Though Family Life Has Softened Pinback’s Rob Crow, His Drive to Create Has Never Been Stronger

When I was 14, in 1995, the Internet was still in its fetal stage, especially regards to music distribution. Because I lived in a small town in Montana, as soon as the Internet started to become a realistic means of acquiring digital music, I was on board. A friend of mine had told me about a Website called Interjuke.com, which disappeared as fast as it appeared. During the time of its existence, I spent an ungodly amount of time digesting every band on their play list–bands I had never even imagined existed, like Braniac, New Radiant Storm King and early Sublime.

Of all these albums, the one that stood out the most to my friends and I was a band called Heavy Vegetable. The name alone was just weird enough to get my attention. The music had ADD; experimental and bizarre…and I devoured every track.

Now back to the present. The frontman for the aforementioned Heavy Vegetable–Rob Crow, aka Robertdale Rulon “Rob” Crow, Jr–has long since put that band in the past. He now fronts Pinback with Zach Smith, aka Armistead Burwell Smith IV, who is also the leader of the band Three Mile Pilot. Crow’s resume has steadily grown since those early days, working on a wide range of projects such as Thingy (his project that most resembles Heavy Vegetable), Optiganally Yours, The Ladies, Other Men, Goblin Cock and Nervous Cop. However, of all of his projects, by far Pinback has had the largest impact on the current music world.

As a veteran of such a long roster of current and former projects, Crow has learned how to maximize his touring experience. During a phone interview, which I had to conduct twice due to my neglecting to record the first session, we discussed what a Pinback tour is like today. To start, you won’t be seeing Pinback on a house tour anytime soon.

“There was once or twice in the early days when we were supposed to play a house show or house party,” explained Crow. “We would show up and Zach didn’t know it was going to be a house party, and he would be like, ‘I’m going to go sleep in the car,’ and I would end up doing the show by myself.”

However, when Pinback does book their shows at professional venues, they have a couple of simple requests:

“I like there to only be blue or green lights, never red…and no swirly stuff,” Crow says. “Every venue has a light guy, for some reason, and there’s this old adage where the sound guy will set up the lights and walk away while everything goes to hell, and the light guy will stay there while everyone gets blinded and they think they’re at a techno show. The opposite should be the case. We obviously have our own sound guy, but there’s always a light guy that thinks, ‘This is my opportunity to show the world that I can blink stuff on and off really fast.’ It’s not a disco. The whole idea of playing a show is that I like to connect with everyone, I like to be able to see everyone and I like them to be able to see me, or what’s going on, and not to be distracted by a bunch of crazy things.

“Another rule I have is no DJs. You’d be surprised how many venues all over the world just throw a surprise DJ at you while you’re trying to set up or break down, and again, you’re trying to create a human atmosphere, and suddenly you’re ‘boom-da-boom-da-boom-da-boom.’ It takes everyone immediately away from everything.”

Listening to Crow’s comments about venues, it’s not hard to see he is growing up. If you go on YouTube, it doesn’t take an extensive search to find old interviews with him, young, generally inebriated and full of piss and vinegar. These days, Crow is still drinking a few beers and having youthful fun, but he is also a devoted husband and proud father. Whenever possible, he would love to have his family with him on tour.

“It’s cool! They get to travel all over the place, and learn about a bunch of different kinds of places,” says Crow. “In the early days me and my wife would be able to take care of them, so at sound check they would be at a park somewhere, and then we would all hang out after and go to the show until they got tired and went to be in the bunk [on the bus]. Then, with the third kid, it seems illogical. With the second kid, he’s only been out once or twice. Once I got my friend to be the nanny for my oldest, because I was going to be out of town on his birthday, and I would never recover emotionally from missing one of my kids’ birthdays.”

How soon might we be seeing his kids on tour themselves as musicians? A lot sooner than you might think.

“For a while [my oldest] had his own Myspace page, back in Myspace times, for his band. He has two songs…they were good. His little brother did a version of ‘The Robots’ [by Kraftwerk] that was pretty cool.”

