Tag Archives: Placerville

Matisyahu

Back to the Old • Matisyahu Goes Against the Current on His New LP

Matisyahu hasn’t exactly had the smoothest ride throughout his decade-plus career. I was introduced to the artist through the clearing of a crowd backstage at Lollapalooza 2006 in Chicago, as a phalanx of Orthodox Jews walked in a mob surrounding the rapper/singer. The mysteries of the man who’d just released his sophomore record, Youth, were shrouded beneath a yarmulke, Payot (the long side locks worn by Hasidic men), a thick beard and my admitted ignorance of the Hasidic lifestyle. The paradoxes grew exponentially when Matisyahu took the stage that humid summer afternoon, dropping insane beatbox breakdowns and spitting reggae-dripped rhymes like a Rastafarian wunderkind. It was a mashup of so many disparate cultural corners that you couldn’t help but be swept up in its undeniable energy.

Now, into his second decade as an internationally acclaimed reggae and hip-hop star, Matisyahu’s persona has experienced an abrupt about-face. He shaved his beard and cut his hair in 2011, essentially denouncing his previously misunderstood devotion to his Yeshiva background, got a divorce and even starred in a horror film about demonic possessions (smartly dubbed The Possession).

Still, for all the peaks and valleys of his life outside of music, Matisyahu’s latest record, Undercurrent, is a fiery commentary on the tributaries and wayward avenues that have brought him to where he is today. It’s an incendiary record heavy on the live aesthetic and improvisational undertones you might expect with Matisyahu’s band, comprised of two-thirds of shapeshifting reggae-metal ragers Dub Trio.

When Submerge caught up with Matisyahu, he was driving in Manhattan, on his way to take in The Emoji Movie with his kids, and on the cusp of heading back out where he’s most comfortable: on the road. Matisyahu and his band will headline Placerville’s Dry Digging’s Festival Sept. 2 and 3.

On Undercurrent, when you began to sculpt a lyrical narrative, what sorts of ideas and stories were you most interested in exploring?
With this record, it’s not so conceptual in the sense that I’m thinking of concepts before I write a song. It’s more free association. I find out in the process of singing the songs and performing them live what they mean. Usually as I’m writing them, I’ll have a sense of what they mean and of what’s going on, but I don’t necessarily have a clear idea. Akeda and Undercurrent are connected, like a part one and part two. Akeda is the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac on the mountain. At the time, I was living in the Hollywood hills. I moved back to New York, and I moved by the river in an old, haunted Victorian house on the Hudson River across from Sleepy Hollow. I feel like that part one, imagery-wise, is about the mountain, and about the mountain of one’s life, and sacrifice and the breakthroughs of big, catastrophic events. There was a feeling of freedom as I was breaking away from a lot of different things in my life. Religion, relationships and just trying to start over again.

Undercurrent is more like after all these breakthroughs, I’m putting the pieces back together and figuring out where I’m at in my life at this stage. There’s a feeling of a massive breakthrough when there’s a recovery period. I feel like this record comes from there, and the lyrics all tie into that.

Is the separation from your religious background and studies something you are concerned will follow you around?
I don’t really get concerned. I kind of do what the fuck I want and deal with the consequences. Sometimes people might misunderstand what I’m doing, but even though I am extroverted in some sense, and I do care to some extent if people like or don’t like me, if I’m being honest, at the end of the day, I kind of just go after what it is I’m going after. When I knew that it was time for me to shave, the thought never even crossed my mind, “How will my fans react to this?” I think a lot of that is based on confidence, and the feeling that as long as the music I make is authentic and real—and I know what’s good. I know when I make shitty music versus good music—if I can keep making good music that matters to me and that matters to other people, then everything else is kind of irrelevant. You could have all the fans in the world, but if you get up on stage and—yeah, they may have paid a lot of money, and you may be making a lot of money … fine. But if you have to get up on stage and you have to be somebody that you don’t feel is who you are at that moment for other people, that leads to severe depression and bad things for me in my life. When I get out on stage, that’s the most holy moment for me. Religious or not, music to me is a very holy thing and I’ve been privileged to be able to dedicate my life to it, to be able to pay my bills off it. That has to stay holy to me. When people come to hear Matisyahu, there’s a certain feeling and experience I want them to have. If I can give that to people, it’s really worthwhile, and I’ve been put in a position to work at doing that. Not everyone necessarily will understand that, or want that, or come to the show thinking that’s what they’re looking for, and those people might not come back, but that’s something I have to come to peace with.

