After weeks of hinting at a major singing to fans via his Twitter feed, local on-the-rise MC Chuuwee announced a deal with Amalgam Digital, a label whose past signings have included Curren$y, Young Riot, Saigon, Lil B The Based God and many more. In 2008, The Source magazine said Amalgam had “its fingerprint on the pulse of hip-hop’s future.” Now, some four years later, Amalgam is looking to rebuild its roster and is starting with our very own rhyme sayer Chuuwee! A free mix-tape called Crown Me King will be released on April 24, 2012 as a precursor to a full-length album, Wild Style, out May 29. Keep an eye out at http://amalgamdigital.com/ and http://thechuuweechannel.tumblr.com/ for more information.

Sacramento’s hardest rap group, Death Grips, recently announced a deal with Epic Records that will include two releases this year: The Money Store on April 24, 2012 and No Love, scheduled for a fall release. Ever since last years’ Exmilitary dropped, causing a ruckus online (and at their first few shows), Death Grips have continued to build a buzz with their hard-edged, “What the fuck is happening right now?”-type sound. They’re opening for Refused at the Glass House in Pomona, Calif., on April 12, 2012, playing Coachella on April 13 and April 20, and they have quite a few other impressive festival bookings throughout the year including, San Miguel Primavera Sound in Barcelona, Spain, on June 1 with The Cure, M83, Sleigh Bells and many more. There’s no doubt about it: the world is fascinated by Death Grips’ music, and they want more. So do we. Check out http://thirdworlds.net/ to hear some tunes, watch some really weird music videos, find tour dates and more.

Neil Hamburger takes on Shakespeare, prank calls and hecklers with panache…
more or less

Neil Hamburger might seem as though he was freed from a cryogenic crypt. His classic vaudeville act is both archaic and a fittingly appropriate counterstrike to modern humor. In late March he returns to the Sacramento Comedy Spot. If you saw him previously and it was over your head, this article is for you. If you’ve never seen him perform and have tickets, this article is for you too.

Those old enough to remember Tony Clifton wreaking havoc on late-night television and concert stages in the ‘70s should think of Neil Hamburger as being cut from the same washed-up, beer- and sweat-stained tuxedo cloth. He’s an anti-hero with celebrity worship in the crosshairs. If at any point during his set you find it difficult to accept his reality, take comfort in knowing he’s not entirely real. Unlike Clifton, though, Hamburger is on our side rather than out to sully our evening on the town. On the phone he expressed aspirations to reach the same heights as Abbott and Costello or Laurel and Hardy, which is why he does 399 shows (allegedly) a year.

“Certainly would like to get the point of the same recognition as those guys,” he said. “It was a good situation for Abbott and Costello. What wasn’t so good was when they passed away. That was a problem for them. Fortunately, they’d done quite a few things before that we’ll always treasure.”

On stage, Hamburger is a glum, middle-aged, tuxedo-clad man, with greasy comb-over hair, awkwardly sized glasses and a rasp magnified by a ghost lodging in his throat he perpetually pauses to clear–as if he’s working up a world record-tying loogie. As real as he appears, he’s an act finely tuned over a nearly 20-year span. Before there was Hamburger, there was Gregg Turkington, a punk rocker and label head from Australia. He’s practically dead these days, consumed by the Hamburger persona; so dead, I insisted clarification on precisely who I would be speaking with–Neil or Gregg–before accepting the assignment.

Talking to Neil, I wanted to ask, “Is Gregg there? Is he somewhere in there? Can Gregg come out?” like I was a psychiatrist coaxing a multi-personality disorder patient to let me speak to the host. I didn’t though, because talking with Neil was too much fun. He was professional and just as uncertain about expectations as I was. When we wrapped our interview his parting words were:

“Good luck. I hope I was able to give you the answers you were looking for. You never know what people need. I do hope this leads to some sort of prize or some sort of award for you. I do appreciate the time.”

