Ohana Fiit, a new dance class company teaching out of two locations in Sacramento and Elk Grove, has your resolutions covered, whether your goal is to lose weight, tone up, learn something new, have fun, make new friends or engage your kids in more activity. Started just this year by Jennifer “Mahina” Leslie and her husband Ron, their Friday classes at Sierra 2 Center and Thursday classes at Unlock Nutrition are already heating up. They’re hoping to bring their Hot Hula Fitness classes to other areas of Sacramento, and their eventual goal is to have their own studio.

When I attended two classes with my gal pal, the music was Lil Mama’s “Shawty Get Loose,” which seemed an unconventional choice for a hula class. It made the hip shaking movements of hula feel a bit more like booty shaking, and I couldn’t help but smile that hula smile while I danced.

“As a certified Hot Hula Fitness instructor, they do give us some songs to go with the dances, and they’re all instrumentals,” Mahina says of her music selection for class. “I use those for the first week, and then, to change it up a little, I look for something with the same tempo. Something not too fast, not too slow, but if you’re advanced, you can speed up your hips double time while the steps stay the same. When the hip movements increase, you burn even more calories!”

Both classes follow the same routine. So if you can’t make it on a Thursday or a Friday, or you want to come an extra day, the classes are structured so that both classes work on the same dance. “In the beginning of the month, you learn a couple of eight counts, then you learn a couple more each week,” Mahina says. “By the end of the month, you learn the whole dance! I may change the songs between classes, but the choreography stays the same.”

Mahina endeavors to make hula accessible to all ages and all skill levels. When she shows the more advanced students a more challenging version of what she’s teaching the class, her mastery of the dance hypnotizes. Watching Mahina snap into double time hip movements and sink closer to the earth with strong legs, offset by lovely, graceful hand gestures and a welcoming smile, makes anyone wish they could dance like that on some beach. And with a great teacher like Mahina and practice, learning to dance hula is totally within reach.

Most people who opt to take the class don’t gravitate toward hula, specifically. It’s more about the fitness payoff. It is estimated that someone who is at a beginner or intermediate level burns 200 to 600 calories an hour, depending on the intensity of their effort. An advanced student might shed 900 calories in a one-hour class. Additionally, you work your obliques, abs, back, hips, legs and arms, engaging all your muscle groups in the movements.

In partnership with Kendrick and Charil Daniels at Unlock Nutrition, Ohana Fiit cross pollinates their customers by offering a free Herbalife smoothie after class.

“Because it isn’t a full studio like Sierra 2, we offer a shake after class,” Mahina adds. “We also understand that class is at 7 p.m., which is most people’s dinner time. So, you dance your little butt off and get the shake after.”

At only $10 a class, that’s a pretty awesome deal and an affordable way to realize weight-loss related resolutions, if I do say so myself.

Lightning struck Mahina when two worlds she loves collided. “I started hula dancing when my family lived back in Hawaii, and I was really little,” she says. “I had to stop hula dancing because my parents moved to California. It was when I was around 15 that my mom found a halau here in Sacramento, and joined. And I found out that I really like fitness later on in life, too, so I found a platform for that. When I realized I could combine hula and fitness, I thought, ‘This is amazing!’ Honestly, my favorite style is Tahitian dancing, and the great thing about this is you can take it fast, which is more of a representation of Tahitian dancing, or you can take it slow, but the movements are still the same. So I was like, ‘Let me certify!’ but it was really hard to find a job as a group instructor. So we decided to just make our own class.”

By “we,” Mahina is referring to her and her husband, Ron. The couple are both busy promoting, growing their clientele, filming classes, designing T-shirts and more, on top of day jobs. In spite of their demanding lifestyles, you can see they’re truly in love and on a path together, with purpose.

“We met at a gym. She was looking at me and doing pull-ups. That’s my story. Her story is a little different,” Ron jokes and Mahina giggles. “We saw a lot of families not doing fitness together. Parents might go to the gym, the kids might do football or whatever, but they don’t do anything together. We do a lot of things with our kids, and that’s how we came up with the Ohana fitness concept.”

Mahina continues, “My husband and I are truly passionate about fitness, and we didn’t want there to be an issue for moms, dads, uncles, aunties to have that barrier, to be able to enjoy fitness, especially on a weekly basis, so we’ve really embraced our name Ohana Fiit, and we allow the kids to come in. It doesn’t matter as long as they’re at least 2 or 3, you’re keeping an eye on your child, they don’t disturb class in our studio. They are more than welcome to come and play with other kiddos and run around. We have a couple videos in class where we’re all dancing, and this little baby just runs across the screen. The kids haven’t been too crazy, so we just embrace it. Bring your little one in, come in and dance, sweat, and have a good time with us!”

When asked if she wanted to share anything about Hawaiian culture beyond the dance steps, she says, “Other than embracing the culture, it’s about embracing family. That’s truly a part of the culture. Being welcoming, and offering what you have to offer, even if it’s just a good time, or a shoulder to lean on, or someone to talk to after class.”

Ohana Fiit is a family affair. Of her family’s involvement in the business, Mahina says, “My daughter, Alisa, takes the Hot Hula FItness classes with us, and she learns the dances. I don’t teach them to her ahead of time, so she learns them at the same pace as the rest of the class. And Devyn, who is also an instructor here, teaches Pound Fitness. And Ron takes classes when he can.”

“I started because I wanted to have respect for what she did,” Ron adds. “I’m a gym guy. But I decided to go ahead and try it out because we also want to promote this platform for men. And with her teaching style it’s fun and easy to learn.”

I asked Mahina how she got her Hawaiian name. “Mahina Malamalama. That is my full, given Hawaiian name,” Mahina says. “My kumu at the halau took the definition of my birth name, and combined it with what she thought I brought to the group. My birth name, Jennifer, references nice, smooth skin. My kumu felt like I brought energy and lightness to the group because I’m always kidding around. In hula culture, there is a goddess, Hina, who is known for having nice skin. So altogether, Mahina Malamalama means the brightening of the moon. Like when you look at a full moon and there’s a ring of light around it.”

Let’s dance around the moonglow.

You can try Ohana Fiit Hot Hula fitness classes on Thursdays 7–8 p.m. at Unlock Nutrition (10044 Bruceville Rd., Ste. 140, Elk Grove) and Fridays 7–8 p.m. at Sierra 2 Center (2791 24th St., Sacramento). For more info, go to Ohanafiit.com.

