If Switzerland seemed like a cleansing spring shower, then Rome was like walking into a filthy steam room (thankfully, without the naked fat guys). The city is covered with ruins in various stages of decay. Some sites were truly awe inspiring, but many had suffered the ravages of time and took serious imagination to appreciate (legalizing drugs in Italy may help with this). Fortunately, Rome has more than solitary columns and decapitated statues to enjoy.

The food easily makes up for anything Rome lacks. Gorge yourself on the four Ps: pizza, panini, pasta and pastry. Of course, don’t forget to finish off with a quadruple scoop of gelato (do it, fat boy!). You would think with all this food around, loose clothes would be clutch, but the Italians beg to differ. Prepare yourself for tight-ass jeans, booty shorts, Capri pants and body-clinging shirts… and that’s just the dudes.

If eating and people watching isn’t your thing, maybe you should check the tube. The first show that caught my attention was Commissario Rex. Rex was a tough cop who didn’t take guff from anyone. Unfortunately, Rex was also a dog. Needing more Turner and less Hooch, I moved on to a game show. I still don’t understand the premise entirely, but it started off sort of like Double Dare. The contestants were a 15-year-old boy and a woman in her early 30s with huge tits, which she pretty much rubbed in the boy’s face at every opportunity. In addition to competing in physical challenges and pop culture trivia, the contestants dressed up like rock stars and performed covers with a live band. After 30 minutes, the contestants were forgotten and the show inexplicably switched gears to a body-type showdown. A runway was brought out and the game became fat vs. skinny, tall vs. short and, of course, big tits vs. no tits. With this last piece of the Italian culture puzzle now in place, we decided it was time to move on to Paris.

Another city, another airport… we were seasoned vets. So far, we hadn’t had any trouble; but our luck was about to change. Easyjet requires you to check in at least 40 minutes before takeoff. Brocephus and I arrived at the airport with just minutes to spare. The concierge was nice enough to ignore us for about five minutes while she pretended to do shit on her computer. Of course this meant that we had now missed the 40-minute cut-off for check in. Thanks to Easyjet’s awesome customer service, we had to pay full price for a later flight and got to enjoy the airport’s luxurious metal chairs for 12 hours (yay!).

The Easyjet bitch slap at the airport cut our three-day stay in Paris to two, leaving a lot of ground to cover with not much time to do it. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Brocephus had begun speaking some hybrid form of Italian/Spanish, thoroughly confusing everyone we encountered. Despite the language barrier, we managed to see, eat and drink our way through much of the city without incident. We even made a concerted effort to get a Royale with Cheese, but France’s love for McDonald’s proved to be a serious barrier. Leaving France burgerless and exhausted, we headed back to the States.

After the longest travel day of our lives, we settled in at Brocephus’ apartment for a little shut-eye. Signaling the end of the trip, Brocephus woke up the next morning and abruptly vomited on the floor. What a fitting end to three weeks of excess.

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Congratulations, North Korea! On Saturday, Oct. 11, the Bush administration announced that Asia’s most mysterious communist nation is no longer on the list of states that sponsor terrorism. I, for one, am glad.

I don’t know much about Korea, or Korean culture, other than Jin and Sun from Lost are pretty sweet. I’ve also eaten at a Korean barbecue joint once and was really impressed. The table was just full of raw meats and spicy pickled things; and in the center of the table was a grill and fire pit so you could grill your meat to your liking. I got drunk on soju and didn’t even have a hangover the next day. Overall, I was pleased. However, I’m sure North Korea isn’t as bad as they’ve been made out to be—just a bit misunderstood.

Relations between the U.S. and North Korea have never been all that good. There was that war in the ‘50s that never really got resolved. Back in 1994, things seemed to be lightening up in the two countries’ tumultuous relationship, as President Clinton signed a similar agreement with the North Koreans. That all went to hell in 2002, though, when the Bush administration pegged the mysterious communist Asian nation as part of the “Axis of Evil,” an announcement that ruffled the well-coiffed feathers of North Korea’s enigmatic and creepy leader Kim Jong-Il. The situation really got interesting in 2006 when North Korea detonated a nuclear device, changing the Bush administration’s “Fuck you!” attitude toward Pyongyang to “Hey, guy. How’s it going?”

An uneasy accord was met. In 2007, “six-party” talks (including Russia, Japan and South Korea) were held. Thanks to those meetings, North Korea kind of sort of agreed to halt their nuclear activities…probably. But in 2008, those shaky ties looked about ready to break. According to an article in the New York Times, just days before the Oct. 11 announcement, North Korea had barred international inspectors from a plutonium plant in Yongbyon. In a last ditch attempt to make it look like they have done something positive in its eight years in office, the historically stubborn Bush administration made a compromise. Imagine that.