It was unexpected, considering Hamburger is notoriously cranky. If an audience member doesn’t respond to his inquiry, they are dubbed a “zipper lips.” If an unruly heckler dares challenge Hamburger, relentless throat-clearing sounds drown out their end, until Neil is ready to fire his snarling comeback. On his show Poolside Chats, call-ins are futile and mostly result in Hamburger shouting obscenities at a phone and slamming the receiver. But, the afternoon of our chat, Hamburger was pleasant, since he considered me to be “a nice polite and reasonable person with some good questions.”

In a lot of the clips I watched leading up to this interview you seemed to be quite cranky. I was somewhat nervous about this interview, considering how you respond to phone calls on Poolside Chats.
Well I think it depends on what you get. If you get someone throwing old frozen waffles at you and yelling out your punch lines, well the crankiness will set in. It also depends on the time of day. It’s certainly easier to be cranky late at night or early in the morning. During the daytime when I’m just driving from show to show, it’s a pretty pleasant day out…so I would say no, I’m not cranky right now.

You seem to thrive off the shouts from hecklers. I feel as though your style baits them some. Deep down do you love it?
I wouldn’t say I encourage, but I’m prepared for them. Honestly some of these hecklers are just so witless and plain annoying that there’s no reason to encourage that. Some of these people are committing the equivalent of crapping on the floor of the nightclub, you know? Somebody has something clever to say that’s a whole other story, but that’s not always what you get.

Plus what a comedian finds clever and the average audience member finds clever probably greatly differs.
Well, let’s put it this way. When you get guys that come out and they go on YouTube and they see the show from the night before and they come out to yell the punch lines ahead of time. That’s not really heckling. That’s just shitty. Nobody cares for that. So those are the sorts of folks I’m talking about that we have no use for.

Do you have any new comedy records coming out?
We just did one with Jack White, you know? It just came out last month. There’s a couple 7-inch singles as well. So yeah, lot of new records.

What was it like working with Jack White?
The man is a true professional and knows what he wants. He knows how to put on a great event. We recorded it live, and he’s got a studio there in Nashville. We did the show and it came out as a record in a very quick turnaround. Just an all-around pleasure. I wish there were more folks in the business like this, but as you know a lot of them aren’t. You get your Britney Spears and this sort of garbage. It’s not always so nice.

You’ve got a couple film roles coming up. You’re in Hamlet A.D.D. What was it like working with Shakespearean material?
It’s a strange film. I haven’t seen it, but it’s an animated film with live actors. I guess, they do it with this modern technology and you’re interacting with cartoon characters. It’s hard to say. It was fun to be a part of it. We were in front of a green screen. Certainly, I was not actually interacting with these cartoons, but I will be when it comes out. That’s something to look forward to.

You got your start doing prank phone calls. Do you ever do them now for nostalgia’s sake?
You know, sometimes I’ll get on the phone and do an interview or order a pizza or something. Nowadays, you get the death penalty for making prank calls, so you really can’t do that anymore. They changed the rule. It’s instant death.

I was unaware of that.
Oh yeah, check the news. You’ll see. I guess they prosecuted the first couple people and started the executions. There are some human rights activists and things that say it’s a bit extreme punishment, but you know, unless it goes to the Supreme Court and is overturned, that’s what we’re stuck with.

What celebrities are in your crosshairs these days?
Well, they all are really. Most of these folks are not the best people you may come across in your travels. A lot of these people are really quite unpleasant, quite overpaid and overexposed. Some of these movies really break your heart, if you get a look at this junk. To see these people thriving off poisoning our children with their bad films and their bad everything, that will break your heart again. Some of the bad music, I don’t know if you’ve heard some of this music they’ve got… It sounds like somebody crapping into a porcelain bowl. You know, they put a techno beat over it and that’s the new hit single. I’m sorry, that’s not my idea of a good song.

