Tag Archives: music in Sacramento

Sea of Bees

Julie Ann Baenziger’s creativity comes full circle on Sea of Bees’ latest, Build a Boat to the Sun

There and Back Again

In the new video for the song “Test Yourself” off Sea of Bees’ latest musical effort, Build a Boat to the Sun—a 10-song voyage through the band’s singer-songwriter Julie Ann Baenziger reconnection with music after a brief hiatus—Baenziger and her musical cohort Amber Padgett channel their inner Girl Scouts and commune with nature in a playful romp with the snails and butterflies that inhabit a wooded glen nestled against the craggy cliffs lining a frothy, churning sea.

The video, shot by Padgett and fellow local creative Jyoti Alexander along the breezy trails and parks in Stinson Beach, channels that feeling of wide-eyed innocence that permeates much of the Bees’ musical catalogue and marks Baenziger’s return—not only to the 916 but to creating new music.

Coming off the heels of a successful musical residency at the Ace Hotel in New York, Baenziger is diving back into her Sacramento roots, heralded by a return to the stage in a homecoming of sorts with shows lined up this month at the Warehouse Artist Lofts and Sophia’s Thai Kitchen in the continuation of the musical journey that began as a teenager.

“When I was younger, about 15 or 16, that’s when I realized I could create things,” she explains. “I was existing to create things, I liked to draw a lot, but I was really introverted.”

It wasn’t until she stumbled across a musical duo at church and became transfixed by the lure of music that she began to emerge from her shell. It was then that her creative yearnings metamorphosed from pictures into harmonies.

“There was a boy and a girl; a sister and a brother, and they were playing guitar and singing,” she explains. “And I was just taken away by them [and thought] I could maybe do something like that. So that was kind of like an invitation. Also I was crushing on the gal a bunch.”

Following that transformative moment, Baenziger spent the remainder of her teenage years secreted away at home, teaching herself how to sing and play the one-stringed bass guitar that one of her brothers had cast away into the dark recesses of the family’s shed. Certainly, the road to tours along the West Coast, shows in the United Kingdom and residencies in some of New York’s top venues—she also played a stint at the Living Room in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn—didn’t come without its frustrations and long, grueling hours of learning how to master the intricacies of the bass.

“I’d pick [it] up in the mornings before I’d go to school and try to tune it. I didn’t know how to tune it so I’d just turn on some music and try I’d to emulate that and try to make the same sound,” she says. “So I was really trying, it took five years of misery—my fingers were callused, I didn’t know how to tune, but then it became just my life.”

If turning heartbreak and adversity into musical gold was a commodity, then Baenziger has cornered the market on making melodious magic from the treasure trove of instruments she continues to master as a self-taught musician. Now in her sixth year of fronting the Bees—a sometimes one-woman act that moonlights as a duo or full-fledged band—the songstress says that her music’s evolution isn’t an act of premeditation, but is rather a reflection of her experiences.

Sea of Bees’ first album, Songs for the Ravens, what Baenziger calls an explosion of delving into the pent-up emotions of feeling limited and restrained, was a way for the artist to discover the joys of the self. The second album, Orangefarben, was a much more personal piece of work and a catharsis of sorts. The album follows a time of turmoil, during which Baenziger came out, went on her first tour to promote her debut offering and ended a relationship with her first girlfriend.

“The second record was more of the experience of a break up. It was just very direct and in the place where I was at I was limited—I couldn’t explore, my feelings were walled up,” she admits.

With the release of Build a Boat to the Sun, which she recorded under the guidance of her longtime manager John Baccigaluppi at his new recording studio, General Produce in Sacramento and Panoramic Studios in Stinson Beach, she says she’s learning how to explore again, where there are no restraints—both in her life and in the way she approaches her music.

“It’s crazy, now I feel like I’m back. Not back to the beginning, but back to this place of like no limits, which is nice,” she says. “There’s no emotional limits, there’s nothing that can stop what I want to try, whether it be some Afro beat, or just anything, I can do Indian chants, it’s limitless, so it’s very refreshing to see what happens.”

