Here’s a feel-good local story for you: Just last week Estella Sanchez of Sacramento arts/culture/activism non-profit Sol Collective (2574 21 Street) won $10,000 for youth music programs through a national online contest put on by Siempre Mujer (Always a Woman) magazine. The contest was called “Mujeres Que Inspiran,” or Women Who Inspire, and was sponsored by Pantene and Cover Girl. Contestants were nominated and five women were chosen as finalists. It went up for voting via Facebook from there. “I feel really humbled I won,” Sanchez told Submerge. “All the finalists are doing amazing work in their communities. I’m really grateful that so many people were spreading the word on Facebook and getting excited during the contest!”

The money will go toward youth music programs and studio equipment for youth music production classes. Sanchez said that Sol Collective’s music program has not had a funding source so they decided early on that if they won, they would use the funds to support it. Andrew Bell, also of Sol Collective, expands upon some of the classes that will benefit from the winnings: “During the week, Anand Parmar (World Hood’s El Indio) works recording Sacramento youth ages 14 to 21 as well as mentoring in beat production, engineering, mixing, mastering, etc. Basically, the youth run the recording sessions. It’s awesome. Youth rappers teamed with youths making the beats and running the boards.”

Sounds extremely dope to us! Submerge applauds Sol’s effort to get the Sacramento youth started in music at a young age.

“It’s exciting to have some funds to invest and there are a lot of ways we would like to expand,” Sanchez said. “It will be fun to meet with the crew and see how far we can stretch our budget!” Keep an eye out at Solcollective.org or search for Sol Collective on Facebook, as they will be announcing a celebration/appreciation party very soon.

“More than anything, the Sol Collective crew feels good that our community supports and values what we do,” Sanchez said. “It’s a great way to start a new year!”

World Hood ready new EP and prep SxSW showcase

It feels as though it was only a matter of time before Sol Collective made an impact beyond its community activism and support for the local arts and music scene. Collective founders Estella Sanchez and Anand Parmar added recording artists to their resume last year with their debut as World Hood, a project that developed in the wee hours of the night in the gallery.

A nonprofit organization and art gallery located on 2574 21st Street, Sol Collective hosts beat battles and touring psych-rock bands and runs a world music series titled Global Hood, which brings artists that operate in the meshing of tropicalia bass, break-beat, electronica and Cumbia genres to Sacramento. There are B-boy workshops and practices in the back rooms and music production classes for high school students. It is a meeting hall for activist groups to discuss community empowerment and youth development. The gallery is a hub of creativity bound to rub off on its founders.

Nights at the collective rarely ended with a band’s last song for Sanchez and Parmar. After the venue cleared, the couple would hole up in the gallery’s recording studio and work off the excitement from watching the performers. “It was definitely convenient to record at Sol after a show,” Parmar said. “We already had things set up and could put in a few extra hours to get a song in. All of the acts we have brought to Sol, specifically through the Global Hood series, were inspiring in one way or another. They have been groups whose music we believe in and were committed to promote either because of their message or because of the cultural influence in their music.”

Anand Parmar was born in Africa and is of Indian descent, while his partner Sanchez is of Mexican descent. Anand said when he started to shape the World Hood sound, he always tried mixing different cultural elements into the production, but collaborating with Sanchez and incorporating her culture and language was a natural progression. “It’s a mix of what we heard on the radio growing up in Northern Cali in the ‘80s and a mix of what we’d hear at home, be it what our uncles or cousins were playing,” Sanchez said. “Even in the studio I go back and forth in elements I want to add that are familiar to us.”

A DJ and producer for roughly eight years, Parmar would play beats for his partner, mostly culled from blending Latin dub and tropicalia with West Coast bass and hip-hop. Sanchez would sing over his tracks alternating between Spanish and English, sprinkling in slang and spiritual incantation. Sanchez sang mostly for the release, not considering the possibility of the songs going further than the studio walls.

