Apart from boasting a shithead college for shithead students and the world famous Sierra Nevada Brewery, Chico, California, has a thriving (if not nationally recognized) music scene. Many of the players in this scene contribute to a summer School of Rock-style band camp named The Collective Sound. Last year they decided to start putting together a documentary of the goings-on of the staff and the campers, aged 12-18. Watching it will give you that warm on the insides feeling. Please enjoy Episode 4.

If you’re a college student, right about now you’re probably in the throws of some epic study seshes for your upcoming finals. So is Moshe Cavalin, a second year student at East Los Angeles College, working hard to maintain his A+ average. He also happens to be 10 fucking years old:

“I’m studying statistics,” says the alternately precocious and shy Cavalin, his textbook lying open on the living room desk of his parents’ apartment in this quiet suburb east of Los Angeles.

Within a year, if he keeps up his grades and completes the rest of his requirements, he hopes to transfer from his two-year program at East Los Angeles College to a prestigious four-year school and study astrophysics.

Kinda makes you want to give up and just get a job sweeping floors somewhere, huh? Actually it makes me want to have a bunch of kids in the hopes that one of them turns out like Moshe and eventually figures out the meaning of life. Mine will probably just be a bunch of fucking jerks though.

This is a bit atypical of the bands that we generally choose for Synthesis Band of the Day. No horn-rimmed glasses, waifish broads with ugly indie-rock haircuts, ‘roid-bicep hardcore meatheads, striped sweater wussies or epic Dungeons & Dragons progressive metalheads. No, Phredley brings the funk-rock.

In my fledgling college days, back when tie-dye wasn’t as vomitous and my roommate’s constant Phish-Grateful Dead-Phish musical rotation didn’t drive me completely bonkers, I would have broken my left leg to check out a band like Phredley. Now bad photoshop effects kinda irk me, patchouli oil makes me want to hurl and hippie funk in general just pisses me off. But not Phredley. They’s alright.

Based around a brother-sister duo (Phred Brown on Vocals, Guitar & Horns; Alesha Brown on Keys & Vocals) and a rhythm section (Paul Loos, Drums & Vocals; Samuel Tobias Winn, Bass & Vocals) Phredley lays down funk that is far closer to the heart of nearby Detroit than that of longhair revivalists in Colorado or Vermont. And when they stray toward the pop side of the spectrum, it comes across more as radio-friendly than looking for a parking lot miracle. More importantly (for me at least), their lyrics hold water. With the aforementioned hippie-funk enthusiasts, it’s most often the lyrics that drive me to enraged hysterics; Phredley uses some clever (or nearly clever) turns of phrase. No, Phred’s not Leonard Cohen by any means, but in a sometimes poppy, sometimes rocky funk quartet, it works. Their track “The Truth About Capricorns” also has some pretty, Beatelesque, tonally complex passages. If you’re a big fan of Ben Harper/Jack Johnson/Maroon 5, or your ’70s R&B records don’t have much dust on them, do yourself a favor and look into Phredley.

If you were a rambunctious little boy as I once was, you probably have fond memories of firing foam projectiles at your best friends with a sleek Nerf Bow and Arrow or Blast-A-Ball. Everyone needs a little combat in their lives, and I’ll confess, I still own some Nerf weaponry (granted, it’s a far cry from the arsenal I use to have at the age of eight, and the guns just don’t fire the way they use to). Still, there’s nothing quite like the smell of foam in the morning.

The kids at Bowling Green State University however aren’t so lucky. In 2006 two students were arrested and others cited for “disorderly conduct” while taking part in a week long, glorified game of Nerf tag called Humans v. Zombies. Students carrying Nerf guns on campus found themselves being targeted.

“The police began issuing citations after receiving several phone calls from people concerned that weapons were being carried on campus…” and the University Chief of Police was quoted as saying that they “do not allow weapons or facsimiles of weapons on campus.” BG News

Are you kidding me? Since when is an oblong, bright orange and purple foam shooter similar to any type of death dealing mechanism? This is just ridiculous.

Two years later Bowling Green students are trying their luck again with another round of Humans v. Zombies but their fortune appears to be much of the same.

