By Elisa Lomazzo

To promote her new album The Idler Wheel is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Chords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do, Fiona Apple returned to the stage for just seven performances, almost all of which were sold out in a matter of minutes. Idler is the singer’s fourth album and the first in nearly seven years, hence the ticket sales. I was lucky enough to attend her show at Royale last Tuesday night, and boy was I happy.

On stage, Fiona appears as frail as a twig, but the husky voice that pours from her petite frame is a testament to her inner power. Though her singing is unpolished and undeniably pitchy, it is the vulnerability that draws us into her world. And it is certainly her world that we are in. As she sings, she stands center stage, looking straight out above the audience, making no eye contact with us at all. It is as if she is performing in a musical, with the fourth wall securely around her. In a passion, she dances wildly to the music, extending her scrawny limbs like a mad child. Sometimes, she paws at the piano or collapses onto the floor, as if her emotions are too overwhelming. But it is all part of the act. Fiona is pure theatre.

Among the songs performed were old favorites including Fast as You Can, Paper Bag, Extraordinary Machine, and Sleep to Dream. Each was sung with the same gruff nuances as on the recordings, and the band was equally as vibrant. I was mesmerized by the selections from the new album, and took a special liking to the song “Every Single Night.” The song is Fiona’s narrative of the battle with her overactive brain, and while most artists can relate to the affliction, none could articulate it so beautifully as Fiona has done. That is the magic of Fiona’s writing: she takes a concept so simple, and finely tunes it until her language has been woven into an intricate story. From what I heard at the show, the new album exhibits much of Fiona’s signature jazz/blues style, and the melodies still maintain the Gerwshin-esque influence heard on the last two albums.

There is something strong and yet so fragile about Fiona Apple, be it her voice, her body, or her writing. With her erratic on-stage remarks and nervous energy, she is as jagged as she is tender, and leaves us feeling like the twig could snap at any moment. But this, I assume, is her intention: she gives the crowd exactly the kind of spectacle it desires. She gives the crowd everything it wants except an encore. On Tuesday night, we waited and we chanted for nearly 20 minutes, but Fiona never came back to give us more. But then again, Fiona Apple has never been one to follow the rules. Remember her 1997 VMA acceptance speech?

Hallelujah, the Boston Blackout is officially over. The power shortage, first caused by the eruption of 115,000-volt transformer on Tuesday evening, has sent most of Back Bay into the 14^th century for almost 3 days.

The thick black smoke that rose from the transformers seemed to surface just moments after firefighters and police officers hosed down TC’s Lounge, located across the street from the 150 building. The fire in TC’s was caused by a short circuit in a beer cooler behind the bar, but the series of events left many students wondering whether the fires were part of a conspiracy. Thankfully, they were just coincidences.

Though both the classrooms and cafeteria were closed due to the lack of power, Berklee provided lunch for all students on Wednesday afternoon at 7 Haviland and cancelled all classes. The entire Back Bay area received power between the hours 2 and 4 this morning, and to the dismay of the student body classes were held today. For  a reason unbeknownst to the Groove, the library and media centers are still closed.

According to the office of the Registrar, the midterms cancelled on Wednesday and Thursday will be held during the weeks after school resumes from Spring break. Nothing has been made official yet, however, and the registrar staff members say makeup exams will probably be scheduled by individual professors.

Photo by Hilary Walsh

Malaysian singer/songwriter Zee Avi joined us in Boston at Great Scott last Tuesday night as part of the tour for her new album Ghostbird. The 25-year old can’t be more than 5 feet tall, but her presence was far from little. In her oversized brown sweater, beaded hippie necklace, and flowing black hair, Zee Avi embodied the earth mother type and made us all feel safe in her care.

As a songwriter, Avi manages to combine a mixture of diverse influences while at the same time staying under one thematic arc. Her sound exhibits hints of folk, country, indie rock, and dixie jazz, and while many of the songs are fairly light and mellow, Avi and her trio ornament them well. Tuesday’s live set featured Avi on acoustic guitar and ukulele, while some of the more Indian-influenced songs, like “Roll Your Head in the Sand,” called for dulcimer and percussion. Other tunes were more along the lines of country, including 31 Days, a mid-tempo shuffle that reminded me of something June Carter might have sung.

One common thread among all of the songs is the story-like quality of the content. Avi is clever and poetic, yet she maintains a simplicity that does not overwhelm her listener. With lyrics like “The turtle is slowly and is happy with his face of life/The flamingo walks with elegant grace—she knows she’s one of a kind” from the “The Book of Morris Johnson,” I got the feeling Avi sees the world through the wide eyes of a romantic. The poppy up-tempo song, laden with cute images of animals, provided a nice contrast to the rest of the set, and had everybody bouncing.

