Editor’s note: It is with heavy hearts that we announce that Russell Solomon, founder of Tower Records, passed away last night (Mar. 4, 2018) at his home in Sacramento. The following interview with Russ took place in early 2015 and originally ran in issue #185 (April 13 – 27, 2015). RIP Russ! You will be missed!

No Music, No Life: Part 2

Russell Solomon, what a guy. As the founder of Tower Records, he’s been called the godfather of music retail, a visionary, a living legend. Even at nearly 90 years old, Solomon is still razor sharp, and he absolutely loves to talk about all things music, especially Tower, as evidenced by Submerge’s hour-and-a-half-long interview conducted recently in his Sacramento home, an excerpt of which can be read here. With a drink in hand (“It’s almost 5 p.m.!” he exclaimed as we sat down), a very humble and down-to-earth Solomon spoke with us about the new documentary All Things Must Pass: The Rise and Fall of Tower Records, how the company was like one big family, how he feels about Tower still going strong in Japan and a little bit about his life-long passion for photography.

When you were first starting a record shop, did you ever in a million years think that someone would want to make a documentary about you?
No, that’s the last thing I thought about, believe me. I thought about making a living, that was what I thought about. I thought they [filmmakers Colin Hanks and Sean Stuart] were nuts in the first place. It took them seven years and they got it together and figured out that they wanted to make a story out of it, and they managed to do it, I thought. From my viewpoint, you’re trying to cram literally 60-something years of experiences into 90 minutes. A lot gets left out, right?

So much great stuff probably hit the cutting room floor, as they say. At the end of the day, they are making a movie. It’s got to have a beginning, a middle and an end.
That’s right. More of a movie than a documentary, too, if you think about it. One of the things they didn’t have, which I didn’t really think about it until after it was all over, was they didn’t have a narrator. You know how most documentaries have a voice over?

Yup. But even without narration, this film gets moving! It’s got a heartbeat to it and it really gets pounding!
That’s a tribute to their editing.

It’s not your run-of-the-mill, slow-paced documentary about WWII or something, it really moves.
You know one of the things they told me, not sure if they told you or not, was they wanted to use the title “All Things Must Pass,” so they sent it to George Harrison’s wife, and she actually looked at it twice, they told me, and she loved it! She then gave permission to use it, although they didn’t really need permission to use the title.

More of a “can we have your blessing to use this” sort of thing?
She blessed it, yeah.

I’m curious, did watching the film for the first time make you emotional at all?
Patti [Russ’ wife] gets emotional. I just say, “Ah, I’ve been there.”

There is some pretty deep, personal stuff in some of those interviews, and the whole camaraderie of the Tower family comes through even though it’s a story of the rise and fall of the company.
That was the truth, that’s the way it was. As a consequence, they captured that. I told them up front, “Look, this company wasn’t me. This company was made up of all the people that worked for us.” It wasn’t even just that little group that was in the film. There were, and I didn’t know about this until late, in the American company from the time we started counting, which was probably in the late ‘70s, we had over 100,000 people that worked for the company!

I love that the film shows how Tower employees went from clerks, to buyers, to assistant managers, to managers, to general managers, to vice presidents, etc. That family-type growth was important at Tower, wasn’t it?
Absolutely, yeah. All the managers came from clerk status.

In the movie Dave Grohl says something like, “Tower was the only place that would hire me with my fucking haircut.” He was this long-haired grungy looking kid but got a job at one of your stores. You guys attracted a lot of interesting characters to work for Tower, didn’t you?
It was true. The one thing we didn’t have was any kind of dress code. The only thing we insisted upon was that they wear shoes, but in Hawaii they didn’t wear shoes. What are you gonna do, you know?

The late and great Bud Martin wasn’t necessarily the face of the company as much as you were; he was more the money guy. Does it feel nice to be able to show how important he was to the company in this film?
Yeah. If I’d have just listened to him. The problem at the end with Bud was that the company got so big. Bud was a public accountant, as opposed to a CPA, and the company was handling so much damned money that we needed a CPA. It didn’t turn out to be the best thing to do, but, nonetheless it had to be done. Bud actually hired the CPA, which is the guy that ultimately replaced him. But he was getting sick, and, you know… He was a good guy. I miss him.

In creating Tower Records, you created more than a music store—they were hangout spots; people would link up at Tower.
It’s true, people liked to come to us. The clerks were like they were. If you looked at the other big stores, the Musiclands and Wherehouses and whathaveyou, they were pretty snobby. Why? I don’t know. I have a theory, now that I sit here and think about it. I have this idea, which is something you can’t tell bankers by the way, but the people in say a Musicland store or a Wherehouse store or whatever, they didn’t have any control over what was happening in that store, all the decisions were being made in their main office or whatever. But in our case it was just the opposite. We wanted the people in the store to run the store, it was their store. They could do what they wanted.

It’s kind of a good thing that the film took so long to make, because it’s really incredible that some of the interviews were done inside the Watt Avenue store after it had shut down. How did that work out?
That was at the beginning of filming the movie. The Watt store sort of stayed empty for a while after the liquidators emptied it of the merchandise, and all those racks were in there, and the sign was still there. When Sean and Colin first started the thing, they talked the landlord into letting us in and lighting it and so on. So we were able to do that in there.

Post-Tower, you opened up R5 Records in Sacramento in 2008, which was probably the worst year ever to open a store.
That was not my finest hour.

Do you think something like R5 would work now?
No, I don’t think so, except maybe in a market like New York. Obviously it works in Japan. Here’s the difference, the physical market is a combination of used and a little new in CDs and LPs, vinyl as they call it. So, what Tower was and what R5 was, was a new store. We didn’t carry used. We carried vinyl at the end at R5, and we carried a little vinyl in Tower at the end. The whole vinyl thing was just kind of starting back up, that’s back in 2004, 2005, it was just beginning to regenerate itself. But to replicate Tower and its “all new” kind of thing, which is what we were, that’s what R5 tried to do. As a result of that, it kind of failed. That and the economy falling apart. We had a perfect storm there. So your answer is no.

In this area we’ve got Dimple Records, Phono Select, Esoteric, Armadillo and others. There’s even a new little shop opening on R Street soon. Why do you think people are still running and opening these smaller record stores even today?
They have fun doing it! The trouble is that LPs are not going to grow to the strength they had before. One of the reasons is they can’t manufacture enough… There’s no production facilities to speak of, so it’s limited as to what they can put out. In the old days with LPs and for CDs, if they had a new release of a hot artist, they’d press a million copies and throw it out on the marketplace. If we didn’t sell it we’d send it back. Well that’s not the case today. So that limits the growth for LPs in retail for that reason. But I think there are always going to be collectors! That was the whole idea behind it was the collector, that was a big portion of the business.

Right, from your everyday average Joe collector, all the way on up to Elton John, who used to obsessively peruse your stores for records.
Just think of yourself as a young guy or a young girl who had a box full of their favorite songs on 45s. They were collectors, even though they only maybe had 30, 40, 50 records.

They were seeking out what they want, getting it, owning it, having it in their possession.
Exactly, and then sharing it with all of their friends and all that stuff.

And it happens so differently now…
If you want to read a story about collectors going to a point of absurdity, there’s a book called Do Not Sell At Any Price. It’s the background story of the freak 78 [rpm records] collectors, who collected old blues and original records that go back to the 1920s. These guys are digging around in garbage dumpsters. They’re obsessed, they know a lot about it, and they pay ridiculous prices for some of this stuff, ‘cause, you know, there’s only one copy left of Uncle George’s Jug Band or some damn thing [laughs].

People go to extraordinary lengths to collect. They are out there. Do you think that will essentially help these small little mom-and-pop record shops maintain?
Oh absolutely, that’s the fun part of it. The only thing that’s changed really is that there’s so much fewer people that are buying that stuff than there was in the past. I mean, the heyday of selling thousands of units or millions of units or something like that is gone in the physical world, because it’s changed so dramatically to streaming.

I think the release of this film will be a very big thing for Sacramento.
Yeah, I didn’t realize how much Tower meant to so many people. This isn’t in Sacramento, but Patti and I were in Palm Springs visiting some friends recently and we were sitting in a bar. The friends we were visiting, he always does this, which I would never do, he goes, “He’s the founder of Tower Records!” and points at me. And here’s these two old people sitting at the bar having a drink, they go, “Oh my God, Tower Records?” and then they carried on about how wonderful it was. I had no idea, really. Maybe I wasn’t thinking about it, how somehow or another we seemed to touch a lot of people through the years. You’ve got a lot of years involved, 1960 to 2006. Time to time I would actually run into people who would say, “I used to shop and listen to records in the booths at the drugstore.” I say, “Jesus, you have to be really old.”

In Japan there are over 80 Tower Records locations still to this day. How does it feel to see the Tower model working over there?
Very proud. Of course the thing that keeps it alive I think is the fact that they don’t have any financial problems, they’re owned by the telephone company essentially… So they don’t have to worry about debt or any of those mundane kind of problems, and they just keep it going. The nature of the Japanese market is that it’s the only market in the world that’s about 80 percent physical, compared to America which is 20 percent physical. So for some reason the physical world over there, physical records, are still going strong. I couldn’t be prouder. They are doing what we set up and they just kept it going, and like the Japanese always do, they improve on things.

Now that you’ve seen All Things Must Pass, do you think Colin, Sean and the whole team behind the film did you and your fellow Tower employees proud?
I would say so, yeah. I’m certainly proud of Colin and Sean, and their people that worked on it. I’m really pleased about the whole thing and I’m pleased with the way that they did it. As far as I’m concerned, it’s totally honest, and that’s what I wanted it to be. I wanted it to make plain the idea that this was a community project, it wasn’t just one guy.

To wrap things up, I noticed in the film there are a couple old photos of you with a camera around your neck. How long have you been into photography?
Since I was about 15.

Were you mostly taking photos for business purposes, you know, research? Or was it more of an artsy approach?
It was more for fun. No matter where I went, I always had a camera to take pictures of the stores.

[Because he was being so humble, Patti interjected: “Did you know he had a gallery show? But didn’t you start in High School, Russ? Didn’t you do the pictures for the yearbook, but you never graduated, so you weren’t in it?”]

Russ Solomon: [laughs] It was really a dirty trick. I was the principal photographer for the McClatchy yearbook and because they kicked me out of school, they wouldn’t give me any credit. But the photographs were terrible, believe me, they were terrible. High school pictures, are you kidding me?

To keep up to date on what’s going on with the film, go to Towerrecordsmovie.com

Also, click here to check out our interview with Colin Hanks and Sean Stuart regarding All Things Must Pass.

**This interview first appeared in print in issue #185 (April 13 – 27, 2015)**

11 Sacramento area bars where beer rules all

Intro by Jonathan Carabba

If there is one thing that’s for sure about Sacramento, it’s that we love our beer! The last few years have been an exciting time for regional hop-heads. New breweries and taprooms are opening left and right, it’s becoming the norm for restaurants and bars to up their beer list game, and our palate as a whole is growing with the rising popularity of sours, farmhouse ales and other interesting/experimental brews. Another thing that’s for sure is there is no lack of great bars to enjoy craft beer in the Sacramento region. Throw a rock in any direction and you’re bound to hit a spot with a killer beer list. With the return of Sacramento Beer Week, which runs from Feb. 26 to March 8, 2015, we figured it would be a perfect time to highlight a few of our favorite downtown-area beer bars. This is by no means a “best of” list, it’s simply an attempt to shine some light on bars in or near the heart of the city whose focus is on beer 365 days a year. Honorable mentions could of course include traditional pubs like Fox and Goose, Bonn Lair, and de Vere’s; or other downtown hot spots like Alley Katz, Burgers and Brew and The Rind; brewery taprooms like Track 7, Bike Dog and Berryessa; or even outlying spots like Sam Horne’s and Final Gravity, but then this list would never end… Read on to learn about 11 of Submerge’s favorite beer-focused downtown-area establishments and to get a hint of what to expect for their Beer Week events and offerings.

