If you’ve enjoyed a show at Harlow’s anytime in the last 10-plus years, chances are John Carlson had a large part to do with that. We’re sad to report that earlier this month, the beloved sound engineer who had worked at the popular J Street club for more than 20 years, passed away. John was damn good at his job and was adored by anyone who had the pleasure of meeting him. He was a bit of a legend in the music community, seeing as how he spent so many years helping countless local musicians hone in their sound. Rumor has it he was an amazing keyboard player, too, though I never had the privilege of seeing him get down.
I will personally miss running into John during my afternoon meetings with the venue’s owner, Jim. John would frequently be the one to greet me at the back gate to let me in, and he was always so jolly, smiling and quick to make me laugh.
Upon hearing the sad news of his passing, tons of locals took to social media to post memories about John, so I wanted to gather a few snippets from some of my favorites and post them here, to help show how important he was to so many in our music world. There will be a memorial show for John Carlson at Harlow’s on Thursday, April 27 at 6:30 p.m. Details on the show can be viewed HERE. Visit Gofundme.com/johncarlson to help with funeral expenses and anything else his family needs.
Tyler Campbell, Arden Park Roots: “John was my friend even more so than he was my sound guy … He had an amazing sense of humor and an even better ear for sound. My favorite part about showing up at Harlow’s was catching up with him.”
Stephen Nikkel, Swell Productions: “We will miss John’s great expertise as the master of sound, his cutting sense of humor and just his general presence. Thanks for all the great work on the many shows we have presented here over the years.”
Adrian Bellue, Guitarist: “John Carlson was one of the first people to embrace my music in Sacramento. He always encouraged me, and always made me feel at home, and made me sound great.”
Drew Walker, Gentleman Surfer: “He mentored us … John listened to our band, he gave advice and riffed with us at shows when we made stupid jokes … He influenced me more than I knew, and he helped engender a deep respect for artists of audio craft.”
Jessie Abbey, Musical Charis: “The last conversation we had just a week ago, you told me that you loved Blake [Abbey] and I like we are like your kids … I’ll always remember how you used to let me play around with the light board at shows, how you were the first one to jump up on stage and jam with us on the keys, and you always knew just how to dial us in juuuust right … You are a legend and you will be missed.”
*This piece first appeared in print on page 8 of issue #238 (April 24 – May 8, 2017)**
Local four-piece experimental band Gentleman Surfer is back to melt your brain once again with their new instrumental album Reanimate Ore. If you aren’t familiar with Gentleman Surfer, then A) you need to get out to more shows, as they’ve been touring and playing locally for many years now, and B) come in with an open mind, because their sound is unlike anything else out of Sacramento. I really love the way Submerge contributor Jenn Walker described Gentleman Surfer’s music back when we did a feature story on them in early 2013. She called it, “Explosive and disjointed, yet very, very danceable. If you can keep up.” She went on to accurately point out that, “It’s excellent music to freak out to.”
Reanimate Ore finds the band (made up of Jon Bafus, Drew Walker, Barry McDaniel and Zack Bissell) playing tighter than ever. These guys are technically skilled musicians that can start and stop together on a dime, and they keep things equally spastic and weird, yet melodic and incredibly listenable, even for those who aren’t normally into jazz fusion, math rock, experimental, etc. I’ve listened to the nine-track album front to back multiple times now and haven’t grown tired of it. Check it out at Gentlemansurfer.bandcamp.com. You’ve got to experience them live to fully get the G-Surf vibe, through, and lucky for you they’ve got an album release show scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 12, 2016, at The Red Museum in Sacramento. Also on the bill are locals Battle Hag and Oakland’s Inner Ear Brigade. It’s for all ages and the cover charge is only $5, with doors opening at 8:30 p.m. Learn more at Gentlemansurfermusic.com.
If You Like It, Go Deeper
It’s hard to know where to even start when it comes to Drew Walker.
