All photos by Nicholas Wray
For more information, reservations or to purchase special event tickets, visit M5Arts.com. ArtStreet is located at 300 First Ave. in Sacramento, is free to the public and is open now through Feb. 25, Monday–Friday, 3–9 p.m. or later, and Saturday–Sunday 11 a.m.–9 p.m. or later.
Working as my own boss sometimes includes weekends glued to the computer—writing, editing, internet surfing … when all of a sudden I glance at the upper right hand side of the computer screen and realize it’s 5 p.m. on a Saturday. What have I done? I haven’t seen the sun today and as I browse through Instagram and I see my friends relaxing on rafts, sipping wine and exploring cool waterfalls, I realize I’m doing something wrong.
I don’t need Wi-Fi for most of my work, so why always be connected? So, I introduce to you my mini series I’m calling, “Office Anywhere.” This week’s focus: the Marin Headlands.
As a side note, you do not just have to go here to work. It is a beautiful place that can be explored for hours on end.
{Two boys sitting atop Battery Rathbone McIndoe}
Well-known Sacramento photographer Nicholas Wray and lesser-known Sacramento photographer, myself, decided we had enough of urban, coffee shop work days, day after day after day. Nick recently invested in a pimped-out, ultra-hipster, dirtbag climber van, equipped with lighting and electricity powered by solar panels—perfect for plugging in a laptop on the road. So, on Thursday we headed for the coast in search of a better work space.
We spent the first two days in one of my favorite little coastal towns (if I told you the name of it, I would have to kill you. It’s a well-kept secret that will stay well-kept with me, at least for now), parked next to the beach, opened all the doors and started up shop. Surely, folks who walked by scoffed at the fact that we were on our laptops instead of experiencing the scenery, but we were experiencing the scenery, also while getting work done.
{Battery Mendell}
On Saturday we grabbed breakfast after hanging out with our new Aussie friend who was exploring California on a motorcycle and headed toward the Marin Headlands. All I really knew about the the headlands was the over-populated lookout point providing a view of the Golden Gate Bridge and the city. Passing that, we headed down the road, further and further; no semis allowed. The road was steep and windy and the fog weaved in and out of the trees surrounding us. As we continued to drive we came across old buildings, tunnels and cement forts peeking out from behind the fog.
Continuing down the road did not cease to amaze—surrounded by peninsulas with violent waves crashing on the giant coastal boulders, little trails leading to abandoned fortresses overlooking the ocean or buried under the earth and giant buildings at the bottom of the hill that looked like something out of the movie, The Grand Budapest Hotel.
{Battery Wallace #2}
Here is a list of things to do and see there. Some of these I experienced, but many I need to go back for:
Hawk Hill (aka Battery 129), a historic military site with tunnels, gun pits and supposedly great bird watching, but all I saw was bright white fog.
Just down the road and to the left, a trail down to Black Sands Beach. Unfortunately I found out about this one after the trip.
Battery Mendell: My favorite part of this one was the smaller fort up the hill. We stood on the balcony of the old deserted fort looking out over large cliffs to the Pacific Ocean (er … Gulf of the Farallones—gotta get to the Farallon Islands one day).
Obviously, the Point Bonita Lighthouse. Though, I will say this was the most touristy of all our adventures and although beautiful, not my favorite stop.
Walking into the Marin Headlands Hostel, the pleasant aroma from organic, homemade dinners floated throughout the high ceilings of the kitchen. We didn’t stay here, but I’m definitely going back for this one. Must book in advance.
Finally, you must head to Rodeo Beach for either a morning surf session or simply to be in awe of the beauty of the sea. The coastal trail just at the end of the road is a nice, easy hike that provides views of the ocean … maybe a little too close to the edge of the cliff.
After a day of exploring we parked the van down at Rodeo Beach for some dinner and work. Opening the backdoors to the moist fog air and listening to the sound of the small pebbles move with every crashing wave, was, well, the best office I’ve ever had.
{Battery Mendell lookout}
It’s always refreshing to turn on the television, peruse the channels and come across the warm smile and enthusiastic spirit of Rob Stewart, host of KVIE’s Rob on the Road. Stewart’s engaging personality always lures me in. Being a lover of California, I’m forever searching for new adventures and Rob on the Road provides that, taking viewers all over Northern California and beyond to explore the people, places, history and beauty this area has to offer.
Stewart’s personality shines as bright, if not brighter, in person. During our conversation we talked about his upcoming shows, how his life has changed over the last few years and, of course, Huell Howser.
After viewing just one episode of Rob on the Road it’s easy to see why some compare Stewart to the legendary Huell Howser, host of the long-running PBS show California’s Gold.
“Every single day someone says to me ‘We’re so glad you replaced Huell,’” Stewart says with a smile. “I quickly say, ‘I didn’t,’ because there’s no such thing. You cannot replace Huell Howser. He’s irreplaceable. All we’re doing is trying to continue the same spirit of exploring California.”
Howser did take notice of what Stewart was doing up north and decided to pay him a visit.
“When I started, Huell came to Sacramento with advice on how to do the show. He was such a sweetheart and a gem,” says Stewart. “Huell and I went and had hot dogs someplace over on Fruitridge Road, there was no place to sit so we sat out in the parking lot on the curb and he said, ‘I just want you to know I feel like you’ve got the heart to keep doing what I’m doing. I wanted to tell you that I think you have my heart.’”
