94.7’s Electric Christmas (feat. Bush, Young the Giant and others)
Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2014

Wednesday, Dec. 10: The night sky overhead is becoming pea soup as I pull into the parking lot of the Sleep Train Arena (formerly PowerBalance, forever ARCO to locals). Everyone expects an apocalyptic typhoon to hit town sometime toward the end of tonight’s show, and a streak of giddiness runs through the concertgoers as they straggle toward the entrance; there are worse fates than being stranded in a storm with a collection of their favorite performers.

Once inside the arena, I take a few moments to mill through the crowd and assess the demographic that Sacramento’s favorite alt-rock station, 94.7, has brought forth. The population here skews rather young, from college-age couples to ‘tween wolf packs far too young to enjoy the fruits of the event sponsors, Bud Light. Scattered here and there among the budding hip crowd and a handful of parents are slightly older holdouts from the KWOD era that can only have come to rock out to Bush (a prediction that reveals itself to be correct at the end of the night).

I move down into my arena seat and prepare to take in Sactown’s largest holiday rock party; the bar has been set high for this event, riding off last year’s performances by Cage the Elephant, Joan Jett and Grouplove. The second annual Electric Christmas has arguably improved the diversity of their lineup, showcasing the acoustic pop of Vance Joy and the more frenetic, multi-instrument styling of Fitz and the Tantrums.

Here we break down EC 2014 set by set, to see if 94.7 was once again able to deliver the goods.

Joywave

Upstate New York up-and-comers Joywave have made a splash of late with unconventional music videos and a spot on the Earth to Echo soundtrack (a collaboration with Big Data, also sharing the stage). Tonight they hit all the right hooks, showing a natural gift for pop song craft embellished with retro-leaning electronic production. Something about them suggested a younger, mass-appeal Hot Chip. It might have been the insane catchiness of their tracks, or the oddball appeal of frontman Daniel Armbruster (whose narrow mustache became a compulsive focal point when blown up on the Jumbotron).

Vance Joy

The proceedings quickly took a turn for the intimate with the night’s second performance. Melbourne, Australia,-native Joy repped the folk flag, particularly the brand of bouncy, coming-of-age folk-pop that has become the pre-eminent flavor in millennial music tastes. His set was marked by sincerity and professionalism, briefly turning the spacious arena into a personal venue for the singer-songwriter’s acoustic musings. Despite one small power glitch involving a ukulele during his signature hit, “Riptide,” Joy breezed through his set with grace and left his audience feeling refreshed and relaxed (perhaps too relaxed).

Big Data

The character of this group asserted itself in charismatic frontman Alan Wilkis (the only permanent member), a high concept (the creeping surveillance of the Internet age) and a talented revolving cast of musicians that managed to complete Wilkis’ vision with their ominous yet party-friendly grooves. Two highlights of the night went to Big Data for the crowd-pleasing single “Dangerous” (featuring Joywave’s Daniel Armbruster) and a high quality cover version of Hall and Oates’ classic “Private Eyes,” its paranoid themes played up for theatrical effect.

Fitz and the Tantrums

Energy levels spiked somewhere in the middle of Tantrums’ set, their eclectic vibe meshing with every key demographic in the audience. As far as pop acts go, this one had it all, from new wave covers (Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams”), baritone sax solos and dirty dancing from front-people Noelle Scaggs and Michael Fitzpatrick. The showmanship on stage primed the audience for a mid-set command for everyone to “get low.” It wasn’t too difficult to get people to comply.

Young the Giant

Judging from the intermittent displays of crowd tweets on the Jumbotron, the majority of concertgoers were amped for the penultimate group, whose plaintive, anthemic brand of indie rock had one super-fan behind me belting every lyric. Although the choruses of “My Body” and “Cough Syrup” were undeniably infectious, this set found itself in uncomfortable territory between the comedown from Fitz and the Tantrums’ show-stopping performance and the gradual buildup to the night’s finale.

Bush

There was an unmistakable changing of the guard at the end of 2014’s Electric Christmas, the crowd in front of the stage becoming densely concentrated while the outer limits of the stands emptied out. Much of this shifting seemed fabricated along generational lines and two distinct interpretations of “alternative.” As the younger, pop-crazed fans appeared to make their way toward the exits, a large minority remained, one who attested to a more abrasive, riff-heavy time for alternative airwaves. In this respect, Bush did not disappoint, introducing old fans to material from their new album Man on the Run while rewarding the grunge-specific pleasure-centers of the brain with buzz anthems “Glycerine” and “Machinehead.” It was the alt way to end the night.

One of Sacramento’s most beloved radio shows is returning to the airwaves. Local Licks, a weekly show that features local and regional music, will begin airing again on 98 Rock on Sunday, Sept. 9 at 10 p.m. with host Andy Hawk. Local Licks started in the early ‘90s and has seen many hosts, most recently Mark Gilmore, who was laid off by Entercom last year when his department was eliminated. That effectively killed the show, until now that is.

“Everybody seems as excited as I am,” Hawk told Submerge of the shows return. “Even just five years ago there were three radio stations with very different all encompassing local music shows. Long story short, the rating system dramatically changed, for the better and for worse in a lot of ways. One thing it really hit was these kind of shows.”

These “specialty radio” shows, which Hawk has plenty of experiencing hosting (remember Punk Rock Academy and Sounds of Sac on KWOD?), started disappearing left and right. But Hawk says that with time the station has evolved and figured some things out about how to make a show like this work no matter what the ratings are. “We’re committed to doing it for the community and doing it for Sacramento, no matter what the ratings might be,” he said.

