Two of Sacramento’s most prolific live music venues dropped off the scene in the span of just a couple of days last month, fanning the flames on the unending conversation surrounding the health of the city’s live music scene.
This time it was the Lounges: Naked Lounge announced that they would no longer feature live music and Starlite Lounge announced that they would shut down entirely. A similar blow hit Sacramento about three years ago, when Luigi’s Fun Garden, Assembly Music Hall, Marilyn’s on K and Witch Room all shut down within a year of each other. Predictably, a wave of concern, tempered by a healthy dose of optimism, rippled across the various scenes, just as it did after the latest venue closures.
“It pains us to close the doors on what we all feel is such an important aspect of the community and the local scene, but when push comes to shove, we are out of options,” said Starlite Lounge via Facebook on the evening of June 20. “Sacramento is a tough market, and it’s a constant uphill battle to run a venue of our size that focuses almost exclusively on live music and touring bands. We truly appreciate your loyalty throughout these years as patrons, music fans, friends and family.”
In the years after The Townhouse changed ownership and became Starlite Lounge, the space became a haven for Sacramento’s heaviest music, largely on the back of Chris Lemos, who booked shows and ran sound in addition to playing in local doom/psych rock band, CHRCH. His name can be found littered across the Facebook eulogies for Starlite after the closure was announced.
But as much as Starlite became a hub for the metal scene, their offerings wandered far beyond the subgenres of that niche. While their closing night appropriately featured a metal show, the two events prior to that featured a band who performed at Woodstock and the Second Annual Booty Worship, which hosted burlesque and pole performances as well as spoken word and live music.
Naked Lounge offered something different, but equally important to a city’s live-music DNA: you could book a show there with unparalleled ease. The venue featured all-ages live music four nights a week in perpetuity. Musicians had to bring their own crowd (even more so than other local venues), but it didn’t take many people to make that room come alive.
As social feeds lit up with responses to the venue closures, we reached out to some local musicians for their take on the situation. Sprinkled between those responses are excerpts from other locals on social media.
April Walker (SpaceWalker): “I was honored to have been on [one of the last shows] at Starlite and the last show at Naked Lounge on June 30. This is a wakeup call for all components of our scene and a call to action for the venues, promoters and artists to find other ways to get people in the building besides relying solely on the performers, who already have a responsibility to keep people in the building with their art. An easy way to kill the scene is to take it for granted. Ever since I’ve moved here from a small town, I’ve been excited about all of the art and music that surrounds us, but for the same amount of time have heard Sac natives complain there’s ‘nothing to do.’ If we don’t seek it out and support the events going on, that will eventually be true.”
Danny Secretion (The Moans): “I don’t feel it says something about our local music community as much as is it does the changing economic landscape of Downtown and Midtown Sacramento. The music scene will continue to thrive, whether it’s in Downtown and Midtown or in Oak Park, West Sac or the suburbs. The musicians and music fans in this city are much too resilient to pack it up. Both [venues] served very important facets of our local music scene. Starlite was a home to many of the heavier acts in town. Naked Lounge was a home to many of the singer-songwriter types. As much as it hurt those facets with the closing of these venues, it points to how vital it is that the harder acts continue to support places like On the Y and the singer-songwriters continue to support places like Luna’s.”
Autumn Sky Hall (Write or Die): “We have emotional bonds to these places, like old friends. Naked Lounge was an amazing platform for musicians just beginning to play in the area. Venues have been coming and going since people began to play music in Sacramento and they certainly won’t fizzle out just because something dear to them was lost. We’re all far too stubborn. Every few years or so it feels like the scene has to more or less reinvent their wheel, but I think that’s good. It forces us to think of the future from fresh perspectives. I’m eager to see what the next chapter will be, and ready to work alongside the community to get there.”
Chris Lemos [via Facebook]: “I’m not going anywhere but GOD DAMMIT Starlite was home. Literally. I spent more time there than I did actually at home most of the time. There are wheels in motion and I can only hope that what the future holds feels as good and does as much as that room did for me and the staff, and so many others. Together we mourn, but together we can also make it out of the wreckage. RIP Starlite.”
