Diverse acts to vie for title of Best Band

  KEITH ENRIQUEZ/Daily Bruin Senior Staff The 5th Avenue
Group performs at Spring Sing last May. This year’s show will be
held tonight at 8 p.m. at the LATC.

By Mary Williams
Daily Bruin Staff

In five years, the entire music-listening public will be
struggling to get tickets to the sold-out shows of Max the Cat,
Risk Factor, Stereotype and B-Team. Meanwhile, smug UCLA alumni can
once again establish their coolness by saying, “Oh, that
band? I saw them play at Spring Sing ages ago.”

The four young bands will be playing to an estimated crowd of
4,000 Spring Sing spectators in the Los Angeles Tennis Center
tonight, each vying for the first place award in the band
category.

Max the Cat’s four members will be playing an original
song called “When Jackie Smiles.”

“We make great music and we’re fun to watch on
stage. We have smiling faces and all of that, and I think we appeal
to a wide audience,” said Adam Wolfson, a fourth-year
political science student and the guitarist and singer for the
band.

The group decided to join Spring Sing after seeing past
shows.

“I saw the show my freshman and sophomore years, and I was
in Spring Sing Company last year. It looked like fun, so we figured
playing in front of 4,000 people at UCLA would be a fun
thing,” Wolfson said.

  KEITH ENRIQUEZ/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Adam
Levine of Kara’s Flowers captures the crowd’s attention
during their set at Spring Sing last year. Risk Factor, the largest
band in the show with nine members, will be presenting a blend of
two original songs, complete with choreographed dancers.

Risk Factor’s sound incorporates blues and R&B
influences. Erin Rogers, a choreographer and dancer for the group,
designed the dance to reflect that style.

“It fits the music as best as I could do it. It’s a
sensual jazz with some pop to it, with a lot of attitude,”
said Rogers, a first-year theater student.

The dancers are being added for this show only.

Since many of the members of the group are theater students,
they saw Spring Sing as an opportunity to work together outside the
theater department.

“As cheesy as it sounds, it’s a bonding experience,
and it’s fun to show off. That’s what we’re all
doing,” Rogers said.

Presenting this year’s only hip-hop song,
Stereotype’s seven members hope to bring a new sound to the
Spring Sing competition.

“We wanted to bring something fresh and new to Spring
Sing, because we’ve seen it in the past and hip-hop music
wasn’t really getting presented in the past as much as we
felt it could have,” said Ray Lai, a third-year English
student and the group’s bass player.

Stereotype draws its influences from both modern and older
musical genres.

“The song is instrumental hip hop with a bit of R&B
influence with a lot of throwbacks to traditional R&B and soul
singers from the ’60s and ’70s, but also a new-school
hip-hop vibe to it,” Lai said.

The group formed after Lai and several of his friends decided to
prepare a song for this year’s Spring Sing.

The group has exceeded expectations, Lai said, and plans to
continue writing songs after tonight’s performance.

“I think the experience of Spring Sing has got us more
focused upon staying together and playing and being a band beyond
this,” Lai said. “And it’s been a really great
experience because it’s forced us to learn new things about
each other and do things that we probably wouldn’t have done
otherwise, like write new songs and continue working
together.”

As the only group in the band category to have performed at
previous Spring Sings, B-Team will be returning this year with new
members, but the same folk rock sound.

Two years ago, singer John Torres performed with Matt Chuard in
the Solo/Duet category under the name B-Team, and last year Torres
and Budi Iskandar, again using that name, won in that category.

This year the two are joined by three other bandmates and are
performing a cover of “Let It Be Me” by the Indigo
Girls. It does not, however, think that its status as a Spring Sing
veteran will assist it this year.

“As far as the judges go they’re pretty raw every
year. But as far as fans and people who come out to see us,
it’s nice to have the support. If that’s an advantage,
I don’t know, but it’s nice to have some people who
know your name,” said Torres, a fifth-year English student
who will again be a vocalist for B-Team.

Torres is returning to Spring Sing this year because he enjoys
performing in front of the large audience that attends the
event.

“It’s very gratifying to play in front of that many
people and to be appreciated,” he said.

The four bands work in a wide range of genres, and Caroline
Young, a talent director for the event and a fourth-year American
literature and Russian studies student, promises an entertaining
show.

“They’re pretty diverse, and they’re fun to
watch. All of them put on a pretty good show,” she said.

EVENT: Spring Sing will be held tonight at 8
p.m. at the Los Angeles Tennis Center. Tickets are available at
Central Ticket Office.