This summer is already shaping up to be a great one in Sacramento, and to kick things off, the month of June is stacked with rad events, outdoor concerts, night markets and block parties galore. Besides all the other great stuff featured throughout this issue, we wanted to be sure to highlight these 10 fun events happening this month around Sacramento to help jump start your kick-ass summer.

Local indie mainstays Sun Valley Gun Club are throwing an album release party at the Red Museum (212 15th St.) on Friday, June 8, celebrating the release of their third album, the water, the stars. Also on the bill is Bastards of Young and Ani Maul. This will be a banger, folks. All ages, 8 p.m., $8.

The popular THIS Midtown Second Saturday block party series returns June 9 with live music from Viceroy, Pink Skies, DJ Greg J and others. The party goes down on 20th Street between K and J streets from 4:30 to 11 p.m. and features local artists, vendors, beer garden, cocktails and tons of fun. Visit Facebook.com/this916 for more. Free, all ages welcome.

UPcyclePOP’s upcoming Fathers Summer event is a market and art lab happening at 7300 Folsom Blvd. on Saturday, June 9, where you can watch artists upcycle discarded items into works of art, fashion, furniture and other creative inventions. Sip on a drink, check out the live music jam, and pick up a unique Father’s Day gift. Noon to 6 p.m., no cover, family friendly event. Upcyclepop.com for more info.

June is pride month! Celebrate the LGBTQ community at the massive Sacramento Pride Parade March and Festival on Sunday, June 10. The free, all-ages parade march kicks off at 11 a.m. at 3rd and N street, and ends at 10th and N street. The festival is $10 (kids 10-and-under are free) and takes place on Capitol Mall between 3rd and 7th streets from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Visit Sacramentopride.org for more.

Keeping with the pride theme, don’t miss the next installment of the always awesome ArtMix series at Crocker Art Museum (216 O St.) on Thursday, June 14 from 6 to 9:30 p.m. Pride the Musical is the theme, and the 21-and-over event will feature performances from Britney Spares and Friends, Underground Theatre Company, Green Valley Theatre Company, DJ Lady Char, Sacramento Gay Men’s Chorus and many others. Free for Crocker members, or just $10 otherwise. Crockerart.org for tickets.

The inaugural Front Street Brewfest is Saturday, June 16 from noon to 5 p.m. and all proceeds benefit Friends of Front Street Animal Shelter. Expect 30-plus breweries, unlimited beer tastings, SactoMoFo food trucks, live entertainment and games, all in a block party environment. The fest takes place at 2127 Front St. Visit Frontstreetbrewfest.com for more info and to purchase tickets, which are $40, or $10 for non-drinkers.

Check out some high-energy, hard-hitting roller derby action at the Sacramento Roller Derby’s upcoming Double Header on Saturday, June 16 at The Rink (2900 Bradshaw Road). Doors open at 6 p.m., snag tickets in advance through Brownpapertickets.com.

Capital Public Radio is throwing a cool Tiny Desk Sacramento concert in the CapRadio Garden (7055 Folsom Blvd.) on Saturday, June 16 from 6 to 8 p.m. featuring performances from some of the station’s music guru Nick Brunner’s favorite regional Tiny Desk contest entries, like Lillian Frances from Davis, Stop Motion Poetry from Modesto, and Bobby Waller from Sacramento. Free event! Facebook.com/capradio for more.

Hometown heroes Dance Gavin Dance return to rock the Concerts in the Park stage on Friday, June 22 at Cesar Chavez Plaza (9th and J streets). Also performing is Nerv, VERNO and DJs from Emo Night Sacramento. CIP is always free, and always a good time. Runs from 5 to 9 p.m. Hit up Godowntownsac.com or Facebook.com/cipsacramento for more.

Check out the first-ever Our Street Night Market on Saturday, June 23 on R Street between 11th and 12th streets. This open-air party runs from 7 p.m. until late night (1 a.m.) and will feature a ton of vendors, street food, a beer garden, two bars, arcade games, a silent disco, salsa dancing and more. Free event, all ages welcome.

**This piece first appeared in print on page 8 of issue #267 (June 4 – 18, 2018)**

If existing as a band separated by state lines, conflicting tour schedules and regular old life hiccups were big hurdles to leap, no one told Sianvar. The post-hardcore supergroup—consisting of Will Swan (Dance Gavin Dance), Donovan Melero (Hail the Sun), Sergio Medina (Stolas), Joe Arrington and Michael Franzino (A Lot Like Birds)—are without a doubt one of the hardest-working musical entities currently making the rounds not just in the Sacramento area, but probably in much of North America.

When I catch up with Medina, he’s pulled over at a truck stop with about a two-day drive left to his home in Las Vegas from outside New York City, where his band Stolas has cut their sophomore record with producer Mike Watts. Medina is doing the long haul at a brisk pace in order to have enough time to relax and rehearse before Sianvar begins a month-long tour throughout the West Coast.

On top of the rush between his recording with Stolas across the country and the impending Sianvar record release and tour, vocalist Melero recently completed a run of dates with Hail the Sun after finishing up the band’s third full-length, Culture Scars. Swan and Dance Gavin Dance have plans for a new record, as does A Lot Like Birds, both of which will almost certainly call for touring. It’s a maddening-sounding schedule that necessitates a lot of long-distance decisions for Sianvar.

“I used to think ‘fuck, how would that work as a band?’” says Medina of Sianvar’s scattered members. “That didn’t seem like a way to function in my head. It’s been perfectly normal for us in Sianvar, though. For me it’s just something we gotta do to operate and continue, and to me it’s not very much a big deal.”

Stay Lost, Sianvar’s debut LP, assumes a frantic pace not unlike what you’d expect the sum of each member’s other bands might coalesce into. Heavy guitar effects add sonic flourishes to progressive technicality on songs like the album’s first single, “Omniphobia,” a paranormal meditation set to caterwauling emo aggression. Fans of Melero’s Hail the Sun will revel in his Anthony Green-like range, while fans of post-prog giants like The Mars Volta will hang on every chord change and phrase manipulated by the Swan-Medina tandem. It’s a relentless kind of racket best served repeatedly for its full effects to become absorbed, like any good progressive band.

The songwriting, according to Medina, and as you may well imagine, can be tedious.

