15 Years, 11 Tracks, 11 Vocalists, 2 Bandmates: Tel Cairo

Words by Joe Atkins

For the last 15 years Cameron Others and 7evin have been working on their material, laying out beats, loops, archaic recordings of bedroom beatbox compilations and reworking that material into new orchestrations. In the last two years it’s all come together, and now, as Tel Cairo, Cameron and 7evin are set to release their debut full length, Voice of Reason. The album itself has been part of the long process of self-discovery for these two electronic musicians. Their sound, their relationship to composition, their knowledge of technique and technology have increased with each singular endeavor, and the result is a precision track listing of rattling low-end bass and twinkling high-end melodies.

And I’ve yet to mention what, for me, is the most impressive part of the album: its list of local MCs and vocalists who dominate the lyric and lead portions on the majority of the project. It’s a list of past, present and future Sacramento stars, artists whom have been working the scene for the last two decades trying to lift the city up with their own talents and careers. There are individual appearances from Aurora Love, “This Is Not”; Agustus thElephant, “Music Box”; and Mic Jordan, “Electro Knock.” On “Twelve Paths Toward Movement,” Sister Crayon frontwoman, Terra Lopez appears alongside hip-hop local TAIS; Mahtie Bush spits verse after verse on the track “Illicit” and the unknown, yet powerful, Stephanie Barber holds down the hook. Lest we find ourselves stuck in the lady sings the hook cliché, Paper Pistols new lead, Juliana Lydell sings the verses to the high pitched chorus of Caleb Heinze, from Ape Machine and Confederate Whiskey; and Task1ne, Voltron reference and all, flows over the verses of “Evening Push,” before local legend Jonah Matranga gives his signature falsetto to the hook. It’s a list that’s both diverse and impressive, and it makes for an album that highlights the many dynamic qualities of music in Sacramento.

Breaking from some highly competitive Wii, 7evin and Cameron sat down with Submerge, and we talked about Sacramento, influences, genre, processes of songwriting and recording, skateboarding, musicianship, Ira Skinner’s beard and the talented slew of lyricists they worked with on the album. In addition, Submerge exchanged a few emails with the lyricists, and, likewise, we share their thoughts on working with Tel Cairo.

What brought you to Sacramento? What are the best and worst parts about this city?
7evin: I moved here about eight years ago to work with Ira Skinner, a good longtime friend. Sacramento has an amazing group of musically talented individuals. We like what’s going on here. The cost of living is amazing; you don’t have to feel so pressured. The bad part is that there is almost no monetary value for art here.

Can you describe your songwriting process?
7evin: A lot of times we start off with analog, a guitar, drumset, bass. We get in there and start doing electronics. We don’t do samples. We do our own tones and MIDI controlling. There’s always one part, and we shoot it to the next person until he can’t work on it anymore, and he shoots it back. We’ll meet once a week and we’ll work on that song. We made 32 tracks for this album and 11 made the cut.

What sort of influence did Ira Skinner have, working with him as a producer?
Cameron: Ira let us figure out who we were. He took all the things we’d been layering for so long, and we’d forgotten what we started out with, and made them sound amazing. Some of these things were already done. We’d put so much into it. We needed to step away a little bit.
7evin: He is so chill in the studio. He let us fumble around to find a niche, and the second he hears something that’s good, he’s like “Wait, go back! Let’s do that.” We have the first word, bounce it off to someone in collaboration; we get the second word, and Ira comes in; and we get the final word.
Cameron: In between there was also a lot of growth and learning on our side, with the programs.

Of the two of you, who’s the biggest perfectionist?
7evin: We’re never happy with it.
Art is never done. We just move onto another song.
Cameron: We look at things a little differently. I’ll hear things differently that he might not hear. Technically, I think he’s the perfectionist, making sure everything is lined up. I’ve tried to watch, and I’ll fall asleep for a little bit.
7evin: We tag team it, recording. I’m 20 percent deaf in my left ear. I don’t hear high end, I hear mid-tone and bass. You can see that and feel that live. [Cameron will] come in and stick this melody here. He brings the beauty to my dirtiness. I’m a gutter-punk; this guy comes in, and he’s playing 12-string guitar. We’re very similar but we’re like the Alice in Wonderland, Looking Glass Mirror versions of each other.
Cameron: We get inspired at the same time from different things. We get a feeling. It could be DJ Shadow, it could be anything, a country song; our creative juices start, and we just sit down and see what comes out. When we work together we balance each other’s ideas.

