The fabulous Live at Lerner series continues this afternoon at 12 in the Piano Lounge. This week showcases the musical stylings of The Loom, who say of their sound, “we’re a rock band but it’s kind of folky,” and their latest album, “it is a simple search for joy.” The band was deemed “The Next Big Thing” in the NYTimes and has received love from the New Yorker and Paste.

Yanyi and her crew are also providing piles of delicious food to satisfy your physical as well as your spiritual needs.

The menu du jour:

• Chili, both meat and vegetarian, replete with with cheese, sour cream, and scallions
• Corn bread!
• Crudité
• Churros
• Red, green, yellow apples

Intrigued by the genuine loveliness of this event? Check out our conversation with Yanyi about the concert series from earlier in the semester.

Night of the Living Daed

Who doesn’t love free fun? Bwog’s Wednesday feature, Where Art Thou?, surely does. Do you supply the Columbia community with free fun? Expensive fun? Moderately priced fun? Let us know at events@bwog.com.

• La Ronde, 8pm at Riverside Theatre. Through Saturday. New work featuring MFA acting students. A Turn of the Century Sex Romp: whores, soldiers, parlor maids, death! Witness the men and women of Arthur Schnitzler’s Vienna spin through the pleasures of life and relationships while embracing their inevitable mortality. Visit the TIC for more info.
• #CONTROLTOPPROBLEMS, 9pm – 10pm in Held Auditorium, 304 Barnard Hall. Control Top is Columbia’s only all-female, long-form improv group. Stop by Control Top’s first show of the semester and see special guest Fruit Paunch. Free.
• Daedalus Quartet: The Night of the Living Daed, 10pm – midnight in 301 Philosophy. Classical musical and free food. Who needs anything else?
  

A younger Miles with a smile

Bwog’s resident blue note enthusiast Briana Last reports from Thursday’s talk.

It was hard finding a seat in Room 622, Dodge Hall Thursday night at 8 PM. In fact, more than a dozen people stood outside the door for two hours, peering their heads in to listen to the raspy impersonation of Miles Davis that Quincy Troupe put on so expertly. Troupe’s shoulder-length braids, ornate scarf, and sleekly polished dress shoes are just indications of the flair he resonates in both his own personal life and the manner in which he tells a story.

Quincy Troupe is the perfect man to host a lecture called “Kind of Blue to Bitches Brew,” an analytical survey of Miles Davis’s musical reinventions and aspirations during and between the release of those two albums (1958-1970). Troupe, a St. Louis native born “right across the river” from where Davis grew up in East St. Louis, was one of Davis’s closest friends. Quincy Troupe attributes this to the fact that he wasn’t afraid to let Davis know when he was acting out of hand: “He knew not to threaten me because I would have whooped him.” Whenever Davis tried his sass, he would reply, “Imma aim for your lip and break your embouchure.” Miles’s only response: “Shiiiiit.” Famous for writing the memoirs of their friendship in a book called Miles and Me, Troupe established a relationship with Davis that was envied by writers who knew him to be a very private person, wary of critics who wanted to dissect and categorize his work. According to Troupe, “Miles hated the term ‘jazz.’ He said he was simply playing music.” Read more…

Skewering Musicians With A Gigantic 3-Pronged Weapon And A Thesaurus

Pitchfork—the website whose album reviews have a Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease score on par with your student loan agreement—stopped by for WBAR-B-Q last Friday. They posted some snazzy pictures here and here. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to like these pictures before they were cool. 19 people already like the album on facebook.

Read a recap of the festivities from Bwog’s All Things Alfresco correspondent Zoe Camp after the jump!

WBBQ

Our friends at WBAR threw together this awesome mix featuring tracks by each of the ten bands scheduled to play at this upcoming Friday’s annual WBBQ.

Some Highlights: Real Estate earned Pitchfork’s prestigious best new music with their self-titled album. The Crystal Ark, lead by Gavin Russom, counts two of the former members of LCD Soundsystem among their ranks and will be performing their 2nd US show. Blondes promise to fulfill your Balearic disco dreams.