The Shack
5201 Folsom Boulevard | Sacramento

Humphrey Bogart once said, “The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind.” The Shack is there to catch you up, East Sac. The Shack location originally opened in 1931 as one of the first drive-ins turned drive-thrus in our area. It was home to the nickel hot dog and dubbed “The root beer king.” Owners Gary and Jen Slaeppy claim that “The Governor of California ‘Sunny Jim’ Rolph was said to have had his first beer after prohibition in our beer garden, which is now the kitchen.” Today, The Shack remains a prime destination for US-made craft beers as well as Belgian ales/sours/lambics with over 100 options on draft and in bottle. The bright green hut used to serve up some of the best breakfast in town, but sadly, they recently discontinued it because it was exhausting the dining quarters. However, their award-winning burgers are still available to devour with a nice Knee Deep IPA, or a malty Belgian dubbel. If you are into the more exciting, foreign beers, they’ve got you covered with trappist specialties, diverse Belgians (from unfiltered whites to heavy quads) and even a couple of sour options. During Beer Week, the location will host the ticketed event, “Shack Fest,” an East Sac rager in celebration of all that is beer and food. In proper homage to their roots, “Shack Fest” (Sunday, March 1, 2015) is an event full of unlimited tastings and an abundance of food as a continuous middle finger to prohibition all these years later.
-Words by Alia Cruz | Photo by Evan E. Duran

Hot City Pizza
5642 J Street | Sacramento

Hot City Pizza is the tiny pizza joint inconspicuously cuddled between a few businesses in a strip mall in deep East Sac. While the Hot City location is visually unimpressive and void of decor, their food and drinks confidently make up for it. Owner Colby Pettenger opened the place more than seven years ago, with the dream of bringing this town the least boring pizza around. It quickly evolved into the natural marriage of good beer with good pizza. Their pizza and beer is literally so good, they can completely rely on it to keep customers loyal and plenty.

The pizza itself is damn good. Notable spicy options, like the spicy veggie and the angry pig pizza, will make a ‘za lover sweat. Also, their vegetarian options are plentiful, and they are generous with toppings. The variety of pizzas gives you the feeling that its creator was somewhat of an evil genius, being completely liberated by the access of toppings and the power to execute them into what he’s always dreamt of.

An experience at this place is always full of unexpected delights. This small, laid-back pizza joint has some of the best beer options in town. The little 7-Up branded fridge in the main dining area has a beer selection that even the town’s most ritzy bottle shops can’t get a hold of. Yes, there are plenty of local offerings like Knee Deep IPAs, but they also have an exciting and unique option from more specialty breweries too. For example, they are bound to have something great from Mikkeller, Prairie Artisan Ales, and you never know who else. This place is the epitome of a hidden gem.

Aside from the bottle choices, they have 14 beers on tap that consistently rotate and keep options fresh and exciting. Spicy meats and peppers on certain pizzas will find a friend in a dank IPA, and a fresh veggie pizza can shine with a pairing of a farmhouse ale or blossoming saison. I think that while pizza has rarely been seen as something culinarily complicated, the pairing of unique beers with pies is a no brainer. If you break down all of the ingredients of a pizza, and think about all of the spices and elements, certain beers can actually help accentuate those things. Hot City Pizza has such a variety of funky and unique brews, that with each bottle you pop or beer you have poured, there are so many flavors waiting to work together to give you a whole new experience.

While Pettenger says he has yet to plan anything for Beer Week, rest assured you can always find something here that consistently respects the craft of the draft.
-Words by Alia Cruz | Photo by Evan E. Duran

University of Beer
1510 16th Street, Suite 300 | Sacramento

The original University of Beer in Davis rose to popularity with a 60-tap system, the sort of beer list undertaking few dare brave. For its Midtown location, University of Beer expanded its curriculum, installing a 100-tap system. We do not advise a latenight cram session of studying the beer list. With campus roots, the ambience follows suit, mixed with the hyperstimulation of a sports bar—seemingly as many flat screens as there are taps. Accommodation is supreme at U of B. The hundred taps are not squandered on appeasing the domestic big brothers of beer. Even the bottle list is home to specialty brews and manufactured in limited runs. Eleven of the taps are locals only, with the remaining flavor profile spanning Belgians, sours, nitros, pales and ciders. For Beer Week, U of B will have its Rare Beer Night on Sunday March 1 (the list still under lock and key), and Tuesday is hosted by Saint Archer Cellar Manager Greg Peters, serving flights and fielding your beer nerd and homebrewer inquiries.
-Words by Blake Gillespie | Photo by Jenny Price

Capitol Beer and Tap Room
2222 Fair Oaks Boulevard | Sacramento

The dogwoods are in bloom in the courtyard adjacent to Capitol Beer and Tap Room’s secluded patio, a picturesque setting for a post-shift pint. Tucked away from the commuter traffic of Howe Avenue and Fair Oaks Boulevard, Capitol Beer exists as a quaint and folksy retreat. Strip malls tend to stifle character (think four corners of taupe), but this nestled neighborhood watering hole created a lived-in look by building a brick arch behind the bar and mounting 20 chalk boards against a hop-print, painted backdrop to display its rotating taps. The 20 boards are for the 20 taps that are ever-rotating with an emphasis on Pacific breweries, but a serious soft-spot for national breweries like Clown Shoes in Massachusetts. The beer rotation is highly curated, but also democratic. Got an elusive brew in mind? Place it on the beer wish list and they’ll do the leg work.

With Beer Week days dedicated to locals only and the surrounding regions like the Bay Area, Oregon and San Diego, Capitol Beer has an inclusive mentality in its schedule. Friday, March 6 is of note though as Hops To Table magazine, a local brewer’s rag, will celebrate its second anniversary. “It’s not only a celebration of the magazine, but it’s a rare beer night,” bar manager Eric Newell said. “The idea [for the magazine] started here, talking about it one day about a love for Sacramento and its beer scene.”
-Words by Blake Gillespie | Photo by Melissa Welliver

Dad’s Kitchen
2968 Freeport Boulevard | Sacramento

Dad’s Kitchen is known for their commitment to showcasing mostly California beers. They designate their 27-draft lineup to these state-proud brews, especially those created here in Sacramento. What makes Dad’s so awesome is that it is a laid-back, totally unpretentious place with a knowledgeable and down to earth staff. This place is beaming with local pride and a reformed surfer dude feel. Year-round beer coordinator Tyson Herzog (who also runs Sac Brew Bus tours) completely submerges himself in the local beer culture, and that definitely reflects in the Dad’s draft list. Yes, they offer brews from local hard-hitters like Track 7 and Bike Dog, but this place also gives the spotlight to smaller breweries like Yolo Brewing Co., Auburn Alehouse and Mraz. One thing that is acceptable here, as should be in most professional beer places, is the right to taste. A place that lets you take a swig of something you are unsure about before you commit is highly appreciated. Not only does this allow you to ensure you like what you get, but it opens up the possibility for beer conversation and enhances the overall drinking experience. This year, Dad’s anticipates a packed Beer Week schedule. They will pay homage to Sacramento beers on Saturday, Feb 28. Other events for the week will include a Lagunitas brunch and Drake’s tap takeover. The one unmissable event is on Wednesday, March 4. This location will be hosting a local IPA tasting competition. Breweries will have guests drink up to determine who has the more superior hopped concoction.
Words by Alia Cruz | Photo by Mallory Moullay

Lowbrau
1050 20th Street | Sacramento

Much like craft beer wasn’t synonymous with Sacramento until the past five years, the Northwest corner of 20th and K was not perceived as a destination stop in Midtown. That is until it transformed in 2012 with the opening of Lowbrau Bierhall, widely regarded as one of the most popular hangouts in town—no matter the day of the week. Pioneered by Clay Nutting and Michael Hargis, the traditional name is not an affront. The bier menu at Lowbrau will challenge your comfort with the German language, always pouring Trappists, Dunkels, Doppelbocks and Hefeweissbiers. Tradition is cool, but this is California. To wit, Lowbrau keeps a steady rotation of experimental breweries both regional and worldwide. While a debut of a barrel-aged, peanut butter infused variation on Ballast Point’s Victory At Sea cannot be missed on Friday February 27, Thursday is Heretic For Homebrewers night, a chance for homebatch hopefuls to pick the brain of Heretic head brewer Jamil Zainasheff.
-Words by Blake Gillespie | Photo by Nicholas Wray

Der Biergarten
2332 K Street | Sacramento

Der Biergarten has some prime offerings in deep pours and a ping pong table, so naturally, I am a fan. Biergarten owner Sean Derfield was one of the first people in our area to put a business in a cargo unit, “an idea that was initially meant to make it so we can literally pick the whole place up and move it to different locations every few weeks,” he said. This idea was immediately shot down by the city, but that’s cool, because Midtown has made Sean feel more than welcome in his little lot on the corner of 23rd and K. Derfield came from a proud German heritage and wanted to give Sacramento a feel for a more casual outdoor environment where one can drink heavy pours of quality German beers and other ales. He wanted to bring the bar (and its patrons) out into the fresh air. “When looking for what to serve, I’m constantly tasting, doing research and listening to beer lovers,” said Derfield. “I’m always talking to beer reps and religiously on Beer Advocate. Being educated in beers seems to be key.” Initially, he came from a traditional bar background (he also owns The River City Saloon in Old Sac), where he says beer was not quite in the spotlight. Then, he became intrigued by the laid-back nature of the traditional biergarten and the beer boom. “I was aiming for a place to feel completely casual and fun, with the quality product to back it up. I want people to drink and be merry.”

The Biergarten is void of TVs, music and antics. Instead, they have corn hole, foosball, ping pong and community tables to meet new friends. Beer also helps with that latter part. In fact, these community tables were even shipped here from the owner’s German relatives to support those hefty steins of beer. The cargo-unit kitchen also serves up some light German grub like sausages, pretzels and salads. The few times that Sacramento’s weather is unsavory is when the business hours for Der Biergarten become murky. If it is raining, they have no choice but to be closed. If it is too hot, business tends to be slow. Sean has been tirelessly working on ways to keep patrons more comfortable in changing conditions. “We are putting in awesome misters for the summer and looking at electric heaters for the winter. We are also looking forward to possibly extending our hours through midnight.” Der Biergarten is a completely unpretentious, fun place to get your money’s worth for quality German beers and beyond. They implement an idea that community is built through drinking beer, as the Germans have religiously believed for years and years. Every week truly is Beer Week at Der Biergarten…. Well, weather permitting.
Words by Alia Cruz | Photo by Melissa Welliver

Firestone Public House
1132 16th Street | Sacramento

Firestone is a great option for the more casual craft beer drinker. It is loud, it is busy, it is haunted with televisions for sports enthusiasts (exactly their targeted audience), but it also has almost 60 draft beers to stumble through with uniquely large-sized pour options on considerably high-alcohol ales. Before Firestone was a restaurant, it was the huge tire company sticking out on the bustling corner of 16th and L streets. When I was a kid, I remember driving with my dad to the Downtown Plaza and always turning my head to watch the Firestone guys rolling and bouncing tires on the grease-stained pavement. About five years ago, The Firestone Tire Co. was gutted and made into the Firestone Restaurant. The restaurant retained the moniker as homage to its shared roots with the Firestone empire. A consistent draft list of everything from IPAs to heavy stouts and refreshing ciders is an option, along with about six handles that are constantly being rehydrated with a fresh option. If you are a hop head, I suggest the IPA flight, which usually includes five four-ounce pours of California style IPA varieties. Though they have very little planned as official Beer Week festivities, they do have a keg of 805 Firestone to offer around that time. Words by Alia Cruz | Photo by Evan E. Duran

Pangaea Bier Cafe
2743 Franklin Boulevard | Sacramento

Rob Archie recognizes that a craft beer cafe is an imperfect business model. As the owner of Pangaea Cafe on the Northeast corner of Franklin Boulevard and 3rd Avenue, he is aware the American way of business is control and consistency; the customer expects experiential repetition and a business is at the mercy of their needs. The American way of service, that “customer is always right” adage, does not translate to craft beer. The customer is at liberty to participate, explore, and if all goes well, enjoy at Pangaea Cafe.

