Chaos Theory

You never realize how much you don’t like loud motorcycles until you are trying to listen to a recording of an interview you did through a phone speaker. You may find yourself resenting the fact that people need to drive vehicles that are so unnecessarily loud.

Prior to this, I sat down with Barry Crider and Ean Clevenger from NMBRSTTN (Number Station) at House of Hits, relishing in the quiet and climate-controlled environment. Luckily, our bands tend to practice on the same days, so finding them was only a matter of Counting Hallways to the Left.

Clevenger (vocals/keyboard) and Crider (guitar) are growing into the band as a new beast after a series of member changes over the past several years. Clevenger has been a mainstay in the Sacramento-area punk scene, touring and playing in bands for nigh on 20 years, most notably in local bands Dance for Destruction and Pipedown.

The band has been busy; just finishing a new music video, acquiring management and securing a spot in Eugene, Oregon-based label Flossless Audio’s catalog of releases. On the heels of releasing a new EP entitled Energy and Entropy, the band is embarking upon a West Coast tour this week.

This new release rides dark and heavy with definite nods in a dark-wave direction. Fans of Haunted Horses, Have a Nice Life and even earlier AFI may find something remarkable in Energy and Entropy. Clevenger tends to paint a dystopian lyrical-landscape over endlessly eerie, delay-drenched, fuzz-decayed guitar. The vocal melodies stand in stark, airy contrast to bass lines that rattle and clamor over steady-smashing snare hits and bright synth swells. The vocal melodies are catchy and memorable, something I wasn’t expecting really for a dark punk band. It is at once abrasive and pop-oriented.

Admittedly influenced by bands like The Cure and Depeche Mode, Energy and Entropy sits comfortably among other titles on your album shelf by bands like Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine.

The band has seen multiple members come and go, but the current lineup seems to instill confidence and signal a rebirth to both Clevenger and Crider. The new EP is a result of that union. The record was recorded in Rocklin at Earth Tone Studios by recording engineer Pat Hills, also of punk band Bastards of Young.

Ean, in terms of the lyrics, what do you tend to focus on?
Ean Clevenger: When I write the songs, I sort of hone in on the lyrical concept, kind of get a feel for the music, the idea, so it works together.
Barry Crider: Either Ean will come with riffs done or a general chord structure, and I’ll take that and kind of do it in my own way, where it’s using my playing sensibilities, or make it fit kind of like what I hear in my head, or I’ll come with my own riffs and see if we can patch something together, and see how it works with the previous structure we were working on.

Were there any bands specifically that influenced your writing for guitar for this EP?
BC: The big three ‘90s shoegaze bands. I got really into that, and like Catherine Wheel, and I was kind of looking at the way the more modern guys were playing shoegaze. I was listening to Whirr and Deafheaven, and how they use these features like blend and wash, and integrating these chordal structures from bands like The Cure and Depeche Mode with these new ways, for me at least, at playing guitar, that had a lot of influence at how I came at playing parts, but mostly Ean and I did it together.

So you guys, together, kind of create the song structures and bring it to the band?
EC: Yeah, I mean, that’s pretty much how it goes … I would say both of us are on a mostly equal playing platforms.
BC: Yeah we’re still trying to work it out.
EC: However, lyrically, to go back and touch on what you said before, with every project that I do, just the way that I am, I always tend to write stuff that at least creates some sort of awareness whether it’s about ourselves or the way that ourself works its way into a societal variable, or to make people aware of their actions. I mean, this is a really ambiguous way to try to state that my lyrics are philosophical and politically intended. Most of what I’m writing about these days is sort of about making people aware of the effects of technology on our society today, and what negative consequences might come out of that over the next 40 years, 50 years, and how to be conscious how we’re being involved in these worlds where smartphones drive our intelligence rather than us as human beings that sort of deal with each other.

So your band kind of exists on the edge of having a disdain for technology and but definitely relying on its usefulness …
EC: Yeah, I’m not like a primitivist. I don’t think I ever expect us all to reject [technology] entirely … but I think that technology will backtrack. I mean, nature is the great equalizer. It doesn’t matter if you’re the most powerful elite or the poorest person, nature is going to determine what happens to us.
I mean, the power elite, which is really in control of the technology, and how technology is brought into our culture and our society, from now until the future … Technology can be a positive, but we allow the elite to control the technology and input it into a culture in a way that is only profit-seeking; that’s the alarm bell; that’s the canary in the cave, you know? We need to watch out for that, because the rich are aware that nature is the great equalizer, and if they can help find a way for us to keep on ignoring it, they’ll find a way to master it and then master us.

With the exception of your delay pedal, and guitar, what is one piece of gear that you can’t live without?
BC: I would say the fuzz is the most vital piece.

What kind of fuzz are you using?
BC: Right now I’m using this fuzz by Retro Mechanical Labs up in Portland. He’s just this builder that makes these cool fuzzes that look like they came out of the A-bomb era. They have VU meters, and it goes from totally like anywhere on the range from like Big Muff to like full on doom, destruction fuzz that sounds like your speakers are ripping out of your amp, so I picked that up and that’s been my most valuable pedal, that’s the one I touch the most.

What are you guys doing next as a band?
BC: I want to write.
EC: Yeah, full-length time.
BC: I feel like were accessing the vision of what we’re trying to accomplish with this EP, but I feel like with a full LP, we’ll have a chance to really breathe and flesh out what we’re trying to say musically and lyrically I think.
EC: I do too.
BC: It’ll give a chance to really explore, not only texture, and dynamics …
EC: And song compositions. I mean, it really is like we are a new band. Although we’ve been a band for three or four years, we’ve really just completely restarted the band, almost in a way, so we’re almost finding our identity again.

NMBRSTTN are playing an EP release show on July 13, 2015 with Seattle’s Nostalgist, Fifi and Color of Closure at The Press Club. This is a 21-and-over show and will start at 8 p.m. For more info, go to Facebook.com/thepressclub.

The Odd Couple

Whenever guitarist Dan Green and drummer Matt Mandella step into a new venue to play as the two-piece rock band they’ve incidentally dwindled down to, people will often just stare at them, not exactly sure what to make of the duo.

“It’s like they don’t know what they’re looking at, or they’re not sure how they should react to us,” Green says of the almost catatonic faces they get from blank-slate crowds.

