Aryn Sanderson
asanderson@mustangdaily.net

San Luis Obispo HotHouse and the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) launched a 30-day crowd-source funding campaign to finance their accelerator program. The summer-long program gives seven teams of Cal Poly students and recent grads funding and mentorship as they take startup business ideas from concept to creation.

“It’s pretty much all based on Learn By Doing, but this is really ‘do by doing,’” CIE co-founder and director Jonathan York said. “It’s the next stage beyond Learn By Doing, a stage that enables students to take control over their own destiny.”

The Indiegogo campaign began one week ago with the goal of raising $70,000 — just enough to fund the seven teams for the summer.

Each team of entrepreneurs will receive $7,500 in seed funding. Although Cal Poly supports the program in terms of administration and gave the original seed money for the HotHouse, all of the funding comes from donations, York said.

“Crowd funding is a great way to get a lot of people to see our mission and our vision in supporting student startups,” York said.

CIE media coordinator Kristin Kenney said crowd funding is “a really cool idea.”

“We’ve had people in the HotHouse that have done successful crowd-funding campaigns before,” she said.

Since HotHouse isn’t creating a physical product, the campaign is putting a creative spin on crowd sourcing. Donors help create “Innovation City,” a virtual town built with each donation.

York compares the idea to a “digital brick campaign.”

For this campaign, a sketch of the imaginary city is updated to illustrate the progress toward the donation goal. For example, a $10 donation helps to “beautify the city,” giving it a bench or foliage. In actuality, it funds one team for an hour this summer.

Art and design junior Bryn Hobson and art and design senior Patricia Jimenez are in charge of creating the “Innovation City” blueprint.

“We came into this with the structure of the campaign in place, but we are really trying to make it feel like a hand drawn, personal thing,” Hobson said.

“The fundraising and urgent nature of the campaign make it fast-paced and exciting. It’s really exciting to get to add specifically what people want you to add,” he said, referencing personalized additions such as a skate park, library and block party with balloons.

Engaging the community isn’t unusual for the HotHouse or CIE. The accelerator program is nestled in downtown. Local mentors consult, and Cal Poly students and grads create. But when looking to fund the teams, HotHouse wanted to expand its scope past San Luis Obispo city lines.

“We have, over the last few years, really built a network of early supporters, and at this point in time, we wanted to expand that out into the broader Cal Poly alumni and global community,” York said. “The student companies are really exciting, and we want to have a chance to get more people on board.”

The student companies moving in this summer include: Veg This Way, Spongecrete, SeatWizz, Before and After Maids, Z Living Systems, Prelimb and HomeSlice.

Cuesta student Luke Bayard of SeatWizz, which offers “the next generation of online ticket purchasing,” said the chance to be in the HotHouse this summer is an honor.

“To me, it’s a dream come true to have the opportunity to build my own business and possibly have my own employment when I graduate,” he said. “That in and of itself is the biggest opportunity that this poses to me, is a chance to really make something of myself.”

HomeSlice entrepreneur Shea Brucker, a business administration senior, mirrored this sentiment. Brucker said acceptance to the summer HotHouse program is “priceless” and “invaluable.”

“SLO itself is becoming kind of a mini-Silicon Valley,” Brucker said. “There’s an enormous amount of growth coming out of SLO in terms of startups and entrepreneurship. So the message behind promoting us as an ‘Innovation City’ idea is really just awesome.”

It’s a message that Mary Kelting, director of development for CIE, hopes will catch on.

So far, the campaign has amassed more than $6,000.

“We want this campaign to go viral,” Kelting said.

Kassi Luja contributed to this article.

Mustang Daily Staff Report
arts@mustangdaily.net

Fifth-year architecture students will display their thesis projects — the culmination of their college careers — at one of the largest design and architecture exhibits in California, “FINAL CUT.”

Students spent one quarter doing research and two quarters working on the architecture version of the yearlong senior project.