“Sometimes something will stick and I’ll want to change it and put it under a microscope and say, ‘Why did we do this? Why don’t we do this?’ explains Medina. “Will will say, ‘Why do you want to change it? It already feels good.’ I think as a musician I want to think something cool shouldn’t have sprouted that quickly. There were a lot of times when we were writing the album with those kinds of moments where we’d do something cool and then Will would get out his phone and we’d record very quickly so we wouldn’t forget it.”

Adding to the disjointed nature of the record is the fact that by virtue of the band’s schedules, they went in weeks apart for the recording sessions that resulted in Stay Lost. Far be it for you to be able to tell, though. Songs as frantic and ruthless as “Anticoagulant” or “Psychosis Succumbing” are testaments to the band’s innate songwriting chemistry—a melodic maelstrom made explicitly for the sordid corners of your psyche.

Despite the extra effort obviously necessary for Sianvar to exist, Medina insists that the band member’s other groups are supportive.

“It was a little delicate at first for A Lot Like Birds because it was their whole rhythm section playing in Sianvar,” admits Medina. “That quickly blew over, though. Stolas is the newest band out of the four of us, so we’re at the bottom, but anything that’s come from Sianvar has only helped us. My bandmates have always been cool with that.”

It behooves Medina and the rest of Sianvar to strike out with their own identity, too. While the band can’t help but wear its incestuous influences on its sleeve, Sianvar is probably more concerned with being super good than being a supergroup.

“Nothing we’ve come up with has been deliberately trying to be this or that,” says Medina. “It’s bound to happen that some parts end up sounding like DGD or Hail the Sun. But we definitely strive to make sure this band, not only musically but with the way we present ourselves, goes with Sianvar’s vibe and makes it different and makes it standout as its own other band, not just a side project of a bunch of musicians.”

Produced by Dryw Owens at Roseville’s Little Russia Recordings, Sianvar embellished their lofty aural alchemy to huge heights, with Owens encouraging the copious use of pedals to propel the band’s strong rhythmic talents to wall-of-sound levels. Songs like “BedRoots” are practically void of dynamic shifts, approximating the kind of fantasy-prog decadence of Yes, Trans-Siberian Orchestra or the indulgent depths of black metal luminaries like Gorgoroth.

Interestingly, it’s probably safe to say that Sianvar’s muses were nowhere near any of the aforementioned artists, and it’s ironic that toward the end of “BedRoots,” some of the jazz fusion leanings of Swan’s DGD-compositions are finally unveiled a bit. The band’s fearless exploration of deafening squalls of sound is admirable, if only when it’s contrasted a bit by a spoonful of soulful sugar.

With so much on the horizon for each member of Sianvar’s other bands, it’s unsurprising that it will be difficult to maintain the momentum for the group beyond the upcoming tour and release, being facilitated by Swan’s label, Blue Swan.

“We don’t really think about it but kids at shows think it’s crazy that we’re all in a band together,” says Medina. “I don’t really think of it that much, but it is kind of a cool thing. It’s a very family-oriented work flow.”

Sianvar will be celebrating the release of their first full-length Stay Lost on Aug. 5, 2016 with a show at The Boardwalk, located at 9426 Greenback Lane in Orangevale. This all-ages show will get started at 6:30 p.m. with special guests My Iron Lung, Save Us from the Archon, Subtlety and A Foreign Affair. Tickets are $12 in advance, $14 the day of the show and are available online at Theboardwalkpresents.com.

Run the Gamut

Dance Gavin Dance, whose quirky and genre-defying sound fits somewhere between post-hardcore, progressive rock and screamo, isn’t worried that fans might not like their new album. Right now, they’re just pumped that they’ve found their groove, both creatively and within the band’s dynamic itself.

Since the band’s formation in Sacramento in 2005, DGD has gone through its share of rough patches. Despite a constant flux in band members, DGD now has a solid group of core members with a shared goal: making music they love, and being open to whatever form that comes in. Today, DGD consists of Tilian Pearson (vocals), Jon Mess (vocals/screams), Will Swan (guitar/vocals), Tim Feerick (bass) and Matt Mingus (drums).

Their sixth studio album, Instant Gratification, showcases the energy, enthusiasm and eclectic influences that hooked fans from day one—with a good dose of sarcasm and some dirty rapping sprinkled throughout. The album blends elements from throughout their many eras, offering a little something for everybody—although pleasing such a diverse and divided fan base will be a difficult feat. It is slated for release through Rise Records on April 14, 2015, which is also the day they kick off their Instant Gratification Tour. Leading up to their big record release show, DGD is currently touring with Memphis May Fire, Crown the Empire and Palisades on the Take Action Tour, which wraps up in the beginning of April.

Submerge caught up with Tilian and Will at Kupros Craft House in Sacramento to chat about their upcoming album and tour, as well as what fans can expect to hear on their newest compilation.

What are you most excited about on the new album?
Will Swan: I really like the rap I laid down on it…it’s really sarcastic and dirty and messed up, but it’s funny in the DGD rap style that I created for myself.

You created a new persona for yourself?
WS: Every time I do a rap it’s from a new persona or perspective that’s not mine.

How would you describe this one?
WS: The song is kind of about being drunk and messed up, just a crazy night. My rap is from the “douchebag misogynist in the club” perspective.

What about you, Tilian? What are you excited about?
Tilian Pearson: It wasn’t necessarily as stressful as the last one, but there was more work involved. It’s definitely my favorite album that I’ve ever been a part of making.

Tell me about the writing and recording process on this one. It probably wasn’t actually “instant.”
WS: It was pretty instant…I don’t like to spend more than a day in practice getting the song down. I’ll usually come to practice with the skeleton and the parts and know what I want to do and then teach everyone and flush it out with Matt and Tim and by the end of the practice it’s done. And I don’t like revisiting my own shit.

How long do you think the whole process took?
WS: We didn’t spend more than a day on each song, so with all the practices together it was like 11 days.
TP: But that’s instrumentally.
WS: Once the music is down it goes to Tilian and Jon and they do their thing.
TP: The vocals take a little bit more time…the producer had a nice big backyard and it was raining the majority of the time. I could kind of pace around in the rain, listen to the stuff, and figure it out.

So all the instrumentals are ready and you’re just listening to it and writing over it?
TP: All the instrumentals are written first to a point where I think they’d be cool songs as-is and you would be able to just listen to the album as instrumentals and enjoy it. I feel like the vocals on this one—and I don’t think it was meant to be this way—wind up being more important than some of the past DGD stuff.
WS: Whatever it was instrumentally, once the vocals got put on it, the songs sounded completely different. It was like I was hearing it again for the first time. This record I felt even more of a transformation than usual from instrumental to vocals.

