We all need that extra push at times. Every person on this planet knows what it’s like to need encouragement to put themselves out there. That’s what Rik Krull, lead vocalist and guitarist for local indie-folk band Güero needed to put his music out into the world. If it wasn’t for friend and eventual bandmate Wes Davis giving Krull the push he needed, Güero wouldn’t exist.
“It took a while to get Rik interested in playing out,” said Davis. “It’s like, ‘Let’s take this out somewhere!’”
The friends and then roommates decided to play some open mics around the city and the band finally got started in the early 2010s.
Since Davis gave Krull that initial nudge, Güero has grown into a five-piece, and the band’s music has carved out a unique niche for itself.
Today, Krull and Davis are joined by Mike Ruiz on drums, Russell Volksen on bass and Shea Ritchie on keyboard. They are set to release their self-titled debut album and are celebrating its release Oct. 13, 2018, at Old Ironsides. It took some time for the music that appears on that record to be ready for wide release. The band had to go through a few changes that were nearly a decade in the making.
“Before [Ruiz, Ritchie and I joined Güero], it was Wes and Rik. It was different,” said Volksen about the original iteration of the band. “It was just acoustic and banjo. It had a totally different feel. You bring in bass and drums and it kind of gives it more of a pulse.”
Volksen was the first to join Davis and Krull after Davis kept insisting that Volksen needed to come play bass with them. Then came Ruiz because the three were interested to see what the songs would sound like with drums, and he became vital to the project. Ritchie joined after the four asked him to help with recording their music. He hopped on keys and has been with Güero ever since.
That different feel Volksen mentioned comes from the evolution of these songs. Before the band started, Krull had written a huge amount of songs that were never intended to be heard by anyone else.
“When we lived together, [Krull] brought out this archive of songs that he had written that hadn’t seen the light of day,” said Davis.
The guys in Güero say that Krull has even more—“a book full”—of songs that no one has ever heard. It’s easy to assume that some of the band’s debut is made up of those old songs that Krull has been keeping in his back pocket for years; but according to Volksen, the band is always working on new music. And sometimes, the lyrics are sung in Spanish.
“[Krull] has his degree from UC Davis in Spanish,” reported Davis. “He’s spent many a summer in Barcelona. That’s where the name Güero came from because his nickname was always Güero.”
The term güero is slang used in Mexico used to describe someone who is Mexican and has pale skin.
The song “Camino,” which appears on the album, is a six-minute tale about a Greyhound bus trip Krull once took from Northern Mexico back home to Sacramento. If the song’s description on Bandcamp can be trusted, Krull met a man named Red who used a vacuum to suck the change out of vending machines.
If you aren’t Spanish bilingual, and don’t understand all the lyrics from the band’s Spanish tracks, don’t worry; neither do Krull’s bandmates.
“We understand the meanings of the songs and some of the words,” said Davis.
“It’s funny, [Krull] used to [sing in Spanish] a little more because it’s easier to rhyme because a lot of the words end in a similar way,” said Volksen. “There are a couple of lines in that song that I don’t know what they mean, and I’ve been meaning to ask him. It’s been years now!”
The 11-minute epic “Stamp” is a definite highlight of what the band has released thus far. It’s a lush, vibrant composition and comes with more structure than is typical of the standard jam-band fare. It begs the question of where Güero lies in terms of genre.
Their Bandcamp page tags them as “baroque pop” and “synthpop,” while their Facebook will have you believe that the band plays “indie skate rock,” a term Davis and Volksen are pretty sure Submerge coined in a previous issue. None of that is enough to describe the scope of what Güero is employing in their songs.
Davis plays the banjo and the charango, but they aren’t playing bluegrass or traditional Colombian music. Volksen, like many musicians, played jazz band in high school, but that’s not the only influence on his playing. Krull’s voice has been said to be reminiscent of both Jeremy Enigk of Sunny Day Real Estate and Colin Meloy of the Decemberists.
That’s the thing about Güero; all those influences are evident in what the band creates because every member believes in experimentation and taking their own path. That alone, however, isn’t what defines the music. It has its allegiances in terms of sound and genre, but Krull and company made this music because it means something to them. Davis and Volksen would say that much of the focus for their music is on Krull’s voice.
“[Krull] just has a really unique voice and he has a really good ear for cadence,” said Davis. “He’s just naturally gifted.”
“He’s got such a great voice,” continued Volksen. “It’s pretty mind-blowing if you don’t know what you’re expecting. It’s like, ‘Damn, this guy can really sing!’”
Despite that bravado, Güero is a band full of modest members. The songs may start in Krull’s notebook, but the end result is a group effort.
“[Ritchie] is the most gung-ho out of all of us,” said Davis.
“[Ritchie] just wants to give it his all,” said Volksen.
“It’s funny because we have opposite ends of the spectrum,” continued Davis. “[Krull] is not on social media at all. He’s got, like, zero ego. He’s not trying to self-promote. I have to go over to his work to tell all his colleagues about our shows because he’s not telling them. On the opposite side, you’ve got [Ritchie] who’s trying to do all the promotion and the rest of us fall into the middle somewhere.”
It’s a balance that has become integral to the band. That balance and love can be heard in their tracks.
Like the band wrote on their Facebook page, “doesn’t matter where or when; garage or venue …as long as we are together we will continue to do what we love.”
Catch Güero live at Old Ironsides (1901 10th St., Sacramento) Saturday, Oct. 13 to celebrate the release of their self-titled debut CD! Also performing is Dylan Crawford, and André Fylling. Show starts at 9 p.m. $7 at the door and CDs are $8. Güero also hits the stage on Saturday, Oct. 20 at Bar 101 (101 Main St., Roseville) for free! 9:30 p.m. start time. Check out Facebook.com/guerotheband for more info.