“The capstone of their college career will showcase everything that they have learned in the past five, six or even seven years,” architecture professor Barry Williams said.

There are eight different fifth-year studios, which all focus on a particular theme. Williams’ class focused on the social aspects of architecture.

“There are 149 students participating, and what it shows is there are 149 ways to go through the curriculum,” Williams said.

Within the broad range of projects, one student is designing a school in Ghana, which has become a real-life venture.

“Things from locations all over the world, from houses, to museums, to theoretical what-if projects,” Williams said. “It is important to look at and examine and see a broad range of architecture and what architecture does and what these someday-architects will be doing.”

Architects are invited and come from firms all around to look at student projects.

“It’s a good chance for them to look at the 100-plus potential candidates,” Wiliams said.

On Saturday, eight faculty members will select 10 projects they consider best-in-show.

“It gives people a good idea of what architecture students have learned, what they are doing and the complexities of the field of architecture,” Williams said. “A lot of the time, they see architecture students walking around in a gaze from lack of sleep, and now they know why.”

Architecture senior Kiley Feickert’s project is a theoretical building inspired by the migration out of Detroit.

“It is an observation tower that grows as people drop their abandoned objects, which symbolizes the mass migration out of the city,” Feickert said.

“FINAL CUT” will take place Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Chumash Auditorium.

“It is basically the show you are working toward all five years,” Feickert said. “It is our last project at Cal Poly.”

Hillary Kaiser contributed to this staff report.

By all accounts, Matt Berninger is a happy man. He’s married with a daughter, and between all the interviews and Reddit AMAs leading up to the album release, The National seems to be content.

You wouldn’t know it from “Trouble Will Find Me.”

The band’s seventh LP is a labor of sadness. Make no mistake: This is an album written by sad bastards for sad bastards. Of course, this isn’t uncharted territory for The National, whose last album, the equally sad-sack “High Violet,” was met with critical and commercial acclaim.

Berninger’s ragged baritone has a gift to dive deep into the alcohol and regret to emerge with a beautiful, bone-cutting song that drags the listener back down into its depths.

The kind of misery-loves-company power that The National wields is, well, powerful. There’s a long-running online forum called “American Mary” where die-hard fans have been trading rarities and discussing every aspect of the Brooklyn-by-way-of-Ohio band in great detail. This is the sort of music that connects with people.

Fans don’t need to worry — this extends the band’s streak to four straight excellent albums — but even after so much material in the same vein, “Trouble Will Find Me” manages to find ways to distinguish itself.

Musically and rhythmically, it’s more creative. The album features no fewer than three different songs in trippy time signatures, designed to keep you as off-balance as the songs’ hopelessly defeated narrators.

Bryan Devendorf cements himself as the best drummer in indie rock by showcasing his tremendous ability to affect the tone of a song with either a few deft brushstrokes (“Heavenfaced”), or towering crescendos (“Demons”).

After being together with a constant lineup for 14 years, The National works flawlessly as a unit. The members know when to get out of each other’s way, and they know exactly where the focus should be when Berninger delivers a brutal bit of gloominess like, “I don’t need any help to be breakable, believe me/I won’t need any help to be lonely when you leave me” on “Slipped.”

For a band that’s known for its melancholy weight, the subject matter of “Trouble Will Find Me” is somehow even bleaker. The recurring motifs of alcohol (Berningner’s signature drink is a bottle of red wine) and regret are out in full force here. On “Pink Rabbits,” the object of the narrator’s lost love enjoys the eponymous beverage, which the Internet claims is an unholy combination of tequila and strawberry Nesquik.

The album’s most evocative track, “I Need My Girl,” is a throwback to “Alligator”-era National. It’s less of a love song than a portrait of a newly single man alone at a party, but Aaron Dessner’s looping, shiny guitar perfectly encapsulates the narrator’s loneliness.