Once they set up, Green introduces the duo as Black Star Safari from South Lake Tahoe. Still, he says, the fixed gazes continue; the tension in the room builds. And, honestly, if you weren’t already familiar with what comes next, you might be inclined to stare at them too.

Green, with shaggy hair and a slim build, stands well over 6-foot-3, while Mandella—also thin, but not quite as shaggy—is well below 5-foot-9. It’s sort of like you’ve got a younger Billy Crystal and Gheorghe Muresan from the movie My Giant in front of you. And now they have instruments in their hands, and you don’t know what the hell to expect.

Will this be worthy of a scathing review, or will our minds be blown? The question lingers as Mandella taps his sticks, cueing their first song.

Even before Black Star Safari could hold audiences in bewildered suspense, they were really just a couple of up-and-coming musicians in Los Angeles—going to school, jamming with other bands and trying to make a name for themselves. Sadly, it wasn’t long after they received their certificates from the Musicians Institute that they realized Los Angeles wasn’t necessarily the best place to make a living for live music.

Residing in the heart of Hollywood and grappling with low payoffs from gigs in town, Green and Mandella decided to head north to South Lake Tahoe, where Green had grown up and established some professional connections prior to his SoCal stint.

“The first day we got back to Tahoe—I won’t ever forget—we got this house on a golf course for cheaper than our studio in L.A.,” Green says. “And just breathing the air was…just nice to catch your breath and get out of the madness for a minute.”
The move proved to be worthwhile.

Almost instantly, Black Star Safari got plugged into the Tahoe music scene and started exploring the Northern California circuit, including Sacramento. Eventually, the two got to know and play alongside Davis funk band Big Sticky Mess regularly, who generously offered to hook them up with some studio time to record their first EP Cut and Dry.

“They were like, ‘Oh, we have a studio.’ And I was like, ‘Oh man, we need to record,’” Green recounts, chuckling at the memory. “So we came down that next day, and we busted that one out that day.”

“I did the drum parts in like two hours,” Mandella adds.

Which is insane. While Cut and Dry—an effort Green and Mandella consider more of a demo than anything—does sound fairly raw on their Bandcamp page, it feels far from a one-day outing.

Yet, it was.

And so by June 2014, the two-piece was on the map with an official project out in the universe, something folks could point to and attribute to Black Star Safari. But just as Green and Mandella were beginning this new chapter in their lives—with ideas on their next album already getting underway—so, too, entered their elusive bassist Mark Mickens right around the same time.

Mickens, a fellow musician Mandella had gotten to know in Los Angeles, was “pretty funky” as Green remembers. And when they heard he was moving to the area, the Tahoe pair was more than happy to have him come aboard the safari.

With Mickens added to the roster, contributing a refreshing bassline to the group, things were looking up for the newfound trio. During that summer, they were booked for Tahoe’s annual Live at Lakeview concert series to open for Portland-based guitarist Scott Pemberton, while at the same time beginning to work on their sophomore album.

And then…poof. Mickens vanished.

As quickly as he had arrived, he had cut out even sooner, almost immediately following the band’s final recording sessions for their upcoming album.

So, what happened?

“The truth?” Green asks. “The truth is we have no idea.”

“Literally, no call, no message back. Nothing,” Mandella says. “He just completely disappeared. We went to his apartment, and he was gone.”

Naturally, Green and Mandella became genuinely concerned for their bandmate, that is until they finally heard from his roommate that he was alive and well. Mickens never personally contacted them again, however, and Black Star Safari grinded to a bit of a halt.

“I was actually calling to cancel a show,” Green says of one of their gigs at Sacramento’s Torch Club. “I was like, ‘He just… eh, I have no idea.’ And the owner of the Torch Club was like, ‘Are you fucking serious? Get down here, we don’t care. We saw you before; just come down here.’ And that was really big for us. You know? Because we were feeling pretty deflated at that moment.”

“When he left, we weren’t sure what to do,” Green continues. “But we just kept playing, and then we found that people were pretty receptive to the two-piece.”

And for good reason, too.

Once Mandella starts to unleash on his drum set, with Green’s electric guitar ripping through the room, the entire mood of their audience shifts, as I recently discovered at their safari-themed CD release show in South Lake Tahoe—the first of many to come this year, they say.

Whether it’s through the thunderous roar of their battle song “Signs,” or in the feel-good, open-ended track “Chapter X,” which allows for improvisation and long, inspired solos, onlookers are unanimously forced to their feet and into motion, having no choice but to surrender to the robust, rockin’ grooves of Green and Mandella’s Black Star Safari.

The band’s newer material is especially potent when played live, with standouts such as “Gold Man Sucks,” “Victims” and the strictly-instrumental “Never Again,” where Mandella races on his cymbals and snare at lightning-fast speeds, while Green strums a menacing riff over and over again before they both break out into a slow-burning, cathartic chorus.

Black Star Safari’s latest five-track EP, All In, maintains much of the same musical diversity found on Cut and Dry, but with a bit more bite to it this time around. While the album has hints of bluegrass and funk in some of the cuts, All In is undoubtedly a rock project through and through.

Despite their recent adversity, it would appear Green and Mandella have found a way to shine in their powerful live performances.

“We just have such a good energy and connection with the two of us,” Mandella says of he and Green’s rediscovered two-man dynamic.

“And I guess that’s kind of one of the perks,” Green adds. “I think that it does make us stand out. For better or for worse, [at] a lot of shows we play, people will come up to us and be like, ‘I thought you guys were gonna suck.’ And then we come and play a decent show, and I think that really catches people off guard.”

As their new album indicates, Black Star Safari is all in for their music—quite literally, it’s just the two of them running the show for now. The duo is planning a tour up and down the West Coast this summer, going as far north as Washington and, really, anywhere else they can park and set up their equipment.

“Not to give away our secret, but, you know, we bought a generator and we have my RV,” Green says. “So we were really just thinking about renegade staging, and just getting our name out there. Just playing all the time, doing festivals and just setting up in the parking lot.”

Almost like Breaking Bad.

“But making music instead,” Mandella says. “Make music, not meth.”

Green laughs out loud. “That could be a bumper sticker.”