**This piece first appeared in print on pages 12 – 13 of issue #275 (Sept. 26 – Oct. 10, 2018)**
When Marty Taters throws a party, he pulls out all the stops. The local singer-songwriter and familiar face on the open mic scene is gearing up for his album release show on March 24 at Old Ironsides (1901 10th St.), and for the measly cover charge of $12 (just $10 if you buy in advance!), you not only get a whole lot of music, you get a barbecue dinner, too, catered by none other than T&R Taste of Texas. Come for the food, sure, but you’ll want to stay for the entertainment, too, as Taters has also lined up a heck of a bill, with appearances from artists such as JD Valerio, Kurt Michaels, The Cheap Bastards Club, Heath Williamson and Bill Mylar, Sal Valentino and the Tot’s and many others. After the songwriter showcase portion of the night is over, You Front the Band live karaoke takes over from 10 p.m. ‘til 1 a.m. to keep the party going all night. Doors open at 7 p.m. for the show. 21-and-over only. For more information or to grab tickets ahead of time, hit up Taters online at Facebook.com/marty.taters.
The Sacramento area has a large and diverse punk scene, with styles ranging from pop punk to folk punk to hardcore. But from time to time, the local music scene becomes permeated by a handful of bands who are playing another exciting and danceable sub-genre: ska punk.
One of these local bands is ska/skate punk group At Both Ends. The band has been playing together for almost three years now (their anniversary is coming up in September), and they recently celebrated the release of their new album Wheel’s Out the Window with an energetic and heartfelt album release party at Cafe Colonial. At Both Ends has put out a short EP in the past, but Wheel’s Out the Window is their first full-length album, and it takes a more upbeat and eclectic direction than their previous release.
The new album was recorded in Sacramento at Pus Cavern, and is distributed by Morning Wood Records (a small punk rock label based out of the Netherlands), as well as online. Wheel’s Out the Window captured the attention of ska and punk publications around the United States, and the album has also been warmly received in Germany, France and other parts of Europe.
I caught the band’s set at their album release show, and I was struck by their uplifting lyrics, driving drum beats and vibrant horn section. Catchy vocal harmonies give way to epic guitar solos, and intricate instrumental switch-ups will keep you on your toes. The group dances and leaps around the stage while they wail on their instruments, and as a member of the audience it’s hard to stand still.
I had the chance to talk to singer/guitarist Gene Mansour and singer/bassist Sean McCobb about their new album, things they’re looking forward to and the serendipitous way that the band was started.
Photo by Cam Evans
Tell me about your band name. What are you guys at both ends of?
Sean McCobb: Everything.
Gene Mansour: We are at both ends of a whole bunch of things. Like the spectrum of punk.
You know, going from ska to kind of metal at times. At Both Ends is burning the candle at both ends, in my life and in the lives of a lot of the other guys in the band. I have a full-time job and a full-time family, a wife and three kids, and we’re still cramming in the band, organizing tours and living life to the fullest! Life’s too short to not burn the candle at both ends, that’s my perspective on it.
SM: We like to have two very wide perspectives and make them run into each other, so that what we create is different, hopefully, than things before.
How and where did you guys start At Both Ends?
SM: There was this guy named Dan.
GM: Dan initially sent out a Craigslist post asking for a bass player. I liked the idea of why he was forming a band, so I said, “I don’t play bass guitar, but if you need a second guitar, I’ll play with you.” And he got Junior [Onesimo Martinez, Jr.], our drummer, and Sean, who’s a bass-player and trombonist, to come and jam with us. Dan just never turned up after the first practice. We just kept playing. Then we added to the band. Now Jason [Eldred] is playing lead guitar, and George [Brahler] plays with us on trumpet.
Where is everyone from?
SM: We all live in Sacramento right now, but only Jason is actually from Sacramento.
GM: I’m from Australia, Junior is from Orange County, Sean is from Rancho Cucamonga and George is from Kansas.
What was a pivotal experience that made you realize you wanted to play ska music?
SM: I bitched a lot. I just complained until we started playing ska music. That’s how I remember it, I could be wrong.
So At Both Ends didn’t start out as a ska band?
SM: We were supposed to be a straight punk band initially. I don’t know if we were supposed to be anything, but we didn’t play a ska song until probably a couple months in.
Do you have a message in your music? What type of change would you like to see globally, and how do you think your music ties into it?
SM: When At Both Ends started, I wanted to bring freedom, and I’m kind of an anarchist, and I wanted to spread that. But I really eventually saw that spreading happiness was kind of cooler. So that’s where I’m at now. I want to make music that makes people happy and dance.
GM: The vibe of the music is definitely about happiness. From my perspective, a lot of what I write is about people taking initiative for their own life. I don’t like the idea that people have to look for someone else to blame. You need to take initiative for your own life. That’s what a lot of the songs end up being about, when I write them. A lot of the meanings and the words are about that. But as a whole, I think that Sean hits the nail on the head, saying that we want people to have fun. Particularly when they come to see us play live. We want them to have a good time.
What direction does the style of music take, in comparison to what you’ve done before?
GM: The style of the album took us more down the ska avenue. The first EP was very much fast, melodic skate punk, with a little bit of ska thrown in. [For this album] we incorporated more songs that are ska, while still retaining that fast, melodic [punk] undertone throughout the album. I suppose that we became more ska. We brought the trumpet player George into the band before this album, and we added more horns to the mix as well. So that was kind of the direction that we headed down on the album. And I think our songs became a lot more dynamic as well.
SM: Our music [on this new album] is much more technical than on the EP.
Are you working on new music, now that your album is complete?
SM: We got so many songs in the works. I’m making a driving effort [to make it so] that everything I produce is a really spliced version of ska and punk. So, [the songs are] not [structured] like an offbeat verse with a downbeat chorus, but in a single part of the song you’re going to hear both things. We switch back and forth between the upbeat and downbeat.
Photo by Cam Evans
We already touched on this a little bit before … You want to inspire people to take initiative in their own lives, and to go out and make things happen. My next question is this: What type of knowledge do you think people should study in order to facilitate the evolution of our species?
GM: Woah, that’s deep. You do realize that you’re speaking to a bunch of punks right?
SM: I think people should learn how to understand how they impact everything else. You play an infinite role in everything else that goes on in the world, so if you consider that and make small choices every day that are better for everybody, I think that would help our species progress.