Vinnie Guidera [via Facebook]: “I’ve played at Naked Lounge 27 times. They trusted me when I had weird ideas that were too big for a coffee shop and helped me make it work. They reached out and booked me when I had no drive and had all but given up on playing music. That stage was home base for a lot of years, and I’ll always appreciate the comfort that I felt there. Starlite was THE place to play loud and hard. Chris Lemos filled a huge gap in the artistic mosaic of this town by giving heavy music a home. Not only could you find some insane acts from across the world playing there, but you’d usually find locals on the same bill. We may have only played there three or four times, but those were three or four of my favorite shows. Go out to stuff. Support local art. ACTIVELY ENGAGE with your creative community. Take a chance and spend $5 to see a band you’ve never heard. Spotify doesn’t feed artists or keep venues open. PS: If you are an artist and you don’t go to shows other than your own, you aren’t pulling your weight.”
Chrome Ghost [via Facebook]: “We all loved the Starlite Lounge, and will miss it dearly. Chris Lemos was always a major supporter of this band, and we look forward to working with him for the rest of time. We played one of our most unique shows at the Naked Lounge, alongside our idols Odamé Sucks. Both of these venues offered something important to the community, and will be missed.”
Kenny Beasley [via Facebook]: “The Sacto scene is more vibrant now than ever. Trust me, I don’t think there’s been a six month stretch that I haven’t played a show in Sactown since 1987 or longer. And I can tell you that there are more cool spots to rock than ever. We got the Above and Underground crackin’ these days. How many rad spots have come and gone? It’s just a part of it. You got this kids!!!”
Brendan Stone [via Facebook]: “I can’t stress enough how important it is that we not only verbally support the businesses we appreciate and want to stick around, but actually come out to their events and promote them vocally with others.”
Ean Clevenger [via Facebook]: “Today we are feeling a huge blow to the scene … I hope the city rallies and really comes up to support the underground shows. This business is fragile, especially for people supporting real bands and artists. It’s no joke, it takes a village.”
Evan Thompson [via Facebook]: “This one really hurts. Every show I had the privilege of playing at Starlite, regardless of turnout, was an absolute blast. So many heavy hitters have played that stage thanks to the hard work and dedication of Chris Lemos and the rest of staff.”
Susan Rose [via Facebook]: “Well, fuck. Starlite Lounge and Chris Lemos pretty much brought the heavy music scene to life in Sacramento over the last few years. I’ve been honored to play so many shows with fucking amazing bands that, frankly, we wouldn’t have had the chance to open for otherwise. Thank you for staying around as long as you have, and I hope everyone working there lands on their feet. What a bummer.”
**This piece first appeared in print on page 8 of issue #243 (July 3 – 17, 2017)**
The Virgin’s Guide to NorCal NoiseFest 2013
Written by a NoiseFest Virgin
For the 17th year in a row, Sacramento is hosting NorCal NoiseFest. One of the oldest and most established “noise” festivals out there, it is a yearly gathering of performing artists from around the country who base their entire acts around creating noise. There is no false advertising here; we are talking about noise, as in sound intentionally void of rhythm, melody and structure. Dissonance and chaos are sought.
This year’s festival will feature 40 artists, spanning three days and four locations.
Let me just get this out of the way now. I’ve lived in Sacramento for 25 years straight, and I have never been to a NoiseFest. For shame!
Anyway, to gain a better understanding of NoiseFest, I not only reviewed countless videos and tracks by the artists performing in this year’s lineup, but I also spoke with the only two people in town who have performed NoiseFest every year since its birth in 1995, Lob of Instagon and William Burg of Uberkunst. They have also been highly involved members of the Secret Masters of Noise (those who make NoiseFest happen each year) since the early ‘00s.
In sum, think of NorCal NoiseFest as the “outsider experience,” Lob explains. The presentation is meant to be unique, abrasive and unpleasant.
This embrace of noise is not a new idea. Here is a snippet of history to prove it: in 1913 the Italian artist Luigi Russolo wrote the Futurist manifesto “L’arte dei Rumori” or “The Art of Noises.” In it, he argued that because humans’ lives were becoming inundated with machinery, music should incorporate such sounds into composition. You might consider Russolo the founding father of noise music, 100 years ahead of his time. Apropos, this year’s NoiseFest is marking the celebration of a “century of noise.”
Rest assured, NoiseFest doesn’t cater to any one crowd. Sure, noise doesn’t have mass appeal—lots of people haven’t trained their ears for it. Yet there are pockets of noise enthusiasts out there, young and old,
Burg confirms.
