Author Archives: qi qiao zhong

It is the sixteenth annual university-college big band jazz festival at Moberly Arts & Cultural Centre, on March 23rd, Jazz big bands from across the lower mainland come gather and perform their sets. Schools including Douglas College, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Capilano University, UBC, and VCC.

I was invited by my friend, Cyrus Bhiladvala, who was in UBC Jazz II (Jazz two), he would perform for the last time in the band. I was not aware of the length of the event, under the impression that it would be just a performance by Jazz II, but I did end up staying for the entire event which lasted 7 hours.

I am not familiar with big band Jazz music beyond watching the movie Whiplash, but the experience was overall good, even though there wasn’t a huge variety of music. There wasn’t much differences between different bands the universities, but I noticed a trend that Capilano university brought generally larger bands compared to other schools, often having at least 3 of each trombone and trumpets compared to 1 of each from many other bands, as a result the their big bands were that much BIGGER, the Cap bands were often so loud my ears heart.

The way the event was set up was to feature the more amateur bands earlier in the day, and the heavy hitters for later in the night. Though that is not to say the earlier bands were worse than the later bands.

UBC Jazz II were up pretty early in the day. Cyrus was one of the alto one’s in jazz II, and he had two instances of solos, his first solo in Gordon Goodwin’s Hit The Bricks, featuring a steady three note groove from an electric bass. His second solo was in a big band arrangement of Jerome Kern’s Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, originally a song from the Broadway musical Roberta. Cyrus moved a lot during the solos, often bowing completely over or leaning backwards during longer melodic runs, heavily contrasting the other alto one in the band, who would stay completely still during his solos.

Cyrus was complaining to me earlier that he wished jazz II played harder music, as the night progressed I can tell that the music was getting ‘harder’, featuring much more exotic chord changes and rhythm changes, and often faster as well. To be perfectly honest I felt that jazz can get too out of hand, and out of touch when it gets ‘harder’, some of the songs played later in the night definitely felt too out there for me, but when it hits home the highlights are well worth wait in between.

One of my favorite pieces played throughout the night was Bob Florence’s Afternoon of a Prawn performed by UBC Jazz I. WHAT A RUSH, the song supposedly originated from a joke, amongst the jazzheads, the soprano sax is sometimes called a ‘fish stick’. Afternoon of a Prawn of course then features the soprano sax on the main hook. The song starts of with the keyboard, bass, and drums meandering, as if a prawn was having a nice afternoon, who would soon be heavily disturbed by a storm of ‘fish sticks’, blasting through the nice swinging rhythm with a series of jagged downward melodies with odd rhythmic changes, portraying the fish chasing the prawn through tight twists and turns in the ocean. I particularly enjoyed the sonification of such a story, I’d highly recommend everyone check out this song.

Some of the other highlight tracks include Rick Hirsch’s Catch Me If You Can, performed by CapU B Band, featuring a playful motif and rhythm, with multiple simultaneous sax leads playing leads in exotic scales, almost as if they are ‘bragging’ at the audience, like a portrayal of someone saying ‘catch me if you can’ at you, then sticking their tongue out. It’s overall a really sour track, it really tickled my fancy. More highlights include Peter Herbolzheimer’s Blues in Latin, performed by UBC Jazz I, Count Basie’s Blee Blop Blues, and many Duke Ellington tracks played by the VCC band.

It was a great night, filled with wonderful performances from many virtuosos, I was a little tired of big band Jazz music at the end of the night, but I’d recommend everyone to check out some live big band music, it’s not like anything else out there.

The physics department has always had its fair share of obsession over music, every year (I don’t know since when) we meet at the Roy Barnett Auditorium for a night of multitude of music, on the last Friday before reading break.

The night started off with a demonstration of how helium affects the voice and instruments by professor Chris Waltham. As many of us may know, helium raises the formant (speaking pitch) of the human voice, this is because helium is a lighter gas compared to the atmosphere, allowing for easier vibrations, leading to higher resonance modes.

Then we were greeted with Chopin’s Etude Op.25 No.12 in C minor, performed by grad student Leo Sporn. Chopin’s Etudes are quite a sight live, Leo’s fingers were flying left to right, laying down a storm of arpeggios. The piece is the last of Chopin’s formal studies of the piano, opus 25. The piece is composed of various arpeggios in various chord progressions in C minor, with the climax finishing in C major.

Then we got to hear Erik Satie’s Gnossienne No.1 performed by professor Frank Curzon. The Gnossiennes are well known for being free time, without time signatures of bar lines, though it feels like the piece is set in duple meter with a distinct feel. Satie was an influential artist as a part of the late 19th century Parisian avant-garde, a friend of Debussy, serving as a precursor to later movements such as minimalism.

