3B — Thursday, October 1, 2015
the b-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

By CARLY SNIDER

Daily Arts Writer

“(Music) is definitely a lifetime 

commitment, for sure. It’s very 
rewarding and very risky. But I’m 
so glad that I took this career path, 
it’s been so amazing.”

Fans 
around 
the 
world 

would agree that Annakalmia 
Traver made the right career 
choice. This commitment to 
music started at the University 
of Vermont, where the band 
Rubblebucket’s founders, Alex 
Toth and lead singer Traver, met. 
The pair was very involved with 
the arts on campus and, as music 
majors, Toth and Traver spread 
their musical net far and wide.

“We just played tons of music 

together … Burlington, Vt. has 
an awesome music scene and 
we really grew up as musicians 
there,” Traver said during a 
phone 
interview 
with 
The 

Michigan Daily.

After their time in Vermont, 

Toth and Traver took their talents 
to Boston, where they combined 
forces with future bandmates 
Adam Dotson and Ian Hersey. It is 
there that the group was able to put 
down its roots and grow, gathering 
inspiration and getting situated in 
the musical world. 

“Boston is where Rubble-

bucket really became a thing,” 

Traver said.

The group spent much of their 

time in the Northeast touring — 
leaping at every opportunity to 
play anywhere and everywhere, 
to codify their soundscape. This 
extensive touring allowed the band 
to become accustomed to, and 
learn to love, the routine rhythm 
of the road as well as to make 
treasured 
human 
connections 

with fans and fellow musicians.

“Between the core four of us, 

our taste is universal, almost,” 
Traver said. “I started out, when 
I was in middle school, with Boyz 
II Men, Mariah Carey, Toni Brax-
ton — the pop of that era — which 

has really come to stand up strong 
over time.”

These pop influences show 

themselves in the group’s dance-
friendly sound, as well in their 
resonant, stick-in-your-head-for-
days choruses. Taking these pop 
basics and running with them, 
Rubblebucket manages to take the 
best elements of dance music and 
infuse them with a more quirky, 
indie sound — creating a vibe 
entirely their own.

“One of my family members 

gave me a jazz tape, I think it was 
John Coltrane and Charlie Parker. 
And that was really transformative 
for me, and for the other guys 

ARTIST
PROFILE

IN

too. Jazz is an extremely huge 
foundation 
for 
the 
spirit 
of 

improvising,” Traver said.

The implications of this jazz 

fixation on Rubblebucket’s music 
are obvious — the horns, the 
complex layering of different 
instruments, the soulful, honest 
intonation of Traver’s voice. This 
jazz-inspired 
element 
puts 
a 

syncopated swing in everything 
that the group does, something 
that many indie bands lack.

“Through knowing the guys, 

my band mates, I got into more 
rock ‘n’ roll, which I really couldn’t 
have told you anything about when 
I was in high school. It has been a 
cool education.”

Drawing on their mirage 

of 
taste, 
training 
in 
brass 

instruments and other inspiring 
artists, Rubblebucket crafted 
their 
distinct 
genre-bending 

sound. 
This 
rock 
influence 

comes into play in the form 
of the band’s swagger — their 
attitude. Their music is dance-
friendly with a touch of punk, hip 
with an edgy essence.

“We are definitely suited to the 

indie world, particularly the dance 
side of things,” Traver said. “There 

is definitely an element of DIY, that 
sort of punk spirit, in everything 
that we do. ”

Taking a turn off the beaten 

path, Rubblebucket incorporates 
horns into much of their work — 
a choice that many modern pop 
musicians shy away from. But this 
group erases the brass-instrument 
stigma. (Check out “Came Out of 
a Lady.”) The horns add a level of 
depth unattainable through any 
other musical means, helping to 
create the group’s dynamic sound. 
The brass pieces act as another 
voice of sorts, further expanding 
the range of human emotion 
conveyed through song.

“On a human level, there’s the 

voice and then there’s drums, the 
next level up, because you can 
express yourself on a drum with 
just one stroke. Then I really think 

horns are the next in line in terms 
of an instrument that’s really close 
to humanity and the body. People 
respond to it so strongly, it’s very 
evocative of this primal thing.”

