If you find yourself having deja vu while reading this article, it’s for a good reason: two years ago, the band in this article had a CD release show, in January … at the Fox and Goose. So, no, you’re not just imagining things.
The Sacramento mainstay indie folk-rock act Be Brave Bold Robot debuted their previous album Press E to Continue on Jan. 23, 2015. To commemorate their newest release, entitled But to Hate God Do Get a Hot Tub, once again they will bring their audience to the British pub for another night of ale and new tunes. When asked why the Fox and Goose is such a popular location for BBBR shows, frontman Dean Haakenson explains during a phone interview with Submerge:
“We’ve had a couple of CD release shows [at the Fox and Goose]—this is the third, I think—and one of those previous two … both of them were really well attended. But the 2013 show, I was told by the booking guy our night was the best night they had had in a couple of years. We have a particular bond, feelings for the Fox and Goose. I love that place.”
“We’ll play anywhere,” Haakenson adds. “We actually like to play if it’s a venue we haven’t played ever, or for a while, we might prefer to play that place just to check it out.”
Whenever I run across bands or projects that have made it past the decade mark (by my calculations, BBBR is coming up on their teen years at 13), I find myself fascinated with that sort of longevity, which eludes so many. It’s nearly impossible not to poke and prod a little for insight how one might last through the harrowing task that is keeping a band together long-term.
“Bands are funny little things,” says Haakenson. “I’m sure you’ve heard all the cliches: a marriage, but with five people.
“I think it’s my determination to keep on managing the band, push the issue that we have a practice, get everyone to the practice space, to book the shows, to play,” continues Haakenson. “I guess if I wasn’t doing that, I don’t know if anyone else would. Combine that with the players actually wanting to play with me, that has everything to do with it.”
The band’s newest album, the aforementioned But to Hate God Do Get a Hot Tub, follows suit with previous efforts as far as overall tone and theme. Haakenson describes his albums generally following a formula which includes a sound similar to the quality of their live performances, and lyrically following a general narrative.
“[On] all of the previous albums, we pretty much create the sound we have live, and this is no exception,” he explains. “I think some people appreciate that. We recorded with Patrick Hills, a local guy that’s getting a lot of local business, and he did a really good job. [The album] has got a nice, big studio sound.”
Hills records out of Earthtone Recording Company, on 18th and D streets in Sacramento. According to Haakenson, Hills even sings a bit on the album. “The line, ‘He had sex in the Fox and Goose bathroom,’ on the song ‘Networker’ … [We asked him], ‘since we just need to do this one part, in lieu of us coming in, can you just sing that part yourself on there?’”
“I’d go with him again,” Haakenson says of working with Hills. “He was great to work with.”
As for the direction of the album lyrically, the songwriting narrative also took a thematic direction for Haakenson. From beginning to end, But to Hate God … tells the story of the human experience, from the life of a teenager through middle age.
“From song-to-song, each song is talking about a narrative environment that goes chronologically through the life of a person,” Haakenson says. “From the beginning song, about teenage brothers doing mushrooms, the second song is about some 19-year-olds about to travel the world, the third song is about that point when you see your social circle growing,” and so on, finishing up with the final tale, “which is probably the one that is the most autobiographical … talking about a guy that’s ripped off so he sends in a complaint to a regulatory office.”
Speaking of deja vu, a few of the tracks on the new album are leftovers from BBBR’s previous release, which was entirely comprised of commission pieces extended to donors through a Kickstarter campaign.
“On this album, two of the songs, ‘Better Late’ and ‘Hiking’ were songs that I wrote to fulfill an obligation from the Kickstarter [campaign] from the last album we put out in 2015 [Press E to Continue],” says Haakenson.
“I did a Kickstarter, it got funded, and I had put a price point of $100, and I should have set it higher, because the promise was you get all this merch and a new album, but I will also write you a song. I realized, ‘Oh shit, I have to write this whole song, and I have a deadline.’ That was fun, and I think that it does help for me to have a deadline, to get some creative work done. But, also it’s a little stressful. So ‘Hiking’ and ‘Better Late’ were from these fulfillments I had to make.”
While the experience was a bit taxing, due to the deadline, Haakenson has used this method of songwriting in prior work.
“In the past I’ve written other songs for people that had said: ‘write this’ or recommended this … and I crafted a whole song around it,” he says. “There was an older song of mine that was on the first album I put out, back then I wrote this song about a grandmother who raises her grandson, and in the lyrics, it’s evident that the child is young, and the child gets older, and at the end, he’s talking to his partner, he’s asking her to go over to his grandma’s house and look after her. And one of the last lines is, ‘Shambling idle gait,’ which is the literal definition for a shuffle. That whole song came out of somebody’s [idea] to write a song about that, using that phrase.”
