CONGRATULATIONS
200
200
To our 31E scholars on the
35th anniversary
of our class of 1931 Engineering Scholarship Program
The class of ‘31E and its Scholarship Selection Committee Congratulates and welcomes their SIX
new scholarship winners for the 2017-2018 academic year:
JOSEPH COSTELLO
ERIN DEUTSCHMAN
TAYLOR FEDDERSEN
AMBRIA HOPFE
MICHAEL KLETTNER
JOSEPH TAYLOR
They will be joining the ‘31E HONOR SOCIETY and our THIRTEEN current scholars:
George E. Anderson | Director of Media Relations | Class of 1931 Engineering
All of these scholarship winners will be honored at the 86th Annual Reunion Dinner of the Class
of ‘31E, which will be held at the Four Points Sheraton Inn, Ann Arbor, Mich. on Friday evening,
October 27th, 2017 at 5:30 PM.
Since the establishment of the ‘31E Scholarship Program in 1982, more than 200 aspiring
engineering students have been helped to experience a University of Michigan education and have
gone on to rewarding careers.
ADONIS JOHNSON
JOCELYN MARCHYOK
HALEY PROUT
GRAYSON RICE
ARIEL SANDBERG
CODY SYMONS
GARRETT ZUCK
DOMINIK KONIK
DANIEL PIPPEN
ROHAN PUNNOOSE
MARIO RUSSO
RAYMOND SMITH-BYRD
PHILLIP YANG
Watching
the
popularity
of The Front Bottoms rocket
over the past year has been
downright jarring for me to
watch. A band marked by
their quirky and warm lyrical
stylings, they were the last
group I expected to end up
opening for massively popular
bands like Brand New and
blink-182 when I discovered
them nearly six years ago. I
say this not out of malice, but
rather because they felt like
such a niche secret deeply
nestled into my adolescent
music taste. Now as a junior
in college, I’ve seen The Front
Bottoms grow from playing
club shows to massive music
festivals with thousands of
people singing along.
Last
Thursday,
The
Michigan Daily spoke with lead
singer and songwriter Brian
Sella about the band’s newest
record, Going Grey, and their
current headlining tour with
diverse support from the UK’s
best punk rockers in Basement
and beautiful ambient indie
rock from Bad Bad Hats.
The Michigan Daily: To
start off, could you tell me a
little bit about your experience
with watching your crowds
and fan base grow as you’ve
transitioned
from
playing
clubs
to
theaters,
festival
stages and opening for bands
like blink-182?
Sella:
Yeah,
absolutely,
it’s been incredible. It’s been
sort of a slow build. It’s been
easy kind of to adjust to. You
know, you always get nervous,
but like you said, we played in
basements, in small clubs, in
small bars. And then it was like
we’d play those same stops for
like years, years at a time, like
four or five years. And when
we first started playing them
there would literally be one
to 10 people there. And by the
time we put out more material
and came back a few times, all
of a sudden there’d be a few
hundred people. That kind of
just feels great, you know, to
make an art project and then
go out and play it for people
and have people appreciate it
and respect it enough to like
come out and take their time
to enjoy themselves at a show.
And now we’re playing today at
the House of Blues in Boston,
Massachusetts, and I think it’s
a sold out show. It’s just like a
total trip. I feel so lucky to be
able to do it… it’s really insane.
It’s sort of hard to explain,
but it’s a very nice feeling. It
feels very positive, and I feel
very lucky that it’s grown to
the level that it’s at. And it’s
not like a ridiculous level, you
know, it’s not like thousands
and
thousands
of
people
coming to see us play. So, it’s
nice, you know, it’s a nice sort
of, it’s a good vibe still.
TMD: Are there any songs
you’re excited to play live?
Sella: We’re going to open
the set with the first song on
the new album, “You Used
to Say,” and we’re going to
close the set with the last
song (“Ocean”) on the new
album, so I’m very excited to
be able to sandwich the set.