**This piece first appeared in print on pages 20 – 21 of issue #256 (Jan. 1 – 15, 2018)**

DJ Sandhu is a unique comedian who’s hard to nail down. His material can go from incredibly liberal to unexpectedly conservative stances on dating and relationships. In the last few years he’s grown out a long black beard that’s the stuff of legend. Born of Indian parents, and blessed with bushy eyebrows, he’s had more than his fair share of troubles at airports as a result. He’s told me stories of being taken off of flights in Paris because he looked like a terrorist, and flat out being denied entry into Canada while a guy with five guns was waved right in. Despite these humiliating (and expensive) travel changes, he does his best to find the humor in these situations. In one of his bits, he admits that he isn’t sure he’d want to get on a flight that didn’t give extra security screening to someone who looked like him.

He’s placed well at The World Series of Comedy for two straight years and even taught a class on comedy finance for 100 comedians at this year’s event in Las Vegas. Quick to give advice to new comedians and frequently giving visiting comics a place to crash when they come through Sacramento, he has a reputation as one of the nicest performers in town.

I spoke with DJ at The Sacramento Comedy Spot a couple of hours before we were both scheduled to perform on The Friday Show. He’s always up to something unusual, like painting his beard purple in honor of the Kings or performing in a System of a Down tribute band, but he’s reached new levels of eccentricity by getting a pet pig. And he’s adorable.

Tell me about your pig.
His name is Sir Nigel Buckingham.

How did this come about?
Anthony Krayenhagen and Chris Teicheira [Modesto comedians] did a Pretending to Care podcast when they were dumping on an article Brian Crall [Sacramento Comedy Spot founder] wrote.

The article about how to start performing stand-up comedy?
As I’m listening to it, I said, “You’re way out of pocket, and I’m going to ambush your next podcast and defend his honor.” So I went there with my girlfriend and my girlfriend said, “There’s something wrong with your pig!” Her gut was just dragging on the floor and Chris said she was pregnant. Then my girlfriend said, “Can I have one?” And she just gave me a look and I said, “Look if you want it, go for it, but it’s going to be you raising it because I’m not around so much.”

We were planning on naming it Lord Hidalgo Noriega then she decided she wanted to name it Nigel. I still wanted a title so I came up with Sir Nigel Buckingham. At the last second I tried to get her to let me name it Hash Browns, because I think that’s an adorable name.

He had a crown on when I met him a few nights ago. Where do you find a crown for a pig?
We had already planned on getting him a mini crown and cape, so the day before we got him we went to Petco to get him his bed, food and a leash, and as soon as we walked in, that outfit was at the door.
This year for Halloween I’m going to be Khal Drogo, my girlfriend will be Khaleesi and she’s going to make a dragon costume for Nigel.

What’s the biggest surprise about owning a pig?
Everyone’s always saying how smart pigs are, but I was reading about it and found out the chain of command is that number one is humans, number two is chimps and apes, number three is whales and dolphins, and number four is pigs. So they’re the fourth smartest thing on the planet.

What’s the dumbest animal?
Comedians [laughs]!

This pig is gonna get big, right?
Probably about 200 pounds. Considering I’m 175 pounds, it’ll make me feel good about myself.
Tell me about your background. A lot of people make assumptions about you. Let’s get that straight.
I’m born and raised in Sacramento. My parents were born and raised in the Punjabi area of India. And my mom and dad moved to England when they were 3 and 7. My dad moved to Sacramento when he was 12.

So they met in England?
Just a bit, but once they turned 18 they were in an arranged marriage. My mom’s aunt is married to my dad’s uncle. There’s no blood relation, but there’s no word for that in Punjabi. So when people would ask my parents how they met, he would say, “She’s my cousin!” and she would say, “No! We are not cousins. Stop it!”

So the arranged marriage worked out for them?
Yeah. Neither of them drinks or smokes, and they don’t eat meat. They don’t have vices, so it’s not like one is sacrificing for the other.

Where did you go to high school?
Laguna Creek in Elk Grove.

Was being a comedian something you wanted to do then?
Never. I wanted to be in a punk or a metal band.

You’re in a band now, right?
Yeah, it’s Steal This Band. It’s a System of a Down tribute band. They get so mad when I call it a cover band. I guess a cover band plays a bunch of people’s stuff, and a tribute band … only [covers one band]. We’ve been together almost a year, but we’ve only done five shows. They’re all in “real” bands so it’s just something we do on the side.

You can sing. I remember we were in Marysville at The Silver Dollar Saloon after a show and you sang “Pony” by Ginuwine. I’ve heard you sing it before, too.
I would use that to pick up on women at bars. I’d put that song on and make a spectacle. I’d walk the bar top and find the biggest dude in the room and start giving him a lap dance. They always joke back with it, because you can’t hit me, I’m too small. You can’t win a fight against me if you’re a big dude, because if I win, a little guy just kicked your ass; and if you win the cops will be like, “Why are you picking on this skinny little Indian?” Then I’d go to the girl I actually wanted to get with.

So what was the spark that got you to try comedy?
My brother went to UC Santa Cruz and they had a culture show and they got a comedian to come up from Los Angeles to close it out. They paid for his flight, his hotel and all of his food and drinks for the weekend.

Is this someone you can name?
His name’s on the wall of The Comedy Store. I don’t think he does comedy anymore. They paid him $3,000.

So they didn’t know what they were doing?
He saw them coming. There were children and old immigrant women and everyone in-between there. He’s cussing and was just super vulgar. So he turned the audience off immediately and never got them back. Later on, we’re having a bonfire at the beach and passing a guitar around and someone says to me, “Why don’t you try comedy, you’re funnier than this guy!” He heard that and started treating me different. It really hurt him. So I said, “What, do you think you’re Russell Peters?” Once he started treating me crappy, I recognized that he saw I would be able to do this.

He inspired me to perform, so I came back to Sacramento and did Laughs Unlimited’s open mic back around 2006 and performed three times with different sets, and just put a pin in it and went back to college. Then about three years later I just started it up again. I was going to clubs and watching and became friends with some of the headliners and features. I didn’t even know the local hosts. But I spent the next six months doing open mics and showcases.

I ended up getting my first day job and my first hosting weekend at Laughs Unlimited the same week. Kivi Rogers was the headliner and he was giving me advice, and I was taking it way too literal. After one of the shows he said, “That’s your stage. You don’t leave that stage empty!” What he meant was to not introduce people and walk off the stage before they get up. What I did was after the show I said, “Thank you guys for coming, have a good night!” and I just stayed on the stage until everybody got up and was gone. I was doing that for the whole weekend.

You can see DJ Sandhu performing at the Sacramento Comedy Spot (1050 20th St.) on Oct. 8, 2017. Visit Saccomedyfest.com for details on this and the other nine shows that are a part of the Sacramento Comedy Festival, which takes place from Oct. 6–8.