When I first met Walker, he was an outgoing stoner (he’s proven it’s possible!) who would play guitar from the porch of his former Flop Haus digs on H Street and mercilessly push you to support local music and have fun doing it. From there, I remember always seeing him sitting behind a drumset with a handful of local bands or involved in the production of a local show in one way or another. Other times, he would be walking around the city for hours, posting fliers for shows, snapping film photos and stopping at what seemed like every other house to catch up with friends.
A few years have passed, and lots of things in this town have changed. However, it is comforting to see Walker as one who remains consistently motivated when it comes to his craft and his commitment to the Sacramento music scene. And just as when I first met him, Walker still has that seemingly never-ending desire to create.
Fresh off tour with his band, Gentleman Surfer, Walker has rolled out his current labor of love through his solo project, DoofyDoo. This current endeavor is a collection of 15 EPs of edited live recordings that pay homage to every city he has toured in over the past year. He has called this collection of recordings, “The Tourist: The West Coast In Audio”, which he describes as an album, “Spanning both Western borders, part beats, part guitars, part anthropological adventure, a collection of tracks from, for, and about 17 different cities and towns between Tijuana and Vancouver.” He says that the album was made, “Using tapes, samples, fx and found instruments. Each track on the album represents a unique unrepeatable experience in the city it was recorded in including Sacramento, Davis, San Francisco, Reno, Oakland, Santa Barbara, San Diego, Mexicali, Tijuana, Long Beach, Portland, Olympia, Seattle, Anacortes, Eugene, Port Townsend and Vancouver.”
The Tourist is a long, freaky musical trip. There is song after song of looping soundbites and melodic story lines that almost play like subliminal messages. Drew did hours of research on each place he visited, and collected sound snippets from different sources, using them as grounds for improvising in live performances. He then recorded and edited the raw performances and turned them into albums. This process continued over the course of a year, blossoming into a glimpse of the hyper world of Drew’s brain.
“My desire to go on tour, meet new people, and travel really left me with the idea that I wanted to know the people and places on a more personal level,” says Walker. “I would go up on stage with a semi-planned idea of what I would be performing, but it was all with the idea that it would all organically unfold onstage.” In other words, he would reach out to his surroundings for creative motivation.
Each song is accompanied by writings and pictures. “I like to capture the snapshot of an experience,” says Walker, “Every song incorporates a different experience.”
Every EP was recorded in a different venue in a different place and with a completely different audience, and there are even instances where Drew has used the equipment of other acts. “Sometimes I’ll ask other bands playing the same gig if I can use their instruments. It’s what gives it that nice tweak or something different. So a lot of the songs even use entirely different equipment.” All factors have helped create something aesthetically different every single time. In the end, a total of 18 varying live shows were edited to create The Tourist.
“This work definitely takes a third eye to take in,” says Drew, “In fact, I hope some people are high when they first listen.” He gave me permission to oust his reefer influences, saying, “One of those songs is titled ‘4/20/2015’ and was recorded in San Francisco at this crazy bar that was also a performance venue and laundromat. That was crazy, but also one of my favorites.”
Walker sees this project as a huge artistic piece that couples many concepts that go beyond the musical. Every song has photographs, writings and art he has personally created specifically for each album and its tracks.
“It is a huge piece of performance art in my eyes,” he says, “Essentially the collaging of images from my life on tour. Its takes on a personal and unique form with each performance.”
The tracks take the listener on a sonically animated roller coaster ride, with little to no actual singing. Most vocals are limited to sound snippets and people talking about stuff like racism, parking tickets, Sac history and Birkenstocks. A lot of these sounds are rhythmically repeated and paired with Walker’s live drumming and other instrumentals. One notable thing about Walker’s style, is that he has managed to master the art of being spontaneous and free. It genuinely feels like his unedited subconscious unapologetically seeps through in every song. It is wacky and weird and sometimes dizzying, but it is never boring or trying to imitate anything else. The Tourist feels personal and authentic without any pretentious connotations.