But it’s “Humiliation” that best sums up the work of The National. It’s the kind of song indie kids will have on playlists when they’re dads, nestled comfortably inbetween The Walkmen and Wilco. “In the skies over black Venice/I see eyes of a white menace” is the kind of contextual perfection that so many bands will never be able to pull off, but here, Berninger delivers it apathetically because there’s so much more where that came from.

More than anything, this is a heavy album. Its gravity pulls you closer and threatens to suck you in completely. As an exploration into the depths of humans at their very lowest, “Trouble Will Find Me” is a soaring triumph by experienced explorers.

The giant room that once hosted Jack Johnson, Sugar Ray, Steve Miller Band, Incubus and Bob Dylan reopened on Thursday night with a series of alternative bands and artists like Cal Poly has never seen.

It all started when two-man band IAmDynamite took the stage, opening the night with a set that was over all too fast. Crowds were still filling the auditorium, filtering into the bleachers and shoving past peers in attempts to catch a glimpse of the stage.

After the brief IAmDynamite set, Robert DeLong wasted no time introducing himself.

“San Luis Obispo, how you fucking doing?” he shouted with a tribal-painted face and headphones over his ears as his experimental dubstep reverberated through the crowd. The electro-pop sound and heavy beats seemed to wake up the audience, and once Robert DeLong began hopping around the stage in his black skinny jeans to “Where We’re Going,” it marked the OK for the crowd to join in by dancing, bobbing and hopping along.

As “Global Concepts” pulsed through the speakers, Robert DeLong was clearly in his own world, splashing the cymbals of the drum set, facing away from the audience (though he did some self-marketing mid-song to announce, in a distorted, musical voice that his album was available for purchase in the lobby).

The final song revved up the crowd and seemed like the favorite of his set. He smacked a tamborine, hopped across the stage, smacked the cymbals, spun back to the other side of the stage as the music slowly built up, louder and deeper until a massive, distorted bass drop shook the speakers.

It was the perfect build up to the next band, Wavves — a total change of pace from the electronic sounds that carried the first half of the concert. This rock band turned the crowd from jumpy to wild within seconds of the guitarist’s fingers hitting the strings.

Suddenly, small bottles of booze and silver flasks were being passed around, bodies slammed against each other and the entire front half of the crowd was trapped in the kind of mosh pit you’d find at a Metallica show. A Converse sneaker flew through the air as the first crowdsurfer of the night rode the chaos for a brief moment, kicking until the pit of bodies swallowed him up once again. Then, a few more crowd surfers tumbled on top of the crowd, and a few more, until people were everywhere, hands rolling them across the auditorium like tracks on a treadmill.

As head-banger music roared from the speakers, a voice from the band paused to warn the crowd, “You’re about to break the fucking barrier. Be careful.”

But the barrier held, and Wavves finished its set with just as much gusto as the start, leaving the crowd covered in sweat and amped to keep the night going.

Fitz and the Tantrums jumped onstage with the best energy of all the groups — the funky, ’80s-style, six-person band interacted with the crowd more than any of the preceding performers.

Fitz and the Tantrums

Frontman Michael Fitzpatrick kicked off the set with “The Chains of Love,” a baritone saxophone wailing to his left, and a soulful sound from Noelle Scaggs to his right.

The wild body slamming inspired by Wavves morphed into a joyous frenzy with Fitz and the Tantrums onstage. But the crowdsurfing didn’t stop. In fact, Fitzpatrick himself leaped offstage and rode the wave of hands.

Fitz and the Tantrums’ third song was a newly recorded cover of “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This),” originally sung by Eurythmics in 1983. Fitz and the Tantrums also performed “Out of My League” and the band’s (arguably) biggest hit, “MoneyGrabber.” During the set, the band convinced the entire 2,000-person audience to get really low, and the crowd consequently went into a rapturous frenzy.

And then came Awolnation.

Clearly, singer Aaron Bruno didn’t realize that Fitz and the Tantrums had already left the stage, because he looked like he was having a tantrum while singing “It’s Not Your Fault.” But the band’s stage presence was unparalleled — Bruno knew how to work the crowd.

