people that are still on a local level,” Palacios said. “The Mondavi Center, they are the one place that [musicians] will come. But that’s not really the Davis music scene, that’s for UC Davis. There isn’t much of a middle ground. You’re either paying $80 at the Mondavi Center, or donating at someone’s house.”

Palacios is right; without the Mondavi Center, local musicians are left with Third Space, bars and house shows. And with the limitation of 21+ entry for the night scene, half of the undergraduate community is left scrambling to attend house shows or trekking to South Davis to catch a performance at Third Space. That’s not to say any of these venues lack integrity, or even good music; rather, they are not primarily music venues. Food and drink menus and community-hosted events are instead priorities for places like Sophia’s and Third Space — and that’s okay; that is their niche.

Unbeknownst to most students, however, is the small but thriving community behind house shows. Davis residents, inspired by the growing music scene and saddened by the lack of attendance, have assumed leadership roles in this regard. Huck Vaughan, third-year cinema and digital media major, is one of these Davis residents inviting musicians, neighbors and strangers to pack into their living room for a night of sweaty dancing and local tunes.

“The underground music scene surprised me when I came to Davis,” Vaughan said. “Seeing a fledgling band playing in someone’s living room makes for an intimate live experience that’s hard to find anywhere else.”

In fact, Palacios is the brains behind the shows being held at Vaughan’s residence. Palacios contacted Bay Area band Pit Stains and invited them to grace Davis with some DIY punk. And, in the spirit of punk, Pit Stains accepted.

But attending a house show is more than making Friday night plans, or even discovering new music; it’s about showing support for the musicians and the community that consistently and voluntarily nurture an ailing scene.

“There’s a lot of interesting-looking people. There’s always lots of hairdos, hair colors. It’s always really inviting, at least at all the shows I’ve been to,” Palacios said. “I might not talk to a lot of people, but I have definitely met a lot people.”

Palacios concluded with a call to action. He requested that anyone with a mild interest in music or hosting live music should consider planning a house show themselves.

“Anyone who’s interested in putting on house shows should just f*cking do it. It’s really not that hard,” Palacios insisted. “You just [have] to reach out to bands. I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s easy, but it’s not crazy difficult; it just takes effort. You just have to be willing to initiate. You have to really want to lead. You have to really want to make it happen.”

To find out more about upcoming Davis/Sacramento house shows and clubs, check out undietacos.org.

Written by: Ally Overbay — arts@theaggie.org

Looking for a book to read? Look no further!

Ah, reading. An activity that we always promise to make time for, but rarely end up doing.

Between all the assigned reading that we’re required to accomplish for classes, that club meeting you’re running to and your friend’s birthday dinner, recreational reading is something that often slips in between the cracks with other things that are good for us. Many of us may have wonderful, nostalgic memories of staying up past our bedtime, and sneakily reading a book under the covers with a flashlight or impatiently waiting for the next book in a series to be released.

So for those who don’t read anymore, or never really did, consider this: reading can awaken a curiosity that we may have forgotten about, or never knew existed. Engaging works of fiction can distract us from the daily stress of life, and non-fiction can empower us with knowledge about our world.

A self-help book can set you on the path to becoming more content, and poetry can remind you of beauty in life. We, as college students, are at such a unique point in our lives; we are growing, learning, ever-changing, and a little help from great books never hurts.

The Aggie sat down with Joshua Clover, professor of English and comparative literature, and Elizabeth Miller, professor of English, to see what books had a profound influence on their lives when they were in college. Plus, they name some books they wish they had read in college, with the hopes that this can inspire some of us to pick up a book that we’ve been eyeing for awhile.

Professor Joshua Clover:

Book that had a profound influence in college:

“Capital, by Karl Marx. At first I was puzzled that it wasn’t the old-fashioned call to revolutionary struggle I expected. Thank goodness; instruction manuals are bullies. It took me some doing to understand it was a far more ambitious thing, an attempt to sketch the laws of motion for our society and a framework for understanding how real historical change might be possible. I think it holds up pretty well. It’s a good inoculation against priests (politicians and economists, say) who would say there is no alternative to the world we live in. Revolution is one of the half-dozen topics in this world worth taking seriously and the least miserable, even in the face of defeat.”

Book that I wish I had read in college:

“Revolutionary Letters, [by] Diane Di Prima. I grew up with a pretty narrow sense of what poetry could be, and while university gave me a chance to engage with that tradition much more intensively (and I had great teachers), it didn’t do much to damage my definitions. Many poets since then have helped with that: Baraka, Stein, Mayakovsky, Mayer, Cesaire. But Di Prima most of all: oh, so it can be a way to deal directly with specific practical problems in front of us, a totally woo-free way to engage with necessity! Good to know.”

Professor Elizabeth Miller:

Book that had a profound influence in college:

“I worked at a Barnes and Noble bookstore for all four years of college (largely for the 40 percent discount on books!), and I was an English major, so I read a lot in college. For my leisure reading, I’ve always loved fantasy and speculative genres, and I can remember burning through Frank Herbert’s Dune (1965) during one day-long binge-read in the summer of 1995. Looking back, it almost seems like my love for Dune was preparing me to eventually move to California in 2008, right at the beginning of the drought.”