The deal doesn’t really change the situation all that much. U.S. inspectors will now have access to the Yongbyon plant; however, whether or not inspectors will have access to sites international experts suspect may be used to make weapons grade nuclear material remains to be seen. Inspectors will now be able to gain access to such sites “based on mutual consent”—good luck with that. For its part, North Korea gains a modicum of international acceptance. They’re no longer that disturbed little child picking the wings off flies at the kiddie table; now they’re breaking bread with the big boys…just as long as they mind their manners and don’t ask for seconds.

The Oct. 11 announcement raised the ire of Republicans. Presidential nominee Sen. John McCain complained “that North Korea had yet to demonstrate that it was serious about adhering to its commitment to denuclearize.” Meanwhile, Democratic nominee Barack Obama was like, “Whatever, I’m going to be president soon anyway.” (I’m paraphrasing.)

Maybe we’re just making a big deal over nothing. For all his eccentricities, maybe Kim Jong-Il isn’t as insane as people think. Maybe the only way to get noticed as a player in international politics is to wave a loaded gun around. If it’s truly going to be a global community, doesn’t that mean everyone should have a voice? Perhaps it’s the only way he could ensure the safety of his government and his people—to create a sort of stalemate. Maybe if everyone had The Bomb, everyone would go forth in peace. I’d like to give the world a nuke? I suppose it has a ring to it.

James Barone
jb@submergemag.com

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Harlow’s Sacramento
Monday, Oct. 6, 2008

Upon entering the dimly lit Harlow’s Restaurant and Night Club last Monday, I was delighted to see that Two Sheds had been booked as the last minute opener for Mates of State. I immediately noticed that it was not only Caitlin and Johnny Gutenberger (who make up Two Sheds) occupying the stage; there was another women sitting in-between the two assisting with vocal harmonies and light percussions, including the tambourine. I later came to find out that it was none other than Amber Padgett of the local duo Spider Silk Dress. Her addition was a great one and Two Sheds entire set was fantastic, but it seemed like the majority of the crowd didn’t care because almost everyone was talking—so loud in fact that it was nearly impossible for me to really focus on the music. Maybe I chose a bad spot to stand (I do that sometimes), maybe they weren’t there for the opening band, but come on people, show the band some respect and shut the fuck up for a few minutes. My guess is that the lack of bass and drums during Two Shed’s set made it easy for the audience’s short attention spans to become even shorter. What a shame.

As soon as Mates of State took the stage my theory was proven correct: all it takes is loud drums to get people to shut their yappers (probably because they can’t hear each other talking) and actually focus on the music. As if they were trained to do so, the entire crowd stood up and rushed toward the stage to get a closer look at Kori Gardner (keyboard/vocals) and Jason Hammel (drums/vocals). The two are married and have been making records and touring together since 1997, so they are solid as can be. The chemistry between the two on stage was something I have never before witnessed; you could sense them communicating while playing. They would cue each other with tiny glances or facial expressions to change parts or bring a song to an end.

Their timing and harmonies were flawless, further proving another theory of mine that every married couple should just make music together instead of making babies. When the two would simultaneously sing complementary vocal melodies it was so layered and sounded so huge that it was hard to believe only two people were on stage. At a couple different points during their set, two other musicians joined them: one played cello, adding a very symphonic, cinematic feel and the other played electric guitar (which wasn’t even really noticeable in the mix) and messed around on a laptop playing loops and samples here and there.

Crowd favorites of the night seemed to me to be “Fraud in the ‘80s,” and “Like U Crazy,” both off their ‘06 release Bring It Back, and “The Re-Arranger” which is on their newest album Re-Arrange Us and on this particular night brought their set to an end (before the obligatory encore of course).

As the show came to an end we quickly guzzled what remained of our beers and stumbled out the door, satisfied with the performances of both artists.

By Jonathan Carabba
Photos by Melissa Welliver

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Crank up the volume and feast your ears on a musical smorgasbord that definitely requires a full concert hall. The native Sacramento band MC Rut combines the talents of singer and guitarist Zack Lopez with drummer and backup vocalist Sean Stockham. Lopez’s angsty lyrics explode on a canvas of poignant guitar riffs, for a full sound that is raw and edgy. MC Rut doesn’t tiptoe into their songs—they give it all they’ve got, musically and lyrically.

Submerge catches up with MC Rut in the interim before they hop a plane to London—an interview that appropriately takes place at the Streets of London bar.

Can you tell me a little about the projects you’re working on now—the new album and the upcoming tour?
Sean Stockham: We’re always playing and writing music whether it’s an album we’re writing for or not. We do what we do. We get together five or more days a week and play music for as many hours as we can. Right now we’re getting ready to go to London in November. Obviously we’re really excited about that

Have you guys ever been to London before?
SS: This is the first time. It’s definitely something we’ve dreamt about doing since we started playing music. At some point we had stopped dreaming about it, and it didn’t even seem realistic.
Zack Lopez: Now it’s reality.

When do you think the new album will be realized?
ZL: We don’t even know really what the new album is. We’ve never written a song for a specific project.
SS: Out of what we have now we could probably put together maybe four to seven projects.

