Spring Semester Reflection

In closing this semester I have taken with me a better sense of my personal writing ability. I’ve always known that features fuels my journalistic fire, but this semester has helped me learn to be concise while conveying key information in an entertaining and memorable way. Most papers for other classes are required to be longer and therefore a student ends up trying to stretch the information as far as possible. In journalism, the opposite is necessary and learning to shorten is an art that I am beginning to learn.
Unfortunately I was so busy with other classes that I didn’t have time to participate in the layout process this semester. I wish I had because the final product looks amazing now! I am proud of everyone who worked so hard and appreciate their efforts in laying out everyone’s articles so beautifully!
I wrote an article for every issue but one and feel that my topics reached people and inspired appreciation of new music. This evidence is apparent in the feedback that I received, especially from teachers. I managed to keep up my blog and also attain a press pass for Sierra Nevada World Music Festival where I will record soundbites and report back to Santa Cruz through the student radio station.
Overall I feel that I got more formal training and immersion in the Fall, but have greatly enjoyed being part of the newspaper throughout the Spring. I will take all that I have learned with me to San Francisco State University in the Fall and will hopefully be able to contribute the student publication there. Thank you Brad for helping to revive this program and also to inspire us to keep on keepin’ on! Your friends, our guest speakers, provided inspiration and insight to the trials and tribulations of a future career in journalism. I don’t know how to grade myself although I would greatly appreciate an A.

The end is near...

Last issue in progress. Excited! and school is almost over and my story is done!

With Summer Almost Here, SNWMF Is Near!

As warm weather and the nostalgia of past summers and epic times approaches once again, many look to a more cost-efficient plan for the nearing months. Whether you’re rolling deep with your honey and chillens, a group of groovy old high school friends, or flying solo as a butterfly, Sierra Nevada World Music Festival provides a summer solstice celebration and many musical offerings for the whole crew at an affordable price.
Located within the grassy Mendocino County fairgrounds, the sleepy little strip of Boonville proper comes alive for three days with excited campers and curious day visitors, lured in by the music resonating throughout the Anderson Valley. A giant stage with lights and speakers aplenty sets the valley scene that sprawls west to the horizon line of heavy forest and treetops and east to the golden rolling hills.
Most festivals get a bad rap because they seem to be plagued with heavy drugs and even heavier hitting users. SNWMF does not claim complete immunity to these symptoms, but does however provide a much kinder and welcoming environment for kids, than say, Reggae Rising. The whole vibe is far more peaceful and all around “irie.”
Featured musicians arrive from all over the world, delivering a taste of their homeland, whether it is Montego Bay, Brooklyn, Bermuda, or Barcelona. Flavors range from reggae to hip-hop to salsa to various world vibes that are featured over three days on two stages.
The festival dates this year are Friday, June 19, through Sunday, June 21. Advance three-day tickets are $145 and single-day tickets are either $55 or $65 depending on the day. There is an additional $60 charge per vehicle to guarantee a car-camping spot. To purchase tickets or to find out additional information, visit www.snwmf.com.
If you fancy a new life adventure and you absolutely adore discovering new music and dancing the long warm days and nights away, pack up your tribe, grab a tent and some beer and head north.

Friday, June 19
Femi Kuti
Zap Mama
Ras Michael
Bushman
Ras Midas
Rusty Zinn
Sila & the Afrofunk Experience

In The Dancehall:

Jah Shaka
Jah Warrior Shelter

Saturday, June 20
Michael Rose
Sly & Robbie
Tarrus Riley
The Heptones
The Abyssinians
Etana
Cherline Anderson
The Itals
Michigan & Smiley
Vagabond Opera
Del Castillo
Comrade Fatso

In the Dancehall
Stone Love
Comanche Hi Power

Sunday, June 21
King Sunny Adé
Anthony B
Gregory Isaacs
Easy Star All-Stars
Blue King Brown
Del Castillo
The Lions
Marty Dread