Howser’s blessing means a lot to Stewart and it shows in his on-air gusto. Stewart reflects, “I think that one of the things that makes us similar is that we both came from outside of the state and we’re able to look at California with a fresh set of eyes.”
Stewart was a news anchor in Philadelphia and in Wilmington, Delaware for the PBS member station WHYY prior to moving to Sacramento in 2008. When Stewart arrived in California, he had a couple of paths to choose from.
“I had an offer that was full-time at another station in town and a part-time offer at KVIE,” says Stewart. “I accepted the job at KVIE because I knew I could do some fun feature segments that could be positive and uplifting.”
Branching off of his show’s success, Stewart is expanding programming through subseries under the Rob on the Road umbrella. One such subseries will focus on Highway 99.
“We’re going to hit up everything under the sun along the highway,” says Stewart. “The first one is going to air in May and we’re going to Marysville/Yuba City.” There Rob will be exploring the historic Bok Kai Temple. He will then travel to Stockton and play with one of the local sports teams.
Rob on the Road: Heroes and Helping Hands is another subseries that is annual and sponsored by the law firm Murphy Austin Adams Schoenfeld. This heartfelt series shares stories of inspiration and hope. One of this year’s features will focus on inmates of Folsom State Prison who are turning their lives around in a program called CALPIA (Prison Industry Authority). Prisoners in this program learn job training skills to use once they are released. This episode will premiere March 21 on KVIE.
Stewart is very passionate about spreading positive and uplifting messages as well as sharing his own inspirational journey. This is evident when glancing at his Instagram, which serves as a public journal at times. “It’s true, I love Instagram,” Stewart explains. “I tend to put more personal stuff on there than on my Twitter or Facebook page.”
It was on Instagram where I first discovered a more intimate, personal side of Stewart. He is an open book when it comes to his life and chooses appropriate outlets for his expression.
“I’ve always been very open. With a job that airs on television every day, people truly feel like they know me,” Stewart says. “I’m just me on television. There’s no different me off TV than there is on television. I mean I don’t flaunt on TV that I’m gay, or that my long-term relationship ended, or that I quit drinking three years ago. I don’t flaunt that on television because why would I? It’s not a platform for it.
“But I would certainly share that on Instagram in hopes of helping other people,” Stewart continues. “So, I am very open with my personal life, and any struggles I’ve been through because I believe in making your mess your message, and helping other people in life.”
Stewart backs up his message with actions by donating his time to many causes and immersing himself in projects that help others. He MCs Sacramento Gay Men’s Chorus events and has been active for the LGBT community center. He is equally active for juvenile diabetes and ovarian cancer research.
“My dedication to any cause is equal as long as it is doing something to help somebody else,” Stewart says. “I want to use the platform of Rob on the Road to plant positive seeds no matter what it’s about.”
Less than three years ago Stewart’s life was much different, but he chose to make some drastic changes that allowed him reinvent who he is.
“I was overweight and eating and drinking too much,” Stewart explains. “I want people to know they can turn their lives around. We can stop bad habits that do not serve us well. At any age we can go through radical change to help us live our best lives. It’s not easy, but it’s worth every bit of it.”
When Stewart’s longtime relationship ended he decided to escape from his comfort zone, quit drinking and move from the suburbs to the city. Once in Sacramento, he began to immerse himself in the community and hasn’t looked back.
“I can promise you that everything you’re searching for is right outside of your comfort zone,” Stewart continues. “And sometimes that comfort zone is really not that comfortable when you start to look at it. Ultimately, set yourself free.”
Rob on the Road airs Mondays at 7:30 p.m. on KVIE Public Television or online at Robontheroad.org. Rob on the Road: Heroes and Helping Hands will air March 21, 2016 on KVIE.
If 2015 was shaping up to be a big year for Sacramento psychedelic doom band Church, it’s turning out to be an even bigger year for Sacramento psychedelic doom band Chrch. The two bands are strikingly similar. They both have the same mononymous members—vocalist Eva, guitarist/vocalist Chris, drummer Matt, guitarist Shann and bassist Ben—and both play the same songs, with the same titles. In fact, the debut Church full-length released earlier this year on cassette by Transylvanian Tapes, Unanswered Hymns, is the same as the debut full-length Chrch record set to be released September 28, 2015, on vinyl by Battleground Records and celebrated by an album release show October 3, 2015, at Starlite Lounge. So what gives?
As it turns out, along with the parts of making a name for yourself in international music circles that rule—having labels put out your records, getting tons of rad press, getting to open for Pentagram, etc.—there are some downsides to having your band thrust into the broader musical zeitgeist. Namely, threats of litigation from bands who find your name a bit too close for comfort.
“It was a month or two ago,” remembers guitarist Chris. “I was asleep and Eva our singer came over, banging on the door. She got let in, came in and woke me up, like, ‘Dude, David from Battleground just called me, the lawyers from The Church just sent us a cease and desist!”
The Church is an Australian band who found limited international success in the ‘80s, but has mainly been relegated to cult status outside of Australia. This, however, didn’t stop The Church from threatening to apparently pursue legal action against Church if they continued to operate as a band under that name. So, Church became Chrch, and the forthcoming release of Unanswered Hymns on vinyl became something of a debut do-over.
