Moved On

Movin' On has come and gone, and after another year with middling attendance and a lot of complaints about the lineup, I just can't help but wonder what the future holds for the festival.

I've looked back at past lineups and wondered what happened. Don't get me wrong — Phantom Planet was awesome; Piebald put on a great, fun show; Authority Zero had people going insane; and Lemonsoul, a local band, got one of the best receptions of any bands on the lawn.

But maybe that's just the problem. Not to take anything away from Lemonsoul, but when there are nine bands from out of town being paid to play a show and a local band outshines six of them, something is very wrong.

I've looked back at past shows and wondered how we got to this point. In 2003, before I came to Penn State, the headliner of Movin' On was Wilco. The band had just released Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, one of the top ten albums of this decade. Apparently, Penn State had no idea, because after that year, Movin' On took a new direction with its booking and progressed towards more "popular" acts. Judging from the crowd at the HUB lawn Saturday night, it's not working very well. Since Wilco, the festival has featured Bowling For Soup (so bad it's offensive), Rusted Root (an over-the-hill Rusted Root, mind you), Talib Kweli (awesome, but as evidenced by Kidz in the Hall's reception Saturday, State College ain't a hip-hop town), and Phantom Planet. Movin' On is a very necessary event for Penn State, but the receptions over the years just go to show that you can't possibly please everyone. Sometimes, it seems, you can't please anyone.

Let's face it: there are 40,000 students here, only some of which really care about who plays Movin' On. State College is a football town, not a music town. If you're going to put on a concert, you can't try to please casual music fans. You've gotta get four or five bands that appeal to the most fervent music fans out there.

Fun Afoot

I’m a little overwhelmed.

As a Penn State student, I’m excited about this coming weekend. As a member of the arts staff, I’m stressed out.

Friday night at Chronic Town (I still can’t believe they call it that) is the aptly named Fallin’ Back festival, comprised of six local bands who, despite having quite a following in State College, all missed the cut to play at the Movin’ On Battle of the Bands.

Saturday evening is the student film festival, screened at the State Theatre and open only to students. I went last year (held at Schwab) and came away impressed, and I’m kind of miffed I won’t be able to attend this year.

Unfortunately, Movin’ On is scheduled to begin before the film festival and end well after it, and as a senior music reporter, I’ll be on the HUB lawn all day.

This isn’t really a big deal as Movin’ On will certainly have its share of highlights as well.

I’ve seen Piebald a few times, and they always put on a great show. When I interviewed lead singer Travis Shettel last week, he promised that they would only play a few songs from the newest album—a good thing, because even though Accidental Gentleman isn’t bad, it’s a little bit of a letdown after All Ears, All Eyes, All the Time and We Are the Only Friends We Have, the latter of which being one of my favorite albums ever.

I’ve seen Days Away a few times as well, opening for other bands, and they’re not bad either. I’ve listened to a little bit of You, Me, and Everyone we know, and they sound like a combination of Fall Out Boy (bad) and Say Anything (awesome). Hopefully the live performance is closer to the latter.

Sunday night is My Chemical Romance and Muse at the Bryce Jordan Center, which has potential as well.

Oh, and my brother is coming up for the weekend, so I have to entertain him as well. I guess that won’t be too hard.

Knockin' On Heaven's Door

It's tough to think about the arts scene in State College after the events at Virginia Tech earlier this week. But it always seems as though musicians do wonders for the healing process in times like these. After 9/11, there was the Concert for New York. After Hurricane Katrina, there were the all-star singles. Then there's Live Aid, Farm Aid, Live 8, Band-Aid, and so on.

In State College, the healing process can start when a couple of bands in the area do what they can to turn this into a positive situation. The Man, a jazz/rock fusion band and one of the winners of last week's Battle of the Bands competition, is teaming up with a bluegrass band called Hay Sugar for a benefit concert this Thursday at Chronic Town.

As of yet, there's no indication that there's a national tribute show in the works. But if history holds true, there should be. And considering this week's events plus the fact that a couple State College bands got a show together in two days, there's no excuse for the national acts not to get something together.

If you're looking to give to a good cause, here's your timely opportunity. The Man is the only original funk/fusion band in State College and they won a spot at Movin' On, so they must be doing something right. Hay Sugar is a new band and one of few bluegrass acts in State College. Plus, Chronic Town is a sweet hang. There's something for everyone, and it's for charity. Rock on, Hokies.

Let's all go to the movies

I don’t know if seeing a couple of Hollywood movies over the weekend counts as “local arts,” but since I will lamentably have to miss the upcoming student film festival, we’ll roll with it.

Friday night, I saw Grindhouse, the Rodriguez/Tarantino (/Roth/Wright/Zombie) double feature, which may be the fastest three and a half hours in recorded history. I have never sat that long in a movie theater without checking the time.

Both films were throwbacks to vintage horror films but managed to be somewhat postmodern in their portrayal. Though the movies screamed “1970’s,” from the wardrobe to the sets to the cars, neither director had any qualms with anachronism, as characters make use of cell phones and talk about Osama bin Laden.

Further, grainy film stock and faux-damaged reels served both to give the film a decades-ago feel and to present the stories in a less conventional narrative format.

On Saturday, I went to see Blades of Glory. I was extremely conflicted going in: members of the cast had me unsure of what to expect. Nick Swardson and Will Arnett can make me laugh with whatever they do, but Will Ferrell is pretty hit-or-miss and Jon Heder is usually just miss.

