If people started eating a little more like cranes, nature and the economy might be a little better off for it.

This is what prompted the naming of Feeding Crane Farms, a small farming operation with a big vision that sits along a bird grove on the East Levee Corridor in Natomas.

“Cranes are a really wonderful example of what we’re doing with Feeding Crane Farms,” says general manager Shannin Stein. “Cranes eat locally, they eat seasonally.

“They will actually create habitats for small bugs where they live, they’ll tend to those areas and actually cultivate the bugs,” she adds.

Stein oversees Local Food Done Right, an umbrella company that owns both Feeding Crane Farms and Lulu’s Kitchen. The vision behind the two operations is to promote local, sustainable food production, from “farm to fork.”

She, alongside company owner and visionary Brian Shaad, farm manager Antonio Garza, and operations manager Dylan Keith, are part of a team of less than 10 keeping Lulu’s Kitchen and Feeding Crane Farms alive. Needless to say everyone wears a lot of hats, Stein says.

This is a very new operation. After prepping and plowing three-and-a-half acres, and adding all natural amendments like bloodmeal and oyster shell to the soil, the organic farm “broke ground” last September. They began selling crops to local restaurants and grocery stores early this year.

Beyond providing fresh produce for grocery stores, local restaurants and farmers’ markets in Oak Park, Natomas and Cesar Chavez Park, the small team has come up with some really innovative ideas along the way, like Farm to Fork dinners, where locals who already support farmers’ markets and buy organic can experience the talent of chefs in the community who are committed to using local, organic ingredients.

The company recently purchased Steel Magnolia, a commercial kitchen in Sacramento, which they are renaming Lulu’s Kitchen after Shaad’s grandmother, Mary Lou Cayocca. Lulu’s will be accessible to local producers who have recipes but don’t have access to a commercial kitchen or some of the logistics needed to get their products on grocery shelves, Stein says.

The team has its own products it is developing to sell, too. By the start of 2013, you can start looking out for things like arugula pasta, pepper pasta, handmade butternut squash ravioli, squash bread, arugula pesto, and roasted pepper chutney on store shelves. According to Stein, the recipes are being developed as you read.

They also plan to expand into two more properties along the East Levee Corridor, putting an additional 12 acres into production by January and quadrupling their production capacity.

And last but not least, if you’ve caught wind of the first annual Harvest Sunset Celebration, yes, they are planning that as well. But with all the events already happening this fall, they’ve decided to postpone it until the spring.

With so much going on, it’s hard to believe Stein has a moment to breathe, let alone talk through an interview. Yet Submerge somehow managed to catch up with her while she was on a drive through the Midwest.

You guys said you are along the East Levee in Natomas?
Yeah, we’re in North Natomas, and basically it’s called the East Levee Corridor. So it’s a levee bypass system that comes off the Sacramento River out in Yolo and Sutter counties.

Gotcha. There’s a fair bit of ag activity in that region, right?
Yes and no. A little bit further to the west of Sacramento, closer to I-5, there’s a lot of commercial rice production, there’s a lot of big ag. But along the East Levee Corridor, the majority of the land is fallow; it’s not in any form of production.

And so, you guys are trying to cultivate some of that land out there…
Our goal is to basically try and reinvigorate that entire East Levee Corridor, and to create a system and create farms that are duplicate-able. We want to be able to take what we’ve learned in starting our first small three-and-a-half-acre property and we want to be able to basically duplicate it on other properties along that corridor. Then we will create an actual, thriving agribusiness along that corridor to make that area two things: one, less susceptible to development, and two, to basically make Sacramento far more sustainable in regards to food production.

So what kind of stuff do you guys grow?
We have upward of about 30 different varieties of items in the ground at any given time. For this winter, we’ll have a full-crop harvest, we’re not going to take a break this winter. So we have salad mix, head lettuces, arugula. We did tomatoes this summer, eggplant, okra, lots of root vegetables, we grew beautiful beets and radishes, turnips. As Antonio, our farm manager, likes to refer to it, our main property right now is really kind of a salad bowl. There are carrots, onions. Amazingly for our harvest season, part of it has really been experimentation and learning what does well in the soil that we’re working with and getting a feel for crop rotation and our product demands by community.

What’s the plan with Steel Magnolia [now Lulu’s Kitchen], and why did you guys decide to buy it?
Well, as I mentioned, our motto is basically the same thing as our parent company, “local food done right.” And we really believe that “local food done right” doesn’t just mean growing the food locally, it means producing food locally… We want Lulu’s Kitchen to be an incubator kitchen for local producers to come work on their recipes [and] work on their processes. We have fully trained chefs on our team who can help mentor them… At the same time we want to help those producers navigate the often confusing and sticky system of working with the County Health Department and working with the city and learning how to do labeling so it’s FDA approved and how to get your ingredients improved, you know, all of that process. We want help small producers so it’s easier for them to go from concept to the shelf.