Neil Hamburger will play the Sacramento Comedy Spot on Friday, March 30, 2012. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased through http://saccomedyspot.com/. If you go (and you should), do yourself a favor, and leave the jokes to the professional.

The Sacramento Tree Foundation and REI are partnering up to plant trees in the Alder Grove Housing Community. Join them as they plan to increase the number of trees by 40. Volunteers will be a part of a hands-on experience by planting trees and providing the Sacramento community with shade, beauty and environmental benefits. You will learn planting techniques, tool use, and basic tree maintenance. The Sacramento Tree Foundation reminds you to bring gloves, the volunteer release form and eat a healthy breakfast. The Alder Grove Community is located on 816 Revere Street, Sacramento, near Broadway and 8th Street. Sign up to participate in making a difference in your community by calling (916) 924-8733 ext. 122 or go to http://sactree.com/

World Hood ready new EP and prep SxSW showcase

It feels as though it was only a matter of time before Sol Collective made an impact beyond its community activism and support for the local arts and music scene. Collective founders Estella Sanchez and Anand Parmar added recording artists to their resume last year with their debut as World Hood, a project that developed in the wee hours of the night in the gallery.

A nonprofit organization and art gallery located on 2574 21st Street, Sol Collective hosts beat battles and touring psych-rock bands and runs a world music series titled Global Hood, which brings artists that operate in the meshing of tropicalia bass, break-beat, electronica and Cumbia genres to Sacramento. There are B-boy workshops and practices in the back rooms and music production classes for high school students. It is a meeting hall for activist groups to discuss community empowerment and youth development. The gallery is a hub of creativity bound to rub off on its founders.

Nights at the collective rarely ended with a band’s last song for Sanchez and Parmar. After the venue cleared, the couple would hole up in the gallery’s recording studio and work off the excitement from watching the performers. “It was definitely convenient to record at Sol after a show,” Parmar said. “We already had things set up and could put in a few extra hours to get a song in. All of the acts we have brought to Sol, specifically through the Global Hood series, were inspiring in one way or another. They have been groups whose music we believe in and were committed to promote either because of their message or because of the cultural influence in their music.”

Anand Parmar was born in Africa and is of Indian descent, while his partner Sanchez is of Mexican descent. Anand said when he started to shape the World Hood sound, he always tried mixing different cultural elements into the production, but collaborating with Sanchez and incorporating her culture and language was a natural progression. “It’s a mix of what we heard on the radio growing up in Northern Cali in the ‘80s and a mix of what we’d hear at home, be it what our uncles or cousins were playing,” Sanchez said. “Even in the studio I go back and forth in elements I want to add that are familiar to us.”

A DJ and producer for roughly eight years, Parmar would play beats for his partner, mostly culled from blending Latin dub and tropicalia with West Coast bass and hip-hop. Sanchez would sing over his tracks alternating between Spanish and English, sprinkling in slang and spiritual incantation. Sanchez sang mostly for the release, not considering the possibility of the songs going further than the studio walls.

In April of last year, Parmar collected 12 of the recordings and uploaded them to Soundcloud, an online audio distribution platform, and then moved them to a similar site called Bandcamp. He designed an album cover and called their group World Hood, a name that speaks to their globalized sound and grassroots activism. By May the duo was being interviewed by the MTV’s Iggy blog and later appeared on NPR’s Alt.Latino station. The coverage swelled further with Hype Machine, Mad Decent Blog, Dutty Artz and National Geographic’s music blog (yes, they have one) taking notice. “It was a little bit of a surprise for us,” Sanchez said. “We had been working on music for a while. Anand wanted to just put it out there and let people hear it. We didn’t expect the coverage.”

