The creative energy in Sacramento is surging. From the diversity in the region’s live music scene to the legacy of innovation and creative vitality among its community of visual and performing artists, the feeling of civic pride is palpable. With creative businesses flourishing, creatives are taking hold of Sacramento and giving its residents reason to celebrate the various neighborhoods that comprise this diverse city.
For graphic designer Amber Witzke, this sentiment of community pride has manifested itself in her latest project: a limited-edition screen-printed poster titled Neighborhoods of Sacramento that memorializes every Sacto ‘hood from Greenbriar to Valley High and everything in between.
And while she was born in Santa Barbara—her family moved to the region when she was 3 years old—suffice it to say, Witzke reps Sacramento hard.
The project’s evolution came out of Witzke’s love for Sacramento and celebrating the 130 neighborhoods that connects all who inhabit the City of Trees. The work is currently being shown at Archival Gallery, where fellow devoted Sacramentans can show their love for the city by scooping up one of her graphic homages to the region.
The Sunny Side of Sacramento | 18 in. x 24 in.
“I grew up in Sacramento and I’ve lived pretty much my entire adult life here, and I have loved the city from the moment I moved down to Midtown,” Witzke gushes. “And recently, my now-husband and I were looking for a home to buy, and I just kind of happened upon all these different neighborhoods and realized how many different areas within Sacramento there are. The actual city itself I didn’t realize had all of these really cool names. Each of these little neighborhoods have their own distinct qualities.”
Born into a family of creatives, the newlywed’s passion for the arts revealed itself early in life, and she was compelled to contribute to the fabric of the local creative space.
“My grandmother is an artist. My mom is an artist. I always loved drawing and painting and anything creative as a child,” Witzke explains. “So, when my dad brought home a computer, it was just like, ‘what can I do with this artistically?’ That’s kind of how I fell into design and advertising.”
This natural curiosity led Witzke to pursue a degree in design from Sacramento State. The intensity of the program she says was vital to her development of discipline as an artist.
“The program is pretty difficult, and it’s pretty difficult to get into,” she explains. “You wouldn’t think being a state school it would be something that would be so desirable for so many people in California to get an art or design degree from, but they were really impacted, and it was really hard to get into.
The Neighborhoods of Sacramento | 18 in. x 24 in.
“You had to go through a portfolio review where they would look at your work and see if they thought you had potential,” Witzke continues. “Then, once you got in, they actually did more of a fundamentals program; we didn’t spend any time on a computer—it was color theory and that sort of thing—and you come out of that with a portfolio and you go through another review for them to see if they’ll let you graduate. It was pretty tough, and I’m really glad that [it was], because it teaches you discipline. A lot of people think that as an artist you don’t need to have that, but you really do, especially if you want to create stuff for yourself.”
As the senior art director at Un/common advertising agency, Witzke taps into her creativity on the daily by serving the greater community through television and print ad campaigns for local governments, state administrations, as well as in the private sector.
“I started [at Un/common] about seven years ago,” she explains. “I started as a designer and have moved my way up to art director. There’s definitely a lot of creative freedom that we have, and it’s fun to explore different areas of other people’s business and trying to come up with creative solutions for a lot of public issues.”
My Type of Town—Sacramento is! Midtown to Downtown tote
Drawing on the vibe of other projects that celebrate neighborhoods in other cities like New York and Paris, Witzke’s black-and-white graphic map homage to Sacramento sprung to life during the course of her wedding planning (in December 2017 to fellow graphic designer Jason Malmberg) when she snuck in time over the course of several long nights spent visualizing and contemplating how best to articulate the diversity within the confines of the River City.
For the Neighborhoods of Sacramento project, while each neighborhood’s moniker leaps to life with a nod to a vintage vibe, the work is thoroughly modern, as each neighborhood is confined to the borders on the official city map—the creativity in fitting in each neighborhood was an exercise in patience and ingenuity. Letters are stretched and fit snugly within the framework of each boundary, evoking an urban feel, fitting for a celebration of the grid and all of Sacramento’s outlying communities.
Initially, the project was offered as a limited-edition run of signed, 18-by-24-inch screen-printed posters, but when the maps leapt off the shelves and quickly sold out with its first run at the ShopCuffs boutique in Midtown and Kicksville Vinyl and Vintage in the WAL Public Market, Witzke was approached by Archival Gallery to show at the space with her Sacto tribute.
The Grid Kid T-shirt
As Witzke looks forward to taking on new projects that boast the unique and diverse community she’s proud to call home, she cites her extensive research on the many communities in the area as that “aha” moment that brought everything together in the Neighborhoods project.
“I’ve been learning a lot about the city, and I’m very proud of our city,” Witzke says. “And it’s nice to see other people now appreciating it like I have for so long. That’s where it started, and it’s continued to grow, and I’m trying to think of other ways to express the amazing diversity and the awesomeness of our city.”
Left My Heart in Sacramento limited edition screenprinted poster
Keep up with Amber Witzke online at Facebook.com/shopamberwitzke, on Instagram @missamberw or on her website, Amberwitzke.com. You can purchase her limited edition screen prints, totes and pins at Amber-witzke.myshopify.com. For her T-shirts and other merch, go to Redbubble.com/people/missamberw. You can also check out Witzke’s work at Archival Gallery (3223 Folsom Blvd., Sacramento) through the end of September.
**This piece first appeared in print on pages 26 – 27 of issue #274 (Sept. 12 – 26, 2018)**
It’s been five years since Bastille released their debut album, Bad Blood, featuring the hit single “Pompeii,” which propelled them to international indie rock stardom. After all this time, it’s still my go-to shower sing-along jam. I get real into it, too. It’s got pretty much everything I love about music: its lyrics are stirring and evoke not only the doomed city of antiquity for which it takes its name, but also themes of death and rebirth, and it’s catchy and upbeat enough that it doesn’t bum me out, even as Bastille’s chief songwriter muses, “How am I gonna be an optimist about this?” It’s either happy about being sad or sad about being happy or I don’t know. I just really dig it. And obviously, I wasn’t the only one.