One age-old and wildly successful technique to creating a winning combination is adding good beer to the mix. Paints and Pints consistently pairs local brews with inventive art projects to create engaging one-of-a-kind events, and their upcoming class is no exception. At Paints & Pints’ special “Paint a Skateboard!” event on April 24, you can experience firsthand what happens when you combine craft beer, paint, skateboards and artistic expression in the comfort of a pizza parlor. Ten percent of all ticket sales will be donated to the Interactive Art Connection, which works to improve the lives of hospitalized children through the exploration of art and creativity. The event will take place from 6–8 p.m. at Old Town Pizza and Tap House in Elk Grove. Everyone who attends will receive a blank 8-inch skateboard deck, supplies to use while you’re there (paints, brushes, an easel, an apron, etc.) and a drink ticket for your first pint. All ages are welcome (participants under 21 will receive a drink ticket for soda instead of beer). Tickets are $35, and you can check out Facebook.com/paintsandpints for more info. Space is very limited, so please sign up ahead of time if you’d like to be a part of this unique and imaginative gathering.

“We all kind of sound alike …” one of the young women of the pop/country trio Auburn Road admitted during our interview, as this interviewer, sheepishly, had difficulty differentiating their voices over the phone. That’s one possible reason why their voices soar to such great heights when they sing together.

Paxton Martin, Alicia Paulson and Kristen Brown are more sisters than friends. The three practically grew up together in the surrounding Sacramento area (Elk Grove and Roseville), both literally and vocally.

“Me and Kristen didn’t know, but we actually grew up together when we were like 4 years old,” Paulson recollected in a recent interview with Submerge. “We had a friend in common, and we would always go to her house together and go to the parties together, and we didn’t even know. Our parents didn’t even figure it out until we were older and we were like, ‘Oh! Hey!’ All of our families are really close.”

By age 7 or 8, Paulson says, the trio was enrolled in music classes at the same singing studio. They cut their teeth performing as part of a larger group called Pop Academy.

“We got to do a lot of fun things through there and get comfortable with performing,” Paulson said. “We got to go to Disneyland to perform. It was a great opportunity.”

The trio’s bond carried on into their teen years. In fact, two of the girls (Paulson and Brown) just graduated high school this spring. Martin is scheduled to do the same later this year in December. (“I’m actually graduating early,” she said with a hint of pride.) However, it was about two years ago, according to Brown, that Auburn Road really started to come to fruition.

One catalyst for the group’s formation was meeting manager Michael Anderson, who Brown said the girls met in 2013 through a choreographer they were working with at the time.

“He’s done everything for us. He’s done everything on the album and made all the decisions on the album,” Brown said, referring to Fancy, Auburn Road’s debut EP, which was released on Jan. 16, 2016. “He went down to Nashville when they recorded the music for us.”

Though the girls recorded their vocals separately from the music, Brown, Martin and Paulson had serious country music clout behind them in the studio. From the crisp snap of the opening drum hits on Fancy’s opening track, the EP’s title song, it’s clear that this album isn’t just a hastily cobbled together demo, but a polished, professional product, aimed at catapulting three talented young people toward a bright and promising career.

Backing Auburn Road on Fancy are members of Jason Aldean’s band, bassist Tully Kennedy, guitarist Kurt Allison and drummer Rich Redmond, who give these catchy and memorable pop/country songs serious punch, and a bit of a rock ‘n’ roll edge.

“When we were writing music for the album, we knew that we needed a band,” Brown said about enlisting help from these seasoned pros. “After a lot of praying, we got really lucky. We had a couple contacts in common who hooked us up with them.”

But it’s the voices of Auburn Road that are really upfront, as showcased in the stirring power ballad “Love of My Own,” which seems perfectly suited to raising your cigarette lighter at an outdoor concert to.

Photo by Lavenda Memory

It’s the melding of the trio’s voices that are the real hook here (as well as some kick-ass guitar solos), but that shouldn’t be much of a surprise. Though Brown, Martin and Paulson are young, they’re no strangers to singing with one another. Since they started at such a young age, they could almost be considered veterans in their own right.

“I think it really helps that we grew up together, singing together,” Paulson said of Auburn Road’s striking vocal harmonies. “I think it’s harder when you’re at this age, and you’re put together as a group and you don’t know each other. We always seem to be on the same page, so it’s really nice, especially when it comes to our harmonies, because we can read each other’s minds.”

Though their vocal performance may border on intuitive at this point, the members of Auburn Road are eager to learn and grow as musicians. When Submerge contacted Paulson for our interview, she was on her way home from drum practice. Brown and Martin also reported that they were learning to play bass and piano, respectively.

“We’re all trying to learn instruments right now.” Paulson said. “We’re not onstage performing with them quite yet, but eventually we’ll throw a couple of things in there into the show. It’s not necessarily what we do, but we would like to be able to play a little bit.”

“Right now we’re in search of a band in Sacramento,” Martin added. “It’s really hard to find a younger band in Sacramento, and that’s what we’re looking for right now. Right now, we’re performing with backing tracks, which is fine. It works out OK … for now …”

Auburn Road just recently had another dose of music industry education when they spent time during the Independence Day holiday week in Nashville. Submerge spoke to the group prior to their trip to Music City, and they were looking forward to sinking their teeth into the vibrant scene there.

“We have a bunch of meetings set up, a photoshoot in the works, a couple of writing sessions,” Martin said. “We’re just going out there to network and meet people and get a sense of the music business out there.

“We’re still young in life and in music,” she later went on to say. “Just to be around people who know so much and can show you different things with writing and how to take a song from one perspective and do it in another, so I think we just want to learn. We want to be great artists, and in order to do that, we need to learn from great people.”

With high school almost behind all of them, the trio has its sight set on a career in music. Fancy is an emphatic first step forward toward that goal.

“Our main concern right now is music,” Martin said. “One of our main goals is to live in Nashville and be able to do our music there. Our goal as a group is to tour and hopefully win a Grammy one day and travel the world singing for a bunch of different people.”

While a Grammy may still be a little ways away, local fans can check out Auburn Road at the upcoming Country Fest at the beautiful Quarry Park amphitheatre in Rocklin, where they’ll be sharing the stage with American Idol finalist Kree Harrison and JT Hodges. When asked if it felt surreal to have had so much success and to be performing with people they admire at such a young age, Paulson answered with unflinching confidence.

“It’s a little taste of the future for us.”

Country Fest, featuring Auburn Road, JT Hodges and Kree Harrison will take place July 23, 2016 at Quarry Park in Rocklin. Tickets start at $25 and can be purchased through Rocklin.ca.us (just click “Special Events”). Auburn Road’s Fancy is available online through iTunes, CD Baby and Amazon. You can also purchase the EP locally at Dimple Records. For more on the band, go to Auburnroadmusic.com.

