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Orange Pop: Creme Tangerine goes back to vinyl

August 30th, 2012, 12:21 pm by

Vinyl records have become an obsession for Parker Macy. The 27-year-old singer-songwriter, known locally for his solo blues music as well as his time spent on guitar in heavy rock band Pistolero, has collected records for as long as he can remember.

A few years ago he began setting up stands in the Seed People’s Market, part of the Camp in Costa Mesa, to sell off some of his finds. So when the opportunity arose last February to rent an official spot inside the Lab across the street, Macy and his friend Bob Rodman jumped at the chance to open their own record shop.

Working out of his new location – a stationary, modified trailer just outside of Urban Outfitters – is a dream come true for Macy, who, after a trip to Portland to visit family, grew fond of the idea of running his own business via an unusual establishment.

“Back there they had a grilled cheese shop in a school bus and like bars set up in old prisons,” he recalls.

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Orange Pop: Local bands rally for ‘Turkey’

August 20th, 2012, 4:07 pm by

Steve Guzman awoke and was surprised to see CHP officers, paramedics and firemen surrounding his car. He was dazed, confused, desperate to remember what had happened – how he went from cruising down the 5 freeway in Anaheim to suddenly being at a dead stop with authorities attempting to assist him.

It was Monday, May 14, about 4:30 p.m. The 27-year-old had just worked his first full day at CAPC in Whittier, a nonprofit organization that works with adults with disabilities, and he was on his way back to his Santa Ana home when the accident occurred. He lost consciousness and control of his 2005 Scion xB and drifted from the fast lane through moderate afternoon traffic and into a wall on the opposite side of the freeway. He avoided hitting anyone else but the impact totaled his vehicle.

He doesn’t remember any of that.

“They asked me my name and I couldn’t remember,” Guzman said during a recent interview, sitting comfortably on the couch in his parents’ family room almost three months after the accident. You can tell he’s still searching for answers about what happened that day, his eyes squinting slightly as he tries to recall all the details.

“I couldn’t remember who I was or what I was doing. In the ambulance they asked me what day it was and I said really fast, ‘May 14th!’ I kept saying ‘May 14! May 14!’ It was the only thing I could remember because it was my first official day at that job and I was actually going to be paid. I was so looking forward to it for such a long time, so that was the first thing to come back to me. Then they asked my name and I said: ‘Steve!’ I could remember my name.”

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Posted in: Local Music • Music News • Orange Pop • Upcoming Events • • • • • • |

Orange Pop: We Are/She Is stepping out with EP

August 9th, 2012, 10:46 am by

After playing together in numerous other projects, local musicians and high school friends Merilou Salazar and Jessie Meehan have finally found their perfect fit with We Are/She Is. The indie pop duo came together in 2010 after their previous band, He’s Not Gay, called it quits.

“We were lucky because sometimes when bands break up it’s like a bad boyfriend-girlfriend situation with a lot of drama,” Salazar said during a recent phone interview. “We didn’t have any of that with our old bandmates.”

Though they started with a clean slate, the girls decided to play off of their old name and came up with We Are/She Is. Salazar considers the ambiguous moniker the “cooler older sister to He’s Not Gay,” but says fans who have gotten to know the band over the last few years truly know what it means.

“People ask us now, because we are an LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender group), if we’re welcomed or if we’re taken seriously in Orange County, because obviously it’s known as conservative,” she pointed out.

“But everyone has been really awesome. When we started getting more press, they were calling us a ‘lesbian duo,’ which was kind of like, ‘Hey, thanks for outing me – again.’ But we’re totally fine with it. So far everyone has been really supportive, and musically we’ve been able to meet and play with so many people.”

After headlining Detroit Bar in Costa Mesa on Aug. 21, Salazar and Meehan head to San Francisco for a couple gigs before settling into an L.A. studio to work on the follow-up to last year’s EP, Young and Pretty Clean.

Read more on We Are/She Is on the Soundcheck Blog.

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Posted in: Local Music • Orange Pop • • • • |

Orange Pop: Reel Big Fish unleash ‘Candy Coated Fury’ at hometown release party this weekend

July 26th, 2012, 10:01 am by

As Reel Big Fish‘s Summer of Ska Tour with Big D & the Kids Table and Suburban Legends comes to an end this week, the Orange County sextet is looking forward to the release of its first album of new music since 2007′s Monkeys for Nothin’ and the Chimps for Free. The band delivers Candy Coated Fury on July 31 and is hosting an official release party – without actually having the release available to sell – at the outing’s final stop, Saturday night at City National Grove of Anaheim.

“I’m not exactly sure how that works,” lead vocalist and guitarist Aaron Barrett admitted with a laugh during a recent phone interview. “But we’ll celebrate with or without it.”

