So as most of you have probably noticed, KUCR pitched in with ASPB last quarter on putting on a few great shows at The Barn. Seriously though, is anyone really familiar with The Barn? You’ve probably eaten there and who knows, you may never have gone back. Listen though, we are giving you a reason to come back. I know you probably know where this is going, but NO! I will not give you a long and boring, or dreadfully boring, history lesson;

So here’s a short one:

In 1964 a “pirate” radio station operates out of the Aberdeen-Inverness residence halls and calls itself KRUD. In 1966, it becomes an officially licensed campus radio station, which you have learned to love, called KUCR. :)

So far so good…

On February 25th, 1964 Bob Dylan plays at The Barn. Whoa!

Really, who knew?

Currently, we have Bob Dylan albums here at the station! It’s very nostalgic, I know.

There! KUCR goes waaay back! The Barn goes waaay back! And though we can’t quite spill the beans just yet, be ready for some announcements on some amazing shows coming your way very soon. As amazing as KUCR is, we can’t do it all ourselves (thanks to Housing and the Barn staff), but you know that if we are behind it, it’s gonna be fun.

So tune in and stay tuned because good things are to come!

This is Armando here with exclusive some footage from the recent Aggrolites show at the Barn, shot by the one and only Dex.

watch?v=WQMm4C9S3zw

For those of you unfamiliar with the song, you really need to get out from under that rock you’ve been living under for the past couple of decades. I’ll let it slide this time and let you know, it’s the classic song, ” don’t let me down”, by none other than The Beatles. Looks pretty intimate doesn’t it? You could probably give Jesse a high five if you felt like it.

This is just a taste of what’s to come next quarter as we continue to bring you shows at the Barn. We’ve got some good things coming up that you definitely won’t want to miss. Can’t tell you too much about it now though, but expect some more info as we get closer to the start of the Spring Quarter Barn series, presented by KUCR and hosted at The Barn (thanks, Housing!). I can tell you this much however, next quarter’s barn series will kick off April 9th. Same day and time, Wednesdays from 6-9 for those of you just tuning in, so bring yourself and we’ll bring the music. To stay up to speed, look for us on facebook, or check out the unofficial KUCR myspace.

Good Luck on finals everyone!

For those of you who got locked out* of the party in The Barn on 20th February: things was bananas in there. Watch:

This, of course, was from the smash success Zion I / Mistah FAB concert put on by ASPB. Dude may have shown up over an hour late, and I don’t know about those yellow bus sneakers, but the young man did put on a show. Of course, there’s some Zion I footage up in here somewhere that I have to dig up as well. Feel free to post this all over your corner of the internets.

And as the video intimates, big things coming in 2008. Watch this space.

*seriously, kids, The Barn is only so big. When we say get there early, we mean it.

KUCR and ASPB are proud to announce, fresh off tour with 311 and the debut of their new record, “Reggae Hit L.A.”: The Aggrolites, performing live at the UCR Barn with special guests Starpool - this Wednesday, 5th March at 7PM, for free. This is the last blowout show for ASPB’s now-infamous Winter Concert series, so do not miss this one!

Blame it on No Doubt or blame it on Sublime, but by the middle of the 1990s, very little of the pop music that was described as ska had anything to do with Jamaican dance music of the early ’60s. Too many bands whose sole connection to the musical style had been a few singles by the Specials or The English Beat got it all exactly backward, with the punk influences drowning out what little Jamaican influence remained: the result was basically Green Day with horns, and it wasn’t any good for anyone. If The Aggrolites (formed in 2002) have a stated mission, it’s to remind modern audiences what proper ska sounded like, whether in Kingston in 1963 or in London in 1979 [amg].

And, hell, to have some fun.

The Aggrolites - Free Time

This concert is the final blowout of the Winter season, and it will fill up, without question. If you consider yourself a punk, reggae, or ska fan - do yourself a favor, and get there early. We can’t guarantee that we’ll be able to fit everyone (remember what happened at the Mistah Fab / Zion I show?) - so don’t say we didn’t warn you. Doors open at 6.

