The Indie Peddler

The Man That Never Was: A Q&A with Michael Hindert

2012-03-07T20:05:00.002-08:00

How did you get into music initially?

Michael Hindert: It started with Nirvana, and the Beatles about the same time. At the same time, my sister was dating a guy in this band called The Pietasters. He was the trumpet player in that band, but he played guitar, and somehow I had him teach me guitar.

How old were you?

12. I’m not much of a practicer, so it took a long time. I watched a lot of T.V. and played on the two chords I knew.

Sometimes that’s all it takes…

Yeah, lots of time.

When did you start to get serious about music?

Well I started playing in bands with my brother when I was 12, until I was like 16. In junior high, we had a band, and then two or three years in high school we had a band. It was a sort of a weird, eclectic, bluesy project, and we even had some classical stuff; it was really weird. It was a horrible name—The Court Jesters. Then we started a rockabilly band with a friend of ours who we had played with in junior high. That was looking like we were going to start playing a lot of shows. This band had an even worse name—The Conjurers. Then we were playing basketball one day and my brother broke his arm, and so that ended that. Then I went off to school, and I thought, ‘Oh man, I want to be in a band.’ I went to school, and more school, and then I was in New York. I was like, ‘Well, I kind of want to try to join a band.’ This was in 2003, and then I started auditioning for these pretty bad bands. One, I got a call-back for as a guitarist, but then Mike from the Bravery, he called and said, ‘Our bass player just quit.’ It was right before their first show, so they had a fill-in, and his name was Phil—Phil the fill-in (laughs). He played a couple of the shows. I auditioned in the meantime, and Mike helped me learn the basslines, ‘cause I hadn’t played bass before that.

You had never played bass before?

I maybe picked it up once or twice, but it was mostly guitar. So I learned the songs, and got in. Then I toured for a bunch of years, playing bass.

Seems like there’s a gap in there… What’s your history with Mike?

Me and Mike went to school together. I was at school for two years in Boston, then I transferred back to D.C. He was at GW, which is where I transferred. I ended up transferring to Georgetown, but the one year, I was at GW. There were two colleges, and a couple little secondary schools.

Did you mainly study music?

No. Philosophy, then cooking, and then a short-film program.

You’re more eclectic than I thought…

Mike and I had philosophy classes together, and that’s how we met each other. And then I was up in New York, and he moved back to New York. Right before he tried out for the band, I was like, ‘Oh man, let’s see if they need another guitarist.’ And then he started playing guitar. I would run into him in New York and he’d be going to band practice. He called me, and I was either going to move down to Costa Rica and try to learn how to surf, or I was going to try to join a band. The band, I couldn’t tell if it was working out, so then Mike called me. At first I got this call back, so I was nervous. But of course I said yes.

Once you started playing with The Bravery, were they already established and playing tours?

They had played two shows, and I was at both of them. I auditioned before those shows I think. They had recordings, but they hadn’t really started any sort of plan. They did have a manager already, who was a friend of the drummer’s in Boston.

That’s good you had a manager from the beginning. Most bands swim upstream without for quite a while…

Yeah, and he was from Boston and he had gotten a few bands major deals so he knew a good way to go about it.

Connections are key. Did you start playing bars to begin with?

Yeah, we played Boston and New York mostly. We played at Bars like Lit Lounge. It’s sort of cabaret—like the Beatles, low ceilings and stuff. It’s really cool, but it’s a bitch to play at, because the stage at one end is a really small bar with little turns and things, and you have to keep your equipment at the other end. So between sets, you have to go through all of the audience. It was a cool place. Other places were just small bars in New York, Boston, the Middle East, T.T. the Bear, and other little venues.

What was the first show that you knew there was something big going on?

We opened for The Libertines. Well, right before that we did our residency, and each week there were more and more people. By the last one, there was a line out the door.

Where was that residency at?

This place called Arlene’s Grocery on the Lower Eastside. I think it was either a Fader or Nylon party, we opened for The Libertines. A bunch of people were there, I think mainly industry people, but it was a big show. That was probably the first one I guess.

Did you ever tour with The Libertines?

No no, that was just one show. That’s where, I think, our label that we ended up signing onto finally decided that they were interested.

So did it take off from there?

Yeah, it did. We did one short tour in the US opening for VHS or BETA from Kentucky. And then we went over to play one show in Iceland, and then we went to the UK. We lived in London for a month, and then toured through the country a little bit in between a London residency. Then we went to Paris and started touring for three years straight.

How is it being on the road for that long?

Uhh, I hate it, but we don’t tour that rough, but we tour for a long time.

Do you have tours where the shows are night after night after night?

We’re not as bad as we used to be. We used to go almost every night.

How do keep the performance going every night?

Well, alcohol (laughs). The problem is when you quit drinking, ‘cause it’s way too much, and you feel a little better ‘cause you’re not hung over so you’re doing a bit better. But if you do a stretch of a couple empty shows, sometimes it’s a bad stretch. Then you start drinking again (laughs). Most of the band doesn’t get drunk on stage while they play. I made a rule pretty soon into it that I wouldn’t drink before shows, to keep from hitting bad notes. That would just cause us to drink more on stage.

That’s smart. Some bands don’t follow that rule. Once you had success with The Bravery, how long was it before you began Merrifield Records, and what is the label all about?

I guess three or four years. I started writing my own songs a couple years into it and that was slow-going, but I finally got an EP together. Then we had some time off. During most of my time off I would travel—either go on surf trips with John, the keyboardist for The Bravery, or just travel up and down California, trying to figure out where I wanted to live. I never found a home. Then, as I was writing music and had this EP together, I wanted to get my band together. At first I was thinking of bringing the drummer out to California, but I decided that was too much of a pain in the ass. Honestly, maybe I should have done that, but instead I moved back to Virginia. Our bass player lived in Virginia, but he lives in LA now. This is Gary, an older bass player. We’d have five members, but mostly it’s Kenny (Pirog), me and Dex (Fontaine) in my band The Danvilles. I haven’t figured out exactly what’s going on, but Gary wouldn’t move home, so I started a new band, No Lover, ‘cause I didn’t want to have to deal with new members. But then with No Lover came The Dusty’s, and then Dex is in a bunch of other bands, so I’m like, ‘Wait a minute, we have like a whole record label here.’ It took me a while ‘cause I had, as long as I had played music, never tried to write anything. It took me a while to write anything, and the first EP I recorded sometime in 2009, I think in the Summer. I probably started writing in 2007 or 2008. No Lover ended up being really awesome, and I thought, ‘This will be it.’ So I brought The Dusty’s on tour with The Bravery, and had No Lover play after-parties. We played a few, but I was like, ‘If we’re going, we should make a few compilations.’ So we put a few of the bands on and handed that out. Through playing some of the after-parties, we met some other bands and I told them, ‘You should be on Merrifield.’ Once I had Dex out on the West Coast, I thought, ‘Well, I gotta do a Danvilles tour out here,’ but the bass player had to get back soon for school or something. So he went back to the East Coast and I told him, ‘I got Dex out here,’ and he was interested in doing a mini-tour. We did it with Semi-Sweet, and through that I met more bands. Then as I traveled more and more, I met more bands, and over the last couple of years we ended up signing a lot of bands.

How many bands are signed to Merrifield Records now?

It something close to 50, and they are different levels. They’re all over the country, and a lot are in Virginia, Santa Barbara, a few in Costa Mesa, plus a couple East Coast. Then there are a couple projects I’m still trying to get going, which I’ll sign once they have something. There are about 40 that I want to eventually sign. We’re also signing visual artists, filmmakers, videographers, and trying to get a couple writers.

Sounds like a good group you’re forming.

Yeah, what to do with it I haven’t quite decided.

That was my next question. What’s to come in the future?

Yeah yeah. I want to start a movie production house so that eventually, all of our movies will use Merrifield music. But to do that, I have to get investors, and I have to think about that. That’s a separate company, but I feel like that’s something I can set up. The music for Merrifield Records, I can’t decide how to set it up yet because there’s no telling what is going to happen with the industry just yet. I don’t want to rush into anything because there’s nothing to rush into. So right now I’m just trying to get all the bands as far along as possible. We have some really good ones. Everyone I signed was a friend, or a friend of a friend, almost completely, and from that we ended up with some really really awesome bands. It’s interesting to see what will happen and what bands will get signed. No one signs to Merrifield. As we build it, I want to preferably keep it so that no one has to sign. I can’t tell what’s going to happen. I’d rather not get any investors ‘cause then nothing has to come from the bands. Eventually, we will need to get investors, but I want to be setup and bring as much to the table so that as much can be kept for the bands as possible. So really I’m just trying to make a home for my own bands so that I can concentrate on enjoying life and playing music, and not having to deal with the business stuff. Not that I have to deal with that much with The Bravery, but for my own bands, I have to figure stuff out.

You work in video as well, right?

Yeah, I want to be a filmmaker, I think. I keep going in and out of it. It’s a lot of work, but I enjoy it. I did a short-film program at NYU—it was a three-month program in their adult-school. I really liked it, so I thought, ‘Maybe I’ll go to film-school,’ but it’s so much work for so little assurance of a good job. And, everyone will tell you, if you wanna make a movie, just do it yourself. Still, the amount of work to make it was a lot and I was like, ‘I don’t want to deal with all this.’ But, it seems like technology is getting better, and when technology is better, maybe I’ll start again. Then I was in The Bravery and we had different people following us around, and I was like, ‘Man it’s pretty awesome what has happened with all of this technology. And then I asked one of the business heads of our record label if I could have a camera and he said alright, he’d get me a camera. Then I asked the A&R guy to buy me Final Cut, so he got me Final Cut. At first I made little Bravery videos of touring and things. I got a free introduction to it, and then I read all the Final Cut books. They had these workbooks to learn Apple transitions. So I just started doing it, and it was something I could just sit in my bunk and work on. I was listening to the Growlers a lot of the time and I used their music sometimes. I think I had like four videos using their stuff.

How did you select Merrifield Records as the name?

I was trying to think of a band name for The Danvilles. I was driving around and there’s a city right there. I grew up in Falls Church, and nearby there’s this area called Merrifield. It’s where the movie theater is and Taco Bell and all that stuff. All the bands that were on it were started were right by it. I was driving one night, and someone had told me to start looking at signs, so I was looking at signs and saw Merrifield. That’s how I got The Danvilles too, from a street sign.

1st Annual LA Psych Fest

2012-02-23T22:40:00.000-08:00

Help with Kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lapsychfest/the-first-annual-los-angeles-psych-fest

Get tickets here: http://www.foldsilverlake.com/event/90287/

Website: http://www.lapsychfest.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/LA-Psych-Fest/270539039666704

Jack of All Trades, Master of Some: A Q&A with Jesse Miller

2012-02-16T20:43:00.000-08:00

I travel through the Laguna Beach canyon towards the Sawdust Festival location just outside the downtown area, and right before I reach the artsy spot, I pull off onto a small two-lane road hidden in tropical vegetation of all kinds. I drive past a few homes—each with their own unique and mesmerizing personality—until I spot a old time green VW Bus parked at the perimeter of a quaint little cottage, and I know I’ve found my destination. Jesse Miller, a Laguna Beach local artist pops out from his back studio and into the small driveway, grinning ear to ear, and climbs into my truck. This easygoing jack-of-all-trades suggests heading to the Orange Inn on Pacific Coast Highway just a few minutes from his house to grab a bite. Once there, we sit down to have a late breakfast at one of his favorite local eateries, and talk about how he has continued to stay busy throughout the years creating his intricate and mind-blowing hand-made designs range across a multitude of difficult artistic mediums.

What have you been up to lately?

Jesse Miller: I’ve been doing a lot of graphics stuff and some shop work. Brett (Walker) and I are going to the shop this evening to build some racks for Sambazon Cafe, and then I’m working on a bunch of other little projects over there too.

The shop is your dad’s studio, right?

Yeah, his woodshop.

Is it here in Laguna Beach?

No, it’s actually in Santa Ana. I grew up in Costa Mesa, and then the shop was always in Santa Ana. Yeah, it’s nice. I hang out there after hours and on the weekends when there’s no one there and I have the shop to myself.

How long has your dad been doing woodwork for?

Pretty much forever, as long as I’ve been around. He started out doing signs. That’s how I learned to do the sandblasted signs.

You carve the signs?

Actually you glue up the blank and then put the special sandblast tape over it, and then you design over the tape. Then you cut out the tape with an X-acto knife, then you take it to a place that will sandblast it. Wherever the tape was, it repels the sand, and wherever there’s no tape it indents the wood. If you look around at the signs, especially in Laguna Beach and other cities follow suit, where they make it so you have to have a sandblasted sign for your business.

Like the sign you did at the Lumberyard downtown?

Yeah, that’s a sandblasted sign. There was a guy in town that used to do all of them, he did all these signs and was well known. He passed away a few years ago.

Tell me about your running attendance here in Laguna at the Sawdust Festival.

Next year will be my fifth summer. Sawdust is an arts and crafts festival that happens during the summer. There are over 200 artists that exhibit their work. It’s pretty cool because you have to build your booth. When you get your spot, it’s just a plot of dirt and you have to build your booth from the ground up—the walls the floors, the roof.

You have to be creative in marketing yourself, eh?

It’s nice, you just kinda create your own environment, which fulfills your outlook. It’s a bit taxing mentally, emotionally, and physically, but it’s awesome.

How long is the festival?

Just over two months, you sit there from 10am-10pm. You don’t have to be there every second of that time, but obviously the more you’re there, the more you can sell your work. If you go to the trouble, you might as well be there. I mean, I make it sound pretty rough, but it’s pretty fun too, you know? I’m just one block away from my house so I can just sit there and drink beer and stumble home later.

What is the crowd usually like?

All kinds of people actually. Different times of day bring different types of people I guess. There are buses, and the tour buses come in from out of town and you get a lot of the Seniors and out-of-towners in the mornings, and then in the afternoon and evenings it’s a younger crowd usually. There’s always good music playing there. It’s like summer camp. I go there and see all the people I haven’t seen since last summer. It’s like a little community where everyone kind of like watches out for each other.

And you can see how everyone’s art has progressed.

And what’s cool about it is most of the people pick a different spot every year, so then you really get to know everyone. You actually live with those people that are right around you all summer. I like to move to a new spot because then you meet new people. After five years, I’ve met almost everyone.

Sounds like the epitome of a community.

Yeah it’s cool. I’m not too stoked on all the rules and regulations they’re trying to cram down everyone’s throat these days, it’s kinda weird.

I’m sure trying to regulate an artist community might be a little tough. Most of you see outside the box.

Yeah, I deal with it and everyone does in their own way. I know the rules but the rules do not know me.

So tell me how your art career started?

I guess it started in High School. I was going to Costa Mesa and then my brother who was there too was asked to leave ‘cause he was kind of a problem. He was a real smart guy and he gave a lot of the teachers a hard time, so they asked him to leave. At the time it was nearly impossible to transfer schools, especially from Mesa to Harbor, but they were like, ‘We’ll make it happen if he agrees to leave, we will get him to go.’ My parents asked me if I wanted to go too, and I was like, ‘Yeah, that sounds fun.’ I always like adventure like that. When I was a sophomore, I transferred to Harbor, which was great. I met some really cool people, and then by my junior year, I had met a couple of people who were in the surf industry and I started doing the graphic art—like t-shirt designs for the surf companies.

Which brands did you design for?

World Jungle was actually the first company that I ever did a t-shirt design for. The guy, Jungle Jack—he was actually from Laguna. That was a cool company back in the day, but he passed away and the company kind of faded away. So I worked with World Jungle, then Billabong, then Quiksilver, and then eventually I worked for almost all of them just freelance style.

Your art is a bit different from most modern artists because you don’t rely on the computer. For someone looking at a piece of your art, what are the different layers and how do you create them?

I love to do everything the old-school way, and everything by hand. That’s why I like doing the sand-blasted signs and the screen-printing. I like to hand-cut the film, and I like to go the extra mile to do it the way it was originally done. Everyone with Photoshop these days considers themself a graphic artist—just throw a couple of clipart pieces together and voila! I don’t like that, and it keeps it different. It’s not going to be something that you’ve seen before that’s just manipulated or changed. It comes from my head only. And plus, when the job is done, you actually have a physical piece of artwork as opposed to just some file on a disk. It’s kinda cool that way—I give the client the option to buy the actual physical piece once they have paid for the design or whatever they want. For a job, if I’m doing like a t-shirt design, it will be ink and colored pencil on paper. A lot of times I’ll do the design or logo and then scan it and send it to them or to their printer, and then that actual piece of artwork they can buy, or I keep it.

What tools are you using during your hand drawing?

I use rulers and a compass sometimes.

What influences are you drawing from? Are there any artist that inspired you as you were growing up?

Both of my parents are artistic, so they were an influence and they heavily inspired me to do art. I remember when I was younger, in junior high or something, my parents got me the Art of Rock book for Christmas, which is this big thick book that covers posters from Presley to punk. The two ends of that spectrum I didn’t really care for, but the middle with the psychedelic ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s stuff I did. Rock art was highly influential to me, definitely. That’s pretty much where I get all my style.

I love the beautiful, intricate, psychedelic art that you do. I enjoy finding a new little detail every time I look at it. And you have multiple types of media that you work with, not just hand drawings?

I have several, yes.

You’re quite a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to producing art.

I like to joke around and say I’m a jack-of-all, master of some (laughs). Maybe none, I don’t know, but I like to just do a little bit of everything. From graphic art, to screen-printing, and chalk on foam—which is the art I do on surfboards—to wood-working, sign-making, and to leaded glass, windows, and cabinetry, and all kinds of stuff. It’s fun and it’s really the only way I’m able to sustain and do what I do as a freelance working artist. I don’t know how some people do it who are just painters. It seems like it would be so tough, you know? It’s good, ‘cause if I’m not building a window, then I’m doing a logo, and if I’m not doing that, then it’s something else. I’m lucky because I’m able to be diverse in the way that I’m able to make money and not have to have a 9am to 5pm job. I’ve never had a real job, which I feel fortunate of. It has it’s up and downs, and you know, it’s feast or famine. It’s always tough around the holidays. In between Thanksgiving and the New Year, people just drop off and put things off until next year, but there’s still two months where I gotta come up with money for rent. I don’t have a salary, so it’s tough to save money. Some months it’s just enough, and some months it’s way more and I try to put away. It always just kind of balances out.

For the work that goes into each piece, I’m surprised how quickly you create new pieces. How often are you producing?

I probably should take my time more ‘cause sometimes I sort of rush through it, but it always ends up pretty good. I’m sort of the guy who needs a deadline on his head so he can get things done. And then of course I wait until the last minute and pull 16-hour days to finish. I work well under pressure I guess.

Most of the time I’m incubating my ideas, and that’s what keeps me from producing things right away. Visualizing mixed media probably takes a lot of pre-planning?

There are certain parts of it—like the concept and design of the piece—that usually take the most amount of time. Once I have that, I lay all of those multi-media pieces out full-size so I have an idea and a master-pattern for where each medium goes. Once I do that, then it’s the actual physical labor of doing it, which doesn’t really take that long, depending on the piece I guess.

I assume that if you make a mistake, there’s no ‘delete’ button to push and start over when you’re working hands-on?

I’ve been doing that method for a long time now, and I’ve got a good way to insure that I don’t make any major mistakes. Actually, I take that back because I’m constantly making mistakes and that’s the best part about it. That’s where you learn and that’s when some of the most magical things happen—when you make a mistake. I try to keep open to that so that that magic can happen.

I notice that when writing music. Sometimes the mind wanders and takes you somewhere you didn’t mean, but towards something that’s even better. Sometimes the accidental moments are the moments of enlightenment.

Yeah, it can give you ideas for something else. In music, and in art, there are no mistakes—there are only lessons and opportunities and new doorways—that’s what’s so fun about it.

I loved when eVocal had the space at The Camp in Costa Mesa, and you were teaching the stained-glass classes. You showed me the first one you made, and it had like 25 pieces, intricately shaped and cut and attached, but it wasn’t as fluid as your later work. You told me, ‘I always go big the first time around.’

I always learn so much and I’ve always done that—consciously and unconsciously. I don’t know, I always take the hard road in whatever I’m doing—then the lesson occurs.

So you’ve lived in Laguna Beach now for about nine years, and you surf and spend time at the beach. How does that influence your art as well?

Definitely, very heavily. The ocean is my sanctuary and my church. I have to go and visit—clean the dust off now and then.

Are you normally surfing here in Laguna?