This evocative primal nature 

seems to be resonating strongly 
with fans, as the group has graced 
the stage on “Jimmy Kimmel 
Live” and has taken an extensive 
European tour — exposing them 
to an even broader range of 
listeners. Traver, who studied 
abroad in Paris during her college 
years, felt especially connected to 
the audiences there and felt that it 
was “profoundly special to be able 
to bring (her) art back to the city 
of Paris.” 

Rubblebucket is kicking off 

another U.S. tour in October, 
making a stop at Ann Arbor’s own 
Blind Pig on Saturday, Oct. 3. For 
Traver, the appeal of touring has 
always been about connecting 
with others — through making 
music, through sharing music, 
through self-expression.

“It’s amazing to be in a world 

where you get to look at people 
every night and touch them and 
feel this net of humanity. It’s 
really exciting.”

Dark Side of the Rainbow?

in this series, three daily arts writers in 

varying states of mind visit the same place 

and write about their experiences.

this week’s destination:

Well this has been a shit show and a half. The movie wouldn’t load. We fucked up the timing 

of pressing play, and I’ve sat on a plate of ketchup. Only good thing to come of this was 

the homemade chicken tenders I made and the fact I had an excuse to “do some 

weed,” as my dad would call it, at 6 p.m. on a school night. This is actually 

pretty cool. RIP JUDY GARLAND. I think Dorothy is stoned too, 

tbh. I really want to pet Toto. The drunk one does a dead on 

impression of Judy Garland singing. OK, this is creepy. 

The witch came riding on her broom and the 

music got perfectly terrifying. I forgot 

that I liked this movie, but still hella 

pissed at the whole “you had the power 

to go home all this time” shit. OK do you 

think Dorothy would like pumpkin spice lattes? (I 

do). Buzzed just gave me a history lesson on how this 

movie is an allegory for ’merica switching to the gold stan-

dard. But to me it’s more thematic of like a Beyoncé song. THE 

POWER IS ALL YOURS, do what you damn well want to. And don’t 

let any bitch with a point hat tell u shit. TORNADO I FEEL PARALYZED. 

Glinda was kind of a cunt. Like Dorothy probably has shit to do, send her and her 

little dog the hell home. Glinda is not cute, I thought she was the pretty one. Where’s 

the wicked witch of the south? They kinda just left that lead hanging. This album is actually 

fantastic. To be completely honest when I was a kid I totally wanted to be the wicked witch but 

gender roles are a real bitch during youth. Also I’m a piece of shit, because I’m drinking some wine 

now too. #crossfaded #ihatemyself. Drunk compared our extreme peanut butter eating habits to doing 

meth. Uh .... we got to the oddly sexual part of Dorothy lubing up the Tin Man, but then the YouTube record-
ing stopped. So I guess I’m done here. —DAILY ARTS WRITER

All I know is that my one of my fellow Daily Arts writers just sat on 

ketchup and I saw some underwear and then Pink Floyd started playing.

So we were really excited when we got this to match up. Start play-

ing the album at the lion’s third roar!!! It’s hard to type with this wine 
glass but I’m doing my best. This is eerily matching up right now. I’M SO 
CREEPED OUT WATCHING THIS A BUNCH OF BELLS STARTED 
CLANGING WHEN THE WOMAN THAT PLAYED THE WITCH 
SHOWED UP IN HER FRONTIER GARB.

TOTO CAME BACK AND THE MUSIC GOT HAPPIER.
Low key tho I’ve never listened to this album and I’m really digging it. 

I’m blathering to my fellow writers about how this movie is an allegory 
and the slippers are really gold because of money and fucking America.

IT’S THE TWISTER RIGHT NOW BUT THE MUSIC IS CALM AF. 

Triply stuff. Right when Dork-thy laid down the music chilled out so that 
was strange and amazing and I feel that my life has changed for the bet-
ter.

MONEY IS PLAYING right as she walked into Oz!!!!!!
GLINDA IS A GRENADE I remember her being so hot what is this 

witchcraft?? Was that a pun??? I really need to watch this while sober.

We fell out of sync with it for a while and Nirvana started playing and 

THAT WAS AWESOME. The munchkins are talking now. MY FELLOW 
WRITER JUST SAID THAT MUNCHKINS ARE MENINISTS AND I 
COULDN’T AGREE MORE. I feel so relaxed. Everything is good. Pink 
Floyd is good. The Tin Man slowly getting lubed up is good.