And in between that we’re
going to play 20 songs from all
the albums. I’m excited to do
“Ocean,” “Holy Fuck” and then
also I’m very excited to play
“Grand Finale,” because it’s
going to sound very big, and
it’s going to fill up the room.
So, I’m definitely excited about
playing those.
TMD:
Going
off
of
bookending your sets, I noticed
Going Grey is bookended with
coastal sounds like waves and
birds. Is there any overarching
narrative or theme to the album
that you feel isn’t immediately
obvious?
Sella: I feel like it is pretty
immediately obvious. I thought
it was pretty punk rock to have
a very long, sort of cinematic
intro to the album. Basically
the idea with that was like the
themes of vacation: “Vacation
Town” that whole idea… and
how it ends with the song
“Ocean.” So that was kind of
the idea behind that, to do like a
cinematic, kind of book end the
front and back of the album. If
you play it on a loop, it’ll sync
up perfectly so it’ll be a perfect
loop around. Also, the song
“Vacation Town” has a little
weird intro that if you play
that song on loop it’s a perfect
circle. You won’t be able to tell
where the start and end is. So it
was kind of just an artistic idea
that I think kind of added a lot
to the atmosphere of the album
and kind of puts you in that
mindset when you hear those
seagulls squawk, and you can
kind of like paint the picture
in your own mind. That’s how
you can listen to the album as
an individual.
TMD: Were your goals for
this album different than your
first release (Back On Top) on
Fueled By Ramen?
Sella: You know, I never
really know what the album
is going to sound like when I
start recording it. So it’s sort of
hard to have a vision or goals.
I think I just wanted to keep
expanding. I wanted to develop
naturally. I didn’t want to force
anything, and I wanted to make
songs that we could come out
and play live. That’s the most
important part. That’s really
the most important expression
is playing it live. And I think
that we did that.
TMD: Did you have any
influences while writing Going
Grey?
Sella: I listen to a lot of
radio, like kind of top 40 radio.
Some old school pop music. I
was trying to make a modern
pop album to be honest. That
was kind of like the vibe and
inspiration I was going for.
The way we were recording
it was in three day sessions.
So that was kind of the most
comfortable type of music
to make. It was just kind of
like fun and relaxed. It was
good, and I liked it. I keep the
lyrics freaky, that’s kind of my
signature thing, but that’s kind
of how it went.
TMD: To close out, if you
could can you describe a
Front Bottoms performance to
someone who has never seen
your band before?
Sella: I would say fun, and
I would say loose. I think
that
nowadays
with
live
performance, because a lot of
people are using tracks, and a
lot of “bands” quote-unquote,
you know they’re not — it
doesn’t seem like they’re really
up there, whatever, having a
good time. For us, when we
get up on stage, we’re straight
up. We’re up there. We might
as well be in the audience,
because that’s kind of the loose
style that we have. If the song’s
not going good, I’ll stop the
song, and we’ll play a different
one. It’s just very loose overall.
We want to have fun. We want
to have as much fun as the
people in the audience. That’s
the atmosphere that we try to
create.
6A — Monday, October 23, 2017
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
UNIVERSAL PICTURES
‘The Snowman’ did not experience box office success
‘Snowman’ disappoints in
nearly every way & shape
New horror film fails to captivate the audience, melts in shame
If you’ve ever been in an
airport convenience store then
you’re probably familiar with
the brand of Scandinavian
crime-noir
bestsellers
from
authors such as Stieg Larsson
and Jo Nesbø. Adapted from
Nesbø’s novel of the same
name,
Tomas
Alfredson’s
(“Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”)
“The
Snowman”
follows
the
unfortunately
named
Inspector Harry Hole as he
chases a body-dismembering,
snowman-building
serial
killer. At first glance, “The
Snowman” has all the makings
of a crime-thriller blockbuster;
its cast is laden with talent,
including Michael Fassbender
(“12
Years
A
Slave”)
and
J.K. Simmons (“Whiplash”).