Celebrate the release of All In at the Torch Club on June 6. Black Star Safari will perform as well as Island of Black and White. The show has a $8 cover and starts at 9 p.m. If you’d like to make a day of it, The Bathtub Gins play earlier that evening during the Torch Club’s no-cover happy hour (from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.). For more info, go to Torchclub.net.

Male Gaze Outruns Ghosts of Projects’ Past on Excellent Debut

Despite the fact that Male Gaze is essentially a brand new band, their collective pedigree has afforded the group the opportunity for larger shows and bigger stages nearly right out of the gate.

“We’ve all been around and we know everybody so it hasn’t been too tough to pull off,” says bassist Mark Kaiser. His matter-of-factness isn’t meant to come off sounding boastful; it just so happens that the folks who make up Male Gaze have logged time in some of Northern California’s more ballyhooed underground garage bands, including Blasted Canyons (guitarist/vocalist Matt Jones), the notoriously anti-Internet Sacramento crew Mayyors (where Kaiser manned bass) and The Mall (drummer Adam Cimino).

The question could remain whether or not that makes the sum of their parts something to write home about. And while it’s tough to get anyone anywhere to write anything down anymore at all, you’ll probably want to at least mention Male Gaze to someone sooner than later. With the release of their seven-song debut album, Gale Maze, on John Dwyer’s Castle Face Records, the band’s relative secrecy is slowly fading.

Before the band recruited second guitarist Adam Finken (also formerly of Blasted Canyons and currently in Tiaras), Gale Maze was recorded in a flurry by the core trio, Frankensteining tones and mixing approaches from their previous projects—if perhaps unwittingly—into a bewitching, fuzzy brew, rich in homage to the likes of Joy Division (Jones’ vocals practically exhume the flat bellowing of Ian Curtis) and a cornucopia of post-punk tinkerers.

The cold truth is that Male Gaze falls into that awkward category of too-soon-to-be-written about, although they did release a 7-inch in July 2014, a precursor to Gale Maze featuring the fantastic tracks “Cliffs of Madness” and “Think Twice” via Kaiser’s Mt. St. Mtn. label. They’ve played a handful of shows between San Francisco (where Cimino and Finken reside), Sacramento (where Kaiser lives) and Los Angeles (where Jones lives). And they have a lot of touring on the horizon, including a set at Boise, Idaho’s Treefort Music Fest this spring.

Even amidst their fledgling nature, the fact that their album resonates so completely forces the hand a bit.

Gale Maze unfolds organically, slowly and somewhat curious of its sonic surroundings on the lead track “Smog Dawn,” unfurling washes of crunchy noise atop otherwise darkly plotted garage-psych. Careful consideration is given to the balance of melody and grime, and to riding hazy waves of echo-delay vocals on tinny wormholes of hallucinogenic rock. It’s a trippy ride, to be certain, and one not altogether uncommon, it must be said, especially for alumnus of the vaunted Castle Face. Where Male Gaze separates itself, however, is in their ability to revel in space-dark choruses and not always disappear into the groove of a 12-minute-long freakout jam cycle. That crevice of psych has its place, it just doesn’t fit within Male Gaze’s current oeuvre.

And while Kaiser’s aware of the band’s past being a talking point for its future, he doesn’t seem concerned with talking much about how it affects how people will perceive his new project. In the interests of articulating the building blocks of Male Gaze, though, he did spend time chatting with Submerge about some of it.

What can you tell me about how the band formed and what each of you were hoping to focus on with this project?
Basically, I was in the process of moving back from L.A. and I was talking with an old friend who was in one of the first Mt. St. Mtn. bands, The Mall [Adam Cimino]. He said he had a practice space and thought it would be awesome if we could jam there; he hadn’t been in a band in a while and was just kind of jumping in on people’s projects or recording with people or playing live here and there. We were just trying to get together and jam to see if we could come up with a concept. Once it started to solidify into feeling like we could totally play together—we had the space and kind of a loose idea of what we wanted to do—we started trying to bring people in. Blasted Canyons had broken up and Matt [Jones] didn’t have anything going on, so I reached out to him. He was someone I knew on the periphery because of Castle Face, who I know as business partners, and I was gonna put out a Blasted Canyons record a ways back, which ended up coming out on Castle Face. He came in and it sort of clicked.

There’s not a lot of material out there about your band, save for the mention of where the three of you came from, band-wise. I do know that the album sounds great though. Do you think it’s probably better that people take your band for what it is now and not for where it came from?
I don’t know. That’s what we’ve been mentioning too, because that just helps people put a face to the name. All those bands were pretty well-known at their time, so obviously we wanted to let people know who liked those bands that we’ve got a new thing going. With the Internet, we can get music out to everybody really quick. We had a single up online for a long time and it circulated a lot. Bios always drive me crazy. Trying to describe music is a painful process. Then it kind of falls into, “well, we sound like these bands” and then everyone names the same bands and we all kind of come from the same punk place of all the music from up here. There are no surprises here. We just wanted to keep things short and sweet. Let the music writers write about us.

Music-wise, do you feel like there are real strong links between some of your past projects?
Yes and no. We weren’t fumbling through those previous projects; they were pretty well thought-out and we were seasoned musicians and we’re older. I feel like those bands all had a bit of…we jelled into each of our own style of playing. We each have our own style of playing, style of writing, so naturally we just kind of shuffle the deck and sometimes there are elements that sound like Blasted Canyons, or sometimes mildly Mayyors-ish. It’s more in sounds and tones as opposed to how we’re writing, and certainly there’s Matt’s voice, which was all over Blasted Canyons. I feel like it’s a pretty radical departure from what we were doing before.

When you first got together and cemented the trio, you had a single up really quickly. That’s in pretty stark contrast to your previous band, Mayyors.
Yeah, I put it out on Mt. St. Mtn. originally, and then we debated. I’d just come from a band who was off of the Internet and really very well-hidden, but that’s not how these guys wanted to play. So we ended up putting the single up on Soundcloud, and I was gonna do that for the label anyway. We had that up and kept recording; it was still really early on. We took what we learned from that and started applying it to recording the whole set and finding out through mixing what we wanted to sound like. It took some time; we recorded and re-recorded a few times figuring out what we wanted to do, and we definitely mixed that record about 10 times. So there was a lot of fine-tuning; we were still pretty new and the set was pretty fresh and we’d only played a few shows. We were just figuring out how we wanted to sound. It’s more of a first attempt than anything, but we’re real happy with how it turned out. It was a good starting point to continuously evolve.