Compare noise to eating pancreas, he suggests. The masses will gag at the mere thought, opting for a McDonald’s cheeseburger, just as they will choose to listen to “music” instead of “noise.” Yet there are some who will gladly dig into a plateful of pancreas over a fistful of fries any day.
As he so poetically elaborates, like a mountain man leads the way into the wilderness, the noisemaker blazes a path for other musicians to follow, sometimes decades later.
“Somebody had to go there first, and they generally had to go alone,” he adds.
Consider NorCal NoiseFest the once-a-year gathering of those mountain men and women.
Female-Led Performances
W00dy
is a solo performer hailing from Boston, Mass. She excels at vocal manipulation, particularly stretching and contorting her voice, layering and looping fragments over subtle tones. Her performance may leave you feeling airy, and at other times feeling like you are swallowed in a spiral or a maze. You may be tempted to think she is channeling Bjork at times, minus the music. This will be her first time playing NorCal NoiseFest. Catch her performance on Friday, October 4, 2013 at 10:30 p.m. at Luna’s Cafe.
Beast Nest
is the solo project of Sharmi Basu, a Mills College student who is pursuing her master’s in electronic music. Her sound will creep up on you, gently guiding you to another dimension through a blanket of feedback. Fluttering R2D2-like beeps, whizzes, zaps and dial tones will simultaneously emerge, crossed by ethereal notes tracing scratchy hums. According to Lob, “Basu has delivered some of the most psychedelic ambient performances that NoiseFest has had in the past.” Beast Nest performs Thursday, October 3, 2013 at 10 p.m. at Naked Lounge.
Name Game
Music festivals are hard. When you have a lineup of 40 to choose from, how are you possibly supposed to narrow down your options? For those who just can’t make up their minds, try this: just check out the bands with the, uh, most unusual names. Never mind that several of these names suggest pain.
1. Amphibious Gestures
2. Stress Orphan
3. Randy McKean’s Wild Horsey Ride
4. Dental Work
5. Pulsating Cyst
6. Endometrium Cuntplow
Uberkunst
Instagon
17 Years and Counting
As mentioned before, there are only two acts that have performed NorCal NoiseFest every year since inception: Instagon and Uberkunst, both local. Uberkunst is Burg’s project, and “always a spectacle sacrifice to NIAD (noise instrument analog device),” Lob says. Uberkunst’s crew typically consists of 10-plus bodies. Previous performances have included power tools, masks, screaming, destruction, torture machines and spiky outfits with a Road Warrior aesthetic. Instagon, on the other hand, performs with a different ensemble for every single show, with Lob leading the way. When it comes to NoiseFest, Lob typically assembles a handful of performers who each feed their sounds into a mixer set while he selects which sounds to amplify and overlap. One year that meant nine people making noise with jewel cases and contact mics. Odd, provocative, conceptual noise guaranteed. Uberkunst performs at Sol Collective at 10:30 p.m. Saturday, October 5, 2013 and Instagon plays at Bows and Arrows at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, October 6, 2013.
Who Will Burn the Most Miles To Get Here
1. Thirteen Hurts from Pleasant View, Colo.
2. Dental Work from Traverse City, Mich.
3. Stress Orphan from Washington, D.C.
4. Blipvert from New York, N.Y.
5. W00DY from Boston, Mass.
Crank Ensemble
Sights to Behold
Coat hanger hooks, rubber bands, wires, chop sticks, popsicle sticks, broom straws… What more do you need? Not much, if you are making handmade cranks to play in the Crank Ensemble. These instruments are literally works of art that are then used to create noise music. Mastermind Larnie Fox orchestrates the rigid clicks and pops simultaneously into a steady progression—think clock music. You will want to see these guys up close on Sunday, October 6, 2013 at Bows and Arrows, starting at 2:30 p.m. Meanwhile, Michael Amason is known for his ongoing “Noise Tattoo” project, where he tattoos himself through an amp stack. According to Lob, “You will hear every needle mark!” Catch him at 3 p.m. on Saturday, October 5, 2013 at Sol Collective.