The source material is an
international bestseller, and
director
Tomas
Alfredson
has proven capable on past
projects. The result, however,
is a two hour long mess that
stumbles haphazardly through
its story while managing to
remain as turgid and lifeless as
the icy landscapes it portrays.
The film’s cardinal sin is
its dialogue and character
interactions,
which
are
uncomfortable
and
clunky.
Fassbender
plays
Harry
Hole, a grizzled, rules-averse
detective
with
a
penchant
for sleeping on the ground in
public and generally behaving
like no other person in the
history of the human race.
In one particularly laughable
scene, the solemn and stoic
Inspector Hole walks to his
ex-girlfriend’s place of work
so he can stand outside her
window and … stare at her?
In another, a Bergen detective
played by Val Kilmer (“Top
Gun”) stares silently at a
murder
witness
while
she
recounts
her
story.
When
Kilmer does reply, his voice has
been dubbed over and the audio
doesn’t quite match his lips.
Just about every interaction in
“The Snowman” is coated in a
thick layer of awkward — and
the cast, for all its raw talent, is
unable to salvage the film.
If this weren’t enough, the
story is a tangled mess of red
herrings, loose ends and utter
nonsense. The pacing feels
as if there were
entire scenes cut
out from the film,
which
Anderson
confirmed
—
nearly 10 to 15
percent
of
the
script was never
filmed.
This
is
made
even
stranger by the
fact that much of
what is present
feels
completely
non-essential
— most of the
film is just people talking
and
Michael
Fassbender
trudging sulkily around Oslo.
The actual “action” scenes
are
frustratingly
deja-vu
inducing as several women
are marked for death with
omens that, no matter how
starkly portrayed, are more
laughable than scary. These
include building a snowman
outside a victim’s house, or
throwing a snowball at her
as she walks home. The film
seems unable to consistently
follow its own story, often
introducing characters only to
have them never appear again,
or having Harry Hole recieve
cryptic riddles from the killer
that are never solved. The film
repeatedly
makes
massive
jumps in logic and reason,
leaving its audience in the dust.
Perhaps the only thing that
can be said in favor of “The
Snowman” is that it has one
or two visually compelling
moments, however even these
feel stylistically out of place.
The opening sequence features
a chase scene with side shots
of cars crossing a bridge that
feels as if it were ripped from
a Wes Anderson film. Later
in the film, a conversation
is shot from the outside of a
moving train. Scenes like this,
while
impressive
on
their
own, feel less like valuable
additions to the
film and more like
reminders
that
cinematographer
Dion Beebe (“Edge
of
Tomorrow”)
would
rather
be
working
on
something
else.
These scenes seem
to jump out of the
texture of a film
that is otherwise
visually
bland.
While there are
occasionally
pleasant shots of Norway’s
fjords
and
mountains,
the
majority of the film is bogged
down in a version of Oslo
plagued by an omnipresent
color palette consisting almost
entirely of white and gray.
At
its
conclusion,
“The
Snowman” sees Harry Hole
back on the Oslo police force,
volunteering to take up a case
that some poor, misguided
producer likely hoped would
turn into a sequel. Fortunately,
the
film’s
underwhelming
box office performance of $10
million worldwide means that
this is likely the last viewers
will see of Fassbender’s Harry
Hole; a fate that is decidedly
for the best. Tomas Anderson’s
perfect storm of disastrous
storytelling and writing will
at best be remembered as
“hilariously bad.”
MAX MICHALSKY
For the Daily
FUELED BY RAMEN
Brian Stella is the lead singer and songwriter for The Front Bottoms
Brian Sella of The Front
Bottoms on ‘Going Grey’
The singer and songwriter talks growth, tours & the new album
DOMINIC POLSINELLI
Daily Arts Writer
FILM REVIEW
ARTIST PROFILE
‘The
Snowman’
GQT Quality
16, Rave
Cinemas
Universal
Pictures
When we first
started playing
them there would
literally be one to
10 people there
I was trying to
make a modern
pop album to
be honest. That
was kind of like
the vibe and
inspiration I was
going for