Tracklist after the jump. Download the full mix here.
WBARBQ2011 by djdjnate

Read more…

Fight!

The Abacchalypse approaches! CU Records has selected the 10 bands that will compete on Friday, April 15th to be the opening band at Bacchanal. A panel of 3 outside judges and an audience vote will determine the winner of the Battle of the Bands. Check out the bands’ websites to whet your palette:

• Simon Herzog & Warrior Monks
• Night Eyes
• Life Size Maps
• Blaxel
• CUSH (Columbia University Society of HipHop)
• Daniel Murcia
• Lucky Chops
• Tha Pyro
• Jake Snider

Also check out this mixtape of Snoop and Das Racist tracks, compiled by Rajib Mitra, SEAS ’11 and these two free Das Racist mixtapes available for free via the artist’s website.

HxC via Wikimedia Commons.

Columbia Festival of Winds?

Bwog’s kind-of-new Wednesday feature, Where Art Thou?, is here to keep you posted on what’s going on in the A&E department in Morningside Heights and beyond (basically all the cool events your friends are in/on/at). If you would like your whatever-event-we-just-want-to-have-a-VIP-option posted on Bwog, now you can! E-mail us at events@bwog.com.

Thursday

• CU Records Lounge Night + Women in Music, from 7 to 9 pm in Liz’s Place, featuring campus’ acoustic talent, Free.
• Cahoot’s MacBeth, starting Thursday at 8 pm and running through Saturday in Minor Latham Playhouse at Barnard. Part of the Senior Thesis Festival. Free.
• MaMa Project 2011: Embers, starting Thursday at 8 pm and running though Saturday in Lerner Black Box. $5 with CUID, $10 without.
• The Saint Plays, starting Thursday at 9 pm and running through Saturday in Minor Latham Playhouse at Barnard. Part of the Senior Thesis Festival. Free.

Friday

• Composer Portrait: Mario Davidosky, Friday at 8 pm in Miller Theatre. $15 CUID, $25 without.
• Casino Night 2011, Friday at 8 pm in Roone. Get your gamble on! $4 with or without CUID.
• The Rock N Roll Jamboree, Friday at 8 pm in the VagBox. Student music! $4 with or without CUID.
• Postcrypt Art Gallery: Shelf Life, opening reception Friday at 8 pm in the basement of St. Paul’s. Free.
• Tones^2! Metrotones Study Break: Ft. the Haverford Humtones, Friday at 9 pm in Furnald Lounge. Free.
• Lemme NAK It Giiirl: Notes and Keys’ Mid-Semester Concert, Friday at 9:30 pm in C555 Lerner. Free.

Saturday

• Columbia Classical Performers In Concert, Saturday at 4 pm in Lerner C555. Free.
• Lunar Gala 2011: Pulse, Saturday at 6 pm in the Low Library Rotunda. Tickets are $10 in advance, $12 at door.
• Hope Is Viral: 30 Years in the Fight Against HIV/AIDS, Saturday at 8 pm in Roone. Benefit show. $5 CUID, $7 without.

Sunday

• The 3rd Annual Columbia Festival of Winds, Sunday at 2 pm in Roone. $ 5 CUID, $15 without, $40 VIP package.

Bwog’s kind-of-new Wednesday feature, Where Art Thou?, is here to keep you posted on what’s going on in the A&E department in Morningside Heights and beyond (basically all the cool events your friends are in/on/at). If you would like your mysterious-due-to-copyright-laws Action Film Screening posted on Bwog, now you can! E-mail us at events@bwog.com.

Today!

• The Varsity Show’s West End Preview, TONIGHT at 9 and 10:30 pm at Havana Central. $3 at door.
• Literary Film Screening, today at 9 pm in Harmony’s first floor lounge. Free.

Tomorrow!

• Film Screening: Growing up Barnard, Thursday at 6pm in the VagBox. Free

Friday!

• Postcrypt Exodus, Friday at 8 pm at 285 East Third Street (Between Ave C & D) #2. $3 at door.

Saturday!

• Violin Recital, Saturday at 4 pm in Lerner C555. Free.
• Naach Nation, Saturday at 7:30 pm in Roone. $12.

