B5

Melody KitchensIntrIgue edItor

there’s a law in Alabama that prohibits masks in pub-lic, but that doesn’t drag down the impact the disc jockey duo of dead?Wait! has on Auburn’s music scene.

Their villainous masks and comic book-like origin story on whatisdeadwait.com fit well with their persona on stage.

the pair tore up pages of textbooks at a show after fi-nals week, and they almost ru-ined the stage lighting at Bour-bon Street Bar from the ruckus that ensued.

offstage, they’re a couple of mysteriously reserved, timid guys still in masks struggling to get a few words out at first.

“A lot of people don’t really know this, but they say they’re really ugly underneath,” said manager Alessio Summerfield, junior in radio, television and film.

“I get a lot of panicked phone calls in the middle of the night," he said. “They’ll go through a lot of tracks and then just scrap them.”

the duo seems to strive to protect not only its image (hence the masks), but also its musical image.

“You can’t be afraid to start over,” dead?Wait said. “We don’t suck, but if our tracks suck, we make it not suck and start over.”

dead?Wait! call Auburn their home, and they began creating and sharing their mu-sic through SoundCloud in 2010.

Summerfield and public re-lations represenative Isaac Lim then played some tracks on their WegL91.1 radio show, and dead?Wait! was picked up soon after to dJ live.

“We liked what we had going on,” dead?Wait! said. “We also didn’t have any money.”

Summerfield booked their first show in February 2011 at the former Independent ven-ue. Since then, dead?Wait! has

played about 13 shows around Auburn, from house parties to their personal favorite show at last spring’s Adult Swim Carni-val.

“We’ve never had to ask for a show,” Summerfield said. “dead?Wait! told me not to go begging for shows, and I think that’s pretty cool.”

dead?Wait! holds a book-ing philosophy of only playing one or two shows every couple of months, and according to Summerfield, it creates a sort of forced scarcity.

“It makes it an event, differ-ent from dJ’s that you can ex-

pect to see play four nights a week,” Summerfield said.

dead?Wait! frequently uses dJ equipment like MIdI con-trollers, laptops and ana-log synthesizers on stage or “whatever our brains tell us at the time,” dead?Wait! said. “We like to switch it up every once in a while. We also just throw in some crazy sample and just re-peat it a thousand times. Peo-ple love that.”

dead?Wait! said they pre-fer recording their music in the woods, as their first eP “do You Hate It Yet?” was recorded there because “music has lots

of timbre from the woods.”The collaboration with John

McMeans of H.Y.d.r.A. on “do You Hate It Yet?” is the first of many to come according to the pair, as well as a collaboration with local artist SexChange on the up-and-coming unnamed eP.

“ We like H.Y.d.r .A. ,” dead?Wait! said. “He brings a lot of real music into the equa-tion. He’s really talented, and he mixes and brings his own instrumentation.”

Currently, Auburn’s new Media Club and Charlie Harp-er, junior in radio, television

and film are directing a clay-mation video for driving Hy-brids, a track off “do You Hate It Yet?”

Plans are also in the works for a video of a track off the new eP directed by Brock Hanson, senior in radio, tele-vision and film, videographer John Henderson and Sum-merfield.

P r o m p t e d b y t h e help raised to promote dead?Wait! with videos, t-shirts and shows, Summer-field recently created Project dead?Wait!.

“We’re trying to get peo-ple from the community and students involved in the arts,” Summerfield said. “I kind of used dead?Wait! as a catalyst to get students interested in directing videos.”For upcoming shows and

to download tracks, visit face-book.com/wearedeadwait or whatisdeadwait.com.

» Want the inside details of what could quite possibly be the weirdest, most fun

interview Melody has been a part of ? Check

www.theplainsman.com

Rebecca cRoomes / Photo editoR

the pair behind the masks are only known as dead?Wait!, a local dJ duo currently working on its second eP. top photos by Rebecca croomes.

couRtesy of daniel oRamas

one half of dead?Wait! and John mcmeans of h.y.d.R.a. perform last year at Pebble hill.

IntrigueThursday, September 13, 2012 www.theplainsman.com Intrigue

Intrigue B6 The Auburn Plainsman Thursday, September 13, 2012

tailgate @ the library

Kickoff the semester with the best student tailgating event on campus

Ralph Brown Draughon LibraryFriday, September 14

10am - 1pm

Come Join The Fun!

FREE FOOD & DRINKS

AU MARCHING BANDAU CHEERLEADERS

WAR EAGLE VIIFUN AND GAMES ALL OVER THE LIBRARY!

Looking for a date? 30 years isn’t long enough...

Red flags and merciful dumpings

Some of the red flags in a re-lationship are universal, like if he’s rude to your friends or if she’s an Alabama fan.

