There is a sonic boom happening among women of all mediums and industries. Whether through art, politics or music, females are owning their truth and expressing it unapologetically without shame, guilt or insecurity. Submerge got the chance to interview one such inspirational female contributing to this era of woman power, Liz Kat, a multi-talented vocalist, keyboardist and frontwoman of Davis band, The Midnight Dip. Kat chatted with us about bringing The Midnight Dip together, their new EP and the power of turning negatives into positives.

The genres and sounds The Midnight Dip explores would be hard to put into any box. In my first interaction with their tunes, my impression of The Midnight Dip was of a gypsy-esque variety, with an array of contrasting instruments such as accordions and banjos, among others. I imagined it as the perfect music for steampunk events or hipster circuses.

But Kat describes their music style as, “A mixture of sweet and salty with a bit of everything in between.”

While my ears continued through their kaleidoscope of sound, I heard classic funk, jazz and psychedelic thrown in. Their discography offers powerful lyrics and original music written by the frontwoman herself. And above all, The Midnight Dip hopes to inspire others, give people a voice, and contribute positively through the power of noise.

For seven years, Kat had been a part of bands with people she admired and linked up with in the local music scene. However, after her last experience, she was left deeply unsatisfied. This was due to the lack of mutual respect in the band and the irritating machismo attitudes that one can experience when being the only woman in the group.

When asked about her experience Kat replied, “I’ve been in tons of bands with musicians and friends I know in the community here. But then I was with this all-men band that had a strange resistance to having a woman contribute equally creatively. They lacked the respect for me that they’d give to each other … I decided right then and there that I wanted to work for myself with my own band.”

She admits starting her first band wasn’t easy, but so far she has created a group that has gained quite a buzz in less than a year’s time.

Through musical acquaintances, friends and Craigslist, she was able to form the group. David Jacobin on guitar and banjo was her first to join. He’s been good friends with Kat for years. Then Patrick Langham from Big Sticky Mess introduced Kat to Kim Nguyen, who is also on keys.

“Patrick told me he knew someone who was awesome on keys. He said I’d really like her, so Kim and I met up and we spoke about art for hours,” Kat detailed.

With the rest of her crew, including bassist Alex Reiff and Zehrin Sims on drums, Kat’s made the same types of connections.

What is even more impressive, though, is that within a short time of playing together, The Midnight Dip has already released an EP titled, i hear voices.

i hear voices is Kat’s brainchild (with help of the band for arrangement) and covers an intense and difficult breakup in Kat’s life. The collection of songs goes through a process of love, loss and pain, and ends with redemption. The opening track, “Crazy Woman,” begins with delicate acoustic strings that pull the listener into a memory the subject is about to reflect on. Then the drums slowly roar and join in rhythm.

“Crazy Woman” specifically focuses on a moment in the abusive relationship where Kat’s ex-boyfriend chose to call her crazy while in a fight. At that particular moment, Kat felt shame and anxiety. She always assumed crazy had to only have a negative connotation.

But then she thought, “OK, I am crazy but in the best way possible. I decided to make the word positive and made this song as a way for me to accept the word as a positive thing. I wanted to put that aggression and realization into something powerful, so I put it in this song.”

The five-song EP is full of relatable gems a breakup album should consist of, especially in its honesty of how we all can act when heartbroken. Kat admitted, however, her music specifically targets a female audience on this EP.

“After going through the wave of all these stages—love, loss, pain, acceptance—by the end I’ve finally gone through the wave and I’m finally ready to move on,” Kat explained.

While envisioning the concepts for i hear voices, Kat took much inspiration from comedian Hannah Gadsby. In her standup, Gadsby uses comedy to cope with pain. Kat explained that in this way, Gadsby is owning her pain and owning her story and that inspired her.

As for the cover art, painted by Will Durkee, it hints at the contents of the album entirely. Durkee’s piece offers a beautiful female figure in purples and blues exiting a body of water. While including swirls and waves within the piece, the women has a noticeable illustration of an eye on the small of her back. Kat describes how impressed she was with Durkee after he took her description of what she wanted and made the cover art as the result.

“I wanted a woman in water but I wanted her to be a part of the water in a way. I wanted it to all flow. He did so well that he is now my go-to artist for everything,” Kat said.

While she wishes they all practiced more, for now Kat says The Midnight Dip practices at least once a week. While the bandmates individually lead their own lives, they are all dedicated to the same goal. Above all, Kat will always adhere to this goal: “I want to run a band with as much transparency and fairness as possible,” she said. “Even if I write all the songs, I want everyone to have an equal opinion and be happy with the decisions we make.”

Though the the inner workings of social media and finances can be a difficult task, Kat is up for the challenge, frequently staying up late figuring out how to more successfully promote herself and The Midnight Dip. As for what’s next, Kat said The Midnight Dip will release a full-length album in a year or two after getting their feet wet with this first EP.

Make sure to catch The Midnight Dip at these upcoming shows: They’ll be playing the free Rock the Vote event in Davis on Oct. 20 (at Davis Commons, 500 First St., from 11 a.m.–7 p.m.) and at The Torch Club (904 15th St., Sacramento) with The Dirty Chops Brass Band on Oct. 24. This 21-and-over show is $6 and starts at 9 p.m. For more info, go to Torchclub.net. You can listen to i hear voices at Themidnightdip.bandcamp.com.

**This piece first appeared in print on pages 12 – 13 of issue #276 (Oct. 10 – 24, 2018)**

Whenever and wherever Sacramento’s Screature take the stage, they bring a 4 a.m. world of dread with them, embodying completely a dark strain of rock music that first sparked in the underground nearly 40 years ago. They are the bony gait of Famine’s horse, Alice’s final rabbit-hole descent into Hades. They are the harbinger, the massacre and the holy ghost to gloat above all—play their music in a darkened bedroom, and things begin to crawl.