How have you guys managed to keep the same sound enough to keep a steady fan base when you’ve had, what, eight past members now?
WS: I have a very particular sound, and it comes out in what I write, and Matt has a very particular drumming style, and when he puts his drums to my guitar it makes a DGD sound. Everybody else adds their flavors too but the core of the song writing, of the instrumentals, still has that same sound and progression.

I’ve seen a lot of words used to describe your sound…hardcore, jazzy, progressive rock…how do you guys like being described?
WS: I don’t like having to confine things to genres…I have so many influences and listen to so much different music and like to try and put tidbits of it all into the songs. So of course it kind of has a heavier tinge to it but there’s all kinds of stuff going on.
TP: It also depends who you are talking to. If I’m talking to someone 60 years old, I’ll just say it’s punk rock. If I’m talking to a teenager, I’ll say it’s post-hardcore, funky, with a little bit of screamo influences.
WS: And if I’m talking to one of my religious aunts, it’s devil music.

What do you think the fans will think of the new album?
WS: I feel like this album covers the most ground. It’s got probably the heaviest song we ever did, called “Shark Dad,” and some of the softest stuff, like “Death of the Strawberry,” and “Legend,” one of the catchiest songs we have ever done, and also the heavy, spook-style, epic screamo stuff. It goes all over the place in a way that none of our other records ever have.

Do you have very specific fan groups?
WS: There are definitely cliques. But as much shit as they talk, they’ll still like the new stuff…they’ll say things like, “this just doesn’t sound like my favorite album. But I’m still probably going to pre-order it.”
TP: It’s interesting when people say, “I miss a certain album. Don’t you have it? Can’t you play it?”

Are people hard to please, just in general?
WS: I don’t think too much about pleasing the people as much as I do utilizing the people in the band to make the best album we can.

What would you like to see as the next evolution of the band?
WS: We’re still waiting for this album to come out to see what people think of what we just did.

But you said you don’t care what they think anyway, right?
TP: I want to hear it, and read it, and be like, I don’t care.
WS: It’s like comedy for me. I’ll go through and just see some of the mean things people say and it’s so shocking it’s almost like hearing a joke.
TP: Like when people actually speak to you directly on Twitter, or write a message like, I hope you actually choke on your food tomorrow and die, because you’ve ruined my favorite band. [Laughs]

What is one thing you think your fans don’t know about the band?
WS: I would like to be in the Illuminati, and if any fans have any connections that could get me in…
TP: When we play live, I don’t actually sing. I’m actually only here for my looks. So I’m basically a pretty boy lip syncher for the band.

Sacramento fans can catch Dance Gavin Dance on April 3 and 4, 2015, at their back-to-back shows at the Boardwalk, with guests Hail The Sun and other local openers (all ages, $17). Visit Theboardwalkpresents.com for tickets. Find out more Facebook.com/DanceGavinDance, or follow them on Twitter: @DGDtheband

Slaves, a new Sacramento-based band formed by vocalist Jonny Craig (ex-Dance Gavin Dance and Emarosa) and Alex Lyman of Hearts and Hands, is releasing their debut album, Through Art We Are All Equals, via Artery Recordings on June 24, 2014. The album, produced by Kris Crummett, is 11 tracks total and features guest vocals from Vic Fuentes of Pierce the Veil, Kyle Lucas, Tyler Carter of the band Issues and Jonny’s sister, Natalie Craig. Lyman wrote the record and recorded all the instruments, but he and Craig have put together a heavy-hitting, well-seasoned full band featuring drummer Tai Wright of Four Letter Lie and Destroy Rebuild Until God Shows, bassist Jason Mays from Of Machines, and guitarist Christopher Kim, also of Hearts and Hands. We here at Submerge have been keyed in on Slaves for a couple months now, getting early previews of the full album and updates from their management, and we’re stoked for the public to finally hear the epic rock album we’ve come to love. Slaves will play their hometown album release show on Friday, June 20 at Assembly with openers Kyle Lucas, Cemetery Sun, Wrings, Altessa, Overwatch and Imagine This. To hear some tracks off the new album and to learn more about this new group, visit Facebook.com/officialslaves, follow @slavesofficial on Twitter or hit up Arteryrecordings.com. To snag advance tickets ($13) to their Sacramento release show, visit Assemblymusichall.com.

A Lot Like Birds Vocalist Kurt Travis Uses His Brief Downtime to Record Solo Album

The life of a touring musician can be grueling. You write and write and write some more, then you record an album and get it mixed, mastered and pressed. After all that, if you have any money left, you release said album and if all goes well and all your ducks are in a row, the next logical step is to leave normal life behind and hop in the van (or if you’re lucky, a bus or motorhome) and tour the shit out of the album. It’s a process that’s not cheap and not easy.

Kurt Travis, co-vocalist of Sacramento-based post-hardcore outfit A Lot Like Birds (and former co-vocalist of fellow Sacramento-based band Dance Gavin Dance) knows the drill all too well. “A Lot Like Birds doesn’t give me a lot of downtime, but when they do, I’m kind of thankful for it because then I can go forward with some solo stuff,” Travis recently told Submerge during an interview in his new downtown Sacramento loft. “ALLB was going to do this European tour and it ended up falling through. Immediately I was like, OK, I have this amount of time, lets bang out a record and lets go out on tour and sell it.”

Travis enlisted the help of longtime friend and former bandmate Zachary Garren (they played in DGD together years ago). Garren, who now plays in the instrumental band Strawberry Girls and lives in Salinas, Calif., would come up to Sacramento for a few days at a time and the two would write songs and work on the album’s pre-production. They were also sending song ideas back and forth even when not in the same town. Before they knew it, they were sitting on a full-length’s worth of solid material, had a label ready to release it (Blue Swan Records, a new label that is run by Dance Gavin Dance’s Will Swan) and a full-on tour booked to support the record, which will be titled Everything Is Beautiful and will be released sometime later in May.