I usually go down to San Onofre or up to Newport or Huntington. But I surf in Laguna a little bit sometimes.

Tell me about the surf brand you started way back when.

Right out of high school, a friend of mine and I started a t-shirt art company called Green Sun. He took all of his college money and spent it on equipment and a place to have a little shop space. We did our own screen-printing and we did freelance stuff for other companies. I was producing art for all the surf companies, and he was like, ‘Why don’t we just do our own thing? Why pay them, or why hook them up when they make thousands of dollars off of your designs?’ I grew tired of the injustices of the surf-company freelance art world. They should treat the artists like surfers, you know what I mean? The artists actually create the imagery and the image of the company just as much as sponsoring a surfer does. Their designs are art-driven in the surf shops. People don’t buy a t-shirt if they don’t like the design.

That’s why the surf industry is in a bit of an upheaval right now. A lot of brands seem to be sucking people dry.

Yeah they do. Whatever the flavor of the month is, they’ll go and get that and just burn through it, and then just on to the next thing.

It’s the complete opposite of what the surf mentality has always been about—respecting nature and the bounties that we’re fortunate to have.

Surf companies start off with the right intentions and the good people in charge, and it starts out righteous. But like any company that gets too big, people are brought in and then there’s a board of directors, stock-holders, and then it’s all about the margin of profit instead of what they have to offer the community. It loses its soul.

Hopefully they’ll wake up.

That’s why we were feeling like we had to do our own thing. We did for a while and we were pretty successful on an underground level. Then I just kind of grew tired of the screen-printing and we weren’t really making that big of a push with the brand, and we just went our separate ways. He kept doing screen-printing and that’s right when I got into fine art and doing the mixed-media stuff. That experience was great and I would never take it back because those six years of having a screen-printing business—that knowledge can’t be bought or taught. It was great and I took a lot away from it. That’s why I do the wooden postcards, and I gained a lot of insight on the industry. Instead of going to college, we did the ‘real-world’ schooling.

At one point, I was interested in doing surf journalism, but the industry wasn’t what I expected it to be from reading Surfing Magazine and Surfer.

The surfing world is really strange. It’s these weird internal vibes of people who think that they’re all that. It’s probably gnarlier than you would otherwise think. Surfing as a sport in generally is really strange. It’s like a mental chess game out in the water with all the etiquette out there—what to do and when to do it. It takes a lifetime to learn all that kind of etiquette just to catch some waves, let alone try to practice. Surfers are a strange crowd.

When did you first meet Brett Walker and begin working with eVocal?

I think I met Brett in like 2000, and then I did my first art show at the studio there in Costa Mesa in 2001. We’ve just kind of worked together ever since. We work totally well together ‘cause he’s good at psyching people up and getting work and having cool ideas. When it comes down to how those ideas are actually going to be made, produced and built, I come in handy there.

How do you stay inspired everyday in your work?

That’s where a lot of people fall short, and what they don’t realize is that if there is something that you like and you’re passionate about it, you’ve gotta do it no matter what. You’re not always going to get what you want or deserve all the time, but as long as you keep doing it, then people will know that’s what you do, then it snowballs, and then eventually you will. Everything else will fall into place.

A lot of people seem scared to do that.

It’s scary to put your self out there and to take a chance. When you’re doing your own thing, it’s tough to stay motivated. I’m fortunate that I was able to realize early on that I was really into art.

Part of it seems to come from your parents too.

Yeah, they are both really artistic, so I am pretty stoked to grow up in the household that I did with my dad being a surfer and both of them being artists and hippies. They’re the coolest. I couldn’t have picked a better family.

To see more of Jesse Miller's art, visit his website: jmillerart.com/

The Word on Avalon Bar: A Q&A with Syd Leonard

2012-01-31T11:23:00.000-08:00

How did Avalon Bar begin?

Avalon was created by my partner of 16 years, Mike Conley. The bar has been established for eight and a half years. Before then, the Avalon bar was the dive of all dive bars. We always had our eye on this spot. We thought the building was neat and had a cool, sixties vibe. So we were always poking around. For a couple of years we poked. Then the day came, I spied the “For Lease” banner. So I called Mike and said you won’t believe this, the bar is for lease. I left a message, we got the call back…Voila! became bar owners.

That was around eight years ago all this happened?

June 18, 2003 was day the Avalon doors opened. We signed the lease in January of that same year. Then we had to go through the ABC ‘cause we had to get everything documented and transferred over. That was when they said, ‘By the way, the beer and wine license was revoked.’ And we were like, ‘Whaaat?’

The license was revoked with the previous owner?

Yeah, because she never paid her fees. Basically we went into nothing, we had bought a building. It wasn’t even a bar at that point of our purchase. So this was when the phrase “never say never” came in to play. So we went to the City and told them, ‘We just bought this building and we thought it was an active bar. The City frowned on the idea of another bar on the Westside. So we decided to win them over and make it happen. It took us about six months, we proved ourselves to the City, and we got our beer and wine license—a license with many conditions attached, one being only allowed to stay open until 11pm.

You weren’t allowed to stay open until 1:30am?

No. 5pm to 11pm. We decided to coordinate our business hours with Detroit, which is across the street from us. So our hours were at that time 8:30pm to 11pm. There is not a whole lot of foot traffic, on that part of town. Lots of riff-raff…

Creepy drunkards?

So that’s why we’re open later. We ended up extending our hours. The whole idea behind this place was more for Mike. I was his co-pilot. I took care of the interior part of running the business, paying the bills and such. I bartended here and there. We had a lot of fun creating the soju cocktails. Soju is a great loop-hole for beer/wine establishments to make money on.

Are both of you from the area originally?

Mike was from Vegas. I’m from around these parts. We met at Woody’s Wharf. He was a bartender, and I was the sweet, little hostess (laughs).

That’s cute that you worked together.

He had a habit of flirting with me, and the next thing you know, we were together. Then I went to college up North, moved back, we had kids, bought the bar.

Tell me about starting out on this venture on your own.

Well, after Mike’s death, life was a bit overwhelming. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. It took me about four months to get comfortable going into the bar. I was scared for a while. The hardest part was just getting used to being there without him. Next was trying to run it as a business, and not get so involved in the social part. There were a lot of people—friends, patrons of Avalon, dj’s and such—around during that time, when I was beginning to run the bar on my own. Everyone was so caring and supportive. It was and still is greatly appreciated.

It’s tough when it’s a bar and everyone is going there to party.

You have to find that fine line, at least I had too. Things are better now.

Gabe seems to be a big help too. When did he begin working at the bar?

Gabriel is a dear friend. He had a big part in helping me build the confidence I needed running the bar and has helped me out tremendously. He got involved, I believe in the fall of 2008. He was around intermittently, for a while. Then began to spend a lot of his time helping out with many of the upgrades. The bar never had a sign. So, that was one of the first upgrades, I like to call it. Mike never wanted a sign. He wanted the bar to be word-of-mouth, like a little speakeasy. I understood it at the time, and I still get it. People want to go to a place where it’s cooler to be not-cool (laughs). Gabriel and I came up with the little arrow sign and I love it. My sign is cool.

It’s still subtle.

It’s subtle and I think it suits the bar and the area, plus the City really wanted us to have a sign. So everyone is happy. Heck, I bet Mike even likes the sign .

He was the sign for Avalon.

Yes, I believe so. He was quite the social butterfly. He liked hanging out at the bar. It did make a difference for sure, with him being there. I’m a social butterfly, but I was hanging out at the parks instead. It took some time. A lot of figuring out how the heck, I was going to raise a family, and run a bar on my own. I can’t sit and talk with someone until 2 am and play it cool the next day.

Having kids produces a totally different personal world.

I have a lot of fun with my girls, and I’m super happy now with the bar.

What did it take for you to get to that point?

I don’t know what it took. I think I realized, that this is my livelihood and my kids need shoes. I know a bit more about the business and always learning. I find the more energy I put into booking the nights with live entertainment. The bar benefits and so does everyone else. Most of the time.

It’s all about breeding positive relationships then?

Yes. I believe the Avalon has been a hub for many dj’s and bands from our local community that are now playing larger venues and making the big time. I’m pretty proud of that. They just better not forget about the Avalon bar. Facebook has been a great tool for promoting and booking shows…I find that one has to be quite skilled to keep up with that.

All the media is difficult to keep updated, especially when the media is updating so quickly itself.

I wasn’t to fond of Facebook when I first learned about it. It was very overwhelming. But now, we are friends.

That’s how media has continued to evolve.

Yes. I do believe that you just do what’s comfortable and what works for you. I try to keep our page pretty humble. Crazy and nasty can be ok too. I think people come back to the Avalon, because its cozy, intimate, and chill, with an occasional pants-off party. Now that the bar is in a comfortable place, or I am. I’m ready to bring on the liquor license.

What is stopping you from getting a full-liquor license?

It was definitely something that could have been done sooner. Why? Beats me. As of now, the Avalon bar has full approval with the City to have a full-liquor license. Now it’s just one more hurdle. Finding the funds.

Perfect timing for everything to crash a bit, right when the economy was failing?

Yes, life is funny. Always so challenging. It will be here soon though. Very soon.

It feels like people are becoming more active with their purchasing again.

It does, just needs to stay consistent with occasional turbo-boosts of spending.

So please by beer at the Avalon.

Orange County Event Architects: A Q&A with Ashley Eckenweiler and Luke Allen of OC Music Awards

2012-01-24T15:38:00.000-08:00

OC Music Awards

How did you end up in Orange County? How did you two end up meeting and starting your work together?

Luke Allen: I moved here from Vermont, 8 years old, to Oceanside, then to Orange County at the age of 10. Just played in local bands, went to Woodbridge High School, and lived in Irvine. Then I started a music rehearsal studio, Gemini Studios, right out of high school. I’ve been doing that since July of 2001. That’s kind of how I got involved in music, and eventually the OC Music Awards. Gemini Studios was a sponsor in 2008, and the Producer at the time was taking off and moving to Spain. He asked if I wanted to do this awards show that we have, and I told him, ‘You know what, I think I do,’ just because of years of meeting bands and helping them with rehearsal space. The eternal question of the bands was always, ‘What do we do next with our music careers in Orange County?’ I didn’t have any answers other than just play shows.

A lot of the time, the answer seems to be, go to Los Angeles.

Allen: I would certainly say the same thing as everyone else, you know, go play LA. Silverlake or Sunset, it’s part of the way of getting more exposure.

So when and how did you and Ashley get connected? When did you decide that you wanted to work together?

Allen: Ashley has an extensive music career in Orange County that goes back a long ways.

Ashley Eckenweiler: I was working in LA, I had my own business up there for four years for PR, mostly for art institutions and galleries. I got hired as the Director of Special Events at Orange County Museum of Art in 2005. I started a music series called Orange Crush. It was the first cultural institution to bring Indie 103.1 down as a radio partner. So we did a monthly concert series. We had Silversun Pickups, Matt Costa, The 88, Ozma, Sonic Youth—we had a really great lineup for about two years and they were all free shows. Then I left the museum and started my own business in 2008. I met Luke that year at OC Metro’s 40 Under 40, which he and I were both a part of.

Are you from Orange County originally? Did you grow up going to shows in the area?

Eckenweiler: I grew up here until I was 16, then moved to New York. I was a dancer with New York City Ballet. So I joined the company really young, and I finished high school in New York. I stayed there until I was 20, decided I wanted to do other things, tried to stay, was broke, and left. So I went home and then moved to LA about a month later. I can honestly say that I never went to a show in Orange County growing up. The Orange County Performing Arts Center was one of the first stages I danced on professionally when I was eight years old, and now they are a client, so it comes full circle. And then Luke and I met, and he asked me to lunch. At that time he had the Awards, and for the first year he produced, and I came on as mostly PR and Talent.

Allen: I just had experience in the rehearsal space. I hadn’t booked shows—just played in shows in a pop-punk band back in the day. I had had some experience with bigger bands that we were friends with that practiced at my studio, and ones I was a fan of. I wanted to be able to help with the platform that could actually advance bands that are looking for more, and are actually motivated to do it themselves—what can I do next, what’s the next step, and how can I do it here? I wanted to help fill an answer for that question. I thought the Awards could do that, and when I took it over, I knew that I needed help. Ashley was the best person, probably in all of Southern California, and I just happened to luck out and meet her.

Eckenweiler: Well and he was very special too. I mean, a typical county awards show model isn’t necessary successful and doesn’t activate the community or give something back to the artist. He had the right mission and vision and direction for the event.

Everywhere I go, people have this inclination to tear Orange County down when it comes to the music scene. But it’s all about the way that we treat it. If it’s going to be negative, of course it will be viewed negatively. But once you start supporting, all of a sudden, everything changes.

Allen: Yes, it is manifest destiny against the headwind of preconceived notions about all of Orange County; not just in music and art, but everything. The county usually gets the ‘ridiculous’ wrap, not to be taken seriously. And sure, maybe there is an aspect of it that isn’t as deep as other cultural epicenters of the world, but, you can find whatever you’re looking for in Orange County--talented artists, painters, musicians, and writers can be found everywhere you look. There is the perception to overcome, but you could also not really worry about it and just do what you think makes sense, and try to help the people who are excited and want to do it themselves.

Ashley, you have now officially bought the OC Music Awards. What made you and Luke want to take it on in the first place?

Eckenweiler: Well, Luke purchased it from Martin Brown while Gemini Studios was a sponsor. I think Martin was looking to sell it, and Luke saw the potential. I’d never been, so I didn’t even know what it was. Luke decided to buy it from Martin before I even knew him, so that was his decision. Then we met, I think it was pretty shortly after he bought it and he was looking to kind of refresh the format of the event, so that’s why I got involved. He was really passionate about giving musicians opportunities in their own town—so expanding what’s going on in Orange County, and kind of highlighting the local talent.

How would you say the Awards have progressed since 2008?

Eckenweiler: I had been working in local music for a long time, and I remember a lot of the bands had never heard of it, or they had mixed reviews about it because there were some pay-to-play options—like pay to submit and be a part of, and pay to attend. There were more barriers of entry basically, so I think the reputation of the event has definitely developed to become known as an event that is looking out for the best interest of local bands, and really looking to help them grow and succeed in their hometown and beyond. As far as from a branding perspective, we’ve reached a much larger audience than it used to.

Just within the Best Live Band and Best Acoustic events, the audience has grown considerably. Which of the bands are you most excited about right now?

Allen: Young the Giant. So proud of those guys. I saw them perform at the Irvine Heritage Cultural Center in their teens as The Jakes. They were practicing at the studio, and now they have done a worldwide tour, opening up Weenie Roast, having a great time in life, as far as I know. So it’s really cool to see that. Obviously, our OC Music Awards artists have gone through the showcase series, been nominated, participated in many ways. I think that’s a really wonderful thing to see them excited about that. Hopefully it’s giving them a chance to network with other bands, create shows, and feel some sort of energy and community through that. It’s great.

Eckenweiler: It’s tough to say. I look at local music as kinda having an umbrella, so that certain favoritisms don’t develop, but I was really excited to see a lot of new names in our showcase series this year. A lot of those bands that are just starting I’m excited to see what they do next. I’m obviously really proud of the bands that have made the jump this year—Young the Giant, Kiev getting a Rolling Stone interview—there’s a lot of progression that has happened for a few of the artists that have been involved, so that’s really fun. One of my OC Music Awards interns was asked in an interview, ‘What’s your favorite local band?’ She said, ‘The Jakes! I mean, Young the Giant!’ It was so cute.

That shows how far back she has been listening to Young the Giant.

Eckenweiler: I know, dedication! I think it’s great to see that progression.

Ashley I want to ask you more about—I’d call it your side project, but it’s more your main job—the ACE Agency?

Eckeweiler: ACE is not a side-project, it’s what we do everyday, and it’s what allowed us to take over OC Music Awards. I started ACE in 2007, but I started my own business 10 years ago in PR in LA and it was mostly for art and live music. I represented a few galleries and worked in different live music spaces like—back then—Cinespace and Vanguard, Beauty Bar and Star Shoes, which doesn’t exist anymore. I did a lot of PR and live music/art events. This was back in about 2001 or 2002. That led me to taking a position at the Orange County Museum of Art in 2004, and I was their Director of Special Events. That was my first Orange County job, if you will. We implemented live music programs, which were very successful and kind of paved the way for that time when museums started really looking at music as a way to bring in new audiences. We were the first to partner with Indie 103.1 and bring the station down to Orange County. That was the time on the radio when they were calling out that they were from LA and Newport Beach. It made no sense because they never came down to Orange County, why would they call out Newport Beach? But we were in Newport Beach, so I saw the tie there, so we brought the station down to do shows with Silversun Pickups, Sonic Youth, Pavement, Matt Costa—we had great, amazing bands.

The ACE Agency

This was all at the Orange County Museum of Art?

Eckenweiler: Yeah, and they were all free, so it was a really exciting time. Those programs were around 2006, so I was at the museum for two years, and then I decided to go back on my own, and I continued to work with the museum as a partner for a while and did some more music. Then Segerstrom Center for the Arts became my second client, and that’s when we started what we called the Off Center Festival. It was the first time that the center was welcoming in alternative music. We had Peter, Bjorn, & John, The Walkmen, Coldwar Kids, Jose¢ Gonzales, Rogue Wave, and Camp Friday. So that kind of paved the way for ACE. Our initial mission was to implement PR and Marketing through alternative event environments, and experiential marketing—how to find your new audience, and how to create an experience that will cultivate them and bring them to you—that’s kind of our philosophy. That was in 2007-2008. We’ve continued to do that, but our business plan has really expanded, so we handle PR, social marketing, media, special events, and brand partnership. We have about 12 permanent clients right now, and then others come to us for one-time services and one-off support. It’s not just music and art focused, because PR is PR, and once you understand one avenue, you can figure out another.

So I would say OC Music Awards is more of your side-project.

Eckenweiler: We look at it as a client. We treat OC Music Awards just as we would treat Segerstrom or Burke Williams, or anyone that we’re working with. We have to manage it day-to-day and treat it like a business, otherwise, they’re going to fire us.

Fire yourself? I’d say you’re doing a great job and won’t need to worry about that. Tell me more about the prizes that are being offered this year, not to just bands, but to the fans as well?

Eckenweiler: We haven’t announced what the showcase series prize-packs are going to be yet. The first year in 2008, we didn’t offer any prize—it was just the title and the opportunity to perform at The Grove of Anaheim. We wanted to make the participation more about the notoriety—just being involved in the experience, and let the prizes be announced later. So we haven’t announced those yet, but we will at the beginning of February. We have more partnerships this year than ever before. Farmer John is a very exciting addition to the event, and a presenting-partnership is a big deal to the Awards, and it’s very helpful to keep the event going. We’re looking for ways to activate our partners onsite, and help to connect with the audience and the musicians. That’s where the guitar giveaway came from. Farmer John, KROQ, and Ernie Ball wanted something that the fans could take home that would remind them of OC Music Awards and their involvement, so Ernie Ball and Sterling by Music Man are donating one guitar per showcase series, and KROQ designed a custom pick-guard. We’ve also got the Farmer John Fan Vote, so fans log on to vote for their favorite showcase series artist, which moves one artist on to the finals, and by voting, you’re entered to win a guitar per showcase.

Someone will win that guitar at each individual showcase then?

Eckenweiler: Yeah, and we announce the winner on Facebook the next day.

What details do you have about the participating venues?

Eckenweiler: It has become traditional to kick-off the Best Live Band Showcase at Detroit Bar. I don’t know if we’ll ever change that as the kick-off to the event. The District is also a partner, so we always kick-off the Acoustic Showcase there, so again, those are our two, kind of, reoccurring, consistent spots. Malone’s—we always like to add somewhere new, maybe a venue that you don’t frequent or think about necessarily. We kind of did that with Tiki Bar last year. We hadn’t been there before. At Malone’s, Mike Concepcion (of Gypsy Lounge) is doing the sound there. We wanted to keep our Gypsy Lounge tribute, and work with Mike again, so that’s why we’re going to Malone’s. Slidebar has become a great venue partner, so there was no question about going back there again. Continental Room—we didn’t go last year, but the year before, so we thought we’d revisit. To make it different, we’re doing an Acoustic Showcase there ‘cause we thought it might be fitting for the stage size. And then Constellation Room is one of our newest venues, so I’m excited to go there for the last showcase. And then the Finals—we’re going to Coach House on Wednesday 22^nd (February) for the Acoustic Finals, and then Friday 24^th will be at Segerstrom for the Best Live Band. We’re going back to the Samueli Theater, so that will be fun.

