• HOME
• NEWS
• SPORTS
• A&E
• OPINION
• MULTIMEDIA
• PRIME
• BLOGS
• EVENTS
• CLASSIFIEDS
• HOUSING

*PlayStation Vita Launch Party
Today, 6 p.m.
PS Vita Social Club in Santa Monica*

Today sees the launch of the newest handheld gaming device from Sony, the PlayStation Vita. The Vita follows in the footsteps of the PlayStation Portable, but boasts upgraded power, graphical capabilities and controls.

The gaming system displays graphics nearly on par with the PlayStation 3, as well as dual analog sticks, motion sensors and front and rear multi-touch pads. In addition to its hardware, the Vita already has an impressive lineup of launch titles including “Uncharted: Golden Abyss” and “Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3,” among others.

For those who want to learn more about the new system, PlayStation will be hosting a launch party specifically targeted toward UCLA students tonight. The event, which will feature free food, free drinks, a live DJ and free hands-on demonstrations of the PS Vita, takes place at the PS Vita Social Club in Santa Monica tonight at 6 p.m. There will be buses leaving from the Ackerman Turnaround at 5:30 p.m., and buses will bring students back after the event around 9 p.m.

Today’s event is a good opportunity for those who have their doubts about the system to get a chance to try it out before committing to it. It will also be a good place to get more information about the system for UCLA students and those who might not be familiar with the system.

Continue reading »

The last six months had already seen a great loss in the female music world with the passing of Amy Winehouse in July and Etta James in January. Whitney Houston suddenly and unexpectedly joined them last weekend when she was found dead in her Beverly Hills Hilton suite on the eve of the Grammy Awards. With whispers of a comeback because of a possible stint as a judge on “The X Factor” and an upcoming movie this summer, the death rang especially tragic for her fans.

Both Winehouse’s and Houston’s sudden deaths brought an outpouring of grief from their fans and the music industry, who had watched the artists’ stars rise, fall and waver in a limbo of unused talent.

Pastor T.D. Jakes, the executive producer of Houston’s upcoming movie “Sparkle,” commented on the response over Houston’s death in a CNN article, saying, “I think that the reason that so many people are devastated is because it is not just her music, but it is her misery that attached itself to the hearts of Americans, and we watched her struggle to regain her footing after a tumultuous relationship and bouts with abuse and substance abuse.”

Though they are two vastly different women, Winehouse’s and Houston’s stories are quite similar. Both achieved a period of early success, which in Houston’s case amounted to almost immediate stardom that only increased throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s with a successful movie career and a nonstop string of hits.

Winehouse earned early critical acclaim with her debut album “Frank,” as well as success in Britain. Her second album, “Back to Black,” earned her breakthrough success in the American market, winning her five Grammy Awards.

Continue reading »

Nikkei Student Union 26th Annual Cultural Night
Monday, 7 p.m.
Royce Hall Auditorium, Free

For decades, the culture nights held by the Nikkei Student Union (NSU) have featured performances such as Japanese drama, taiko drumming and modern Japanese hip-hop. NSU will hold its 26th Annual Cultural Night on Monday – not just as a celebration of Japanese American history and heritage, but also as a celebration of the Japanese American present and future.

It is especially dedicated to the Japanese generation known as the Shin-Nisei. The name translates to “new second generation,” and people in this group can be classified as Japanese immigrants who arrived in the United States after World War II. Matt Ichinose, a UCLA alum who is the current president of NSU, said he hopes that the focus of this year’s culture night on the Shin-Nisei will create a bridge of understanding between Japanese Americans and modern Japanese.

“This year’s Annual Cultural Night is centered around that where we tie the new second generation into the Japanese American community that’s existed here for a hundred years,” Ichinose said. “It just shows the different cultures and how kind of different we are, but yet we’re similar as Japanese Americans.”