Formed seven years ago, partially out of a shared interest in cultish music and UFO literature, Screature has released two full-length works: their self-titled debut (2013) and Four Columns (2015). The combined effect when listened to both without interruption amounts to a monolithic, rising wail, a dance along the precipice of sanity. The lineup is so well integrated (Liz Mahoney’s foreboding wail, Chris Orr’s jagged guitar stabs, Sarah Scherer’s murky, bass-register organ and Miranda Vera’s unrelenting drumwork) that the result is a single ritualistic howl, each element overlaying the next. When combined with the right visuals, it’s hypnotic and uncanny. Just scope their video for the single “100 Lines” off of Four Columns, a disturbing transgression captured in reverse, confirming the feeling one gets zoning out to their music that time is being demolished. Whether we get the chance to unmake our evil—or merely run the risk of getting snared by it once again—is left up to question.

In the two years since their last aural/spiritual onslaught, Screature has used the live setting as a laboratory for their forthcoming release, Old Hand New Wave. In the throng of a dark venue, the power of shared presence cannot be denied, and their most powerful statements come to life here. I was lucky enough to catch them at Ace of Spades in late 2017 in a perfect trifecta of spectral aggression with Youth Code and Chelsea Wolfe (with whom Chris Orr recorded the track “Scrape” for her latest album). Although their recordings have become ever more sophisticated, Screature is first and foremost an event, in need of living conduits to spread its doom.

But if Screature’s brand of lightning can be bottled, it is under the aegis of producer Chris Woodhouse (Oh Sees, Ty Segall) who has worked with them in the past. On OHNW, he succeeds in adding a deeper sense of fury to their output.

Standout cuts like “Induction” and “North of Order” verge on industrial metal, and provoke compulsive re-listening and wild subjective imagery—a volcano erupting beneath a cemetery, say, or a colony of vampires succumbing to bacchanalian abandon before being incinerated by the sunrise. For me, the winner is the closing track, “Another Mask,” which comes charged with a maddening, insectile guitar drone that drags the listener closer to imminent possession. Though clearly a contemporary work, it could easily be a rediscovered classic from Joy Division’s Closer or an early Christian Death record. It leaves us with the troubling conviction that there is no such thing as finality, no clear delineation between descent and ascent, that one has screamed into the void only to be answered back, “Do what thou wilt.”

Below we share a brief encounter with two of the mad geniuses behind the curtain of Screature, Mahoney and Orr.

The first two singles off of Old Hand New Wave sound heavier, more doom-laden, more intense. Would you agree with that, and is there something that pushed you in this direction?
Chris Orr: I agree. This is the heaviest Screature has sounded. Part of that was Woodhouse’s heavy hand—the drums are doubled and effected, the organ’s got deeper teeth this time round. Both drums and organ are more present in the mix, which helps thicken it up. The guitars weigh a ton [with] feedback, wah, even my first guitar solo. Liz just brings the roof down on the whole affair. Her vocals are devastating on OHNW. Beware.
Liz Mahoney: I had just joined the O.T.O. (Ordo Templi Orientis) when we started writing this album, so some of the lyrics reference this experience. I was initiated the day before we started recording, so that was very intense for me. I think the impact bled into my performance on the album.

How would you describe the new album title, Old Hand New Wave?
CO: It’s 1984 again; the new wave looks alot like the old wave. The title is pulled from the Hypothetical Prophets song “Person to Person.” We’re all in need of love and affection.
LM: A mask on a mask on a mask on a mask …ad infinitum. And I’m not talking about how popular cosmetic surgery is.

What were your first encounters with dark/new wave/post-punk music? Would you say you’ve been steeped in these genres your whole life?
CO: We’re all well-steeped in the genres you mention, though not exclusively, and some of us more than others. Some steeping you spend your whole life trying to shake.
LM: I definitely encountered it before I knew the terms for it. I was 5 years old when there were new wave hits playing on the radio and in all the movies I loved, but to me they were just popular music!

What drew the four of you together? Did you know each other before 2011? What were your interests when you started out?
CO: The women in our band have been friends since high school. Some of us are lovers, others are practically sisters. I’m a Louisiana transplant. But yes, all before 2011. When we started we were interested in overcoming creative blocks. Screature started as a book club/group therapy meeting once a week with drinks. We barely made it through Whitley Strieber’s Communion before we turned our focus on becoming a four-piece.
LM: I met Miranda when I was 11, Sarah when I was 13 and Christopher when I was 17. Miranda and I lived together as sisters from the first year we met until we graduated high school. We clocked a lot of hours at the Cattle Club and watching MTV. When we started, I had shifted my focus from running a live music venue, Fools Foundation, to wanting to perform.  

What has been your experience performing with Chelsea Wolfe and Youth Code? What’s your method of trying out new songs live? Do you shape the songs by reading the crowd, or is there another way?
CO: Both bands seem to leave a bit of themselves on stage. The next night we witnessed them eager to get back up there and reclaim it, only to leave it behind again. That’s inspiring. I want to learn to live on stage.
LM: Such an amazing experience! We are so blessed to have such hardworking, magical people in our lives who support what we do. I am usually chomping at the bit to play a new song live, especially in the midst of still figuring it out.

You invite me over for a night of drinks, film-viewing and music listening: What is the lineup for our night in? How do you get across the ethos of Screature without using your music as reference?
CO: Hey pal, nice to see you. Tequila, soda, lemon? We’ve made one just for you. Yes, that’s Machine Gun Etiquette on the record player. Now sit on the floor, we’re watching Communion on mute!
LM: What he said!