It was amazing watching Kiev’s 3D show that you put on at the Samueli Theater, plus you already have a great relationship with the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, and that theater is huge…

Eckenweiler: Yeah, we’re excited about that, and we’ve never been to Coach House and that’s a staple venue in Orange County.

That should help get South Orange County involved a little more.

Eckenweiler: Yeah, we went to OC Tavern one year and that’s a far South as we had been. I was in traffic thinking, ‘Where are we going?’ I forget how big Orange County is.

Past San Juan Capistrano, it seems like a different county almost. How do you feel about the bands that have expanded out of Orange County?

Eckenweiler: I think it’s great. A lot of people don’t want bands to leave, but I don’t really have an opinion on that. I think that everyone should be proud of where they came from and call out Orange County if they’re from here. If they need to move or they want to move, that’s fine. I think OC Music Awards definitely helps bands reach new audiences and hopefully connects them with some industry professionals that will help their careers. Some may still need to move. I think it’s pretty typical for people to want to move from where they came from—whether it’s that they came from LA, and they want to move out of LA, or if they came from Orange County, they might want to move out of Orange County. Obviously LA is a bigger place, and there’s more going on, but there’s enough down here to keep things going. You see that with some of the larger bands that still have homes here, still work here, still record here. All the things that you can do here, they do, so it’s totally possible.

Allen: The cool thing about a place like Detroit Bar in a place like Orange County is that, you can play LA and be a small fish in a huge pond where you could swim forever to get bigger. But, you come down and play a venue like Detroit, and you have an instant new audience immediately. You’re playing a concentrated area in a geographically huge county. If you do a residency at Detroit Bar, you just got Orange County. And it can take you years to get LA, if you’re good and you promote correctly.

There’s more to be proud about these days in Orange County.

Eckenweiler: There is. I don’t think Young the Giant will ever cover up where they’re from, so that’s good. And look how successful they became, I mean, how great is that?

It shows every other band that it’s possible, as long as you’re going for it and stick to the plan, keep making contacts, and work hard.

Eckenweiler: That’s really important, it was nice to see that happen for two different Southern California bands this year, Foster the People and Young the Giant, and almost Grouplove—they’re right there. From all the music all over the world, that happens to these two Southern California bands—it’s cool.

What do you see in the future for the OC Music Awards? Are you always thinking of adjustments and new additions?

Eckenweiler: Yeah, we definitely see room for expansion and improvement. We continuously look to involve more of the local community, whether it’s through artists, or partnerships, or businesses—we’re constantly working to expand those relationships and continue to give more opportunities and connections to the artists. We’re looking at how to expand the Awards, whether it’s through venues, or more dates, or being able to involve more people in some of the shows is a key goal for the future. We kinda kept the categories the same as last year, but we’ll always look at how those reflect on the music that’s being developed, and you know if we need to add more genre categories…

Maybe Production categories?

Eckenweiler: Yeah, that’s been a big one that keeps coming in through our radar. This year we were really about growing our partnerships, and continuing to make sure that the Awards are a stable and respected platform, and continue to provide things for musicians. We didn’t want to expand too much, ‘cause we had a lot going on with the transfer.

I can’t imagine sitting down to organize every last detail. There’s so much that goes into creating one event, let alone 10 events.

Eckenweiler: Yeah, there’s a lot of moving parts, and it’s important to us that we keep all of our partners happy, all the bands happy, all the venues—there’s a lot of people involved, so this year is really about sustainability and making sure that this is a viable event that continues to provide opportunities to the community, and then we’ll look at how to expand it next year. There are tons of possibilities. We’ve brainstormed about licensing opportunities, or how we can sustain the brand, the presence that it has throughout the year. We have the season and we need to focus on that, but how do we get the name out, who do we partner with in the Summer and the Fall. Potentially SXSW presence in 2013, I could go on and on and on. Every year we hope to add to it and build it, and I think the presenting-partnership with Farmer John is our biggest add-on this year. Our partners help sustain the event and make sure that it actually happens, so without them we couldn’t do it.

I’m sure the artists appreciate all that hard work.

Eckenweiler: It’s great to see them come back. It’s so interesting to see who comes to each show, and the familiar faces throughout, who kinda has gotten busy, and those who wish us their best via email (laughs).

Reggie Watts and Blok at the Off Center Festival

2012-01-18T13:02:00.000-08:00

Reggie Watts

Saturday night in Costa Mesa, and the Segerstrom Center for the Arts is bustling in all arenas of the vast complex for the second evening of the Off Center Festival showcases. Distracted by the overwhelming beauty of the architecture around, I accidentally begin to walk through the live art experience consisting of about 30 cars set in three long rows, all inhabited by lively people as if they were stuck on the dreaded 405 Freeway right at 5:00pm. After politely being asked to walk around the exhibit, I find my way to the somewhat hidden entrance of the Founders Hall, which consists of a wide blacked-out room filled with 50 tables, 200 seats, and modernly chic stage.

Photo By Jenavieve Belair

As the usher leads me to my final destination, the local electronic-hip-hop act consisting of three siblings, Blok, is already entrancing the expanding audience. The solo sister, Gianna, gazes deep into each member of the crowd, seducing them with her eyes, primal screaming, and contorted dance steps. Lead vocalist Damien never teeters out of rhythm, despite the extreme challenge he has given himself to cleanly express quick syllables of theosophical inscriptions that fly off of his flickering tongue in rapid succession. Jesse, the final brother, gyrates in succession with his sister, occasionally stepping up to the mic to produce intense vocal-stylings of his own. Usually a Blok performance is more wildly outlandish, and to see them semi-contained and semi-choreographed truly amplified their true talent as standout performers. This trio, standing on the simple, black stage of the Founders Hall, appeared more like a moving, breathing, controversial piece of art, and the audience applauded energetically to show their appreciation.

Photos by Jenavieve Belair

Comedian Reggie Watts is a freak of nature, even though he looks like an average guy with a massive afro-puff. Throughout his hour-long comedy and musical performance, I continuously desired the chance to stick him in a laboratory and study the physical phenomenon that are his perfectly-pitched vocal cords. Creating his own beat-box harmonies on a looping pedal, Watts hovers over his gadgetry until he finds the perfect rhythm. His soulful style of singing could make any Motown artist blush, however Watts is not aiming to charm, but to constantly tease. Aside from his musical talent, Watts’ ability to create rhythmic intellectual, although sometimes non-sensible, rhetoric on the fly is clever and confusing and mind-altering and semi-offensive—but the crowd always laughs at the genius of the entertainer that stands before them. Watts could discuss any issue—political, social, personal—and in the blink of an eye, he can alter his voice, persona, and topic seamlessly—and the crowd continuously roars with laughter until the very end.

Photo by Jenavieve Belair

The Off Center Festival continues all week until Saturday, January 21^st, hosting such acts as the Mexican Institute of Sound, The Word Begins (a mash-up of hip-hop, poetry, and spoken word), and Ten Tiny Dances. For the full schedule click here.

Mexican Institute of Sound

The Car Plays – Arts Plaza

January 14, 15, 20 & 21 at 5:30, 7 and 8:30 p.m.

ReEntry – Founders Hall

January 18 – 20 at 8 p.m.

The Word Begins – Nicholas Studio at South Coast Repertory (655 Town Center Drive)

January 19 – 21 at 8 p.m.

Ten Tiny Dances – Samueli Theater

January 20 & 21 at 7:30 p.m.

Mexican Institute of Sound – Founders Hall

January 21 at 10 p.m.; doors open at 8 p.m.; opening act Nancy Sanchez at 8:30 p.m.; Mexican Institute of Sound at 10 p.m.

Starving Artists Lounge at Leatherby’s Cafe Rouge January 13 – 15 and January 18 – 21

600 and 615 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa, CA

Segerstrom Center for the Arts

Tickets: Single tickets: $20

Multi-show packages with tickets at the low price of $10

In person - The Box Office

600 Town Center Drive

Costa Mesa, CA 92626

Open 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. daily

Online - SCFTA.org

Phone - (714) 556-2787

Open 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. daily

TTY number - (714) 556-2746

Group Sales - (714) 755-0236

Coachella Lineup Announced

2012-01-10T11:27:00.000-08:00

The Zenith of Zion: A Q&A with Dallas Kruse

2012-01-05T18:46:00.000-08:00

In a dark alleyway just off the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles, Dallas Kruse—owner and operator of Zion Studios in Costa Mesa—and I huddle against a brick wall for our first official meet and greet. He had loaded up his truck and trailer, with his renowned Hammond organ inside, in order to play the perfect padding for Jameson at the famous Hotel Café just down the way later in the evening. His amiable smile, clever persona, and ability to jump into a situation with no trepidation made me realize why so many Orange County and Los Angeles artists choose to work with the multifaceted musician.

Are you from Orange County originally?

Dallas Kruse: My mom’s side of the family is from Texas, and I was born and raised in Orange County, but most of my family is back in Anberlin, Texas.

How did your parents end up out here?

My mom came out here to marry my dad. Just a classic love story. My dad was a minister for 30-40 years and I grew up in church, and that’s where the music thing started. My grandmother was a choir director, and as a kid, I would listen to all this Black gospel—real soulful music, you know? She had a large choir of 50 to 60 voices and a big band with a Hammond B3. That’s where the music thing was instilled.

Did your grandmother teach you how to conduct?

No, I would just watch. She wasn’t necessarily formally schooled in it, but all of my aunts—my dad’s sisters—sang and they would always be at the house rehearsing and I’d always hear harmony. It was one of those things, it was always engrained, and I loved it. I kind of grew up listening to Motown and Soul and my mom’s really attached to that style of music, so that’s where that style that I love so much came from.

When did you officially get into music?

I was playing sports, and I was going to run track. I ran track for USA Track & Field, and then I had a bad injury. When I was 18 or 19 was when I got heavily into music. I went to junior college at Santa Ana College and studied all my theory, and then started getting into more arranging for orchestras and things like that, and that piece fell in. From there, I just got into full-time music. It started with a bedroom studio, and then it went to the garage, and then it went to my parent’s garage, and then now I have the full studio in Orange County near the Ikea over on Harbor, Zion Studios.

How did you know it was the right time to open the studio?

I kind of had to, because I was doing albums in this detached garage that my parents had. We would do drums early on Saturday morning—the only time that we could do drums.

I’m sure the neighbors loved you.

Yeah, I know… My parents were tearing down that building, and I lived in Ladera Ranch in an apartment, and my lease was coming up. It just so happened that my dad was out looking at some property, and there was an empty warehouse that was available. It was one of those things that the timing was right, and I thought, ‘I’m just gonna go for it.’ It was sort of a big jump, but it’s been good.

Tell me more about the artists that you have worked with pre-studio.

I was the ‘Music Minister’ leader and choir director for my dad for seven years, and then when I left that is when I went more into the production aspect, but I had been doing a lot of arranging. I started getting into strings and started writing for string sections, and then getting more into the production end of it. I’ve been doing that since 2000, and then working with bands literally in my apartment or garage.

Were you recording with tape or digital?

Mainly digital. A: because of the money for upkeep on analog gear is ridiculous, and bands can’t really afford that type of stuff, and the flexibility of being able to do that in a small apartment is tough. There were times where we would be recording guitars and the neighbors would come over and say, ‘Yeah, can you turn it down?’ So I was doing that, and then just working with bands and bands. More singer/songwriters would come to me to add stuff to the record, and then it became people asking, ‘Can you take on the record? Can you do production?’ Which was great, but it’s just one of those things where you don’t realize how big of a chunk that is until you really get into it. But I absolutely love it, and I wouldn’t rather be doing anything else.

You certainly seem to be the jack-of-all-trades when it comes to using instruments. When did you discover your multi-talents?

Honestly, it was one of those things of necessity. And again, it goes back to the church thing, where my dad’s piano player and choir director—they were married—left the church and he didn’t have anybody. At the time, I didn’t know how to play, but it was one of those things where, for some reason, I wanted to learn how to play. I would sit down for hours on end, just to figure out the piano, and just do that. It was like a moth to a flame for me. I couldn’t get enough of it. And then it was a thing like, someone needed a sub on drums or whatever, and I would try. It just kind of happened. I don’t think it was necessarily anything that was planned out, it was just one of those things that kind of fell into place. Don’t get me wrong, everything is a blessing to be attached to really good artists, and to play for different people and arrange for them, or play drums or keys for whomever. I never went out like, ‘Here I am.’ It’s more of a thing where it just fell into place. It’s a weird thing.

The focus is on meeting, connecting, and making music magic.

Yeah it’s like…well it’s not always magic. Sometimes it’s more of a cluster. I think it’s one of those things like, if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be. If it’s the right thing, then it comes naturally.

I feel like a lot of music is that way. It comes effortlessly sometimes. It may be intricate, it may be simple, but it falls just right.

It’s not a struggle. It shouldn’t be work. Sometimes, obviously, when you’re writing for the orchestra or whatever, yeah that’s work.

But you should be enjoying it—and the emotions associated—honestly. How else could you truly enjoy it?

Exactly. When you play out and other people see you, you start networking and making connections. I enjoy playing out, and for a while it seemed like it was with a different band every night.

You have a big instrument to carry around, right?

Yep, I carry around a trailer for the Hammond. I enjoy the studio work, that is where I feel at home. I love it, we try to make it as homey as possible, so it doesn’t feel like a warehouse, or cold and sterile. People want to feel comfortable when they’re recording. And there are plenty of bottles of whiskey lying around.

What are you working on currently?

Right now, I’m working with an artist from Costa Rica and Portland. I’m doing her second record, and her name is Annie Bethancourt. She’s done some really great things. She’s a phenomenal singer/songwriter. Lyrically and vocally she’s awesome. In between when we started and when she’s coming back—she’s in Portland right now—I’m doing a new project with Barrett Johnson and Doll Knight called The Ultimate Bearhug. I love this project, and it makes you fall in love. I think Doll’s charisma and vocal talent, and Barrett’s writing—they have something special, something golden there. We’re at the back end of their record, we just need to go up to LA and do all the live strings, then I’ll start to mix it. Then when Annie comes back, we’ll start up again. I also just booked with a band called The Devious Means. I had actually never seen them play live, but they came into the studio and we kinda had a vibe meeting to see if we were on the same page. I’m doing a six-song EP with them starting in September. So, Bearhug, Devious Means, Annie, and then tomorrow I start working with a guy named David Ryan Harris, who is the guitarist for John Mayer.

Have you been working with Billy Kernkamp?

He recently put the bug in my ear, and I’m ready for his second record. It’s funny because the first record, he didn’t have a band established yet. I hired in studio musicians—Jameson played some, Mikey Hachey my bassist, and Jorgen Ingmar played on some. Now Billy is carving out his sound a bit better, and I think his second record, when he brings the material, it’s going to be more Billy, you know? Of course I work with Jameson in the studio a lot, so it’s good, there’s so much talent in Orange County—great songwriters.

They are many out there who fail to recognize that.

The scene might not be great, as far as where you can go from Orange County, but the people in Orange County are talented, you know what I’m saying? In order to get out to the world, you have to branch out, you have to come to LA, you have to go do Austin. But as far as the talent level, I feel like the only downside of artists in Orange County is keeping their eyes focused on staying in Orange County, which is great, but as far as the bigger picture goes, you have to get out. With Barrett and Doll and Jameson, there are some wickedly talented people.

I feel fortunate to get to observe that talent.

That’s what I meant when I said it’s such a blessing to be around such talent. I feel like, as a producer, that’s your role to pull the best out of them, and put your ideas in to help water the seed.

Do you see yourself producing full-time for good?

Hopefully. I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else other than music. Hopefully everything will continue to progress, and grow and grow, and I’ll really establish the studio as kind of a hub for people of LA to get away, and people of Orange County to grow. There are a few little studios in Orange County, and a few bigger studios, but I feel like with the talent that we have around, and the network and community that we have, I hope I would be a resource, and the studio would be a resource for people to produce their projects.

I enjoyed the live video that was shot at Zion Studios. Is that something you always do?

I think that can be something good for the future. With the proliferation of YouTube and everyone’s websites, video is such a good medium.

The videos from The Ultimate Bearhug seemed very clean and official.

That’s something that we’ve actually talked about doing, is opening up for bands to produce live performances and video live performances.

With the digital advances, many ‘musicians’ can cheat with their recordings. To see live videos played perfectly like those is encouraging.

With real singers, real musicians, you can do that. I’m so glad you said that, and don’t get me wrong ‘cause there is some pop music out there that is guilty pleasure of mine, but like you said, with the technology change, people still want to see real talent. You want to see something that you can’t do. You want to see something that is inspiring. So that’s something that we’re maybe looking to do is purchase some great cameras and lighting to produce some good videos. I think people get hooked on it too, because if it’s just listening, it’s one thing, but if they see Doll singing, they see this really cute girl with a great voice that’s classic and jazzy.

How did you choose the name Zion Studios for your place?

Well the name Zion is a religious term and it represents the highest mountain that there is, and it’s supposed to represent the mountain that God lives on. It just always struck me as a strong word, and it always struck me as something that represented the epitome or echelon. I’ve always loved the animal of the lion, and I feel like, in the metaphorical sense, there is the pride of lions and that’s where the logo came from. It was more of a thing where it represents strength and a pride in family and togetherness. I think that is how music is formed. You have one person’s ideas, and another person’s ideas, and…

It’s a harmony.

Exactly, and that’s where the name came from. There’s scripture in the bible that talks about, ‘Remember me when you sing the songs of Zion.’ It’s sort of a reflection back to when they were back in Egypt, they used to sing the songs of Zion and it would take them out of their rut. They would get together and sing the songs of Zion. When I read that scripture, I was like, ‘Oh that’s it, that’s the name.’ It’s not like any big mystery. I think it means more to me than anyone else.

That’s what makes it your studio.

I don’t think I would have gone with any other name, but yeah, that’s what it is.

So is music the thing that gets you out of a rut?

Always. It’s an escape. And it’s not always playing it, but just listening to it. Like if things are going bad, there are some things that I’ll put on, either old records or old stuff. For me it’s hearing other people that have gone through hell and they’re singing in their pain throughout, and it lifts the spirits. I think music is so supernatural, it’s so otherworldly. It’s a mystery that I think will never be unraveled and will never be solved, but it does almost miraculous things to people’s psyche and their emotions. It even has a physical impression on people. I find it fascinating the psychosomatic, psychological, and physical affects that music has even on brainwaves. The affect that it has on people overall, it’s a mystery that’s constantly evolving. I think we try not to take it too lightly. We take it seriously as far as how much this means to somebody else who might hear it.

The physical state of music is interesting as well.

It’s funny, they have actually done studies that, with the proliferation of the iTunes and MP3s and all the online music sources, there has actually been a degradation in the quality of music—not necessary the songs, per say, but the sound of music going from vinyl and analog recordings, and then moving to tape, and then moving to CD. They always say it’s getting better and better and better, but technically, it’s getting worse and worse and worse. They actually found in the studies the affect psychologically and physically that it has on people. The less quality that they listen to, the less affect it actually has on them. So the most emotional response that people have listening to music is listening to live music. And then when you go down that list, it actually has a lesser affect on their emotions. From listening to a piece of music live, with an immense, tangible affect on somebody—their blood pressure, their heart rate, their emotions. Play that same piece of music through an MP3, and it’s far less. It’s something that you can’t really explain because it could sound like the same thing to them, but it’s not translating the same. That’s why, at least for us, it’s important to keep that live aspect and keep the best sound possible. It’s important, and not everybody has the budget to do vinyl, and has a budget to do analog, but at least we still try and keep that live aspect. I think there’s a big backlash in music right now because everyone got so tired in the mid-2000s of all the heavy-produced thing, and I think the auto-tune is going to have such a backlash. It already has, you know? ‘Cause it’s not real, it’s so mechanical and people aren’t going to be listening to that stuff in five, ten, fifteen years. They want to get back to real singers and real musicians. I’m all for the advancement of technology, but when it makes people rich, and there’s others that are incredibly talented and have a great song to sing and they’re making no money, it just doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Technology has provided shortcuts, which isn’t always for the best.

It’s true. It’s a short cut and it’s easy and someone can press one button and have a song in a box. It’s frustrating, but you’re never going to win that battle.

It’s easy to spot a fake, over enough time, the truth comes out.

I think there’s always going to be the purists out there. There are some producers that I try to follow and love almost everything that they put their hands on.

Any producers in particular?

