A vocal group from "Pitch Perfect 2" (pictured) takes us inside the world of competitive singing; a week after Chris Burden died, his final work launches at the L.A. County Museum of Art; the Minnesota Orchestra plays a role in normalizing relations between the U.S. and Cuba; critics are effusive about the debut album by Shamir.
The Filharmonic take a cappella all the way to a guest spot in 'Pitch Perfect 2'
The new movie “Pitch Perfect 2” was in harmony with millions of moviegoers this weekend — the comedy sequel about a cappella singers opened to more than $70 million at the box office, which is more than the first “Pitch Perfect” took in over its entire theatrical release back in 2012. It’s the biggest debut ever for a movie musical.
One of the bands featured in “Pitch Perfect 2” is the Filharmonic, a six-member group of singers from Los Angeles who are all Filipino-American. The group gained national attention when they competed on NBC’s “The Sing-Off” in 2013, where they got into the final four.
When VJ Rosales and Joe Caigoy of the Filharmonic joined us at the Frame studios, we asked them about their recent appearance on "The Late Late Show," their musical backgrounds and the ways in which a cappella is moving into the mainstream. They also brought the rest of the group in for two special performances.
Interview Highlights:
You've lived and thrived in the world of competitive a cappella singing, so does "Pitch Perfect 2" get it right?
Joe: It's pretty close. It's a movie, so it's super exaggerated and it's made to be more comical, but it's pretty close to what it is. The way that they act with each other is kind of how groups act with each other.
For people who haven't seen you sing, describe your act.
Joe: We're all Filipino, and when we first started we were inspired by the '90s throwback thing. So we like to do top 40 stuff, but we throw in some of that '90s flair, the stuff we grew up with — boy bands, R&B, hip-hop. Our show's colorful, fun...
VJ: A '90s-esque Filipino boy band.
Hear an exclusive performance from the Filharmonic delivering the Boyz II Men classic "Motown Philly":
Where have you played recently? What have some of your gigs been like?
VJ: We just did "The Late Late Show" with James Corden, which was a huge, huge gig for us. We got to back Anna Kendrick and James and do a riff-off battle with them. We arranged the music and gave it to them and said, "OK, let's battle." It was the most amazing thing ever
I want to talk a little about your musical training and background. VJ, why don't you start? Were you singing in the shower when you were 5 years old?
VJ: Actually, yes, that was me. I was also singing lots of karaoke — my parents would force me to sing karaoke.
Your parents would force you to sing karaoke?
VJ: That's right, yes. Filipinos were known for being professional karaoke singers. It's a good thing, it's totally a good thing, because it builds our ears while we're young. I ended up going to Cal State Long Beach for music, graduated with a degree in jazz studies.
And Joe, what about you?
Joe: Same. My mom was a singer on a cruise ship before I was born, so she always encouraged me to sing. I was in choir basically from kindergarten on, and I went to Michigan State University and studied vocal performance and music education. But I'm mostly opera-trained.
The Filharmonic: John Legend's "All Of Me"
In the final performance of "Pitch Perfect 2," the Bellas do an original song, which seems unusual. Is there a bias against originality in a cappella in favor of remixes and covers?
VJ: Yeah, it's hard to come out with an original, because people don't know who you are or what kind of sound you're going for. When you do a cover, it's like, "OK, cool, I know that song," because it's so familiar. But I think it's important to have original music and to create music like that, so one day the Filharmonic will come out with an album full of original music.
Joe: Yeah, and I think a cappella in general — it's like they say in the movie, "Covers are our schtick," like that's what a cappella groups do. But now a cappella's coming more to the forefront, it's part of pop culture, and I think it's more acceptable now to do originals. Pentatonix has a whole bunch of originals and everyone loves them.
Now that a cappella groups are getting more media attention, what do you think about the idea that people are respecting a cappella groups?
VJ: For me, it's groundbreaking because no one's ever really done this with a cappella before. You had doo-wop in the past and now, all of a sudden, it's become this mainstream phenomenon, which is awesome, just using your voices to make music. So I think it's awesome and I think we're on the forefront of something big.
Joe: A cappella is where music started and it kind of went away. People wanted to edit it and add crazy sound effects to make it sound cool, and now it's going back to where music started and people are enjoying this more natural sound.
The Filharmonic with Chrissie Fit: Ginuwine's "Pony"
Artist Chris Burden's last work, 'Ode to Santos Dumont,' flies at LACMA
“It’s very ghostly. It’s very beautiful in that it moves fairly silently and it just seems to float,” says Katy Lucas, who's been late artist Chris Burden's studio manager for the past 25 years. Lucas is describing Burden’s “Ode to Santos Dumont," an operational, lighter-than-air dirigible which was about to take flight inside LACMA’s Resnick Pavilion. Propelled by a four-stroke motor, the piece is a delicately balanced, tethered airship which flies in a 60-foot circle.
