April Fools' Day brings Ozma, Superdrag to LC

by Aaron Landau

Kristin Juelson (Asst. Director of SOFA) came up to me in the Piolog office the other day and let me know that LC would be host to a “huge-gantic-normous” rock show on April 1, and that I had a week to write a preview schooling the campus community about the headliner, Ozma.

Of course, I didn’t have a clue who these kids are, so I had to do a little research.

Hello, Google: apparently, Ozma is the most powerful enemy-boss in Final Fantasy 9, a Flemish music school, and the codename of an early 1960s West Virginia-based search for alien intelligence.

After sifting through a few more odd pages, I found what I was looking for: a young, melodic rock band from Pasadena who are currently touring with Superdrag and, thanks to SOFA’s dedication, are passing through Templeton on their way from Seattle to Denver.

I also found that everybody, their mom, and their mom’s dog thinks this band sounds more than a little like Weezer. “Definitely,” responded bassist and vocalist Daniel Brummel in a recent interview. “When people first heard [the album], many said it sounded like Weezer in a good way - which is a big compliment.” The association is warranted: Rivers Cuomo and friends have been an influence on the band from their humble garage-beginnings (Ozma’s first set consisted of 3 originals and 10 covers of guess-who) to the recent “Yahoo! Tour,” which Weezer personally invited the band to join.

But Ozma did exactly what every good rock band riding another band’s momentum should do: they turned and ran. In 2002 the band—Ryen, Patrick, Jose, Star, and Mr. Brummel—released “The Double Donkey Disc,” a double concept-EP split between a dance-party sound (see “Flight of the Bootymaster”) and a jazz-fusion take on traditional Russian forms. “We wanted to create something new,” Brummel said. “We had a bit of an identity crisis.”

Since the “crisis,” Ozma has found a happy medium between the familiar power-pop of their first release and the drastic originality of the second, releasing “Spending Time on the Borderline.” The band describes their evolved sound as having been more influenced by The Flaming Lips and indie darlings Pavement than by other “gratuitous rock gimmickry,” and given their work so far, I’ll definitely be there to see them show it off.

The show will take place in Stamm April 1, the Tuesday following spring break. Co-headlining will be Superdrag (who are worthy of a full-length preview themselves, but we only have so much space).

Doors open at 7pm. Admission is free for LC students, $5 for the general community.

Julian Tulips presents the creepy side of night music

by Erin Haick

Articulate and quick-tempered, Julian Tulips Licorice produces a creepy, late-night album of electronic piano oddness. A wide variety of sounds and styles make appearances on the album, but the centerpiece always remains Tulips’ strange view of the world.

“The Umbrella Party” is the work of Julian Tulips, a Portland-based artist with two full-length albums to his credit. The album focuses on electronic sounds and textures, moving from smooth and blended to sharp and prickly. A few of Tulips’ old piano-and-voice compositions are included, like the concert-hall style “Sticking Pins in Francis.”

“My Invisible Ashtray” layers in the electronics but finally settles on a bouncy walking bassline to drive the song. The music-box electronics float and fade over the rhythm, and Tulips’ voice blends into a seamless whole.

The album sounds like a diary written with sweetness and poison, full of barbed insults about daily occurrences and melodramas. The lyrics veer from linear storytelling to fragmentary words and phrases evoking an unnamed mood. The sarcastic words and acidic delivery on “Dolls Aren’t Supposed to Bite” narrates a stumbling walk down the street at night, hearing and retorting to insults hurled by stupid people and “annoying young queens.” Motifs of transient captivity like polaroids and taxi cabs dominant the lyrics, which all seem to take place after 2:00am.

The album’s biggest flaw is shoddy production. Tulips’ voice is frequently deeply buried in the mix to the extent that even with his enunciated delivery, the lyrics are unintelligible except with a crib sheet. The lyrics focus inordinately on freaks and outsider. In the live setting, the production problems are less noticeable, and the spoken-word segments (which usually break up the album’s flow) work much better as between-song banter. Tulips’ voice is a darker baritone in the live setting, almost parallel to the muttered rants of Gordon Downie. The electronics are played on a synth, with live drums and a brutalized cello providing the most discordant sounds. Live, “The Umbrella Party” sounds more complete than captured forever on CD.

"Laramie" becomes a tale of two cities

by Elizabeth Miller

Last Wednesday, the Portland Artists Repertory Theatre presented a free production of "The Laramie Project" just two days before the Lewis and Clark Theatre Department opened their production of the same show. The repetition of these performances raised questions and concerns among students and faculty members as to why two theatre groups were performing the same show within the same week.

ART's project was billed as a final dress rehearsal before the company took the performance on a tour of rural Portland. Many theatre groups have done similar tours in towns across the country in hopes of expanding awareness on the issues of hate crimes and homosexuality as they are addressed in the play. It was offered as a free performance as part of "Hate Crimes Awareness Week," presented by the Black Student Union, GLU, United Sexualities, Residence Life, and Student Activities.

The performance was coordinated in large part by the efforts of LC student Diana Wiener, who hoped to offer students the opportunity to see a production that opened too late to see before summer set in. She contacted ART hoping to work through their "Artist To Go" program and bring some scenes to campus to open a dialogue about hate crimes and homosexuality. In late November of 2002, after struggling with schedules, spaces, and phone tag, ART offered to do their final dress rehearsal on campus for free shortly before their tour this March, and Wiener accepted. "My goal was for this to be the main event of a week-long program effort," Wiener said. With recent events on campus dealing with prejudice and the on-going dialogues on the subject, Wiener perceived that "people felt that they weren't aware of what was going on or how to address it and I was trying to stimulate more discussion."

Soon ART's schedule again presented a conflict when the LC Theatre department announced its mainstage schedule. But by the time the department announced that their production would be "The Laramie Project," Wiener did not feel comfortable cancelling the ART performance. Administrators, students, faculty, and funding had been tied into the ART production, and Wiener felt it would have been unprofessional to cancel. She said, "My intention was never to undercut the Theatre Department production. I was very happy when I found out they were doing the show because I think it's an important piece. I hope every student gets to see it."

Audience members were encouraged to attend the campus production and support their fellow students. "I would hope that the message of 'The Laramie Project' is something that could belong to all students at Lewis and Clark," Wiener said. Jon Kretzu, director of the ART performance, viewed the combination as a beneficial opportunity for students. "I'm very excited for the students. The show is so rich, so complex, and so open to interpretation that I don't think a single viewing is sufficient," he said.

The ultimate hope of all parties involved is that this is a story be made accessible to as many people as possible. Beth Harper, director of LC's "Laramie" agreed: "The story and the students are bigger than whatever politics are involved."