Male Gaze will be joined by Tiaras and Vasas on Sunday, March 29, 2015, at the Hideaway Bar and Grill (2565 Franklin Boulevard, Sacramento). This all-ages show starts at 5 p.m. For more info, visit Last.fm/music/Male+Gaze

After forming in late 2003, releasing an EP in 2004, and touring the West Coast on and off for a few years after that, regional indie/punk/queercore duo Butch Vs Femme went on what they thought was going to be a permanent hiatus. Then in August 2014, drummer Kimberli Aparicio and keyboardist/vocalist Chavez D’Augustine decided to get the ol’ band back together for some shows and even more exciting, to finally release a full-length album titled Eat Yr Heart Out.

“It feels great to be back together,” the band recently told Submerge. “When we first started Butch Vs Femme we were both pretty young and probably didn’t make the best decisions for the band. We made some awesome music and knew that there was a strong connection between us. We always had a lot of fun playing together but we just kind of grew apart.”

Now that they are back together, the duo says they have a clear goal of what they want.

“Even though the songs for Eat Yr Heart Out were written eight to 13 years ago we still play them with the same amount of energy and passion. We love these songs and it’s about time they got recorded!”

Eat Yr Heart Out is 10 tracks total, one of which (“Down for Me”) is streaming for free on the band’s website Butchvsfemme.com. The album will be available for purchase on CD or by download card at the band’s Sacramento release party on Saturday, March 28, 2015, at Starlite Lounge (1517 21st Street). The show will also feature opening sets from two other solid local acts, PETS and Ghostplay. Doors open at 8 p.m., cover is just $7, 21-and-over only. Welcome back, Butch Vs Femme, the local scene has missed you!

From 2006 to 2010, the regional folk/Americana band Silver Darling enchanted fans locally as well as up and down the West Coast via extensive touring, sharing the stage with such greats as Jason Isbell, Damien Jurado, The Cave Singers and others. Silver Darling released one full-length album (Your Ghost Fits My Skin) and an EP (Wrap Around My Heart) via Davis-based indie label Crossbill Records, and they even landed on one of the covers of issue No. 16 of Submerge! When the group ultimately disbanded, frontman Kevin Lee Florence, who now lives in Portland, Oregon, began focusing on his solo career. He has now released his first solo album Given on Fluff and Gravy Records and is preparing for his long-awaited return to Sacramento for an all-ages gig at Insight Coffee Roasters (1901 8th Street, Sacramento) with local guitarist Ross Hammond on Saturday, March 21, 2015. “Flecked with folk influences, finger-picked guitar lines and distinctive harmonies provided by his sister Kelly Florence, Given falls somewhere between Sam Beam’s hushed, vivid folk and [Paul] Simon’s own conversational, quirky lyrical genius,” his bio reads on Kevinleeflorence.com. The album was recorded almost entirely live in the hip and artistic Echo Park area of Los Angeles at Fivestar Studios, where artists like Father John Misty, Bonnie “Prince” Billy and the band Dawes and have also worked. Given features a slew of world-class musicians, including Florence’s personal hero, Garth Hudson of the legendary Canadian-American roots rock group The Band, as well as bassist Jon Button (Sheryl Crow, Robben Ford), drummer James McAlister (Sufjan Stevens, Bill Frisell), and guitarist Danny Donnelly. Hit up Spotify or Florence’s website to hear a stream of Given. We highly suggest taking in the whole thing; but if you’re in a hurry, make sure to at least check out the album’s ethereal opener, “Alone and Everything,” and the single (track 3 on the album) “Peace Like a River,” which has a really cool psychedelic Beatles-esque stomp to it. The March 21 show at Insight kicks off at 7 p.m. and is just $5 at the door.

Though It May Seem the World of Hardcore is Getting Nicer, Hoods is Just as Scary as Ever

I remember being at a Hoods show back in the ’90s, watching some unfortunate kid getting the shit kicked out of him. For some reason, I stood against the wall, laughing. The poor guy was really getting it bad—Doc Martens to the face and everything—and there I was, giggling like an idiot. That is, until a fist flew out of nowhere into my nose, snapping it clean in two. It must have been some sort of punk rock, karmic retribution. There was blood. Lots of blood. My white T-shirt turned crimson. Nobody came to my rescue. The show went on. I woke up the next morning, proudly sporting one of the most prolific black eyes I’d ever worn. I couldn’t breathe through my nose that had swelled up overnight three times its original size.

Those were the days. Hardcore isn’t like that anymore. Sure, there are some scary bands, but the live shows don’t seem to have as much rage. Maybe people aren’t as angry as they were 20 years ago. Back then, all we had was Sabrina, the Teenage Witch and dial-up Internet connections. We were pissed. The point is that Hoods is still a scary band, maybe even scarier now that singer/guitarist Mikey Hood started drinking and smoking a bunch of weed. In fact, the new album, Gato Negro (Spanish, I think, for “We’re old, but we’re still going to fuck you up”), is just as brutal as their debut Once Again and even heavier than the celebrated Victory Records release Pit Beast. Gato Negro teeters on the edge of metal and hardcore, but ends up somewhere along the lines of street punk. Songs like “Middle Class Wash Out” have just enough melody mixed with brutality to show listeners that these are musicians who know exactly how to make fucked up music that jumps out of nowhere, punches you in the face and breaks your nose when you least expect it. It’s the best kind of nostalgia.

I got a chance to talk with Hoods vocalist/guitarist Mikey Hood about his old venue Westcoast Worldwide, cutting hair, fighting, tours, and, of course, weed. Lots of weed.

Hey.
Sorry it took so long to call you back, but we got home and got stoned and I was like, “Shit, I know I’m supposed to do something very important.”

Ah, the fucking weed. So do you miss Westcoast Worldwide?
Yeah, of course. We’re looking at opening a new one probably next year some time. It’s going to follow suit with rehearsal studios and stuff like that. I definitely want to do a live venue, but I want to do it with four or five people as a collective. Doing it all alone drains you. It’s like having an extra job on top of what you already have to do in life to make it.