Did we mention that this is free?

Cover of The Beatles’ “Don’t Let Me Down”, filmed in Gameboy-vision, for some reason

Okay, if you really need more convincing, here’s The Aggrolites on Yo Gabba Gabba. Undeniably awesome.

The Aggrolites on Nick Jr’s Yo Gabba Gabba - Banana

The Show:
Location - at the UC Riverside Barn
Date - Wednesday, 5th March
Time - 7PM, but doors open at 6:00. Get there early, or get locked out. Really.
Price - Free, but you’re on your own for parking.

I’m going to stand up front and demand that they play the banana song. Who’s with me?

I mean, you were there, right?

Daedelus @ UCR - Fairweather Friends at 0′49

Daedelus came in and absolutely tore the house down. I think everyone at KUCR is a pretty big Daedelus fan (which is why we decided to bring him through, courtesy of ASPB funding), but I don’t think any of us saw what was coming:

Daedelus @ UCR - snippets of “My Boo”

As glad as we are to have any video of this event (hats off to dj geo), the one thing you unfortunately miss is that the crowd by this point was going absolutely bananas.

And really, Daedelus even said himself that he was a little surprised that a university would bring out crazy people like himself and opener Nosaj Thing (UCR at the cutting edge - who’da thunk?). The packed crowd at the Barn took full advantage, though - I never thought I’d be dancing to Daedelus, but there I was. And as iffy as the acoustics may seem at the Barn, there’s something to be said for having a free show on a stage so low and close that the audience can (and often does) reach out to shake the performers’ hands.

Seriously, kids - anything we recommend on this blog, it’s for good reason. Trust us. We know things.

Moral of the story? When we throw a show - come.

As an aside, if you were wondering what that weird glowy thing was that Daedelus was toying about with, it’s called a monome. I’ll let you do your own research on that if you’re interested. Or you can be all 2008 and just watch this video for ten seconds until something else distracts your attention:

David Phipps of STS9 on the Monome

Oh, bonus - there are a few more videos in the Daedelus at UCR series - check them out here. And if for some reason you missed this show - if you ever get a chance to see Daedelus, do so.

And now that I think of it, I think we recorded this show. Make sure to stay tuned in to KUCR 88.3 FM (tune in now on your computer!)- you never know when you’ll hear our archive of the concert!

Seriously, I don’t even know why I’m bothering to write about this. If you haven’t heard about this, you have been stone dead sleeping, my friend, and you probably deserve to miss this show.

But hell, I’ve already started writing this, so let’s go: KUCR is geeked to announce Mistah FAB and Zion I in concert at the Barn, free, this Wednesday 20th Feb at 6:00 PM as part of ASPB’s Homecoming lineup. This is for students only - so bring your ID card.

First, Mistah FAB, one of the young guns in the Hyphy Movement - which, by the way, is here to stay. He’s probably best known by non-Baydestrians as the rapper who was infamously banned from MTV for his controversial “Ghost Ride The Whip” video:

Mistah Fab - Ghost Ride the Whip (wait a bit, it gets awesome)

Then, we’ve got Zion I, who are absolute underground rap legends, known and respected for their social commentary and conscious lyrics - and a bit of infamy for Zion I member AmpLive’s Radiohead In Rainbows remix album (with Thom’s stamp of approval). Dig the next video:

Zion I - Soo Tall.

This, ladies, and gentlemen, is going to go, hard, on citas. Yadididig?. Strap into that cheeseburger*, get down to the Barn, get hella hyphy but keep all other flamboastulatin to a minimum, last thing we need’s the po-pos encroachulatin on the scene, ya play what I’m sprayin?