According to Hiromi Aoyama, the event’s producer and fourth-year communication studies student, culture night is not just about Japanese American communities, but it is also about individual identity as well. The theme for this year’s culture night is identity, and it is meant to both acknowledge and welcome the steadily increasing diversity of individuals within Japanese American society.

Continue reading »

“The Secret World of Arrietty” is the newest Studio Ghibli animated film, and will screen tonight at UCLA and premiere nationwide on Friday. Frank Marshall, the executive producer behind the English version of the film and the producer of other works such as the “Bourne” movie series and “Indiana Jones” films, spoke with Daily Bruin’s Colin Reid about “The Secret World of Arrietty,” its dubbing process, how it differs from a live-action film and the appeal of animation in the film industry.

Daily Bruin: What was the reasoning behind choosing to screen “The Secret World of Arrietty” a day in advance at UCLA? Do you consider this to be the primary premiere for the movie?
Frank Marshall: Well I think it’s always good to have what we call “word-of-mouth screenings” in order to get people excited and talking about the movie before it comes out. That’s really the purpose of having this – not really (a) premiere screening – but more of a special screening in advance of the movie opening this weekend.

DB: Having also worked on another Studio Ghibli animated film, “Ponyo,” was there anything different about “The Secret World of Arrietty”?
FM: I think “The Secret World of Arrietty” is really the most accessible of the recent Studio Ghibli films. That’s mainly because it’s based on the book, “The Borrowers,” and a lot of people have read that book. So, the story is more universal.

DB: Did any unexpected challenges arise during the making of this film, such as translation or animation issues?
FM: What I love about these movies is that they’re so beautiful, but they’re a dying art – the art of hand-drawn animation that you don’t see very often anymore. One of the things that (Studio Ghibli) does differently than we do here is complete the animation first and then add the voices after. So that’s always a challenge for us, particularly since (the movie) was originally in Japanese. That’s a challenge for us to do the translation and to tell the story so it makes sense, but to (also) fit the words into the characters’ mouths. There were a couple places where that was a little more difficult than usual.

DB: Where do you stand on animation in the film industry? Do you think it’s merely for children or do you think it can reach and influence a larger audience?
FM: Oh no, I think that animation can work for both adults and children. If you look at movies like “Toy Story,” “Cars” or even “The Secret World of Arrietty,” I think that adults and children love these movies. In the case of this movie, it’s really a film for the whole family. There’s stuff there for the adults, and there’s stuff there for the kids. That’s what I love. I have two kids, and I love to go to the movies with them where I’m able to enjoy things on a different level.

Continue reading »

Cake has started touring once again, and the band’s second show this year will be at the Hollywood Palladium Saturday. The band’s founder, John McCrea, spoke with Daily Bruin’s Noor Eid about the band’s musical distinction, approach and the new projects it is pursuing.

Daily Bruin: Cake formed in the early ’90s. How has the band managed to outlast ever-changing musical trends?
John McCrea: I think by being outsiders. … We’ve always felt that there has been really big stuff going on in music, and we have been on the outskirts of it. … There are brief periods where people notice us, or mainstream culture notices us but it’s mostly sort of outsider music.

DB: How would you describe the band’s sound?
JM: I think that the song writing is actually fairly old-fashioned in structure, and I mean that in a good way hopefully. It has elements of country and jazz and ranchero music, but it’s not really any of those things. I guess it obviously has elements of rock, but it’s not gratuitously heavy in the way that rock has become.

DB: On top of writing, producing and performing your own music, your band now has its own record label. What drove you guys to take the band in this direction?
JM: In a time where a lot of the structures in the music business and society are crumbling, we thought it would be smart to take more things into our own hands. … (For) our first album that released a long time ago, “Motorcade of Generosity,” we found our own label and distribution ourselves. We’ve made our own album covers and directed our own videos. It was easy for us to go back to where we started. … The theme of this is sort of extricating ourselves from maybe failing systems and structure—one of them the music business, another the power grid. There are a lot of things that are fragile now and in a state of flux and in a time like this, we should have more control over our destiny, not less.