GM: My opinion is that people need to look at evolution itself: how the human species progressed from caveman to what we are now, and where we’re at with evolution. I think that evolution itself now has come to point where we’re not evolving. It actually may be a negative evolution. Like Sean said, people are no longer looking at the big picture, they’re only looking at themselves. And if you don’t look at the big picture, you miss out on the important stuff. You need to try to be open-minded, and keep learning about everything. If you don’t, you’ll revert and become a part of the negative evolution. You will not propagate your species.
SM: Also, people need to understand how energy is produced and how food is produced, and how those things are interrelated. It’s important to understand how much energy we’re consuming, not just with the lights that we turn on, but with everything we do. For example, things like soda take so much energy and resources from the world, but soda is really bad for people. Think about how much energy is used to do that, and it doesn’t have a positive result. We waste a lot of resources producing it.
What are you most looking forward to as a band?
GM: Oh, we can’t reveal that just yet. Something in the near future!
SM: [Laughing] Oh man, I almost said it right off the bat!
GM: I know, that’s why I cut you off, Sean! [Laughing] But currently, we’re heading on a mini tour down to Southern California … We get to play with the absolute champion band Lowbrow, and some other bands that are champion bands down there.
SM: Lowbrow is amazing. People should listen
to Lowbrow.
GM: Check them out. Radical music. It’s pretty exciting. But every show … I’m definitely excited for every show we play at. I think it’s an absolute honor and privilege to get out and play music in front of people. And to have at least one person dance, even if it’s Sean … That does something for me.
SM: I’m really excited about making new music. I like the writing process, and we decided to take a break on that for a little bit, so I’m really excited to get back into that. That’s not what I was going to say first [laughing], but that’s an answer.
GM: We will reveal such news soon.
See At Both Ends in Sacramento on Friday, July 7, 2017, at Old Ironsides with The O’Mulligans, Jesus & The Dinosaurs and Captain 9s and the Knickerbocker Trio, and on Saturday, July 8, 2017, at Cafe Colonial with Dan P. and the Bricks, Skasucks and Rebel Radio. Their new album Wheel’s Out the Window is available for download online, or you can order a CD from Morningwoodrecords.com. Stream the album via the Bandcamp player below.
You get the impression that the guys in Thieves These Days originally got together for some big heist job that fell through. This isn’t really because the band feels like a consolation prize, or that the project gives off the aroma of failure, but simply put: they seem like a ragtag group of characters from very different walks of life who somehow found themselves in a room, putting their head together for something big. And since a couple of them work for the state of California, one can only assume they didn’t succeed in any sort of big payday.
All jokes aside, Thieves These Days are about to drop their debut album, Silhouettes, after two years of hard work and dedication. Consisting of Jacob (aka Cody) Burnett on vocals, guitar and keys, John Blomster on vocals and guitar, bass player Jonathan Bernstein and Keith Krautter on drums, Thieves These Days have spent the first two years of their existence perfecting, tooling and retooling their sound, and they are ready to release their finished product to whoever is willing to listen.
“We were playing together for a year,” said Blomster during a phone interview with Submerge, “and it wasn’t even a couple of months in before songs began to take shape, or the songs you see reflected in the album started to take shape. We just got together and it was just fun. We would bring beer over, spend a whole afternoon or evening just playing, jamming, tweaking stuff; standing outside listening to music and talking. [It was] really laid back.”
This in particular stood out to Blomster immediately as different than his experiences in previous projects. “In other bands that I have been in, we would come in, we would run the set, or if we were writing a song, we would run the song, then we would run it again, then we would run it again, and run it again, and run it again,” said Blomster. “With us, it was this really easygoing process, where there was no stress, no real pressure to deliver. It was going to come because that’s what happens. Over time these songs have taken shape, and I can’t tell you how many times we’ve rewritten most of these songs from the album. Our practices, that’s where we bond, not just as musicians, but as friends and as individuals.”
Krautter, who at 55 is the oldest member of the band by far, has his theories on why the band gelled so well right out of the gate. “There’s no ego in the band at all,” said Krautter, “and that’s one of the reasons I think we just enjoyed jamming and writing together, and playing was sort of an afterthought, occasionally. But we definitely wanted to capture our stuff on a nice recording, you know, have something to show for our work.”
“For us, it’s a release,” continued Krautter. “We all have tough day jobs, and getting together and playing is just a release.”
As previously mentioned, two of the members are state workers—Krautter, who works in IT, and Bernstein, who works in human resources. Blomster works in the field of tourism marketing, and Burnett … well, Burnett is their barber, who fate would have it was the catalyst that brought the four of them together.
“I moved here from Ohio a couple of years ago,” said Krautter, “and I was in bands my whole life over there, and through a friend of a friend I met Jonathan, and we started jamming with some people. Then I was telling my barber about it, and Cody’s my barber, and he’s like, ‘Hey, you know what? I play.’ And I’m like ‘Really?’ So he came over and we just clicked. The three of us just really clicked. We started writing immediately.”
Blomster’s experience was nearly identical. “I had just moved back from San Francisco,” he said. “I’m from Sacramento and I had been living and just moved back, and I was talking to my barber at the time about some work I had done on my guitar, and he had mentioned he was playing with a couple of guys. I came and basically auditioned, and I joined about two years ago. And once I joined, we started really writing in earnest.”
After two years of building and reshaping material, the band was ready to hit the studio. Following some experimentation with self-recording and an unsuccessful studio experience, the guys finally were able to find the right setting to sit down and lay down some tape, resulting in their impending debut.
“We recorded this album at Earth Tone Recording Company, with Patrick Hills, who is just an absolute legend when it comes to local bands,” said Blomster. “We had gone through experiences with recording, whether on our own or with other places, but once we found Patrick, and Earth Tone, it just clicked like crazy. It was the most natural experience. It’s this great space, we were recording in the room next to Rituals of Mine, who was practicing. The whole experience was so easygoing that we recorded the first half of the album over the course of one weekend, then we came back a couple of weeks later to do the rest of it.”
The final product feels like a labor of love. “Wanderlust,” the second track, is mellow, dance-y and hook-laden. “Eyes Wide at Midnight” causes nostalgia for indie acts like Saves the Day or The Get Up Kids. Album-opening track “Imposter” is more reminiscent of the early-‘90s Sub Pop days. All in all, with so many influences and sounds, Silhouettes feels complete, not scattered.
