MVP’s Sports Grill, located at 21st and L streets in Midtown, is calling all domino players to attend both their Slappin’ Wednesdays for games and drinks every single Wednesday as well as their domino tournament on Saturday, April 16, 2011. The tourney will feature a cash prize for the winner and there’s no entry fee or buy-ins. It’s limited to only 24 players and it’s first come first serve, so if you want to compete make sure you show up early. Player check-in is scheduled for 7 p.m. DJ Los will be spinning some tunes also, so grab some friends to cheer you on–and bring your A game, because there’s cash on the line. For more information, give MVP’s a call at (916)-441-4151.

A New Album, A New Leaf

Since 2007 ZuhG has been representing Sacramento with its groove-funk style and earth-centric liberal aesthetic. They play a bit of blues, a bit of jazz and a bit of psychedelic rock. They mix hip-hop and saxophones, flutes and Rastafarian herbal idolatry. Yet, despite the multiple influences and wide range of instrumentation, ZuhG is able to sound crisp and precise. The songs on the bands upcoming CD Free Love are well produced, the bass lays in the pocket with the drums, it shifts in and out of blues guitar movements and references other standards like “Footprints.” On a musical level the group invokes a wide variety of influences, all courtesy of the guitar work of JR Halliday and Bryan Nichols, the drum work of Matt Klee, the beatbox-flow of Charlie Wheeler, and saxophone melodies from Jake Gleason. Bianca Wright holds down the luscious background vocals. All of these performers create movements that build, ebb and hit in syncopation under the optimistic experiential vocals and lyrics of Nichols.

Through multiple incarnations, ZuhG has pushed forward and with a backbone of Nichols and Klee, they’ve found a level of success, a degree of professionalism–dare we call it such–that enables the members to identify themselves firstly as musicians, secondly as anything else.

Curiously enough the group collectively (with a few friends) operates ZuhG Life, a store inside of Downtown Plaza where everything sells on consignment, and the music culture of Sacramento holds some 1,000 square feet of retail space in a largely corporate environment. Submerge was able to catch up with Nichols and discuss the upcoming album, the storefront, the popular pastime of parking-lot camping, optimism and the ever fashionable burrito windshield.

Tell me about the ZuhG Life store, how did that come about?
It’s a local music store basically. All one wall is CDs, and we’ve got local band T-shirts as well. I was booking live shows for the mall, and I needed to get paid in advance for a road trip to Oregon. When I went to get paid they brought me up to this empty store. I thought they were going to fire me, but they asked, “Hey you want to open some kind of music store?” And we just did it. The stores helped us get a lot of recognition. We’re on the news and stuff. Sometimes people think we’re called ZuhG Life, I’ve seen it on flyers. That’s funny.

Did you have any retail experience? How was that transition into owning your own shop?
I don’t really have any experience. I worked at Surf & Skate, and I hated it. I had to follow the customers around the store. The owner was all on me about it. Even when it was obvious that people just wanted to look around.

ZuhG has to be one of weirdest names I’ve ever heard for a band. How’d you decide on that?
ZuhG means to be unlike others, and to do something different. I think it’s German. I found it in a Rolling Stone ad. I turned it in for a homework assignment. I asked my teacher, after we’d been playing, “Hey I named my band that, do you think I could get that ad back?” But he said it was a really good example and he wanted to keep it. At the time I was like cool, I’ll just pick up another Rolling Stone, but I never did. I’ve never seen it since. My friend has searched countless dictionaries, and she’s never found the word.

What’s the craziest thing that’s happened to you on stage?
I caught on fire at Northstar ski resort. They always have these little propane heaters on stage. The back of my shirt caught on the little flame, and I started patting myself out when I realized I was on fire. Then JR comes over and tries to pat me down. We’re playing at the foot of this ice skating rink and everyone is watching by now. JR couldn’t put me out either, so I threw my guitar down and literally stopped-dropped-and-rolled right in the middle of the stage. It went out. The whole back of my shirt was gone. I have one little scar. It was bad at first but it healed fine.

Did you finish the set?
Yeah, we played three more songs. I think more people checked us out that day than ever.

That’s flaming! You got any other cool road stories?
We don’t ever get hotels because that would be all our gig money. Every night on the road we try to find some friends or get someone to let us sleep at their house. Sometimes we don’t get so lucky. Once in Ventura we played a shitty show, no one was there, so we just slept in the parking lot. There was this big rundown bus in the parking lot so we just pulled our cars next to it. Random [Abilideze] was with us. He was pissed that night. Six people were sleeping in the van, which is ridiculous because it only sleeps three comfortably. Dudes were sleeping in the front seat of the van. I have a little tent and I posted it up right on the concrete. Jake, our sax player, was sleeping on a cot right outside. Our roadie was sleeping in the trailer. That was fun.