On Dec. 6, 2015 The Tourist will officially be released in its entirety at the renewed Blackbird Kitchen + Beer Gallery. In fact, the recently renovated (re-re-renovated?) venue is opening its digs early just for Walker’s show. Since the community raised over $800 through Indiegogo to help make Drew’s touring project possible, Blackbird is hosting a dinner as a thanks for everyone before the show.
This reception will be something entirely new for Walker and his music. Rather than being planned and rehearsed, Walker hopes to follow suit with The Tourist, and let things unfold organically. There will be a gallery reception, with a music video premier that he is really excited about. “The music video is made to go with the Sac song,” he says, “It’s going to be 12 awesome minutes directed by my friend Gabe, aka Tiger’s Blood.” A live performance will follow, that will surely be wildly improvised; something that will be utilized to make another improvised album that was based on his previous improvised albums.
When asked about his motivation for this work, Walker says, “If you like it, go deeper. It’s an experience that involves all of these people and all of this information and it’s all part of it here. It’s not about just music, but it is verging on fine art/outsider art. Essentially, my show will be about sharing, celebrating and then moving on to something else.”
Grab your copy of DoofyDoo’s The Tourist Dec. 6, 2015, at Blackbird Kitchen + Beer Gallery at 1015 9th Street in Sacramento. The all-ages show will include a live performance, video premiere and gallery reception and is free with purchase of the album. For more info, go to Facebook.com/doofydoojams
When the beloved and much too-short-lived Midtown venue Witch Room (ex-Bows and Arrows) shut down late last year, they sure did go out with a bang! “Sac Go Home Fest” was an epic, two-day, mostly local music free-for-all, and if you were there for any of it, you know how special the vibe in the room was. It was a little bit celebratory, a little bit mournful, with a shit ton of great music and craft beer to wash down the bitter feelings. If you weren’t there for some dumb reason, the next best thing would be to listen to sound guy Drew Walker’s live compilation album that he recorded during the fest. The comp, which is available for free right now online at Sacgohomefest.bandcamp.com, features 20 live recordings from locally tied bands like The Kelps, Lite Brite, Honyock, Pregnant, Appetite, Dog Party, Instagon, Musical Charis, PETS, DoofyDoo (Walker’s project) and a bunch of others. If you’re a local music nerd like us here at Submerge, looking down the list of tracks might give you a little ADD, as we really just wanted to listen to all the damn songs at the same damn time. “I really appreciate every band that took part,” Walker (who also plays in the rad local band Gentleman Surfer) recently wrote on Facebook. “This is definitely one of my favorite projects ever.” We’d like to thank Walker for putting this thing together, because years from now we’ll still be able to listen back to this live album recorded at Witch Room and remember the days the venue was alive and well. RIP, Witch, you’ll always be missed!
Another one bites the dust.
We hate to say it, but in case you haven’t already heard, the short-lived Midtown music venue Witch Room is set to close its doors for good at the end of December. If you’re keeping track (we sure are!) this is the fourth Sacramento venue to shut down in the last year. First Luigi’s Slice and Fungarden, then Marilyn’s on K, then Assembly Music Hall, now Witch Room. In a statement released by Witch Room co-founder Olivia Coelho, she said, “The simple fact is that we were not able to sustain enough revenue to cover our expenses and provide compensation to the founders that was sufficient to justify our efforts.” She went on to point out that they knew what they were doing (read: “fostering creativity”) was risky and difficult, but that they wanted to give it a good 10-month shot to see what happened. She also pointed out that she and Witch Room’s co-founders all “expect to maintain our intense interest in the cultural life of this city that we love, and hope to contribute to it in the future.”
It was rumored that Eric Rushing and Bret Bair, owners of Ace of Spades and Goldfield, had shown interest in purchasing Witch Room and keeping it a live music venue, but when we hit them up Rushing told us that they “walked away from the deal.” (More on Rushing and Bair’s attempts to purchase a new venue will be in our next issue!)