Speaking of the Barn, it’s only so big. Thus, let me echo a warning issued by ASPB themselves: only about 400 people can fit into the barn. Thus, a lot of people are going to be turned away. If you don’t want to be left out shivering into the cold and pressing your ear up to the outside walls to capture some small fraction of the hyphiness - show up early. Details follow:

The Show:
Location - at the UC Riverside Barn
Date - Wednesday, 20th February
Time - Act at 6:30, but doors open at 5:30. Get there early, or get locked out. Really.
Price - Free, but admittance is offered to students only (due to aforementioned capacity issues).

* Bay-challenged readers interested in deciphering hyphy terminology may be interested in E-40’s Dictionary Book of Slang, Vol. 1.

Ryan, I’ll see your U. Srinivas and raise you one Dokaka. Wait, what:

Apparently this Dokaka dude was involved with Bjork’s Medulla album. Which is bully for him, but seriously I got two minutes into that record and got very very frustrated and angry. That’s mainly because there was too much weird and not enough good.

Enough about me, more about ドカカ, or Dokaka, which translates from the original Japanese as, well, I think it’s just onomatopoeic, so probably “Boom-bam-bam” or something. This next video is the cornerstone of my “I am better than Ryan at writing about World Music” argument:

Dokaka - Smells Like Teen Spirit.

I’d say a good 60% of what makes this video awesome isn’t even the music, it’s the reactions of the people walking by. Dokaka pretty much sets up camp in front of some kind of bean shop. A man that could well be the proprietor of said shop comes out several times during the video to passive-aggressively shake his head. That’s so Japanese, dude.

It’s also important to note here that, well, this is a 50 year old Japanese man. If this were the States, see, people would probably recognize the Nirvana cut as at least being familiar. The chances that this poor old dude would even recognize Smells Like Spirit, however, are pretty much nil. So in his mind, there is a stark raving lunatic squealing absolute gibberish into a microphone in front of his place of business. And he does absolutely nothing. This, my friends, is awesome.

Also contributing to the video’s epic factor is the fact that the videographer is clearly a student of the mid-80s MTV school of filming. Rushed pans, zooms, whole nine.

You, of course, can do your own research by looking for more Dokaka on Youtube (I would recommend checking out Part 3 from this series - the zooming spaceship sounds really frighten passersby), but I’ll leave you with one last video, which is also my favorite. This is appropriate because this is my post and not yours:

Dokaka - Dexter’s Favorite Song (from the same scene as above)

This video is not great because of crowd reaction or weird zooming (though that is also good here): the song itself is really cute. The melody line he picks up at 2:14 is absolutely magical, and if you disagree, you lose.

Ryan, I have a feeling that if Dokaka and U. Srinivas got into a fight, then Dokaka would win. And even if Dokaka got beat up I would step in and beat up U. Srinivas with his own mandolin (because I am strong) and then that would mean Dokaka wins because he is on my side.

I challenge you to come up with a better post.

Attention all true reggae fans - KUCR is proud to announce what is quite possibly the best reggae event to hit Riverside in years - The Expanders feat DJs Red Beef and Juice in concert this Wednesday, 13th February at 6 pm the Barn, for free, in partnership with ASPB and ASP.

I realize that right now any true reggae purist and fan in the area is probably not reading anymore, and is very likely readying their camping supplies to ensure a good spot up front. But for unconverted out there, I’ll break it down.

The Expanders are the most respected reggae group in the Los Angeles scene. As such, when reggae legends come out from the island and need a band to play with for their (sold out) concerts - they ring up The Expanders. Some past collabs: headlining the Sierra Nevada reggae Festival with The Maytones, Michigan and Smiley, Leonard Dillon (The Ethiopians), backing the king of Lovers Rock Alton Ellis, and our good friend Jah Faith:

The Expanders with Jah Faith - Bun A One (Live at the Dub Club) (takes a second to get in, but the track is lovely)

But don’t get it twisted, the Expanders more than hold their own as a self-contained act.

And dear me, I’m forgetting about Redbeef and Juice. These dudes hold down the reggae angle on More Fire Mondays ($10 entry, but highly recommended) at Sevillas and various other spots in the area. Not that Beef or Juice are limited to reggae (try hip-hop, electro, funk, damn near anything I like come to think of it) - but they certainly excel in it. They’ll be digging in the bins and serving up the jawns from 6 PM onwards and keeping the irie vibes flowing before and after The Expanders smash the Barn.