Thankfully, the loss of a vowel, a website, and a couple of years worth of band-name recognition hasn’t put a stop to the band’s forward momentum. As Chrch prepares to release their album on vinyl and hit the road for some high-profile shows to close out the year—including the third installment of LA-based Midnight Collective’s annual Midnight Communion, Nov. 13, 2015 in Long Beach—2016 is looking to be an even bigger year for the band, under any name.
How did Chrch get started?
We’ve all known each other for years. I used to play in a band, in high school, that used to play shows with our other guitarist all the time. Our bassist was in a different circle of friends that I met through music; I went on tour with my friend’s band that he was also friends with and we were both on tour together. That was probably five years ago. Through him, I met the singer … We’ve all just been around in the scene for awhile. Sacramento’s pretty small; everyone sort of knows everyone.
Did you know, at the outset, what sound you were going for, or did you just sort of start playing and waited to see what would happen?
We all knew that we wanted to play in a heavy band, that we wanted to play doom, but we didn’t really know what direction it was going. There are so many different kinds of doom, so many different sounds in that one genre. Really, we just play what we want to play and it just kind of comes out all similar.
When did you start thinking that maybe this band was gonna be something special?
Kind of from the beginning. Our first show was with Bell Witch, which was just already crazy; we’ve all been fans of that band for awhile. From that point, we got really good shows right off the bat. Then we played with Dispirit right after that; a month later we played with Eyehategod. People started to see our names on flyers, like, “Who the fuck is this?” then checked us out, and we got a really good response, right from the start. Even this month, just as far as playing shows … I mean, we just opened for Pentagram, which is fucking crazy for all of us.
As far as the name, I’m sure it’s not that cool for you to be threatened with a lawsuit. But in a certain sense, it’s kind of badass, like “Whatever, we’ll just take out a letter and soldier on.”
I mean really, there’s a part of it that’s kind of flattering. This band from the ‘80s that is not even relevant any more, that I don’t think anybody gives a fuck about, feels threatened, or something by us. I don’t know why they would send us a cease and desist. They’re like a new-wave band. There’s no similarities at all. But they still think we’re encroaching on their business.
How has the response been to the record so far?
It’s been crazy. It’s been kind of overwhelming. We just kind of recorded it as a demo, but then labels picked it up.
Seems like the record has been getting really good press, like that review on the Roadburn festival website. Has that been just a matter of getting the record in the right hands?
Yeah it’s all been by chance basically. When we got the record deal, we got a press agent along with it, Cat from Southern Cross PR. So she’s helped a lot along the way. But a lot of it has just been somebody coming across our stuff online, on our Bandcamp or something, and liking it. That’s what happened with Roadburn. Walter, the curator of Roadburn, one of his friends, some guy in England reviewed it, and Walter saw the review and was like “Oh shit, I gotta check this out” and then liked it and put it on Roadburn. James from Transylvanian Tapes has been doing a lot too. We’ve been on Australian radio, which could have something to do with why The Church sent us a cease and desist. But he’s gotten us on a lot of blogs that we didn’t even know about. We find something new every day.
It has to be a good feeling, to get noticed worldwide.
Yeah, its cool. None of us had planned on doing this. We’ve gotten a couple of tour offers that we’ve had to turn down, because everything’s moved so fast. It’s definitely overwhelming, but it’s cool. Especially being from Sacramento, a city not necessarily known for its doom scene.
Have you noticed that changing at all, or is it still an uphill battle for your kind of music?
It’s definitely better now than I feel like it’s been in recent years, but it’s always kind of an uphill battle. Sacramento’s hard. But it’s definitely a lot better than it has been in a long time.
Celebrate the release of Chrch’s Unanswered Hymns on vinyl on Saturday, Oct. 3, 2015, at the Starlite Lounge with Acid King and Cura Cochino, as well as interludes provided by Noctooa. Show starts at 8 p.m. and is 21-and-over. For tickets, go to Atlanteancollective.queueapp.com.
Where there once was a bar, hidden in a seemingly abandoned basement corridor of the downtown mall, there now exists a crater under construction. The Pre-Flite Lounge was a 40-year-old time capsule, a quaint bar untouched by time, that perhaps lingered because it was forgotten. The Pre-Flite Lounge was lukewarm domestic beer served in frosted mugs to offset the tap temperature. A heavy hand poured no-nonsense cocktails like whiskey-water, gin-tonic and vodka-soda. When the craft-craze of artisanal beer and cocktails swept through Sacramento, the Pre-Flite didn’t balk and no one seemed to mind. Former regulars look back and their memories are unified by signifiers like “unpretentious” and “classic.” Everyone remembers their first time and becomes protective of who they tell out of respect for the bar.
That was the legacy of the original before it was demolished last year to build a new cathedral for our NBA franchise we fought desperately to keep. And even though owner Jason Yee purchased the establishment in 2010, he remained committed to its continuation by opening a new home mere blocks away in Jazz Alley.
“My goal was to take over and run it another 20 or 30 years,” Yee said regarding his acquisition of the bar. There were no arena talks in 2010 threatening Pre-Flite, only the impending sale by Heather Parisi, owner since 1982. When she vetted Yee on the purchase, it was done the old fashioned way, he recalls. He ran a yogurt cafe in the mall called Yummy Yogurt. Upon learning about the chance to purchase, he regularly patroned the bar for a few months, expressing interest in conversation. One afternoon the bartender casually slipped him a napkin with a phone number on it.