I thought I read something about you guys developing your own products to sell in stores, is that right?
We will be, yeah. Absolutely. In fact, you can go to the GOOD market and you can try some of our value-added items. You’ll hear us talk a lot about [value-added items] with small farms in particular. Farming itself is not necessarily a lucrative business. It’s a cash-heavy investment business, there’s a lot of investments needed to really get a farm going and keep a farm operating. Small producers, small farmers really need to have the opportunity and the outlet for additional revenue streams, and so creating value-added products: jams, jellies, breads, sauces, pastas, things along those lines, where the primary ingredients are from your farm, is a great way to do that. So we have a ton of summer squash still out in the field, so one of the chefs on our team is making squash bread.

Now Farm to Fork Dinners, whose idea was that?
Well, actually, that was a joint discussion. It started out where once every two months or so, the farmers and myself, just kind of our core team, we were going to one of the restaurants for dinner and we provided food, because the farmers work their butts off, and they deserve the opportunity to enjoy the fruits of their labor occasionally. But in doing that, we also built these really beautiful relationships with the chefs we work with. They have given us fantastic feedback. It started out, actually, with Mama Kim, of Mama Kim Eats, who said almost immediately, “I want to do a brunch.” So we started out with a brunch at Mama Kim Eats, and she said, “I want to do a brunch and I want to focus specific dishes around your produce and your products.” And I was like, “That’s fantastic.” And so Farm to Fork was born. And now we work to do at least one Farm to Fork event each month with our partner restaurants to help bring in business for them on an off-shift. Like at Michelangelo’s, it was on a Sunday night, and we basically helped them triple their sales on a Sunday night.

Do you have an estimate of about how much you produce per season?
You know, we’re putting those numbers together, to be honest [laughs]. But what I can say is we have been able to sustain upward of about 20 to 25 restaurants, the Natural Foods Co-Op, Corti Brothers and three farmers’ markets for this entire season, so since January basically, off of three-and-a-half-acres. And that’s pretty amazing, to begin with.

To learn more about what Feeding Crane Farms and Lulu’s Kitchen have in store, follow Feeding Crane on Twitter @FeedingCrane or like it on Facebook.

Grouplove turns a chance meeting into beautiful music

The story of how indie rock band Grouplove formed is so unlikely, it’s practically mythic. It’s fitting then that the band first met in Greece on the island of Crete. New Yorkers Hannah Hooper and Christian Zucconi were attending an artists commune there where they bonded with other like-minded individuals from around the globe: Brit Sean Gadd and Californians Andrew Wessen and Ryan Rabin. Though the quintet hit it off, it seemed unlikely that their meeting would be anything more than just a one-off occurrence in a foreign land.

But there would be more in store for the members of Grouplove than just a fond memory. A reunion brought them back together again, this time in Los Angeles, where Rabin, now drummer/producer for Grouplove, had a studio. He invited everyone down to record just for fun. The recordings resulted in the band’s self-titled debut EP, which was released in January 2011.

“When we made the EP, it came to us naturally,” says Zucconi, Grouplove’s guitarist/vocalist.

They were all stoked on the recording, but there were still obstacles, namely the thousands of miles and an ocean that separated them. Eventually word started to spread about the band over blogs, and it became apparent to Zucconi that they had to make a real go at being a band or they would regret it.

“We were all kind of in our own lives. Sean was in England, and Hannah and I were in New York. We all wanted it to happen, but we were afraid to speak up and really make it happen because there were so many obstacles in the way,” he says. “When we got home, and we were listening to the recording and sharing it with friends and everyone started reacting so well, it just started to feel like we should really try to make this a thing.

“I remember writing an email to Sean, I said do you want to drop everything, your life, your family and friends and move out to L.A. and try to do this thing, and he was like, ‘Of course,’” Zucconi continues. “He was on the flight a week later.”

Grouplove didn’t waste any time. In September 2011, the band released its first full-length album, Never Trust a Happy Song, a 12-track clinic on the possibilities of electro-pop infused indie rock. Snarling guitars play well with glitchy beats, and the lead vocal duo of Hooper and Zucconi create melodic bliss with their soaring harmonies. It’s not all blips and bloops either, as the spare, folk-tinged track “Cruel and Beautiful World” will attest. Each member shares writing credits on every song on the album, which speaks highly of the band members’ chemistry. It would seem that they had been writing songs together for a decade or more, but Zucconi says it’s the newness of their partnership that aids them in their wide-open songwriting process.

“There are no bad habits that you picked up from joining up with the kids you grew up with and started a band when you were 12,” he says. “We all kind of started with a clean slate, which is something cool and refreshing. Being someone who has played in bands for a long time, it’s really cool to experience that.”