I know that every collaborator brings a different set of skills to the studio, the songwriting process. Who impressed you most while recording?
7evin: Mic Jordan is one of the smartest people in the world. He’s brilliant. Just kicking it, he’d expand our minds in so many ways. When he came in, we worked an experimental song; it’s not a typical hip-hop track. He rose to the occasion.
He has like four different cadences, and it’s beautiful.
Cameron: Jordan, for sure. Caleb [Heinze], I’ve known that dude for a long time, and I knew he could sing. The way he nails that chorus is genius.
7evin: He has a range that no male should have. We weren’t sure what to do with that track “Nirvana,” but Juliana [Lydell] approached it off of his vocal, like the ghost of the guy she lost her virginity to.

What was it like to work with Jonah and everyone else? How’d you get them to collaborate on the album?
7evin: They were all our friends, except for Jonah, though Jonah’s now friends and family. Jonah’s someone we looked up to, someone we’d seen as kids growing up, going to shows at the Cattle Club. We had mutual friends so I hit him up.
Cam sent over “Evening Push” and he just ran with it. He was so kind and gentle of a person to work with two guys he didn’t know. We sent a lot of emails backwards and forwards. We haven’t got a chance to do it live with him as far as performance. But we’re doing that on April 4, everyone on the album is performing. It’s never going to happen again. It’s like one shot.
We definitely took a Gorillaz approach with this. Terra [Lopez and Cameron] are damn near best friends. I knew Stephanie [Barber] from helping her and her sister with their restaurant, and that girl can sing. We locked her and [Mahtie] Bush in my bedroom with us, and it was like a Seven Minutes in Heaven kind of thing, writing a song on an SM58 microphone.
Stephanie Barber [who is quietly present during most of the interview]: It was really creepy and productive.

One of the ways I’d describe your sound is electric, post-grunge, skateboard culture, all grown up. You happy with that?
Cameron: I’m cool with that. That’s what I do every day, [skate]. Skate videos have helped me listen to different things. In old Toy Machine videos, Ed Templeton uses a lot of Sonic Youth. I watched them hundreds of times. It made me want to experiment with my own guitar.

Would you say your music belongs as the soundtrack to the cinematic build up of a riot or the post-riot moment of optimistic melancholia, where a new world briefly exists but won’t last over time?
7evin: Afterwards, definitely. After everything’s been destroyed, and we’re rebuilding. There’s healing process in these songs. There’s hope. Your heart gets demolished, but you can grow and
move on.

Tel Cairo will celebrate the release of Voice of Reason at Midtown BarFly, 1119 21st Street in Sacramento, on April 4, 2013. This will be perhaps your only chance to see 7evin and Cameron Others share the stage with all of the vocalists who appeared on the album. For more info on the show, go to https://www.facebook.com/telcairo, or hop over to Midtown BarFly’s Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/MidtownBarFly.

4 Questions with Mic Jordan, Mahtie Bush, Task1ne and Juliana Lydell!

How was it to work with 7evin and Cameron on your track?
Mic Jordan: They played me a skeletal version of the song they wanted me on and set me loose with no real guidelines. I definitely had input into its final outcome, but I also felt like, “OK, everybody here knows what they’re doing, they trust me do my thing lyrically, so I trust them to do their thing sonically.”
Juliana Lydell: They’re really open-minded, supportive, and enthusiastic. Creating with them is a lot of fun.

Can you tell me about the process, e.g. did they have the song done and let you do vocals over it, or was it more of a collaborative process where you aided in the musical composition?
Task1ne: They trusted my expertise and let me just record the track like how I usually do it with no problems. It was a blast. I fell in love with the track instantly. I’m a fan of all types of music, so it was great to get to experiment on something different.
Mahtie Bush: They built the track right on the spot, and as they did that I was writing to the beat. It just happened; we were on the same page. The vibe was ill.

What makes Tel Cairo vital to the local scene?
Mic Jordan: The fact that they are bridging the (artificially separated) electronic, alternative and hip-hop communities. Ultimately, what sets Tel Cairo apart is the fact that their music defies easy categorization while somehow sounding authentic no matter what territory it’s venturing into.
Juliana Lydell: How excited they are, how much they believe in community, and what a team effort they make out of the act of creation. They think big. It’s contagious.

How long until Tel Cairo achieves world domination?
Mic Jordan: Who’s to say they haven’t already?
Task1ne: A better question is, which one is Pinky and which one is the Brain? Inquiring minds would like to know.

