Alisha Kirby breaks down her top 5 albums of 2012

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And The Record Rolls OnLocal musician and opinion writer Scottish John

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Letter from the editor:

Procrastinating my first step

This is the first step to establishing myself as a designer. The process has been happening for a whole year and I finally have gotten around to making something my own that everyone can enjoy.

This zine started with a simple idea: make lo-cal music more well known. A few weeks later that was scratched, and I wanted to make a Sacramento music/food/fashion/culture zine, but I quickly realized that wasn’t going to happen.

After months of not planning and then quickly deciding I wanted to end the year with a greater ac-complishment than perfecting the art of making soup, I spontaneously gathered a small team of people I knew who loved music more than I do. Once I had a roster I started writing story ideas, picking out fonts and drawing up basic layouts. And now, after only minor setbacks, here you are.

I don’t claim to be an expert on anything in this zine. In fact, I don’t claim to know much about music in general. I’m not a musician, I’m actually far from it. I’m instrumentally inept and tone deaf when it comes to my own voice. But I love music, and that’s why I’m doing this.

I want to thank you so much for reading and, actu-ally, I really want to thank you for even opening this. It means a lot to me, and I know that it means a lot to the writers as well.

I am not sure where this zine is going, I’m not sure if there will be more issues or if this is a one-time deal, but I know that if I get enough feedback from this first issue, then I will most definitely continue.

I want to take a few words to thank everyone who’s supported me through this and helped me with the entire process.

Thank You, Steven Condemarin Designer/Founder

My Top 5 Albums of 2012

Yours ForeverThe Seeking

BabelMumford & Sons

Sand & Snow A Silent Film

Morning ParadeMorning Parade

Violent WavesCirca survive

unplugged Issue 1 03. .

Alisha kirbyM

y name is Alisha Kirby, and though I love writing about other people, I’ll tell you right now I’m awful at writing about my-self. We’re going to call this a bio, but it’s pretty much just going to be a list of fun

facts that loosely relate to what I’ll be writing about here.

I’m 21 years old and was born and raised in Sacramento, Calif. I don’t know that I could survive in a climate that wasn’t mostly “moderate.” I go to Ameri-can River College where I’m majoring in journalism and minoring in music business. Hopefully those can combine into something awesome after I graduate.

I’ve been writing for various music outlets for the last few years, mostly doing reviews and interviews with the occasional feature piece, but have found a more permanent home at Hellhound Music.

My memory can be pretty useless at times, but I can still tell you the first CD I bought with my own money (Goo Goo Dolls’ “Dizzy Up The Girl”), or what album I listened to on repeat working on fourth-grade art projects (Michelle Branch’s “The Spirit Room”), or sing and play perfect steering-wheel drums to every song on Brand New’s “The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me.” That’s all certainly got to count for some-thing, right?

contributor

Megan Houchin

Copy editor

My name is Megan Houchin. I am 20 years old and en-joy copy editing. I believe in a universal style for all journalistic publications

and I take that goal seriously when I read and edit stories and check them for AP Style.

Along with copy editing, I also enjoy designing, and I work full-time as a page designer at the Auburn Journal while I put a hold on my schooling.

In my free time I like to play Pac-Man and listen to Say Anything. I am obsessed with seahorses. I also love Paris, and I hope to travel there one day to see the Louvre and of course the Eiffel Tower.

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unplugged Issue 1 05. .

My name is Steven Conde-marin, and I like to design. I even designed the exact page you're looking at right now, and the rest of the

zine. I originally had the idea to make a magazine-type publication back in the beginning of June, just a little after I real-ized I wanted to do this for the rest of my life.

I'm 20 years old and I've moved between Antelope and North Highlands way too many times to count. I'm ready to uproot and move out East or even down South, but since school, food and rent is provided for me, I might just stick around for a while.

In my spare time I like to listen to music, watch movies and T.V. shows, play billiards, shoot guns (when I can), play video games, sleep, and most imporantly, spend time with the people that I love.