Experience Screature live at the Submerge Mag 10 Year Anniversary Party on Saturday, Feb. 3, 2018, at Holy Diver (1517 21st St.). Also performing will be Horseneck and Destroy Boys. The show is free with a $10 suggested donation at the door, with a portion of the proceeds going to a cancer charity. All ages are welcome, doors open at 7:30 p.m. Old Hand New Wave comes out Jan. 19 on Ethel Scull Records. Learn more at Facebook.com/screaturesound or Screature.bandcamp.com.

**This interview first appeared in print on pages 22 – 23 of issue #257 (Jan. 15 – 29, 2018)**

Monopoly capitalism poisons everything. It has turned Hollywood into a sequel/reboot machine. But it goes further than that. Our food is garbage; our elections are farcical, and even the drinking water isn’t safe to drink. Rock ‘n’ roll was once the fertile soil for all sorts of rebellion, but overproduction and an influx of talented but vapid one-hit wonders have stolen that from us, too.

I read in a press release that they called themselves “The Most Honest Band in Rock and Roll,” and I was ready to needle them about it, thinking it was just a play on the band’s name, but I was wrong. I sat down with drummer Justin Mellor and singer/guitarist Chuck Bradley and was dying to ask them about it.

I read that you guys are the most honest band in rock ‘n’ roll. Where does that come from?
Chuck Bradley: We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel, we’re just trying to play really good rock ‘n’ roll that’s familiar to people and is fun to listen to, and channel all of that into a great live show. For us, that’s where the honesty comes in. We’re not gonna try to fool you with smoke and mirrors, we’re just gonna come out and play you some good music.

Rock seems to have become pretty stale in the past decade, do you see yourselves as trying to take it back?
CB: Yeah, that’s the whole point. For a lot of years, everyone wanted to be in a blues band, and then you had people wanting to break away from the blues and try different stuff, which is cool, but we got to the point where we missed those building blocks of rock ‘n’ roll. So we’re taking it back to the basics of not trying to play a million chords. We wanna play the ones that matter. We want to try and strip it away and do just what it would have been in the beginning. Maybe in a fresh way that means something.

You guys do some cool covers and seem to have really cool taste. What do you listen to?
Justin Mellor: I started out doing heavy metal and punk and hardcore, and I still listen to all of that stuff. As I grow, I’ve been listening to a lot of older country and bluegrass and a lot of different stuff. My favorite band is The Refreshments, but I also derive a lot of influence from Megadeth. I love stuff like that.
CB: That’s part of stripping it down—when you do that color or that little drum part, it grabs people because it’s not through the whole song. It counts if it’s well-placed. You [Mellor] are so good at that. The fills that you do and the stuff you do rhythmically always fits into the stuff we’re doing—it doesn’t ever fight with what we do.
JM: I like Dave Lombardo’s [from Slayer] drumming, but when I’m listening to a really good rock ‘n’ roll song, there’s actually not a lot going on, and a good drummer plays to make the people sound better instead of just playing a thousand miles an hour. That’s cool, but it doesn’t really have its place in rock ‘n’ roll.

And you guys use pretty specific vintage equipment. Is that an honesty thing, too?
JM: When you’re an artist, you’re trying to find the perfect color, and when you’re a musician you try to find the perfect tone. When you’re as obsessed as we are, you never quite get it, so you’re always searching. We use a lot of hearty gear. Chuck uses a Marshall amp.
CB: I just got that, I’m super excited about it.
JM: Tube-powered, hearty stuff. We don’t like little solid-state amps that have a thin sound, we want the stage show to sound as cool as the record sounds.
CB: You know, the new amp that I got has bass, mid, treble and volume, and that’s all. It’s made to overdrive the tubes and make that round, three-dimensional sound. Dan [Sisson], the other guitar player, is super into that, too, and when I started playing music with him, he really revolutionized that for me. Having a guitar tone come from the instrument itself is important, and it’s easier for me. I don’t have to tap-dance on pedals all night.
JM: It’s a house of cards thing. The more stuff you plug in, the more it can go wrong, and it hides the real thing.

It’s harder to replicate live, too, right?
JM: Yeah, and we wanna sound really good live, first and foremost. We don’t wanna be that band that sounds really good on the record and then sounds totally different live. Some bands sound like they have five guitar players on the records and then only two on stage. We don’t wanna be that, because you can get carried away in the studio … You can sound like a symphonic orchestra and you get on stage and it’s just two guys.

You think anyone in particular is dishonest?
CB: I’d hesitate to say dishonest, but there are different approaches. We don’t think these guys are trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes, it’s just different. We’re interested in making songs work without 50 million tools to do it. There’s a lot of newer stuff that’s overproduced, in my opinion. I’ll watch something on TV like Good Morning America or Saturday Night Live or something and they’ll have a country band on, and I play pedal steel, so I know that’s a pedal steel lick you’re playing, and I’ll look on stage and there’s no pedal steel player up there, so that’s the kind of dishonesty we’re trying to avoid. We want to have the record sound like we do live, and capturing that honesty is what we’re about.
JM: Nashville has a formula and they keep doing the same thing that sells. It’s all the same two-and-a-half-minute song with the same type of guitar riff and the same structures—even the same back up singers. They have a formula, and to their credit, it sells, but that to me is dishonest, because it’s remaking a fake product. It’s like KMart selling socks, and there’s no difference to them because it’s a product. We wanna do something genuine that’s made fresh and real.

Sacramento seems to be a really good place to do that right now.
CB: I have to credit a lot of the musicians around here. I think as an audience, people recognize when you don’t put effort into what you’re doing, and I think that’s what ends up killing a lot of scenes in a lot of cities, and you have to keep your game elevated.

Do you mean anyone in particular?
CB: Tatiana McPhee put out a great record. JonEmery—he’s so active. He’s always putting out stuff. Shawn Cahoon of Rancho Deluxe—he’s an honest performer, too. He lays it all out and I respect the hell out of him. He’s that guy that no one knows but I respect him so much. He just hops up on stage and rips. Bobby Dickson of Unchained. Matt W Gage just put out a record, [and] he works with some of the greatest musicians. Billy Hood, too. He’s my favorite local songwriter.