You hear about bands that hate each other when they’re in the van, but when they get on stage they have amazing shows. Does that describe ZuhG, or do you get along all the time?
We bitch at each other for sure. There’s definitely some hissy fits out there. Usually whoever is pissed will just play with a ton of energy on stage that night. One time after a show in Oregon at like 3 in the morning, we stopped at a Taco Bell, and we didn’t hear our drunk bass player say he wanted a taco, so he walked out of the van. He went and sat on a curb in the parking lot. When we got up to the window we ordered him a taco and a burrito, because we forgot. I went over to our bass player. I said, “Here’s a burrito, sorry we forgot.” He grabbed the burrito and walked over to the van and threw it hella hard at the windshield. There was a whole fight in the parking lot. The Taco Bell people started calling the cops. It was hilarious. Stuff like that happens every once in a while.

Do you have any thoughts on the recent tsunami in Japan?
I was thinking of throwing a big benefit show at the ZuhG Life store to raise some money we could send over there. I want to do something to help.
 
If you turned into a human-instrument mutant because of Japanese radiation that had made it over to Sacramento via the Pacific winds, what instrument would you prefer to be combined with?
My right arm would be a melodica, my left arm would be the neck of a guitar, my upper torso would be the body of a guitar, my right leg would be a high hat, my left leg would be a rain stick. That way if I did a handstand I could work that noise out. My head would be a djembe, and all my fingers would be kazoos! This would be a cool painting; one rad man band.

How often does ZuhG go skinny dipping together?
Ha! Never. I don’t want to see these guys naked. We do bathe in the ocean and rivers often when we’re on the road, but not naked.

Why are you such an optimist in such trying times?
In our song “New Shoes (Hippy Feet),” the hook of the first part of the song is “I’m feeling so good, I’m alive today/I’m feeling so good, and I can’t complain.” Living the ZuhG Life makes me happy, might as well be positive and peaceful. Life’s too short to be so serious. There’s no point in being pissed off all the time or pessimistic. I get stressed out every once in a while with everything that’s going on, but I love everything I’m doing, so it works out.

You sing a lot about the environment, wouldn’t it be better for the earth if ZuhG hitchhiked when you all went on the road?
Our mechanic friend, Ryan Casey, is looking for a diesel for us that we can covert to run off veggie oil. Then we’ll be green and smell like French fries all the time, but it’ll be worth it.

Theodor Adorno hated Jazz because he said the fans and musicians who thought it deviated from more traditional song structures failed to realize that it always maintained a relative steady beat, and therefore they were pretty much just hipsters–in so many words. Why do you hate jazz so much?
I love Jazz! What’s a hipster? People always say that about people but I don’t get it. Am I one?

ZuhG’s CD release show will take place at Beatnick Studios on April 9, 2011. The band will also play an Earth Day show on April 13 at Sierra College in Rocklin.

Dance Gavin Dance moves past another bout of offstage controversy and releases epic new album

Considering everything Dance Gavin Dance has been through (or has put itself through, depending upon how you look at it), Downtown Battle Mountain II is a fitting title for the band’s latest album. Released March 8, 2011 it sees the band pick up where it left off after its arguably most successful effort, 2007’s Downtown Battle Mountain. Five of the band’s original members–guitarist Will Swan and drummer Matt Mingus welcomed back bassist Eric Lodge and powerhouse vocal duo Jon Mess and Jonny Craig in 2010–reunited to enter the studio late last year. Despite their years apart, DGD’s put forth similarly remarkable results as they had in the past, in more ways than one.

“Writing started in the fall of last year around September,” says vocalist Jon Mess from San Antonio, Texas, a day prior to the band’s scheduled performances at the 2011 South by Southwest Music Festival. “Prior to that, Will had already started writing new songs. All of November and December was the recording. Tracked drums, bass and guitar through all of November and some of December, and most of December was vocals. I was there for almost a month recording, so was Jonny.”

It may sound like things came together rather quickly. Mess didn’t rejoin the band until summer 2010. His arrival was quickly followed by a tour and soon after the recording process for Downtown Battle Mountain II began. However, for Mess, it seemed much more laid-back as compared to when the band hit the studio for Downtown Battle Mountain, which was recorded in just two weeks.

“On this one [the sequel], we had two months,” Mess explains. “Last time we were in this shitty hotel, and it was freezing cold. I think I was a little sick then, too. This time we were in this house, and we had all this time. It was a lot more relaxed and there wasn’t as much time pressure–at least for me. Jonny came off a tour with Emarosa, so he came in a little later, but it was way more relaxed than prior experiences.”

Life in DGD post-recording has been anything but laid-back. Controversy sprang up once again surrounding Craig’s substance abuse. This time around, he allegedly defrauded his fans by offering to sell his Mac Book to his Twitter followers. When checks were sent, and no laptops were received, the band was once again forced to play damage control. Craig was sent into a seven-day detox program, which he just recently emerged from. Mess spoke with Submerge about DGD’s seemingly perpetual state of turmoil and Downtown Battle Mountain II, which, despite the all the backstage hullabaloo, is perhaps the brightest post-hardcore gem the band has produced to date.

I caught your recent Fuel TV performance. How did that go for you?
I was sick when we did it, so I wasn’t too happy with it. It was in Los Angeles. It was right before our first show. That was interesting. We had a studio audience there cheering and stuff. It was fun, I guess. I tried to have fun even though I was sick.