What have you been up to the last few years?
We’ve been touring still. It’s just we haven’t been touring in the States. To play locally, people in your hometown don’t appreciate you as much as they do in other spots because they have the opportunity to see you. So we stopped playing all the time and then it started creating normal draws again. We did Europe for almost a month and we flew to [Philadelphia] and did Tsunami Fest and that was pretty cool. We played with Cro-Mags, Sick of it All, Obituary, All Out War.

Was it pretty crazy?
I missed it. I had an allergy attack, but everybody else loved it. I could hear it from the van. I made our set and then nearly collapsed.

Are kids different now at shows?
Yeah. Somewhat. The older dudes are still kind of nutters, but the younger kids … it’s more like a popular thing to be into hardcore now, as opposed to something you have a passion for. It’s cool to act tough when you don’t have to even be tough. You can just be a nice dude.

I used to be scared going to hardcore shows.
Now it’s kind of like a bunch of clowns doing karate moves. It doesn’t seem like they really feel it anymore. It’s kind of good it’s not as violent, but at the same time it took a lot of the realness out of it, I guess.

How was Europe?
Really good. We did 22 shows pretty much in 22 days. We played Finland, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Poland, Austria and we did a bunch of shows in France. The shows were really good, but the country’s a little bit suspect.

Really?
They’re fucking assholes. Fuck it.

Why do you say that?
I don’t know, man. The kids at the show are cool, but when you have to deal with somebody in public they’re fucking assholes. As you go southwest, like to Bordeaux, the people are really cool, but some of the people in Paris and Marseille, they’re just really arrogant, man. If you ask them something in French, they’ll just look at you like you’re fucking stupid. It’s like, “I’m going to slap your fucking face with a baguette. You’re lucky I’m an American because if we didn’t help you in World War II, you’d be speaking German.”

So have you chilled out on your fighting ways?
Man, I didn’t know I really did get in a lot of fights.

Really?!
I don’t know. I guess … I don’t know. Did I?

Maybe it’s just a Sacramento legend. Those legends don’t even have to be true.
Dude. The thing is I haven’t been in a fight since—shit, no, actually can’t say that, but I haven’t tried to get in any fights in years. I don’t think we really ever started fights. I guess I was a little aggressive, but when I needed to be.

When did you start smoking weed?
Check it out, when I was 35, I was going to go back to college and try to finish up my A.A. degree. My friend’s like, “You gotta get this Adderall shit.” And I tried that shit and took it for three days. That shit kept me up for a fucking week. I got a lot done. I cleaned the house at least five or six times a day. I changed the oil in my car and sent all my old postage out. So it wasn’t a total loss I guess.

Then you started smoking weed?
Oh, yeah. I smoked weed for about five years. It’s funny, because everybody who knows is like, “You fucking hate hippies.” But actually I’m kind of a hippie. The only difference is I take showers and go to work and shit.

Do you ever smoke weed and trip out on your straight edge tattoos?
Oh, dude, no way, man. Straight edge shit’s cool, man. That shit kept me out of jail. Actually, if I was smoking weed, I probably wouldn’t have gotten in as much trouble, but it wouldn’t have been as fun. Yeah, so fuck it.

How’s your barber shop going?
That shit is fun as fuck. I like going to work. It’s a good job, too. You don’t get bored, man. You get like at least five to 10 dudes a day coming through all with different stories. Your day changes drastically from haircut-to-haircut. Most people hate their jobs. I actually like mine.

Let’s talk about your new album.
You already got a copy?

Yeah.
I honestly haven’t even heard the final product yet. I’m hella excited.

Well, it’s good.
I like that song “Gato Negro.” It’s the one we’re going to do a video for.

It’s got a cool melody.
It’s more like street punk-ish.

You know when you hear a new hardcore record and you’re worried that it’s going to be all soft and boring?
Oh yeah, this one had a while to bake in the oven. I’ve been writing some of these songs since Pit Beast came out. I’ve had about six of these songs for two years, at least, and then I kind of just rewrote them. I wrote a couple songs on the spot. I wrote the “Gato Negro” song on a “verse/chorus/verse/chorus/done” and we did it the next day in the studio and it’s like my favorite song off it. Sorry, I’m stoned. I’m getting off track. I think people are going to like it. And if they don’t I don’t care because my cats will like it.

What’s your most fucked up show story?
The tour was called Street Brutality Tour. It was Hoods, Shattered Realm and Donnybrook. It’s kind of like if you picked out the more thuggish kids in hardcore and put them on tour, this would be it. It was L.A., Sacramento, New Jersey, New York—so we covered pretty much every region. It was fucked up. There was a lot of tension that tour. To say the least, some kid got killed when we played at Skrappy’s in Tucson, Arizona. That was the same period when Dimebag Darrell had gotten shot on stage. I lost some friends that year. That made me not want to play music any more because when motherfuckers are coming to shows with AK-47s, that tough guy shit’s out the window. That’s when it gets really real. I don’t know about you, but I got shit to lose and I’m not trying to fuck around with being on some crew shit. It was stupid then, and it’s even stupider now.

Tell me about your walks that you take.
You’ve seen The Evil Dead, right?

Yeah.
You know when he’s walking out of the forest at the end and the thing comes and kills him?

Yeah.
The death walk is like that, but in the motherfucking pitch darkness. We get hella stoned. We get zombie, Cheech and Chong stoned and then we go on the death walks. You got to walk through. It’s maybe a third of a mile. It’s like a trail. There’s raspberry bushes and all this overgrowth shit. You can hear noises. There are some transients that live in there. So we call it the death walk. It’s pretty cool.

That sounds horrible.
Oh no. It’s healthy. You burn calories when you’re scared.

Hoods’ Gato Negro will be released Nov. 25, 2014, via Artery Recordings. Five days later (Nov. 30, 2014), you can celebrate its release at Blue Lamp. The show gets underway at 7 p.m. Check out Bluelampsacramento.com for more info. Mikey’s shop, True Blue Barber and Shave Parlour, is located at 1422 28th Street in Sacramento. Stop by and say hello!