Crow, however, is cautious about putting too much emphasis on his children entering the realm of musicianship.

“I’m proud of them for whatever they do,” he explains, “but I also don’t want to push them to do anything they don’t want to do; I don’t want to be that guy. However, if they do show an interest, I will be there to facilitate whatever it is as much as I can. I’m afraid there might be too much pressure. The dream would be for me to travel and play with them all the time, but there are going to be days when they aren’t going to want to hang out with daddy.”

Still, he has enjoyed the adventure of fatherhood and partnership with his spouse and looks forward to the travels that still lie ahead. With much more left from Pinback, many albums yet to be released from Thingy, Goblin Cock (and he is still holding out hope for another one from The Ladies…hint, hint Zach Hill), Crow finds a way to balance it all.

“I’m only bummed that it took me so long,” Crow says. “Of course, I had to do it just the right way…I had to make sure that I found the right woman to settle down with, to make sure that she was the perfect person for me–and she is. People just dive into things like marriage and children, and don’t really think about it a lot, it seems, anyway. I never want to have a reason to be divorced. I made sure that my partner was also my best friend…so, that took a lifetime.”

Pinback will play Sacramento on Jan. 20, 2013 with a stop at Harlow’s. To buy tickets ($20 in advance), go to Harlows.com, and for more on the band, check out http://pinback.com/.

Local guitarist Adrian Bellue can do things with his guitar that you didn’t think were possible. His “fingerstyle” playing is hard to describe in words; you almost need to see and hear it to believe it.

“What I do is a bit different,” he recently told Submerge. “I devote myself to breaking the boundaries of solo instrumentation and make every attempt to see how far I can take the acoustic guitar. I utilize percussion, rhythm and melody to fuse together a small orchestrated band from my fingertips.”

Imagine a bass line, melody, harmonics and percussive elements all coming from one guy, on one acoustic guitar. No loops, no effects pedals, just pure and raw talent. Years ago Bellue was getting way into martial arts and Buddhism, but after he sustained a major knee injury that required surgery, he had an “epiphany” about his music.

“I realized I could use all the same fundamentals from martial arts with the guitar, utilizing circular motion, empty mindedness, passing through the target, etc. That’s when I started developing my own techniques and exploring new tunings,” Bellue said.

Bellue’s debut album Draw Inspiration, recorded and engineered over the summer here in Sacramento by Brian Lee Bender all in single live takes, is now ready for release. See Bellue live on Dec. 29, 2012 at Harlow’s with ZuhG and friends at the Dr. Dre Tribute Show, which he is also calling his CD release show. Draw Inspiration is 10 tracks of moody, dynamic, technical acoustic guitar music perfectly fit for all these rainy days ahead of us. Toss it on and watch the puddles gather water while wondering to yourself, “How does he do that?” Visit http://adrianbellue.com or http://www.facebook.com/adrianbellue.

After tossing the idea around for years, the guys in local jam-based reggae/rock band ZuhG have finally decided to act upon their urge to throw a Dr. Dre Tribute Show on Saturday, Dec. 29, 2012 at Harlow’s! “We’re excited it’s finally happening,” Bryan Nichols, frontman of ZuhG, told Submerge. “The Chronic 2001 is probably the most listened to album in the ZuhG van when we tour. Everyone loves The Chronic.”

Nichols and crew have assembled a sweet backing band for the show including himself and fellow ZuhG-er JR Halliday along with drummer Katayo Moore (aka Lady Rhythm) and keyboardist Chez Gonzales. Will Robinson from The Old Screen Door will be singing some of Nate Dogg’s parts, and plenty of guest MCs will take the stage throughout the night, including Task1ne, RIZ, Century Got Bars, Kevin (from The Hooliganz), Charleee (from ZuhG) and Ernie (from Who Cares).