Do you look forward to a day when there’s a new generation of fans of yours who maybe don’t even remember or even know about the beginning of your career as a very public image of a Hasidic Jewish man, and the image that was presented, and with those religious views and studies being more overt?
No, because for me it’s about the whole story. There’s people who’ve come to me at different records. There’s people who’ve come during the Spark Seeker record, and have seen the “Sunshine” video, and that’s how they know me. Then later they go back and they see the Hasidic guy. Or there’s people who heard my music before they even saw a picture of me and then afterward saw some Hasidic guy doing it. All that is there if people want it, and people come for different reasons. But I don’t ever want there to be a time when people don’t know who I am or where I come from. If the music connects, with them, great. At the end of the day, my music is about a personal journey and moving from one place to the next in your life. Shifting perspectives, growth and evolution, which stems out of improvisation, which comes from listening, which comes from taking chances, which comes from risk, which comes through humility. It’s religious context, but it’s not about the religion for me.

Music is your main passion, but you’ve also done some acting. It’s been a few years since you starred in The Possession. Did someone just come to you about that, or was it something you had to audition for cold?
The producer or the director thought it’d be a good idea to get me involved. They wanted me in particular, and then the other producers were kind of against it, thinking they didn’t really want a singer to act because it’s kind of an important role. I had to try out for the part, so they flew me out to Vancouver, and I was there with the director and one of the producers, and we had to shoot a video and send it back to the other producers. The scene was the exorcism scene and I wasn’t really giving it enough. This was kind of cool, my first experience acting in a movie. The director had his assistant lie down on the floor, with me on top of her, and tells her to pretend that I’m basically about to murder her. She starts kicking and punching me in the face, and grabbing my clothes and he starts screaming at me, “Hold her down! Hold her down! Don’t let her go!” And right in the most intense part of it all, he goes “Roll!” They roll the camera, and it gets me like sweating and spitting, and I was bleeding and then they sent that into the rest of the producers, and it was pretty undeniable.

You’ll be headlining Dry Diggings in Placerville. You’ve performed in Sacramento before. Any special memories?
I once played an acoustic show with Dave Holmes of Dub Trio right in front of the Capitol with huge subs. It was a duo show, like on stools, and I was beatboxing. A cop brought me up into the tower of the Capitol afterward and let me sign my name up there.

The Dry Diggings Beer, Camping and Music Festival will take place at the El Dorado Fairgrounds in Placerville on Sept. 2–3, 2017. Also performing will be Nahko and Medicine for the People, Barrington Levy, The Expendables, Long Beach Dub Allstars and many others. For a full line-up and to get tickets, go to Drydiggingsfestival.com.

**This interview first appeared in print on pages 26 – 27 of issue #247 (Aug. 28 – Sept. 11, 2017)**

Hangtown Music Fest Brings Amazing Lineup to Placerville Oct. 20–23, 2016

It’s back and it’s better than ever. Hangtown Music Festival is set for Oct. 20–23 at the El Dorado County Fairgrounds in Placerville, California, and with it comes some of the best performers in the world when it comes to roots, rock, funk, reggae, folk and so much more. Host band Railroad Earth will play three total nights, and they’ll be joined by top billers like Medeski Martin & Wood, Nahko and Medicine for the People, Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe (who will be performing Prince’s Dirty Mind featuring Angelo from Fishbone!), The Infamous Stringdusters, The Wood Brothers, Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers and so many others. Beyond the great music (including late-night shows!), there will be yoga and meditation classes, costume themes, pumpkin carving, Sierra Nevada Hoptoberfest and an arts and crafts fair with vendors and nonprofits, plus plenty of food options and more. Visit Hangtownfestival.com to learn more and to grab your tickets ahead of time.

