Arden Park Roots are at home on the road

The road is fuckin’ rough. Ask any DIY touring musicians and they’ll likely confirm this. Long drives, sketchy venues, snakey promoters trying to screw you out of gas money, pissing in water bottles while driving the van and then the van breaks down–it’s not a glamorous life by any means, and Sacramento’s reggae/rock group Arden Park Roots know this from first-hand experience. The local foursome, consisting of vocalist/guitarist Tyler Campbell, lead guitarist Nick Ledoux (aka “El Guapo”), bassist Spencer Murphy and drummer Jonny Snickerpippitz, have become road warriors, logging thousands of miles over the past couple years both in support of their self-released 2008 full-length album The Hard Way and as their alter-ego Sublime tribute band, The Livin’s Easy.

On one recent tour, the guys had a couple days off between Colorado and Arizona and decided to do some sightseeing. During a recent interview with Submerge, Jonny remembers, “We were like, ‘You know what? The Grand Canyon is right over there,’ so we started busting over that way.” Not long after, their vehicle overheated, forcing the guys to pull over to allow it to cool. Jonny, not being the type of guy who’ll just sit and wait for a vehicle to cool down, decided to charge up a mountain on the side of the highway. A little side-of-the-road hike, if you will. “There was just this huge mountain next to us,” says Jonny. “I was like, ‘This is kind of cool,’ so I started running up it and all of a sudden I heard, ‘Dude, Jonny, stop! You’re up too far.’” Meanwhile, Campbell and the rest of the crew were down below, looking up at Jonny climbing a mountain, laughing at him while filming his shenanigans on their cell phones. It was about this time when things went downhill fast for Jonny, literally.

“I looked back down and thought, ‘Hey, I’m going to dazzle the guys and just run all the way down,’” he remembers. “I missed about the last 20 feet and just shattered my ankle. I crawled up onto the highway, rolled onto my back and my foot flopped one way, rolled over the other way and my ankle flopped back, it was obviously offset.”

Ouch! A drummer with a broken ankle would have abruptly ended the tour for most bands, but not APR. They got Jonny to a hospital that night, where they reset his foot and told him he’d need reconstructive surgery. The timeline for the next couple days went a little something like this: Monday night, Jonny checked in, Tuesday he had surgery, Thursday evening he was released and Thursday night he played a “painful” gig. What a savage!

Jonny and Tyler Campbell stress how cool the venue in Flagstaff, Ariz., was with the whole situation. Campbell remembers rushing there first thing Tuesday morning after crashing in a hotel the night before (Jonny was in a hospital bed of course) and explaining to them what happened. “They were like, ‘Dude, it’s cool. You guys can stay in our apartment while you’re here.’ So they housed us for three whole nights. Meanwhile, I’m showing them the video on my cell phone,” Campbell says with a good laugh, “So they knew it was legit.” The understanding staff from the venue even called up a bunch of local musicians to come in and jam on APR’s equipment that night. Campbell remembers the good vibes well. “So the night we actually played, it was this big musician forum and a really cool, touching, ‘town come together’ type of night.” Luckily, that was the last scheduled night on the tour, so APR headed home with both Jonny’s ankle and their spirits elevated.

Turns out, APR is used to this kind of warm and welcoming reception when on the road. As our conversation turns toward which random markets around the country they do well in, it suddenly becomes clear why these guys love touring so much.

“The Midwest man, they just like fucking California bands and they love reggae music,” Campbell says. “Rapid City, S.D., is our best town on the road, I don’t know why.” Jonny interrupts with, “We sell out every time. We usually play there two nights in a row.”

If this is not enough proof that APR is the ultimate party band, said venue in Rapid City quite literally ran out of liquor by the end of the night after APR had played their three-hour set (half originals, half Sublime tribute). “They had nothing,” jokes Campbell. “Literally by the end of the night they ran out of liquor. They were like, ‘Do you want a Corona, because that’s all we have.’” The two also point to Durango, Colo., as another one of their favorite random towns to play. There’s a neat old theater that has been pimped out with a top-notch sound system complete with four audio guys to assist APR in sounding as good as possible. But the steakhouse down the street where they get treated to five-course meals is just as big of a draw.

“That’s why we spend so much time in the Midwest,” says Campbell. ”They fucking feed us, they house us and they fill up the clubs. A nice meal out on the road is heaven.”

Currently Arden Park Roots are home, eagerly awaiting the release of their second full-length album, No Regrets in the Garden of Weeden, which was recorded over the winter at Pus Cavern just before the group left on the infamous ankle-shattering tour. No Regrets…, which is a huge leap forward for the band as far as diversity in sound goes, will be released on July 9, 2010 at Harlow’s. Fourteen songs made the final cut, with a good number of tracks getting the axe, not because they were B-side material, but because APR was confident they already had enough songs for it to be a solid album with “no skippers,” as Campbell puts it. That extra material will be used for the band’s third album, which the two agree is already about halfway done. One track from No Regrets… that kept coming up during our conversation was “What You Got to Lose,” which, with its haunting vocal melodies and hybrid electronic/dub/reggae-rock vibe, is Campbell’s favorite.

