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MELISMA MELISMA < SPRING 2012 < CONTENTS 3 MELISMA EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Devin Ivy ART & LAYOUT DIRECTOR Audrey G. Miller FROM THE EDITOR MANAGING EDITORS hy, hello! It’s quite possible that you’re new to this Nicole Goodwin whole Melisma thing. And it’s not really your fault. WIf it’s anyone’s fault, it’s ours. We’ve gone through CONTRIBUTING some rough patches in the last two years- it turns out that WRITERS a bunch of punks sometimes have a hard time being ripped Jenna Buckle away from their three-piece drum sets and three-stringed Nicole Goodwin bass guitars to make a magazine. Luckily for us metallic Devin Ivy covers are the solution to all of the world’s problems. Audrey G. Miller I like to think that Melisma has simply been feeling Sasha Reed sympathetic pains akin everyone else’s following financial bullshit that went down in 2008 and 2009, which can only CONTRIBUTING be a reflection of just how goddamn cultured the magazine ARTISTS is. But Melisma has been thinking. It took a moment Coorain Devin to look at itself mirrored ad infinitum in its own shiny-ass Devin Ivy cover. Funny things happen when mirrors face each other. Before getting too caught up with the implications of an infinite descent into itself, though, it ordered and devoured a large Helen’s Bluezone with its friends. Because it realized that the point at the center of all those mirrored mirrors is absolutely ridiculous. Somehow the Absurd always ends up winning out. So let’s embrace it. Nearly everything is out of your control, and that’s okay- hell, it’s great! Melisma is feeling good, and you should too. It’s fucking beautiful outside. Look at yourself but mind that infinite point at your core. That crazy little point is Jim Morrison, and he’s reminding you to get your kicks before this whole shithouse goes up in flames. Devin Ivy Editor-in-Chief Interested in writing, art or design? Questions, comments, adulation or hatemail? • [email protected] • twitter.com/melismamagazine • melismamagazine.blogspot.com • ase.tufts.edu/melisma MELISMA < SPRING 2012 < CONTENTS 3 REVIEWS ART 4 THE DUM DUM 12 SESAME GIRLS STREET Live at the Paradise By Coorain Devin By Nicole Goodwin 14 LIGHTHOUSE 6 ELECTRONICS, By Devin Ivy ROCK, & DEATH CAB By Jenna Buckle LISTS 8 WILCO 22 LEAVING CAPE The Whole Love COD By Jenna Buckle And Feeling Emo About It By Sasha Reed SPRING 9 SHE & HIM A Very She & Him 12 CAFFEINE HIGH 20 Christmas 23 Thank You Rez VOLUME 9.0 By Jenna Buckle By Devin Ivy 10 JENNY OWEN 24 SONGS TO YOUNGS PLAY An Unwavering Band of Over the Loud Speaker at Light Tisch By Audrey G. Miller By Nicole Goodwin 11UPCOMING 25 SONGS TO SIN Albums to Watch Out For Seven Deadly Ones By Audrey G. Miller and Devin Ivy By Nicole Goodwin Melisma Magazine is a non-profit student publication of Tufts University. The opinions expressed in articles, features or photos are solely those of the individual author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editors or the staff. Tufts University is not responsible for the content of Melisma Magazine. If you would like to submit a letter to Melisma Magazine, please send it to [email protected]. MELISMA < SPRING 2012 < LIVE REVIEWS 5 DUm dum Girls LIVE AT THE PARADISE OCTObER 19, 2011 by NICOLE GOODWIN s the four women of Dum Dum is Dee Dee’s voice. In concert, Dee Dee’s Girls walked onstage, their powerful pipes add depth and dimension Amagnetism rippled through the to songs that resonate with emptiness, crowd. All eyes followed them as some longing, and loss. in the audience obediently took it all in, Midway through their set, DDG and some struggled to comprehend the changed the pace with their new single apparent contrast between what they “Bedroom Eyes” which stands out as a saw and what they heard. Onstage, DDG more energetic, catchy variation on the have a special fondness for black leather themes in Only in Dreams. Again, Dee and lace, black patterned stockings, and Dee’s live performance breathed into this dark lipstick, a Goth-tinged look that at song a melancholy and yearning that isn’t first seems discordant with their relatively quite so prominent on the album. straightforward songs steeped with surf The set closed with an and 60’s. And yet there is a very strong uncomplicated cover of The Smiths’ cohesiveness between DDG’s look and “There is a Light and it Never Goes Out.” their sound, which became apparent as This song, immediately recognizable to their set progressed. everyone in the audience, was an odd Playing a balanced mix of songs choice for DDG since many will argue from their debut album I Will Be and that it’s impossible to outdo the