DB: Do you think all of this involvement and hands-on approach makes better music? What’s the benefit?
JM: It’s a lot of work, and it’s a lot of time, and that in a way sucks. We produce our own albums and the reason why we started doing it this way is because we had a sound that no producer in his or her right mind would allow us to do … and it was sort of antithetical to the fashion trends of production at that time. Originally it was in the early 90s that music was starting to sound really big and bombastic and grandiose, and we just wanted to sound small. We thought that would be the most aversive thing you could do in a country like the United States of America, where a lot of the music that was sort of feigning rebelliousness, really just sounded like the sound or equivalent to deforestation. So, we had to have this hands-on approach, and we just got used to it. … We would have had less pride of ownership and it’s sort of a do it yourself project.

Continue reading »

Correction: The original version of this story misattributed a quote. The quote was made by Case, not Chaplin.

Fried chicken and waffles is considered a Southern delicacy, but Natasha Case, the co-founder and co-owner of Coolhaus, thinks it makes a great ice cream sandwich.

Coolhaus, the food truck that sells these out-of-the-ordinary ice cream sandwiches will be giving away free samples tonight at the Food Truck Panel in Ackerman Grand Ballroom. Case will be one of the panelists, along with her partner, Freya Estreller, and speakers from L.A. Weekly.

The ice cream sandwich company, which was started by Case and Estreller in 2008, sells a wide array of flavors, including Red Velvet, Coffee Oreo and Dirty Mint. Most of the ingredients are organic, and the dairy they use is hormone-free.

“I’m inspired by the things we eat at restaurants. We see things on the menu and are interested in making it into an ice cream sandwich. Sometimes, we make custom flavors for private parties,” Case said.

Continue reading »

Young the Giant has made a name for itself with a beachy, alternative sound. They performed at UCLA last year and are currently on a tour that includes a stop at the Wiltern Theatre tonight. Lead guitarist Jacob Tilley spoke with Daily Bruin’s Andrew Bain about the band’s evolution from The Jakes to Young the Giant, the band’s musical stylings and its plans for its next album.

Daily Bruin: Can you talk about the band’s evolution from The Jakes to Young the Giant, aside from slight lineup changes?
Jacob Tilley: I couldn’t really tell you why we chose Young the Giant, because I’m still curious of that myself. But The Jakes had been a band since high school, and we’d done very well for ourselves for such young guys I guess, … (and I) will always remember those shows and times as just great and very honest. But … Sameer (Gadhia) and I never had huge ideas of becoming a huge rock band. … We were very set on going to college, … so when we went to college, there was a little bit of scuttling (over) what the band was going to be doing, and some of the members wanted to … kick Sameer and I out, and we wanted just to keep it light and just enjoy playing music together when we had the chance to. … And so we at that point kind of just like put the band on hiatus, and we played a couple shows where we’d come down from home and play, but we … weren’t taking it too seriously. So that summer … we had enough songs together with our new bandmates that we decided it’d be cool to record them and put out a CD (“Shake My Hand,” released under The Jakes) and that CD picked up a lot of label attention straightaway, and so from that we pretty much got signed, and we all decided to take time off school and pursue music as a career. And here we are three years later still doing it, and … getting pretty established now, … and we still enjoy it and realize that it could just be a passing thing and … we should just take advantage of the opportunity we have right now and travel the world and play music.

DB: Each of the songs on your self-titled album sound quite different. What’s your writing process?
JT: That’s one thing we’ve always wanted to … keep doing is (have) a pretty broad sound and (be) able to write whatever we really want and get away with it. We just all play together and show up to practice and have guitar riffs ready to go. … Eric (Cannata) and I will just play off each other and Sameer will play something on the (keyboard), Payam (Doostzadeh) will come up with a baseline and you just see how it goes, really.