The hype moved at a pace bigger than the band as the phone rang and the inbox received requests to tour and perform. It was an invitation the group had yet to consider. “We definitely got invited to play and tour before we even put our live set together,” Sanchez said between laughs. It’s almost a year since they posted the album and she is still in disbelief that she’s juggling a time-consuming nonprofit–a master’s thesis that became her life’s passion–a family, and a burgeoning band. “It’s not stress, but we’re trying to find a way to balance it and do it well,” she said. “I love what I do at Sol Collective and Anand is a big part of it as the music director there. We’ve been finding ways to complement it.”

Being true to their moniker, Parmar and Sanchez use the band as an opportunity to travel and promote Sol Collective. It began with their first show. The duo was invited to the Aborigine Music Festival in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. The high tide in the local scene has sent artists like Sister Crayon and Death Grips to the festival circuit, but a debut performance at a festival is unheard of. “It went really well,” Sanchez said. “It’s a lot easier to perform when you’re in another country. I figured if it all goes bad, I’m on a plane tomorrow and that’s that.”

It did not go bad, though. Radio stations played their music prior to the festival, which meant the duo were welcomed to the festival with excitement and familiarity. World Hood performed as part of the Pow Wow party at the Pyramid Cabaret in Winnipeg. The group played alongside A Tribe Called Red, a collective of native Canadian DJs, which Sanchez and Parmar were fans of. “We got some feedback from them,” she said. “They really loved what we were doing in creating beats and native thinking and mixing up the languages. It encouraged us to keep on that path.”

Sanchez said she hopes to bring A Tribe Called Red to perform and participate in workshops at the center. Sol Collective also approached them to be a part of its #ArtCultureActivism SxSW showcase in March, but conflicting tour dates in Canada hindered their availability.

Sanchez and Parmar view the SxSW showcase as another opportunity to not only promote their collective and its community garden build project, but to showcase Sacramento artists and encourage musicians to tour here. The showcase features World Hood, along with local hip-hop act DLRN and producer/DJ Defeye, among several national acts. “When we travel and do things, it’s to bring folks back to Sol Collective,” Sanchez said. “We also have press passes this year, which they gave us… we’ll have the opportunity to go to workshops and events to approach artists we want to promote and bring back to Sacramento.”

In January, World Hood posted the song “Mundo Libre,” which translates to free world, to their Bandcamp page with the description “Single from the upcoming EP. Dropping soon.” The song is the title track to the EP. Sanchez said she and Parmar would work on finishing the EP that night. The goal is to release the five-song EP in late February/early March for free download prior to their SxSW showcase. A full-length will follow in the summer, most likely remaining DIY. “Nothing concrete at this point,” Sanchez said. “We’ve had some interest [from labels]. We had people ask us to send them our stuff. But we’re still trying to figure out what we’re trying to do and how much we’re putting into this project.”

“Mundo Libre” is on par with the group’s pre-existing material of Afro-Latin dub, with hints of Reggaeton in the arpeggiated vocals. Now that World Hood is aware they have an audience, it’s altered the process a bit. Sanchez said her partner Anand is a meticulous worker in the studio and that his work ethic rubbed off on her in the new sessions. “We paid more attention to the message,” Sanchez said. “Now that people are interested in listening to us, we’re more conscious and aware of what we’re putting out. With the first one I didn’t think anyone was going to hear it, so I didn’t care. The first one was freestyle, where this time I actually stopped and said, ‘wait let’s record that again,’ instead of just saying ‘oh that was fun, I’m going to sleep now.’”

World Hood will be releasing a new EP soon. In the meantime, check out “Mundo Libre” at http://worldhoodmusic.bandcamp.com/. For more information on Sol Collective, go to Solcollective.org.

