Unlike past efforts, the overall tempo of this album has noticeably decreased. The number of “slow songs” or slow-building songs on the album is much more apparent than it has been before. Opening track “Obvious Bicycle” is one such song, with keyboardist Rostam Batmanglij playing a melancholy piano riff over lead singer Ezra Koenig’s crooning voice as he bounces to and from falsettos. Of all the mellow songs on the album, “Step” stands out, with Koenig’s soothing vocals over a medley of piano and synthesizer progressions. Drummer Chris Tomson keeps the beat so strong and steady throughout the track that head-nodding or foot-tapping is impossible to avoid.

Tomson shifts about five gears up for the following song, “Diane Young” — a track that, along with the speedy rhythm of “Finger Back,” would be easily at home in either of the other VW records. Single “Diane Young” feels like a modern-day adaption of the swingin’ big band songs, with Koenig pitch-shifting the lyric “baby, baby, baby, baby right on time” over groovy guitar riffs and rapid-fire drums. There’s even a “Wipeout”-esque drum and guitar roll thrown in — just in case your head and hips weren’t shaking enough.

Modern Vampires of the City is the album that VW has been building up to. While it’s not always a constant ball of energy, the balance of warm melodies and funky riffs make for an appropriate and satisfying conclusion to the band’s trilogy.

Ian Birnam covers music. Contact him at ibirnam@dailycal.org.

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Rap in the Bay Area is notorious for keeping out of the national spotlight. Although the region has been active for almost 30 years, the only names synonymous with the area today, E-40 and Too Short, are the two that essentially started it all. There is so little support from radio or other mainstream outlets that music from the area tends to get trapped within it. Those who previously teetered on the edge of widespread success – Mistah F.A.B. or Lil B, for example – have all fallen back into obscurity. IAmSu! has successfully defied this notion.

He earned his first big break appearing on fellow Bay Area rapper LoveRance’s “UP!.” The song peaked at No. 2 on Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop chart, a feat practically unheard of for a Bay Area rap single. Then came IAmSu!’s appearance on another national hit, E-40’s “Function.” This year, he has features on singer Jonn Hart’s Top-40 song “Who Booty” and Wiz Khalifa’s latest single, “Bout Me.” As his resume continues to grow, it is clear: People are paying attention.

IAmSu! is a tremendously gifted rapper. Words just flow effortlessly off his tongue. Stylistically, he stretches rap’s boundaries, incorporating many melodic elements and even singing on songs, but much of his music, which he produces with his production team, The Invasion, follows a similar structure — minimalist and uptempo. It combines the trunk-rattling aspects of the Bay’s mob music and the energetic qualities of the region’s hyphy movement. “We’re just a partying-ass group of people,” IAmSu! said, noting that making music to get played at parties was the way to gain recognition. “I couldn’t make a song about going back to Africa (and) get played at a party.”

It is with this type of music that IAmSu! has been able to gain notice. His Southern California counterparts have all found success building upon this same post-hyphy aesthetic. Los Angeles producer DJ Mustard, responsible for Tyga’s “Rack City” and Young Jeezy’s “R.I.P.,” has brought the sound to rap’s forefront. Compton rappers YG and Problem have both built nationwide fanbases with similar musical styles. Even Drake’s “Started From the Bottom” includes comparable sonic elements to much of IAmSu!’s catalog. The acceptance of this type of sound by rap on a larger scale has allowed success for a talented rapper like IAmSu!, who has so few resources from his own home region, to break through now. “If you go to L.A., you’ll hear hella local acts (on the radio),” he mentioned.

He is quick to silence critics that box him into a single style, though. “I don’t want to be defined by any certain thing,” IAmSu! said. “I bring so many different sounds to the table, and I think (those) people don’t really listen to my music in depth.” He plans to showcase that variety more on his upcoming Kilt 2 mixtape. “It’s a lot more personal songs, showing my upbringing and how I’m feeling about everything that’s going on right now,” he said.