Will Robinson

“Hip-hop is a lot of fun to play with a band. It’s different in a lot of ways compared to rock,” said Nichols, who has had plenty of experience backing up hip-hop artists (Random Abiladeze and RIZ just to name a couple). “You have to stay in the pocket and not be too flashy. You can’t be afraid to play the same riff over and over again. The Chronic has some of the most catchy bass lines and guitar riffs, I love it.”

Look forward to hearing classic songs like “The Next Episode,” “Forgot About Dre,” “Fuck You,” “Nuthin’ but a ‘G’ Thang,” and plenty of others. The show starts at 9 p.m., is 21-and-over and the cover will be $10–a small price to pay for what will surely be a super fun and memorable night. And of course, this blurb wouldn’t be complete without the obligatory Nate Dogg line, “Smoke weed everyday!”

Century Got Bars

For a wide swath of the country’s electronic music lovers, Portland’s Starfucker is a bit of an anomaly. Consider first the group’s somewhat reluctant allegiance to its own name. The edginess of the Starfucker moniker had in fact started as a sort of rough experiment by primary songwriter Josh Hodges to see how far, if at all, such an abrasive handle could go. Before they could find out, the band made a publicized switch to the name Pyramid, which was soon after morphed to Pyramiddd.

Undeterred in the crossover was the project’s loyalty to deep house beats, swelling synths and clunky pop guitar lines, helmed by Hodges’ battery mates Keil Corcoran (percussion, drum machine), Patrick Morris (guitar) and Shawn Glassford (bass). For all those club-ready beats, however, appeared Hodges’ decidedly macabre fascinations with death, dreams and all things dark, providing a brooding insight to a gifted and perhaps troubled sort of modern songwriter.

The band returned to its original name of Starfucker in 2010–though they augment it arbitrarily to STRFKR depending on the phases of Jupiter’s moons (kidding)–no worse for the wear, and have finally put all that goddamn name rigmarole behind them.

Reptilians, released in 2011 on the Chicago indie label Polyvinyl, is Starfucker’s most ambitious album to date. Reptilians continued Hodges’ sweeping new wave melodramas with auditory bits of pop-rock panache, typically morbid lyrical swipes and snippets of lectures by famed British philosopher Alan Watts. The album was the first for the project that included a more collaborative approach between all of the band members, though to pinpoint at which intervals would have been difficult given Hodges’ somewhat ironclad creative grip.

A year-and-a-half removed from Reptilians, Starfucker is hitting the road again for a fall tour at the tail-end of engineering their second release for Polyvinyl–an as-yet-untitled, 15-track LP that Hodges explains is similarly dark, similarly upbeat and plain old similar to his band’s prior output. It’s a good thing, then, that said previous output is so unfairly catchy. To boot, Hodges tells Submerge that Starfucker’s new album–to be released in February 2013–is the band’s most collaborative effort to date.

Reptilians dealt with a lot of darker kind of imagery, but retained an upbeat, dance-y ambiance throughout. As a songwriter creating through a pop prism, how do you reconcile that dichotomy?
I think they go together well. Every one of our albums has been like that, but this new one is probably even darker. I just like to write about what I think about, which is death and change. The way our society is, and the way we all think about living is silly considering how people often say, “Oh I would have changed things if I’d known I was gonna die, and not cared about so much bullshit.” We all know [we’re going to die]. In one way or another that’s what the lyrics are always about. I mean, it’s still fun to dance. When I started Starfucker, I was bored of going to shows. The way that it’s interesting is if you can dance–even if you’re into the music–you can still have a good time. Or if you don’t dance, and end up at a dance-y show with your friends, the music is still songs you can listen to that are saying something and not just techno music. The songs are definitely focused on making music that’s fun to play live. I think they go together well, to talk about potentially dark things and then have music be lighter or hopeful. I’ve always liked that and like when other artists do that.