In the Dancehall
TippaTone Hi-Fi

Metals Story- Fall Semester

Pino Alto Story- Fall Semester

Never Had Nobody Like M. Ward

The February release of M. Ward’s seventh album “Hold Time” leaves very little to be desired by listeners. Ward comes forth once again with a soothing, sentimental and righteously rockin’ sound. California-born Ward has been primarily dominating the Portland music scene, making guest collaborations from production to singing to contributing instrumentals with performers such as Norah Jones, John Fahey, Bright Eyes, Jenny Lewis, The Court & Spark, Cat Power, Beth Orton, and many others.
His melodramatic melodies range from whimsical to deeply introspective. There is a kind of ethereal ache in his voice that resonates throughout “Hold Time.” Whether he is complemented by Zooey Deschanel’s (actress, musician and singer-songwriter) sweet chorus in “Rave On” and “Never Had Nobody Like You,” or the smooth and soulful Lucinda Williams in “Oh Lonesome Me,” Ward effectively calms the nerves and infuses the soul with a sense of peace and self reflection.
“To Save Me” features Jason Lytle from the indie rock group Grandaddy and produces an upbeat rhythm that tastes a little of 1950s rock flavor infused with contemporary musical accents. His sound is incomparable, beautifully unique and seriously playful. “Hold Time” is quite possibly the album I would choose for a personal soundtrack.
Overall this album is worth a free listen if not a purchase and can be appreciated by any musical enthusiast. It delivers an element of spunk and innocence that anyone can enjoy. On May 16th Ward will perform at the Fox Theater in Oakland; tickets are available at ticketmaster.com. For more information visit www.mwardmusic.com or www.myspace.com/mward

From Refugee to Rapstar

From Refugee to Rap Star: K’naan Dives into the Mainstream

“Nothing is perfect man, that's what the world is,
All I know is,
I'm enjoying today.
You know, 'cause it isn't everybody that you get to give.”

Before he felt the warmth of spotlights on his face, he felt the heat of gunfire and grenades. And before he became an internationally recognized celebrity, he narrowly escaped one of the world’s most war-torn countries. Somalia born K’naan returns once again, but this time he’s flooding the airwaves and truly “blowing up the spot.”
K’naan’s first album entitled “The Dusty Foot Philosopher,” slid under the pop culture radar. He opened shows for Damian Marley’s Welcome To Jamrock tour, and kept a small yet diehard following over the past three years. This time around K’naan is being embraced as a hip-hop celebrity and welcomed with open ears by everyone from National Public Radio to MTV. His second album “Troubadour,” released in early 2009, resonates much catchier rhythms and lyrics than his previous tracks and sounds to be catering to a much different crowd. This crowd is the North American popular culture and so far he is having ample success.
Staying true to his poetic roots, K’naan raps as if he’s teaching a course on hip-hop 101. He aims to educate and inform with his clear and clever rhymes. He infuses the mix musically with hints of reggae and authentic African drumbeats.
Recently he has performed and been interviewed on the Jimmy Kimmel show, MTV, NPR, and numerous smaller radio and television networks all over the country.
Some of his new tracks mirror his first album in essence and originality while others ooze with a feeling of exceedingly aged cheese and make the listener long for authentic songs past filled with hand drums and raw riddims. This evidence of smoothing over the raw instrumentals with synthesized sound goo and frequent choral “la la la’s” shows K’naan’s evident migration from raw rootsy goodness to lame ass radio routine.
Although he remains true to the art of rhyme, he falters in successfully trodding through the muck which some of us refer to as “mainstream music,” or “radio rap.” Fame and acclaim will continue to lift this newfound superstar up hopefully without tainting his highly original style any further.
His new album features collaborations with some Hip Hop greats such as Chubb Rock, Mos Def and Chali 2na and also singer Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley, the son of reggae legend Bob Marley. Other tracks feature artists such as Adam Levine, the front man for Maroon 5 and Metallica’s lead guitarist and songwriter, Kirk Hammett.
For more information or to hear his interviews and music visit
http://www.npr.org keyword: k’naan, http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/knaan/artist.jhtml, http://www.myspace.com/knaanmusic, or
http://www.knaanmusic.com/

Spring Semester Progess

Not making as many headlines (no pun intended) as I would like. I'm suffering from sever writer's block and lack of inspiration. Heading into the coming weeks I am determined to work harder, find more interesting stories, and always always get them in early.

The End!!!

And so it ends.....until springtime and another fun filled semester of newpaper production class, and music interviews, and shows......
A short reflection to end on:
I learned about the dilapidating effects of procrastinating. I am not perfect. Finding errors in papers is waaaay more fun when you're on the reading end and not responsible for editing. Not only am I not a perfect writer, but I may not want to be a writer at all. Or maybe I do. I think the point was to figure out that I don't know what I want to do and that school is the only way to learn about who we are as learners and participators in lessons and life.
I'm totally looking forward to next semester. Hopefully our department doesn't get the ax.

Last issue done!

Well folks, semester's end nears and we are all done with newspaper production for now. Next spring looks promising after this trial run of production. I think most everyone really stepped up and got the job done. I am so looking forward to winter break and then spring semester!

Nearing Semester's End

I am working on my final article for the Voice's Fall semester. I am going to be writing about the Sm. Scale Metals division of VAPA. Because it is a program I have been involved with over the last year, it is much easier to get involved, photograph and write on topic.
I will definitely be enrolling in this class again for Spring semester because writing for the paper is so dang gratifying, challenging and exciting....all rolled into one!