There is a charisma to IAmSu! that separates him from his peers. He has an energy to him that is captivating. The San Francisco stop of his and Problem’s Million Dollar Afro Tour showcased a packed house of fans — aged 14 to 45 — all present to support their hometown hero. He was confident and commandeering of his audience, and fans sang along word for word. He really has no single song that identifies him at this point, so it is especially interesting how people are drawn to him and not a gimmick of a radio single. “I think that (it’s about) being original and being different,” IAmSu! said of his success. “People gravitate towards something genuine.”

Life has changed for IAmSu!, but he doesn’t feel like he has made it yet. “I don’t think I’m going to ever have that feeling,” he said. He plans to continue to take advantage of the opportunity given, pushing his crew, the Heartbreak Gang and fellow Bay Area rappers into the national spotlight. He understands that he carries the Bay on his back and that this doesn’t happen to everybody. “That’s what I always wanted — to be the face of this music scene,” IAmSu! said. “I’m proud that people even say that — to put me in a category with legends like E-40 and Too Short.”

Even now, his ambitions are nothing short of extraordinary. IAmSu! hopes to become a rap icon alongside the likes of Jay-Z and Nas. “(This entails) pushing myself to the limit to see how far I can go lyrically and conceptually and how deep I can get into my music,” he said. The talent is there. The drive is there. IAmSu! is on his way to making his mark on the world, and this is the start of something special.

Click here to see an interview with IAmSu!

Contact Rahul Pandya at rpandya@dailycal.org.

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It’s an accurate description of the record, which Gavigan released online in April. Saving Private Rhymes is the equivalent of spending time with Gavigan himself. Gavigan, who transferred to UC Berkeley from Stockton, Calif., his hometown, raps and speaks with a friendliness that belies his openness. The first track, “Me Llamo,” is boisterous and bombastic with an undeniably infectious hook. This intro sets the tone for the album, which maintains a consistent emphasis on positivity — a disposition that Gavigan stresses is essential.

The rapper, who was raised with three siblings by a single mother on welfare, claims that humor is a coping mechanism for him. “If we didn’t have humor, we would just be miserable,” Gavigan said. “It’s what brought us through. It continues to bring me through on a daily basis.”

Gavigan’s humorous outlook is most evident on tracks like “On My Grind,” a song about one of the most prevalent coping mechanisms — caffeination — and “R2-D2,” whose title is a reference to the “Star Wars” droid. In fact, Gavigan, who is something of a movie buff, drops pop cultural references with incredible ease. In “On My Grind,” for example, he mentions Keyser Soze, a character in the 1995 film “The Usual Suspects.” In another verse, Gavigan compares his caffeinated self to “the Great Cornholio” of “Beavis and Butt-Head” fame.

For all the comedic emphasis, Saving Private Rhymes doesn’t parody hip-hop. Gavigan, who has been recording since he was 7 years old, penning lyrics since middle school and performing in a Wu Tang-style rap group called Legion of Doom, is an avid member of Students for Hip-Hop at Cal and CalSLAM. With a roster of influences that includes Coolio, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, pre-2008 Kanye West and even Enya, ’70s country, Simon and Garfunkel and Tears for Fears, Gavigan is a music and media fiend. He pays homage to his interests and passions in this album, from coffee to movies to Stockton. The hip-hop artist’s preponderance for liveliness, however, doesn’t preclude him from addressing darker themes.

Some of the most personal songs on the album, like “Pure Imagination,” “Find My Way” and “Salutations,” find Gavigan mining his life experiences, or the life experiences of people close to him, for inspirational fodder. Prison bars entrap us in “Pure Imagination,” but, as the title suggests, the imaginative faculties are indeed necessary to understand Gavigan’s metaphor: The song actually addresses abortion. “Find My Way” also addresses sexual assault, domestic abuse and drug dependence.

“Salutations” is a warm shout-out to friends and family, including Gavigan’s war-veteran grandfather, who passed away in the midst of the recording of Saving Private Rhymes, and his artistic, polyglot uncle, who committed suicide when Gavigan was a young child.