Book that I wish I had read (earlier) in college:

“If I had to choose the one book that I read in college that affected me most, it would definitely be Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre (1847), which I read for the first time during a class [on the Brontë family] in the fall of my senior year. That was the book that set me on the path to becoming a feminist critic, and the book that set me on the path to becoming a scholar of Victorian literature. I was amazed by the rawness of Brontë’s language, the passion of her feminist indignation and the novelty of a small, plain and homely heroine. I can remember blazing through the first half of that book, reading as though the book was on fire, with a speed and an intensity of concentration that my brain seems no longer capable of today!”

Written by: Pari Sagafi — arts@theaggie.org

Layering at its best

Jessica Ozuna, a second-year sociology major, gets ready for the cold by layering up. She loves to wear comfortable clothes that match with everything. For Ozuna, makeup is a second thought, making the outfit most important.

ASW: What is your style inspiration?

Ozuna: Myself, I assume. Usually the trends, especially now that it is the winter time I tend to wear long socks and dresses with leggings.

ASW: Do you have a go-to outfit?

Ozuna: It’s usually jeans with boots, a tank top and a cardigan.

ASW: What are your favorite stores to shop at?

Ozuna: I really like Forever 21 and H&M. They are the ones I shop at the most.

ASW: Are there any celebrities you look at for inspiration?

Ozuna: Not really, it’s mainly magazines; the Forever 21 magazine and the email newsletter give me a lot of inspiration, and Urban Outfitters always has good trends to be aware of.

ASW: Where did you get your outfit?

Ozuna: The jacket is from Old Navy, the dress is from Forever 21, the leggings are from H&M and the shoes are from a random store in my neighborhood.

ASW: Do you have any advice for someone who wants to be more stylish?

Ozuna: Wear what’s comfortable and not what everyone is wearing. You can make it stylish in your own way — it doesn’t have to be what others are wearing.

ASW: Do you want to talk about your style?

Ozuna: I’m not much of a leggings person; I love to wear jeans and cardigans. I tend not to wear makeup often either. It’s just when I’m in the mood and I don’t feel great about myself [if] I wear makeup.

Written by: CaraJoy Kleinrock – arts@theaggie.org

Art studio major exhibits creativity through paper

Most of us usually don’t think of paper cut-outs as the first way to make art, but for second-year art studio major Ali Bhimani, it’s his primary medium. The use of paper throughout his artworks wasn’t the result of some purposeful, genius brainchild, but rather of laziness.

“It started off as me being lazy because one of the prompts for my [art] class was to use patterned repetition in a work, but I didn’t want to draw and paint the person everytime, so I drew him once, cut him out and used a stencil, and my teacher was like ‘that’s a very unique style of doing it,’ so through laziness brews creativity,” Bhimani said.

Bhimani has done art throughout his childhood but didn’t begin to consider it as a career path seriously until his senior year of high school, when his work was featured in the Knoxville Museum of Art.

“I was taking AP studio just to get some art credit, [my teacher] submitted my art to a museum and it was featured,” Bhimani said. “So I was like, maybe I have a chance to do something I like instead of business, which seemed too easy to me.”

From very early on, Bhimani drew inspiration from human life forms and continues to focus his artwork on this aspect.

“When I used to draw as a kid or if I had any art classes I would always draw eyes and hands,” he said. “I’m very obsessed with hands and the functionality [of them]; there’s so much we can do with our appendages, and it’s fascinating to me.”

Bhimani is also inspired by other artists, like Bansky, who push their audiences to address the political climate.

“There’s no copyright issue in artistry. It’s impossible to copy someone because your work takes its own path. If I’m making a sculpture, it is going to start off some way in my mind, but by the time I’m done the sculpture’s taken its own path and the idea has gone into the work and it is for others to see,” Bhimani said.

As for his future in the art field, Bhimani hopes to become an art professor and inspire others to take on artistic career paths. This past summer, Bhimani was the head counselor for an art camp, called Camp Mosaic, that hosted 120 participants in Seattle.

“That’s one of the most rewarding [experiences], inspiring kids to pursue art because it’s looked so down upon as a career path,” Bhimani said. “But there’s always going to be someone out there who enjoys what you enjoy so don’t hesitate to do what you want to do. Unless you’re a psychopath.”

Bhimani, although purposeful in his artwork, does not aim to push any specific meaning on his audiences.

“I want to quote Pablo Picasso, he says ‘art is a lie that leads to the truth.’ So no piece of art has any meaning; it could be a blank wall that’s sold for billions of dollars or it could be the most complicated, intricate clockwise structure that takes years and years to finish that sells for nothing,” Bhimani said. “It’s the person that walks up to that painting that gives it meaning.”

To view more of Bhimani’s artwork, students and others can visit his website at alibhimani786.portfoliobox.net.

Written by: Abigail Wang — arts@theaggie.org