“What’s humbling about beer is you practice a lot of impermanence,” Archie says. His statement applies to the challenge of replicating a recipe with consistency, the ever-looming possibility of a beloved brewery shuttering, and shortages, be it ingredients or competitive batch availability. “One day you have it [on tap], the next day it’s gone,” he says.

We are on the shaded patio at the Curtis Park location on an uncharacteristically warm February afternoon. It’s 4 p.m. and the patronage is steady from retirees with little better to do and businessmen enjoying a late liquid lunch, or perhaps an early day out of the office. Once an unassuming cafe for coffee and beer experts alike, it is now a pillar in the connoisseurial community of beer lovers. Tastings, judgings, and club meetings are a regular occurrence. Now in its sixth, nearly seventh, year of business the Pangaea identity is defined, unified like the supercontinent origin, and like the prehistoric Pangaea it was here before Sacramento became a craft beer city.

Back then, Archie was simply an ex European-basketball player who’d gotten a whiff of the Belgian beers and started plotting ways to bring them back to California. It began with five taps, pouring Birra Moretti (first tasted while playing in Italy), Affligem Blonde, St. Bernardus Belgian Quad, Lagunitas IPA and Blanche De Bruxelles. Bare bones compared to the 20 options now that include a sour-specific section.

“I tell brewers and people that open, to be a part of the culture you have to ask yourself ‘what am I bringing to the culture?’” he says. “In any small business it should be sharing your story and having a soul behind whatever it is you’re doing.”

Archie’s identity is education. First came his own. From traveling as a professional athlete, and then going back to learn more, he got his entry into Belgian beers. As the West Coast movement began to blossom, his travel distance shortened to the outlying brewers of Northern California, brief visits and bottle trades, just to absorb as much as possible. In opening Pangaea, Archie employed his knowledge to accrue customers who became regulars. First comes the flavored hook: “the first time they taste a Belgian quad and they think there’s fruit in there.” He’s got your interest and he counters with “then you tell them it’s all yeast and you get to talking about the magic of yeast.” From there he’s got you deep into the nuances of the process; some brewers refer to yeast as a woman, other brewers discount yeast as merely a fermenting agent and focus on hops, and on and on.

Craft brewing is still an emerging market; the craze is real, and yet, this is its cowboys and pioneers phase. Archie notes Bud Light alone out-sells craft beer. He sees it as millions of people yet to be converted that don’t drink good beer out of being domesticated on flavorless beer. “The people that are in it right now are still pioneers in the grand scheme of enjoying better beer. I just think that riding this wave from 13 percent to 21 percent to 30 percent will be insane. By then it’s like Pliny [the Elder] on tap at your house.”

Archie recalls the early days when most distributors didn’t know their stock beyond the Budweisers, Millers, Coronas and Heinekens.

“We’d have to call them and say ‘there’s this beer, I know you guys have it. It’s in your catalog,” Archie says. “They’d have to send a supervisor out here and it’d become this huge ordeal.” Companies like DBI grew alongside Pangaea, “simply because they were on the forefront of being a craft beer distribution and we were buying up the supply. What’s cool is you see the same thing in customers right now. They’re going out and they are chasing the way we did years back.”

For those deep in the chase, Pangaea’s Beer Week events will include a stouts and oysters day with a specialty Imperial Porter brewed in collaboration with his wife and the wives of Track 7 Brewing; a collaboration with Knee Deep and Altamont called “Hella Deep” and a special visit by David Walker of Firestone Walker Brewing Co. to hand-deliver a special batch sour keg.

“I like the collaborative thing,” Archie says. “Right now, you have to be appreciative of what’s out there. We have really good beers that are readily available that are right here. Everyone is looking for the newest thing, but the newest thing isn’t always the best thing.”

-Words by Blake Gillespie | Photo by Evan E. Duran

Kupros Craft House
1217 21st Street | Sacramento

Kupros Craft House is located in the renovated Victorian house that used to be Cheap Thrills. The restaurant environment feels like the casual dining quarters of a luxury cruise ship, or maybe dinner at your fancy aunt’s house. I always feel like I am in such a different place. Its full bar is absolutely gorgeous because of the signature stained glass ceiling, and the cool second story patio is top-notch to perch and people watch. Kupros often has a diverse draft list, usually consisting of Sculpin, Allagash and Anderson Valley as a few staples, and every now and then they will catch a rare keg. One amazing thing that must absolutely be highlighted here is a little thing called Can Roulette. Can Roulette is when you pay $2.50 for a can of beer that the server randomly and blindly picks out of an ice chest. Craft beer out of a can almost always tastes better and you can fill up on beer for really, really cheap. For Beer Week, Kupros will be hosting many events, including a Drake’s Brewing kickoff party on Friday, Feb. 27 with rare releases and classics on draft. The restaurant will also host breweries from San Diego and Oregon (the home of the country’s more well-known craft beer breweries) in a weekend-long battle to see who blows their kegs quicker. Winner gets bragging rights!
Words by Alia Cruz | Photo by Melissa Welliver

Blackbird Kitchen + Beer Gallery
1015 9th Street | Sacramento

Based downtown, Blackbird Kitchen + Beer Gallery has an urbanite cool, slightly posh feel, acting as an art gallery, but not above the Portlandia-esque irony of “Put a bird on it.” Marginally upscale, yes, but Blackbird is not stuffy or bougie. Just like Budweiser would like you to believe craft beer drinkers are hipster caricatures, do not mistake Blackbird as too chic for the real and rugged of the craft community. The list is extensive and intelligently grouped by house-coined flavor profiles like “utmost drinkability,” “devilishly dark,” “pucker up,” “pales in comparison” and our favorite, “barley there.” For Beer Week, Blackbird is keeping it minimal with a locals night featuring Mraz, Bike Dog and Device on Tuesday, March 3. The following night is dedicated to barrel-aged brews and Thursday is a competition between Socal, Ninkasi, and Green Flash. The winner will be chosen by attendees, so be there, and be heard.
-Words by Blake Gillespie

After 17 Years in Downtown Plaza Getta Clue moves into Midtown’s MARRS Building

When it comes to running a small business, the odds are stacked against you. It’s sad, but true. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, only about half of all new establishments survive five years or more, and only about one-third survive 10 years or more. This, in part, is what makes local retailer Getta Clue’s 20-plus year run so impressive. Locals Scott Gilbert and Justin Bilbao first opened their hip, fashion-forward men’s streetwear store in 1992 on Broadway and after a few years there, as well as a couple-year stint on K Street, they eventually settled into the Downtown Plaza. That’s where Getta Clue stayed, quite successfully, for a long time—17 years to be exact. That is until this month, when Gilbert, Bilbao and their longtime general manager Maia Friedman decided to ditch the Plaza (which in case you’ve been living under a rock is where the Kings are building their new arena) to move into Midtown’s popular and highly sought-after MARRS Building (MARRS stands for “Midtown Art Retail Restaurant Scene”), home to happening spots like LowBrau Bierhall, Block Butcher Bar, Sac Comedy Spot and more.

“It’s a hard move in the sense that we had a great run at Downtown Plaza and we were very successful down there,” Gilbert recently told Submerge in an interview. “But the time was right for us to change and we’ve had our eye on Midtown for a long time and we love the vibe of what’s going on, especially right here on the block, which to us feels sort of like the heart of Midtown. So when the opportunity came up, we were eager to jump on it.”

Getta Clue’s newest incarnation in the MARRS Building is approximately 2,200 square feet, and when Submerge visited last week, it already felt like it had been there forever. “Yeah, we’ve moved a couple times,” joked Bilbao when talking about how quickly they got the new shop set up. “This was actually a nice long journey of three whole days to set up instead of 24 hours!”

He isn’t kidding when he says they’ve moved a lot, and not just the Getta Clue store either, as Bilbao and Gilbert also own Goodstock Boutique, a men’s and women’s clothing store that was first started in 2009 at Howe Bout Arden before moving into the Downtown Plaza right next to Getta Clue’s old spot, but is now located at Arden Fair Mall (are you keeping up?).

Set aside the shuffling of locations over the years and one thing remains: This team knows their fashion and is constantly stocking some of the hottest gear and brands on the market. Getta Clue carries goods from popular international streetwear brands like Obey, HUF and Publish, as well as gear from locally based companies like Official (who even has a one-of-a-kind “Shop-N-Shop” set up in the back corner of Getta Clue), Timeless Thrills and others. They also stock a ton of sneakers from companies like Nike and Vans. If you’re a guy in Sacramento and want to look fly, there is no better place to turn than Getta Clue!

Submerge recently chopped it up with Gilbert, Bilbao and Friedman about their move into Midtown, how Sacramento’s sense of fashion has grown over the years and how music and art influence the fashion and retail worlds.

What is it about this area of Midtown, specifically the MARRS Building, that drew you guys in?
Maia Friedman: The MARRS Building drew us in by the diverse mix of art, music and food. These areas have always been great and have continued to grow for a better Midtown. That’s why we wanted to add retail to the mix.

Over the years you guys must have seen it all when it comes to different trends coming and going. A lot has changed right?
Justin Bilbao: Yeah. When we started back in ‘92 it was kind of actually where it is now. A lot of independent, smaller, streetwear brands. Real hip, skate oriented, a lot of people pushing the envelope in their style and in what they were putting out there. Then it kind of grew over the years and then it became corporate and big. Then it got real hip-hop based for a long time and then it kind of switched back, then hip-hop itself kind of went back down to street and skate. We kind of ride the trends of who is doing what, but at the same time kind of put things in front of people that they haven’t seen before. So trying to play both sides. But it’s funny, it’s actually coming full circle and now the small companies over the last six years have become bigger, larger companies, like Diamond and Huf. Now there’s a new crop of smaller companies that are growing and starting to show some relevance. Then we do a lot of support of local companies and brands like Official and Lurk Hard. Timeless Thrills is coming up, Higher Moons is a local kid doing stuff, so there’s a lot of new brands that are starting to come up out of the woodwork which is great because it makes it fun for us to give them a place to show their stuff.
Scott Gilbert: In order to stay relevant, especially in the fashion business, you have to be good at reinventing yourself. It really is second nature to us just because we eat, drink, sleep, live and breathe this. So it just kind of comes naturally to us to reinvent ourselves because we’re just part of the fabric of what’s happening. If you’re not able to reinvent yourself and get stuck in a rut, that’s when you get into trouble as a business.