Despite some heavy themes, Gavigan remains an optimist. “Even the crap I’ve been through has shaped me in some profound way,” the musician said. “You just have to come to grips with it, and art is a great way of doing that. You have to flip it into something positive.”

It’s no coincidence that “Salutations” is the last song on the album. With a title that is itself a film reference, Saving Private Rhymes is a pop culture-referential record that never really wants to bid the listener adieu. It ends on a “hello,” and we know it won’t be long until Second Nature rhymes again, whether in a dorm room or onstage.

Contact Natalia Reyes at nreyes@dailycal.org.

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Geographer kicked off the live-music portion of the evening. The three-piece band from San Francisco owned the stage as they ran through their catalog of electronic indie dance pop. Singer Michael Deni was at ease onstage, dancing in his denim jacket and shades, prompting one attendee to post an Instagram photo of Deni with the hashtag “#futurehusband.” The fans bobbed their heads to the beat as the synth-infused grooves (complete with cello accompaniment) weaved in and out of the sunset. The energy picked up as Geographer played their more familiar songs, including popular single “Kites,” propelling the band to the end of their highly appreciated set.

The stage setup differed from that of your usual, relatively low-key Memorial Glade concerts. When bands such as Cold War Kids or The Antlers come for Cal Day, they typically set up shop on the dais in front of Doe Library. While a few devoted and particularly eager fans stand up close, most students lie on the grass somewhat distanced from the band. This time, Sperry rolled out their own small but well-equipped outdoor stage at the western edge of the glade, facing east, with an area roped off specifically for the crowd. Rather than passively listening from afar, students were at the foot of the stage, right in the middle of the action.
The break between the two bands was enough time to scrounge the table next to the stage, where event staff set up a spinning wheel bedecked with Sperry boat shoes. One spin of the wheel led to free giveaways, such as t-shirts, hats and beach balls. The event was reminiscent of a miniature Outside Lands — the mounted sign at the entryway, the grassy incline of the glade and the Bay Area chill setting in as the sun peeked through the trees.

Rogue Wave took the stage as the serene twilight began to fade. Frontman Zach Rogue asked the crowd to “move their bodies” to remedy the impending cold air. After opening with an upbeat new single, aptly titled “College,” the band segued into 2005’s “Bird On a Wire,” with its waltz-style pulse. The setlist was filled with familiar tunes, mixed in with a few songs from the band’s upcoming album. Before playing a run of these untried songs in the middle of the set, Rogue told everyone his philosophy on new material, explaining that new songs are like babies who are “finding their legs” — as such, we need to help “welcome them into the world.”

It was easy to see Rogue Wave’s years of experience — from Rogue hitting all of his notes and afro-donning drummer Patrick Spurgeon effortlessly harmonizing to the bassist impressively kicking a stray beach ball right on the downbeat. The band bounded toward the end, rocking hard on favorites such as “Chicago X 12,” “Lake Michigan” and “Harmonium.” Although Rogue cited a strict mandate from the powers that be to cut off the music by 9 p.m., the crowd was having none of it, chanting, “One more song!” Rogue Wave obliged, promising to play “one more love song” and closing out with an electric version of their hit “Eyes.” Singing along to their beloved song, with strings of star-like lights overhead, was a fitting send-off for a sublime night.

Contact David Bradford at dbradford@dailycal.org. Check him out on twitter at @catchadave.

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An all-day event held from noon to 1 a.m., Clochella delivered as a music festival by constantly providing energetic live music throughout the day. Much like its namesake, Clochella had enough drinks and great vibes passed around. Clochella felt amicable and friendly to both residents and visitors. With two live band stages and a DJ stage, there were enough places to satisfy your dance or mosh-pit urges. And in between sets, you could easily find a place to lie down and rest in Cloyne’s backyard lawn and share a cigarette or drink with a fellow attendee.