I love T-Bone Burnett. The sounds that he gets are amazing. I like Jon Brion, he is wickedly talented. Of course guys I follow composers like John Williams. To me, he is absolutely a genius. There’s a guy named Tony Burge produces an artist name Jesca Hoop. She plays at Hotel Café every once in a while. She’s British and her stuff is so good. You know Tom Waits? She was actually his nanny for many years. Her songs are so crazy, but they’re not as out-there as someone like Bjork, because it actually has a familiar rhythms and melodies. It’s singer-songwriter, but some of her stuff is really dark. It’s just so interesting. She’s probably one of my top favorite artists right now. All those guys are kind of part of the purist form of production and music, and I’m sure there’s many more, but all the stuff that they’ve done I just loved. Van Dyke Parks has been a big inspiration for me for arranging strings. Randy Newman—his stuff is just timeless.

Jesca Hoop: The Kingdom Music Video from Filmatics on Vimeo.

OC Music Awards 2012 Nominees Announced

2012-01-04T11:54:00.000-08:00

OC MUSIC AWARDS ANNOUNCES THE 2012 NOMINEES IN 21 CATEGORIES

(ORANGE COUNTY, CA) – The Awards Academy has voted, the ballots have been sorted and the 2012 OC Music Awards nominees in 21 Academy selected categories have been determined. The 2012 list of nominations welcomes back some OC Music Awards former winners and nominees as well as some fresh faces.

This announcement includes 21 of the 26 total 2012 Awards category nominees. Still to come are the Outstanding Achievement Awards for OC Impact and Lifetime Achievement to be announced the February 1, the Best Live Band and Best Live Acoustic Showcase Series finalists, which will be announced after the last Showcase on February 15, and The People’s Choice Award nominees, to be announced on Monday, February 27. Make sure to cast your FARMER JOHN FAN VOTE for your favorite Showcase artist to help them advance to their category Finals, and vote online for your favorite band in Orange County to receive the People's Choice Award.

And the 2012 nominees are….

2012 OC Music Awards Nominees(Nominees listed in alphabetical order per category)

Best Album
The Aquabats - Hi-Five Soup!
Jeramiah Red - Ghost Tracks from the Getty
Social Distortion - Hard Times And Nursery Rhymes
Thrice - Major/Minor
Young The Giant - Young The Giant

Best Song
DJ Tempo - "June Serenadez" featuring Ashley Morphew
Jeramiah Red - "Can't Help Myself"
Kiev - "Loot Recovered"
Thrice - "Promises"
Young The Giant - "Cough Syrup"

Best New Artist
Ethan Hulse
Golden Afternoon
Jeramiah Red
Portrait of a Nightmare
The Ultimate Bearhug

Best Alternative
Ceasefire
Jack's Mannequin
Railroad to Alaska
Suedehead
Young The Giant

Best Blues
Jameson
Jeramiah Red
Parker Macy Blues
Robert Jon & the Wreck
Roman Alexander & The Robbery

Best DJ
DJ Bobby Soul
DJ Oldboy
DJ Tempo
DJ Thrifty Lips
Kedd Cook

Best Country/Americana
Big Sandy & the Fly-Rite Boys
Billy Kernkamp
Falling Stars
Jeramiah Red
Nicole Vaughn

Best Electronic
Blok
Electric Valentine
Free the Robots
Mphase
Speaker Junkies

Best Folk
Ethan Hulse
Field Trip
I Hate You Just Kidding
Micah Brown
The Ultimate Bearhug

Best Hip Hop
BLOK
Cirious and Deelux
I&I
Pwest
Speach Impediments

Best Indie
Kiev
The Devious Means
The Gromble
The Steelwells
Young the Giant

Best Jazz
Chris Williams
Evan Stone
Nancy Sanchez
Ron Kobayashi
Tony Guerrero

Best Latin
!Aparato!
Boogaloo Assassins
Nancy Sanchez
Signa
The Latin Jazz Syndicate

Best Metal
Anna Vexa
Avenged Sevenfold
Bleeding Through
Death By Stereo
Railroad to Alaska

Best Pop
Amanda Lamb
The Aquabats
Ethan Hulse
Stacy Clark
Suedehead

Best Punk
Audacity
Chaser
Death Hymn Number 9
The Adolescents
The Gospels

Best Rock
Echo Echo
Jeramiah Red
Red9
Thrice
Young The Giant

Best Surf
Alejandor Awesome Surf Band
Death Hymn Number 9
Headshine
Hindu Pirates
The Growlers

Best World
80 Proof
Craic Haus
Dirty Heads
Reel Big Fish
Seedless

Best Music Video
Blok - Jungle Dog Fang Hell
Red9 - Fanatico
Red Devil Squadron - Bobcat Wrangler
Semi Sweet - Chemicals Corrected
Young The Giant - Cough Syrup

Best Youth
CHIXX RULE
McKenzie Brandon
Ugly Paint
Un D Vided
Whiplash

Visit OC Music Awards online, become a Fan, Follower, and Subscriber

Win a Custom Sterling Guitar by Music Man at OC Music Awards Showcases

2012-01-02T09:36:00.000-08:00

OC Music Awards Announces

Farmer John Fan Vote

Win a Custom Sterling by Music Man Guitar at Showcases

The 2012 OC Music Awards Showcase Series kicks off on Tuesday, January 3 at Detroit Bar, launching seven weeks of free Showcases at various venues throughout Orange County with 35 local artists competing for the title of Best Live Band or Best Live Acoustic.

Awards Presenting Partner, Farmer John brings us the 2012 Farmer John Fan Vote, where the public has the power to send one Showcase artist in each category on to the Finals. Fans can vote online and on-site at Showcases at the Farmer John promo booth and enter to win a Sterling by Music Man custom guitar courtesy of Farmer John, Ernie Ball, 106.7FM KROQ and OC Music Awards. One guitar will be given away weekly at each of nine (9) total Showcase Series events. Fans must be present to enter and win. The Farmer John Fan Vote launches online December 27 on ocmusicawards.com and will remain open through the last Showcase on February 14.

106.7FM KROQ’s Locals Only host Kat Corbett will host the Showcase Series kick off event with the help of a favorite station personality, Beermug. Wahoo’s Fish Tacos will be on-site with their taco truck serving Showcase Series fans the first 50 tacos FREE.

The Showcase Series is free to submit, free to participate and all shows are free to attend. OC Music Awards received hundreds of submissions from artists all across the county hoping to partake in the two-month long live series.

OC Music Awards will be announcing the 2012 Awards nominees in 22 categories on Monday, January 2. Stay tuned for more OC Music Awards news and updates. See you at the show!

Tall Tales & the Silver Lining, Sparrows Gate, and Rad Cloud @ Avalon

2011-12-21T14:37:00.000-08:00

JAN 12^TH 2012

The Avalon Bar

820 W 19th St
Costa Mesa, CA 92627

(949) 515-4650

Tall Tales and the Silver Lining

http://talltalesandthesilverlining.bandcamp.com/

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tall-Tales-and-the-silver-lining/322410017434

“Nice to Meet You Again,” reveals that that he’s mastered unblemished, picturesque folk-pop, best exemplified on the upbeat summer track, “Dyed in the Wool.”- Ears wide open, Buzzbands.LA

Sparrows Gate

http://www.sparrowsgatemusic.com/player.html

http://www.facebook.com/sparrowsgate

“They have a sound that falls somewhere between Drive-By Truckers and early electric Dylan, when he was backed by The Band. Bearded front man Zebedee Zaitz and his brother Anthony, on bass, look for all the world like the Avett Brothers, and they bring the same intensity to the stage. Fortunately they don’t break as many strings. Dig the harmonica and steel guitar, that’s real twang right there boys.”- Fiddle Freak

Rad Cloud

http://fullyintercoastal.com/radcloud.html

http://www.facebook.com/radcloud

...the upbeat, San Francisco surf rock of Rad Cloud. The raddest part about Rad Cloud is that the members appeared consistently blissed-out. Even drummer Sarah Ashton smiled brightly while simultaneously sweating out the group's peppy beats and occasionally chiming in with backup vocals. Their obvious enthusiasm for performing added a lot to what felt at times like a rushed set...- Sf Weekly

Talking Elephants: A Q&A with Marc B.

2011-12-16T11:03:00.000-08:00

So what’s this big news you’ve got to share with us?

Album, album, album. I’m getting into the studio with an amazing band, The Song and Dance Society, who’ve toured with Jackson Browne and Graham Nash for years and years. They also played with Brett Dennen and produced his first album, ‘So Much More.’ Very, very talented guys...So we’ve been rehearsing my songs and its nuts...like so fuckin’ easy to play with these guys. It’s a trip. Absolute dream. It’s really allowed me to branch out.

Is it difficult branching out as far as you can while still keeping your message in tact?

That’s every artist’s challenge. My dad would beat that into my brain when I was a kid. He would say, ‘Your songs are not made to play to your bedroom wall. Do not write songs for that reason. Play them for people.’

It seems like when you were explaining your song, you had a direct message. If you look at any great musician, there always seems to be some sort of philosophy.

My music has always been a reflection of who I am, so my first album was this pretty happy-go-lucky, beachy, let’s just have some fun by the campfire and jam. That’s what I had been through at age 19. Since then, I’ve been brought down to my knees and back like five times and become a man. This new album is going to reflect all that. I can’t wait.

How old are you now?

27, a good age. I’m getting into this phase where I just want to put my head down and work. I’m really settled into my life as a singer and a songwriter. I’m done exploring, although I will explore more, because I’m not ever done...I’m just done hiking these tropical mountaintops and searching for myself...for now. I feel like I’ve found out who I am and now I’m ready to document it and share it.

Tell me more about your travels. I know there have been many adventures.

Let’s talk about homes. I’ve been in 15 houses in the past eight years. I move every six months on the dot because I like moving to a center of a really vibrant location, and then wiggling myself into the very middle of it, becoming friends with everyone, and then leaving. Then, when I return, it’s like, ‘Hey!’ I don’t like the idea of settling in, or having a schedule, a routine.

You never truly say goodbye then…

Yes, and so it’s this happy-medium of being lonely sometimes because I don’t have any one central clique that I can call home, but also never being alone because I have positive friends all over the world. I connect the dots all over the place. I’ve lived in Fountain Valley, Long Beach, Hawaii, Ventura, San Diego, Encinitas, Newport, Huntington, Los Angeles, and now I live in Hollywood. I also went to Argentina not too long ago.

What were you there for?

To play music, make a greenhouse, and make a film. We went out there with eight people. There were four of the best professional women snowboarders in the world, two musicians, an environmentalist, a videographer, and a photographer. So we went out there and it was this dream team, and we built this greenhouse out of recycled plastic bottles. It really was phenomenal. It took us 35 hours to travel to Patagonia. When we got there, we collected 3,000 plastic bottles from the community and built this greenhouse. We built the structure out of 2x4’s, bamboo, and bottles from the garbage.

We didn’t really know what we were doing. We learned as we went. All we knew is we wanted to create this. We were in eight feet of snow (hence the snowboard film being made), and it was August, which is the middle of Winter. I had no idea that bamboo grows in the snow. We’d cut the top and bottom off of these 2-liter bottles and strung the bottles on like a necklace. The plastic makes a reflective material, and so that was the wall of the greenhouse. We built it and put it in a school, and planted vegetation in it. I guess it yields like 20% more vegetation per year, and it also encourages the kids to be conscious of the environment and helping the community. I think at the very least, the impact is that it inspired people. I realized when I watched the video how relevant it must have looked. All these people came from LA, who are musicians and athletes. It really seemed to affect the community. They still talk about it, we still have friends over there, and they still write us and send pictures of the greenhouse.

Other than that, I’ve just been traveling. I did a tour where we did like 15 cities in three weeks. We started in San Diego, went all the way up the coast to San Fransisco, spent a week there, then went to Tahoe, did a snowboard film premier there, then it was back down the coast from San Fran to Santa Cruz, and San Luis Obispo.

What’s your opinion when a musicians claims, ‘I don’t want to be labeled.’

To me, music is labeled by the mood that it evokes, or through the message. It seems easier to define those things, rather than sound, because of all the sub-categories these days. To me, it’s more about having something to say. But Bob Dylan is put into our lives for that reason. He’s the perfect example. You don’t have to be the best, you just have to have something to say, and you have to do what you do better than anyone else could. No one can be Bob Dylan as good as he can be Bob Dylan. I also realized that I shouldn’t hide my problems, I should write about them and expose them, ‘cause guess who else has problems? Every single human in the whole world, and that’s what music is for us. That’s what connects us to artists. When you discover that hidden lyric and you’re like, ‘Oh my god, he’s talking about a girl…or his drug addiction…or something that I’ve felt.’ There’s that human connection, and that’s what music is all about. Believing.

What do you believe in?

I believe in love. I believe in love and the ability of our human race to evolve.

In the end, there is still a mortgage and car payment…

(laughs) That’s what I can’t get. I think about the things that I do, and they’re so in-the-moment things. Like surfing; eyes roll back in your head and you’re on autopilot. Music, same thing. Eyes roll back in my head, and then I wake up and the show’s done. All the things that I do are about making ‘right now’ as good as possible. But I believe that a balance and a moderation in life is valuable.

But how do artists survive?

Because it’s all we know. There’s nothing you can do to kill the process, because I need it to live. So I spend all of my waking life planning ways to spread my creativity and share my art.

It’s where ‘culture’ is born. To be aware in that moment, and to be able to document what is going on around…I find that most people can’t reach that state of mind.

‘Cause we don’t have the power to see this moment as we will in the future. The clothes that we wear, the music that we listen to is brand new, but we’re going to look back and be like, ‘Those hairstyles and those glasses and the music, that is so 2011.’ Fuck trying to grab the coattails of another artist like Jack Johnson or Edward Sharpe. Musicians just need to keep doing what we’re doing, find a way to unite, and just be a presence. Are you a musician? I want to meet you. Everything that we’ve seen through history is happening right now too...with this occupy movement and all...I’ve seen it through so many people’s work. It all is related under one common theme, and depends on being in control, or letting something else control you.

It’s a lot easier to convince yourself to not do something rather than to do something. When you jump into a new environment, always in the back of your mind, you’re scared. Do you think that keeps people from producing?

Yes. I always talk about this vibration, or this energy that’s in our life. For the two things that I do, it’s most obvious forms are the wave—a wave of energy when surfing—and then the wave of energy from a crowd in the audience. When you go to a sports game, you can physically feel the energy of 30,000 people screaming together. It’s measurable and it’s a presence. People who can utilize that energy, flow with it, and align with it, are—in my profession, called performers. They can channel that energy. It’s our responsibility as humans to channel that, and not to limit our creativity in any way.

I’m not trying to preach and be holier than thou, but it’s what I have personally discovered to be true in my life, and that’s it. And that’s all that advice really is—my own perspective on life. I mean, if you ask a 35-year-old happily married man about marriage, he will have one opinion. You ask a twice-divorced guy in the bar about marriage, and he’ll say a totally different thing, ‘cause their advice comes from different places.

This is the advice that I have based on what I know. That’s it.

Tell me about your move to Los Angeles.

Before I lived here I didn’t like coming here. Just recently I got shown the right people, like my Producer Kevin, the right nooks, the right places to eat, like Cafe Gratitude, ya know? Those things changed my whole world.

I can see how it would totally get you inspired. When it comes to recording, what is it that you want to say, now that you have grown up a bit?

So much. It’s been a long time since I put another album out, so it’s like all of my life experiences are going into these songs. This album deals with forgiveness, awareness, pollution, depression, and pure unbridled love/happiness. Sums up my past year!

Tell me about the first single from the album. I heard you used some interesting tactics.

Ha! You’re talking about ‘Forgiven.’ So I was at Kellen Malloys’s place, we were plugging in all these midi-sounds in his keyboard, and he was like, ‘This sounds cool, what do you think about this one, this is cool, what about these shakers?’ Nothing sounded right. So I was like, ‘Alright, hear me out, let’s just try something. Mic my lap, and we’ll see what works.’ So he put a mic near my pocket, and I stood up did this (plays beat with hands on his legs). We filled my pocket with change, I put my cellphone in my other one, we did that beat onto the song, and it came out spectacular. It sounds exactly like real life, and it was created in real life, more importantly. I’m playing tiki torches, we’ve got a stomp, and a butterknife on the reeds...random shit.

People are spending a ton of money on a drum-head, and I’m literally using the change in my pocket, and getting, what I think, is a better, more accurate sound. Percussion especially, everything has a sound (knocks on the chair, the table, etc.). It’s just a matter of putting it in with the right combination of other sounds to make it sound good and attractive and what we want. I’m kind of going on a tangent, but everything has a sound, so I just started listening to what everything sounds like, and used the things that are right in front of me. So that’s what the album is gonna do, sound-wise. It’s super exciting.

What do you see as your future until you can relax and surf in your old age?

Near future is here in Hollywood, after that, maybe New York—just because I want to be driven and surrounded by driven people. The only faster place than LA would be New York. When I am old...I don’t know. Maybe start a life in Australia somewhere near Byron Bay. It all depends on what I create. Can’t plan it too much though.

You can plan as much as you want, there will always be random occurrences—those elephants.

Yes! And I follow my gut, definitely. You can convince yourself not to do something if you think about it long enough instead of just going for it. I always just go.

For more info, visit http://www.facebook.com/marcbmusic

To pre-order Marc's new album, visit http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/marcb/marc-b-new-album-and-tour

Inside the Burger Bubble: A Q&A with Burger Records

2011-12-11T18:41:00.000-08:00

Recently, I found myself on the 91 Freeway, exiting State College Blvd. in Fullerton, heading over the train tracks, and turning left into an unassuming strip of small businesses amidst a neighborhood of industrial companies. The only signs of Burger Records were a modest red and white light box sign attached to the building above the entrance, and a few bins of dollar records placed out front to entice potential customers. But once I swung the glass-paneled door open, I was greeted by the lingering scent of Nag Champa incense, the glow of green walls the color of grass in the Springtime, a premium tune being emitted via vinyl from speakers in the back, and an eclectic mix of records and music oddities that had been discovered on Craigslist, at swap meets, or the local non-profit retail shop. Owners and operators Sean Bohrman, Lee Rickard, Brian Flores and Bobby May greeted and invited me to the stock room in the way back filled with VHS tapes, record back-stock, posters, cassette tapes, crates, chests, bookshelves, tables, and couches to tell me about how the business began before the doors of the establishment officially opened two years ago, and what it means to truly be in the ‘Burger Bubble.’

Before Burger Records even existed, did all four of you already know each other?

Lee Rickard: Yeah. We’ve been doing the label about five years. It all started with mine and Sean’s old band Thee Makeout Party!, and Brian (Flores) used to have a record store called Third Eye Records. He was a fan of our music, and he actually chipped in and paid for half of Burger recording number one, but he had his own label at the time called Yellow Sun Records.

Bohrman: I met Lee back in high school back in ’98.

Rickard: We became friends around Halloween time of ’98 at Koo’s Cafe and he was making fun of my long hair. Then he started taking me to the movie theater. I never really watched movies, so I finally started entering pop culture. I grew up on a horse stable in Anaheim called Rancho Del Rios Stables that was established in 1970. My mom helped run it for 30 or so years. That’s where I kind of learned how to run a family business, and a lot of that stuff transferred to Burger. We’re still working out the kinks.

That’s always a constant part of business I suppose? When did you decide it was time to start the shop here, and why did you choose Fullerton?

Bohrman: Well I grew up in Anaheim.

Rickard: We met in East Anaheim. We went to Katella High School.

Bohrman: Then later we had Thee Makeout Party!, and we started playing with this band called Audacity, who were from around here and are really good. That’s how we met Bobby.

Bobby May: I’m from Fullerton, and Audacity is from Fullerton, and we all went to Fullerton High School.

Rickard: But when we truly bonded with Bobby, we were driving back from Brea’s Best and we saw Bobby walking by his lonesome…

Bohrman: …just down the street and we were like, ‘Hey we know that guy, pull over.’ And so we turned around and then we picked him up. Then we went to like three shows that night. It was a crazy night.

Rickard: We played a show sponsored by Vice and Colt 45. Then we went to another party, and another party at the end too. It was a hectic night.

Music and partying basically brought you guys together?

Rickard: Yeah, and same with Brian. He had his record store where we used to buy all of our records.

Bohrman: I worked right next to there for years. I was a graphic designer and on my lunch breaks I would go there and look at records. We would trade music and we had a lot in common.