—DAILY ARTS WRITER

To be honest, I’m kind of skeptical about this whole thing. Floyd never admit-

ted to synching the album with the movie and, in all likelihood, a 

bunch of stoners made this whole thing up while tripping on 

some illicit substance. But we shall see. The lion is roar-

ing, and I am pressing play, giving Buzzed a high five 

when we realize we lined everything up correctly. 

Baked just sat in a plate of ketchup. So far this shit 

is looking pretty legit … the music is changing … 
characters are reacting. I’m beginning to appre-
ciate my Bored status. This is trippy enough 
without any inebriation. The twister is coming 
but the music is calm — what’s happening? “This 
is changing my life,” says Baked. “Money” came 
on right as she walked into the colorful munch-
kin land; this probably has some kind of signifi-
cance, but my mind is not vast enough to analyze 

it. Between the three of us, we seem to know a lot 

of random facts about this movie, the implications of 

this are TBD. It just occurred to me that all of Dorothy’s 

helpers are men — where my ladies at?! Somehow we got 

onto the topic of meth, do you think Pink Floyd did meth? 

Theres some real victorious music going on while the Tin Man is 

getting greased up; I feel like I’m watching the end of a war movie or something. 
Alas, the janky YouTube clip we have relied on finally quit on it. It was interesting 
while it lasted, Floyd.

—CARLY SNIDER

RUBBLEBUCKET

Rubblebucket brings dance pop to the Blind Pig on Oct. 3.

Music is 
a lifetime 

commitment.

baked.buzzed.bored.

By GILLIAN JAKAB

Daily Cultural Cures Columnist

Dear Gillian,
As a freshman this fall, I’m in a 

section led by a graduate student 
instructor who is (1) smart, (2) nice 
and (3) fine as hell. And she looks 
right at me a lot of the time. And 
she’s fine as hell.

I know it’s, like, number two 

on the list of ways to eff-up as a 
freshman, but I can’t help crushing 
on this GSI, hard. I don’t want any 
trouble, but I don’t want to miss 
out either. I’ve been doing a good 
job keeping it my dreams, but in our 
last e-mail exchange, the answers to 
my questions were followed by an 
emoji. Not a hearts one, but a smile 
one with those slightly rosy cheeks 
that could be a blush. At this point, 
I got it bad.

– Hot For Teacher

***

 Dear Hot For Teacher,
The student-teacher forbidden 

love has been chronicled by 
authors and artists through the 
ages. It almost always ends badly. 
The consequences have ranged 
from grade deflation, to litigation, 
to castration, to murderization. Or 
worse, the denial of tenure.

A thing with your GSI is not 

as taboo as a cross-generational 
flirtation with a full professor. The 
dynamic, however, is always going 
to be thornier than a tryst between 
peers.

One story you can look to is that 

of Héloïse and Abélard. These two 
ruffled some feathers 12th century 
Paris. Héloïse d’Argenteuil was 
said to be the best-educated 
woman 
in 
France. 
She 
was 

brought up by her uncle Canon 
Flubert and became a renowned 
scholar and writer. The best was 
paired with the best, and it was 
decided she would study with the 
famous French philosopher and 
theologian Peter Abélard. Well, 
as we all know, private tutoring is 
the perfect opportunity for private 
seduction. The two shared a great 
intellectual, erotic and spiritual 
passion for one another, which 
was not the least bit kosher in the 
Middle Ages.

It seems that when Flubert 

found out about the couple, he was 
livid. Pregnant and unwed, the 
two fled to Brittany and married 
(which Heloise was reluctant to 
do, viewing marriage as a burden 
to her freedom). News of the 
morning-after 
marriage 
began 

to tarnish their reputations and 
careers, and Abélard put Héloïse 
into the convent of Argenteuil to 
be a nun. To Flubert, Abélard’s 
secret seduction, marriage and 
warehousing of Héloïse were 
cowardly and he vowed revenge. 

So he broke into Abélard’s room 
with some friends and castrated 
him. Carrying on, the erstwhile 
lovers corresponded through a 
celebrated series of seven letters in 
which they exchanged insults and 
blame, expressed their despair and 
longing, and pledged their cerebral 
and corporeal devotion.