Having finally wrapped up the remaining obligations in regards to his Kickstarter campaign from the previous album, Haakenson is free to let inspiration come naturally.
“That’s usually how it happens,” he said. “I think when you leave it up to such random choices, and I’ll admit I don’t write as frequently as I should. I realize now it’s better to just experience life itself, and just wait for inspiration to strike.”
Help Be Brave Bold Robot make new memories at the Fox and Goose on Jan. 20 at their CD release show. Also performing will be Chili Sauce and Bellygunner. A $10 cover charge will get you in the door as well as a copy of BBBR’s new album, But to Hate God Do Get a Hot Tub. Fox and Goose is located at 1001 R St., Sacramento. For more info, go to Foxandgoose.com.
Are you a human? Do you like fun? What about music? If you answered “yes” to one or all of these questions, then I suggest you check out local indie folk group, Be Brave Bold Robot’s album release party for their new Short Raps Project compilation, which promises to be filled with good food, good drinks and awesome live music. Sacramento-based hip-hop trio (and three time Sacramento Area Music Award winners!), Tribe of Levi (consisting of Poor, MicJordan and N.O.N) will also be dropping some dopeness on the mic, along with many other great artists. So, swing on by and get jiggy. The show starts at 9 p.m. on July 1, 2016, at Fox and Goose Pub, 1001 R Street in Sacramento. Tickets are $10 and include a copy of the album. Find out more at Bebraveboldrobot.bandcamp.com. -AA
Once again winter has passed (if you can call that a winter), which means that spring is here and with it, the 2015 Concerts in the Park series, which officially kicks off on Friday, May 1! We’ve got your first glance at the eclectic lineup right here, and there’s a little something for everyone. Dig country music? Don’t miss May 15 with Cripple Creek Band and Golden Cadillacs. Want to throw your hands up at a hip-hop show? Mark your calendars for Blackalicious and DLRN + Stevie Nader on May 29 and a sure-to-be-insane collaboration set featuring Task1, Century Got Bars, J-Ras and Charleee on July 24. Wanna rock out with some post-hardcore? Check out Jonny Craig’s new band Slaves alongside A Lot Like Birds on June 26. Want to dance your face off? Hit up Joy and Madness on May 8. What about punk rock, you ask? Yeah, they’ve got that too. Check out Mr. T Experience, The Four Eyes and others on June 19. The indie-rock loving crowd will enjoy July 17 featuring From Indian Lakes and Sunmonks, and reggae enthusiasts can get their fix with Element of Soul on June 5 and Arden Park Roots on July 24. Peep the entire lineup below! If the artist’s name is linked, click on it to read a feature on them from a recent issue of Submerge. We’ll see you out at Cesar Chavez Plaza on Friday nights starting on May 1!
May 1 – CIP Kick-off!
Island of Black & White
Drop Dead Red
Riotmaker
DJ Epik
May 8
Joy & Madness
Sol Peligro
Zyah Belle & The Funkshun
Paul Gordon & the Ambient Experience
May 15
Cripple Creek Band
Golden Cadillacs
Be Brave Bold Robot
Ashley Barron
DJ Rawhide
May 22
Frank Hannon Band
Alex Vincent Band
Pressure Lounge
DJ Peeti-V
May 29
Blackalicious
DLRN + Stevie Nader
Element Brass Band
Druskee
June 5
Element of Soul
Burro
Once An Empire
50-Watt Heavy
TL Miller / imf.DRED
June 12
Jonah Matranga
The Storytellers
Kevin Seconds
One-Leg Chuck
DJ Elements
June 19
Mr. T Experience
The Four Eyes
The Enlows
Rebel Punk
DJ Whores
June 26
Slaves
A Lot Like Birds
Tell the Wolves
We Went to the Moon
Z Rokk
July 3
No show! Happy 4th of July!
July 10
The Soft White Sixties
The Nickel Slots
Justin Farren
Vintage Vandals
El Conductor
July 17
From Indian Lakes
Sunmonks
Xochitl
Dusty Brown
July 24 – Season Finale!