As of press time, Travis and Garren had only released one song off of Everything Is Beautiful, a pop-y, upbeat ditty called “Brain Lord.” At last check, it had 16,031 views on YouTube after only being uploaded a week prior. With no plans to release any other material from the album before its full release, Submerge was lucky enough to get a private listening party where Garren and Travis allowed us to hear rough, unmixed, unmastered versions of seven of the 12 songs that will appear on the album. What we heard was not some half-assed solo effort from a lead singer who just wants to put something out for the fuck of it. What we heard was a focused, mature, surprisingly pop-friendly album that touches on surf-rock with lo-fi garage vibes, glittering and noodly lead guitar lines, lush layers of vocal harmonies with sprinkles of synth-y goodness. It’s light and accessible (we only heard one part with aggressive vocals, and it was more of a shout than a scream) without being overly cheesy. It’s an artsy pop album, if you will, and it’ll more than likely have you moving and grooving.

Check out an excerpt of our conversation and mark your calendars for Kurt Travis’ tour kick-off show at Luigi’s on Wednesday, May 14, 2014.

EDITOR’S UPDATE: As of May 13, 2014, Kurt Travis’ Everything Is Beautiful was available for streaming here.

Tell me a little bit about the album title, Everything Is Beautiful. What’s the reasoning or motivation behind calling it that?
Kurt Travis: With every release I kind of have a theme, because it’s fun. It’s fun to have a certain message. My first [album theme] being this little girl I knew, she was just learning how to speak, and I related to her because it was kind of like my first solo effort and the songs were very primitive. So it just kind of had this theme, that’s why I called it Wha Happen. She kept asking me that. For this [album theme], I’ve been under this impression lately. I’m very happy. I’m very creative. I’m doing really, really good. I’m having an amazing time with A Lot Like Birds and I’m having an amazing time writing my own stuff with Zach. The theme is Everything Is Beautiful because, well, it is. Just appreciating things that aren’t necessarily beautiful, but you watch them, and they change and your perspective on them becomes different. Kind of that sort of thing like, what is beauty, or what is art? I could get really crazy on you. We could talk about what is beauty and what isn’t beauty, but it would be wrong. Everything is beauty.

Would you say this is the most pop friendly thing you’ve ever done?
Zachary Garren: It’s definitely the poppiest.
KT: It’s the poppiest freaking thing I’ve ever done in my whole life, and you know what’s really weird is I was really trying not to. With this record I was trying to go for that like new wave sound…and it came out super pop-y and funky and groovy.

How does your approach to writing lyrics for your solo material differ from when you’re writing with A Lot Like Birds?
KT: They’re very, very different. Nowadays I’ve been writing very conceptually, not as song-to-song-to-song. But kind of an atmosphere or a story within that song, and kind of vicariously really, which is weird, because that’s something that I really don’t do. I usually write from life and sorrow and just, you know, therapeutically healing myself. I don’t really do that anymore. I guess I don’t really have the need to. I don’t have to be extremely worried about what’s going to happen next. That’s totally kept me up at night in younger years when it comes to music.

Your work with your other bands no doubt keeps you guys busy: Constant touring, writing, recording, doing press, etc. Why not just use your down time to relax? What is it that drives you to want to create music even during your little bit of time off?
KT: I think Zach and I will totally say the same thing. It almost feels the opposite, you know what I mean? If you’re constantly creating and you’re doing different genres and such, I feel like sometimes the more opposite the genre, the more I’m just secretly influenced by it because it’s completely different.
ZG: I just like to create a lot. Some days I’ll do way more than other days…
KT: When I tell him to write a song, he’s got like six the next day. By the time I’m done listening to those, he’s got two more. And then when we get to the studio he’s like, oh man, I got to relearn these. It’s like that show Heroes where the guy blacks out and just does some amazing shit.
ZG: Being a musician is different than working a 9-to-5 sort of job. It’s not easy, but it’s different. It’s still fun to a degree.
KT: Even if I didn’t write a record this last month and immediately go back out on tour, I probably would have worked an odd job for a month and did it that way. But instead, I made a record, and I invested money in the T-shirts I’m going to sell on tour, stuff like that.

So in a way, it’s kind of like an “in between job” that just happened to be creating a record?
KT: Exactly. When Joe [Arrington, drummer for ALLB and who also plays on Everything Is Beautiful] is home, he plays with like four different cover bands and makes way more money… I guess there is this mentality of like, work your fucking ass off, because we are privileged enough to be able to play music.
ZG: Creating music in a way is also kind of downtime. If you’re a musician, what do you do in your downtime from your job? You’re probably doing music. We’re just kind of having extra fun. We do it because we like it and want to try to keep getting better and hopefully making better stuff than we have in the past.
KT: The more you make music and go out on tour, the more you’re going to gain fans. At this point, I’ve been doing it for almost 10 years, I might as well just keep on. Kids still appreciate it and still buy the previous stuff and the new stuff. They’re still buying it, so…
ZG: It’s cool to switch it up, too, because this new album isn’t like anything we’ve done in a long time. It’s the most accessible kind of thing. There’s no screaming so it’s a more mature version of some of our past stuff.

With this album being so much more pop friendly than most of your guys’ past stuff, is it crazy to think that this could very well become the most popular shit you’ve ever done?
KT: It very well could be, although you never know.
ZG: It has the potential, but there are so many little things.
KT: I mean, my manager is Eric Rushing and he’s pretty freaking connected. I did my best. A lot of the times I’ve shown him stuff, and he’s like, “Dude this is fucking incredible, what am I supposed to do with this? This is the best song I could never do anything about.” So this record will definitely be like, “Here you go man, this is probably the most accessible thing you can get out of me, what can we do with it now?” And I think Eric can do a lot.
ZG: And it’s still creative music too, which is cool. This is going to be like our parents’ favorite record.

On the same day that you dropped the first single off your album, Jonny Craig and Tilian Pearson, two other vocalists with past or present DGD ties, also dropped new songs from their new projects. Was that just a big coincidence, or was that meticulously planned out by your management or something like that?
ZG: Not planned at all.
KT: Swear to god. Not planned. We wanted to put it out a couple days earlier, but it didn’t work out. That’s what happens.

Don’t you think in a weird way it might have worked to everyone’s advantage?
KT: Oh we loved it! We milked the shit out of it. It was crazy awesome cross promotion. I talked to Tilian, too. He was totally super happy about it, just like, “Oh my gosh this is going to boost everything!”

