Trophii was definitely not intentional. The way they tell it, it’s hard to tell whether or not you’re hearing the story of how a musical act formed or how a couple met.

Is there a difference?

Richie Smith has been a mainstay in the Sacramento indie rock scene as a member of popular acts such as Wife and Son, Sunmonks, as well as numerous other local projects. Lindsey Pavao found regional fame and national recognition when she participated in the second season of reality competition show The Voice.

The story goes that, while Smith and Pavao had met previously (a little back and forth messaging on Facebook after they had both participated in a local Radiohead tribute show), the true start to their collaboration was born after Smith’s ex-wife, Mallory, had left her role in the project Life in 24 Frames following their divorce, and Smith needed to fill that vacancy with someone with similar vocal and musical talents.

Mutual friend James Cavern suggested Pavao. Smith says he didn’t think she would be interested.

“He probably said something along the lines of ‘Oh, she’s a flake’ or something,” Pavao said during a phone interview with Submerge, followed with “I flaked on you once,” directly aimed at Smith, and with a tone of playful jabbing.

The project wasn’t immediate. Following their time together in Life in 24 Frames, the two kept in contact, and when Pavao was in need of some assistance for her own project, she reached out to Smith.

“I asked him to help out with my solo record that I was trying to put out. Richie looked me dead in the eye when I showed him the songs that I wanted him to help out with, and he’s like, ‘I’ll do this, but I need to be a part of this whole record. We’re going to do this together,’ and there was something about how confident and how inspired he was to help me,” Pavao said. “About three months later it just became too entangled for it to be just my project. I didn’t even feel comfortable pretending like I was this solo artist anymore because the music wasn’t just mine. We were writing songs together. By the end of the summer we were Trophii.”

A few years ago, they began the recording process in their Sacramento apartment, and on Dec. 6, they will finally have a release show for the album Vitamins and Flowers, the fruits of their recording labor.

While the two have a fairly seasoned resume when it comes to music projects, the self-recording aspect was not exactly one they had a ton of familiarity with from the get-go.

“I’ve done a lot of positive self-recording and arranging. But, for a long time I didn’t have any recording equipment of my own,” Smith said. “Lindsey has some pretty nice gear, and once we started working together, I was able to use some of the stuff that she has, and start the demoing and pre-production process for what is now our first record.”

“I’m self taught,” Pavao added. “I’ve been recording since I was in high school. It’s an ever evolving process.”

When it comes to learning on the job—no matter the field—one has to expect a certain learning curve. For Trophii, the speed bumps were limited and the DIY approach gave them plenty of time to get things done right.

“I think mainly when it comes to parts arrangement, as far as capturing the sounds going in, I’ve been doing recording long enough to know how to achieve certain sounds that I want to get,” said Smith. “I think the arrangement part was tough … a lot of the engineering logistics as far as within the software programs—we recorded in Logic Pro X—was a challenge. Lindsey got Logic Pro X certified, and because she did that, we didn’t have to bring in an engineer to track our stuff.”

“Basically all of that happened within the last two years … She learned the program, I learned based on what she learned, and we did it together,” he said.

Post-production work was taken on by Sacramento legend Robert Cheek, well known for his work with projects such as Band of Horses and Chelsea Wolfe.

While most of the recording of Vitamins and Flowers was done at their leisure in the comforts of their apartment, they did track some acoustic drum arrangements with percussionist Christian Midthun.

“Basically, he was performing slash interpreting drum arrangements that Lindsey and I composed for the record,” Smith said.

The first incarnation of Trophii’s live act was as a six-piece, and Smith and Pavao found that too much to manage, both in regards to scheduling and on stage. Now they’ve cut that down to four members: Smith and Pavao, drummer Midthun and Ryan Tillema on guitar and bass guitar.

“They were the first to be on board with the project a couple of years ago. They’re good friends, and really talented players,” Smith said. “They’re both songwriters themselves, and multi-instrumentalists, and they have a really good understanding as far as songwriting goes and what’s appropriate … they really do a great job of interpreting the parts that we’ve arranged for this project and bring their own flavor to the stuff, which is really exciting for me to hear. They’re very capable.”

One thing that you notice about the record is that there are definitely differences from both Smith and Pavao’s previous sounds. When it comes to Smith, there is the addition of more electronic elements and that “dream pop” aesthetic that is hardly escapable, something not really found in his prior projects. As for Pavao, the work is far more layered, and while her vocals are a clear focal point, they’re far from alone in that sense.

“Our brains see music in different ways, which is cool,” said Smith. “I think it’s always changing … Every time we write a song it’s always different. I will say the more we do write music together, the more we do strike a balance.

“I’ve always kind of been interested in electronic music and electronic elements, and I love a good marriage of electronic music with rock music,” Smith continued. “When it comes to percussion, four of the ten songs had no acoustic drums, so I was left with the question of how to get these songs to move rhythmically, so I ended up programming all of our digital percussion and trying to blend that with shakers and tambourines and other auxiliary percussion instruments.”