Byron Space Circus To Rock Halloween

Although they are not locally born and bred, they couldn’t fit in better in Santa Cruz, a city that encourages artistic expression and nourishes eccentric ideals and unconditional acceptance. The original crew of Byron Space Circus is made up of Chris Lynch, Jason Felten and Micah Ofstedahl hailing from Mankato, Minnesota. After these Minnesotan boys’ brief experience living the Humboldt lifestyle, and then bouncing back to Minneapolis before the trio migrated southwest once again and linked up with their fourth member, Ventura born drummer, Chanda Cummings.
I was fortunate enough to catch them during a Thursday evening practice in their studio off of Harvey West Boulevard. Before this interview I had seen them perform twice, both times feeling utterly excited and enlightened. The party I was fortunate enough to see them at is by far the best Santa Cruz house party I have ever been to, due mainly to their musical contribution and the vibrant energy they spread.
This was my first recorded interview as a Cabrillo journalism student and aspiring music journalist and my feelings of nervousness and excitement joined hand in hand to dance in a circle, totally diffusing one another. The crew welcomed me in warmly, poured me a glass of red wine and we lounged and talked for an over an hour, before I left and let them return to practicing their magical music.
These guys are anxious to go on tour again, and they are taking applications for promoters and producers who can also make a really solid and trustworthy friend. If I had stayed much longer that night I would’ve volunteered to do all of the above, for free.

Q. How long have you all been playing together?
Micah: 2 1/2 years with everybody.
Jason: Mike and I have been playing since we were ten. A little bit, jammin’ around.
Chris: It wasn’t the Byron space circus at age 10, we were just noodlin’ around together. College started the formation of the band in Mankato, Minnesota.
Jason: So we've been a band for six years.
Chris: We've had about 5 different drummers. It really hadn’t blossomed until we got out here, to Santa Cruz.

Q. What brought you all to Santa Cruz?
Jason: We never got really serious until we got out here. With school and jobs and, you know, it was always just playing bars for beers.
Chris: We finally feel like we’re giving it a full shot. It’s a whole lot more fun when your putting your energy into it to see what kind of new music can come, we used to do a lot more improv and jams, and now there’s a lot more songwriting go on.

Q. Where does your name come from?
Jason: When we were in college we lived on Byron Street. Bachelor pad, kind of crazy, you know, kind of a circus. We were freshmen in college, buncha dudes. So we played an open mic night and they wanted us to come back and play a weekend show. We weren’t officially a band, we didn’t have a name. The music at the time was spacey and jammy, the one song we had written at the time was a kind of like a circus song. The house was three ring circus but no nets, and just a great time. The name was just billed for the show. We didn’t even pick it; it was one of a few.
Micah: Space in music, space in music, and part of it was outer space and just our interest in all sorts of things, different meanings in the word space, not to get all deep on it. (Laughter) Small coincidental things coming at us involving space in different ways.

Q. And Byron Street was in what city?
Chris: Mankato, Minnesota.
Jason: 5 bedroom house, 3 stories for 8 hundred bucks, can you imagine that? Amazing. You can’t get a studio for eight hundred bucks here.

Q. How would you describe your music in words for someone who has never heard it before?
Chanda: No one has an answer.
Chris: You tell us.
Chanda: There’s the acoustic thing, then there’s the electric thing.
Chris: In the big picture it’s rock I guess, in the huge picture. To focus in on it a little more it might be definitely elements of funk.
Jason: Electro, synthesizers, but funk for sure, electro-funk with psychedelic elements.
Chris: There’s a lot of very distorted, dirty very dark stuff intertwined too. We can definitely be not as uplifting dance music as it can be sometimes. Dark heavy stuff.
Micah: And dark mellow stuff. Like Floyd. Not dark dark. Doesn’t necessarily mean it is dark, not that the lyrics are dark and sad.
Jason: That’s life though, you have good days and bad days, sometimes you wanna dance and sometimes you wanna cry. It’s fun to go see a show and be dancin’ the whole time, if you stick one or two just downer tunes, then once you come back to another funk tune it’s gonna be that much more funkier or happy. There’s no pain without pleasure.
Chanda: Introspective.
Chris: It’s like the sun and the moon. The ancients said the moon is cool and changing and the sun is always hot and constant.
Jason: On Myspace it says psychedelic lounge funk
Chris: It’d be boring playing in a band that played the same sound all the time.
Chanda: Our sound is still developing as musicians.