Combine the illusion of surfing with the ride of snowboarding and the tricks of skateboarding, add in moving water that’s flowing at you at 30 mph, and you’ve got Flowboarding! Surf Xtreme in Elk Grove houses the only indoor “Double Flowrider” in Northern California. On this automated surf simulator you can either bodyboard laying down or if you’re good enough stand up and shred. All ability levels are welcome, from first-timers to seasoned pros. The water is heated so you won’t freeze your buns off and there are always CPR/First Aid certified Wave Attendants to help with tips and tricks. Don’t be too afraid of falling, either. Besides a shot of water up your noggin, you won’t get too banged up, as the Flowrider is made of a soft membrane composite that absorbs your impact as you fall. A one-hour session for a non-member is just $21.95. Surf Xtreme also has a trampoline room, paintball area and a food/snack bar, making it the perfect place to hit up this summer. Visit Sxsac.com or Facebook.com/sxsac for business hours and more details.

COOL AS ICE

Remember, when you were a kid, how awesome it was having a flavored snow cone or shaved ice while wandering around an amusement park or fair on a blazing hot mid-summer day? Well, kind of awesome.

It was really great for the first few bites, and then the neon colored FD&C Red 40 that is blamed for a host of health problems started its descent to the bottom of the container; meanwhile, the ice at the top, now snow white, had all the fun sucked out of it. You ended up eating plain-ass ice, and then bottom-feeding on the nauseatingly saccharine syrup, and you were ultimately rendered a sticky mess. At least the debacle cooled you off and gave you a temporary sugar high.

There’s a right way and a wrong way to do things in some cases. Shaved ice is one of them, and usually it’s done the wrong way. Osaka Ya, Sacramento shaved ice veterans, get the picture and have a line backed up 10th Street all summer.

Enter Vampire Penguin, another ice master. But it’s differentiated from Osaka Ya, in that rather than wait in line and take a snow cone to-go, you can sit in an air-conditioned, cutesy establishment while you enjoy your artistically crafted “shaved snow,” which has all the frills and flavor of an ice cream sundae.

Vampire Penguin first opened its doors on Stockton Boulevard in South Sacramento on Halloween 2013. It quickly garnered copious popularity and needed to spread its flightless wings further to feed the need Sacramento had expressed for VP’s addicting and vegan-friendly shaved snow (they also carry a smattering of other little treats such as macarons).

So in January 2015, locations opened in Davis on G Street and in downtown Sacramento on K Street. Shortly thereafter, the Elk Grove location opened in mid-February. Another location is slated to open in Berkeley soon.

Submerge photographer Evan Duran and I hit up Vampire Penguin’s downtown location on our way to the first pool day of our unofficial summertime, the temperature having exceeded 80 degrees. It was a perfect day to sample the snow. We poked around the lengthy counter area to see all the goods, scoped the menu and decided on four different items to share.

The Twix was a mound of chocolate shaved snow, topped with graham crackers, caramel sauce and chocolate sauce. Mexican Candy was an all-the-flavors mouth party of mango shaved snow, piled with fresh watermelons, rich caramel sauce and a salty chili spice mix. Cookies and cream shaved snow, crushed graham crackers, Oreos, marshmallows, chocolate syrup comprised the S’moreos dish. Subtly sweet and bitter at once, the Snow Tiger was made with Thai tea and milk tea shaved snow, paired with oreo crumbles and a condensed milk sauce.

The snow itself is unlike any shaved ice I’ve ever tried. It’s closer to sorbet, sherbet or ice cream in texture. Even my 9-year-old son, an ice cream connoisseur, said it tasted just like ice cream. To me it’s the missing link between shaved ice and sorbet—fluffy yet dense, and very much like eating newly fallen snow.

Paolo San Luis, who co-founded Vampire Penguin with his brother Leo, weighed in on what Vampire Penguin is all about, what it’s been like to see skyrocketing growth of the company and where the Vampire Penguin is headed for its next act.

How did you come up with the menu and concept for Vampire Penguin? 
Shaved ice has been around for a long time. What I hated about it was the ice would always be crunchy and the syrup would always pool up at the bottom. We thought, why not infuse the flavor in the block before you shave it, and then shave it finer so it’s not crunchy? And so we ran countless experiments, tried out numerous combos along with fresh fruits and other toppings to come up with inspired presentations. The concept and menu just naturally evolved as we grew. Each combo actually has a backstory, but they are all scattered in little manifestos and will take some digging to find.

Where does the name Vampire Penguin come from? 
I always think of our shaved snow as a hybrid between ice cream and shaved ice… So we thought since we were in the shaved snow business, penguin will be a good name because penguins live in snow. But since our shaved ice is not really “shaved ice,” we thought it would be funny to make the penguin a vampire, making the idea of a penguin cute, but not cute (because vampires are also badass), just like our shaved ice is shaved ice, but not really.

How do you make the shaved ice? Its texture is unlike any shaved ice I’ve had before—almost like ice cream!
Proper technique and execution, and lots of trial and error!

The Mexican Candy is my favorite. What was the inspiration for such an awesome and unconventional mix of flavors?
Love Mangonadas! We thought it would be cool to deconstruct it and translate it to shaved snow.

How do you foresee Vampire Penguin growing in the future? Expanding the menu, more locations, etc.? 
I definitely want to keep growing, covering all of Sacramento before the end of the year. Our Berkeley location is opening in about a month and half, and we are looking to cover the Bay Area as well. Menu-wise we have new flavors coming out around summer, like black sugar, lychee and mocha. I also want to expand on the desserts side of the business, branding popular baked goods and putting our own twist on them.

How would you describe the experience you want your customers to have? 
In a romantic sense, I want our customers to be intrigued by the whole idea of Vampire Penguin, to create their own associations and to identify with Vampire Penguin. In the end, I want the customers to feel welcome.

What are some of the challenges you’ve faced as a company so far, if any? 
The primary challenge we continue to face is being able to sustain our growth, but I think we all face that challenge in one form or another.

What has it been like to enjoy such rapid growth for the business? 
It’s definitely interesting—I am nervous, scared, anxious, and paranoid at the same time as calm, collected, excited, and having fun. I am also very grateful, but always impatient.
This is my first business, and we didn’t think our first store would be received so well. We would have lines out the door, and it was challenging to keep up with the demand. This propelled us to focus on building a strong team and to create systems and adjustments with the goal of being able to provide the highest quality of service. Every day is a learning experience, and we do have ambitions of growing bigger in the next couple of years.

As things begin to really heat up in the Sacramento area, you know you’re going to want to gorge yourself on frozen treats. Check out Vampire Penguin online at Facebook.com/vampirepenguin916 for updates on menu items and other tasty tidbits.

Rob-O Tells All About His Sweet, Sweet Art

It is not uncommon for Rob-O to buy 900 pounds of sugar at once. In fact, in a recent phone conversation, he stated nonchalantly that he had done just that about a week before.

Why all the sugar? Rob-O makes sugar skulls from his home studio in Elk Grove as an art. He makes a lot of them, and sometimes he makes them big, as in, 35 pounds of big. If you are going to go for it, you might as well go all the way, right?