One of my favorite Sacramento MCs, TAIS, is no longer on hiatus. ‘Bout damn time! He’ll play his first official show in what feels like years on Wednesday, Sept. 21 at 12 p.m. at the University Union Serna Plaza on Sacramento State’s campus. If you can’t make that one because you’ve “got a job” or whatever, at least take it as a good sign that TAIS and his live music crew, including drummer (and Submerge food/drink writer) Adam Saake, are creating music together again. Submerge caught TAIS hosting the recent Random Abiladeze album release show at Blue Lamp and the two performed the track “Don’t Be Fooled” off of Random’s new album Indubitably and it was on-point! It was definitely one of the highlights of the night, right up there with the jaw-dropping performance from female MC extraordinaire Ruby Ibarra, who performed at Rock the Bells the following day. Keep an eye out for more TAIS shows and new tunes at Taismusic.com

Happy Mayfield, Righteous Movement

Old Ironsides was a rocking boat April 18. Old friends were conversing and new friends were connecting, and for those who were rusty at socializing, the bar was there to hug. Lee Bob fans spoke fluently with leftover Bucho fans as Happy Mayfield heartthrobs conversed in familiar circles with Righteous Movement aficionados. It was clear that everyone in attendance had gathered for the same reason: to have a good time.

If there are two styles of music that are all about having a good time, they are hip-hop and funk. Historically speaking, one came from the other and so it seems so natural that they cross-pollinate. With that said, you need look no further for one hell of a good time than a bill that includes the aforementioned Righteous Movement and Happy Mayfield. If you are from Sacramento, then you’ve most likely seen Righteous but might not be familiar with Happy Mayfield yet. Happy Mayfield, a funk band to be reckoned with, is a harmonious marriage between singer/songwriter Lee Bob Watson and The Park (ex-members of local favorites Bucho). To my delight, I discovered upon viewing the stage that The Park was set up to play with Righteous as well. Hip-hop shows take on a whole new life when live instruments are part of the equation, and the boys in The Park were nice and warmed up after a stint at SXSW where they backed artists Alice Russell, Keelay and Zaire in the buzzing city of Austin, Texas a few weeks back.

Righteous Movement’s set began with no introduction. Derek Taylor laid right in to the kit with Josh Lippi on bass, Ben Schwier on keys and Ross Grant on guitar following closely behind. Each backbeat groove was laid out with ease for the three (usually four) MCs to do what they do best: rap their asses off. The energy pouring from Old Ironsides’ small, dimly lit stage was almost overwhelming as the seven-player-deep ensemble blasted their way through a continuous set of funk-powered hip-hop tracks. Verses were traded back and forth, and each delivery had its own voice while still achieving that barbershop quartet harmony that Theek, Tais, Skurge and S.O.L. have carved out for themselves. The rhymes were well thought out, the hooks were fun and the gentlemen had a stage presence that exuded personality and experience. Righteous’ own DJ Tofu even made his way to the stage at one point, charismatically raising his poison of choice in a celebratory gesture. The audience, as thin as it had become at that point, needed no persuasion.

At the bar earlier that evening, The Park’s bassist Josh Lippi had told me that, “”¦Happy Mayfield is Lee Bob’s alter-ego.” We laughed and I didn’t think much of it until Lee Bob hopped up on stage wearing a pair of retro frames wrapped around his face, a faded T-shirt and a pair of bellbottoms to finish it off. Now don’t get confused, they weren’t all dressed up like a cheesy ’70s cover band. Happy just had a funky style, man.

On stage, Lee Bob became this alter-ego. He was some sort of a shaman, writhing and whipping his head back and forth as if possessed by the spirit that he sought to conjure. The defining song of the evening found him screaming, “Happyyy!” at the top of his falsetto lungs—the band behind him pumping away, yelling more and fueling his hysteria. “You can’t get this at no corner store,” he cautioned his congregation. Taylor’s machine gun snare fills stuttered through Lee Bob’s mantra all the while Schwier’s keyboard cried and moaned to the crowd, which hung on every last note, their eyes ablaze and wishing strangely for the song to end but not knowing how; sadistically enjoying the agony. Lee Bob expelled his guitar, sprang onto the dance floor and erupted into an involuntary dance that then sent the rest of the movers and shakers into like positions. Local guitar guru Mike Farell, who had been looming in the audience, made his way to Lee Bob’s guitar and struck up a solo that built as the band swelled, and heavy-washed cymbals filled the spaces in between. Lippi’s solid bass playing anchored it all down. This was funk music in its most raw form.

I finished my Pabst and walked the four blocks back to my apartment feeling”¦happyyy.

A Writer Doing the Right Thing

The power of words can make you laugh or cry, act reckless or ignite thought and awake the mind. A writer for more than half of his life, Sacramento’s Tais has never taken his talents for granted. From prose to poetry, spoken word to performing as an MC, the 27-year-old has found a sanctuary in the art of arranging words and has turned his passion into his job. As another great MC with many parallels to Tais’s train of thought said, “It’s a beautiful struggle.” And that seems to be the approach with which the confident yet controlled MC is pursuing his dreams. He’s put in years as a member of Sacramento’s prestigious Righteous Movement, but recently stepped aside to release his debut Truth Arises in Search mixtape (which can bedownloaded for free at www.myspace/tais.com). Urb magazine just named him as one of their top 1,000 upcoming artists (vote for him on Urb.com!) and he’s infiltrating the country’s biggest music festivals in a matter of months. Big things are on the horizon for Tais, and when he gets there it will be on the strength of hard work and his inclination to do right with his words.