What are some of your favorite (and least favorite) styles and trends that you’ve encountered while working so many years in the fashion business?
MF: My least favorite trend of all these years (and I am so happy its gone), is the 3X tee on the size Large male. I have encountered so many styles and trends over the years. I would have to say some of my favorite would include: Americana, workwear, unique colorways of sneakers, mixing and matching prints and simply using your own individual style and making it your own.

How do you feel that Sacramento’s sense of fashion stacks up against other big cities that you guys have visited?
JB: It’s grown exponentially in the last five years; it’s been huge. With the Internet that obviously gave everyone an opportunity to see a lot more things, but especially Sacramento in the last couple years, I mean, their style has gotten great! They’re grasping onto independent designers and trying new things, mixing old and new, taking all sorts of styles and kind of blending them, so it’s cool. Sacramento has definitely evolved a lot!
SG: I think there’s a wider customer base here that travels more, and a lot of people who have moved from other areas, bigger cities like San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles. They bring the style from there to here and that’s a big compliment to Sacramento that people are choosing to come and reside here. I think the city is finally being taken over by a younger generation of entrepreneurs in the restaurant business, the bar business, the fashion business. These are all very fashion savvy people. I think Sacramento is finally starting to see the result of that. So we’ve seen that customer base grow, especially like Justin said over the last five or so years.

Things like music and art, as well as different facets of sports, like skateboarding and even mainstream sports like basketball, seem to play a huge factor in the fashion/retail world. How do you guys embrace and incorporate these things into your stores?
JB: Skateboarding has always been part of our DNA. We’ve carried skate since day one. That’s always been a part of what we are and it obviously is an integral part of the whole streetwear culture in general. It plays a heavy part in all of it. Then as far as music and stuff like that, we’ve been heavily influenced by everything. It’s great, the scenes that have evolved, from the electronic music scene that we’ve always been pretty involved with, to the local hip-hop scenes, all of those things have always played a heavy dynamic of who and what we are. The artists that we know, the DJs that are our friends that come and spin, different artists that come and do signings, both local and ones that are from L.A. or New York or whatever that are coming through. We are the hub. When they come to town, they’ll come through to see us.
SG: When we first opened Getta Clue there wasn’t even the term streetwear or anything like that, it wasn’t even a term. A lot of the stuff that we stocked was just skate stuff. Back then it was a lot of record label product too, like we sold Def Jam T-shirts and jackets, we sold Nervous Records. So anything kind of creative. Then the art side of that was the street art that we supported back then, it was still even more underground than it is now, there wasn’t any Banksys or anyone like that.

It’s been said before, but music, art, fashion, they all go hand in hand.
SG: It’s just part of our generation. People want street art and that has evolved and as we’ve gotten older you’ve seen like the successes of the Shepard Faireys and the Banksys and stuff like that. The music has obviously evolved and heavily influenced the fashion. So those things, art, music, fashion, skating, everything is just kind of like all part of the same big old stew.

What are some brands and/or products that you guys are hyped on right now? Any predictions for what 2015 and beyond will hold for brands and retailers?
MF: Super hyped on all the retro runners that are coming out. Basics and classics that include Vans, Nike Retro and denim. Predictions: Cleaner lines, simpler style and easy to wear pieces that can go from day-to-night. Also, socks will continue to grow as a whole.
JB: It’s a lot of local and small, then at the same time we do a lot of business with Nike. We do a lot in the footwear and sneaker business, men’s and women’s. A lot of the retro stuff is coming in. Fashion styling-wise there is a lot of marriage between real traditional classic Americana and sports wear now. So you’re seeing a lot of like tech fabrics and technical pieces being integrated into classic stylings. So you’re going to find different things like oxford shirts but they’re going to be wicking and things like that. As far as brands, we still do a lot with Obey and Publish. Official obviously is a big thing that we should mention with their “Shop-N-Shop” here. This is a first of its kind, I think. Their product will be rotating constantly, limited production stuff, collab stuff, all of their team skaters will come through. A really cool integration of those kinds of styles is happening right now. Herschel bags are huge; accessories in general are just a huge market. We do a lot with Huf socks, with Huf in general as a whole brand, but their socks are a thing unto themselves.

That’s interesting to hear about the blending of sporty gear with classic wear!
JB: You’ll see that marriage start to happen more over the next year or so. You’ll see a lot of that kind of stuff. But we’re still just really good at basics, too, like simple clean old school Vans and clean denim.

Stuff that never goes out of style, right?
JB: Yeah! And just simple T-shirts, simple jackets and real clean basics. It’s those things all together that we try to do.

Visit Getta Clue’s new location at 1050 20th Street, Suite #180. Their hours are Monday to Thursday 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Friday and Saturday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.; and Sunday 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. On Second Saturdays they are open 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Stay tuned to Gettacluestore.com and/or Facebook.com/gettacluestore for an announcement of a Grand Opening Party sometime in March.

A Lot Like Birds Vocalist Kurt Travis Uses His Brief Downtime to Record Solo Album

The life of a touring musician can be grueling. You write and write and write some more, then you record an album and get it mixed, mastered and pressed. After all that, if you have any money left, you release said album and if all goes well and all your ducks are in a row, the next logical step is to leave normal life behind and hop in the van (or if you’re lucky, a bus or motorhome) and tour the shit out of the album. It’s a process that’s not cheap and not easy.

Kurt Travis, co-vocalist of Sacramento-based post-hardcore outfit A Lot Like Birds (and former co-vocalist of fellow Sacramento-based band Dance Gavin Dance) knows the drill all too well. “A Lot Like Birds doesn’t give me a lot of downtime, but when they do, I’m kind of thankful for it because then I can go forward with some solo stuff,” Travis recently told Submerge during an interview in his new downtown Sacramento loft. “ALLB was going to do this European tour and it ended up falling through. Immediately I was like, OK, I have this amount of time, lets bang out a record and lets go out on tour and sell it.”

Travis enlisted the help of longtime friend and former bandmate Zachary Garren (they played in DGD together years ago). Garren, who now plays in the instrumental band Strawberry Girls and lives in Salinas, Calif., would come up to Sacramento for a few days at a time and the two would write songs and work on the album’s pre-production. They were also sending song ideas back and forth even when not in the same town. Before they knew it, they were sitting on a full-length’s worth of solid material, had a label ready to release it (Blue Swan Records, a new label that is run by Dance Gavin Dance’s Will Swan) and a full-on tour booked to support the record, which will be titled Everything Is Beautiful and will be released sometime later in May.

As of press time, Travis and Garren had only released one song off of Everything Is Beautiful, a pop-y, upbeat ditty called “Brain Lord.” At last check, it had 16,031 views on YouTube after only being uploaded a week prior. With no plans to release any other material from the album before its full release, Submerge was lucky enough to get a private listening party where Garren and Travis allowed us to hear rough, unmixed, unmastered versions of seven of the 12 songs that will appear on the album. What we heard was not some half-assed solo effort from a lead singer who just wants to put something out for the fuck of it. What we heard was a focused, mature, surprisingly pop-friendly album that touches on surf-rock with lo-fi garage vibes, glittering and noodly lead guitar lines, lush layers of vocal harmonies with sprinkles of synth-y goodness. It’s light and accessible (we only heard one part with aggressive vocals, and it was more of a shout than a scream) without being overly cheesy. It’s an artsy pop album, if you will, and it’ll more than likely have you moving and grooving.

Check out an excerpt of our conversation and mark your calendars for Kurt Travis’ tour kick-off show at Luigi’s on Wednesday, May 14, 2014.

EDITOR’S UPDATE: As of May 13, 2014, Kurt Travis’ Everything Is Beautiful was available for streaming here.

Tell me a little bit about the album title, Everything Is Beautiful. What’s the reasoning or motivation behind calling it that?
Kurt Travis: With every release I kind of have a theme, because it’s fun. It’s fun to have a certain message. My first [album theme] being this little girl I knew, she was just learning how to speak, and I related to her because it was kind of like my first solo effort and the songs were very primitive. So it just kind of had this theme, that’s why I called it Wha Happen. She kept asking me that. For this [album theme], I’ve been under this impression lately. I’m very happy. I’m very creative. I’m doing really, really good. I’m having an amazing time with A Lot Like Birds and I’m having an amazing time writing my own stuff with Zach. The theme is Everything Is Beautiful because, well, it is. Just appreciating things that aren’t necessarily beautiful, but you watch them, and they change and your perspective on them becomes different. Kind of that sort of thing like, what is beauty, or what is art? I could get really crazy on you. We could talk about what is beauty and what isn’t beauty, but it would be wrong. Everything is beauty.

Would you say this is the most pop friendly thing you’ve ever done?
Zachary Garren: It’s definitely the poppiest.
KT: It’s the poppiest freaking thing I’ve ever done in my whole life, and you know what’s really weird is I was really trying not to. With this record I was trying to go for that like new wave sound…and it came out super pop-y and funky and groovy.

How does your approach to writing lyrics for your solo material differ from when you’re writing with A Lot Like Birds?
KT: They’re very, very different. Nowadays I’ve been writing very conceptually, not as song-to-song-to-song. But kind of an atmosphere or a story within that song, and kind of vicariously really, which is weird, because that’s something that I really don’t do. I usually write from life and sorrow and just, you know, therapeutically healing myself. I don’t really do that anymore. I guess I don’t really have the need to. I don’t have to be extremely worried about what’s going to happen next. That’s totally kept me up at night in younger years when it comes to music.

Your work with your other bands no doubt keeps you guys busy: Constant touring, writing, recording, doing press, etc. Why not just use your down time to relax? What is it that drives you to want to create music even during your little bit of time off?
KT: I think Zach and I will totally say the same thing. It almost feels the opposite, you know what I mean? If you’re constantly creating and you’re doing different genres and such, I feel like sometimes the more opposite the genre, the more I’m just secretly influenced by it because it’s completely different.
ZG: I just like to create a lot. Some days I’ll do way more than other days…
KT: When I tell him to write a song, he’s got like six the next day. By the time I’m done listening to those, he’s got two more. And then when we get to the studio he’s like, oh man, I got to relearn these. It’s like that show Heroes where the guy blacks out and just does some amazing shit.
ZG: Being a musician is different than working a 9-to-5 sort of job. It’s not easy, but it’s different. It’s still fun to a degree.
KT: Even if I didn’t write a record this last month and immediately go back out on tour, I probably would have worked an odd job for a month and did it that way. But instead, I made a record, and I invested money in the T-shirts I’m going to sell on tour, stuff like that.

So in a way, it’s kind of like an “in between job” that just happened to be creating a record?
KT: Exactly. When Joe [Arrington, drummer for ALLB and who also plays on Everything Is Beautiful] is home, he plays with like four different cover bands and makes way more money… I guess there is this mentality of like, work your fucking ass off, because we are privileged enough to be able to play music.
ZG: Creating music in a way is also kind of downtime. If you’re a musician, what do you do in your downtime from your job? You’re probably doing music. We’re just kind of having extra fun. We do it because we like it and want to try to keep getting better and hopefully making better stuff than we have in the past.
KT: The more you make music and go out on tour, the more you’re going to gain fans. At this point, I’ve been doing it for almost 10 years, I might as well just keep on. Kids still appreciate it and still buy the previous stuff and the new stuff. They’re still buying it, so…
ZG: It’s cool to switch it up, too, because this new album isn’t like anything we’ve done in a long time. It’s the most accessible kind of thing. There’s no screaming so it’s a more mature version of some of our past stuff.