Avi’s voice was as sultry as it is on the album, and every so often she threw in a little run that made it even sweeter. Still, I found myself wanting more contrast from her singing. As soothing as her vocals were, I had a difficult time paying attention after a while. Of all the songs of the night, Avi sounded beautifully confident on “Siboh Kitak Nangis (Don’t You Cry),” a smooth jazzy song written in her native language. As she danced elegantly across the small stage, I was absorbed by the depth of her tone.

The highlight of the show was “Concrete Wall,” a single featured in season 5 of Gossip Girl. I had been listening to the song on repeat all week, so I was already familiar with the wonderfully catchy melody, but seeing Avi perform it live brought true meaning to the lyrics. In sync with the drummer, Avi banged on a gong-like drum with a mallet as she sang “You make me wana throw this shoe right at the concrete wall.” While the theatre of it all made for a purely entertaining moment, Avi’s conviction revealed the power beneath her petite frame.

All in all, Zee Avi is a stylized artist and a grounded performer. Her band is solid, her music is eclectic, and she is a joy to watch. Though I do feel the show had some lukewarm moments, Avi’s lighthearted songs transported me to summertime. It was exactly the kind of warmth I was looking for on that cold February night.

When I found out Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein of the sketch comedy show Portlandia were scheduled to do a live show at the Berklee Performance Center, I immediately snagged a ticket, though I didn’t quite know what I would be witnessing. I mean, how does one do a live tour of a television show anyway? In this case, the line up included a series of improvised skits, musical performances, and video clips from Season 2.

Following a video message from Portland’s fictional mayor played by Kyle McLaughlin, and a short skit in which Armisen and Brownstein bickered over text messages, the duo grabbed their guitars and announced they would be playing some originals from the show. “Not as well as you guys can play,” said Brownstein, in a Berklee-personalized preface.  “We can name all the instruments though. That is a keyboard,” said Armisen, pointing to his right. We all chuckled at the obvious silliness that would set the tone for the next 90 minutes.

Among the musical numbers were “Dream of the 90s,” the show’s official theme song about the magical land of Portland, where hipsters still sport tribal tattoos and have dreams of playing in garage bands; and “She’s making Jewelry Now,” about an old friend who is, well, making jewelry now. Still, as Portland-centric as the comedy is, Fred and Carrie managed to make things personal for their Massachusetts audience, name-dropping other hip local hangs like Pavement and Jamaica Plain.

To add to the already intimate and unpolished setting, the pair indulged us in a slideshow of old childhood photos accompanied by some wonderfully dry commentary. Of course, anyone who watches SNL already knows that Fred Armisen is beyond witty, but Carrie, whom I had only ever associated with the band Sleater-Kinney, equally impressed me. She is cool and sarcastic, and totally complements Fred’s geekiness.

As amusing as the Season 2 video clips were, I did not prefer them to the live skit, which featured Season 1 characters Toni and Candice, the owners of the feminist bookstore “Women and Women First.” During this segment of the show, J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. made a guest appearance as Candice’s brother.

Mascis brought with him a boob-decorated cake, which a stagehand divvied up into pieces and passed out to members of the audience. The cake was small, and there was not nearly enough to feed the sold-out performance center, which made things completely awkward, and all the more hilarious. Picture this: Fred Armisen donning a grey old-lady wig, rocking out on bass with J Mascis, while strangers in the audience pass each other cake and secretly wonder whether or not they will get to enjoy a piece. It was a perfectly planned moment.

The night ended with a Q&A segment followed by a guest appearance by Eleanor Friedberg of The Fiery Furnaces, whose playful energy added to the night’s milieu. All in all, the evening was thoroughly entertaining and left all of my senses satisfied. Fred and Carrie are one part indie rock band, one part comedy duo, and definitely worth the venture. I guess it’s true what they say about every comedian wanting to be a rock star, and vice versa.

Now that the “Sh*t {insert subject} Say” videos have finally dwindled down to a fad, it seems we college students have become obsessed with a new social trend:  the Internet Meme. First coined by Richard Dawkins, the term meme is used to describe “a cultural item transmitted by repetition in a manner analogous to the biological transmission of genes.” Whatever that means, the memes have been flooding Facebook for weeks, and Berklee’s page has become quite popular.