So Brian, you’re a little bit of the ringleader over here then?

Brian Flores: I went to like all of Thee Makeout Party! shows.

Bohrman: We took him on tour across the country.

Rickard: Multiple times.

Flores: We had been hanging out for a while before we opened the record store.

Bohrman: I was working at the magazine, and I was going to go on tour with Makeout Party, and my work wasn’t going to let me go, like they had two times before, because the economy went bad. Then I decided I’m just going to quit after working there for four and a half years. If I had saved another half a year, I would have gotten like $10,000 matched for my 401k, but I didn’t. I just cashed out my 401k and got $7,000, and opened the store with Brian when we got back from tour. It’s been going really well.

(L-R) Bobby May, Sean Bohrman, Lee Noise Rickard, Brian Flores
Photo by Olivia Hemaratanatorn

No regrets?

Bohrman: No. At the time, I would drive around and just start to think about things, and I’d think, ‘What am I doing?’

Rickard: Well the beginning process with all the paperwork and the political aspect…

Bohrman: It’s the worst.

There are quite a lot of hoops to jump through. Has the ‘bad economy’ affected your business at all?

Bohrman: It hasn’t really affected us as a store because people continue to buy music. Last year around Fall ‘10 was our slowest time that we’ve had in the last two years. This year hasn’t slowed down, which is good.

Rickard: Art thrives in times of desperation. That’s what fuels the fire for the freaks. And there’s a handful of people that buy nearly everything we put out, and that keeps us floating and it encourages us to put more and more out. So everyday we’re doing layouts and every week we’re putting out new releases. The ball is rolling, as they say.

For a band or an artist, their success seems to depend on if the vessel is genuine. It seems like you have an excellent vessel floating here.

Rickard: We try to stay positive, and just seeing things and believing they can happen. It’s easy to go, ‘Well that’s tough, and that’s gonna be hard, and that’s not gonna happen for this many reasons.’ It’s like, it can happen, and if you already believe that, then you can get your partners to believe that. Then everyone believes who are on the same wavelength, like your friends and family. You believe, and then it just blows up. As long as it’s positive, and you’re doing good and helping other people, it will come back to you ten-fold.

So you started the label before you opened the store?

Rickard: The store has been open for two years, and the label has been around for a handful of years. Before the label, we were writing Burger Productions on our artwork. As far as legitimizing over the last two years, the store has been a front for our religion. People from all over the world come here, it’s pretty cool stuff.

Brian, you had your record store Third Eye Records. How long have you been in the industry?

Flores: I’ve been in the music industry since I was about 17 years old. I worked for Tower Records up north in San Francisco. My goal always was to work for a major record label in artistic development. I interned for two years before opening my own store, and then I finally did it. So I was doing that sort of work up north, developing bands was what I wanted to do, but I found out the industry was what I hated, and everything started collapsing and there were mergers and stuff. My job was not secure at all, so I freaked out.

Is that when you decided to start your own business?

Flores: It took a little while, but I knew even if I wasn’t working at a record store, I’d be volunteering at a record store. I just had to be around it.

I definitely understand the need to have music around all the time.

Rickard: It’s a ritual; it’s spiritual. When you listen to a record, in ten or 15 minutes, you’re going to have to flip it over. In between, you have time to read every detail and look into every nuance.

We’ve lost that aspect as we’ve moved into a digital age? When you have a computer with thousands of songs on it, you can hit the space bar to play, just let it run, and you don’t have to think about it that much.

Rickard: If you have a computer and a space bar. But when you live in space and the world is your bar, you just go with the flow and it’s easier for us to make friends with all the rock and roll bands that are playing.

Flores: Burger Space (laughs).

With vinyl, it’s necessary to stay connected—you have to flip the record and have more of a relationship with it.

Rickard: Exactly. It’s more up front in your mind, and it’s not something like a CD where you can listen to it while you’re driving.

Sean, what are you drawing over there? You’re a lefty, eh?

Bohrman: Yep, just doodles.

Tell me more about the label. I would ask whom you’re working with, but there is a long list of artist names.

Rickard: We have done over 150 some odd releases thus far.

Bohrman: We’re adding new stuff everyday. There’s so much good music happening right now that we’re just trying to keep up with it.

What do you think about the majors?

Rickard: We just do our own thing. If you can push a record and believe in it. The majors really believe in it, but…

May: Jive, Arista, and J Records all went under yesterday. They all collapsed under into RCA and they got rid of them.

Rickard: That just shows the foundation of those labels. They lose so much when they blow up and they turn into something that has no soul behind it. We’re thriving because we believe in something, that’s not just our imagination, but all of our imaginations, including the bands and our friends. It turns into a bigger thing. It’s not that manipulated.

I wonder if those guys at the majors wake up and feel the obsession like you guys do?

Flores: It’s about business and numbers.

Rickard: We’re passionate about it. Our numbers may be small, but they have grown. We want every tape to get in the right hands. It’s not about collecting money all the time, it’s more like, ‘You need to hear this.’ If it triggers something, then we just want to spread the gospel of rock and roll because we believe in the music.

I think you guys would be doing that even if you didn’t have a record store.

Rickard: Sean and I would go to the swap meets early in the morning on the weekends, and dig through records. We would buy great records over and over again. If you find a great record for a $1, you’re going to buy it and give it to your friend and tell them, ‘This will change your life.’ It’s a good feeling and that’s what the store is basically. It started with our own collections, and then turning our friends onto it.

Community seems to be a big thing for you guys, and I notice you put on shows here at the shop, and also get the locals involved with label production as well.

Rickard: When we had a band, we would do whatever it took to make shit happen. There’s a handful of people that do shows at their house, and touring bands come through and they are down to make shit happen. We’re down too. People come through and say that nothing else is popping up, and I’ll be like, ‘Yeah, you can play the store.’ It’s a big deal to some, and a big deal to give that outlet. All of the neighborhood is doing awesome too. They want to hear the bands. Feeding People, Cosmonauts, Cum Stain, Audacity, Death Hymn—there’s too many bands in the neighborhood to even remember.

How do bands usually contact you guys? Or is it you reaching out to them?

Rickard: Occasionally we do reach out to bands—shit that we’re super horny for. We’ll send vibes, and that’s how we got to work with some of the bigger artists like Milk ‘n’ Cookies. A lot of friends from the community have turned us on to stuff after a while. Touring got us in touch with a lot of people too.

Bohrman: We hear about bands sometimes through friends. Every once in a while, we’ll get a demo or something from a band. We get demos all the time, but every once in a while, we’ll get one that’s really good.

Rickard: We want to know that people, and if we want it to be like a friendly family-based thing, it’s not like we’re just trying to get the big dogs to make it look legit. We know what it is. It’s organic, and we’re really into those records at the time. We get obsessed. We’re freaks, or whatever you want to call it. We’ll listen to records over and over again for however many days, weeks, months, or years. It’s all the bands that make Burger. We just love them so much that we give them an outlet. If they want to make a tape, we’re stoked. Like The Go, was a favorite band of ours and now we’re putting out their box-set. They’re like, ‘You like us? You really really like us? We’ll will you do this?’ and we’re like, ‘Yes.’ So we’re doing a five-tape box set that should be out for the holidays.

Most bands don’t exactly get ‘the treatment’ when they’re on the road playing venues and meeting people.

Rockard: Yeah, touring in America at $5 a gallon for gas. We did it for years. We’ve always been like the outsiders or like the freaks, or the socially awkward people, and we have our moments of being personable, but it’s taken a lot for us to come out of our shells. It’s nice when people say, ‘We like what you do.’ There’s a handful of kids, the same names, who are buying every release on our list. We give them whatever we can, we want to turn people on.

What do you guys have in mind for the future? Seems like you’re on a good path so far…

Rickard: Yeah, until the world ends next year (laughs). We live in the moment, and we definitely feed off of energy. Earlier, one of the dudes from Tyrannis was here. We’re feeding off people who are doing art and layout and putting out tapes. Kyle from Audacity called me a vibe-sucker.

Bohrman: Vibe-vampire, or something like that.

Rickard: But it’s true. It’s like we feed off of these energies. People I’m excited to see, I’ll start freaking out and bouncing off of the walls.

What would you say an average day here at the shop is like? Are all of you here every single day?

Rickard: No.

Flores: I’m here five days a week.

May: Five or six.

Bohrman: I’m here everyday. I have nowhere else to go.

Rickard: That’s my excuse too.

Bohrman: But this is where I want to be.

Rickard: We created this. We eat and breathe it. It’s always on the brain. And it’s great that we’re not working for someone else anymore. Average day entails—you really want to know this shit?

I do.

Bohrman: I wake up and I go to the bank, and the post-office.

Rickard: For mail-order, we send stuff every couple of days. In the entry-way of the store, there’s usually a couple packages to go worldwide.

Brian I feel like you’re the record organizer. Every time I’ve come in here, you’re always pricing a stack of records.

Rickard: He’s the pricer. He’s had so much experience, in the stores, and he knows the value of records. Sometimes I’m like, ‘Really Brian? This is gonna sell for this much money?’ And he’s always like, ‘Yeah.’

Borhman: Lee would be like, ‘Why is he pricing it so high? It’s just going to sit there!’ Then like two hours later, somebody will come by and buy it. He’s knows what he’s doing.

Flores: There’s a lot to it. It takes Lee to motivate us a lot of the time; back here in the stock room especially. If he wasn’t around, we’d be in tons of filth.

Rickard: We have so many movies and records, and we’re trying to get Burger Video off of the ground, so we need to alphabetize. We’ve started alphabetizing this side, and this side there’s a trunk full that you can’t even see. We want to turn our love for creepy movies into something that the community can enjoy.

So what’s the rest of a normal day like?

Rickard: Sean usually puts out new orders and new arrivals around midnight. If that happens, when you get in the store at 11am the next day, there will be a stack of orders. Sean likes to go get coffee and cookies, and feed off of that. Then we’ll do layout design, mail order, business orders, and talk to bands—groundwork trying to make shit happen.

Are you guys all working on the computer usually?

Rickard: I’m retarded on the computer.

Borhman: Bobby does a little work on the computer. Brian and Lee don’t have email or a computer.

Rickard: So we kinda have an idea of what Sean’s going through being the main computer guy, but we have no idea.

Borhman: I can write anything I want about them on the Internet and they’ll never know.

When you’re doing Burger computer work, what are you normally shuffling through?

Borhman: Through the releases we have coming up. Through business. I make a list of things to do everyday. This is my new book. (Shows a clean, detailed, numbered list written in caps inside of his lined notebook). This is the new one. I don’t know, it’s all just random stuff. Some people contacted us about licensing Tomorrow’s Tulips. New merch. Hyping shows, buttons, and new releases.

You seem quite organized.

Rickard: He is right there (in the notebook). But sometimes he leaves his personal stuff at the cash register.

Borhman: I can’t pay attention. Burger is all I think about and the only thing I do anything about. So when it comes to my personal upkeep, or anything relating to myself, it gets lost in the dust.

Rickard: This is our temple, this is our church.

Hopefully people will show respect to the spot so it doesn’t go anywhere.

Rickard: This is what we want—to share with you and help everyone. Some people lose grip on that reality. We’re in the Burger bubble full-time. This is it. Sean will be over there doing layouts, I’ll be moving things around and getting tapes out for the week.

Between Two Buns: The Burger Records Story from Jack Sample on Vimeo.

Do you design the art for the tapes Sean?

Borhman: Not all of it, but a lot of it.

Rickard: He has to fit the artwork to a tape format. So if they send us stuff, every tape is different from the original album itself. It’s not credited, but Sean’s doing layout, and we’re designing things together.

You worked at a magazine before Burger?

Borhman: I did. I graduated college in 2004, and then I got the job.

Rickard: I found the job in the paper for him as a graphic designer, and he found a job for me as a costume character. I ended up being Lady Liberty on the corner for a few months during tax season, and then he ended up getting a job for a few years.

Looks like you’re definitely an artist.

Borhman: It’s mainly just doodles. I’m not an artist.

Rickard: Hearts and flowers, and I draw on every package. We’re getting positive feedback. We put love into everything. There’s blood, sweat, tears, hair—lord knows what else.

That comes for free.

Rickard: It’s all free. We take pride in everything we do. All the tapes are hand-numbered during the first pressing. We’re assembling, we’re manufacturing, we’re designing—we’re so involved with it. It’s about the subtle things, and it comes through. When you are putting that much effort into them, you need to number them so people know—this is hard and look at what we went through to prove to you what we did for this limited amount of tapes. It’s a lot of effort and energy.

It’s cool that you have a whole team to help out here at Burger.

Richard: Yeah, doing it alone can be daunting. If I’m by myself, putting a bunch of tapes together, I could choose to create a machine for myself. But the other way, your friends come, drink a couple beers, and then next thing you know, you just put together a thousand tapes because you’re just hanging out and partying. Everyone that helps gets the free merch. Ultimately, you get to feel a part of the music.

OC Music Awards Announces Best Live Band and Best Live Acoustic Showcases

2011-12-02T19:26:00.000-08:00

OC Music Awards Announces the 2012 Showcase Series Artists and Schedule

On Tuesday, January 3, the 2012 OC Music Awards Showcase Series kicks off at Costa Mesa’s Detroit Bar launching 7 weeks of free showcases at different venues across the county. 35 local artists will compete for the titles of Best Live Band or Best Live Acoustic, a performance slot at the 2012 OC Music Awards on March 3 at the City National Grove of Anaheim, and a generous prize pack from the Awards partners that will be announced in January.

The Showcase Series is free to submit, free to participate and all shows are free to attend. OC Music Awards received hundreds of submissions from artists across the county hoping to partake in the two-month long live series.

The World Famous KROQ station DJs will host each Showcase event and four respected industry professionals will participate as the Showcase Series Judges, scoring each band’s performance on musicianship, originality, song composition, stage presence and show attendance. The five finalists in each live category will move onto the Showcase Series Finals. Best Live Acoustic Finals will be held on Friday, February 24 and Best Live Band Finals on Saturday, February 25.

Fans of the OC Music Awards Showcase Series artists have opportunity to get involved through Fan Vote. Once the Showcase Series kicks off, fans can vote online at http://ocmusicawards.com for their favorite participating Showcase artist and move one band in each category onto the Showcase Series Finals, regardless of the Judges scores. Fans who vote automatically enter to win the “Fan Vote” prize pack courtesy of the OC Music Awards partners to be announced in January.

Farmer John joins OC Music Awards as presenting partner in 2012 and will bring their take on “tasting the local flavor” to the Showcase Series and main Awards show. Annual OC Music Awards partners 106.7FM KROQ, Bud Light, Wahoo’s, Red Bull, and BMI will also have interactive presence throughout the Showcase Series and March 3 event.

The final 35 participating 2012 Showcase Series artists and the complete schedule follows. Visit OC Music Awards online for more local music updates. http://ocmusicawards.com

2012 OC Music Awards
Showcase Series Billing and Schedule

1/03 Best Live Band
Venue: Detroit Bar, 843 West 19th St., Costa Mesa, CA 92627
Doors: 7:30p, 21+
(8:00) Jeramiah Red
(8:45) Paulie Pesh
(9:30) The Gromble
(10:15) Strange Birds
(11:00) James Fletcher

1/10 Best Live Acoustic
Venue: The District at Tustin Legacy, 2437 Park Ave., Tustin, CA 92782
Doors: 6:30p, all ages
(7:00) Nicole Vaughn
(7:45) Erick Macek
(8:30) Allensworth
(9:15) Moonsville Collective
(10:00) Headshine

1/17 Best Live Band
Venue: Slidebar, 122 East Commonwealth Ave., Fullerton, CA 92832
Doors: 7:30p, 21+
(8:00) We Are She Is
(8:45) Midnight Hour
(9:30) Ceasefire
(10:15) We Are the Arsenal
(11:00) PWEST

1/24 Best Live Acoustic
Venue: Malone’s, 604 East Dyer Rd., Santa Ana, CA 92705
Doors: 6:30p, 21+
(7:00) Kacie Yoshida
(7:45) Button Willow Locomotive
(8:30) I Hate You Just Kidding
(9:15) Skee
(10:00) Honeypie

1/31 Best Live Band
Venue: Tiki Bar, 1700 Placentia Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92627
Doors: 7:30p, 21+
(8:00) Red9
(8:45) Slime Kings
(9:30) Snakebit Drifters
(10:15) Death Hymn Number 9
(11:00) Railroad to Alaska

2/07 Best Live Acoustic
Venue: Continental Room, 115 West Santa Fe Ave., Fullerton, CA 92832
Doors: 6:30p, 21+
(7:00) Mandie & Ruby
(7:45) FoxxHound
(8:30) Danny Maika
(9:15) Parker Macy
(10:00) Tully James Wilkinson

2/14 Best Live Band
Venue: Constellation Room, 3503 South Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana, CA 92704
Doors: 7:30p, 21+
(8:00) Ethan Hulse
(8:45) Robert Jon & the Wreck
(9:30) Italian Japanese
(10:15) The Devious Means
(11:00) Mphase

2/24 Best Live Acoustic Finals
Venue: Bands and Venue TBA

2/25 Best Live Band Finals
Venue: Bands and Venue TBA

3/03 2012 OC Music Awards
Venue: The City National Grove of Anaheim, 2200 East Katella Ave., Anaheim, CA 92806

Selling Records the SLO Way: A Q&A with Mike White of Boo Boo Records

2011-12-01T19:36:00.000-08:00

When I was just hitting junior high, I would tag along with my brother over the hill to San Luis Obispo to take a look through the musical selection at Boo Boo’s. I would thumb though the racks of unfamiliar album titles and artists of all genres, sorting through each section to discover the most worthy candidates to purchase. These days, the store pretty much looks the same architecturally, but I’ve noticed a gang of ghosts being resurrected in the back room of this mid-sized shop—bins brimming with old and new records. After facing a dip in the retail sector, experiencing a shift in ownership, and receiving the title as one of the Top 30 record stores in America from Rolling Stone, Boo Boo Records and sole owner Mike White is truly setting the tone for what it means to be a successful local business and record store in an ever-expanding digital society these days.

When did Boo Boo Records first open?

1974.

And when did you get involved?

I came up here to go to Cal Poly in 1974, which happened to have been around the same time the record store opened in December of ’74. I was up here in September to go to school, and I became a customer there for four years. They went from having a little spot down by the train station, to Downtown.

I didn’t even know there was an original location before.

Do you know where Pete’s Southside Café, or where Lou’s is right now? Basically over by the train station, but one street down. They were there for four years, decided they needed a bigger place, and they came Downtown in 1978. That’s when I started working for them. I worked as a clerk and I was going to school. They never had a manager—just owners and employees—so I assumed that role after I graduated, and then became an owner in ’85. I slowly worked my way to being by myself.

You became sole owner recently?

More than a year ago—June 1^st of 2010. There were two of us for the last three or four years. One of the original owners still comes in twice a week and works on the vinyl as a paid consultant.

While we’re on the topic of vinyl, what are your current thoughts on the subject?

It’s enjoying a tremendous renaissance. Each year has been better than the one before. Five or six years back, record companies had finally come to their senses, and they started producing vinyl concurrently with new releases on CD. I think it’s great. The hard-core collectors never really went away. They were always searching for their vinyl. But it has brought in a younger crowd of high school and college age kids who are discovering their parent’s record collection and are digging how it’s such a cool thing. It’s neat because it provides a frame of reference and a perspective for kids that age to understand where it originated. To have lost that would have been tragic. To have it come back now is glorious.

Digital has its place, but analog is also something that can’t be replaced.

And even if you’re not into the sound difference…like my kids, they can kind of get how a DVD or a CD works, but if you drop a needle onto a record and it starts making music, that’s like a magic trick.

Playing a record is a little like magic.

It’s amazing. So, whatever level they are digging it on, it’s great.

Don’t you think the aesthetic of the art that comes along with the vinyl packaging is interesting too?

Yeah, and it was all shrunk down and now it’s back to its original form. There’s also some smart marketing going on where they are actually including the CD for free, or they put a digital download in there. They are really embracing the whole spectrum.

It seems like more bands are pressing vinyl themselves. Do you get albums from touring bands as they come through town?

We get a lot coming in and buying vinyl. A lot that come through are already getting distributed, and they like to see it come through the channels of the distribution. But a few bring their own stuff in for sure, especially local guys.

How is the San Luis Obispo music scene? And do you have the Indie stuff occurring like in Orange County?

It’s pretty vibrant. Some Roots, and Americana. There’s several of those bands, one of them being Still Time. There’s a ton of that stuff going on.