“I can listen to that song and not think about myself,” he says. “Which is weird because every song I hear of myself, I just analyze my performance. With this song I can just sit back and listen to it and go, ‘Now that’s a good fucking song.’”

“What You Got to Lose” is a perfect example of just how much APR branched out on No Regrets…. While in the studio, the band left no idea unexplored; they experimented with new instruments, layered sounds and most importantly they learned that one of the most important aspects of making an album is allowing the engineer to do his job, to give him the time and space necessary to do what he does best. “We didn’t have a blank check,” says Campbell, “But we had a budget that was comfortable. We were able to go in and not worry about time.” For that reason, Pus Cavern’s Joe Johnston was able to take his time when engineering the record–and it really shows in the final product. No Regrets… is polished but not over-produced; it’s a leap forward for APR, no doubt, but not so much that it leaves their old fans behind. They still rock, they can still bring the party; they just do it with a little more class. “When it comes to vocals,” Jonny says of Campbell’s performances on No Regrets…, “You can tell we’ve been out on the road quite a bit between the first and second albums. He can do more stuff now. He’s got a gorgeous voice, man. You can hear stuff that he does differently, more maturely.”

As Jonny’s foot slowly heals (he was still on crutches at the time of our interview), the group is realizing that this downtime in between releasing No Regrets… and hitting the road again isn’t such a bad thing. Campbell sums it up best when he says, “On the bright side, with this ankle injury we’ve had some time to recollect ourselves and really get hungry again.” With a new album and an insatiable appetite to hit the road again, Arden Park Roots are looking forward to finishing 2010 on a high note doing what they do best: working hard. “You can’t expect opportunities to be handed to you,” says Campbell, “You’ve got to cover your own ass.”

Arden Park Roots will celebrate the release of No Regrets in the Garden of Weeden on July 9 at Harlow’s and yes, Jonny Snickerpippitz will be healed enough to play. The album will be available through all digital outlets, at all Dimple locations and at shows.

Ex-Cuesta Drive’s Dane Drewis Takes His Music Solo”¦
Well, Sort of”¦

With the disbanding of Cuesta Drive last year, lead guitarist and vocalist Dane Drewis refused to go quietly into obscurity. Drewis’ work ethic speaks for itself as he’s already completed his solo record, Rock & Soul, and scheduled a release party April 30, 2010 at Harlow’s. The album may bear his name, but it’s largely a product of a strong family bond woven by generations of musicians.

Honestly, the connection is there. While discussing the minor details of composing the drums on the record, Drewis said he listened to a lot of modern music, including sampling drum sounds from N.E.R.D. and The Neptunes. “We definitely studied modern production, even if they were not our style, to listen to the tones they were getting on guitars and drums,” he said. “The music itself still has the classic rock, bluesy, funk and soul edge to it.” He even listened to Lenny Kravitz, admitting he was not a fan of the musician, but an admirer of his production value. “We listened just to understand that if we could put my playing with that tone it would be awesome,” he said. “No one will ever know. It still sounds like our jazzy jam band sound.”

Let’s talk about your family’s involvement in the production of the album.
I guess I’ll start from the beginning. My parents were jazz musicians. They played in cover bands throughout ’70s and ’80s. That’s what they did full time, until they had their second kid, my sister Deena, then they had to get real jobs.

Both my sisters are very musically inclined. I tapped them on the shoulder for the album to come out and sing. Actually, my whole family came out to sing in the studio for the song “Friday Night,” which is the single we’re pushing. We did group vocals and individual vocals. My little sister Janel and I have written a couple songs and Deena is a really good writer. She works for a publishing company called Flatmancrooked. So she’ll shoot me lyrics all the time. We’ve done a couple gigs together, just fooling around. We definitely rehearse at home, but we’ve never got a full, official band going. But, it’s always been a possibility in the back of my mind.
 
Since you’ve got your family involved in the recording, do you think you’ll invite them on stage to sing with you at your release show or one of your local gigs?
Well, my little sister is opening for me at Harlow’s for my record release party. She’s 18 and she has no idea how good she is. I always joke that someday I’ll be opening for her. My dad plays bass for me now. But, we’ve talked about doing a couple songs together live. At the Cuesta Drive CD release show two years ago I had both my sisters and my mom come sing backup on a couple songs, but it was so loud. They’re not used to loud rock stuff. They had a hard time hearing themselves through the monitors.

Definitely a possibility. It would be really great to capture on video since we’re filming the whole show. I’ll leave it undecided to surprise people if we do it.
 
How has music being the family business strengthened the bond between your parents and your siblings?
It’s come to fruition more so lately than it has in the past. All through high school I was anti-jazz and rock ‘n’ roll. I was into hip-hop. My parents couldn’t stand it. I didn’t touch a guitar until I was 19. I got one in college.