“He kinda slid it over to me and said, ‘hey, the owner wants to talk to you.’”
Yee drove to Parisi’s home in Carmichael soon after. They talked for four hours over whiskey-waters about everything except the bar, mostly “her family, [my] family, and life” he said. Eventually she disclosed that while she had many suitors eager to purchase, she liked him and trusted his intentions with the bar. That vote of confidence only goes so far, though. Yee still had to earn the trust of the regulars.
“As soon as I was taking over, a lot of the regulars were concerned I would change everything up,” he said. “I had always loved the Pre-Flite, so I wanted to keep it the same.”
That desire to not disrupt the natural order is inherent in a Pre-Flite regular. I never became one myself, but I respected the sanctity. It was never about exclusivity, just that cryptic “don’t ruin the bar” mentality.
My guide one night in 2009 was a former writer for this magazine, Vincent Girimonte, who deemed me worthy of entering the hallowed ground of the original Pre-Flite Lounge. That night we rode our bikes to a section of L Street that felt deserted at 7 p.m. It struck me as almost impossible to stumble in without guidance. Entering Pre-Flite for the first time was like past-life deja vu or checking into the Hotel California. Everything felt unchanged since before you were born, from the carpeted floors and the wood-paneled walls to the neon-lit jukebox in the back corner.
{Old Pre-Flite Lounge location}
You even wondered if the patrons bellied up to the bar had been there for a few hours or a few decades. With repeat visits you learned names, like Russ behind the bar, and which day there’s free bean dip. You meet the dogs, too: the Jack Russell Terrier Louie that trots around with disinterest in attention unless food is involved, and the large white sheep dog named Babs that can stand with its paws on the bar like any other regular.
My experience is not unique. There are many who considered Pre-Flite Lounge their home or home-away-from-home. As a regular only to be referred to as Kevin told me, “A lot of people have lived and died there.”
Kevin started coming in 2011 after Yee took over, learning of the bar through a newspaper article. He called the old location “the perfect man cave.” He goes to the new location as well. It’s here around 4 p.m. he brings up the historical hearsay of past owners. Legend has it Parisi was mentioned in the will of original owner, Larry Bowa. After he died, his girlfriend ran the bar for a year before she passed away as well. It was then discovered that Parisi was in the will to purchase Pre-Flite. Any further insight as to what her relationship to Bowa might have been was taken to another lifetime upon her passing in November 2013.
Pete is a regular who still frequents the new Pre-Flite as well. His first trip to Pre-Flite was in 2008, in need of a pint on the way to a Rivercats baseball game. To Pete it’s that classic, unpretentious quality that allowed Pre-Flite to remain undisrupted.
“It calms down the atmosphere,” he said. “People came in regardless of their background, took in the ambiance and everyone got on the same wavelength.”
When Yee sought a new location, he pursued real estate much like the former—hidden and precarious. There is no signage, only a velvet rope to an open doorway in an alley. That door leads to a bank vault and within the vault are the faithful patrons of Pre-Flite Lounge 2.0 (as he calls it) carrying on the legacy. The jukebox is there, still functional and loaded with vintage tracks, some growing increasingly obscure with time. Yee salvaged the old doors with the outdated sign of “Happy Hour 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.: 65 cents.” Alice the comically busty mannequin is there as well. But like any new chapter, there are missing pieces that will fade into the history books.
“There’s stuff we have in storage we thought about bringing out,” Yee said. “But now that we’re here, we want our clients now and our friends to bring new stuff in to make it their own.”
The move has its growing pains. Bartender Bridget Lopez says Louie the terrier is uncomfortable with the cement floors and she tries to make him feel relaxed by bundling up sweaters on the floor. Some regulars like Larry and his dog Babs have yet to come by the new location. But, Pre-Flite 2.0 has neighbors like photographer Nicholas Wray, Omar Salazar’s skate collective Doom Sayers, and hundreds of industry servers and cooks in need of a secluded watering hole for a post-shift (or, more apropos) pre-shift drink. The afternoon I’m there interviewing regulars, Adam Pechal, local chef in flux, is there doing just that, raising awareness to his industry friends that a semi-hidden bar exists. His only complaint is that he no longer has storage space in the building from his former restaurant Thir13en.
“I wish it was here two years ago when I was in and out next door all the time,” he says. “I could pick up some catering equipment, stop in for quick beverage and move along with my day. I could have been drinking [Jason’s] booze instead of my booze.”
Epilogue:
Jazz Alley between 10th and 11th downtown has no folklore nor history to the coinage. There was no infamous juke joint or speakeasy where Charles Mingus or Duke Ellington once played, therefore earning the title. Jazz Alley is Jazz Alley by mandate of the city. We had no say, much like we are at the mercy of K Street becoming The Kay, knowing that only tourists call it that. As much as developers and city planners might think you can invent districts, invent history, you can’t. History is earned.
Pre-Flite Lounge 2.0 cannot salvage the crock naming of Jazz Alley, just like Pre-Flite Lounge 2.0 will never fully recapture the essence of the original. But regulars like Kevin, Pete and Pechal agree that the spiritual calm that made the original a haven is not lost entirely. Pre-Flite is not the first bar in Sacramento to move and maintain its mythos. This is not a city deeply concerned with the historical protection of olive toothpicks. But steadfast are its barflies, relaying the oral history to the stool adjacent.