Do you get a lot of performers because of Cal Poly?

Yeah, the college has an influence. A lot of local kids stay put too just playing their music. Matter of fact, I just hired a kid a few months ago. He’s in a band, and that’s what he wants to do. He doesn’t care about making a ton of money, he just wants to make enough to get by, and have the classic bohemian lifestyle. Every once in awhile one of them will punch through.

Like PK. It’s great to see them succeeding and touring a bit.

You ever heard of M. Ward?

Oh yeah.

He used to work here.

I remember buying Transfiguration of Vincent O’Brien and one of the clerks told me M. Ward used to work at Boo Boo’s.

I hired Matt. He worked here about a year and a half while he was going to school. He was in this really cool band called Rodriguez. The lead singer was a guy from Little Wing, Kyle Field, and Mike Funk was drumming, and M. Ward was playing guitar.

Were any of them born locally?

I think they were all transplants, but they were a local band in the sense that they were all living here at the time, but none of them had actually grown up here.

That’s what it’s all about. The bands that really are successful move around and meet people.

And now he’s gotten so big. He’s doing that thing with Zooey Deschanel.

What about working with the local venues?

We work with Downtown Brew, which has reverted back to SLO Brew. That’s where most of the shows are held. We sell a bunch of tickets.

You work directly with them then?

Absolutely. We do all their ticket sales.

No Ticketmaster or Live Nation?

No, thank goodness. We sell the Mid-State Fair tickets as well. We’re one of about 30 outlets that does that.

The Mid-State Fair definitely gets a substantial about of successful musicians to play.

They have got a big budget. They are real Country-heavy usually, but they generally have something for everybody.

It seems music has been shifting towards a more Folk and Americana style.

More Roots.

San Luis Obispo seems to be all about roots. What are you excited about looking into 2012?

We’re excited about staying in business. That’s what we’re excited about. A lot of record stores have not faired so well.

What makes you guys different?

We’ve been here for 37 years, for one thing. I think we have a lot of cache with the locals. We do a lot of donating, so there has always been this handshake with the community. It’s crucial. But we’ve always provided a deep catalog. It’s about having a good selection at a fair price, with good service. If you keep those three things together, customers will be loyal to you. What we’ve done lately, as the CD sales have shrunk, we offer more of a mixed product out on the floor.

I noticed more books, more apparel…

We’ve always kind of had a little bit of, but we’ve really gone after that and it’s paid off. Plus more band-related paraphernalia, like guitar-shaped spatulas. People love that stuff. If it allows us to keep doing what we love to do—sell music—so I’m all for it.

Anything else you’re excited for?

Main thing I’m excited for is owning Boo Boo’s by myself now. Consolidating ownership has allowed us to be more fiscally healthy, because we’re not splitting the pie.

A group of investors probably helped keep the shop open in tough times.

When there were partners, we all had our separate areas of expertise. So we would bounce stuff off of each other. Ultimately the decision was made though. I’ve got great employees, and when all is said and done, that’s what it comes down to. If you have shitty employees, then people will feel that. If they are treated badly, then that also shines through. So it’s important to take care of them.

So true. In my youth, I always felt this was the place to go to find those hidden gems. I wouldn’t walk through and necessarily hear pop music.

Pop has its place. We cater to everybody. We don’t want to be playing real obscure indie stuff all day either. But you’re right. You get a little flavor each time you come in, and we try to mix it up as much as we can. We’re hanging in there. We also have an online presence on Amazon.com, so we have an internet-wing of the business. They’re usually working in the backroom here.

Online is definitely a good way to go as well.

You’re selling to the world, not just to the people who walk in your door. Having the internet has been good and bad, but if you choose not to embrace it, then you’re just going to get left behind. It’s an amazing thing.

Someone in Russia could purchase an album from you?

Oh yeah, we sell stuff in Japan, France—it’s fun to watch the orders come in. They’re from all over.

I heard a few months back you were listed in the Top 30 Record Stores according to Rolling Stone?

Isn’t that amazing? We’ve definitely seen a rise in business. It was kind of a perfect storm because—are you familiar with Record Store Day?

Yes.

Record Store Day was a Saturday, and on Friday, the local camera crew from KSBY came in and says, ‘Hey, you’ve been selected.’ I knew we had gotten a phone call from Rolling Stone in regards to being considered. So on Friday I’m doing this piece with KSBY for the 6pm and 11pm news, and in it I was telling them about coming out to Record Store Day. I got so many people coming into the store the next day that were aware of the Rolling Stone thing. The day was a success, and we had thousands throughout the day. It was phenomenal. But to have that notoriety was huge. Little towns kind of fly under the radar when it comes to national stuff. Apparently a Cal Poly graduate was on the board and mentioned us. She got the word in for us.

You never know when a good word from a customer just might help out.

That was great. You can’t buy that kind of advertising.

Well it always felt like this place had personality.

As far as having an intimate feel, and 37 years of funk—we’re proud of it. Glad we’re still doing it.

The Model Worker: A Q&A with Chris Fahey

2011-10-25T13:32:00.000-07:00

To begin our scheduled interview and second official encounter, Chris Fahey and I met at Port of Sound in Costa Mesa. Once inside, we exchanged our hellos and a few stories with one of the owners, Greg. Eventually, Chris turns to me and asks if I’m interested in joining him to check out some possible wholesale record purchases down in South County. Records, eh? Count me in. We hopped in his spacious EuroVan and headed towards the 405-South entrance a few lights up Harbor Boulevard in hopes of finding a couple of vinyl gems. On the way, we talked a bit about his music history in Orange County and Detroit Bar, his management position in the Model Worker Group, and what he’s up to these days.

Tell me a bit about how you got into the record resale business?

I’ve always been into buying and selling records, but I’ve been really hard-core about it lately. It’s actually been pretty good. I set up a little eBay store. As far as Port of Sound Record Shoppe, I basically sit in for the owner, John Weir, once a week or whenever he needs it and Greg is his business partner. I go help out over there, just ‘cause it’s a rad place and it’s super cool to have another store in town.

What came before records?

I’ve been doing sound and production and tour managing for quite a long time now. Fortunately, it’s the best way to make an income, and I like doing it, but it’s really hard leaving three, four, eight weeks at a time, you know? It’s tough, but it’s what I’m good at. I am a Production manager for the Mojave Stage at Coachella, which is great because it’s a solid month of work and with all the preproduction that goes into it year around, and that keeps me busy while at home. But I’ve been trying to find something to do where I’m not having to leave. I’ve been really lucky that selling records has worked out. I’m passionate about music and I know about it—I’m a collector so I can geek out. It’s funny though, the questions you get from people. ‘Is there a barcode? Is it the old or the new one? Red label or Blue?’ In the past, most the time I didn’t really care about that stuff, as long as it sounded good. And I kinda still don’t. Luckily with the Internet, it’s insane what you can do to find out about a record, that’s why I try to keep my eyes open about that stuff. I’m trying to keep my foot in the musical world so I don’t have to get a ‘real’ job, ya’ know? (laughs)

It’s been pretty tough in the industry. Bands and everyone affiliated are in such a predicament these days because there isn’t the money available from the labels like there used to be.

There’s really no big records labels anymore, just tons of great independent labels and good distributors, which is kind of good because it’s such a falsehood—it always has been, really, of getting ‘signed.’ In the reality of getting signed, at least before things changed—maybe still now too—someone is basically becoming your partner and they’re putting up money. You’re sharing your profits with them because you have to pay them back. There’s never any ‘free money.’ People can say, ‘We got a $100,000 to sign.’ No, actually you got an advance on the money you might make if your record sells. It just goes to show, it’s about selling a product. There are so many cases. Even small Indie bands fall prey… great band ends up getting signed and do really well in Europe for a while, but then get deep in financially, not from getting greedy or anything, but in doing things to promote, record, and keep putting out records. You don’t realize you’re building up a tab. It’s not like someone says, ‘You’re amazing, I’m going to give you a million dollars to make a record,’ and all of a sudden you’re rich.

It’s money to invest instead?

Look at people who have had hits. Reading Pitchfork this morning, R. Kelly is getting his house taken away by the bank. His mansion is getting foreclosed on, probably because he didn’t need it in the first place, and couldn’t afford it. People don’t think in long-terms. Anybody that I know that’s been in music and is smart and knows anything cool, took whatever little money they made and bought themselves something that will make them more money. There are definitely people who have reinvested in the scene, like Jack White with his label, Third Man. We got to go there last year with Tim & Eric Awesome Tour while in Nashville, ‘cause they had a show in the city and we spent some quality time at the Third Man Record complex. He’s just putting it all back into music. He literally has a bank vault that’s temperature controlled that has all of the White Stripes master-tapes, and all the tapes from Third Man, with a thumb-print button to get in. He’s putting out all this limited stuff, and he chooses music he loves. He’s got turntables in every office, and he’s embracing the lifestyle. I don't get jealous very often, but I was of Jack’s set up.

When did you first get into the Orange County music scene?

I’ve always been based in Orange County and I started doing shows when I was 16 years old—putting together all-ages shows. Basically, I had nowhere to see bands, and I would get musicians from San Diego or wherever else. I still have friends who I did shows with when I was 16 or 17. By 18, I was working with my friends. They had a band that was semi-popular in Orange County called Electric Cool-Aide. By 19, I was putting on shows on Newport Blvd., at this little place that’s called Bikini Bar now. It used to be a bar called the Sports Page, way back in the day. It was one of the first bars I ever did shows at. It was a small place. I was 19, and I’ve always been kind of bigger I guess, so he never even asked me for my ID when I came in to ask if I could get bands there to play. I would pack it and it was just local bands. Dave Grohl from Nirvana played there. His old band Scream did one of their last two shows there. I booked them to play there in like 1989 or something like that. We did a whole summer of shows there. One of the last shows we did there was Scream, and literally the week after, he left for Seattle to try out for Nirvana. The next time I saw him, he was playing the Roxy right when Nirvana was exploding and filming the ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ video.

It’s funny that so many people bag on Orange County for not having any music roots. What came next?

Crew, sound, merchandise, tour manager; I’ve really done it all. I started out working for an LA band called The Muffs. They were the first band that I ever went on tour with. We did a few West Coast tours and started meeting people all around the grunge time, getting to meet bands like Mudhoney. Then I met The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion on a full US-tour. Then Jon called me like two weeks later to work a West-Coast tour with them and I’ve worked for them ever since ’92. They’re a New York band, so I went out there and I met and toured with the Beastie Boys through them, and then Money Mark, and then I started working with Money Mark. Then met Stereolab and became their tour manager. I’ve rarely had to fill out an application or go to an interview. It’s more like, ‘Whom do you know who’s reliable and can take care of our band?’

Is it more about making relationships instead of having a piece of paper that claims to tell who you are?

I didn’t go to college, I was working straight out of high school. I knew I could be around music all the time and still be able to survive. I started doing shows in Orange County when I was young. It’s funny, the epicenter of everything is where Detroit Bar is. There used to be a club called Our House that was a coffeehouse, restaurant and bar. It was owned by the guys who own Wahoo’s. Their family owned it because their dad, Mr. Lee, owned Hang Chow, which is the old Chinese restaurant that’s now a soup kitchen on 19^th Street by Smart & Final. When that closed, they tried to reinvent it as this hipster joint on the Westside of Costa Mesa thinking they would get the surf industry crowd or whoever was around at the time. So we did this thing called Our House, and they tried to have this daytime restaurant that just didn’t work. I met so many people in that time. Our friends started doing shows there—an Orange County band called Supernova. They did a show at Our House and I did the PA, and then I started talking to this girl Wendy who ran it, and the Lee brothers. I was like, ‘Hey, we should do shows on a regular basis.’ We started doing shows, it started doing really good and they were all ages which is great, so we started booking touring bands. There would be bands coming through from Seattle, Minneapolis, and all over. Meanwhile I was still touring with bands like The Muffs, I’d meet people on tour and tell them we’ve got this venue in Costa Mesa and they should come through. We were doing shows like once a week, or once every couple of weeks; it wasn’t any crazy schedule. It wasn’t like a full-on-venue, we just did shows there. They ended up closing the restaurant because it wasn’t doing very well, so basically they just ran off of the bar. The best thing was that they used to make all of the baked goods for the Wahoo’s restaurants there. So bands would roll in and they would feed them fresh-baked cookies, and then Wahoo’s would feed them for free—especially the touring bands. And then Club Mesa. It used to be this place called Sargenti’s, then it became Club Mesa, and then it became Detroit Bar.

What was Sargenti’s?

Originally, it was this Italian restaurant that ended up becoming a bar. These friends of ours used to do this thing called the Rat Trap, a punk rock club that was at Sargenti’s. Then the owner changed the name to Club Mesa, and then Club Mesa sold to the guys who own Memphis in 2000, and that’s when I came in ‘cause I was friends with them at the time. For literally four months for the summer we ran it as Club Mesa. We were changing it over, tearing stuff out, and getting rid of the punk rock asshole vibe that it had—not that punk rock and asshole go hand-in-hand, but people had called it Club Nazi ‘cause there were skinhead security would always beat people up. It was brutal. It went back even further with the Orange County scene in the ‘80s, like Surfari Sam’s. That’s one of the places I went as a kid, and snuck in to see shows. Prior to that, it was the Cuckoo’s Nest that was on Placentia Ave. It’s funny, anything that was interesting indie or punk stuff always was around this area of Costa Mesa, and a few places in Huntington, like the Golden Bear. So we transformed Detroit Bar in 2000, and then opened in 2001 around October. I think it was eight months or so before we got it open. Back in the late 90’s was another place called the Newport Station where Hurley is now around the corner on Placentia. It was one of the first and biggest gay dance clubs in Orange County. And then Club Rubber was this big hip-hop and house-music event that was super seedy, and then it moved to the Galaxy and they had it there. It was huge. The Galaxy would have like 6,000 people in that building and it got insane there. Then people got shot and gang members started going—it was ridiculous. And now it’s in Vegas, they have Club Rubber there. Whatever you assumed an asshole club to be, it was Club Rubber. But it got its start as this gay club on Monday nights. Then we started doing shows with bands like Mudhoney, Jesus Lizard, the Melvins, and all these other different bands were doing shows at the Newport Station, although everybody knew it as the Lava Room. Really, it was just a pseudonym for the Newport Station—it was still a gay club, even though people would say it’s the Lava Room. There was also a property with a local recording studio called The Distillery.

That’s Mike McHugh’s place, right?

Right. Next door, that was our recording studio The Control World and I lived there for like six years, and bands used to rehearse there. We had the Newport Station directly across the street, Club Mesa was on the corner, and Our House was two blocks down. It was like this base for everything. Everyone would crash there. Our friend Geoff Harrington built McHugh’s studio, and it was originally called Saturation. He moved from Seattle back down here, and we helped him build this amazing recording studio, which he ended up losing, and McHugh bought. Luckily it’s still going and still totally amazing. We had this crazy symbiotic thing going on where everybody was just like connected. And there is still a bit of that going on. I hear about it, but of course I’m less involved because a lot of the work that I’ve been doing ever since I left my position at Detroit Bar, which has been three years now.

When I first started going to Detroit Bar, that seems to be right when you left.

Probably. It was August, and it was the last time Stereolab played there. That was the last show that I was involved in. I think I had booked a few more that I was financially involved in, but I never went to the actual show. I left due to financial burdens that came onto Detroit and to really get away from the nightlife and be with my (then 4 month old) son, Miles. I put my soul into that place with my friend Dan who opened it. But unfortunately, when you’re running a business in a bar you have different partners and ideas to take in. When people who were less involved sold their shares, Jon Reiser bought in. He’s an interesting character. He came in and wanted everything done his way, and there was a time there where he kind of looked to me for information because I had been doing it for so long. Our friend Jason Valdez, who worked for Hurley, bought in and was a part of the Memphis group with those guys. He owned part of Memphis and helped run it and was involved in the bar as well. Then he left and moved up to Oregon to work for Whole Foods. There was always good relief when he was there. In the end, I worked for them; what could I do? I had an opportunity to buy in and I’m glad I never did because I would be stuck with that situation. They really had a shit deal going once the rent got raised more than double. They had just spent all this money renovating and it really just all came to a head. I just recently started talking to Dan Bradley again and everything is cool. Since Jon Reiser left to partner in the Galaxy Theater with Affliction Clothing, we have come together in mutual disgust at his choice to leave Detroit and burn bridges with them.

They probably should have spent that money on other types of renovations.

That was the thing, Dan, whose heart is in music, owns Memphis and has his hands tied up. We spent years setting the foundation for Detroit Bar to host bigger acts and be in touch with the agencies that they work with. It’s cool, they are still getting a lot of the stuff that I used to book, so it has not slowed up. I mean, Elliott Smith played there. The Breeders played there. And it was all just a matter of befriending people, who I’ve known for years who work with the bands, or actually from knowing the bands themselves, like Sonic Youth, Stereolab, etc. As much as I don’t like to glad-hand, staying in touch and really embracing those connections made a big difference. Having a club with a decent sound-system is important, and even though it’s tiny, you still get treated well. We did pretty good there for a while, but then politics were involved too much I think.

Seems like the music scene wasn’t the only industry hit by politics.

That’s the thing, it’s like it’s so much more about ‘the scene’ than it is about the music.

How did you start The Model Worker Group?

Basically, I was working with The Bird and the Bee—who I’ve worked for as a tour manager and sound engineer for years—when I started doing The Model Worker Group thing. Inara (George) who’s the lead singer, is definitely more involved in the day-to-day of the group, and Greg (Kurstin) is the genius arranger/writer—he’s a super busy producer and writer. He’s working on the new Shins record right now, and he’s worked with everyone from the Flaming Lips to Beck to Kylie Minogue. He’s an amazing, insane musician, and they have taken me on so many cool different adventures, so to speak, and we get along really well. They do everything in the band as a duo; the two of them play keyboards and bass, and they have backing tracks sometimes or a full band that is nine pieces. We did the Hollywood Bowl with She & Him and Swell Season for KCRW. They’ve toured with Lily Allen, and he co-wrote her last album with her and won several awards for that. Inara has been making music since she was really young. Her dad is Lowell George, and he was in the band Little Feat. He passed away, unfortunately, when she was five years old, but she’s been surrounded by music her whole life. Her dad’s best friend is Van Dyke Parks, who is a composer, writer, and arranger who worked on Pet Sounds with the Beach Boys, Brian Wilson, Joanna Newsom, etc. Just really a whole other facet of musicians.

How did you meet The Bird and the Bee originally?

They were looking for someone to work with them, so my long-time friend Rachel, who had been an intern for Matador /Capitol, worked at Madonna’s label for a while, and then went on to A&R at Warner Brothers Records, with the Flaming Lips to name one band, said, ‘Yeah, you should meet Chris Fahey.’ Funny thing, first time Greg and I met, we ran into each other coincidentally. I was with Money Mark in Osaka, Japan, and he was with his old band called Geggy Tah. So later I sat down with Greg and Inara and we went on a tour together and we just hit it off; same sense of humor, they liked my kind of no-bullshit take on things, and we got along really well. We always had so much fun together, they don’t tour very often, they don’t go on long tours and they hate being on the road—they’ll play, but they don’t like being out on the road for too long. Last year, they decided that they wanted to part ways with their management company. They said, ‘You know what, we’re going to part our ways with them,’ and Inara said, ‘We want you to do it.’ I thought, really? And they said, ‘Why not? You can take care of our day-to-day, be our manager, and it will be nice and friendly.’ I was like, ‘Great! Cool!’ I didn’t want to be like, Chris Fahey—Manager—so I decided to start The Model Worker Group. It started basically as a header for them, and then I thought that, my friend James Fletcher is putting out a record, Omaha is doing stuff, Mphase is making records and my friend Paul Layton as well. I told them, ‘I can be your go-to-guy, and if I get you something you can’t get, then great, you can pay me for it. If not, I’ll just be your voice.’ I asked Rachel, who has dealt with tons of managers being an A&R person, told me, ‘Why couldn’t you do it? Think of how many douche-bag managers you’ve met that know less?’

That seems similar to a lot of bookers as well. They carry the job-title, but don’t do the tasks.

That’s the thing with Detroit. I did sound some nights when Ken (Tustison) wasn’t there, I did all the production, I did all the flyers, I did the website, I did all the artwork, but that’s what I’ve always done. I can’t sit around and watch somebody else flail it. We’d give the bands like 70-80% of the door, and then we would pay for all of the sound and flyers and everything. We would try to encourage people to work, like the more people you bring, the more money you’re going to make. Of course there were nights that the Black Lips would play and I’d sell 350 tickets, and I’d make money. Then there are other nights where I would walk away with $20.

All in all, you do sound, you record, you play, you manage, etc. I think your ultimate title would be a producer?

I don’t know about that. I guess.

You seem to be a huge part of the communication process, and you seem to make things actually happen.

In a way, yeah. I think production manager is the thing I’ve done at Coachella for the last eight years. There are five stages, and it’s basically like five venues running simultaneously in one place. So I’m running that as the production manager. That seems to kind of sum up what I do mostly. Some production managers have a certain amount of knowledge in certain fields, and luckily I just started immersing myself in things really young so that I was forced to learn about them. I learned about sound, basically, by learning ‘cause I had no other choice. I couldn’t afford to rent a PA for the shows I did when I was younger. I had to borrow and buy whatever I could, and then figure out how to use it. And then it evolved to the point where now, there are all these crazy digital consoles. It’s funny, the mentality of cut and paste. Having that knowledge of everything used in Illustrator and Photoshop, and then applying it to the digital side of music, it’s totally the same thing. The first time I ever edited a record, my friend Mike, who assisted me in the mix, did David Cross’ last comedy record called, It’s Not Funny. He recorded it back East, but we were going to do it at the Improv in Irvine until he decided to do it over there. There were eight shows of tapes that we had to put into ProTools, edit down into one 70-minute comedy.

That’s when you realized, ‘I love ProTools.’

After that, I learned everything I could about editing. If you think of the sound waves visually, it’s the same as making art or a flyer or whatever.

How have you liked being based in Orange County?

People who complain about being in Orange County, I say cool, get the fuck out. Leave. Maybe it won’t be as lame with one less person bitching. I’ve been touring since I was 19, and I just turned 40 years old, and I’ve never wanted to move because I’ve seen so many places, and nothing is really different unless it’s the terrain. The only couple of other places I would want to live are San Luis Obispo because it’s more serene, or Seattle where you have mountains and ocean. Other than that, it’s all the same shit. Of course there are certain places where people are snobbier, or more white-trash, but that can be found here too. Go to this side of town, and find one thing, go to another and find something completely different. And the ocean too. I’ve never had a problem with it.

Is part of your contentment with staying in Orange County due to the fact that you have gotten out of it plenty of times?

Oh yeah. So many people here are just trapped.

Night of Sweet Relief with Bill Bennett

2011-10-09T23:23:00.000-07:00

Recently, I sat down with the President of Sweet Relief, Bill Bennett, to discuss his role in the non-profit organization created to aid musicians facing major health issues, as well as his personal upbringing in the music industry. After spending over three years revamping Sweet Relief with his partner, Rob Max, Bennett has expanded the success of the non-profit in a huge way since the initial conception by Victoria Williams in 1994. Nothing shows this better than the Night of Sweet Relief this upcoming Saturday, October 15th, in which hundreds of venues from all of the country are pitching in to raise funds for artists in need. Locally, House of Blues Anaheim will host its own Sweet Relief event featuring Kiev, Jeremiah Red, May McDonough & Co., Paulie Pesh, and I Hate You Just Kidding.

How long have you been in the music scene?

I’ve personally been in and around music forever. My first jobs were in record stores. I was always the kid with the most albums of all my friends. I’ve always been infatuated with music, and I always wished I was a musician, but never had quite the talent to pull it off—at least in any real satisfying way. Although, these days I could probably pull it off because not as much is required.

It’s true, you can get away with a lot with the electronics that are available.

Well, yeah. When I was 20 years old, the concept of being a professional musician was very different from today. The labels controlled the industry, and there were five or six of them. If you didn’t get on a major label, you didn’t exist. So the number of people who actually made a living as musicians was very small. It was very much a filtered process that you kind of depended on the labels to decide for everybody what was considered good. If the labels didn’t think that you were good, then you just fell through the cracks for the most part. You didn’t have a ton of indie labels out there putting stuff out. Obviously things have changed extraordinarily over the past few years.

Musicians are producing their own stuff without labels.

There’s no need for anyone else. That’s good and bad. If you’re a music fan, it’s a double-edged sword because it’s great that there is all this music to listen to…but, there’s all this music to listen to, and no one telling me which ones are the good ones. That’s why blogs have become so important, because they are similar to the record labels because they dictate what is considered good. If something is hitting it hard on the blogs, then that’s what people will listen to. So getting back to your original question… From my teenage years, I was always doing something music related. I managed my first band when I was 21, which was a Grateful Dead cover band in New Jersey.

Is that where you’re from?

Yes, I’m originally from New Jersey.

When did you come out to California?

I came out here when I was 23, which was 1991, and ended up working for Wherehouse Entertainment where I was a general manager. I was doing that for a couple of years, and then I left Southern California to go to Boulder, Colorado. I went there with the intention of working in a venue. I wanted to run a venue, or I wanted to own a venue or something to that nature. I knew I wanted to be around live music, ‘cause I was very much over retail at that point and wanted nothing more to do with that. I remember I showed up there with no place to live, no job, and I had brought a buddy with me. I always got wingmen to jump off the cliff with me for some reason. We saw this place called the Fox Theatre, which was right across from the University of Colorado, in a section called The Hill. It’s an old movie theater similar to The Yost—it has that kind of a vibe to it with the old-style marquee. On the marquee when I got there was Sheryl Crow. This was right when Tuesday Night Music Club had only recently come out, and so she was still relatively new. The Fox Theatre held around 700 people, so it’s a modest venue. I looked at that, and thought, this looks pretty cool. I walked in and it had a café—almost like diner-style food is what they served in the lobby there and it was open during the day. You could walk into the venue and it was totally dark, but you could still see what the layout was and I just kept looking around. I said to my friend, ‘Yep, this is it. This is where I’m gonna be. This is gonna be my home for awhile.’ He looked at me like I was crazy, like what did I see in this place, there’s nothing here. I went upstairs and asked about a job. I was very presumptuous. I asked, ‘Do you have any management positions available? I’d like to be a manager here.’ The girl looked at me like I was crazy, like ‘What do you mean manager? Who are you, first of all, and we’ve been open for three years and everybody who is a manager here, including myself, has been here since the day it opened and none of us are planning on going anywhere, so you should probably put that thought out of your head.’ So I said, ‘Oh, alright…well what do you have that’s available?’ She asked me what could I do, and I told her I could do a little bit of anything, and I’ve done some sound work before. She goes, ‘Ok, this is the person you need to talk to for that. You look like a big guy, have you considered being a bouncer or a doorman?’ I told her, ‘I’d rather not, but whatever it takes.’ I ended up talking to the sound guy, and he was like, ‘We can certainly bring you on, but you would probably have to work for free for a while and just kind of intern, and then we would work you into the schedule if you were good and stuck it out. You should really talk to the head security guy ‘cause I think he’s looking for people.’ I ended up talking to security, and sure enough he did. When he took one look at me, he said I was hired. Even though that was the last thing that I really wanted, ‘cause I hate that kind of vibe—I don’t like being the enforcer and I’m not a violent person, despite my size. But I took it and started working two days later. Within three months, they had created a new management position for me, and within a year and a half, I was a general manager of the Fox Theatre.

Stuck to your guns, eh?

Once I saw it, I knew it was the right thing. I just took the approach that this was where I needed to be. I would literally go in there and, even though as a bouncer I only needed to be there from 9pm to 2am on any given night, I would show up there at 9am to10am in the morning and just answer the phones and do whatever. I’d just hang out, help out, and kind of act like an intern basically—do whatever work they needed. It showed them that I was serious about it and that I was willing to learn and do whatever it took. The job we ended up creating was a box-office, one that didn’t exist. Prior to that, they were just selling tickets through the restaurant and it was kind of sloppy. We opened up a box-office across the street that was going to sell tickets for the Fox as well as other venues in Denver and Boulder.

When did you end up leaving Colorado?

I left Colorado in ’01, literally the week of 9/11; which of course was not planned, it just happened that way. I remember driving from Colorado to LA stopping in Vegas, and this was 9/16 or so and it was empty. Vegas was empty. There was nobody there.

Nobody was traveling?

No one was that first week or two. I think airplanes had just started flying again, but people were not anxious to go anywhere because they were still in shock. Thinking of going to Vegas and having fun? No. It was surreal. The roads were empty even. People were at home, in shock, thinking, ‘What the fuck just happened?’

Meanwhile your whole life is changing?

I came out to California specifically for a job, and this was not in the music industry. I was leaving the music industry to ‘grow up,’ and I was going to work in the Hospitality industry. I had been offered an executive position that paid well, offered benefits, and had upward mobility. Seemed like the right thing to do at the time. I was 33, and I’d had a good run in the music world. It felt like it was time to settle down, so to speak. Worst decision I ever made. If I could change anything about my life, it would be the day I decided to do that. I spent seven years in the Hospitality industry and was miserable for every second of it. I thought it was the right thing to do.

It was the expectation?

Yeah, it was the expectation in my own head. I should be able to buy a home, and I should be able to have a family, and blah blah blah. You know, whatever that was. I was looking at all my friends, basically, and they were all doing well. They all had houses and nice cars. Not that I care about that. There was a lot of possibility with this company. The potential for it to blow up into something big for me was pretty huge. I was hoping that I would like it, and I guess I just didn’t. It wasn’t music.

For seven years you were out of the music industry?

I stuck with it for seven years. I stayed with it for as long as I did, partly out of loyalty to the person who brought me on ‘cause it was someone I was close with and they needed help. Part of it was that it was solid and I was making good money. I threw in the towel, I guess you could say, of ‘living the dream.’ I’ve always been a dreamer, but I thought that it was time to let that go, being the age that I was at. But after seven years of misery, I decided that I was wrong; that I had made a big mistake. I started thinking about how I could rectify that and change it. I think I had met The Living Suns at that point and had gone to see them play. Basically, the 2000’s had been a non-musical decade for me—at least the early part of it. I’d go to shows here and there, but very little. I really left it. Meeting those guys—I met them at a Starbucks right across from where I live. It was a changer for me, because I saw in them what I used to be, and how I used to feel about things. We got to know each other, and it’s kind of random that we would have even decided to talk to each other. They were a bunch of scraggly long-hairs, and I was a relatively mature business guy. Typically when they saw me, I was dressed nice and going to or from work. I’d seen them enough times where I felt compelled to ask them who they were. There was always a group of them, ‘cause they all hung out there, and they just had this look about them. I think I’d overheard some conversations about music and it peaked my interest to say, ‘Who are you guys?’ They explained who they were and we started talking. I would tell them about my past history and eventually they started saying, ‘You should manage us.’ I’d tell them, ‘I’m making good money now…and your not making any money…why would I do that…?’ But it kind of stuck in me a little bit, ‘cause there was a part of me that really enjoyed having those conversations with them and being involved in creating their world, so to speak. I reconnected with a musician friend of mine from Colorado who now lived in Los Angeles. This girl’s name was Nina Storey, who’s a singer songwriter, and she asked me to come see her play in Santa Monica. I did and it was the first time I had seen her in a couple of years. She had done well, and as an independent artist, she had sold about 50,000 records, had a tour-bus at one point—all on her own, never with a label. Great, incredible talent, and just a sweet girl too. Although it was relatively smaller place she was at, her performance was amazing as always, and it was just her and her bass player doing a duo thing. We ended up sitting down and talking afterwards, and we ended up talking for like three hours. She told me about what she had been up to, and how frustrated she was because she couldn’t crack through and how things had gotten really hard for her career. I told her where I was at and how I was miserable, and at the end of the conversation she asked, ‘Would you ever consider managing me?’ She’s someone who I had always thought very highly of, she was a touring musician, and made money. That’s when I started seriously considering making the switch. I thought about it, and I went for it. I quit my job, and changed everything about my life to make it simple and inexpensive, ‘cause I knew it was going to be rough. I had some money saved up, but had no idea what the future was going to bring, and I went for it. So I started managing both her and The Living Suns. I didn’t really know what I was doing. I’d been out of the industry, so it wasn’t like I knew anybody, but I was supposed to be ‘Mr. Connection Guy,’ for both of them. Except that a lot of the music people I had worked with had stayed in the music industry and were now big. Same time that this was happening, Facebook was really catching on, so it was perfect timing for me. I got onto Facebook and I started connecting with everyone I could. A lot of them were people I used to work with in Boulder in the music industry. The guy who used to book the bands at the Fox was now the Vice President with AEG. He was booking all the shows at Red Rocks, the Pepsi Center arena there, so he had gotten much bigger. The guy who was his assistant was now working for Live Nation in Denver and was a Vice President for them, and he was managing a band called Sound Tribe Sector 9 that was blowing up and doing well in the live electronica world. People had gone on to pretty cool things. The guy who took my place was the general manager of a place called Fiddler’s Green, which is a 20,000 seat amphitheatre in Denver. That’s what everybody had kind of moved on to for those who had stuck with it. So those were all the things that I felt I should have been doing, but regardless, it was cool reconnecting.

How did you officially get connected with Sweet Relief?

One of the people I reconnected with was this photographer who had been in Boulder at the time and had taken a lot of pictures at the Fox. When she lived here, she lived in Long Beach. We went and hung out at some show like Que Sera or some place like that, and ended up talking and catching up. She says to me after we’ve been talking for a while, ‘Do you remember introducing me to Victoria Williams?’ I go, ‘Of course.’ Victoria Williams is a singer/songwriter, who’s the founder of Sweet Relief. She goes, ‘Well, we’ve become good friends. We’ve been hanging out ever since.’ I go, ‘Wow, that’s really cool, that’s awesome. How’s she doing?’ I knew she had MS. She goes, ‘She doing ok physically. But she’s having a problem with Sweet Relief.’ I go, ‘What’s going on?’ She tells me, ‘The person who’s running it has run her course, she’s been there way too long, she’s lost interest, and apparently they may close it ‘cause she’s just not into doing it anymore. Victoria has asked her friends to be on the lookout for somebody who might be willing to take it over. I think you would be perfect for that. Would you consider that?’ I had a huge respect for Sweet Relief, and I was familiar with it from the day it started.

This was in 1994, correct?

Mmhm (nods). So this is ’08 when this conversation is happening. My mouth dropped, like, really?! I couldn’t even fathom that because I always had Sweet Relief on this big pedestal as a well-known, successful charity. She goes, ‘Yeah, do you mind if I connect you with her?’ I go, ‘Yeah, please.’ I think I met with Victoria very shortly after that. Within one conversation, I was in charge of Sweet Relief.

That’s all it took?

That’s all it took, it wasn’t like a huge vetting process.

Can you tell me about the role you were accepting when you decided to take over Sweet Relief?

If I had known, I probably would have said no (laughs). Hindsight being 20/20… Like I said, in my mind, Sweet Relief was way up there, and a massive thing. Little did I know, it was pretty modest. Don’t get me wrong, they did a great job, and they helped a lot of people, but it was kept small and very casual on purpose. It was designed in a way that wasn’t systems oriented at all. If she was doing the work, then it was happening. If she wasn’t, then it wasn’t. Being a business man, you can’t run anything like that. That’s a big problem with charities—charities are run from the heart instead of the head. So they are all set up to fail as a business, ‘cause it’s all based on an individual’s concept or idea. If the individual stops, then the organization stops. You just can’t do things that way. I walked into the organization, and it needed some organizing. Not much money had been raised, and there hadn’t been many events going on to fundraise. The website was out of date and needed updating. There was no database—everything was paper. I asked where I could find a list of all the people who have donated, and I was pointed over to boxes with record in them.

Nothing had been recorded digitally?

Everything was paper. Nothing had really been digitized. The accounting on Quickbooks was the only thing. It was very challenging.

And outsiders don’t see what goes into building a business…

There’s a lot to building a business behind all of the art. Just the music industry in general or non-profits, whichever way you want to look at it, there’s a lot that needs to be done in order for the end results to be what you want them to be. I took a look at Sweet Relief and went, ‘Oh my god, this is going to be tough.’ But the good news was that it still had a great name. If you brought the name up to certain people, they would light up, know what you were talking about, and want to help. We started with that. Almost immediately, I went to my friend Rob Max. The first band that I managed—he was the lead singer. At the time, he was working in the insurance industry, and he had been for ten years at a very high level, as well as Wall Street for many of those years. He had just recently moved out here, so I approached him and told him this is something that we should do together, ‘cause I had a lot of respect for his business skills. He can talk his way out of anything—he has the gift of talking. Who’s the person who could really go out there and get those donations or get people to buy into what we’re doing? This is the guy. He came and took a look at it and loved it. He said, ‘This is great and I’m really glad you’re doing this…but I can’t do this ‘cause there’s no money and I have to take care of my kids. Call me anytime you need help, of course.’ It put the thought into his head, and he was like me—miserable in his job and he did it because the money was good. He had given up on the thought of dreaming and being who you want to be. But seeing me do it got him thinking, and sure enough, within a couple of months, he was in. I knew he would, but I also knew it was very tough to leave what he was leaving. We both took it on, gutted it out, and started from scratch. At the time, the office was in Pasadena in a really nice office that was too expensive, so we moved it down to Huntington for a third of the rent.

Tell me about Night of Sweet Relief October 15th. This is only one of the many ways you fundraise, but it’s definitely the most pivotal?

At this point, we have a couple hundred venues signed up which is great. Goldenvoice signed up and has been a big supporter. Live Nation just came on board and added about 28 shows or so to it. A lot of the ticketing companies have been helping out as well, either by making the donation part of the service charges for the show that day, or, at the very least, they have allowed us to use their mailing systems to get the word out to their clients and bands they work with to help spread the word. We’re excited that it’s become such a community effort and that people are into it. We wish there was more we could do. There have been a couple of times where a venue has called up and said, ‘We’ll give you the venue for the night if you want to book something.’ We’re not really set up to do that. This is more about taking pre-existing events and tagging onto that.

It’s all about just adding a dollar onto the ticket price, right?

Yeah, just a dollar. Think about how many venues there are in the country. There’s thousands. If we can make it that this is the thing to do once a year for all these venues, then it’s not coming out of one particular pocket. Spread out, it could raise millions. The amount of change that we could affect with that would be astounding. Last year was by far the best year in Sweet Relief’s history. Five years before Rob and I took over, it averaged about $80,000 to $100,000 per year in what it would take in and give out. Last year hit about $900,000, and 91% of what we took in went to musicians. If you look at a lot of the other charities, closer to 65% is going where it’s supposed to be going. We’re very proud of the fact that we were able to give back so much, and not have to say no to people.

In order to qualify for aid, what are the stipulations?

Three years spent as a professional musician, and we’re pretty lenient on what that means, especially in this day and age when it’s not necessarily about being on a record label. It’s about being able to show that, for the most part, this is what you do for a living—from all walks of life, from punk to classical and everything in between. Orchestras are a huge part of who we see reaching out to us. There is an issue because when the Beatles came out, all of a sudden there were a ton of musicians. Those people are now in their early 50’s to late 60’s, and now they’re starting to have health problems. Especially if they’re in their late 50’s, they’re not old enough to receive money from a government assistance program yet, so they’re falling between the cracks. Another issue that they are all having is, even if they have had a successful career, their royalties have dried up because no one is buying records anymore. A musician who was getting $20,000 in royalties then is now getting $1,000, and they were depending on that to be their retirement fund. Right now a lot of what we do is connect them with people who can help them with a particular aspect of their treatment, but we’re also finding that these smaller solutions that we’re giving them are just putting off the inevitable—that they’re going to need that same help again. We’re very interested in finding long-term solutions for all of these people.

Black Lips release Arabia Mountain

2011-08-15T21:41:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I had the urge to go out to Second Spin in Costa Mesa and purchase a Black Lips album or two on CD to add to the collection. Originally, I intended to grab a hard copy of their third album, Let It Bloom. Unfortunately it was not in stock, but the newest album of theirs, Arabia Mountain, which was recently release on June 11^th, was sitting solo with a red “sale” sticker on the front. I don’t usually spend $13 plus tax on a CD, but I trusted that the boys from Atlanta would not fail me, so I grabbed it, forked over the cash, and stuck it into the mouth of my vehicle’s CD player during the duration of my drive home. On the first listen, it sounded like trash. Rough edges, low fidelity; all I could hear were foreign incantations created from the far reaches of someone else’s brain; exactly what the rebellious foursome of the Black Lips strive for. I gave it another listen. And then another, and another, and another. Each tone became more familiar, it all began making sense, and the messy façade finally fell to reveal an entire album packed with potent lyrics, and perfectly composed pop-structure songs, all of which contain a darkly sarcastic perspective of what it means to be part of the contemporary youth culture today.

Opening track, “Family Tree,” sets the tonality with a Tarantino-esque twist that seamlessly slides into a morbid psychedelic-pop rhythm. As vocalist and guitar player, Cole Alexander, coerces the audience, “It feels so cold down by the family tree….Can I take you out? Come on out with me, let me take you out to the family tree,” a vision of an old and twisted oak tree covered in darkness, hunching over an array of family tombstones enters my mind. Definitely not a place where I am interested in treading. Continuing to track number two, “Modern Art,” is by far the most standout single of the whole album. The lyrics explain an electric tale of what happens when drugs and art exhibits collide, and the chosen chord progressions make the blood bubble in a way that feels a little like the euphoric feeling of actually being on some sort of upper.

Next is the deeply romantic recount of Peter Parker’s (aka Spiderman’s) upbringing in the song “Spidey’s Curse.” This is sure to give any comic-book fan a reason to loop the song on repeat and admire the endearing sympathy over and over. Rounding out the top four tracks is “Mad Dog,” a must-listen with its trippy orated intro and psychedelic sax hook filled with creepy minors meant to conjure demons. Although the rest of the compositions are equally as interesting as any others mentioned above, “Bicentennial Man,” with its Link Wray-type guitar licks, the super catchy single “Time,” and the completely positive vibe of “New Direction” dominate the top spots for potential singles. Final favorite is “Don’t Mess Up My Baby,” a hilarious and affectionate tale of modern love, in which the female “accidentally” trips out on her lover’s drug concoctions time after time, until Alexander explains that it’s time to “settle down and have some kids because your brain is fried.” The double entendre of “my baby” encompasses both the frisky female, and her potential offspring.

A handful of the collection of memorable story-songs are engineered by Costa Mesa’s very own Mike McHugh at The Distillery, and produced by pop-master, Mark Ronson. Arabia Mountain, released by the Vice Records label, is the most mature and structured album from the Black Lips so far, and this collection of songs will inevitably shoot the band out of the underground and towards the general public of music appreciators in the next coming months.

Saturday, August 6th at La Cave: Indie Peddler Vol. ii Release

2011-07-20T02:36:00.001-07:00

Pacific Festival OC August 13th

2011-07-19T12:31:00.000-07:00

Less than a month left to get your tickets for...

http://pacificfestival.com/

So Many Ways to Get Your Dahga Bloom Fix

2011-07-09T13:50:00.000-07:00

In the beginning, they were The Living Suns...and now they are Dahga Bloom. In a world where a band doesn't truly exist until they are connected by multiple forms of media, these boys from Fullerton have nailed down their psychedelic sound, and created some stimulating videos to tease the eyes of their audience.

Look for their 7" split with Jeffertittis Nile to be released on Volcom Entertainment in August, and in the meantime, watch a few of their videos so you can get your Dahga Bloom fix...

Saint Motel, The Silent Comedy, and The New Limb at Detroit Bar 7/6/11

2011-07-07T11:47:00.000-07:00

This hump day brought a special treat to Detroit Bar tonight in the form of The New Limb, The Silent Comedy, and Saint Motel. By 9:30, a good chunk of the crowd was through the door, just in time to see The New Limb give the thumbs up to the sound engineer, signifying they were ready to let loose. With their recent move to Los Angeles, The New Limb has shown a great progress in their musical process. Most of the songs in their set tonight came from their latest album, Sounds People Can Make, including tracks like "Sarah," "Birds and Stuff," "I Know You Know," and "We Forgive You, Gene." Placed in between these staples were a few new pieces with passionate vocal melodies that continue to ring in my head. Although the 5-piece is sweetly melodic on their recordings, The New Limb brought a huge energy that could put any punk or metal band to shame tonight.

As The Silent Comedy, hailing from San Diego, took the stage, the crowd left the smoking patio, pool tables, and lounge area to pack onto the dance floor to catch a glimpse of this group adorned in vests, bowler hats, and amazing facial hair. These boys picked up where The New Limb Left off, kicking the energy into a higher gear during songs like their hit, "Exploitation." The rhythmic beats kept heads bobbing to the rock/boogie woogie/whiskey bar combination of notes, causing onlookers to mentally revert back to an earlier period of the West where gunslingers and dance-hall piano bars still existed. Tonight is only the second show of their month-long Summer Sweat tour with Saint Motel that will be sending them up the Western coast and into inland spots like Wyoming, Colorado, and Nevada.

Although it seemed like most of the crowd went home to recharge for their workweek, the quirky foursome, Saint Motel, rocked out like they were playing a packed house. An electric energy revolved around each member, with each song having it's own catchiness. Vocals from lead singer, AJ Jackson, were crystal clear and on point from start to finish, with a hint of cunning confidence in every clever line of lyrics during songs like "Butch," and "Do Everything Now." Tonight was the perfect practice for their show at the LACMA in Los Angeles, and these guys will surely find success as they venture out on their current tour.

Check out the rest of the Summer Sweat Tour dates here: http://www.myspace.com/saintmotel/shows

GIRLS vs BOYS: Sticky Shaw & Brooke Reidt at AR4T feat. Railroad to Alaska

2011-07-02T12:13:00.000-07:00

Torrey Cook of the AR4T (Artists Republic for Tomorrow) space in Laguna Beach invited artists Robert "Sticky" Shaw and Brooke Reidt to face off their art...all while Costa Mesa locals, Railroad to Alaska did their best to prepare the perfect battleground music! Check out these photos from the event!

Enter Into the Third Garden

2011-06-17T17:00:00.000-07:00

After almost a decade, Rip "Ripper" Morgan of Third Garden Studios in Costa Mesa has advanced out of his basement studio in Newport Beach, and into a cleanly built studio off of Placentia Ave., that he actually fashioned with his own two hands. This contractor and landscaper focused on his work for over 20 years, leaving the world of music for quite awhile to make ends meet. Now, 30 years since he connected with the music scene, Morgan has found his way back and is participating more than ever. He took the time let me see the studio, and to enlighten me with his passionate ideas, many of which inspired his Third Garden.

How many years have you been here at the Third Garden Studios?

Rip Morgan: Over two and a half years now. Three more months and I’ll be celebrating my third anniversary, and I still have never had an open house. I don’t know a whole lot of the young bands, ‘cause I haven’t really been going to those indie-style shows, but I started getting into it because of Cassie (Walter). My band, we just play like classic covers and the stuff that we write, which is a lot different. It’s independent, because it’s us, but it’s not what all the young kids listen to who are coming out at 11pm at night, enjoying rock n’ roll of a different style.

When did you first start getting involved with music?

Morgan: Well, we are about nine years into the Third Garden project. Started, of course, in a bedroom, moved to the living room…

Then to the garage?

Morgan: The garage was like 40 years ago, the garage was cool then. But if you want to really cut lose, you gotta have a little more than a garage—unless you’ve got the money to spend. I started by thinking, ‘I’d really love to have a place for my band and I to rehearse in, and have it be a place we could always go and not bother anybody.’ So we found it, and that was down in Newport Beach. Very nice little place, and it worked out really good for a while. When we moved in there, it rained for like three weeks straight, and I had a river running through the studio. It was a basement that was all dilapidated, and water flowed right through it. I started the remodel, staying away from the river. I actually cut a hole in the wall and made a little trench in the concrete so that it would drain out when it got really bad. It was a daily deal for a while. Eventually, I got it all fixed up, and that was the beginning of the Third Garden. Two and a half years ago, I moved. The landlord and I had a good idea, but it fell through, so I had to move. I’m kind of glad, ‘cause in the beginning it was kind of hard, thinking, ‘Oh, my beautiful little place!’ You put your heart and soul, time, and muscle into something, and then you have to go. But it transitioned well. When I first started, I never really thought I would want to do recordings, or have a rehearsal room, or really get into the music scene.

You were just looking for a place to play?

Morgan: I just wanted a place to play. In the ‘70s I had the Boiling Mud band, and several other bands around Orange County—playing just rock n’ roll and popular covers. That developed into another family. I had two families; one before rock n’ roll, and one after. So I had a big 20-year period where I wasn’t doing much music, I was just working hard and raising a family. Things worked out to where my wife and I separated, and I went, ‘Wow, I just gotta get back into music.’

So you hadn’t been doing music all that time?

Morgan: Well, not really. I was a contractor and that’s all I did. I did have the acoustic guitar, and I’d strum it once and a while, but it wasn’t what I had to do at the time, and I had no equipment, nothing. But when things changed, and Ralph, my son, grew up, and we drifted apart from mom, I said, ‘Let’s get back into music.’ So we started in the living room. I never really thought, ‘I’m going to be recording big hits, produce people, promote people, play music myself, and still try to write stuff.’ I decided, I’m gonna play music, have friends come over, and have little jam parties. People then started saying, ‘Our band would sure love to rent this place,’ and it started into a whole deal. So I went, ok, that’s it. We’ll rent the studio out for free little rehearsals, and then I’ll learn how to do the engineering, get some equipment, try to keep it on a good budget, and open up a full recording studio. We started with just the little Yamaha 8-track, and then wanting to step up a little bit, I learned how to use ProTools.

It has definitely been a huge help to many musicians, having ProTools.

Morgan: It’s not like in the ‘60s and ‘70s when I first tried to get into recording. The development from that stage to now is a millions times better, much simpler.

You can write more information, store more, and change certain parts easier.

Morgan: And you can get it all done in a little room like this. Even like Babeland, in the bedroom.

When did you start getting out of your circle of friends? Did that come when you started working with KOCI?

Morgan: The radio station helped a little bit. About two years ago, just after I moved in here, a friend of mine, Michael Ficklin, who was my drummer occasionally who lives in Laguna, invited me over to be with him on an interview on KOCI radio. I’d never heard of it before because they had just come up. It was probably six months or so before they really were a radio station, on the air, and doing stuff like a radio station. So I went over, you know, to check it out. They were working on the first concert ever, and it was one week before the event down at the American Legion. There were four good Blues bands scheduled to play, and it was kind of a big deal ‘cause they had to get 300 people in the American Legion. So we do this interview, and I actually brought three songs with me that I had produced at the old studio and they played one for me on air. I didn’t expect them to do that, but I thought, ‘I better have something in case they ask.’

I was walking around meeting people, saying hi, and then Michael Donahoe comes out of another office over there. He was over there discussing work with KOCI, and that was the first time I met Michael, who I work with and is now my partner. When I met Brian Helvey, the director over there, we’re just sitting there talking and Brian is all nervous saying, ‘We’ve got this show coming up, but there’s nobody to do the sound.’ So it was like, here comes Rip of Third Garden, and I’m standing there going, ‘You guys need a system and engineering. Ok, I’ll do that.’ It was just a given. So I had a week to prepare, but it was easy because it was a lot smaller than what we do now. Now we do the full sound-system. KOCI has developed, and we’ve both grown together. It’s good, I’ve done a lot of stuff for them, and they have done a lot of stuff for me. I’ve met some great people, we’ve been meeting more and more bands to get them on the venues, and it’s been a great deal.

Now Semi-Sweet. It was actually Cassie that came to Third Garden with Dan Chapin about four years ago. I’d known Daniel from my son’s school, Christ Lutheran. But it didn’t register for a little bit, until I finally realized it was him, and that he was all grown up now and playing guitar. So they would rehearse at the old studio. Alysium, that was what they called their band. Cassie came and sang a few times with the band, and that’s when I first met her. She didn’t play guitar, she just came out to sing, and I still have one recording of it. Then Dan joined the Army and the band just kind of went away. Then the next thing I know I’m watching this band one day, thinking to myself, ‘I know that girl.’ It was the Semi Sweet band—the all-girl band, before the guys joined. I thought she was so cool, she had a guitar at that point, and she’s writing all these songs. I was impressed, so I contacted her on Myspace. She remembered me, and so I told her, ‘I’d love to record you guys, you sound cool.’ I told her I’d give her a good deal, come over and rehearse at my studio. She thought she was going to the old studio, but I told her no, it’s the new studio up on Placentia Ave. Derek (War) was there at this point, the girls, and another guy guitar player. That was before any of the EP’s. So I told them to come back any time they could. We did some recordings, they rehearsed a little bit, and then they were having problems with sound at the shows, so I told them I’d come out. Ever since then, I’ve helped them from time to time.

You mentioned you are partners with Mike Donahoe, how are you affiliated with him?

Morgan: He has a mobile telecasting van, and that’s partially Third Garden, partially Mini Big Productions. What Third Garden does, is provide this space here at the studio—the sound stage and the video stage, since we record video here too. We link them up with the remote van outside, and we can go anywhere in the city, and broadcast live. So, another part of that is Mini Big productions with Mike Donahoe.

You two work together on events, but you also wanted to get more local bands into the studio and do Friday-night shows?

Morgan: We’re already doing the Friday-night, which is the Local Musicians Jam Night. We don’t always broadcast that, but we have been, and we can if we want, or we can do any other night, and events outside of Third Garden. I was thinking of keeping it in the studio because it would be easier here and we could always assure a good sound. But we’ve been working on going out and Michael has done it several times. We setup at the Westside Bar once, and he’s done Westside two other times, and Pierce Street Annex as well.

So you could go in through the back of Detroit Bar and broadcast a show?

Morgan: Yes, outside viewers could be watching that show, that’s right.

Friday night is a continuous thing right now for you then?

Morgan: For Live at Third Garden, we’re trying to practice setting things up as fast as we can. Of course we know we can do it fast, but we’re working on the routine, know what we’re doing, and get it all done in a short amount of time.

Put every piece up, tear it all down, put it all up, tear it all down… That’s definitely a way to get quicker. Since the studio has been here, how long have you been doing the Friday night Local Musicians gathering?

Morgan: About six months. We started when KOCI asked us to play at Rockin’ For Radio IV. I thought, ‘Third Garden hadn’t played for about a year, so what are we gonna do. We’ll take Friday nights—usually my slowest night at Third Garden, ‘cause most groups are out there partying, doing their thing, or playing music. So we decided on Friday nights to get our band together, do the gig, and it developed from there. We thought, let’s keep doing it. We might be playing another Third Garden show this Summer, at Sawdust Festival and the Back Bay Environmental Center, with KOCI Radio.

How did the name and concept of Third Garden come about?

Morgan: I bit into the study of the Urantia Papers for quite a few years, and I was really heavily into it. I read the Bible, all of the Urantia Book, all the philosophy, wanting to seek something beyond mortal and beyond Earth. In the reading of that, lately, like within the last 20 years or so, I’ve really gotten into the concept of the Garden of Eden, which actually was on Earth. I don’t know where for sure, but I have an idea. And the first Garden of Eden had a default, and they were expelled from the First Garden. This was a necessity. Once they were out of the First Garden, they formed the Second Garden of Eden, which we now know is Iraq, basically. In Mesopotamia, between the Tygris and Euphrates Rivers; that’s what they call the Cradle of Civilization. And I kind of think that’s where the Second Garden was. That’s been quite a few years, maybe 35,000 or so. So a lot has been lost of the real history of our planet. Because of various things that have quarantined us and kept us out of contact with our celestial administration; namely Jesus Christ, and his Father, the one and only God. So getting back to the Third Garden, I thought well, I’m really kind of into that and I wanted to make a nursery for musicians. It would be like a garden where you grow plants. I had a nursery years ago where I grew stuff, and I called it the Third Garden, ‘cause I was a landscaper. I’d rescue a plant that would be torn out, then I’d take it out and transplant it. After about four years, I had a yard-sale and made about $2,000. I had hundreds of one-gallon, five-gallon, 15-gallon palm trees that I had kept and moved every time I moved. Then I started back into music, and it just came right into the studio. Well, it’s the Third Garden.

My first studio in Newport, I had the stairway going down, ‘cause it was built in the basement. So my Third Garden was going down the stairs and hanging up all over the walls and around the back. It was really nice. I had a lot of land to have the Third Garden nursery, and the Third Garden Studio on the other side. It developed into a great name, and then I name the band Third Garden. That’s how it evolved. So it’s stayed with me a little bit. The Third Garden nursery for musicians. There might be a fourth garden someday, who knows. But I had this crazy idea. Adam came to Earth for a purpose. And they did fulfill their purpose. They were admonished by that, but because they repented enough to be able to live as a celestial being. So maybe there’s a chance, if we created a Garden of Eden, someday they would come back and fulfill their purpose. I get into the spirituality a little bit. But I know that in all the universes of universes, Jesus Christ is the main person; our administrator, our sovereign, our life-giver, our love our savior, and that goes along with Third Garden—even though I don’t preach.

It’s all about being positive?

Morgan: It’s good, because it’s all about finding a purpose. We all have a purpose, and finding purpose is a hard thing. When you’ve got it down, you go, ‘I think I know what I want to do,’ and then all of a sudden it’s something else. Your attention goes here, goes there. I’ve been a contractor, builder, craftsman most of my life, and musician on the side, for 20 years. Then I decided to really get into it, and I’m hoping that it will evolve into something where I can make a living the rest of my life.

It’s difficult finding that balance.

Morgan: Well, you gotta have a little bit of money. You gotta be able to have your home, your studio, your livelihood, hopefully be able to pay all the bills, and do something you love. If you’re doing something you love, it’s more fulfilling. And music is fun, deep fun. I mean, you can have fun watching television, but deep fun is what really counts. Having that deep fun of being able to create something that is in your head, taking it from your thought, through your body and your fingertips, or your voice, and there you go—you created something. Something that will probably stay with us for eternity, hopefully.

So many younger people don’t understand what it is to make something. Meaning, deconstruct something in their head, and then produce it in a physical state. How do you feel about that?

Morgan: Imagination. Put your imagination to work, for good things. We all have big imaginations and if you can make your visions become a reality, that’s more deep fun. And that’s really the essence of finding your purpose in the mortal life here. We have many more lives to go through. I feel that each individual personality in the universe goes on for eternity. That’s forever, you say. So what are we going to be doing for all of eternity, what do we do? Well, we’re going to find out once we leave this planet, go to heaven, start learning what path to take, and what that path actually is. It could be, someday, an eon into your personal life, you might be helping another Jesus Christ construct a universe and planets. It’s limitless, because there is so much out there. It goes on forever. Maybe we might get bored. I kind of doubt it though, because you imagine waking up on the other side, it’s like, ‘Whooaaa.’

Perhaps city people don’t recognize that life is much bigger because it is too bright to see all the stars at night. I think that tends to make people feel small in comparison to the bigger picture.

Morgan: Daily lives, it takes a lot of energy, and you have all your priorities. But on the side, there should be something where you collect spiritual capital. You’re trying to make money to live, and maybe have some for retirement, so you need to do the same with your spirit. Learn it, think it, find out what feels best, practice it. You don’t have to go out and spew it all over and make people feel uncomfortable, because it’s all about you, the personal, and the individuality of each personal mortal, throughout all of the universe. I have no doubt that there are more mortals out there in the universe, and they’re not that far away, and they have the same purpose we do. I always get a kick out of sci-fi movies. They portray aliens as these incredible, gory, unbelievable monsters that the imagination can think up. But I think if we ever really do find out about how other planets are, it’s going to be basically the same type of life. We’re going to be inherently created in the image of God. Everybody’s the same—well not the same, because environments will create different types of species, but it will be inherently similar. Carbon-based units with water. If we find life, they could be similar to ours, and not these green, ugly, amoeba-type looking creatures that suck your blood. The imagination is a great thing to have. We all have a destiny, but it’s more important to find your purpose, and you can think, ‘Well mine is to have kids, or not have kids and help others, enlighten everyone with my music.’ A lot of kids, and even adults, get impatient. They want things too fast, and then never achieve them.

What’s your plan now? How many bands are you working with these days?

Morgan: There’s an average of five bands that are pretty regular, and there are a couple more here and there that are semi-regular. I’ve been getting a lot of people calling about recording, and people want to know how much, and what do we do? It’s tough to say how much, so I just go by the hour. So I’ll have people come in and record for three hours, and sometimes they can’t make it all the way through one take. That’s when I started telling people to come in and rehearse, I can listen, and when you play the song through, then we’ll record you. So a lot of people call and but then they lose interest, or they’re not together enough. You gotta think, well I’d love to do it, but I’ve gotta make money, how do I make money? And it could be from the production-side. I never made any money being a musician. But being a technician and a sound-man, I’m doing pretty good.