Sunday!

• Battle of the Bands: Assassins Kick-off, Sunday at 5 pm in Lerner Party Space. Free. There will be free Mel’s, too.

Adventure via Wikimedia Commons

One of the greatest perks of an Ivy League education–right in NYC, no less–is having all sorts of guest lecturers and talks hosted right on campus. Yet many of these great talks are not publicized enough. Enter Bucket List, a weekly feature that aggregates these events in a single location that will hopefully make you realize, like Bwog has, just how special our campus is. Our recommendations for this week are below; the full list is after the jump. Take a gander, who knows what you’ll find!

Recommended:

Wed, Nov 3

• “A Free Press for a Global Society: The Great Debate” Low Library Rotunda, 9:00 am – 11:30 am, Lee Bollinger, Benjamin Liebman, Nazila Ghanea, Peter Herford, Qin Liwen, and Fred Teng
• “The Kazakh Quartet Tlep” Satow Room, Lerner Hall, 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm
• “Native American Heritage Month Opening Ceremony and Banquet” James Room, 4^th Floor Barnard Hall, 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm, Sterlin Harjo

Thurs, Nov 4

• “Realism and American Grand Strategy: The Case for Offshore Balancing” 1501 IAB, 4:15 pm – 6:00 pm, Stephen Walt and Kenneth Waltz
• “God of Creation/God of Destruction: An Eco-Theological Perspective on the Meaning of Evil and Suffering” Rennert Hall, Kraft Center, 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm, Rabbi Lawrence Troster
• “Let Us Go Out into the Starry Night: Three Plays” Austin E. Quigley Black Box Theater, Lerner Hall, 8:00 pm – 10:00 pm, Runs Through Nov. 6, CU Players

Fri, Nov 5

• “India: Economic Policies and Outcomes” Low Library and Faculty House, 8:30 am – Nov 6, 2:30 pm, Alfred Stepan, Pavithra Suryanarayan, Poonam Gupta, Arvind Panagariya, Ashutosh Varshney, Pradeep Chhibber, Ashok Gulati, Kaveri Ganguly, Ashok Kotwal, Rajeev Kohli, Jagdish Bhagwati, Rajeev Dehejia, Rakesh Mohan, Barry Bosworth, Pravin Krishna, Guru Sethupathy, Amartya Lahiri, Nandini Gupta, Jan Svejnar, Anusha Chari, Shankar Acharya, Jay Panda, N.K. Singh, and T.N. Srinivasan
  “A Jihad for Love: Screening and Conversation” 569 Lerner Hall, 7:30 pm – 10:00 pm, Parvez Sharma
• “Jamnesty” Earl Hall Auditorium, 2^nd Floor Earl Hall, 8:30 pm – 11:00 pm, Blaxel, Dominique Star, Nonsequitur, Plastic People, Jared Frieder, Osekre

Sat, Nov 6

• “Diwali Celebration” Roone Arledge Auditorium, Lerner Hall, 7:00 pm – 12:00 am, Various
• “First (Friday): Ko$her” Lerner Party Space, Lerner Hall, 11:00 pm – 3:00 am, Various

Read more…

This truck is overturned.

Jeffrey Milarsky, conductor of our own CU Orchestra, debuted yesterday as conductor of the LA Philharmonic, for the concert “Green Umbrella: Bang on a Can.”

A federal judge in California overturned DADT, and has ordered military recruiters to start accepting gay recruits. (NYT)

The J-School is making a news outlet website for NYC. (NY Convergence)

The CSA says that the CSA is now better, so more people use it. (Spec)

Image via Wikimedia

Today is an alternating Wednesday. So welcome back to QuickTix! Remember the TIC? Remember that you said you wanted to see New York?

Tickets sold for on campus events this week: 990

On campus events on sale now:

• 7th Annual Guria Benefit: October 9th @ 6:30pm, Roone, $10, Tickets.

• The Physicists: October 21st @ 3pm and 8pm and October 23rd @ 8pm, Minor Latham Playhous, $5 with CUID, Tickets.