Blomster explains the meaning behind the title. “It was a callback to a lyric that really stands out in that particular song,” he said. “All of our songs are very personal, and it’s been over the course of these two years that we have shaped not only our sound but also grown together as individuals, as musicians. This idea that you leave a certain shape of yourself behind as you grow and become a more complete and wiser person, you leave these silhouettes behind that are always there with you, but ultimately are not the person you are anymore. That’s also kind of what the name of the band means: we are all borrowing from different experiences in our lives constantly, and that kind of tapestry of ideas, of philosophies, of people, of friendships, they really shape who you are, and they also shape the music you make.”
While the four members are not a random assortment of criminals, seething over a criminal wealth sadly unachieved, what they are are ingredients to a unique recipe. While you might not expect certain elements to pair so well, they do. And they compliment each other quite well.
“We come from different places, the four of us,” said Blomster, “and together we make up something that is greater than the sum of its parts.”
[Editor’s note: Though Thieves These Days is a four-piece band, you may have noticed only three musicians featured in the photos accompanying this article. Jacob Burnett has recently relocated to Los Angeles, according to an email we received from Keith Krautter. Burnett will return for the band’s upcoming CD release show at Old Ironsides; however, this may be the band’s last performance for a while. “We plan to keep writing together, but will only be playing major events in the near future,” Krautter wrote. “That’s why we’re calling the [Old Ironsides] show a CD release/farewell? party … We hope to keep it going, but we just won’t be playing out that much.”]
Thieves These Days celebrate the release of Silhouettes and play what they describe on Facebook as their “last show for the foreseeable future” April 8, 2017, at Old Ironsides, located at 1901 10th St. in Sacramento. The 21-and-up show starts at 8 p.m. and also features Vinnie Guidera and the Dead Birds, Streetlight Fire and Odame Sucks, with admission costing $10 at the door. Find out more at Facebook.com/Thievesthesedays. Stream their album below.
For someone with even a passive love for music, Larry Rodriguez (aka DJ Larry or The Flower Vato) can be a pretty intimidating figure. Not only has he been making Sacramentans sweat for 20 years with his wildly popular Dance Party at the Press Club on Sundays (affectionately called “Church” by people in the know), but he’s provided the soundtrack to what most of us have been doing for the past two decades with his insane record library and encyclopedic music vocabulary. Every time he’s in control of the decks, I go home with a list of music to look up.
Maybe the most impressive part is that he’s been at it for most of his life, like the cool kid in John Hughes movies. “I was that dude in high school who was always concealing a boombox in his book bag in case there were any breakdance battles at lunch,” Rodriguez says.
As a 16-year-old, he landed a show he called Soul Sauce on a community radio station, where he played records people twice his age didn’t know anything about—jazz, funk, latin grooves, reggae and international jams from Africa and Brazil.
He gained notoriety and rose through the ranks, DJing at Jerry Perry’s legendary clubs Vortex and Cattle Club, but it wasn’t until he saved the night at a real dance party that Dance Party started to take form.
“On New Year’s Eve of 1996, I was chilling in my attic, having a puff and listening to some sides when [my brother] Mike calls from a party that some kids from The Loft were having,” Rodriguez recalls. “He told me to bring my funk and soul records because they were dancing to Billy Idol and Duran Duran singles. So I show up, throw on In the Jungle Groove by James Brown, and the joint was jumping. The rest of the night was great even with just one turntable and a rickety stereo unit. Afterward, Marla Kanelos who booked Old Ironsides asked if I wanted to do a weekly dance starting the following Sunday. That’s when Dance Party was born.”
He’s been stoking Sacramento’s flame ever since. DJing at KDVS, hosting dance nights and even doing wedding gigs.
“I’ve done cowboy weddings where all they want to hear is country music and hip-hop,” he says. “I get a perverse kick knowing what we’ve always known as rednecks are actually opening up to black culture more than we know. I was playing ‘Boot Scootin’ Boogie’ back to back with ‘Whip the Nae Nae.’”
Every time I run into Rodriguez, I walked away marveling at how deep his love for music runs. I caught up with him after a long day of making people move. His enthusiasm is so contagious that it’s hard not to catch on.
First things first: if everyone reading this was with us in your living room, what record would you put on?
I have a stack cued up by the record player right now. Looks like the first few records we’d be listening to are Bent City by Phil Yost, Plastic Ono Band by Yoko Ono, America Eats Its Young by Funkadelic and Modern Journal of Popular Savagery by Porest.
With that out of the way, tell me a bit about who you are, how you started out and ended up here?
Though I was involved in hip-hop culture as a teen, I would also listen to KDVS where I’ve irregularly been hosting shows for the last 13 years. KDVS opened my mind to many types of music. Not only were they the first local station to play Grandmaster Flash, The Jonzun Crew and Afrika Bambaataa but the DJs would mix it up with punk, new wave, reggae, etc. I was hooked.
Around that time a great venue for teens interested in post-punk and new wave dancing was Jerry Perry’s Vortograph Center [The Vortex], near 15th and C streets. The whole room smelled like cloves, which I found rather exotic and it’s where I first met DJs Dave Mier and Danny O’Grady who were cool enough to let me in the DJ booth to look through their records and to see how it was done. I was definitely interested in DJing but discouraged by how expensive it would be.
Jerry Perry let me spin in between bands several times at the Cattle Club around 1989 or ‘90 but it wasn’t until the beginning of 1997 that I first started DJing regularly at a club. I can thank my brother Mike and Marla Kanelos for springing that into action.
What’s a typical day in the life of Larry Rodriguez like?
A typical day for me is constantly pulling and filing from the sprawl of my own music collection. It’s a full-time librarian job that’s never finished. I also spend at least 30 hours a week researching and discovering new and old music, whether at record shops, flea markets, thrift shops or even on the web.
YouTube is a great place to educate yourself and discover all sorts of music—it’s a deep well. So is the KDVS library … I can go in there with a list of 10 things I want to look up and end up spending six to seven hours finding other music in the process.
There’s a lot of talk about the ebb and flow of the Sacramento music scene—you’ve been around for a lot of it, you wanna weigh in?