Now, 
Hot, 
you 
might 
be 

thinking castration is not a legit 
threat in the 21st century. But do 
you even know anything about 
Fine-As-Hell’s 
relationship 
(or 

ex-relationship) status? By the 
time you’re a GSI, you’ve probably 
accumulated a complicated love 
footprint, particularly if you’re fine 
as hell and using a blush emoji with 
a freshman in week three. There 
could be some venomous players 
woven into this web that you’re not 
even aware of.

It doesn’t take Héloise and 

Abélard’s fiery affair that runs 
from wild love to forced celibacy 
to bring trouble to a student and 
teacher that find themselves in a 
sketchy tête-à-tête. David Mamet’s 
(yep, Zosia’s father) two-character 
play “Oleanna” suggests only an 
intention of intimacy between 
professor John and undergraduate 
Carol, yet they were up the creek 
pretty quickly.

Carol goes to her professor’s 

office distraught, complaining the 
material was not well presented 
in his course, and asks for passing 
grade. John is distracted, on the 
verge of being granted tenure 
and closing on a new house, but 
eventually sympathizes with her 
criticism of the academic system 
and decides to help her if she meets 
with him privately to discuss the 
material. At an intense moment, 
he puts his hand on her shoulder 
to comfort her, and she shakes it 
off, visibly upset. Carol returns 
having 
filed 
complaints 
with 

the University (and the tenure 
committee) that John is sexist in 
class and sexually harassed her 
when she met with him. Freaked 
out by how this will affect his 
chance at being tenured, John 
grabs Carol when she tries to storm 
out of her second visit. Pretty soon, 
he’s denied tenure and suspended 
and Carol faced with feelings of 
violation. Things only get worse 
from there. 

Now, Hot, you’re probably 

thinking, “Whoa, whoa, it was 
only an emoji.” But you know what 
they say: emojis are gateway icons 
that just lead to harder keystrokes 
and pretty soon you’re sharing 
peeks on YikYak.

We stereotypically think of 

older men in teaching positions 
seducing 
young, 
ambitious 

schoolgirls. But in Zoe Heller’s 
novel “Notes on a Scandal,” — 

which was made into a film with 
Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench — 
is closer to your situation, flipping 
the script to show us another 
casting of roles. Art teacher at a 
London comprehensive school, 
Sheba Hart, lusts after 15-year 
old student Steven Connolly, and 
it’s not long before they’re having 
sex in risky spots but managing to 
keep the affair hidden.

One problem you can see here, 

H, besides the red light of being 
with a minor, is the conflicting 
concerns of two people at different 
stages of life. As the relationship 
progresses, Sheba becomes more 
and more attached to Steven as he 
inversely loses interest. As middle-
aged adult, with a dusty marriage 
and an insecurity of aging, life is 
moving at a slower pace than it is 
for a teenage boy, and Sheba clings 
to the relationship as she tries to 
cling to her own youth. Although 
the gap between you and Fine-
As-Hell is only around six years, 
consider that she’s worrying about 
getting kicked off her parents’ 
health 
insurance 
and 
you’re 

worrying about getting kicked off 
the line at Skeeps.

In the story, Sheba’s nosey 

friend finds out about the affair 
and starts writing an account of 
the tryst. So clearly, nothing can be 
kept secret. Somehow people will 
always find out, especially when 
proof is as easy as a screenshot of a 
Snapchat of the two of you getting 
cozy at office hours.

Sting, who had worked as an 

English teacher before becoming 
the bassist and lead singer of 
The Police, captured many of 
the pitfalls of student/teacher 
temptations in “Don’t Stand So 
Close to Me,” which I recommend 
you listen to. His advice is to put 
some spatial distance between 
yourselves and the rest will take 
care of itself.

So, Hot for Teacher, if you’re 

not scared out of your mind by 
now and are still clicking through 
your GSIs public profile pictures, 
I’d say wait until next semester 
when you’re no longer in enrolled 
in the class, or better yet next 
year when you lose your frosh 
status. For now, just make an 
impression in class by spicing up 
your comments with some sources 
that flaunt outside research and 
genuine curiosity (I don’t know 
what class it is, but hopefully not 
Psych 494 “Adolescent Sexuality” 
or French 350 “Mistakes.”) Stand 
out and look sharp. Fine-As-Hell 
will remember you in 2016.

Send an email to DearGillian@

michigandaily.com to submit 

your own questions for the 

Cultural Cures Column.

CULTURAL CURES COLUMN

Help! I’m hot for 

my GSI!