However, it’s success was a bit of a surprise to the members of the band, according to drummer Chris “Woody” Wood.
“We thought it was good, but we never thought it was going to be as big as it was,” he said. “We always thought the song called ‘Flaws’ was going to be the biggest song.
“Everyone after the fact always claims that they knew it all along,” Wood went on to say. “But it was our booking agent who called it. Everyone else, they’re all lying, basically. Rewriting history.”
In the time since, Bastille continued their successful trajectory. Their sophomore effort, 2016’s Wild World, snagged Best Album at the 2017 NME Awards. And Bastille wasted little time to get back into the studio. They’re already poised to release a third album, Doom Days, at a date yet to be determined as of the writing of this article. This summer, the U.K.-based band gave fans a taste of what to expect when they released the first single from the album, “Quarter Past Midnight.” Spoiler alert: It’s totally shower sing-along worthy.
We spoke with Wood a few days before he and the band were set to play Dcode Festival in Madrid alongside Imagine Dragons. Bastille will come to the United States for a short string of dates including the City of Trees Festival right here in Sacramento. Wood filled us in on what he and the band were up to this summer (when he wasn’t watching England’s matches in the World Cup) and told us how he became a “second album wanker,” but first, we took a brief political interlude.
You’re playing Dcode festival in Madrid in a few days. Are you in Spain now, or are you at home?
Currently we’re at home, putting finishing touches on the album at the minute. We’re going to be flying out on Sunday to Madrid. The good thing about Europe is that everything is like two hours away from each other … It’s all very convenient, that is until Brexit hits, and then we’ll all be living in mudhuts.
Are you worried about how Brexit is going to affect your livelihood?
No one knows. It’s criminal really … A bunch of grumpy old people voted to leave and all the youngsters wanted to stay. We’re quite fond of freedom of movement. I’m married to a German … But a bunch of grumpy old racists decided we should leave …
Here in America we’ve got our hands full with grumpy old racists, too …
Right, right. There are a lot of parallels there.
Summer is festival season. How has it been working on the album, having to go back and forth?
It’s actually been alright. Festival season is my favorite time of year to be in a band. It’s kind of like being in summer camp, where you go and see your friends over the weekend … The schedule for us hasn’t been too grueling—not quiet, but we’ve kind of pulled back a little bit, because we wanted to get things done with the album, and then we’ll hit things pretty hard next year. We’ve just been booking small tours and bigger festivals. Just keeping the engines warm for a bit.
You said the festivals were like summer camp. The Dcode Festival has a great lineup, and when you come to Sacramento for the City of Trees Festival, you’ll be playing with Odesza and Chvrches. Do you get a chance to check out the other bands at festivals?
We always try and do that … Dcode festival will be the first time ever we’re on the same bill as Imagine Dragons, and they’re friends of ours. We’ve kind of tread a similar path. After many years of touring, we’ll actually be able to see the boys play in person. We always try to check out other acts and see what’s going on, because if you’re not careful, you can get into your little bubble. You’ve got to keep up with what’s going on around you.
Do you ever hear or see a band doing something that’s maybe outside the box for what you do with Bastille and want to incorporate it into what you’re doing?
Maybe accidentally. We don’t try to steal things on purpose … I guess subconsciously you see certain tricks, like Imagine Dragons, by complete accident, we both ended up having a shitload of drums on stage. That was by no design. It just kind of happened. I think everyone’s influenced, whether it’s consciously or subconsciously, I suppose.
I saw a live clip posted on YouTube of your band performing “Quarter Past Midnight” at Royal Albert Hall with a full orchestra and chorus. Will you be bringing any of that over to the States?
I would love that so much. That tour was a passion project more than a money project. There was a lot of bodies on stage. We were really fortunate that a really talented friend of ours, a trumpet player for Public Service Broadcasting, Johnny [JF] Abraham, helped us re-orchestrate all the songs and reimagine them … It’s something we talked about for ages, but we had this quiet period in-between albums, and it was like, this would be a good time to do it. We only managed to do eight dates. Never say never, but it would take a lot to get all that over there [laughs].
It was cool to hear that, because the song sounded so full and rich, but there’s also a performance of “Pompeii” where you performed acoustically in a park with just a small ring of people around you, and the songs translated well in both settings. Which kind of performance speaks to you the most, the big crowd or more intimate settings?
You’re asking the most biased person, because I’m the drummer, the attention seeker, and I like really, really loud shit. Will [Farquarson], our guitarist, he wouldn’t mind it if it’s stripped down a bit, but I’d just kind of clap or click fingers in the background because I play drums.
I saw the rainbow Natal kit you posted on your Twitter feed. Before you were talking about having a lot of drums on stage, do you think there’s such a thing as too many drums?
Yeah, there is. During the first album, my kit was much smaller than it is now. I told myself that I’m not going to be that second album wanker who gets a drum kit that all of a sudden has 25 million bits of kit to set up just because someone else is doing it for him. But as the second album finished, I was like, “Oh shit, I have to grab this for this song, and this thing here,” and then by the end of it, I was like, “Aw, I’m that second album wanker! Fuck!” … There are a couple of songs where I come off the drum kit and come down to the front, and there’s an upside-down bass drum and an electronic pad and [I] perform some of the more electronic songs that way.
Bastille will play this year’s City of Trees Festival at Papa Murphy’s Park at Cal Expo in Sacramento on Sept. 22, 2018. Also on the bill will be Odesza, Chvrches, Blue October, Arden Park Roots, Dirty Heads and others. Check out Cityoftrees.com for a full lineup and to order tickets.
**This piece first appeared in print on pages 14 – 15 of issue #274 (Sept. 12 – 26, 2018)**
On the day of his phenomenal recent show in Sacramento, former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne posted the following message on Facebook: “Sacramento! I’ll be playing the Sacramento Community Center Theater tonight, and while I’m in town, I’d love to hear your Reasons To Be Cheerful.”