In the following interview, Zucconi talks about a recent reimagining of Andrew W.K.’s “Party Hard,” which the band performed for the Onion A.V. Club, and gives Submerge some insight on “Tongue Tied,” the band’s biggest hit to date, which in addition to topping charts, has also appeared on Glee and in a popular Apple commercial.

I was messing around online, and I saw you guys did an Andrew W.K. cover for the A.V. Club. I’m a big Andrew W.K. fan.
Oh cool, what did you think of it?

I thought you guys did an amazing job. I love covers that stray from the original.
We wanted to do a reinterpretation of it, change all the chords and the chord progression, but still keep the melody.

I liked the bit you guys did with the chorus, “We will always party hard.”
Thanks, man. I don’t know if you saw online, but he [Andrew W.K.] really liked it. It was really cool.

Oh, so he had heard it?
He Photoshopped himself in one of the shots of all of us in the costume. He put himself in the middle. It was really funny.

Were you a fan of the song?
You know, it’s weird. I kind of missed the popularity of that song. Hannah and the other guys were big fans of it. I guess Hannah a couple of years ago would dress up as Andrew W.K. in the city [New York] for Halloween. Of course, she came up with the idea of getting into costume for the cover. I didn’t have any attachment to the old version, and that kind of helped us. Being innocent sometimes helps with approaching songs, in a way. I remember the album cover really well. It was an iconic thing at the time, but I never really heard his music before.

Just last month, you topped the Modern Rock Radio charts with “Tongue Tied.” How did you react?
It was super surreal. The life of that song has been really interesting, and you step back sometimes to see what’s happening. It was at No. 3 for the past 12 or 13 weeks, and that we were all excited about, like, “Wow, this is really cool.” Then more people started playing the song radio station wise. It’s really exciting. It’s hard to really take in what it means, but we were really pumped on it, and everyone we worked with was pumped. We went out and celebrated. It was really cool.

When you get in a band and start writing songs, you probably don’t think about charts…
Never, yeah.

But when it happens, it must be something like you don’t realize how cool it is until it actually happens. Is it that sort of thing?
Yeah it’s kind of like that. It’s interesting, because it’s a weird concept. Like, when you’re writing a song and you’re playing with the band, you’re not thinking about that. “I wonder what our radio plays per week are going to be?” That was all new to me. As we entered that world, I was just learning about it every day because I never experienced it, and as a listener, I never really paid attention to that kind of stuff. We’re all really proud, and it’s great that people out there like our music and are responding to it. That’s why we do it. It’s great to get that kind of reaction.

That song in particular, I know that you guys share writing credits on all the songs, but how did “Tongue Tied” come about?
It was an early song… I was in L.A., and we just kind of moved there. Sean had just moved to L.A., and he’d only been out there for a week or two. I was scoring a really somber film for my friend. I had a piano out and this little home studio that I’d set up to score. I was working on this really heavy scene, and Sean and Hannah were in the house next door, and I just took a break for a minute and started messing around on the keyboard and just started playing that riff, and it was super fun. It just was a whole 180-degree turn from the song I was just working on. It was weird that this upbeat, happy thing just came out of me. I put down a drum beat behind it and some bass lines–there were no vocals at the time–and I brought it to Sean and Hannah and we started playing it in the yard, and everyone started dancing. They were like, “Play it again! Play it again!”… While we were listening back to it, and everyone was jumping up and down, Hannah started singing “Take me to your best friend’s house…” And we just kind of wrote the lyrics on the spot.

By the time it went through the whole Grouplove machine with Ryan producing, and everyone’s awesome ideas, trading thoughts, it just became a 10 at the end. It really came to life in the studio, and we were all just happy with it.

It was a fun learning process, too, for me personally and Hannah, because we’d never tried to write an upbeat electronic pop song, so it’s fun to experiment in that genre and put our stamp on it, so it was a good experience.

When you guys were done with that one in the studio, did you get an inkling that it would be one of the more recognizable songs on the album, or be the one to push it forward?
Yeah, we did kind of feel that after we were listening back to it. When we were recording, during the process Canvasback and Atlantic [Grouplove’s record labels] were super cool and let us do our thing in house. They were never checking up on us, so when the time came that we had some roughs of the album to bring into the record label office, like, “This is what we’ve been working on for the past eight months,” that was the first song we played them, and they were like, “Oh shit!”

You were talking about Ryan as producer, and he’s in the band also. Does he go into producer mode when you get in the studio? Is it almost a Jekyll and Hyde sort of thing?
When we met Ryan in Greece, he was talking about how he loves music and he’s into recording bands and has been doing so since he was 16. When we made the EP, by accident, we were all in L.A. after meeting in Greece, and we had nothing to do one day. He was like come over and record some stuff just for fun. He has this ability to take the beginnings of a song and put life into it in a way you’d never expect, just by his drumming, his ideas and his arrangements. When we met each other, that’s how I got to know him, through the recording process and writing together and producing. That’s just who he’s always been. We trust his ideas, and he’s super talented. I’ve been in bands a long time, but I never really knew what a producer did because whenever we’d go into the studio, we’d do it all ourselves, and we had all the ideas. A producer brings a whole other perspective on it. He says to speed things up or slow them down.