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HEAR: 30+ Artists on Three Stages at the Hangtown Halloween Ball • Oct. 24–26, 2014

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Festival season ain’t over yet, folks! Get ready to head on up the hill to The Hangtown Halloween Ball at the El Dorado County Fairgrounds in Placerville from Oct. 24 to 26, 2014, for world-class rock, blues, folk, bluegrass and more from greats like Railroad Earth (playing all three nights!), Leftover Salmon, MOE., Dead Winter Carpenters, ALO (Animal Liberation Orchestra), The Motet, Robert Walter’s 20th Congress, The Brothers Comatose, The Good Luck Thrift Store Outfit and so many others. More than 30 artists on three stages, onsite camping, craft vendors, kids zone, late night music and a plethora of food and drink also await you at this Halloween blowout! Speaking of Halloween, don’t forget your costumes: each day of the Ball will have a different encouraged theme! Friday is “Electric Luau,” Saturday is “Straight Off the Mothership” and Sunday is “Zombie Prom Disco.” Visit Hangtownhalloween.com for more event info, a daily lineup and links to purchase tickets.

Ten Years Pregnant

Pop alchemist Daniel Trudeau of Pregnant caps first decade with UK Tour and new album,Inconvenience

Whether by prophecy or design, Placerville’s Pregnant has managed to craft a body of work that lives up to its name. Its songs are open-ended pop symphonies captured in utero, without true beginnings or ends—kicking, stirring, filled with ideas that promise to crystallize at any moment. This isn’t to say at all that the music is incomplete; rather, it’s a living thing, dynamic.

For a good metaphor, picture this: dozens of musical motifs swimming along together, like a school of fish in a stream. Listening to a Pregnant record drops you right in the center. It’s a refreshing and bewildering experience; even if one is disoriented at first, one eventually slips into the current, finding the principle groove that propels the songs forward with a remarkably unconventional pop sensibility. You almost get the feeling that the music keeps changing every time you play it, the brilliant hooks and melodies blooming over multiple listens, as if they’re gestating in your mind.

There is a clear pattern of this growth throughout Pregnant’s discography, up to and including this year’s short-but-sweet LP, Inconvenience. The new work is as much of a headphone trip as ever—awash in sampladelic production, overlapping motifs and reverberant vocals that sit low in the mix—but somehow more assured, contented. Some of that is owed to the smart usage of samples, jazzy saxophone flourishes and piano riffs that hook the listener and provide structure to traverse the various soundscapes; and some of it is brought on by unavoidable changes in the artist’s life.

Between 2004 and the present, lead musician and project mastermind Daniel Trudeau has gone through coming-of-age, expectant fatherhood, divorce and single fatherhood, with countless bursts of professional and artistic development in between. Since last year’s release, Pottery Mills, was recorded in the midst of a breakup, Trudeau has taken up the mantle of artist-on-commission, honing his songwriting chops with an ongoing project he calls Your Song, in which he writes and records personalized tracks for individuals willing to donate at least $5. So far, he’s racked up a whopping 65 tracks, putting Inconvenience almost six albums ahead of Mills in terms of output.

Content-wise, Trudeau has also moved forward. With the help of a fresh lineup, he’s evaluating the things that matter most: family, friendship and the freedom that can only come with self-knowledge. “Lyrically, [Inconvenience] is about knowing who you are by yourself,” says Trudeau. This focus on personal reflection may have paid off in the form of his project’s most realized work to date. As of now, the project is fronted by Trudeau, with additional instrumentation and vocals by hometown buddy Daniel Ramirez and Davis native Molly Raney, who is a talent in her own right as Poppet, an electronic pop artist and one-woman show.

As a live act, the trio become a kind of living sound exhibit, committing all their energy into the array of samplers, drum pads, effects pedals, MIDI-loops and microphones at their disposal. It’s not a rock show, but there’s something quite rewarding in hearing the lush, complex sound of their records reproduced seemingly out of thin air, filling the corners of any living room, stage venue or theater with music that’s as much visual as aural.