This is great news for the greater Sacramento area’s music community. Getting airplay on a specialty show like Local Licks might not make you a famous rock star overnight, but it sure helped boost the careers of local rock duo MC Rut, Hawk pointed out. “We played it and everyone heard it and went ‘that’s awesome’ and all of a sudden it was in regular rotation!”

So if you are in a band or know someone who is, have them submit their best professionally recorded songs to Andy Hawk via email (locallicks@krxq.net) or via snail mail (Entercom Sacramento, Attn: Local Licks, 5345 Madison Avenue, Sacramento, CA 95841). “This isn’t going to be just the best of Sacramento hard rock, which might be the misconception,” Hawk said. “Even before, Mark played Autumn Sky! There was always stuff like that on there. I want it to be reflective of what’s going on in Sacramento, not what’s just reflective in hard rock.”

Relentless About the Music

Forget about your one-hit wonders and starry-eyed kids just breaking into the music scene. Despite a lack of local publicity, Another Damn Disappointment has been a staple of the Sacramento music scene for a good 10 years and has a lot to show for it.

“We’ve done rad shit,” says singer and songwriter Josh Thompson. “Our shit was on MTV’s The Real World, in the background. I’ve been driving through other states and heard our stuff on the radio. But in Sacramento, we’ve had zero recognition.”

This lack of love from their hometown is partially responsible for their name, Another Damn Disappointment, a name which was chosen midway through the band’s career. In the early years, the band was known simply as ADD, an apt name considering two of the members of the band actually had Attention Deficit Disorder, and that their musical style was “punk-rock fast,” as bass player Casey Marsullo says.

The name Another Damn Disappointment was added later, when a record label prodded them for a more distinctive name. Considering the band’s dissatisfaction with the Sacramento music scene, this name is equally appropriate. “We have a great fan base here and a big following, but no one really sticks [up] for us. We’re on the radio all the time and KWOD has always been really nice to us, but as far as anything else goes, this city I don’t think supports its bands,” Thompson explains.

But ADD didn’t let this get them down. They started playing in Los Angeles, and found the crowd to be much more receptive to punk rock music. They’ve played all across the United States and Canada, including two summers of playing on Vans Warped Tour, a CD release show with Pennywise on Catalina Island and a show at House of Blues, Anaheim. “We’ve toured our asses off: Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, New York, Kansas, Florida, pretty much every major city you can think of,” says Marsullo.

In Sacramento, their hearts still go out to The Boardwalk, which is where they played their first show. “The first year we played there almost once a month and just packed it in,” Marsullo says. “That’s how we built up a reputation with promoters. [They were] like, God, ADD packs it in there! Where did this band come from?”

In the beginning, ADD was just a bunch of punk kids who wanted to be part of the music scene. “After years of going to punk rock shows and getting beat up in the mosh pit, one day I was thinking that it would be kind of cool to be the guy onstage looking down on that instead of the guy in it,” Marsullo remembers. They got together with some buddies at Folsom High, including current guitarist Ross Standley, and started playing, and it was crap. Thompson says, “We were so into punk and living that lifestyle for so long that it didn’t even matter that we sucked. We had the desire to play punk music so much that it was overwhelming everything else.”

Marsullo adds, “We just kept rocking.”

Luckily, the talent came with time. And just as the music grew and changed, so did the band members. In 2007, they added a second guitarist, Aaron Welch, who had been a fan of the band for quite a while. Thompson remembers that when Welch came to try out for the part of rhythm guitarist, he blew them away with his talent, he knew all of the songs, even the solos. It turned out that Welch had a degree in music, knew how to record and even listened to all of the same music. “It was a perfect fit,” Thomspon says.

ADD has been through their share of drummers before current drummer Carl Chang joined a couple of months ago, and every drummer has been better than the last. “It’s like the missing piece that needed to be there,” Thompson says about Chang. “[He is] the epitome of a bad-ass drummer.”

Thompson writes all the lyrics, usually while drinking a lot of coffee and taking some Adderall, he says. “Usually I will try to do a couple about society or politics, whatever bullshit is going on,” says Thompson. “And then there’s always the woman in my life that’s fucking me up. I’ll probably write a few about that. Standard punk rock.” And of course, a few songs are dedicated to going out and getting drunk.

Their first album, Quarter Life Crisis, was self-produced and came out in 2000. They describe this album as being “pop-y punk.” Next, they released Hooligan through Volcom Entertainment, which was a little more aggressive and dark than their first. Their new album will be released through Felony Records, and they describe it as being more “metal-punk.” It is called Relentless, which pretty much describes the attitude of the band. Thompson says, “Through all the trials and tribulations, whatever bullshit that has gone down, [we are] relentlessly playing.” The cover art illustrates this idea. Thompson describes it as, “an old fifties style bomber plane being shot and going down in smoke but still firing its guns, not stopping until it’s dead.”

Their sound has changed a lot since the band’s formation, continuing to move away from traditional punk music into a darker and more mature sound. Thompson explains, “The band’s talent level kept on getting better, so the music is just adapting. We can do so many more things now, especially with Aaron being on board with the second guitar.”

Although Relentless hasn’t even been officially released, they are already hard at work on their next album, and have four songs written. Thompson and Marsullo agree that this next album will be, overall, just the next step in their musical talents, heavier and more intricate. “[There are] more interesting things going on rather than your standard four-chord punk rock song,” Thompson says.

Goals for the near future? “I’d like to see this record really take off,” Thompson says. “It’s the first CD that we’ve done that I’m actually really proud of and I’m fully backing.”