“It was awesome,” graphic communication senior Andie Hodgson said. “I really loved Awolnation.”

Hodgson said that while the concert got crazy at points, Awolnation was her favorite set of the night.

 The group’s set was full of songs from its latest album, but the hit of the show was clearly “Sail.”

Bruno ended the night with a philosophical takeaway for his fans:

“We are Awolnation. We are all Awolnation, ladies and gentlemen. We are all Awolnation.”

Awolnation

Mustang Daily: So, have you been on tour for a while?

Aaron Bruno: We’ve had about five days off.

MD: Oh, so you’ve had a nice little break then.

AB: Yeah. It’s been really important for me. 

MD: I’m sure. You don’t want to wear yourself out. So, what is your pre-show routine after you’ve had a break?

AB: I don’t really have one. I try to stay as confident as possible, and spend a little bit of time alone. Because you’re about to entertain a bunch of people and host this event or party that, you know, you want to give people their money’s worth and not waste their time. So I think it’s good to focus, and it’s important to not get too carried away and do too many things to get ready for a performance. I just want to be as instinctual and as honest as possible. 

MD: Do you have a post-performance routine?

AB: Showering. I like to shower like, within 30 seconds after getting offstage. I can’t shower quick enough. I sweat a lot. It’s pretty gross. And when you’re gonna shake hands, and meet folks … I mean, imagine going to the gym and then meeting a bunch of people for the first time. It’s kind of a weird experience.

MD: Have you ever had any embarrassing moments onstage?

AB: Not really. I’ve dropped the mic a couple of times — that’s a big no-no because it makes such a loud sound. So any time that happens, I’m extremely embarrassed. Or if my mic feeds back at all. But I’m never actually totally embarrassed unless I’m having a bad night and I can’t hear myself and don’t know how good I’m singing. I mostly care about how the show went, as far as the energy in the room and the reaction on people’s faces rather than if we technically played perfect or not.

MD: So, what does Awolnation mean to you?

AB: That’s open for the listener really to decide. What it means to me is different than what it means to other people, but I can say that I think most people would agree that, like most music that has moved me, I hope it moves other people to feel that they have some sort of an escapism through listening to it and hopefully I’m saying things that people relate to and hopefully it helps them get through the day. There’s no rules for anything like that. It’s all open for interpretation.

MD: Does that go for your songwriting as well?

AB: Yeah, of course.

MD: Where do you find inspiration for your songs?

AB: I don’t know, just life. Whatever makes me get up out of bed. All the highs and lows of life, all the music I’ve listened to … There’s not one thing though that inspires me. I try to stay out of the way of the song ideas and just be a filter of these ideas and do the best I can to help them see life I guess.

MD: What’s it like hearing your songs in soundtracks such as “Art of Flight” and commercials?

AB: I haven’t decided what that’s like yet. I still don’t understand it. It obviously feels good. But it feels a little scary too at the same time. But you know, it’s very rewarding because I’ve written so many songs that have never seen the light of day, and I feel sad — you could have the best song in the world, but if no one hears it, it can only go so far in the earth’s atmosphere. So hearing them, it feels good. It means there’s a demand for what you’ve created and that’s a flattering feeling for sure. But it doesn’t feed my ego at all. It makes me more nervous, like, “I better do great on the next one as well.”

MD: What makes Awolnation stand out as such a huge success compared to your previous bands?

AB: It’s impossible to say exactly what that may be, but I know I feel that I — probably through going through all these ups and downs and being in all these other bands, and feeling a lot of disappointment from these other bands, and heartbreak from having to end all these relationships with bands — that maybe I’ve experienced more life this time around and actually have something to say now. And so the lyrics are more relatable instead of the nonsense I was saying before. And hopefully I’ve just gotten to be a better songwriter.

MD: What’s the dynamic like between the band now?