As a concert venue, Cloyne Court held up extremely well. Sonically, there was rarely any overlap between the stages, which was surprising considering the stages’ proximity. The outdoor Panda stage attracted the most people throughout the day, as the early afternoon brought the perfect amount of sun, and the late night brought a cooling breeze to the sweaty indoors of Cloyne. The poorly named Swog Stage, located indoors in Cloyne’s dining area, attracted more thrash and punk bands, which provided more moshing and dancing than usual. And the Clonarchy Stage provided strobe lights and dance music for awkward couples to grind upon each other. But the acoustics for each area were well-adapted — never too loud and never too soft. If anything, the proximity of the stages made the music more seamless. After hearing the band Wheel On! play a cover of Pavement’s “Cut Your Hair,” you could, within 30 seconds, walk to the DJ stage and dance and rave along to Kanye West’s and Jay-Z’s “Ni**as in Paris.”

Clochella stands as one of the largest co-op concerts, which are not really advertised within the UC Berkeley community as a whole. If you are not caught up with the latest events at Cloyne or any of the other co-ops, it would be easy to make the mistake of thinking that the local music scene at Cal is dead. Besides 924 Gilman, located about 20 minutes away from campus in West Berkeley and known for its straight-edge no-alcohol policy, there are not many “basement show” venues near campus. The closest place to get your low-key live-music fix would be in Oakland, and after 1 a.m., you would be out of luck catching BART back to Berkeley. For an unadvertised event, Clochella had a modestly large turnout. If there was one thing to take away, it’s that there is an audience for this type of concert at Cal.

If you had only observed the crowd, Clochella felt like any other party full of people in their early 20s hanging out and drinking cheap alcohol on a Saturday afternoon. But local live music transformed Clochella from another college party to an event that embodies Berkeley’s culture. For an event that was about music, the experience of the show surmounted any individual act. Clochella showed that parties in Berkeley don’t have to consist of getting drunk off of jungle juice and dancing to bad remixes of Billboard’s Top 100 songs. There is an audience interested in listening to great live music, and one can only hope for a music fest bigger and better than Clochella here in Berkeley.

Contact Art Siriwatt at asiriwatt@dailycal.org. Check him out on twitter at @artsiriwatt.

Correction(s):
A previous version of this article incorrectly identified the Swog stage as the Swag stage.

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“Winter” is appropriately placed as the opening track. It sets the somber tone for If You Leave. Igor Haefeli’s reverberating guitar kicks off the album, Elena Tonra jumps in with her vocals and Remi Aguilella percussion gently enters before all three break out into an anthemic song. Tonra’s aptitude for lyricism becomes instantaneously evident with the first lines, “Drifting apart like two sheets of ice, my love / Frozen hearts growing colder with time.” She establishes herself as a singer-songwriter to watch — the emotional honesty in both her lyrics and especially her voice is haunting.

For fans of their EPs, the withholding of tracks such as “Candles” and “Landfill” may come as a surprise. Furthermore, their biggest hit, “Youth” has been re-recorded. However, these decisions are not hindrances to the complete feeling of the album. After all, most of Daughter’s strength as a band comes from its predilection for restraint. The most poignant moments are the ones in which the blaring guitar dies down, the percussion becomes intermittent and Tonra’s voice is reduced to a whisper, sometimes even complete silence (though the album is not without their moments of all-out energy).

The album is worthwhile for anyone willing to put their heart through a listen. It reminds, relentlessly, that “underneath the skin, there’s a human.” Be prepared for goosebumps and a valid excuse to drink alone.

Contact Ephriam Lee at ephraimlee@dailycal.org.

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Ant is cool and collected. Dropping “hella” in nearly every other sentence, he speaks candidly and freely, cracking jokes every so often. He is obviously comfortable among people and with conversing, even if it’s about himself. He isn’t famous at this point, but his name is gathering steam within the Bay and in certain other parts of the country. It is tough enough for independent musicians to properly make a name for themselves, but Ant chalks his success up to “genuinely going out and meeting people.”