Why did you make the decision to release EPs instead of a full album?
ZL: They are full albums essentially. We’re just scared of the word “album.” Once you commit to saying “album,” that’s your first album.
SS: It’s just like not committing to marriage… There’s something very scary about marriage and there’s something very scary about a full-length record.

So people have described your lyrics as being kind of aggressive. Did you write these songs during a dark period, or are your lyrics pretty consistent?
ZL: It wasn’t a dark period; it was just a normal life period. You don’t necessarily have to be depressed, you know? Most people aren’t happy with their lives as it is and I think that’s a big part of this band.

Your songs express a general dissatisfaction about middle class life. Would you say you have a fear of the 9-to-5 lifestyle?
SS: It’s different than like the fear of death, because none of us have actually experienced death… The 9-to-5 thing is something that’s always right there.
ZL: I feel like some people are down with what they do and that’s great. It’s all about being happy with where you’re at. When you come to the point where you’re struggling to be somewhere that you don’t even want to be in the first place, that’s when you’re bummed.

Do you think that’s an artist thing?
SS: I don’t want to say that. You can say that, but yeah, that’s probably exactly what it is.
ZL: We expect a lot from ourselves. And if we don’t get it, then we’re miserable, and we keep chasing it till we get it.

You guys have high expectations, then?
ZL: From the first time we played music, we expected everything… But at least we’re on the road to hopefully getting there. We’d rather be trying to get somewhere than never try and never be anywhere.

How do you think living in Sacramento affected your lyrics, or did it?
ZL: It definitely didn’t. It was more living in L.A., living on a failed dream that affected our lyrics.

In one of your songs, the song “I Don’t Really Know,” you write, “We’re never going anywhere, just circling around.” Do you still feel that way at times even today, even though it seems like your band is really taking off now?
SS: I think everyone feels like that, generally stated. For us in the band, its such an exciting time right now it would be really hard to not feel like shit was improving at least.
ZL: You’ve got to understand, five minutes of your life where you could feel so strongly about something you could write 10 songs, and you have to express what you felt at that point. It doesn’t necessarily express how you feel all the time…it represents who you are at that point. And we’re really good at writing songs about moments.

So if you wrote a song about right now would it have a more positive spin on it?
ZL: It would sound like 311. And we’d be bummed on it.

How has your music evolved between the last songs you released and the new songs you’re working on now?
ZL: The vibe is the same, but we feel like we’re better songwriters. If we don’t consistently keep writing better songs, we feel like we’re not doing our job. Every time we’re writing something, the only reason we ever move on something is because it’s better than what we’ve already done. If its not, it gets left behind, and that’s where it deserves to be.
SS: At the same time, if what we’re doing now doesn’t at least have something in common with what we’ve done before, then it’s not even us.

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There seems to be an inherent marriage between the creation of art and the enforced destruction thereof by the powers that be. I mean, even John Lennon had an FBI file. So when local aerosol artist Paydirt7 first began his journey into the street-savvy world of writing on freight trains and buildings, he most likely had little inkling that he’d be targeted for the illegality of his work, despite its obvious radiance. But just as quickly, Paydirt7 hit…well, you know…and even has a commissioned piece hanging at City Hall. His work reflects both the vibrant urban decay of society and also the imaginary cartoon worlds of comics; but both breathe deeply with zeal, and there’s an irregular neo-tech tenderness to his work that separates the oil from the vinegar. Paydirt7 took some time out to chat with Submerge about his beginnings, his middles and why Beat Street changed his life.

I understand that when you started out, you encountered a bit of trouble due to spray painting on the sides of freight trains. Can you explain a little bit about that era of your foray into art?
Painting freight trains is an evolution of graffiti from the subways of New York. Instead of a train running just in one city, they roll across the country. To me, a piece on a train takes on a life of its own.

What made you gravitate toward aerosol as your preferred method of creating your art?
Before I had even touched a can of Krylon, I was drawing comic book heroes and doing watercolors—you know, that first set of watercolors they give to kids. I’d sit around for hours painting dinosaurs, drinking red Kool-Aid and eating saltine crackers. My first exposure to hip-hop was watching Beat Street as a kid. I think it was around ‘85 or ’86, and it was playing on the VCR at a childhood birthday party. Back then it was more about break dancing, and I remember hanging out in front of the supermarket trying to spin on my back on a flattened cardboard box. I think shortly after that we upgraded to a sheet of linoleum. That feeling of fun and creativity is what attracted me to hip-hop style graffiti. I started using an airbrush but got annoyed changing out all the cups of paint and being tethered to an air compressor. When painting murals 20 feet by 20 feet, it’s much quicker with spray paint. I can blast large areas of color with a fat cap and climb to the top of ladders with a papoose full of spray cans. I just like the mobility it provides. Also there is a sense of adventure and interaction with your environment painting outdoors with aerosol.