My parents own a restaurant, Strings Pizzeria on Bradshaw, so we’re all working there, but music is our outlet. It’s a way to relax, let loose and de-stress. It’s the number one activity we all participate in, besides working at the restaurant. We do an open mic [at Strings] every Tuesday. When Janel is home, she comes and sings. My dad and I are always there, so it’s our new thing we do.
 
So it was never a family tradition to sit and have a drum circle after dinner?
No. When I moved home from college about four years ago, it changed. We’d be sitting around and after a couple glasses of wine that’s when it would start happening. My parents’ friends would make us play or something.
 
One of the write-ups on you said that because you were raised in a musical family it was inevitable that you’d be a musician. That notion struck me as strange, and I wanted to know if it felt that way.
It is kind of strange. It was a huge compliment, but so much of it is behind the scenes grinding and self-promotion that takes a strong personal drive. A lot of my friends are incredible musicians and I look up to them, but they don’t have the motivation beyond singing a couple songs around a campfire.
 
With the idea of inevitability toward music in mind, did you have a rebellious stretch where you didn’t want to go into the family business? Maybe during your hip-hop days?
I did. My parents joke that all Asian kids play piano, and my parents made me play when I was a kid. I played for two years, and I was pretty good. The day they said I didn’t have to take lessons anymore, I was 14 and I stopped that day.

I couldn’t stand all the stuff they listened to when I was growing up; all the Motown, lots of bossa nova and Latin jazz. I heard it millions of times, but went out of my way to block it out of my mind. Now that I’m older it’s coming back in waves I would never have imagined. They never really pushed it on me. When I asked for a guitar for Christmas, while I was in college, it took them both by surprise.

I heard Led Zeppelin for the first time when I was a senior in high school. That’s how into hip-hop I was. I used to be able to go through whole DMX and Tupac albums word for word. In hindsight, I listen to those records now and there’s a lot of musical stuff going on there. It was my way of rebelling, but it led me here. Couldn’t have been that bad.
 
Since your dad is a seasoned musician, has he given you any tips for the road of touring?
He tricked out my van, gave me his amps and some of his guitars. My mom is worried because he’s going out on the road with me.
 
She knows what the road is like, too.
She’s having a heart attack. She knows how much we drink and smoke. She’s like, “Keep an eye on your dad.” But, I’m thinking, “Keep an eye on my dad? He’s supposed to keep an eye on me.”
 
What’s the status of Cuesta Drive?
I think we’ll do a couple of reunion shows here and there. Thank God we’re still on great terms. It got to a state of the union last year about this time. We sat down in the back of Sweetwater and had a huge talk. We’d just finished that music video for “Rollin’.” We’d been a band for five or six years and we discussed what it exactly it was we were doing. I was pushing for buying a van, getting on the road, quitting your day jobs, be prepared. Originally that was the plan, but you know how guys are, they don’t talk about their feelings and shit.

We’re all gung ho as far as playing music, but our bass player Timmy got into grad school in Idaho on a long shot. We just kind of went our separate ways. I can always see us getting back together to play and jam, but right now I’m trying to make this my career. I have the drummer from Cuesta Drive still; he plays with me live. Timmy is coming home in May and is already talking about doing a couple shows. Why wouldn’t we? I’m sure we’ll always do a couple reunion shows—kind of like The Police [laughs], but on a small scale.

Dane Drewis will celebrate the release of Rock & Soul at Harlow’s April 30, 2010.

Life in 24 Frames takes a progressive approach to their music, in more ways than one

It’s time the music industry faces the truth that soon the CD will be an obsolete technology. While it is heartbreaking that record stores might disappear as well, it’s impossible to deny the power and ease of the MP3. With this in mind Sacramento’s Life in 24 Frames has developed a clever marketing strategy as an act of accepting these changing times.

The download card is so new it feels awkward. Life in 24 Frames use these business cards with download codes to spread the word. No physical copy exists of the band’s music; rather demand is created through limited time offers on its Web site. The response has been mostly enthusiastic, but the band worries that perhaps there is something lost in translation when they give out cards to fans.

After a show in San Diego, the band was loading up when a girl looking to purchase the band’s music approached. When the lead singer Kris tried to give her a card, she respectfully declined, saying she would prefer to buy a CD. “I don’t think she understood what it was,” he said. “I think she thought I was trying to pick up on her. Not a week later I gave someone a download card and he said, ‘This is sweet, but do you have anything I could buy?'” Tony added that given this economy they never thought people would be so insistent on buying a record instead of getting free music.

Eventually Life in 24 Frames will compile its songs onto a CD. The band hopes to have it completed by the spring or summer of 2010. Until that day though, they are continuing the awkward exchanges in hopes that the cards will catch on. Kris said having a pocketful of cards excites him, as he’s often been tempted to make it rain cards on the audience, but can not justify wasting free downloads.

Life in 24 Frames expressed a focused approach to its writing process. The cards make it a task to have three new songs available every two months. The drummer, who simply goes by Mango, said the band has set a standard that requires discipline.