It’s kind of like how we write. We’re all super open to each other’s influences, because they’re so different. Whoever writes the song, it has everyone’s influences all over it once it’s done.

Grouplove will be a part of this year’s Launch Festival. The band will play at Cesar Chavez Park on Saturday, July 28, 2012. Bring your shades and sun block, because this show gets underway at 11 a.m. For a full rundown on this year’s Launch Festival, go to http://www.launchsacramento.com/, and for more Grouplove, go to http://grouplovemusic.com/. (Submerge hasn’t looked, but we’d imagine that Grouplove.com will bring you to an entirely different sort of website.)

Lite Brite distills the energy of their high-powered live show on a brand new album

A rock concert might be the only place in the world where it is acceptable to thrash around with full force, scream at the top of your lungs and push random people to the ground. If you tried this on the street, a grocery store, or a restaurant you will be kicked out and given the cold shoulder by society. Whether it’s moshing in the crowd or playing guitar on stage, rock concerts welcome your inner beast with open arms. There is one local band that produces this kind of high-energy show that can make anyone want to jump around. Submerge caught up with brothers Eddie and Matt Underwood, members of Sacramento rock-trio Lite Brite, in front of Peet’s Coffee to discuss their new self-titled album and rocking out on stage.

“If we have any underlying rage, [performing] is a good way to release it,” said vocalist and guitarist, Eddie Underwood.

“Instead of stabbing each other in the face,” continued drummer Matt Underwood. “It’s an expensive habit really.”

Eddie, Matt and Robert Lander, bass, are ready to bring their high-energy show straight to your living room. Their goal was to make their new self-titled album as close to the band’s live show as possible, making Lite Brite’s stage-fueled passion completely mobile.

The opening track of Lite Brite’s new album are recorded sounds from the band having fun with an analog phaser, creating eerie sounds that set the stage for their 12-track rock album. “We had an idea that it was going to be a theme in the record. I don’t think it ended up being exactly the way we thought it was going to be but it was a good way to tone the record,” Matt said. “I like the way that it turned out. It’s a noisy record.”

Lite Brite is excited to unleash a record that it can completely claim as its own. There is only one track, “Heaven,” on which the band collaborated with a musical engineer.

“We did it all ourselves. We mixed it all ourselves. We recorded it all ourselves. It was exactly what we want,” explained Eddie.

“It’s going to be really cool though, getting our music done, because we never really had a whole album that is just the way we wanted it to be,” Matt added.

Lite Brite hopes to give the new music as much exposure as possible, including a tour in the near future and to make the tracks easily accessible and sometimes free online. Matt Underwood wanted to adopt a business model that was made popular in the ‘60s by bands such as The Rolling Stones, where they would release numerous singles at a rapid pace.

“It would be really timely,” Matt explained. “It’s sort of this idealistic vision that I had, get something out and get it out on the street really fast. It would be the right song at the right moment.”

So far the Underwoods have been very successful in getting their music out quickly even though they have only played music professionally for the past few years. While in high school, Matt and Eddie would jam out to cover songs in their parent’s garage with their friend Bob.

“We just started playing covers and stuff. It was fun playing stuff that we like and Bob came over every day. He didn’t do homework. That worked out well,” joked Matt.

Since then, Lite Brite has been on two West Coast tours including one with Middle Class Rut. During their past tour, life on the road never seemed to get dull for them. Every city had a new adventure waiting for them. While stopped in Minneapolis, they had their van broken into early in the morning.

“What really pisses us off is that they stole our lunch meat,” Eddie said. “All of the equipment was in the back, and they could have easily gotten thousands of dollars worth of equipment, but they just went though our ice chest and downed 10 Red Bulls and ate our lunch meat on the spot.”

But missing lunch meat wasn’t their only problem that day. The thief decided to break in through the passenger window and crack the windshield causing Lite Brite to rush to get it fixed before a show. While on the same tour but this time in Wyoming, Eddie and Bob almost landed in a bar fight over the topic of Nickelback.

“I might have said something like, ‘Nickleback sucks,’ and one guy said, ‘Hey, hold on a second, I like Nickelback. I’m about to knock your teeth in.’ And then all of a sudden someone comes in from another room where Bob was playing pool and he said to me, ‘You better come quick… Your friend is about to get his teeth knocked in,’” Eddie said.

They decided to leave the bar before anyone would have to make an emergency trip to the dentist. But the highlight of their previous tour was the high-energy and jam packed shows, full of people who have never heard of them before but loved every minute of it. “The last two U.S. tours that we did were awesome,” Matt said. “Pretty much every show was just tons of people to play for.

“We completely sold out of CDs really early on our last tour. We had to burn thousands of CDs so we had something to sell.”