The record, now finished and on its way to the hands of their followers, has the feel of a testing ground. While they certainly are proud of their work, Pavao and Smith were getting to know each other like any new relationship. Along with that comes the ability to reflect and perfect—something you are unable to do when you have no history with a person or group.

“I see us as always changing,” said Pavao. “We didn’t have a gameplan with this record. It’s like a whole lot of ideas all crammed into one hour. There are some things we could have done a lot differently, so moving forward we have a strong vision of where we are headed musically.

“I’m learning how to be the writer I want to become,” she added.

However, whether they felt the album was a learning experience, it’s not as if they aren’t proud of the completed project.

“My opinion on what we do aesthetically is that … our sound is evolving,” said Smith. “We’re brand new. We’ve only been running together for the last two years. But, we’re enjoying the process.”

“We’re not fucking apologizing for it, you know what I mean? I think it’s great,” he added.

See Trophii live Dec. 6, 2016, at LowBrau (presented by Le Twist) at their album release party. Doombird will also perform, and the show is FREE. LowBrau is located at 1050 20th St., Sacramento. The show will get underway at 9 p.m. For more on Trophii, go to Facebook.com/trophii. Listen to their album Vitamins and Flowers via the Bandcamp player below.

When the somewhat mysterious and criminally underrated local supergroup Contra took the stage at our 200th Issue Party at LowBrau just a couple months back, frontman Kris Anaya (Doombird, An Angle) said something to the effect of, and I’m paraphrasing here, “We don’t have any music for sale, so just listen and enjoy it.” Well, turns out, after enough pressure from friends, fans and local press, Contra is finally readying the release of their first proper EP. “The seven-song album was compiled around a three year period,” Anaya told Submerge just last week. “We decided we finally wanted to put something out. I would say this was because the Browns [brothers Zac and Dusty Brown of Tycho, I’m Dirty Too, Dusty Brown, and Little Foxes] pressured me into doing it, those bastards.” Anaya mentioned that the EP was recorded and produced almost entirely by himself and the Brown brothers, with the exception of the drums, which were engineered by Robert Cheek (Band of Horses, Tera Melos, Chelsea Wolfe). For now the plan is to just give the album out for free at the release show at Harlow’s on Friday, Feb. 12, 2016 and to put it up on Soundcloud after that. They’re also kicking around the idea of doing a physical release, but aren’t sure yet. “This recording was made for fun and just for the pure enjoyment of music and in no way do we look to benefit financially from this music. We would love it if people just came out to the shows, listened to the music and enjoyed their time in a room, that’s basically the single greatest joy we share, our love for music.” When playing live, Contra is composed of six excellent local players: Dan Block, Joel Daniel, Brian Gogineni, Dusty and Zac Brown, and Kris Anaya. You really owe it to yourself to catch this band live! Learn more at Facebook.com/contraaband.

Sacramento ex-patriates By Sunlight make a home in Seattle

“What is true by lamplight is not always true by sunlight.” — Joseph Joubert, French moralist/essayist

Though starting with a quote is a bit cliché, especially by anyone like Joubert, who doesn’t exactly get remembered for much other than cute little quips. Still, there is much truth that can be found in an over-simplified message. For the members of the band By Sunlight, maybe the quote would be more along the lines of, “What is true in Sacramento is not always true anywhere else.”

The gentlemen that occupy the moniker By Sunlight (originally known as Bridges) decided a few years back that a new perspective would suit them nicely, and packed their bags and took off to the city synonymous with mediocre sports franchises (at least those remaining), Starbucks, its weather and its iconic music scenes. By Sunlight’s Mike Sparks laughs over the phone during a recent interview when asked if Seattle’s dismal meteorology caused any changes in his music.

“It’s funny that every time I do an interview I get asked that. I guess so?” Sparks remarks, in a sort-of vocal shrugging, “I woke up this morning and it was overcast and I almost had a tear of joy. I mean, it’s beautiful now, but I really like that weather… It’s temperate for me, you know? Living in Sacramento was heinous. I couldn’t stand it at all.”

But, hey, not all of us living here love the heat. Still, moving to Seattle was behind a large part of how he both developed as a musician, and as a person. Sparks continues, “We were ready to get the fuck out of there. Hey man, sometimes when it’s 4:30 p.m., and the sun’s down, and I’ve got three beers in my body, yes, I might feel a bit of darkness in the spirit. There are tons of metal bands up here, tons of punk bands up here, and there is a lot of reflection of that environmental aesthetic in how people behave here, but I wouldn’t describe it as a sullen city either. Yeah, biometrics is a huge fucking change in my life, but going from everything I know to where I don’t know anything, that I would say was a more profound affect rather than the climate.”

After residing in the city for a handful of years and constantly touring, By Sunlight finally decided to settle down, and take a year off from the road. They took to inviting another Sacramento musician, Evan Ferro of Bright Light Fever/Roman Funerals, to make the journey up to the Pacific Northwest, and have Sparks, producer and band member Robert Cheek and Ferro move in together in order to record their latest album.