Byrne cited an increase in student housing near Sac State that will reduce commutes and issues with traffic and parking. He asked for local initiatives in climate, science and transportation and stories of civic engagement and local culture that make people smile.
The legendary artist was reaching out for reasons to be positive in spite of the political strife and environmental erosion that is happening all around us. That’s been an ongoing theme of his American Utopia tour. Mind you, this was on the same day that the news of the Michael Cohen guilty plea and Paul Manafort conviction broke and were clogging most news feeds.
Locals responded to Byrne’s post enthusiastically, sharing the recent civic artistic success of the Wide Open Walls mural project. Others posted about the city’s farm-to-fork prowess. However, the most common responses involved Sacramento’s strong bicycle culture with mentions of our own beautiful bike trails, Bike Party group rides and the ease of bicycle commuting.
It’s safe to say this may have resounded with Byrne, who has been a big advocate of biking in New York City for the last 30 years. About 10 years ago he began designing artistic, functional bike racks around Brooklyn and Manhattan and has since presided on commissions giving other artists the opportunity to spread more works around the Big Apple.
David Byrne
Byrne is a true renaissance man. He’s also a restless genius. He’s an author, has worked in TV, film, art, theater and has played or produced music in numerous artist collaborations. He recently released American Utopia, which is his first solo album in 14 years.
Byrne and Brian Eno, who co-wrote most of American Utopia, aren’t afraid to change things up and challenge concert norms. The record touches on the ills of the world around us, but pushes back against the rampant cynicism with which most respond to it.
The show’s staging, according to Byrne, was in part inspired by Chance the Rapper and Kendrick Lamar and what those two have done with the aesthetic of their recent live sets.
The resulting tour has been Byrne’s most ambitious production since the legendary Talking Heads Stop Making Sense Tour in the mid-1980s. The American Utopia Tour is big, but it’s also uniquely scaled down with a theatrical feel. There is nothing on stage. No amplifiers. No music stands. No risers. No keyboards. Nothing. Just the mostly barefoot musicians and their wireless instruments hanging from their torsos.
The stage was framed like an empty black box with beaded LED lights hanging to create the shape. Each song had a different feel. Byrne would walk to the side of the stage and an arm would hand him a guitar. A single, head-high light on a lamp stand was brought to the middle of the stage for one song, while a single floor light was placed at the front of the stage for another, creating giant shadows of Byrne, then the other band members as they moved near him.
It was an amazing achievement of sparseness, movement, light and beauty.
The setlist for this show was a seamless blend of old and new that showed us an amazing imaginative performance from the 66-year-old visionary. A dozen musicians—six drummers, a bassist, a guitarist, a keyboardist and three vocalists—all shared the stage with constant movement and flawless choreography that flowed smoothly between marches, ballet and jazzy improvisation with touches of hip-hop.
Watching a man of Byrne’s years throw himself into these songs with such agility and grace while singing and often playing guitar was quite an inspiring feat of endurance, especially since he was among a cadre of incredible musicians and dancers, many of whom were likely half his age. Byrne moved with verve and glided along the floor effortlessly while all of the chaotic and beautiful choreography unfolded around him. He did an epic backbend at one point and later rolled down to the ground and back up again with a light snap.
The pace was lively all night as Byrne led the group through a setlist that mixed reinterpretations of Talking Heads classics with the provocative new material and a smattering of solo work. The crowd was dancing hard throughout all of the uptempo numbers and taking it all in during the slower tunes.
The band ended an 18-song set with a smokin’ rendition of “Burning Down the House” and exited the stage briefly before reappearing and jumping into “Here Lies Love.” This was a song from the rock opera that Byrne co-authored with Fatboy Slim. The quirky opera follows the life of former first lady of the Philippines, Imelda Marcos, and the song reignited the dance party for the Community Center crowd. The band followed this with a rocking version of the Talking Heads song “The Great Curve,” and exited the stage once more.
Byrne and company reemerged once again to finish with Janelle Monae’s stirring 2015 protest song “Hell You Talmbout,” a call to never forget recent black and brown victims of police brutality. “Sadly it’s still relevant today, and with her blessing we’ve continued to update it,” said Byrne.
Ibeyi
Byrne, his bandmates, and the members of Ibeyi, the fantastic opening duo, reminded the audience of each victim by chanting their names in a call and response with the audience. This had quite an emotional impact, rewiring the feeling at the end of the show to one of urgency. When Byrne repeatedly called out Stephon Clark’s name near the end of the song, the audience roared it back to the urgent beat of the drums. It was a reawakening of consciousness at the end of an evening of joyous and playful music.
Walking into the night afterward, concertgoers exuberantly reminisced about the weaving marching dancers, beautiful stage production and social awareness of this thought-provoking performance. All of these were reasons to be cheerful about the brilliance of Byrne and the open hearted way in which he had just shared with us.
Ibeyi
**This piece first appeared in print on page 13 of issue #273 (Aug. 29 – Sept. 12, 2018)**
From the Railroad Museum to the now-defunct Sacramento Jazz Jubilee (RIP), Old Sac has always been a great place to get in touch with some good old-fashioned Americana. But at this point, what’s more classically Californian than doing yoga in spaces no one ever thought to do yoga in? Starting Aug. 13, the Yoga Seed Collective will be holding a free series under the canopy on J Street on the embarcadero. Sacramento’s only nonprofit yoga studio, Yoga Seed, provides trauma-informed mindfulness services to our area’s at-risk and underserved populations, so now’s your chance to nab a free session with a teacher who genuinely cares about your well-being. And, as an added bonus, they assume no skill level, meaning that kids and the (much more inflexible) young at heart can attend worry free. Monday sessions begin at noon, so if it’s looking like a scorcher, you may want to wake up early for their 6:30 a.m. session on Wednesdays. And, since you drove all the way down to Old Sac just for some exercise, why not treat yourself to that famous by-the-barrel saltwater taffy from one of the district’s seven competing candy shops? It may ruin all the work you just did, but we think it’s worth it. Visit their page at Facebook.com/OldSacramento for more info.