Recently, you might have caught them at Friday Night Concerts in the Park in early May. That night was one of their most memorable performances because there were over 7,000 people watching them at Cesar Chavez Park.

“You can’t really beat that,” Eddie said.

Before playing a high-energy show, whether it’s in front of a huge park or small venue, there isn’t much that Eddie needs to get himself pumped up to jam on stage. “The best way to warm up is to have a couple of beers. You don’t want to overdo it but not too little, because we don’t want to stand there like a couple of stiffs,” Eddie joked. “And not too much or else Bob and I will start yelling at each other on stage.”

But now Lite Brite is ready for Sacramento to join them at Ace of Spaces on July 6, 2012 for their CD release party.

“The music scene has been ridiculously awesome to us in Sacramento, and if it wasn’t, we probably would have quit doing it a long time ago,” Matt explained. “Recording an album is stressful and everything but pay off is definitely worth it, it’s very gratifying, just having this giant project for months at a time come to an end. What’s cool about an album is that it’s always going to be there. It’s always going to exist. It’s always going to be around. And you will always have that work that you did.”

A stacked lineup will help Lite Brite celebrate the release of their self-titled CD. Stuck, Musical Charis, Simpl3jack, The Hungry and The Trees will all join Lite Brite at Ace of Spades in Sacramento on July 6, 2012. Tickets are $10 in advance/$12 at the door. For ticket information, go to http://aceofspadessac.com/.

Last week marked the opening of the 2012 Concerts in the Park series, and the newly renovated Cesar Chavez Park hosted over 6,300 people, a record breaking crowd for the Friday night series says Play Big Sacramento’s Andy Hawk. “Three years ago Mumbo Gumbo did around 6,100 and that was the biggest up till that point,” Hawk told Submerge. “If you give people a reason in this town to go out, they will.” It only gets better from here on out. On Friday, May 11 catch Middle Class Rut live for the first time in Sacramento in over a year! The hard rocking (and hard working) duo, consisting of guitarist/vocalist Zack Lopez and drummer/vocalist Sean Stockham, have been serious road dogs touring constantly for the last two-plus years. “We’ve been finding out the cities we do best in and building fans there,” Lopez recently told Submerge. “Things were easy back when ‘New Low’ was getting spun all day everyday and I could just hang out at Flame Club and drink. This touring shit is hard work!” They were touring so much, in fact, that at some point things started to feel stale, according to Lopez. There were songs on their record they couldn’t pull off live as just a two-piece, and playing along to a laptop was out of the question. So, naturally, they brought in a couple new members into their live setup, Eddie Underwood and Bob Lander of Sacramento band Lite Brite. “Since we’ve toured with them a few times before, it was easy to gel,” Lopez said. “There’s no other guys in Sacramento we’d rather have steal our booze than them.”

See Middle Class Rut live alongside Lite Brite, Horseneck and DJ Whores on Friday, May 11 at Cesar Chavez Park. Every show of MC Rut’s latest tour has been recorded for a live album release, this one included, so let’s all show up and be loud. Visit http://mcrut.com/ for more information about the band and visit http://downtownsac.org/events/concerts-in-the-park/ to see the series schedule.

Submerge has got your first look at the lineup for this year’s Friday Night Concerts in the Park series. The 13-week shindig kicks off on May 4, 2012 at 5 p.m. at Cesar Chavez Park in downtown Sacramento. You can see the entire lineup right here. Major brownie points to anyone who can name all of the artists that have been on the cover of and/or featured in the pages of Submerge (hint: there’s a lot of them).

May 4
Arden Park Roots (reggae/rock)
Island of Black and White (acoustic/blues/reggae/rock)
The Storytellers (roots/reggae/ska)
Shaun Slaughter (indie/electro/pop)

May 11
Middle Class Rut (rock)
Lite Brite (rock)
Horseneck (rock)
DJ Whores (electro/indie/dub step/alt)

May 18
Nickel Slots (alt-country/Americana)
Infamous Swanks (rockabilly)
Blackeyed Dempseys (Irish rock)
DJ Adam J (indie/dance/alt)

May 25
ZuhG (funk/reggae/jam)
Element of Soul (acoustic/jam rock)
Playboy School (electronic indie/pop)
DJ X’GVNR (pop/top 40/electro/dance/dub step/house)

June 1
Oleander (rock)
Allinaday (rock)
Trackfighter (rock)
Verdugo Brothers (house/top 40)

June 8
Mumbo Gumbo (zydeco/roots/dance)
Todd Morgan and the Emblems (blues/rock/jazz)
DJ Mikey Likes It (top 40/‘80s/‘90s/party groove)

June 15
Relic 45 (blues/rock)
Out of Place (acoustic/alternative/rock)
Sexrat (alternative/rock)
Reggie Ginn (pop)
Shaun Slaughter (indie/electro/pop)