Your work reflects a lot of different influences, from comics to urban street art to pop culture; do you enjoy working outside of a presumed theme for your pieces?
There are so many styles and subject matters to explore. Some times I feel like Bob Ross, other times I feel like painting ridiculously exaggerated cartoon characters and graffiti letters. No matter what it is, I think my underlying technique and touch shows through.

What did it mean to you to be commissioned for a piece at City Hall after having so many speed bumps with legal issues?
I grew up in Sacramento and it’s a pretty small community, so it’s kind of hard to hide from the po-po. I started writing in ‘93 and shortly after that began receiving commissions by local businesses. I always wanted to go to art school but did not have the rich parents to pay for it. Also, I was already making a decent living painting murals so why go into debt paying back student loans? When I turned 18, I began teaching computer graphics and mural painting classes to kids in the day, and at night I would be painting freights in the yard. Shit was nice for a while, but when five cop cars show up at your house with a search warrant and you find the FBI has been watching you for the last year, things change. So I guess starting in the street and ending up with a painting in City Hall is a great irony.

What piece of yours are you most proud of?
Top of the list would be when I went to Europe and painted passenger trains in Switzerland. Watching the train I painted five hours ago roll in to the station bustling with people had me jumping out of my sneakers. I imagine it’s the closest I’ll ever come to experiencing what the original writers in New York must have felt when they saw their pieces running on the subway.

About how many pieces do you create in any given year? How prolific of an artist are you?
Now days I’ve been doing lots of commercial work and it’s hard to find time to paint just for me. I tried for a long time to do two to three paintings for every commissioned piece, but when your hobby becomes your career, you need to find some time to walk the dog. I have some real radical pieces that I’m working on right now—a 12-foot by 8-foot canvas that’s going to disturb some people. Also, I’m becoming more involved in animation and making video of graffiti inspired letter structures that bounce and pulse to music.

To whom or what do you owe your dedication to perfecting and progressing your craft?
My father was born in Hawaii and learned to carve traditional style tikis from a native Hawaiian. So having 5-foot-tall, meticulously detailed sculptures around the house while I was growing up showed me what could be achieved with patience and concentration.

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Lawrence Argent is a professor at the School of Art and Art History at the University of Denver. Though he has only paid one two-day visit to Sacramento, in 2011, he—and his long-eared accomplice—will leave an indelible mark on this city. And though Argent’s sculpture hasn’t even been built yet, it is already causing quite a stir with locals, and the reaction isn’t all that positive.

Argent is one of three selected from a group of over 100 artists to create public art works for the new Sacramento International Airport Terminal B. The airport renovation will cost $1.27 billion; $8 million has been set aside for art. Argent’s installation will serve as the centerpiece of the new terminal—a 56-foot red-orange rabbit leaping into a suitcase with a swirling vortex on top. His piece alone will cost $800,000—a figure that doesn’t sit too well with Sacramentans.

“$800,000 for a fiberglass red rabbit? Come on Sacramento we can do better than that!” wrote one perturbed citizen in response to an article about the sculpture on Sacbee.com. The commenter added, in reference to how a big red rabbit is supposed to represent Sacramento, “Ever see a red rabbit—[anywhere]?”

Others, however, have been more accepting. “Believe it or not [$800,000] for a giant, CUSTOM, red rabbit is pretty reasonable!” retorted another commenter to the same article.

The artist welcomes such debate, however. In fact, it’s the sort of thing he strives for. More than just decorating architecture, Argent wants his public art to inspire conversation and make an impression on those who look upon it.

“I understand the sense of negativity,” says Argent from his studio in Denver. “I think that’s part of the discussion about art; art doesn’t necessarily please everybody. I’m not here to please everybody. I’m just hopefully engaging people in a dialogue that can stimulate them in a different way than what they perhaps may have originally thought.”

Though the rabbit may seem like a lighthearted subject—and it is on some levels—the artist ensures that it is by no means a haphazard decision. The journey Argent took to his choice of subject in this particular piece is similar to his life’s journey. Born in England, Argent received a B.A. in sculpture from the Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia. He later came stateside to receive an M.F.A. from Rinehart School of Sculpture, in Baltimore, Md. before finally settling in Denver.

“I came here to go to graduate school, and I wasn’t really planning on finishing,” Argent says. His plan was to attend graduate school for a year so that he could come to America “to have people I’d read about in books talk to me about my artwork,” and do so a lot more cheaply than it would have been to move here outright and “actually try to find those people.”

He adds, “Through many routes of possibilities, the journey made me end up here in Denver, Colo., which is actually a very nice city.”
Though he hasn’t spent much time in Sacramento (he’ll be making many more trips as his project progresses), he was instantly impressed with the California capitol.

“I think the energy was very positive there,” Argent says. “I see a change, perhaps, in what’s going on in the dialogue of downtown and the urban environment.”

Argent hopes his piece will contribute to and spur on more dialogue. In fact it already has. Though the big red rabbit element steals the headlines, Argent says the piece actually began with a more mundane idea—the suitcase. Suitcase imagery has appeared once before in Argent’s work. His sculpture Travel Companion—an “old suitcase with a rubber mold of a teddy bear, embedded in concrete and covered in polyester resin”—plays with the idea of travel and its effect on the self.