**This write-up first appeared in print on page 9 of issue #272 (Aug. 15 – 29, 2018)**
Motorcycles. When you’re young, your mom tells you they’re unsafe, and when you’re older, you’re afraid that buying one will mean people will think you’re getting an early start to your midlife crisis. But whether or not you’ve managed to overcome the biking double-bind, the sixth annual FXR’s of California Grudge Fest on Aug. 18 is sure to be a good time to indulge in some cycle envy. The event focuses on FXR bikes (one of Harley-Davidson’s form factors) and will include grudge racing (essentially just on-track street racing), as well as a wheelie contest. There’s also several professionally staged events, like stunt shows by nationally touring groups like the Out Here Crew and the Jason Pullen Stunts Team. Off the track, there’s going to be a bike show hosted by Hot Bike magazine for more general hog-ogling purposes, as well as a vendor area where they’ll be hawking a variety of accessories both bike-related and not (including tattoos, if you feel like you need to commemorate the occasion). Don’t worry, there will also be food and drink available. This year, Grudge Fest is going to be held at the Capitol City’s premier drag-racing spot, the Sacramento Raceway Park (5305 Excelsior Road). You can get more info online at Facebook.com/annualfxrrun.
**This write-up first appeared in print on page 8 of issue #272 (Aug. 15 – 29, 2018)**
Listening to Ordinary Corrupt Human Love on a packed light rail car, scraping along through the wreckage of the workweek under the full weight of afternoon midsummer heat, in close quarters with inscrutable humanity—anonymous lives in the thick of their separate mortal coils—might be the ideal context in which to slip into the most recent offering by Deafheaven. Eschewing the frozen wastes and infernal abysses of metal hyperbole, and mostly foregoing the introspective dread and purgation of the band’s previous albums Sunbather and New Bermuda, Ordinary Corrupt Human Love allows breathing room in which to enjoy Deafheaven’s ever more sophisticated sonics and passages of understated beauty in between the cinematic, pulse-pounding peaks. Such moments still abound, but a new focus on earthbound visions and the beauty in day-to-day existence has altered the emotional timbre this time around.
If this is a wistful look back, then it is well-earned, and perhaps the first opportunity they’ve had to do so in the seven breathless years since their debut, Roads to Judah, was released. The shadows of their twenties grow long. After breaking out of Modesto, a decade of hard party life and turmoil ensued as they ventured from San Francisco to Los Angeles, their stars rising almost immediately. Early commercial success and critical hype supplied by tastemaking blogs and publications unleashed a wave of interest in indie circles and an equally thunderous wave of spite among black metal genre cultists more concerned with face paint and cover art than great production, technical chops and originality. The comment-section-level discourse, once fierce, has since died down, blown away with the chaff by a continuous gust of quality releases and a determination to follow their instincts into whatever stylistic territory they may lead.
Ordinary Corrupt Human Love begins with a subdued spoken word piece describing a flock of geese passing overhead in the Oakland dusk. Even during the flintiest moments that come afterward, the main current of the album is a collection of fragmented observations of poetic happenstance amidst natural and intimately human surroundings. It feels quintessentially Californian in some sense, the feeling of perfection escaping in the corner of one’s eye, a consistently frustrated yearning for utopia, an unrequited romance with life in a nonexistent universe, and the stark specter of reality coming into full bloom while tugged at on all sides by the perpetual call of the dream. It ranges from blazing on “Honeycomb” to haunting on the Chelsea Wolfe duet “Night People,” both tendencies converging on the beautiful closing track “Worthless Animal.”
However you parse out the influences that have made up their sound, from black metal to post-hardcore and shoegaze, Deafheaven is less “about” any of those styles and more about empathy and reflection, sentiments that today have almost become as extreme as their musical expression, which may play some part in their wider success. The new record is the sound of a band content in its manifestation, calmly embracing the inherent faults of earthbound life.
We had the opportunity for a brief chat with vocalist George Clarke on some of the ideas floating around Deafheaven’s fourth LP ahead of their Sacramento appearance next month alongside the post-industrial wrath of Uniform and the sepulchral grace of Drab Majesty.
Ordinary Corrupt Human Love sounds comparatively subdued and less emotionally raw than the last few records. What took you in this direction?
Basically, for our first three records, they were so heavily introspective that I wanted to get away from that a little bit and start fresh with this album. I consider the first three almost as a trilogy of sorts that summarized our twenties. I found my twenties to be tumultuous in a lot of ways, and I wrote a lot about that. Being 29 now, on my way to 30, it just felt like I needed to mature a little bit, and I needed to not just think about my own personal journey. There was no big catalyst or anything, just a sense of maturity, a sense of growing up; and I wanted this to be a fresh start. It is a bit more outward looking.
The title of the record comes from a line in a novel [The End of the Affair] by Graham Greene. What should that line or the book tell us about the music here?
The book itself doesn’t have anything to do with the record necessarily, but I just came across that passage while reading it, and I felt that those four words summarized what I was trying to say, in terms of appreciating life for what it is—ordinary, and mundane, and that’s cool, it doesn’t need to be anything else. It was a striking combination of words, so I decided to take it. In part I wanted to talk about the lives of people that I observed, I wanted to create a different narrative. I think that people can often feel bogged down by the weight of the world or our current affairs, and I think there’s a lot of negativity that gets pushed around, and I wanted to offer something different, even for a moment, to step back a little bit and see these lives and how they intersect with each other, and how the process of living is in a lot of ways a gift. So yeah, that was the mood for the record. I would say that all the lyrics stem from literally just sitting in a park, or walking around neighborhoods, observing people.