One question that I feel a lot of people are curious about is what your relationship is like with all those guys? Jonny, Tilian, all the other DGD guys… I feel like people think there is all this drama. Is there?
KT: No, no. Jonny was at the recent DGD show at Assembly, and I was at that show with Zach. I see Jonny at Ace or Assembly or whatever. I talked to Tilian after the show, shit like that, we were all talking and hanging out after the show. Everybody is just doing their thing. There’s a lot of shit you can check out from all of us, there’s just a big resume from all of us, and that’s really cool.

See Kurt Travis, Zachary Garren and their newly formed backing band play songs off of Everything Is Beautiful at one of the few remaining shows at Luigi’s on Wednesday, May 14, 2014. Also performing will be Hotel Books and So Much Light. Show starts at 7 p.m. and all ages are welcome.

Local reggae/rock group Street Urchinz is celebrating the release of its debut album Dissolve on Friday, June 22, 2012 at Ace of Spades alongside Arden Park Roots, The Holdup, Simple Creation and Element of Soul. “We started two years ago,” says Doug Riggs, rhythm guitar, keys and backup vocals for Street Urchinz. “It was just the lead singer and I playing acoustically under the bridge in Old Sacramento. This is our first album, and we have come a long way since then.” Longtime drummer of Sacramento post-hardcore band Dance Gavin Dance, Matt Mingus, recently joined forces with the Urchinz. The group is rounded out by vocalist and lead guitarist Tommy Norman and bassist Trevor Ingram. If you can’t catch Street Urchinz on June 22, they’ve got quite a few other shows coming up in the area: Concerts in the Park in downtown Sacramento on July 6, 2012, G Street WunderBar in Davis on July 7, 2012, and Powerhouse Pub in Folsom on Aug. 18. For more information and to sample some tunes from the new album, visit http://www.facebook.com/streeturchinz. Fans of Iration, Rebelution, Pepper and bands of the like would be well advised to look into this band. They might be a new local fave.

For Jon Mess, Music and Art Share a Similar Rhythm

Artist Jon Mess might be the only human example of going from zero to 60 and back in 3.5 seconds. One second he is thrashing paint on a canvas with quick and forceful strokes; the next he is stopping and staring intently at the chaos before him. He likes to start off a painting at a very fast pace but then slows down to analyze each stroke. At times he will stare at his work for more than 30 minutes.

For the past 10 years, Mess has experimented with various art forms including painting, graphic design, writing song lyrics even perfecting screamed vocals. His causal demeanor and laid-back personality make it seem surprising that his well-known talent is screaming lyrics in front of raving fans. He has been in the spotlight as a vocalist for Sacramento’s post-hardcore band, Dance Gavin Dance, but has been under the radar as a talented local artist. Each creative side of him represents the perfection of organized chaos; that can be heard in the vocals and seen in his art.

“I try and create a sort of rhythm with the strokes…like the way that music or notes would go up and down on a scale,” Mess said while sitting on a bench outside of his art studio. “I like the element of just going at it and moving real fast but at the same time I want to have balance and stability and take into account [the] formal element of art.”

His abstract artwork is full of bright colors and sharp strokes that leave no empty space on the canvas. Each piece of art is completely open to interpretation and everyone will have a different opinion on what the image is or what it means to them. It’s a “choose your own adventure” art show, Mess said. One minute you might see a rabid zombie dog but after a close examination you might see two eerie dark figures appear in the painting.

Horse, Oil on canvas 30’’ x 40’’ 2012

To get started on a painting, Mess lets his natural intuition and spontaneous side work together. “That’s one of the main things about my process is that I don’t work from an image or I don’t usually work from an idea,” Mess explained. “I put a mark on the canvas, then another one and then it starts to look like something.”

But if Mess does have a sporadic thought in his head it normally comes out as a painting, a lyric or sometimes both. From the most recent Dance Gavin Dance album, a song titled “The Robot with Human Hair Part 2 ½” contains three words that seemed to cause a small uproar with some of his fans.

“There is this one lyric that is ‘confusing ice cream cone.’ People were always misinterpreting or are confused as why the lyrics weren’t cohesive, just scatterbrained. Well, my lyrics are confusing ice cream cones,” he said. “Then I painted a big ice cream cone with a big question mark.

If it works, it fits in the song and fits on the canvas, why do I need more meaning than that? Why can’t I just paint anything?”

Having a creative process isn’t new in his family; in fact his artistic talent could prove that the creative gene might be a dominant one. Growing up he watched his mom sculpt clay vessels and “curvy vases”; he worked for his uncle, a veteran artist who builds massive metal creations; he is related to one of the animators of the legendary cartoon show The Simpsons; and his cousin works for the art department at UCLA.

“Why is everyone an artist? This must be genetic,” Mess said about his artistic family history. “My mom always had a studio attached to the house with kilns, a potter’s wheel, clay and paints. I learned and did sculptor clay when I was a lot younger and I starting painting when I was 16.”

Since then, he has completed many paintings that he is ready to share with the Sacramento community. Starting on April 14 the FE Gallery will display some of his work for his fans and art enthusiasts to enjoy. He is excited to move all of his artwork from his current studio (that he shares with other local artists in downtown Sacramento) and formally hang it in an official art gallery.

CominUp, Oil on canvas 30’’ x 40’’ 2011

The final product of the art show will have a completely different vibe than Mess’ current workspace. At first glance his art studio resembles an abandoned warehouse, but after walking inside and smelling the paint fumes, anyone could sense the hard work that surrounds the studio. The crowded building is divided into multiple messy workstations, and it’s hard to tell where one art station begins and where the other one ends.

But this environment is a recent upgrade from working at home in his apartment. “I was getting paint on the carpet, the walls, my hands, bathroom and my cat. [It] would get on him and he would track it around,” Mess said. “So out of necessity I had to move it all out. It’s been really nice.”

His upcoming show will be his first official gallery show, apart from college galleries at Sacramento State. While attending college, Mess studied electronic art and started to feel out his interest in post hardcore metal music. This slight interest and curiosity led him to become a famous hardcore screamer, a skill that he happened to pick up randomly.

“I didn’t know what I was doing at all at first and there was no real guidebook,” he said. “I asked a vocal coach at Sac State and they were like, ‘You are going to destroy your voice. You can’t do this. You’ll have no career.’”

If Mess had believed the unfaithful coach, he wouldn’t have toured with Dance Gavin Dance across the United States, and he wouldn’t have been called a “resident screamer” by Alternative Press. After being told he would have no career in screaming, Mess ended up headlining Sacramento State with his band almost right after his graduation date. But in terms of his future career, Mess is a little unsure of where his art will take him. He is going to “play it by ear” but doesn’t plan on slowing down anytime soon.