Brown Shoe’s Baggaley Brothers Drink, Dance, Make Music and Actually Really Get Along

The origins of the band Brown Shoe stem from just outside the barbed wire fences of the Folsom prison. The members, all brothers, grew up so close to the prison that they fondly remember playing a game where they would see who could run closest to the barbed wire fence until the guards released warning shots. Ryan Baggaley, the self-proclaimed winner of this ballsy game, and older brother of the Brown Shoe clan, had plenty to say in a recent interview about brotherly love, X Street and being subtly bitter.

Brown Shoe formed almost 10 years ago as a mixture of friends and a couple of the Baggaley brothers. As time progressed, friends dropped out and were replaced with more Baggaleys. The final lineup consists of Ryan on vocals and guitar, Bryson on bass and drums, Aaron on keys and guitar and Landon on drums. The group is also known as “The nicest pack of bastards you will ever meet! Except not really, because we all know our dad—and have the same one!” according to their bio. A shared music nostalgia of Tom Petty and early ‘90s grunge (that has probably trickled down from brother to brother) influences the style of the band.

“We have a strong lean toward rock ‘n’ roll atmospherics. We aim for cleanliness and rhythm until climax,” says Ryan. “I love the suspense of suspending music until it just explodes.”

When asked about describing his music and the process of songwriting, Ryan says that music is often bogged down with the conformity of process. “We don’t walk into the studio with intentions. Someone will say ‘Hey, I wrote this song, let’s build on it and see what we can do,’ and then we sort of just feel it out. I like that we don’t bog the vibe down by making anyone explain what the song is about. We know a little bit, but then we just try to essentially get the same rhythm and sounds. There’s no need for discussion about it.”

One perfect description of Brown Shoes’ music is that it has mastered the art of being subtly bitter, consisting of beautiful, catchy and heartfelt tunes that tend to have a bit of snarkiness and backhanded intentions. The songwriting almost seems to teeter on the edge of classic rock with country song lyrics. The band has been compared to Sam Cooke and the Black Keys, but they prefer late-‘80s Bruce Springsteen, Sigur Ros and Arcade Fire: edgy and melodic.

Over the last 10 years, Brown Shoe has released five albums. This year, they are releasing a 4-part EP called Lonely Beast. Part 2 of the EP is out this month. They are also preparing to press the EP on vinyl and even cassette. Ryan elaborates, “Cassettes don’t necessarily mean a better sound. We are just excited to see how different our music will sound on tape as it ages. The ribbon of a cassette changes a little after each play, and the distortions that come with that sounds awesome.”

The foursome went from living a childhood in Folsom, to residing on X Street in Sacramento, to widening their California geographics and taking up residence in Los Angeles—a move they hoped would help them grow and keep them from feeling too comfortable.

“X Street and 26th in Sacramento was awesome,” Ryan says. “We lived right by the freeway and had a basement so we were able to play music essentially whenever we wanted because the sound was muffled by outside noise. We miss that amazing space. You also saw a lot of characters over there. For example, every night at an ungodly hour, this homeless man would whistle this very high pitched, abnormally birdlike whistle that would leave me and my brothers yelling obscenities out of our windows.”

As far as the music scene in Sacramento, “There are so many great things that city has,” says Ryan. “There are people in the community who realize the importance of strengthening a scene and giving it a platform. It’s all about community-based networks reaching out to traveling acts. We played the THIS concert series LowBrau put on last year, and we heard about LAUNCH now TBD, and the guys putting that on are just killing it. Putting large acts hand-in-hand with local acts is essential. It’s like potential is seeing itself grow into something extremely tangible and exciting.”

Recently, Brown Shoe released a video for their new song “Nightwalker,” about a friend who would tell them insane stories upon every interaction with him. One day, they asked the friend to sit with them and a rolling tape recorder and tell his life story in entirety. The results intrigued the Baggaleys, and they concocted “Nightwalker” in his honor, a beautiful tune with that subtle bitterness the band is so good at conveying. The video is dark and dusty with each brother dancing in shadows.

“My brother, Aaron, has excelled at the windmill as you will see in the video. It makes us all very jealous.” Ryan says. “Essentially we drank whiskey to the point where we could dance comfortably and feel it. I wish I could do that without whiskey, but my style is definitely to drink whiskey to get down.

“Sometimes we are close to gouging each other’s eyes out in the name of music. We will have huge blowups, but the cool thing is we almost immediately get over it. We are brothers and annoy each other, but we need each other,” Ryan continues. “Like with any band, you spend so much time with one group of people, you are bound to piss each other off.”

Ryan says the fact that they are brothers make them a bit more stronger and able to tolerate each other in an artistic endeavor like a band.

”We are a bunch of egotistical assholes and we are all the same. Therefore, we all get the pleasure of dealing with each other. We drink, we dance, we make music and we all actually really like each other.”

Welcome Brown Shoe home when they play Aug. 14, 2014 at Witch Room with Daniel and the Lion. Cover charge for the all-ages show is just $5, and it will begin at 6:30 p.m. Lonely Beast, Part Two is expected to be released on Aug. 19, 2014. Check out Facebook.com/brownshoemusic for more details.

Being a huge advocate of Sacramento artists and musicians, I often find myself supporting local bands even if they play a style of music that I wouldn’t normally gravitate toward. Prime example: Fate Under Fire, a radio-ready pop-rock group who is on the cusp of making big things happen. Now, I don’t normally listen to bands like Maroon 5 or The Fray, two groups that come to mind when listening to Fate Under Fire, but I really love the local guys’ new EP What Dreams Are Made Of. It’s six sparkling tracks of feel-good pop-rock and if that’s all the band had going for them, it would be enough for me to root for them in their endeavors. But what is deeper than all the catchy melodies and memorable hooks is that Fate Under Fire is a band that has a very serious and important message, and it’s no gimmick, either.

When lead singer and group founder David James’ mother, who single-handedly raised him as her only child, passed away from ovarian cancer five years ago, something understandably changed inside him. “For the first few years of Fate Under Fire, I didn’t even mention this because it was impossible to talk about it without breaking down,” James told Submerge, “And I didn’t want people to think I was using it for attention.”