• Afropolitan: October 9th @ 10pm and October 10th @8 pm, Lerner Party Space/Roone, $10 with CUID, Tickets.

Tickets sold for off campus events this week: 880

Off campus events on sale now:

• Fall for Dance Prgr 4: October 6th @8pm, $13, Tickets.

• Fall for Dance Prgr 5: October 8th @ 8pm, $13, Tickets.

• Sankai Juku: October 9th @ 8pm, $36, Tickets.

• Contes d’Hoffman, Les: October 12th @ 8pm, $29, Tickets.

• Fela!: October 14th @ 8pm, $33, Tickets!

• Scottsboro Boys: October 21st @ 6pm, $32.5, Tickets.

• Wicked: October 27th @ 8pm, $58, Tickets.

The flash mob to take back Low is happening at 1pm! Apparently this is what you have to do:

“1) DOWNLOAD our free podcast by visiting http://tiny.cc/listentolow and following the link to the iTunes store.

2) INVITE at least 10 of your friends who you think would also enjoy taking part in this unique event.

3) ARRIVE at our secret meeting place in front of Butler Library at 1:00pm on Thursday April 8th with the following – ipod/mp3 player with the podcast ready to play – headphones – a book of your choosing in hand

4) AWAIT a sign for when to press play and help reclaim Low Library!”

Photo via Wikimedia

Happy listening!

Photo via waitwhat

If you haven’t heard of wait what yet, your playlist is due for an update. Wait what, (aka Columbia alum Charlie Kubal, CC ’08) released his first album last Thursday called The Notorious xx (click for free download), a mash up of Biggie and The xx. It’s caught on: NYMag, Prefix Mag, and the general worldwidewebz have given the mashup their kudos. Charlie, who currently lives in San Fransisco, started out DJing in high school and was once in a band called Jubala. He’s played sets at bars and house parties, but recently has been more into creating new tracks. Here’s what has to say about his music and his time at Columbia.

Columbia’s influence

Columbia played a pretty substantial role for me — I did shows on WBAR for a couple semesters, recorded tracks in my room in McBain, and got to take classes from two of the most awesome music professors you could imagine: Brad Garton and Terry Pender at the Computer Music Center on 125th. ADP and Postcrypt were both really cool venues to check out new music, too.

The Columbia music scene was definitely getting better during my time — there were some awesome artists there: Vampire Weekend obviously leading the pack, but also Supraliminal, The Stolen Cars, Live+Direct, Kane, Reni Laine, Anton Glamb, Farm to Market — lots of people doing really cool stuff.

One thing that’s tough about Columbia is the tendency, that I found, for Columbia kids’ baseline attitude to be to dislike something — there’s a unique brand of hate that Columbia kids tend to have for new things, as if an implicitly negative attitude makes your opinion more compelling. I was guilty of this too, and when the Varsity Show touched on it (my Senior year, so ’08), and it really resonated.

Read more…

Bwog’s Late Night Dining/Procrastinating Correspondent Carolyn Ruvkun asked the staff of JJ’s Place to compile “celebrity playlists.” As follows is what they returned with great excitement; Bwog proudly presents you with enough conversation starters to last you through the semester. Procrastinate on, friends.

Willie

• Clear Touch, “Freestyle”
• Noel, “Silent Morning”
• Michael Jackson, “Beat it”
• Cynthia, “Endless Nights”
• Lil Wayne, “Got Money”
• Beyonce, “If I Were a Boy”
• Jay-Z, ”Jockin”
• Judy Torres, “No Reason to Cry”
• Lil Wayne, “Mrs. Officer”
• Coro, “Where are you tonight?”
• Giggles, “Love Letter”

Read more…

Photo by Burning Star Core

Barnard College Radio WBAR has posted the lineup for their annual outdoor BBQ and concert! On Sunday April 25^th_­­ from noon to 10pm on the Lehman Lawn, you can look forward to hearing:

Cold Cave

Blues Control

Liturgy

Burning Star Core

Jana Hunter

Twin Stumps

U.S. Girls

Thing About Life (They’re playing early, so get there early)

Prince Rama of Ayodhya

Old Men

There will be free food too (and they promise not to run out)!