Archive for May, 2011
with Mike Blanchard & the Californios and Miss Lonely Hearts
Sac’s old-timeyest hillbilly band celebrates the release of their sixth album (on cd, not LP, but don’t get me started) with a big ole party at 10th and S. The Flats have gone through as many permutations as a Spade Cooley combo in their near-decade of existence, but the current lineup is their best yet. The addition of Scotty and Sasha Prawalsky (of the Poplollys) was a stroke of genius; Sasha’s vocals are the anchor the band needed, and Scotty’s playing complements the band perfectly. The only thing missing is Wills Point. -TF
Old Ironsides, 8PM, 21+
I was completely surprised to find no blog post from me this morning. It’s the other Monday right? I guess I got a little too caught up in Mother’s Day partying and forgot. Or posting slipped my mind because I kept thinking I would come up with a plan. It’s still Monday in my house so here goes nothing. I present pictures from around town that have little or nothing to do with each other. Above is my favorite graffiti. A friend told me that a few years ago there was a pair of shoes on top of the curb. If you have any extras this would be a good place to leave them.
That “Eyesore dot com” crackpot finally got his way and someone is cleaning up the old gas station on Alhambra & T. I am also stoked, but I wish it was going to be something more exciting than a Subway, like a Beard Papa franchise. I wonder what his next eyesore will be?
I love the Johnny Broadways’ running rib. The Nikes crack me up. I love Johnny Broadways’ peach cobbler too. LOVE.
Finally, did you know that the fabric on RT buses has little Capitol buildings on it? Adorable.
And there it is. I should be ashamed of myself, but I am not.
The rumors are true: longtime local musician Mike Diaz held up a gas station last week. He’s in jail.
The details are hazy, but most of the story is there. At 3:30 in morning last Thursday, April 28, Diaz approached the clerk working at the AM/PM at 16th and W. Holding his hand under his shirt, Diaz told the clerk he had a gun and demanded money. The clerk gave him the cash in the drawer and Diaz took off running. The clerk began yelling that he’d been robbed, and two Sacramento Bee deliverymen chased and tackled Diaz in the alley behind the station. They held him down until police arrived. Diaz had no gun, but did have the money – just over $100 – in his pocket.
This is one of the hardest stories I’ve ever had to write. I know Mike, and I think of him as a friend. Our bands have played together many times, I know some of his family – he even applied to be a cartoonist for the magazine when we first got MM off the ground. The Mike Diaz I see in the arrest footage (from Fox 40, here) looks like the evil doppleganger of the Mike Diaz I know.
This is the Mike Diaz I remember.
I can’t recall exactly when Mike popped up in the local music scene… it had to be over 15 years ago. He’d relocated here from, I think, somewhere in coastal California, and was yet another mod guy, looking smart in pegged slacks and his parka, sporting that peculiar Small Faces spiky-topped bowlcut that only Mods can pull off. He had some connection to the News and Review and wrote a complimentary blurb about my band The Shruggs at a time when it seemed like no one else on earth liked us.
At some point he started showing up in local mod-flavored bands… I can’t even remember the first of them, but probably the one that really got him some notice was the Payback. The Payback was a show band – perfect for Mike since he had good stage presence and some James Brown moves. The Payback didn’t last all that long, but Mike always landed in another group soon enough. It seemed like he had hit it pretty big when he joined the Minstrels, an incredible Canadian pop band that had relocated to SF. They were all the rage for a moment in the nineties, but now I can’t even find a youtube clip of them. Such is fame, I guess.
After that succession of bands, Mike decided to put together the group he’s best known for: Red Tyger Church. RTC has gone through at least a half dozen permutations, but Mike and his songwriting were always at the center. Whatever the lineup, it’s always been his band. They’ve had better and worse moments, but at their peak they were a flower psych powerhouse somewhat on the order of the Brian Jonestown Massacre. Mike still found time for other projects too, notably singing for Pretty Girls, a sort of Sacto All Stars of punk that ruled Midtown’s live music scene for a brief moment a decade ago. A Los Angeles pal of mine, Julien Nitzberg (director of the acclaimed Wild Whites of West Virginia) called me back then, irritated. “How come you never told me about this Sacramento band, the Pretty Girls? I just got their record and it’s incredible!”
I’m not sure when I became aware that Mike was having some problems, but it got pretty obvious, even to a devout square like me. Mike has battled substance abuse on and off since at least the nineties. And when I say ‘battled,’ I mean it. Mike went back and forth more than any addict I’ve known. He would descend into the depths, and crawl back out again. When Mike wasn’t using, he was counseling other addicts to get straight, to get their lives on track. He was counseling a mutual friend about alcoholism only a month ago. He knew how close it was at any moment. I know it doesn’t mean much given what happened last Thursday, but he tried. I’m convinced that he really did.
Only Mike knows the exact way he came to be at that place and time last week, but I’ve been able to piece together some of the story. He’d had had back surgery at the end of last year, and was prescribed medication for the pain; unsurprisingly, he developed an addiction. He moved out of town to stay with family, trying to get himself sorted out and get off the medication. Then, he made a brief visit to Sacramento -I’m not sure why- and found himself unable to refill his prescription. Withdrawls kicked in, and feeling that he had no other choice, he turned to street drugs; soon enough he was standing outside a gas station with his hand in his shirt. He was so messed up he could barely walk, let alone run away, after he got the money.