Did you grow up listening to electronic pop bands that had that more cerebral, thematic motif?
I didn’t really. I didn’t like electronic music when I was growing up. I just got some keyboards and thought, “Oh this is actually really cool.” I think I always liked darker music. I think with Starfucker, a big part of it is listening to it at home and reading the lyrics, but then a lot of it is emphasis on the live show, and on living right now and getting a break from the boring stresses in life. It’s nice to go to a show and forget things for a minute, especially if dancing is your thing.

Have you had conversations with fans of the band, where they were into that same contrast? Like maybe they weren’t exactly privy to the darker lyrics, but more reeled in by the dance-y music?
Yeah, definitely. That’s one of my favorite things about having this project is talking with people who come out. I always hang out after shows and talk to people at the merch table or write to them on Facebook. I’ve met some really cool people and have had some really cool conversations with people about that. Also, just the little bits of Alan Watts on the album that’s started some really good conversations with people. I’ve had fans come up and say they’d never heard of him, and then they started getting into him. It’s cool to expose someone to something new like that. And it’s cool to have cool conversations with people about it [laughs].

I would imagine on tour, any time the conversation errs outside of “how’s the tour going?” must be refreshing.
Yeah, totally. It’s super refreshing.

What new fascinations or themes have you been focused on since Reptilians’ release that you may explore on your next album?
It’s a lot of the same stuff, just a different take on it. It’s a bit darker, but still really playful. There’s a lot of dream references in it, too. I had dreams where I was dying and laying on my death bed that seemed real. Patrick has really crazy dreams, too. I guess death and dreaming…

Is it a scenario where those themes are driving the direction of the music in any way?
Yeah, maybe. It’s still upbeat; it’s still happy. But there’s just a little darker stuff on this one than the other albums. It’s longer than the other albums, too. There’s more diversity. More than half of the album has more organic instruments on it, and not as much synth.

I wondered if you’d explore that more. On Reptilians, songs like “Born,” “Astoria” and the title track had a starker, avant-rock kind of sound. Is that a direction you can see Starfucker going toward more as a project in the future?
Yeah, I mean the first half of the new album I wrote a lot of the songs on guitar, so it has that kind of vibe. We’re adding stuff to it now. And I wanted to make part of the album have this super happy feel–we were calling it The Drunk Album for a while. It has a lot of really weird bendy guitars and stuff.

So there’s no reticence on your part to stray too far musically from the project’s primary roots in dance and pop?
Well, I still wanna keep it with the same basic idea, which is a happy, positive vibe. I wouldn’t wanna go too far away. I am a little bit hesitant. I think all of the songs on here are either dark and dance-y, or fun, but maybe not as dance-y. They all still have that playful vibe that I think is important.

For the last album, you allowed additional help from the rest of the band members to round things out musically on record. Are you taking that approach on this new record?
Yeah. This is definitely the most collaborative album we’ve ever done, and it’s been really fun. There are even two songs on the album–one Keil started and one that Patrick started. It’s really awesome. It’s still mostly songs that I wrote and then we fleshed out together, but even Shawn helped me finish words. It’s actually what I always wanted this to be: more of a band, and not just my project.

Are you finding that liberating, to allow this thing that was once mostly yours to become collaborative?
Yeah, it’s like being a parent. It’s nice to have more than one parent to raise the kids [laughs]. It’s nice that we’re all working together; I like that communal feel. We feel like family.

Can that more organic approach for the new album you were talking about before be attributed to that collaboration?
No, I have to fight for that. Keil hates anything not electronic. But I’m still going to do what I want if I have a song I really like. But we pretty much agree on everything at this point. The less electronic stuff, Keil just doesn’t get. He knows it though, and is like, “Well if you guys all like it…” It’s still pretty democratic. If someone really likes a song and fights for it, I’ll give in.

Get your gloomy dance on at Harlow’s Oct. 17, 2012 when Starfucker makes a stop in Sacramento. The show starts at 8 p.m. and tickets are just $15. Go to http://harlows.com/ for more info or to purchase tickets.