“The University might hamper the second round of BG Undead’s game play after the announcement was made last week to place an immediate ban on the use of Nerf guns on campus.” BG News

Nevertheless, students will still be participating, using rolled up socks instead of Nerf guns. They better be careful though. The way these college cops behave, a rolled up sock could be considered a facsimile of a grenade.

There must be something in the water in Chicago because those cats are outspoken. It’s like someone decided that the mouthiest rappers should all come from one place. What the hell is going on over there?

Exhibit A: The “Fiascogate”: Lupe gets asked to cover a couple Tribe Called Quest songs for the VH1 Hip Hop Honors Show where he proceeds to mess up a couple of the lyrics. He then posts a couple blogs about how he never grew up listening to ATCQ, but did it because Q-tip is his friend and he asked him to do it. He goes on to say that it kinda pisses him off because he has to “pretend” he listened to their albums, when he never really did. He claims Westcoast gangsta rap was what he grew up on. Weird, because pretty much everyone agrees that Lupe Fiasco’s music runs in the same vein as backpack rap, with a style so similar to ATCQ that Q-Tip and VH1 thought it appropriate to ask Lupe if he’d cover their songs during the show.

This triggers a mess of response from the rap community. One from Q-Tip himself:

“All that stuff he said about never listening to a Tribe album before and having no interest in doing so, it doesn’t make sense to me. As I said on the show itself, it was listening to N.W.A’s Straight Outta Compton that inspired us to make [1991's] The Low End Theory, and years later I spoke to Dr. Dre and he told me that hearing The Low End Theory inspired him to make The Chronic. That’s what music does. That’s what artists do, they seek out information of all kinds.”

Served.

Exhibit B: Kanye West is also known for being on the mouthy side. Like when he got all mad about not winning the Video of the Year for “Touch The Sky” at the 2006 MTV Europe Awards:

In a tirade riddled with expletives, West said he should have won the prize for his video “Touch The Sky,” because it “cost a million dollars, Pamela Anderson was in it. I was jumping across canyons.” -MSNBC

Don’t get me wrong, Kanye puts out some bumpin’ albums. I listened to The College Dropout on repeat for probably about a month, but damn, that guy talks a lot of shit. Here’s his backstage meltdown. It’s also interesting that he took on the cartoonish gangsta 50 Cent, and challenged him to album-sales duel. More fuel to the fire.

Exhibit C: Shala of Qualo (another Chicago rap group) sits somewhere in the grey area between gangsta and backpack. But even in the middle, there’s room to run your mouth. This guy has enough balls to come-with-it in a CNN interview like blaaaow:

SHALA: What I’m saying is I refer to hos as hos, bitches as bitches, women as women, queens and queens, racist as racist, black men as black men, niggas as niggas. People are — you refer to people as they represent themselves and that is America and that is the world and that’s what people do.
MARTIN: So, if somebody said…
SHALA: So, you’re kind of putting words in my mouth.

In truth, they’re all just trying to keep it gully, mayne. Chicago is blowing up in terms of real talk. Those rappers are loud, but honest. And even if the dialogue isn’t exactly well thought-out, it brings attention to the new things happening in the rap scene. And besides, it’s a free country. You will be heard, Chicago.

Today, October 9th, is John Lennon’s birthday. The former Beatle turned 67 years old today, and despite having not released an album of new material in over 27 years, remains a relevant rock icon today.
(I hold the unpopular position that John Lennon faked his murder in 1980 and lives on a private, uncharted island with Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley, Andy Kaufman and my schnauzer, Bentley. They are all very happy there and my mom says I can visit them some day.)

This morning I caught Terry Gross‘ interview with Steven Colbert on NPR. They were discussing his new book entitled I Am America (And So Can You!), which might be the most awesomely titled piece of literature since War and Peace. The reason I bring this up is because I’m reminded of one of Colbert’s bits he had during his tenure on The Daily Show with John Stewart. This was a long time ago so I’ll have to paraphrase, but it went something along the lines of this:

“And now for some news that will be depressing for bong-clutching college graduates: By the time they were 30, the Beatles had already broken up.”

(I totally stole that last picture from The Onion.)