The Wealthy Man’s Woodstock

"Hello, hippies," Maynard James Keenan said as his circus-metal foursome Tool took the stage at Coachella Sunday night. During the last 90 minutes of the set, I spotted two shirtless men in jester hat...
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Border Guards Must Dig Deeper

As American controversy over immigration reaches a climax, we at UCSB must ask ourselves this important question - would Jared Goldschen or Romy Lea Frazier make a better A.S. President? That's my fir...
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An Inferno Even Dante Would Love

Rock and roll is essentially licentious. Though, at its essence it is a fiery and ultimately liberating art. This July, the World/Inferno Friendship Society will release its new record, an amalgamatio...
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Politics Saturate Hollywood Thriller

My father and I share many pastimes: We like to get loaded, we like to argue and we like the cinema. Over Spring Break, we shared an important father-son bonding experience - getting kicked out of a z...
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Don’t Panic

If I was in a rock band, I would ride onstage on a gold-plated motorcycle. Unfortunately, the members of The Academy Is... had too much integrity for this death-defying stunt. However, Artsweek did in...
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Secrecy Walks Complicated Line

When you keep a secret, it doesn't really go away. Often, it just festers until it reaches the surface, exploding like a large boil.
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Live: Avenged Sevenfold, CKY and the Confession

I'm standing at the front railing, a high-decibel monitor in front of my face. A large, tattooed woman behind me emits a sigh of frustration. "God, Avenged had better go on soon," she says. "Then I ca...
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In Flames | Come Clarity | Ferret Music

This is the popification of death metal. On In Flames' latest accomplishment, Come Clarity, the Swedish Gothenburg maestros fuse fearsome, Metallica-emulating guitar riffs with FM staple hooks.
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Students Lack Geographic Sense

To truly understand something, you have to be able put a name on it. So I'm talking to Jeff Gibson, the Opinion Editor at the Nexus. I explain to him the context of my newest article, a treatise on ge...
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Live: Audrey Sessions @ Giovanni’s

Giovanni's is the new CBGB's. On March 30, 1974, CBGB's stalwarts the Ramones performed their first show ever. On February 2, 2006, the Audrye Sessions performed a show in Isla Vista and, although it ...
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Love for All Things Silly

In the course of 90 minutes, a self-proclaimed "pompous old bastard" shot a mock cat out of a cannon, while making fun of old people and trophy wives in between. A mock coffin was rolled out on wheels...
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This Corea Has ‘Seoul’

Jazz music is quite similar to the Isla Vista dating scene. Everybody's a player, but not many of us really know the game. That's why Chick Corea, one of the world's most innovative jazz keyboardists,...
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Cat Power | The Greatest | Matador Records

When I first listened to Cat Power's latest, The Greatest, I didn't get it. There were no hit singles, nothing to satisfy my short attention span.
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A Winter Break to Fix What Katrina Broke

A red Ford pickup drives down a dirt path, carrying a coffin and seven UCSB students. It is the early afternoon in Phoenix, La. - a small rural area in the vicinity of Plaquemines Parish.
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Congress Misreads the Green

When reading the newspaper, it's hard to read between the lines. Articles are written from the "objective," story-specific perspective of the journalist, often without mention to their context or larg...
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