Will Ferrell as a realistic human being is usually a waste of time. The characters he played in Stranger than Fiction and Kicking and Screaming are too regular for Ferrell’s comedic abilities to shine through. In a movie like Anchorman, Ferrell as a completely out of touch, over the top, completely preposterous character is gold. Chazz Michael Michaels of Blades of Glory, from his nymphomania to his childish bickering with Heder’s Jack MacElroy, was much closer to the latter.

While the movie was one of Ferrell’s funniest, the most turbulent scene of the film came when Jack MacElroy was about to kiss Katie Van Waldenberg. In the context of the movie, this was fine.

What made this troubling was that these characters were played by Jon Heder (star of perhaps the most overrated and inexplicably popular movie of all time, Napoleon Dynamite) and Jenna Fischer (who plays Pam on “The Office,” also known as “The only show on television that’s worth watching on a weekly basis”).

Because of characters they’ve played in the past (and in Fischer’s case, still plays), I have diametrically opposite opinions on these two people, and watching them kiss was nearly unwatchable.

Grindhouse and Blades of Glory might be about as different as two movies can be (even though I spent a lot of time laughing during both), but they were equally enjoyable.

Souled Out

Being a critic often has its downside. Sure, I get to tell everyone about their shortcomings, but after a while, it's hard not being able to enjoy mindless entertainment for what it is. For example, I'm glad that my friends can get a laugh out of Dane Cook, but for me, he wore out his welcome a long time ago. I got sick of Dave Matthews Band in 8th grade, but more power to everyone who can get through his songs anymore.

This burden follows me everywhere, though, and unfortunately, that makes it difficult for me to tolerate the environments at some of State College's finest dance atmospheres like The Cell Block or Players. When I think of dancing, I'm thinking more groove than grind, more funky than freaky. It's for this reason that I went to Chronic Town's monthly all-ages dance party Soulution on Friday night.

I understand that people might question why there's a $2 cover at a place that doesn't serve alcohol. But you can stretch that two bucks as far as you want if you like good soul, R&B, Motown or funk music. And besides the joy of getting down to James Brown, The Jackson 5, and Aretha Franklin, you can also observe a room full of pale indie kids attempting to dance while you smoke a hookah and lounge in the comfy old furniture. It's sort of like a bunch of people in their bedrooms dancing around in their underwear, but without the bedrooms or underwear. Er...with the underwear, plus more clothes.

This past Friday, it was hard to take a break from the dancing just to sit down. Every time I'd go to hang out with my friends for a bit, the DJ would start calling my name: James Brown's "Sex Machine," The Jackson 5's "ABC," Aretha Franklin's "Think," Stevie Wonder's "Signed, Sealed, Delivered," and so on. The nights usually start with some more subdued music until about halfway through the party when the funk gets turned up a few notches.

Since the events are monthly, I suppose that leaves room for only one more at the end of April. But for the crowd sick of the same old weekend grind, it's a great experience to see if you've still got soul power.

Happier times in Happy Valley

As regular readers of this blog may know, Roustabout! is one of the most reliable forms of entertainment in all of State College. As a senior music reporter, it’s difficult for me to admit that I didn't go to my first one until last Friday night.

Sometimes, I wasn’t fond of the bands that were playing. Sometimes, plans to go to the event would fall through at the last minute. There are tons of excuses, but none of them are very good, as I learned this past weekend.

After two mostly forgettable bands finished their respective sets, Oppenheimer, a two-piece from Belfast, Northern Ireland, took the Chronic Town stage. The band put on one of the better concerts I’ve seen in my time in State College.

Oppenheimer is a synth-pop pair with music somewhere between the Postal Service and Mates of State on the cheeriness meter and a vocalist who sort of sounds like Kevin Shields. Their recorded material is pretty awesome, but their live show is something to be experienced.

As someone who spends a lot of time complaining about how there’s nothing fun to do in State College and about how Penn State has a terrible music scene, the show was a breath of fresh air.

But the fun doesn’t stop there. This coming weekend is the free Asylum-organized show in the Pollock Rec Room, headlined by Zolof the Rock and Roll Destroyer. The following weekend will have a Roustabout! featuring Loney, Dear, a band I saw over spring break who rocked my figurative socks. And before you know it, it’ll be Movin’ On time. The State College music scene is beginning to blossom.

It's no New York City

The unfortunate thing about a college town's arts scene is that when the students leave for break, so does the scene. But I couldn't let nine days of vacation go by without getting my fix of live entertainment, so I went a-road trippin'.

With the accompaniment of a fellow Collegianaire, I left my native Philadelphia for New York City. It's not that Philadelphia's scene is bad; it's anything but. This was the result of a sick twist of fate that had one of my favorite bands, of Montreal, playing Philadelphia the night before I came home for spring break. Fortunately, I lucked into a ticket to their sold-out Saturday night show at Irving Plaza in the Big Apple.

Aside from the show, New York obviously had a lot to offer. When there's that much diversity and that many people in a city, there's usually going to be a lot of options for entertainment. We glimpsed amateur painters and new styles before stumbling upon a couple acrobatic entertainers in Washington Square Park named Tic and Tac. The guys cracked jokes with the audience members and performed some awesome stunts to the sounds of an accompanying drummer.

But the highlight of my break came later that night when of Montreal took the stage. The band showcased songs from each of its last three albums, keeping the concert feeling like a dance party. And the band never shied away from stage antics, having one member dress as Darth Vader and employing the aid of a figurative dancer who shoved squashed bananas down his unitard. Bizarre? Yes. But also shockingly delightful.

Apologies to State College, but it's no New York City. But then again, maybe fruit-loving dancers aren't your cup of tea, either.