“We would go home after work or what-not, and we would go straight to working on the record,” Ferro recalls. “Whether it was writing or fine-tuning, it was non-stop. It was a lot of thought, a lot of annoying ourselves with how much we were thinking about it. But, ultimately it became what we wanted it to be.”

Sparks considers the decision to bring Ferro into the picture to be just what the band needed. “It’s kind of what saved our band,” says Sparks. “After the aesthetic exhaustion, fatigue and demoralization that you can sometimes get from working so hard at a band, and not really getting anything. You sort of question your art all the time; it’s that sort of weird, entropic little head thing you can get, and it really pulled us out of all that.”

Robert Cheek, who even now is instrumental as a producer and sound engineer locally–working on albums for Doom Bird, Life in 24 Frames and others–despite not being on full-time duties for this By Sunlight album, is an extremely valuable asset as both a musician and technical mind, and the other members in the band are very aware of it. Particularly since By Sunlight is a very technically minded project, employing many elements that build on and flow through each other, with a sound that is both intricate and intensely mellow, it takes a lot of abstract thought to orchestrate and balance so many elements peacefully.

“I think I’m just so blessed to be in a band with people like [Cheek]–where music is really the only thing of interest to him. For that ethos alone is enough to get a boner for a dude in your band,” Sparks says through a chuckle, “I mean, not literally. It’s like if you have someone you work with intimately all the time that share the same enthusiasm as you, and also you’ve got these huge technical talent.”

“Yeah, he’s valuable. He’s done all our records prior to this one, and even with this one he helped definitely, and did some work also. Yeah, it’s a huge one-up, and we all couldn’t be more grateful for the opportunities that affords us.”

Ferro agrees, taking it a step further: “[Cheek] is a genius. There is not a better word for it, really. He puts so much work into what he is doing, whether it’s a band he is working with or a band he is in. Bob plays in Roman Funerals as well, so I have the experience of not one but two bands with Bob. To have him in a band is a musician’s dream come true. If you’re having second thoughts on a song you are writing, go to Bob and Bob will give you the answer. Actually, it’s somewhat ridiculous.”

With Cheek, Ferro, Sparks, bass player Jack Clemens, and drummer John O’Connell–the only member not from Sacramento (he’s from Virginia)–the band is chock-full of veteran talent. Finished with their latest album, titled Penumbra, they now face the arduous and sometimes daunting task of getting it out there. Starting off with a quick West Coast tour, the guys are looking forward to finally seeing the road again.

“With all the bands I’ve toured with, By Sunlight is the easiest,” says Sparks, “just because, we’ve all done it, you know, too much, and so the emotional thing that is so often an issue on tour, is sort of an old hat for us; it’s not hard at all.

“Not to sound over-confident about it, but we’re all best friends,” Sparks continues, “It’s not like we don’t get into fights sometimes, like when John wants to listen to baseball on the radio, and I just want to sit there and feel sorry for myself. It’s not like those things aren’t going to happen, but there is no fear that the bottom is going to drop out.”

By Sunlight will return to Sacramento on Sept. 8, 2012 when they play Harlow’s with Doom Bird. The 21-and-over show starts at 9 p.m., and tickets can be purchased through http://harlows.com/. For more on By Sunlight, check out their website http://www.bysunlight.com/.

I’m Dirty Too reap the generosity of others to record their first full-length album

“Who do we think we are?” was the question looming over the heads of Sacramento heavy hitting two-piece I’m Dirty Too. After time spent in supporting roles in other bands, the duo’s members are stepping out of the shadows to be co-lead singers on their upcoming full-length debut, The Downhill Dive.

After being acquainted through the local scene for seven years, Zac Brown and Jess Gowrie formed I’m Dirty Too in 2009 to explore the rawer sides of rock they were unable to express in their former and current bands. Gowrie was part of The Drama and Red Host, while Brown was a performing member of Doom Bird, Dusty Brown and Tycho.

The duo jammed in a stoner rock and grunge style, but neither had ever fronted a band. When it came time to record a demo for the purpose of booking shows, they faced the music, as it were, to handle the duties themselves.

“I remember when we first started we didn’t even want to sing in front of each other,” Brown said.

“We were halfway up to Tahoe [for our first show] and I wanted to turn around and go home. I needed a Xanax I was so nervous about singing in front of people.” Gowrie chimed in, “I think after I sang my first song I moved my head away and the whole mic stand just fell over. It was a nightmare coming true.”

Booking an out of town show was part of their plan to gain confidence and receive honest feedback beyond their friends. They also played a game they called “Best Voice,” which involves singing along to radio songs. “You have to belt it out and nail it,” Brown said. “Like outside of your range.”