The show had a great amount of variety. Amidst all the classical pieces, and other unmentioned classical guitar pieces, we had some pop and rock covers. A cover of When the Party’s Over by Billie Eilish was covered by grad student Samantha Cibere; Billie Eilish is a pop singer that’s been getting quite a lot of buzz in the pop music sphere as of late, making pop music featuring very softly sang vocals, as well as lyrics some would call ‘edgy’. A cover of Cream’s White Room was performed by two guitars and a bassist; they didn’t have a drummer, so the drum fills have been replaced by the trio stopping on the floor of the recital hall, it was a big embarassing to witness, but redeemable for its charming attempt. A jazzy cover of Childish Gambino’s Redbone was performed by two of my fellow undergrads, it was a very done cover; it’s always cool to see fellow students I sit in lectures with bust out unexpected talents.

Then we had a jazz trio, of piano, bass, and alto saxophone composed of professors Jim Bryan, James Charbonneau, and Mark Van Raamsdonk. They performed two jazz standards: Body and Soul by Johnny Green, and Straight, No Chaser by Thelonious Monk. Both Mark and Jim took turns soloing over the tracks. I’ve previously had the privilege to play with Mark and James as a part of the year end science one concert four years ago, and it was nice to get a chance to see Mark and James perform again prior to graduating and leaving.

To cap off the night, a string trio arrangement of Czárdás by Vittorio Monti was arranged by student Chironjeev Kanjilal, and performed by him and two other students, Kanjilal played the violin, and two cellists made up the rest of the trio .I couldn’t find much information on Monti besides his arrangement of the Czárdás, based on the music played commonly during Hugarian traditional folk dances also called Czárdás. The piece combined elements from both 19th century classical compositions, evident section with more free flowing melodies, and traditional Hungarian dance music element, incorporating faster tempo and looping melodies that was easily danceable to. Kanjilal ended the piece with all three players playing a series false harmonics in harmony with their instruments, likely to tease the physicists; it sure made me wonder ‘how they made that super high sound’, I went to ask them right after the show regarding if that was a harmonic and they told me about the false harmonics workings.

This was my last Physics and Astronomy department concert as an undergrad, I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t get a chance to perform during one, if I was to return to UBC as a grad student I’ll definitely perform there if I have time.

I had the pleasure to see Julia Holter and Tess Roby at the Imperial on the night of March 4th. Julia Holter is an art pop/avant garde singer songwriter, from Los Angeles, opening for Julia was a singer songwriter by the name Tess Roby. I first found Julia’s music when her previous album Have You in my Wilderness was released, it was a wonderful art pop album, after looking more into her discography it by far the most accessible album she’s made to date. Julia’s music has always been a standout to me in the vast music landscape. She uses a very eccentric mix of instrumentation to create the backdrop to her singing; Julia herself is a keyboardist, though unconventional, using not only piano sounds out of her electric keyboard, but frequently using clavichords and organs as well. In her band she has a drummer, an AMAZING upright bassist, a violinist and a multi-instrumentalist.

Tess Roby opened for Julia, her music can be described as minimalistic synth pop, often employing slowly shifting synth chords or arpeggios and embellishments from guitar. On stage Tess played a synthesizer and sang, and her brother was an accompanying guitarist, they had a drum machine to provide a steady rhythm. They are under the label Italians Do It Better, a label that signs many similarly groomed synth pop bands, one notable one being the Chromatics (check out the song Shadow), whom I used to enjoy quite a bit. Overall Tess Roby’s music is quite relaxing but not too eventful, there’s definitely some good hooks here and there, I’d recommend the song Ballad 5.

Touring her new album Aviary, Julia started her set with the first song off of the album Turn the Light On. It is the most chaotic, loudest track she’s ever made, it explodes from 0 to 100 immediately; there’s no discernible tempo, everything band member seems to be playing all over the place, while miraculously in sync, and Julia could still sing over the chaos somehow. This song is worth checking out for it is pure chaos, but do keep in mind it doesn’t represent Julia’s discography at all, she makes a huge range of music, I’m just personally glad she delve into a bit of noise.

For the most part, Julia’s newest album was too abstract and avant garde for me, though many did praise is for its boldness. Julia went on to perform more from her newest, as well as some oldies.

One of my favorite songs from the show, also off of the new album, is the track Words I Heard. The song is built around Julia on piano, repeating a melodic motif, while the rest of the band slowly builds up a wall of sound around that motif to a climactic moment of modulation and stopping; the song would restart at the motif again, building up to a final climax and finish. The song is special in Julia’s discography as it’s not as groovy as her other songs, but rather spacious and grand.