June 22
7 Seconds (punk)
Bastards of Young (punk)
City of Vain (punk)
DJ Whores (electro/indie/dub step/alt)

June 29
The Nibblers (funk)
The Coalition (world beat)
Diva Kings (folk/pop rock)
DJ Fedi

July 6
Full Blown Stone (reggae rock)
Dogfood (alternative rock)
Street Urchinz (reggae/rock)
DJ Nate D

July 13
Another Damn Disappointment (ADD) (punk)
Walking Dead (punk)
A Single Second (punk)
The Left Hand (punk)
DJ Blackheart (house/electro/punk/indie)

July 20
Walking Spanish (blues/indie rock)
Jack and White (alternative/pop rock)
Autumn Sky (folk/pop)
CrookOne (soul/pop/hip-hop/Motown/indie)

July 27
The Brodys (pop/rock)
Early States (pop/rock)
Hero’s Last Mission (pop)
Chaotic Fusion (DJ Oasis & !nkDup) (rock/top 40/dance/mash-ups)

As you probably know by now, this year’s lineup was not booked by longtime promoter Jerry Perry, but instead by a committee of local promoters, musicians and music enthusiasts that go by the name Play Big Sacramento. One committee member, Andy Hawk, who works at Entercom radio stations and promotes Wednesday night shows at Powerhouse Pub in Folsom, recently told Submerge of this year’s lineup, “As a committee we worked with venues, clubs, bookers and musicians in an effort to create a lineup of the best Sacramento has to offer. We have 13 weeks of shows filled with the biggest headliners in town, and have added the most talented DJs in Sacramento to play in the beer garden. Friday Night Concerts in the Park this year will truly be the centerpiece of entertainment in Sacramento this summer.”

Modern day pitfalls can’t stop the release of A Single Second’s new album

Dead bodies, delivering babies, opening for punk rock legends G.B.H.–the guys of A Single Second have not only racked up the street cred, they seem to have seen and done it all during their nine-year career as one of Sacramento’s longtime post-punk bands. Call them music junkies or workaholics, they’ll accept either label, but these four musicians have surely logged the man-hours to earn either pseudo-title. Their musical resume boasts over 1,000 shows to date, including the Maloof Money Cup in Orange County two years running, our own California State Fair just recently, and not to mention a few dozen local shows sprinkled throughout their already busy schedule.

Despite witnessing their fair share of lineup changes, the guys of A Single Second–Shawn Peter (vocals, guitar, trumpet), Aaron Holt (lead guitar, vocals), Jason “Mogley” Tilsey (bass) and Dave Girard (drums, vocals)–are as eager as ever to tour California and travel the Northwest to promote their newest album since the release of 2005’ a Smiling Politely. After many bouts with computer and hard drive issues, ultimately delaying their second self-titled full-length album’s release, they’re itching to take the show on the road.

Why has it taken A Single Second so long to release another album?
Jason Tilsey: It was supposed to be out two years ago, but we’ve lost it a bunch of times. Computer problems, hard drive problems, but we’ve finally got it together. I think it was more of a blessing that those computer problems happened because the songs sound a whole lot better now than they did two years ago. They’ve been ironed out and just keep evolving to the point where we’re comfortable where they’re at now.

Tell me about collaborating with Lydia Gavin from Aroarah on this album.
Shawn Peter: We’ve been friends with Aroarah for a long time. I’ve watched them since high school evolve into not only beautiful people, but excellent musicians. I like to collaborate with as many people as possible. Lydia was just ecstatic just to do it; she was really stoked. The song “Wednesday” is a new song we have. We haven’t even played it live yet, and she just made the difference in bringing that song together vocally.

What song(s) do you feel most connected to?
SP: “The Guide.” I’m a Downtown Guide and I see everything. I’m a bumblebee on K Street. I’ve been doing this job for 11 years. I’ve been beat up, I’ve helped people, I’ve almost delivered a baby once. Dead bodies. I write about love, like in the song “You” is about finding the perfect mate and being afraid of losing it. “Dark Room,” that song’s about getting caught doing stupid shit and people calling you out on it, and you’re either going to lie or tell the truth.

How’s the band’s chemistry now?
SP: Playing with Dave, Mogley and Aaron over the last three years, it’s been the best the band has ever been. Not to say I didn’t like the moments before, but, we’re not afraid to try anything. We write for ourselves and we write music for ourselves. And, hopefully, our audience is going to like our material. It’s really nice to write something new and try it out and see how the audience is going to react to it.

Do you feel you challenge each other?
SP: Most definitely. Aaron writes the most intricate guitar stuff where I’m like, “Whoa.” My classic phrase is, when I write a song, Aaron smartens up my songs, and when Aaron writes a song, I kind of dumb him down a bit [laughs]. I’m not going to toot his own horn, but he’s probably the best guitarist I’ve ever played with.
Aaron Holt: We’re not scared to shit on everyone else’s ideas, too. Let it be known. It might be me, a lot. I got the big mouth.