I’m Dirty Too sought the help of generous strangers on Kickstarter to record The Downhill Dive. They reached their goal and hit the studio in April, splitting time in The Hangar and Dusty Brown’s home studio. With the help of Kris Anaya of Doom Bird on production and Robert Cheek in the engineer’s chair, I’m Dirty Too recorded 12 new songs. When asked if any of the songs from their original demo release made onto the full-length record, Brown offered a quick and jovial, “No, that’s cheating, man!”

Why did you choose the Kickstarter route to fund your record?
Zac Brown: It’s pretty simple. We didn’t have the money to make a record on our own [laughs]. With a tool like Kickstarter out there we thought we might as well utilize it. It’s been really helpful for us.

And you reached your goal with only 39 backers.
Jess Gowrie: We had some special guests donate more than we ever imagined.
ZB: One guy in particular put quite a bit of money in. I think he first donated $100, which was very generous. Then, a few days later the guy upped the donation. It was crazy. Then, he did it again. Jess and I were like what’s going on, is this guy playing a joke on us?

We actually contacted him to say listen, you’re more than generous, and so what’s the deal? But, he just really liked the band and wanted to see the record made.

JG: Yeah, we would have had to ask parents and family members.
ZB: Or have a car wash.
[The donator was Matthew Woods Wilhoit of Prieta and Nine of Swords]

You guys went $215 over the goal amount. Do you have special plans for that extra cash or did you end up using it?
JG: We went way over budget. It just covered the recording costs. It didn’t cover the mixing and mastering.
ZB: It was a great starting point. We were under the delusion we could pay for the whole thing with it, but it didn’t happen. It ended up having to come out of pocket.

What were some of the goals you wanted to achieve with the sound that you discussed with Robert and Kris?
ZB: Well, first of all we’re a two-piece. Live, I put my signal through a bass amp and a guitar amp. I think we achieve a pretty full sound live for a two-piece. We were kind of up in the air on whether we wanted to play bass on the record. Kris basically said we should do exactly what we do live. We were both worried that it wasn’t going to have that low end, that growl a full traditional rock band four-piece gets.

We explained what we wanted to do with Robert, and he totally nailed it. I showed it to my friends and they said things like, “Oh, there’s bass on this part,” but nope, there’s just two guitars and drums. There’s one song with a Moog that my cousin Dusty Brown played. Other than that we achieved an accurate representation of what we do live. We wanted it loud but not overproduced like a lot of rock sounds now.

The grunge and stoner rock influences are there, and I even got a Beth Gibbons of Portishead vibe from a few moments within the record…
ZB: You just made Jess’s day right there. [Laughs] You honestly nailed our three biggest influences.

Is there anything within the record that I possibly missed? Some subtle influences that people might not catch upon first listen?
JG: Well, there is some hardcore country western in there [laughs]. It’s pretty cut and dry. That’s one thing I really like about our band, we stay to the point. A lot of people think there’s some Jesus and Mary Chain in there, but that’s the ‘90s, so we’ve got it covered.

Jess, how difficult is it to sing and hit those pretty notes, while playing the drums? There are drummers that sing, but it’s usually more of a punk ethos of shouting, rather than truly singing.
JG: It’s pretty difficult just because I don’t want to compromise the drums. I find that I’m concentrating way more on the vocals. You have to find that balance of hitting that note, while still playing a cool fill or whatever. I just have to get better at splitting my brain in two.

Have you considered vocal calisthenics? Like singing while running?
ZB: That might be a good idea, Jess.
JG: Yeah, when I do my aerobics in the morning I’ll sing to the EP.
ZB: I’ll film it, and we’ll throw it up on Facebook.

Zac, with being in Tycho, Doom Bird and Dusty Brown, what do you get from I’m Dirty Too that’s not present in those bands?
ZB: Well first and foremost, I finally get to rock out. I’ve not gotten to rock out playing music in a long time. I started with Dusty Brown, and his music is so full. When I first came into it the songs were written and I’d just try to do something over the top of it. There wasn’t a whole lot of room for that visceral release.
With this, I get to jam on my guitar and also it’s my music. I write in the other bands, but I’m less a part of it. I just occupy the guitar sphere. With this we collaborate. Jess has a lot of input on guitars and writes some of the riffs. We’re very hands on with everything. I’m basically creating this and if I blow a note on stage, it’s more of a release. I get to blow off a lot of steam. My playing has always been more of a feel or expression, so when I play this I get to channel that visceral and raw emotion.

I’m Dirty Too’s CD release show at The Townhouse Lounge is on Aug. 3, 2012. The show kicks off at 9 p.m., and those who donated to I’m Dirty Too’s Kickstarter campaign will be able to collect their rewards at the show.

Singer/Songwriter Sherman Baker bears his soul, battles addiction and existential dread…all in a day’s work

Words by Joseph Atkins – Photos by Amy Scott

Sherman Baker has lived multiple lives: struggling Los Angeles actor, recovering heroin addict, mild-mannered songwriter. Yet, there’s something about him that eschews both of the former descriptions and settles on the latter. Baker’s bigger than you imagine, listening to his new full-length, Seventeenth Street. His songs make him sound fragile, delicate; but in person his wide shoulders wrap a guitar while he sings upwards into a microphone. On stage he appears focused, intent. His look is exactly right for the sound, and the qualities of Baker’s sound ultimately condition the person he is.