With this album being so much more pop friendly than most of your guys’ past stuff, is it crazy to think that this could very well become the most popular shit you’ve ever done?
KT: It very well could be, although you never know.
ZG: It has the potential, but there are so many little things.
KT: I mean, my manager is Eric Rushing and he’s pretty freaking connected. I did my best. A lot of the times I’ve shown him stuff, and he’s like, “Dude this is fucking incredible, what am I supposed to do with this? This is the best song I could never do anything about.” So this record will definitely be like, “Here you go man, this is probably the most accessible thing you can get out of me, what can we do with it now?” And I think Eric can do a lot.
ZG: And it’s still creative music too, which is cool. This is going to be like our parents’ favorite record.

On the same day that you dropped the first single off your album, Jonny Craig and Tilian Pearson, two other vocalists with past or present DGD ties, also dropped new songs from their new projects. Was that just a big coincidence, or was that meticulously planned out by your management or something like that?
ZG: Not planned at all.
KT: Swear to god. Not planned. We wanted to put it out a couple days earlier, but it didn’t work out. That’s what happens.

Don’t you think in a weird way it might have worked to everyone’s advantage?
KT: Oh we loved it! We milked the shit out of it. It was crazy awesome cross promotion. I talked to Tilian, too. He was totally super happy about it, just like, “Oh my gosh this is going to boost everything!”

One question that I feel a lot of people are curious about is what your relationship is like with all those guys? Jonny, Tilian, all the other DGD guys… I feel like people think there is all this drama. Is there?
KT: No, no. Jonny was at the recent DGD show at Assembly, and I was at that show with Zach. I see Jonny at Ace or Assembly or whatever. I talked to Tilian after the show, shit like that, we were all talking and hanging out after the show. Everybody is just doing their thing. There’s a lot of shit you can check out from all of us, there’s just a big resume from all of us, and that’s really cool.

See Kurt Travis, Zachary Garren and their newly formed backing band play songs off of Everything Is Beautiful at one of the few remaining shows at Luigi’s on Wednesday, May 14, 2014. Also performing will be Hotel Books and So Much Light. Show starts at 7 p.m. and all ages are welcome.

Cedric Bixler-Zavala has more inspiration than ever for his new project, ZAVALAZ

Known for his eccentric on-stage behavior, vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala has spent the last two decades somersaulting across stages all over the world, swinging his microphone around like it was some sort a circus act before diving into crowds of fans willing to catch him.

In the following interview, Bixler-Zavala discusses with Submerge putting together a new band with a new sound, how he asked the universe for twins and got them and how having those twins will affect his creative output for the rest of his life.

When it came time to take your solo work and form a band, was it easy to piece together the different individuals? Is this the group of guys you had in mind or did it just sort of fall into place this way?
Kind of half and half, you know? Some of the people that played on the record couldn’t really commit because some people had kids, some people had other bands. The core of the group ended up being Greg, Juan and then Dan, who I met when Hella opened up for this Mars Volta tour we did a long time ago.

Yeah I wanted to ask about Dan, because he is in a really great band from the greater Sacramento area called Them Hills. So you first met him back in the Hella days when Dan was playing with that group?
Yeah and I kept in touch sort of sporadically here and there. He was down to take the hit and be a member of the band. One of the main important things was that everyone that was playing on it was really chiming in artistically and had such amazing things to say songwriting-wise. I loved taking the criticism, and I loved taking the direction and it was just wonderful. It’s been this amazing experience to get to learn from these people, because in this band I play guitar predominantly.

Which is still kind of a new thing for you, right?
Yeah, I mean I always did it behind the scenes but never for more than a couple of songs, you know? I’m trying to understand what even tuning is [laughs]. My approach is so make-it-up-as-you-go-along, I think that’s what the guys like. I come in the other day and I’m just like, “I discovered a thing called a capo.”

Details are very sparse about ZAVALAZ and as of now the public hasn’t heard any songs. There’s this sort of shroud of mystery surrounding the band. What can you tell me about the new music? How would you describe the sound?
Well, there was this guy that always used to open up for Mars Volta shows who is a predominant fixture at Low End Theory, a popular electronic thing over here. He has this amazing taste in late ‘60s and ‘70s sort of AM and psychedelia stuff. Mellow, mellow stuff. I’ve always liked stuff like that. Like when I listen to Roky Erickson, I love his rock stuff, but I love more of the ballad stuff. Anytime I’ve played a show with any of the other bands I’ve played in, what I listen to afterwards is lots of super corny, fucking bittersweet ballads. I love that shit. So that’s just what I would start writing…
They are just love songs that I made for my wife. I’m at a point in my life where it’s probably the biggest revolution I could ever do. Especially because I’m just known for one thing. It’s acoustic-based stuff, some of it is rock, but it’s got a very soft touch. It’s just kind of me going back in time and taking cues from my parents’ music and remembering that I actually did love that stuff.

It sounds like this style of music has always been in you, but it’s just getting pulled out more now for one reason or another. That’s got to feel fresh, right?
Yeah, it does. It’s nice to sing songs that are really sparse, open and very direct in the message and to sort of exercise my personal taste in I guess what you’d call Americana. I’m sure a bunch of Americana snobs would be like, “This is not that” [laughs].

How have the songs that started as a solo project changed since bringing in the other guys? It sounds like you’re really open to their influence on the songs?
Yeah, I just started implementing a lot of what their input was. Just sort of getting it down to the core of the song and making an entire album that is really song-based. I’ve spent 10 years being known as the guy that’s part of a band that does 30-minute songs. After 10 years, that gets a little old.

Are the majority of the songs on the ZAVALAZ album on the shorter side?
Four minutes and under.

I’ve seen you perform live many times and one thing I always loved was your crazy stage antics. With this new project you’ll have a guitar strapped on. Can people expect a more mellow Cedric on stage?
I think there will be plenty of other frontmen that can do that and that have borrowed from me, because I borrowed from a lot of other frontmen. They can take it and run. I’ve done it for years. That’s not to say I’m not going to have moments when I put my guitar down and dance still. But right now I really want to embrace playing and get all my mistakes out.

Congratulations on your recent twin baby boys, by the way! Do you think having kids has changed your creative drive? How do you see it affecting your music from here on out?
I think I’ll have more to choose from song-wise. They were born premature. They came out C-section. The nurse in the intensive unit said one of the best things you can do, which is funny because I was naturally doing it already, is sing to your kids. I still sing to them to this day. I record everything because I just love to make stuff up on the spot. It’s made me really identify capturing the moment and writing it down. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t get really overcome with emotions just being around them. They just bring out this indescribable feeling inside me. They really respond to singing. One of them had to come home earlier than the other, and the other wasn’t doing really well in the hospital, so I went in the middle of the night and sang to him for a long time. The next day he came home. Then the next day, my Dad sent me an article from some medical magazine saying live music and singing to your kids is really good for their heart and their stress level. I was like, “Yeah, you don’t got to tell me.” Then Juan sent me the same article being like, “Keep singing to them!”

That’s an amazing story!
They just stare at me, you know? If they’re really fussy it calms them down a lot to sing. They are actually kind of Grateful Dead fans. Anytime I play “China Doll” or anything from American Beauty they get really calm. The most rambunctious they get is when I listen to any kind of Rolling Stones. That’s when they would kick the most before they were born. We just knew they’d love rock n’ roll. One of them just screamed the other day, this intense loud bald-eagle-type-scream, and I thought like, “Did I hurt him somehow?” I just looked at him, and he had this smile on his face, like, “Oh! I can do that?”

It sounds like you have a couple little lead singers on your hands?
They have their little attitude already. Anytime they cry or get fussy I just laugh and think about how wonderful it is. Our story goes really, really deep with wanting to have kids. Long story short, you put something in the universe, you ask for it and you get it back. I did that in a song and I played the song for my wife. She cried, and then the next day we conceived. We went on this really late honeymoon, and she was really sick and it was really hard for her. Then the next day we come back from the honeymoon, she goes to the doctor, I had to go to rehearsal. She calls me and is like, “The fucking song worked.” I realized that I had put in a phrase asking for twins in this metaphorical way and she was just like, “The fucking song worked!” I just laughed. I laughed because it’s what I asked for from the universe. Not one day goes by where I feel stressed by them because it’s such a beautiful, amazing thing.

Where do you see ZAVALAZ one year from now? What’s your overall vision for this project?
I just really want to be a fully functional band and get back in the saddle, to sort of show this other aspect. I’ve always had people ask me why this band broke up, or why that band broke up. It’s always been the simplest answer: that I would never want my tombstone to be just one color. So now I really have this whole new sort of gust of wind to show the other color that I think people have sparsely seen, but now it’s really going to be a full color. I see the band really going for it and sort of embracing how uncool pop music can be in a certain kind of acoustic and softer setting.

Don’t miss Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s new band, ZAVALAZ, when they hit Ace of Spades in downtown Sacramento on Saturday, June 22, 2013. Tickets are available for $15 at Aceofspadessac.com or at Dimple Records, The Beat and Armadillo Music. Doors open at 8 p.m. and all ages are welcome.

!!!, all about the groove since 1996

Long-distance relationships are rarely successful. Dance-punk band !!! (Chk Chk Chk), whose six members are spread out between Sacramento; Brooklyn, N.Y.; and Pittsburgh, Penn., have somehow figured it out. When you share a passion for something as strongly as these gentlemen do, you make it work. That passion? The love of a groove. “The focus for the band has always been about a feel and a groove,” guitarist Mario Andreoni tells Submerge while sipping coffee on a park bench in Cesar Chavez Plaza in downtown Sacramento. “Usually everything is started from a bassline and/or a beat. That’s what brought us together and that’s what has always sort of stoked the fire.”

!!!’s fifth album, boldly titled Thr!!!er, was released on Warp Records in late April. And while it shows a great progression in the band’s sound, which is in no small part due to working with Spoon’s drummer/producer Jim Eno, Thr!!!er still has !!!’s rump-shaking, dance-floor-burning, signature groove. It is much tighter and more focused overall than their 2010 release, Strange Weather, Isn’t It? There are more catchy, sing-along moments on this record, too, namely in the album’s opener “Even When the Water’s Cold” and on closer “Station (Meet Me At The).” Whereas with !!! albums before, it might have been more about the groove, vocalist Nic Offer really stepped up his game on this one, offering listeners vocal lines and melodies to really latch onto. The Guardian couldn’t have said it any better than they did in a recent article on the band, stating, “The thing is, Thr!!!er kind of is !!!’s Thriller, inasmuch as it’s their best album.”

When Submerge met up with Andreoni, he was only in town for a couple days, just back from gigging in the United Kingdom and on the verge of meeting up with the rest of the band on the east coast before embarking on a U.S. tour. That tour will bring them back to Sacramento on Friday, May 31, 2013, to headline Concerts in the Park, a gig the guys are looking forward to very much. “Even with playing New York, Los Angeles, all these places, this gig is one of the ones I’m most excited about,” Andreoni said, just as a homeless guy barged in on our conversation, choosing our bench to sit on even though the park had plenty of empty seats. We laughed, walked to our cars and said our goodbyes.

Read on to learn more about !!!’s best album to date, how they make the long distance thing work and why they value space in music.

You guys have made the long distance thing work for so long, is it even something that you think about anymore?
No, I haven’t felt that it’s been a problem, per se, for a good eight or nine years. I think that maybe after the guys first moved over there, we were kind of thinking this is a hassle. We had just started working on the single that sort of put us over to more of a national audience, the “Guiliani” single. We had started working on that here and then everybody left and we were kind of like, “Well, what are we going to do with this? We have to finish it.” I kind of flew out there on a lark and for some reason the momentum just seemed to carry. We played a lot of shows…some really great shows out there. We just thought we’ll see how long this works. Touring has been a big part of it, since they live there and I live here, we can rehearse on either side. Everybody always has just made an effort to do whatever we can to maintain this connection.