I’ve enjoyed the Sacramento music scene over the years. It seems like every 10 years a whole new renaissance of bands emerge that make the music scene fun again.
Speaking of, I have a killer lineup for the Dance Party’s 20th Anniversary show at the Press Club. We have Sacto Storytellers and The Scratch Outs, both hard-hitting rocksteady reggae bands featuring members of Filibuster and The Steady Ups. Then the Cuf is reuniting for the night. All the hip-hop heads in town are hella excited about that, and there’s The City of Trees Brass Band, who are not only badass and funky but several members are regular attendees at “Church.” Opening the show is Swank [Ike Burnett] who is the brother of MC Ride of Death Grips and closing the show is Roman Austin, a neo-soul R&B crooner who wrote a sexy jam [“Church (Rollin’)”] about the Dance Party.
What about for you? Dance Party has been going for 20 years now. Has it changed much since you started?
Though Dance Party started at Old Ironsides on the first Sunday of 1997, the first run at Press Club was from ‘98 to 2003. Dan Montoya was the manager then, and he persuaded me to bring my night over there after hearing that Ironsides let me go because of graffiti constantly marring their bathrooms. At the Press, it’s well known that the heavy volume of graffiti in their restrooms began to resemble a Jackson Pollock painting, so it was a better fit from the get-go. We had a great run, won some awards, had some good writeups and Sunday eventually branched out to an additional Friday and both nights were well attended. I eventually fell out of there while clashing with the new management so I kept the Party going weekly at The Distillery and Blue Lamp with occasional nights at Old Ironsides. In 2005 Dance Party picked up Wednesdays at the G Street Wunderbar in Davis, where it’s still going.
The second run at the Press Club started in 2010 when Kirk Johnston asked me if I wanted to come back. I said “hell yes!” I’ve always loved the Press Club even after getting thrown out, to this day I’m happy as a clam to show up there and play music. Kirk died a few years ago but his brother Roger still owns the place and he’s always been a great guy and I love the manager Susan Durst, who’s been with the club after they ran out the asshole who ran me out.
I have a friend who got pregnant after starting her night at Church. How do you feel knowing you’ve been an accessory to so many people getting down—in both senses.
I love it, and I will gladly keep facilitating those activities as long as it keeps everyone happy.
I’ve had couples pay for my dinner when they saw me at the same restaurant because they met on my night, some wedding gigs have come out of it too.
Do you change your set around if you see couples need a certain mood?
While DJing any dance, it’s always a good idea to read the room as a whole and not just cater to that one bratty bro or ‘ho that’ll constantly pester you with inappropriate requests.
They usually claim to speak for “everyone” in the room while in the meantime the whole room is busy getting down on the floor. It’s a good idea to expediently cut these pests off because they tend to interfere with your work while you’re trying to focus on the set. If they keep bothering you just squirt cold water at them from between your teeth, they’ll leave you alone.
You’ve been doing this a while. Where do you see yourself in 20 more years?
If I’m still alive 20 years from now, I can see myself being the house DJ at an old people’s home. Maybe do something with experimental sound therapy or shamanism to help people prepare for crossing over to the other side or at least be at peace with it.
The 20th anniversary bash for Dance Party will take place at The Press Club (2030 P St., Sacramento) on Jan. 8, 2017. (You should be over your New Year’s hangover by then.) Cover charge is just $10, and the event will feature The Cuf, The Scratch Outs, City of Trees Brass Band, Sacto Storytellers, Roman Austin and Swank. Keep your dance card open, and get ready to throw down at 7 p.m.
What’s in a name? The Bard was correct, names are meaningless. The truth lies in what the name represents. While the name Shotgun Sawyer may still be foreign to most, sometime in the near future it will very likely be commonplace.
However, the name Thunderchief might ring a bell. That is the moniker that the three-piece outfit now known as Shotgun Sawyer—including vocalist Dylan Jarman, guitarist Brett Sanders as well as David Lee on the drums—had played under for more than a year. Yet, when it came time to finally put out their first record, they found out they were not the only ones using the Thunderchief name. While they were quite fond of their title, they moved on.
“Shotgun Sawyer is the new name that we chose,” said Jarman in a phone interview with Submerge. “We had been playing for almost a year as Thunderchief, and we really liked that name, but when we went to release our album, we looked at iTunes and [other sites], these other bands had already posted things as Thunderchief. We didn’t want things to get confused, it’s not fair to them. We thought about it for a long time, and actually Brett’s brother suggested Shotgun Sawyer, so we just went with it.”
While this was not an easy transition, the band feels in the long run it has been worth it. In some respects, even rewarding.
“It’s been a really interesting opportunity,” said Jarman. “We are starting again, so a lot of the work we had done, our branding, has kind of gone down the drain. But, then again, we’re starting fresh, but in the same band but with music already, an album already, and with know-how already on how to make our brand stick. How to get our name out there. We’re hitting the ground running this time, but nothing has changed. It’s a really unique opportunity.”
Their music, however, will speak for itself. This is hard-punching, head-banging, toe-tapping, knee-slapping, hand-clapping nostalgic rock, and it’s goddamn irresistible. Their debut album, titled Thunderchief, is due out Aug. 13, 2016. This album, from the ultra-catchy sing-along first track “Skinwalker,” to the face-melting jam “Sudden Death in the Flesh,” to the slow rocker “Nothing Left to Lose,” doesn’t stumble for a second. Instead it consistently provides quality songs for rock purists, regardless of age.
Shotgun Sawyer will no doubt get comparisons to bands such as the White Stripes and The Black Keys for their obvious shared inspirations, but don’t expect that to limit their appeal. You really can’t have too much catchy, hook-filled rock ‘n’ roll.
“Dylan and I have played music for quite a while, fiddling with stuff, seeing what sort of styles we like, what styles we can mesh with,” said Sanders. “We started to want to actually start a band, because we wanted to get serious about it, so we needed a drummer. We tried out a couple of people, but I had played with David—our current drummer—I had played with him just in old jam sessions and stuff here and there for a while. So I suggested we bring in this drummer because I knew he was good and he would work well with our style, and we brought him in, it happened to work. We practiced a few times together, went to an open mic and played some music, and the energy was really contagious, and it was hard not to admit that this was the right setup for our band.”