When is the record out?
CB: We’re adding some last minute details and our producer is a busy guy, but the digital release will be out by the end of February. We’re gonna push, and I think we’re close. We’re only doing six songs, but we’re doing it well. We picked the six best songs that could run the gamut of what we do. We want this to be kind of like a sampler was in the old punk rock days that says, “Here’s our three-song EP, and this is who we are.”

What about shows?
CB: We’re really fortunate to be able to play at places like the Powerhouse or Goldfield especially because, you know, those level of venues are important for a city to have. For them to come say, “Hey, we believe in what you’re doing, come be on our stage,” we’re really happy to oblige.

Show The Damn Liars you believe in what they’re doing, too, and check them out live at the aforementioned shows at Powerhouse Pub (614 Sutter St., Folsom) on Jan. 25, 2018, and at Goldfield Trading Post (1630 J St., Sacramento) on Jan. 26. Stay tuned for details on their new album by following the band on Facebook.com/thedamnliars.

**This interview first appeared in print on pages 18 – 19 of issue #257 (Jan. 15 – 29, 2018)**

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.

If you log onto Spotify, you can pretty easily locate the artist page for local band Sunday School. On that page, you will find their recently released self-titled EP, a single from 2016 entitled “That’s Reasonable (I’m Not),” and a three-track single for a German house band from the mid-‘90s.

This article isn’t about the German house project.

“That’s when we were big in Germany,” laughed Will Heimbichner, singer of the local, more recent Sunday School. “What’s kind of funny about that band is for a while our whole goal for a minute was just to be the Sunday School that showed up above that, so we could say, ‘Hey, we’re on Spotify,’ ‘Wait, you’re a German house band?’”

Maybe they can organize a tour in Germany someday and hilarity will ensue.

Heimbichner and guitarist Alex Giddings met in high school at the age of 14. They formed an almost immediate friendship due to a mutual interest in video games, and, over time, that grew into a bond over music.

“I had on a Halo shirt,” recalled Heimbichner. “A really cool Halo shirt that I special ordered, and Alex came up to me and told me that he thought the Halo shirt was super cool, and I was like, ‘Yeah, uh, do you want to go play Halo?’ and that was pretty much it.”

“We still play Halo,” added Giddings. “That never stopped.”

The two friends have played in numerous acts together over the years since they were teenagers—recently in projects The Cosmonauts and Manos Hand of Fate.

“[The Cosmonauts] was pretty funny,” said Heimbichner. “We dressed up as superheroes, but that’s pretty much finished for now. And there were a couple of other little stints in there somewhere. This is so far the best stint.”

A few years ago, Sunday School began to take shape. Heimbichner ended up going to school at Sierra College and meeting bass player Zachary Green, and recruited drummer Cameron English when he was working at a local call center.

Despite being the one putting things together, Heimbichner is very explicit about his relationship with Giddings: “I guess I’m always the mastermind behind this stuff … I guess you could look at it that way,” Heimbichner said.

“But, I never have any success with anything without Alex also in the band. I can’t really write songs well without Alex there to help do it. It’s the truth.”

“We do have matching tattoos,” Giddings added. “I wouldn’t say deeper than blood, but it’s pretty deep.”

“We’ve pretty much been in all but a couple of bands [together],” said Heimbichner. “We were the same consistent people, not the same kind of music or anything, just different adventures. We just work really well together.”

Sunday School held an EP release show on April 14, 2017, for their self-titled debut. The album was recorded at Fat Cat Recording with local heavy hitter Sean Stack. While the band currently has a catalog of a dozen or so songs for live shows, they wanted to whittle it down to just the hits.

“Those were the strongest ones,” said Heimbichner. “They fit really well. We had different music video ideas and made a music video for one of them. Just sort of lumped together with a few things, what we felt would sound good on the radio. That kind of was a deciding factor.”

“We talked about it when we recorded [the EP] with Sean,” said Giddings. “How this is kind of like our resume to people that don’t know us.”

The album is a fabulous four-track power pop effort, with some lovely nods to bands from the late ‘90s in particular. A quick perusal of local journalism blurbs regarding Sunday School from their short history will quickly produce some of the associated acts people tie together with the band’s current sound: Built to Spill, Supergrass, and most notably, Weezer.

“Alex and I, we both really loved Weezer growing up,” said Heimbichner, “and obviously that can be heard in our music. Especially with ‘Hold your Breath,’ you can totally hear it, the influence from Pinkerton.”

But with direct comparisons and music, while being told that you sound like a band you admired growing up is an honor to many—if not most—there’s always the instinctive desire to be seen as individuals, to have your own sound.

“I want to personally move past that [late ‘90s sound],” said Heimbichner. “There’s a ton of great music from that era, and I love Built to Spill and Supergrass and Weezer, that was a great band. But, I think for our next stuff, I kind of want to move away from the power chord-y guitar and maybe into some more complex stuff. Baroque pop would be super cool to do … I’ve always wanted to make a full baroque pop album, with harpsichords and stuff. I don’t know if it will happen, though.”

And Heimbichner isn’t just joking or spitballing when it comes to the idea of moving toward a baroque pop sound. He’s dead serious.

“I feel like there aren’t many baroque pop masterpieces in the world,” Heimbichner continued, “and I would like to add to the catalog. A lot of bands delved into that in the ‘60s, but not very many people play straight-up baroque rock. From time-to-time, we’ll cover ‘Time of the Seasons’ by the Zombies live, and we do it a little different style-wise … It feels like a logical step.”

The key to deciding their evolutionary path lies in decisiveness, which, Heimbichner admits, is not something he comes by so easily.