“The fact that my homie really stepped it up and was going hard with me (also) helped a lot,” he added. He refers to his close friend and collaborator IAmSu!, the Bay Area’s newest star and most exciting musical product in years, but Ant is forging his own path. And with a recent performance at SXSW and co-signs from renowned DJ Mick Boogie and Fool’s Gold Records co-founder Nick Catchdubs, things seem to be heading in the right direction. It also doesn’t hurt that Ant is a talented musician.

Originally from Richmond, Calif., Ant started rapping at 14 on a whim after he and some friends decided to follow in the footsteps of one of the friends’ brothers. After high school, their group, The Diligentz, would do shows locally and ended up building a solid buzz in the area. “Before you know it, it became a job,” Ant said. “It’s been wild.”

Ant’s music is difficult to describe in that, like most rappers today, his sound draws from a number of influences. He has his party-oriented sound and his more reflective music. He can incorporate melodic elements and an entire array of flows, but most importantly, he has a knack for putting words together well.

Sonically, his music is relaxed and ambient with just the right amount of kick to it. He describes his own beats, which he has made since he began rapping, as hyphy music meets the Neptunes. Thematically, he has grander ambitions. “When you listen to the music, I want it to take you on a ride,” Ant said. “I want it to take you to another place. I want you to get lost in it.”

Ant’s latest project, last month’s “Blue Money” mixtape, showcases the more soothing aspects of his music. The music is minimal and spacey. “I wanted it to be a brain massage that takes you to a whole new place,” Ant said. “I just want people to feel good.” It’s not polished, but that’s also where some of the appeal lies. It is also slightly disappointing that the fiery wordplay from last year’s “Stoopid” mixtape with IAmSu! isn’t overtly present.

His music is noticeably positive and unaggressive, especially considering Richmond’s violent connotation. “A lot of cool people are coming out of Richmond right now — Kool John, Erk Tha Jerk, IAmSu! — and we’re trying to bring a new image to (the city),” Ant said. “We don’t want any negativity around us whatsoever.”

Moving forward, Ant plans to continue making his own brand of music, regardless of institutions like radio or other industry norms. “I don’t necessarily direct my music towards the radio,” he said. “I’m more in it to have fun.” That mindset seems to be working. “Blue Money” was moved from the independent section of mixtape hosting site livemixtapes.com to the site’s main page after gathering more than 75,000 views. “A lot more people recognize me walking down the street,” Ant said.

There’s still a ways to go for Ant, who currently works a job teaching kids how to make beats to supplement his rapping income, but the rapper keeps an unbelievably positive outlook on life. “I’m a firm believer in always entertaining the impossible,” Ant said. With his ambition and positive thinking, the only way to go is up. “I’m in this shit for the long run.”

Contact Rahul Pandya at rpandya@dailycal.org.

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Nevertheless, it remained a puzzling selection compared to past acts — unlike their predecessors, the Antlers are known more for their mellow sound and somber narrative rather than high-energy riffs. They are critically revered, particularly for their 2009 album Hospice, but have gradually shifted from a folky sound to one that is more influenced by the post-rock and electronic music in Burst Apart and Undersea. With these factors in place, it remained to be seen to what kind of a performance Berkeley would be treated to.

The band was originally a solo project of frontman Peter Silberman, whom The Daily Californian recently interviewed. Originally unaware of the particulars of Cal Day, he responded with a long, hearty laugh to the answer we gave. “Oh shit,” Silberman joked upon hearing that Cal Day is a day when prospective students would be visiting. “Cool, I’ll make sure to compliment everything I see on campus — especially when parents are walking by.”

This is the kind of warm-hearted personality that reverberated from Silberman between songs. Watching the Antlers alternate between their heart-wrenching lyrics and awkwardly delivered quips (on topics such as fraternity row and sunscreen), it was a strange but endearing experience.

“We try and take the mood of our surroundings into account when we’re working on a setlist, but I don’t really know what the vibe’s gonna be like, but I’d imagine that people are all just lying on the grass listening to music on a sunny afternoon,” Silberman supposed. “It depends how we’re doing that day. We don’t have a standard set list — we come up with it on the fly.” Aside from a momentarily cloudy sky at 4:20 p.m., it was pretty much what he predicted. Long time fans, on the other hand, were given an unforeseen performance from the band, given its reputation for soul-crushing lyrics.