I love music and I honestly don't think I could go a day without listening to a few hours of it. I can appreciate all types of music but my favorites are gen-erally alternative and acoustic. Although I'm not musically talented, I love to “analyze” music and listen to the differ-ent instruments and layers of sounds.

StevenCondemarinDesigner

I’ve enjoyed this band’s albums more and more with each release, but “On The Impossible Past” has worn down my iPod’s battery on repeat on more than one occasion this year. Each song is incredibly specific, with in-depth details in each line, yet it remains re-latable to any listener. Every track tells a story, and every story is backed by the most fitting instrumentals - be it the forced strums in the raucous “The Obituaries,” or the arpeggiated chords of “Gates.”

But what really makes this album so perfect is that you can’t ever quite put your finger on what it is that makes it perfect. Certainly you’ve heard the melodies before, you see, you’ve definitely heard these chord progressions before. Hell, you’ve even heard variations of these stories before, but never packaged together quite like “On The Impos-sible Past.” This is an album that has the lon-gevity to pop up on my top albums list in five, 10 or 15 years. If you haven’t been listening to it since its February release, I recommend you get to it. This will certainly go down as one of the best albums of the next few years

All of Now, Now’s previous releases have been great, but “Threads” is stronger in every aspect. There’s a central theme that ties it all to-gether nicely, the instrumentation is tighter, and it embraces a sort of soothing factor without becom-ing boring. Something about the combination of ambient guitar tones and Cacie Dalager’s calming voice keeps you on the edge of your seat just hold-ing your breath for the 41-minute duration.

Aside from the album’s hypnotizing nature, what sets it apart is the dichotomy of urgency and fragility in almost every track. Gems like “Prehis-toric,” “Wolf ” and “Lucie Too” all begin in ways so soft you’d swear they’d break if you turned the volume up too loud. Yet each one builds up into an earnest powerhouse of a song. When the album first came out I thought it was a bit dull. I said in my initial review that “The vocal melodies can seem repetitive, almost monotonous at times, if you aren’t in the right mood for the album,” but I was wrong and I know it now. “Threads” is a fantastic record. If you want an album without any filler you’ve got one now.

Alisha's Picks Hellhound Music's executive editor talks about

her top 5 albums of 2012

On The Impossible Past The Menzingers

Threads Now, Now

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2.

I’ve been wishing success for Nate Ruess since hearing The Format’s “Interventions and Lullabies” for the first time. His sometimes brash but al-ways tongue-in-cheek lyrical style and booming vocals are unique no matter which way you slice it. While “We Are Young” is my least favorite track on the album, I’m glad it gave them some much-deserved mainstream attention. The rest of the album, including the bonus track, are phenomenal.

The theatrical nature of the album is something very few bands could pull off. “Some Nights” is more

detail-oriented than any recent album I can recall hearing off the top of my head. Each effect, each note and each vocal inflection are all done, or played or sung with a purpose. Nothing on this album was a happy accident. “One Foot” is perfect, “Carry On” keeps out of cliché territory and “Stars” is a lush, colorful masterpiece. Even the nor-mally annoying vocoder is heard as a tasteful effect. If you’re annoyed by the constant play of “We Are Young” on the radio, or “Glee” or countless other outlets, this album has something so much more to offer you.

“My God Clara” was a huge and heavy-hearted album that I truly believe could have taken this band somewhere had they not decided to break up recently. It’s the sort of album that reminds you why you love music so much. It’s the album you stumble upon that makes wading through hours of musical monotony worthwhile. When new bands all start sounding the same, or when old favorites start changing their sound to compete with said new bands, it’s the rawest releases that shine.

The only way I can think to

describe the album now is how I did when I reviewed it over the summer: “By the time you get to the hidden track ‘With a Great Stride’ the acoustic nature of the song is almost relieving. Not that you’re excited for the album to end, but rather quite the opposite. The album is so powerful and so emotional that it’s almost exhausting. The simplicity of those closing mo-ments lifts the weight off your chest that started building there just after the opening riff of “Dear Clara.” It’d be a mistake for you not to search this band out and give this album a try.