Micah Crandall-Bear’s latest body of work is a lot like the artist himself—a combination of precision and a minimalistic sensibility that draws heavily from a deep appreciation of natural beauty.
For those unfamiliar with Crandall-Bear’s artistic vision, the painter operates in the world of the abstract. His canvases are heavily layered acrylic landscapes of bold striations of colors focused on hard line compositions that explore the many nuances of something we see every day: the horizon. His technique is methodical and precise, implementing a traditional method that is typically associated with oil painting wherein swiftness is essential. Layers of wet paint are applied to previous layers of wet paint in linear brushstrokes that traverse the entire length of the canvas from left to right.
His latest body of work, titled Latitudes and is currently on display at Elliott Fouts Gallery through July 2, eschews cityscapes, but instead celebrates the refinement of nature.
“This show, instead of trying to be complex … is actually a bit more subtle,” Crandall-Bear explains. “It’s also more refined. There used to be a lot of exaggerated line and color, where in these paintings it’s got a little bit more of a desaturated feel. So it’s softer, more subtle.”
{Palm}
The artist recently invited Submerge into his airy studio to explain this latest collection of work and how an early experience at the Michael Himovitz Gallery on Del Paso Boulevard under the mentorship of then-gallery owner Chuck Miller led to the progression of his singular vision and ultimately into a successful career as an artist.
“I started interning there in ’98 or ’99, so toward [Michael Himovitz Gallery’s] later years. Michael had died already, but his partner Chuck Miller was running the gallery,” he explains. “I ended up mentoring under Chuck. He kind of took me under his wing, although he didn’t really care for my art, but over time he started selling my work and introduced me to designers like Paulette Trainor, you know, big figureheads in the community, so I was pretty fortunate. I was around that at a young age, which was great because I learned the gallery side before I learned how to be a career artist.”
And while the Himovitz gallery shuttered its doors in 2001 after a successful 20-year run, Miller and Crandall-Bear remained close, both personally and professionally, until the venerated mentor died in 2009. The lessons learned from that relationship still reverberate through Crandall-Bear’s experience as an artist—specifically one who still sees value in the gallery-artist collaboration, especially as many of his contemporaries look to other avenues for introducing their work to the world.
{Sublunar}
“Chuck and I continued to work together [doing] private art sales and design showcases. He basically just turned himself into a broker, an art dealer without the brick and mortar, but he sold art until he died,” he says. “So fast forward 10 to 15 years, there have been a lot of galleries that have come and gone, but the gallery world as far as representing artists is changing, especially with social media and Instagram. A lot of artists are using that platform, Instagram, as a sales platform, and they should: it works. There are a lot of artists in my community that don’t necessarily adhere to the gallery format like I do. As I said, I grew up doing that so it’s kind of what I always knew.”
Like most artists, Crandall-Bear’s work has been an exercise in evolution: from a series of figurative works with rigid urban tones, incorporating text, spray paint and elements of graffiti in the beginning, to the progression of a singular idea expressed through bold stripes and color fields.
Focusing on the work, Crandall-Bear’s art pieces have won him favor with art consultants, interior designers and corporations. And while his work adorns the walls of tech companies like Intel, skyscrapers in San Francisco, university hospitals, law firms, corporate and government offices and a slew of private residences, it’s the spirit of the local art community that has him really excited about Sacramento’s future as an emerging hub for creatives.
{Ultra Border}
“It’s an exciting community and I think right now it’s probably, as far as visual art, it’s the most exciting time in Sacramento’s history,” he gushes. “Right now there’s so much going on in the art scene with things like the [Bright] Underbelly [mural] project, WAL, Verge, Elliott’s gallery, and you want to be a part of that. You can liken it to other places, their story has been written, like San Francisco and L.A.; ours hasn’t and that’s exciting.”
As one of the artists whose work has contributed to the transformation of the historic 100-year-old Lawrence Warehouse into the Warehouse Artists Loft, a lofty experiment in a mixed-use, mixed-income community for artists located in downtown Sacramento’s Historic R Street District, Crandall-Bear has begun to embrace the idea of collaboration among artists.
“I feel like I, like a lot of artists, used to be in my bubble and work alone and just kind of be hyper-focused on my immediate goals. It was very linear, and now with it being an exciting time with visual art, there are so many other artists that are doing extremely well because of the community here,” he explains. “So I found myself really wanting to do projects where I’m collaborating with other artists and we’re doing these big paintings for like a music festival or something else. So I’ve collaborated with a few really amazing artists from more graffiti street-style artists to hyper-modern artist, [like] Jose [Di Gregorio]. We’ve done a big piece together and the community is growing. The spectrum of artists is broadening and therefore there are more artists becoming even more successful, which is good for all artists.”
{Praxis 5}
As his creative point of view continues to develop in tandem with his artistic maturity and ambition, his latest show is pushing the Sacramento art community to recognize and embrace the beauty that can be found within abstraction.
“The work is meant to give a feeling of exhale to the viewer,” he explains. “We’re constantly surrounded by a world made of man-made things so [this show is about] when you get back to nature; it’s why I started painting like this. I paint what I like to see or feel, and so these vast colorscapes lend themselves to my life.”
His bold, nonfigurative compositions are imbued with explosions of color that are able to convey passion and excitement while, at the same time, evoking serenity and tranquility. And although this latest exhibition is instantly recognizable as a Crandall-Bear show, the artist says that he is taking his signature theme and breathing new life into the canvas.