Blitzen Trapper Navigates Nostalgic Avenues on American Goldwing

The key word for the successes and attention over the last five years for Portland, Ore.’s Blitzen Trapper might have to be “patience.” With their conception in 2000 as a six-piece crew of classic-rock connoisseurs–anchored by the songwriting prowess of figurehead Eric Earley–Blitzen Trapper accidentally enjoyed an educational incubation period in garages and small clubs for a full seven years before anyone outside their hometown really had a clue or cared about them. With everyone seemingly looking the other way, the band honed their craft, wrote, recorded and released three albums on their own (2007’s Wild Mountain Nation would eventually be re-released on Sub Pop), and figured out, basically, how to be a band. With Wild Mountain Nation, Earley’s artistic prolificacy, and his isolation/inspiration of residing in the band’s actual studio space during the creation of the record, resulted in a buzz that’s ricocheting even today, complemented greatly by the 2008 follow-up, Furr, and the slightly prog-y 2010 LP Destroyer of the Void.

Blitzen Trapper’s latest release, American Goldwing, is a return to the nostalgic confines of road-weary rock, rumbling with gobs of groove, walls of squalling guitars and Earley’s typically brilliant strokes of capturing the nomadic spirit on tape. Big riffs and catchy choruses abound, showcasing a band maturing a mere 12 years after they first played a note. With the band’s ascent into the consciousness of media heads and music lovers alike having coalesced to form a formidable army of devotees, the band is capitalizing on their impeccable sense of timing yet again, hitting the road for another run of dates that will slither them out of the clubs and into the maw of the festival circuit through the spring and into summer. In anticipation of Blitzen Trapper’s gig at Harlow’s on March 5, 2012 guitarist/vocalist/keyboardist/melodica player Marty Marquis spoke with Submerge via phone from Seattle, where he was slated to headline at his friend’s wedding ceremony.

The band’s been off the road for a while now. How do you relax off tour? Do you tend to hibernate away from each other?
We hang out and do stuff now and again, but for the most part I think everybody’s got their own lives now. When we’re on the road, we enjoy each other’s company, but it’s nice to have a break from the enforced intimacy. I’ve got kids now; our bass player Mike [VanPelt] just had a kid a month ago. The other guys have their own things going on, too. When we started playing together in 2000, we weren’t like, “Let’s make a band and get famous and make a bunch of money!” We just liked hanging out, so we’d spend four or five hours a night, three or four nights a week. We did that for years, just hanging out, playing and recording. We’ve logged a lot of time with each other. We don’t feel the urge to do it all the time anymore.

Do you feel like folk, roots or Americana music is being homogenized by its resurgent commercial popularity? If so, is a band like Blitzen Trapper fearful of a backlash?
The thing to look at is how much of this music is actually folk-Americana music, and how much of it is just the trappings of that. I was hanging out with this guy last week, and he was talking about Mumford and Sons was Journey with banjos and acoustic guitars. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s just funny I guess. In the [late] ‘60s, no matter what style of music you were playing it was important to have long freaky hair and wear peace signs or have a fuzz guitar, making your music psychedelic regardless of where you were actually coming from musically. So bands are responding to all kinds of different pressures, and I think especially young bands who are talented but don’t necessarily have much of a sense of identity are apt to go for those folk-Americana trappings.

I don’t know about backlash. I feel like everything is so fragmented and Balkanized in music that it’s hard for me to imagine people being like, “Oh, we’re sick of this folk-Americana stuff!” There are a million other subgenres you can get into that will sell just as well probably.

Eric Earley has said that American Goldwing was written and at least partially recorded during your tour for Destroyer of the Void, and that it was hard playing the current songs when he knew that American Goldwing was the “real” record. Was that the sense for the rest of the band, or had you even heard those songs yet?
We’d heard a bunch of them. In my recollection, I think Goldwing was about half-done when we took off on tour for Destroyer. That’s been Eric’s motive; he’s ultra prolific. If he doesn’t actively stop himself from writing and recording, he’d be recording all the time. There were a lot of different things going on around the time we were putting together Destroyer. One of the things we were trying to do was build a consensus with all these different players–the band members, our label, our management–about what the record was supposed to be. I think because Destroyer wasn’t necessarily well-received, it was sort of easy to say that was a bad approach. It didn’t really represent what Eric as an artistic director was going for. He felt like Goldwing was a lot stronger of a representation of who he is as an artist, musician and songwriter. He felt great about the songs that were on it. On an objective level, the songs on Goldwing are coming from a more honest place than anything Eric’s ever put out before. It’s more about his life and less about fantasy stuff.