Genre cults, especially within metal, can feel like heavily policed prisons at times. Does it feel like the manufactured controversy about what genre Deafheaven is has finally been left behind?
I‘d like to leave it behind. It’s something that’s been mentioned for a lot of years now, and it very much is a tired conversation. I would rather people just check out what we do and listen without pretense, and if you like it, you like it; and if you don’t, you don’t. But yeah, this idea of metal credibility or that genres can be bastardized, it’s a little played by this point.
I’ve heard there’s been more of a commitment to sobriety in the band in the last six months or so. Did this have an impact on the outlook on Ordinary Corrupt Human Love?
I’d would be lying to call it a “sober” album, because that wasn’t happening during a lot of the writing of it, but certainly during the process and thereafter, I found that in order to continue this, we had to make some changes. When you don’t die at 27, and life continues, and you still want to make music a career, I’ve found that for me it’s a good idea to take a break from the things that come with the lifestyle. And so far it’s been great. Touring has been nice. It hasn’t been a huge, scary adjustment by any means, and I find that we’re all in a very good place.
A big part of listening to Deafheaven is getting a sense of purgation—of negative energy and inward torment. Is this fundamental to your creative process, and does it still play a part on the new record?
Every album is very emotionally driven. I think it’s our intent to make emotional music, so every record does deal with catharsis and purging, but certainly the first three were heavier on that end. I consider this to be our celebration record; the “we survived, and are somehow thriving” kind of record. That’s really the mindset where we’re at now.
I found the lyrics on “Worthless Animal” to be the most puzzling and compelling. Is there a story behind it?
Long story short, I saw a homeless man being attacked in Downtown L.A. for holding up traffic. A man got out of his car and accosted him for no reason. This guy was clearly mentally unstable, and I felt this rush of emotion about it, a helplessness and confusion as to why this man was being treated with cruelty, and I wanted to compare him to a deer, eating flowers. I wrote a good bit of it in my car that day, but the track is meant to emphasize empathy and remind people to be good to one another.
Eight years in, would you send back any advice for yourself or the band at the start of your career?
Just enjoy it, and keep going. I wouldn’t change anything. We’ve had a really great run. We’re really lucky and fortunate to be able to do what we do, and I’ve had a lot of fun throughout the years. I would just tell myself to always remember to enjoy it.
With the band’s ability to draw crowds from inside and outside the metal crowd, how would you recommend your live set to newcomers?
I would just tell people that what we offer is an honest show, and one that has a heavy emphasis on emotion, but it’s also fun and loud. There’s speed and heaviness, and they should hopefully just take it in. It’s an experience, and I hope that’s what we can create for them.
Deafheaven will perform live in Sacramento on Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2018, at Goldfield Trading Post (1630 J St.) at 7 p.m. Also on the bill are Uniform and Drab Majesty. For more info and to buy tickets, go to Goldfieldtradingpost.com.
**This piece first appeared in print on pages 14 – 15 of issue #271 (Aug. 1 – 15, 2018)**
Whether or not the name Shepard Fairey automatically conjures images of pop culture subversion, punk rock idolatry or street-art politics is irrelevant at this point. The 48-year-old artist is responsible for some of the most iconic imagery to have ever befouled the sacred real estate of public spaces in the last 28 years—from the salad days naïveté of an “Andre the Giant Has a Posse” guerilla stickering campaign throughout the Northeastern United States in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, to an uncommissioned but extremely powerful presidential campaign poster for then-candidate Barack Obama with the simple message of “Hope” emblazoned beneath his image later on, Fairey’s work has possessed the kind of omnipresence that few artists in history have achieved. His has been a life inspired first by reclaiming public spaces with his artwork (rather than continuing to be inundated by corporate advertising), then marveling in the stoking of conversations raised by the imagery he’s introduced—a “vocabulary of motifs,” as he puts it, that at once are recognizably his, but which afterward have become the centerpoint of international protests, provocation, even lawsuits.
That Fairey has been arrested some 18 times for distributing his artwork is perhaps the greatest indicator of its power, though he admits that he relishes the benefits of no longer having to be quite so anonymous, or quite so secretive.
“I enjoyed the freedom of anonymity when I started, but I also didn’t enjoy the poverty,” Fairey explained to Submerge. “Having the opportunity to make art without worrying whether or not I was gonna survive, that took 10 years for me to get to. Even though I loved walking around New York City putting up a poster, walking another 20 feet and being able to hear people discuss the poster that just went up without having any idea I did it and getting that eavesdrop, then there was the other part of my day where I was putting my last two bucks toward a burrito [laughs]. My spirit, in terms of speaking my mind and taking risks, is the same it’s always been.”
That spirit will be in full force during the Wide Open Walls muraling event taking place in Sacramento from Aug. 9–19, when Fairey headlines a stacked list of artists all doing their part to take back the streets. Fairey will be creating a giant mural of Johnny Cash on the L Street side of the Residence Inn by Marriott, with Cash’s gaze cast in the direction of Folsom Prison. Fairey talked about his contribution to Wide Open Walls and more with Submerge recently.
Mujer Fatale | 2007
You’ve discussed in interviews and in your documentary about the aesthetic of old punk flyering and how that whole way of promotion inspired your artwork …
I think one of the things that was crucial to the underground incubation of American hardcore in the early ‘80s was that people needed each other because there was no broader support system; everybody was figuring out ways to share information about venues they could tour and sharing other resources like small indie labels. The internet has meant that everybody’s one viral hit away from a breakthrough, so it doesn’t encourage the camaraderie in the same way. I’m generalizing, because I think that camaraderie is always going to exist, but I feel lucky in a lot of ways growing up in South Carolina where there was absolutely no way of looking at being into punk rock other than completely underground or being an outsider—that kept my expectations for that like “this is not going to be something that’s going to be a career move or lead to anything with social potential. This is purely about my love for this stuff.” The moment you accept that and you’re happy with it, you won’t be disappointed that you’re going to subsist in the margins. That’s how I felt about street art. My love of punk rock and skateboarding being very outsider things made it easy for me to transition into the squalor of a life as a street artist, which somehow miraculously became something I could live off of, eventually. I didn’t have that expectation. It makes doing the work and enjoying the process without hopes for great rewards a thing you’re OK with, and I think that’s beneficial for perseverance.