Chris Burden's last work: Ode to Santos Dumont
Inspired by aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont, Burden’s piece is a love letter to innovators and tinkerers. Lucas explains Burden’s fascination with Santos-Dumont: “He was considered the father of aviation in Europe and Brazil. Chris grew up in Europe, so I think that was a factor. And he just saw that Santos-Dumont was very versed in engineering, mechanics — he put it all together and Chris loves that in a person, that they can do that.”
Machinist John Biggs helped Burden design, fabricate and build the airship. At first, Biggs thought he’d only been commissioned to build a motor: "I was getting ready to leave and Chris is kind of like, 'Wait, wait, wait, wait.' And I’m like, 'What?'"
"'Well we’re done with phase one, now we’re on to phase two.' And I’m like, 'What? OK?' There was a photograph on the table across the way and it was one of their dogs, Wylie, sitting in the center of this erector set circle. And I’m like, ‘That kind of looks like it would be structure for a Zeppelin.’”
As it turned out, Burden had much bigger plans for the motor Biggs had put together. “And at that point Chris is kinda like, ‘I’m thinking of flying around Topanga Canyon.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, sign me up.’ So it just slowly progressed from there to this.”
Biggs describes "Ode to Santos Dumont" as "zen ethereal."
"It's the sweet spot. I mean, when it all works out, there’s just this one place where it hits the numbers and you’re just like, ‘Yeah, that’s so cool.’”
Katy Lucas says that while Burden was ill when the piece was finished in January, "He drove up and he saw it when it was all finalized and he was very, very, very pleased with it.”
As Burden’s airship embarked on its journey across the museum space under Biggs’s watchful eye, it was hard not to imagine it as a send-off for the late artist. "If you dream it, make it," Biggs declares. "And I think Chris really understood that. I mean, everybody as a child wants to fly — I always did."
"When I look at the piece, I can be on the front of it going like, 'Ahh,' like when you’re in the car and you’ve got your hand out and you’re riding the waves and you’re like, 'Oh, I’m a bird.' It gives you that uplifting sense of the wonder of life.”
Shamir uses his androgynous voice to his advantage
After the release of his 2014 EP, "Northtown," Shamir quickly became one of the most talked about artists heading into the new year. His music garnered attention for its distinctive blend of R&B, house music, rap and even country, while his androgynous voice has been the center of attention.
"I think, especially in music, people are just really hungry for something different," says Shamir, "and you know, me being different was kind of a bad thing but ... not a bad thing but just like no one really got it."
Born Shamir Bailey, the singer/rapper grew up in North Las Vegas, where the rural suburban environment influenced him to write from a more sentimental place, "as opposed to [writing] about fancy things as people would think that I would write about coming from Vegas," he says.
Living next to a pig farm, Shamir began to write country songs at the age of eight because he could relate to the idea of a "home on the range." He competed in country music competitions and always got good feedback from the judges, but says, "It's just really weird for people to see me coming up with an acoustic guitar with bright colors and dreadlocks, singing Brad Paisley, and Sugarland and Miranda Lambert."
His appearance wasn't the only thing that stuck out, but also his distinctive voice. "People were obviously very nice and admired my singing voice," he says, "but they just couldn't put it in a box. They were just kind of confused by it."
Shamir says it's common for people to ask about his gender due to his voice, but wishes more people wouldn't be afraid to ask. "I'd rather you ask than automatically think that I'm a girl," he says. "It's kind of awkward to be like, 'Oh, I'm a boy.'"
When Shamir was younger, he was teased because of his voice and would get irritated when people mistook him for the opposite sex. So he did some soul searching and decided it wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Shamir says "huge androgynous figures like Nina Simone ... pretty much owned it and it's worked." Once the singer owned his own androgyny, he found his voice in music.
After graduating from high school last summer, he started to experiment with an old drum machine. A couple months later, he wrote and posted a song called "I'll Never Be Able To Love" on his Facebook page. "Everyone freaked out," he says. "So that's when I realized, Oh, maybe I have something."
The music industry also realized Shamir had something to offer. Within a year of his "Northtown" EP on the New York independent record label, Godmode, he signed with the British indie-label XL Recordings, which is home to The xx, FKA Twigs and Radiohead.
Shortly after, Shamir became a finalist for BBC's "Sound of 2015" list, where industry tastemakers vote on who will be the breakout artist of the year. Last year's winner was R&B singer Sam Smith, who went on to sell more than two million copies of his debut album, "In The Lonely Hour," and is currently nominated for six Grammy awards.
Shamir attributes his swift rise in the music business to the fact that he's different. "Especially in independent music," he says, "people are really open to unique and different things. So I was very happy and very overwhelmed by all the good feedback that I got from releasing my music to the world."
The BBC’s “Sound of 2015” begins its top five countdown Monday and will announce the winner on Jan. 9.