AB: It’s just really positive. I’m the architect of this project, and I’m lucky enough to have guys that believe in what I do and want to play with me, you know. And they bring something each individually to the live show that I couldn’t do without them. And they certainly give me strength when I’m feeling weird or insecure, because there’s certainly those moments as well.

MD: I notice you’re drinking a Red Bull … which happens to be your record label …

AB: Yeah. But — funny — I actually bought it at a gas station.

MD: Really?

AB: I was tired … but I wasn’t like, “Hey, I’m the guy that is on the label.” I actually never have this product around me, so it’s funny you said that. But I got tired on the drive, and I just said, “I need one of those things.”

MD: What’s it like representing this extreme sports-centric energy drink brand?

AB: Well, I don’t represent them at all. You know, it’s a partnership. I’m lucky, when I signed with them, it’s like “Fight Club.” You don’t have to mention it, or talk about it at all. We’re trying to put out music and they have their hands in with some really amazing, next-level athletes, so I think they wanted to do the same thing in music — not that I’m saying I’m as wonderful as some of these athletes at songwriting, but I think that’s what their goal is. And music is a universal language, right? Regardless which language you’re singing in, people can memorize a melody or a rhythm and be affected by that in a good way, so it’s probably a smart idea to be invovled in music one way or another if you’re a company. But I’m stoked, they seem to do everything in a classy way. I’m grateful.

MD: What was your life like before you decided to become a full-time musician? Or was that goal always a part of your life?

AB: It’s always been there. But when I turned 19 years old, that’s when it became full-on, where I left everything else behind, and quit everything else, and spent all my time on learning how to create a real band. But as far as I can remember, I’ve always been playing with different people. I don’t feel that different now than I did before. I’ve always been a huge, obsessive fan of music.

MD: Was your dream always to be in a band? Is that what you told people as a kid?

AB: I think I did, yeah. But I don’t think I ever thought that would actually happen. But the point of it, why I wanted it and my idea of what that means has completely changed. When I was younger, I just wanted to “make it” in some way in the music field. And then once I started writing these songs, it was more about honesty and trying to make a difference in this world and leaving some sort of mark behind that had a positive meaning behind it, as opposed to just making money or becoming successful or noticeable in any way.

MD: What do you hope the crowd takes away from the show tonight? 

AB: I hope some people consider it the best night of their lives. That’s always the goal.

MD: Do you have any plans for the band’s future?

AB: Just trying to make a better record, and the next one even better than that. Hopefully people that enjoyed this record will want to join us on the next journey.

MD: Do you have any songs on your latest record that are particularly close to your heart or hold special meaning? 

AB: That’s like asking to choose which you like better, your mom or your dad. They all serve their own purpose in their own ways, you know?

MD: Are you going to have a chance to check out SLO after the show tonight? 

AB: I think I’ll probably go home. I have a lot of stuff to do tomorrow — normal life stuff, believe it or not.

Interview by Allison Montroy and Maggie Kaiserman

Mustang Daily Staff Report
arts@mustangdaily.net

The Associated Students, Inc. (ASI) spring “surprise” has sprung.

California rapper Shwayze — best known for summer anthems “Buzzin’” and “Corona and Lime” — will perform at the final installment of this school year’s Concerts in the Plaza at Sunset series on May 31, ASI events musical entertainment assistant and business administration junior Gage McGinnis said.

“I’m really stoked about it,” McGinnis said. “Shwayze captures the culture of young college kids.”

The event appeared in ASI’s Spring Activities Guide as “TBD.” At an ASI Board of Directors meeting this past Wednesday, an ASI representative teased to the “surprise” event, calling the artist “big.”

ASI let the cat out of the bag on Friday night: McGinnis announced the Shwayze concert at the beginning of Erik Griffin’s comedy show in Chumash Auditorium.

McGinnis said Shwayze was not confirmed for the event until this week and announcing the show at the comedy event was a “special thing.”