Up close, it’s hard to tell how much of his personality is shaped by the quiet childhood he describes or the humility of a recovering addict, or where they bleed together. But their silent strength produces songs that slowly engulf one’s attention. Baker has enough self-confidence to expose himself, musically or otherwise, to talk honestly about his past and present. He has a soft-spoken manner that leaves a small impression. He’s like a subtle fill that piques one’s interest and becomes the highlight of a track after multiple listens. He’s normal yet unique, exotic in his low-key banality.

There’s a subtlety to his brand of song craft, a fusion of Dylan and Elliott Smith, with the tonal foundations of old school pop. His hooks and harmonies draw out the anguish and joy of repeated failure and angst, verse after verse. Below them, a series of string melodies and rhythms complement and exacerbate his vocal tracks, as the lyric content demands. There’s a focused tension on the struggle of daily life and survival, but I’d suggest this is bigger than just Baker’s struggle with himself. Seventeenth Street is relaxing, serious and thoughtful in its treatment of uncertain conditions–Baker’s and otherwise. We sat down over water and espresso to discuss these uncertainties, the ups and downs of growing.

On your opening track, “Constant Contact,” you plead repeatedly for the world to “stop posting things.” Did you check in on Foursquare when we got here?
I did not. I’ve been trying really hard to not be obvious like that. That song came from Facebook [where] an ex-girlfriend used to post about me while we were dating. She’d be like, “Don’t you hate when guys do this.” And then 20 lurker dudes would be like, “Yeah, fuck that guy.”

Do you have other songs about her?
Some of the other songs like, “Golden Gate Park,” “Man on a Wire” and “Sign of Light” are about a [different] ex-girlfriend whom I feel essentially left me for dead and didn’t seem to care that I was overdosing and attempting suicide.

In one of my favorite lines from “Sign of Life” you sing, “There’s no time for philosophy/When you’re fighting/To survive.” The next track follows with another line: “We have tried to be good/But I’d rather be wrong than dead inside.” What is the major antagonist in your life?
The new record is basically about heroin addiction. I was shooting heroin in 2008 to 2009. It wasn’t like, “Oh, Elliott Smith did it, or John Coltrane.” It was a simple addict progression from Vicodin to heroin. A typical Intervention episode was my life. I went to rehab, and after six or seven weeks of horror, I finally came out. The last two years I’ve been moving away from it. I tried to off myself. I was put in a mental hospital. The tension is me trying to fight existential dread.

Yours is actually a success story. Many addicts never even get to rehab. How were you able make the decision to get clean and stay that way?
It’s a daily struggle to stay clean, but I need to in order to survive. There isn’t a way to abuse opiates that doesn’t end in death or severe impairment. My uncle was kind enough to pay for me to go after I asked him for help. It was in L.A. I needed to get out of town. I went a long way from any dealers or money. I was forced to spend a month in one bed crying, shitting and puking on myself. Literally. It was so incredibly painful emotionally; I have felt a little bit numbed ever since. But I’m also certainly a much stronger person. I’m lucky.

I think really great artists tend to be addicted to creating. Do you feel like overcoming one addiction has allowed you to focus your attention more into your musicianship?
One hundred percent. On a physical level, my energy is up; it’s like night and day. I’ve been looking at my music like an athlete–how can I get better every day? Quitting smoking, writing every day, practicing every day, I’m always thinking about what things are helping me. I have a drive to write and make music that is certainly not rational. I’m not making money. Music is my art.

You’re releasing the album yourself. How’d it all come together?
My father died, which opened up money from my family that wasn’t being used for his medical care. I had a really low budget. I recorded a lot of it at my uncle’s house. He’s got a really big place up in Granite Bay. We actually did some of the drums. All the guitars, all the vocals, all the bass–everything I did–was done there.

We mixed at The Hangar and did some of the live drums and bass there. Matt McCord played drums, and Kris Anaya [Doom Bird] played bass on a few songs. Robert “Flossy” Cheek did the mixing.

There’s a definite Elliott Smith influence on the record, but the recording process sounds a lot like his process as well.
Elliott Smith would be a good analogy except I don’t play drums–minus the brilliance factor.

Losing your father seems like a big moment in your narrative. Are there points on the new CD where his loss is felt? 
Yes, “Lonely Star” is about him to some degree. The bridge lyrics, “Where is the green light?/The future you told me of?” is a reference to The Great Gatsby’s last page about the green light of the dock. It was my father’s favorite book. A lot of the record is about mortality in some way. That might be part of the problem with selling it. 

What happens if you never sell all the CDs you print?
I’m used to disappointment. If people don’t want to buy my music, I can’t force them to… I’m pretty reconciled to living a low income, humble lifestyle, regardless.