James spent hundreds of hours researching alternative cancer therapies and finding people who are beating cancer, so much so that he says, “I could really write a book on it all at this point.” It eventually became such a huge part of him that it naturally found it’s way into his art as well. “As much as I tried not to integrate my story and findings into my music, I realized it’s truly a part of me and I can’t not say anything anymore.”

Now, at every show, James asks the audience if anyone has cancer or knows someone close to them with it. “The hands fly up,” he says. “Too many people are dying of cancer every day and that doesn’t have to happen, there are cures for cancer that work. I want America’s paradigm toward it to change, and I can already see it happening,” James says. He even personally engages with people when given the chance. “I tell people to come talk to me personally after we’re done playing so I can give them the resources I have found.” One of the organizations that the band supports is called People Against Cancer, whose website (Peopleagainstcancer.org) states, “We feel it is important to understand all options from conventional cancer treatment to alternative cancer treatment, to new and innovative forms of cancer treatment in order for people to make truly informed decisions.” Other non-profits that the band supports, according to their Facebook page (Facebook.com/FateUnderFire), are Juice for the Cure, Compassion International, Lifewater International and others.

Having an underlying message and the burning desire to spread the word about cancer research and alternative medicines is what keeps the group going. “It makes playing music that much more meaningful,” James says. “Especially if it can save just one life.”

Their message soon may reach a much wider audience, as Fate Under Fire has recently started working with ZOOmania Music, a Los Angeles-based boutique music publishing house whose clients have had their tunes heard in everything from Modern Family episodes to The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. “I am hoping this deal can land some FUF music in some TV shows, major motion pictures and potentially a good record deal,” says James.

Fate Under Fire will celebrate the release of What Dreams Are Made Of, which was recorded at James’ home studio in Antelope and then mixed by Eric Robinson (Pink, Sia, Matt Nathanson) and mastered by Eric Boulanger (One Republic. Plain White T’s, Colbie Caillat), on Saturday, June 22, 2013. The EP release show will take place at the Wells Fargo Historic Center, located at 1011 10th Street in downtown Sacramento. Doors open at 7 p.m., the cover is $10 and all ages are welcome. Ten percent of the proceeds will go toward People Against Cancer. Sharing the bill will be Josh Falcón (formerly of Method Echo) and Ben Woodward.

Massive Delicious settle in Sacramento and find home after time on the East Coast

Before you start to complain about the scorching 100-degree Sacramento weather, try and remember that there is no place like home. Even though Californians start to sweat at 9:30 a.m., our vast variety of culture, music and art make the heat bearable. After living on the East Coast for nearly five years Andrew Conn, bass and synthesizer player from band Massive Delicious, missed his home in the Golden State. When Conn decided to move back he asked his band mates, vocalist and guitarist Dylan Crawford and drummer Josh Rosato, the ultimate question, East Coast or West Coast?

“I was always telling those guys I am moving back to California with or without you, East Coast is too cold. I always knew I was coming back to California and I was basically like, ‘You know it’s a better scene out there so if you guys want to come with…come with,’” said Conn over the phone.

Shortly after his band mates decided to follow him to Sacramento, and they are now making a name for themselves as Massive Delicious. Only after living in Sacramento for nearly a year they feel welcome and see more support for their music in this town then they had ever experienced on the East Coast.

“East Coast was very like every band for themselves, there’s much more of a musical community out here,” said Rosato.

Massive Delicious is a fast-moving band that is quickly picking up momentum in the Sacramento music community. During the past few months they have received positive feedback from fans and other local bands.

For the rest of the summer season they have shows lined up for almost every week all over California–in Santa Cruz, San Francisco, Pismo Beach and a CD release show at Harlow’s in late July. The trio is also boarding their live show on a train (the Sacramento Beer Train) with local band ZuhG and beer from Sudwerk Brewery on July 21, 2012.

Their quick popularity comes as no surprise because their style of music contains a catchy blend of reggae, jazz and funk. Massive Delicious adds new spice to make jazz and funk contemporary but still manages to keep a traditional feel to their soulful music. While listening to one song you might get a chill jazz vibe or a “funky psychedelic jam session” in another.

“We definitely go toward more of a reggae side of things. The jazz and funk are dispersed in-between it,” explained Conn.

All three members have been working toward their latest self-titled album, that will give you smooth jams to dance to during those warm summer days by the American River. The album is complete with seven songs that make up 45 minutes that will help you unwind at the end of the day. Massive Delicious has been working on this album for almost a year and a half and some tracks were even created two years ago. “This album has been a long time coming,” Rosato explained.

Each song sounds like a continuous smooth jam session. While listening to Massive Delicious’ music you can’t help but feel relaxed and content.

“We just want to get our positive energy working so that the crowd can be positive about it and get moving because if people aren’t moving, then we aren’t really doing our jobs,” explained Conn. “We want the little kids and the grandmas dancing.”

“What we are trying to do is go for a universal music.

When anybody hears it they are going to be like, ‘Wow that is good music. It may not be my thing but I appreciate it,’” added Rosato.

And before playing their good music there’s only one thing a drummer needs to get ready for a high-energy show.

“Cheeseburgers for Josh,” said Conn with a laugh.

“Maybe if a cheeseburger is available, if not I’ll have a few beers and then I’m chilling,” joked Rosato. “We’ve done so many shows at this point. Andrew and I both did 200 shows in the bands that we were in before. It’s just like another thing. We go out there and do it.”

Just after playing a first few shows in their new home of Sacramento, they all knew that they had moved to the right place. From making women in the front row at Harlow’s dance to their jams to making the crowd move at the Reggae in the Hills Festival in early June, they have become a part of the unique musical community in the area. They found it surprising that being an unknown reggae band people were still dancing and grooving to their jams.

“It’s really refreshing after being back East for a couple of years, where the scene seems to be oversaturated. There’s not much love going around to local bands like out here,” said Conn. “There’s a lot of love going around [here] so we really appreciate that.”

Even though their musical scene had changed for the better, the East Coast has served them well in the past. Conn, Rosato and Crawford have a strong musical background and education. Crawford studied music for four years at the University of Idaho, Josh has a degree in classical percussion, and Andrew has a degree in contemporary writing and production for music. The trio officially became good friends while studying at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Massive Delicious uses their education, musical influences and previous band experience to create a sound that is truly unique and fun.