“There’s nothing worse than when your favorite band takes two years to put out a new album,” Kris said. Life in 24 Frames is constantly writing to maintain fan interest in this digital age where music is available with just a click.

“Some bands can do that,” lead guitarist Tony C. said in reference to taking years between records. “But, obviously with a new band like ourselves, we can’t afford to do that.”

As for their sound, Kris admitted the band has yet to write a song under five minutes. Life in 24 Frames has an experimental sound that builds toward ethereal crescendos.

“None of it is intentional at all,” Kris said. “We never go into the studio with the plan of making a seven-minute epic, but we also don’t stop building the song until everyone is comfortable with their part.”

The band often gets comparisons to Radiohead and Pink Floyd, but the members came together in their appreciation for ’90s indie rock like Built to Spill and Sunny Day Real Estate. Mango was the last member to join. He heard Life in 24 Frames’ first EP and immediately envisioned playing drums for the band.

The bassist Wes said the band hopes to eventually achieve that perfect pop song greatness, referencing The Beatles’ “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” as an example of fitting dozens of great ideas into the three and a half minute pop mold. “They are long songs, but they don’t feel like long songs,” Mango said. “We don’t focus on how long it is. They all have to reach a specific energy.”

Life in 24 Frames said it came to terms with its current sound four months ago. Wes said despite each member having different backgrounds and playing in bands that sound nothing like Life in 24 Frames, they all seemed to be arching toward this moment. “I’m sure we won’t be the same band a year from now,” he said.

Press so far for Life in 24 Frames has the band adopting a bad publicity is still publicity mentality. One show review that amused them in particular was after a last minute scheduling in San Francisco. The reviewer that night trashed the band for having an atmospheric sound that did not translate to the live setting, suggesting that the band be best enjoyed while doing homework, making out or falling asleep. Despite the writer’s intentions, Life in 24 Frames considered the remark a compliment.

From its inception the band has been based around technological savvy. The members all met on Craigslist. Kris joked that whether you’re trying to sell your lawnmower, need a girlfriend for the night or a new drummer, the list will fulfill your needs. Kris has a background in video production. Life in 24 Frames hopes to eventually incorporate video into its recording sessions, but he quickly admitted that filming and playing music at the same time is a difficult task. It did few favors for The Beatles when they attempted to document its Let It Be sessions and Life in 24 Frames are aware of those concerns. “When you’re part of the music writing process there’s absolutely no way you can also from an outside perspective to film it,” he said. “I would like to shoot one of our long drives back from Los Angeles as a music video.”

Best Fwends, WHATEVAWHATEVAWHATEVA, Loch Lomand
Luigi’s Fungarden “¢ Nov. 11-13, 2009
Words by Vincent Girimonte

Last week, I ended up at Luigi’s Slice three consecutive nights, and it has culminated into the following article which will hopefully explain why a grown man is still frequenting pizza parlors by himself.

Wednesday
Exactly one other person and I went to Luigi’s to see Texas electro-punks Best Fwends. Two people still don’t make a crowd, apparently, and the show was cancelled, officially ruining an otherwise great laundry day. The Fwends gave me their drink tickets, though, and Luigi’s gave me a free slice of pie, which incidentally explains why I was so confused about paying on Thursday.

Thursday
I sauntered over to the Press Club to watch the fighting Singletarys not lose to the Bears. Jay Cutler hit more 49ers than did Alex Smith, but for some reason the outcome was close enough to merit a few yelps—a terrible game, by any measure. There I met two acquaintances from high school and three hours later we were asking why our Luigi’s slices actually cost money—like physical money—and why so much of it. Upon leaving, a couple of 300-pound men gave us a shoulder-charge. Retaliation was postponed.

Friday
Loch Lomond is a folk group from Portland, Ore. and they look and sound like a folk group from Portland, despite songwriter/frontman Ritchie Young, a dainty firecracker of a folksinger who wore a cherry-red shirt and a slick haircut. Being the symbolism junkie that I am, this image more or less reflects how I feel about Loch Lomond: one bright spot.

At certain points, I was willing to describe the sextet as perfectly adequate folk/pop, which is usually about as far as I go into admitting boredom. Long-winded meandering tunes, most off their new Night Bats EP, left me craving either a larger venue or fewer musicians. Triple harmonies, melodies tickling all over, “tuning parties” in between songs—Loch Lomond is no doubt a band of seasoned musicians but perhaps it doesn’t need to be, at least for my taste. The catchier numbers, such as “Blue Lead Fences” and “Field Report” seemed to be more brass tacks, mariner songs, and the ones that ultimately kept me awake.

It was a splendid effort, though, all passive-aggression aside. And Young—a diminutive, Annie Lennox-type with all the chops and panache you might expect from such a creature—can sell the symphonic nature of his band even if his songs sometimes do not. Each number seemed to require a different tone; he was as capable in providing the tiniest falsetto, as he was the stormy, operatic boom. As he became anecdotal between tracks, nobody was surprised to learn he was a precocious little shit in his childhood, which made him all the more endearing and explained so much regarding Loch Lomond’s overly ambitious set.