Do you still believe in those divisions between DIY, indie and major labels?
Not really. Death Grips are the latest example of a “big deal,” and they’re as DIY as it gets. I think pipe dreams have definitely disappeared. In the ‘90s, there were a lot of kids thinking, “I just gotta get that deal and then… Chicks!”

You spent some time in L.A. as an actor. How did you get there?
I got into a good acting school. It’s where Denzel Washington went; Elizabeth Banks was there while I was. It actually helped me learn to sing. By the time I left, I just wanted to do music. I went to L.A. because I had an agent; it was a great opportunity. I was trying to get on soap operas. I wanted to focus on music instead.

Then in 2007 my personal life got crazy, and I just dropped out and did drugs for two or three years. I didn’t do much at all. I did in my head, but I wasn’t functioning.

You’ve mentioned that there’s a lot about yourself–your voice, how you look on camera, people watching you–that makes you anxious or nervous. Are we socialized to be confident individuals and overcritical of everyone else?
In a word, yes. I’ve always been kind of shocked at how I’ve put my heart out there and then had it taken apart by a critic or local Internet commentator. I guess it’s my own naiveté. To tear apart local struggling artists and critique a person as if you are writing for the New York Times, reviewing a show at Carnegie Hall, is the height of arrogance. Blogger culture is gross. It’s too easy just to spout off about what you don’t like or do like.

Acting seems like a curious choice seeing as you feel uncomfortable in front of a camera.
I don’t like being looked at. I don’t like being on stage and being looked at, still. I don’t mind being heard because I’m comfortable with how I sound. My stage presence is just as shitty as it ever was; I just stare at the ground and sing. I just couldn’t care less about my stage presence. I’ve just never said, “Oh, I wish I could be like Steven Tyler.” Never. I just don’t care.

Head to Beatnik Studios in Sacramento on June 2, 2012 to celebrate the release of Sherman Baker’s newest album, Seventeenth Street. Also performing will be Autumn Sky, who also happens to be releasing her new CD that day. If that wasn’t enough for you, Ricky Berger will open. Showtime is 7 p.m. For more info, go to http://shermanbakermusic.com/.

Local singer-songwriter Sherman Baker recently released his second EP, Panic on Seventeenth, and will celebrate with a show at Luigi’s Fungarden on Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. Fans of Wilco, Violent Femmes and The Pixies are sure to dig Baker’s nasal-y, folk-meets-punk-rock vibe. With your $5 admission to the show, which starts at 8:30 p.m., you’ll get a free download card for Panic on Seventeenth. Accompanying Baker that night will be Joseph Kojima Gray on bass and Brian Guido on drums. Both are also in the band 50-Watt Heavy. Opening the show will be Brolly the Well and Damon & Mason (of the band Forever Goldrush). Baker worked on his new four-song EP with Robert Cheek (producer, engineer) and Matt McCord (played percussion on the recordings); both are longtime staples in the Sacramento music scene. The four songs on Panic… will show up in some form or another on a full-length album Baker plans to record in February 2012 called Seventeenth Street, which will also feature eight brand new songs. Baker plans to spend two weeks at The Hangar, again with Robert Cheek manning the boards. For more information and to keep in the loop with all things Sherman Baker, visit Shermanbakermusic.com

The Speed of Sound in Seawater Are Out For A Good Time

There’s been a lot of crazy shit happening around the world lately–maybe you’ve noticed? Earthquakes, tornadoes, Osama bin Laden’s death, all this nonsense about the Rapture! It can be overwhelming and downright depressing at times to turn on the news or read the newspaper, or, let’s face it, stare at your Facebook feed. For these reasons and so many others, it’s important to have creative outlets in life where you can simply have fun and get your mind off things. The members of local indie-pop-meets-math-rock band The Speed of Sound in Seawater know just this. “If we ever stopped having fun, we would stop making new music,” admitted lead vocalist and guitarist Damien Verrett during a recent conversation in a midtown coffee shop. “That definitely is key.” Fellow six-stringer Jordan Seavers (who also sings) agreed with that notion. “Obviously the music is important,” Seavers said. “But we’re not so much like, ‘We’ve got to make it as a band!’ We just have fun playing music.”

The theory of “having fun” makes its way into every aspect of the band: song titles, album titles, even their promo photos–one of which sees the four young gentlemen dangling their feet in a swimming pool while sporting pink bath robes. “There are so many stupid little inside jokes on the new EP,” said Verrett, referring to the group’s latest offering, a five-track EP released on April 27, 2011 titled Underwater Tell Each Other Secrets. “Lyrically, in titles, so much of it,” he said. “Even the name of the album, it’s just this stupid inside joke. It’s something Fernando [Oliva, drums, vocals] said like maybe three years ago. We were all swimming in the pool and he comes up and whispers to me, ‘Do you want to play underwater tell each other secrets?’” He laughed and continued, “I just thought it was the funniest thing ever, and we remembered it. When it came time to name the new EP we were like, ‘Let’s call it Underwater Tell Each Other Secrets.’”