Particularly worth noting is that the Antlers sound completely different live than in the studio versions of their songs. While their songs are normally associated with vulnerability, the use of effect pedals — a welcome surprise — added uncharacteristic power to their sound. Silberman certainly does not discount the fact that he is singing about a dreary past to a massive crowd.

“It’s sometimes an uncomfortable place to be in, an uncomfortable place to put yourself in,” he explained. “It’s like an oversharing mentality — like if you’re ever talking to a friend you don’t know very well ,and you suddenly kind of give too much of yourself away all at once, and you’re like, ‘Now there’s nothing left. Now there’s nothing left. (This person knows) everything about me and I don’t even know this person very well.’”
However, these insecurities were imperceptible during Cal Day. The likes of “Zelda” and “Putting the Dog to Sleep” seemed like entirely appropriate songs to end the show with, despite their lyrics of losing love and the fear of never finding it. Unlike the studio versions, they seemed to take on more of a post-rock direction — Silberman’s voice sometimes became a lyricless instrument and was completely omitted at times as the band played reverberating instrumentals, reminiscent of “Kettering” from Hospice. Though melancholy is perpetually associated with the Antlers’ music, cynicism never is. The band’s music provides a kind of cathartic uplift. It was a haunting performance that left us speculating about what’s next for the Antlers.

Of course, we couldn’t leave it to speculation. “Yeah, we’ve been working on something for a few months, pretty much every day, and we’re going to be working on it much longer,” Silberman said. “Probably for the rest of the year. I hesitate to call it an album. I try not to think of it as an album but as a period of time that you’re creating something, and whatever it ends up being, it ends up being.”

“A lot of it has been about mining pain and hurt in order to kind of find connection,” Silberman imparted when asked about his older lyrics. At the time of Hospice’s release, he was 23 years old. Nowadays, his approach to song-writing has changed. “The idea is, you’re going to have a kid,” he explained, “Do you want to raise a bitter, angry person and bring that into the world,m or do you want to try to create goodness and, wherever you can find it, encourage it?”

In the end, the uncertainties about having the Antlers perform on Cal Day were completely invalidated. Perhaps prospective students (as well as the rest of us) needed to hear lyrics such as “It’s just not important / The small things we suffer / They’re infinitesimal / We swim in an ocean / It swims between us” from “Zelda.” On a day that’s essentially dedicated to courting potential students with blind optimism, the Antlers were a welcome dose of reality for a bunch of deer in the headlights.

Contact Ephriam Lee at ephraimlee@dailycal.org.

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Daily Cal: “Death, Love & Life” stems mainly from three of your previous singles — “Without Goodbyes,” “This Is Why” and “The First Song.” Can you tell us what it’s about?

JooWan Kim: This one is basically about the different things you experience in life. For instance, “Without Goodbyes” is about death. I wrote that piece a while ago, when my friend died. I’m not really emotional, and I can be really stoic about things. I felt tremendously about that incident, and I needed to write something to express myself. So, I wrote that, and afterwards it was really depressing, so I decided to write about love. “This Is Why” is about a love that doesn’t happen because it’s about breakups. Then I wrote “The First Song,” which is a song of resolution. There could be a narrative in the sense that it starts with death, and you experience terrible loss, and you go through different stages of emotions and incidents that are related to death, because death is the biggest issue that we have as human beings so far. In between, we have “Hope Springs Eternal,” which is about humans’ aspiration to achieve completeness or happiness. There is another piece that I am working on called “We Will Conquer,” which is about struggle. The newest piece I just finished for the opera is called “Morning Light,” which is about the transformation that happens after all this struggle, and you have a revelation that things aren’t too bad, and you actually feel great.

DC: In a sense, is this piece less of an opera and more of a journey?