Local Promoter Brian McKenna Prepares for His 40th Birthday and his 20th Anniversary Booking Shows in Sacramento

Twenty years ago, Brian McKenna was a record store clerk, dropping flyers to his shows at the Cattle Club in every bag of records out the door. Now, McKenna is 20 years of promotional work deep. He’s booked every band you love, gathered two lifetimes’ worth of stories and still makes time for shows he doesn’t book. McKenna is a grown man looking at 40 years of life and still spends his days digging for new music that will blow his mind.

McKenna books everything. He’s seen the coming and going of trends like they were cars viewed from the side of a freeway. According to his promotional company’s Myspace page, Abstract Entertainment has booked every variety of band falling between Ani DiFranco and White Zombie. In his younger days, he was booking more than 100 shows a year. With no signs of letting up, McKenna lives in venues. His weekly regimen might range from nights at the Blue Lamp with Lyrics Born to awkward looks from hipsters at The Hub.

In the early ’90s, he brought Mudhoney, Pearl Jam (when it was still known as Mookie Blaylock) and Nirvana to Sacramento before the term “grunge” was coined. He heard songs from acclaimed records like Ten and Nevermind live in dingy low-ceiling holes, before they became platinum records. “Most folks don’t think Nirvana ever played Sacramento,” he says. “They played here three times. But, it was before Nevermind. The best shows you’re going to see from a band, arguably, are when they’re young and hungry and haven’t had a hit yet.”

His show obsession is unquenchable. “I’m at the shows I book, but on my nights off I’m typically at another show,” McKenna says. “When I go to another city, I’m grabbing all the weeklies to see who’s in town. I could be on vacation, whatever; there might be somebody great.”

Once, on a brief vacation in Prague, he did resist the temptation to drag a girlfriend to see a band he’d previously worked with. If it was a band he loved, he asserts, they would have gone. “I don’t date people who aren’t into shows,” he says. “They will quickly realize I will sacrifice quite a bit to go see a good show.” If he ever lost that willingness to sacrifice he’d get a straight job, McKenna concedes—but it’s a knee-jerk response. He wears his loyalty to independent music as casually as his jeans and flannel.

As an independent business man, McKenna’s never taken a corporate sponsorship, preferring to be the provider of his own means. Though he had offers along the way to join the suits, he stayed local in hopes the Sacramento scene would blow up. “I really didn’t want to be punching the clock and putting on a suit and a tie,” he says. “I’m probably better off making my own hours, my own schedule and not answering to anybody.”

McKenna decided to become his own boss after Spirit Records in Rancho Cordova closed. He started Abstract Entertainment in 1994. He might not have pulled a Jim Brewer-style “who’s coming with me?” speech, but he did coax two former Spirit employees to join him, one to be his box office manager and the other to be his production manager. “I worked with those two guys until 2000,” he says.

McKenna’s weathered his share of storms and has elected to see the current economic crisis’ effect on the scene as just another challenge to endure. “The people who are going out to small club [and bar] shows are a really finite number,” he says. “It’s affected by the night of the week, what’s on TV. Even with TiVo, you’re still competing.”

It does not help that Sacramento is a city with its back to the youth, the people who go to shows the most. He’s far past the twilight of his youth, but the memories of being shut out from the venue hosting his favorite band lingers. McKenna laments the loss of all-ages venues, like his first employer, The Cattle Club, and the El Dorado Saloon.

“Unfortunately, the powers that be in our government town are not open to the idea of an all-ages venue,” he says. “They don’t look at it as a chance to keep kids off the streets and out of trouble. They look at is as ‘there’s kids out here listening to music I don’t understand, so it can’t be a good thing.’ Why not have a safe place for them to go?”

McKenna admits his own hesitation to jump into the all-ages movement. Sacramento’s 18-and-up venues are the exceptionally large Empire club and a collection of small pizza parlors and coffeehouses holding a maximum of 100 people.

“A lot of the bands I [book], it’s just too small for them,” he says. “I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for the ideal venue that holds 500 kids of all ages and allows 21-and-up to drink to open in Sacramento proper.”

After a return from Burning Man over the summer, McKenna is now preparing for his End of My 30s tour. His birthday week plans include a road trip from San Diego back to Sacramento, following Jesus Lizard, Butthole Surfers and the Melvins through California. The tour concludes with his 20×40 show, an event celebrating 20 years of promotion on his 40th birthday.

“I put Harlow’s on hold a year ago,” he says. “The idea was I wanted to take some of the bands I started with 20 years ago and all bands I truly love and travel to see if they are playing within a 100 miles to commemorate the anniversary.”

He is bringing in Canadian punks No Means No, who made Sacramento its anchor date; mid-’90s local band Kai KlN; and new blood Triclops. With a little luck, he was even able to steal Mike Watt away from Iggy Pop for the night.