“We’re all pretty goofy,” Seavers butted in. “We like to entertain other people but we like to entertain ourselves at the same time and just be goofs.”

All jokes and goofiness aside, The Speed of Sound in Seawater are a really talented band, and Underwater Tell Each Other Secrets showcases their ability to blend technically advanced playing (i.e.: a flurry of finger tapping, complicated hammer-on riffs, shifting time signatures and rhythms, etc.) with an undeniable knack for writing pop-y, memorable melodies. When listening to their songs, it’s difficult not to think of one the genre’s pioneers, Minus the Bear. Verrett recalls when he first heard the Seattle-based group. “I remember just finding them randomly on some forum and someone was calling it ‘math-rock,’ and I was, ‘What the hell is that? I’ve never heard of that.’ Then I listened to it and I was like, ‘Well, that’s exactly what it is.’” Verrett went on to explain how he thinks Sacramento natives Tera Melos and Hella are good examples of bands at one end of the math-rock spectrum as far as being “way out there and not as accessible,” and that groups like This Town Needs Guns and Maps and Atlases are at the other end of the spectrum and are becoming “indie sensations who have songs in commercials and stuff.” He went on to say, “I didn’t really know if those two sects of math-rock were aware of each other, but I feel like we’re more leaning toward the pop-y side. I like that about us.”

For Underwater… TSOSIS enlisted Robert Cheek as producer/mixer/engineer and from March 11 to 13 they worked out of The Hangar, arguably one of Sacramento’s most credible recording studios, where they did all the takes live. Seavers and Verrett both agreed that it was a sonic match made in heaven. “I was actually thinking about this last night,” Verrett said. “Just how many records he’s produced and engineered that I’m a huge fan of. There’s got to be like six or seven that are just some of my favorites.” He goes down the line: Tera Melos, RX Bandits, Mister Metaphor; all bands that TSOSIS share qualities with. “It just fit so well,” Verrett said of the pairing with Cheek. “He’s from here, he records all the music we love, he’s really experienced in the genre. He just got us instantly.”

For months leading up to The Hangar recording sessions, the band practiced full-on dress rehearsal style, setting up microphones around them and demo-ing their songs in the living room of the house in Elk Grove in which Verrett grew up. “We actually share the same practice space as Damien’s dad does,” Seavers joked, referring to Verrett’s father’s R&B cover band formerly known as The Detours.

“Once my mom gets home we have to play a little quieter,” Verrett joked. “I really don’t like having to quiet down, these guys are always like, ‘Oh, I’m sorry Mrs. Verrett, we’ll turn it down,’ and I’m always like, ‘No guys, we don’t have to do that!’ It’s really funny, that has to have influenced our music in some way.”

This is a fair assessment, considering TSOSIS rarely use distortion on their guitars, giving their music somewhat of a shimmer and an overall easier-to-listen-to vibe than bands with heavily distorted guitars constantly blasting. “Damien and I both really like jazzy tones and stuff like that,” Seavers said. Verrett jumped in, “And all the distorted parts hit so much harder when they’re so infrequent, you know? If there’s hardly any distortion, you really notice.” Their songs are consciously “loose,” too. Frequently, the skilled musicians will slip in and out of one part into another, sometimes perfectly in sync, sometimes not, giving their recordings an organic feel. “Sometimes I’m like, ‘Man we sound really sloppy, we need to clean it up,’” Seavers admitted. “But then sometimes I’m listening to another band and I’m like, ‘It’s so cool they’re sloppy, I want to play like that.’ It sounds a little more fun when people are sloppy.”

With a new EP freshly tucked under their belts, along with two others (2009’s Blue Version and 2010’s Red Version), TSOSIS has a plethora of songs to pull from when they tour throughout California this summer. “It’s odd that we’re at the point where people are like, ‘Oh your first EP is the best one!’” Verrett joked as our conversation was coming to an end. “It’s like, ‘Are you kidding? That was like $200 and we made it in like eight hours, and you think that’s the best? We just dropped a lot more on this one; you better think it’s the best.’”

The Speed of Sound in Seawater will play at Luigi’s Fungarden on Friday, June 17 alongside Town Hall, The Relatives and The Dreaded Diamond. Show starts at 8 p.m., is $5 and all ages are welcome. TSOSIS will welcome back their former bassist Lucas Ulrici for this show and a number of other performances this summer, as their current bassist Michael Littlefield will be busy recording with his other band, A Lot Like Birds. To learn more about TSOSIS and to stream or download tracks off all three of their EPs, visit Thespeedofsoundinseawater.bandcamp.com.