The memes first originated in Canada at the University of Warerloo by 21-year old Saif Altimimi. Shortly after, Altimimi began creating pages for US schools including University of Michigan, Michigan State University, Wayne State University, Oakland University, Harvard, Stanford, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Altimimi is the CEO of NoteWagon, a site that buys and sells students’ class notes, and initially set up the meme pages for marketing purposes. He is the co-creator of Campus Memes and now owns 80% of the meme pages.

Though Berklee’s meme page was created independently of Altimimi, our memes have gone viral in just a couple of weeks. The page has already received over 3,000 “likes,” and over 5,000 people are “talking about it” on Facebook. By whom the page was created I do not know: its administrators have worked hard to remain anonymous, making an obvious effort to avoid my emails regarding their identities. All that they have told me is that students can submit memes by posting on the Facebook wall or submitting through the Berklee Memes Gmail account.

Judging by the amount of “likes” and “shares,” the most popular memes poke fun at music snobbery, Berklee’s male to female ratio, and the mockery of our infamous security guard, Barbara. While most people find Barbara’s doppelganger, the caustic Roz from Monster’s Inc., to be both hilarious and accurate, some students have responded with a few negative comments:

“Come on, guys. Imagine if you had to tell the same kids all day long to get off the stairs. You would yell too. If you don’t like getting yelled at, don’t stand on the stairs. Simple as that.” – anonymous student

“Barbara cares about your safety and actually miss trying to prevent students with visual impairments and big instruments from tripping on you. I am serious”– anonymous student

Yet the students running the page say they try to filter out the more offensive memes. “I’ve received no negative feedback concerning the page.  Certain meme submissions I’ve re-posted have made a few people upset, but nothing beyond a negative comment on the post. I did get a ‘Scumbag Roger Brown’ meme which I didn’t repost,” said one anonymous administrator.

So why are the memes so wildly popular? Community. People want to feel connected to those around them, they want to feel like they are a part of something they can identify with, and the memes give each school an exclusive identity. It is the ultimate inside joke. And no one knows about community quite like a Berklee student: they don’t call it the “bubble” for nothing.

When the popular blog Barstool Sports announced its Barstool Black Out Tour would be making a stop at Northeastern University, tickets sold out fast. However, some students were a little less enthusiastic about the event due to the content of the website, which they feel is offensive and misogynistic. To oppose NU’s affiliation with the event, a group of students assembled to create a group called Knockout Barstool.

Barstool is home to a bro-ish kind of humor that often features the objectification of women as its subject. Among the site’s most infamous segments are “Guess That Ass,” and “Local Smokeshow of the Day,” which allow readers to vote on celebrity rumps and rate local college girls based on their bodies. But what upset the KO Barstool team most is Barstool’s celebration of rape culture, a term used to describe the normalization of sex crimes.

“The idea is that rape jokes normalize rape. Thinking that these kind of things are funny is very hurtful and triggering to sexual abuse victims … it encourages a kind of a violent rhetoric, a rhetoric where women are at fault, where it’s okay to make threats,” says Anna Siembor, NU student and member of KO Barstool.

While Barstool’s head honcho Dave Portnoy, better known as “El Presidente,” claims he does not encourage rape, he has made sarcastic statements including, “We don’t condone rape of any kind at our Blackout Parties in mid January. However if a chick passes out that’s a grey area though,” and “Even though I never condone rape, if you’re a size 6 and you’re wearing skinny jeans you kind of deserve to be raped right? I mean skinny jeans don’t look good on size 0 and 2 chicks, nevermind size 6′s.”

Such is the rhetoric that fueled the KO Barstool team to publicly disprove of the Blackout party in a letter published by the Huntington News, the University’s unofficial student newspaper:

“We demand Northeastern University and its administration stand for women and denounce Barstool Sports and the NU Blackout Party.”

Shortly after being published, the letter fell into the hands of Portnoy himself, who immediately began his attack on the KO Barstool team. He posted the letter to the Barstool site and called its supporters “dykes” and “ugly, hairy, lunatics,” causing his followers to flood The KO Barstool Tumblr and Facebook pages with negative comments.

“A lot of the rhetoric on the site has been used against us to threaten us. People who identify as stoolies saying ‘I’m going to rape your for that.’ It was basically insulting us: calling us fat, calling us ugly, [saying] we were just jealous,” says Seimbor.

Despite the antagonistic responses, KO Barstool has received much support from students and NU’s administration. A Speak Out organized by KO Barstool and Students Occupy Boston proved to be a success, even though Portnoy showed up and tried to speak but was denied a platform to do so. Though the Blackout party did end up happening, the name of the event was changed from the “Northeastern Blackout Party” to the “Huskies Blackout Party.”