“He’s a friend and the first time I set foot in Cattle Club, it was to see him in Firehose,” McKenna says. “I sent an invitation to him, but understood that if Iggy says the Stooges need to be in Germany, Mike Watt will be in Germany. Time went by and he called me up, asking if it was too late to get on the bill. I had the show booked, but I couldn’t tell Mike Watt he’s too late.”

Local four-piece difficult to define

Happy 4/20. If only you were in Arcata, you could be ZuhGin’ out.

After CD release parties in Sacramento and Roseville last week, the four-piece from the City of Trees cruised the ZuhGmobile to Humboldt for a weekend lineup of shows capped off by a 4/20 celebration Monday at the Humboldt State University Quad.

ZuhG will perform at noon at Sierra College in Rocklin on Thursday. The evening before, on Earth Day, they have an all-ages gig at Pyramid Alehouse in Sacramento.

On the April Second Saturday Art Walk, in Sacramento on April 11, ZuhG lured the audience away from the art and the couches in the back of the Blue Lamp to the dance floor with their set that featured songs from their new album ZuhG Life. A heap of jackets piled onto one couch beneath the artwork of Brian Nichols, ZuhG’s frontman.

“Listen to OutKast,” Nichols said while they played a “So Fresh So Clean” interlude.

Shoeless, Nichols led the band on guitar and vocals. Justin Vance opened their set with his bassline for “Accessories,” an homage to the mundanity in life.

Brian “Bot” Swart was the highlight of the night and, in a way, he is in ZuhG Life, playing tenor saxophone, giving the band the sound they want—”to be unlike others,” how they define ZuhG.

Self-taught drummer Matt Klee said in an interview at Nichols’s house that in order to get better he had to get uncomfortable. So, with Nichols, he took a jazz ensemble class at Sierra College a year ago. That’s where they met Bot.

In that class, Nichols said he met a mentor of sorts who taught him jazz guitar.

“I wanted to play jazz guitar, and he played way sicker than me,” he said. “Now, it’s all about practicing daily. We’re trying to get better every day as a band.”

A semester’s worth of jam sessions and Bot was a part of ZuhG. Though it wasn’t their intention, he replaced the band’s cello player, Jarrod Matthews, who left the band after Bot’s sax was added. (ZuhG Life’s bonus track features an improv session with Matthews and Bot.)

The youngest in the band at 19, Bot gives ZuhG its jazz element that makes the funk-rock-reggae-jam—whatever you’d like to call it—band a little hard to categorize. Last year ZuhG was nominated for a Sammie in the SN&R in the R&B category. This year, they earned the nomination in the Jam Band category. Recently, High Times Magazine online added them as an unsigned band of the week.

Both Bot and Nichols are studying music, though Nichols is at Sacramento City College now.

Local radio station KWOD 106.5 plays their song “Shangri La,” because it’s “reggae enough,” Nichols said at his house. “I wanted them to choose ‘Lately,’ but they said it was ‘too jazzy.'”

Bot and the guys laughed it off. “Too jazzy is a compliment,” Bot said.

Surely their music wasn’t too jazzy, or maybe it was, to make enough cash to produce ZuhG Life at Sacramento’s Pus Cavern Studios. The recording is great.

“We’d like to thank Northstar and Sugar Bowl for funding this album,” Nichols joked, because they were able to book a couple shows a month at the Tahoe resorts during winter.

Tahoe in the winter. They’ll see the coast for spring. From San Jose to Ocean Beach they have shows lined up along the coast for two weeks until they return to Davis to play the G. St. Pub, May 16 at Beatnik Studios Boobie Bash and May 23 at Marylin’s on K.

When success implodes a band, it’s a tough pill to swallow for everyone involved. Climbing the rungs of regional notoriety can be fun if accomplished over time; but if you’re Mozart Season, and the ladder was as slippery a slope as it was in the band’s formative year, you can almost hear the thud before the fall. After catapulting their traditional NorCal screamo into an arc of sold-out shows in the greater Sacramento area, opening for national headlining acts, and parading their verve for an increasingly rabid mass, the bottom fell out and left the group tattered somewhere in El Paso, Texas, on their first tour. Splintered and salvaged, Mozart Season has endured more lineup changes than they’d care to mention, and more false-starts than Liu Xiang at the Beijing Olympics. But there’s hope around every corner, and thus Mozart Season has chalked up their losses, and finally focused on making up for lost time. The band will release their first recording since 2006 with the Apotheosis EP, an invasive, though somewhat innovative, new disc that swelters under the pangs of drooling metal, with only hints of the melodic underwriting of their previous efforts.

The band will be back in shape, new lineup in tow, Saturday, Jan. 17 at the Boardwalk, playing alongside Dance Gavin Dance and Consider the Thief. Vocalist Nate and bassist Troy were kind enough to give Submerge an update on their new EP, their past and their future.