“One of the songs that’s on Thunderchief, ‘Lawman,’ the third track I think, that’s a song Brett and I wrote before David was ever in the mix,” Jarman added. “That was the first original song Brett and I sat down and wrote. The album, that’s definitely the music that’s been coming out of us this entire time. It definitely typifies the mission that we have. We all have our different influences—David loves jazzy stuff, Brett really loves Rush and I really love Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones, that middle ground is what all of those styles come together to fuse us together.”
In a post on the band’s Facebook page, the band shared a photograph with a collection of their favorite bands’ first albums, which they had been tirelessly obsessing over while putting the finishing touches on their impending debut.
“With that, we were mostly looking for what most of our [favorite bands] did for their first albums in terms of art,” said Jarman. “What sort of things in terms of pictures, pictures of the band, imagery because, I think, a lot of times the visual aspect of a band isn’t focused on as much … there’s an equal element, the visual element, the visual representation of the band. So we really wanted to focus on the albums that we love that were first albums, and see how we could apply those lessons into our album.”
The band recorded the album at Earthtone Studios in Sacramento, with Patrick Hills recording and producing. The band is very happy with the results of that session, in particular, the raw sound and honest qualities the final product offers to listeners.
“Frankly nothing bothers me more than when you get that robotic, perfect, every single drumbeat, every single bass note, every single guitar solo sound exactly perfect,” Jarman said. “There’s no humanity in that. For me, what I listen to in music is the humanity … something I can connect to. I can’t connect to perfect drumbeats. I can’t connect to perfect guitar solos. I can connect with imperfections because I am imperfect. So what I really wanted in the record, and what Patrick was totally willing to work with us on, is making it sound [real], even if it is imperfect, even if there are little quirks and imperfections, that’s us coming through the music. I really wanted that.
“If you listed to old Led Zeppelin or you listen to old Rolling Stones, you’ve got people hootin’ and hollerin’ in the background, or you get Keith Richards messing up on a solo, but they kept recording,” Jarman continued. “Who cares? That’s an honest representation, it’s an authentic representation of what they play like. I don’t want someone to listen to our record and have them feel like, ‘They were way better on the record.’ That would be a nightmare. I want people coming to a show and thinking, ‘oh, damn … these guys can play!’”
Yet for all of their musical influences—be that band or genre—when pressed on what truly influenced their sound, the group cites growing up in Auburn as their main source of material.
“I’d say just the fact that we are from Auburn is a pretty big part of who we are,” said Jarman. “We grew up toward Grass Valley, up in the hills, and the kind of music we always listened to was whatever they were playing on the classic rock stations … there’s four or five of them up here. We don’t get a lot of the popular music radio stations. So we all grew up listening to CCR and the Eagles, and that’s the kind of music that we love. We’re just some guys from the backwoods, and we like to play old school rock ‘n’ roll, but we’re also young and we play it our way.”
Shotgun Sawyer’s album release show is Saturday, Aug. 13, 2016 at Old Ironsides, located at 1901 10th street in downtown Sacramento. The cover is just $7, 21-plus, 9 p.m. Also performing will be locals The Pressure Lounge and Michael Ray. For more on Shotgun Sawyer, visit Shotgunsawyer.com or Facebook.com/shotgunsawyer.
Now in its fifth artery-clogging year, the annual Bacon Fest is back. Just when you thought you’d gotten a handle on your diet, the festival’s curators threw a curve ball of epic proportions your way. This year’s festivities include nearly 100 restaurants, bars, cafes, coffeehouses, gelato spots, supermarkets and anywhere else that’ll serve their salt-laden purpose. Some highlights this year include (but are most certainly not limited to) a Bacon and Beer Bus Tour (for those who like to go hard with their pork), a special opening night party at Empress Tavern replete with a special bacon and pork menu and a once-in-a-lifetime chef challenge and (gasp!) the first annual Bacon Fest Cocktail Competition at Bottle and Barlow. Hosts Nick Miller and Brian Guido have really outdone themselves this year and have already sold out their Bacon Fest Chefs Competition on Jan. 31 at Mulvaney’s B&L without much ado. Bacon lovers who want to get in on the action still have many opportunities across our fair city, so don’t fret just yet. Other cool official events include a multi-band tribute show at Old Ironsides dubbed the Kevin Bacon Tribute Night, a fabulous bacon paella at Selland’s Market, Bacon and Butter’s first dinner service, a very necessary Hook and Ladder Bacon Fest Brunch, Pangaea Bacon and Beer Night, The Golden Bear Bacon Fest Happy Hour and more. RSVP at cebook.com/SacramentoBaconFest and check out Baconfestsac.com in the interim.
Sonic High
What do you do when you are raised on classical music, majored in music in college and played the flute in high school? Start an electronic dream pop band, of course.
That’s exactly what Jeremiah Tsering did when he and four friends—Mark Johnston on guitar, Phillip Moskalets on bass, Dave Moskalets on keyboards and Mark Tuzman on drums—launched The Good Fortune last summer.
“I’ve always had an urge to write, since high school, which was not that long ago. I started playing guitar first then my goal switched over to writing because I kept having all of these sounds playing in my head (I sound like a crazy person), but eventually I was around some people who inspired me to just start recording,” Tsering says.
This urge eventually metamorphosed into a full-on musical effort when Tsering and Johnston were approached by a friend to fill a last-minute slot at a show at Lounge of Life. The fortuitous event would prove to be the catalyst from which The Good Fortune would emerge.
“It was kind of an accident, we had a friend who asked us to play just this one-off [show], and we did a bunch of cover songs and a couple of originals, and it went really well,” Johnston says. “The band meshed really well, and [we] just decided to roll with it because we got a really good reaction and then we accidentally became a band, and it’s been fun.”
While each individual member of the band wasn’t new to the music scene (all five have played in other musical projects and bands), they admit that throwing together a quick set list and forming a band on the fly was a challenge, but one which they fully embraced.