Arden Park Roots
Task1ne + Century Got Bars + J-Ras + Charleee
Ideateam
Braden Scott Band
Shaun Slaughter
When Dean Haakenson of local indie/folk/rock outfit Be Brave Bold Robot hit us up to inform us that they had made an “eclectic, weird new album” called Press E to Continue (the name devised by the top donor on the album’s Kickstarter campaign) and that it has a “couple rap tracks” on it, we couldn’t help but be intrigued. So we downloaded, pressed play to continue and freaking loved it! From the opening track, a folk-y ode to their hometown appropriately titled “Sacramento,” to the actually impressive hip-hop collaboration with local rapper Mr. Hooper “Grown Ass Man,” to the eight-minute-plus closer about being young and doing mushrooms called “Sonerda.” With Press E… BBBR has got us again, hook, line and sinker. BBBR is celebrating the release of the new album with a big show at Fox and Goose on Friday, Jan. 23, 2015. The show will feature an early singer/songwriter set, then go into a premier of the “Recipe” music video by Matt Brown, then into the sure-to-be-diverse BBBR set, leading up to a closing set from local psychedelic rock band CFR. Cover is just $5, 21-and-over only. Hit up Facebook.com/bebraveboldrobot to keep up with the group’s shenanigans.
Local band Salt Wizard are releasing their first full-length album on Saturday, May 10 at Fox and Goose. The self-described “magical-dark-indie-pop” group is made up of vocalist/guitarist Eric Warren and drummer Anthony Ordonez (who both played together in E-Squared), as well as Rachel Lomax (vocals/keys/guitar, has played in Light the Beacon Fires and Be Brave Bold Robot) and Ron Melcer (bass, also plays with The Neighbors). The 10-track self-titled album was recorded at Warren’s house in West Sacramento and is well worth your time. It’s super mellow, a real easy listen, great soundtrack to your spring afternoons chilling in a park! Check it out at Saltwizard.bandcamp.com and if you like what you hear, head to the release show to pick up a physical copy. Opening the show will be California Lions from Long Beach, Calif. and Damager (aka Chris Bond). Cover is $5 and the party gets started at 9 p.m. Fox and Goose is located at 1001 R Street in Sacramento.
Not many bands sport a badge of longevity inching toward eight years, but plenty of musicians can include their names in the pages of Be Brave Bold Robot’s local history. With roughly 23 former players fondly dubbed “Forever Members,” BBBR is a staple in the folk scene for good reason. If mad scientist, Dean Haakenson, hears you can play an instrument and likes you as a person, you can write your way into his project…forever.
My night with Be Brave Bold Robot did not begin with an unsettling ride to West Sacramento in Haakenson’s Technicolor Volkswagen Bug, but a few points of interest are worth a mention prior to him offering a lift in his shrunken, two-seater Partridge Family bus of a VW. As follows: I snuck into an empty warehouse along with the band and a photographer for a photo shoot. Cut my hand lifting a giant disco ball. There was a potato sack race. Haakenson sweated through two shirts. No one discovered us. No one was handcuffed or fined for trespassing. No vandalism occurred. My palm only bled for a minute.
But in Haakenson’s gutted and rusted VW, I sat shotgun to a man who rolled down the driver side window with a pair of pliers and casually talked of how his car, a present from his mom, stalled regularly as we took the Highway 50 on-ramp headed toward West Sacramento. I thought of the band’s moniker as he shimmied the VW into traffic and it strained its way to the speed limit. Be brave.
We arrived safely to Haakenson’s home, and I was ready for a beer, for there is no finer way to gain a stranger’s trust or settle one’s nerves after relinquishing your own fate into his hands. Haakenson and his drummer Michael Ruiz claimed two of the four mysterious wheelchairs on the back patio–why does one man have so many? The rest of us (bassist Matty Gerken, viola player Catie Turner and saxophonist Jacob Gleason) sat in metal chairs or benches with microbrews in hand. Like all interviews, the awkward phase deteriorated and stories were flung freely, which led to how one becomes one of those Forever Members listed on Facebook. Over the years Haakenson developed a simple criterion: play four shows. It may take four consecutive shows, or it could take eight years, but until you’ve played four you are not an official Forever Member.
“It’s a credit to Sacramento to have so many people I’ve met over a number of years join me,” he said and he was right.
To my left sat Jacob Gleason, soft spoken most of the night, but he was first to share his admiration for Dean that led to joining Be Brave Bold Robot. It began with loving the first self-titled record and led to Gleason “[bugging] Dean enough that he finally started letting me play with him.” Going around the table, Catie Turner joined after seeing BBBR live and striking up a post-set conversation with Haakenson, who upon learning she played viola gave her a recording and let her write herself into the music. She’s been a member since.