I met Trudeau and Raney at a quiet cafe across from The Witch Room, a venue they’ll be filling with sound next week alongside fellow pop explorers TV Girl and Brothertiger. They seem like kind, earnest people who prefer their art complicated and their friendships easygoing. They graciously offered some time to speak about their lives, their art, the boundaries of pop and the business of making their dreams move forward.

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The Pregnant project has now been around 10 years. What was its inception? What ideas or hopes did you have for it at the time? How’d you come up with the name, again?
Daniel Trudeau: It was originally just me, making electronic beats and finding how pleasantly simple it was to make it sound like something other than electronic music. I always wanted it to be a bunch of people collaborating—that’s what it was going to be initially—Pregnant as a project “conceiving” with a bunch of different people. By now, there’s been a revolving cast of other people coming in and helping with it. Some of the members have been more entitled to it, some of them more under my guidance.
Pregnant is the most adequate name for this project. I’m constantly changing and giving birth to new ideas. Of course, I get all the “pregnant” jokes too, like “When are you expecting?”

Since Pregnant has been around for such a huge portion of your life, do you think that it’s come to have a life of its own? Do you think before recording, “What is going to make this a Pregnant album”?
DT: Now I tend to think that Pregnant just means anything put out. Although it does have a distinct sound, I’m trying to keep it changing. Genre-flipping is really important to me, because I hate when things get stagnant and don’t go anywhere.

This one’s for Molly: How long have you been involved with Pregnant?
Molly Raney: Since last November, pretty much. It hasn’t been long, but I’ve known Dan for five years, and I’ve always been a fan of Pregnant. It’s one of the projects that I’m most excited about participating in. I feel like it’s the future of music.
DT: Aww…and since she’s joined it’s been super good, too. She’s bumped it up a notch! As far as live performances go, it’s been so much better.

Could you tell us about the Your Song project? Has that changed your songwriting process?
DT: People donate to Pregnant, about $7 or more, and I’ll write them their own song. It sucks, because it’s not that much money in the long run, but it’s been really good practice with sample-oriented music, and writing lyrics for people I don’t even know sometimes. It’s been fun, and the thing about that project is that it’s not songs about how I’m feeling, it’s songs about other people. So it detaches the ego from the songs, and it’s made it a lot easier to understand how to write songs that don’t have that imposing ego that a lot of songs have when you’re a solo artist. I do a new Your Song every two weeks if I have the time. There’s 65 now, so I’ve spent a lot of time just zoning in on those. It represents what I’m trying to put out there about myself: “Hey! I make music! I’ll be doing this no matter what!” Plus, I’ve made some mad friendships from doing them.

You’ve said before that Inconvenience is about relationships and working through the inconveniences of daily life. How would you explain that?
DT: The album is just about how inconvenient everything is, literally every single thing. It’s hard to live, it’s hard to do anything really, but it’s also a tool for being able to understand yourself, how to rise above the normal things that stress us out in life. I went through a really powerful breakup where I had to figure out who I was, and that’s been the major theme for much of my work lately.

So if we match up the chronology of your work with that of your personal life, when did this major change take place?
DT: Definitely around the last album, Pottery Mills.
MR: That’s like the break-up album, isn’t it?
DT: Yeah, all the last three albums including the new one. Life Hard: I Try was recorded right before my breakup, and it wasn’t just a breakup, it was a breakup with a child, so it’s been a real crazy, “Holy Shit!” scenario. Pottery Mills was all about sinking into depression over that, and I feel like Inconvenience is all about becoming comfortable in life after the fact.

Is there anything about living in the foothills that does something for your music versus, say, living in Sacramento or Oakland or San Francisco?
DT: No. It’s not like I’m making music out in the woods, I’m just in a room for the most part, and the room could be in L.A. just as well as it could be in Placerville. But as far as being more healthy-minded, I like living there, because it’s more eclectic. The people there are more eclectic. I mean, I hang out with everyone from 60-year-olds to 19-year-olds. There’s no age bias. That, and I’ve lived there for a long time. The only thing that would be beneficial to living in the foothills in terms of actual music would be, I guess you feel more entitled to be making music. It’s different than Oakland or San Francisco or L.A., where you’re overrun by art, everywhere.