Mason Jennings

Harlow’s, Sacramento – Sunday, Sept. 16, 2012

For roughly 15 years, Mason Jennings has been creating a palatable brand of folk pop that has gained him the adoration of fans and critics alike. Jennings possesses the keen ability to put you in his shoes with lyrical stories that could apply to any American’s life.

About 20 minutes after the billed show time, the quickly increasing crowd loudly socialized in small groups close to the stage. It was assumed at this point an opener would soon be coming on stage, but instead Jennings emerged from behind a curtain and grabbed his acoustic guitar and harmonica. He finished tuning his guitar and looked up at the eager crowd stating, “Good Evening. Thanks for coming.”

Touring in support of his new album Minnesota, Jennings pleased the crowd by playing an eclectic mix of tunes from nearly all of his 10 albums. He opened with “Crown,” a classic fan favorite from 2004’s Use Your Voice, which tells a story of the pain and confusion sometimes caused by romantic relationships. He followed with the upbeat “Living in the Moment,” which expresses post-relationship matters with close friends. Jennings cited his travels in Northern California as being inspiration for songs like “Darkness Between the Fireflies.” He also mentioned his roots, having grown up in Honolulu, Hawaii, which may have contributed to his laid-back approach that can be perceived as pure and effortless.

Jennings has always possessed a savvy ability to write catchy, folk-y pop tunes with personal lyrics that come directly from the heart. And whereas dime-a-dozen folk/pop artists emerge too frequently lacking authenticity, Jennings continues to stick to his guns of pure songwriting, but has upped his game expressing he has been spending more time playing the piano, learning how to read music, and practicing Bach songs. Jennings’ music provided sentimental feelings with nearly every song performed, fitting for the final days of summer.

Chelsea Wolfe’s music is a study in contrasts

I remember watching Chelsea Wolfe perform many years ago at a small café in Sacramento. The sound system was old and out of date, patrons talked too loud, blenders whirred maniacally and Wolfe had that look in her eye like she wanted to annihilate the world, one human being at a time. Her delicate face–deep set eyes and thick, pouty lips–is good for emoting, and ultimately bad at hiding emotion. Right when she began playing, the microphone cut out and then buzzed, snapped and failed again. Finally, after the sound crackled for the last time, she mumbled something under her breath that sounded a lot like, “Fuck this,” threw down her guitar and walked off the stage. Perhaps it’s the sadist in me, but I love watching that kind of shit–artists in turmoil; the very real moment between creation and insanity; the instance of the gentle poetic soul breaking clean in two. While some say a tantrum is tedious and unprofessional, I say a good mental breakdown is simply part of the show–a bonus performance. This elegantly dramatic mental collapse is something Wolfe seems to have perfected over the years, but it’s not something that she’s exactly proud of.

“It used to be really bad,” Wolfe says of her stage frustration. “I would play two or three songs and have to leave the stage. I didn’t like playing in an atmosphere where I didn’t feel welcomed, either by the sound person or venue or crowd–or myself, even–so in the past I’d just say ‘fuck it,’ and be done.”

But over the years, and perhaps even despite herself, Wolfe has been mesmerizing audiences, first capturing our attention with her 2010 release, The Grime and the Glow, a collection of catchy but distorted and unsettling tracks, like “Moses,” which reaches Black Sabbath levels of fuzz cut in half by Wolfe’s starkly clean, yet heavily reverb-y vocals. A year later, Wolfe would release Apokalypsis (again on Pendu Sound Recordings), which continues the musician’s penchant for darkness, yet pays strict attention to texture, both sonically and emotionally–the music displays a certain amount of gloom, but isn’t necessarily gloomy, and it’s Biblically referential without being obvious.

“I was religious during my formative years, so I think that sort of Biblical language permeated my way of thinking,” Wolfe explains. “Don’t read that as me having any sort of religious agenda, though. I am just fascinated by Biblical imagery, as well as Nordic and Greek mythologies. I’m into the ancient and the modern and constantly trying to reconcile them within myself and my songs.”