The free, “high-energy” show will feature a live drummer and DJ, McGinnis said.

Carly Rickards and David Liebig contributed to this staff report.

Aryn Sanderson
asanderson@mustangdaily.net

The female duo’s overlapping harmonies swirl through Bon Temps Creole Cafe, commingling with the steam piping off big, white bowls of gumbo.

Welcome to Songwriters at Play, a weekly showcase for up-and-coming musicians.

The duo is The Lovebirds, Veronica May and Lindsay White.

They pause before beginning their next nostalgic tune, looking out at a spellbound crowd of approximately 30 people.

“You know how movies have sequels?” White asks the audience.

“Like Santa Paws and Santa Paws II!” May interjects, her quirky personality shining in the intimate environment. “Santa Paws II was the sequel to … ”

“They don’t care!” White banters back.

The crowd — a jambalaya of families, friends and older singles — chuckles.

“Well, this one is the sequel to the song we just played, ‘Landmine.’ It’s called ‘Goldmine,’” White says.

And so they begin “Goldmine.”

It’s a love song about a time-tested relationship — “that is the real goldmine.”

But the uplifting number aches with irony in light of the pair’s recent romantic breakup.

“The Lovebirds” were just that until a month ago, when they ended their three-year romantic relationship to be able to “salvage what (they) had musically,” White said.

“We felt like music is why we were brought together,” she said. “We’re meant to be together in that way, and everything else will fall into place with time. People think we’re crazy going on tour together a month after breaking up.”

They don’t agree.

The two croon onstage: “What we have left is more than we lack/We got songs in our throats and guitars on our backs/So we’ll make love through our music.”

It’s hard to describe The Lovebirds’ sound without sinking into intangibles. White’s voice grows like fresh moss on May’s rich, oak tree of a tone. And when White carries lead on a song, her antique melodies dance like flames being wind-blown by May’s gusts of warm vibrato.

They say they fit somewhere on the spectrum of female duos between the Indigo Girls (but less folksy) and Tegan and Sara (but less poppy). If The Milk Carton Kids and Iron & Wine defied genetics to produce a lovechild, it would be The Lovebirds.

Upon first listen, their quirky, chirpy, slightly jazzy sound — complete with guitar picking and ukulele strumming — comes off as arrestingly joyful. But with a deeper listen — the type that audiences get at Songwriters at Play events — their sound reveals itself as ethereal, haunting and elegantly beautiful. Their skill as songwriters and music-makers is undeniable.

The Lovebirds are just the type of musicians Steve Key, creator and host of the weekly Songwriters at Play, is looking to support.

“Because it’s called Songwriters, it’s about original music,” Key said. “Our emphasis is on the songwriter, and we invite people to come listen and support the musicians. It’s not a dance club kind of thing; it’s more of a sit-down event.”

In the case of The Lovebirds, Key knew the audience would appreciate their harmonies.

“There’s certainly a lot to like there,” Key said. “They harmonize so very well, and they have a great mix of humor and some real heartfelt, personal songs. I’ve worked with The Lovebirds a couple times before, and they just keep getting better. They’re huge down in their home base of San Diego, and I loved that more people were able to hear of them.”

Key has hosted songwriter showcases for a long time in the area, but the series officially began January 2010.

Since its creation, Songwriters has attracted musicians from near and far.

Mother-daughter bluegrass duo and soloists Susan Marie Reeves and Sierra Reeves come up to the area regularly from Santa Barbara, Calif.

“The difference with events like these is that the people actually listen, and that’s what I like about it,” Sierra said. “I love the respect from the audience.”

For Davis, Calif. musician Alicia Murphy, who was featured at Songwriters at Play at Kreuzberg, CA in San Luis Obispo and at Sculpterra Winery and Sculpture Garden in Paso Robles, the Songwriters shows have been memorable.

“In Paso Robles, it was people hanging out, drinking wine with these beautiful rolling hills,” Murphy said. “It was probably the most beautiful backdrop of a stage I’ve ever played on. I kind of felt like I was playing to the hills.”

