Scottish DJ, singer, songwriter, and record producer, Adam Richard Wiles—better known by his stage name Calvin Harris—will bring Georgetown students into his force field of addictive synthetic sounds, strong and commanding percussion, and catchy vocal collaborations during GPB’s Spring Kickoff Concert on Saturday, Apr. 6th.
Calvin Harris has long held a passion for electronic music. He was first introduced to the genre in his teens, when he began recording his first demo tracks in his bedroom. Deciding to withhold from having any formal mixing training or production help, he went straight from posting his own D.I.Y. electronic dance tracks on MySpace to signing with the multinational British record company EMI. And, only a short time later, he was recording material with leading artists like Kylie Minogue, Dizzee Rascal, and Rihanna.
With the help of EMI, Calvin Harris recorded his debut album I Created Disco in the summer of 2007. I Created Disco featured two two top-ten hits, “Acceptable in the 80s” and “The Girls,“and quickly made it to the top of the album charts.
Though Harris was already making it as a solo-arist, he was also in high-demand as a mixer and producer. He worked on remixing singles for electronic groups Jamiroquai, Groove Armada, All Saints, and CSS, wrote and produced songs for Kylie Minogue’s 2007 album, and worked with Dizzee Rascal on “Dance wiv Me“, which reached the top of the charts in the U.K.
Calvin Harris’s second album, Ready for the Weekend, also topped the U.K. album chart and made it to number 12 on Billboard’s U.S. dance/electronic chart as well, featuring singles “I’m Not Alone” and “Ready for the Weekend“.
“You lack the season of all natures, sleep.” If you’re as enamored by Shakespeare’s prescience as Vox, hop over to Mask and Bauble Dramatic Society’s presentation of MacbethFriday, Saturday, and Sunday at 8 p.m. in Gonda Theatre.
Calling all astronauts! Wait, do we even have any astronauts since the demise of the Shuttle program? Either way, if you missed Discovery’s flyover on the back of a 747, take a look at it’s new home in the Welcome Discovery Festival at Dulles Airport.
If you’re not inebriated enough to get a tattoo on Friday night, GPB’s screenings of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo should satisfy your cravings for ink, minus the pain. It screens at 9:30 p.m. and midnight in the ICC Auditorium.
Saturday
In a spring slump? Vox has the perfect pick-me-up: laugh your derriere off at Georgetown Improv‘s last show of the year. The jokes start at 9 p.m. in Bulldog Alley.
The Georgetown Water Street Project is hosting a Record Store Day showcase from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. Local bands Los Rhinoceros, Young Rapids, Shark Week (wait, there’s a band called Shark Week?!?!), and Akshan fill this concert with enough power to run LXR’s perennially screwed up air conditioning unit.
GenderFunk, Georgetown’s annual drag ball, is going down at the Village C Alumni Lounge from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. Who will be the next RuPaul? Come and find out!
Tonight, Wiz Khalifa was announced as the headline act at the 2012 Spring Concert, which will take place on the evening on March 30. Sponsored by the Georgetown Program Board, What’s After Dark and the Senior Class Committee, the concert will take place in McDonough Gymnasium from 9 p.m. until 1 a.m. on the last Friday of March. The concert’s opening acts have not yet been announced.
Tickets will cost $20 for GoCard holders and $35 for those without GoCards (add 5 dollars for prices at the door). They will be on sale starting Monday, March 19th in Red Square and online.
During his lecture on Friday afternoon, filmmaker and author Michael Moore demonstrated an acute sense of his audience and location. Not only did he acknowledge that Georgetown has been or will be host to such conservative figureheads as Karl Rove and Ann Coulter, but he drew a political parallel that would make Hoyas from any corner of the political spectrum crack a smile. When discussing the voting patterns of young people, he explained why so few 18- to 25-year-olds bothered to vote in the 2010 midterm elections.
“[Obama]’s been playing it like Georgetown football,” he said. The crowd erupted with laughter, whoops, and applause.
That kind of situational awareness was a big part of what made Moore’s presentation, entitled “Here Comes Trouble: An Evening with Michael Moore,” so engaging. During the lecture, which was sponsored with its share of public chagrin by the Georgetown Lecture Fund, Georgetown Program Board, and the Student Activities Commission, Moore was equal parts cynically joking and unsettling serious as he discussed public policy, Christian values, and America’s financial and social woes. He structured the entire evening with such a smooth narrative arc and call to action for young people to repair the nation that it reminded the crowd why he has an Oscar lying around somewhere in his house.
Since he is, of course, the maker of such politically-minded, left-bent films as Farenheit 9/11 and Sicko, Moore spent a good deal of the speech addressing the what he believed to be the flaws and hypocrisies inherent in America’s version of “21st Century capitalism.” He launched into this by bringing up the recent Occupy Wall Street campaign, and expanded into the mortgage crisis, job crisis, and other financial woes by summing up the problem with a single, unifying source.
Donald Glover prefaced his 65-minute set last night at Gaston Hall with a disclaimer: “Who’s seen my show Community?” he asked the audience. “This will be nothing like that. I talk about my dick a lot more.”