Was that a different experience for you guys?
Yeah. I’d never done that before. That was awkward. We had to do the songs multiple times and they came in with different angles. Afterwards they were shooting a comedy special with a bunch of people from VH1’s Best Week Ever–those different panelist shows where they have different comedians talking about stuff. A bunch of those people were there doing some little skits, and they asked DGD to be the backing band and play a little jazz riff. I don’t know where people can see that. It might be on Fuel. We’ll probably announce that when we find out.

You just came up with something off the cuff?
Yeah, they wanted us to play some kind of jazz, walking bass line–little flow thing that the comedians could do their little skit over. The guys came up with something pretty quick, and it ended up sounding pretty cool.

On the new album, did you and Jonny collaborate on lyrics or did you mostly write separately?
We talked about some themes, but it was mostly separate. A very small percentage of the lyrics go together. It was more of a scattered thing. That’s been our style since the beginning.

What sort of themes did you discuss? What were you personally trying to express on this record?
I like to write about all sorts of different things–snippets, fragments of ideas or dreams I have, various little stories. I kind of break them apart and put them together in different songs. One line might relate to another song later, so it’s not a cohesive body of material per song, more fragments of things that range from talking about food to being mad about something. Broad topics–nothing real specific. I don’t want to pigeonhole into having any limitations on what I want to write about it.

You and Jonny have radically different vocal styles, is that also the case lyrically, and is it difficult to get them to mesh from song to song? Is that something you work on closely together?
I think as long as the delivery is good, and you’re hitting the right notes and it’s flowing well, then the lyrical content doesn’t have to mesh in that sort of sense. First we go for the musicality–something that’s melodic or rhythmic or exciting in terms of phrasing and rhyming rather than we need to have these lyrics go together or we need a concept. That comes second.

There definitely seems to be a lot of hip-hop influence in your delivery this time around. You have this growling sort of rap cadence going on in a lot of the songs. Is that something you’ve been working on a lot on this record?
Yeah that’s definitely intended. I like all my parts to rhyme, and when I write them, I think of them as sort of a rap, like if you could rap that part, it would still fit. I’m not into so much the long, drawn-out, heavy screams over the entire thing. I’m more interested in trying to make it not necessarily as complicated as possible, but as unique and interesting that I can think of. It does come across it sounding like a rap because it pretty much is. It’s just a screamed voice rapping.

The record has gotten some good responses so far. Are you happy with the reviews or do you not bother reading those?
Yeah, I read the reviews. The one thing with some reviews is that people who write reviews are English majors, or they’re into writing and they’re not musicians themselves, so they sometimes clutter up the review with colorful verbiage or whatnot instead of actually giving content or criticizing or talking about different parts of the album. For the most part, it’s been good reviews, and I’ve liked what the people have said. Every review has something that I’ll read and I won’t understand how they perceive that about the album, but to each his own. I did watch this Youtube video of someone who hated the album, and his reasoning behind it, it was so funny because it was the antithesis of what Dance Gavin Dance is. The reasons he disliked everything was because, well, you really just don’t like what our band is about, not the album itself.

Jonny just got out of detox. How is everything going with that?
It’s going really well, actually, and I’m saying this as someone who’s not necessarily positive about the situation. He’s being really honest and real about it for once. It’s actually a little surprising to me. We’ll see how it keeps going. So far so good.

South by Southwest is basically a big party. Is that something you’re worried about as far as Jonny is concerned?
He’s doing Narcotics Anonymous. He’ll drink. He’s not getting wasted or anything, but if people are expecting him to not drink, I don’t think that’s what he’s doing currently. I’m assuming after this tour he could go into an actual 30-day program, which would be nice, instead of just a seven-day detox, because that’s not going to do it, obviously. Yeah, Austin’s going to be a huge party, but we’ve got our manager, label guy, all the people who are looking out for him are going to be there. I’m not saying we’re going to babysit him like a little kid, but at the same time we kind of are.

I read the interview you did with Alternative Press, and you later apologized to your old singer Kurt Travis and Jonny on Twitter for some of the comments you made. Given what you said that you’re not always the most positive about the situation, was it difficult for you to rejoin the band and get back into that frame of mind?
First off, that interview was a phone interview, and he relayed what I said in a sort of manner that wasn’t necessarily what I was saying. He asked me why Kurt got kicked out, and there was no real reason. I listed a bunch of reasons and he [the interviewer] picked the one about cigarettes… I said that Will and Matt said that, and then Will and Matt were like, “That’s not necessarily what we said. You spoke for us.” And I was like, “Sorry, I wasn’t trying to speak for you.” Me and Kurt are good friends, so I felt like saying, “Hey man, it came across incorrectly.” It made it look like I was divulging a story that wasn’t my business.

In regards to coming back, I was skeptical. Since I left the band, I reconnected with Jonny. We were skeptical of how the album would go down. We were just thinking, hopefully we’ll get the album recorded and see what happens from there. It wasn’t really a high-risk situation for me, because I could just do the record and if something went wrong, I could just go back to what I was doing before. There wasn’t really a lot to lose.

You mentioned the interviewer misconstrued what you said. Do you think that happens a lot regarding this band?
I think to an extent, yeah, and I think there are things that I said that I might not exactly feel, but I just said them at the time. I think that happens to everyone. It’s half and half. Some things get misconstrued, but that happens. Sometimes we feel optimistic about the situation, sometimes we feel pessimistic. If we were interviewed one day, there might be different responses. I’m not saying we’re bipolar or anything, just normal changes of emotions that people have.