It’s “doom folk,” as some call it–a layered exploration of complexity caught somewhere in between PJ Harvey’s angelic call of the soothsayer and Gorgoroth’s wickedly dirty odes to Satan. In fact, Wolfe’s version of Norwegian black metal band Burzum’s “Black Spell of Destruction,” with unintelligible chanting and grating repetition, manages to sound less pop-y and a hundred times scarier than the original (if that’s at all possible). Wolfe’s fascination with the complexity of existence not only manifests in her eerie and beautiful music, but in pretty much everything she does.

“I’m inspired by a macro and micro view of the world…questioning everything from big to small. I like to explore contrasts: idealism and reality, physicality and spirituality, light and death,” she says. “Answers come in the form of epiphanies for me. Something about putting things into words and phrases, into a piece of work like a song or album, helps me to make sense of it. There was a perfect line in [Tom Robbins’ novel] Jitterbug Perfume: ‘The ultimate answers cannot be given, they can only be received.’”

As for the reception of Wolfe’s music, it’s been overwhelmingly positive, from a glowing review by The Needle Drop’s feisty music nerd Anthony Fantano to an NPR review that literally left the writer scratching his head in blissful confusion (“When the slow-burning bummer that is Apokalypsis hits your misery nerve in clear focus, it hits hard,” wrote Lars Gotrich).

All-in-all, not bad for a Sacramento girl, right? Which then begs the next question: What’s the deal with artists living in Sacramento and then ditching it for Los Angeles? (Hear that, Trash Talk?)

“I took my time finding my voice and figuring out what the fuck I was doing with my music in Sacramento,” Wolfe says. “Sacramento is a great place to do that because there are very supportive folks there and a great community of musicians, but it was time for me to leave. I’ve always been an outcast musically anyway, so I don’t think it mattered where I lived; I just needed to be in a place where I was around people who were inclined to work and get things done in music and art.”

That said, Wolfe’s Sept. 5 return to Harlow’s in Sacramento (where she’ll play songs from both The Grime and the Glow and Apokalypsis, as well as new material, plus a few tracks from an upcoming acoustic album, Unknown Rooms: A Collection of Acoustic Songs, due Oct. 16, 2012) brings forth a bit of moody ambivalence.

“I don’t feel particularly excited or not excited for playing in my hometown, but I do look forward to seeing friends and playing music,” Wolfe says. “I only wanted to do the show if I could put together the bill, because I’ve been wanting to play with Screature for a while now and I really didn’t want to come play with bands I’ve never heard before.”

And that answer–full of truth, edge and hesitance–is precisely the angst-ridden Chelsea Wolfe that we have come to adore: the kind who uses (in her own words) “harsh, King James phrasing,” the kind who colors the world in the black paint of truth netted with a laced veil of brusque melodrama…that is the Chelsea Wolfe we’re paying to see, whether we admit it or not. But the stage antics–the nervous rage, the pissy demeanor, the throwing of the instrument in a tantrum of mental anguish–are things of the past; it’s all under control, she says.

“Over the years…I challenged myself to stick it out even if I wanted nothing more than to get off stage,” Wolfe assures. “Now I only get weirded out if there are technical problems, but I still force myself to keep going and lose myself into the music no matter what’s happening around me.”

Chelsea Wolfe will play Harlow’s on Sept. 5, 2012 with Screature and ESS. Tickets are $10 for this 21-and-over show that gets underway at 9:30 p.m. To preorder a copy of Unknown Rooms and check out a sample song, go to http://chelseawolfe.bandcamp.com/.

Sacramento Electronic Music Festival 2012

Day 3 – Saturday, May 5, 2012

The moon was a big deal on Saturday. A full moon, either in lycanthropic blood mysticism or scientific tidal truths, calls into the locked cellars of our primitive impulses to come out and play. Saddle up the supermoon with the tequila abuse of Cinco de Mayo, and night three of the SEMF was a rowdy, depraved playground.