“These pieces are still heavily layered and detailed, yet a sense of calm can be found as variations in dense tones give way to luminous neutrals,” he says.
Check out Latitudes which runs now through July 2, 2015, at Elliott Fouts Gallery, located at 1831 P Street in Sacramento. A reception for the show will be held on Saturday, June 13, from 6 to 9 p.m. For gallery hours, go to Efgallery.com. If you’d like to learn more about Micah Crandall-Bear and peruse his artwork before you go see it in person, go to Micahcrandallbear.com.
Hailing from the intersection of the Ohio and Licking rivers, former geographer-turned-photographer Nicholas Wray is no stranger to picking up and hitting the open road. From moving from Cincinnati to Sacramento in 2006 to shooting the arid plains of Zion National Park, Wray’s penchant for exploration doesn’t only fuel his artistic passion but feeds his professional endeavors as well.
The proof is in his latest exhibition, simply titled Japan, in which his candid and colorful images of everyday street life in the Land of the Rising Sun adorn the walls of each of the three Insight Coffee Roasters locations. And, at the behest of a friend at the coffee shop, the photos were also assembled into a photo book worthy of adorning the best coffee tables in the world. The series, divided into five sections and scattered between the trio of coffee houses, touches on the many highlights of Wray’s travels: “Architecture,” “Culture,” “Street Life,” “Graffiti” and “Bicycles.”
“Whenever I travel I do this. I have a lot of prints at my studio and tons of photos that just kind of live on my server, so this was the first time that I have printed them super small and priced them super cheap so that people can afford them easily,” Wray explains.
Although the Ohio transplant rolled up to the interview on a motorcycle and sporting a weathered leather jacket, Wray isn’t brash or cocky. Quite the contrary, his quiet demeanor and unassuming nature bucks many of the stereotypes that are typically associated with those working behind the lens. You won’t find him sexually harassing models, attending the incessant parade of networking events that so many artists find themselves engaged in or stroking his own ego.
“This is the first time that I’ve done a show this big, like three coffee shops. I know it’s just coffee shops, it’s not a gallery—I mean I wish I was as cool as someone like Micah Crandall-Bear [and] had Elliott Fouts Gallery showing my stuff every month, but I’m just not that cool,” he says with a wry grin.
Wray’s journey into mastering shutter speeds and F-stops began as his college career was winding down at Northern Kentucky University. After applying for graduation he was advised, a few months shy of claiming his cap and gown, that he needed a minor in order to secure his degree. Uninterested in spending thousands more in man hours and cash, he leafed through the course catalog and it occurred to him that he could revisit his childhood hobby while locking down a minor—photography. He immersed himself in the course work: shooting in black and white film, rolling his own film, editing and enlarging images in the dark room and within a year acquired that prized piece of paper validating his education.
“I think I pretty much took really bad photos up until my very last class,” Wray muses. “That’s when I kind of started doing this street photography. I was in school, working like three jobs and the only time I had [to shoot] was at night. I was out in the snow at night without a tripod just shooting hand-held on film so I made this series of photos of laundromats all over Cincinnati.”
From skateboarders to musicians to commercial products, Wray’s professional portfolio is a robust exploration of the people and places that contribute to the diversity and color of Sacramento. If you’ve attended the annual summer concert series, Concerts in the Park, or witnessed the awesomeness that was this year’s TBD Fest, you may have even landed in the frame of one of his photos. But after years of hustling and struggling to turn his creative pursuits into a viable business, success brought with it an unexpected problem: He was overworked and in desperate need of a break.
“So, I had been taking photos in Sacramento since 2009 and then after [my business] started to take off I was really, really busy for a couple of years,” Wray explains. “I was doing nothing but working—it felt like I was working 18-hour days, seven days a week—so I bought a plane ticket to Tokyo. I wanted to go somewhere super urban and really far away where I would have no understanding of the culture.”
So last October, after booking a ticket and packing his gear—consisting only of a backpack filled with a change of clothes, his camera, a couple of lenses and a laptop computer—Wray set out on a two-week tour of Japan, immersing himself into the culture and shooting everything in sight. Five thousand shots later, Wray had a collection of images depicting shimmering seascapes, people scurrying around the city going about their daily business, bicyclists snaking through traffic and gleaming skyscrapers towering above it all. And while he didn’t speak the language, Wray says his experience with the locals was nothing short of wonderful—from the hostel mother who picked him up on the side of the road to the hospitality of strangers taking him into their homes and feeding him, Wray was in good hands for the entirety of his adventure.
“People were really polite…just really nice people. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by that—I guess I’m acknowledging that it was a really pleasant place to be,” he admits.
Upon Wray’s return, the images languished on his computer for months before he embarked on the arduous task of wading through the thousands of images captured on his journey and whittling them down into something manageable. Soon a series materialized and Wray decided that it was time for the images to emerge out of their cocoon and blossom out into the world. He presented the idea to his friend, Chris Ryan of Insight Coffee Roasters, to exhibit the work in each of its coffee dens, and after receiving an enthusiastic yes to his proposal the two began planning out the show.
The exhibit is a 145-image romp through the harried streets of Tokyo and Kyoto, the lush, verdant gardens that dot the countryside and everything else in between. Currently, you can find “Culture” at the Pavilions Café, “Street Life” and “Graffiti” at the Capitol Café, and “Bicycles” at the Southside Café. Wray says that the “Architecture” section of Japan will be included in the rotation but because of its sheer volume will make its debut at a later date.