“It was never our intention to shut down the party, I don’t think that’s really an attainable goal. It was mostly our goal to kind of come out and say ‘We’re Northeastern students and we disagree with this,’” says Seimbor.

As a woman, and as a college student, I appreciate the goal, even though I think the protests gave Portnoy and his website more publicity than both deserve. While the content of Barstool Sports is obviously intended for certain audience (college-age men), such humor provides a forum in which it is acceptable to degrade women. Whether Portnoy is trying to get a laugh, or a paycheck, or whatever, he is reducing women to one or two parts of their body, and what’s worse is that the young men reading the blog now have a community of people who support that value system. Ultimately, Barstool Sports places women on the same level as livestock. The argument is not solely about abolishing rape culture, or combating the bounds of freedom of speech; it is about raising our social standards so that misogynistic humor, or any sexist humor, is no longer acceptable, just as racist humor is no longer acceptable (at least where I’m from).

Opposition of Barstool Sports continues as Boston College and Boston University join the protest. To get involved with Knockout Barstool, check out the Facebook page.

Photo by Tanya Ghosh

Jean-Pierre Didier Bouvet of Lakeville, MN  is definitely someone to keep an eye out for. JP, as most people call him, won the Guitar Center Drum Off in January, beating over 4,500 contestants for the number one spot. He is currently taking some time off from Berklee to ride the publicity wave of his big win, and while he may not be studying for finals this semester, JP certainly is not slacking off. Future plans include building his website, setting up clinics, and going on tour with Berklee band Helicopria.

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EL: Tell us a bit about your background, how did you get started in music?

JP: My mom has always been the music director in church. She plays piano and sings very well, so music was always around. I’m not sure what sparked my fascination with drums honestly, but I used to play on pots and pans with chopsticks when I was a kid, and then it got to the point where I started to break them. I took (lessons) with the same teacher for seven years and I learned a lot from him and he’s still an inspiring person today. He was such a fantastic mentor. We worked on everything, from every genre, and I think that’s where my appreciation for everything music kind of comes from. I joined my first rock band with Mike Linden in the 6^th grade, and he’s my roommate today actually. We still play in a band together called the Super Pilots that we started here at Berklee.

EL: Congratulations on winning the Guitar Center Drum Off. How did you prepare for the challenge and keep your focus throughout?

JP: Well I’m a huge advocate of preparation. Because I’ve done it like five or six years now on and off throughout my life … I didn’t think much about it … and then luckily without thinking about it too much I got through to that first round. Then … it sort of dawned on me that “there’s no reason why I can’t win this,” like I actually believed that it was possible. There was a moment where I was like “oh, I should give this my all this year ‘cause this could be it.” From that point on I was just obsessed. And pretty much every day, all day, whenever I wasn’t doing school work or practicing with the band, I was in the practice room, thinking about what I was gonna play. Everyone kind of does the same thing for the competition usually … and I wanted to bring some interesting things to the table. And a lot of the stuff I’d kind of been working on anyway, just challenging myself, so it was cool to be able to put them to use somewhere.

EL: What motivates you?

JP: The second that I believed that I could I just gave it my all. It’s (the Drum Off) often times a life-changing event for the winners. It gives you a jumpstart almost 2 years, and the publicity is huge. I mean besides being a cool experience and a fun challenge and an opportunity to sort of prove yourself among this ridiculous drumming community, it’s just … this is what I want to do for a living, and this has been an opportunity to sort of give myself a head start. That was really the main reason, because I know a lot of the guys who have won in the past, and they attribute the biggest turning point in their lives to being the Drum Off.

EL: How do you think it has changed your life so far?

JP: Well it’s really hard to tell because it’s really just beginning at this point. Some winners have gotten calls from people to go on tour, but it’s really what you make of the publicity, because as far as being … your own business as a drummer, the only ingredient is that you’re good at drums and that people know who you are. So you can work on the drums all you want but the hardest part is just getting people to know you exist. This is just a huge step in that way. If someone calls to go on tour that’s cool, but those things are very time limited: a tour ends. So that would be cool but that’s not my ultimate goal, it’s just to keep building my brand. And I basically have a year because next year they’ll have another winner and I’m basically out of the spotlight.

EL: What is your number one priority at the moment?