“I honestly get pulled in a lot of different directions when I start thinking about what I want to do,” said Heimbichner. “As a songwriter, it usually starts with me, I mean, we all get involved with it, but … I have trouble sticking to one thing. I listen to a lot of different music, and I’m like, ‘Now I want to make a country album and a synth pop album or something.’ I need to pick something and move forward with it.”

For now, though, the guys from Sunday School really love how the EP turned out, and are currently focused on promoting that, and over the next year or so they will strategize where to go next.

“We’re looking at playing up and down the coast this summer,” said Heimbichner, “but I think we’re still looking for shows outside of this area … maybe down south in the L.A. area. Maybe Portland or Seattle. As far as writing a new album, I have a ton of ideas, as far as a deadline for myself, by the end of the summer to have that figured out, and probably by the end of the year to have everything written. It will probably be 2018 when we start recording.”

No word on whether or not they will consider a tour of Germany.

Check out Sunday School live at Concerts in the Park in Cesar Chavez Plaza in Sacramento on June 30, 2017. Also performing will be Vista Kicks, Hobo Johnson and the Lovemakers and ONOFF. Sunday School’s self-titled EP is available for purchase on iTunes and Amazon, and you can also check it out on Spotify. Follow the band’s adventures at Facebook.com/sundayschoolcanbefun. Check out their video for the track “Hold Your Breath” below.

**This article first appeared in print on pages 14 – 15 of issue #242 (June 19 – July 3, 2017)**

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.

The O’Mulligans formed way back in 2003 (!) with the plan of banging out a few songs at a suburban Sacramento battle of the bands. This month, nearly 15 years later, they’ll release their first full-length album.

“We were listening to a lot of Dropkick Murphys then and wanted to sound like that,” said guitarist and one of the band’s two singers, David Lindsay. “We wrote a couple of songs in that vein and were like, ‘Oh, this sucks. These aren’t good songs.’”

They ditched the Celtic-punk routine right off the bat, and the battle of the bands never even ended up happening. They pivoted toward a more carefree shade of catchy punk rock almost immediately, but never fully resolved their repeated conversations about changing their name along the way.

“None of us are really even Irish,” said Lindsay during a recent phone interview. “It’s like a bad tattoo that we’re kind of stuck with. We just kept the name and started writing some goofy songs.”

The O’Mulligans piddled along as a side project for years, mostly playing friends’ parties, while all three members focused on their “more serious” bands. Things were sporadic until around 2011, when the band’s members started giving the band more attention—playing regularly and recording some demos and EPs, carving out a place in Sacramento’s punk scene.

This month, nearly 15 years after their formation, The O’Mulligans will release their first full-length album, Meh, at a show with The Moans and The Enlows at Café Colonial on Feb. 24, 2017.

“Admittedly Nostalgic”

The same week that The O’Mulligans emailed me an advance copy of Meh, I happened to crack open NOFX’s recently published memoir and I was scheduled to attend Emo Night at The Press Club for another story I was writing. Suffice it to say, it was a week spent dipping into the songs of my teens and early 20s. The new O’Mulligans album tucked itself beautifully into that week (closer to the NOFX than the emo), because it nods so deliberately to the past, sonically and in the lyrics, which are heavy on cultural references, both smart and playful.

There’s plenty to laugh at on the album, but The O’Mulligans aren’t the Bloodhound Gang or anything. They’re not a stand-up act.

“Contemporary music is seriously lacking in humor, but I don’t want to be thought of as a joke band,” said bassist and other vocalist, Jeff Florence. “I want to be a good band that just happens to make good jokes.”

The O’Mulligans tilt more toward the Offspring/NOFX/Vandals attitude in that they are clearly down to fuck around and are not hung up on taking themselves too seriously, but that doesn’t mean all they’ve got are jokes. Take that attitude and spike it with a heavy dose of early Green Day and you’re starting to get a feel for what the The O’Mulligans offer up on Meh.

“This album is a conscious throwback,” said Florence, describing not only the music, but the whole experience of the disc. “Have you ever shelled out hard-earned dough for a bare bones CD that sounded like it was recorded on a phone? I feel this CD is an accurate representation of us from the killer sound quality to the popping visuals. I hope anybody who digs our music will appreciate our admittedly nostalgic compact disc.”

The album’s artwork, by local artist Mark Stivers, is a bright and beautiful piece of pop art featuring the face of a blonde woman with popping red lipstick. The band’s name is slapped across the top in large comic book lettering. The cover is an absolute attention grabber, which is why its title, featured on the cover in the form of a white talk bubble from the woman’s mouth, is an anticlimactic beauty: Meh.

The album was recorded and mixed by Pat Hills at Earth Tone Sacramento. The bulk of the 14 tracks have been written and performed in their live shows for the last few years, but they needed to save up some money and set aside the time before pinning them down alongside one another.

“It just felt like time,” said Lindsay. “We had more than enough songs for an album, but it was mostly a financial thing. Fortunately for us, Patrick at Earth Tone is fucking killing it. He’s offering good services at an affordable price.”

The O’Mulligans have played together for nearly half of their lives. With Meh, they will have their first full-length under their belt.

“This band started out as a joke, and it still is a joke that makes us very proud,” said drummer Michael Luna. “This album is funny and we need some laughter right now, and what better way to do that than to throw in a couple of dick jokes?”

Take Me Back to 1994

The song “DJs” is a five-minute lament on the current state of radio music. The song makes a specific reference to 1994, which is the year Lindsay got his first CD—The Offspring’s Smash. He was 8 years old and had to share it wish his sister. She kept the CD, and they used that to make him a copy on tape. A year later he bought his first CD of his own—Green Day’s Insomniac. You can draw a direct through-line from those albums to what The O’Mulligans are making now, and as someone who grew up on that exact same music, it’s a treat.