DB: How far along are you in your new record? Are you working on it while on tour or keeping the two separate?
JT: Yeah, (we are) working on it at the same time, we’re just writing – just seeing what comes. And (we) are in our own place with a bunch of ideas coming together, and they … sound cool. I like them. We’ll be playing a couple of them on the next tour I think. … Hopefully we’ll have a record together by the summer to record.

DB: How have you adapted to such a busy lifestyle after growing up in Irvine, a quiet suburban town?
JT: It’s just taken a lot of maturity from all of us to be able to handle the work schedule that is given to us. We’ve had to grow up a lot and realize what it actually takes to make it in this world, and I think it’s a good thing. … There’s a pretty good work ethic that comes from the school there, and I think that’s really helped (us) be able to take on this hefty workload. … A lot of people don’t think that there’s a lot that goes into it, but we work very hard, and we don’t get paid that much to tell you the truth, and I think … we (obviously have) the goal of getting to the point where we can have a very comfortable life in this, but we realize that there’s a lot of work that has to go into it before that happens, and we just are gonna try to continue to do that.

Continue reading »

“Come Alive”
The Gallery
The Gallery

There is one problem that listeners will have with “Come Alive,” an EP by alternative rock group The Gallery, and one problem only: It’s too short.

Other than that, “Come Alive” is a nearly flawless 20 minutes of alternative rock, with a hint of a Southern sound to it. Great hooks, excellent guitar work and smart song writing combine to make it a memorable listen.

The EP starts off strong with “Catalyst,” a song about a lover who came and went all too quickly and did some damage as a result: “Oh you lit me up like a cigarette / Then you burned me down, now there’s nothing left.”

There’s a wry sense of pain in lead vocalist Brendan Cooney’s voice that pervades this song and the album as a whole, and when it’s combined with extremely catchy riffs and choruses, the result is something special.

Continue reading »

Correction: The original version of this blog post contained multiple errors. The program is hosted by Hanban. The program has no plans of hosting another university group in April.

Astrology plays a significant role in Chinese life. The dragon represents the fifth animal in the 12-year cycle of the Chinese zodiac. Monday, the UCLA Confucius Institute celebrated the start of the lunar new year with performances by students from Zhejiang Normal University for local elementary schools.

“This event program is hosted by Hanban, our founder in China. They contacted us last October and said that they were planning to have students visit the U.S. to celebrate the Chinese New Year, so we welcomed them,” said Xiaojie Ma, program coordinator of the Confucius Institute.

Following a few performances at the University of Hawai’i and San Diego State University, the students visiting from China ended their tour in celebration of “Chinese New Year 2012: The Year of the Dragon” at UCLA.

“I think for most of them, it was their first time coming to L.A. and they were excited to see the different sites, but they still felt glad to have a chance to come and perform at UCLA,” Ma said.

Continue reading »

Spiders and Webs
The Alternates
Luxury Wafers

“Spiders and Webs,” an EP by rock band The Alternates, could be described both as pleasantly surprising and disappointing. On the one hand, it’s always a wonderful surprise to hear a largely unknown band release good music. That being said, “Spiders and Webs” failed to entirely cash in on The Alternates’ potential.

The EP starts off extremely well with “The Modern Way,” a song that transforms from acoustic rock ballad to a more rollicking rock song. It laments the modern age’s ethics, and how the planet has suffered as a result of vices such as a desire for profit: “All the forests are being cut to the ground / To make paper bags … the modern way.” It’s a heartfelt and well-written song, and it sets the bar pretty high for the rest of the CD.

Unfortunately, the EP drags over the course of the following three songs: “Changing Course,” “Metamorphosis” and “Nature of the Mind.” All three are very long – longer than they needed to be to get their point across. The shortest of the three clocks in at 4:56 and the longest at 7:21.

It should be said that these songs are not necessarily bad. But they do all tend to sound a bit similar, and when they combine to form almost 20 minutes of music, that results in a tiring listen. This repetitiveness could be due to the fact that most of the album’s sound is focused on lyrics, with instruments providing more of a base of sound than riffs, though there are some solid guitar solos on the album.

Continue reading »