For those who aren’t familiar, the tradition of making sugar skulls stems from the Mexican holiday Día de los Muertos, which, in English, means Day of the Dead. On Nov. 1 and 2 of every year, people celebrate Día de los Muertos by visiting the graves of deceased family members and friends, and creating altars in their memory. The altars are showered with gifts of all kinds, like tequila bottles, toys, candies, photographs, flowers—anything the now-deceased would have enjoyed—and decorated with marigolds and sugar skulls, or “calaveras de azúcar” in Spanish.

Sugar skulls typically found on a Día de los Muertos altar are small and cutesy. They are colorful, made of edible chocolate or sugar, and traced with frosting lines that shape the eyes, nose, mouth and several small flowers or designs.

Rob-O first began making sugar skulls in a similar fashion five years ago. Since then, however, he has taken it to another level.

Like the traditional sugar skull, Rob-O’s are made out of pure sugar. From scratch. Don’t get too excited, though. As delectable as they may look in the photos, you can’t eat them. Rob-O’s sugar skulls are not only encased in handmade oak shadow boxes, they are covered with a moisture barrier for the sake of longevity. And he is willing to bet they can last more than 500 years. You probably don’t want something like that in your system.

The first part of the process, forming the blank skull, is straightforward. It’s kind of like making a sandcastle, he explains. You mix sugar, meringue powder and water, and pour the mixture into molds. Then you flip them out of the mold and let them air dry. If he really puts in the time, Rob-O can make as many as 130 plain white sugar skulls in a day.

The real artistry is what follows, though, when he decorates each skull with royal icing. Each skull is elaborately masked with a maze of intricate, bright, filigree-like frosting lines, swirls and dots, many adorned with massive frosting headdresses, and each completed with a pair of glass jewel eyes.

“The eyes have to have a shimmer,” Rob-O says.

Some of his most intricate line work can be found in his series called Siblings, in which the skulls are paired into duos, and Feng Shui, where the skulls are partnered in groups of three, each representing Earth, fire or water. The work is so ornate the noses and mouths can get lost in the details on first glance.

Arguably one of his most impressive pieces, though, is the sugar skull he designed for a San Francisco Giants fan. The Golden Gate Bridge and two baseballs are perfectly absorbed into the headdress, in addition to the Giants’ “SF” logo. Not bad for someone who doesn’t watch baseball.

After his sugar skulls are painted, Rob-O airbrushes each one with food coloring, covers them with a moisture barrier, and seals them in a shadow box. Aside from the glass jewels, the handiwork is 100 percent him. At most, he might make eight to 10 of these custom-made skulls in a month.

Rob-O began making sugar skulls as an emotional release. It started five years ago, when his mother passed away. It hit him, hard. Little did he know what was ahead.

As he says in hindsight, “from tragedy comes greatness.”

He pauses. When it comes to his story, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. After his mother’s passing, Rob-O was looking for something positive to fill the void. With his wife’s encouragement, he decided to make a Día de los Muertos altar in his garage to celebrate his mother’s life, and invited 30 friends over to decorate sugar skulls.

His first attempt at making sugar skulls was not unlike most people’s first attempts. The frosting wasn’t thick enough, and it had a watery consistency.

“Why do all of our sugar skulls look so sad?” he remembers asking. “It was heartbreaking.”?

His skills improved the following year, however, and three weeks after celebrating Día de los Muertos for the second year in a row, Rob-O was still decorating leftover sugar skulls. He had no idea what to do with them afterward, until his wife suggested that he try selling them during Second Saturday. He had made art all of his life, but had never been pushed to sell it up to that point. As it turned out, people liked his work, so he kept making them. Before he knew it, making sugar skulls quickly evolved from observing a tradition to an art form. He started airbrushing his skulls with food coloring, and detailing them with dots.

Next thing he knew, one of his friends, a tattoo artist, challenged him to make a giant sugar skull out of Styrofoam that he could put in the tattoo shop.

He accepted the challenge. But, he wanted to keep the sugar skull tradition true.

“Celebrating [Día de los Muertos] for my mom, decorating real sugar skulls, and understanding the level of importance of what a real sugar skull is, I didn’t want to make it out of Styrofoam,” he says. “I wanted to make it real.”

So he went home and made a mold for a 35-pound sugar skull. By the time he was done, he realized he didn’t have a plan for getting it mounted onto a wall. Fortunately, his construction background kicked in, and Mija, Rob-O’s first large sugar skull, was a success. Since then he has made three more 35-pound skulls, and one 55-pound skull.

Still, some people just needed to see his work in a shadow box to be convinced that his work was “art.” When he first started pushing his sugar skulls in the art world, he often heard people refer to his work as a “craft” instead of an “art.”

That’s when he began putting each of his pieces into shadow boxes. The reaction was hard to miss.

As he quickly began to notice, “once framed, the perspective changed.”

“Once we framed them, it was a whole different world,” he elaborates. “People took them into a whole different light, another seriousness.”

Fast forward five years, and Rob-O now makes sugar skulls year-round, selling each skull or set of skulls in shadow boxes. He is regularly commissioned for his work. Take a look at one of his pieces and you will understand why.

And, his work has gotten plenty of notice in the public eye. Last year, his work was featured in 46 different shows. He has shown his work at Sacramento’s All-American Tattoo Festival at the Convention Center, as well as at the San Francisco Symphony’s Día de los Muertos celebration. Last year he made it into the Sausalito Art Show, and Mija also won “Valley Sculpture of the Year” at the state fair. Currently, 11 of his pieces are being shown at the California Museum, including one of his 35-pound sugar skulls, alongside an interactive Day of the Dead community altar.

In his spare time, Rob-O also visits schools to teach the history of Day of the Dead, and how to make sugar skulls. In fact, as we spoke on the phone, he was making 750 blank sugar skulls to take to a cemetery for a similar demonstration.

His next plan is to donate a piece to a museum in remembrance of his mother. That way she can be celebrated every day, he says.

And, eventually, Rob-O hopes to make the world’s largest sculpture. Lord knows how much sugar he will need for that.

On Oct. 19, Rob-O will be a featured artist at the Sugar Skull Festival in San Jose, Calif. Locally, you can head to the California Museum to see his work as part of the Day of the Dead: Art of Dia de los Muertos exhibit, which is running now through Jan. 5, 2014. A hands-on demonstration on how to decorate a sugar skull will take place on Oct. 26. Learn more about the exhibit at Californiamuseum.org. For more Rob-O, go to Ilovesugarskulls.com.

Local singer/songwriter Justin Farren talks about his music and latest album, and why touring pushes his boundaries, in the best way

Introversion arguably produces the best artists. Those who can spend hours holed up in isolation working on a project often emerge with a gem. Land them at a party or social gathering, however, and they’re quickly making a beeline to the nearest bathroom or unoccupied space.