This album came and swept me up out of nowhere. I’ve been listening to it almost exclusively since it was released in late November, and I have yet to see the end where I’ll get even slightly tired of it. All I knew of the band was what I’d heard on Count Your Lucky Stars’ samplers. I liked them, but not nearly enough to buy anything. When this album showed up in my inbox, after just one listen I knew I needed to own the record. If I had to describe it, upbeat, indie-emo might be the best. Though now that I’ve typed it out it’s apparent

that there’s no way to really label this album and box it up nicely.

What I do know for sure (only I don’t) is that the drummer must lose five pounds per show. There are enough intricate fills for two albums in just half the songs on “Youth In Youth.” His style works wonders for the band’s oddly well-produced lo-fi sound. What I’m also certain of (again, not really) is that “Anti-Decisions” up through “The Dept. of Mutual Appreciation” are the best songs on the album, though the rest of the album is pretty great as well.

Some Nights - fun.

My God Clara - I Am Carpenter

Youth In Youth - Annabel

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I have no job. I make barely enough money to buy gas, and besides making the best grilled cheese this side of the Missis-sippi, I’ve only been good at one

thing my entire life; talking about, listening, and writing my depiction of intangible, soul-provoking unde-niably good music. I persistently sit my ass down on a day-to-day basis in a rectangular, windowless room rehearsing, writing and simply just making myself listenable (with the occasional spliff of course).

My nights are most often spent interning at a pretty kick-ass music studio. Sounds cool, right? Totally. Until you get a drummer who’s never heard of a metronome and you’re stuck editing a grid sheet that resembles a drunk 4-year-old who threw up into a cheese grater. But you know what? It’s a labor of love. It seems the people who love what they

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do and want to make a career of it have a tendency to drag their asses through the muck of shit the industry calls “paying your dues” or “earning your place.” And in all honesty, I wouldn’t change a damn thing about it. I want to feel like I’ve earned it. Frankly, the only reason I’ve spent so much time doing it is because it is a genuine pas-sion. A genuine love. A love-induced, self-loathing, perpetual struggle.

But what’s cool is whenever you hear about an artist’s struggle it shows in their music. The greatest albums are made from the deepest struggles. From Jimi Hendrix’s “Electric Ladyland” to Neutral Milk Hotel’s “Aeroplane Over the Sea” to Adele’s “21” to Radiohead’s “In Rainbows” to Notorious B.I.G.’s “Ready to Die”; all of them struggled. Inspiration comes from struggle, whether it’s about overcoming it or being unable to take the weight it lays against you.

I think that’s why you always hear about artists who came from

worse, or simply just had a time in their life that was incredibly tough. Whether it be financially, emotionally, or just not being able to deal with the world around you. Hell, most of the time it’s all of the above. That’s one of the ironies of it all though, without the struggle there wouldn’t be the music, but without the music they would have never had the outlet to make it through the struggle in the first place. What is it about music that makes a person tick? That makes you want to do anything from take the greatest nap in your existence to go to your ex’s house and throw a brick through that bitch’s window. It’s incredible. It’s awe-inspiring, and frankly I think that’s the beauty of the artistic nature. An unlimited potential of emotion and feel, all strictly produced from nothing but billions of tiny frequencies vibrat-ing into a coexisting whole.

And good God, that’s not even including lyrics. This is one thing that common Western music has really

And The Record Rolls On

Scottish john’s take on passion, inspiration and

today’s music

done in the past hundred years or so. They make the focus on songs vocal-centric. Take a look at today’s pop music and how about 99 percent of the time the most memorable part of it is the vocal hook, the catchy melody teamed with a relatable lyric. People want to relate. Or just live vicariously through the songs. Think about it, “Your Body Is a Wonderland,” “Call Me Maybe,” “Y.O.L.O.,” “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”; all of them are very dif-ferent songs with very different mean-ings. What’s crazy is each one is just as understandable or relatable as the next. Who doesn’t want to spend the day making love to that special someone? Or want to live each day like it’s their last? Who doesn’t feel, at some point, like saying “There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell I’d ever date that person again.” Take a message like that, put it to something you can dance and sing to, and you’ve got yourself a hit. That’s what makes it so popular.