As the songbird prepares to bring Sea of Bee’s back to the home stage, it’s clear that the “Test Yourself” video is truly a reflection of her eagerness to delve back into the waters of creating harmonies that convey her desire to wash away the limitations of her former selves. With every “la la la,” her voice soars with the confidence of her enthusiasm to create. But, for now, she’s looking forward to reconnecting with old friends and revisiting older tunes that she is ready to tap into again—and don’t be surprised if she throws in a few surprises too. She isn’t ashamed to admit an affinity for the musical stylings of pop royalty Katy Perry.

“Amber and I were talking about the upcoming shows. We’re going to keep it really lo-fi for the Sacto show, that’s going to be a super fun show, though,” Baenziger explains. “I think we want to do more of the older songs because I’ve strayed away from them for so long. I have to get to that place where I just enjoy playing them. Sometimes you’ve got to go back and revisit them and just kind of connect again and enjoy the process.”

As for the Davis show, Baenziger says that’s when she’ll pull the big guns out and employ the talents of a full band. Her excitement resonates throughout the coffeehouse where she reflectively sips on her caffeinated beverage of choice—a steaming cup of coffee.

“We’re going to have some good friends play with us,” she says. “Be expecting a big fat hug of music. Be prepared to be embraced by the sound.”

With just a few shows planned, Baenziger says that with the fall equinox she too is looking forward to a fresh start musically and personally. She calls it a rebirth of sorts and reconnecting with old friends has been a large part of her inspiration as she embarks on new musical exploits.

She is currently working on her fourth album, which she hopes to wrap up in December and release in the spring of 2016 and is embracing the feeling of her current mantra of casting away any limitations, of being limitless and finding happiness back among her friends and fellow musicians.

“You’ve got to feel good. I don’t want to feel shitty anymore, I’m so tired of it,” she says. “Everybody deserves to feel good and I’m excited for the future of things. I have been actually excited about making music. No limits that’s my thing.”

Give Julie Ann a warm welcome home at two upcoming shows: The first at Sophia’s Thai Kitchen in Davis on Oct. 22 (tickets are $8 in advance and the show starts at 9:30 p.m.), and the second is a special rooftop show at the WAL (1108 R Street in Sacramento) on Oct. 23 at 7 p.m. with Sunmonks and Jacob Golden.

Flipside of Fame

Gym Class Heroes’ Disashi Lumumba-Kasongo on His Quiet Life in the Spotlight

Often the inception story of Gym Class Heroes revolves around its founding members, drummer Matt McGinley and frontman Travis McCoy. It’s the fabled story of high school friends who met in gym class, started a band and kept at it despite rotating members, until they received the Pete Wentz seal of approval. They started the band, so they get the fame, right? Read the biography on the Gym Class Heroes Web site and it’s McCoy and McGinley who won the MTV Best New Artist award.

Before their breakthrough record Cupid’s Chokehold had teenyboppers singing a Supertramp melody while their parents suffered acid flashbacks, Gym Class Heroes was down a guitarist. The band was in upstate New York, Ithaca to be exact, recording with Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy. The missing piece was in town as well, attending Cornell University, but fussy with the academia status quo.

Disashi Lumumba-Kasongo has a name that challenges promoters, reporters, industry execs and fans alike, to a point that he tries to make them more comfortable by shortening it to “Sashi.” His name derives from the African Congo. “I’ve heard so many variations of my name,” he said. “Luckily I had plenty of practice with explaining my name growing up that when I joined a band I was used to it. Lately though, I’ve overheard people using my name in conversations and it always surprises me when they pronounce it or spell it correctly.” But, do not call him “D.” “That’s the only thing that irks me,” he said. “There was this one lady who couldn’t get my name and said, ‘I’m going to call you D.’ I feel like that’s disrespectful because she decided to just not put the effort in.”

Two years prior to joining GCH, guitarist Disashi’s pop-punk band played a show with his future band mates, unaware that the impression he made that day would lead to a life-changing phone call. “I was no longer playing regular shows with that band when [Gym Class Heroes] called,” Disashi said. On the same day he joined the band in the studio, groundwork for Cupid’s Chokehold was laid down. GCH previously spent several stints on Warped Tours and built a respectable fan base in upstate New York, but the inclusion of Disashi on guitar seems tantamount to the pop success it would achieve with one song.

With McCoy rapping and singing lead vocals, GCH was already pushing rap/rock boundaries, causing headaches for record store clerks trying to categorize their albums. The band’s aversion to narrowing its scope or ruling out genre influences forced Disashi to jog his memory for inspiration. “Learning how to use the different styles I had learned over the years was the biggest challenge,” he said. His previous band played with a heavier edge. Disashi said he had to learn how to play “clean guitar.”