Q. What instruments do you all play?
Chanda: Drums.
Chris: keyboards, mandolin and acoustic violin.
Jason: Bass, upright and little synthesizer sampling stuff.
Chanda: Micah plays banjo
(laughs)
Chris: he loves the banjo
Michael: I’ll play a little riff for you
(plays a few keys)
Michael: Uh, just guitar. I’ll repeat. Just guitar.
Chanda: Chris and I sing.
Chris: Someday these guys will sing too.

Q. In a few words, what inspires you to play music everyday?
Chanda: The ‘what’s gonna happen next’ factor. This project is always changing, that’s inspiring to me. Keeps it interesting. Everybody is trying really hard to make something happen and that frontier is just waiting to unfold.
Chris: For me it’s kind of in two ways it the deepest form of exploring your subconscious, as far as introverted side. And on the other side of it is the deepest way of communicating with others. It’s fun. I love it. It’s an addiction.
Jason: It keeps me kinda sane. I don’t know what else I’d do. I’d just sit here and my brain would explode. Its just life, especially in the past five years. It’s a challenge.
Michael: money.
(laughter, hoots)
Chris: Here’s a good story, Michael outside the Mucky Duck in Monterey after a show. They gave us something like 400 dollars. We’re a bit lubricated, having a good time and he takes the money and chews it up in his mouth and it’s raining out and he just spits the money into the gutter. It created a river of money ready to go down the drain.
Jason: We retrieved most of it.
Michael: No, uh. I didn’t think of a serious answer. Well one thing I was thinking of today is just being at work inspires me to continue doing what I love so that I don’t have to do that kind of thing. So in a way that is related to money. That’s not what drives me but the more time I can spend doing this the better. It’s one way you can abstractly communicate with anybody.

Q. Any inspiring words to send to Cabrillo students about following their dreams?
Chris: Drop out of school.
Jason: Drop out of school and join a rock band.
Chris: No, school’s done some good for me. For sure.
Jason: Whatever makes you feel good, that’s what you should do.
Chris: take what you want from all the teachers and the books and the class but know what you want to do with it ultimately.
Chanda: Cabrillo is an awesome music school. It’s pretty incredible. People that are there know that.
Chris: And it’s affordable. I actually sat in on some music classes at Cabrillo until they finally did attendance. (laughs) I sat in, did a mini little test to see where were at, took some notes and learned some stuff. And actually out of it, I wrote a song that in some ways is connected to the chords that we were talking about in the class, so that was cool.

Q. You all seem to like dressing up in costumes, what’s the deal?
Jason: I think it was even before the BSC was even name. Byron Street we’d just have crazy funk parties where funk is pretty broad so whatever you thinks funk like 70s vintage or just looking crazy
Micah: Or gorilla costumes
Chanda: That’s why I responded to the Craigslist ad
Jason: Yeah, I think that was our ad: drummer, serious and wants to pursue this but you know-
Chanda: But here’s what we look like when we play
Jason: Yeah, keeps you from taking it to serious
Chanda: It escalates the show, we throw the box of hats out and it makes our job a lot easier. Cuz people just go there, they put a hat on and they go there.

Q. I know your playing a Halloween show, any particular costumes in mind?
Everyone: Oh yeah. We have a full collective plan.

Q. What musicians inspire you?
Chanda: I’m a big Phish fan.
Jason: Talking Heads, Radiohead, especially live.
Micah: What they said and then Pink Floyd.
Jason: Herbie Hancock’s pretty funky.
Chris: Billie Preston. But it’s all over the board. The Doors are really one of the first that got me into music. Beck. Zappa.
Micah: I wanna give Bob Dylan some love
Jason: He’s from Minnesota so that obviously hits a soft spot.

Q. How does living here in Santa Cruz shape your music and influence your sound?
Chanda: You can do whatever you want here.
Jason: Yeah, no matter what it is here you can do it full on. Whether it’s music or hiking or biking or surfing or kayaking or being a freak on Pacific. You’re pretty much free to do whatever. It’s an inspiring place, just that alone. But it is a bubble, for sure. Kind of a vacuum.
Chris: You can be weird and it’s accepted. And other people dig it. And it would be hard to be weird in a place where people didn’t know how to be weird.
Chanda: The hats might not go over so well in other place. They usually do though.
Chris: It’s a huge influence being in the natural world. It’s nice to be in such a beautiful day on top of the whole community and social aspect. The oceans, the redwoods. You can go up hwy 9 and get lost for a day and get inspired and then come back and maybe write a song.
Jason: We’re getting some roots. This is the longest place we’ve stayed as a band since we started.
Micah: There’s a lot of music here. There’s a lot of other bands on and around our level so there’s things aspire for and bands from this area to look up to.