What fuels you both in terms of influences? Do you put any of them into your work?
MR: Kate Bush is probably my number-one favorite artist. I have a radio show at KDVS that’s actually named after one of her songs, “This Woman’s Work.” It’s mostly solo female artists of all different genres, but a lot of electronic.
DT: So much stuff, man. For samples, I’ve been using a lot of the same stuff for the past year. Cocteau Twins, Prince, classical composers like Stravinsky, Debussy… MF Doom, Moondog, Miles Davis, Fleetwood Mac, anything, really. Anything that’s legitimate, to me. But when it comes to sampling, it doesn’t really have to be legit. If there’s a good drum or bass that I need in a Weird Al Yankovic song, then I have to use it.

We talked a bit about how relationships have been the inspiration for a lot of your albums. Has having a daughter or raising a child changed the way you approach the creative process?
DT: It hasn’t at all, actually. When my daughter was first born, I definitely felt blasted with a big, heavy heart. I made a song for her, that I put out on Regional Music, called “Wiff of Father.”
MR: I did a cover of that one as Poppet. I love that song so much!
DT: She’s a very inspiring little baby, for sure. She’s a toddler at this point, and she’s like a mini-me, with endless funny, weird things to say. She’s definitely made things more light-hearted as far as life goes, but the music has always remained its own thing for the most part. She’s there, and she’s my babe. She might be recording her own album soon.

So what’s going on in terms of the different releases you have out?
DT: Inconvenience is available on Porch Party records, which is a fresh new label out of Long Beach. We have another tape release of the Your Song donations that I mentioned earlier. It’s the first 35 tracks, which will be released on four different tapes. You can pick and choose, or buy all four. Also, all the remixes I’ve done over the last three years have been released on tape by Quantum Wampum records out of Providence, Rhode Island. Finally we have a 12-inch release coming out on Mush Records that I can’t say that much about. It’s been a two-year-long media project that took a long time to create, and will be coming out in fall or winter of this year. That one’s hyper-weird and secret.

Pregnant will be featured alongside Brothertiger and TV Girl on Sunday, July 13, 2014 at The Witch Room. To hear some of their mind-bendingly good pop, you can visit Pregnant.bandcamp.com or check out some of Trudeau’s music on Soundcloud or Spotify. Inconvenience is currently out on Porch Party Records. You can also learn more about Poppet at Poppet.us.

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Pay to Play

Placerville’s Element of Soul Getting What They Deserve

For some musicians the thought of living with fellow band members seems more like a detriment to not only personal space, but to the creative process itself. For the guys of Element of Soul, five members living together over the past two years in Placerville not only has strengthened their bonds as friends, but inspired a common spiritual search and heavily influenced their first full-length album, E.O.S,. set for release April 20. Wanting a more in-depth experience into the recording process, EOS turned to a couple of old school rock ‘n’ rollers, Mark Harmon and Bruce Spencer of the 77s, who double as producers at Blue Limit Music recording studios in Rocklin. With over a year in the studio behind them, the time is now for Mike O’Briant, Ben Moore, Chris Brown, Seth Ahern (aka DJ Zephyr), Eric Opdyke and Tristan Brown. But their next test is tightening their living quarters from a house on five acres to a 22-passenger van.

Moore and O’Briant remember being the only young men at their junior high school dances busting moves on the dance floor to Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean,” so naturally they became friends. Later in life the two would also find themselves sharing vocal and guitar duties in EOS. The six band members ultimately found each other linked through Ponderosa and El Dorado high schools, first playing as a three-piece acoustic band with the addition of Chris on bass. But what truly solidified EOS as a band, according to O’Briant, was adding in Opdyke on drums, Tristan on lead guitar and DJ Zephyr on the ones and twos, completing the elements of their family in 2009.

“We’ve always wanted to do something that we enjoyed and understood that it was going to be out of pocket,” O’Briant explains. “You have to pay to play. You have to deserve it. And, we finally did it.”