“I’m trying to stay within the creative field but in terms of what specific path it’s going to take,” Mess said. “I know that I can always just paint forever.”

Washing, Oil on canvas 30’’ x 40’’ 2011

Check out the works of Jon Mess at FE Gallery. The exhibition will run through May 3, 2012. The gallery is located at 1100 65th Street, Sacramento and can be found online at http://www.fegallery.com/. If you’d like to see more of Mess’ artwork, go to http://jondmess.tumblr.com/.

Mall walkers had reason to pause during their power walks last Sunday at the Westfield Mall. And no, it wasn’t to watch Santa Claus taking photos with crying babies or ice skaters taking falls at the rink. They paused to see the first Non-Drummer Drum-Off. The event is exactly what its name implies, people attempting to drum like Taylor Hawkins from Foo Fighters but they end up sounding like Animal from The Muppets. In fact, the only qualification of the drum-off was that you were supposed to suck. Even the Facebook event page said if someone was caught practicing before the show, then they would have been automatically disqualified.

Just like American Idol, the non-drummers had to face judges, listen to a sarcastic host and battle to win a prize. The eager non-drummers were going head-to-head for a chance to win a new drum set. At around 3 p.m., a small crowd gathered around a mini stage and bleachers on the second floor of K Street mall in Downtown Plaza that stood in-between the retail stores Express and ZuhG Life (organizers and sponsors of the event). When the show got rolling, most of the audience members ended up being random holiday shoppers, curious workers, or mall walkers who wanted to see what all of the ruckus was about.

The judges, including Matt Mingus from Dance Gavin Dance and Kevin Martinez from Tha Dirt Feeling, had to rate the non-drummers on a scale from 1 to 10 (10 being the highest) and on “charisma and performance.”

The bad drumming started off with Charleeé Wheeler from the local band ZuhG and his attempt to hit the drums like a rock star. Most of the contestants were familiar faces because they were from local bands or people who are active in the Sacramento community, such as Steph Rodriguez from Sacramento News & Review, Alexander Ayers from Prieta, a local photographer named Dennis, Michael Sean Flanagan, Dean Haakenson from Be Brave Bold Robot (who accidentally broke a drum stick while playing) and even our own Jonathan Carabba gave his shot behind the drums. After almost every performance, the host of the event (Blake Abbey from Musical Charis) would make funny, sarcastic remarks about their performance such as, “It’s so bad I want it to keep going,” or, “It wasn’t even entertaining to watch.” After Bryan Nichols, owner of the ZuhG Life store, gave his all playing the foreign instrument, Blake said, “I would rather listen to a whole Nickelback album than listen to that again.” Although the show was not exclusively awkward drumming, the audience members got to enjoy riffs from the professionals like Matt Mingus.

But the show stopper went to a small audience member who was eager to get a whack at the drums. When Blake asked if anyone from the audience would like to drum off, a young boy named Liam not only raised his hand to volunteer but stood up on the bleachers to be seen and heard. After he pulled a rampage behind the drums, he received a perfect score from the judges and huge cheers from the audience. And every time the host would mention his name he would stand on top of the bleachers and give an arm wave of victory. When he found out that he won the contest, he told his proud mom that they are going to need a “bigger truck” to carry his new gift home. Although little Liam arrived as a casual mall visitor, he left as a drumming champion.

Dean Haakenson

Wes Davis

The Non-Drummer Drum Off
Westfield Downtown Plaza Mall, Sacramento – Sunday, December 4, 2011

Jesi Naomi

Steph Rodriguez

Dennis “the photographer”

Jonathan Carabba

Doug Riggs

Michael Sean Flanagan

Alexander Ayers

Liam

Blake Abbey

Matt Mingus

A Lot Like Birds Readies The Release of Conversation Piece

It’s a quiet Tuesday night in Midtown and local progressive/post-hardcore band A Lot Like Birds has 80 or so fans packed into Luigi’s Fungarden as they tear through songs off their upcoming Doghouse Records full-length debut Conversation Piece, set for release on Oct. 11, 2011. Songs like “Think Dirty Out Loud” and “Sesame Street Is No Place for Me,” the album’s first two singles, have the crowd feverishly swaying back and forth to their spastic and energetic rhythms and riffs. Co-vocalists Cory Lockwood and Kurt Travis bounce around the small stage, shaking their long locks, taking turns singing and screaming, fully taking advantage of having co-vocalists (think call and response, harmonizing, layering, etc).

“I’m not the singer and he’s not the screamer,” Travis makes known as the two vocalists and I share a pitcher of Pabst Blue Ribbon at a local watering hole the Friday following the show. It quickly becomes apparent that this is an important point for them to get across. “We’re both vocalists,” he says. “I scream and I sing. And he screams and he sings. And we yell and we talk and we do spoken word. We do everything, we do all of it.”

Lockwood agrees and thinks of it like this, “I feel like a lot of times with dual vocalist bands that have a singer and a screamer, you’re diverging your fans and you’re going to have people that go, ‘Well I listen to the singing,’ and then you’ve got the guys who want tough music and they’re like, ‘Well I like the screaming.’ So if you bleed both of them, you’re forcing people to like it as a whole.”

Couple the outrageous and entertaining vocal work from Travis and Lockwood with the equally impressive instrumental work of the rest of the band, which consists of guitarists Michael Franzino and Ben Wiacek, bassist Michael Littlefield and drummer Joe Arrington, and you’ve got yourself one interesting record in Conversation Piece. One that crosses genres, tears down boundaries, leaves the listener wondering, “What’s next?” after each track comes to a dramatic close, and one that will most likely take a few listens to grow on you. They are aware of this.

“I know that music like this has to grow on people. People are really slow at picking stuff like this up,” says Travis.

“It’s almost easier for us to do weirder stuff,” Lockwood admits.

And weird it is, although we’re not talking about an un-listenable type of weird here; this isn’t just random noise after all. We’re talking about calculated time signature changes, non-traditional song structures, heavy-hitting breakdowns mixed with luscious reverb and delay-ridden clean parts, impressive and off-the-wall guitar riffs and interesting lyrical content to boot. Take the following lines from “Think Dirty Out Loud” for example, where Lockwood screams, “I spiked both our drinks with a gallon of ink / Now I’m writing a novel from your insides / We’re a spider with our limbs doing anything but walking / A conversation with our mouths doing anything but talking.” Or where Travis sings, “I eat emotional wrecks / And yours is the best.”