Q. What was the first album you ever bought?
Chris: Doors, self titled. Jimi Hendrix, Are You Experienced?
Chanda: Oingo Boingo. I have a few years on these guys.
Jason: There was three I got in sixth grade from my older sister. Tool: Enema. Greenday: Dookie and Bone Thugs & Harmony Eternal 1999 or whatever.
Micah: Huey Luis & the News. I think the first random free for a dollar tape bin was Michael’s brother Jerome Jackson.
(Collective laughter)

Q. Who’s the producer?
Chanda: We’re self-produced. We have a demo CD but we have two cd’s in the mix.

Q. Are you looking to get signed by a major label?
Jason: Maybe, kinda. I mean the record industry seems kinda shotty. And people don’t really buy cd’s anymore. It’s all downloads, it’s all burned. I mean yeah, I’m sure we would if we got some good deal.
Chanda: And what’s it about? Is it about getting your name out there more? I guess that’s the value in it.
Chris: You have to put a lot of trust in whomever, and they need to be connected.
Chanda: I think the more valuable other entity to the band as far as administration goes would be a manager.

Q. Your sound is psychedelic; do drugs ever play a part in your musical process?
Chris: You can think of us a drug orientated band, of course we’re not. You can trust us. That’s a Pink Floyd quote.
Jason: We don’t practice or play live on drugs. Maybe a little ganja once in while. Not even that so much anymore. Drugs can be good, mind expanding, but everything in moderation. You can do that and then recollect yourself and then take something from that or not.
Chris: It’s definitely helped us get where we’re at.
Micah: It’s influence on what music you listen to is huge. It opens your mind to other music.
Chris: For us, growing up we’ve done psychedelics together. We were young; we had these very deep timeless experiences together that you will always have with you. It’s not like you think about them a lot but there are part of us.
Chanda: I’ve certainly seen a lot of music on psychedelics. A lot more than I’ve played. I haven’t really done it period, played on drugs. The drums are a very physical thing.
Jason: Yeah, it’s tough when your guitar neck turns into a noodle.
Micah: Bill Hick’s said best, “if you don’t think drugs have done a good thing in this world take all your albums and burn ‘em, cuz all those musicians were real f@%&in’ high.”

Make sure to check out the BSC live on Halloween, Friday, October 31st at the Crepe Place. If you can’t make that show, they’ll be performing at the Crow’s Nest on Thursday, November 20th. You can also hear their music at www.myspace.com/byronspacecircus

Dinner Review- Pino Alto

Tonight I will have dinner at the Cabrillo restaurant and then write a review for this week's paper. I finally have full smell back in both nostrils and will be able to really appreciate the various flavors. I intend to bust out the review tonight and tomorrow and have it in for revision by Wednesday night. More on this later......

Saul Williams Plans To "Slam" Santa Cruz

Hip-hop is the music of our generation. It is a musical reflection of our times, our issues, our hopes and fears. Hip-hop culture is apparent in modern television commercials and magazine advertisements. It is a recurring theme in contemporary music, art, film and fashion.
Attention Cabrillo hip-hop heads, an extraordinary artist, Saul Williams, will be performing later this month in Santa Cruz. His delivery of fresh rhymes and beats is not worth missing. This performer actively redefines the hip-hop revolution, incorporating social activism and blending his personal experiences of trials and tribulations with progressive idealism.
Williams encourages college students to strive and succeed during his visits to U.S. campuses. He collaborates with musicians to establish exciting, contemporary sounds. He performs alongside his enthusiastic 12 year-old-daughter. His voice is clear and melodic when he speaks of pain or promise.
As a practicing poet or “spoken word” artist, Saul explains that: “Poetry has a much longer oral tradition than it does literary. Many poets of ancient lore, such as the Greek Homer, were not read in their time (reading and writing was reserved for the very rich. Most of Greece was illiterate), people gathered to hear them speak. Like the griots and storytellers of ancient Africa, or the wandering philosophers and Sufies of the East, if most were alive today they would be called ‘spoken word artists.”

He was born Saul Stacey Williams, on February 29th, 1972, in Newburgh, New York. He is a poet, writer, actor and musician and is well known for his distinctive blend of poetry and alternative hip-hop. His music has been classified from hip-hop, spoken word, and poetry, to industrial, electronic, and alternative. On his myspace page he describes his music as being a blend of “postpunk/breakbeat/ghettotech.” Williams asserts that, genre definitions aside, “a lot of people get caught up on my lyrics and poetry, but my writing is always founded on beats and polyrhythmic backdrops.”
Williams received a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Morehouse College in Atlanta and later completed his master’s degree in acting at NYU. During his time spent in New York City he found himself at the epicenter of the café poetry scene where he began to gain standing as a performer.