Justin Farren is an exemplary introvert. If he’s not out backpacking or camping, then he is keeping busy on a project—fixing up his yellow truck, woodworking or writing an album in his garage. For this local singer/songwriter, touring means treading outside his comfort zone.

You might not know it if you saw him perform, but it is nothing short of a challenge.

He was in fact on tour as he was explaining this over the phone, camping with some friends in Bellingham, Wash., and prepping for a show that same night.

Touring, he concludes, is good for him. Given any other circumstance, “I’d want to just go hide,” he says. But after a show, he has no choice but to open up and talk to people.

After three or four more shows along the North Coast, he returns to the Sacramento area for his April 6 CD release show at the CSA Event Center, celebrating the release of his album Another Bluebird Day. Then he’ll continue down to Southern California to promote the album.

This is Farren’s third album. With the exception of his friends Brian Rogers on drums and Emily Kollars singing backup vocals, the album is all Farren, from the guitar, bass, keyboard and shakers to the samples of him pounding aluminum cans. This project sums up his last six months, which were spent recording and mixing the entire thing in his garage-turned-studio at his house.

There is nothing obscure about Farren’s songs. Over immaculate finger picking and slide guitar, he sings with lighthearted honesty about life’s tougher blows, compacted into three to four minute folk pop, storytime songs.

“It has these kind of heartbreaking ideas, and I think that the whole album hopefully places these in a light of appreciation,” he says. “Stand in those moments where it would be easy to be depressed, and just appreciate that you got to have those experiences.”

Farren grew up in Elk Grove when it was nothing more than fields, long before it overdosed on suburban steroids. There are no known musicians in his family, though he says there’s talk of a bad-ass accordionist amongst his ancestry. But somewhere along the way, Farren taught himself how to play music, and he’s been at it ever since.

Within the last five or six years, he’s even been able to make a living off it. He’s opened for the likes of Hot Buttered Rum, Matt Costa and Jackie Greene. He was voted “Best Lyricist” in 2010 by Sacramento Magazine and “Best Musician” in 2009 and 2010 by the Sacramento News and Review.

Farren released his last album, Songs from Spare Rooms, in 2008. Those songs were all written in the two years he surfed couches while his house was being built. (It’s worth mentioning that Farren and his now-fiancée built their house in Oak Park from scratch, inspired by a trip they made to Alaska in 2004.)

“We thought, well, let’s just build a house and not think too much about it,” he says.

It’s where the two currently reside, with three dogs, two of which are lovingly named Pickle Breath and Mr. Pig. Indeed, they have been sources of inspiration. Pickle Breath inspired the song on the album, “Sometimes I Like to Kill Things Too.” Go on to Farren’s music page on Facebook, and you will see several flattering photos of Mr. Pig (who, by the way, needs a new happy home).

“Mr. Pig, the one in all the pictures, is maybe the nicest dog I’ve ever known,” Farren says with utmost sincerity. “So I can’t take him to the SPCA, I have to find him a home.”

Other than Mr. Pig, here is an excerpt of more interesting things that came up in the conversation.

So we were talking about your place in Oak Park, how long ago did you build that?
We started in 2005. It took a couple years, we moved in in late 2007.

What prompted you to do that?
The summer before, in 2004, my girlfriend and I went and worked in Alaska in a really tiny little town called McCarthy, just as something to do. We drove up and we worked in this little town, and a lot of the people up there build their own homes. Over the five or six months that we were there, we were talking to a lot of the locals and kind of getting inspired, like that might be some cool thing to do. We decided we wanted to try it when we got home.

I read that you consider yourself a little bit of an introvert, so I was wondering if touring was a challenge.
Oh yeah, it’s a huge challenge. It always has been and I think it always will be… The more tours I go on, the higher my threshold gets. I am able to comfortably sleep on a stranger’s couch and wake up and make them breakfast, and have a morning conversation with someone that I don’t know. Fifteen years ago that would have been mortifying and terribly difficult for me to even imagine doing.

I think maybe that’s the best thing I can do as a human being, is hopefully raise that threshold. Because the threshold is higher, I’m able to learn from more people and be around new ideas and broaden my horizons. So touring represents all of that, all at once to me, because I’m out and I’m sharing something that’s so important to me with people who have no idea who I am a lot of the time. It forces me to swallow my pride and just do my best and play the song, and hope someone gets on the page and buys a CD or whatever.

Do you generally write first-hand accounts when you write songs?
Yeah, in general. There’s a lot of first-person and talking about stuff that is affecting me. I’ve always admired writers who can read a book and write a song about a character in the book. I feel like I’m a selfish songwriter in that way, I’m always just writing about myself. But that’s kind of all that I have, that’s what comes out all the time.

It’s an outlet, then?
Yeah, it’s the outlet. It’s an outlet, and I try to think of the songs as a byproduct of living, and I want to live a really fun, interesting life, so that I can have fun, interesting songs.

Your music was featured on Laguna Beach?
Yeah, one of the songs I wrote was featured. It’s from the first album. It’s a song I wrote about my band breaking up. I had a piece of shit car, and I didn’t have much going on in my life. And they played that song during a scene in Laguna Beach when they were complaining about their car, and they were driving some fancy Escalade or something, and they were talking about how their car sucks. It’s an awful show. It’s terrible.

What is your least favorite song in the world of songs?
Oh my God, least favorite song in the world? I have to think about it, because that’s such a huge question. There’s just a dense forest of songs that I hate so much. I feel like it’s maybe the biggest question that we’ve talked about. For me to say that I hate it, I have to really mean it.

Justin Farren will celebrate the release of his latest album Another Bluebird Day at 7 p.m. on April 6, 2013 at the CSA Event Center, located at 1275 Starboard Drive in West Sacramento. For more info and to order tickets, go to http://justinfarren.com/ or http://www.csaeventcenter.com/

Bartender Andrew Calisterio on why Sacramento should be proud to be a “cow town”

Words by Anthony Giannotti

Sacramento has been labeled by many in larger metropolitan areas in California as a “cow town.” While this may or may not be true on many levels, the fact that we are surrounded by some of the best and richest farmland in the country is undeniable. Andrew Calisterio, bartender at Grange Restaurant and Bar, thinks we should embrace this “cow town” label.

“I grew up in rural Elk Grove before the whole tract home thing,” he says. “We had cows in my back yard. My family always had a garden and fresh food. Farm to table has always been a part of my life.” Growing up with a garden has definitely helped him know exactly what to do with the amazing produce we have around here. Calisterio continues, “We have tons of fresh ingredients. Look at all the citrus here. Don’t just put it on the side of the glass to make it look pretty, put booze in it and shake it up!”