Life speeds up when you have a hit single. Disashi admits it’s a welcome change, one of those good problems, to be constantly touring in front of hundreds to thousands of fans. But with the release of GCH’s fourth studio album, The Quilt, attention toward the band was less about the music, more about McCoy’s affairs.

With the spotlight fixed on McCoy and his breakup with pop star Katy Perry, the rest of the band was free to create without distractions. “Whether it’s people I’m meeting for the first time or people I haven’t seen in a while, they’ll be like, ‘Oh, I’m surprised you’re down to earth,’ or say things like that,” he said. “They do expect you to act a certain way, but that’s the overall perspective of how this industry works.”

Outside of GCH, Disashi quietly works on his solo project Soul. Soul is still in the bedroom stages, with Disashi acting as a one-man band. But Soul is not a backup plan should GCH dissolve; instead, his solo work suffers from a commitment to his band mates. Two of The Quilt‘s most critically acclaimed songs were originally meant for his Soul project, but once McCoy heard “Live a Little” and “No Place to Run” Disashi was coaxed into giving up two of his coveted babies. “At the time that I wrote those songs, they were my songs,” he said. “It was tough to give them up once Travis heard them, but it’s a cool thing that I was able to share these special songs with my band and play them every night in front of our fans.”

In reviews, The Quilt is often negatively critiqued for a lack of cohesive flow as purely hip-hop tracks featuring Busta Rhymes and The Dream, drenched in bravado and deviancy, are followed by power pop songs of urgency. “One thing that is challenging in working with other producers is we have our own thing going,” he said. “But I do think when we focus as a core group, it’s when we’re at our best.” While the singles that broke GCH into the mainstream were not fully appreciated until a year and an album late, the marginal success of the The Quilt and its singles, coupled with Disashi expressing no plans to push another single, suggests a band ready to move on.

My talk with Disashi interrupted a pre-show nap in Connecticut, but after some light conversation he snapped out of his groggy state to discuss the group’s plans after its college tour. “For the next record we’ve already started writing together,” Disashi said. “It was cool to have some other producers on the last record and have songs I had written myself. It was cool to go all different types of places, but with this next one the best way to start is writing songs together, as a band.”

Between tours, GCH retreats to where it all started, upstate New York, living together, demoing and writing new material in an old church basement. Disashi described the output thus far as “organic.” He said they hope to have next record out by mid-2010, but Disashi is not making a concrete quote on that due date. Along with rejuvenating his hit-making band, he’s pushing his Soul project out of the bedroom and onto the stage. Disashi said he has a drummer ready to go, but is still filling out the other members.

Returning to his almost-alma mater, Disashi often crosses paths with former Cornell classmates, most of whom are now alumni. Four years into Cornell, he left to be a full-time musician. When he runs into old college friends, Disashi notices the hesitancy of approval in his aberrant rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle over graduating from a prestigious Ivy League university, but it doesn’t faze him. He has an MTV Best New Artist trophy to acquit him of regret. “When we won the VMAs it was like the whole world was watching us gain acknowledgement,” he said. “Now, everyone can see I’m not just goofing off. Well, I have been, but now I’ve been rewarded for the band.”

Recently, Gym Class Heroes played as backing band for Onyx and DMX for the VH1 Hip Hop Honors ceremony. “DMX introduced me to hip-hop when I was younger, so it was a trip to meet him,” he said. Most would not think DMX, who barks when he raps, could be described as polite, but Disashi said it with earnest that each time they practiced with DMX, he made a point to greet each band member. “The most striking thing was rehearsing for the show,” he said. “There were only eight or so people there, but his energy level, you would have thought he was playing for thousands at Madison Square Garden.”

During the rehearsals, Disashi realized he needed batteries from the Target across the street. He strolled into the store conscious of his incognito, comforted by it. Minutes prior to his errand, he was playing alongside with living legends of hip-hop, but in Target he’s still another casual shopper in need of batteries. “It was funny because I was thinking about how much I value the freedom to be out and not get bombarded,” he said. “But as I was leaving the store, a guy came up to me and said, ‘Hey, I know who you are.'”

Gym Class Heroes