Punk subculture at the time was a controversial scene. Your career in art, with guerilla installations and marketing, was also controversial in the beginning. Do you think that approaching your art in that way was helpful for you in terms of your career ascendency?
The people I was inspired by were largely people who were provocateurs: Raymond Pettibon and his art for Black Flag, Jamie Reid’s art for the Sex Pistols or Winston Smith’s art for the Dead Kennedys. Then I discovered a street artist in L.A. named Robbie Conal when I was 17 as a senior in high school—I did a year of art boarding school in California—and Robbie Conal was making these unflattering portraits of Ronald Reagan that said “Contra” above and “Diction” below, and it was during the Iran-Contra-gate. Of course, the Dead Kennedys had been very critical of Reagan, so I was already primed to see Reagan as a villain. Seeing these posters around, which were unflattering but well-painted, with a clever bit of typography, good design and were put up in the streets where they were in everyone’s face, to me that was like punk rock art. It was a step further than punk rock art in the sense that a lot of the punk rock art I already liked was stuff done specifically for flyers or album covers, and maybe the flyers ended up on the street. But this was punk rock in that it was political. Putting up big 24-by-36-inch posters on electrical boxes all over downtown L.A., that’s a strong statement and an act of defiance, and I connected with that. It was the punk rock spirit of critiquing all the dominant systems and subverting things and then mixed with me discovering people like Barbara Kruger and Robbie Conal who were visual artists doing things in public spaces with political content. For me, the thrill of going out and putting work on the street, it felt liberating. I love mischief, and I love the idea of snapping people out of the trance of repetition or accepting that you will be a spectator on the sidelines while these commercial entities put up whatever they want and the government does whatever signage they want, like it’s a one-way conversation. I was like, “Oh, no it isn’t!” It’s a two-way conversation now.
Peace Waratah Mural | Sydney, 2017 | Photo by Jon Furlong
How has that evolved? What is the balance now for your work that is sort of delivered between the more mischievous, non-commissioned street art and guerilla campaigns and the illegality of that, into now having more commissioned art projects and being given permission?
The thing that was most important to me was not just my enjoyment of mischief, but the idea that public space would showcase more than just advertising, government signage and commercial signage. It was a very gradual process for me to be given sanctioned spaces. It all was a result of me doing stuff without permission on the street. First it was people who had hip boutiques or skate shops who were like, “Yeah man, I saw your stuff on the abandoned building. Can you do something on the side of my business?” I was psyched to get those things, and some of the offers started getting bigger and bigger. The important thing to me was not whether what I was doing was legal or illegal, it was whether it was creating conversations that wouldn’t happen otherwise.
Mural to be painted on Residence Inn by Marriott during Wide Open Walls | Photo courtesy Obey Giant Art and Wide Open Walls
Getting back to the sanctioned work, for the Wide Open Walls event in Sacramento, I’m guessing the Folsom Prison connection was what made you land on the Johnny Cash piece?
Yeah, exactly. I did a project right before the 2016 election called American Civics—it was a collaboration with the Jim Marshall estate. Jim Marshall shot the Johnny Cash Live at Folsom Prison cover, but he also shot a lot of stuff around social and political issues. That series dealt with voting rights, workers’ rights, gun culture and incarceration reform. I love Johnny Cash, but I also wanted to be able to do something that talked about the need for incarceration reform, and part of the proceeds from that print as part of American Civics go to #cut50, which is an incarceration reform organization. There are still some of the prints left, large format prints and they’re pretty expensive. So doing this mural is not just a mural I wanted to do because I love the subject, but because it’s an opportunity for me to restart that conversation around incarceration reform and to point people toward the prints. It’s cool to do something in Sacramento that creates a conversation around Folsom. All those things combined were what motivated it.
Any additional info you wanted people to know about your involvement with Wide Open Walls?
The wall is on the Residence Inn in downtown Sacramento, and How and Nosm have the other side of the wall, and I’m a big fan and excited to have another wall with them. We share two sides of a really big building in Detroit, which is I think the biggest mural they’ve done and the biggest mural I’ve done. This one [in Sacramento] will be the second or third biggest I’ve done. I think it’s about the same size as one I did in Sydney—a 15-story one a couple years ago. It’s a lot of elbow grease, very labor intensive. I think unless we encounter really bad weather, we’ll be fine.
Welcome Home Mural | Costa Mesa, 2017 | Photo by Jon Furlong
Highly doubtful about that bad weather, which is great for your opportunity to see Shepard Fairey’s mural come to life at the Residence Inn by Marriott, 1121 15th St. in downtown Sacramento on the L Street side. Wide Open Walls brings amazing artists from all over the world Aug. 9–19, 2018. For a comprehensive list of events and artists, visit Wideopenwalls.org. For more information on Shepard Fairey’s work, visit Obeygiant.com.
**This piece first appeared in print on pages 18 – 19 of issue #271 (Aug. 1 – 15, 2018)**
Nestled in a tree-covered neighborhood in downtown Sacramento, across the street from the Curry Club Indian restaurant, you’ll find Toasted, a new grab-and-go breakfast and lunch option that state workers and neighborhood residents have been flocking to. This new kid on the block offers … well, toast of course. However, not just any toast—thick slabs of toast.
“Our bread is locally sourced from Bella Bru Bakery,” said Toasted’s owner Nubia Murillo. “We use thick cut bread that’s delivered fresh daily, so you get your bang for your buck. I wanted something thick and wholesome; if you’re paying $7 for toast, you’re going to get your money’s worth. We also really load them up with toppings.”