And at Kreuzberg, CA, Murphy experienced a first.

“I remember this one guy drew me while I was playing,” she said. “It was kind of a funky picture, but I’ve never had a fan draw me before. He wrote one of my lyrics down next to the picture — the lyrics ‘patience without doubt’ — which is a really hard thing to have, and he said, ‘You know, that was a really profound lyric.’ And I was definitely affected by that.”

Songwriters at Play in San Luis Obispo takes place every Monday at Bon Temps Creole Cafe and the first and fourth Saturdays of the month at Alegria wine and ware. There are also weekly and monthly locations in Arroyo Grande and Paso Robles.

All Songwriters at Play shows are free. Many are recorded and broadcast on The KRUSH 92.5 FM.

Step aside, Alex Madonna Expo Center.

The Recreation Center is back — bigger, better and louder than ever.

Reopening after more than four years of silence, the Cal Poly Recreation Center will welcome five bands to perform at the “No Big Deal” concert on Thursday.

“This is Madonna Expo on steroids,” Otter Productions owner Bruce Howard said. “The fact that this is reopened again is a really awesome thing.”

The Recreation Center, now the largest indoor venue in San Luis Obispo County, is four times as big as the Alex Madonna Expo Center and holds twice as many occupants — up to 3,400 people, Howard said. He also noted that the ceiling is “almost five times higher.”

The concert is a three-way effort between New Rock 107.3, ASI Events and Otter Productions.

For years before the renovations started, the Recreation Center played host to musicians such as Bob Dylan, Incubus, Ben Harper, Sugar Ray, Jack Johnson and blink-182.

Howard, who was a key promoter and planner for approximately 95 percent of those concerts, said he plans to keep the nationally charting bands coming — starting with Thursday’s show.

Awolnation, Fitz and the Tantrums, Wavves, Robert DeLong and IAmDynamite will all rock out at Cal Poly for “No Big Deal.”

The show centers around New Rock 107.3’s typical playlist — alternative-style music, Howard said.

“What we wanted to do was have a wide parameter of bands within the format of radio stations in our market … and the radio wanted to do an alternative show on a college campus,” Howard said. “We wanted to appeal to as many listeners as we could within the alternative genre.”

Mechanical engineering senior Ben Canfield said he is looking forward to having such an accessible venue for Awolnation, who performed at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in 2012.

Canfield said while some of the artists set to perform Thursday are still somewhat unknown, “it’s exciting, because a lot of the artists … are gaining popularity quick.”

“It’s cool they’re coming to campus because I bet at least one of the bands will be playing at much larger venues in the future,” he said.

Howard said most fairly upscale universities have a venue similar to the Recreation Center that caters specifically to student entertainment.

“Most schools have a performing arts center, but that’s not for the students,” he said. “Rec centers are the perfect college venue. It’s not all puffy chairs, and dancing is not discouraged. At the PAC, if you stand up, people will ask you to sit down. Here, if you sit down, people will come ask you to stand up — I’m kidding — but it’s just all about having a good time. It would not be appropriate at a performing arts center — let’s put it that way.

Approximately 40 makers, performers and vendors showcased their innovations at the San Luis Obispo Mini Maker Faire on Saturday in Mission Plaza. Below are some highlights from the event.

Oren Levy, an engineer at Music Man, makes guitars from scratch. The pieces he brought were “just out of the wood mill.”

Another presenter displayed remote-controlled cars — some with LED lights and others that can dust around the house.

Electrical engineering junior Alex Klimaj showed off a 3-D printed rose he made. “So, 3-D printing basically takes plastic and puts it down onto other layers of plastic,” he said.

Members of SLO IdeaLab presented their 3-D printer. The collaborative MakerSpace shop is home to other equipment such as laser cutters and industrial sewing machines.

Carly Rickards and Maggie Kaiserman contributed to this staff report.