Salva

Weekend warriors that frequent MoMo’s argued with security as to why exactly they were relegated to the patio, while braceleted SEMF attendees roamed about freely. I fielded endless appreciative comments regarding the finely groomed herd of ladies and equally endless queries as to whether or not the Death Grips’ world tour cancellation would spell doom for a scheduled performance around midnight.

I should have been let down by the no-show. We all should have booed the ever-loving hell out of the acts on stage while demanding our Death Grips set, but SEMF was booked to endure a Death Grips no-show. It only stung slightly when Brian Breneman, half of The Master System, dropped the Beastie Boys’ “Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun” remixed over Death Grips’ “Guillotine” (which was goddamn brilliant, by the way) after Shlohmo’s headlining set. Earlier, James and Evander announced before one song they would be blatantly ripping off Daft Punk, and then delivered on their word, but in a respectful manner. Raleigh Moncrief unveiled an unheard archive of EDM meditations that hinted of Watered Lawn being far from a debut fluke.

Raleigh Moncrief

The hype should have fallen on its face, the moon was supposed to have roused our inner villains, but inspired set after inspired set kept the 27th block of J Street from letting the tequila and heat agitate the closing night of the SEMF. In only its third year, the SEMF is official. Now, we count the days until the Launch Festival as Sacramento’s next big power play.

Sacramento Electronic Music Festival 2012
Day 2: Friday, May 4, 2012

Day two was both a settling in and a tug-of-war between sub-genres. At any given moment, in the presence of any DJ booth, the vibrations tugged toward the posh club life, the trendsetting hipster cool of synthology, the dingy underground scene of warble bass drops or the distant past of trip-hop that conjured oriental delicacy. Night two was about playing the bar, hugging the stage, bro-ing down in the neon, hands up for MCA tributes and patio lounging with your shoes off to enjoy the Astroturf.

Billy Lane

On the Harlow’s stage Billy Lane treated 11 p.m. as official “kick this shit in gear” hour, demanding energy with heavy drops and buzz saw riff manipulations. Upstairs, DJ Whores and Crook One traded off selector duties, spinning a refined set fit for a Grimey night, and proved why they are two of our city’s most elite on the decks. Meanwhile, sets from Tha Fruitbat, Night Night and Seventh Swami took the vibe back to the Command Collective days from the early-Aughts.

Mux Mool

Headliner Mux Mool was a living conglomerate of the night’s mixed bag of performers. With a dash of each sound heard in the three spaces, the attendees swarmed to the main stage after midnight for head-nodding synth beats, peaking laser bursts, flourishes of 8-bit stylings and a few well-placed remixes of Method Man, Beastie Boys and The B-52s. He would slip deep into his album catalog, consisting of Skulltaste and Planet High School, but never alienated an onlooker who might have lacked familiarity. A deep cut was followed by a sample of Method Man’s gravely drawl, rapping, “We keep it movin’, yeah, we keep it movin’” and Mux mirrored his sample. As the headliner, Mux Mool had the last dedication to Adam Yauch, aka MCA of the Beastie Boys, who passed away from cancer that morning. He incorporated his drum work to a “Brass Monkey” sample and replaced the remorse with an invitation to a castle in Brooklyn where a mixture of malt liquor and orange juice is the drink of choice.

L Raq

Click to read: Sacramento Electronic Music Festival 2012 // Day 1 overview

Sacramento Electronic Music Festival 2012
Day 1: Thursday, May 3, 2012

Friday, May 4 was the official Northern California monthly installment for the alt-electronica club night Low End Theory in San Francisco, but an unofficial preview tested the booming systems of Harlow’s on Thursday, May 3 for the opening of the Sacramento Electronic Music Festival. Lorn, Dibia$e, Jonwayne and DJ Nobody are proven low end theorists, earning their stripes at the Los Angeles weekly event held at The Airliner. The four beat masters sent heady vibrations through onlookers’ sternums and the venue’s foundation, but like every year at the SEMF, local electronica talent is in grandiose display.