Another one of my favorite songs she played off of the new record is the song I Shall Love 2. The song starts off with meandering organ chords and joyful leads that perfectly resembles the mix of unknowing and joy of falling in love, featuring lyrics ‘oh I am in love, what can I do’. The song builds slowly to a gigantic, chaotic crescendo similar to her opener ‘Turn the Light On’, though this time bringing with it assurance and joy, ending with Julia singing the lyrics ‘I shall love’ repeatedly.

She played some of the older songs that I really liked. Betsy On The Roof is a ballad about saving Betsy from jumping from the roof, though nothing is well described, it is tragic and grand, conveying a sense of desperation. In the song Sea Calls Me Home, a song about being free and independent, returning to nature, she expresses a sense of freedom mixed with elegance I’ve never heard elsewhere before.

Julia’s music is truly remarkable, I’ve been listening to her album Have You In My Wilderness for years, and to this day it is still as beautiful and refreshing as it once was. I can’t recommend Julia Holter enough, please check her out.

Sharon Van Etten is a New York based singer-songwriter, who used to write mostly in the folk/rock genre, but as of late, has been exploring styles more along the lines of 80s pop, incorporating more hard hitting drums and synthesizers. I had the chance to see her at the Imperial on the corner of Main and East Hastings on Feb 22nd.

The opening act was Nilüfer Yanya was from London England. Nilüfer brought an odd breed of indie rock combined with R&B. Nilüfer’s vocals were smoky, almost lazy, but well practiced. Her older compositions from the Do You Like Pain EP were bare, with drums coming in rarely in choruses, and spare embellishments from keyboards and saxophone A good example of her older of music can be seen in her song Baby Luv, in which she sings of love troubles, being cheated. At the show played some songs that would come out with her newest album Miss Universe, released in march after the show. On the new record is going in a rock-ier direction, check out her song In Your Head, she sounds almost like the Strokes in the best way possible. I would highly recommend Nilüfer, she has a refreshing sound.

After Nilüfer Yanya, Sharon played a lot of her new songs, as one would touring a new album. Sharon Van Etten has always had very interesting sound, heavily rooted from her very mature, smoky vocals, and the way she paces her singing. In her newest album Remind Me Tomorrow, she sounded much more energetic and confident compared to her older work, writing songs reminiscing of younger years, and coming to terms of the past.

Sharon played a lot of the new songs off of her newest album. She remembers of being a teen through seeing teenagers running about New York in the song Seventeen, as well as witnessing the city’s changes over the fifteen years she’s been there. In the song Comeback Kid, she sings of visiting family and feeling like a kid again in parents’ eyes. Both these songs clock in at a medium danceable tempo propelled by a kick snare kick snare beat (stadium beat?), the topics may seem dull but Sharon performed them triumphantly, it’s a refreshing change from her mellower past.

Taking a quick change of pace, the song Jupiter 4 is by far the most atmospheric in Sharon’s discography. Named after the synthesizer behind much of the album, the song is a haunting ballad, featuring a heavy bass ostinato and ghostly embellishments whose origin was mysterious to me. It may not be as punchy a song as the rest of the show, but the way the music envelopes her singing is quite remarkable.

The show wouldn’t be complete if Sharon didn’t play any of the oldies. On the song Tarifa, Sharon played guitar like she used to. The song is about her reminiscent of a moment of love in the sunset. The song is melancholic, sung mostly over strummed guitar, the backing band provided tasteful embellishments and fills over verses, and is appropriately grand over choruses.

Sharon played a quite a few other songs, a few notable songs include Every Time the Sun Comes up, in which she sings of the mundane rituals of daily life, as well as the song You Shadow, in which she sings ‘You don’t do nothing I don’t do, you shadow’, coming off very sassy, almost disrespectful, talking about being copied and shadowed. The only negative of the show was I wished she played the song ‘Taking My Chances’, which I was expecting as the song was fairly popular. It was a great show overall, I’d recommend everyone to check out both Sharon Van Etten and Nilüfer Yanya.

Here comes my series of journals of concerts I went to over the term. The first show I went to was the CITR Shindig finals, which happened on the night of Feb 8th, at Pat’s Pub, near the corner of Main and East Hastings. CITR(at 101.9FM) is UBC’s very own student operated radio. Though the popularity of the radio format has been on a decline, there’s no stopping the independently ran station as well as their events.

Shindig is an annual musical competition hosted by CITR, in which 27 bands enter, and through 3 rounds of 3 to 1 elimination one band will remain in the end as the winner. This blog entry will entail the final night, with 3 bands that have already withstood 2 rounds of battle between bands.

The first band of the night was Sleepy Gonzales. Sleepy Gonzales was a simple four piece band, with the usual guitars, bass, keyboard and drums. Their music was fairly straightforward, one can easily place them right in the newer indie rock camp. It’s easy going, but a touch forgettable, if you like bands like alvvays, you may like them!

