Sun., April 19, 8 p.m., Center for the Arts, $22-$24
What a difference a little time can make. Delhi 2 Dublin played to less than a handful of folks in Sacramento just a few years ago and has already ascended to headlining status at the gorgeous Center For The Arts. The Vancouver-based group caught attention through high-energy shows and blending such disparate genres as reggae, Celtic fare and global rhythms that make any pair of feet restless. After seven releases and incessant touring, the hard work of official members Tarun Nayar (tabla, electronics), Sanjay Seran (vocals) and Ravi Binning (dhol, dholak) has paid off and then some. Expect a diverse crowd with ages all over the map. 314 West Main Street in Grass Valley, www.delhi2dublin.com. (SN&R)
Having trouble finding a friend who likes world music? Always going to death metal shows by your lonesome? There’s an app for that thanks to the folks at Wëgo Concerts. It works like this: Connect to the service via Facebook, which will then comb through your iTunes library and link you to other users with similar tastes. Whether you’re looking to meet a future partner or wish to find a lifelong, platonic friend who also likes ambient trance music concerts, the options are limitless. www.wegoconcerts.com. (SN&R)
Rappers and entrepreneurs Jeffrey Harris—stage name Hennessy—and Dylan Phillip are the two founders of Sacramento’s newest hip-hop collective, Capital City Music. Together, they’ve found that the best way to build credibility for themselves and the artists they serve has been through visibility, both online and on the streets. Both believe every local artist deserves a shot, a chance to be heard and a place among the music community. With their website recently launched, they’re looking to start getting artists involved. They took some time to talk about their organization, what they do to help new artists and how it all got started.
Let’s talk about the organization’s name. Where did it come from?
Jeffrey Harris: The name Capital City Music comes from the most lucrative and influential state in the U.S., California. It’s simple enough to be a no-brainer, but a broad enough idea to hopefully reach every capital city.
When did the idea come about and how did you two meet?
Dylan Phillip: The idea was started originally in late 2013 shortly after meeting each other at the Bone Thugs-N-Harmony concert. We later shared the stage for a benefit show at Harlow’s raising money for kids with cancer. It was then that we began collaborating on songs and ideas to help others in our region and help catapult our city’s youth to a larger audience.
Give us some background on what you’ve accomplished.
Harris: Previous to our upcoming, official company launch, we had established a strong local following and foundation by hitting the streets and doing lots of self-promotion before going public with our new website.
Big picture goals?
Harris: Our long-term goal is to provide a platform for artists setting up in every capital city across the United States. The goal is never charging an artist a dollar out of their pocket while still helping them obtain necessary tools and knowledge they can use to succeed in this field.
What services do you offer?
Harris: You can find local artists from California’s capital and their music being promoted daily on our website and SoundCloud. Posting songs of the day using the hashtag #CapcitySOD will allow our audience to vote at the end of the month on Twitter for their favorite song. That song, in turn, is played and promoted for another day and we, ultimately, will award the selected artist a five-minute interview and feature them as our #CapcityATM, artist of the month. Nevertheless, our main focus at the moment is our #CapcityFOY, freshman of the year, competition where one rap/hip-hop act and one rock act will be awarded an entire year of promotion. Also, as a bonus any music he/she releases during that year will be promoted through various social media outlets and more.
Middle Tennessee Music Group? What’s the connection there?
Phillip: Middle Tennessee Music Group is a major music blog in the state of Tennessee. Some of the founders are helping us get our first Cap City Music chapter extension in Tennessee, so we are already in full stride of making connections out of state. We’ve been working hard to make this a big deal and already having other media outlets wanting to get involved with our ideas just gives us even more encouragement to turn them into a reality.
How many artists have used Capital City Music for services?
Harris: As of right now, we have not launched or gone public, but we have had over 50 music submissions from local artists, producers and bands.
Any obstacles or haters?
Harris: Of course. Obtaining the capital and sponsors to provide these awards and services as well as the time out of our solo careers has been the biggest thus far. Still no hate or opposing opinions. We have yet to receive any. It’s really quite hard to argue with (or be mad at) what we are doing. We are 100 percent unbiased and welcome everyone.
Was this idea modeled after something you saw elsewhere?
Harris: Yeah. Watching the Bay Area host a similar formula and foundation, the Bay Area Freshman 10 Awards, for the region’s talents sparked the idea and we just took it from there.
Why is this important?
Phillip: We feel it’s necessary to bring positive reinforcement and awareness to the community about our future generation’s talent. We’re doing something not even the pioneers and forefathers before us have done for the area’s music scene. Now that we are the ones younger artists are looking up to, we feel it is our duty to create a non-biased democratic competition by releasing analysis and statistics from the Freshman of the Year results, which leaves no room for criticism or hard feelings.
Shana Morrison and her band Caledonia are set to play at Powerhouse Pub on Sunday.
Marin County-based Shana Morrison has proved that talent runs deep in her family. Like her father, the great blues and jazz vocalist Van Morrison, she makes music on her own terms and earns a nice living doing so.
While she may never achieve the kind of acclaim her old man has, she’s managed to tour internationally, release several well-received records and continually grow the fan base of her bluesy pop rock music.
“It used to bother me (being billed as the daughter of Van Morrison), and I was very annoyed by it,” she said in a recent phone interview. “However, over the years I have learned it is a nice tag to have since I love his music and still sing with him whenever called upon. Also, I think everybody in the musical scene I grew up in had parents who were also quite famous, so it was normal to have that problem.”
Morrison, who plays Folsom’s Powerhouse Pub on April 12, still works alongside Van and just finished a tour cycle with him that ended in late 2014. “Last year I toured with my dad and we played Paris, Barcelona, Montreux, and played many other dates overseas,” she explained. “Over the last three years, I would open his show, sing backup for him during his set, and and also joined him for a couple of duets.”
She’s also featured prominently on his recently released record, “Duets: Re-working The Catalogue,” which also includes appearances by Steve Winwood, Natalie Cole, Mark Knopfler, Taj Mahal, Mavis Staples and others. Shana said his idea was “not to pick Top 10 hits but rather deeper cuts” that would work well for their two, juxtaposing voices.
When talking about her music, Morrison is quick to share the spotlight with her band members, dubbed Caledonia (which is also her middle name). She’s effusive about drummer Dawn Richardson, who also played in San Francisco’s 4 Non-Blondes. “I think singing and drumming are very similar activities since they’re both very aerobic,” she said. “We have an excellent drummer, and I truly believe drummers are the very foundation of the band.”
The band is rounded out by Ricc Sandoval, who handles guitar and background vocals duties; Jason Crosby, who helms the keyboards and violin, and assumes additional backing vocals; and longtime bassist Paul Olguin. All of the members of the band have recorded and toured with Morrison for more than a decade, and Olguin has been by her side for 16 years.
Their closeness comes across in what some might call an unusual practice regimen. “Just by looking at each other, we know what to do these days,” Morrison said. “We’ve got it down after all these years, and now we have an annual rehearsal where I introduce new songs.”
Over the years, Morrison, who grew up in Marin and graduated from Pepperdine University with a business degree in 1993, has not been as prolific as some of her fans would have hoped.
Since releasing her debut release simply titled “Caledonia” in 1999 – a collection of homemade recordings – she has released four full-length releases. Her latest release was 2010’s “Joyride.”
Morrison, however, says the long lapses in between records are intentional.
“My albums come less frequently since I use the money made from previous releases to help finance the next one,” she explained. “I like to play songs out over three to four years and let the audience choose what ones work and (the) ones that don’t. It’s a lot of extra work to do things this way, but financially it makes more sense as well.”
Folsom is familiar territory for Morrison, who said she is looking forward to the Sunday afternoon gig.
“We have been playing Folsom for quite a while now, off and on for over 10 years,” she said. “Sunday afternoon is always a great time for a nice show with dancing. My shows always have good crowds here.”
Shana Morrison & Caledonia
What: A 21-and-over show featuring Marin County-based musician Shana Morrison, daughter of Van Morrison
Antemasque’s self-titled debut came out quietly late last year but gained popularity after the band started touring. While the band features former members of At the Drive-In and the Mars Volta (Omar Rodríguez-López and Cedric Bixler-Zavala), their music is always changing at a pace too rapid for their own fans to keep up. Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea did play on and help record their album, but he’s not a member. Instead, the group is rounded out by Dave Elitch on drums and Marfred Rodríguez-López on bass. Fans of Omar and Cedric’s previous bands will love the catchy “4AM,” hooks in songs like “50,000 Kilowatts,” and the sheer power of “Providence.” 1417 R Street, http://antemasque.com.
Artist Laurelin Gilmore showcases the beauty of everyday with unexpected imagery
Sacramento has always wanted to be a primary market, but as far as attendance at art and music gatherings go, has been a tertiary market at best. In the last decade, however, artists like painter/sculptor/illustrator Laurelin Gilmore have managed to eke out a living doing what they love most: working full-time on art. Not only is Gilmore an artist on the rise, she has won several awards and the approval of many fans and venues alike.
On any given day during the traditional Monday-through-Friday work week, you can find Gilmore holding court at Verge Center For The Arts (625 S Street, Sacramento), working on her craft. Because her rent is manageable, she is able to have a space away from her home in North Sacramento, where she currently resides with her husband and 8-year-old daughter who she says is “a better artist than I was at her age.”
“Being an artist is not a self-sufficient entity and my husband does need to work,” Gilmore recently said in a telephone interview. “However, it is my full-time job and I spend about five hours a day in the studio and have 24-hour access to come and go as I please. It’s great to have somewhere to go and create if I feel the desire late at night. On weekends, I usually spend my time with my family unless I have a show somewhere.”
For the uninitiated, Gilmore’s work is highly colorful, whether she’s doing drawings, paintings or three-dimensional sculptures.
“I have been drawing as long as I could hold a crayon,” she says. “It’s really hard to quantify how many drawings or handmade pieces I’ve made over the years, but drawing was my first love. Up until 1998, I was strictly a pencil, graphite, chalk and charcoal artist.”
Gilmore says it was “just kind of a natural extension from hand drawings to expand and add texture and form” when she began painting.
“I’m still an advocate of drawing in its primitive and primary form, however.”
However, there is one medium that Gilmore doesn’t excel in. “I don’t do very well with colored pencil,” Lauren admits. “Using a colored pencil creates too fine of a line. If you cover a large area with colored pencil, you lose immediacy in the piece and it takes much more time. Rather than drawing a sky with colored pencils as a medium which can take hours, painting is far more expressive and, similarly, more colorful to view.”
In her artist’s statement, Gilmore says her subject matter “can be somewhat varied, but the human figure has always been my touchstone. My goal is to record on the paper or canvas as well I can the beauty of everyday through realism, surrealism and fantasy. My art looks at the place where separates meet, and explores through fantasy the experience of the would-be fence sitters as go-betweens, translators, and bridges between perspectives.”
Gilmore admits the collection she’s preparing for her show in September is one she’s “most excited about and terrified of creating.
“This is the most personal art I’ve ever made,” she says. “I am painting my experience as a person living with vitiligo…a skin condition that turns patches of skin white. I am using as models a couple of people who also have the condition and using myself as well to explore it as something beautiful and strange and strangely beautiful, I guess. Reactions span the spectrum, so I look forward to engaging viewers in a discussion on the topic that is motivated by seeing me and mine in a different light.”
Gilmore’s 20-plus-year tenure in the Sacramento Valley has garnered her fans, accolades and an appreciation for the Sacramento art community. She earned degrees in Fine Arts and Library Sciences from Sacramento City College and soon put down roots.
“Since I once lived in San Francisco, I always thought I could someday return there,” she says. “I have lived in Sacramento for over 20 years and it’s very affordable. In San Francisco or the Bay Area, there is a lot of competition in the artist community. Here in Sacramento, however, it feels much more like a tight-knit community.”
Her tenure in that community begins with her very first sold drawing at a Sacramento City College art show (for which she still holds the $20 check “for posterity”), and continues with a stint at Gallery 2110 inside the Sacramento Art Complex, as well as entries in prominent shows. From 2012 to 2014, Gilmore had a studio space at Gallery 2110, where she earned commissions from several walk-ins. Though she loved the exposure, the downside was the 2nd Saturday traffic being able to see “things that were still in their creative womb,” she says. “I would often have a couple of easels up and people [would] see pieces in their infancy.”
Gilmore’s Self Portrait with Olivia drawing, of herself holding her infant daughter, was accepted to the 2007 California State Fair and sold. In 2013, Gilmore’s Coiled painting won Best in Show at the Sacramento Fine Art Center 2013 Animal House exhibit. “This is no small thing since there were some incredibly talented artists showing there,” she says.
Gilmore is looking to geographically spread her wings, and is on the hunt for more shows. But she’s calculatingly realistic about the prospects. “Last year I told myself I wanted to show in Los Angeles and New York and I did manage to get the former done,” she says. “I also want to do New Orleans and New Mexico. Basically, I’ve been looking for shows that I can drive to since you usually have to pay a fee to be curated, the gallery takes a percentage of any sales made, and it costs a lot to ship to out-of-town galleries. I decided I would only do shows that I could drive to unless there was something amazing like an international offer or something major that I couldn’t pass up.”
Making a living is a struggle when you’re a local artist, and for the most part, you either sell at one of your residencies or through constant word of mouth in the artist community. Gilmore, however, is optimistic about using cyberspace to boost her sales and maintain a semi-steady flow of income. She plans to open an online store connected to her website (Laurelingilmore.com) and branch out to other social media sites including Twitter.
“I’m not as active on the internet as I should be and stopped blogging a while back,” she says. “And while I do believe in artists telling their own experience, I just never really kept it up. Social media from my Facebook page has been a great way to get the word out, however, about shows and pieces I’ve done.”
For those who chose the uncertain path of being a full-time artist, it always helps to have a support system whether family, friends, or colleagues in her field. When pressed whether family has encouraged and acknowledged her chosen path as a legitimate one, Gilmore was quick to reply.
“It’s one of the questions many people ask me,” she says. “The fact remains that nobody ever told me to stop. My mother, husband, brother and two older sisters were always supportive of my endeavors and never questioned me. Additionally, I am still very close with the former owners of Gallery 2110 and they are great allies to have.”
Of course, no monetary value can take the place of human interaction and experiences. And while Gilmore has not become a millionaire overnight, it is her love for the art that has made a difference.
“Personally, I think my greatest triumphs have come from interacting with art lovers,” she says. “At the Sacramento Art Complex, I was so privileged to be able to meet and converse with so many people who had personal experiences relating to my art. There was a little boy who used to come in every single month with his mom and ask me questions about new work, old work, whatever. I really looked forward to seeing the two of them.
“One woman told me that my painting, Jelly Ballet, has been used to inspire conversations about body image and body gratitude in her circle of friends. People told me they could see themselves, their loved ones in my work. I absolutely love hearing the stories people come up with around these creatures I’ve made. It means they inspire a thought process that goes in weird creative directions for people, and what else could I ask for?”
See for yourself at Gilmore’s upcoming show at Little Relics (908 21st Street, Sacramento), featuring shadow boxes and paintings. Opening reception is Thursday, April 9, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. For more info, visit Laurelingilmore.com
Sat., April 4, 7 p.m., UC Davis Memorial Union Quad, no cover
If you thought cerebral, visceral and thoughtful electronic music was dead, take one listen to “Girls” by Slow Magic and be transported to places you’ve never though imaginable. The DJ calls his all-encompassing style “music by your imaginary friend” which could not be more apropos. He ‘s successfully shielded his identity and can be found wearing a strange, tribal mask, working wonders with the infusion of live floor toms and open-ended tunes that meander and roam about. This show will be hosted by UC Davis’ Entertainment Council and will be an all-ages outdoor event. In the interim, get the wonderful How To Run Away, out now via Downtown Records. 1 Shields Avenue in Davis, www.slowmagicmusic.com.zz
It’s hard to believe that original members Kurt Brecht and Spike Cassidy have kept D.R.I. (Dirty Rotten Imbeciles) together for 33 years. What originally started as a sloppy, ultra-fast-paced punk group with songs clocking near the minute mark, D.R.I. has grown and become a tour de force with many memorable anthems including “Five Year Plan,” “I Don’t Need Society” and “Beneath The Wheel.” While some may argue that the band’s best material was written during its humble beginnings in Houston, Texas, all will be pleased to know D.R.I. plays songs from all eras. Also on the bill are Solanum, Yankee Brutal, Conceived In Chaos, Petty Education and Hacked To Smithereens. 9426 Greenback Lane in Orangevale, www.dirtyrottenimbeciles.com.
Eddie