It seems like it keeps things fresh. As a band, you’re never really stagnant or in one place for too long, right?
When we all lived together here when we started the band and we had various bands that we were working with, there was always a tendency for practice to get cancelled because so-and-so has to do this-or-that. There’s no question the band would be different if we were rehearsing three or four times a week in the same city.

Who knows, we could have broken up a long time ago. I wouldn’t start a new band in this configuration right now, but it’s been what I’ve associated with this band forever. Once we all get together, it only takes like 10, 15 minutes. We’ve been able to keep in pretty constant contact. I really don’t go more than maybe a couple weeks without talking to anybody. We’ve been friends for a long time.

One thing I notice and appreciate about !!! is all the open space in the music. Not everyone is doing everything all the time. As a guitar player, is it ever hard to hold back from writing even more riffs to go over all that groovy stuff?
I think any effective dance music has a big sense of space. I’m always conscious of that. I’ve never really been a guitar player that’s wanted to sort of like get choppy, it’s just never really been my style. I really want to benefit the song and the groove as much as possible. I value the sense of space. Even as a guitar player, there are certain things where you can really kind of pick your spots and be heard even a little better versus people just going all out all the time. It suits my personality and this band to sort of contribute more to the overall aesthetic. Just as someone that listens to a lot of groove and dance music, having the bass and drums be the primary focus is what I love. The people that I sort of emulate were people that really knew how to sit in the background and knew how to work rhythmically with the band.

How was it working with Jim Eno on the new record?
It was really gratifying. Jim was very seasoned. He’s made tons of records. We just hit it off and he pushed us in new ways that we’ve never been pushed before and challenged things. Where we might take a groove and say we’re going to do this over the course of seven minutes, he would always be asking, “Why are we doing this?” I’m sort of paraphrasing him obviously, but he forced us to look at things differently.

Are there certain songs on the record that have more of Eno’s touch than others?
I think all the songs he did, which are the majority of the tunes on the record. The one thing we loved about Spoon was that it was a rock band that really had a sense of space, like we were talking about earlier. So we kind of trusted him with that.

I think the whole allowing and enjoying more space in music thing might come with getting older and being more mature. Younger musicians tend to want to play louder and want their parts to be heard more, you know?
Right. It’s ultimately about the song. Jim got us to focus on the song. That was something that was at the forefront every day when we were working together. Coming in with our demos and things like that, we had to really distil things down to, “What makes this the best song?”

Tell me how you guys settled on the name Thr!!!er.
Constantly we’re tossing around ideas. We do a lot of riffing. A lot of the stuff we come up with is kind of funny, or at least we think it’s funny. It was one of those things where we knew we were going to have to come up with a title, so we were always just rifling off. Nic had written it down; literally it was one of those things where writing an idea down on a napkin made me go, “Well that looks fucking cool.” The whole other part of it, the sort of folklore behind Michael Jackson’s Thriller… We’re all fanatics of music. We know the cultural significance of his record. But at the end of the day I thought it looked really fucking cool. I thought it was a good idea then and I still really love the title. Aside from it maybe seeming like we’re taking a piss, which there’s some of that to it, as a statement I do think that this is sort of our most varied record. Michael Jackson’s Thriller is a varied record. We talked a lot in the studio, like, “What’s the folk-rock Thriller? If Thriller was the pop/R&B Thriller, the actual Thriller [laughs], how can you apply that sort of significance across other genres?” It really just kind of all fit together.

As a longtime fan of the band, I’ve often found myself asking, “Why haven’t they blown up? Why don’t more people know about them?” But then I’m like, “I’m glad they aren’t huge, I can keep them to myself!” Have you encountered that a lot?
Yeah, and coming up as music fans, we’ve shared that. Discovering Sonic Youth and Nirvana when you’re a kid or whatever and thinking, “This is a cool thing,” and you want to keep it as a cool thing. How people perceive our band, whether or not they do it that way, it’s fine with me. I guess I’ll be somebody’s cool thing. I think that we’ve strived to sort of push it across to as many people as possible. While that’s not necessarily our goal, it’s certainly not lost on me that a big segment of our audience is that way. I know people that share that sentiment, like, “They should be bigger,” or this or that. Because we love doing this so much, as long as we can keep playing to more people, it’s something that we still really have a lot of fun doing. I try not to get too locked into our popularity-buzz-ratio-output thing. There are other people that can worry about that.

I think the keyword there is fun. I can tell you guys still have fun and your music is fun to listen to and to dance to. I can’t imagine, for example, that you went into this record thinking, “This is our make it or break it album,” you know what I mean?
I haven’t felt that way. As a musician, anytime you put something out you want to show it to people and say, “Hey check this out, listen to this, this is what I did, this is my band.” You’re always wrestling in a band with multiple people weighing in on things. You want to be proud of it. Every time you start a new record, you want to come away with something that you’re proud of. I feel very proud of this record and what we’ve done. The goal from the start of the band has always been to create this swirl of energy. When we’re playing there’s this very visceral thing that happens. It’s important for it not to come across as being forced. It’s not forced. In some respect we’re not careerists like that. It’s still ultimately about creating that swirl of energy. Some days it doesn’t happen, but fortunately more often than not it happens and it’s really, really gratifying.

Catch !!! live for free on May 31, 2013 at Concerts In the Park, held every Friday during the summer at Cesar Chavez Plaza. Their new album Thr!!!er is available now online and at record stores worldwide. For more information, visit Chkchkchk.net.

Foals continue their evolution with latest release Holy Fire

With the release of their third full-length album Holy Fire, Oxford, England-based rock quintet Foals have shown immense growth as a band, proving they have more diversity in their sound than most critics and reviewers thought possible. Much more ballsy and hard-edged than Foals’ 2010 sophomore album Total Life Forever and especially more mature sounding than their 2008 debut Antidotes (which has since become sort of a relic), Holy Fire is the band’s most direct and focused work to date. As their official bio puts it, “This is the sound of Foals arriving.”

With an intense couple years of touring ahead of them playing sold-out club shows and giant festivals all over the world, Philippakis took some time to chat with Submerge over the phone from Zurich, Switzerland, in anticipation of their April 20 Sacramento show at Ace of Spades, just one day after the band plays Coachella.

Leading up to the release of Holy Fire, I was shocked to hear how heavy and gritty the first single “Inhaler” was. Then when “My Number” dropped, I was equally thrown off by how polished, clean and dance-y it was. What was the thought process behind releasing those two contrasting tracks first?
Just to throw people off the scent, really. I guess to show the diversity in the record. Definitely putting out “Inhaler” was the kind of thing where we relish in surprising people and being unpredictable to some extent. I think it was the song that we felt was the furthest from what had come before. And then “My Number,” you know, it was just the second song released, there wasn’t a particular tactic. I think it’s good to show people the scope of the record.

It keeps listeners off guard and seems like it’s a fun way to make it playful.
Yeah, exactly, playfulness is the right word. It keeps things exciting. It makes it feel less like you’re putting a product out and it actually becomes more psychological I guess.

Quite a few parts on the new album have a sticky, swampy, sort of delta-vibe to them. Where did that come from?
I think it came from different vantage points. One of the formative experiences was recording in Sydney, outside. We were in a studio, and it wasn’t really gelling. It just felt unnatural to be in a dark room while it was gorgeous weather outside, so we relocated to a river house. I think being surrounded by the natural environment and by insects in particular, things just sounded different in that environment. We felt it was an inspiring way to textualize the songs. It also similarly came from an imaginary understanding of things like the Delta and the Bayou, like old Alan Lomax recordings. You can smell the sweat on a lot of old blues and gospel recordings. There is a zealous energy to it. It just seeped into our pores basically, and it started to become what subliminally we were trying to achieve on certain tracks.

How was it working with Flood and Alan Moulder, two people who produced and engineered some of your favorite albums growing up?
It was great. It definitely brought stability to the recording process. There was a trust there. We were working with these elder statesmen of the British recording business, you know? It brought a balance. It made us feel content and confident. It turned the volume down on the neurosis that sometimes plagued our experiences of making records before.

Holy Fire has been out for a while now, and the reviews are all in. You’ve had time to breathe and sort of let things settle. What is it like to look back on it now? Relieved? Anxious to write new material?
I feel good about it. I feel like I kind of want to make another record already.

After the last two records did you immediately feel that urge?
Maybe not as much, but I don’t think it has anything to do with this specific record. At the moment I’ve got kind of an impulsive urge to produce more. Maybe in some ways it’s the pressure of the time that it takes, you know? It takes two years to tour and write. I want to be able to spend more time creating and then releasing quicker—not such a retracted period. There is such a long build up before we actually get to put music out into the world. A little of it is coming from that. But in terms of how I feel, I feel good about the record. It is what it is. It is a document of where we were at the time, and I think it sounds great. I have no real urge to re-do the record, I just want to make another one. I want to write the next paragraph in the book.

I thought I read somewhere that you said you have one more album in you lyrically. Still think that holds true?
I can’t say for sure, but I definitely have one more, then we’ll have to see. I feel like musically speaking we could write music and instrumentals, like riffs and pieces of music, for a long time. I don’t think there’s any kind of cap on that. I’m just not sure lyrically if I can… Trying to write songs is a different task. I definitely feel like I’ve got enough right now to do one more, but it just depends I guess on the life experience I have in the next two years. I feel like there’s a trap in contentedness. You slow down, you start to enjoy cooking, you have a pleasantly moderate social life, everything gets comfortable. And then that booming desire to spend all of your time working on music and trying to get yourself mentally into a place where you can write songs that you feel are meaningful is something that maybe the inclinations for it lessen. What I don’t want to do is make music without…I don’t want to do it for applause, or for money, or for security. I just want to feel like I’ve got some burning desire to make something and to say something. So, it depends.

The last time you were in the States you had a weird experience in Detroit, right? What can you tell me about that day on tour?
We had been touring for a while, and we got to Detroit. It was just a special moment. I felt something in that city, and I’ve felt it every time I’ve been there. But I had a specific encounter with a street drummer named Larry. He and I hung out for a little while and he was playing these incredible drum rudiments, real precision drumming but on a couple of trashcans. We got high together, and it was just kind of a semi-spiritual moment.

That’s pretty cool. Were you just out wandering the streets?
Yeah, kind of. We had played the show and it was great, it was fun. I just crossed the road and I could hear the sound of him drumming. I followed the sound. I was kind of entranced by it. Then you know there’s like these burnt out tenements behind him and the whole thing was just very surreal. For a middle class boy from England, to be in that sort of environment, the experience is just sort of a special one for me.

You and Larry are from two totally different worlds yet music, more specifically the rhythms that drew you to him, were sort of your guys’ common ground.
Yeah, exactly. There was just a real beauty to the way that he was playing, and that was kind of all he had on him were these two trashcans and some drumsticks.

Maybe Yannis will run into a Sacramento street performer and have another semi-spiritual tour moment when his band Foals hits Ace of Spades on Saturday, April 20, 2013. Locals Cold Eskimo and Desario will open the show. Doors open at 7 p.m. and all ages are welcome. Hit up Dimple Records, The Beat or http://aceofspadessac.com/ for tickets. Foals will also be at Dimple Records on Arden at 2 p.m. on April 20 for an in-store performance and signing.