“It’s kind of like a narcissistic pleasure of making a cool photo that someone else will enjoy,” Wray explains. “I think that the coolest thing for me is when someone sees one of my photos and they’re just like, ‘Oh my God, I have to have that!’ I know that they love that photo so much that they want to have it in their house. That’s my reward. It’s not about the money because I’m not making money on selling prints. Like this [show] costs me more than I’m ever going to get off it.”
Now that the exhibit is up, Wray reflects on his role as a member of the Sacramento art community. And while he’s carefully mapping out the location of his next photographic adventure, his time in Japan has reinvigorated the shutterbug.
“The way I look at my job is that I do mostly commercial photography for the market, and people pay me to take cool photos—they pay me to make art for their business,” Wray explains. “So sometimes I do something boring, like some product shot but…I make art all the time, it’s just consumed in a different way. It’s more like people commission me, kind of like a painter. Someone might commission a painter to make a painting, people commission me to make photos for their media.”
Nicholas Wray’s Japan is currently hanging around Sacramento at Insight’s Southside Café (1901 8th Street, Sacramento), Pavilions Café (566 Pavilions Lane, Sacramento) and Capitol Café (1014 10th Street, Sacramento). Wray’s Japan book can be purchased through the artist’s website, Nicholaswray.com.
In this era of music when so many genres are constantly being mixed and mashed, and then remixed and re-mashed, it’s refreshing to hear a throwback artist every now and then who embodies a pure, timeless sound without all the distracting fluff and noise prevalent in today’s mainstream.
Sacramento fortunately has such an artist to call its own: the afro-rocking Prince protégé Andy Allo who is one-part funk, one-part acoustic, but all soul.
Raised in Citrus Heights and attending college-prep schools near the Arden-Arcade area through her teenage years, Allo got her start by forming a band in town called Andy Allo and the Traffic Jam and eventually played a solo gig at an open mic at Fox and Goose on R Street.
Since then her career has been spiraling upward after putting out two independent albums, making appearances on talk shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Good Day Sacramento, and touring with Prince’s band, The New Power Generation, as one of his singers and guitarists. Allo collaborated on a few songs with the pop icon as well, some of which appear on her second album Superconductor, released in 2012.
The co-produced album by Prince, prompted a European tour with an extra stop in Japan—a trip Allo just got back from the day before her recent arrival to Sacramento.
Allo came home Friday, June 20, 2014, to headline a live show as part of Downtown Sacramento Partnership’s Concerts in the Park 2014 season—a series of free weekly concerts of local bands and musicians held annually from early May to late July at Cesar Chavez Plaza.
Three bands opened for Allo with DJ Sam I Jam spinning records in between performances.
The other bands included the Delta City Ramblers, the Harbor and Contra, who each brought eclectic elements to the table—and subsequently to the show as a whole—according to Play Big Sacramento booking committee member Danny Secretion.
Allo said she tries to come back to Sacramento as often as she can for her hometown fans, having just been in the area in November for an acoustic show at Assembly Music Hall on K Street.
“I’ve been traveling a lot,” she says. “But yeah when I have downtime, I try to get shows like this and come back and show some love. This is where it all started.”
After about five or six songs in, Contra’s set came to an end with a respectful applause from the audience who were dispersed throughout the plaza. Once Allo was announced to come on next, however, a modest wave of people migrated to the front, making the area a bit more congested than it had been for Contra.
While the three opening acts were comprised of four to six members at a time, Allo pieced a smaller band together—one drummer playing bongos and a bass drum, and one electric guitarist—for a much more scaled-down, intimate show.
She took center stage with her acoustic guitar in one hand and gripped the microphone with the other, receiving a warm welcome from the crowd as she introduced herself in a brief prologue to her set.
Then, she dove head-first right into the music.
Opening with the short but catchy interlude “Sometimes” from her first album UnFresh, Allo immediately had the crowd’s attention as she glided on the bouncy rhythm with her sweet, gentle voice.
She followed up with “When Stars Collide,” a song similar in tone and energy, but coming off her second album Superconductor. During the bridge, Allo weaved in the hook from Drakes’ “Hold on We’re Going Home” perfectly to fit her melody and then transitioned right back into her original lyrics without missing a beat.
The rest of the show pretty much followed that format the rest of the way, jumping from album to album with a couple of Bob Marley and Doobie Brothers covers in between. Her set consisted of tracks such as “I Want Love,” “If I Was King,”“Hooked,” “People Pleaser” and perhaps her biggest hit, “Yellow Gold.”
Allo consistently demonstrated her showmanship onstage with callbacks, clap-alongs, and even some prewritten/freestyle bars sprinkled into some of the more boom-bap songs, like “I Want Love” and “Hooked.”
Although Allo’s set was super up-close-and personal, which I loved, I couldn’t help but feel she didn’t do some of her bigger songs justice with such a small band.
The album versions of “Yellow Gold” and “People Pleaser” sound rich in production with a variety of instruments bringing these tracks completely to life. The live versions that night, while still good, were lacking the extra punch from the album—almost like they were stripped of their full musical power.
At the end of the day though, her performances made for a solid, all-around feel good show, and you could tell the audience was vibing with the ever-graceful Allo every step of the way.