What inspires you as a songwriter?
SP: Life. I write about my personal experiences. Personally, I went through some real tiring times in the last two years and if it wasn’t for my band mates, I don’t know where I would be, honestly. I had a lot of dark moments going on in my life and music helped me pull through and the lyrics revolve around those experiences. I’m just trying to take a positive step toward everything.

Tell me about opening for G.B.H.
SP: I’m an old school punk rock fan, and it was an old school punk rock show. You had your classic, mohawk-leather-jacket-with-the-patches kids in there. Classic punk rockers. We actually had two guys literally sitting on the stage while we were playing facing the audience and they were expecting hardcore punk that night, but we got a really good reception where they clapped after our songs, kind of like, “You guys are rad, not really what we wanted to hear tonight, but you guys don’t suck. Right on.”

What does the Sacramento music scene need?
AH: More people need to go out to shows. I think in the last year or two it seems better. There are more venues opening up. We’re sitting across the street from Luigi’s right now, and there are people out on a Tuesday night. I don’t think [the scene is] as good as the days of the Cattle Club, but it’s better than it has been. There’s a lot more people that are going out, but more people could always come out for sure.

When will the band call it quits?
AH: We’ll call A Single Second quits when it’s not fun anymore. Who knows a year from now, two years from now, if someone’s not having fun? A Single Second or not, I guarantee in 20 years, I will still be playing my guitar whether I’m out playing at a club or something. I’ll have my acoustic out, trying to pick up on younger women at the coffee shop [laughs]. I don’t know. I just love to play music. It’s like therapy–well, not therapy, it’s an outlet.

Does a community of musicians exist within Sacramento?
SP: You go to any show and you really know who’s in what band. We all play with each other and collaborate with each other. Half the audience is always going to be other bands and the friends of those bands. I could rattle off for a half hour all the bands I like playing with: Kill the Precedent, First Class Citizen, Bastards of Young, the Secretions…bands who’ve been around since the ‘90s, like Will Haven’s still doing it. There’s a lot of bands and we’re all listening to and supporting each other.

Why do you continue to play music?
SP: We just want to keep doing things that challenge us. We’re not doing it for anyone but ourselves, and if people happen to like it, then that’s awesome. I play music on stage and it allows me not to be an animal in every aspect of my life. That’s my outlet to let it go. My frustration, my excitement, my everything. I give it all when I give a performance. I’m a music junkie. If there’s any drug in my life, it’s music. And I’ll never give it up.

On Friday, Aug. 12, 2011 A Single Second will play the first of two official CD release shows at Concerts in the Park in Cesar Chavez Park. Get a beer garden wristband and get into the guys’ show at the Distillery later that night for free. You’ll have another chance to catch the band Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2011 at 6:30 p.m. at Ace of Spades. Tickets to this all-ages show are $15. D.R.I., Kill the Precedent and Hoods will also perform.

The Golden Ghosts are a buzzing new Los Angeles-based duo consisting of Riley Bray on guitar and vocals and Justin Goings, who has strong Sacramento music scene ties having played in bands like Mister Metaphor and Jeepster. Their music is groovy and really quite infectious; and with them touring through the area soon you’ll have quite a few chances to check them out live. On April 25 they’re playing at Luigi’s Fungarden, April 26 they’ll be in Nevada City at Café Mekka, April 27 they are at Luke’s Lounge in Dixon and on April 28 they will be at Plainfield Station in Woodland. Also, you can catch them on May 20 alongside Agent Ribbons and Roman Funerals at Cesar Chavez Park in downtown Sacramento as part of the annual Friday Night Concerts in the Park series.
-J. Carabba

Concerts in the Park
Friday, May 7, 2010 – Cesar Chavez Park – Sacramento
Words & Photos by Vincent Girimonte

Two things to take away from last Friday’s edition of Concerts in the Park: one, Sacramento has some exceedingly hip youth; so hip, in fact, that I felt like a tool toting just one lens with my Nikon. Seriously though, I saw way too many kids with thousands of dollars-worth of camera gear dangling from their thin little necks. And second, make sure to buy a beer ticket before you get into the beer line–just a friendly reminder I wish someone would have given me.

Full disclosure: this was my first CIP, and for all my faux curmudgoenliness (I still get carded, for everything) it was a genuinely unique and jovial Sacramento on display in Cesar Chavez Park. Young professionals rejoiced in public consumption as kids pranced around and people were wearing balloons as hats, which would be ridiculous if it weren’t a Friday signaling the beginning of our glorious summer.

Dotting the park were food carts of all shapes and specialties, reminding Sacramentans of a culture largely prohibited to them and satiating drunks and kids alike with fatty eats such as lumpia, rice bowls, Cajun crawfish and the night’s hot seller, tamales for $1.75. About the crawfish: “They’re back” announced promoter Jerry Perry from the stage, gleefully, but at $10 a basket, I was left to lick shells off the lawn. There was plenty of affordable grub to be had, though, and $4 domestics shouldn’t elicit too much whining from anyone, though it inevitably will.