When asked about categorizing their genre, O’Briant and Moore were reluctant in choosing just one. Sure, EOS brings the reggae feel to a live performance and yes, there’s plenty of acoustic elements, but what was to come, I wasn’t even prepared for.

“Right now, we have ourselves listed as reggae-folk-pop-rock,” O’Briant laughs. “Did I just blow your mind?

“The reason we say folk is because we have that acoustic aspect, but we’ve always been reggae and we’ve always put our own twist on it. More than anything, it’s the vibe and the energy that surrounds us with reggae. It’s pop because you can sing along to it.”

They started recording their 11-song album last March with Blue Limit Music’s Spencer and Harmon, who told the guys they were “a little rough around the edges” according to O’Briant. But that honesty is just what EOS were searching for when choosing a studio to trust with their first album.

“We definitely signed up for more than just an album. We wanted to do it our own way,” O’Briant explains. “We’ve always been about family and home. We found some guys who were interested in helping us grow, rather than just put an album out. So, that’s why we’ve taken a year and taken step by step. There’s no need to rush anything that doesn’t need to be rushed.”

With good reason. Songs off the album like “The Movement” capture what each member of EOS brings to a sound they have spent the past three years perfecting.

“Right now, ‘The Movement’ blows my mind. It was the first song that completely gave me chills and gave me that outside perspective,” O’Briant explains. “I just close my eyes and got chills. It made me feel amazing.”

The song’s light, acoustic introduction marks the times when the band was in its infancy as a three-piece, then layered with DJ Zephyr’s 10 years of expertise in sampling and scratching. O’Briant’s spoken-word style delivery on vocals is complemented by the accents on guitar by Tristan, which then introduce Moore’s approach to the microphone singing melodies within the chorus, his voice reaching higher pitches as the song progresses. Call and response are how these two vocalist split time within a song equally, all kept on beat by the jazz-style percussion of Opdyke and the groovy-bass lines of Chris.

“With six members in a band, the studio process has helped us find where we need to be in the song. We all find where we need to be. Find the space and appreciate it,” O’Briant explains.

Moore adds, “During the whole album, we definitely swing a lot of different ways with the feel of the songs,” he says. “It’s a lot of self-improvement, self-empowerment, stand up for yourself, speak your mind and love yourself.”

And this philosophy rings true for the whole band thanks to a little band meditation courtesy of their spiritual life coach Dr. Kim Clarity, who has visited the band at their home in Placerville to assist them through guided meditations. Moore says these meditations helped them find a stronger bond, open better communication with one another and overall learn to coexist peacefully. The band also took time out together in 2011 to attend a three-day seminar sponsored by Dr. Clarity, dedicating 12 hours each day.

“It was a nice realization of somebody that was a really positive and spiritual person who was telling us that we have good energy that we need to harness and use for a good cause,” O’Briant explains. “She even said for six grown males to be able to get together and not be at each other’s throats is a blessing and you need to be able to share that with the world. From then, it took on understanding.”

They live together. Perform together. And even meditate together. The members of EOS thrive off of their newfound oneness and have all become certified teachers of meditation. O’Briant and Moore adorn malas around their necks during the interview, Buddhist prayer beads used to count the number of times a mantra is recited while meditating.

“I think it’s a blessing that we’re able to communicate as well as we do and we’re able to get along. It’s amazing, and we thrive off that,” O’Briant explains.

Yet, the six who make up EOS also thrive off of their music, which they say, is the constant throughout their days with booking their first three-week tour from San Francisco to Long Beach, recording and releasing their album in addition to writing new material with plans to go back into the studio for a 6-song EP release.

“The biggest thing you can hope for in music as a band is to be unique and original. You don’t want to be classified, because that’s what makes it interesting and different. There’s no point to listen to a song that you’ve already heard by a million different artists.”

Moore adds to O’Briant’s sentiment, “[Our music is] full of self-expression. There are no limitations. I just play music that I feel inside me,” he explains. “Everyone’s already played everything. It’s just more self-expression. How do you express yourself?”

To follow the band’s travels on the road and get more information, go to Facebook.com/elementofsoul. Catch them live at Cesar Chavez Park on May 25, 2012 as part of Downtown Sacramento Partnership’s Concerts in the Park series. Also playing is ZuhG, Playboy School and DJ X’GVNR.