Not only has Calisterio devoted his life to Sacramento and the fine local produce, but he is a big advocate of knowing what to do with it. He is one of the founding members of the Sacramento chapter of the U.S. Bartenders’ Guild–a national organization “of beverage service professionals dedicated to the continued refinement of [their] craft,” according to a mission statement on the USBG website. Calisterio makes no illusions of how important he thinks keeping up and furthering industry people’s knowledge is, “The education is what helps create and expand our creativity.”

It’s not just cocktails and shakers for Calisterio. He is also one of the key members in the resurrection of the Sacramento brewery Ruhstaller. “Ruhstaller was a brewery in Sacramento 130 years ago, started by Captain Frank Ruhstaller. I get to sell a really good beer to people in the industry, my friends.”

I got to catch up with the local advocate over a glass of whiskey, which of course he blended, to talk more about Sacramento and cocktails.

How did you start bartending?
I started this whole thing with coffee. I really enjoyed making things. I was 16 working at Starbucks. I liked making the things they had set for us, but I always wanted to make something different, something special. The guests wanted the same thing every single day, and to me that was just insane. I would try to work something in that was around what they liked, but pulling them toward something new or different. Eventually I got picked up by Java City, worked my way up the ladder there and came to a point where I could do anything I wanted with coffee. I really wanted to get into spirits. I’ve always been a fan of nice food and cocktails and experiencing flavors. I pride myself on having a good palate.

How did you start at Grange?
I went in applying for a bartending position, and they looked at me like I was crazy because I had no experience. So I asked what was available and they let me be a bus boy. There was no bar-back program there, so I would go behind the bar every chance I could to help, polish glassware, anything I could do to get in. I’d ask way too many questions and bother Ryan Seng, interrupt his conversations with guests to find out what he was doing and how he made that drink. I basically declared myself a bar-back position. One day a bartender didn’t show up. Since I knew how to make all the drinks–I even had two of my own drinks on the menu, and I was familiar with our wine list–I finally got to start bartending.

Grange is known for its affiliation with the slow food movement. Do you try to incorporate any of those principles into your cocktails?
Absolutely. I grew up in rural Elk Grove on four acres. I was in FFA [Future Farmers of America] as a kid, which ended up being beneficial for me when applying at Grange because I had this agricultural background. I knew the farmers that the food at Grange was coming from. When it came to building my cocktails, I wanted to represent the local Sacramento area.

You recently won a couple of cocktail contests. Can you tell us about that?
The big one was put on by Hangar One Vodka. It was a California-wide cocktail competition. I was already familiar with the brand because it is a farm to bottle spirit–right up my alley. A rep came in to ask me to join the competition but said they weren’t stopping in Sacramento. They were going to be in different major cities around California–Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose. I was a little offended that they weren’t going to be representing the capital city of California, where so much of California’s produce and agriculture comes from. So I came up with my cocktail and started networking, using social media to let my friends and peers know what I was working on and trying to represent Sacramento.

You are one of the co-founders of the Sacramento Bartenders’ Guild. What is that and what do you guys do?
As bartenders, we go visit other bars or bartenders that we respect and like to see what they are doing and learn from them. It started as this kind of informal gathering and eventually some of us decided to get together and make it formal and official. We wanted the education of bartending to be brought forward. It’s $100 a year, and if you go to just a couple meetings, you’ve already gotten your money back in products and education. We have tastings and training with brands that share their products but also teach us about spirits and what the differences are and help us learn how to use them to our best ability. We are using our connections to gather and share brands and ideas with our coworkers in town. Bar owners and workers get a chance to meet, so whether someone is looking for a job or needs a bartender, it’s just a great way to communicate. All of us are career bartenders, not just some guy who pours shots. We are trying to raise the bar around Sacramento. We have a great cocktail scene here; we just want to always see more out of it and let it shine.

So you think it’s important for bartenders to have extra education, to be able to do more than just give a shot or a beer?
Well even with that, there is a proper shot and a beer pairing, it has value. Sometimes you don’t want a cocktail. Sometimes you just want a shot or a beer. Dickel is a whiskey brand that has become really popular as a shot. Someone decided that that was a good shot to pair with a beer. And the beers aren’t Budweiser anymore. North Coast Company Blue Star is the inexpensive beer on tap now. So the bar is being raised even for just a shot and a beer. Having a vast knowledge of spirits and cocktail ingredients helps you to attract more guests and give them that experience they are looking for when they go out to eat or have a drink. I love when someone comes in and says “Make me something.” My next question is what do you usually like? And I will try to avoid that.

You’re not just a cocktail guy. You are also involved with Ruhstaller Beer…
I was brought on early with this company. I am honored to be able to help with the resurrection of the old Sacramento brand… They asked me to help build the brand because they know I am a social guy. I lug around kegs and talk to people and help with sales. I’m doing the same thing I do every day, but on the other side of the bar. I’m getting the bartenders to try this beer, telling them how good it is and then they buy it for their bars. The company has grown a lot and I help when I can, mostly with social networking or helping pour at events.

Do you ever try to combine your knowledge of beer and cocktails to make a beer cocktail?
For beer week, we had a beer pairing dinner at Grange with some big names from Sacramento. I put together a cocktail that was in the fashion of a shot and a beer, with a twist. I took [Ruhstaller] 1881 and made syrup out of it and made an Old Fashioned using Woodford Reserve. I even used local Sacramento oranges in it. I served it with a shot of beer on the side to help represent the beer. Darell Corti [gourmand and co-owner of Corti Brothers] said it was the best aperitif he’d had in Sacramento. I was so happy, I couldn’t stop smiling. It was a great boost.

What’s involved in a great cocktail?
Balance, first and foremost. I try to balance where the flavors hit on your palate. I generally start with a great spirit or an end result flavor. Or I try to pick out flavors that will work well in the cocktail and pair with the food. Sometimes it’s hard when I really like a certain spirit that has so much great flavor on its own because I’d rather just drink it neat.

Midtown Cocktail Week is coming up. What sort of blowout is Grange doing this year?
Blowout is a good word. Last year was such a success that it was too busy to accommodate everyone in the hall. So this year we will be using the dining room. Grange’s dinner service will come to a screeching halt and be replaced with amazing cocktails and appetizers. The band The Silent Comedy will play. The theme this year is Sacramento, so a little politically driven. At Grange, we are doing the anti-prohibition act. We want people to come out and vote for the cocktails. We are also going to have hometown hero Jayson Wilde come back and guest bartend the event.

Is there anything you’d like to see out of the Sacramento food and cocktail scene?
Sacramento has had a lot of successful people start here and make names for themselves, but they always end up leaving. It’s great when they come back around and visit, but Sacramento needs some talent to stick around. If Sacramento is going to grow or be more successful, we need these people to stay and be a part of this city. I would like to see some of the people from Sacramento that have been successful elsewhere be successful in Sacramento. I enjoy other cities and traveling, but this is my home. I have a lot of friends and inspiration here. We are the capital city in the largest state.