2010’s first Concerts in the Park, now in its 18th year, was mostly about Perry and his talented lineup of youngsters, including Simpl3Jack and Dog Party of Sacramento News & Review Jammies fame and The Kelps. The show was headlined by the sugar-spiked Kepi Ghoulie, the biggest kids of them all, who played a lengthy set of punk nostalgia piped over zany PG lyrics.

If you don’t know Dog Party, you’re likely so thoroughly out of it, you probably didn’t even know they’re just a couple of adolescent girls with a penchant for neon. Gwen “Don’t call me Meg” Giles beat drums behind her sister Lucy, who strummed her Fender, playing original tracks off their debut album and then rocking a cover of Tegan and Sara’s “Walking With a Ghost.” Two men wrestled for a T-shirt after Dog Party threw out one of their sweet XL tees–such is the zeal of their following, or perhaps the state of things these days.

Part Pauly Shore, part Flea in the vein of Yo Gabba Gabba, Kepi shut things down with tunes about supermodels (gross!), chupacabras (ew, yuck!) and rabid monkeys (whaaa?!). He called on the beer garden for a sing-a-long, and they reciprocated like good sports without a worry on Friday night. “Man,” he said, clearly appreciative. “We got a pretty good town.”

Middle Class Rut

Cesar Chavez Park – Friday, June 19, 2009

Last Friday’s Concert in the Park Series at Cesar Chavez saw the triumphant return of Middle Class Rut, another long-awaited addition to the short list of bands that have found mainstream success beyond our county lines. This success is partly due to the overwhelming response to their 2008 single, “New Low,” that was played almost nonstop on the now-defunct KWOD 106.5. The stoner-friendly, alternative radio station was a huge proponent of the band. In fact, one year ago on the same exact stage, KWOD DJ Andy Hawk announced them before they hit the stage to a much smaller crowd.

MC Rut, as they are referred to in short, consists of Zach Lopez on guitar and vocals and Sean Stockham on drums and back up vocals. That’s right, they’re a duo. But before you make up your mind based on all the preconceived notions of what a duo can and can’t do, hear me out. They aren’t the White Stripes and they sure as hell aren’t Hella. The energy that is harnessed by these two is stadium caliber, as was witnessed by a huge crowd at the Rock-am-Ring festival in Germany last June. Cesar Chavez Park isn’t exactly a stadium, but it isn’t The Press Club either, and I’ve seen the boys murder that tiny venue to a crowd of 20 on a Sunday night. The point? They’re a versatile band that owns any crowd, and Friday night was no different.

A chant of “MC Rut!” welcomed the two onto the stage; each of them casually settling in to their instruments. Lopez jabbed at his guitar like a child taunting a beehive, the feedback buzzing like angry bees. Stockham adjusted his well-worn orange drum kit and removed his shirt to reveal his “For Sale” tattoo that was inked across his chest in bold red letters. “What’s up, Sacramento?” said Lopez in a classic rock star moment. “How you guys doing?” A loving Sacramento crowd that was clearly there to support their hometown favorite answered back with an eruption of applause.

MC Rut opened their set with “Busy Being Born,” their most recent single that began with one of Stockham’s signature rim tap grooves that Lopez overlaid with slow melodic chords that scraped and dragged while he sang, “The days keep dragging on”¦“ Anticipation mounted until finally the chorus exploded wide open, Stockham punishing his cymbals on each downbeat. A cloud of dust from the stampeding mosh pit was carried toward the stage by a much-welcomed Delta breeze. This would continue for the whole length of their set that would only build in intensity as Lopez and Stockham galloped through song after well practiced song.

During what seemed like the crux of the set, a murder of crows flew overhead to the wafting soundtrack of Lopez’s guitar that melodramatically pulsed in synch with the beating of their wings. “Hold the person you love tight,” Lopez instructed the mesmerized crowd who were eating out of his hand at this point. “I like the way your shirt’s unbuttoned,” Stockham joked with Lopez. Their humor on stage is evidence alone that these two have been friends and bandmates for over a decade now. They seem to be enjoying every moment of their second chance at success after their previous band, Leisure, was signed to and then dropped from Dreamworks.

Before their final song, a white tank top was hucked onto the stage, landing at the feet of Lopez, who remarked that he’d rather they get some bras and panties. And, like clockwork, a black strapless bra made its way to the stage. Stockham was pleased and proceeded to strap the bra on himself with a little help from Lopez, who was all smiles at his bandmate’s cross-dressing showmanship. The familiar metallic percussion that opens “New Low” began, and at that point the whole crowd was in it. They sang every last word of the tune with fists pumping and heads nodding.