Dance Gavin Dance’s Downtown Battle Mountain II is available now through Rise Records. The band is also currently on a U.S. tour with I Wrestled a Bear Once, In Fear and Faith and others. The tour will bring DGD and company to Ace of Spades in Sacramento on April 8, 2011.

Sacramento rock favorites Prieta are hard at work on a new album, much to the delight of everyone at Submerge. They’re approaching this one differently than their previous efforts in that their current practice space is actually Ira Skinner’s Alley Avenue Recording Studios, so as the band finishes new material they will be recording it, mastering it and releasing it a couple tracks at a time. The first two songs completed were “The Company You Keep,” and “Lifted Away,” which were both mastered by Joe Johnston at Pus Cavern Studios and released this past Saturday at the band’s gig at Luigi’s Fungarden. “It is in a lot of ways kind of a different direction for us,” guitarist Mat Woods recently shared with Submerge. “We’ve just been writing tons of new material and incorporating more keys and laptops and electronic elements and whatnot.” To keep up with the band and to find out about their upcoming gigs, like them on Facebook

Sacramento-based clothing company Lurk Hard turns heads with their designs and their skate team

Over the years, the greater Sacramento area has bred or been home to some incredibly talented skateboarders: John Cardiel is quite literally a legend; ESPN called Matt Rodriguez “one of skateboarding’s unsung godfathers of style”; Brandon Biebel is a worldwide name; Omar Salazar and Stefan Janoski have their own Nike signature shoes, for crying out loud. This list could go on and on. There are a lot of rippers from around here making waves in the skate scene; currently, the Lurk Hard crew is a huge part of that. If you’re asking yourself, “What is this ‘Lurk Hard?’ And does it have anything to do with how much time I spend on Facebook creepily looking up people?” you’re wrong, sort of.

Lurk Hard is a Sacramento-based clothing company that makes T-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, beanies, etc. that was started by longtime skateboard enthusiast and Fresno, Calif., native Geno Failla. The company’s website, Lurkhard.com, offers up this description: “Lurk Hard offers an innovative style solution for your everyday lurker by offering affordable, quality clothing products that skateboarders can connect with to complement and enhance the lurker lifestyle.” Since the company’s 2008 inception, Failla has built a solid team of talent to rep his brand. The team’s second video, Summer Boyz, was recently uploaded online in its entirety to Lurk Hard’s site in a six-part series. In celebration of the film’s free digital release as well as Lurk Hard’s spring/summer 2011 collection being released soon, Submerge hooked up with Failla and team shredder Chuck Donnatin, arguably one of Sacramento’s biggest contenders to be “the next big thing,” for a couple separate interviews.

Lurk Hard owner Geno Failla sipping coffee in Spain

Geno Failla,
Owner of Lurk Hard

When did you start Lurk Hard? What was your motivation behind starting your own clothing company?
I started the brand in January 2008 with my ex-girlfriend Jeanie Sriboon. Shortly before the conception of a brand, I wanted to do something that involved skateboarding and have an outlet for my creative ideas. We made some stickers and a few shirts and things just started to develop from there.

How many stores can your stuff be found in now? You guys are all over, right?
We’re in about 30 stores throughout the United States; our own online store, Shop.lurkhard.com; FTC in Barcelona, Spain; and Animism in Australia.

How many skaters are a part of your team?
The Lurk fam consist of Chuck Donnatin, Clyde Moore, Mark Dillon, Rob Mason, Nicholas Silva, Blue Turner, Aric Hondel, JR Dias and a few others on our flow program.

How long have you known Jack Mansfield, the filmmaker who’s done both Lurk Hard videos? What draws you to his filming style?
I met Jack shortly after moving to Sacramento in 2005 through Rob Mason at Flatspot skate shop one day. Jack’s whole entire creative process from start to finish with any project he does is amazing. It’s rad that he still uses Super 8 film nowadays, considering most people have moved on to using only HD cameras. I love the way Super 8 looks! I know that if Jack is going to do a video with us, it will be top quality. He doesn’t do anything half ass at all.

Summer Boyz is the second official Lurk Hard video. Why did you guys ultimately decide to upload it online instead of putting it out on DVD?
Yes, Summer Boyz is the second video that we’ve done with Jack Mansfield. The first one was 19 Years Young. We decided to put it online for everyone because we wanted more people to see it worldwide. If we decided to sell it, there’s a lot more to deal with in getting the rights to music that we used as well.

Can you hint at anything else exciting on the horizon for Lurk Hard? What about the next video project? Have you started thinking about that yet?
We have our first part of our spring/summer 2011 line coming out in stores and online in about a week. I can’t say much about some of our upcoming collaborations with other brands, but I’m pretty excited about doing them. We’ll be working with new designers as well. Stay tuned for more on that. As for another video, we never stopped filming after we finished Summer Boyz. But I’m not sure when the next project will be out. We’ll always have short videos on our site; check it out at Lurkhard.com.