In April of last year, Parmar collected 12 of the recordings and uploaded them to Soundcloud, an online audio distribution platform, and then moved them to a similar site called Bandcamp. He designed an album cover and called their group World Hood, a name that speaks to their globalized sound and grassroots activism. By May the duo was being interviewed by the MTV’s Iggy blog and later appeared on NPR’s Alt.Latino station. The coverage swelled further with Hype Machine, Mad Decent Blog, Dutty Artz and National Geographic’s music blog (yes, they have one) taking notice. “It was a little bit of a surprise for us,” Sanchez said. “We had been working on music for a while. Anand wanted to just put it out there and let people hear it. We didn’t expect the coverage.”

The hype moved at a pace bigger than the band as the phone rang and the inbox received requests to tour and perform. It was an invitation the group had yet to consider. “We definitely got invited to play and tour before we even put our live set together,” Sanchez said between laughs. It’s almost a year since they posted the album and she is still in disbelief that she’s juggling a time-consuming nonprofit–a master’s thesis that became her life’s passion–a family, and a burgeoning band. “It’s not stress, but we’re trying to find a way to balance it and do it well,” she said. “I love what I do at Sol Collective and Anand is a big part of it as the music director there. We’ve been finding ways to complement it.”

Being true to their moniker, Parmar and Sanchez use the band as an opportunity to travel and promote Sol Collective. It began with their first show. The duo was invited to the Aborigine Music Festival in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. The high tide in the local scene has sent artists like Sister Crayon and Death Grips to the festival circuit, but a debut performance at a festival is unheard of. “It went really well,” Sanchez said. “It’s a lot easier to perform when you’re in another country. I figured if it all goes bad, I’m on a plane tomorrow and that’s that.”

It did not go bad, though. Radio stations played their music prior to the festival, which meant the duo were welcomed to the festival with excitement and familiarity. World Hood performed as part of the Pow Wow party at the Pyramid Cabaret in Winnipeg. The group played alongside A Tribe Called Red, a collective of native Canadian DJs, which Sanchez and Parmar were fans of. “We got some feedback from them,” she said. “They really loved what we were doing in creating beats and native thinking and mixing up the languages. It encouraged us to keep on that path.”

Sanchez said she hopes to bring A Tribe Called Red to perform and participate in workshops at the center. Sol Collective also approached them to be a part of its #ArtCultureActivism SxSW showcase in March, but conflicting tour dates in Canada hindered their availability.

Sanchez and Parmar view the SxSW showcase as another opportunity to not only promote their collective and its community garden build project, but to showcase Sacramento artists and encourage musicians to tour here. The showcase features World Hood, along with local hip-hop act DLRN and producer/DJ Defeye, among several national acts. “When we travel and do things, it’s to bring folks back to Sol Collective,” Sanchez said. “We also have press passes this year, which they gave us… we’ll have the opportunity to go to workshops and events to approach artists we want to promote and bring back to Sacramento.”

In January, World Hood posted the song “Mundo Libre,” which translates to free world, to their Bandcamp page with the description “Single from the upcoming EP. Dropping soon.” The song is the title track to the EP. Sanchez said she and Parmar would work on finishing the EP that night. The goal is to release the five-song EP in late February/early March for free download prior to their SxSW showcase. A full-length will follow in the summer, most likely remaining DIY. “Nothing concrete at this point,” Sanchez said. “We’ve had some interest [from labels]. We had people ask us to send them our stuff. But we’re still trying to figure out what we’re trying to do and how much we’re putting into this project.”

“Mundo Libre” is on par with the group’s pre-existing material of Afro-Latin dub, with hints of Reggaeton in the arpeggiated vocals. Now that World Hood is aware they have an audience, it’s altered the process a bit. Sanchez said her partner Anand is a meticulous worker in the studio and that his work ethic rubbed off on her in the new sessions. “We paid more attention to the message,” Sanchez said. “Now that people are interested in listening to us, we’re more conscious and aware of what we’re putting out. With the first one I didn’t think anyone was going to hear it, so I didn’t care. The first one was freestyle, where this time I actually stopped and said, ‘wait let’s record that again,’ instead of just saying ‘oh that was fun, I’m going to sleep now.’”

World Hood will be releasing a new EP soon. In the meantime, check out “Mundo Libre” at http://worldhoodmusic.bandcamp.com/. For more information on Sol Collective, go to Solcollective.org.