Toasted’s toppings range from seasonal fruit like dates and strawberries, to sweet-tooth-satisfying hazelnut spread and honey, to savory options like sundried tomato pesto, smoked salmon and gorgonzola cheese.
Though Toasted is new to the neighborhood, Murillo isn’t. She has owned Toasted’s next door neighbor Cap City Squeeze Juice Bar for four years. Both businesses are identical in size and share a wall that’s begging to be knocked down so toast and juice can be passed from side to side freely. Unfortunately, Murillo is unable to alter the building, but she has been creative when it comes to the space she has.
Photo by Nubia Murillo
“The spaces are small. They’re about 220 square feet,” Murillo continued. “I kind of designed both locations the same way as far as how the kitchen functions.”
This is one of the reasons Murillo’s businesses are so complementary. While ordering my variety pack of toast, I could hear the sounds of fresh fruits and vegetables being juiced. I’m sure those who are ordering juice were being equally enticed by the smell of freshly toasted bread being slathered with hazelnut spread and honey. There was no way I was leaving without experiencing both.
Photo by Ronnie Cline
I ordered three different toasts at Toasted and found the portions to be more than enough for three separate satisfying meals. First up was the Southwest Chipotle Toast, which featured sliced avocado, chipotle pesto, sliced tomatoes, cilantro, cotija cheese and sriracha sauce on top of a thick slice of whole grain toast. Consistent with the other two choices I made, this toast was bordering on the size of an open-faced sandwich, which was more than generous at the $7 price point. Though, inspired by some of the photos I saw on Instagram earlier in the day, I opted to add a poached egg to this order for only a buck and it did not disappoint. With one gentle slice, I slowly cut into the egg, and out poured the saucy yolk, which cascaded over the cotija cheese and down the avocado slices with purpose. It was a thing of beauty.
After reluctantly pacing myself and not devouring all of the Southwest Chipotle Toast, I turned my attention to the Salmon Lox Toast. With the classic combination of lox and cream cheese, this toast comes with the promise of traditional flavors, but at $9, it also comes with expectations. In place of a bagel sits a generous slice of French bread topped with cream cheese, arugula, sliced tomato, purple onion, sea salt and pepper. As soon as you lay eyes on this modern interpretation of an East Coast favorite, you instantly know you made the right choice. The salmon was piled on liberally, which I found comforting, and the peppery arugula added that bite to balance out the cream cheese.
This could easily become my Saturday morning go-to breakfast.
Photo by Ronnie Cline
I know the focus of this piece is on toast, but I could not resist a fresh juice from Cap City Squeeze Juice Bar, which I consider the older sibling of Toasted. After all, before Toasted was a twinkle in Murillo’s eye, she was making juice at Cap City Squeeze. And honestly, I can’t imagine going to one and not the other after I discovered the Volcano. This simple but addictive drink is packed with fresh carrots, orange juice, ginger and cayenne pepper (ask for a fresh squeezed lemon to be added for that extra zip).
After two savory toasts, I decided to switch it up with something on the sweeter side. There were so many great options, like the Berry Not-tella Toast (hazelnut spread, blueberries, strawberries, sliced almonds, honey and coconut flakes on honey wheat toast) and the Chunky Monkey Toast (peanut butter, bananas, chocolate chips, coconut flakes, honey and cinnamon on honey wheat toast), but I decided on the Pear-fect Date Toast. This sweet and savory treat was a slice of whole grain toast topped with almond butter, sliced pear, chopped dates, gorgonzola cheese, honey and cinnamon. I was surprised how well all of the ingredients worked together. The cinnamon played off the almond butter and the gorgonzola complemented the pear and dates. Another winner from Toasted!
From their seasonal menu that features three savory and three sweet signature toasts, to the build-your-own menu, everything at Toasted is customizable, so don’t be scared to get a little wild with your order. From the presentation, to the service, to the generous portions, Toasted exceeded my expectations and I cannot wait to go back. There are a few tables in front of Toasted and Cap City Squeeze where you can enjoy your meal, but I would suggest getting it to-go and heading over to the State Capitol Park, which is less than a five-minute walk away.
Photo by Ronnie Cline
Get your toast on! Toasted (1424 14th St., Sacramento) is open Monday – Friday from 8 a.m. – 3 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. – 3 p.m. For more info, visit Toastedsac.com.
**This article first appeared in print on pages 24 – 25 of issue #270 (July 18 – Aug. 1, 2018)**
Devin Dawson has had a charmed career in music thus far. Back in December 2014, Dawson was attending Belmont College in Nashville when he and fellow student Louisa Wendorff posted their mashup of Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space” and “Style” on YouTube. It featured the two artists standing back to back near the bend in a tree-lined road. Simple and beautifully harmonic, Dawson and Wendorff easily made these songs seem like their own. The video quickly began turning heads, including Taylor Swift herself, who tweeted out the link to her followers just four days later.
“We just did it because we were having fun, and we had something special that we wanted to share,” Dawson said of the video, which now has well over 35 million views. “We didn’t expect any of that. I’m thankful for her and the way she puts up new artists and sticks her neck out for things she believes in. I’m grateful to have been one of those things. It gave me the confidence to keep stepping forward as an artist.”
Though Dawson came into his own as a student in Nashville, where many country artists go to pursue their careers in music, his roots are in the Sacramento area. Hailing from Orangevale, Dawson attended Casa Roble High School and was part of the metal band Shadow of the Colossus for a few years before he hit his early twenties and decided on a new course.
“I wasn’t as fulfilled with that music or that genre,” Dawson said. “It was fun. I loved it, and I wouldn’t change it for the world. I started to write other songs that took over my heart.”
As it turns out, following his heart has worked out rather well for Dawson. His debut album, Dark Horse, was released in January 2018 on Warner Music Nashville. He’s also graced the hallowed stage of the Grand Ole Opry and now finds himself on the road with country music legends Tim McGraw and Faith Hill.