Chuck Donnatin,
Lurk Hard team skater

How old are you? How long have you been skating?
I am 21 years of age. I’ve been skating for about 11 years now, about half of my life.

How long have you lived in Sacramento? What brought you here?
I moved down here about eight or nine months ago. Skateboarding and filming out here, you know, I thought I’d cut out the two-hour drive from Gardnerville to Sacramento.

You were making that commute a lot, huh?
Dude, wintertime, summertime, all the time. So I moved out here with the boys, and I’m just going to school out here and working.

How did you connect with the Lurk Hard crew?
Well I’d been skating with a few of the guys, Rob Mason and Mark Dillon. They are good friends with Geno. I’d just come down here and film and just meet up with the guys. It was before my first knee surgery, right when I got out of it I was down in Sac, and Geno had heard about me through word of mouth and he was like, “You know what, I’m starting up this company called Lurk Hard and you’ve been shredding, so…”

So when you first met him you weren’t even skating because you were hurt?
I forgot exactly when it was. It was before my surgery or right afterwards, but I wasn’t skating for like a year, because that’s how long it takes. He was like, “When you get back at it, let’s do it.” It’s been good since then. He’s been good to me.

What happened with your knee? In Summer Boyz you’re wearing a gnarly brace.
Originally I tore my ACL skating, which was about three years ago, right around the beginnings of Lurk Hard. Yeah, I’m just misfortunate, you know? I’ve been through multiple knee surgeries now. The reason I was wearing that knee brace was because I had my second surgery about a year-and-a-half ago, and it’s just to be supportive of the knee. But just jumping down all that crap, you know? I don’t wear that now, though.

Oh, so you’re out of the brace now?
Yeah, I’ve been working it out, building up that muscle. Got to keep on doing that, it’s crucial. But I feel comfortable to not wear it now, so we’ll see how it goes.

Screen capture from Lurk Hard’s new film Summer Boyz

Lets talk about the Summer Boyz video, the most recent Lurk Hard flick. Are you stoked on how your part came out?
Not really [laughs], to tell you the truth. I could have done a lot better. I came out of that surgery and it was right when I moved down to Sac, that’s when I started getting back into filming and pushing it… And that damn knee brace looks so goofy.

Well I thought your part was sick. And just in general the whole film is really well shot and edited and everybody’s parts are pretty rad. How long have you known Jack Mansfield?
Mark Dillon pretty much introduced me to Jack and his work and that was about three years ago, it was a while ago. Ever since then I’ve loved his work. He’s an amazing filmmaker. He’s got his shit down.

Who are your sponsors right now? Who is hooking you up with gear?
Lurk Hard, The Company Skateboards, American Icon Wheels out of Stockton, those are good wheels. They are killing it. And Converse, I’m getting some shoes from them. It’s just team manager type shit, but you know, I’m getting some shoes from them. Trying to build on that is another thing that’s on my plate.

That’s a legit connection; do you think it will lead to a full-fledged sponsorship?
We’ll have to see.

How did you get hooked up with them?
There’s a rep up in Seattle I believe it is, he’s been shooting me the shoes. He knows Eddy at FTC and Darnell with The Company, they are his homies and were like, “This kid is skating hard and likes Converse, so shoot him some shoes.”

So it sounds like you’re definitely on their radar?
Kind of, yeah, not big time.

When we were trying to set up this interview you mentioned something about how you have to go to a yoga class. How long have you been doing that and does it play into your skating at all?
It’s new. My body is toast, you know? Between skating, working, just getting after it, I don’t like resting. Plus since I went through the knee surgeries and all that stuff, I feel like I need to be flexible on my skateboard with my balance and all that. I’ve been getting really into skating, my body and taking care of myself. I’ve been doing it for about two months now. It just feels like I’m more limber. I drink a lot, you know [laughs], and drinking is terrible for your muscles. It’s terrible for the day after as far as being one with your board. Yoga is a good way to just keep limber and, well, the girls are gorgeous in there too.

Do you ever think about your goals for your skateboarding career?
Oh God yes, all the time. That’s pretty much what keeps me going. I always got the plan on the calendar, what’s going down. Omar [Salazar] was telling me before he did it big, he had this plan of what he was going to do and when he was going to do it. I think you need that. Because whenever I step on a skateboard, I’m having the most fun I’ve ever had, so I might as well take that and make a plan with it–you know, organize it. Everybody is like, “Oh, I just skate for fun,” and I’m like, “Every time I step on my skateboard I’m having fun so I might as well make a business out of it.”

Check out Lurkhard.com to view Donnatin and the Lurk Hard crew in Summer Boyz, a Super 8 film by Jack Mansfield. To grab some Lurk Hard gear locally, hit up FTC, Nine16 Skate Shop, Getta Clue or any Ground Zero location.

A new clothing boutique is opening up soon called Legacy Boutique just about a block down from Phono Select (at 2418 K Street, right next to Tres Hermanas). Owner Debbie Milanova is no stranger to the fashion biz, having worked for the last five years alongside Sacramento fashion-staple Mary Kawano at Krazy Mary’s Boutique. “She really helped me to learn what it was truly like to run a small business,” Milanova shared with Submerge. “I learned it all, from in-store buying appointments, to out of town tradeshows. Mary really made sure we all got the opportunity to do everything.”

