SPRING FLING 2014: JUICE / JUICE/ JUICE

“Concerts on Foss: now more than ever!”

Word gets out pretty easily, so I’m basically just confirming what many of you already know. Here’s the Spring Fling 2014 Line-up, courtesy of Spring Fling Committee:

CHANCE THE RAPPER
TUNE-YARDS
S-TYPE

This year’s lineup still follows the loosely defined Spring Fling template of “rap act, indie-ish buzz band, raucous opening act” of the past few years, allowing us to reuse this sentence again and again. Some quick overviews and music from the artists are after the jump.

S-TYPE

S-Type

Scottish producer Bobby Berman, aka S-type, is a “big fan of 80s soundtracks with triumphant synth plays and horns,” which is also how I would describe the vibe of his latest EP, Billboard.

A more apt description of him from his record label:
S-Type is 25 years old, hails from Edinburgh and now resides at the epicenter of Glasgow’s hallowed scene of electronic music that spawned careers for many of his friends and collaborators. As early as 2005 he was hanging-out, pooling-songs with Hud Mo, Mike Slott & The Blessings, fishing beats to rappers far overseas. But a pipedream by high teenagers has become a reality with a host of major label interest for S-Type production on 2013 rap projects.

Pitchfork, in its own flowery way, describes his music in a way I could only do if I were drunk enough right now, which I’m not:

It’s perfect build music, as glossy synths bubble and foam over a barely restrained beat that keeps precise motion as the tension grows. The aura you’re left with is a heady excitement, because “Billboard” is superhero music: Afterwards, you want to run that extra mile, lift that bigger weight in the corner of the gym, or maybe just place a really big bet– something to resolve the tension, at least.

Check out S-Type’s Soundcloud. Here’s a snippet:

Here is a testimonial via FB chat:

  • me: would you hook up with s-type
    actually I don’t care
    “oh absolutely”
    ok
    “Preferably if there were strobe lights involved” —Penina Kessler ’15

And finally, I like that he appears to be a pretty relatable dude:

 

 

TUNE-YARDS

tune-yards2

tUnE-yArDs (this is actually how you write it) is the music project of Merrill Garbus, which is a great name. tUnE-yArDs burst onto the indie-pop scene in 2009 with the album BiRd-BrAiNs, which featured a solo Garbus banging drums, picking on her uke, and weaving quirky harmonies from her immensely versatile voice by means of a looping device. tUnE-yArDs combines music with performance art, with African-influenced beats and melodies, liberal use of face paint, homemade costumes, and a habit of incorporating modern dance into her music videos. The music fuses acoustic folk, R&B, funk, Afro-pop, and rock into a cool, weird hybrid; Garbus often sings about Wes buzz-word issues like race, gender, body image, and privilege, layering sounds to create contrasting textures.

Perhaps booking tUnE-yArDs is a direct response to last year’s line-up’s lack of female performers, which pissed some people off. Garbus went to Smith College and studied theater, upon graduating thinking that “it was a shock afterwards that I came out into a still-patriarchal society. But I think that it’s really worthwhile to see that there are certain dynamics that can exist, and there isn’t any glass ceiling—there is no ceiling!”

“What drove me with tUnE-yArDs,” Garbus said, “is I wasn’t seeing women aside, from like Peaches or Ani DiFranco, pushing the boundaries of what it is to be an acceptable female pop star. There’s just not a lot of examples of rad women being loud.”

Garbus also appears to support Lena Dunham, if that means anything.

music off the 2011 album, w h o k i l l

FB testimonial for tUnE-yArDs:

  • Buzzy n bright without being obnoxious
    She’s basically all the excitement I feel when spring rolls around —Penina ’15

tUnE-yArDs on social media: Facebook. Twitter. Instagram. Tumblr. The new album, Nikki Nack, will be out May 6 so we’ll probably hear some of it.

CHANCE THE RAPPER

chance-the-rapper

Chance the Rapper, aka Chancelor Bennet (easily explains the stage name), was named Spin Magazine’s 2013 Rapper of the Year and is quickly gaining more acclaim:

This is what one of hip-hop’s most elite word-for-word, bar-for-bar rappers looks like in 2013: incredibly young, existentially confused, undoubtedly tripping balls, and rocking a tie-dye tank top. He’s from Chicago — the notorious South Side, to be exact — rather than the traditional spitter center of New York City, and he is, along with a number of other youthful word nerds (and long-gestating veterans), pulling “lyricism” out of the codified pit of “real hip-hop” cliché and throwing it across every nook and cranny of the rap landscape. [Spin]

Chance’s multifaceted experiences are captured in a bunch of his interviews. He recently appeared on CNN’s eight-part series “Chicagoland,” which takes an in-depth look at Chicago. In the clip, Chance deals with the murder of one of his close friends while working on songs that would appear on last year’s Acid Rap. Chance also appeared on the Arsenio Hall show and discussed Chicago violence and keeping himself grounded as an upcoming rapper.

Some links that I think are cool but can’t smoothly incorporate into prose at the moment:

Chance also has a funny Twitter:

He just performed with Justin Bieber at Coachella (which is weird) and as Lynn Ma ’16 pointed out, it’s “another sign (if we even need any more) that he’s blowing up even more.”

Chance on social media: Facebook. Twitter. It’s his bday on 4/16. You might want to tweet at him.

 

Some logistical notes: Spring Fling is on Thursday, May 8. If the weather is nice it will be on Foss Hill, which hasn’t happened since 2011. Although according to Zach Schonfeld ’13: “I just realized 2010 was the last time there was actually nice weather on Spring Fling. It was on Foss in 2011 but was cold and rainy.”

The Spring Fling Committee is still discussing rain plans. No way to predict what the weather will be like, though, since it was beautiful last week but it’s going to snow at 3 a.m. today. welp.

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17 thoughts on “SPRING FLING 2014: JUICE / JUICE/ JUICE”

  3. Mandingo

    Going from Kendrick to Chance is like going from drinking Grey Goose to Dubra. Drake already bodied him he wont be around long #SCRUB

  7. Gabe

    What would be ideal is if they just got that giant tent they use for Commencement as a backup plan. Between Chance and tUnE-yArDs, this is actually a Spring Fling that should be enjoyed outside, with good sound, and as far away from the ice rink as possible.

    1. Tennessee

      When it’s nice out but has been raining they don’t put the stage on Foss b/c the stage on the wet grass will destroy the field or something. In order to prevent the grass from becoming wet all week, they would need the tent all week which costs something on the scale of $40k.

    4. lover

      i say we hold spring concert in hartford or possibly new haven
      i dont want to be in the same area code as the hockey rink ever again

  8. Brian

    AHHHHHHHHHHH tHiS-iS-sO-tIgHt hahaha!! hahaha all jokes aside though, this is a pretty tight fucking lineup.

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