This Friday in Great Hall, the Upright Citizens Brigade will perform an improv comedy show.  Built off of one word suggestions or monologues, this improv is not like the type you see on “Who’s Line is it Anyways?”.  It is long-form improv that sets up a situation and then explores it naturally, gradually evolving it into a strangely hilarious scene. I must stress, none of it is prewritten. The show is best seen in order to be understood, so there is an example below.

The UCB was formed by Amy Poehler, Matt Besser, Ian Roberts, and Matt Walsh.  Although they are not part of the touring group, you still have the treat to see some absolutely fantastic improv following the same sort of format that the original UCB members helped make famous years ago.

A good example of the type of improv that will be done by the UCB can be found by listening to Matt Besser’s podcast “Improv4Humans”.

This Friday kicks off the last weekend before finals week and possibly the end of the world.  I would sure feel dumb if I spent my last weekend of existence cooped up in some library cramming knowledge into my head.  Besides, periodic breaks help the knowledge cement itself.  Also, I suspect most people won’t be studying until Sunday or early Saturday anyways.  Let’s not pretend otherwise.

So come down to the Sett.  Chance the Rapper will be playing.  Hailing from the south side of Chicago, Chance the Rapper (Chance Bennett) is only a year out of high school.  His lyrics reveal as much, since he mainly writes of that uniquely teenage naive love, as well as the idea of feeling inconsequential, and relationships with friends.  He has released a mixtape you can download for free here.  Called 10 Day, it’s name is a reference to his one ten-day suspension from high school.

The opener for Chance will be 3rd Dimension. 3rd Dimension is a group of five MC’s, and one DJ/Producer. Five are from Madison and one is from Milwaukee. They just recently released University Ave, their mixtape which you can download here.  It has started building up some buzz, so be sure to get to the show in time to see them.

Chance the Rapper: Lift Up

Oh boy, finals season has finally rolled around!  The phrase “desperate times call for desperate measures” is uttered throughout libraries as students pump themselves full of caffeine and study for 10 hours straight.  Someone leaves their midnight snack unattended, and it is then stolen.  Unforgivable.  The professors look down on these scrambling little lab rats and grin or groan, depending on their level of human emotion.  Slowly, most students’ brains turns numb.  There has to be at least three person crying.

You know what helps make studying less monotonous and hellish?  Music!  You know what are distracting?  Lyrics.  So I’ve gone and gathered some songs to soundtrack your upcoming week so you can prepare for your coming reckoning in auditory bliss.  It’s only 6 songs, but they stray towards the longer side of things, and they’re mostly electronic.  There is an Elliott Smith song at the end.  Listen with me.

‘“divorce lawyers i shaved my head” is comprised of 14 songs that amalgamate sexual histories to tell the story of a failed marriage between two people of confused identities and genders during a henry darger-inspired glandolinian war, complete with an equine wedding, carnival horns, unexpected male birth, haircuts, semen, and the eventual destruction of the world in 1990. it was recorded over a three-year period rife with both personal turmoil and triumph.‘ -The Horse Museum Bandcamp

divorce lawyers i shaved my head is a “pay what you want” apocalyptic folk (my own designation) album on bandcamp, Spotify and iTunes.  The Horse Museum is now defunct, but Jordaan Mason still makes music and puts it out somewhere, oh and also he lives in Toronto.

Anyways, does that description above, pulled straight from their bandcamp page, make any sense to you?  It makes sense to me, but I’ve been listening to this album at least twice a week for three months.  To simplify, the album travels through themes of death, loneliness, suicide, the end of the world, war, and confused sexual identity.  It’s loosely based around a failing marriage, sure, but its true success is perfectly capturing the feeling of something ending in music form.  It sounds like the last gasp of some crazed man watching the end of the world.  It is simply stunning.  The lyrics are exceptionally good at conveying this feeling. The words are purposefully cryptic, considering the two characters in the album are living during a war and the world’s end while on the precipice of divorce.  The 8:27 minute epic “the wrong parts (vivian sisters singing)“ is particularly good at establishing verbal chaos.  It features such lines like

i’m wearing the costumes of children
so i can confuse, become them
but how do you know what’s underneath

what kind of creature is in me?

Yeah.  This album is weird.

The music is just as proficient in setting the albums mood.  The drums thud like they’re slowly driving towards the inevitable.  And I wouldn’t say the lyrics are sung, it’s either a mutter or a wail.  Its an ineffective cry straight from one’s bones.  It is the release of that terrible, throbbing, achey feeling that takes up residence from the tips of my fingers to the middle of my gut.  It’s somehow comforting to be held by these songs, as if they’re saying “yeah things are shit, but it’ll be ok”.  The perfect example of this is the song, “(s)mother.”  Its embedded at the end of this article.

At the very least, respect how much sheer passion went into this thing.  I love the thing so much.  Guys, the world may be ending, but at least it’ll sound cool.

Hey there folks!  This friday there’ll be two bands playing The Sett you should very much try to check out.  One even shares my obsession with ghosts!  The show begins at 9, so try to come down for a little while.  The Big Ten Championship is Saturday, not Friday night, so you have no excuse.

Headlining, we have On An On, a band formed out of the ashes of a Chicago based indie rock band called Scattered Trees.  The three members are Nate Eiesland, Alissa Ricci, and Ryne Estwing.  Though they’ve only officially released two songs thus far, they already show promise with their catchy mid tempo songs, one reminiscent of some lonely late nights, the other the background music to whatever hooliganism you and your friends have planned.

Opening for On An On is a folk band from here in Madison.  They’re called Griswald, and are made up of Jeremy Hart, Taylor Keding, and Mike Seehafer.  They also have an EP coming out on December 2nd.  Their soundcloud page will give you a great idea of what they play.

On An On- “Ghosts”:

Here is some music based around the loose idea that weird, acoustic, folk like music is something everyone likes.  Now that I’ve based my premise on a lie, I can alienate everyone else with the songs.

Bonus end song from a band I saw at a sketchy loft in Humboldt Park this weekend.  Vienna Beef hot dogs trump all.

These upcoming bands playing this friday at the Sett will rock the sheep out of you.  If there is anything more therapeutic than distorted guitars and yelling, I’ve not yet found it.  Anyways, Johnny Foreigner is an indie rock/punk band from Birmingham England consisting of Alexei Berrows (guitar/vocals), Kelly Southern (Bass/Vocals), Junior Elvis Washington Laidley(drums/keys), and Lewes Herriot(guitar).  I also wrote about them here. They play frenetic, guitar laden music.  It’ll get you so pumped up that it’ll rival that time you once drank like five red bulls in an hour for four bucks and couldn’t breath for ten seconds.  Maybe not as dangerous.

THEN we have Nervous Passenger, a punk band straight out of Chicago.  Consisting of Stephan Jurgovan(guitar/vocals), Nnamdi Ogbonnaya(bass/vocals), and Brendan Smyth(drums), they play punk music that is, according to their website “about girls and/or friends and/or beer, and they’re super fun to sing along to”.  I agree with them.

Johnny Foreigner:

Nervous Passenger: