Submerge Magazine: Issue 94 (September 19-October 3, 2011)

Dive into Sacramento & its Surrounding Areas

September 19 – october 3, 2011

#94

The Kelps Tales from the Dark Side

Nightmare in the Twilight Set to Unveil New Album

Keith Lowell Jensen Raining Cats and Rabbits

free

Up, Up and Away

+

Restaurant Thir13en

Adam Pechal from Tuli checks in to The Sterling

contagion

Plague paranoia makes for good cinema

hella metal fest

NorCal Bands Ready to Shred

Buy tickets at livenation.com. To charge by phone (800) 745-3000. Tickets also available at select Walmart locations. Limit 8 tickets per person. All dates, acts and ticket prices are subject to change without notice. All tickets are subject to applicable service charges.

2

Issue 94 • September 19 – October 3, 2011

Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/livenationsacreno Dive Into Sacramento & Its Surrounding Areas

08

contents

Submerge: an independently owned entertainment/lifestyle publication available for free biweekly throughout the greater Sacramento area.

94 2011

03 04 06 07 08 10

14

07

18 cofounder/ Editor in Chief/Art Director

Melissa Welliver melissa@submergemag.com cofounder/ Advertising Director

Jonathan Carabba jonathan@submergemag.com senior editor

Contributing Writers

Robin Bacior, Corey Bloom, Bocephus Chigger, Anthony Giannotti, Blake Gillespie, Vince Girimonte, Ryan L. Prado, Steph Rodriguez Adam Saake, Mike Saechao, Amy Serna, Jenn Walker Nicholas Wray

Contributing editor

Blake Gillespie Jenn Walker

Mandy Johnston

distribution

www.submergemag.com Follow us on Twitter! @SubmergeMag

SubmergeMag.com

Submerge

2308 J Street, Suite F Sacramento, Calif. 95816

916.441.3803 info@submergemag.com

Contributing photographers

James Barone

11 13 14 14 18 22 28 29 30

printed on recycled paper

september 19 october 3 Dive in The Stream The Optimistic Pessimist Refined Tastes restaurant thir13en

Keith Lowell Jensen CapitAl Capture wallets

Submerge your senses the kelps hella metal fest nightmare in the twilight a lot like birds calendar

the grindhouse Contagion

live<<Rewind Innerds

the shallow end All content is property of Submerge and may not be reproduced without permission. Submerge is both owned and published by Submerge Network. All opinions expressed throughout Submerge are those of the author and do not necessarily mean we all share those opinions. Feel free to take a copy or two for free, but please don’t remove our papers or throw them away. Submerge welcomes letters of all kinds, whether they are full of love or hate. We want to know what is on your mind, so feel free to contact us via snail mail at 2308 J Street, Suite F Sacramento, Calif.

95816. Or you can e-mail us at info@submergemag.com. front cover photos of a lot like birds by nicholas wray

Back cover photo of Keith Lowell Jensen

by Kiny McCarrick

dive in Lots of Local Love Melissa welliver melissa@submergemag.com Just when I think the Sacramento music scene is going to start slowing down, because that’s what tends to happen after summer, I get major updates on all these rad shows that are already getting booked through November (ahem: Mastodon at Ace of Spades! Aesop Rock at Sacramento State! Melt Banana at Harlow’s!). Just look for yourself by checking out all the show listing style ads in this issue. Guaranteed there will be quite a few things you’ll want to mark you calendar for.

Also, has anyone else just been completely stoked on all the local CD release shows that have been happening?! There are still so many good ones that are coming up too. Sacramento, KEEP IT UP! With everything that’s been going on, it has been making it a little difficult to decide what to put in our issues. Lately it seems like we’ve been focusing on a lot of local music, and it’s not stopping.

In this issue we have features on A Lot Like Birds (page 18) and Nightmare in the Twilight (page 14). Both have albums coming out in October. A Lot Like Bird’s new album Conversation Piece will be available Oct. 11, and you will be able to see them perform their new songs at Sacramento State’s University Union Ballroom on Oct. 13. Nightmare in the Twilight are celebrating their self-titled full-length release on Oct. 1 at the Hella Metal Fest happening at The Crest Theatre.

You haven’t heard of this metal festival? Well, you can also learn about it starting on page 14.

We also caught up with members of The Kelps (page 13) to discuss their new album that was released digitally a few weeks ago, but are hoping for an official release by the end of October. As of the time we went to print, there was no release show scheduled, so I’d highly suggest adding them on Facebook to stay in the loop.

Beyond featuring three local bands in this issue, we also have major love for Sacramento comedian Keith Lowell Jensen.

He recently released his CD, Cats Made of Rabbits, but also has a DVD that will be available on Sept. 27. We were lucky enough to get our hands on an advanced copy of this DVD and it is hilarious. You will be able to see him perform and celebrate these two releases on Sept. 23 at Sacramento Comedy Spot.

There’s more non-music related coverage in this issue, too. We have a review of Restaurant Thir13en that recently opened in the Sterling Hotel as well as our take on the new film Contagion. We also have highlighted some events in our “Submerge Your Senses” section that you might want to attend.

Events that you will definitely want to see, smell, touch and/ or taste!

With all the amount of stuff going on, it’s easy to miss things here and there. I highly suggest e-mailing us at info@ submergemag.com to get your shows or releases on our radar, and if nothing else, we can list your show for FREE in our events calendar. And if you’re looking for extra exposure for your event/band/business/etc., we have extremely affordable ad rates. Trust me, you can afford it. Call us!

Please enjoy issue #94, Please enjoy issue #94, Melissa-Dubs

to advertise

Call (916) 441 - 3803 or e-mail info@sumbergemag.com

Issue 94 • September 19 – October 3, 2011

3

The stream NOONER

TAIS

WED, SEP 21 @ 12P

WWW.SACSTATEUNIQUE.COM

COMEDY

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IN YOUR FACEBOOK

FRENCH CASSETTES

THUR, SEP 22 @ 7:30P

Free, improv comedy show inspired by audience members’ Facebook profiles, feat. comedians from the Sacramento Comedy Spot

University Union Ballroom<<

Free, hip hop concert University Union Serna Plaza<<

MOVIE

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WED, SEP 28 @ 12P

Free, winners of Sac State’s 2011 Battle of the Bands competition, indie pop concert University Union Serna Plaza<<

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Free, film screening of the hit comedy starring Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis & Ed Helms

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University Union Serna Plaza<<

Free, final rounds of the annual laughfest, featuring 5 competing professional comedians

Free, jazz pop concert University Union Serna Plaza<<

University Union Ballroom<<

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Jonathan Carabba Send regional news tips to info@submergemag.com

NOONER

Free, indie folk rock concert

FIFTH STRING MUSIC STORE // NORCAL NOISE FEST // SAC COMEDY FEST // LOCAL COMIC LANDS ROLE ON THE OFFICE

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Thursday Nights • 9pm-1am

Live Music • No Cover

(

After 14 years at its current location on the corner of Alhambra Boulevard and J Street, the Fifth String Music Store is moving out. Don’t fret (pun intended); it’s not closing up shop for good. In fact it’s moving into a bigger, better location at 3184 N Street (the building that used to house Bicycle Chef). The new spot is approximately 4,000 square feet, so there’ll be plenty of room to spread out. Fifth String will still carry worldclass stringed instruments from companies like Martin, Taylor and Blueridge as well as continue providing excellent lessons and repairs programs.

Owner John Green even hinted to Submerge recently that he may eventually add a little stage and host live shows! Congratulations are surely in order for this family owned and operated shop that has done wonders for the local music community over the years. It’s nice to see a local music shop stay afloat in these tough economic times, let alone to expand and grow. Green and company are aiming for an Oct. 3 opening date at the new location. For more information, stop by their current location, call (916) 442-8282 or visit Thefifthstring.com.

916 2nd Street Old Sacramento

(916) 443-6852 TheRiverCitySaloon.com

Distillery 2107 L Street • Sacramento • (916) 443-8815 Fri, SEpTEmbEr 23 Barbarous Cock, Escapement , 30.06 $5 10pm SaT, SEpTEmbEr 24 The Cheatin’ Hearts, Dry County Drinkers, The Campfire Crooners $6 10pm Fri, SEpTEmbEr 30 Countdown (Belgium), Give Em Hell, Slave, Havenside $6 10pm

SaT, OcTObEr 1 Bottom Dwellers, Whiskey River Drifters $5 10pm Fri, OcTObEr 7 Riot Radio, Stalking Distance, Heroes At Gunpoint, Support The Rabid $5 10pm SaT, OcTObEr 8 Drop Seven $5 10pm

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Fri, OcTObEr 14 The Pets, Der Spazm, Deciembre Gris $6 10pm SaT, OcTObEr 15 The Nickel Slots, Bright Faces, Whiskey & Stitches $7 10pm Fri, OcTObEr 21 Union Saints, MF Ruckus (Denver) $6 10pm SaT, OcTObEr 22 Cura Cochino, Ninth Moon Black(OR) $6 10pm

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Oct 28 HALLOWEEN WEEKEND PARTY: GET SHOT!, The Number 13, The Left Hand, The Crunchees, Stalking Distance $6 10pm Oct 29 HALLOWEEN WEEKEND PARTY: A Single Second, Tall Boy $5 10pm Nov 4 P- Chill & The Trunk Of Funk, Blaquelisted, Atlantis Rizing feat. Mark Boyce (of G. Love & The Special Sauce)

, $6 10pm

Nov 5 Sour Diesel, Revolver, Final Decay $5 10pm Nov 11 Pinkkloud (Rick Agnew of Adolescents & Christian Death), GETSHOT!,TheCrunchees$710pm

Open For Lunch & Dinner

Issue 94 • September 19 – October 3, 2011

Speaking of awesome local music shops that deserve a good ol’ fashioned “congratulations,” Dave Lynch over at Guitar Workshop (3248 J Street) recently celebrated his 15th anniversary with a giant sale in early September. Great shop, cool employees, nice instruments, lessons, repairs, the whole nine. Stop in and say hi or give them a call at (916) 441-6555 or visit Guitarworkshoponline.com.

The 15th annual Norcal Noisefest will be happening all around town from Sept. 28–Oct. 3. At last count there were 60-plus performers from everywhere including right here in Sacramento, as well as San Francisco, Washington and Germany, set to perform at this year’s participating venues, which include Naked Lounge Downtown, Wm. J. Geery Theater, Luggage Store Gallery (San Francisco), Sol Collective and Luna’s Café. On Thursday, Sept. 29, live, in-studio performances from Sacramento’s Matt Kretzmann, Chad E. Williams, Wes Steed and Rocklin’s Liver Cancer will be broadcast via radio from 90.3 FM KDVS in Davis. For more information, to view the entire schedule and to purchase tickets, head to Norcalnoisefest.com. Admission to each show is $10 (includes earplugs) or you can get a festival pass for just $40 (includes Noisefest CD, sticker and earplugs).

Many months ago, Sacramento Comedy Spot owner Brian Crall told Submerge about this idea he was working on for a giant comedy festival he wanted to call Sacramento Comedy Festival. We told him to keep us in the loop because it sounded way badass. Well, it has come to fruition! From Sept. 29–Oct. 3 Sac Comedy Spot will play host to improv groups, standup comics, and sketch groups from Sacramento to Los Angeles. There will be 170 some-odd comedians performing in 25 shows! Get those cheek muscles worked out, because those bitches are going to be sore after these funny four days. Festival passes are $50, individual show prices vary. Visit Saccomedyspot. com for more information or to purchase tickets.

On the topic of Sacramento and comedy, Americascomedy.com (which is based here in town) recently reported that local stand-up comic Mike E. Winfield landed a re-occurring role on the hit NBC show The Office. Yup, our very own local funny man is Dunder Mifflin’s newest warehouse worker! His character’s name is Wes, and in his interview with Americascomedy.com, Winfield said he thinks he will appear within the first three episodes of the season, which starts Sept. 22. Be sure to tune in and root on our hometown hero. To keep up with Winfield, follow him on Twitter @MikeEWinfield or find his fan page at Facebook.com/imnotsmiling.

Dive Into Sacramento & Its Surrounding Areas

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Issue 94 • September 19 – October 3, 2011

5

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The Optimistic Pessimist Fall On Your Ass Bocephus Chigger bocephus@submergemag.com

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Fall is back and you know what that means: new TV shows! Each autumn our network overlords throw us a fresh batch of random shit to watch. I took a peek at the actual shows premiering this year and it’s not good.

What will I mindlessly stare at for 30 to 60 minutes at a time? Saddened by the dismal showing, I got to thinking of a few ideas of my own. What you are about to read will change the face of television forever.

Whatever happened to Don Knotts? Dead.

Humphrey Bogart? Kaput. Corey Haim? Too good for this world. It’s like all the big stars are gone! Wouldn’t it be great if these fine fellows and all of our other deceased favorites could be back in the spotlight again? Well, that’s exactly what happens in The Comeback Kings. Modern-day Hollywood is collapsing on itself and needs an injection of life, but there just aren’t any good actors left. All that changes when a mad scientist (played by former Friends star David Schwimmer) approaches the studio heads with a plan to reanimate the corpses of Hollywood’s biggest former stars and usher in a new golden age in film. All of your favorites will be back and better than ever (well maybe the same as ever, but that’s still good)!

It seems like every year we get another drama about doctors or lawyers. I, for one, am sick of it. When are these people going to try something truly risky? What we need is a medical malpractice drama! Now that’s television! Think of the potentially juicy storylines involving defective prosthetic legs, erectile dysfunction/hyper-function and leaky colostomy bags. Isaiah Washington (who left Grey’s Anatomy for hating the gays) has expressed interest in playing the lead.

Negotiations over the sexual preferences of Mr. Washington’s cast mates are nearly complete and filming is scheduled to begin soon on Juris Doctorate.

The supernatural is huge right now, and I’ve got a plan to cash in on the hype. A werewolf, Frankenstein and a vampire (played by Malcolm Jamal Warner, Dustin Diamond and Charlie Sheen, respectively)

own a tenement building for monsters in Brooklyn, N.Y. Things are going well for the guys until one of their tenants (a witch) disappears from her apartment in the middle of the night, leaving behind her recently born witch daughter. The guys are forced to raise the young witch with hilarious results. It’s The Addams Family meets Three Men and a Baby meets Good Times. Monster House will be great for the family no matter how much of a beast you are!

Loosely scripted and heavily edited to form a narrative, “reality TV” is so close to politics, it’s a wonder the two haven’t yet formally crossed paths. That’s all about to change with America’s Next Top President.

Ten natural born citizens will square off in the competition of their lives. The issues will be glossed over, the catty drama exposed. Candidates will compete on such tasks as baby kissing, hand gesturing during speeches, Orwellian bill-naming strategies and concealing the truth from the American people.

When the dust settles, only one will remain standing to claim the title of America’s Next Top President.

Of course, presidential glory is not for everyone. Some people are just trying to live and, better yet, get paid while they do.

That’s the idea behind Out of Bounds, a new game show possibly coming to the CW next fall. On Out of Bounds, we take a family from the Waziristan region of Pakistan and have them trade homes and lives with an American family from Tucson, Ariz. Watch as each family does their best to figure out their new culture before the people around them decide to imprison or kill them. The family that survives the longest and/or kills the most infidels/ terrorists wins a $100,000 cash prize.

I know. It’s hard to choose isn’t it? They all have so much potential. More importantly, I would not be surprised to find one of these shows on television. It’s everything they want us to want, taken a few levels further.

And if TV has taught me one thing, it’s that extremes are always better. Start warming up those DVRs!

(916) 444-3633

Issue 94 • September 19 – October 3, 2011

Dive Into Sacramento & Its Surrounding Areas

refined tastes

EVERY GAME. EVERY SUNDAY.

A Number of Flavors Restaurant Thir13en

1300 H Street • Sacramento

Words & photos Adam Saake Escapism: it’s the new stay-cation for the broke adventurers whose passports are dusty and pockets turned inside-out. Coming from a guy who’s lived in Sacramento his entire life, trust me when I say that finding a new place in my hometown that transports me to another time or place is magical. Do I want to drink in a speakeasy? There’s always Shady Lady. A late evening trip to Spain? Try Tapas. Or maybe a Japanese getaway for noodles? Shoki Ramen House does the trick. You can feel like a world traveler and still sleep in your own fluffy bed at night. Fire up the DeLorean! Your next escape awaits.

Restaurant Thir13en’s outside patio, particularly at night, has the feel of a European bistro. The restaurant fits neatly underneath the historic Sterling Hotel, built in 1894, that acts as a sort of Victorian granddaddy to the popular architecture that Midtown and downtown are so well known for. The patio is at street level and even though your privacy is present, the city’s veins are pumping life right before you, reminding guests of what awaits.

Tables of two and three were sitting casually under the canopy of trees that sprung up and around the hotel. John Legend played in the distance, his leathery voice filling the spaces in between. Burgundy glasses were alive with pinot; carafes afloat with cucumber. Propped umbrellas freckled the outside patio like some strange gaggle of satellites, tuning in not broadcasting out. Everything in its right place, as Thom Yorke once sang. The music was not too loud, service not too smug and the lights were dimmed just so.

It’s the place you want to be when the day has been long and you know you deserve a cocktail.

Inside, Thir13en’s dimly lit, subterranean bar—one giant slab of recovered stone—lures guests in if not for the pleasant array of spirits contained within. Beverage director Sara Kitchens has put these bottles to work and come up with a cocktail list, all consistently priced at $10 apiece, that “have a base in a classic cocktail sense, but with just a new fresh take on them,” says Kitchens. The Winchester is a combination of two old time bourbon drinks, an Old Fashioned and a Manhattan. The Great White Hope pays tribute to a White Russian, but instead of cream Kitchens uses their own house-made royal almond tea milk. I opted for a Monarch, very similar to a

SubmergeMag.com

Southside in that the mint, lemon and gin are all there, but a bit of St. Germain elderflower liqueur ups the sweetness a bit. Choose from the cleverly counted 13 concoctions, each one different and crafted with care.

The farm-to-table philosophy is alive and well at Restaurant Thir13en, with perfect execution of dishes like pan-seared Passmore Ranch trout, served on a bed of fried green tomatoes the size of sand dollars, spicy remoulade and a healthy dose of radish herb salad and chili oil. All extremely high quality ingredients that are at the peak of their splendor, simply prepared to taste as they should: magnificent.

“The flavors aren’t overpowering,” says Restaurant Thir13en server Aaron Correa. “I feel that with each dish you can taste all the ingredients that are in it.”

This art of simplicity may appear easy, right? Not so fast. It requires a certain deeper understanding of your ingredients; what works and what doesn’t. To mindfully pair ingredients so they complement each other with their own natural flavors is what makes this sort of dish what it is. The rest is technique. And head chef and owner Adam Pechal and his kitchen have got that covered. You may recognize Pechal’s name from the not-too-distant Tuli Bistro, where it seems he has honed his style that he now reinterprets for Thir13en. Tuli also celebrates local, but Pechal’s got more room to work here, and he’s done right by continuing to source the kinds of produce he does.

Passmore Ranch is just one of the local farms that Pechal uses. Soil Born Farms is also in the mix, giving Pechal and his team access to quality produce throughout the year.

“We use a lot of local and even organic ingredients,” Correa says.

I was pleased to see more seafood options on the menu besides just an obligatory grilled salmon or calamari. Tuna carpaccio shines with thin rice noodles, compressed cucumber, carrots, watercress, Thai herbs and chili-lime vinaigrette.

Pan-seared scallops make an appearance, served with yellow corn, Romano beans, Del Rio heirloom cherry tomatoes and bacon-sherry vinaigrette. The vegetables are no sidekicks on these plates, but rather main characters with plenty of dialogue to add to the conversation.

Entrees range in price from $13 to $23 and with a $10 a pop cocktail menu, the price point is up there. But, you get what you pay for. They do serve lunch 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., where sandwiches and appetizers may better suit your budget.

Restaurant Thir13en is another reason to vacation at home. Just because you are not traveling doesn’t mean you can’t escape in style.

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Issue 94 • September 19 – October 3, 2011

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Shake It Up! Sacramento comedian Keith Lowell Jensen Releases New CD/DVD and Preps His First Solo Tour Words Blake Gillespie photo Kiny McCarrick

A

drawing of four naked human female torsos with rabbit heads is not the definition of marketing genius, but it could be. At the bottom of the DVD box it reads, “How great is this DVD? You haven’t even opened the box and you’ve seen a bunny rabbit with boobs.”

Keith Lowell Jensen’s comedy CD/DVD Cats Made of Rabbits was recorded at the Sacramento Comedy Spot two years ago, but its content remains timeless, save for a Jonas Brothers reference. I want to tell you the juvenile humor ends on the box and that Jensen is a thoughtful comedian, pushing the envelope of correctness (which he does) and subversively challenging our values with humor, but then I think about his duck vagina bit and think better of such grandiose statements.

He’s an atheist (and has a wife and child—guffaw), so he is often referred to as the Atheist Comedian, mostly on the Coexist? Comedy Tour, but Jensen’s compulsive interest in all things worthy of critique keeps the nasty “pigeonhole” effect off his back. In discussing his next album, Jensen said he had 45 minutes of material on things he’s been arrested for and jobs he’s been fired from, as well as over an hour of observational comedy. Once in San Francisco he threatened to do an entire set of racist jokes strictly based upon the characters in Lord of the Rings, which is possibly the finest testament to his multi-dimensional talent. “I didn’t intend to be the Atheist Comedian, but that’s what I am on the tour,” he said. “It just sort of happened. It feels very true and feels like I’m talking about very important shit, so that’s cool.”

Jensen knows there are gigs he won’t book due to his atheism, but he casually sidesteps the haters with a “fuck that bigot” attitude. “The gay comics or a black comic, they don’t have the choice of not being that,” he said. “It’s who they are. This is who I am. Even if I wasn’t doing my atheist material, those same people wouldn’t appreciate what a liberal I am or what a geek I am. Those things all kind of go together.”

8

Issue 94 • September 19 – October 3, 2011

Dive Into Sacramento & Its Surrounding Areas

Some comedians have said that happiness is the worst thing that can happen to your career.

I think that’s bullshit. You know, when me and my wife met, my romantic first words to her were, “How can you say something so fucking stupid?” I still remember the debate we had.

We argued for two hours straight and were best friends by the time we were done.

Any artist that can express their poverty and sorrow well can express their joy. [Yamantaka] Eye of the Boredoms talked about audiences being disappointed when they come to see him because he’s happy now and they want his old stuff when he was miserable. But he said that stuff was successful and that gave me this family. It gave me the Boredoms and I’m happy.

Political humor can be alienating and risky.

Outside of comedy you’re a very opinionated person, particularly in your blog and Facebook posts. Have you come to any conclusions on whether it has a place in your material?

On Cats Made of Rabbits there is politics in there, but it’s hidden. On the actual joke “Cats Made of Rabbits” I tie “shock and awe” and the Trail of Tears to the Holocaust, and people who would be offended by it don’t even catch it, it’s said so matter of fact. I just give a list and those three are on it. It’s not making a big production out of the political statement that’s within that joke. And of course there’s a vegan joke within it, regarding how we base which animals are OK to kill based on cuteness.

Is your writing process thought out, in that you intentionally weave that many political statements into one bit?

It happens subconsciously out of me being insecure. A lot of writing happens on stage where I am surprised something came out of my mouth.

SubmergeMag.com

“If there’s anything I think you should say to comedians before they go on stage that might help it’s, ‘You know there’s not really that much at risk.’ You’re going to get up and do what you’re going to do and then later you’ll get up again.”

– Keith Lowell Jensen Will the next string of dates in the fall be your first time out on tour alone?

This is the first time I’ve gone out and every day it’s just me and I’m the headliner.

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Have you found the humor in that yet?

Just now [laughs]. I’ve broken my collarbone before and so I know it’s going to stop hurting eventually. It’s not like the first heartbreak you get when you’re a kid, and you don’t know if it’s ever going to end. Now it’s like, “Ah, I’ve got to wait this out. Didn’t want to do this right now, but…”

I don’t get nerves that bad anymore. I got stage fright for the first eight years and didn’t think it would ever go away. If there’s anything I think you should say to comedians before they go on stage that might help it’s, “You know there’s not really that much at risk.” You’re going to get up and do what you’re going to do and then later you’ll get up again.

Keith Lowell Jensen’s Cats Made of Rabbits CD is out now and available to own on Amazon.com. It can also be purchased digitally on iTunes. His DVD of the same name will be available Sept. 27. Jensen will perform a CD/DVD release show at the Sac Comedy Spot on Sept. 23 at 8 p.m. (tickets are $18). You can also catch Jensen do his thing the following Thursday, Sept. 29, as part of the Sacramento Comedy Festival, once again at the Sac Comedy Spot. More info and tickets for both these performances can be found at Saccomedyspot.com.

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You strike me as an obsessive consumer whether it comes to comedy or music, but that collector side of your personality does not translate to the stage. Have you ever considered letting the nerd flag fly more in your material?

I have a lot of material about Lord of the Rings right now. I don’t know why now. I think maybe excitement about The Hobbit. I just re-read the books. I’m also telling my daughter the Lord of the Rings story, only in our version the Orc “scratched” instead of “stabbed”—she’s 2.

I geeked out on Elf Quest recently, and I’ve been geeking out on porn lately. The creators of Elf Quest contacted me recently and two progressive porn actresses have contacted me wanting to blog about my material, so maybe I should do more pop culture stuff.

Then again, I was talking to the audience about [Doug E. Fresh] at the Comedy Spot a few weeks ago and nobody knew what I was talking about. I said you have to be kidding me. That’s ridiculous you guys don’t know Doug E. Fresh.

It would seem that Sacramento’s comedy scene is stirring with talent right now; much like our music scene has had little pockets of glory. Given that Mike E. Winfield will be on the next season of The Office, does it feel like an opportune time to be a comedian in Sacramento?

Yeah. It could be. There were periods with music when the Deftones and Cake and Papa Roach and all these bands in a short span of time all took off out of Sacramento. It sort of put Sacramento on the map. I feel like that could be happening with comedy mostly from the perspective of, boy, we have an awful lot of really good comics here. We just have a phenomenal bank of talent in this little town.

It’s interesting that Mike E. is staying. He’s on The Office! I was thinking well, there he goes.

Bye Mike. But, nope, he’s keeping his place in Sac. He’s in Los Angeles a lot, but he’s keeping his place here. I like that a lot. Ian MacKaye from Minor Threat is one of my heroes, and I like that sense of your own community, and you don’t have to betray it to be famous.

It

Did having a daughter shake up your atheism at all?

Not even a little bit. In fact, having a daughter has not impacted my life as much as it has impacted every other parent I’ve ever known. I suspect that part of that is because I’m in my late 30s. My wife and I have been together for 14 years. We’ve settled into our lives a little more than most people who are having babies.

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Issue 94 • September 19 – October 3, 2011

9

Capital Capture

Paper or Plastic

Nicholas wray capitalcapture@submergemag.com No, this isn’t about your preferred method of parceling your groceries… We’re talking wallets—not what’s in them, but what they are. Do you roll with a classic leather wallet, a money clip, something designer, a little color or do you decorate your roll? When you order a drink at your favorite bar are you proud to pull your stack out of your pocket or do you hide it? If you still have that crusty billfold from high school, go get something you’re proud of! When you drop that pick-up line and want to impress, you’ve got to have more than a few Washingtons and Lincolns sticking up out of that rawhide, because nobody cares how much money you have. It’s all about how you carry it.

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season pass ad Aug 16.indd Issue 94 • September 19 – October Submerge 3, 2011

1

8/16/11 Areas 1:21 PM Dive Into Sacramento & Its Surrounding

Your Senses

words jenn walker

SEE smell TASTE Touch

SMELL Ink Fumes at SledgHammer Graffix’s Screen-printing Class • Sept. 25 & Oct. 2 Smell some ink while learning how to screen print on flatstock! Leon A.C. Willis, visual artist and owner of screen-printing business SledgeHammer Graffix, is teaching a screen-printing series at S12 Studios. The sessions have been scheduled for three Sundays in a row, the first of which will have passed by the time this issue comes out, so don’t miss one of the next two sessions! Willis will teach the art of screen-printing from start to finish, from drawing an image, creating a stencil to color separating. All supplies will be provided, although participants are welcome to bring their own flatstock to screen print on. Participants will walk away with a screened card or poster. S12 Studio sare located on S and 12th streets downtown. Each session is $20. For more information or to RSVP in advance send an email to: ubohammer@gmail.com.

TASTE Southern Cuisine at Verge Center for the Arts Sept. 29

TOUCH A Skateboard at Few and Far’s Famale Skate Jam Oct. 1 Lady skaters of Sacto! If you have been looking for a chance to network with other lady skaters, then don’t miss Few and Far’s skate jam at the Power Inn (aka Sacramento Granite skate park) on Saturday. Few and Far is a collective based out of both Sacramento and the Bay Area that celebrates graffiti and street art created by women worldwide with a mission to connect female artists across the globe. The collective was founded by organizer Mj, who is also an artist and has been skating for more than 10 years. “Being a minority in both skating and street art, I feel that organizing female-concentrated events will inspire more women to get involved,” Mj said. “Since there are not so many of us out there, a gathering would help to keep us better connected.” The skate jam is for girls and women of all ages, and each participant will receive a gift bag or sponsor-donated skate products. Organizers are expecting at least 45 women from around the country to attend. A female artist will be painting on-site during the event to raise money for future Few and Far events. The jam starts at noon, and the skate park is located on Ramona Avenue off of Power Inn Road. To find out more about the collective or see some amazing art by F&F artists, check out this Fewandfarwomen.com.

Are you a regular patron of Sandra Dee’s, because the food is just that good? If so, you may want to seriously consider checking out the Verge Center for the Arts on Thursday night. Verge is hosting a night of entertainment inspired by Southern cuisine and culture. Local chef Jaymes Luu of Fat Face is creating the Southern-themed menu, which will include: mesquite-smoked Bledsoe pork shoulder, cabbage green bean slaw, Andouille sausage jambalaya and babydoll watermelon salad. And if meat just doesn’t cut it for you, don’t fret! Veggie options will be available! Verge movie night co-curator Becky Grunewald will host 90 minutes of short films on Southern eats, like “Eat or We Both Starve,” a documentary on Mississippi’s Taylor Grocery, supposedly one of the best catfish joints in the South. If this sounds like your idea of a good time, buy your tickets at Brownpapertickets.com. Space is limited; remaining tickets will be sold at the door. Doors open with cocktails and live music at 6:30 p.m. The Verge is located on 625 S Street in downtown Sacramento.

SEE Italian Movies Outdoors at Fremont Park Sept. 30–Oct. 1 Free outdoor movies are a hard thing to pass up, so don’t miss your next opportunity at the Modern Italian Film Festival, which is happening for the second year in a row at Fremont Park. The opening night party begins at 6 p.m. on Friday, presented by Campari and Moretti at Hot Italian. DJs from Phonoselect will be spinning from 7 to 8:30 p.m. both nights, followed by the showing of Italian films La Prima Bella Cosa (The First Beautiful Thing) on the first night and Ricordati Di Me (Remember Me, My Love) on the following night, both beginning at 8:30 p.m. in the park. The after party will be presented by Tuaca at Hot Italian at 10:30 p.m. Saturday. Fremont Park is located at 16th and Q streets.

SubmergeMag.com

Issue 94 • September 19 – October 3, 2011

11

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Issue 94 • September 19 – October 3, 2011

Dive Into Sacramento & Its Surrounding Areas

Didn’t Mean to Freak You Out

The Kelps show a flair for the theatrical on stage and on their latest album, Head Like a Mouse Words Jenn Walker

I

f you have ever watched or listened to The Kelps and thought they were unlike any other band you have seen or heard before, then the band has succeeded in being exactly the kind of act lead vocalist/guitarist Cory Barringer wants it to be.

Just over two weeks ago, the Lincoln, Calif.-based band released their debut album, Head Like a Mouse, on Soundcloud, a site that allows sound-sharing. The band received so much positive feedback on the album after streaming it online for just a few days, they made it available for free download over a three-day period in early September, during which hungry listeners snatched up almost 400 free copies.

The album, which has since returned to stream-only status, was recorded within a six- to seven-month frame at Shattered Records in Citrus Heights by producer Jack O’Donnell. The Kelps are hoping for an official album release around Oct. 30.

Meanwhile the band has been nominated for a Sammie award for the second year in a row, this time as best rock band.

The Kelps is Barringer, Cameron Betts and Tony Reyes, all a mere 19 to 21 years old. Online they have classified themselves as alternative, indie rock, southern Goth and blues punk. This was really just for the sake of providing information, Barringer explained, as the band doesn’t care much for labeling their sound.

“We should sound like The Kelps,” Barringer said.

Labeling can put a band at a disadvantage, particularly being lumped into the blues genre, he said, because comparisons are quickly drawn to traditional blues bands.

“I have been pulled aside by countless old men who have informed me that we are not a blues band.”

Some of their musical influences are more evident than others: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Bright Eyes, David Byrne, Dr. Dog and Roger Waters.

If there is a genre the band is striving to fit into, it is something completely new and different from anything that has already been put out there by other musicians.

“Even if [listeners are] freaked out, I want to have an effect, whatever that effect might be,” Barringer said.

By freaked out, Barringer is referring to the sometimes taken-aback looks he sees on the faces of an audience during one of their live shows, a reaction he associates with seeing something new or different. “And to me, that’s the whole point of creating anything is just bringing something new into the world,” he said. “Even if they hate it, it’s new.”

What immediately stands out about this band is its distinctly eerie lyrics and fiery vocals. Within the nine sonically crisp tracks of Head Like a Mouse, some entwined with poetry, Barringer and Betts cogently howl tales of getting locked up and tainting the innocent over gnashing guitar riffs. It is cryptic rock ‘n’ roll bearing dark elements comparable to the Murder City Devils or The Misfits. Not enough bands rock this hard.

Watching The Kelps live, you’ll notice the crazed facial expressions, the finger twitching, hands grabbing for the sky. A dramatic performance. This is not a coincidence. Prior to starting The Kelps officially in the summer of 2009, the three were in theater together at school back in Sheridan, Calif., where they first discovered that they clicked creatively.

After watching so many live shows, Barringer concluded that although there is a lot of talent out there musically, live performances are lacking energy these days.

“I quickly realized that if I was going to do anything up there, it would have to be something that people would want to talk about. Something more. Give them their money’s worth, don’t just stand there and play,” Barringer explained.

While they are unmistakably dark in both their songwriting and performance, in person these guys are anything but anguished or depressing, which Submerge quickly realized during an interview outside the Naked Coffee Lounge with Barringer and Reyes. The following is an excerpt of the conversation.

My observation is that your lyrics tend to be pretty dark. Is this reflective of your guys’ personalities at all?

Tony Reyes: Nope! I wouldn’t say so.

Cory Barringer: I’d say that it’s reflective of a part of us all if that doesn’t sound too hokey.

What it is is just everyone has a bit of that dark side and we’re fools to deny it. I consider myself an overall fairly happy person. But there is that dark side and for me it’s the music that can kind of exorcise the demons, especially in the performance, the live performance. That’s how I can get it all out of my head for a while at least, and then it crawls back. Yeah, I’d say that one of the reasons that the lyrics tend to sway to the dark side—wow, that sounds like Star Wars, doesn’t it—is just I find that the most emotive ways of writing are often the sad, twisted things.

Those come easier to me. It’s not like I force either side of it, I have written happy songs before. They weren’t very good but I’ve written them. To me it’s the idea of no matter what I do, I try to be sincere so whatever comes out comes out.

And I imagine that this kind of allows you guys to put your theatric experience into use.

CB: It definitely does, yeah.

TR: As far as performance goes, I’ve always felt like I’ve never had a choice. Because like Cory was saying earlier I did spend a lot of time in theater. And I don’t want to say I really know anything about drums, but there was a point where I was uncomfortable playing on a drum kit and [then] there was a moment in time I became comfortable. And after that point I felt like I didn’t have a choice about how I acted back there. And I didn’t realize I was putting on a show until someone said, “Dude, your face is crazy when you’re back there screaming.”

How or why did you recruit Reggie Ginn [for “Blood Poem” on Head Like a Mouse]?

CB: It was partly just because we knew we needed a woman’s voice. We also liked her a great deal. We had done a bunch of stuff with her. It all just kind of worked out perfect, because she’s also recording her album at

Shattered Records with Jack so she was already kind of in and out of there. And I kind of liked the idea of having the poem set behind a piano piece and none of us can really play the piano quite so well. I really wrote it on the guitar but with the piano in mind. And I also just really liked her voice.

We had no idea if she could do it because if you’ve heard it there are different portions.

There is the beginning where she is doing the poem but then it gets darker and darker and she’s just screaming and we had no idea if she could scream, because she has a great voice, a great, powerful voice, but it’s a different beast altogether when you’re giving an emotive performance of screaming and being dragged away. She nailed it.

And it was just so cool to watch someone so out of their element.

During your June show earlier this year at the Naked Lounge you had introduced “Grimoire” as a bit of an anthem “for everyone different like us.” I don’t know if you remember saying that…

CB: Yeah, I did say that.

So, I wanted to ask you…

TR: Cory, did you just get quoted?

CB: Yeah, I did. I didn’t think anyone was listening. It’s not technically about that but that’s the neat thing about our songs because we all kind of have different interpretations of our own stuff. And even though there’s a different story that goes along with that song that nobody will ever get because the lyrics are just that cryptic, we wrote them that way, it was intentional, so no one knows what they’re about. But I kind of took it as what could be an anthem for being different. Again, I’ll go back to when we started as a band, I wanted to be a band for other people like me. And by that I mean the band nerds, the theater geeks, Keep an eye out for the the kind of social official release of The outcasts that kind of Kelps’ Head Like a Mouse, possibly at the end of feel they don’t really October. In the meantime, belong with a lot of you can stream the album people. at Soundcloud. A link to the stream is posted on The Kelps’ Tumblr page (Thekelps.tumblr.com).

SubmergeMag.com

Issue 94 • September 19 – October 3, 2011

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HELLA METAL FEST TO ROCK THE CREST On Oct. 1, Sacramento’s venerable movie house will play host to quite a different form of entertainment than its usual cinematic faire. Hella Metal Fest will bring together a dozen of Northern California’s most exciting metal bands (including Nightmare in the Twilight, featured in this issue). The festival was organized by Richard Kokoletsos, guitarist for Oroville, Calif.’s Memento Mori, which will also perform at the festival.

Hella Metal Fest is bringing together bands from the Sacramento region and beyond, such as Redding’s Amongst the Dead and San Jose’s The Soothing Sound of Flight. The festival’s website’s posted mission statement says that the festival will strive to “revive a dying metal scene in Northern California.

According to our e-mail correspondence with Kokoletsos, the event was born almost out of necessity.

“From a metal musician’s standpoint, it can seem quite bleak when you find amazingly talented musicians playing to diminishing crowds; while, on the other hand, bands that focus on the presentation of a certain image, rather than original sounding music, are increasing in popularity,” he says. “So much so, it’s getting harder and harder to find decent venues to host local metal bands.”

He says that the Crest is the perfect venue for the festival.

“The toughest challenge in preparing was choosing a venue big enough that was willing to host metal music, but once I stepped foot inside the massive Crest Theatre, I was certain it was the place for us,” Kokoletsos explains.

This isn’t Kokoletsos’ first crack at organizing this sort of event. In 2008 and 2009, he put together 530 Fest, which offered the “biggest and best” metal bands in the 530 area code on the same bill.

“This year I wanted to do something bigger so I decided to incorporate more bands from all over Nor Cal,” he says.

Michael Alvarez of Nightmare in the Twilight is looking forward to being a part of the festival, saying that Kokoletsos and Memento Mori informed the band of the idea for Hella Metal Fest while it was still in its planning stages.

“I’m very satisfied with the lineup,” Alvarez says. “I believe it’s a very versatile show. It’s not like some post-hardcore show where every band has the same breakdown and two-step.”

While an event like this is a step in the right direction for helping Hella Metal Fest achieve its mission of resuscitating the Northern California metal scene, it’s not the cure-all. Kokoletsos believes there is more work to be done.

“Some real networking between the bands and between their fans—no, not Facebook,” he urges. “Real life interaction and participation. Some friends and I have even started introducing between-band entertainment, such as sword juggling, fire breathing/eating, and balancing acts to keep the crowd intrigued.”

As for Memento Mori, Kokoletsos says the band is working on writing a new album. They hope to release a concept album in spring 2012. Sacramento metal fans will be able to see Memento Mori live once more in October at Ace of Spaces as part of the Crush ‘Em All Tour on Oct. 17.

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Issue 94 • September 19 – October 3, 2011

Bad Dreams Come True

Nightmare in the Twilight to celebrate their debut LP at Hella Metal Fest Words James Barone • photo Sophia Smith

O

ne fateful day, Michael Alvarez went to McDonald’s and came home with more than a value meal. He ended up with a band.

“My friend was too lazy to get McDonald’s, so he sent me out to get McDonald’s,” Alvarez explains. “On my way there, I ran into an old friend from high school, and he wanted me to join a band with him, and that’s how I ended up meeting Shorty [Ruben Trejo].”

Trejo and Alvarez started jamming together around late 2008, by Alvarez’s account, but it wasn’t until the summer of 2009 that their current project, Nightmare in the Twilight, came to be.

“My guitarist at the time was a little more into partying and doing other shit, so it turned into me and Mike jamming out and working on some songs,” Trejo tells Submerge over the phone. “Playing whatever came to mind.”

Just two years later, the band, which features Alvarez on guitar, Trejo on drums, Zaryn Mankins on bass and Trejo’s little brother Santana Estrada on vocals, is ready to release their eponymous debut LP on Oct. 1, the same day they will take the stage as part of the Hella Metal Fest at the Crest Theatre. Though it hasn’t taken a long time for the Sacramento-based death metal band to get to this point, Nightmare in the Twilight’s road toward maturity certainly hasn’t been traveled without some growing pains along the way.

One such pitfall along the band’s path was finding a vocalist. Alvarez says that Nightmare in the Twilight’s original vocalist “wasn’t too into the band.”

“He’d wander off on his own,” Alvarez elaborates during our phone interview. “He’d have random guys hop up with him while he was performing, and they weren’t really any good at all. We realized we needed somebody serious.”

As it turns out, family ties would create the strong bond the band needed from its vocalist. Enter Estrada, who needed some convincing from his big brother before he decided to give it a go.

“He’d always been into vocals,” Trejo says. “It was the main thing he’d heard in metal, the first thing he’d notice in any band were the highs, lows and the mids. One day I heard him in his room practicing, and I was like, ‘He’s getting pretty good.’ We did a show without a vocalist and had a couple of guys come up and do vocals, which really didn’t turn out the way we thought it was going to. We had another show coming up, and we wanted to be more legit about it. I hit him [Estrada] up and said, ‘You’ve got to try it. You’ve got to come do these vocals.’”

With their frontman situation taken care of, the band didn’t waste much time getting into the studio. Nightmare in the Twilight released their first EP in August 2009, The Big Sexy EP, which was engineered by Martyrdom’s Phil Waters.

“He wasn’t the coolest guy, but he recorded us and did a decent job,” Alvarez says. While the situation may not have been ideal, both he and Trejo agree that it was a good learning experience for the band.

“We did learn about recording,” Alvarez says. “We started learning about how to fix our tone better, how to keep timing, what we should and shouldn’t do in the recording studio, not waste time. It was a good attempt at a demo for a band that started that year.”

“The main thing that it taught me to

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never try to do a split demo with a band that’s not really sure what they’re going to be doing,” Trejo adds. “We tried to do a split demo with one of our friend’s bands, and it just totally fell through, took too long in recording. So that definitely taught me to be well-rehearsed before you come into the studio, because time is money.”

Nightmare in the Twilight took this past experience into the studio this time around to create what is a more polished product.

The band’s self-titled LP was recorded with Bob Swanson at Mayhemeness Recording Studios in Sacramento. Trejo says that focused preparation was a big part of their approach heading into the studio this time around.

“The main thing was we went in there well-rehearsed,” he explains. “We knew what we wanted and when we wanted it. Some songs had little changes, but it was never ‘how are we going to pull this off?’

“Last time in the studio was more jamming, and this time, we found an exact tempo of what we were going by,” Trejo, who was really looking to push the tempo of each song on the LP, continues. “We were very well structured about how fast we were going to be and where everything was going to be placed.”

Alvarez believes that the more structured approach also arose from multi-tracking the guitars this time around.

“Our demo was just two guitars, and it didn’t sound that great in certain parts when one guitar would cut out and wait for the other one to do the riff,” he says. “We did more layering of the guitar work so it sounds more full. It’s entirely together instead of parts coming off and on.”

The album contains songs that also appear on The Big Sexy EP, but have undergone major overhauls. For example, “The Young and the Restless” (which is a tad sluggish on the EP with an ill-fated jazzy breakdown toward the end of the track) explodes on Nightmare in the Twilight; even the jazzy bit pops with the crisp snap of Trejo’s drums behind palpitating guitars before erupting into the death metal fury that is the band’s signature.

“Our old EP was pretty decent, but we were still new at the time,” Alvarez says. “A lot of off-timing on the guitars, a lot of errors.

We’ve changed up so much since we recorded those back in 2009. When we came into the studio this year, it was more like, let’s finalize these and make a perfect version.” Alvarez also adds that the songs on the LP that have been salvaged from the eight-track EP feature rewritten lyrics.

The band’s lyrics, though they may be difficult to discern to the casual listener,

stem from a variety of places and are a true collaboration between the band members.

Nightmares—hence the band’s name—play into many of the lyrics Alvarez wrote, along with those by the band’s old guitar player Joey Garnica. Alavarez says that he also examines death and dying in the words that he writes, as well as tackling existential questions like what comes after death. Songs such as these could probably be considered consistent with the band’s genre; however, then there are songs like “Chicken Sauce,” which tells the tale of a man who’s driven crazy after eating sauce from McDonald’s.

“We don’t try to come off as a comedy band, but we have a little comedic side to us,” Alvarez says. “We’re not like this uptight, big badass metal band or something like that. We like to show people that we’re not crazy.”

Nightmare in the Twilight is still in the dawn of its young career, and for the moment, though they take their music seriously, it would seem from our conversation that the band is first and foremost looking to have fun and make music they enjoy. And unlike the menu items available at the fast food chain that inadvertently sparked their formation, Nightmare in the Twilight is hoping to make music that isn’t so plastic in its sameness.

“There are a lot of bands in the Sacramento area, I’m not naming names, but they don’t try to write music for themselves,” Alvarez says. “They try to write music for a crowd, and usually the songs sound the same every time. We usually try to write music we really enjoy. I believe all of us are influenced by a lot of different styles, so the way it comes out not every song is the same.”

Hella Metal Fest will hit the Crest Theatre, 12 bands strong, on Oct. 1.

Tickets are $12 in advance, $15 at the door, and can be purchased through Tickets.com. Go to Hellametalfest. com for full lineup information and to find links to buy tickets. Nightmare in the Twilight’s self-titled full-length debut will be available starting Oct. 1. The band’s The Big Sexy EP is available for free download at Nightmareinthetwilight.bandcamp.com.

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Issue 94 • September 19 – October 3, 2011

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Issue 94 • September 19 – October 3, 2011

Dive Into Sacramento & Its Surrounding Areas

Nothing Like You’d Expect A Lot Like Birds Readies The Release of Conversation Piece Words Jonathan Carrabba • Photos Nicholas wray

I

t’s a quiet Tuesday night in Midtown and local progressive/post-hardcore band A Lot Like Birds has 80 or so fans packed into Luigi’s Fungarden as they tear through songs off their upcoming Doghouse Records full-length debut Conversation Piece, set for release on Oct. 11. Songs like “Think Dirty Out Loud” and “Sesame Street Is No Place for Me,” the album’s first two singles, have the crowd feverishly swaying back and forth to their spastic and energetic rhythms and riffs. Co-vocalists Cory Lockwood and Kurt Travis bounce around the small stage, shaking their long locks, taking turns singing and screaming, fully taking advantage of having co-vocalists (think call and response, harmonizing, layering, etc).

“I’m not the singer and he’s not the screamer,” Travis makes known as the two vocalists and I share a pitcher of Pabst Blue Ribbon at a local watering hole the Friday following the show. It quickly becomes apparent that this is an important point for them to get across. “We’re both vocalists,” he says.

“I scream and I sing. And he screams and he sings.

And we yell and we talk and we do spoken word. We do everything, we do all of it.”

Lockwood agrees and thinks of it like this, “I feel like a lot of times with dual vocalist bands that have a singer and a screamer, you’re diverging your fans and you’re going to have people that go, ‘Well I listen to the singing,’ and then you’ve got the guys who want tough music and they’re like, ‘Well I like the screaming.’ So if you bleed both of them, you’re forcing people to like it as a whole.”

Couple the outrageous and entertaining vocal work from Travis and Lockwood with the equally impressive instrumental work of the rest of the band, which consists of guitarists Michael Franzino and Ben Wiacek, bassist Michael Littlefield and drummer Joe Arrington, and you’ve got yourself one interesting record in Conversation Piece. One that crosses genres, tears down boundaries, leaves the listener wondering, “What’s next?” after each track comes to a dramatic close, and one that will most likely take a few listens to grow on you. They

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are aware of this.

“I know that music like this has to grow on people. People are really slow at picking stuff like this up,” says Travis.

“It’s almost easier for us to do weirder stuff,” Lockwood admits.

And weird it is, although we’re not talking about an un-listenable type of weird here; this isn’t just random noise after all. We’re talking about calculated time signature changes, non-traditional song structures, heavy-hitting breakdowns mixed with luscious reverb and delay-ridden clean parts, impressive and off-the-wall guitar riffs and interesting lyrical content to boot. Take the following lines from “Think Dirty Out Loud” for example, where Lockwood screams, “I spiked both our drinks with a gallon of ink / Now I’m writing a novel from your insides / We’re a spider with our limbs doing anything but walking / A conversation with our mouths doing anything but talking.” Or where Travis sings, “I eat emotional wrecks / And yours is the best.”

“I remember the instance in which we started writing the lyrics,” Travis says of the song. “I was totally enjoying myself, just laughing to myself, just thinking I’m the most clever fucking person ever.”

It is noteworthy to point out that in a number of ways, Conversation Piece is entirely different than A Lot Like Birds’ last offering, 2009’s Plan B. The latter was largely the work of guitarist and songwriting catalyst (as well as the band’s original vocalist) Michael Franzino, who invited a horde of local musicians to play everything from trumpet and trombone to cello and violin on the record. Plan B didn’t even feature a live drummer, as Franzino programmed the drums himself via computer.

Conversation Piece is much more of a collaborative effort and consists of mostly the band’s core instruments (guitar, bass, drums, vocals), although it does contain some programmed stuff (“A Satire of a Satire of a Satire is Tiring”) and a little bit of horns (“Vanity’s Fair”) as to not depart completely from the band’s tendency to blend live instrumentation

with orchestral and programmed elements. One of the most obvious differences between the two records is the solidified lineup, which includes the recent addition of Travis, who up until this summer had spent the last couple years co-fronting another Sacramento-based post-hardcore band, Dance Gavin Dance. “There’s four new members,” Lockwood says of the post-Plan B lineup. Travis interjects, “I’m not the new guy, you know what I mean? I’m the newest by all means. But Plan B was pretty much one or two guys, now this record is everybody giving their opinions and whatnot.”

For the recording of Conversation Piece, A Lot Like Birds turned to Portland, Ore.-based producer/ engineer Kris Crummett, a familiar face to Travis, they have recorded two DGD albums together (2008’s self-titled record and 2009’s Happiness).

“As soon as I got kicked out of Dance Gavin Dance, Kris hit me up and was like, ‘Let me know what you’re doing, whatever you do, just let me know,’” Travis remembers. “It was kind of interesting because when I joined A Lot Like Birds, they were already talking about and thinking about going with Kris Crummett. I love that guy, we have a good history; we have a good thing going on.”

The band worked rigorously with Crummett for three weeks, focusing all of their creative energy on the record, which wasn’t even necessarily completely written yet, as Travis and Lockwood both had a fair share of lyrical work to do while in the studio.

“Everybody was hella trippin’, but that’s kind of how I like to work anyways,” Travis says of the high-pressure situation to complete basically half an album’s worth of lyrics on the fly. In the end, things worked out beautifully for the two vocalists, who found themselves locked in a room with Crummett for hours on end, pounding out vocal ideas together.

“I don’t think either of us had any idea how well we were going to work with each other,” Lockwood says of co-writing. “I’ve never worked with another vocalist before.” Travis pointed out that because the group was away from the everyday distractions that come with being home, they were able to channel everything they had into the record. “When you’re in your home town and you have all your stuff, you know, you have your job that you go to, you’ve got your girlfriend, you’ve got your parents and all this stuff. Sometimes it’s distracting,” Travis says. “I hella missed that when I was a full-time touring musician. You kind of just focus on music. So when I got to Portland, I was just kind of like, ‘Ah, I don’t have to think about anything other than just this record,’ and it got all of our attention.”

Even still, the band didn’t finish everything they needed to in their allotted time with Crummett, and they had to record one song in Sacramento with friend and sound engineer Chris Miller. Crummett was still producing even from hundreds of miles away, though, as the band Skyped him during the sessions with Miller.

“He was still there like being able to hear the takes,” Travis says with a chuckle at the thought of Crummett’s face on a computer screen in the room for hours on end.

“He was just like eating Chinese food and shit,” Lockwood says through a laugh while air shoveling a bite of imaginary food into his mouth.

After three weeks spent in Portland with Crummett and a couple more days’ worth of sessions with Miller in Sacramento, the record was finally done, or so Travis thought. “Knowing my luck, we do like two days with Chris and then we get everything done and we’re like, ‘Yes! Fuck yes, it’s done,’” Travis says. “And then I get a call from my guitar player and he’s like, ‘You’ve got to come

“I know that music like this has to grow on people. People are really slow at picking stuff like this up.” – Kurt Travis, A Lot Like Birds

Issue 94 • September 19 – October 3, 2011

19

back and do some more stuff,’ and I was just like, ‘Dude, when is this going to end? We’re not even in Portland anymore.’ But it was completely worth it and the song came out way better than I even thought it could.”

In between the Portland and Sacramento recording sessions, A Lot Like Birds even found time to embark on a week-and-a-half long West Coast tour. It proved a good opportunity to work out the brand new material in the live setting and to gauge people’s reactions to it as well. “It was really like a testing the waters sort of thing,” Travis says. “To see who gives a shit right from the get-go. It was a good response!”

Lockwood recalls one particular night in Anaheim when a girl came up to him at the merch table after the show and told him that she hadn’t heard music like theirs in years, since the early ‘00s. “That’s definitely when I started playing music, that’s when we both started getting really into it. So if anything, if we draw comparisons to stuff from back then, that’s all I’d love to hear.”

Unfortunately for A Lot Like Birds, references to the sounds of the early ‘00s aren’t the only comparisons they’re receiving, as a large number of people (mostly via the Internet) are saying they sound too much like Dance Gavin Dance. No doubt there will be comparisons: both bands are from Sacramento, both have two singers, both have ripping guitar players and rock-solid rhythm sections; heck, they even recorded with the same producer, so yeah, sonically speaking there are some similarities too. But what’s funniest to Travis and Lockwood about the whole situation is that these quick judgments are coming from

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the album’s two singles, because those are the only two songs off Conversation Piece that the general public has heard.

“People have been really quick to go, ‘Oh, this is what their whole album is going to sound like,’” Lockwood says.

“They don’t even know how versatile it is,” Travis contends. “You know how the Internet goes; people are very, very quick to judge. It’s funny, it’s almost tickling. They have no idea.

It’s going to be cool, because they’ll realize it when it comes out.”

Travis also wanted to get off his chest how he feels for Lockwood, who seems to be receiving the brunt of the reviews. The problem? Apparently he screams too much like Jon Mess, DGD’s co-vocalist. “Dude, if you have ears, you would know that it’s completely different,” Travis demands. “Their screaming styles are completely different. It’s just kind of like Jon Mess is the only person they can reference. It’s so funny, like when people compare me to Jonny Craig [DGD’s original vocalist who replaced Travis when he re-joined the band this year], it’s like, ‘Are you fucking retarded? Do you actually have ears? Because I sound nothing like him.’ Not that I couldn’t sing Jonny’s stuff and not that Jonny couldn’t sing my stuff, it’s just, we don’t sound alike. It’s the same thing with Jon Mess and Cory, and I just feel for him.”

Travis has gotten his fair share of attention, too, ever since his departure with DGD. “It’s just something that you have to deal with,” Travis says of constantly being asked about his situation. “It’s like one of those things about your job that you hate but you have to

do anyways. I kind of relate it to that, because no I’m not upset, no I’m not tired of it. It’s just one of those things that I know that I’m always going to have to address and that’s fine. If I didn’t have all of that then I wouldn’t have any of this amazing stuff that’s going on right now.

So, I think of it that way. Not like, ‘Oh man, I don’t want to talk about the past.’ All of that shit needed to happen in order for this amazing stuff to happen. I look at it like that so I’m not upset when someone is like, ‘What was it like?

You got kicked out! Blah blah.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, I did, but things worked out.’” And if you’re wondering, everything is cool between all the members of DGD and A Lot Like Birds. So much so that the two bands will share the stage together on Thursday, Oct. 13 at Sacramento State’s University Union.

After weeks spent listening to an advanced copy of their new record, an hour spent over beers at a local pub and a killer live set witnessed, it’s apparent to Submerge that A Lot Like Birds are their own band with their own identity and their own sound. Conversation Piece is no doubt the record that will solidify that and as of right now, getting the album out and into the hands of people who care about it is the only thing on their minds. With a grin from ear to A Lot Like Birds’ Conversation ear, Travis Piece will be out on Oct. 11 via says, “I Doghouse Records. See them live at Sacramento State’s think things University Union Ballroom will pop off alongside Dance Gavin Dance real fast on Oct. 13. Sacramento’s own once that Ten After Two will also perform.

Tickets are available at the happens.”

University Union Box Office or through Tickets.com.

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September TUES

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9.19 Monday

The Boxing Donkey Open Mic Variety Night, 8 p.m.

Distillery Karaoke, 9 p.m.

Fox & Goose Open Mic Night, 7:30 p.m.

Harlow’s Dehli 2 Dublin, 8:30 p.m.

Luna’s Cafe Nebraska Mondays hosted by Ross Hammond, 7:30 p.m.

MontBleu Resort Casino Ziggy Marley, Trevor Hall, 7 p.m.

Naked Lounge Downtown Jazz Session w/ the Joe Mazzaferro Quintet, Reagan Branch, 8:30 p.m.

Powerhouse Pub Karaoke, 9 p.m.

Press Club Melting Clouds, Art Lessing & the Flower Vato, Buk Buk Bigups, DJ Hailey, 9 p.m.

The Stoney Inn Karaoke, 9 p.m.

9.20 Tuesday

Distillery Karaoke, 9 p.m.

Luigi’s Fungarden Yoo Hoo’s, Dog Party, Union Hearts, Dino The Girl, 8 p.m.

Luna’s Cafe Sandra Dolores, Bethany Cowan, 8 p.m.

Marilyn’s Jeff Campbell, Aurora, 9 p.m.

Mix Jazz in the Mix w/ Larry Ellis Jr., Ava Lemert, 6 p.m.

Old Ironsides Karaoke, 9 p.m.

Powerhouse Pub DJs Rigatony, Alazzawi, 9 p.m.

Press Club FFFreak! w/ CrookOne, DJ Hailey, Dogtones, 10 p.m.

Shine Open Mic Night, 7 p.m.

The Stoney Inn Karaoke Contest, 10 p.m.

T2 Nightclub & Lounge Karaoke, 9 p.m.

Torch Club Sherman Baker, 5:30 p.m.; Golden Cadillacs, 9 p.m.

Townhouse Chronic Tuesdaze w/ DJ 7 Pure Fiyah Sound, Beatnok, hosted by DJ Wokstar, 10 p.m.

9.21 Wednesday

Ace of Spades D.R.I., Hoods, Kill The Precedent, A Single Second, 6:30 p.m.

The Blue Lamp Austin Lucas & The Bold Party, Brian Hanover, 8 p.m.

Bows & Arrows Body Parts, Ritual Waste, Zac Nelson, 8 p.m.

Branch St. Warehouse Cruel Hand, A Loss for Words, Greenery, Plead the Fifth, Maker, 6 p.m.

Club Car The Double Shots, 7:30 p.m.

Distillery Karaoke, 9 p.m.

District 30 DJ Tina T, 9 p.m.

Dive Bar Chris Clouse, 9 p.m.

Fox & Goose Traditional Irish Jam Session, 7 p.m.

Laughs Unlimited Karaoke, 7 p.m.

Marilyn’s Heart Pharmacy, 9:30 p.m.

Naked Lounge Downtown Sic Fus Band, Operation Mafia Plane, Honyock, 8:30 p.m.

Old Ironsides Open Mic w/ host Lare Crawley, 8:30 p.m.

Powerhouse Pub Beyond the Grove, Defyant Circle, Terra Ferno, 8 p.m.

Press Club HUMP w/ Machinedrum, DJ Whores, Nikhil J, hosted by C-Plus & AV, 9 p.m.

Shenanigans Karaoke & Open Mic Night, 8 p.m.

Tin House Studio and Gallery Experimental Open Mic, 8 p.m.

9.21 Machinedrum

DJ Whores, Nikhil J, hosted by C-Plus & AV Press Club 9 p.m.

Torch Club Acoustic Open Mic, 5:30 p.m.; Keri Carr Band, 9 p.m.

UC Davis: Jackson Hall Return To Forever IV w/ Zappa Plays Zappa, 8 p.m.

Uncle Vitos (Davis) Boom Bip w/ The Flower Vato, 10 p.m.

University Union Serna Plaza, CSUS TAIS, 12 p.m.

9.22 thursday

Ace of Spades Rehab, Demun Jones, The Shades Of Gray, Vanishing Affair, Conflict Minerals, 6:30 p.m.

The Boardwalk Voodoo Glow Skulls, Another Damn Disappointment, Dogfood, 7 p.m.

Center for the Arts Melvin Seals, JGB, 8 p.m.

Club Car Songwriters Showcase, 8 p.m.

Club Retro Forever’s Endeavour, The Eclectic, Pyrozombies, Among Poets, 6:30 p.m.

The Coffee Garden Open Mic Night, 8 p.m.

The Davis Graduate Calentura Back to School Party w/ DJ Eddie Z, 10 p.m.

Digitalis Studios Bacchus, Claufield, Di Bravura, In Desperation, 7 p.m.

District 30 Bart B More, 9 p.m.

Dive Bar Dueling Pianos, 9 p.m.

Fox & Goose Poetic Justis, 8 p.m.

Golden Bear DJ Shaun Slaughter’s Revolving Party, 10 p.m.

Harlow’s Buddy Holly Tribute Show w/ Sal Valentino, Kepi Ghoulie, David Houston and more, 7:30 p.m.

Luigi’s Fungarden Cute Lepers, Something Fierce, Charles Albright, 8:30 p.m.

Marilyn’s Rock On Live Band Karaoke, 9 p.m.

Mix Billy Lane, 9 p.m.

Naked Lounge Downtown Kevin Seconds, Russ Rankin, Steve Price, 8:30 p.m.

O’Mally’s Irish Pub Musical Charis, 9 p.m.

continued on page 24

>>

art.craft.beer.patio. gallery.wine.sammies. p o p s i c l e s . p l a y. c a fe . bar.shop.relax.flavor. fun.vintage.jewelr y

Ginomatteoand

bowscollective.com Wednesday September 21 ZAC NELSON,BODY PARTS and RITUAL WASTE 8pm

the family Phunk 9Pm

merCy me!,the Bone maCdonald Band, kaye Bohler, ron haCker, Pailer,adamS & JoyCe, Gino matteo, SiStamoniCa,WalkinG SPaniSh,the niBBlerS, keriCarrBand+more!

torchclub.net 22

music, comedy & misc. Calendar

Johnny Guitar knoX 5Pm

1-7Pm

use a qr scanner on your smart phone to view calendar online

Cosmo Cathedral

1819 K Street, Ste 100 Sacramento, CA 95811

FEAturiNg NEW WOrk by

Jose Di gregorio

Opening ReceptiOn FRiday, OctObeR 7 • 6 -10pm

DRE# 01882313

OrigiNAL SOuNDtrACk by

Contours in Space

1815 19th st. sacramento

Issue 94 • September 19 – October 3, 2011

LESA JOHNSTON CDPE

OPEN TUES-SAT 11-11

lesa.johnston@bhghome.com Office: (916) 491-1516 Mobile: (916) 743-3760 Dive Into Sacramento & Its Surrounding Areas

SubmergeMag.com

Issue 94 • September 19 – October 3, 2011

23

Powerhouse Pub Cliff Huey & 27 Outlaws, 9:30 p.m.

Shenanigans Reggae Night, 10:30 p.m.

Shine Open Mic Night, 7:30 p.m.

The Stoney Inn The Brody Stewart Band, 10 p.m.

Thunder Valley Casino Resort Lynyrd Skynyrd, 8 p.m.

Torch Club X Trio, 5 p.m.; Dead Winter Carpenters, 9 p.m.

9.23 Friday

RESTaURaNT & NIghT clUB MONDAY SEPT 19 8:30PM $12.50 ADV

Dehli 2 Dublin THURSDAY SEPT 22 8PM $8

A TRIBUTE TO

FRIDAY SEPT 30

7PM $8 ADV

BASIA

JASon ISBell &with the 400 UnIt CAitLiN ROSE

Oct 13 Chuck Berry Tribute Oct 15 Louis Prima Jr. Oct 17 Adrian Belew w/ Tony Levin & Pat Mastellotto Oct 19 Patty Larkin Oct 21 The Rubinoos Oct 21 Wonderbread 5 Oct 24 Man Man Oct 25 That 1 Guy Oct 26 Ryan Montbleau Oct 27 Freak Nasty Erotic Poetry Nov 1 Phantogram Nov 2 Collie Buddz Nov 3 Ruth Moody Nov 3 The Parlotones Nov 13 Rich Robinson Nov 23 Full Blone Stone Nov 23 Vokab Kompany Nov 25 Utz & the Shuttlecocks Nov 28 Melt Banana Dec 9 Orgone Dec 10 Charlie Hunter Dec 29 X (All original members)

slEEpEr

VIP BOOTHS AVAILABLE CALL CLUB FOR DETAILS

FRIDAY SEPT 30

10PM

BIg FreedIA BUDDY HOLLY SATURDAY OCT 1 7:30PM $15

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SATURDAY SEPT 24 10PM $20

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SUNDAY SEPT 25 7PM $25

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TUESDAY SEPT 27 8PM $12.50

DEan-o-holics SATURDAY OCT 1 10PM $10

IconoclASt

ro Bot with GDP

MONDAY OCT 3 8:30PM $15

TUESDAY OCT 4 6:30PM $10

BlInd Agent PIlot rEbirth brass banD [feat. Zach Smith from Pinback]

WItH pHAntom Works THURSDAY OCT 6 7PM $20

with GUESt DAN MANGAN

COMING SOON

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Dress CoDe enforCeD (jeans are okay) • Call to reserve Dinner & Club tables

2708 J Street Sacramento • 916.441.4693 • www.harlows.com

24

Issue 94 • September 19 – October 3, 2011

Ace of Spades Andre Nickatina, Hopsin, Sunspot Jonz, Fatlip, Who Ride, The Ricky James Project, Stupid Youth, 7 p.m.

Blue Cue Live Band Karaoke, 9 p.m.

The Boardwalk California Bear Gang & G-Macc (Album Release), Mean Doe Green and more, 7 p.m.

The Boxing Donkey Black Eyed Dempseys, 8 p.m.

Cache Creek Casino Michael McDonald & Boz Scaggs, 8 p.m.

Callison’s Bar & Grill Revolver, 8:30 p.m.

Capitol Garage Get Down to the Champion Sound w/ DJ ESEF, Selector KDK, Ras Matthew, Juan Love, 10 p.m.

Center for the Arts KUNST-STOFF Dance Company, 8 p.m.

Colusa Casino Evolution, 9 p.m.

Digitalis Studios Black Blood Dead Dreamer, Your Own Destroyer, 7 p.m.

Distillery Barbarous Cock, Escapement, 30.06, 10 p.m.

The Fire Escape Bar and Grill Ashtray, The Secretions, Simpl3Jack, The Carbonites, 6:30 p.m.

Fox & Goose French Cassettes, Tibetan Method, Travis Vick, 9 p.m.

Golden Bear DJ Crook, 10 p.m.

Harlow’s Planet Asia, Mahtie Bush, Nome Nomadd, Chuck T, 9 p.m.

Historic Old Folsom Folsom Live!, 5 p.m.

Luigi’s Fungarden Nirvana Nevermind 20th Anniversary Show, 8:30 p.m.

Luna’s Cafe Crossing The River, In The Know, 8:30 p.m.

Marilyn’s Dennis Johnson and the Mississippi Ramblers, 9 p.m.

Miso Lounge The CUF, The Storytellers, El Conductor, 10 p.m.

Mix DJ Elliott Estes, 9 p.m.

Naked Lounge Downtown Sandra Delores, Exdoxi, Mollymawks, 8:30 p.m.

Old Ironsides The Nuance, ContrAddiction, 9 p.m.

Power Balance Pavilion Expose, Lisa Lisa, Debbie Deb, The Cover Girls, Shannon, Johnny O, Cynthia, Nice and Wild, 7 p.m.

Powerhouse Pub Lydia Pense, Cold Blood, Dept of Rock, 7 p.m.

Press Club DJ Rue, 9 p.m.

Red Lion Hotel Kumandae (Album Release), hosted by Ginuwne, 8 p.m.

The Refuge Brolly the Well, Cowboys & Indians, Cat & Mouse Trio, Sherman Baker, 7 p.m.

Shenanigans Switchblade Frankie (CD Release), Toxic Shock Syndrome, Raw Dawg, Back Seat Action, 9 p.m.

Sophia’s Thai Kitchen The Lumineers, Sean Flinn & The Royal We, Dovekins, 9:30 p.m.

Splash Bar AudioTechnika w/ Novareese, Freddy Silva, 9 p.m.

Swabbies on the River Loose Change, 6 p.m.

Torch Club Pailer & Fratis, 5:30 p.m.; Mercy Me!, 9 p.m.

Vega’s Misamore, Death Valley High, Vices, Eightfourseven, 7 p.m.

9.24 Saturday

Ace of Spades Underoath, Comeback Kid, The Chariot, This Is Hell, Give Em Hell, 6:30 p.m.

The Blue Lamp March Into Paris, The Resurrection Men, Jet Black Popes, 9 p.m.

The Boardwalk Polar Bear Club, Fireworks, Balance & Composure, Victory or Death, 7 p.m.

The Boxing Donkey Hans Eberbach, 8 p.m.

Center for the Arts Buck Love & the Humperheads, 8 p.m.

Club Retro The American Scene, Troubled Coast, Josiah James, Streetlight Fire, Built By Stereo, Smelling Colors, American Samurai, Roses For Lions, Raising Blame, 6 p.m.

Colusa Casino Evolution, 9 p.m.

Community Center Theater Johnny Mathis, 7:30 p.m.

Crest Theatre Sacramento Taiko Dan, 6 p.m.

Digitalis Studios 3Lunas, Virulent Death, Black, Sicarius, Thares, Angel Siniestrio, Vital Perception, 7 p.m.

Distillery The Cheatin’ Hearts, Dry County Drinkers, The Campfire Crooners, 10 p.m.

District 30 DJ Nate D, 9 p.m.

Fox & Goose Martin Purtill, Camporia, These Paper, Satellites, 9 p.m.

Golden Bear DJ Whores, 10 p.m.

Harlow’s Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks, 7 p.m.; KRS1, Mean Doe Green, 10 p.m.

Harrah’s Lake Tahoe Average White Band, 7:30 p.m.

Historic Old Folsom Folsom Live!, 5 p.m.

Luigi’s Fungarden The Bell Boys, 8:30 p.m.

Luna’s Cafe David Houston & String Theory, 9 p.m.

Marilyn’s Purple Haze: The Ralph Woodson Experience, 9 p.m.

Mix DJ Mike Moss, 8:30 p.m.

Naked Lounge Downtown Honyock, Not An Airplane, Danny Crane, 8:30 p.m.

Old Ironsides Der Spazm (EP Release), The Babs Johnson Gang, Mister Loveless, 9 p.m.

Phono Select Bastards Of Young, Charles Albright, Mad Judy, RAD, 5:30 p.m.

Plea for Peace Center 9:00 News, Point Of View, Hit Reset, Redlight Greenlight, Steeproof, Hella Down, Cheap Shots, Knuckle Bucket, 4 p.m.

Powerhouse Pub Simple Creation, Stones Throw, 7 p.m.

Press Club Top 40 Dance w/ DJ Larry Rodriguez, 9 p.m.

Shenanigans Silent Treatment, Suckerpunch, 9 p.m.

Shine Jake Ithurburn, 7:30 p.m.

Sophia’s Thai Kitchen Diego’s Umbrella, 10 p.m.

Swabbies on the River Zydeco, Gator Beat, the Bayou Boys, 4 p.m.

Thunder Valley Casino Resort Vietnamese Autumn Breeze Concert, 7:30 p.m.

Tin House Studio and Gallery Linda Hagood, Christine Shields, Faun Fables, Kira Lynn Cain, Ruby Howl, Franklin’s Mint, 4 p.m.

Torch Club Johnny Guitar Knox, 5 p.m.; Daniel Castro, 9 p.m.

9.24 Underoath

Comeback Kid, The Chariot, This Is Hell, Give Em Hell Ace of Spades 6:30 p.m.

Dive Into Sacramento & Its Surrounding Areas

9.25 9.26 Sunday

Monday

The Blue Lamp The Session w/ Lost and Found, Task1ne, M.C. QBall916 and more, 8 p.m.

The Boardwalk Reckless Kelly, Dry County Drinkers, The Campfire Crooners, 6:30 p.m.

Capitol Garage Karaoke w/ Jeff Jenkins, 9 p.m.

Center for the Arts Judy Collins, Kenny White, 7:30 p.m.

Distillery Karaoke, 8 p.m.

Harlow’s Paul Thorn, 7 p.m.

Marilyn’s Johnathon Tyler and The Northern Lights, 7:30 p.m.

Mix DJ Gabe Xavier, 9 p.m.

Naked Lounge Downtown MRQ, The Family Bandits, 8:30 p.m.

Power Balance Pavilion Rock Allegiance Tour w/ Papa Roach, BuckCherry, Puddle of Mudd, P.O.D., Red, Crossfade, Drive A, 5 p.m.

Powerhouse Pub Powerhouse of Blues, 3 p.m.; Blues Jam, 7 p.m.

Press Club Sunday Night Soul Party w/ DJ Larry & DJ Hailey, 9 p.m.

Swabbies on the River Days of Filmore Revisited, 3 p.m.

Tin House Studio and Gallery Butch Hancock, 7:30 p.m.

Torch Club Blues Jam, 4 p.m.; Tess & Hip Trash, 8 p.m.

The Boxing Donkey Open Mic Variety Night, 8 p.m.

Distillery Karaoke, 9 p.m.

Fox & Goose Open Mic Night, 7:30 p.m.

Luna’s Cafe Nebraska Mondays hosted by Ross Hammond, 7:30 p.m.

Naked Lounge Downtown Jazz Session w/ the Joe Mazzaferro Quintet, Monk’s Dream, 8:30 p.m.

On The Y Suspended, Laughing Dog, Nunfuck, 9 p.m.

Powerhouse Pub Karaoke, 9 p.m.

The Stoney Inn Karaoke, 9 p.m.

SubmergeMag.com

9.27 Tuesday

Ace of Spades Wayne Static (of Static X), Eye Empire, Kyng, One Eyed Doll, Gemini Syndrome, Damage Over Time, 6 p.m.

Distillery Karaoke, 9 p.m.

Harlow’s Blind Pilot, Dan Mangan, 8 p.m.

Laughs Unlimited Karaoke, 7 p.m.

Marilyn’s Wires In the Walls, 9 p.m.

Mix Jazz in the Mix w/ Shadia P, Ava Lemert, 6 p.m.

Powerhouse Pub DJs Rigatony, Alazzawi, 9 p.m.

Press Club FFFreak! w/ CrookOne, DJ Hailey, Dogtones, 10 p.m.

Shine Open Mic Night, 7 p.m.

The Stoney Inn Karaoke Contest, 10 p.m.

T2 Nightclub & Lounge Karaoke, 9 p.m.

Torch Club Alex Nelson, 5:30 p.m.; Lew Fratis Trio, 9 p.m.

9.28 Wednesday

The Boardwalk The Bastard Suns, El Loma Prieta, Street Urchinz, 7 p.m.

Club Car The Double Shots, 7:30 p.m.

Distillery Karaoke, 9 p.m.

Fox & Goose Steve McLane, 8 p.m.

Laughs Unlimited Karaoke, 7 p.m.

Marilyn’s Tao Jiriki, 9 p.m.

Naked Lounge Downtown Norcal Noisefest, 8 p.m.

Old Ironsides Open Mic w/ host Lare Crawley, 8:30 p.m.

Torch Club Acoustic Open Mic, 5:30 p.m.; Jimmy Pailer, 9 p.m.

Uncle Vitos (Davis) Boom Bip w/ The Flower Vato, 10 p.m.

University Union Serna Plaza, CSUS French Cassettes, 12 p.m.

9.29 Thursday

Beatnik Studios Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey, Monkey Flower, 7 p.m.

The Blue Lamp Systems Officer (feat. Zach Smith of Pinback), Phantom Works, 8 p.m.

The Boardwalk California Medication, Nothing But Losers, NBC, All Names Taken, Insomnia, 7 p.m.

Club Car Songwriters Showcase, 8 p.m.

The Coffee Garden Open Mic Night, 8 p.m.

District 30 Ray Reverse, Trenix, Ultraman, Gyver, 9 p.m.

Dive Bar Dueling Pianos, 9 p.m.

Fox & Goose Pushtonawanda, Ian McGlone, 8 p.m.

Golden Bear DJ Shaun Slaughter’s Revolving Party, 10 p.m.

Luigi’s Fungarden Royal Headaches, 8:30 p.m.

Marilyn’s Rock On Live Band Karaoke, 9 p.m.

Mix For the Birds w/ Worthy, Sukh Banwait, Alx-T, 9 p.m.

Power Balance Pavilion Dave Russell, Aces Up, 9:30 p.m.

Shenanigans Reggae Night, 10:30 p.m.

Shine Open Mic Night, 7:30 p.m.

Sophia’s Thai Kitchen Mad Cow String Band, 10 p.m.

The Stoney Inn The Chris Gardner Band, 10 p.m.

Tin House Studio and Gallery Juni Fisher, 7:30 p.m.

Torch Club X Trio, 5 p.m.; Harley White Jr. feat. Aaron King, 9 p.m.

Wm. J. Geery Theater Norcal Noisefest, 7:30 p.m.

continued on page 26

9.25

Tess & Hip Trash Torch Club 8 p.m.

9.29 Ray Reverse Trenix, Ultraman, Gyver District 30 9 p.m.

>>

Issue 94 • September 19 – October 3, 2011

25

9.30 FRIDAY

9.30 Give Em Hell

Countdown, Slave, Havenside Distillery 10 p.m.

10.01

Jack Ketch // Hella Metal Fest

A Holy Ghost Revival, Amongst the Undead, At the Crossroads, Journal, Memento Mori, Nightmare in the Twilight, Out for Blood, Taunis Year One, The Antioch Synopsis, The Kennedy Veil, The Soothing Sound of Flight Crest Theatre 3 p.m.

Beatnik Studios Final Friday Art & Music w/ Exquisite Corps, Step Jayne, Alyssa Cox, Katie Jane, 9 p.m.

Blue Cue Live Band Karaoke, 9 p.m.

The Blue Lamp Musical Charis, ZuhG, Faster Than Light, 2 or 3 Guys, 8 p.m.

The Boardwalk Royals Die Young, Beyond All Ends, Anima Fracture, Our Endless Obsession, Bulltrue, Exylum, 7 p.m.

The Boxing Donkey Ryan Hernandez, 8 p.m.

Cache Creek Casino Los Tucanes de Tijuana, 8 p.m.

Callison’s Bar & Grill Looking At My Enemy, 8 p.m.

Capitol Garage Get Down to the Champion Sound w/ DJ ESEF, Selector KDK, Ras Matthew, Juan Love, 10 p.m.

Colusa Casino Fastlane, 9 p.m.

Digitalis Studios James Clark, Standing and Staring, Taoriki, 7 p.m.

Distillery Countdown, Give Em Hell, Slave, Havenside, 10 p.m.

The Fire Escape Bar and Grill Hookerfight, Virulent Death, Astral Cult, Descendant, 8 p.m.

Fox & Goose Sandra Dolores, Gentleman, Caller, Adam Roth Project, 9 p.m.

Golden Bear DJ Crook, 10 p.m.

Harlow’s Basia, 7 p.m.; Big Freedia, 10 p.m.

Luna’s Cafe Norcal Noisefest, 7 p.m.

Marilyn’s Five Eyed Hand, 9 p.m.

Mix DJ Elliott Estes, 9 p.m.

Naked Lounge Downtown Jaymee Marty, Doghouse, Foxtrot Mary, 8:30 p.m.

Old Ironsides Virtue Vices, Ghost River, John & The Pauls, 9 p.m.

On The Y Retox, 9 p.m.

The Park Ultra Lounge 6th Year Anniversary w/ DJ Scene, DJ Gabe Xavier, 9 p.m.

Plea for Peace Center Sunny Days in Antarctica, Broken Trojan, Makes Us Human, Mountain Tamer, 7 p.m.

Powerhouse Pub Diego’s Umbrella, BlackEyed Dempseys, 10 p.m.

Press Club DJ Rue, 9 p.m.

Shenanigans Puzzletree (Video Release), In the Silence, 9 p.m.

Sophia’s Thai Kitchen The California Honeydrops, 10 p.m.

Swabbies on the River Dudley and the Do Rights, 6 p.m.

Thunder Valley Casino Resort Amy Hanaiali’i, 8 p.m.

Torch Club Pailer & Fratis, 5:30 p.m.; Laurie Morvan, 9 p.m.

UC Davis: Jackson Hall Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder, 8 p.m.

10.01 Saturday

Ace of Spades (hed) p.e., Slaine, Stepchild, White Minorities, 6:30 p.m.

The Blue Lamp Warp 11 (CD Release), 9 p.m.

The Boardwalk Force Multiplied, Jaxx, Self-Proclaimed, Blue Fermata, 7 p.m.

The Boxing Donkey Adam Donald, 8 p.m.

Cache Creek Casino Men of Soul feat. Jeffrey Osborne, Peabo Bryson, Freddy Jackson, Howard Hewett, 8 p.m.

Club Retro Swain Turray, 7 p.m.

Colusa Casino Fastlane, 9 p.m.

Crest Theatre Hella Metal Fest w/ A Holy Ghost Revival, Amongst the Undead, At the Crossroads, Jack Ketch, Journal, Memento Mori, Nightmare in the Twilight, Out for Blood, Taunis Year One, The Antioch Synopsis, The Kennedy Veil, The Soothing Sound of Flight, 3 p.m.

Digitalis Studios Decapitate, Enmity, June Breaks Bright, Cadence, Still Fighting, 7 p.m.

Distillery Bottom Dwellers, Whiskey River Drifters, 10 p.m.

Golden Bear DJ Whores, 10 p.m.

Harlow’s Dean-o-holics, 7:30 p.m.; Iconoclast Robot, 10 p.m.

Harrah’s Lake Tahoe Chris Isaak, 7:30 p.m.

Marilyn’s Chameleon (Santana tribute), 9 p.m.

Mix Mike Moss, 9 p.m.

Old Ironsides Lipstick Weekender, 10 p.m.

The Park Ultra Lounge 6th Year Anniversary w/ DJ E-Rock, DJ Peeti-V, 9 p.m.

Press Club Top 40 Dance w/ DJ Larry Rodriguez, 9 p.m.

Shenanigans XStatic, 9 p.m.

Sol Collective Norcal Noisefest, 3 p.m.

Swabbies on the River William Mylar, 3 p.m.

Three Stages Performing Arts Center Classical Guitarist Jon Mendle, 8 p.m.

Torch Club Johnny Guitar Knox, 5 p.m.; Gino Matteo and the Family Phunk, 9 p.m.

UC Davis: Jackson Hall Wayne Shorter Quartet, 8 p.m.

UC Davis: Studio Theatre Alexander String Quartet, 2 & 7 p.m.

10.02 Sunday

Ace of Spades Big D & The Kids Table, Have Nots, La Noche Oskura, The Young Vintage, 6:30 p.m.

The Blue Lamp Reggae Bashment w/ DJ Wokstar!, 9:30 p.m.

The Boardwalk Blood Sky, That Ginger Kid, Monkey Suit, Operation Pandas, BatChild, 4 p.m.

Daily specials for september & october

free gift for first time patients with minimum purchase

26

Issue 94 • September 19 – October 3, 2011

Dive Into Sacramento & Its Surrounding Areas

9.20

88

Acoustically Designed

Private Music Rehearsal Studios From

220 Square Feet To 500 Square Feet

The Art of Flight Snowboard Film Screening w/ Meet & Greet Crest Theatre 6 p.m.

The Boxing Donkey Tony Bataska, 8 p.m.

Capitol Garage Karaoke w/ Jeff Jenkins, 9 p.m.

Distillery Karaoke, 8 p.m.

The Fire Escape Bar and Grill The Bananas, Four Eyes, Hard Feelings, Peer Precious, 7 p.m.

Luna’s Cafe Norcal Noisefest, 4 p.m.

Power Balance Pavilion Keith Urban, Jake Owen, 7:30 p.m.

Powerhouse Pub Powerhouse of Blues, 3 p.m.; Blues Jam, 7 p.m.

Press Club Sunday Night Soul Party w/ DJ Larry & DJ Hailey, 9 p.m.

Sleep Train Amphitheatre Blink 182, My Chemical Romance, Matt and Kim, 7 p.m.

Swabbies on the River Mick Martin Blues Festival, 1 p.m.

Thunder Valley Casino Resort Paul Revere and The Raiders, 6 p.m.

Torch Club Blues for Life w/ Mercy Me!, The Bone MacDonald Band, Kaye Bohler, Rom Hacker, Pailer, Adams & Joice, Gino Matteo, SistaMonica, Walking Spanish, The Nibblers, Keri Carr Band and more, 1 p.m.

10.03 monday

The Boxing Donkey Open Mic Variety Night, 8 p.m.

Distillery Karaoke, 9 p.m.

Fox & Goose Open Mic Night, 7:30 p.m.

Harlow’s Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit, Caitlin Rose, 8 p.m.

Luna’s Cafe Norcal Noisefest Closing Night, 7:30 p.m.

Plea for Peace Center Jamie’s Elsewhere, Secrets, Life On Repeat, The Devils Affair, 6 p.m.

Powerhouse Pub Karaoke, 9 p.m.

Comedy Laughs Unlimited Best of Open Mic Showcase, Sept.

20, 8 p.m.

Sean Peabody, Carlos Rodriguez, Sept. 22, 8 p.m.

BT Kinglsey’s Red Carpet Weekend, Sept. 23 - 24 Mark G, Carlos Rodriguez, Sept. 25, 8 p.m.

SubmergeMag.com

Michael Jenkins, Sept. 29 - Oct. 2, Thurs., 8 p.m.; Fri. & Sat., 8 p.m. & 10:30 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m.

Luna’s Cafe Keith Lowell Jensen’s Comedy Night, every Wednesday, 8 p.m.

Naked Lounge Downtown Live World’s Worst Doctors Comedy Improv, Sept. 29, 8:30 p.m.

Po’Boyz Bar & Grill (Folsom) Comedy Open Mic, every Monday, 9 p.m.

Punchline Comedy Club Button Down Comedy Tour w/ Dion Lack, Kyle Erby, Tony Baker, Leo Flowers, Sept. 20, 8 p.m.

Filipino Kingz Comedy Show, Sept.

21, 8 p.m.

Bret Ernst, Sept. 22 - 25, Thurs., 8 p.m.; Fri. & Sat., 8 p.m. & 10 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m.

Kabir Singh, Sept. 28, 8 p.m.

Gina Yashere, Sept. 27 - Oct 2, Tues., Wed. & Thurs., 8 p.m.; Fri. & Sat., 8 p.m. & 10 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m.

Sacramento Comedy Sportz Mayhem Improv Comedy, every Thursday, 9 p.m.

ComedySportz, every Friday & Saturday, 8 p.m.

Sacramento Comedy Spot Improv 1 Continuous, Harold Night, Sept. 21 & 28, 7 p.m.

Improv 1 Continuous, Cage Match, Sept 22, 7 p.m.

Keith Lowell Jensen (CD/DVD Release), Sept. 23, 8 p.m.

Asylum Improv Showcase, Anti Cooperation League, Critical Hit, Sept. 24, 8 p.m.

Open Mic Scramble, Sept 25, 7 p.m.

Sacramento Comedy Festival, Sept.

29 - Oct. 2 Shenanigans Comedy Night, every Thursday, 9 p.m.

Shine Comedy Night, every Friday, 8 p.m.

The Stoney Inn Comedy Open Mic, every Monday, 8 p.m.

Tommy T’s Wired Wednesday feat. Mike Osborn and Friends, Sept. 21, 8 p.m.

Tony Woods, Sept. 22 - 25, Thu., 8 p.m.; Fri., 8 p.m. & 10 p.m.; Sat., 7:30 p.m. & 10 p.m.; Sunday, 7:30 p.m.

University Union Ballroom, CSUS "In Your Facebook" Improv Comedy Show, Sept. 22, 7:30 p.m.

Misc.

Blue Cue Trivia Night, every Wednesday, 8 p.m.

Bows & Arrows I Saw My Future / Unravel In Time by Ryan De La Hoz, Judd Hertzler, Cont. through Sept.

The Boxing Donkey Trivia Night, every Tuesday, 8 p.m.

Capitol Garage Trivia Night, every Monday, 9 p.m.

Center for Contemporary Art Janice Nakashima’s Light and Shadow Studies, now through Oct. 25 Crest Theatre The Art of Flight Snowboard Film Screening w/ Meet & Greet, Sept. 20, 6 p.m.

2011 A Place Called Sacramento Film Festival, Oct. 2, 1 p.m.

Fox & Goose Pub Quiz, every Tuesday, 7 p.m.

Fremont Park 2nd Annual Modern Italian Film Festival, Oct. 1, 7 p.m.

Golden Bear Random Knowledge Trivia Night, every Wednesday, 8 p.m.

The Guild Theatre Movies on a Big Screen: The Kingdom of Survival, Sept. 25, 7:30 p.m.

Luna’s Cafe Poetry Unplugged, every Thursday, 8 p.m.

Old Sacramento State Historic Park The 4th Annual Sacramento World Music & Dance Festival, Oct. 1 - 2 Powerhouse Pub Trivia Night, every Monday, 8 p.m.

Shenanigans Brides Night Out Bridal Fair, Sept. 23, 4 p.m.

Watch it Live: Jones vs Rampage, Sept. 24, 6 p.m.

Side Show Studios The Art of Jared Konopitski, now thorugh Oct. 4 Scottish Rite Center Sac Sci-Fi Horror Show, Sept. 24, 10 a.m.

Sac-Con Comic, Toy & Anime Convention, Sept. 25, 10 a.m.

Shine Poetry with Legs, every 2nd and 4th Wednesday, 7 p.m.

Spanglish Arte Art Exhibit: Mujeres En Resistencia (Women In Resistance) by Veronica Kovats, now through Oct. 4 Sugar Plum Vegan Cafe Free Film Screenings: The Angola 3: Black Panthers and the Last Slave Plantation, Sept. 23, 7 p.m.; Paradise Lost 2, Sept. 30, 7 p.m.

University Union Gallery, CSUS Art Exhibit: Seventy Days: Trapped In Two Thousand and Ten by Fernando Duarte, now through Sept. 29 University Union Serna Plaza, CSUS Free screening: The Hangover Part 2, Sept. 29, 7:30 p.m.

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Issue 94 • September 19 – October 3, 2011

27

The grindhouse

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Issue 94 • September 19 – October 3, 2011

Words James Barone The people who make Purell are stoked. Hand sanitizer has become ubiquitous over the past few years—in purses, pockets or fixed to walls in dispensers in public buildings. And why not? We’ve been inundated with plenty of plague hype: swine flu, West Nile virus and my personal favorite, SARS. None of them have packed the population-decimating punch as the great pestilences of the days of yore, like the granddaddy of them all, the Black Death; but perhaps they’re all just precursors for the biological super weapon Mother Nature is still keeping close to Her vest. Contagion is an interesting look at what might happen of The Big One were to hit. It’s a keenly woven mix of science and emotion, politics and economics, as filtered through the stark lens of director Steven Soderbergh.

The story here is pretty general. A new “novel” virus, MEV-1, is a wicked chimera formed from pieces of bat and pig DNA that has somehow crossed over into the human population. It spreads so fast and kills so efficiently that members of the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control in the United States are desperately trying to play catch up to find out exactly how MEV-1 works so they can combat it before it mutates.

Under this broad umbrella, there are a host of stories both behind the scenes and grippingly personal. Matt Damon plays the husband of the Minnesota woman (played by Gwyneth Paltrow) who was one of the first-known carriers of the virus. Damon’s character is one of the lucky few immune to the strain. Through his eyes, we see how the drama impacts the everyman, the general populace for whom information about what’s going on comes in drips and drabs. He struggles to keep what’s left of his family together as the world around them degrades into disease and, eventually, madness. Elsewhere, characters such as those played by Laurence Fishburne are closer to MEV-1 as anyone; however, he is still somewhat insulated from the plague devastating the world outside. Fishburne

plays a CDC director. He is a well-meaning man, but perhaps his detachment from what is going on prevents him from truly empathizing with those bearing the brunt of the storm. He has the insider information as the problem worsens and uses it to protect his loved ones.

Across the world, an official in the World Health Organization played by Marion Cotillard is hot on the trail of MEV-1’s origin. She has tracked it down, perhaps, to a casino in Hong Kong, but her knowledge makes her a liability to powerful governments not so keen to reveal to the world that their country is the birthplace of a possible extinction-causing contagion.

The cast reads like an all-star team. In addition to the aforementioned, you also have Kate Winslet as a CDC field operative, Elliot Gould as a brilliant if not somewhat fringe scientist in San Francisco, Jude Law as an opportunistic blogger. The locations are as broad as its cast: portions of the story take place in Atlanta, Hong Kong, London, etc., etc.

Contagion has all of the size of a powerhouse blockbuster, but none of the glut. The film has a lot of moving parts, but they move so well in unison that you hardly realize that the film’s biggest names hardly share screen time together, if ever. It’s a credit to a taut script and wonderful vision from Soderbergh.

That being said, the film’s storytelling is so tight and matter-of-fact, that it almost feels blasé. As the days of the pestilence begin to rack up, trash begins to line the streets in cities, whole states are quarantined and seeing citizens roam the ruins in hazmat suits becomes commonplace. Soderbergh’s detached view of the events—even the emotional scenes between Damon’s character and his lone surviving child—lead to some disconnect.

Contagion can be very antiseptic at times, which is ironic given the subject matter.

Still, Contagion is one of the most notable films of the summer season, which is now in its death rattle. A large, sweeping story that never feels cumbersome and hits home on many levels, delivering keen social commentary (such as local governments complaining about who will pay for makeshift treatment centers) and plucking at your paranoia strings like a virtuoso.

Guaranteed each cough you hear in the theater will at least make you flinch.

Dive Into Sacramento & Its Surrounding Areas

live<< rewind

Skronk in Space Innerds

Luigi’s Fungarden • Wednesday, Sept. 14

Words and Photos Steph Rodriguez There is one venue in town where three of life’s necessities are always constant. Here, one can enjoy a hefty slice of pizza, sip on some Rubicon IPA and watch an evening of live music all at the same time. Luigi’s Fungarden is one of a few all-ages venues in the Sacramento area who continue to host an interesting mix of shows open for anyone’s listening pleasure. A menagerie of genres can be heard on any given night and bands from across the world continue to show up and perform in the intimate quarters of this Midtown pizzeria.

Take last Wednesday night’s show at the Fungarden for a prime example, where the lineup went a little something like this: 2UP, from Tokyo, who’ve coined their sound as afro-beat metal; Nick Reinhart and Jon Bafus—Reinhart commonly associated with experimental-math rock band Tera Melos; a DJ so affectionately called DJ Mnstrpsy (buy a couple vowels); but then the topper, the pièce de résistance, had to be Innerds. Yes, Innerds, a two-man band from San Diego comprising guitarist/vocalist Bobby Bray and Brandon Relf on drums.

Now, Innerds’ genre is a feat in its own right because one can barely articulate it in one breath: post-prog-skronk-space-tropicaliamath-lounge? These two definitely had a word party; whatever happened to rock or thrash or any other one-worded term for a band’s genre? I’m not down with the multi-worded labeling nonsense; however, I am in support of the cacophony of sounds Innerds emanates.

What begins as a slew of random noises by first impression may lead one to believe these two perform everything impromptu, but once their music engulfed the room, wrapping

SubmergeMag.com

the audience within its disorder, the sounds immediately organized in such a way they transformed from mere loud noises to a beautiful symphony of structured chaos.

Innerds are definitely a band after my own thrashcore-math-rock-loving heart, and yes, I just had a word party. Admittedly, as I was scrolling around Undietacos.org trying to find some form of musical enjoyment to occupy my Wednesday night, my eyes instantly zeroed in on the band also associated with Innerds—The Locust. I was sold.

Remember The Locust? Talk about sending me back 10 years, to a time when this musicobsessed teenager would blast gems by like, “Moth Eaten Deer Head” or “Nice Tranquil Thumb in Mouth” from my bedroom in Bakersfield, Calif. If you have never been exposed to all the grindcore/noise-rock glory that is The Locust, it’s never too late to get educated.

Guitarist and vocalist of Innerds, Bray, happens to be one of the founding members of The Locust and certainly incorporates his past musical endeavors within his current musical project. If you’re one to appreciate unpredictable time changes provided by Relf’s percussion skills met with the off-kilter pulse of Bray’s guitar, Innerds is your new addiction, or should be. Although The Locust are still on hiatus, according to Bray after the show, the Innerds sound is still very reminiscent of his musical history, or maybe I just can’t let go.

In any case, this show at Luigi’s was a little reminder of my former love for bands of the past that I’ve since forgotten, but in the same breath, this venue’s ability to introduce local music enthusiasts to new bands is why it’s one of Sacramento’s best.

Issue 94 • September 19 – October 3, 2011

29

\

Austin LucAs & the BoLd PArty BriAn hAnover

blue lamp • 1400 alhambra blvd. • SaCTO • 21 & Over • 8:00pm

BLind PiLot dAn mAngAn

wednesday

sePT 21 TUesday

harlOw’S • 2708 J ST. • SaCTO • 21 & Over • 8:00pm

systemsPhAntom officer (singer of PinBAck) works

blue lamp • 1400 alhambra blvd. • SaCTO • 21 & Over • 8:00pm

Big freediA harlOw’S • 2708 J ST. • SaCTO • 21 & Over • 10:00pm JAson isBeLL & the 400 unit cAitLin rose

harlOw’S • 2708 J ST. • SaCTO • 18 & Over • 8:00pm

sePT 27 ThUrsday

sePT 29 friday

sePT 30 ocT 3

sLeePer Agent kAi kLn Phallucy • Rubbish

PimPs of Joytime harlOw’S • 2708 J ST. • SaCTO • 21 & Over • 8:00pm Big sir feAt. LisA PAPineAu And JuAn ALderete (mArs voLtA)

sUnday

harlOw’S • 2708 J ST. • SaCTO • 21 & Over • 8:30pm

harlOw’S • 2708 J ST. • SaCTO • 21 & Over • 8:00pm

AdriAn BeLew Power trio stick men (feAt. tony Levin & PAt mAsteLLotto) PLus A sPeciAL king crimson-esque set

harlOw’S • 2708 J ST. • SaCTO • 21 & Over • 7:30pm

mAn mAn

ocT 4 saTUrday

ocT 8 ocT 9 monday

ocT 10 monday

ocT 17 monday

grAndchiLdren

harlOw’S • 2708 J ST. • SaCTO • 18 & Over • 7:00pm

PhAntogrAm rePtAr

harlOw’S • 2708 J ST. • SaCTO • 21 & Over • 7:30pm

coLLie Buddz GaPPy Ranks • new kinGston • DJ vision

harlOw’S • 2708 J ST. • SaCTO • 21 & Over • 8:00pm

ocT 24 TUesday

nov 1 wednesday

nov 2

rich roBinson (of the BLAck crowes) dyLAn LeBLAnc

sUnday

meLt BAnAnA (from JAPAn) retox

monday

harlOw’S • 2708 J ST. • SaCTO • 21 & Over • 8:00pm harlOw’S • 2708 J ST. • SaCTO • 21 & Over • 8:00pm

girL in A comA Fences • seaPony

harlOw’S • 2708 J ST. • SaCTO • 21 & Over • 8:00pm

Jesse sykes &

the sweet hereAfter

the soft white sixties

blue lamp • 1400 alhambra blvd. • SaCTO • 21 & Over • 9:00pm

orgone harlOw’S • 2708 J ST. • SaCTO • 21 & Over • 9:30pm chArLie hunter Bhi BhimAn harlOw’S • 2708 J ST. • SaCTO • 21 & Over • 9:00pm

& zAnder schLoss x seAn wheeLer BLAck tiBetAns (ALL originAL memBers)

harlOw’S • 2708 J ST. • SaCTO • 21 & Over • 7:30pm

abstract entertainment

www.ABstrActsAcrAmento.com

30

The Parent Trap James Barone jb@submergemag.com

monday

TUesday

harlOw’S • 2708 J ST. • SaCTO • all aGeS! • 6:30pm

the shallow end

nov 13 nov 28 wednesday

nov 30 friday

dec 9 friday

dec 9 saTUrday

dec 10 ThUrsday

dec 29

tickets AvAiLABLe At: the BeAt (17th & J st.), dimPLe records, Phono-seLect or onLine At: eventBrite.com, tickets.com • tickets FoR haRlow’s shows ALso AvAiLABLe At hArLows.com

Issue 94 • September 19 – October 3, 2011

I won’t profess to know much about parenting.

I only know that there are people out there who are clearly doing it wrong. I shouldn’t judge. The only pet I ever took care of on my own was a rat named Snacks. I read up online of how you should care for a rat and was confident that it would be a piece of cake. Two days after I brought Snacks home, I awoke to find my rat buddy dead (or maybe just pretending because I was such an awful father). To this day, I’m not sure if Snacks was male or female. Sorry buddy, you deserved better.

Though my failure with Snacks was surely traumatic (and in the rat’s case, fatal) for my private household, it didn’t have any farreaching effect on society—unless of course the garbage man who found Snacks’ corpse in the trash bin was unusually sympathetic to the plight of small mammals and sobbed so mightily while driving his garbage truck that he missed a stop sign and plowed through a school bus full of children, plunging an entire community down a spiral of grief and loss from which it would never fully recover. You just never know.

But, yeah, some parents need to get their shit together. Not just for their own households’ sakes, but for the betterment of society. Sure, it takes a village to raise a child, but it only takes one lousy parent to royally fuck up a kid, who in turn, screws that village’s pooch. Take for instance the lovely young Angie Gomez of Horizon City, Texas, just south and east of El Paso, and scant miles from the U.S.-Mexico border. In January, Gomez, who had been diagnosed with leukemia at age 2, announced that doctors had given her just six months to live. Instead of wallowing in the news of a life cut far too short, Gomez raised money and with the help of others started a charity for families of children with leukemia called the Achieve the Dream Foundation. A highly inspirational figure, Gomez was asked to speak at schools and was even treated to her own special dream prom since her treatments caused her to miss her high school’s scheduled prom. In a March 20 story in the El Paso Times, Gomez was quoted as saying, “I don’t think I’m done… Right now, I’m in that whole ‘I-don’tthink-I’m-going-to-die-mode,’ at least not yet.”

It’s easy to see why the plucky 18-year-old was held in such high regard. As it turns out, she was right. She wasn’t going to die, but not because she was determined to fight bravely

against a fatal disease, not even because she would live on in the hearts and minds of the people she touched, but because she never had leukemia.

It wasn’t until June 2 that someone caught on. Authorities were alerted that Gomez didn’t appear to be sick or receiving any form of treatment. On Sept. 14, she was brought up on charges of theft by deception over $1,500, a felony that could land her in state jail. Gomez allegedly raised $17,000 in donations.

My first thought was, “What does her parent have to say about this?” My folks weren’t into capital punishment. I remember getting hit maybe once or twice, and I wholeheartedly believe I deserved it. I could be a willful little prick. I still can be, but at least I learned that being an asshole comes with consequences. But if I were to defraud an entire community for tens of thousands of dollars, I’m sure my dad would dust off his whoopin’ belt. When questioned about the affair, the El Paso Times reported that Gomez’s mother said she was unaware of the extent of her daughter’s fundraising and figured she was handling the situation herself.

I wondered, because I’m given to wondering, what about the media attention?

The spontaneous dream proms? The fucking foundation T-shirts? Nothing? None of this was a tip-off? I guess you can’t fully blame the parent as Gomez was legally an adult when concocting this scheme. But the mother has to bear some responsibility. If nothing else, if you’re going to raise a deceptive little trollop, at least give her the tools necessary to be successful. For example, perhaps Gomez should have said that doctors weren’t sure how much time she had left as opposed to a hard deadline like six months. When you say to someone you’re going to die in six months, and then you don’t, eventually they’re going to wonder why you’re still calling them to go to Applebee’s on the weekend. All that pentup grief will eventually turn into anger and confusion, like, aren’t you supposed to be dead by now? I don’t know. If it were my daughter, I’d at least teach her to learn from the mistakes of Harold Camping. Just tell everyone the world will end, and be vague about the when, you know?

Maybe I have what it takes to be a good father after all.

For Snacks, R.I.P.

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m o n - S a t 11 - 7 p m • S U n 1 2 - 5 p m Issue 94 • September 19 – October 3, 2011

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Dive into Sacramento & its Surrounding Areas

September 19 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; october 3, 2011

#94 TheTales Kelps from

the Dark Side

Nightmare in the Twilight Set to Unveil New Album

Keith Lowell Jensen Raining Cats and Rabbits

free

a lot like birds Up, Up and Away

+

Restaurant Thir13en

Adam Pechal from Tuli checks in to The Sterling

contagion

Plague paranoia makes for good cinema

hella metal fest

NorCal Bands Ready to Shred