As a band, then, how do you reconcile that underlying feeling of having such a great album waiting on the shelf and you’re not able to play it because you have to tour for a different record that you worked on just as hard?
I think there’s always that thing where as an artist, you’re always most excited about what you’re currently working on. But there’s a delay in the music biz where your record comes out six or nine months after it’s finished. So you wrote these songs maybe a year or two before. You’re thoroughly familiar with them and you’re kind of tired of them. And then if nobody else in the world seems excited about these songs, it’s even more tempting to want to move on to the next round. But I don’t think that this narrative of American Goldwing being the “real record” is anything that all of us were thinking when we were touring on Destroyer.

I know Eric writes a majority of the songs, but what collaboratively is happening in the creative process? How informative are you in those processes when recording and writing, and the rest of the band as well?
I’m not very important at all in the writing and recording process. I came in on Goldwing and sang on some songs, but I didn’t play any guitar or anything. Brian [Koch], our drummer, was a lot more instrumental in arranging these Goldwing songs. I think he was a big part of why those songs turned out the way that they did on the rhythm side. I think also there’s this–I don’t know if it’s subliminal or what–but if you’re playing stuff in the van when we’re on tour, Eric’s going to pick up on it and incorporate elements of what he’s hearing, whether or not he realizes it. We’ve been talking about aesthetics and rock ‘n’ roll philosophy for a decade now, so I think we’ve all really influenced each other and been informed together. Also, I think while Eric’s in the studio arranging these things he’s thinking this stuff is going to be represented live by these players, here’s what they do well. He’s arranging these songs and thinking in terms of who we are as a band, as individuals. That’s not strictly collaborative, but I think it still affects the way the songs turn out. The more we go along and become a band, and it sort of crystallizes as a creative performance unit, the more it affects the way the songs end up on the record.

Is there a song that encapsulates the universality of that theme best on this record in your opinion?
Yeah, I think the title track is a pretty awesome song. It’s got a lot of abstract imagery, but it’s about travel, and the willingness to get on a vehicle and go. There’s sort of the spiritual thing that’s built into that song in particular, where the will to travel and the will to move places is somehow spiritually refining. But I think probably the best song on the record is the last one, “Stranger in a Strange Land.” It’s kind of the flip side of that: Once you stop moving, you don’t know where you are.

Catch Blitzen Trapper live Monday, March 5, 2012 at Harlow’s. Opening will be excellent alt-country Portland group The Parson Red Heads. Show starts at 8 p.m. and tickets are $15 in advance. Visit Harlows.com for more information.

Endings, as the saying goes, often lead to new beginnings. When Sacramento indie rock band Holiday Flyer called it quits in 2002 after almost 10 years as a group and four full-length albums, its members found new avenues to express themselves musically. Three-fifths of Holiday Flyer–which began as the brother/sister duo of John and Katie Conley, but grew into a five-piece band by its final album, 2001’s I Hope–went on to form Desario just two years later. Frontman John Conley, bassist Michael Yoas (making the jump from bass back to his first instrument guitar in Desario) and drummer Jim Rivas were joined by bass player Mike Carr. Desario released its first album, Zero Point Zero, in 2009. On February 28, 2012 the band will put forth its sophomore effort, Mixer, which shows that even after many years as vital parts of the Sacramento scene, the guys of Desario are still looking for new ways to expand their craft.

Yoas produced and engineered the entirety of Mixer, which was mixed by Larry Crane (who has worked with Elliott Smith, among others). Last time around, on Zero Point Zero, Yoas recorded everything except the drums. He says he and Conley had been playing music together as far back as the ‘80s. “We started in punk bands together in high school. We wrote together back then, and then I didn’t play music for quite a while.”