“I remember the instance in which we started writing the lyrics,” Travis says of the song. “I was totally enjoying myself, just laughing to myself, just thinking I’m the most clever fucking person ever.”

It is noteworthy to point out that in a number of ways, Conversation Piece is entirely different than A Lot Like Birds’ last offering, 2009’s Plan B. The latter was largely the work of guitarist and songwriting catalyst (as well as the band’s original vocalist) Michael Franzino, who invited a horde of local musicians to play everything from trumpet and trombone to cello and violin on the record. Plan B didn’t even feature a live drummer, as Franzino programmed the drums himself via computer. Conversation Piece is much more of a collaborative effort and consists of mostly the band’s core instruments (guitar, bass, drums, vocals), although it does contain some programmed stuff (“A Satire of a Satire of a Satire is Tiring”) and a little bit of horns (“Vanity’s Fair”) as to not depart completely from the band’s tendency to blend live instrumentation with orchestral and programmed elements. One of the most obvious differences between the two records is the solidified lineup, which includes the recent addition of Travis, who up until this summer had spent the last couple years co-fronting another Sacramento-based post-hardcore band, Dance Gavin Dance. “There’s four new members,” Lockwood says of the post-Plan B lineup. Travis interjects, “I’m not the new guy, you know what I mean? I’m the newest by all means. But Plan B was pretty much one or two guys, now this record is everybody giving their opinions and whatnot.”

For the recording of Conversation Piece, A Lot Like Birds turned to Portland, Ore.-based producer/engineer Kris Crummett, a familiar face to Travis, they have recorded two DGD albums together (2008’s self-titled record and 2009’s Happiness).

“As soon as I got kicked out of Dance Gavin Dance, Kris hit me up and was like, ‘Let me know what you’re doing, whatever you do, just let me know,’” Travis remembers. “It was kind of interesting because when I joined A Lot Like Birds, they were already talking about and thinking about going with Kris Crummett. I love that guy, we have a good history; we have a good thing going on.”

The band worked rigorously with Crummett for three weeks, focusing all of their creative energy on the record, which wasn’t even necessarily completely written yet, as Travis and Lockwood both had a fair share of lyrical work to do while in the studio.

“Everybody was hella trippin’, but that’s kind of how I like to work anyways,” Travis says of the high-pressure situation to complete basically half an album’s worth of lyrics on the fly. In the end, things worked out beautifully for the two vocalists, who found themselves locked in a room with Crummett for hours on end, pounding out vocal ideas together.

“I don’t think either of us had any idea how well we were going to work with each other,” Lockwood says of co-writing. “I’ve never worked with another vocalist before.” Travis pointed out that because the group was away from the everyday distractions that come with being home, they were able to channel everything they had into the record. “When you’re in your home town and you have all your stuff, you know, you have your job that you go to, you’ve got your girlfriend, you’ve got your parents and all this stuff. Sometimes it’s distracting,” Travis says. “I hella missed that when I was a full-time touring musician. You kind of just focus on music. So when I got to Portland, I was just kind of like, ‘Ah, I don’t have to think about anything other than just this record,’ and it got all of our attention.”

Even still, the band didn’t finish everything they needed to in their allotted time with Crummett, and they had to record one song in Sacramento with friend and sound engineer Chris Miller. Crummett was still producing even from hundreds of miles away, though, as the band Skyped him during the sessions with Miller.

“He was still there like being able to hear the takes,” Travis says with a chuckle at the thought of Crummett’s face on a computer screen in the room for hours on end.

“He was just like eating Chinese food and shit,” Lockwood says through a laugh while air shoveling a bite of imaginary food into his mouth.

After three weeks spent in Portland with Crummett and a couple more days’ worth of sessions with Miller in Sacramento, the record was finally done, or so Travis thought. “Knowing my luck, we do like two days with Chris and then we get everything done and we’re like, ‘Yes! Fuck yes, it’s done,’” Travis says. “And then I get a call from my guitar player and he’s like, ‘You’ve got to come back and do some more stuff,’ and I was just like, ‘Dude, when is this going to end? We’re not even in Portland anymore.’ But it was completely worth it and the song came out way better than I even thought it could.”

In between the Portland and Sacramento recording sessions, A Lot Like Birds even found time to embark on a week-and-a-half long West Coast tour. It proved a good opportunity to work out the brand new material in the live setting and to gauge people’s reactions to it as well. “It was really like a testing the waters sort of thing,” Travis says. “To see who gives a shit right from the get-go. It was a good response!”

Lockwood recalls one particular night in Anaheim when a girl came up to him at the merch table after the show and told him that she hadn’t heard music like theirs in years, since the early ‘00s. “That’s definitely when I started playing music, that’s when we both started getting really into it. So if anything, if we draw comparisons to stuff from back then, that’s all I’d love to hear.”

Unfortunately for A Lot Like Birds, references to the sounds of the early ‘00s aren’t the only comparisons they’re receiving, as a large number of people (mostly via the Internet) are saying they sound too much like Dance Gavin Dance. No doubt there will be comparisons: both bands are from Sacramento, both have two singers, both have ripping guitar players and rock-solid rhythm sections; heck, they even recorded with the same producer, so yeah, sonically speaking there are some similarities too. But what’s funniest to Travis and Lockwood about the whole situation is that these quick judgments are coming from the album’s two singles, because those are the only two songs off Conversation Piece that the general public has heard.

“People have been really quick to go, ‘Oh, this is what their whole album is going to sound like,’” Lockwood says.

“They don’t even know how versatile it is,” Travis contends. “You know how the Internet goes; people are very, very quick to judge. It’s funny, it’s almost tickling. They have no idea. It’s going to be cool, because they’ll realize it when it comes out.”

Travis also wanted to get off his chest how he feels for Lockwood, who seems to be receiving the brunt of the reviews. The problem? Apparently he screams too much like Jon Mess, DGD’s co-vocalist. “Dude, if you have ears, you would know that it’s completely different,” Travis demands. “Their screaming styles are completely different. It’s just kind of like Jon Mess is the only person they can reference. It’s so funny, like when people compare me to Jonny Craig [DGD’s original vocalist who replaced Travis when he re-joined the band this year], it’s like, ‘Are you fucking retarded? Do you actually have ears? Because I sound nothing like him.’ Not that I couldn’t sing Jonny’s stuff and not that Jonny couldn’t sing my stuff, it’s just, we don’t sound alike. It’s the same thing with Jon Mess and Cory, and I just feel for him.”