The song “Your Pathetic Band,” a favorite of mine on the album, is built entirely of Star Wars lines, with the two singers trading verses—Florence singing from Luke’s perspective and Lindsay as the Emperor. “T.G.I.F” commits to its theme just as admirably, only this time it’s a rapid-fire run through Full House, Family Matters and the rest of the shows you spent your childhood watching. Some other standouts for me are the abrasive “Textual Criticism” and the catchy “Song in My Head”—neither of which are joke songs.

The band is a staple in the Sacramento punk scene whose hub is Café Colonial, where they’ll host their release party. (Lindsay even has a burger named after him on their menu.) The release party will feature two of their favorite local bands, The Enlows and The Moans—the latter of which which features Danny Secretion, whom the band considers a mentor.

“I expect and hope to be surrounded by friends and family,” said Luna. “The local punk scene is our family and if they were the only ones to show up, I would be happy. A few people from other bands have messaged us or told us they were looking forward to the album and that has meant a lot to me.”

I reached out to Danny Secretion for comment. “The O’Mulligans (Davey, Mike, and that other guy) are men of honor and conviction,” he said. “They are true professionals who fly the banner of local punk rock with pride. Most of all, I can’t get that fucking pizza song of theirs out of my goddamn head!”

Hear that pizza song yourself at the The O’Mulligan’s CD release show for Meh on Friday, Feb. 24 at Café Colonial. The show, which also features The Moans and The Enlows, starts at 8 p.m. and the cover is $5. Find out more at Facebook.com/theomulligans.

Longevity in the music scene is difficult to achieve. Weathering the storm of band drama, touring, day jobs, vices, fickle fandom and writer’s block can be a practical superpower.

Desario formed in 2004 out of the ashes of the band Holiday Flyer, which included members John Conley and Michael Yoas. Holiday Flyer started in the early ‘90s. Conley and Yoas met as teenagers. They actually learned to play guitar together.

“We were about 16, 17,” said Yoas in a phone interview with Submerge. “We were both in high school—we didn’t go to high school together—but it was during a period in time when I lived in Sacramento during high school. We met through family members. My dad and John’s uncle were really good friends. We started playing music together almost immediately after we met. We pretty much learned how to play guitar together before we got good at playing guitar.”

To say that the members of Desario (also including Mike Carr on bass and Kirklyn Cox on drums) have been through a lot over the years is obviously an understatement. In addition to the album Desario is due to release, Haunted, they also released Red Returns earlier this year in April, as well as two prior full-length albums. Holiday Flyer had four full-length albums, as well as three EPs.

“When I look back and I see the number of releases and everything, it’s pretty cool,” said Conley. “Time-wise, it doesn’t feel that long, but looking back at some of the stuff, it does seem like it was such a long time ago, almost like a different life in some ways.”

Haunted, due out Oct. 28, 2016, has the band exploring a more intimate side, with the songs having more of a live and stripped-down nature. Much of the album has a hazy, dreamy feel, tracks like opener “Black Dream” and title track “Haunted” feel like slow dancing at your high school dance after hot-boxing your friend’s van. The band cites influences from the Britpop and shoegaze world.

“The Haunted EP and Red Returns both sound a lot different than our previous recordings,” said Conley. “They’re definitely more raw sounding. They’re a little bit more stripped down … We didn’t really do a lot of extra production. They sound like when we play the songs live. It’s kind of what we were going for, we wanted a more live, more gritty, raw feel.”

The band took a different approach to the recording process. In the past, Desario recorded their own albums, with Yoas behind the board handling production and engineering duties. However, this time around they opted out of handling everything on their own and enlisted outside assistance.

“We recorded [Haunted] with Tony Cale, the drummer for Soft Science, currently,” said Yoas. “He had a home studio when he was still living here in Sacramento. Previously we have done everything on our own, but we just wanted to mix it up a little bit, so we recorded it with Tony, and it was a good experience. It was very casual, he made it easy for us.”

There’s one other unique quality about the recording session that produced Haunted. As mentioned earlier, Desario started their career putting out two full-length albums (Mixer and Zero Point Zero); however, the last recording session didn’t work as a single album to the band. So, after stepping back and looking at the material, the band decided to split the songs into separate EPs, Red Returns and Haunted, feeling the two stood on their own, and needed separate releases.

“It seems like we start recording every time we have 10 or 12 songs ready to record,” said Yoas. “Then, as we get into the process, it starts dictating where we think it’s going to go. This one, for whatever reason there was like a natural break with this batch of songs. There was two separate releases amongst these songs.”

However, Yoas explains, he and the band intend to retake the reins going forward.

“For me, being the person that has recorded us and will continue to record us from this point moving forward, it was odd to give up the reins a little bit and go with someone else’s ideas and vision,” he said.

Typically, one would expect following a release (even two in a single year), a band would be planning to set aside a few weeks or so to tour in support of their album, but Desario is not your typical band. Actually, to date Desario has not toured at all, outside of the occasional show out of town. Mostly, they’ve kept close to home. However, they have had discussions of changing this, and would like to in the near future.

“We’re always talking about—at some point, at least—blocking out a couple of weeks at some point, and just trying to put something together,” said Yoas. “Whether it’s with some other band, or just trying to get out on our own. I think it’s something the four of us really need to do, it’s just a matter of making it happen with our schedules.”

And what will the future hold for Desario? Well, they’re ready to head back into the studio, of course.

“We’ve got about an album’s worth of material written that we just need to put the finishing touches on the arrangements,” said Yoas. “We will probably start recording a few of those pretty quickly here. We definitely want to get something recorded and released in 2017.”