In 1995 Saul first established national recognition as a talented open mic poet. A year later he won the title of Nuyorican Poets Café’s Grand Slam Champion. Shortly thereafter he appeared in a documentary film entitled “SlamNation” that documents the Nuyorican Poets Slam team at the 1996 National Poetry Slam, held in Portland, Ore.

Saul starred as the lead role in the 1998 feature film “Slam” which chronicles the life of a young African American man whose social background has negative effects on his exceptional poetic talent. Despite his attempts to escape the pressures of drugs and violence he is arrested during a drug deal and sentenced to prison. During his imprisonment he participates in writing classes where he is encouraged to develop his already strong talents. When he leaves prison he is able to convince his friends to quit drug dealing. He then performs at a poetry slam where he delivers an unforgettable performance.
“Slam” won the Sundance Festival Grand Jury Price for a Dramatic Film and the Cannes Camera D’Or (Golden Camera). The film gained international audiences and acclaim. Since then, Williams has continued to write and act in films.

Over the years he has performed with Nas, The Fugees, Christian Alvarez, Blackalicious, Erykah Badu, KRS-One, Zack De La Rocha, De La Soul, and DJ Krust. He has also performed with legendary poets such as Allen Ginsberg and Sonia Sanchez.
In 2001 he released “Amethyst Rock Star” with producer Rick Rubin. In 2004 he released his self-titled album. In summer 2005 he went on a European tour in support of Nine Inch Nails and Mars Volta. That same year he performed at the Lollapalooza festival.
He appeared on NIN’s album “Year Zero,” and continued supporting them in their 2006 North American tour. Soon after, Williams announced his plans to co-produce a new album with Trent Reznor of NIN. Speaking of his relationship, he said that Reznor “has become the big brother I never had, offering his insight, expertise, and shared desire to fuck up the system while believing fully in the power of music and the intelligence of the masses.”
This partnership produced Williams’ latest album, “The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust,” a title which faced criticism for it’s racially infused ring. In response he said “I’ve also thought long and hard about all the discussion surrounding racial epithets etc. and chose this title as a means of furthering the dialogue while also showing how creativity will outlive and outshine hatred of any kind.”

Aside from being an exceptional poet and singer, his writings have been published in the New York Times, Esquire, Bomb Magazine and African Voices. He has released four collections of poetry including a book of poems entitled “Said The Shotgun To The Head.” As a poet and musician he has toured and lectured worldwide. He guest speaks at college and university campuses around the country. Williams is a vocal critic of the Bush administration, the War on Terrorism, and the Iraq War. He has written some anti-war anthems, among the more well known of which are “Not In My Name,” and “Act III Scene 2 (Shakespeare).”

Saul’s career as a jack-of-all-trades is a mirror of the increasingly common trend of movie stars pursuing musical careers, and musician’s crossing over into the acting limelight. “It’s not that I balance [those arts] out, all the different arts balance me out. So, that there is a certain type of emotion that is more easily accessible through music than poetry…. Some things are meant to be written, some are meant to be sung, some things are meant to be hummed, some things are made to be yelled, and so that’s just how life works.”

Saul married Marcia Jones, an art professor at Clark Atlanta University and had a daughter, Saturn Williams, in 1996. They later divorced and in 1998 he remarried to Persia White, a member of the industrial alternative rock band, XEO3. Saul Williams lives in Los Angeles and is currently on tour. For more information and to hear Saul’s music check out www.saulwilliams.com, www.myspace.com/saulwilliams, www.niggytardust.com. If you’re interested in having Saul come speak at Cabrillo please call The American Program Bureau at 1-800-225-4575.

First Music Interview Tonight!!!

I have an interview this evening at 7pm with the Byron Space Circus, a local musical group. Very excited, nervous, etc. I am working on coming up with some good questions and this will be my first interview with a tape recorder. I need to buy myself a tape recorder.

Finished!

Finally done, submitted article, ready for newsprint! This class is so gratifying and fun, and what a learning experience it all is!!! Leads are mad mad challenging....wow!!!