Beloved Sacramento band Mister Metaphor to reunite for one night

Bands form and break up all the time; it’s what they do. What’s extremely rare, though, is for a band to become more popular after they’ve broken up, to gain hype without even playing shows, with no self-promotion whatsoever. Such is the case with Mister Metaphor, a Sacramento-based four-piece post-punk/experimental group who had a good, albeit rather brief, run back in the early to mid-‘00s. In order the achieve this sort of post-break-up popularity, one thing is for certain: the music has got to be really, really good to withstand the test of time, to remain relevant throughout the years and to not get lost in one’s CD booklet or erased from one’s iPod. Mister Metaphor’s music had all the ingredients: It was technical and highly skilled, but not so much as to make your head hurt counting time signatures; it was fast and high-energy, but not enough to scare people away; it was melodic and memorable, but not too pop-y or sugarcoated to make you want to vomit when the chorus came around. Their music had a little something for everyone, and it struck a chord with those who were lucky enough to discover the band, whether during their time together or after the fact.

Mike Sparks, Mister Metaphor’s co-guitarist/lead vocalist (who later went on to form the band Bridges, which ultimately became By Sunlight) knows first-hand the capability of good music to spread. “As the years have passed, especially the last three with all the touring that By Sunlight has done, one out of every two shows we‘ve ever played on tour some kid has come up to me and said, ‘Are you the guy from Mister Metaphor?’” Sparks admitted to Submerge during a recent interview. “For a lot of people during that time frame, it just sort of got to them. It was what they wanted to hear.”

Justin Goings, Mister Metaphor’s drummer (who has played in a slew of credible bands with regional ties including Playing to the Grandstand, O! the Joy and Jeepster), has had a very similar experience since they disbanded. “I’ve talked to so many people that have said, ‘Man, I never got to see that band and that’s one of my favorite bands,’ and I’m always like, ‘Wow!’ I’ve met so many people like that after the fact,” Goings said. Again, all of this is rather surprising considering that Mister Metaphor was only a band for about three years, played less than a hundred shows and put out two EPs, only one of which ever saw a proper release (Die on the High Road, released on Omnibus Records). “It was really brief,” Goings said of the lifespan of the band. “It went by really quickly. It was like going down a chute or something, and I got spit out the other end and I was like, ‘That’s it?’”

Turns out, that wasn’t it. Earlier this year, Francis Eastman, a good friend of the band and member of Oakland’s Echo Location, proposed to Sparks that Mister Metaphor should reunite for one last performance. “It was the end of the night after some show, and me and Frank were a little drunk and we were sitting out on his front porch,” remembered Sparks. “Basically, he asked that because he was turning 30 this year he wanted to have a Mister Metaphor reunion show.” Sparks agreed, contacted the other members and it was eventually set in stone: Mister Metaphor would reunite for one show on Nov. 6 at Townhouse Lounge in Sacramento. But who was this Eastman guy and how did he have enough clout over the band to coax them into reuniting after all these years? Surely the members of Mister Metaphor had been bombarded with random requests to reunite many times before, so why now?

“He paid for our last EP,” Sparks admitted with a chuckle. “He paid for it outright. It actually got recorded about a year or maybe even two after we were broken up.”

A-ha! Now it makes sense why Mister Metaphor owed it to Eastman. He had done them a huge favor years before by funding a trip to The Hangar to work with engineer Robert Cheek to bust out five songs they had written but never captured on record. Doing this show was a simple matter of paying Eastman back then, right? Wrong. It’s deeper than that. “It was a little bit more than that,” remembered Sparks. “He’s a really good friend of ours. And honestly yeah, fuck; we do owe it to him. But it just felt kind of right. We never really had a farewell show or anything. The band just disintegrated really, really rapidly.” Sparks recalled that they had attempted to do one final show after recording the Eastman-funded EP (which never was officially named nor released, it was only available online for free download via the band’s now-defunct website), but that it never worked out.

This time felt different. “It just felt like a good thing,” Sparks said. “Of course he instigated it, but I think all of us had this weird lack of closure or something. We never got to just stand there one time and go, ‘OK, here we are.’”

Thanks to Eastman, whom Goings even described as “somewhat of a fifth member,” that chance is finally upon the members of Mister Metaphor. They finally will get to stand on a stage and pay respect to each other, to their supporters, to the music and especially to Eastman. “This whole thing is happening because of him,” Goings said. Since it seemed like Eastman was such a pivotal part to this story, we contacted him to ask what it is about Mister Metaphor that he loves so much. “At this point, the band reminds me of a period of my life that cannot be replicated,” he said. “The original Capitol Garage always had rad shows. The local scene was putting out amazing music, and we were all sharing an apartment and doing stupid shit in our early twenties.” Everyone can appreciate that. Hearing certain bands can take you to a different time and place. Good friends, good music, good times: the recipe to so many of our upbringings.

“I feel like the big thing beyond basically saying thank you to Frank for paying for our record is I don’t feel like we ever got a chance to thank everybody who was enthusiastic about the band,” shared Sparks as our conversation came to a close. “It’s going to be an emotional night. There were a lot of feelings invested in this band, and I can’t wait to get all that energy in one room. It’s going to feel good to celebrate that band the way it deserves.”