What was the impetus for the band to reunite after the breakup?
Nate: It all started with wanting to play a reunion show for fun. Once we all started jamming again, we really began to realize just how much we missed playing music. We wrote a new song after about two weeks or so of playing together again and decided that we wanted to get back together. A year later, we’ve got an EP done, the most solid lineup we’ve ever had, and are working at proving ourselves to anyone who has ever doubted us

How supportive has the scene in Sacramento been with regard to you making the decision to reform?
Nate: Well, the two shows that we’ve played have been awesome! But that’s only two shows. I think we still have a lot of work to do to gain back what we had going for us. We were all very humbled by the breakup, and we’ve been thrilled with the response to our new music. We just hope that we can keep playing music for a long time and constantly get better.
Troy: The reception of our new music has been incredible. New fans, old fans and even people who formerly disliked us have now embraced our new sound and it’s been amazing. This is only the beginning for us, though; we want to make our mark in Sacramento and then on an even bigger level.

Explain the consistent lineup changes in the band. What might you point out as the reasons for the constant shift in personnel over the years?
Nate: For some it’s been commitment issues, and for others it’s been because of wanting to better their lives in other ways than music like college, careers or other bands. The band now is stronger than ever. We’re seriously attached at the hip. We are friends before we are band mates, so it works out way better. We respect each other and work well together. When we all started to play together, the chemistry was there. It’s by far the strongest and most solid lineup we have had and none of us are going anywhere.

Do you feel like your almost immediate regional success has helped or hindered the band?
Nate: It’s definitely helped the band. We weren’t expecting such a quick response to everything we’ve been working on and we have so much momentum from it that we’re not going to let anything stop us. We plan on touring the West Coast as soon as possible and playing regionally so we can push this new album.
Troy: We haven’t let anything go to our heads. Although we do have a lot of regional success, we are pushing ourselves constantly to get better and better.
What would you say is the band’s new modus operandi? Or what would be your new philosophy for the continued evolution of the band?
Nate: “Party Hard, Work harder.” We realized that this takes a lot work, and we’re going to prove ourselves in ’09 and for the years after.

What sort of artistic resonance does the title of your new album, Apotheosis, have for the band? Is it a metaphor for the resurgence of the group?
Nate: It’s definitely a metaphor for the resurgence of the group. Mozart Season has been to hell and back, and we don’t have much to show for it anymore because we disappeared for a year. Some of us realized a year after we broke up that it was the biggest mistake of our lives. We felt discouraged, beat down, like no one would ever take us seriously again. We knew if we got back together, it was going to have to be different. We had to be doing it for the right reasons and we had to be writing music that we would want to listen to in our cars, or on our computers or wherever. We have just been taking every challenge and bump in the road head on and as fast as we can.
Troy: We took the name Apotheosis from a part of “the hero’s journey” [an excerpt from Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces] I remember learning all about it in high school and it seemed appropriate for our situation. As we had heard it defined, the Apotheosis is where the hero’s ego is disintegrated in a breakthrough expansion of consciousness. Quite frequently the hero’s idea of reality is changed; the hero may find an ability to do new things or to see a larger point of view. And that is exactly where we found ourselves while writing this new album. The band had broken up for a year and come back with a new idea of reality and what we wanted to be doing musically and that’s portrayed through our new sound.

In what direction did you attempt to push your musical spectrum on your new album?
Nate: We didn’t go into it with any direction or idea of what the album was going to sound like. That was our problem in the past. We were always trying to fit the screamo mold because that’s what people seemed to love. We had all sorts of issues trying to get this album done and those feelings of frustration I think definitely shaped the outcome of this EP. Losing Joel [vocalist], we lost our old sound completely, so this EP is just a mixture of what everyone new to the band and the veterans brought to the table during the writing process.
Troy: When we started to write this album, we had no set plan as to what our sound was going to be. While it’s nearly impossible to be “original,” we wanted to stray away from fitting into any specific “sounds like” category. We wanted to break away from the old sound and produce a more mature album, and I think we did just that. The old music was written nearly three years ago; our skill as musicians and songwriters has gotten far better since then and I think that shows.

Sacramento’s Far Comes Home

By Mark Lore | Photos by Jeff Gros

They say you always want to go out on top. If that’s the case, then Sacramento’s Far did everything right. In the mid-’90s Sacramento was on the radar as bands like Cake and Deftones were signing to majors (remember those days?), while post-hardcore was bubbling underneath the city’s surface.

Submerge caught up with Matranga and Lopez, who filled us in on the not-so-elaborate Hot Little Pony marketing scheme, what the future holds, and why they don’t want to be blamed for Fall Out Boy.

The music climate has changed quite a bit in the last 10 years. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Shaun Lopez: It’s good for us, because we’re in a unique position in being able to go out on tour and be self-sufficient, and be able to make a little money on top of that. I feel for new bands starting up right now because it is tough out there. Record deals being offered to young new bands are not so great; they’re almost better off doing it on their own. For us it’s been OK. Luckily we’re in a position that we do have fans that are pretty dedicated—it’s something we’re very thankful for and very surprised.