K'naan: His Rap Is Hardcore

Rap music gets a bad rap. Our parents tell us it’s loud noise with too much swearing. Radio stations and dance clubs play only mainstream rap, materialistic music about bitches and gats. Drugs and “bling.” Somewhere, somehow, the true art of rhyme was forgotten and then replaced with superficial words and overused, repetitive beats.
There is good news for all the Cabrillo hip hop and rap fans who share these concerns. Just when it seemed that rap music was beyond redemption, K’naan came onto the scene. He reinstates the purpose and origin of hip hop music by using his music as a weapon. He draws inspiration from his war torn childhood in Somalia. His music is spine chilling and uplifting while it teaches and entertains. He is truly acting as a voice of the global struggle. K’naan is both a poet and a rapper. His words can be fully appreciated when spoken or in writing.
“So what’s hardcore?” K’naan asks on his debut album The Dusty Foot Philosopher.
“Really, are you hardcore? Hmm.-
We begin our day by the way of the gun,
Rocket propelled grenades blow you away if you front,
We got no police ambulance or fire fighters,
We start riots by burning car tires,
They looting, and everybody start shooting,
Bullshit politicians talking about solutions,
But it’s all talk, you can’t go half a block without a roadblock,
You don’t pay at the road block you get your throat shot…”
He was born Kaynaan Warsame in 1978. The name translates to “traveler” in Somali. K’naan is a Somali refugee living in Ontario, Canada.
K’naan spent part of his childhood in Mogadishu, the capital of the African country of Somalia. He lived in the district of Wardiihigleey, more commonly known as “The River of Blood” due to ongoing political conflict and violence that continues to this day. Violence recently broke out in Mogadishu on Sept. 22, when mortars fired into a marketplace killed at least 32 people. The current clash is between Islamic extremist anti-government groups and the Somali government assisted by Ethiopian forces.
K’naan’s father left Somalia first and moved to New York to make money for his family. With the money he sent, he would include rap albums for K’naan. Through this musical medium, K’naan taught himself to speak English by studying the hip hop and rap diction of American artists such as Nas and Rakim. He would then copy the phonetics of their lyrics and style, even though he could not comprehend the actual meaning of the songs.
He left Somalia in 1991 when the Somali government collapsed. As civil war broke out, K’naan was fortunate to have his visa approved and consequently took the last commercial flight out of the country before the US embassy closed. He reunited with his father and other relatives in Harlem, New York City and they eventually moved to Rexdale, Ontario where there is a large Somali Canadian community.
           K’naan dropped out of high school in the tenth grade and traveled throughout Canada, rapping at open mic events. In 1999 he befriended a Canadian music promoter who got him a gig at the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees where he performed a spoken word piece in criticism of the United Nations and their failed aid missions to his home country.
           Fortunately for the young artist, Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour sat in the audience and was extremely taken with K’naan’s courageous performance. Soon after, N’Dour invited K’naan to contribute to his 2001 album Building Bridges. Because of his addition to N’Dour’s project, K’naan was taken on his worldwide tour.
           In the next few months, K’naan worked on more United Nations events and performed at the Montreal Jazz Festival. Soon he met a Canadian producer who helped him create his debut album, The Dusty Foot Philosopher in 2005. In 2006 K’naan’s album won the Juno Award for Rap Recording of the Year and was nominated for the Polaris Music Prize. In 2007 the album won the newcomer category in the BBC Radio 3 Award for World Music.
           This year K’naan’s album was re-released and re-packaged as a “Deluxe Edition” featuring new remixes and a DVD. He has been promoting his album on tour and working on a follow-up album. K’naan has been collaborating with artists such as Nelly Furtado, Mos Def, The Roots, Dead Prez, Damian Marley and Pharaohe Monch. He toured on Live 8, Breedlove Odyssey and the Welcome to Jamrock tour.
           Most recently he played at the Outside Lands Music Festival in San Francisco, Earthdance Festival in Laytonville, and 330 Ritch in San Francisco. For more information or to hear his music visit www.thedustyfoot.com or www.myspace.com/knaanmusic


“K’naan will make a song anywhere, on anything, out of anything.” –Mos Def

“If I rhyme about home and got descriptive,
I’d make Fifty Cent look like Limp Bizkit,
It’s true, and don’t make me rhyme about you,
I’m from, where the kids is addicted to glue,
Get ready, he got a good grip on the machete,
Make rappers say they do it for love like R. Kelly,
It’s HARD, harder than Harlem and Compton intertwined,
Harder than harboring Bin Laden and rewind….”
-From “What’s Hardcore?”