“I’m interested in our voyage, whether that be physical area that we move through in our life, or the spiritual domain that we walk through,” Argent explains “In that particular piece, it was a sense of possession that we have, that we have comfort in the suitcase, this archived version of something that didn’t quite make it, and that’s what that piece is about.”

Starting with the suitcase for the Sacramento Airport installation put Argent in a precarious position. He needed to connect it to something. He began by considering what goes through a traveler’s mind when he or she exits the plane and heads toward baggage claim.

“When we arrive at baggage claim, what we’ve come through to where we’ve been, that journey that we’ve been on is full of angst, it’s full of anxiety, it’s full of joy. We have all these elements that add up to an amazing component of [when] we start to feel whole again when if perhaps our luggage gets there, which is not always the case,” he says with a laugh. “But when it gets there, there’s this sense of reconciliation of joining yourself with yourself—joining with your stuff.”

In the end, it was the environment that surrounded the Sacramento Airport that helped lead Argent to his final design. He says that the “green space” outside the facility is unique in that “you can walk outside and you’re in a landscaped environment, and you have the possibility of breathing fresh air—or jet fuel, however you want to look at it,” he jokes. The airports surroundings coupled with the traveler’s anxiety and his/hers desire to deplane and reconnect with his/hers luggage as rapidly as possible pointed toward the image of the rabbit.

“It’s such an animal that I’ve had so much fascination with,” Argent says. “It’s held charge of a powerful symbolism through out civilization—that connection to fables and stories, past and contemporary mythology as well. In it, I sort of sensed a vehicle for an element of paradox that I was interested in.”

To those who are still critical of the piece, Argent hopes that they might change their minds once the installation is actually completed.

“How much can we judge something, by just an image, that’s not even in place yet?” he muses. “When you’ve got this thing leaping at you … when you’re on your way to baggage claim, you may get a different feeling… That’s a very different experience than what you’re seeing in a rendering.”

Argent is no stranger to public art projects. He gained notoriety for creating a three-story blue bear that peers into the Denver Convention Center. He is currently also working to create a Holocaust memorial for the University of Denver’s Center for Judaic Studies.

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Forget everything you know about extreme sports films. Professional snowboarder Travis Rice’s highly anticipated new movie, That’s It, That’s All, is finally out and the industry will never be the same. For two years, producers Rice and Curt Morgan scoured the globe in search of perfect conditions visiting New Zealand; Japan; Germany; Canada; Valdez, Alaska; Jackson Hole, Wyo.; and Mammoth, Calif. The fruits of their labor is a truly groundbreaking film.

Both the level of riding and the level of production are unprecedented. The film was shot entirely in high definition using a dozen different types of cameras including, for the first time in a snowboard film, the Wescam 35mm to catch steady shots from on-board a snowmobile and the Cineflex HD to capture steady aerial shots from a helicopter. The result is an awe-inspiring Planet Earth-meets-epic snowboarding film. Submerge recently caught up with Rice from his Jackson, Wyo. home to chat about the new film.

How have the premiers been going so far; you’ve had a bunch, right?
Yeah, we’ve had quite a few. We did a world premier down in Wanaka, New Zealand, and then did a tour through Australia and then we just finished our US Tour. Next Wednesday we’re heading over for a fucking death march through Europe.

I’ve read in a past interview that you still have videos of you and your friends filmed on shitty old VHS cameras riding in the back country when you were kids. It’s got to be a trip to watch That’s It, That’s All now that it is completed. Your films have obviously come a long way.
[Laughs] Yeah, I’m still excited about it and I’ve seen the movie God knows how many times, not to mention being in that editing room for about four months. Seeing people watch it though, they are genuinely stoked on it. I’m still hyped on the film.

Don’t you think you just made every other snowboard video dropping this year look like clown shoes?
[Laughs] Um, I mean I definitely don’t like to say it that way. We were definitely after our own thing for our own reasons. We weren’t necessarily out to shit on the competition. I guess simply put, in comparison, yeah. We kind of made the video comparing it to film entities other than snowboard films, so for us it wasn’t like, “Think about doing this or doing that.”

You used the same camera systems used to film Planet Earth, right?
Yeah, we used the same aerial systems that they used. It’s called Cineflex.

So that’s why you get that “floating camera” effect, right? Where it doesn’t feel like the camera is in the helicopter at all.
Totally, and that’s why we really wanted to do it that way. We used another system as well; it’s a little bit of an older system but more kind of what Hollywood uses called the Wescam 35mm. The real reason we wanted to do that is because, I mean, you see aerial shots a lot these days in films, but you always think that there’s some dude hanging out of the chopper trying to keep it steady. But with the Cineflex you can do it, and you’re still focused on the action and what’s going on. You don’t even think about the fact that you’re shooting from a helicopter.