“He was like, ‘You should play on my record,’ and I said, ‘You’ve never even heard me play,’” she recalled.
“It’s a Dean thing,” she said. “He’s so hands off. He didn’t know me, didn’t know my playing. It was unlike any experience I’ve ever had with an organized band.”
Matty Gerken offered an anecdote on the BBBR’s rotating cast: “One time we played a show at Sac State and in order to play that show we needed to have one Sac State student in the band. So we brought in Chuck; good student, he’s from Iowa, like me. He had enough parts in the songs to get us qualified to play. He was a member for one show.”
Gerken saw Be Brave Bold Robot play based on the name. He caught a Fox and Goose show, went to an after party with the band, which resulted in him mastering the first record. “I sort of learned all the songs from listening to them over and over while mixing them,” Gerken said. “When Tommy [Minnick] the former bass player decided he didn’t want to play anymore, I said, ‘Well, I know all the songs incidentally.’”
Haakenson’s lackadaisical approach stems from understanding his friends and band mates have their own lives and careers. Without the pressures of commitment, being in a band can always be as fun as it sounds. No one’s government job is at risk, no one’s missing PTA meetings and no one’s on heroin to deal with the pressure of stardom. Members come and go and come back again when they have time or miss the fun of being in BBBR.
“It changed my life here,” Turner said, who hadn’t played in a band since leaving San Francisco.
Haakenson exudes gratefulness beyond his once a member, always a member attitude. The tape recorder clicked; side A was over. With everyone in good spirits, we agreed to call it and begin band practice. While guitars were tuned and more beers were emptied into mason jars, Haakenson handed me a copy of 2010’s Take a Deep Breath. He directed me to the living room where the original artwork of Kyle Larsen hung; he had two of Larsen’s pieces. Local writer Josh Fernandez probably doesn’t know it, but he is a cherub muse for BBBR, coining intoxicating limericks that echo through Haakenson’s mind. The new album’s title was partially lifted from Fernandez’s 2008 review, which was recited to me nearly verbatim during our hang out. Fernandez referred to Haakenson as “under a thin sheet of madness,” it led to the title of the band’s upcoming album Under a Thin Veil of Madness.
Under a Thin Veil of Madness began with sessions at Expression College for Digital Arts in Emeryville. “They offer free recordings to bands in exchange for being guinea pigs for their audio recording classes,” Haakenson said. “We went in there for an eight-hour session and got four songs done that are new to this album, and had plenty of time left to record four other songs.”
Going in there was concern of the album being in the hands of pupils, but by the end of their session the band was so close with the students that a kid named Willie Ramsey is doing the Under a Thin Veil of Madness artwork, expanding Dean’s collection of art and adding an honorary band member once again. “I was concerned that we were getting learned on,” Gerken said. “They had an experienced instructor there and it was clear that guy was all business.”
In the eight years of having one of the most recognizable band names in Sacramento, the true source of the moniker eludes Haakenson. He loves that about his band. Before it was his band it was his ‘zine. Prior to the ‘zine it was a graffiti tag by a girl in Arcata, Calif., who claims she saw it done by a San Francisco artist. Some theorize it was lifted from the Isaac Asimov’s science fiction series I, Robot. “I’ll put out a call right now,” Haakenson said. “I’ll pay $100 for the documented source.”
May it always be obscured and tucked in mystery to preserve the legend of Be Brave Bold Robot. It’s apropos to a band that tucks mementos to childhood in its song lyrics and sneaks away from families and responsibilities into a West Sacramento living room to drink, chat and practice like a discovered teenage Never-Never Land.
“I have a child-like way about me, which I think is maybe what makes me endearing to the people I meet on a regular basis,” Haakenson said. “I think I’m OK with confrontation, but I’d much rather make people happy.”
Catch Be Brave Bold Robot when they play Beatnik Studios in Sacramento on Oct. 26, 2012 and celebrate the release of Under a Thin Veil of Madness. Also playing will be Appetite, Cold Eskimo and Buzzmutt. The music for this Final Friday show gets underway at 9 p.m. and there is a $5 to $10 suggested donation.
Mall walkers had reason to pause during their power walks last Sunday at the Westfield Mall. And no, it wasn’t to watch Santa Claus taking photos with crying babies or ice skaters taking falls at the rink. They paused to see the first Non-Drummer Drum-Off. The event is exactly what its name implies, people attempting to drum like Taylor Hawkins from Foo Fighters but they end up sounding like Animal from The Muppets. In fact, the only qualification of the drum-off was that you were supposed to suck. Even the Facebook event page said if someone was caught practicing before the show, then they would have been automatically disqualified.