There are some indicators that get overlooked, though. As your self-declared guide to affairs of the heart, I have com-piled a cheat sheet of relation-ship deal breakers.

They are terrible at text messaging. Break up with them if they have texted you any of the following. A "good morning" before 11 a.m. A vari-ation of the single-letter "K" as a response. ‘Hey' or 'hey what's up' accompanied by a winky face emoticon.

Furthermore, any text mes-sage without appropriate punctuation will be interpret-ed as a passive-aggressive at-tack and immediate grounds for dumping.

They are destroying your Netflix queue. There are sev-

eral milestones you hit dur-ing a long-term relationship. Celebrating holidays together. Meeting the parents. Exchang-ing SAT scores. There will come a point in every relation-ship when your significant oth-er innocently asks for the pass-word to your Netflix account.

It starts innocently enough, with a couple episodes of “Pretty Little Liars.” But pretty soon, your recommendations are suddenly filled with eeri-ly specific categories that Net-flix claims are based off of your taste preferences.

You have no interest in ‘Ro-mantic Crime Thrillers Fea-turing a Strong Canine Lead’ or ‘Movies Where Two Char-acters Fight A Lot Because of How Much They Feel For Each Other and Also There’s A Scene In An Airport.’ But you know who does.

They are emotionally un-available. You’re looking for a relationship with a future. You don’t want to endure this thing for another six months only to find out they aren’t into the whole “emotional investment” thing. This is sometimes hard

to tell right away, so I’ve de-veloped a foolproof, two-step method to quantitatively test whether someone is a heart-less monster with no capacity for love. Have them watch the Disney-Pixar film “Up.” If they don’t cry within the first 10 minutes, dump them.

They are too emotional-ly available. I know what I said above, but there’s a limit to the amount of sweet noth-ings someone can whisper be-fore you are ready to kick them to the curb.

This kind of overbearing re-lationship is characterized by public displays of affection, baby talk and nauseating nick-names including (but not lim-ited to) any dessert-based com-parison.

Dump them if they’ve ever posted your name online with more than one exclamation mark next to it.

There is a way to conduct a healthy relationship that doesn’t involve posting Face-book status updates about it in 15-minute increments. You deserve someone who realiz-es that.

My father and I get along really well, better than most I think, but recently he's been trying to push a "father/son" hobby on our relationship. I'd probably be all for it if it was paintballing, shooting .45s, going to South America or brewing our own beer. But no, he's hell-bent on making pickles. PICK-LES. He already planted the cucumbers in my parents' garden, bought a whole bunch of seasoning/brine and has been trying it on cucumbers that he's found at farmers markets and Whole Foods.

I want to support my Dad (it seems like he's kind of going through a mid-life crisis), but this obses-sion with pickles is a tad absurd. My mom agrees, and everyone's getting a little sick of the refrigera-tor in the basement being full of pickle experiments. Lane, HOW DO I MAKE IT STOP?!

Sincerely,Pickle T. Willyburg

You're lucky to have a father who endeavors to make your life more like the heartwarm-ing films of our childhood. I can't tell you how difficult it is to orchestrate that kind of kooky comedy on your own (trust me, I've planted enough banana peels to know). Did Robin Williams' kids complain when he invented Flubber? Did Eddy Murphy's kids com-plain when he started having in-depth conversations with wacky zoo animals? Did my roommate complain when I kept leaving banana peels outside her bedroom door? Well yeah, she did, but she's a real drag.

You might not be able to see it now through your pickle-induced panic, but you're for-tunate to have a dad with such quirky hobbies. In a world where Snooki's unborn child al-ready has a three-year television contract, there is no story too boring to meticulously doc-ument and then broadcast to the entire nation. This could be your ticket to stardom, kid. So grab your old man, slap on an apron and a smile and film your pilot episode.

These Plainsman

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Thursday, September 13, 2012 The Auburn Plainsman Intrigue B7

Gray GillWriTer

He dropped out of Auburn University on two different occasions. His childhood was spent exploring São Paolo, Brazil.

As a young adult, he lived in a commune in New York City and hung out with gypsies in Miami. Now, once more, he is calling Auburn his home and his muse.

His name is Mike Leigh, and he may be the most inter-esting man in Auburn.

More specifically, Leigh is an artist who has explored several different modes of art over the course of his life.

Leigh sees different art forms as essential to figuring out his creative life.

“All these modes of art, they’re just tools,” Leigh said. “i guess i’m just trying to find to figure out how to use tools. i’m trying to figure out what the most effective tools are.”

Currently, his tools of choice are paintbrushes, pens, acrylic paint and white cardboard.