Living Room Scientists

Bows & Arrows secondhand hipster apparel boutique is not known for its live entertainment, but the dozen or so hip enough to be in the know got a brief, but aurally excitable performance from Placerville’s Pregnant Dec. 3.

Formerly grid kids, Pregnant moved out to the sticks, possibly to their greatest benefit. Their album, Liquidation on Swans, is a complicated experience. Bountiful in picturesque collages, the record will rack your brain in wonderment as to where Daniel Trudeau found these sultry sounds—which is why seeing Pregnant perform is such an enlightening delight.

The Bows & Arrows atmosphere complemented Trudeau and his guitar-strumming assistant, Michael Saalman. The lights were turned off except in the small floor space, cleared for their instruments. The band played in the lighting of kitschy lamps for sale, while onlookers sat on the floor, giving these living room scientists a fitting workspace to kneel among their array of pedals and build each song from scratch.

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The joy of watching Pregnant comes precisely from that. Saalman noodled at his guitar endlessly, while Trudeau methodically looped each piece of his instrumentation into the fold. Trudeau beatboxed, pitch shifted his voice into kooky layers and strummed a wooden lizard to complete the steps of “Do That.” He created bass from rhythmically breathing heavily into the microphone, tweaked a kazoo into a swarm-of-bees buzz, and skronked on a saxophone, proving his talents beyond the junkyard noise. The scatter of percussion tools on the floor and the effects pedals were all utilized to steadily bring each song to fruition. The sound was reminiscent of Brooklyn-based noise bands like Say No! To Architecture, GDFX and Zs. However, Pregnant is inherently California freak folk. Those Brooklyn kids are all harsh noise from buzz saw reverb and nose bleeds, while Pregnant is countrified and tender. Birds chirp, wind chimes made of bones jingle and the warmth is candid.

There’s nothing to fear in a Pregnant record and that kindness is present in their performance. The duo never acknowledged the audience, far too engulfed in their process, but once they finished, they thanked us, awkwardly bowed, locked hands and dry humped a lamp.

Pregnant plays traditional venues, but if you have the chance, see them in a living room, a boutique or a basement. Make sure there’s carpet and a place to kneel. It’s best to be as comfortable as the musicians, which means removing your shoes and letting those toes wiggle a little.

The Warm California Sun

The Golden Cadillacs Evoke Classic California Country Sounds on Their Debut Album

Friends who drink together stay together. That’s a saying, right? Regardless, it’s worked in the case of Nick Swimley and Adam Wade, who have been friends since high school. Two and a half years ago, they combined their shared love for music and formed The Golden Cadillacs, a Sacramento-based country outfit, which now stands as a five-piece band that includes James Neil on drums, Aaron Welch on guitars and vocals and Joe Davancens on pedal steel guitar and organ. Submerge spoke with Swimley and Wade as they were “just sipping on a few cocktails,” and they filled us in on the group’s origins.

The Golden Cadillacs’ roots spread as far as Placerville, where Swimley and Wade are from. The small town on the doorstep to the El Dorado National Forest may not be known for much; but like any town, it had a bar, which turned out to be an important landmark in the band’s history. Poor Red’s Bar-B-Q, located in neighboring El Dorado, is housed in a building that dates back to the mid-19th century. Both Swimley and Wade remember frequenting the establishment with their fathers while growing up.

“It was down the street from where I grew up,” Wade says. “It’s this real historic, funky old country kind of place.”

It was there that he and Swimley decided to form the band, while sipping (what else?) golden Cadillacs.

“We were drinking The Golden Cadillacs at the time, and all we had to do was basically look down and get that band name,” Wade says. Listening to the band’s music, it would seem like Jim Beam or Budweiser would be more apt alcoholic beverage complements as opposed to a frou-frou concoction of crème de cacao, Galliano and cream; however, as Wade says, it could have been worse. “We didn’t want to be the Buttery Nipples,” he quips.

