Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros

Last weekend was WXPN‘s XPoNential Music Festival on the Camden Waterfront! And since UTB and XPN share a love for Penn, puns, and being awesome, they asked is if we wanted to come pop by on Sunday and catch all the blogworthy action.

The festival was a big success, with great bands like Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, Robert Randolph & the Family Band, Dawes, Fool’s Gold and Philly’s own Dr. Dog, who made references to Baltimore Avenue and 2nd Mile in his songs. Amidst all the frolicking between stages and yummy food stands, we sat down to talk to a few of the members of Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros before they went onstage. Check out our interview after the jump!

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Tonight’s the SPEC Fall Concert! We’re sure you all read the interviews with the bands from this week’s Street, but maybe that wasn’t enough. Maybe you want to know what Pains of Being Pure at Heart singer Kip Berman had to say about autumn, football and how much Smashing Pumpkins he’s been listening to. Good news: we have outtakes from the interview on those very subjects and so much more!

Street: This is going to be the fall concert – what’s your favorite thing about fall?

Kip Berman: Oh my God, it’s my favorite season. And my birthday’s in the fall. I love football. Birthday, football, changing leaves…I also like sweaters a lot. When fall comes around I can start wearing sweaters again, which is true to my indie pop nature. It could be seen as cliche but it’s true. I especially like argyle ones. The World Series is fun, too. Read the rest of this entry »

Putting a face to the name.

In the age of email, it’s easy to send and receive electronically without ever being able to put a face to that email address. For example, the TA from your Friday recitation, among others.

For every Penn undergrad, one such figure is helenc@exchange.upenn.edu, also known as Helen Cheung, the illustrious author of Career Services emails galore. Ms. Cheung took a moment off from resume advice and internship searching to answer a few questions for UTB. So even if the job search has you down, you can take pleasure in our ultra exclusive interview.

First of all, what’s on your resume?
I tailor my resume to the recipient. My “career services” resume includes a masters degree in counseling, accomplishments during my stints at three career centers, work experience in nonprofit and business consulting, and related skills and activities.

What is the most ridiculous job posting you have ever sent out?
I’m not sure. We have received some fun job postings before, like “Elephant Trainer,” but I didn’t send them out.

How do you tell kids that they just aren’t going to make it as a [insert dream profession here]?
I don’t tell anyone they aren’t going to make it, because most careers can be achieved with enough time, passion, and hard work. I do encourage people to research a dream job idea fully to learn what it takes to get it; and to really go after what they want.

Would you rather be a nameless face or a faceless name?
Faceless name. But that’s probably not the right answer.

As the Penn e-mail queen: BlackBerry, iPhone, or computer only?
Computer. The old school desktop PC.

Who is the one person at Penn you’d most like to meet?
The mascot, though I already met the Quaker when he stumbled into our career fair last Fall.

If you could have any other job in the world, what would it be?
Running shoes maker.

Finally, what advice would you give to our readers who are currently lacking employment?
Don’t lower your standards but do think broadly, specifically, and flexibly about the jobs you want. And come to Career Services if you want to chat.

We find it frankly mystifying that Greenwich preppies still exist in this day and age — we hoped that the recession’s silver lining was that it had done away with all that madras and seersucker. But alas, as the New York Times‘s Choice blog points out, preppies are resilient, and they need to know what color polo shirts to wear to their college interviews. Help is available, we learn, in the form of fashion shows for admissions interview looks at Greenwich’s Rugby by Ralph Lauren store.

We’re not sure what the point of this article is, other than like, ew, but it includes quotes from our very own Dean of Admissions and a rising sophomore named Margot Neuburger, a friend of the consultant who staged the show. Thankfully, Dean Furda does Penn proud, advising students that “What’s most important is that you’re yourself.” Provided that you have really high SAT scores, of course.

Butch Walker

Can’t get enough Butch Walker? From today’s 34th Street‘s  feature on the reborn songwriter, here is a continuation of the interview, along with a review of his latest album, Sycamore Meadows.

Street: So, obviously, Sycamore Meadows contains a lot of songs about the fires that took your house last year…
Butch: It was a pretty great place and I had a lot of great memories in the year that I lived there. I feel like, obviously, I’m cleansed from it now and all the things that we lost and I appreciate the memories that we still have. We didn’t lose those. It helped me to come up with a lot of what I felt to be some of my best songs yet.

Street: So what are you listening to now?
Butch: I wasn’t listening to anything. When I did this record and leading up to doing it, before the fire and everything, I was really bored of music. I was burnt out on it because I just didn’t feel like I had anything in me any more. I’d burned out listening to it and doing it all the time. To me, it’s about playing in front of an audience, and if I don’t have an audience to play in front of and connect with and do the show, then that part of it is just not fun and it’s annoying. Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s Street features an interview with The Whigs, which you can read here.  Not all of it could fit into the magazine, but luckily this blog serves as a repository for excess magazine goodness, much like the deleted scenes on your favorite DVDs.  And now, the interview!

Street:  You’ve got a nifty blog on your site. What do you think the impact of user-generated content like blogs has had on bands?

The Whigs: We blog; we love all of that. What our blog features the most is places we’re going, stuff that we’re doing. It talks about some shows, tours that we’re on and venues we’re excited about, but there’s a lot of like random gas stations we walk into. It’s just for fun, and I hope people get a kick out of it. As for other people writing blogs — “bloggers” I guess you could say — it sort of gives everyone a voice, people who don’t have the finances to maybe start their own magazine or work at one. There are so many bands out there, but it seems like there’s just as many blogs out there that enable people to keep up with different niches and spread them around. We’re all for it, I guess; it’s nice in any shape or form, whether it’s a newspaper or a magazine or internet-based, if people want to talk about you and they’re enjoying the music.

Saucy, sassy and all-around fabulous Street editor and DP columnist Julie Steinberg managed to score an interview with our crush of crushes, Anderson Cooper, when he was on campus yesterday.  Here’s what he had to say.

UTB: What was your favorite story to report or break?
AC360: Hurricane Katrina was a really clear instance where authorities weren’t reporting what was happening on the ground. What the authorities were saying was plainly different than what was actually happening. There was a great need for reporters on the ground.

UTB: What the most physically or emotionally challenging story you’ve ever done?
AC360: I spent three years reporting in Somalia and Rwanda. I was there for the famine in Somalia and the genocide in Rwanda — those two places had the most impact.

UTB: If you hosted a dinner party, which three literary or historical figures would you invite?
AC360: I’m a bit of a social recluse, so it would probably be hard to have a dinner party, and I also don’t cook, so it would be a disastrous dinner party.
UTB: OK, what about a tea party?
AC360: Tea party I could do. Hmm, that’s a tricky question. I would invite Joseph Conrad, Mark Twain and James Joyce.

UTB: Would you ever go back to work for the CIA?
AC360: Not in a million years. I had a summer internship there, and I didn’t choose to work there then, so I wouldn’t do it now.

UTB: Would you ever consider running for president? Maybe in 2012? Or, how about now?
AC360: Never. I would be a terrible politician. It’s hard to speak with your heart when there are so many competing interests.