Folk shows and schoolwork

Hello! So I can't log onto the blog I normally post music reviews on, Much Better Sundays.  It will have to go here instead.  Oh well, it's all the same Internet, right?  To provide a general update on my situation, I now think that five classes might not have been such a bright idea.  I feel like the schoolwork is gently melting my brain, and we're only half-way through the term!

Halloween is coming up this weekend.  I think the university is getting ready to go into crisis mode.  Thousands of people descend on Isla Vista with the intent of cramming as much of a good time as possible into two days.  I've had no prior experience of the chaos, but if all the fliers and warnings and community preparation meetings are anything to go by, this is going to be madness.  I think I might dress as the tooth fairy.  I have a white dress, and now I need some teeth.  At the moment, it'll be enough of a celebration if I don't have to do schoolwork for a day.  

The weekend following Halloween (and the US and NZ elections, eek!) is a long one; we get the Tuesday off, so I think we're stealing the Monday too.  I'm hoping to take a trip, to LA, San Diego or even Ensenada in Mexico.  Looking forward to that beacon of relaxation, and of course Thanksgiving!  Which I'll be back in Berkeley for.  Mmmm, composting, coffee and the Cheese Board...  But more on the culture shocks of SoCal some other time.

I spent a delightful Sunday night at the Biko Garage, a performance space attached to the student housing co-operative.  I love going there, because it's like going home among the ironed-perfect blond-tanned California sorority girls and the associated frat guys.  This place is filled with hippies and hipsters wearing vintage.  They all seem pretty nice, and I'm planning to infiltrate them like all those viruses I've been learning about in school.

The first (and last) band on Sunday was called Girl Band.  They sound like the kind of music I came to America for; three girls with charming voices, a harp, a guitar, a ukulele, occasionally a glockenspiel or cheap keyboard.  It was beautiful and the crowd obviously loved them.  I get the feeling they're IV natives (one of their members is in another indie pop band, Watercolor Paintings) and don't play all that often.  They were extremely lovely, although it would also be good to see them branch out a little more from the mold.  At the moment they sound like a cross between Joanna Newsom and Au Revoir Simone, and while that is a beautiful combination, no one wants to be a mixed drink.  Be a cocktail!

Desolation Wilderness, a four-piece (maybe?  I couldn't see properly) had psychedelic wafty indie-rock that it was nice to hear again.  They have that one great thing going for them: a very attractive lead singer, and it was good to jiggle along.  I feel like their music might benefit from repeated listening.  Maybe.  That's a maybe.

L.A.K.E. were the headliners of the night, if there can be headliners in a small garage packed to the gills.  It was like a pressure cooker in there.  I'll add "hot steamy gigs" to my list of outside-the-box energy solutions.  The other one so far is gyms.  I've started actually going to the rec centre here (!; yes) and thought about all the energy that people are burning up.  Literally.  If we could somehow mine this resource, turn the treadmills into mousewheels that power some kind of generator, then maybe our energy problems wouldn't be completely solved, but I for one would stop feeling like gyms are the most useless places on earth.

Anyway!  L.A.K.E.!  Releasing new album thingie!  They have actually have a track on the first Bicycle Records comp. for those people back in NZ who have acquired the above from the Polka Dots.  I bought their first album after the show which is very minimalist sweet indie pop and not fantastic.  But their live show was good.  They've started bringing funk and indie together, and I like what they're making, and you can dance to it, and people did, and it was awesome.  And they're cute.  The Biko garage crowd are very nice.  They are friendly and share their water.  I like it. 

One year older

As of today, I am legally allowed to drink in the United States of America.  This is a relief.  I can now also go into places to see music that I want to see.

I'm not doing much for my birthday here, at least, not what living in Isla Vista should demand of me; that is, to drink until I cannot drink no more.  I got an email to that effect generated by the office of the Vice Chancellor.  It had my name on it and wished me a happy birthday, reminded me that drinking myself into the gutter is not a good idea and informed me that everyone wants me to "have a great time but also live to see another day".  They're not kidding (by the way, I also want to live to see another day).  This is the university that has compulsory online alcohol education for every new student.  Kind of an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, given UCSB's reputation.  

So I'm going out to dinner tonight with a couple of friends, and to (finally!) see some bands play at the co-op, and look forward to tomorrow when my two mid-mid terms will be over.  And this weekend, when I'm going to pick myself up a guitar, and have a birthday picnic on the beach, and enjoy the fall sunshine and the beauty of being here.

Brown buildings and bicycles

There's not as much time for writing now that classes have started.  I'm not sure what it is, whether the long break since I was last at school or the new country or the different schooling system, but I'm actually doing my work for once.  And the reading, like, on time.  Could also be a strategic move considering I'm doing five classes, which is a high course load even for people not adjusting to a new place (and looking for work).  We'll see how this ends up; with me dying?  Possibly.  

I'm getting up at seven every morning now, for my Spanish class at eight.  The sun gets in my eyes as I cycle along the bike lanes that run through the university housing into campus.  The buildings here are all modern and brown, and the mountains to the north are blue, darker against the sky.  The view from the eighth floor of the library is a point of pride; you've got a panoramic view of the mountains and ocean and the whole of Isla Vista as you study, and at sunset the light strikes all the books and makes them golden.  

I can tell it's autumn, or what passes for autumn in California.  There are still days, like today, when it's too hot to sit in the sun for long.  Then you have to find a bench helpfully positioned under one of the many trees on campus, most likely close to a green collegiate lawn, and sit in the shade.  Then, unfortunately, you find it's slightly too cold and you have to move back, where you lose patience for reading and fall asleep.  Just me?  We had rain on Saturday morning, that was kind of exciting.  Apparently, if it rains on a school day, no one goes to class.  Also, no one attends the day before Thanksgiving, and certainly most seats will be empty on the Monday in November just before Veteran's Day on the Tuesday.  I've been following this schedule with care and wide eyes in case I should innocently go to school when I'm supposed to.  I've also heard that professors use these student-initiated holidays to give passwords to the students that do attend to use on the final exam.

Everything I heard about Santa Barbara being a party school has been confirmed.  Del Playa Drive, the street next to the ocean, packs out on Friday night.  Most of Isla Vista becomes unofficially pedestrianized.  The police hang around just waiting for someone to fall off, out of, into or over something.  I haven't attended any parties yet; I'm kind of biding my time, I guess.  Things at the moment are just kind of mellow (or 'chill') as they say.  Maybe for my 21st birthday next week I'll have a picnic out at the beach.

I think this place is changing me.  I now willingly exercise.  I will return to New Zealand all blond and tan and giggly.