Trent Liddicoat Connects Art and Literature in His New Exhibit

Given the healthy abundance of trees and recent infestation of raccoons and opossums, Midtown is in a delicate balance of the natural functioning alongside an urban civilization built atop it. Local artist Trent Liddicoat is plugged into the duality of Midtown, finding a sense of his inner struggle in it. He wrestles with these struggles and the stresses placed upon communities in death in his art show at Sol Collective.

Titled …and I’m whistling as beautifully as I can, Liddicoat’s work is predominantly conceived with the use of acrylics, coffee and spray paint. Dissatisfied with wine spills, he got the inspiration to use coffee after seeing a fellow artist Richard St. Ofle use the dark brew on canvas. Before Liddicoat, age 23, would head out for work in the mornings, he splashed the remains of his morning French press across the canvas to dry throughout the afternoon. In time he was able to manipulate the spills to his liking. “It’s cheap,” he said. “At first it was very intimidating, but now I’ve got a few techniques.”

The show title’s full quote, first penned by the late (so it goes) Kurt Vonnegut, is “All the other species are dying and so will we. I’m whistling as I walk past the graveyard…whistling as beautifully as I can.” Liddicoat wrote the quote in a journal years ago. While seeking a muse to direct his body of work, he rediscovered the saved prose. “I read that and was thinking how it was connected with being a new artist,” he said. “I don’t have an education with my art, so I’m taking this full force to be an honest portrayal of the best that I can do.”

The words relate to Liddicoat’s perception of death as well–a prevalent theme in his collection. He said the show is not a focus on death, but life’s curtain call acted as the steppingstone of inspiration for the series. “I wanted to find the positive light in it,” he said. “A friend pointed out once, that rather than focusing on the grieving, I’m focusing on the tail end of life. So now the show is more about life and experience. ”

Death as an adhesive for communities might be too pretty of a bow for Liddicoat’s intention, but with death as the foundation, it kept inspiring friends to offer their insights to his work. A few of his paintings feature images of deer, one of which was donated to the UC Davis Mind Institute for Autism Research. There are a number of reasons Liddicoat could have selected deer to unite his work, but it would be his small community of artists that guided him. “My friend Estella [Sanchez] from the Sol Collective actually pointed out to me that the deer is a symbol of death in Mayan culture,” he said.

A native of Rio Linda, Liddicoat is no stranger to the outdoors and its wildlife. He said his grandparents once owned acres of land. It is that upbringing pitted against his adjustment to urban living that seeps into his art. “I try to take the personal problems that I have or the issues with certain things and I think about something conceptually and then find a way to make it universal for others. That led me to the idea of how a sense of community helps loss.”

For Liddicoat, the task of internalizing is far deeper than the chore of conceptualizing. He offered a brief mention of a family situation concerning his grandfather’s health–a topic that felt addressable strictly due to his valued interest in art focused on death. He began questioning how his grandfather’s current health issues would alter the mindsets and how the family will process the impending change.

The situation lacks answers until the threshold is met, but it is in those dire moments that bonds are strengthened. The young artist spoke graciously of his friends and pocket of fellow artists and musicians, all of which provide motivation for his art. Liddicoat’s art show will feature a 7-foot installation inspired by the Free Life Center, a touring art house that he admires. Jesse Phillips of Ellie Fortune helped Liddicoat with the homage installation, which is made from recycled wood taken from a long dormant house near his mom’s property in Rio Linda. “They moved out years ago,” he said. “Basically this wood was part of what looked like meth shacks. We just hopped the fence, pulled off all the materials and brought it to the Sol Collective.” Strong communities should also be resourceful.

Trent Liddicoat’s …and I’m whistling as beautifully as I can can be viewed at the Sol Collective from Dec. 17, 2012 – Jan. 28, 2012. The closing reception will start at 7 p.m. and feature music performances from Fine Steps, Peggy Benks and Matthew Maxwell. For more info on Sol Collective, check out Solcollective.org. You can also follow Liddicoat on Tumblr at Trentliddicoatart.tumblr.com.