It was eight to 10 years by Yoas’ estimation that he hadn’t played music until his old friend lured him back into the studio. Yoas laid down bass for a few tracks on Holiday Flyer’s third album You Make Us Go and enjoyed an expanded role as a fixture on I Hope.

“Jim [Rivas] and I joined and put our stamp on it with bass lines and drums and percussion and added some arrangements,” Yoas says. “But for the most part, Holiday Flyer was John’s vision.”

Desario is an entirely different animal. Instead of leaning on one songwriter, the band takes a four-heads-are-better-than-one approach. In fact, the title of the album refers to the fact that the songs on Mixer were a group effort.

“It really is a band effort,” Yoas explains. “Other than the lyrics–John writes all the lyrics–it really can start with any one of us.”

This time around, the songs came together in Desario’s practice space, evolving from jams to the fully realized recordings found on Mixer. The album has a layered, sometimes spacey sound that’s imbued with underlying warmth. Songs such as “Victoria Island,” which begins with a sort of watery synth burble, stretches out into a well-paced five-and-a-half minutes of absorbing rock, layered with shimmering, distorted guitars. It’s indicative of what you’ll find on Mixer–songs that are a bit challenging, yet easy to get lost in.

On an early Saturday morning, Yoas took the time to answer some of our questions about how the album came together, and revealed how Desario thrives by keeping their songwriting process fluid.

How was the process of producing Mixer as opposed to Zero Point Zero?
Kind of arduous at times. When it’s your own music, you’re never quite sure if you’re going in the right direction or not. You’re constantly second guessing yourself. But in the end, we’re really happy with it.

Are you at all interested in producing other people’s work, or have you produced other people’s work?
Yeah I am. I’ve recorded some demos for a couple of bands. I haven’t finished them through yet, but I’m definitely interested in recording some other bands in town and getting more into that.

How is it working on someone else’s stuff as opposed to working on your own?
Honestly, it’s a lot easier for me. I have no problem giving my opinion on something, or if I’m hearing something to add or take away, it’s pretty easy giving my opinion and feel good about it. I am an avid music fan as well. When you hear something, just throw it out there.

When you’re giving feedback when you were working on Mixer, did you find that you had to be more tactful in giving your opinion since you’re a member of the band?
Absolutely…

Do you find yourself holding back sometimes? You’ve known the guys for a while. It must be an interesting dynamic in the studio.
Oh, you mean giving Desario advice?

Yeah.

Oh no. I’m not tactful at all [laughs]. As far as the guys in my band, I think at times I might have been kind of hard and had a vision and did everything I could to get out of them what I was hearing, knowing that we could all go back in the end as a group and sort things out and edit things. I definitely wanted to try to get a lot of different takes of everything just to have options.

As far as your vision for this record, is that something that came through in the writing of it or afterward when you started recording?
Definitely in the writing. We were going through a phase with this batch of songs. This batch of songs probably came together over the course of three years or so. We were trying to do things–for lack of a better term–more intricate and more elaborate, I guess, and not by choice, but for whatever reason it’s the place we were in for a couple of years. Just looking to make it as interesting with synthesizer and other elements we didn’t use at all on the first record.

You mentioned that the songs came together from jamming as a band. How did you like working that way?
It’s funny, all of us in the beginning were like, “It’s tough for us to jam. It’s hard to come in without any starting point and create music.” As we evolved as a band, we found that we all played so well together, it was really easy to jam–starting with one of Jim’s drumbeats or Mike’s bass lines. It could be anything that would make someone say, “Hey, keep doing that,” and that’s how most of the songs on Mixer started…

There has been many practices where we don’t have any shows to practice for, or we’re not recording anything. We’re very diligent. We have a scheduled practice night every week, and regardless of what’s going on, we make it a point to go in that night and practice, even though we have no reason to be there, just to see what might come out of it.