Despite his mostly rock-based background, Zac Diebels aka Z Rokk is making big moves as an electronic artist

On a quiet and cold Tuesday night, students are coming and going from their lessons at Rock Inc., a music school and recording studio with approximately 150 students in Citrus Heights founded by Zac Diebels, better known to many as Z Rokk. Submerge is sitting down with Z Rokk to talk about his new electronic-based album Th Btchrs Bll, but we quickly sidetrack and start to rap about his past. At age 15, when most of us were getting jobs at McDonald’s or the local bowling alley, Diebels took out a loan from his father and purchased DJ gear and enough music to start playing corporate parties, weddings, you name it, as long as it was a paying gig (he eventually paid his father back every cent).

By his early twenties his rock band Simon Says was signed to a major label and touring the world playing alongside groups such as Kid Rock, Deftones and Filter. He’s worked with mega-producers like Rob Cavallo (who produced all but one of Green Day’s albums along with countless other huge bands) and Mark Needham (who has mixed albums and singles for everyone from The Killers to Lindsey Buckingham). He’s had, and continues to have, his music placed on TV shows like Jersey Shore and Project Runway among many others.

He has truly lived what many of us would consider “the rockstar life,” making music his job every step of the way. These days at Rock Inc. he teaches guitar, bass, drums, vocals, even audio engineering and offers producing and mixing for artists. If you can consider it a “day gig,” that’s it, but by night you can usually find him DJing local clubs, remixing songs on-the-fly and generally rocking the party. Check out this excerpt from our interview with the talented multi-instrumentalist to learn more about his upcoming record and what makes him different from a “drag and drop DJ.”

Producing and writing for other artists seems to be something you enjoy and have been keeping busy with lately. Have you always had a knack for helping other artists hone their talents?
Yeah absolutely. What you see now, there are guys like myself that are DJs, producers, writers, they play tons of instruments. They’re not just DJs or just whatever. You’re a go-to tool. Usually a lot of these guys have studios of their own and they’re able to do a lot of things. And for a manager, label, PR firm or an artist, it’s helpful to be able to hire a guy, one person, that can do a lot of these things really well rather than hiring a full team. But you don’t want to become a jack of all trades and a master of nothing, so I think because of my experience working with big producers and big artists, I have the experience of knowing how these guys make records. Now I can transpose that experience to your record.

What sort of projects are you working on now as far as producing and engineering goes?
Working with Jonny Craig a lot. Overwatch, I helped develop them. A lot of stuff for Diamond Dez. A lot of hip-hop stuff. I just got some syncs and licenses with Fox Clothing, Quiksilver and Roxy. A lot of publishing stuff. I do a lot of music for MTV shows, I’ve had so many songs on like Jersey Shore, Keeping Up With the Kardashians, Project Runway, things like that. These days I’m concentrating more on duos or solo artists. I just like it. I feel like in a band setting I usually end up working with one or two guys anyway. I love doing remixes. I’m getting a little tired of the traditional rock band. Rock Inc. has been a godsend because I don’t have to do the studio to pay my bills. I only do records I want to do. I don’t need the money, my business is fine with that. I do records I want to do that make me happy that I enjoy. Jonny Craig makes me happy, Diamond Dez makes me happy, Overwatch makes me happy, Th Btchrs Bll record makes me happy. I’m lucky, not everyone gets to do that.

Tell me about Th Btchrs Bll. What can people expect from it?
Th Btchrs Bll is an electronic, remix, dubstep record. I like heavy music, period. I’m pretty intense and people that know me know that. I’m intense about love, happiness, whatever I do. And I love music that makes me feel emotional. I started listening to 12th Planet a lot more, the Crystal Method, Chemical Brothers, New Order, stuff like that, and I was like, “The songs I love the most are the ones that sound like they should be in a Transformers movie.” Just huge and dirty. I love MSTRKRFT and Death from Above 1979, and I was just like, “I want to make an electronic record that would be like an Automatic Static [Diebels’ solo rock project] record, just really heavy electronic music.”

Having had a mostly rock background, what do you love so much about electronic music and DJing?
My intern and I were just having a conversation about this. He was all, “It’s weird that you’re so into electronic music when you came from a rock band.” I was like, “Not really.” I’ll tell you why. Being in a band, it’s all about this group of guys being on stage performing for the people. When you’re a DJ, people don’t really care about you, they care about the vibe… They can barely see you. No one’s going, “What’s he doing? He’s playing some crazy solo!” You can’t even see what I’m doing. It looks like I’m at a table. No, what they want is, “What is he going to do to us next? What vibe or emotion is he going to send us next?” That’s what I like. It’s all about the energy that you get from people around you.

Let’s talk about your process when performing or DJing live as Z Rokk. You’re not simply queuing up songs and pressing play. You’re actually remixing songs live, right?
Yeah, I’m not a drag and drop DJ, that’s not what I do. So what I do is I’m more of a “remix DJ.” It’s not like I invented this. DJs do this. I use a program called Traktor—a lot of DJs use Serato. Serato is more traditional like playing a record, drag and drop and press play, or scratch over it type thing. Traktor is made by a company called Native Instruments and it’s really revolutionized things because it allows you to take every piece of the song apart. Kick loop, snare loop, hi-hat loop, whatever. I can turn those pieces on and off on the fly, I can put effects on them on the fly and then I can sync them to each other and play them to another track. I’m remixing live. You’re hearing a version that’s never been made that I’m making up on the spot and it’s different every time. And what’s cool is that I can broadcast it, so if you come to a gig that I’m doing as a remixer, you can dial in on your smartphone or your computer and download what I’m doing. So on Th Btchrs Bll record, what I’m doing is you will be able to download not just the stems like a normal remix record, you’ll be able to download all of the pieces so that you can take a song and remix your own live version with the pieces that I give you. It’s called remix decks. It’s becoming really popular. It’s like making music out of music. Like putting a mirror against a mirror, just endless. It’s really exciting. I love it. We live in a really great time.

What are some of the tools or technology that you use in the live setting to achieve this?
I used to have an MPC [Music Production Controller], but now I’m using Machine, also by Native Instruments. It allows it to also be a midi-keyboard so you can use it as a synth, you can sample your voice or whatever. And then it’s software-based, so it allows you to have it here [points to computer screen] and that way you can see what you’re doing. In dubstep and electronic music you’re using a lot of synths and stuff like that: wobbles, growls, LFOs [low frequency oscillators], performance oscillators. With Machine and programs like Massive and FM8, this is where it becomes literally engineering. You are engineering sound. You’re taking oscillators, frequencies and different things and then manipulating them by adding distortion, delay, reverb, modulation effects or whatever to the point where I’m making from scratch things that came from literally nothing. For me, it’s pretty much adapt or die. This is the way things are going, at least in this genre of electronic-based music. What I like to do is to make the technology an instrument.

Do you think you look at electronic music different than someone who doesn’t have a rock band background?
Probably, I think that’s a safe assumption. I look at electronic music as the future and a new frontier. But it doesn’t have to fulfill the stigma that I think it gets where it’s like, “Oh well it’s in the computer so it’s just so easy, anybody can do it.” That’s bullshit.

Now that you’re back “behind the decks” so to say, DJing and remixing whatnot, it’s sort of come full circle for you in a weird way. From the outside looking in, you’ve had a pretty crazy life. Do you ever think about that sort of stuff?
Sometimes you’re in your own bubble. I’m like any other artist, I’m really hard on myself and I get really down on myself sometimes like, “I suck, this sucks, I hate this, that sounds like shit!” Then sometimes I kind of have to shake my head and go, “Oh yeah, I’ve never had to do anything else but music, this is pretty cool.” The one thing I always try to remind myself as hard as it is, because, you know, the music business can be pretty fickle… But then I start to think that I wouldn’t have been able to do this this long if I sucked. I’m not that good of an actor. There’s no way I could have faked it this long. Or, I should just get an Oscar. I just love making music, I can’t help it.

Th Btchrs Bll by Z Rokk will be available in late March via digital label Authentik Artists. Keep an eye out at Zrokk.com or Facebook.com/zrokkmusic for more information. Catch Z Rokk DJing and remixing live on Wednesday nights at Dive Bar, Thursday nights at R15 and Saturday nights at K Bar. You can also see Z Rokk at Concerts in the Park on July 19.

Submerge chats with Jason Maggio, founder of Sacramento-based headwear brand Official Crown of Laurel

What happens when a creative and well connected thirty-something ex-magazine publisher has a little in between time after selling his company? Does he stop working and just relax, ignoring the entrepreneurial spirit that beckons from within? Sacramentan Jason Maggio sure didn’t in 2007 when he founded a premium headwear company called Official Crown of Laurel, or Official for short. Maggio saw a void in premium headwear with influences coming from skate, street and DIY fashions, and so Official was born. Fast forward a few years and his products have been seen worn by celebrities and tastemakers all over the world. Retailers both big and small proudly carry his products, and much like the shoe companies that attract sneakerheads who collect as many pairs of shoes as they can, Official provides nearly endless options of stylish headwear to an audience with an insatiable appetite for dope street fashion. According to the company’s philosophy posted on its website, “Official regards its headwear as a crown, a statement, an exclamation point and sometimes a simple complement to bigger and bolder things.”

Submerge recently sat down with Maggio inside Official’s nearly 3,000 square-foot warehouse space in downtown Sacramento, which they share with another locally based skate/streetwear brand, Lurk Hard, for the following interview. We touched upon on why he started the company, what it’s like to do business in China, how they recently signed professional skateboarder Stefan Janoski and more.

Take me back to just before Official started. What were you up to job wise?
I was doing a magazine called Vapors. We sold it to a publisher in Los Angeles, and I stayed on for another two years just working as the art director, and I’d have to go down like every other week. I just got tired of it. I have a family, and so it was stressful.

What were you going down there for? To meet deadlines and whatnot?
Yeah, everything. All kinds of stuff, editorial, marketing, events. The magazine was in a good place with the publisher, so it wasn’t like I was ditching it or anything. They were fine. It seemed to be a good time. So I was doing some freelance design, and I did some stuff for a brand that was doing a little hat stuff.

So that’s how you got into the headware game?
Yeah, and then at some point I was like, well I’m here in Sacramento, they were in L.A., so it wasn’t optimal. Basically I decided, OK, I’m going to do this on my own. I’m going to just start doing hats. We produced in California at the beginning and made a ton of mistakes. The hats cost us a fortune for each piece, and there was no profit anywhere.

But it was a learning curve, right? Nothing happens easily and without mistakes.
It was. It was totally worth it. It’s so funny, because even at that age…let’s see, how old was I? I was 35, so you’d think that at this stage in my life, I probably shouldn’t be making these rookie mistakes. But they’re going to happen, and I guess it’s just how quickly you learn from them.

You were coming from a business background that was somewhat related, in that you may have had mutual connections and whatnot, but this was a totally different thing than publishing, right?
Yeah. In a sense I was an entrepreneur with the paper, because we started as a cut and paste ‘zine, you know, and we moved it to a full-fledged magazine. That was a process. I enjoyed the process. But then you’re starting over again with a new brand. It was new territory. Building brands isn’t necessarily a new experience, but the production and distribution and all that, you do have to learn a lot. There was a learning curve there… So we had a really good first year at Official and we were on a good route, lots of good response. That was the idea, for me, I was looking at what was being offered, and just saying that we could do something that wasn’t being offered, and something we really liked. That was what was going to differentiate our product from what was already out there.