“It was the most bizarre, euphoric thing, Johnson continues. “We walked on stage having no idea what was going to happen and thinking ‘Let’s hope they like the cover songs.’ And people were dancing, people really got into it and we walked off stage and into the green room and we just looked at each other like, ‘That really just happened. OK let’s do another one of these.’ We thought it was going to be a one-off but it was the best. There’s an intangible to getting off stage and going ‘People who I’ve never met in my entire life just liked what I did.’”
The accidental band then forged on, playing shows at small venues and cultivating and honing their lush, dreamy sound. Soon the fivesome were being invited to play at larger gigs, culminating with a performance at this summer’s THIS Midtown block party, a stint at Sam Sascha Keshavarz’s Le Twist Tuesdays dance party and a slot on the bill at the Submerge Presents Lipstick! New Year’s Eve party at Old Ironsides. But all of the attention hasn’t distracted the band from their mission to bring a soulful and thoughtful voice to the local music scene.
“I always had this dream of playing in a band and bringing a team with me and not doing something super selfish—there’s a lot of people out there who write and say ‘It’s all about me,’ so I think it’s really cool when you can do something and involve other people and they can find their role and everyone kind of grows with you, and that’s what it’s been like so far,” Tsering says.
The longtime friends cite their diverse musical backgrounds and interests as the spark that ignites their collective passion for bringing their distinct vision of music to life—a vision that strives to balance professionalism with a collaborative spirit where all of the players are empowered to have fun and enjoy themselves.
“We all respect each other as musicians,” Johnston says. “Our bass player Phil has surreal amounts of talent. He’s incredible. One of the other guys in the band, Dave, he was in Nashville like two years ago writing country music. Jeremiah grew up listening to a bunch of progressive, indie rock bands, and I grew up listening to metal and hardcore. But all of those influences … and all of us really respecting each other’s musical backgrounds, and really liking the central vision for what we do, makes it such a fun experience.”
The band’s first EP, Social Crowns, was recorded in Tsering’s home studio and was comprised of a collection of songs that the singer-songwriter had been amassing since his senior year in high school. The experience of writing and recording was a therapeutic experience for the singer, who admits that the process helped him get through a bout of depression and that the music is more than just catchy verses and tunes.
“A lot of those songs I started writing even before we got that first show—probably like a year in advance, in total,” Tsering says. “I’ve been writing pretty consistently since senior year of high school. When music really affects me it bypasses all of the senses and goes straight to the soul and emotions, and it’s almost like a high, it’s crazy. My goal is to have real-life messages that we talk about, that make people think about the lyrics, not like, ‘Oh, this is a catchy tune or this is a catchy verse.’ I want people to think about it a little deeper and maybe understand the meaning of the song or question what it’s about.”
And that is what is at the core of TGF’s musical philosophy—a longing to encourage an honest and thoughtful dialogue about everyday life that isn’t pretentious or isolating that celebrates Sacramento.
“I actually ranted about this the other day on Instagram,” Tsering says. “I see Sacramento as we’re laying a foundation for something, and I feel like a lot of other cities and the world has kind of looked at Sacramento as a second-class city, and I like that. I’ve always felt like the underdog, I’ve always felt like I didn’t really have everything but if I was diligent enough I can go ahead and get to the place I need to be, so that’s where I see Sacramento. Especially with festivals like TBD and how that’s growing, and I see the growth of these things and I just want to be part of it and contribute as much as we can to show people that Sacramento isn’t some random city that you just pass through; we have culture, we have a lot of great things.”
The bandmates’ love for music and the magic that a live performance can conjure is also at the center of what they want to bring to the vital Sacramento music scene. As the band looks to the new year, they’re encouraging themselves to continue to push forward. They’re currently working on news songs and hope to release their first full-length effort next year while also embracing the DIY ethos that is at the heart of the new music business by looking to create a series of music videos on YouTube. Oh, and if we’re lucky we might even see Tsering bust out the flute during a future performance.
See The Good Fortune live at Old Ironsides as part of the Lipstick New Year’s Eve party, presented by Submerge. DJs Shaun Slaughter, Adam Jay and Roger Carpio will also be on hand. Admission is just $10 and the party starts at 9 p.m. Go to Theoldironsides.com for more information.
It’s time to say goodbye to 2015. From rock concerts, to dance parties, to comedy shows and everything in between, here is your ultimate guide to Sacramento-area New Year’s Eve parties! Have fun, be safe and please don’t drink and drive.
1) If you’re looking for a funky dance party head to Torch Club and get down with two fantastic local bands: IdeaTeam (featuring Aquifer) and Black Star Safari. Cover charge is $25, 9 p.m., 21-plus. Torchclub.net for more info.
2) Enjoy a soft rock explosion at Harlow’s with Mustache Harbor. Tickets are $30 in advance, doors open at 9 p.m., 21-plus. Hit up Harlows.com for a link to buy tickets.
3) Sing along to your favorite hard rock hits with Radio Heavy at our favorite downtown Roseville watering hole, Bar 101. This party is free and 21-and-over, with a 9:30 p.m. start time. Bar101roseville.com for more info.
4) Groove to late ‘80s and early ‘90s hip-hop, hip-house, and R&B at “New Jack Fling” at Press Club, brought to you by DJs Crook (featured in our current issue), BenJohnson and Satapana. $7 cover, 21-plus, 9 p.m.
5) Ace of Spades wants to party hard with you on NYE when they host legendary heavy metal band Y&T, with opening sets by locals Skin of Saints, ONOFF and Roswell. Tickets are $35 in advance, available at Aceofspadessac.com. 7 p.m. doors. This show is all-ages!
6) The newest dive bar on the grid B-Side invites you to check out their digs and get down to sounds by DJ Whores and friends. No cover, 21-plus. Search for “B-Side” on Facebook for more info.
7) We here at Submerge are teaming up with the Lipstick crew for an epic NYE dance party at Old Ironsides featuring live music from local dreamy/synth-y pop group The Good Fortune, as well as DJ sets by Shaun Slaughter, Roger Carpio and Adam Jay. 9 p.m., 21-plus. $8 advance tickets available at Cuffs.
8) Laugh away the new year at Punchline Sacramento during “2015’s Last Laughs” featuring sets by Ngaio Bealum, Keith Lowell Jensen and many other local faves. Two shows: 7:30 p.m. ($20) and 10 p.m. ($25). 18-and-over. Punchlinesac.com for more info.