JP: I don’t think there’s just one single thing because I’m trying to keep several things moving at the same pace. There’s me and there’s me in Helicopria. I’m trying to push them both and use all the connections and all the publicity that I’ve been able to gather but keep them separate. And my goal for myself personally is to set up as many clinics as possible for this year and just meet as many people as possible, start to gather a real face-to-face following with people. I just really enjoy when someone says “Hey, that was inspiring.” I just put my new website up, gonna be building that up for the next year … and I started this blog … just keep in people’s eyes and ears and keep building the brand.

EL: So what are you up to now? Are you in school?

JP: I am in Boston; I just got back here yesterday, because I was in Nashville for a couple of days. I’m here for at least a year, and I did take the semester off. My return date is undetermined at this point, but Berklee is very special to me. I’ll always be connected to it but I’m not sure as to my future at the school. In time, maybe in a year or so, I’d like to move to L.A., because being there for most of January … it was really enlightening. It just has become obvious that that it the center of the universe.

EL: Where do you hope to be in five years?

JP: That I have stayed on the map, because a lot of drum off winners remain present and some sort of fall out of the public eye. I want be sort of a clinician pro, simply because I like sharing. I want people to call me for clinics and drum festivals, and then I want my website to be a happening place. I wanna keep doing the blog, I love doing the blog. I would like to by that time have worked with some big artists. And mainly just have a steady stream of exciting adventures to go on, whether it’s world tours, studio sessions, playing on video games … anything and everything. And I’m hoping that in five years Helicopria is touring the world and everyone loves us. That would be ideal.

Website: www.jpbouvetmusic.com/

Facebook: www.facebook.com/JP-Bouvet

For the last few weeks Lana Del Rey has been the name on everybody’s lips; mainly because of her own pillowy pair, but also due in part to the controversy that surrounds her: a slew of rocky live television performances and a suspicious makeover. Oh yeah, and her music.

For those readers living in a cave, allow me to recap. Lana Del Rey is kind of an Internet sensation. After gaining over 2 million views on Youtube for her single “Video Games,” the singer/songwriter managed to snag a deal with Interscope records. Her melancholy music, which she calls Hollywood pop/sadcore, has since garnered much attention from fans and foes. Unfortunately for Lana, most of the hype has not been in her favor.

For whatever reason, people love to hate Lana Del Rey. The worst offender to-date is the music blog Hipster Runoff, which has gone so far as to dedicate an entire section to bashing Ms. Del Rey, and made it a point to call attention to her not-so-secret past life.

Allegedly, before she was Lana Del Rey her name was Lizzy Grant. She was signed to a major label through which she released an album titled Kill Kill, but when it failed to meet expectations Del Rey took some time off to make a few changes, including her name and, judging by some old photos, her face. Bigger lips, bigger hair, and a new wardrobe earned the singer bigger publicity, but once the indie crowd caught on they assembled with pitchforks in hand, and aimed straight at the impostress.

Makeover aside, I don’t think Lana Del Rey is the real villain here. Let’s face it, before the plastic surgery nobody really noticed little ol’ Lizzy Grant. Just like nobody noticed singer/songwriter Stefani Germanotta until she went out and got herself a meat dress and a controversial caricature named Gaga. Talent or no talent, both Gaga and Lana conformed. But can you blame them?

Since the birth of megastar Madonna, female pop artists have been expected to be both musician and supermodel. Even Beyonce`, as talented and driven as we know her to be, owes her success largely to her beauty, not to mention her booty. So aren’t we, the general public, to blame for supporting an industry that over-sexualizes female artists? After all, the music industry only supplies what we demand.

Beyonce`

Lady Gaga

During Del Rey’s debut SNL performance, which turned out to be the biggest musical blunder since the Ashlee Simpson lip-syncing catastrophe, actor/musician Juliette Lewis posted a comment via Twitter writing, “Wow, watching this ‘singer’ on SNL is like watching a 12-year-old … #signofthetimes.” Suffice it to say Ms. Lewis is correct: that Lana Del Rey could get a spot on SNL without having even released an album is surely a sign of our times. Quick Internet fame has replaced the system of due paying. But really, why waste time paying dues when artists can just as easily make it to the to the top by posting a Youtube video?

Whether or not Lana Del Rey is talented enough to be at her level of celebrity is a question I have no desire to answer. Personally, I think her songs are quite pretty, but my point is neither to insult nor defend her. The sad fact remains that Lana Del Rey is just another flash-in-the-pan product of the music industry, which places more importance on an artist’s image rather than his or her art. But as carefully crafted as Lana’s image was, her bad-girl-gone-Bardot look was not enough to keep her afloat. Today her debut album Born to Die will be released, but sadly its songs won’t matter much now, for Lana Del Rey drowned before we even had the chance to take her seriously.