Whose idea was it to start playing together again?
SL: It came close when we did the re-release of Water & Solutions [in 2004]. It never came to, and I think in all honesty it probably wasn’t the right time and it wasn’t for the right reasons. Chris [Robyn] and I had been talking about it off and on and then Jonah called me about a year ago and brought the idea of just showing up at a club and playing. I liked the idea of playing again, but I wanted to do it more professionally and go out on a tour.
Jonah Matranga: He always tries to be more professional than me; I’m always the guy that wants to go out and just bang it out. And he’s like, “No dude, gotta rehearse; make it good.” So we balance each other out that way.

There was this semi-elaborate scheme with the Hot Little Pony concept. Whose idea was that? And who decided to record a Ginuwine song?
JM: What looks complex from the outside is just us fucking around on the inside. We wanted to play a couple of shows, and I just really wanted to take the hype away from it because a) I don’t like it, and b) I wanted us to be as unstressed as possible. I think our friend Jeff jokingly thought of the name Hot Little Pony. And we just all laughed when he said it and thought, “Ah that would be really fucking funny.” “Pony” is a tune that we’d always play before shows back in the day. And it’s just a simple song, and so Shaun and Chris laid it down [in Los Angeles] and I came down and sang it. Shaun added his magic dust to it. I don’t know, it just came out; it was a fun, very quick thing.

Now you have your homecoming show in Sacramento. Is that going to be a gauge of whether this continues?
JM: I think it’s all a gauge. There’s nothing official on the books, but there’s a lot being talked about. I think we’re all just trying to take it as it comes. The first two Hot Little Pony shows were like, “OK, can we do this well?” Because it was really important to all of us to not go up there and suck. And then we did the L.A. shows and thought we pretty much ripped it. Then we thought, “OK, can we tour together? Can we not drive each other insane?” The whole “Pony” thing has definitely thrown it into a different gear. We’ve never had any sort of radio play like this so we’ll sort of look at that and see what that means, if anything.

Any shows beyond Sacramento?
JM: Just Sacto. We’re very excited about that. It’s a big enough show where I think it will be fun and exciting, but it still feels like home. We got some friends’ bands on there. I feel pretty sure that more shows will happen, but we have nothing on the books. And then we’re looking at trying to do a little recording together, see what happens with that. My particular take is just trying to do a couple of covers that suggest where we came from as a band. I’m very reticent to do original songs. I don’t want to do an original song just to have a new song, and have it not be as good as the old shit. Because all of our favorite old bands do that and it blows.

Water & Solutions has been touted as your masterpiece. Does that put more pressure on you to record?
SL: I realize that no matter what we do, people are always going to love that record. That’s going to be the record.
JM: Yeah, but some people, frankly, like Tin Cans“¦ more, which I don’t understand. That’s the thing with putting out records”¦I don’t get to control what other people think. But for me, there’s no pressure with people, there’s just pressure for me… I just want to know it kicks ass. We could put something out as good as Nevermind, and people will still be like, “Yeah, you know, I kinda like ‘Bury White.'” But I would just want to feel in myself that it came from an inspired place, and that I could go out with confidence and play it live and feel as strong as I do playing “Bury White” or “Mother Mary” or “Man Overboard.” Those songs, I just feel good playing them. And I don’t feel good playing them because I’m used to them; I feel good because they’re good, and they’re good 10 years later.

Far has influenced a style of music that is looked down on, although you sound nothing like those bands. Do you guys think about that?
JM: I’ve been asked that question a gazillion times in interviews, and my stock answer that sort of makes me laugh, that I totally believe is: I don’t blame Led Zeppelin for Whitesnake and I don’t want to be blamed for Fall Out Boy. We just came around trying to play rock ‘n’ roll that was less dressed up and more human, and mixing heavy shit and more anthemic shit we liked from big rock with this sort of humble, straight in-your-face element of punk. A lot of bands at the time were doing that. And as it happened, when that sort of caught on, there were a lot of bands that traded in their leopard jeans and whatever else the fuck for horn rims and tight pants. They took all the cheap parts and tried to make money off of it, and forgot the important part, which was the humanness of it.

You’ve all changed as people in the last 10 years. How is Far different today than it was in ’98?
JM: The funny thing is that we’ve all changed as people, but the personality balance still to me is working out relatively similarly. I think Shaun and I are better at recognizing that we’re different people, and talking it through, which rules.
SL: Yeah, the communication is much better. In the past a lot of the problem was that when shit would piss people off, they wouldn’t say anything.
JM: It feels good now to come in with a little more time to breathe. And I do think we’ve all, through our individual experiences, learned a little about how important it is to clear the air before shit gets crazy.

Being in a band is like being in a relationship “¦
JM: I liken it to a relationship where the sex is really good, but everything else is weird [laughs]. To me that’s the closest analogy I could come up with without sounding creepy.