Travis has gotten his fair share of attention, too, ever since his departure with DGD. “It’s just something that you have to deal with,” Travis says of constantly being asked about his situation. “It’s like one of those things about your job that you hate but you have to do anyways. I kind of relate it to that, because no I’m not upset, no I’m not tired of it. It’s just one of those things that I know that I’m always going to have to address and that’s fine. If I didn’t have all of that then I wouldn’t have any of this amazing stuff that’s going on right now. So, I think of it that way. Not like, ‘Oh man, I don’t want to talk about the past.’ All of that shit needed to happen in order for this amazing stuff to happen. I look at it like that so I’m not upset when someone is like, ‘What was it like? You got kicked out! Blah blah.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, I did, but things worked out.’” And if you’re wondering, everything is cool between all the members of DGD and A Lot Like Birds. So much so that the two bands will share the stage together on Thursday, Oct. 13, 2011 at Sacramento State’s University Union.

After weeks spent listening to an advanced copy of their new record, an hour spent over beers at a local pub and a killer live set witnessed, it’s apparent to Submerge that A Lot Like Birds are their own band with their own identity and their own sound. Conversation Piece is no doubt the record that will solidify that and as of right now, getting the album out and into the hands of people who care about it is the only thing on their minds. With a grin from ear to ear, Travis says, “I think things will pop off real fast once that happens.”

A Lot Like Birds’ Conversation Piece will be out on Oct. 11 via Doghouse Records. See them live at Sacramento State’s University Union Ballroom alongside Dance Gavin Dance on Oct. 13. Sacramento’s own Ten After Two will also perform. Tickets are available at the University Union Box Office.

The Pride of Lodi, In Oceans Prepares to Play Sacramento

Before the progressive rock group In Oceans starts band practice, they prepare to embark on a mini journey. All six band members pack up their instruments and meet at a cottage, located in the “boonies” to get the creative juices flowing. While jamming in the small cottage, the band has turned their random guitar strums, bass notes, drumbeats and song lyrics into music that can make anyone want to jump around in a mosh pit.

The Lodi, Calif.-based group is ready to share their five-song EP Earthwalker with music fans everywhere. Submerge caught up with vocalists Stephen Parrish and Matt Miller over the phone after a day of practicing for an upcoming gig.

“We just came together and made this awesome collaboration of magic. We’re really stoked to see what people think about it,” Parrish said.

During the year and a half they’ve been playing music together, the group has created a unique rock sound. “Our music [has] extremely progressed and we got our signature,” Miller said. Each band member (Parrish, Miller, guitarists Ryan Hinch and Jake Knutson, drummer Jesse Reeves and bassist James Garner) played a vital role in making their EP sound stage ready.

“Music-wise we make sure everyone puts in their stance. Everyone has different stuff: funk, mainstream, experimental, we all [have] our different little traits,” Parrish said. “That’s why we’re glad that everything came together in this EP.”

“Everyone brings their own influences,” Miller added. “What we aimed for is something that a lot of people can relate to.”

Even though the music was just released in the beginning of June, the band has already received positive feedback through social networking sites, gaining more than 4,000 likes on their Facebook band page. And if you decide to like them on Facebook, you can expect to see them interacting with almost every fan through status updates, comments and likes. Even though they are gaining strong momentum in the small city of Lodi, their music is spreading across the United States. The Facebook page tells them that they have tons of fans that live in Seattle who are waiting for them to take their show north of their hometown.

“We would like to take a trip up to Seattle and walk around the streets and see if anyone knows us there,” Miller said.

The band also caught the eye of Jonny Craig, lead vocalist for Dance Gavin Dance, after playing the 2010 Battle of the Bands Ernie Ball stage at Warped Tour. “He came up and talked to us afterward and he was pretty impressed with our set, so that was a nice little booster for us,” Parrish said. Both members agree that they hope to play Warped Tour again but are now focused on prepping for upcoming gigs, including a headlining show at the Ace of Spaces in downtown Sacramento.

“It’s our first show in Sacramento. I think it’s my first show out with the band in Sacramento, besides the Boardwalk,” Miller said.

If you decide to catch their first headlining show in town, be prepared to find yourself jumping around the stage one minute then laughing the next, because these rockers like to act “goofy” on and off stage. They take the music very seriously but seem to go with the flow for everything else that jumps in their way–even when deciding upon their band name, they just chose it as a “safe” name and hoped that it would catch on with people that listened to their tunes. They even joked that they could be called the “Fluffy Farts” as long as it would catch on.

“We paid for a guy to go to Sizzler, and he gave us the rights to the name [In Oceans],” Miller joked. “We just want people to listen to the music really.”

The members of In Oceans are the type of rockers that anyone would want to hang out with and tell a few jokes with after their shows. Especially in their hometown, they chat with fans and eat tacos at the local Jack-in-the-Box. “We sign the receipts,” Miller said. “I’m just kidding, we don’t sign the receipts, but if they want us to sign the receipts we would love to.”

They also like to have fun during their mini road trips to different shows. They play rounds of their own version of a word make-up game, where they improvise and start to rap in the car. “We start to freestyle. It gets insane,” Parrish said. After the band finally arrives at their destination, they have a pre-show ritual of huddling together backstage to get revved up to take the stage. “The whole focus is on playing a good show and keeping the energy up,” Miller said.

“I like to put on a show that we would like to go watch,” Parrish added.

According to both vocalists, “fun, crazy, extravaganza and awesomeness” are a few of the things that a member of their audience can expect from one of their live performances. Residents in Stockton might have caught them playing a high-energy show at one of their favorite venues called Empire Theatre, an old movie theater that houses film screenings and live shows. But outside of local venues, they hope to place their music in as many ears as possible. “Hopefully something crazy happens with it because it’s something everyone definitely needs to hear,” Miller said. “We love anyone and everyone that listens to our music. Come out to a show and see; it’s going to be a party.”

In Oceans’ new EP, Earthwalker, was released June 1 and can be purchased on iTunes. If you’d like to keep abreast on the band’s latest happenings, or maybe find out where they’re eating tacos, friend them on Facebook at Facebook.com/inoceansband.