Acts You Will NOT Want to Stand As Close As Possible To
1. Uberkunst
2. Overdose the Katatonic
3. +DOG+
4. Striations
5. Pulsating Cyst
Acts You Will Want to Stand As Close As Possible To
1. Endometrium Cuntplow
2. Michael Amason
3. Dental Work
4. Eurostache
5. Jeff Boynton
6. Nux Vomica
+DOG+
Bring Earplugs
If you plan to watch Los Angeles act +DOG+, the last performance at Luna’s Café on Friday starting at 11:30 p.m., keep these things in mind. Static noise. You may feel like your head is under a nail gun, beneath the blade of a chopper or pressed against the blare of a dial-up connection. Your eye might start to twitch. Or maybe that’s just the caffeine. Likewise, if you check out /The Nothing at 5 p.m. at Sol Collective on Saturday, know what you’re getting into. You will feel like you stepped into an insane asylum, or someone’s nightmare. It will sound tortuous. You might think it’s a perfect way to scare away every child for Halloween this year. Thought I can’t confirm it, Lob also suggests earplugs for Blue Sabbath Black Cheer (11 p.m. Saturday at Sol Collective) Thirteen Hurts (7:30 p.m. Saturday at Sol Collective), and M22 (9:30 p.m. on Friday at Luna’s Café). I’d take his word for it.
6 Bands Not To Miss And Why (Lob’s Picks)
Faults
1. Faults: A local Sacramento noise/jazz trio featuring L.H.Shimanek, Kevin Corcoran and Chad Stockdale reunited, they have not played live in more than five years. They may not play out again. Do not miss it.
Overdose The Katatonic
2. Overdose The Katatonic: In Lob’s words, “There is only one Jim Trash, and we have him for the weekend. Sonic brutality unleashed in a coffee house; sometimes he throws out toys!”
Amphibious Gestures
3. Amphibious Gestures: Lob says it best: “Space aliens from the sea with super sonic audio waves to invade your ears and mind. You think I’m kidding, but…”
Pedestrian Deposit
4. Pedestrian Deposit: These guys have been on a U.S. tour recently and “SLAYING crowds everywhere,” according to Lob. Need proof? Check out the social media trails.
Blue Sabbath Black Cheer
5. Blue Sabbath Black Cheer: Lob calls them a “tribal rush of power and madness” consisting of percussion and electronics. They don’t get out here much, but when they do, they are said to leave a massive impression.
Randy McKean’s Wild Horsey Ride
6. Randy McKean’s Wild Horsey Ride: This is a duo featuring saxophonist Randy McKean and electronics artist Wes Steed. McKean produces sound and Steed captures it via live analog processing, and they play together with the sounds generated. Supposedly it is nothing short of amazing.
Norcal Noisefest takes place Oct. 3 through Oct. 6, 2013. For a complete list of events, go to Norcalnoisefest.com.
Legendary Sacramento-based singer/songwriter Kevin Seconds (of the highly influential hardcore punk band 7Seconds) is readying the release of a new solo record, Don’t Let Me Lose Ya. The 10-track album, which Kevin calls his fifth “official” solo release (he’s made all sorts of homemade, limited-run releases over the years), will be available through Asian Man Records on Oct. 9, 2012.
“I kept it pretty simple and close to my heart,” Kevin recently told Submerge. Rather than enlisting the help of musicians from all over the country, which Kevin had considered, he kept everything close to home. “I’m really fortunate to have some amazing and talented people so willing to help me out, my wife Allyson first and foremost, of course. I’m never more excited than when I’ve got my vocal parts done and I know it’s her turn to come in and sing.”
Kepi Ghoulie played drums, Alison Sharkey laid down crucial cello parts and David Houston, who recorded the album at his studio, played on the album as well.
“I’ve known David for 17, 18 years now,” Kevin said. “I consider him to be one of my closest friends, I love the man. He’s brilliant, fun to hang out with and inspires me in so many ways I cannot even begin to tell you.”
After recording his last couple solo albums himself, Kevin felt like he needed to collaborate a little, to reach out and let someone he knows and trusts put their touches on this new album. It paid off.
“It was actually the funnest, easiest time I’ve ever spent in a recording studio,” he said. That definitely comes off when you listen to Don’t Let Me Lose Ya, nothing feels forced, it’s very organic sounding and Kevin’s masterful songwriting and storytelling are right up front on display as best as they ever have been.
His official CD release show will take place on Saturday, Oct. 13, 2012 at Naked Lounge. That show will also be Kepi Ghoulie’s and Kevin’s U.S. tour kickoff. For more information and to pre-order Kevin Seconds’ new album, visit http://kevinseconds.com/ or http://asianmanrecords.com/