“The next recording will be different,” Conley adds. “You can kind of hear a taste of what the next batch is going to sound like. The last song on Haunted, it’s a cover [of a song] by the band A House of Love, and we recorded that just a few months ago. There’s a shoegaze blog in Brazil called The Blog that Celebrates Itself, they’re doing a series of compilation albums, tribute albums to shoegaze, Britpop bands from the ‘90s, and we were asked to contribute a song to that [series]. We were so happy with the results, we decided to put it on the EP as well.”

Having released two EPs this year, and hoping to get another album out next year, one thing you might notice looking at the dates of their releases is the gap between the release of Mixer, in 2012, and Red Returns, this year in April. Well, the band had a change in the lineup, at drums. In regards to exiting drummer Jim Rivas, Yoas explains, “As cliché as it sounds, it was just musical differences.”

Enter new drummer, Kirklyn Cox.

“Kirk at the time he had recently moved to Sacramento, he was working in Arizona,” said Conley. “He was going to architecture school, and he had recently graduated from school, and he moved back here to Sacramento and he was looking for a band to be in … He wanted to play drums again. He hadn’t played while he was going to school. It just worked out.”

“Part of the reason for the delay between releases was just getting the band back on track,” said Yoas. “Getting used to the new lineup, reworking the batch of songs we have with Kirk. It’s different. We’ve changed a lot since he has joined the band. Now that we’ve finished up these two EPs, were changing and evolving again.”

That change, for better or worse, is quite possibly just a record of age and growth. When you’ve been playing together three decades-plus, it’s hard not to evolve together. Desario, especially with members Conley and Yoas’ long-term relationship, is no different than looking at a beautifully seasoned and well-weathered marriage. While there may have been tough times, they have each other, and no matter what changes come, they will still be themselves.

“We keep changing and doing what we think is different types of music,” said Yoas, “but in the end there’s always something in every song that’s always consistent and sounds like Desario, in my opinion.”

“Whatever we do ends up sounding like us,” echos Conley in agreement.

Celebrate the release of Desario’s new EP, Haunted, on Nov. 1, 2016 when the band will play Starlite Lounge (1517 21st St., Sacramento). Also playing will be Clay Rendering and Glaare. This 21-and-over show will carry an $8 cover and will start at 8 p.m. For more on Desario, check the band out at Facebook.com/desarioband.

Looking to get back into the groove? Hey, this time of year, everyone’s mired in their day-to-day routines, and the holidays (and all the time off they bring) seem as if they’ll never come. Fear not: You’ll be able to take a vacation (for a few hours anyway) at Ideateam’s upcoming CD release party for their new album, Moving Still, on Oct. 28, 2016 at Harlow’s. This Sacramento-based nine-piece ensemble “explores the corridors of groove while flipping through styles like a deck of cards, flowing in and around various genres. Their live sound brings essences of old and new, blended with a few drops of extraterrestrial soundscapes—presented by a group of people who simply love to play music,” according to their website. Does that sound good to you? It should. And so should Moving Still. Submerge got a sneak peak at the album and it’s oozing with juicy beats, sumptuous horns and syrupy-sweet riffs. As an added bonus, roots rock aficionados The Nickel Slots will open what is sure to be a memorable and diverse bill. For tickets ($12 in advance), head over to Harlows.com, and for more on Ideateam, check out their website, Ideateamband.com.

Followers of Sacramento’s underground hip-hop and spoken word circuits may recall the smooth, slick-talking voice of Rasar Amani, formerly Random Abiladeze. He was one of the kids behind the cash register at Dimple Records more than 10 years ago, the only MC on Sacramento sensation Joe Kye’s EP Joseph in the Well and a regular at local venues and colleges.

A call in 2013 from a close friend—world champion beatboxer and America’s Got Talent finalist Butterscotch—led Rasar to try his luck in Las Vegas. That call, Rasar says, forever changed his life. He credits Butterscotch for where he is today—the lead vocalist of one of Las Vegas’ top-rated new bands, The Lique.

Rasar wasn’t looking to join a band. He had completed a successful run in a nightclub show and was planning to leave Las Vegas last year when a friend told him about a group of local jazz musicians looking for an MC.

Guitarist Sean Carbone had a vision for a hip-hop jazz band. His University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) peers Jeremy Klewicki on drums and Nick Schmitt on bass joined him first. After offering the MC gig to Rasar, the group found Jason Corpuz (“the dopest piano player,” according to Rasar) and in the last year and a half, have scored a residency at a local club, toured venues like Brooklyn Bowl in New York, played music festivals and recorded the band’s debut album Democracy Manifest.

The Lique plays Harlow’s in Sacramento on Friday, Sept. 30 as main support at the album release show for Rituals of Mine (formerly known as Sister Crayon) with James Cavern opening the show. The following night, Saturday, Oct. 1, The Lique will head to Downieville, California to play at ZuhGFest, a grassroots festival at the Sierra Shangri-La Resort along the Yuba River.

Creation of The Lique and Democracy Manifest
Rasar says the guys didn’t know what kind of band The Lique was going to be when they formed. They started off playing his old tracks from the 10 albums he had recorded over the last decade, but as their fan base grew in a matter a months, the need for new material and a unique sound was evident. They had become THE hip-hop band in Las Vegas.

“We had the vision of being classy, wearing suits, having kind of a jazz feel,” he says. “We all got thrown in together and we knew we were musicians but it took a few weird talks about time and the fourth dimension and somehow politics and police brutality came up, but we had never talked about this stuff before over the four months we knew each other. When it came up, I thought, oh, we can go there? That changed the writing.”

Rasar’s past music is rife with political and social commentary, but he hesitated politicizing his fellow cats who just wanted to groove.

“But once we started talking about death and religion … now I write some challenging stuff,” he says. “That was a turning point in the kitchen.”

Bassist Nick Schmitt started writing riffs, building the jazz foundations of the tracks “Batman,” “Velveteen Dream” and “Nastiness.” This was The Lique’s first unique work.