While we are incredibly sad to see Witch Room close (we’ve been to more than a few awesome shows there this year and have done quite a bit of editorial coverage on artists performing there), we are also excited to see that they will be going out in style with a super-rad two-day local music free-for-all (literally, it’s free) called “Sac Go Home Fest” on Saturday, Dec. 27, 2014 and Sunday, Dec. 28, 2014. Organizer Drew Walker (also Witch Room’s beloved sound guy and talented local musician) told Submerge that Sac Go Home Fest is “purely for the community,” and that “it’s gonna be all locals who were down to play for free to celebrate the place!” As of press time Walker had confirmed 20-plus solid locals for the weekend-long shindig. On Saturday, you’ve got bands such as Pregnant, Lite Brite, PETS, Removed, Carson McWhirter/Nick Reinhart Duo, Cove, Honyock, Musical Charis and a couple others. On Sunday, Walker has lined up Doofy Doo (his own project), along with Fine Steps, Appetite, Dad?, Dog Party, The Kelps, Squidz, an open jam with Instagon and much more. “Come help the WR staff, friends, fans and haters celebrate both the life and death of Sac’s coolest shortest lived venue,” Walker wrote on the event’s Facebook page. “Buy all of our beer and make us an offer on the refrigerators too. And then, Sacramento, go home.”
Chelsea Wolfe’s The Grime and the Glow dresses folk music in a black cloak
Ravens perched on bare branches, snow falling on tombstones, wooden shutters clattering against cloudy window panes in a strong gale–these are just some of the visuals The Grime and the Glow, the latest fulllength album from Sacramento songwriter Chelsea Wolfe, may conjure in the imagination of the listener. Songs such as “Cousins of the Antichrist,” on which Wolfe intones “All in vain” in a steady refrain as the song ends, reinforce descriptions of her music as dark or goth folk. Wolfe herself describes another selection from the album, “Halfsleeper,” as “a slow-motion painting of what it’s like to die in a car accident with your loved one.” Wolfe, however, admits that The Grime and the Glow isn’t necessarily all doom and gloom–not that she’d mind if it were. She says that songs “Advice & Vices” and “The Whys” are more playful lyrically than she’d normally write. Wolfe describes the latter as “a song making fun of myself for taking everything so seriously.” But these concessions aren’t in hopes of lightening the album’s dark mood.
“I don’t mind it getting too dire,” Wolfe says in a recent interview with Submerge.
From the album cover, to the videos made for the songs, to the music itself, The Grime and the Glow seems born from a single cohesive vision. Wolfe says that the theme for the album came to her once its title was in place. She says the title is taken from the introduction to the novel Death on the Installment Plan, by French author Louis-Ferdinand Celine. The darkly humorous novel had quite an effect on Wolfe, even though she wasn’t able to finish it.
“I…read most of [it], but had to stop because of the dark place it puts my head space,” she explains. “I didn’t really need to dig any deeper into understanding that much of the beauty in the world is crawling with worms beneath the surface.”
To get the dark and distant sound that permeates the album, Wolfe took a much more stripped down approach compared to that of her previous release, Soundtrack VHS/Gold. For that album, Wolfe says she went into a nice studio in order to create a “tapenoise- sounding” album, but she “eventually realized how illogical that was.”
“It’s a very different album,” Wolfe says of her previous effort. “I wanted to get an eight-track sounding record in a nice studio. Didn’t make any sense, but we did mix it down to tape.”
Wolfe says she wasn’t unhappy with the results, but instead with the lengthy recording process leading up to the release of Soundtrack VHS/Gold, which was released in an extremely limited run of about 50 CDs on Chicago-based indie label Jeune Été Records.
This time, Wolfe took a more “logical” approach to making an eight-track sounding album by using an actual eight-track machine. The Grime and the Glow was recorded by Wolfe on a Tascam 488, a handme- down from her musician father, that she says she’s recorded on for years. Wolfe says that doing the album herself, on a familiar machine, “made it sound exactly the strange and special fucked up way I wanted it to sound.”