Russian Tim and Pavel Bures was quite a surprise, the singer Tim was from Russia, I’m not sure if the rest of the band were Russian as well, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were. They ended up providing one of the highlights of the night for me. Amidst a solid, tightly set of originals, they performed a cover of Boney M’s Rasputin. It was hardly recognizable at first, being covered by in the punk style; though once the chorus hit with ‘Ra ra Rasputin, Lover of the Russian Queen’ it was easily distinguishable. I brought a friend along that’s quite into hardcore bands, during the song he made an attempt in doing a traditional Russian dance where you kneel and hop on the floor during the song, followed by a half attempt at a mosh pit. Russian Tim was a good time, I’d recommend anyone looking for a fun punk band to check out Russian Tim and Pavel Bures.

Last of all, in my opinion the most interesting band of the night was most definitely girlsnails, (pronounced girls nails). Girlsnails was a math rock band, now some of you would think what is math rock? Math rock takes the traditional role of the guitar and completely throws out the window. Gone is the strummed chords (for the most part), replace them with a constant barrage of tapped or picked melody outlining harmony, and you got yourself math rock. The band had two guitarists, 3 horns consisting of sax, trumpet and trombone, a drummer and a singer.

As a seasoned listener of mostly rock sub-genres, while not well versed with math rock, seeing girlsnails is like reliving a long lost dream. The predominantly melodic approach of the guitar makes the harmony hard to make out, which contributes to the dream-like, floaty quality of the music, one can maybe call it polyphonic. Through many revisions of this journal trying to describe girlsnails, it dawned on me that I really can’t solely describe their music without drawing parallels to the American Football. American Football (yes that’s their name) is arguably the quintessential mid-west math/emo band. Everything that I’ve described about girlsnails regarding the guitar playing can be applied to American Football, I’d strongly recommend them.

A Girlsnails song can either start off jumping directly into the verse, or by starting with a more down-tempo intro. In the case of an intro, the guitars would start off playing around each other, slowly painting a vague picture of the song to come, while the drummer starting off sparingly with the drums, this can be heard in If Rodney Were as Cowboy. Droning open strings are used a lot in their guitar playing to create harmony, filling space while melodies while melodies are tapped. With their lightning fast tapping technique, they often throw in ‘glitch like’ phrases that are vibrant while alien.

In a verse they would arpeggiating guitars doing simpler parts in verses to serve as backdrop to the lead vocals. The singing is generally laid back and non-confrontational, the vocals really do carry the same urgency that American Football carried, though it does stand out as Laura brings with her a feminine touch that is different from Mike Kinseller (singer of AF).

The choruses are what you expect from a rock band, but in this case in math rock fashion, a stronger hook is presented in vocals, and counterpointed by melodies from guitars and horns throughout. Horns are scattered throughout songs to heighten the mood and tension, generally later in the verses and throughout choruses, American Football also have horns.

Now you may think this band isn’t original at all, with me constantly comparing them to AF, here’s a key difference: throughout their songs girlsnails would throw in unexpected breakdowns. In a breakdown the tension is brought to the max, it can be performed in a different time signature, often odd. Breakdowns frequently employ dramatic synchronized short pauses, as well as heavy syncopation. The band generally plays as loud as possible during breakdowns as well. These breakdowns are sprinkled throughout their music, though tastefully, as well as well transitioned to and fro other sections of their songs. American Football, to my knowledge, does not employ frequently, though I may be wrong. Talking about breakdowns, this actually allows me to draw attention to another math rock band Hella, to describe Hella simply, every song they have is essentially a series of breakdowns, with a heavy pinch of noise, atonality and glitches. Hella is likely out of the scope of most people in this class I strongly recommend checking them out.

Though I do love their music there is definitely issues, one being that the compositions are mostly guitar and drum focused. Knowing the history of the band, I knew the guitarists have composed a lot of the songs dating from years back, the horns and vocals are added on later to ‘complete’ the song. They did a great job, and the songs flowed generally very well, but often times I did wish things arose more naturally. It’s likely a simple mismatch of my expectations to their music, and I’m just accusing them of a issue rooted in my difference in taste.

I see this journal has gone on for too long, to cap it off, I very much enjoyed girlsnails set, they ended the entire thing with a huge breakdown/crescendo that gave me serious shivers. Ultimately girlsnails won shindig WOOHOO! From which they’ll get a chance to record in a professional studio, I would love to hear something new the band, for now you can find girlsnails music by googling them, which will direct you to a link on bandcamp, this can also be said for the other bands. Thanks for reading! Support local music!