Milanova made it clear that Kawano had always been aware of her intentions to eventually open up her own shop.

“Mary and I are absolutely cool,” she assured. “She is really more of an inspiration because I respect her so much. She knows so much about the business. My style is completely different than hers and everyone will be able to see based on the exclusive clothing lines I chose.”

Legacy will carry new and vintage clothing and accessories for men and women and the list of brands Milanova supplied Submerge with is long and impressive. Some standout men’s brands include Aviator (cotton tees from your favorite classic novels), Freshjive, Local Celebrity, Chaser L.A. (throwback band tees from Nirvana to Little Richard), American Apparel, Le Tigre and many more. On the women’s side brands like 10 Corso Como, L.A.M.B. by Gwen Stefani, Style Stalker, Gentle Fawn, Kat Von-D and many more will be available as well as locally designed jewelry. Legacy Boutique will celebrate it’s grand opening on Friday, April 1 from 4 to 9 p.m. where customers will be given 20 percent off their first purchase. There will also be an after-party celebration at The Golden Bear at 10 p.m.

Ira Skinner’s solo project, Paper Pistols, which consists of Skinner playing live drums over programmed music he composes, is soon to release a new five-track EP which will more than likely be self-titled, the drummer/programmer/recording engineer recently told Submerge. “The recording process has been slow,” he said. “Although I own a recording studio, I don’t find much time to work on my own music. I plan on dedicating one day a week to my own music and finally finishing [the EP].” Skinner said the songs are mostly older ones that he’s recorded before but wasn’t satisfied with. “All my previous sessions have been recorded all over the West Coast in various studios,” he said. “Something about the previous recordings sounds unfinished to me.” Skinner has played with some of Sacramento’s most beloved bands over the years (one being the Evening Episode); he currently plays drums in Pets (though he isn’t a full-time, official member), another local favorite. When asked if he ever gets lonely now that he doesn’t have a band to call his own, he responded, “Absolutely. I really miss the Evening Episode members. That band was full of people throughout the years that I could really trust musically,” he said. “It is nice being on my own, though. I don’t have to show up to practice or balance anybody’s schedule. Also, nobody’s there to turn down a song. My band thinks everything I do is great.” Find Paper Pistols on Facebook to sample a couple tracks and to keep an eye out for the EP release date.

Whitechapel is a metal band on the rise

It was an unseasonably warm February evening in the Northeast as Knoxville, Tenn. deathcore goliath Whitechapel prepared for its show at The Starland Ballroom in New Jersey. For his part, Whitechapel guitarist Alex Wade was preparing to slay the Garden State’s metal faithful in his usual manner. No, not bathing in the blood of virgins or devouring souls of the innocent–though considering Whitechapel’s aural assault, you wouldn’t be completely off base for thinking so–instead, Wade was taking a page out of the Zombieland survival handbook and limbering up.

“I definitely like to stretch,” Wade says. “I’m not that old. I’m 24, but not only is it a good habit to get into, but it definitely saves my body for when I get older. I like to stretch, warm up, get the blood pumping, because you can’t just go up on stage and just start going crazy and head banging and running all over the place. It puts a hard toll on your body.”

For Wade, the type of music he plays necessitates his desire to keep in sound physical condition.

“If you’re a band like Muse or something like that, you can stand up there and chill while the lights move around and stuff like that,” he explains. “When you play loud and aggressive music, you have to put on a stage performance that portrays the music as well, so you’ve got to be moving around and jumping all over the place and fucking cussing and spitting and all that crazy shit.”

It’s clear that Wade has a good head on his shoulders; he certainly needs it, considering Whitechapel’s fast rise through the metal ranks. Having just formed in 2006, the band already has three albums under its belt, each one more successful than its predecessor. A couple years after its inception, Whitechapel was already drawing a bidding war from interested labels and soon landed with venerable Metal Blade Records, which has been home to Slayer, King Diamond and Cannibal Corpse (and, strangely enough, Goo Goo Dolls).

Whitechapel’s most recent album, A New Era of Corruption, was released in June 2010 and has propelled the band to its greatest heights to date. As a result, the band finds itself headlining a juggernaut-sized tour (The Welcome to Hell Tour) that includes some of the modern American metal scene’s most intriguing and brutal bands, such as The Acacia Strain, Veil of Maya, Chelsea Grin and I Declare War. Wade says Whitechapel is excited to front a group of such heavy hitting bands, singling out The Acacia Strain as a group that really gets him and his band mates amped up to play.

“There’s something about that band that people just turn into animals and rip each other apart,” Wade says. “It definitely makes us want to up the ante and make our show that much better, because they’re putting on amazing shows as well.”

Wade took the time to speak with Submerge just about an hour before doors opened at the Starland. In the following interview, we discussed the stratification of metal genres and the band’s Sacramento ties as well as staying on top of the business of being a band on the rise.

Your most recent album, which came out last year, charted pretty high…
Yeah, we broke into the top 50 of the Billboard 200.