Strange and fucked up are excellent adjectives for The Grime and the Glow. Though the mood is consistently dark, songs range from the wildly dissonant “Deep Talks,” which grates Wolfe’s bittersweet voice through layers of noise, to the aforementioned “Advice & Vices,” a catchy piece of dark pop that’s as tuneful as it is morose–and she sure doesn’t skimp on the reverb.
“I also like clean, straightforward vocals sometimes and will experiment with that someday,” Wolfe says, “But for these songs I wanted to capture my voice or the instruments, whatever, inside a certain soundbox, so when you have your headphones on listening to it you feel like you’re in a tiny, claustrophobic echoroom or a parking garage cathedral.”
Adding to the eerie, almost antique sound of the songs is the album’s format. The Grime and the Glow will be released some time in June–pushed back from the original May 18 release date–on limited edition vinyl by New York-based label Pendu Sound. Wolfe says that it was the label’s decision to release the album on vinyl, but it’s a decision she’s happy with.
“I don’t think this album would work as solely a CD release,” Wolfe says.
In addition to the music, Wolfe has also been busy working on visual companions to the songs. The Pendu Sound Web site for The Grime and the Glow features a series of four videos created for “Advice & Vices,” “Moses,” “The Whys” (featuring camera work by local horror filmmaker Jason Rudy) and “Bounce House Demons.” The videos for “Moses” and “Bounce House Demons” star Wolfe’s friend, writer Jessalyn Wakefield, whom Wolfe calls, “a perfect visual muse.” At the time of our interview, Wolfe also mentioned that she was working on a video for the song “Widow,” which will feature a “goth-glam girl lip-synching the song in a dark studio.”
“I like the element of darkness mixed with a bit of silliness,” she says.
This mix of music and film comes as no surprise as Wolfe states that movies had a big influence on her in the making of The Grime and the Glow.
“The Seventh Seal is my long-time favorite film,” says Wolfe, who also listed David Lynch’s Eraserhead and Jean Rollin’s French vampire movies as sources for inspiration. “The character of death in that film has forever been an influence in my creative life. Ingmar Bergman in general is a big inspiration for me. The portrayal of life in his films is so honest and desolate but rich at the same time. Another favorite is The American Astronaut (Cory McAbee), a dark space-western with hand-painted special effects and a pretty low budget that manages to get such a defined feel across, haunting but still silly, like so much of the folk art I love.”
In fact, Wolfe finds inspiration from most forms of art–but not so much with other music.
“Throughout my life and for this album I’ve been very inspired by authors, poets, painters and filmmakers, more so I’d say than any band or musician,” she explains. “In fact, for many years I wouldn’t allow myself to listen to music because I didn’t want to infuse anyone else’s sound into my own–I wanted to see what would happen without that influence.”
The Grime and the Glow is a solo project, but it was still a collaborative effort. Andrew Henderson of G.Green, Ian Bone from Darling Chemicalia and Ruven Reveles all made appearances on the album. Kevin Dockter, Drew Walker and Addison Quarles (collectively known as The Death) and Ben C. also played parts and have come together to form Wolfe’s band. Wolfe, Dockter, Walker, Quarles and C. will be heading into a proper studio in June to record a fivesong EP. Wolfe says her past experience working on Soundtrack VHS/Gold will inform her decisions on her upcoming trip to the studio.
“I’m much more focused, and I’m also giving this recording a deadline,” she says. “I’m going to try and finish up five songs in about a week and a half, which will mean lots of late nights and hard focus. This project will also be with my band mates–all five of the songs will have the same five people on them, which is a first for me. But I’m very excited about the challenge of finishing something on a fixed time limit.”
Until then, The Grime and the Glow should sate those with appetites for dark music, as long as they don’t mind the worms.
The Grime and the Glow is available for preorder through the Pendu Sound Web site. Go to pendusound.com/releases/psr-0040/. Those who pre-order the album will receive four free bonus songs for download.