To get a taste of what The Lique is all about, listen to the track “Billie’s Holiday.”

“It really shows what kind of band we are and goes to the heart of what we want to accomplish here,” Rasar says.

Hidden within the track are approximately 20 Billie Holiday songs. The song itself is about traveling, Rasar notes, and how we have to get away from our comfort zones.

The Lique’s look also has a backstory and its own track on the record. The last track, “The Suits,” was inspired directly by what Rasar, who functioned as the band’s manager and booker until recently, calls the “red tape, hierarchical b.s.” of the music industry.

“We’re a conundrum to the higher ups,” he says. “We’re underground, but we’re sophisticated enough that it confuses people. There’s a ton of suits out here—that’s why we wear suits, because it’s ironic. It comes from me traveling the world with Butterscotch and realizing people took me more seriously when I dressed up. So the whole thing is a big, fat wink in everybody’s faces.”

Rasar tells the story of an agent saying, “We gotta appease the suits” when he tried booking a gig. The funny phrase reminded him of a James Brown song called “Pass the Peas” and the Brown-inspired lyrics and riffs for “The Suits” was born.

The industry’s recent repressive ways are a bit of a theme on the album, and Rasar talks at length about 360 record deals that cause artists to lose themselves and their brand as executive greed takes over.

“Walk into my Office” speaks to that in an eerie, Mr. Grinch meets Led Zeppelin kind of way, through a blend of storytelling, characters, voice changes and rap. The song, like many of the others on the album, has multiple layers and side stories. It’s one of the most bizarre hip-hop tracks you’ll listen to this year. You may even have heard it already in one if its reincarnations.

“Walk into my Office” is a remake from a song Rasar did in 2010 in collaboration with Adambomb from New Orleans. Rasar’s (then known as Random Abiladeze) album Indubitably has the original version, which is two-and-a-half minutes long (the current version is more than six minutes).

“I showed the band the song and they loved it,” Rasar says. “We started exploring it, and I would start telling crazier and crazier stories live with it that were never recorded.”

A few obscure references pop up in the album version, including a growl tribute to “I Put a Spell on You” by Screamin Jay Hawkins to honor him.

“I saw an awesome documentary on him on YouTube and he was a contemporary to Etta James, Stevie Wonder … all the original rock ‘n’ roll greats but was too weird and a one-hit wonder and fell off.”

The third theatrical verse in the song is also a tribute and intended for Dead Western, a dark folk/new American artist Rasar did a show with in Sacramento in 2008.

“He was one of the weirdest dudes I was ever paired with in my entire career and it was the best thing they could have done. You don’t really get a chance to do songs like this too many times in your entire life.”

(Note: Rasar has not been able to reach Dead Western to share the song, so, Dead Western, if you read this, contact Rasar).

Another standout track is “Democrashy Manifesht,” which juxtaposes Rasar’s compelling, often agitated lyrics of historical and political significance with the range and expertise of The Lique’s musicians. The backdrop could almost be a 1950s Las Vegas steakhouse, but without the veil in front of the realities of racism and power struggles.

Part of what went into the writing of “Democrashy Manifesht” is Rasar’s family background.

“My parents are older so I grew up on jazz, Motown, gospel, and my dad is from the old deep South, while segregation was still a thing,” he says. “He was born when WWII was rocking on, growing up around the Klan. Yes, I talk on current issues, but there are so many levels of how we got to where we are right now.”

“Democrashy Manifesht” is controversial, but The Lique finds engagement is an important part of their M.O.

“People are making noise but not impact,” Rasar says. “Every moment is potentially wasted if you’re not doing something toward progress and that’s what this album is about. How can we get all this genre bending, norms shifting, sounds and ideas out in 40 minutes without sounding rushed. The epitome of this band, this album, and the city of Las Vegas is how to fit an hour into 40 minutes.”

Collaborators on the Album
More than 20 people contributed sound to this album, including Rasar’s friend Butterscotch on the song “Soul for You.” Rasar credits her for making him the star he is today, connecting him globally through tours and appearances and bringing him to Las Vegas.

UC Davis alum Ruby Ibarra, one of Rasar’s best friends, is on “Nastiness.” DJ Mr. Vibe scratches on that song and he rolls with the Sacramento crew Sleepwalkers, who work with legendary crew, Hieroglyphics. Rasar reconnected with DJ Mr. Vibe when he moved to Vegas to head up music for the Jabawockeez show at MGM.

But for Rasar, the two biggest contributors to the album are sound engineer Dan Brodbeck and Bay Area hip-hop legend Zion-I.

“The unofficial sixth member of the band is Dan Brodbeck,” he says. “He is one of the best audio engineers in the world. He won a Juno [Canadian Grammy] and worked with Dolores O’Riordan from The Cranberries. We recorded in the back of an old vinyl record shop, which set the tone for the album.”

Zion-I is one of those people who is really big but you don’t know it until you see him, according to Rasar.

“Someone gave me his album in 2005 and it’s one of my top albums of all time,” he says. “I had a chance to open for him at Sac State and UC Davis years ago. When he was in Vegas last year, he remembered me. All of a sudden this person I had been looking up to all these years really wanted to connect with me as, it’s hard to say an equal, but we’re all equal as human beings. It was a dream come true.”

For Rasar, working with Zion-I was indication that he’s on the right path.

“The resilience that brings you back to the people you need to connect with, is what the song [Zion-I is on] is about, ‘The Frequency.’ The whole point is how your vibe attracts your tribe and that’s why we put him on the song. He always talks about that energy kind of like a hip-hop hippie.”

Learn more about The Lique and keep up with their tour dates at Thelique.com or at Facebook.com/theliqueband. Check out their debut album Democracy Manifest via the Bandcamp player below.