Barrett says he’s not sure what sorts of shenanigans the band has in store for the hometown crowd, but it will definitely incorporate a few fresh tracks into the set list.

“We’ve been playing about two new songs a night on the tour and people seem to really like them,” he adds. “In pre-production, I made sure that all of the songs were really danceable, made sure the bass lines and drum parts really made you bounce, so that for people hearing them for the first time, it’s still easy to dance to even if you don’t know the lyrics. That’s what ska music was in the first place, something you can dance to.”

The album title, Barrett says, is something he’s been sitting on for a long while. A close friend once described the band as such and it stuck with him ever since.

“It’s the perfect description of what we do,” he explains. “It’s angry, hateful, mean, sarcastic lyrics over really wacky, joyous music.”

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Orange Pop: Chris Hansen works hard on No Sleep

July 19th, 2012, 10:05 am by

Coffee isn’t just an occasional morning treat for local record label founder Chris Hansen. He’s obsessed with it. As owner of Huntington Beach-based No Sleep Records, he says there’s not a day that goes by that he hasn’t had at least “three … four … five … or more” coffee drinks. He even has several brew-related tattoos scattered among his fully sleeved arms and one on his leg.

Which is why it’s completely fitting that his No Sleep label logo is a giant mug.

“I drink too much coffee, but coffee makes everything better,” Hansen says, a Starbucks cup within reach during a recent interview at No Sleep headquarters. “I had insomnia before, now I just sleep way too much. Coffee kind of stopped working a long time ago, but I still love it.”

Hansen grew up in Fountain Valley and graduated from Marina High School in 2002. The 27-year-old has worked numerous music industry jobs, everything from shipping orders out of warehouses to design and promotions. He fell in love with the biz at an early age and realized in high school that he wanted to eventually start his own label, since he really didn’t have the talent to become a musician himself.

“I couldn’t play instruments at all,” he admits. “My wrists are horrible and I don’t have any of the rhythm for it.”

He went on to his first internship, at Fearless Records, the Huntington Beach label owned by Bob Becker, and eventually shifted to a position as a buyer at SmartPunk.com. A few years later Hansen took a warehouse job at Revelation Records, and in 2006 he moved out to New Jersey (after freelancing in Kansas City) to work at the now-defunct Trustkill Records, an indie haven once home to multiple O.C. hardcore acts, including Bleeding Through, Eighteen Visions and Throwdown.

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Orange Pop: Echo Echo goes DIY with latest EP

July 11th, 2012, 11:39 am by

During the summer of 2010, local rock outfit Echo Echo was riding high while recording its full-length debut, Fall Like You’re Flying, at L.A.’s Henson Recording Studios.

They had decamped there with noted producer and engineer Alex Gibson, best known for assisting artists like David Lee Roth, Sting and Damien Rice, and also got to work with English musician and producer Rupert Hine, who has collaborated with everyone from Tina Turner and Stevie Nicks to the Fixx and Rush.

The actual recording process was a great learning experience, vocalist Steve Carson said in a recent phone interview. Echo Echo was able to fund the bigger-budget recording thanks to a couple of local investors – or what Carson jokingly refers to as a little armed robbery and extortion.

“The biggest bonus to having that budget was that it allowed us to work with Alex and Rupert, and that was just mind-blowing, but it wouldn’t have happened without some money,” he explains. “Just being able to work with a producer of Alex’s level of talent, and recording at Henson – it was all an amazing experience.

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Interview: The Offspring looks back as ‘Days Go By’

June 28th, 2012, 8:17 am by

Huntington Beach-based punk rock quartet the Offspring (from top left: Kevin "Noodles" Wasserman, Pete Prada, Greg Kriesel and Dexter Holland) debuted it's ninth studio album, "Days Go By," on June 26. Photo by Sam Jones.

When Huntington Beach punk rock outfit the Offspring released 2008′s Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace, the band more or less proclaimed, in one of its most pointed and unprintable titles ever, “(Stuff) is (Messed) Up.”

That entire album was littered with frontman Dexter Holland’s observations on how out-of-control the world had become. Little did he know that by the time he and the group would drop another album, in the next presidential election year, he’d feel compelled to take the title a step further.

“(Stuff) is definitely (messed) up now,” he says during a recent phone interview.

With the release this week of Days Go By, the band’s ninth studio effort and sixth for Columbia Records, the vocalist and guitarist acknowledges these tough times, especially in the title track.

“It’s been a rough few years for everyone,” he says. “The idea is that things will get better but no one is really going to help you, and you have to kind of figure out how to pick yourself back up and move on. I really wanted that message of hope to be in this record and in this song.

