Let’s be honest here. I’m greedy. I wanted to write the first Hobo Johnson (né Frank Lopes) story. Like many others, after watching the “Live From Oak Park” series of videos on YouTube, I was hyped, instantly fascinated by the young rapper, whose stuttered, offbeat style often jumps from Conor Oberst to Sole in a matter of one breath. There’s something about his delivery—confident, yet totally unsure; joyful and angry; polite, but crass; rational and completely insane—that reveals an actual personality behind the music. Hobo Johnson’s candid style cuts through all artistic pretensions and allows the MC to actually articulate heavy (sometimes brutally funny) ideas without having to bare the weight of the label “conscious rapper,” which once could be worn as a badge of honor, but now is simply the shriveled detritus of ‘90s-era hip-hop. Well, I wanted to show the world this young artist who is surely destined for greatness, but, instead, I listened to an audiobook about extreme altruists, then caught up with the new season of Catfish, then watched a documentary about pedophiles, and a bunch of other writers beat me to it.
Bah, Macias
Enter Chris Macias, a journalist who writes for the Sacramento Bee. He always writes the first big stories. I’m sick of it. But I’m also insanely lazy and apparently not fed up enough to actually seek out new artists and interview them before he does. In fact, I’m so lazy that I called upon the award-winning journalist to help me with this story:
“How should I start it?” I wrote in a desperate email.
The kind-hearted Macias responded: “You should start by name-checking everyone who wrote about Hobo Johnson before you, and how since you became a dad you’re pretty much out of touch with all music, except what’s played on Sprout TV.”
That would require waaaaaay too much research and I’m not into that kind of shit. Plus, I don’t know what Sprout TV is, so I can add “fatherhood” to the list of things he beats me at.
Honestly, I just like listening to artists and then babbling about them and then collecting a paycheck at the end. But for this story I actually met up with Hobo Johnson at the Old Soul in Oak Park, where, unbeknownst to me, the 22-year-old MC used to work (and then quit with a bit of melodrama).
“This is where everyone asks to come,” he says. “But then we were in the Sac Bee and I came to pick up a copy real quick and I saw my old bosses and they got mad at me. My boss here was like, ‘You’re a piece of shit.’”
But, to be fair, he quit the second he signed a management deal with some big shot in Los Angeles. If I got a management deal, I would quit everything, leave my family and never wear clothes again.
“Working, to me, is the fucking worst,” he says.
Amen.
No safety net
Working is the worst. The only thing that matters in this dumb world is to live your goddamn dreams, even if there’s a 99-percent chance of them dying a horrific death right in front of your blinking eyes. Hobo Johnson is going for it. Without a backup plan, the rapper is relying solely on his music to make money.
“I just play shows and sell merch,” he says. “But with the festival season coming up, I should be good. Rent is dumbass cheap.”
I have confidence in this plan. There’s something about his oddly hilarious songwriting style that is suspenseful, wickedly smart and endearing enough to sustain a long career in the arts. Check out these lyrics: “Hey missus, will you take me to a world where nothing else exists except the contents of our soul / If I looked like Brad Pitt mixed with a bit of Jake Gyllenhaal and a bowl of David Hasselhoff I wouldn’t be here at all / I’d be in Los Angeles / Or at your mom’s house. Eating all the sandwiches.”
See? Hobo Johnson is a character, and not the gimmicky kind. He’s a larger-than-life personality. Even his diction, the way he says words, is really weird, but it’s something that sticks with the listener.
“I talk like that, too,” he says. “Like I’m kinda always about to fuck up a sentence. It’s just part of who I am, I think, just the unsureness of what the fuck I’m saying.”
That unsureness, the willingness to show vulnerability, works. Even my nemesis, Chris Macias agrees. “[H]e’s the kind of rapper who could actually do a guest slot on Yo Gabba Gabba, which is even better for old dad bros like us,” Macias writes in his email. “Listening to Death Grips now just hurts my feelings.”
Man, I wish I would have come up with that.
A visit from Jesus
Anyway, from his humble beginnings as an open mic MC who could only draw four people to a show to now, where he, along with his band, The Lovemakers, can draw a crowd of 450, it will surely be interesting to track the journey of Hobo Johnson. And believe me, it will be tracked, seeing as this is like the 90th story about the guy. But here is a story that nobody else has. It’s about the ill-fitting PT jacket he sported in all those “Live From Oak Park” videos.
Hobo Johnson recalls: “A few days before we shot the videos, I knew I needed to get a jacket and I wanted a speaker system for my turntable. I looked on Craigslist for one that morning. We go to my friend’s house and we practice and we go out to his car and right in front of his car on 44th Street is that PT jacket and a speaker system with a receiver. And I’m like, ‘This is from Jesus Christ.’”
So there you go. Jesus Christ Himself dropped down and paid a visit to Hobo Johnson. Eat it, other stories.
Anyway, I don’t know how to end this shit, but, luckily, Macias (like my own, personal Jesus), tells me what to do:
“Be sure to drop the details of his next show.”
I don’t really know when his next show is.
“[B]ut … you probably won’t be there because you’ll be teaching your son how to play catch and hopefully steer him away from the idea of being a rapper.”
Screw you, Chris Macias. Screw you.