I’m not making any excuses for Mike. He made a terrible, terrible mistake, and he’s lucky that no one – including him – got hurt. And, from what I hear, he’s also lucky that he is not facing a 10 year prison sentence. I don’t have this 100% confirmed, but it sounds like he’s looking at something under a year in a minimum security facility where he will also get help with his demons. I hope so.
I can’t imagine what could have made him do this- again, that’s not the Mike I’ve ever known – but then, I’ve never been an addict. I count myself very lucky. And, though I’m not making excuses for Mike, I will say that most of us have friends or family who could easily find themselves in a situation not unlike Mike’s.
I know that some of his friends and family will be very angry with him, and rightfully so. Me, I’m just very, very sad.
Sacramento’s favorite rockin’ gals return! The ladies Ribbon just can’t keep away from their old hometown, since a not-long-ago move to Austin. They’ve been rolling with their newer album Chateau Crone, on Antenna Farm Records, also home to the Papercuts and Foxtails Brigade (touring also this month!) As part of a west coast tour that has them celebrating with Le Butcherettes in LA, partying with the Pipettes in SF, working on a music video, and lending lots of time for the spring of Sacramento, Agent Ribbons will take the stage of Harlow’s, and a super-fun time it’s sure to be! –TM
Harlow’s, 8PM, $7, 21+
Dead at 27!! Robert Johnson is considered the first of the “27 Club”, a group of musicians and rock icons who all died, under controversial circumstances, at age 27. Like Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones, Kurt Cobain, and Mia Zapata, Mr. Johnson left this earth far too soon, leaving behind a musical legacy and an endless stream of fans. A charming musician and traveller, his original blues compositions (most steeped in complex guitar work, dark subject matter, and a unique, powerful singing voice) and lighter street performances received little public recognition until an LP reissue of his recordings in 1961. Since then, he’s received many posthumous awards and recognitions, including being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and ranking fifth in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. On this night, one hundred years after the birth of Robert Johnson, Mick Martin, Aaron King, The Kelps, and others pay homage to this King of the Delta Blues. – TM
Harlow’s, 8PM, $10.00, 21+
Get ready folks, one of the BEST events of the year is this weekend: the annual Sacramento Cactus and Succulent Society’s show and sale! I profiled the club last year (here) and have been a fan for literally decades- my folks were the oddballs in the neighborhood with a yard full of cactus when everyone else had a plain old lawn. This year’s event (the 51st!) will take place on May 7th and 8th, and will be held, as always, at the Shepard Garden Arts Center in McKinley Park. Don’t miss….
This is probably the tenth time we’ve shilled a Neil Hamburger show, but what can we say- we’re shameless fans. Hamburger, for the uninitiated, is the world’s funniest unfunny comedian. His schtick, if you can call it that, consists of coughing, sweating, complaining, and telling epic-poem-length non-jokes about subjects like the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ lack of talent. If that doesn’t sell you, I don’t know what will. Neil will be performing with The Kenny “K-Strass” Strasser Yo-Yo Extravaganza and Major Entertainer Mike H.
Sacramento Comedy Spot , 1050 20th Street, Suite 130
$15, 9PM
When the notion of an Old Sac Issue came up there were grumblings. Sure, everyone on the MM crew had some fond memories of days (or nights) there, but a WHOLE ISSUE? Really?
Really.
The interesting thing about Old Sac is that – as Becky discovered while working on her article – the more you look, the more you find. The articles in this issue are a good example. We didn’t even touch on the Railroad Museum, Evangeline’s, the fast-fading murals under the waterfront, the history of the riverboats, the Sacramento Union building, The Marshes of Two Street, the Indo Arch at the entrance on K, or Eleanor McClatchy, the heroine who helped save Old Sac from the wrecking ball. We just ran out of room.
Old Sac is neat. Sure, it’s easy to take for granted, but if you can mentally cut through all the tourist t-shirts, dreamcatchers and James Dean novelties, there is an awful lot of history stuffed in a few close blocks – especially when you compare it to the city east of 3rd Street. Most Sacramentans tend to forget that Old Town even exists until Aunt Petunia from Fargo comes to visit, and then they make a cursory trip, missing most of what the area has to offer in their haste to get out before they get a parking ticket.
I have to admit that I used to be in that category myself. Even though I’d once worked as a DJ in a club in the basement of the Union, I never gave Old Sac much thought after I’d quit. I’d check out the free outdoor Sunday night movies once in a while, or ride through as part of the Thanksgiving Day bike ride, but that was about it. Out of sight, out of mind. Then, six years ago, I had a revelation.
Over the years, the News and Review has experimented with many ways of promoting their Sammies music awards. In 2005 they had the idea of having all the nominated bands perform in venues throughout Old Sac – all on the same night. Having 20+ bands all playing simultaneously in one tiny neighborhood sounds like a crazy idea, but it worked. For once, Old Sac was packed, not with tourists, but with Sacramentans. In a few short blocks you could check out a half dozen different types of music from a huge variety of acts. It reminded me of a mini South by Southwest. For whatever reason, SNR never tried that again. It’s a shame, because for that one night, Old Sacramento seemed like part of Sacramento again. It was wonderful.
By Sarah Singleton Photos by Scott Duncan
The Firehouse has long been an oasis of good taste in the kitsch desert that is Old Sac. Read more »
By Niki Kangas Photos by Scott Duncan
Tucked out of the way in a cobblestone-paved alley in Old Sacramento, a small old worldly sign quietly beckons the passerby: take refuge at the Backdoor Lounge. Read more »