From Will Feinstein ’13:
Last concert of the year is going down at Earth House tonight, and it’s a fun one. Getting started at 10pm.
Dancey-fun Wes alums RED WIRE BLACK WIRE are gonna tear the place up, preceded by the return of indie-pop campus heroes LIONESS (formally Linus) with brand new songs and VERNOUS with GREY MATTER with some dope jams and visuals.
Date: Friday, Dec. 9
Time: 10PM
Place: Earth House
Cost: $0.00
Doug Walters ’08 writes in about his band Red Wire Black Wire’s new record:
This is Doug Walters from the band Red Wire Black Wire. We graduated in 2008, and just this month our brand new debut full-length, Robots & Roses, was released through Tough Customer Records. We’re on tour now in support.
We’d love it if you guys would give a shout to the Wes community that our record just came out. We worked like hell over the past year, and we’d love to spread the final product with our beloved Wes brethren and sistren. Below is a link to stream the new single. The record is available on iTunes digitally and through mail from our website.
Thanks so much. We really appreciate the support.
You can stream the new single here, find the band’s website here, MySpace page here, and a recent show review here.
Music update: some recent Youtubes of Wes bands playing in various places:
“King of wobble rap” Leif (Khalif Diouf ’11) performs a medley of “Black Magic” and “Jungle Fever” with Das Racist and Purple Crush at the Annex in New York. Reminds me of Gravy Train!!!!, in a really good way:
[via Gordon Gartrelle]
Red Wire Black Wire at the Annex last week, playing a few songs and answering NME’s questions. Shout-out to Wes at 2:02, for showing enthusiasm at live shows as opposed to apathetic New York audiences just standing around:
Buru Style with Toussaint Liberator at Western Front in Cambridge:
The music/art festival formerly recognized officially as Zonker Harris Day is this Saturday, April 18th, 12-8 pm in the Westco courtyard. Zonking up the campus will be the likes of Buru Style, Captain Coconut, and Red Wire Black Wire.
Come for the music, the spontaneous art, the food. Stay for all the fools on the hill.
Scheduled bands:
1:00- 1:45 Standing Room Only
2:00- 3:00 Buru Style
3:15- 4:15 Captain Coconut
4:30- 5:30 U.S. Royalty
5:45- 6:45 Red Wire Black Wire
7:00- 8:00 Buffalo Eskimo
Red Wire Black Wire, currently composed of Doug Walters ’08, Zac Meyer ’08, David Snydacker ’09, Jonathan Sirlin ’08, and Jocelyn Bonadio ’07, will be in New York over winter break, and so will you, probably.
The first show is a headliner tonight (Friday) at Lit Lounge:
What better way to celebrate a re-location of the greatest, most brilliant, most creative minds of our generation than to go to a loud, fun rock show with a band of ALL Wesleyan graduates (and one ’09)?! None. There is no better way.
We had our EP release show at this same venue just three or four weeks ago and we can’t wait to rock the shit out of it once more.
Date: Friday, December 19
Time: 8 pm, RWBW at 10:30
Place: Lit Lounge, $6
Also check out the band’s new website, as well as some free downloads at RCRD LBL with an evocative write-up of the available tracks:
We’ve had our eyes on these Wesleyan grads for a while but this time they bring us a poppier, hook-heavy track, “Locked Out.” Who knew being getting fucked up and locked out of your casa could be so inspiring. But evidently it can be, with Red Wire Black Wire spit out cutting lyrics, heavy drums and breezy shoe-gaze guitar in the background.
Meanwhile, we’ve had their decidedly darker “Compass” on repeat these days – it’s fuzzed-out bass and twirling synths draw us in while references to “kill the old and pervert the youth” ensures the band never needs to worry about being classified as young and cute.
Wes band Red Wire Black Wire will be playing an album re-release (plus some new tracks) show this Friday at Eclectic with a Wesleyan-style All-Star line up including:
Snakes Say Hisss
Boogie Boarder
Hume
Date: Friday, November 7th
Time: 10pm-2pm
Place: Eclectic
The latest periodical to cover Wesleyan as a hotbed of entertainment talent is British music magazine NME, which devoted a two-page spread this week to investigating our “nest of noise” which “has spawned artists such as MGMT, Amazing Baby and Santogold – and there’s a lot more to follow.”
It was clear that NME had a thing for this school and its products (for good reason), but damn, way to blow up Wesleyan’s uniquely hip legacy!
From all that’s visible from the linked page, there’s a picturesque photo of North College, a map indicating the distance between Middletown and New York City, a quote from Ben Goldwasser of MGMT about Wesleyan’s instrumental place in the chronology of his life, some pictures of Wes-graduated acts, and an inset about British schools which have supposedly reached a comparable level cool.
If anybody’s got their hands on a copy of this week’s issue and can send us a scan (is NME even distributed here?), it’d be much appreciated.
[edit, 10/24 11:30 am] The Wes homepage put up a full-page scan of the article, read the whole thing here.
It’s pretty effusive about the Wesleyan students’ creative potential, though some details are somewhat inaccurate – “The place is strewn with flyers advertising bands, films, plays and other artistic endeavours cooked up by bored students trying to entertain themselves in this largely rural part of the world.” Um, right.
Media relations director David Pesci calls Wes a “crucible of creativity”, where live music permeates the air in warmer months, and due credit is given to past professors of experimental music and ethnomusicology for building up the Music Department.
Santogold and members of MGMT recount their college experiences, and shout-outs are given to recent/current campus favorites Red Wire Black Wire, Bear Hands, and Bottle up and Go as examples of the wide range of musical styles formed here. Overall, not bad publicity at all.
Sara Maeder ’08 sends in:
red wire black wire is playing at the mccarren park pool tonight at 6pm. they’re opening for the showing of the david lynch film, blue velvet. the show is free but you’re supposed to rsvp.
If you didn’t catch Blue Velvet in the film series or Red Wire Black Wire (edit: Doug Walters ’08, Jon Sirlin ’08, Zac Meyer ’08, Dave Snydacker ’09 make up the band right now) at any of their concerts during the school year, now’s your chance!