Why a headwear company? Why not footwear or eyewear or something else?
It was a little bit of just right place right time, and a little bit of looking at the market and seeing where I thought there were some holes. You see the thing is, with headwear, generally there are big brands like New Era. They are just slow to move on trendy things. So that’s really where we started, was moving on trends. So if we could be quick to market, and get something done in six weeks and get it out there, that’s way faster than the bigger brands that are planning a year ahead.

So early on you had the advantage of being on top of trends and what was hot. In the digital age, everyone wants everything yesterday, right?
Yeah, and by the time the stuff comes out, sometimes it’s too late. That was really our business model. We literally had a delivery every two weeks of two or three styles, so it was just a quick to market delivery and shops loved it. Especially with the economy then, people were buying stuff like there was no tomorrow.

So you mean sort of like sneakerheads with all their different pairs of shoes, people want multiple hats?
Yup! The cool thing is that hasn’t changed too much. It’s a cheaper price point, it’s a lot cheaper than a hundred-dollar pair of shoes.

What happened with Official when the economy started to tank back in like 2008, 2009?
So the economy fell off, and we had to just become a skeleton and weather the storm. I was working out of my house. Everything we have here was in the garage, and it fit, so it wasn’t a lot. Ran it out of my house after that for three years, no offices or anything. And eventually it just started to slowly build again. My idea was, it’s going to be bad, it’ll get better, and let’s just continue doing what we’re doing and we’ll learn a lot. So, what was happening was we were producing in California and it was costing us a lot. We looked at China as an option early on and made a couple trips.

Tell me about the first time you went out to China for manufacturing research. That must have been a mindfuck.
The first time was pretty crazy because we went to a northern city called Qingdao. It’s a northeastern province and it’s so tiny, and I didn’t know anything about Chinese business culture. There’s a whole thing, you know, if you go to China to visit a factory you have to go out to dinner with them. You drink with them, and you eat really weird stuff. And they just love doing that. Sometimes I think it’s malicious [laughs], and sometimes I think they just really want to show you their culture. So that was pretty tricky.

Was it a hard decision to move your production to China?
Moving our production to China was a tough decision, because we were actually pretty proud that [the hats] were made in California. But I think it’s a trade off. I think that moving to China, of course, we don’t get to employ manufacturing here, but I get to have a business and have other employees because I can get that product made in China more efficiently and better than we can do here. What I mean by that is, like, we’re just not a manufacturing country anymore. Back then when I was getting a hat made here, I would have to get the silkscreen done at one place, then the lid was made at another place, so it’d take six weeks to get it shipped back over here. Then have all that applied and sewn here in a hat factory, and still the quality was not up to what we could get in China, and it was costing $11 per piece here, whereas a hat now is costing us way less. I don’t want to necessarily say the price, but it’s way less. And it’s better quality, and we can get everything done in one stop.

You’re going out to China again before this interview will even be out to source for fabrics for your Spring 2014 line. You guys are now designing for lines a year ahead of time?
Yeah, a year out. See, what we were talking about earlier, we’ve become that beast that we were able to capitalize on and take advantage of before when we could be quicker to market. Now we’re designing stuff a year out, and it’s kind of scarier…this is the first time we’ve been that far out. We’ve always aspired to be that far out but like sampling always takes a long time and you run into hiccups. Plus, when we can plan that far out, we can ship more stuff by sea and that really reduces our costs a lot.

Trends can change quickly, does that worry you?
Yeah, and there are smaller companies that can be faster to market with the trends. What we’ve learned is we’ll still have that stuff even a year out. Our bigger retailers will say, “I’m buying for fall right now,” so we have to have fall done! But, we still will get some things quicker to market.

So you’ve found middle ground, it seems, between being too big to move on trends and being too small. Agree?
Yeah, I agree. And then on top of all that, you have to have confidence that what you’re doing is dope and it will stand on its own. You don’t have to worry about the trends. We just have to be that solid headwear brand, not somebody chasing trends. You just have to have that foundation so people can rely on us for headwear every single season and they know they’re going to get good stuff.

The 2012 winter line was released Nov. 1. What were the inspirations behind this season’s designs?
For winter, I don’t know if I want to expose this, but we go pretty safe, because it’s the holidays. A lot of brushed wools, and then some trending things like a lot of camo and sports colorways together. So, like, the 49ers colorway but with camo–that kind of stuff. In the campers we did some metal label stuff, which is kind of cool.

Do you have an Official skate team?
We’ve developed a program that is still in the works, but we have hired Jeff Landi as our team manager. He’s a local guy that’s a staff photographer at The Skateboard Mag. He’s amazing. He’s a good friend. I’ve known him for a long time, so it seemed pretty natural. He has good rapport with so many pros, so he’s building a team. We have a really good list of [amateurs], but right now the pro that I would like to mention that we’re launching with is Stefan Janoski. He’s so hyped and energetic about it. All the stuff is from him, all the designs we’re doing for his line are from him.

That’s cool! To wrap things up, tell me about Official’s relationship with local hip-hop artist C-Plus, because I know you guys are pretty tight, yeah?
It’s really natural. We owe him a lot for the input he gives us. He has a really good sense of style that’s both Sacramento-centric but also a broader perspective, and that’s important. I think that our stuff has a Sacramento and Northern California aesthetic to it, but also can obviously go beyond those boundaries.

Learn more about Sacramento-based headwear company Official Crown of Laurel and shop for their latest gear at http://theofficialbrand.com/. Look for their collaboration with pro skater Stefan Janoski to drop in their Spring 2013 line.

As a professional rider for Lib Tech Snowboards, creative genius at snowboard film production company Think Thank, and team manager for all Mervin Manufacturing brands, which includes Lib Tech, Gnu, Roxy Snowboards, Bent Metal Bindings and others, Jesse Burtner has managed to make a career out of his passion. At 34 years old, Burtner has dedicated his life to snowboarding ever since the moment he slid sideways down a snowy hill in 1989.

“I’ve been living and breathing snowboarding since I started,” Burtner recently told Submerge. “It’s just kind of developed into work, but it hardly ever feels like work. Basically I just keep getting opportunities to communicate the joy of snowboarding whether it be through a video part, or presenting an entire movie, or an article in a magazine, or helping steer the future of an amazing company like Mervin, it’s all just talking about what I already love and want to spend my time doing, snowboarding. Compared to sitting on the couch watching TV, it is hard work, but in the grand scheme of things it’s not work, it’s a gift.”

Speaking of gifts, Burtner’s film production company Think Thank has yet another one for shredders around the world. Their ninth film, Mind the Video Man, has been freshly released this summer (what a tease!) and is receiving rave reviews from those lucky enough to have seen it. A quick peek at the trailer on YouTube proves we’re in for a wild ride with powder slashes in the backcountry, insane urban rail spots, kickflips (yeah, on a snowboard), one-footers, a super rad back flip-to-5050-to-180 out, all sorts of crazy stuff. Think Thank is definitely pushing the envelope with this film, but not in an “Art of Flight, we had a million dollars to make a snowboard super movie,” sort of way. It’s more of a “my friends and I like to snowboard, party, have fun and film crazy shit and we’re really good at it,” kind of thing.

In celebration of Ground Zero Boardshop’s annual snowboard movie premiere party on Friday, Oct. 19, 2012 at Ace of Spades, where Mind the Video Man will air, Submerge caught up with Burtner to chat about the film, how his process changes from year to year and what it feels like to be inspiring snowboarders around the globe.

Jesse Burtner (L) and Ted Borland (R)

Congrats on the release of Think Thank’s ninth film! How does it feel to be unleashing it into the world?
Thanks! It’s been really good. You never know how it’s all going to go down, but this year has been exciting, a lot of good things happening with the movie and the riders in it. It’s really fun showcasing all these new guys shoulder to shoulder with some Think Thank veterans like Scott Stevens and Chris Beresford.

You’ve been riding in and making shred videos for many years now. How does your process and your mindset change from year to year and from film to film?
The way we keep it fresh is by giving each movie its own mission statement, with a sort of overarching philosophical theme. It means we get to use our best snowboarding of the season to tell a little deeper of a story or message and that makes it interesting year to year. Sometimes they are sort of abstract themes and sometimes they are more self-inspection. [Mind the Video Man] is looking at the state of the snowboard video in general, kind of celebrating the institution of the snowboard video and how important it is to snowboard culture and all of our lives as snowboarders.

What were some standout moments for you when filming for this video?
Both trips to Japan were amazing. Especially Holy Bowly–it was so much fun riding that snow bowl with some of the most epic people in snowboarding. Also our second trip to Alaska in the spring, Stevens, Beresford, Pika [Christina Burtner], [Mike] Yoshida and myself. Just such a good crew, great snow, it was like a vacation, but we were getting stuff done too.

It’s been a couple months since the movie’s world premiere at High Cascade Snowboard Camp. What has the feedback been like from those that have seen it?
It’s been super good! It’s been really fun showing video parts from all the new guys like Jaeger Bailey, Brandon Hammid, Brandon Reis, Nial Romanek and Curtis Woodman. A whole new batch of riders shown in our distinct Think Thank style.

It seems like there are more snowboard films and more companies making them every year, and budgets are getting bigger and bigger for some of those films. Does all of this weigh on you and your crew when filming year in and year out? How do you try and make your movies stand out in all of the noise?
There is for sure a lot of noise. So much stuff on the Internet, everyone has a Web series. That’s cool, they get their day in the sun. And I do mean their “day,” because that’s about all the hype something can generate when it lives for free on the Internet. We try and stand out by staying insulated in our own group working on our project, trying to obtain our objectives and not constantly reference what we do back to what others are doing. It’s a combination of staying in our little Think Thank bubble unaffected by snowboarding’s trends or industry pressure while still knowing what’s going on on a grass roots level, what’s exciting, what’s next, what’s new, that’s where we want to live.

Does it trip you out to think that countless snowboarders out there turn to your videos to get hyped before they go ride? Or that these films could be inspiring the next generation of rippers?
It’s the best thing about what we do, is when you realize some people are paying attention and getting into snowboarding or staying into it and learning new tricks partially because they watched a Think Thank movie, that’s amazing.

What’s your favorite environment to film and/or ride in? Urban stuff or backcountry stuff?
My favorite is to unlock a hidden opportunity in the terrain, whether it be a street spot or backcountry or somewhere in between. Just seeing an opportunity, some new rad way to do a trick, that moment that your brain figures it out and you know it’s on. And then being able to do that just about anywhere you go, that’s what I’m all about, if you can do that at every spot then it’s nothing but possibilities.

What’s next for Think Thank? I assume you’ll drop another mindblowing shred flick about this time next year? Any other cool projects you are working on that you can talk about?
We have plans for sure. Christina “Pika” Burtner, my wife, is full-time working on Think Thank now so she’s been doing a lot to get us caught up and in the position to make our best effort yet this coming season. I love our crew, Ross Phillips, Sean Lucey and of course Sean Genovese. We all work great together and there is quite a bit of passion to keep pushing in to the next level of what we do for Think Thank and snowboard videos in general.

Any last words?
Thanks to all the riders for putting your trust in Think Thank and me and risking it all out there for Mind the Video Man, I think you guys should be really proud of what you’ve accomplished! And thanks to you guys, Submerge Magazine, see you at the show!

Think Thank’s new film Mind the Video Man will air at Ground Zero Boardshop’s annual snowboard movie premiere party on Friday, Oct. 19, 2012 at Ace of Spades. $14 in advance with tickets at all GZ locations, $16 at the door. Free lift ticket to Sierra-at-Tahoe with paid entry. All ages are welcome and there will be $10,000 worth of gear given out to the crowd. Doors open at 6 p.m. For more info or to order a copy of the film, go to http://thinkthank.com/