Poor Red’s wasn’t only The Golden Cadillacs’ birthplace, but it also served as inspiration for the band’s de facto first song. On Nov. 27, the band will release their first album, a nine-song self-titled effort, of which the opening track is titled “Poor Red’s.” Wade says he wrote the song while battling a bout of homesickness.

“It’s the first song I wrote,” Wade says. “I was living down in San Diego at the time, and I was kind of missing my hometown and wrote that song.”
Wade and Swimley have a long history of playing music together, even prior to that night at Poor Red’s. In fact, Wade reports that they played music together the first day they met. The two were introduced by friend and band mate Joe Davancens.

“I guess three of us”¦started jamming as early on as high school,” Wade recalls. “We all went our separate ways during our college years and went to schools in different states.”

Wade and Swimley reunited to play a show at the Cosmic Cafe in Placerville, and The Golden Cadillacs were born later at Poor Red’s that same night. However, at the time, the band was in a different form, performing as a three-piece.

“When it started out, it was just Adam, myself and my brother on drums,” Swimley says. “We made a little demo so we could get gigs. Joey was going to school in New York, but he moved back, so we added him to the band, and my brother kind of moved on to another group, and we hired our drummer, James, and then Aaron came in.”

Swimley says the current lineup has been together for about a year. He says the addition of the new pieces was “huge” in filling out The Golden Cadillacs’ sound, allowing them to do things that were difficult to pull off as a trio.

Their debut CD was recorded together as a five-piece over the summer in a barn on Davancens’ parents’ property in Placerville. Davancens had converted the barn into a studio, and the setting turned out to be a great place for the band to work. Without having to keep one eye on the clock and the other on their wallets as they would have at a traditional studio, The Golden Cadillacs were free to create at their own pace.

“They have a bunch of acreage, and they have horses out there and the whole nine,” Wade says. “We’d just go up there and drink beer and make music. Whatever came out, came out. They had a pool, and we barbecued. We got to hang out in the sun. It was a really relaxing experience. We just wanted to make sure that we got the sounds and the parts that we wanted.

“It was cool not worrying about who we were paying or who we’re working with or how much time we had.”

Having a band member who doubled as an engineer was a great boon as well.

“It helped to have Joey engineer all of it,” Swimley says. “He’s got a great ear, and I trust his judgment more than anybody’s.”

The result was a sun-baked country album that pays homage to the classic California country sound, a rich tradition that Wade and Swimley take very seriously. However, The Golden Cadillacs realize they have some way to go before they can be mentioned in the same breath as their heroes.

“We look up to”¦Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, Dwight Yoakam—all those guys who came out of California and played honky tonk country music,” Swimley says “We hope our next record will be more straight up country sounding. I think we’re just trying to find our feet with our first record.”

Maybe they’re still working out the kinks, but The Golden Cadillacs are off to a great start. In fact, they’ve already caught the attention of notable California country songwriter Dave Gleason. The Golden Cadillacs have recently become Gleason’s backing band, a major compliment considering Wade and Swimley were big admirers of Gleason’s music before ever meeting him.

“Nick and I used to practice in Oakland, and we’d drive to Oakland and back every week,” Wade says “Nick turned me on to Gleason about three years before we ever knew him, and we were listening to Gleason the whole ride down and the whole ride back every week. It’s a mind bender to be in his band now.”

Despite their work with Gleason, and though their first album hasn’t been even released yet, The Golden Cadillacs are already at work on their next release. Though their self-titled album was mostly a product of Wade and Swimley “boozing and writing songs” together, their next release will be more of a true band effort.

“The thing we’re trying to go for is the less-is-more vibe,” Wade says. “The whole vibe of the songs that we’re all so fond of is the real lyrics and the real life aspect of it. It’s like being a great chef, right? You don’t want to get too crazy on it. You just want to make something really simple and good.”

If their early returns are any indication, it would seem that The Golden Cadillacs have the right recipe for a strong future. At the very least, they should find bright skies and good times along the way.

The Golden Cadillacs will celebrate the release of their first album at The Fox & Goose on Nov. 27, 2009. The cover will be just $3, and Leroy Virgil of Hellbound Glory will also perform.