JWK: Yes. There’s a musical drama that will be very clear. You will be very tense and will then be rewarded with satisfaction and resolution. It’s going to be pop music, not classical.
My personal experience triggered everything in this opera. Think of it this way — say you go see “Django Unchained” or “Kill Bill,” and you really like it. I’m sure Tarantino thought a lot to put together certain scenes, but you don’t know that. Or when you buy an iPhone. You just want to listen to music or look at how pretty it is. That’s what I want you do. When you hear this, you’ll see a bunch of MCs who are really lyrically dope. I have an excellent lyric soprano that just came back from Lincoln Center who’s going to hit high C during “Morning Light.” We also have a really tight classical ensemble and a great drummer. And I’m, of course, Asian and have long hair and monk-type clothes. So yeah, that’s what you’re going to see. And it’s going to be really amazing.

DC: How did the collaboration with the Bay Area underground hip-hop group, the Attik, come about?

JWK: I was doing pieces with (rapper Kirby Dominant, who collaborated with EMN on “Without Goodbyes”), and it was he who suggested that I find more MCs to work with. I knew a friend who owned a restaurant in the city and one night, one of the members of The Attik came in to eat. (The Attik and my friend) had done an album together and (my friend) actually introduced me … After that, we did a show, and (one of the members,) Do D.A.T., came. He was super impressed, and after that, we started doing pieces together.

DC: Can you talk about your process and how you combine the lyrical rap and instrumental compositions?

JWK: First, I write out a detailed synopsis of the concept of the music, and then it’s basically a lot of going back and forth — me giving (the MCs) the detailed markup and where to go in and out, and then they write a portion and give it back to me in a week. I also employ the method of jazz in some ways because each MC who covers the same story is going to convey it differently. The music stays the same, and the rhyming changes based on the personality of the MC.

DC: What kind of experience do you want to leave your audience with?

JWK: I want my audience to feel really happy. Also relieved. This piece, for me, I mean — my friend committed suicide. That was a big deal for me. I ended with “The First Song” because it’s about resolution and your very first experiences. Your first kiss, the time you graduate from high school … it’s about life continuing. So, I want you to start with death and feel shitty but at the end feel completely transformed and kind of realize that this is shitty — but it’s okay. We can do this.

DC: The essence of the human experience!

JWK: Yes, and optimism. Even though sometimes we can’t find meaning or it doesn’t reveal itself to us, we still live. And I want people to live, sort of, happier. That’s my message.

Contact Ashley Chen at achen@dailycal.org.

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In a two-nighter show sandwiched between their Coachella performances, Japandroids and Cloud Nothings played a venue that seemed too small for their popularity and critical acclaim. But the energized indie rock set the perfect tone for an intimate, spirited audience where moshing and stage diving were commonplace.

Japandroids started off the two-act show. The Canadian duo, featuring guitarist Brian King and drummer David Prowse, opened the show with an abundance of liveliness that was obscured at their Coachella performance. Their main hits, such as “The House That Heaven Built” and “Evil’s Sway,” moved the crowd in a way that their newest album, Celebration Rock, was meant to move the crowd. King had a grasp on the crowd throughout the show, and at the end of their set, he even took photos and talked with audience members as he struck Japandroids’ equipment.

Cloud Nothings followed up in a heavy, strong performance that was juxtaposed against the energy of Japandroids’ performance. Their neo-grunge rock was not conducive for dancing or movement, but live performances of “Our Plans” and “Wasted Days” mesmerized the crowd thanks to pure visceral fortitude. Even if Cloud Nothings’ grunge-rock aesthetic was too much for the audience, their set was certainly faithful to their excellent album Attack On Memory.

Overall, both performances felt unbelievably valuable — not because tickets cost $20 but because having these two bands play incredible sets back-to-back at a well-contained venue such as The New Parish felt like a once-in-a-lifetime event. With no opening act to act as filler, The New Parish fulfilled the purpose of hosting Japandroids and Cloud Nothings: having two phenomenal rock artists play an energetic show.

Contact Art Siriwatt at asiriwatt@dailycal.org. Check him out on twitter at @artsiriwatt.

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