Sistren, Brethren - If you come away from this event anything less than blown away - then you, my friend, you do not like reggae.

Also you have no soul.

I’ll see you on Wednesday at 6:00 PM sharp.

What, you want more? Okay - bonus video:

Michigan Smiley with The Expanders at Dub Club (takes a while to get into it).

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=SAQLjzR-424[/youtube]

With any luck, we’ll be having a post a week or so covering international music. Here’s the first installment featuring Indian virtuoso, U. Srinivas, the first musician to play mandolin in Indian classical music.

Srinivas plays five string electric mandolin in Carnatic style–generally, the two major distinctions made in Indian classical music are between the North and South; the North producing the Hindustani style and the South, Carnatic. This composition is entitled Gananayakam and was written by the composer Muthuswami Dikshitar.

U. Srinivas has recorded a great deal of music over the course of his career, but I don’t recall ever seeing a performance as lucid as this one. Srinivas’ mandolin is amplified in such a fashion that the timbre has just the right amount of bite to it; not too much, but enough for average western ears to be able to make the connection to a guitar played above the twelfth fret (although few Western guitarist have ever managed to coax such expressiveness from their instruments) and the quickness of his fingers can fool the inattentive lister into thinking that the mandolin is running through a delay pedal. The tambura and the percussion provide the foundation for Srinivas to explore the composition, while violinist Delhi P. Sunderarajan provides only occasional input. This is clearly Srinivas’ show.

By the time this recording was made, the west had long ago been introduced to Indian music via Ravi Shankar and George Harrison. In fact Srinivas, who was born in 1969, missed the heyday of Indian influence on British and American psychedelic rock, a period ripe for cross pollination of cultural products (or cultural imperialism, depending on your perspective). Taking the Beatles as the sole example, George Harrison adopted the sitar and took lessons from Ravi Shankar, while Bollywood composer Mohd. Rafi did an arrangement of the Beatles “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” for song and dance. After the 60s and early 70s, efforts at fusion continued with occasionally stunning results, but often fell victim to embarrassing failure. This video, recorded in the 80s, takes all the efforts of rock musicians to make their western instruments sound more Indian and very humbly, politely, and perhaps not even consciously hands them their collective ass. Not even John McLaughlin at the height of Shakti’s prowess had anything on this guy.

If anybody is interested in seeing more recordings from this sessions, there are also longer recordings of the compositions Venkataramana and Tiruvadi Saranam available on Youtube, both of which are equally revelatory.

Looking to improve your political savvy? Come to a special political forum on Wednesday, Jan. 30 at 7 pm in the University Lecture Hall open to all students and community members interested in learning about and discussing vital issues related to the presidential race.

The forum will be moderated by Louis Vandenberg, general manager of KUCR 88.3 FM and the producer of Los Angeles-based KPFK 90.7 FM’s acclaimed public affairs program, “Background Briefing“. A member of the State Democratic Central Committee, he is also the three-time Democratic nominee for United States Congress, 44th Congressional District.

Student organizer Martha Preciado said she and a committee of students have invited candidates, or their representatives, to attend the forum and debate the important issues of this presidential race, such as war, healthcare, immigration, education, social security, and human rights. There will be a time for questions from the audience.

Armando Navarro, professor of ethnic studies at UC Riverside and the leader of the National Alliance for Human Rights, said the student forum is coming at the right time, in the week just before the Feb. 5th California presidential primary.

“The Inland Empire is going to be pivotal,” Navarro said. “And I contend that our students, and all students, will be pivotal in this race. I’ve never seen it like this. There’s a sense of urgency across the board. I am proud of these students who are taking such an active role in this political race.”

View the full press release for the event here.

The Specifics:
Date: Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: UCR Campus, University Lecutre Hall (UNLH) 1000
Price: This is a free event!