Check out Hobo Johnson and the Lovemakers live when they perform at this year’s First Festival at Riverwalk Park in West Sacramento. This two-day festival will take place on May 6 and 7, 2017, (Hobo Johnson’s set will be on May 6). Headliners include Arden Park Roots and Oleander, with sets from Some Fear None, DLRN, The Moans and many others. For a full lineup, or to purchase tickets, go to Firstfestivalsacramento.com. Hobo Johnson and the Lovemakers will also play Concerts in the Park on June 30, 2017, at Cesar Chavez Plaza. Check out one of Hobo’s videos from the “Live From Oak Park” series below.
Sacramento Bee food and wine writer Chris Macias recently reported that Kimio Bazett and Jon Modrow, the duo behind one of Submerge’s all-time favorite Sacramento bars/eateries, Golden Bear, recently signed a lease on the space that used to be Hangar 17, which shut down in March. They expect to open their new spot (which has yet to be named) by February, so keep your eyes and ears out for updates on that. Bazett and Modrow are great guys; they are smart, hardworking and dedicated and we here at Submerge could not be more thrilled for their next endeavor!
Words by Adam Saake
Photos by Leon Moore
Sparkling wine, or what is ubiquitously known as Champagne, is an American staple for celebration. Whether it be graduations, marriages, anniversaries, engagements or rap videos, popping some bubbly always seems appropriate. Hell, we even commemorate weekends by throwing a splash in our orange juice–bottomless for the lush. But what seems like a more appropriate moment of our whole year to toast and clink our glasses then New Year’s Eve? As we wind down 2010 and reflect upon the months gone by, Submerge offers you this guide to grocery store bubbles to help with those tough decisions. France or California? Cava or Prosecco? In the words of the late Biggie Smalls, “Sip Champagne when I’m thirsty.”
Cortisano Cava Brut
Spain
($5.99 at Trader Joe’s)
Methode Champenois, is a very fun wine to pair with foods and festivities. Cortisano’s Brut Cava has a nice fruit expression, giving one the impression that the wine is sweet when it’s actually lower in sugar (see chart). Try to taste green apples at first and then a nice “bready” finish. Yum!
Zonin Prosecco Brut Veneto
Italy
($5.99 at Trader Joe’s)
Prosecco is an Italian sparkling wine that is made from the Prosecco grape, or Glera as it’s more commonly known. Unlike sparkling wines made in the Methode Champenois, Prosecco is made in the Charmat method in which the secondary fermentation (where the bubbles come from) takes place in stainless steel tanks instead of in the bottle. Prosecco has grown in popularity lately because it’s a lot cheaper than Champagne, but what you’re getting is actually a really great wine for your buck. Like the Cava, the Zonin Prosecco has an upfront fruit expression but try and taste pears this time. Not as fine of a mousse but perfect for pasta or shellfish–a simple, drinkable wine.
In 1987, president of the French Champagne Taittinger (pronounced tay-ton-zjay) purchased 138 acres in the Carneros district of the Napa Valley. He was out to make world-class sparkling wine in the United States. With the help of Eileen Crane, CEO and founding winemaker, Domaine Carneros was born. This gorgeous sparkling wine, a blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, is a much more accurate expression of French Champagne. Instead of being a fruit-forward wine, the nuances are in the background and it will benefit you to take it slow and really savor each sip. Plus, there is a lot finer of a mousse on this wine, so you won’t mind rolling it around in your mouth a bit. Now we’re having fun!
Barnaut
Grand Cru Champagne Blanc de Noirs
France
($48 at Market at Pavilions)
This is something a little more special. When it comes to spending money on wine, it’s nice to know that you’re not just paying for a name. Barnaut is a small producer from the Bouzy region where the temperatures are very cold. Here, the caves in which the wine is aged are 15 meters below the ground, so aging happens very slowly. In order to label your wine Champagne, you have to follow some rules (AOC). One is that a portion of your harvest be held back each year and kept to age. So Barnaut blends multiple, patiently aged vintages into his wines, giving them a layered complexity. What you get is a fine mousse and a beautiful wine that is certainly meant to be slowly enjoyed with food and good company.
Non-vintage vs. Vintage
Often when you pick up a bottle of Champagne or sparkling wine, you won’t find a vintage, or the year in which the grapes were harvested. This is called non-vintage, and it basically means that it’s a blend of grapes from the past five years or so. This doesn’t mean that it’s bad wine. In fact, some producers blend multiple vintages to create wines with many layers to enjoy. When you find a bottle that does have a vintage, it shows that the producer has chosen just those grapes from that harvest to craft his or her wine. In that case, do a little research and find out what years and regions yielded good Chardonnay, Pinot Noir or Pinot Meunier grapes. Those are the three usually found in Champagne.
Brut, Extra Dry, Sec & Demi-Sec
These are important to look out for on the labels of sparkling wine, because they refer to the sweetness, or percentage of residual sugar that’s in the wine. Brut is less sweet, extra dry is sweeter and so on and so forth.
Brut: up to 15 percent, usually not that sweet Extra Dry: 12—20 percent, sweet Sec: 17—35 percent, sweeter Demi-sec: 33—55 percent, sweetest
What’s the mousse, anyway?
Next time you’re at a tasting and someone says, “What a fine mousse,” you can be sure they aren’t talking wildlife. Mousse refers to the fineness of bubbles in your sparkling wine and can actually make or break your experience. Some wines that have less attention paid to detail might have an aggressive mousse that makes the wine tough to enjoy. But, get a bottle with fine, silky bubbles and it’s a symphony in your mouth.
Spumante and Frizzante
These are two terms that refer to how sparkling each wine will be, spumante meaning fully sparkling and frizzante meaning lightly sparkling. Choose wisely.
Q. What’s your go-to sparkling wine during the holidays?