It’s cool though, this vocal-centric approach on today’s music is the exact reason people are growing more and more towards the dance and house movement. It’s flooding from Europe and waving into the U.S. and it’s because of one simple reason. It’s all about the

vibe. Music you can totally let yourself go to. You don’t have to worry about be-ing “the super-cool douche” who knows every word to Carly Rae Jepsen’s new single. You can just listen and go “Holy shit, that bass drop just knocked my (metaphorical, for all you ladies) dick to the floor.” Forget all your worries and just vibe with it. Without a doubt this will be (and already is) the next major music movement across the world. The U.S. is just a hair behind compared to the U.K. and the rest of Europe.

Whether it is electro, pop, indie, metal, classical, hip-hop, country -- it doesn’t matter. I love music of all genres for the most part. People ask me how I feel about this massive swarm of elec-tronic music and all this digital stuff. They say things like “Man, everything’s so digital.” “Skrillex isn’t real music.” “It’s all done on a computer.” Well, let’s clear something up here.

First of all, I believe in a very simple saying: “Adapt or die.” The world is going digital, so roll with it. There will always be a place for analog and guitars and real drums and symphony orchestras. So why not explore this? It’s a new tool that our generation has made so comprehendible and useable to write. We literally have billions of sounds at

our disposable to create music. That’s fucking awesome, and you’re stupid if you think otherwise.

Second, if getting a Grammy from a dubstep record was easy, we’d all do it. I am not huge into creating electronic music. Now, don’t get me wrong here, I can program drums and make them sound like Mr. Badass was behind the kit in the tracking room. However, I don’t make club beats or dubstep tracks or anything of that nature too often. I do know enough to say that if I could make a bitchin’ club banger that dropped panties when the bass hit within the time span of a day, I would. Frankly though, it’s much harder than that.

Well, I think I’ve rambled enough for today. I hope you all enjoyed this. Please feel free to email me with ques-tions, comments, or simply just to say “I think you’re a douchebag and everything you wrote here was complete donkeyass.”

Until next time, Scottish John

scottishjohn.unplugged@gmail.com

“I believe in a very simple saying:

“Inspiration comes from struggle, whether it’s about overcoming

it or being unable to take the weight it lays against you.”

‘Adapt or die.’”

For the record, can you state your names and what instrument you play?

Josh: Guitar and I sing Quynn: DrumsSteven: BassKeaton: Guitar and I sing too

Can you give a brief history on how the band started?

Josh: Keaton and I have been in this band since the beginning of high school, but those years mostly consist-ed of jamming in the garage and play-ing for our parents. Steven, who was one of our best friends, magically got a bass from his sister, so we got him to play bass even before he knew how to play it. It didn’t turn into a real creative project until probably the summer before my first semester of college (Ke-aton’s senior year of high school), when we started to actually write songs. Those writing sessions turned into “Architects”. We went through several line-up changes during that record, but luckily I met Quynn at school and luckily he plays drums.

You finished up an IndieGogo crowd-funding project in September. How did that go, and what made you decide to go that route?

Josh: It went well. We didn’t reach our goal, but it was definitely enough to where we could continue with our plans. It was really heartwarming to know that there are that many people who believed in us (enough) to invest themselves in the making of this album. So it really pushed us to step up our game in terms of production and writing.Quynn: We wanted to make a profes-sional, well-made record. When it comes down to it, you get what you pay for. Therefore we decided to get a little extra help from anyone who was will-ing to give us their support. Josh: Yeah, and the help of our friends and fans via the IndieGogo really helped us reach that goal.

And you’re recording at Real Sound Studio with Dryw Owens. What’s that been like?

Josh: It’s been really fantastic. He’s

done a couple of my all-time favorite albums, so it’s been a dream to just pick his brain every day. I’ve learned a ton just from this recording experience. He really pushes you to perform at your highest ability, but he’s also very patient. He’s the best. Quynn: The bee’s knees. Dryw is super passionate, flexible and compelled to make our record sound the best pos-sible. Steven: It’s a very humbling and enlightening experience working with someone as talented as Dryw. Keaton: He’s a great guy and a wicked engineer. He really cares about his product and likes to make sure he gets the best performance possible.

Do you have a name or target release date for the new album?

Josh: We are hoping for an early-2013 release! As for the name, that has to stay a secret for a little while longer.

How different is this process from how you recorded your first release, “Architects”?

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streetlIght fIre The band sits down

with Alisha Kirby and talks about the

past, the current and the future

Josh: It’s weird to say but I think it’s just (as) different as it is the same. About 95% of “Architects” was written by Keaton and I in a room. We wrote basically everything, from drums, lyrics, melo-dies, guitars, even the keys parts that showed up on that album. There are definitely a good number of songs on the new record that came about that way, but they were always fleshed out with Steven and Quynn in our prac-tice space. I think that jamming out songs live really added a more organic element to the songs. A couple of the songs were even written by all four of us in the room, so that’s very different from the “Architects” sessions.Keaton: I agree with the “organic” statement. Even with the songs that Josh and I demoed completely by ourselves, once we brought them to the rest of the group they really turned into a different song.

Speaking of “Architects”, it had a very cohesive sound. Now that there have been a few line-up changes, how would you say your sound has changed? Or has it much at all?

Quynn: I think the songs on our new record are more diverse, even within themselves. Josh: Definitely. We didn’t make an experimental album by any means, but I think writing as a full band this time around allowed for much more diverse ideas to permeate into the songs. Keaton: I think we sound more rock than we ever have before, but at the same time we’re a little more indie too.Josh: It’s definitely the loudest stuff

we’ve ever done, as well as the quietest stuff we’ve ever done.

Now to take a quick break from the serious stuff; If your band was part of the “Futurama” cast, what character would each member be?

Josh: The dudes don’t really know the characters like I do, but I’ll have to say that Steven is Kif, Keaton is Hermes, Quynn is the Professor, and I’m Bender.

Back to music stuff; What is your songwriting process like?

Keaton: Typically, Josh or myself will begin to construct a song by ourselves and first confront each other about the idea and where it can go, then start the demoing process and explore many op-tions with every instrument until we’re completely stoked about it. Some songs go down a very rough road before they reach their final destination. Then there’s other magical times when we just jam a chord progression for a good while and yell a bunch of melodies until it turns into a song.Josh: That is pretty accurate! The pro-cess is really more about how both of us have very, very different ways about writing, and the way we have to rec-oncile those differences. The songs are basically just the result of the conflict and resolution that go on between our different processes of creating a song.

You’ve been playing quite a few shows these past couple weeks, have you been playing any of the new songs? If so, how has the reception been?

Quynn: We’ve played a couple (of the

new songs), I think they have gone well. It’s a nice change of pace for both us and the fans. Keaton: We have tried putting several new songs into our set list lately, and it’s been pretty refreshing if I might say so. It seems that most people really dig them, though we haven’t been playing them live for very long so they’re not the cleanest they could be, but they’re good enough for rock ‘n’ roll!Josh: Yeah the response has been over-all very positive. People tell me they can really tell the difference between the old songs and the new ones in that the new ones sound more urgent. I think that rules.

What’s 2013 looking like for the band so far? Any plans to tour outside California?

Quynn: We’re releasing our new record in the beginning of the year; our hope is that this venture will open up some new doors for us.Keaton: I honestly have no idea. I know that I would love to capture California in some way first, but who knows -- maybe there is more for us elsewhere. That being said, I do really want to get out of California and ex-plore the scene and see what’s crackin’ with all the in-landers.Josh: I’m just very excited to put these songs out. I think they’re much more indicative of who we are as a band than anything we’ve ever done. So hopefully people will latch onto these songs in 2013, and we’ll see where that takes us then.

unplugged Issue 1 11. .Photos courtesey of Streetlight Fire

Photos courtesey of Scottish John

Photos by Steven Condemarin

Photos courtesey of Stoplight Fire

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