“On the other side of it, it’s like something has got to give. I wrote a song called ‘Secrets from the Underground’ and it’s kinda like: If something doesn’t give soon, then something’s really gonna give, whether it be Occupy Wall Street or what-have-you. You can just tell that it’s gone beyond (stuff) is (messed) up, to where people are just really pissed off out there.”

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Interview: Mark McGrath gears up for Summerland

June 22nd, 2012, 4:39 pm by

It’s been almost a decade since Sugar Ray has embarked on a full-blown tour – and lead vocalist and guitarist Mark McGrath can’t wait to hit the road.

As we chatted in his publicist’s office in Studio City earlier this month, the singer’s face lit up while explaining how the inaugural Summerland Tour, kicking off next week, culled together McGrath’s enduring band as well as Everclear, Gin Blossoms, Marcy Playground and another O.C. favorite, Lit. He started talking really fast and his hands fidgeted at his sides.

This guy is really excited.

Turns out that after much talk about staging a ’90s-based rock tour, McGrath and Everclear’s Art Alexakis were finally in a position to pull off a 33-date trek, arriving June 29 at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles.

“The time never seemed right to do this tour,” the former Extra host says. After Alexakis moved to L.A. from his home in Portland, he contacted McGrath and the two concluded that now is the perfect time for a nostalgic tour – “but with a foot in the present, looking towards the future,” he adds.

“This tour is not reinventing the wheel. There’s not been a defining ’90s tour, and we said, ‘Let’s do it.’ It’s not a quick cash grab, let’s-pay-the-mortgage (thing). Some of these bands are still very vital and putting out new records, and hopefully that will be something we (Sugar Ray) do, too, in the future.

“The thinking was: Let’s play the big venues again. Let’s celebrate these great, iconic songs of the ’90s that people still love. You’re going to hear giant hit songs throughout the whole tour. And that was one prerequisite: you can’t come on Summerland unless you have a giant hit song – or a few giant songs.”

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Interview: Lit flares up again with a ‘View from the Bottom’

June 19th, 2012, 4:45 pm by

It’s been eight years since Fullerton rock band Lit put out an album. For brothers A. Jay and Jeremy Popoff – the group’s vocalist and lead guitarist, respectively – along with longtime bassist Kevin Baldes and fairly recent additions Nathan Walker (drums) and Ryan Gillmor (guitar), the release date couldn’t have come soon enough.

This week the quintet unleashed new material to the masses via Megaforce Records, the label that launched monsters of metal like Metallica and Anthrax and more recently issued discs from Ministry and Living Colour. Lit’s latest, “The View from the Bottom,” was produced by Butch Walker, in-demand industry player whose behind-the-scenes work ranges from Weezer and Saosin to Pink and Katy Perry.

The title isn’t as ominous as it sounds. In fact, the true meaning is very much in the tradition of Lit, as the guys demonstrated for me exactly what a “view from the bottom” looks like, hoisting their cocktail glasses high in the air and clinking them together.

“If you get down and look up, it’s sort of our little cheers to the future, a little play on words,” Jeremy says as we chat in the back of the Slidebar Rock-N-Roll Kitchen in downtown Fullerton, the bar and restaurant he owns.

To usher in the new disc, the band will headline a release party at House of Blues Anaheim on Saturday, along with fellow local acts Julien-K and We Are the Arsenal. That particular stage is very near to their hearts: Lit kicked off the grand opening of the Mouse House in 2001 and returned to perform at the venue’s 10th anniversary last year.

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Interview: The Dirty Heads get fired up for sophomore release

June 15th, 2012, 7:37 am by

June 19 can’t come soon enough for Huntington Beach reggae/hip-hop fusionists the Dirty Heads. That date marks the long-awaited release of the quintet’s sophomore album, Cabin by the Sea.

It’s been four years since the group issued its debut, Any Port in a Storm, and that disc experienced numerous setbacks as well, including a parting with Warner Bros. Records, which was initially expected to put it out. The album was eventually issued through EMG, a division of Universal Music Group, in 2008.

Yet vocalist and guitarist Dustin Bushnell (aka Dubby B) says the struggle was all worth it, especially since the guys got to work with industry heavy hitters like longtime Beastie Boys collaborator Mario Caldato Jr. and the late Billy Preston. The latter, known for his work with the Beatles and Eric Clapton as well as his own ’70s hits, gave his final studio performance on a few tracks from the Dirty Heads’ debut.

Since that collection took off – launched onto the charts via the smash single “Lay You Down,” featuring Rome Ramirez – the band has had an extensive touring schedule, landing opening slots on tours with larger acts like 311, Matisyahu, Slightly Stoopid and Sublime with Rome, in addition to its own headlining jaunts.

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