You filmed for two years; there must have been tons and tons of footage. How do you sift through all that and decide what makes the cut and what doesn’t?
It was a long process, man. We had a little over 300 hours of raw footage at the end.

Organization is everything, if it just came down to editing, then you know, bada-bing bada-boom. Sitting and organizing the footage is probably the most tedious part. Curt Morgan, my partner, he started basically in the fall before our second season and kind of worked steadily throughout the winter. We even brought our studio up to Alaska with us for a month. We would shoot during the day and work all night. Then come springtime he pretty much sat down in front of a computer and didn’t leave for four months straight.

What happens with all the unused footage?
We’re doing a six part hour-long TV series. So a lot of it is going toward that.

When will that be ready?
Next fall.

I feel like anyone could watch That’s It, That’s All and enjoy it regardless of whether or not they had ever been snowboarding. Is that what you guys were going for—a more broader audience?
That was kind of our big challenge that we put ourselves up to on this project was basically still making the movie for our peers, for the core snowboarder. But, at the same time trying to do it in a sense where a 50-year-old Texan could watch it who has never seen a snowboard and have it be compelling and interesting.

You can’t really appreciate things until you’ve tried them yourself, whether its skateboarding, golf, anything. Until you actually go out and try you don’t really grasp what’s its like or how challenging it really is.
Our big thing was trying to put the viewer in the shoes of the rider.

There is a scene in Alaska where you almost get caught in an enormous avalanche. What was going through your head as you had to “Wolverine” your way out?
Honestly, nothing. You don’t really have time to think about it or process it. It’s action, reaction, you know? It’s more after the fact you actually have time to think about it.

Did that happen often on that trip?
That’s pretty few and far between. That’s only really happened to me three times ever, and that one didn’t even really catch me. It’s definitely uncommon. But, you know, the danger is there, indeed.

There’s a section in the movie where some of your peers are praising you and talking all this great shit about you. What’s it like to hear them say things like, “Rice progresses the sport?”
Oh it’s epic. I couldn’t be happier about it. To be honest, with making this film it’s been a little difficult, especially in the editing process, because it is so focused on me. My buddy put it best when he said to me, “The only way this movie is going to be good is if you’re the only one who doesn’t like it.”

[Laughs] No, but I mean it’s definitely humbling.

You are all about progression, you have pushed the sport in new ways your whole career. After That’s It, That’s All, what the hell could be next for Travis Rice?
Oh, it’s in the works, man. In 2010 we’re going to shit all over this project [laughs]. No, ever since we basically had our first premier of this film we’ve been working on a new project. I guess That’s It, That’s All isn’t exactly the greatest title for following it up.

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In a manner of speaking, Tom Gabel has come full circle. Long before his Gainseville, Fla.-based punk band Against Me! gained wider notoriety with its latest album (and first major label release) New Wave, Gabel played solo under the same moniker. Now, the singer/songwriter stands ready to release his first true solo effort under his own name. Heart Burns, a seven-song EP, is slated for an Oct. 30 release on Sire Records. In the meantime, however, Gabel is on the road with Against Me! through the month of October, with solo dates to follow in November. Gabel recently shared with Submerge his thoughts on the upcoming election, his solo album and his search for a place to call home.

Where are you right now?
We’re in Atlanta, Ga.

So you’re not too far from home.
Not too far. We go to South Carolina tomorrow, and then down into Florida to play a couple of Florida shows, including a Gainesville show. So we’ll be floating around there; although, right now I don’t even have a home. I just have a storage unit in Gainesville.

On your blog you wrote that you were thinking of moving to Los Angeles.
I am thinking about that. It’s just so fucking expensive. Me and my wife have been looking for places in St. Petersburg, Fla. as well, and the amount of space you can get compared to the amount of space you’d get in L.A., it’s tough to justify that sacrifice. But then at the same time, there’s so much going on in L.A. Really for me, I’m just trying to figure out what my schedule is and what living situation will allow me to spend the most time at home.

Well, look at it this way, you’ll be out on the road, so that will give you a chance to see a lot of different places.
But that will just makes it more complicated. It’s easier when you only have a couple of options, but when you’re like, “I can live anywhere in the world,” then it’s like, “Fuck! Where am I going to live?”

You’d also written on your blog that during the recording of your solo album in L.A., you felt more like yourself. Could you explain that a little bit?
I don’t know. I guess it has a lot to do with the nature of the city. I feel like that when you’re out there, a lot of the times, the people you meet aren’t that impressed with what you’re doing. They have their own little projects going on. It’s like, “Oh, that’s cool. You’re doing a solo thing? I’m doing this. Check this out.” It has an energy of people sharing ideas and checking out what other people are doing and being inspired by it and doing their own thing. I’ve lived in Gainesville a long time, and it has its positive aspects and its negative aspects, but for me, it just seems to be smaller and smaller of a city. I feel more uncomfortable. I have a certain lack of anonymity there that I would like to have in my life.