original. their newly released follow-up Only in Dreams, DDG gave a good sense of their development as a band, and their newer songs prove to be the more interesting ones. Only in Dreams is shaped by the death of lead singer Dee Dee’s mother and the frequent absence of her husband, Brandon Welchez of the band Crocodiles, yet the album itself can feel formulaic and flat at times. DDG’s songs definitely profit from being performed live, when the skill and talent of the other band members provide a solid setting for the gem that MELISMA < SPRING 2012 < LIVE REVIEWS 5 Luckily, DDG did not try to outshine this up to reality but remain haunted for the classic song or add too much to it. Instead, duration of the night: in short, the perfect they stayed mostly faithful to the original, song to end the set. respectfully playing it with their own style. Over the course of DDG’s set, Though adding a touch of The Smiths was their goth-inspired apparel began to not the most cohesive conclusion to their make more sense. Their lace dresses set, it stayed consistent with the themes and shirts, leathe http://assets1.subpop. of death, loneliness, and melancholy that com/assets/images/main/10487.jpg r loom over so many of DDG’s outwardly shorts and belts, and patterned tights, all upbeat songs. black of course, were fierce, striking, and Dum Dum Girls concluded the seductive. Like their music, their attire night with their encore performance of is initially attractive but straightforward. “Coming Down,” a six-minute-long song Give it a second look, though, and that seems to fall in lugubrious pieces, it will transform into something heavy and moody, with plenty of space multidimensional: powerful, beautiful, for the listener to sink into before the alluring, and evocative of longing. crescendo hits midway through. This is the NICOLE GOODWIN sort of song whose lengthy denouement Nicole has slain the Jabberwock! O frabjous day! releases the listener to float slowly back Calloh! Callay! MELISMA < SPRING 2012 < FEATURES 7 ELECTRONICS, ROCK,& DEATH CAB by jENNA bUCkLE o many rock bands strive to minded and unwarranted. outdo their preceding records Take the alternative rock band Sby embracing a “new sound” on Death Cab for Cutie, for example. When their next collection of songs, typically by they switched from an independent altering their approach to arrangement label (Barsuk) to a major label (Atlantic) and production and by promulgating their in 2005, they churned out their fifth newest release as more “experimental” studio album, Plans – arguably the most than the last. And let’s face it – more synthesizer-driven and overproduced often than not, what alleged change-in- (I say that tongue-in-cheek, of course) sound does this amount to? work in their discography thus far. Ultra- You got it: a more electronica, textured tracks like “Marching Bands of ambient, and synthesizer-driven record Manhattan” and “Different Names for the that blasts those acoustic guitar riffs Same Thing” confirmed that Plans was and that gritty recorded-live feel to the a departure from the grungy guitar feel ground. of their earlier four records. Some fans This is what some music even began to frown upon the advanced aficionados like to call overproduction. production of Plans, claiming that it would Now, although I can see where these make Death Cab’s music more accessible critics are coming from, I don’t necessarily to the mainstream. And I don’t blame agree with the notion that overproduction them for being frustrated with this stylistic invariably decreases the quality of the change. Plans is different, it definitely has music. Sure, rock bands are relying a more layered feel, and it was indubitably more on synthesizers and digital effects experimental for Death Cab back then. than they did, say, eleven years ago, but But you know what? It works. It still there’s really nothing wrong with that. The deserves to be recognized as one of world has seen immense advancements Death Cab’s best LP’s. It doesn’t matter in technology over the years, so why that two of their most mainstream songs shouldn’t musicians evolve with the times of all time are on that record; Plans is a and utilize all this new technology? Frankly, musical masterpiece. the barrage of criticism surrounding the Cut to 2008, and the band integration of electronic sounds into folk releases Narrow Stairs in which they and alternative rock music is narrow- MELISMA < SPRING 2012 < FEATURES 7 make a complete volte-face and return featured Postal Service-esque bleeps to the raw, stripped down rock that had and beats? Their newest set of songs been so characteristic of their earlier is a testament to the increased reliance days.