Leigh prefers to paint and draw on cardboard rath-er than canvas because it’s cheap and accessible.

Leigh describes his style of painting and drawing as minimalistic. Most recently, he completed a series of por-traits on his trademark white cardboard where the entire picture is drawn with one continuous line.

“it’s a portrait with the purpose of there being some mental triggering between text and visual,” Leigh said. “There’s one that’s blatantly about sororities, about diet drinks, about having sex and having babies.”

Leigh is adamant his goal is not to offend any one person or group, for that matter.

“it’s not offensive,” Leigh said. “it’s just one perspec-

tive on something. What you have hanging on your walls isn’t going to change who you are, but it’s going to affect the things going on inside you.”

As far as promoting his per-spective, Leigh has used the popular picture-editing app, instagram, to take pictures of his art and allow people to easily view it.

recently, he set up a pop-up art show in the alleyway between Moe’s Original Bar B Que and Auburn Hardware. Leigh believes the =unlikely location said just as much as the art itself.

“Some people don’t even want to be in alleyways,” he said. “To just get someone who’s just walking by to step into this alleyway…to see something i drew.”

Leigh cannot recall a spe-cific moment when he real-ized his passion for art and expressing himself creatively.

“i’ve always been draw-ing or painting,” he said. “My mother’s a painter. She start-ed that when i was about 10 years old. So i’ve been around that. i’ve had a few art classes here and there. i lived in São Paolo for a while. There was so much graffiti there and my mind was invaded with all of these strong images.”

Leigh believes his time in Auburn, since he first arrived his freshman year up till now, has been conducive to his growth as an artist.

He fell in love with the Plains when he attended Uni-versity swim camps through-out high school. When he came to Auburn as a fresh-man, he hoped to earn a walk-on spot on the Tigers’ swim team; however, due to over-recruiting, there were no available spots left for Leigh to try out.

instead of being discour-aged, Leigh took advantage of his free time to explore more

artistic outlets.“That’s when things real-

ly started to get weird,” Leigh said.

Throughout the next few years, Leigh said he found friends who had creative goals similar to his own.

They went on to promote and garner respect for local bands, as well as introduce Auburn to outside bands through house shows.

Leigh has been focusing on music lately as well. Over the past summer, he wrote and recorded eight songs using his voice and an electric guitar.

Other than music, Leigh enjoys working with film pho-tography, developing the film himself. While in school at Auburn, Leigh began acting as well. it was theater that called him to Miami and New York, where he attended Circle in the Square Theatre School, an acting program.

Leigh said he approaches life and his art with the desire to be aware of exactly what he experiences in each moment.

He said he strives to em-brace not only the good mo-ments, but the painful ones as well.

“That’s what life is,” he said. “it’s up and down. it’s not be-ing afraid, but just going for-ward.”

Leigh isn’t worried about the future. “it’s always going to be the next five years,” he said. “it’s never going to get here. i’m worried about the mo-ment. i think my job right now is to study human emotion ;through music, through theater, through painting, through drawing, through cooking and drink-ing and spending time with people.”

“There’s something big missing in my life, and i’m try-ing to find it. i’m 24; i don’t have a degree, but i’m doing what i want to do,” Leigh said.

Local artist promotes art through photo app Instagram

Emily morris / AssistAnt photo Editor

Former Auburn student mike leigh’s talents range from music, art and acting. he promotes his perspec-tive of art through instagram to allow people to easily view it.

Intrigue B8 The Auburn Plainsman Thursday, September 13, 2012

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WYF

Intrigue Editor Melody Kitchens and Copy Ed-itor Jenny Steele each showcase their top two picks for Spring 2013 from New York Fash-ion Week. Sketches by Lane Jones.

1. Rebecca Taylor takes what could be the overdone peplum top trend and refines it with a slimmer bodice and pairs it with printed, baggy, cuffed pants. -MK 2. Army green will still be seen next spring, and Boy by Band of Outsiders keeps it fresh with a sheer paneled top and a classic blazer. -MK3. This piece reminds me of something Salvador Dali would’ve designed for his wife, Gala. The spine print and red os-trich feathers are surreal and al-most macabre–the model looks like she’s been gutted–in the prettiest way possible. It’s gor-geous and irreverent as well (just like the famed Surrealist), and high fashion needs a dose of that every now and then. -JS4. Catherine Malandrino’s col-lection exudes femininity. Pas-tels and an overwhelming use of creamy white were paired with detailed knitwork, mesh and sequins. My favorite piece by the French designer used la-ser-cut fabric to create matching geometric patterns on a cream blouse and shorts. The sheer sleeves are ethereal and practi-cal for spring. -JSRebecca Taylor Boy by Band of Outsiders Catherine MalandrinoPrabal Gurung