Lorn

It felt as though we were on the move at the third annual SEMF. The round robin of sets in Harlow’s, upstairs at MoMo’s, and DJ sets on the patio had me hesitant to settle in. Decisions had to be made, compromises even, but the careful selection of performers this year almost guaranteed no disappointing sets. Whatever room you occupied was the place to be at the SEMF.

Young Aundee

Jonwayne took the stage for Dibia$e’s set, to streamline raps, while Dibia$e played selector, mutating his beats with glitch takes, warping from track to track without throwing off his rapping amigo in flip-flops. The set bled into Jonwayne’s slot, as he returned the mic to the stand, plugged in his beat machine and rattled the walls with menacing cuts that blended Southern trap rap bravado like Rick Ross’ proclaiming, “I’m treated like a king when I’m dining,” with boss level 8-bit beats and the baritone keys of a grand piano.

Dusty Brown

The Low Enders are the genuine article, but I found great pleasure in the discoveries, particularly Satellites. The presence of the wooden Pandora’s Box known as the Monome was a rare sight to behold, since I can only think of two other beat makers (Daedalus and Galapagoose) who are masters of its magical properties. He’s impossible to Google, so I still know jack shit about him. But Satellites’ push-button magic set an introductory tone for the L.A. vibes that followed.

Local performers like Paper Pistols, Doom Bird and Dusty Brown instilled the 916 pride in our festival. My hope is that the out-of-towners lurked around for the Dusty Brown set and that word will spread regarding our secret weapon. Dusty Brown opened with the unveiling of two new songs before delivering cuts from his concise and captivating This City Is Killing Me EP, which is destined to be a local classic. Opening with unfamiliar material reeled me in. It’s a dangerous move, but the group is justified in its confidence in their new music. I’m more than ready for a new Dusty Brown album.

Paper Pistols

With heavy hitting headliners like Mux Mool, Lorn, Shlohmo, Death Grips and dozens of other killer musicians slated to perform at Harlow’s and Momo Lounge on May 3—5, Sacramento Electronic Music Festival will surely not disappoint in the audio and aural categories. Neither will it in the visual sense. After a little digging, Submerge got a better idea of what you can expect to see at SEMF when all those sounds are pulsating at you. One interesting installation piece that we got wind of from festival co-organizer Clay Nutting is being created by local artists Sofia Lacin and Hennessy Christophel, collectively known as L/C Mural and Design. No doubt you’ve seen their impressive murals around town, whether you know it or not. For SEMF, the two are working with another artist, Jonathan Messerschmidt-Rogers, on a large installation for the back patio area at Harlow’s.

“We really wanted to be able to use what we know about making a space cool and use it as a chance to for the first time combine what we usually do, which is outdoor murals or art installations, with something we’ve never done before, which is projection,” Lacin told Submerge. “So we are collaborating with Jonathan and he, Hennessy and I are going to create kind of a moving piece that’s all about connecting people through music.” The approximately 8-foot-by-8-foot piece is made of wood, is a weird “cluster shape” and will feature “projections coming in from all around the space and congregating on our canvas.” Sounds dope. Lacin further explained the duo’s concept: “You always have to have a really strong concept, and so we asked ourselves what is this festival about? What are music festivals?” she said. “We just kind of realized how unique it is to draw all of these people together from different backgrounds, different places, and then they’re all drawn together for their common love of music, so we wanted to make the piece about that.”

On top of that piece from Jonathan and L/C, expect wild multi-angle projections from Creative Projections in Harlow’s main stage area, mind-bending laser shows from Double D Productions and more installation art from local Danny Scheible. “Together they are going to transform it with badass laser shows and visuals,” Nutting told Submerge. “It’s going to be bananas, it will not look like Harlow’s.”

No doubt it’s going to be a wild weekend full of both aural and visual stimulation, so get your three-day pass now at Harlows.com for just $30. Learn more about Lacin and Christophel’s work at http://lcmuralanddesign.com/. Learn more about SEMF at http://sacelectronicmusicfest.com/.