“It is better to light a candle than to curse the dark
In the eyes of the youth there are question marks
Like freedom, freedom for the mind and soul
We don’t see ‘em,
See them for their worth at all.
That’s why we lead ‘em
Lead ‘em to these wars and what is it we feed ‘em
Feed ‘em our impurities and who it is we treat ‘em
Treat ‘em like the enemy humanity will need ‘em
Need ‘em like the blood we spill and where freedom
Freedom for the hearts we fill
Mislead ‘em
They hunger for the love we give but we cheat ‘em
The guys beat ‘em and all he want is his freedom
So they defeat ‘em
Whatever spirit he’s got
Beat ‘em
And they teach ’em the rest of the world don’t need him
And he believes it’s a disease that he’s heathen
Put up your fists if all you want is freedom
Put up your fists if all you want is-”
                                               -From “In The Beginning”

(Un)wearable Art At Cabrillo

These clothes are wild but they’ll never be seen on even the most eccentric Santa Cruzans. The blouses and dresses are part of a show that uses textiles and clothing to make bold political and social statements. The exhibit entitled “(un)wearable” illustrates vivid expressions of emotion and activism intertwined into stunning textile art.
It’s Fall fashion month in Santa Cruz and artists are displaying their work all over the county. Here at Cabrillo we have a beautiful collaboration of local artist’s work on display in the College Gallery. The three contributing artists of this show are Dawn Marie Forsyth, Richard Elliott and Kathleen Crocetti. Each has their own unique style and message engrained within their pieces.
Dawn Marie Forsyth’s exhibit occupies the back part of the gallery and is hugely dramatic in delivery. She has constructed five separate blouses hanging high from the ceiling. Each blouse has arms that stretch all the way to the floor where they lay, folded, curled or draped. The blouses are representative of unwound straight jackets to go with Forsyth’s central theme of “expressing the beauty of our struggles.” She explains that her work illustrates the “creepy seductive,” and the “sensual sculptural” aspect of the relationship between art and life.
Each blouse is created using different fabrics such as wool, taffeta, velvet, silk, spandex, and nylon and then sewn with silk and cotton thread. Each fabric is a representation of different human struggles. Her physical exhibit is accompanied by a video in black and white entitled “My Skin II,” which shows a woman in a straight jacket struggling to escape its confines. The pieces compliment one another, and follow her main theme of expressing “the triumph of the human spirit.”
Richard Elliott works with media ranging from digitally printed and hand manipulated polyester fabric to rusted steel transfers on fabric-mounted canvas. He is fascinated and inspired by scientific magnification. His pieces are entitled “Micro/Macro,” “Hidden Networks,” “Subcutaneous Micro Colony,” and “Human/Nature.” Science geeks and artists converge! Elliott illustrates his appreciation for art and science.
Elliott’s pieces are both two-dimensional wall pieces and three-dimensional forms. He layers these 3-D forms with materials such as Plexiglass, transparencies, fabrics and translucent tracing papers. Elliott’s major focus “lies in rather mundane, unnoticed or unseen patterns.” He puzzles at such natural phenomena as fingerprints and hair growth patterns. The “playful shapes and language of chromosomes, DNA, microscopic cellular and molecular structures” inspire him.
Kathleen Crocetti works with media such as steel, newsprint, cotton, satin, dog tags, flags and origami. Crocetti uses the inside labels of Gap, Eddie Bauer ad Old Navy clothes to invent new party dress designs. Her main purpose in these pieces is to point out the ridiculousness of “label status” as she juxtaposes inexpensive labels to accent collars and hems of presumably expensive party dresses.
In her more politically infused pieces, Crocetti illustrates the idea of “wear[ing] our grief,” a practice that was abandoned after World War II. She hopes to inspire a “ripple effect of compassion and outrage” to replace the current “ripple effect of insensitivity and complacency.” Her politically infused pieces are entitled “Posthumous Citizenship,” “Coalition of the Willing,” and “War Bride.”
This show is located in the Cabrillo College Gallery and is available for viewing Monday through Friday, 9 am to 4 pm and Monday and Tuesday evenings from 7 pm to 9 pm. The show will run through the third of October.

First Issue Done!

And what a process that was. I picked  a funny issue, being the first, to submit two article and also try to lay them both out. It' s good though, I feel super comfortable with InDesign now and am ready for more issues to come.

Looking forward to seeing the real thing on Mon.- woot woot!

Exciting for sure. I am already feeling rewarded for my time spent on this project. Everyone that works for the Voice is great. And that's all for now!

Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines!

I am currently looking ahead to Thursday night when we all theoretically have our work done and only need to lay it all out! Wow. Still chugging along trying to hammer my two pieces out. Incessantly busy jumping between classes and writing assigments.

I'm thinking that all will be well, because it usually is. I spent most of the day yesterday catching up in my Journ 53 text in order to become well versed in all aspects of journalism. I'm planning on busting out all day today on my articles. I need to take my own photo for the art show though. None of the ones I've seen from the photojournalism class please me. I know in the real world this wouldn't be my choice, it would of course be the photo editor's choice. But maybe maybe maybe I can convince our photo editor to use MY photo instead of someone else's.

I have all the material I need to write my stories, except the skill level isn't there yet. It's going to be crazy. Wish me luck.