Now that the band has gained more notoriety, do you feel that also makes Gainesville seem a little smaller?
Yeah, but it doesn’t take much notoriety at all to feel that in Gainesville. It’s just weird. I feel like a lot of the times, you walk into a room, and you can tell that people have this perception of you that’s incorrect. Maybe it isn’t a fair one, but they have an opinion about you nonetheless. You feel like you’re not in control of what that opinion may be of you, and it makes for an uncomfortable situation. It’s just kind of weird as far as trying to make friends and trying to have a life when you’re at home.

From what I’ve read, it seemed like you were debating as to whether you’d release the songs on your solo album under your name or under Against Me!. Why did you decide to put them out under Tom Gabel?
Really, the deciding factor for me was… In November, I’m doing a bunch of touring after I finish up this tour [with Against Me!]. That’s why I started writing these songs, because I knew I was going to do these dates, and I also had all these thoughts in my head that I wanted to get out and put to music—about the current political scene and the election and all that. I felt it was important to record them and record them quickly, and just get them out there. I went into the studio originally thinking it would be Against Me!, but the tipping point was that it wouldn’t be weird to release a record that was just me under the name Against Me!. I don’t think people would be confused by that, because the band started out that way. I think that people would understand that. They’d buy the record, and it wouldn’t be a disappointing thing, but I couldn’t play a show under the name Against Me! and have it just be myself. If it couldn’t go both ways, it wouldn’t seem right to me.

You said that you wanted to get your solo songs out before the election. On your blog you wrote that you thought John McCain has never stopped fighting the Vietnam War. Are you fearful of McCain winning the election, and what do you think that would mean for the country?
I’m totally fearful of him winning the election, and I really hope that he doesn’t. I hope that a year from now that he’s just a fading memory. In a lot of ways, saying that it would be four more years of Bush would be incorrect. It would definitely be his own agenda, and I think that he has his own vision of the world, but from reading his books and stuff like that, he comes from a really strong military background. His father fought in wars, his father’s father fought in wars, his father’s father’s father fought in wars, and so on and so on. I think that he really sees that as a way to solve problems. In particular, with the Vietnam War, I feel like that not only does he feel an embitterment for what happened to him—which is understandable being a POW—but I really think it goes deeper than that. It goes to the way America started to view the war and the backlash that came with the protest movement of the ‘60s. The war was lost on both those fronts. It was lost on the real frontlines and here at home, and I feel like he’s never gotten over that. I think he really feels like there needs to be this return to some kind of glory of America that’s long gone. I feel like we won’t be leaving Iraq anytime soon [under McCain] and that we’d be invading more countries.

Would you consider yourself an Obama supporter, or do you see him as the lesser of two evils?
Well, I don’t know. I’m definitely not a Democrat. In my opinion, it’s an imperfect system when you only have two choices, and I wish there were more options. I do agree with a lot of what he [Obama] says—not everything he says—but I do think he’s the best choice for this country at the moment.

What’s coming up next for Against Me!?
Well we have this tour through the end of October, and then I go out and do some solo dates for November on the Revival Tour and a couple after by myself. Then we go to France in December for like a week and a half or so, and then we come home and I’m sure everyone’s going to do their own thing for the holidays—for Christmas and New Year’s. We’re not going to be practicing on those days. We’ve just rented a new practice space in Gainsville, and we’re going to start writing. We haven’t had a break in a long time. We haven’t had time to focus. I think we need a second to write the next record.

Would you say you need a vacation?
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I feel really energized and creative, and I’m excited about music, but at the same time, I don’t have a fucking home [laughs]. I’ve been without a home or a solid foundation for a good two years now, and it’s really unsettling. I need to just put some attention into my personal life for a second and sort that all out before I can continue to do what I’m doing now, because everything else is in total disarray. We’re at that point where we want to play new songs. You have to take a second sometimes and just collect yourself and reflect and then move on to the next thing.

Post from: Submerge Magazine

Streets of London
1804 J St., Sacramento

I love to gorge myself with food 100 times more when I’m drunk as opposed to when I’m high. I don’t know what it is, but I just don’t get the munchies like that; however, after two beers I’m eating whatever I can get my hands on. That being said, bar/pub food (there is a difference, as Streets of London will show) is one of my favorite indulgences because, well, if I’m eating it, I’m probably already happy. At any establishment that serves liquor, you can always find burgers, fries, nachos, nacho fries, fried chicken whatevers or mozzarella sticks, but for a seasoned bar stool eater this fare can be numbing. For this reason alone, many bar crawls have been planned around landing at Streets of London around dinner time or the fourth or fifth drink, whichever comes first. Later for the one sided menu with a handful of items, Streets has a five-pager boasting sandwiches, appetizers, soups and salads, entrees and most awesome, breakfast (which is served all day). It’s almost as if the drinks take a back seat to the loaded menu; it’s that good.