Midtown Cocktail Week will take place at various venues from Aug. 19 through 26, 2012. See what Andrew Calisterio comes up with at the “Repeal Prohibition – High Styled 1920’s Political Rally” event at Grange on Aug. 24, 2012. The event will run from 5 p.m. to midnight. To keep track of other Cocktail Week happenings, go to http://midtowncocktailweek.org/.

The Speed of Sound in Seawater Are Out For A Good Time

There’s been a lot of crazy shit happening around the world lately–maybe you’ve noticed? Earthquakes, tornadoes, Osama bin Laden’s death, all this nonsense about the Rapture! It can be overwhelming and downright depressing at times to turn on the news or read the newspaper, or, let’s face it, stare at your Facebook feed. For these reasons and so many others, it’s important to have creative outlets in life where you can simply have fun and get your mind off things. The members of local indie-pop-meets-math-rock band The Speed of Sound in Seawater know just this. “If we ever stopped having fun, we would stop making new music,” admitted lead vocalist and guitarist Damien Verrett during a recent conversation in a midtown coffee shop. “That definitely is key.” Fellow six-stringer Jordan Seavers (who also sings) agreed with that notion. “Obviously the music is important,” Seavers said. “But we’re not so much like, ‘We’ve got to make it as a band!’ We just have fun playing music.”

The theory of “having fun” makes its way into every aspect of the band: song titles, album titles, even their promo photos–one of which sees the four young gentlemen dangling their feet in a swimming pool while sporting pink bath robes. “There are so many stupid little inside jokes on the new EP,” said Verrett, referring to the group’s latest offering, a five-track EP released on April 27, 2011 titled Underwater Tell Each Other Secrets. “Lyrically, in titles, so much of it,” he said. “Even the name of the album, it’s just this stupid inside joke. It’s something Fernando [Oliva, drums, vocals] said like maybe three years ago. We were all swimming in the pool and he comes up and whispers to me, ‘Do you want to play underwater tell each other secrets?’” He laughed and continued, “I just thought it was the funniest thing ever, and we remembered it. When it came time to name the new EP we were like, ‘Let’s call it Underwater Tell Each Other Secrets.’”

“We’re all pretty goofy,” Seavers butted in. “We like to entertain other people but we like to entertain ourselves at the same time and just be goofs.”

All jokes and goofiness aside, The Speed of Sound in Seawater are a really talented band, and Underwater Tell Each Other Secrets showcases their ability to blend technically advanced playing (i.e.: a flurry of finger tapping, complicated hammer-on riffs, shifting time signatures and rhythms, etc.) with an undeniable knack for writing pop-y, memorable melodies. When listening to their songs, it’s difficult not to think of one the genre’s pioneers, Minus the Bear. Verrett recalls when he first heard the Seattle-based group. “I remember just finding them randomly on some forum and someone was calling it ‘math-rock,’ and I was, ‘What the hell is that? I’ve never heard of that.’ Then I listened to it and I was like, ‘Well, that’s exactly what it is.’” Verrett went on to explain how he thinks Sacramento natives Tera Melos and Hella are good examples of bands at one end of the math-rock spectrum as far as being “way out there and not as accessible,” and that groups like This Town Needs Guns and Maps and Atlases are at the other end of the spectrum and are becoming “indie sensations who have songs in commercials and stuff.” He went on to say, “I didn’t really know if those two sects of math-rock were aware of each other, but I feel like we’re more leaning toward the pop-y side. I like that about us.”

For Underwater… TSOSIS enlisted Robert Cheek as producer/mixer/engineer and from March 11 to 13 they worked out of The Hangar, arguably one of Sacramento’s most credible recording studios, where they did all the takes live. Seavers and Verrett both agreed that it was a sonic match made in heaven. “I was actually thinking about this last night,” Verrett said. “Just how many records he’s produced and engineered that I’m a huge fan of. There’s got to be like six or seven that are just some of my favorites.” He goes down the line: Tera Melos, RX Bandits, Mister Metaphor; all bands that TSOSIS share qualities with. “It just fit so well,” Verrett said of the pairing with Cheek. “He’s from here, he records all the music we love, he’s really experienced in the genre. He just got us instantly.”

For months leading up to The Hangar recording sessions, the band practiced full-on dress rehearsal style, setting up microphones around them and demo-ing their songs in the living room of the house in Elk Grove in which Verrett grew up. “We actually share the same practice space as Damien’s dad does,” Seavers joked, referring to Verrett’s father’s R&B cover band formerly known as The Detours.

“Once my mom gets home we have to play a little quieter,” Verrett joked. “I really don’t like having to quiet down, these guys are always like, ‘Oh, I’m sorry Mrs. Verrett, we’ll turn it down,’ and I’m always like, ‘No guys, we don’t have to do that!’ It’s really funny, that has to have influenced our music in some way.”

This is a fair assessment, considering TSOSIS rarely use distortion on their guitars, giving their music somewhat of a shimmer and an overall easier-to-listen-to vibe than bands with heavily distorted guitars constantly blasting. “Damien and I both really like jazzy tones and stuff like that,” Seavers said. Verrett jumped in, “And all the distorted parts hit so much harder when they’re so infrequent, you know? If there’s hardly any distortion, you really notice.” Their songs are consciously “loose,” too. Frequently, the skilled musicians will slip in and out of one part into another, sometimes perfectly in sync, sometimes not, giving their recordings an organic feel. “Sometimes I’m like, ‘Man we sound really sloppy, we need to clean it up,’” Seavers admitted. “But then sometimes I’m listening to another band and I’m like, ‘It’s so cool they’re sloppy, I want to play like that.’ It sounds a little more fun when people are sloppy.”

With a new EP freshly tucked under their belts, along with two others (2009’s Blue Version and 2010’s Red Version), TSOSIS has a plethora of songs to pull from when they tour throughout California this summer. “It’s odd that we’re at the point where people are like, ‘Oh your first EP is the best one!’” Verrett joked as our conversation was coming to an end. “It’s like, ‘Are you kidding? That was like $200 and we made it in like eight hours, and you think that’s the best? We just dropped a lot more on this one; you better think it’s the best.’”

The Speed of Sound in Seawater will play at Luigi’s Fungarden on Friday, June 17 alongside Town Hall, The Relatives and The Dreaded Diamond. Show starts at 8 p.m., is $5 and all ages are welcome. TSOSIS will welcome back their former bassist Lucas Ulrici for this show and a number of other performances this summer, as their current bassist Michael Littlefield will be busy recording with his other band, A Lot Like Birds. To learn more about TSOSIS and to stream or download tracks off all three of their EPs, visit Thespeedofsoundinseawater.bandcamp.com.