Just like American Idol, the non-drummers had to face judges, listen to a sarcastic host and battle to win a prize. The eager non-drummers were going head-to-head for a chance to win a new drum set. At around 3 p.m., a small crowd gathered around a mini stage and bleachers on the second floor of K Street mall in Downtown Plaza that stood in-between the retail stores Express and ZuhG Life (organizers and sponsors of the event). When the show got rolling, most of the audience members ended up being random holiday shoppers, curious workers, or mall walkers who wanted to see what all of the ruckus was about.
The judges, including Matt Mingus from Dance Gavin Dance and Kevin Martinez from Tha Dirt Feeling, had to rate the non-drummers on a scale from 1 to 10 (10 being the highest) and on “charisma and performance.”
The bad drumming started off with Charleeé Wheeler from the local band ZuhG and his attempt to hit the drums like a rock star. Most of the contestants were familiar faces because they were from local bands or people who are active in the Sacramento community, such as Steph Rodriguez from Sacramento News & Review, Alexander Ayers from Prieta, a local photographer named Dennis, Michael Sean Flanagan, Dean Haakenson from Be Brave Bold Robot (who accidentally broke a drum stick while playing) and even our own Jonathan Carabba gave his shot behind the drums. After almost every performance, the host of the event (Blake Abbey from Musical Charis) would make funny, sarcastic remarks about their performance such as, “It’s so bad I want it to keep going,” or, “It wasn’t even entertaining to watch.” After Bryan Nichols, owner of the ZuhG Life store, gave his all playing the foreign instrument, Blake said, “I would rather listen to a whole Nickelback album than listen to that again.” Although the show was not exclusively awkward drumming, the audience members got to enjoy riffs from the professionals like Matt Mingus.
But the show stopper went to a small audience member who was eager to get a whack at the drums. When Blake asked if anyone from the audience would like to drum off, a young boy named Liam not only raised his hand to volunteer but stood up on the bleachers to be seen and heard. After he pulled a rampage behind the drums, he received a perfect score from the judges and huge cheers from the audience. And every time the host would mention his name he would stand on top of the bleachers and give an arm wave of victory. When he found out that he won the contest, he told his proud mom that they are going to need a “bigger truck” to carry his new gift home. Although little Liam arrived as a casual mall visitor, he left as a drumming champion.
Dean Haakenson
Wes Davis
The Non-Drummer Drum Off
Westfield Downtown Plaza Mall, Sacramento – Sunday, December 4, 2011
Jesi Naomi
Steph Rodriguez
Dennis “the photographer”
Jonathan Carabba
Doug Riggs
Michael Sean Flanagan
Alexander Ayers
Liam
Blake Abbey
Matt Mingus
Our good friend and talented photographer Wes Davis (of Beatnik Studios) has recently started up a really cool local music video project with his good friend Devon Carsen called Live in the City of Trees. They’re partnering up with local and regional musicians, taking them to really cool spots with unique aesthetics and acoustics in and around Sacramento, and filming them perform “stripped down” versions of their songs. “Live in the City of Trees was started to be a window into the music scene in Sacramento and the surrounding area,” Davis told Submerge. “We want to film live intimate performances in unique settings and really bring an artistic and human feel to the videos. Nothing overproduced or commercial looking.” At the time we spoke, they had three videos completed and uploaded to their Vimeo page (Vimeo.com/user6451802), one with Be Brave Bold Robot shot at a “secret spot in Old Sac,” (the same secret spot Davis shot local band ZuhG for their recent Submerge cover) one with Exquisite Corps shot in the century-old Maydestone Building on the corner of 15th and J streets (said to be haunted), and one with Justin Farren shot in an old graffiti-scattered building on Q Street. A video with Blvd Park was freshly uploaded as we went to print, and Davis informed us that he also has videos with Musical Charis and James Cavern “in the can” and that those should be up shortly. He also mentioned he is shooting ZuhG soon as well as San Francisco’s Fierce Creatures after their upcoming May 27, 2011 performance at Beatnik Studios. The cinematography is stellar, the audio quality is great and the performances are fantastic–goosebump-inducing even! Whether you are a fan of the aforementioned artists or you’ve never heard of them, you’ll enjoy Live in the City of Trees. Keep an eye out for their website, Liveinthecityoftrees.com, which should be launched in the near future; but for now, just hit up their Vimeo page or find them on Facebook.
-J. Carabba