“The Great Gatsby,” as interpreted by the always-subtle and understated Baz Luhrmann, presents the whirlwind of Roaring ’20s opulence. Prohibition had just been lifted, and it was a time of golden spectacle. The stock market boomed and parties were filled to the brim with high-flying flappers, long cigars and Kanye West songs.

It would seem that you sacrifice a little bit of historical authenticity in exchange for having Jay-Z on board as a producer for your movie. Jay-Z was happy to dish out soundtrack spots for his buddies (and his wife Beyoncé, in a happy bit of nepotism).

Over the past few years, big-budget soundtracks have been something of a popularity check. The Twilight movies have turned into some sort of Farm Aid for rock bands on the cusp of the mainstream. The saga started with Paramore, and moved dutifully through the series, soliciting original songs from Death Cab for Cutie, Metric, Joy Formidable, Passion Pit and St. Vincent. Interesting choices, considering a Venn diagram of Twi-hards and St. Vincent fans is probably close to two separate circles.

So why do these producers shell out the money for these special collaborations?

Soundtracks (with the exception of those of musicals) don’t generally break into the Billboard Top 10. Is it an attempt to gather indie cred? Even “The Hunger Games” coaxed original tracks out of Arcade Fire, Neko Case and The Decemberists.

Maybe it’s a hype-builder. Quentin Tarantino’s excellent “Django Unchained” got a bit of pre-release press when news broke that Rick Ross would be writing a song for the soundtrack (and that the Frank Ocean song would be cut).

But Rick Ross’ “100 Black Coffins” works effortlessly over a movie set in the 1850s, while Luhrmann’s soundtrack is an anachronistic mess. Why?

The proper pairing of music and movie can give a song a whole new meaning. You’ll never hear Stealer’s Wheel’s “Stuck in the Middle With You” the same way after seeing “Reservoir Dogs.” “Garden State” turned a generation of kids onto The Shins when Natalie Portman melodramatically promised they’d change Zach Braff’s life. It’s impossible to listen to “Twist and Shout” without thinking about that smile on Ferris Bueller’s face.

Directors take a lot of care when hand picking their music. They’re not worried about how the album is going to sell; they’re focused on the theater audience.

Is the music playing over the top of the scene, or is it heard within the scene from a boombox or car radio? What tone does the song invoke? Do the characters interact with the song? Established songs, as opposed to an instrumental score, have an ability to strike a chord with the audience on a cultural level, and they can be better used to recall an era or establish a mood since the audience might already be familiar with the song. A delicately selected song can subtly change the mood without the BWAAAAAAMMMMP of a Hans Zimmer score.

Most original songs in a soundtrack throw that careful selection out the window.

Matt Bellamy of Muse probably has very little vested interest in “Twilight.” He gets paid to write a song with probably no more instruction than to make it sound vampire-y, and now the director has to awkwardly shoehorn this mediocre track into his movie because his studio already paid a boatload for it. Everybody wins.

Of course, there are always exceptions.

Adele’s entry into the hallowed halls of James Bond credit crawls comes to mind as the most recent example of an original song for a film done right.

Movie soundtracks have also become an unlikely home for rock refugees. Eddie Vedder has a Golden Globe and Trent Reznor has an Oscar.

Ultimately, a song’s success or failure in a movie depends on its context in the movie as a whole, and the thought that went into its selection. “100 Black Coffins” works largely because it contributes to one of the major themes of “Django Unchained” — racial identity.

When the camera flies over Gatsby’s mansion to the tune of “No Church In The Wild,” however, the audience is taken out of the movie. The juxtaposition of Kanye West over the Jazz Age serves no purpose, except for a fairly pathetic stab at relevance.

Who knows? Maybe “The Great Gatsby” soundtrack will sell 10 million albums and Jay-Z will have fulfilled his underlying goal of becoming even richer. As a commercial venture and a hype generator, the soundtrack may well succeed. But on the big screen, it’s a failure.