When Submerge caught up to Dawson, he and his bandmates (Kip Allen on drums, guitarists Austin Taylor Smith and Nick DiMaria and bassist Sam Rodberg, all of whom appear on Dark Horse) were nearing Seattle for a half-day off. We asked him about his burgeoning career, its fortuitous start and about how he and his band’s raw, intimate sound plays in large arenas. But first, of course, we had to get a little nerdy …
Your metal band, Shadow of the Colossus, was that name taken from the video game?
Yeah man, props to you. We would always play that as kids, and we said, “That’s a really metal band name. We should change our names to that.” So we just did.
It’s strange because it’s such a peaceful game.
It is, but it’s also kind of Middle Earth. The subject matter is pretty metal.
Where did you meet the other guys in the band?
We met in college. We all went to Belmont University together. Pretty much most of us met on the first day. A lot of us were in the same dorm together freshman year. We’ve just been jamming ever since.
Belmont College is where you met your bandmates, and it’s also where you met Louisa, with whom you shot that YouTube video that sort of propelled your career forward. Was it an artsy campus?
It’s a really small school. It’s kind of landlocked in a way. It’s a gorgeous campus. There are old historic buildings, and then there’s new buildings. It’s small compared to Vanderbilt, which is out there, too, and it’s a huge, huge campus, which really didn’t appeal to me. Belmont is mostly known as a business school, but they also offer performance, composition, songwriting, which is what I did. I think it’s more about the community of people you meet there, who are just as crazy as you are to be pursuing music for a living. It’s just the kind of incubation period of four years of getting to do it, or the excuse to do it, whatever that means. I met so many of my crew at Belmont, and I had so many opportunities through that school. It’s easier to get integrated into the community in Nashville when you’re going to school as opposed to being somebody who’s moving there and going to bars and meeting people on the street. It’s not as easy to get integrated that way. People aren’t going to want to take you to coffee if you’re just some random person, but if you say, like, “Hey, I’m a student, and I heard you speak the other day. I want to take you to coffee,” they’re like, “Yeah, let’s do it.”
I read in a People Magazine article about you that when you moved to Nashville, you were hoping to focus on songwriting for other artists. Was the mashup video you posted with Louisa the big turning point for you?
Yeah, I’m still writing and that’s still the main focus of mine. I write music every day, but there was this other part of me that wanted to be on stage and share my story and help people through that, but I wanted it to be on my own terms. I had so many people pushing me to do it, but I was like, “Nah, I’m going to keep writing songs and see what happens.” But like I said, the video gave me confidence to say like, OK, somebody likes what I’m doing as an artist in one way or another, so maybe I should pursue this full time. And it gave me the opportunity to say what I wanted to do. I had all these options and opportunities coming from it, and it was like, I can take a jump start in any direction I wanted to go and it was more about figuring out what that was. For me, it was the perfect time to capitalize on the songs I’d written about myself and for myself.
OK, that was the question I was going to ask. I was wondering if the songs on your debut were written generally enough so other people could sing them or if they were more specific about your life and the things you had going on.
Nothing I have on my album was written before the Taylor Swift thing. I tend to skew a little more selfish with my songwriting, just to tell my story. I’m just telling my truth, so at the end of the day, it’s going to be a little more selfish, but I want to tell it in a way that other people can relate to it and put their own story into it. I don’t want to make it so specific to me that someone isn’t going to want to listen to it or sing along, but I’m not going to write something that’s not true. I think it’s important for an artist to play a character sometimes. Not every song has to be exactly about your life, but the ones that are need to be relatable, because a lot of our lives are overlapping. A lot of the things that have happened to me have happened to other people. I think that’s what music is about is realizing that you’re not alone—whether it’s happiness or peril or whatever it is. There’s a song on my album called “Dark Horse,” which is the title track. It’s my story. It’s the things that I believe in, the things that I struggle with. That was a strictly selfish song to tell people who I was, but it’s become this relatable anthem for a lot of different people, when that wasn’t necessarily my goal … It helped me to realize I wasn’t the only one like that, and neither were everyone else. That’s a beautiful thing.
You’re on the road with Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, two of the biggest names in country music. The past couple of years must have been a pretty wild ride so far.
Yeah, dude, it’s freaking awesome. We got to play a couple of shows with them last summer, like four or five … but this summer we’re doing pretty much the whole thing. It’s pretty cool because we already made that introduction, and they’ve become fans of what I do, and they asked us back out. I hung out more with Faith last time, but this time I’ve gotten a little closer with Tim. We’re like playing football, which is crazy. Like you said, they’re superstars. They’re people I grew up listening to … To have that support, again, it keeps giving me this confidence in some way or another I’m doing something right and I should keep going. It’s fucking fun. It’s a blast to be on tour with them. It really is a dream come true.
You’re playing arenas like Golden 1 Center on the tour. Is it daunting to play in such a large space?
I don’t know man, I think I get more nervous with friends and family and intimate smaller things. When I look out, I can’t really see much [laughs], but you definitely feel the energy of that many people. It’s been cool to flex that muscle and get more used to entertaining a crowd that size and what they react to. I think my first reaction was to play louder and be crazier, but the things that make more of an impact in a room like that are the things that are more intimate. When you tell a story to 20,000 people, they don’t expect that. They expect the jumping and screaming, but when you tick it back and make them lean in a little bit, I think that’s become, for me, the more powerful moment.
Check out Devin Dawson live at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento supporting Tim McGraw and Faith Hill on July 22, 2018. Tickets start at $50 and can be purchased through Golden1center.com. For more on Devin Dawson, go to Devindawsonmusic.com. You’ll also be able to catch Dawson live at the Homestead festival at Quarry Park Amphitheater in Rocklin on Aug. 18, 2018. Tickets for Homestead are available at Homesteadca.com.
**This piece first appeared in print on pages 12 – 13 of issue #270 (July 18 – Aug. 1, 2018)**