That’s high for a pop band, let alone a metal band.
Yeah, exactly. It’s crazy that you see bands like us breaking into the Top 50 in Billboard. Probably five years ago, bands that heavy weren’t getting into those slots unless you were like Slipknot or something, but obviously they’re on a whole other level.

Why do you think that is? Do you see a shift in fans in general or just the climate toward heavy music?
I don’t know man. The music business, and what’s cool and what’s not, all kinds of genres are fading in and out. This whole deathcore thing or whatever you want to call it has been getting big for the past three years or so, and just recently this dubstep thing has been getting really big. People have been going crazy over it, but to me, isn’t that just techno? That’s been around forever. Why is it just now getting big? I guess a lot of people feel the same way about metal. Metal has been around forever. Why is it just now getting big? I can’t really answer that question, but we’re glad it is, because our shows and CD sales are obviously reflecting it.

You mentioned the deathcore genre, and I think more than any other kind of music, metal is broken down to such specific subgenres…
Totally. There’s a difference between black metal and blackened death metal. Like, black metal is Emperor and blackened death metal is Behemoth. If you know metal, you know the difference. Obviously, Behemoth has more death metal influence. It’s heavier and not as shrill as true black metal, but it’s really funny how metal has its mini subgenres, and no other kind of music has that.

Your band’s lineup has three guitar players. When you get into the studio, how does it work out with you guys? Do you all trade off a lot of riffs when you get ready to write?
All three of us collaboratively write for the album. I’ll give credit where credit is due: Ben [Savage], our lead guitar player, definitely writes the most. We all have different things going on. I manage bands on the side and work for the company that manages us. I work for them managing smaller bands. I manage I Declare War, who are on the tour with us. Ben puts in the most effort and writes the most stuff, but Zach [Householder] and I do contribute. I would definitely say it’s a collaborative effort, though. It’s not just one or two people.

How did you get into managing bands?
I’ve always been kind of like the brains behind Whitechapel. Everybody says there’s a brains and a brawn to everything, and I would say I’m the brains. I managed Whitechapel up until the time when we decided, like, “Hey, this is getting to a level where I can’t really do much for us anymore. We need to hire somebody who’s going to take us to the next level.” I’ve always had my hand in developing bands and stuff like that. Our manager, Shawn Carrano, who works with Artery Foundation, which is located in Sacramento, I’ve always expressed to him that I like the music business. I like watching bands develop and grow. He was like, “I think you’d be a good manager. You did a good job with Whitechapel before I took over. Would you be interested in taking on some of our smaller bands? I’ll still help you with stuff, but you can handle the bulk of the material.” I knew I Declare War, because we’d met them on tour, and I knew they were looking for a record deal. Artery Recordings had just started, and I showed I Declare War to them and they were like, “Ask them if they want to be signed,” so we got them signed. I kind of took over the band, and it’s been great ever since.

Since you mentioned your Sacramento connection through Artery, I saw that Chino Moreno from Deftones had a guest appearance on A New Era of Corruption. Did you hook up with him through Artery?
Yeah, Shawn had been friends with Deftones and Chino for like 10 years or something like that. Our manager used to manage Chino’s side project Team Sleep. He’s gotten Chino guest appearances on the Norma Jean record and the one on the Dance Gavin Dance record. He’s always helped Chino out with that–getting guest appearances with young, hot bands. It helps out the band to have a big name on the record, and maybe it will help out Chino because it shows him to a younger crowd who hasn’t grown up listening to Deftones like I have. He hit up Chino and said, “My biggest band is heading into the studio to record. They’re all Deftones fans and they have this part on one song that they’d love for you to do.” He checked it out and liked it a lot and decided to do it, and that’s about it.

So you had Chino in mind from the beginning?
Yeah, totally. It was a riff that I had written, and I’m a huge Deftones fan. It definitely has a huge Deftones vibe to it. Stephen Carpenter is one of my main influences playing guitar. I was like, “Dude, if Shawn can hook up Chino as guest on that riff, it would be so sick.” And it actually came together, so I was really stoked on that.

I read a quote from Phil Bozeman [vocals] where he mentioned that you guys were trying to have more of a verse-chorus structure on your latest album. Was that something you’d all gotten together to discuss?
Oh totally, that was the whole point of A New Era… When it’s just riffing the whole time–when it’s just riff, riff, riff, riff, riff–there’s nothing that people can catch on to. There’s no hooks. There’s nothing catchy about it. But when you try to implement verses and choruses–you know, we’re not trying to be radio rock, where we have three parts to one song and just repeat them over and over again–but when you bring parts back that definitely gives the fans something to latch on to.

Before you mentioned you were amazed to be a part of a band that has reached this level of success, and it happened for you pretty fast. Within a couple of years after you formed, you were signed to Metal Blade, which is a really well established metal label. Have you had a chance to take stock of the whole situation?
It’s one of those things that the band has progressed so fast. If you’re outside of the band, it looks fast, but if you’re inside the band, it feels like it’s been forever. The life of a musician is repetitive. People have been like, “Things have changed so much for you in the past four years,” and I’m like, “Really?” Aside from the fact that we get paid more and we do bigger tours, it doesn’t feel all that much different from when we first started touring.