In that regard, are you guys writing all the time now? Has that process opened you up to be more prolific songwriters?
I think so. We’re constantly writing. With the stuff that we’re writing after Mixer, we’re taking a slightly different approach. John and I are trying to noodle with some ideas together and bringing them to the band to see if they think it’s worth moving forward with those ideas at this point. We’re constantly trying to change how we song-write, just to keep it interesting and so we’re writing different kinds of songs all the time.

So you’re working on stuff with John for a next record?
As a band we’ve already got six songs written. We basically have all the ideas for another album’s worth of material that we just need to hash out as a band and get arranged and just get it completed.

No rest for the weary, then.
Exactly. Yes, we’re always writing, but we definitely go into practice now with an idea of what we want to do instead of going in without any purpose.

You guys have a listening party coming up for Mixer before playing the CD release show on March 3. What do you have planned for the listening party?
We’ve got two hours at Phono Select. We’re going to let the CD play a couple of times in the store. It’s going to be available for sale. We’re going to put out some beverages and snacks. We’re just going to make it a real casual thing–come in, check out the record and enjoy a beer or a glass of wine and just have a good time.

Is it more nerve-wracking to play the new songs live or watching people listen to the CD at the listening party?
That’s a good question. I’m a little more anxious about watching people listen to the record than playing live. Playing live, obviously, I’m more focused on what I’m doing than watching the reaction of people listening to it.

Desario’s CD release show will take place at Beatnik Studios on March 3, 2012. Joining Desario will be Tremor Low from Oakland and Hearts + Horses.

Do you know the two most important food groups on the pyramid? They’re beer and chili! At least they will be during the Beer and Chili Festival as a part of the third annual Sacramento Beer Week. The event includes live music, contests, homemade chili and beer samples from 18 different breweries. Enjoy beer from Hoppy, Ruhstaller, Auburn Alehouse, Sudwerk, Black Dragon, River City, American River, Dust Bowl, Two Rivers, Loomis Basin and Lost Coast. Don’t forget to bring a bib, extra napkins and sun block to Southside Park in Downtown Sacramento on Saturday March 3, 2012, from 12 to 4 p.m. And if beer and chili aren’t enough to get you excited, this event is raising money to help fund art education in Sacramento to the homeless and at-risk youth.

Local post-punk trio The Common Men are saying farewell to Sacramento; their final gig is set for Saturday, March 3, 2012 at Luigi’s. Guitarist/vocalist Kevin Ian and bassist Josh Sims are relocating the band to San Francisco but drummer Kimberli Aparicio isn’t going with them, so this will be her last show with TCM. Whether you’ve seen the band before or followed them over the years or not, you’d be well advised not to miss their last performance with Aparicio behind the drums. They are always solid, loud, super fun to watch and easy to groove along to. Also performing that night will be Razorblade Monalisa and Mister Loveless. To hear some tunes and learn more about the band, visit Facebook.com/thecommonmen or Thecommonmen.bandcamp.com. Send them off with a bang, Sacramento!

The Sac City Rollers are kicking off their 2012 season at a new venue on Friday, March 2, 2012 at The Rink (2900 Bradshaw Road). The “Melee Rouge,” as it’s being called, will feature three round-robin 20-minute bouts between the Rude Girls, the Sweaty Betties, and their new home team, the Notorious Knockouts. That’s a lot of hard-hitting, bruise-inducing action right there! Well worth the $10 advance ticket price, available at Brownpapertickets.com, The Beat or Dimple Records. It’ll be $15 at the door, kids 7 to 12 are $6, children under 6 are free. There’s also VIP seating available for $30. As always, there will be a raffle (proceeds go to St. Baldrick’s Foundation), vendors and a beer garden. Doors open at 6:30 p.m., first whistle is at 7.