“One thing going into the band, I really [didn’t] want to sound like some other band. I wanted to come out here and retain my own sound,” Conn said. “I think all of us do a good job of that, not trying to sound like anybody else.

Through their own sound Massive Delicious wants to spread positive energy, to the West and East coasts. “When it comes down to it we love what we do,” said Conn. “I think we’re really just trying to spread good vibes and have a good time.”

Massive Delicious will play their CD release show at Harlow’s on July 26, 2012. Also playing will be local jam-rock powerhouse ZuhG, Awkward Lemon and Adrian Bellue. To purchase tickets, go to http://harlows.com/. Get there early because the first 100 people will get a free copy of the CD.

Sexrat teams up with renowned producer Sylvia Massy on forthcoming album, Masters of Obscurity

Rock ‘n’ roll is alive and well.

It’s heard in the echoes of music from past greats and pulses between the new musicians of today. With seven years to their credit, Zach Goodin, Marc Kallweit and Devin Hurley of Sexrat look forward to releasing their second album, Masters of Obscurity this fall. A three-year labor of love in the making, the album was recorded at a 1900s vaudevillian theatre in Weed, Calif. that is now converted into Radiostar Studios by avid instrument and gear collector Sylvia Massy.

Not only is Massy known for collecting pieces of rock ‘n’ roll history, she’s also known for producing tracks for multi-platinum musicians such as Tool, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, R.E.M and more. What’s more is her collection of vintage gear and equipment, which, according to Sexrat guitarist and vocalist Goodin, all have a story behind them.

“She turned a 6,000-square-foot art deco movie theater, like a small version of the Crest [Theatre], into a recording studio with tons of vintage gear,” explains a smiling Goodin, his eyes gleaming with excitement behind a pair of dark shades. “Every piece of equipment has some crazy story like, ‘Oh, I got that from the Stones,’ or, ‘I got that from Led Zeppelin.’”

Strumming guitars held by respected rock ‘n’ roll pioneers and turning up the amplifiers created custom by companies like Marshall or Mesa Boogie for some of the biggest names in music history kept inspiration flowing during their time in Weed. Goodin says having access to Massy’s never ending collection of rock ‘n’ roll trinkets set the tone during Sexrat’s recording sessions.

“This place, just the vibe and the acoustics, makes for a way bigger sound,” says Goodin of Radiostar Studios. “We took our time doing it and [the album] sounds great. They’ve got great gear up there and they’ve got a good ear, so they really push you to do your best.”

The 12-song album, recorded by Massy and her main engineer, Rich Veltrop, features Bud Gaugh, drummer of Sublime and longtime friend of the band’s, and also Gaugh’s wife Nicole Hutcheson. Goodin met Gaugh while living in Southern California playing music for various bands and says Gaugh even hooked Sexrat up on tours with musicians like Matisyahu, Pepper and Fishbone.

Although Goodin says the band felt like “the redheaded stepchild” of that particular tour last summer because Sexrat sounded the least like Sublime, he feels shows with a fixed audience are perfect environments for his band, because it exposes them to a variety of listeners. At the end of the day, Goodin and the rest of Sexrat just want the opportunity to connect audiences to their music, despite genres.

“We get tied into the reggae rock scene, but that’s not really what we’re doing,” explains Goodin. “Maybe a little bit, but I would say we’re probably more psychedelic rock. We’re not really a reggae band.”

And they’re not.

Sexrat jam, intermingling neo-psychedelic organs with guitar solos, effects pedals and catchy lyrics prominently in their song, “Made in China.” The song features Gaugh on drums alongside Sexrat’s drummer, Hurley, who often plays keyboards simultaneously and is now adding backing vocals to his list of duties. But, at the moment, Goodin says his favorite track off their new album is “Walk of Shame,” a song he says is always fun to play. Packing a variety of sounds, the song starts off with surf rock-style guitars, mellowed out with the introduction of Goodin’s vocals resonating in ‘90s alternative rock, and then finished with hard-hitting drums.

“We’re all in our mid-30s, and we are a product of the ‘90s. That’s true to our sound,” says Goodin trying to pinpoint Sexrat’s genre. “We’re kind of hard to categorize. We cover a lot of ground. It’s all just music to me I guess, but we all have our own way of playing and together that’s what makes our sound.”

Photo by Marc Thomas Kallweit

When they’re not rocking stages up and down California, the guys of Sexrat spend time in town with friends and family and Goodin has even acted as musical teacher and coach to the girls of punk rock duo Dog Party. He says witnessing sisters Gwendolyn, or his preferred “Gwenny,” and Lucy Giles’ eagerness to just play music and learn is refreshing to see in the youth of today. Especially as he and his two band mates continue to perform after all these years.

“I’ve been playing since I was 10 years old,” remembers Goodin. “It’s the same old guys that play music [in Sacramento]. As we get older, we see who’s more dedicated–like all those guys from Kill the Precedent, we’ve all played the same backyard parties with the Filibuster guys; it’s cool to see everyone who’s still playing.”

Although their album isn’t set for release until later this fall for those outside of Sacramento, Sexrat will be performing at next week’s Concerts in the Park series alongside Relic 45, Reggie Ginn and more. The guys will also have fresh copies of Masters of Obscurity for sale at Cesar Chavez Park offering those in attendance first dibs for an early listen. After their performance at the park, the guys of Sexrat are off for a weekend of music in Goodin’s old stomping grounds, Long Beach. But, what they’re really looking forward to is performing at Massy’s annual 4and20 Blackbird Music Festival in Weed.

After spending a year getting to know Sexrat in her massive studio, Massy invited the guys to play the main stage at her event this August alongside bands like Forever Goldrush and Merle Jagger. The two-day festival boasts seven outdoor stages, five indoor stages and myriad genres, vendors and street performers.

“They have managed to capture something rare in today’s musical offerings–true honesty,” says Massy of Sexrat. “They are organic, gritty and melodic. They are fun, and yet they express deep emotion in their music with inspired performances coming directly from the heart.”

Photo by Photo by Marc Thomas Kallweit

Sexrat will play Friday Night Concerts in the Park at Cesar Chavez Park in Sacramento on June 15, 2012. To get up-to-date info, like the band on Facebook at http://Facebook.com/sexrat.