On my last trip to Streets on J St., I was joined by a couple friends who really opened the menu up to me. Half drunk, one friend was adamant about ordering the fried pickles. The idea itself sounded kind of disgusting, but my taste buds knew something my stomach didn’t. Those fuckers are amazingly good. Thinly sliced, similar to how fried zucchini is served, the pickles had an addictive buttery and bitter taste. The breading was crispy, but strangely the pickle itself maintained the champion of crunch. A cup of ranch was offered as a dipper, and while ranch can make anything better, it wasn’t necessary as the pickles had so many other flavors going on. Even the French guys next to us approved, and even after them everyone in our party got their fix in one plate.

The entrees followed, and since I was splitting a plate with the vegetarian, I had chosen the traditional fish and chips. It’s not the most vegetarian friendly menu. There is nothing more British than fish and chips, so it is expected Streets has a pretty good recipe. Each piece is pretty hearty, definitely one of the bigger single servings of fried cod I have seen, and paired with a large portion of fries there is no way you’ll be hungry afterward. The taste was great, but on this particular visit, the fish and fries were both a little soggy, but I would credit that to it being a busy Saturday evening. When it was all said and done, I was not mad at all. My face was a little greasy, but yo, I wasn’t trying to eat anytime soon. In short, two people got stuffed for under $10.

Bocephus was included in the party and sided with the sausage roll, which was described as “a British style banger wrapped in a puff pastry and baked.” I’m not schooled on the schnitzels or anything like that, so the sausage roll was a new concept to me. With one bite, I can testify that it was the truth. It was baked to perfection, flaky and sweet, and the banger balanced it all out with its juicy saltiness. Also served with a (un)healthy portion of fries (or chips, whichever) and baked beans, for $8.50 this was an undeniably successful choice. After I try all the curries and shepherd’s pie, I’m going to roll with the sausage roll.

The winner of the three dishes though was the homie Erik’s corned beef sandwich. It was unbelievably good. The corned beef was stacked almost 2 inches high between two slices of delicious rye. You have the option of a hot or cold sandwich, and while Erik rocked the hot, there is no way you could go wrong with the cold either. I’ve been to Katz’s Deli in New York, and I want to go on record and say that Streets of London’s corned beef could at the very least rival a Katz’s sandwich. Plain and simple, it was bomb.

In conclusion, bar food is played, hit up any of the three Streets of London spots and get down with some real pub grub. You can’t do wrong.

Corey Bloom
corey@submergemag.com

Post from: Submerge Magazine

Crest Theatre, Sacramento
Sept. 20, 2008

Arriving 30 minutes before the show started, I was surprised to see almost every seat in the Crest Theatre taken. I love Musiq Soulchild, but almost every time I dropped his name to someone, they’d never heard of the R&B singing soul man. So, you can imagine me entering the splendor of color and contour of the mid-sized Crest and seeing so many people.

Hometown guy MarKnoxx kicked, or rather danced (like Usher), things off at 8:30 p.m. Mr. Knoxx seemed to have a fan base who were not dissatisfied with the amount of clothes he lost as his set went on. His songs were heartfelt and backed up by two singers, guitar, bass, pianos, trumpet and a bangin’ drummer that a local fan told me was only 16 years old.

The folks at Conscious Vibes Productions made sure to raise anticipation of Musiq’s performance with an intermission that felt like 45 minutes. But in that time, I got to learn why everyone at this concert was eating popcorn (I’ve never before seen anyone eat popcorn at an enclosed concert) when my boyfriend returned holding a large cup of popcorn saying, “This popcorn was only a dollar!” Of course.

Then, the lights dimmed and on came the back-up singers, drummer and guitarists to start it all off. But when Musiq himself, standing all of about 5-foot-6 and looking urban-immaculate in pants, vest, tie, button-up shirt, aviators and well-groomed fro-hawk, fans (myself included) rushed down toward the stage. Musiq Soulchild played all the of fan favorites including “Buddy,” “Just Friends,” “Teach Me,” “Betterman” and “Time” while bouncing from side to side onstage. During a wardrobe change, two talented back-up singers enthralled the audience. Specifically, a lovely lady and true songbird named James Madison caught my attention with her chirping-ly elegant and soulful voice. When the Musiq man returned he sang his new hip-hop single “Radio” for the Sacramentan crowd.

The show was overall entertaining, but the sound quality was disappointing. For whatever reason, the back-up singers and instruments drowned Musiq’s vocals. To add to all that, there was some scraggly sweaty girl with a bad weave in a pink top who insisted on singing along to every song; which wouldn’t be so bad except she sang so loudly and at so high a pitch that if you were in the front, you couldn’t hear Musiq Soulchild. It was so bad that the back-up singers even noticed and kept shooting the scraggly girl warning looks. I really wanted to throw something at her, or at least tell her that I paid $40 to hear the guy on the stage sing and not her.

But, Musiq Soulchild still had that R&B je ne sais quoi and musical mystique up until he abruptly ended his set and bid Sacramento fans farewell.

By Josselin Basaldu

Post from: Submerge Magazine