9) Blackbird recently re-opened and they’re throwing a party this NYE co-presented by Rue 27, THIS Midtown and 1810 Gallery featuring live tunes by nu-disco act Figgy, and a DJ set from Sacto faves Sister Crayon. 7:30 p.m., $40 per person, $75 for VIP upgrade. Studio53.eventbrite.com for more.
10) Visit historic Grass Valley for Center for the Arts’ “Laughs, Lolo and Legs” party featuring comedy from Katie Rubin, neo vintage jazz pop music of Lolo Gervais, burlesque from the Bow-Tie Beauties, DJ dance party hosted by Jamal Walker and more! 8 p.m. doors, tickets start at $22. Hit up Thecenterforthearts.org for advanced tickets.
11) For a family-friendly daytime celebration that everyone can stay awake for, head to Crocker Art Museum’s “Noon Year’s Eve” event, which is free for all ages and runs from 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Performances from Germar the Magician, Ebo Okokan, Ohana Dance Group and many more.
12) Enjoy some amazing homegrown talent at Crest Theatre when Jackie Greene and his band perform a special NYE concert! Doors open at 8:30 p.m. and tickets start at $35 in advance.
13) The kind folks over at Blue Lamp are throwing a free NYE bash featuring great music, plenty of booze, good company and a champagne toast at midnight. 9 p.m. start time, 21-plus, no cover.
14) Groove to some soul, funk, disco, reggae, latin and more from a few of Sacto’s best selectors at Fox & Goose. DJs Larry Rodriguez, MC Ham and Wokstar will be spinning all night! $10 cover, 21-and-up, 9 p.m.
15) Bundle up and head up the hill for three days of SnowGlobe (Dec. 29–31) in South Lake Tahoe featuring headliners like Jack Ü (aka Skrillex and Diplo), Kaskade, Dillon Francis, Run the Jewels, E-40 and many more. All-ages event. Check out Snowglobemusicfestival.com for details.
16) NOW 100.5 FM and MIX 96 are throwing a masquerade party for the ages at the Hyatt Regency Sacramento featuring cover band and headliner Apple Z, plus DJ Rated R, Quinn Hedges and Ryan Hernandez. $75 in advance for general admission, 9 p.m. start time, 21-plus.
Still looking for something to do on Halloween? Just focus on getting your costume ready ‘cause we’ve got you covered with these 14 killer parties throughout the Sacramento region featuring live bands and DJs!
Don’t worry, The Nibblers won’t bite too hard, but they will bring the funky and soulful goodness that the local seven-piece powerhouse is known for to The Torch Club! 9 p.m., $10 with costume, $12 without. 21-and-over.
You’d think they’d be in some sort of post-fest hibernation right now but nope, the folks behind TBD Fest are throwing a Halloween rager. “Bleepy Hollow” will feature Com Truise {pictured}, Slow Magic, and local DJs Shaun Slaughter and Adam Jay. 18-and-over, tickets are $35 in advance. Facebook.com/tbdfest for details.
Blue Lamp and Abstract Entertainment are teaming up for a rockin’ Halloween with the legendary Tav Falco’s Panther Burns featuring Mike Watt and Toby Dammit. Tickets start at just $12.50, 21-and-over, doors open at 8 p.m.
Former Stone Temple Pilots vocalist Scott Weiland will bring his new band The Wildabouts to The Boardwalk on Halloween night! $30 in advance, $130 for a meet-and-greet with the man himself! All-ages, 7 p.m. doors.
Requiem’s “Things That Go Bump In the Night” at Midtown BarFly will satisfy your needs in the following departments: deep bass, much dancing, crazy costumes, epic light show. San Francisco’s Ardalan and Portland’s Dallas Cotton {pictured} headline with support from Young Aundee, DJ Whores and many others. $20 (21-and-over) or $30 (18-and-over) at the door.
The Hideaway will host a rock ‘n’ roll extravaganza featuring an Andrew WK cover set by members of Bastards of Young and City of Vain! Trash Rock DJs, costume contests, horror movies on the tiki patio and more! Just $5, 8 p.m., 21-and-over.
Two shows, one night! That’s how Harlow’s rolls! Seattle’s Noah Gundersen {pictured} plays the early all-ages show at 7 p.m., with tickets being just $10 in advance, $12 at the door. New York’s Matt Pond PA headlines the 21-and-over late show at 10 p.m., tickets are $13 ahead of time, $15 at the door.
Australian metalcore band Parkway Drive is currently on a North American rampage and will tear down Ace of Spades on Halloween night! All-ages, 6:30 p.m. doors, $25 in advance.
Well over a dozen local bands will descend upon Old Ironsides for their annual Dead Rockstars Show! Hear cover tunes from, well, you guessed it, dead rockstars! $5, 21-and-over, 8 p.m.
The Park Ultra Lounge will host SKAM Artist DJ Crooked {pictured} with an early set from Sacramento’s own DJ Peeti V. A whopping $1,000 is up for grabs in a costume contest! 9:30 p.m., tickets start at $15, 21-plus.
Two great local punk/rock bands, Garble and The Rollin’ Blackouts, will play a costume party at Fox and Goose. 9 p.m., $5 at the door, 21-and-over.
Starlite Lounge wants you to celebrate darkness and horror with them as they host two awesome bands, Children of the Grave (a “zombie tribute” to Black Sabbath) {pictured} and Archangel (a badass Misfits tribute group). 9 p.m., 21-plus.
Country Club Lanes will house Lite Brite Productions’ 9th Annual Beetlejuice Party with 35 DJs, five dance areas, free bowling, zombie laser tag, video games, two bars, an outdoor movie theater and more! 8 p.m.–4 a.m., $40, all-ages welcome, costume required.
The night before Halloween (Friday, Oct. 30) the Sacramento Convention Center gets invaded by KSFM 102.5’s Gravedigger’s Ball featuring a DJ set by Lil Jon, live performances from Natalie La Rose and Charlie Puth, a $5,000 costume contest and more. 21-plus, $35 in advance.