On the art of Danny Scheible
Words by Bobby S. Gulshan

In the last few months of 2010, Sacramento’s Second Saturday Art Walk emerged as a hotly contested locus of debate. People wondered out loud if the event had strayed from its original mission; was the benefit to Midtown businesses and artists enough to justify the risks? Because opinions abound on both sides, we will likely not see any significant change to the Second Saturday event any time soon.

One thing, however, stood seemingly beyond contention: the art community is an important and integral part of the Midtown scene and of Sacramento in general. The amount of activity within the visual arts in Sacramento defies the notion that a vibrant art community that generates meaningful and important work can only exist within the major metropolises of New York or Los Angeles. To be sure, those cities remain important cultural centers if for no other reason than the sizes of the markets they inhabit. Yet, as artist and sculptor Danny Scheible tells it, there is something special about making art in Sacramento.

“You meet people here and they want to help you,” he says. “There is a community already there. Having been to bigger cities, it’s very much an exchange, what can this person do for me?” This sense of community, of art as the beginning of a practice of going beyond oneself, or perhaps toward some more complete version of the self, resonates centrally in Scheible’s work.

In sculpture, materiality and spatial context play vital roles in the interaction of the art object and its observer. As Danny and I spoke, he crafted flowers and other more abstract objects from rolls of masking tape. “Tape is something that everyone has in their house or wherever, so it’s something people can immediately identify with,” he says. “But it’s also about taking that everyday object and seeing the aesthetic potential in it.”

This intentional choice represents a movement toward the audience, toward their cultural and social location. With respect to spatial location, Scheible sees the importance not just of the gallery setting but of public space. While it brings with it some level of anxiety (things being damaged, openly criticized) venturing into public space is a further gesture toward the audience. In this case, it is to de-familiarize the everyday and punctuate it with an aesthetic gesture. “I might put a small piece out somewhere and then stand across the street and watch and see how people react, or I may leave things along my walking paths,” he says. Scheible will chronicle reactions, and these impressions further inform his process. In this way he is, as he says, “constantly creating myself as a person through my art.”

Scheible is the self-proclaimed “Art Ambassador of Sacramento.” His primary diplomatic function seems to be to inject into the experiences of his artwork–and thus himself–a dialogue or process by which further discovery can be made. “It’s a spiritual or meditative practice,” he says.

Many of our notions concerning modern sculptural works come from either our experience of sculptural objects in a gallery setting or the placement of sculptures in public places such as parks or commercial centers. These experiences tend to remind us of a kind of critical distance that exists between the object and the observer. In the case of minimalist sculptural works, the movement of the observer is a sort of theatrical gesture, but the object remains mute, having no specific relation to the audience other than its spatial fixedness. Scheible’s entire practice, and indeed process, seeks to reinvigorate this relationship with a certain kind of intimacy. In the works that he has given away, Sheible has encouraged others to produce drawings of his work that may subsequently be used as screen-print images, or alternately as hand drawn images, which again become the subject of his own process, as a sort of perpetual feedback loop. And this is key: The constant dialogue, or even dialectic, that generates the self through the process of offering forth the piece, having it reflected, and then taking that reflection as the starting point for the next iteration of work.

Scheible tells me, “I was born and raised in Curtis Park, and I live here now.” Locality is key to his process. The dialogue with the audience requires an immediacy that his interventions in space reveals. However, I don’t suspect that if Scheible keeps it up for long his bounds will be geographically limited. There exists a crucial point at which his art dares to reach into a universal realm: “An artist isn’t something you are born as, it’s something you make yourself into.” For Sheible, this is as much material and spatial as it is social. As he tells it, his strength lies in getting other artists to work together, to show together, and to promote together. This is a fundamental characteristic of anyone who dares to push the art that they believe in to the fore, and make it geographically and socially relevant.

We could have spent hours talking about the importance of public versus private space, or how hard it is for an artist to fix the damn scooter when it’s wrecked. But I look forward to an upcoming solo show, and the show he is curating, all here in our ever-vibrant Midtown arts scene.

Danny Scheible’s latest solo show at Lauren Salon will have its opening reception during Second Saturday in March (March 12, 2011). Scheible’s curated show will take place at FE Gallery and will also have its opening reception on Second Saturday in March from 6 to 9 p.m.

6th Annual Sacramento St. Patrick’s Day Pub Crawl
This is arguably Sacramento’s biggest and best pub crawl! On Saturday, March 12, this giant drinking trek brought to you by 5hundy Social Club will kick off at 2 p.m. in Old Sacramento at River City Saloon. From there the mobile party will hit Vega’s, Back Door Lounge, O’Mally’s Irish Pub, River City Brewery, Cosmo Café, Vallejo’s, The Elixir Bar, Shady Lady, R15, Zebra Club, Press Club, Alley Katz, Capitol Dawg, The Depot, de Vere’s Irish Pub, Capitol Garage, Gallagher’s Irish Pub, Pyramid Brewery and finally Shenanigans, where there will be live music and dancing to round out the night, if you can last that long, that is. There is no cost to join this epic pub-crawl, but obviously drinks are on you at each location. Many of them feature specials, so keep an eye out for those. The event will take place rain or shine; for more information visit 5hundy.net/CalPubCrawl.