When did the power of music resonate with you?
It’s funny, because I get in these ruts and you need music to lift you up. There is one song that I was just listening to that always does it for me, and it’s Outkast’s “In Due Time.” Since I was young, music is always one of those things that I connected to. I grew up an Army brat, so I didn’t really have a lot of friends growing up. We were always moving, and as soon I as made a friend, we moved, but music was that person I could find comfort in. It understood me and I understood it. As I grew and started writing, I was able to communicate what I had going on in my head, because I didn’t have someone to bounce ideas off of.

When did you start to write?
I started to write poetry when I was 12 or 13, but started writing rhymes when I was 15.

What kind of a writer are you? Do you have a notebook of lines that you compile into songs?
Are you the type of person that needs the music to write?
I’m just a writer in general. I have my B.A. in journalism. It’s always been a passion of mine, and to me, is just a great form of communication. But rhymes come to me both ways, but I think for the most part it’s always a line here, stop and think about it and how I want to say it. For me though, if it comes easy, I discard it because I want to say the things no one says but everyone feels. If I think someone else could write a line, I shy away from those lines. So it does take me a long time, the thought process of writing, but sometimes you get the music and it just comes to you and you can spit out the whole song in 30 minutes.

This month you’re rocking three days out at the MAGIC Trade Show in Las Vegas, and then you’ve got the Truth Arises in Search mini-tour, which ends up in Sacramento on Feb. 26. In March you’re heading to Albuquerque, N.M. and then the SXSW Music Festival in Austin, Texas for a couple days at the end of the month. Needless to say, you are a busy man. Is this a surge to really get to that next level of recognition?
Oh yeah. That’s the plan. I’m trying to touch down in new places and get the message out. This is the longest time I’ve been in one city, so it’s kind of weird for me, but at the same time it’s time to branch out and get into the industry and make music a bigger part of my life. It does well for me now. I can go to Texas or Utah or Colorado and make it happen. It’s always a work in progress. When you go to these cities—sure you have Internet buzz or whatever—but when you go to these cities it’s human nature for people to think, “Why should I listen to you?” I’m building every day though.

I was going to say, when you go to all these different areas of the country where people haven’t heard of you, what’s that feeling like? To know that people are going to be pessimistic from the start?
I like the challenge. It forces me to not be lazy. Once you get into a spot where people accept you and you are comfortable, you kind of slack off. Me knowing that I have a show in San Francisco in a couple weeks where people haven’t heard of me, it’s making me prepare because I have to bring my A game. You know hip-hop, you got to show and prove. We have that ego about it. It’s good, though. It keeps me practicing all the time.

I think people sometimes look at rappers and the “rap life” and think it’s one big party, but as you said, it’s a lot of work. As mentioned you’re going to the festivals and conventions—how do you separate the fun and the work of it?
People that know me, they think I work too much. If you saw my daily schedule, you’d think I worked too hard. I have fun doing it, though. Working is what I love doing, and hip-hop is what I love doing, so it doesn’t seem like work when I look at it from the larger scheme. For me, I don’t drink at shows or smoke, just so I can keep that balance and that edge. In the end, I do have fun because I do what I love, even with all the struggles. It is hard work, though. It takes going to SXSW and putting in those hours.

On your Truth Arises in Search mixtape you talk about the other elements of hip-hop. Do you yourself get down with some of the others outside of MCing?
Man, I’ve been through all of them. I did them all! That is where I got my name from. I used to write Tais. I wasn’t the best graffiti artist in the world [laughs]. Nor was I the best breaker or DJ. I went through all the elements, and I think it was like finding my niche. I went through them all though.

So was rapping the last one you experimented with?
Rapping was the one I didn’t want to get pigeonholed into, but it kind of worked out that way. I was always writing, but you know I was breakdancing and all that too, trying to find out what my part was.

To wrap it up, what’s your ultimate goal one year from now? Two years from now?
I see myself on a bigger level, and what I mean by that is being successful and touring. I look at people like Murs and Little Brother, and they’re doing their thing, and I feel like I can do that too. I can see that happening, because it’s happening now. But on another level, I want people to be able to look at my rhymes and say I am a great writer. That is my ultimate goal, for people to respect my craft so much that it’s not, “He’s a dope rapper,” but rather, “He is a great writer.”