This proved to be half true—he talked about his dick a decent amount. But if you know Glover best from his role as Troy on Community, a lot about his set was familiar. Glover’s character is known for his silly, nerdy antics with best friend Abed, and above all its his child-like quality that endears him to viewers (one of the funniest scenes of the series shows him paralyzed in awe upon meeting his idol, Levar Burton of Reading Rainbow). It’s no surprise, then, that large portion of Glover’s very funny material was about childhood, kids, and growing up. Yes, there were dick jokes, but if Community weren’t a network show, I bet Troy and Abed would talk about their dicks all the time.
In front of a nearly sold-out crowd, Glover started off with a few spot-on campus observations: “Georgetown has its ‘white guys looking like white guys’ game on LOCK.” He went on to tell a few stories about show biz, like the time he was rumored to be in the running to play Spiderman. And with this material, Glover proved that although he’s better known for his TV and YouTube work, as well as his hip-hop efforts as Childish Gambino, he is a very polished stand-up comic.
About 20 minutes into the set, his wireless mic stopped working. As Georgetown Program Board members tried to get it back on, he did about 10 minutes of material without the sound system. And although I can’t speak for those in the balcony, people pretty far back on the floor level heard him just fine. And even though he had to project more, the technical difficulty actually improved his delivery, as he got a chance to showcase his talent for physical comedy.
Our post announcing the Georgetown Program Board Spring Concert line up has received a fair number of comments, so we’ve decided to conduct a little poll about the April 9th concert.
[Editor's Note: A previous version of this post incorrectly reported that Dev and the Cataracs, not Kevin Rudolf, will headline the concert. We apologize for the mistake.]
Georgetown’s annual Spring Kick-Off Concert is going to be like a G6 — or at least part of one.
Kevin Rudolf, the Cash Money-backed artist behind “Let It Rock”, will headline the Apr. 9 concert in McDonough Gymnasium. (Thanks to a few verses by Lil Wayne, “Let It Rock” went triple platinum in 2009.) Dev and the Cataracs, Jason Smith, and Shwayze and Cisco will also perform.
While we couldn’t dig up anything about Smith, Dev and the Cataracs is best known for appearing on and producing the Far East Movement single “Like A G6.” You might recognize Shwayze and Cisco from “Buzzin” and “Corona and Lime,” two songs off Shwayze’s 2008 debut album.
As we all know, Halloween is the holiday of fright, fun, and everything sweet. But even the spookiest of holidays won’t always satiate our artistic side.
If you’re looking for another creative outfit after pulling together your Halloween costume for next weekend, head over to Georgetown Program Board’s table in Red Square this Friday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. GPB will have free, decorate your own Halloween cookies available—no costume required.
According to the Hoya, Lupe Fiasco will perform Saturday, October 30 at 9:30 p.m. outside of McDonough Gymnasium. The performance will be sponsored by the Georgetown Program Board and Senior Class Council and funded by What’s After Dark and the Corp Philanthropy Committee.
Tickets are $25 in advance and $30 at the door (or for non-Georgetown students). Tickets will be sold starting next week in Red Square. We can’t wait!
2 p.m. update: The Lupe Fiasco concert will not affect plans for GPB’s Spring concert, according to GPB Concert Chair Alexandra Kisielewski. “Georgetown Program Board has a separate budget for the Spring Concert,” she wrote in an email. “The Fall concert is an initiative that the Senior Class Committee took upon themselves to resurrect for this year, and GPB decided to co-sponsor with them.”
As the generation who grew up with Woody, pretended to be Buzz Lightyear blasting off into space, and cracked up at Mr. Potato Head’s snarkiness, we can’t turn down one last Toy Story adventure. (Accompanied by appropriate movie theater munchies, of course.)
So, there’s apparently there’s a show called Glee that’s tapped into the nation’s love of a capella. To celebrate the show’s season premiere, GPB is hosting a watch party in the Village C Alumni Lounge on Tuesday, beginning at 7:30 p.m. As if the Alumni Lounge’s five big screen TVs isn’t enough to tempt you, GPB promises snacks, a costume contest, singing competition, and trivia.
Come Home to Bagels
Homecoming is this weekend and while there’ll be plenty of entertainment—Mr. Georgetown, anyone?—you may not want to spend money after splurging on a Homecoming ticket. So, why not ease your wallet with a free bagel brunch hosted by the Program for Jewish Civilization? Check it out next Sunday from 10 a.m. until noon in the ICC Galleria.
Actually being in the SFS or Jewish: not necessary. A love of carbohydrates: required.
Vox Populi is the staff blog of the Georgetown Voice, Georgetown University's weekly newsmagazine. Opinions expressed in posts are those of their author alone unless otherwise stated.
Scottish DJ, singer, songwriter, and record producer, Adam Richard Wiles—better known by his stage name Calvin Harris—will bring Georgetown students into his force field of addictive synthetic sounds, strong and commanding percussion, and catchy vocal collaborations during GPB’s Spring Kickoff Concert on Saturday, Apr. 6th.
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