Ms. Allo left the stage around a quarter to 9 p.m. to a very pleased crowd who sent her off with a long round of applause.
People began to disperse from Cesar Chavez Plaza shortly after and seemed glad to have caught a free glimpse of the soulful Sacramento native right before her career truly takes off to a whole new level.
A Japanese proverb goes like this: “We’re fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance.” Other adages draw connections between the act of dancing and pure joy, or at the very least a sense of “FUGGIT,” to lessen the blow of mundane, grueling life.
Kenny the Dancing Man, an often shirtless, wacky and mischievous dancing fixture at many indoor and outdoor Sacramento music events, has figured out a way to find happiness in spite of bipolar disorder and the soul-sucking ho-hum of the daily grind. Dancing, you are probably thinking, due to the lead in. Nope. It’s girls.
But dancing gets him center stage in a sea of free-spirited and open-minded girls that will dance, talk and laugh with him. Plus, it’s a good workout (hence the Iggy Pop lookin’ figure), it’s fun and it makes uptight patrons feel uncomfortable—a real perk for Kenny.
I sat down for a Q&A with Kenny the Dancing Man on his way to Concerts in the Park, but it was really a bunch of “A” and not a whole lot of “Q.” Listening to him talk was just as amusing and unusual as watching him dance.
{Photo by Niki Kangas}
What kind of dance were you trained in?
It’s an ongoing thing, like forever! I’m with a ballroom in California where they are training me to be an International Latin Show Dancer! International Latin Show Dancing is a little known world that not a lot of people know. Everyone knows hip-hop, breakdancing. They’re jumping up and down like cockroaches on crystal meth, but it’s for children and teenagers, and when you get older you will never dance with a girl. NEVER. All they’ll do is dance with boys and kiss the concrete. That’s all they will do! If you look at their faces, they’re all young. My world is…samba, paso doble, cha-cha and rumba. We come out as big divas. It’s all about us, Niki; it’s all about us. We love that!
When I go out dancing, I’m practicing what I’ve learned in the studio—I’m practicing International Latin Show Dancing movements.
Girls want to dance with someone fun who doesn’t take a run at them, you know? Or make them feel like a piece of meat at Raley’s. I know that because I was a bartender most of my life, and because I have a background in dancing.
I dance with girls that are looking for boys to dance with. Is that such a crazy thing? I’m not into this bro and man cave crap. I’m into girls. I like girls, guns, God and Corvettes. I want to have fun like Donald Duck and Elmer Fudd, they’re my heroes!
I want to get my own TV show called The Dancing Man Hoochie Mama Show. I’ve got it all figured out. I want it to be like the Dr. Oz or Opera Winfrey Show where you talk about stuff, but I want to have fun, I want to talk about dancing and stupid stuff, I want to throw food at each other, I want to dance and do the weather, and just go nutty, and talk about the cumulus clouds that are accumulating over Yuba City while I dance with a girl.
Where do you dance?
Normally I go to the big outdoor events, like Concerts in the Park or Second Saturday, and I go to Mango’s on Friday because there’s like a thousand girls there…there’s just jillions of them. Sometimes Faces on Friday or Saturday. Other places are too little for me. I need space, and I’m most comfortable when there are hundreds of people. I like to terrorize or torment them, or have fun! With girls like you that like to laugh and have fun. The old people think I’m disgusting and slutty.
{Photo by Nicholas Wray}
Eh, fuck ‘em.
Exactly! Screw them! I don’t care about them, because I only care about the ones that care about me. The old ones are fat and out of gas, and they see someone like me who comes at them like a bat out of Hell, and they don’t know what to do with someone like me! But the girls jump out at me and do their little hoochie coochie moves, and that’s the whole point. Have fun. We’re all gonna die. Life is short, and life isn’t fair. I believe in doing it now.
Do you work?
I used to be a bartender, but I have a bipolar disorder. I didn’t know what I had, I just knew something was wrong, and I got fired years ago because I couldn’t control it anymore. I was diagnosed with it and I had to go on pills, and I couldn’t work anymore. I felt like strangling people.
I feel like that every day, too.
Yeah! I just wanted to blow them off the Earth with a huge cannon and roll them over with a tank, so I wasn’t suitable to work anymore. But I loved bartending because I got to meet fun, sweet girls like you that made me laugh. I had to go on Social Security and disability, but I needed something to replace the social aspect, which I love so much. So I started dancing.
Why no shirt?
I want to show off this 125 pounds of eye candy! I’ve been working out with weights for 25 years, two or three times a day!
What I really want is television. I want the whole world, millions of people… I want to be on your aspirin bottle. I want to be in your rear view mirror. You can’t get away from the Dancing Man! He’s always there! You can’t escape him!
What is it that you like about the ability to command attention?
The fact that they’re forced to look whether they like it or not. I’m not a mean person, but I’m mischievous. My favorite thing is to find a place where hundreds of people are waiting in line for a show or something, and they’re trapped, and I’ll get out of my car and dance, and they have to look at me! They can’t leave because they want to go to some event—I love that! I like to make them uncomfortable, or freak them out, or irritate them, or make them love me. I like people to look at me and say, “Who the Hell does he think he is?!”
And I say, “Kenny the Dancing Man, for God’s sake!”
Where people gather, you’ll find Kenny. Look for him just about anywhere.
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.
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