Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
This weekend, the San Francisco-based Zum record label, website, and zine is celebrating its 12th anniversary with shows in the Bay Area and SoCal. We've been friends with co-founders and siblings George and Yvonne Chen since the first issue and maybe even before, since my cousin was a classmate of theirs at Cal. The publication's early issues had interviews with the likes of Fugazi, J Church, and Devo, but later ones went on to document the early twee scene (Boyracer, Aislers Set) before taking a left turn and releasing more experimental and noisy music (including George's own bands, such as KIT). I hit up George with a few questions and he typed back with lightning speed. GR: You made the transition to online a while ago. Was that a tough choice, philosophically? GC: Transitioning to online made sense at the time we did it, since we had many other projects and wanted to maintain a quality level of our magazine. What I probably should have done, and this was brought up as early as 2000, was turned Zum the website into a blog. The frequency of updates that people do now would not have been sustainable with two people working on a volunteer basis, and I didn't really catch on to the importance of daily updates. I channeled a lot of my writing energy into doing freelance music writing for a while, so now if I post something for free it's just to do it. But I still love print magazines and zines. I might want to try doing a one-off
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This weekend I went to Gourmet Vegetarian, a new-ish eatery in San Gabriel Square. It's at the old Go-Go Caf
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The booth may look fancy from a far, and even up close, it all looks great. But do you realize how much is packed into a 10'x20' space? It's 360 degrees around which means you need staff everywhere. There's goods stored under the tables, on the middle shelves, and there's even over stock in the vans we use to get down there with. Oh and there's cardboard boxes. All of what's not sold and everything we buy there needs to get packed up again. So here's a little tour of what you see and may not see. From the booth we see things go on. We're watching you as much as you are watching girls in tights. We're also watching you as a possible thief. We do get to say hi to friends. That's DJ Neil Armstrong on the left. My friend Emily on the right. Even from the side, it looks like this. Just people standing around manning a booth and helping customers. But then under the booth, people are eating! Look at the size of the sandwich! No food or drink can go on the top shelf! Drinks, food, lunch, juice, candy, and a fake bottle of JD. Yeah it's ice tea in there, but we want to look like Slash from GNR, so we have it around for photos. Pringles are easy chips to eat in a booth. That's my camera bag on the left so I could shoot photos like these that will probably make some of you who are in them, mad.
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Usually when I go to a show, I don't know anyone except for the person I go with–and often I go alone. But last night I was surrounded by a ton of friends who also wanted to see Obits and The Night Marchers. The bands share roots in San Diego that include Hot Snakes, Drive Like Jehu, Pitchfork… For a lot of people who listened to punk, indie, garage, etc. (especially in the '90s) all of those bands are a big deal. Above, John Reis's new band is the Night Marchers. He was part of all three of the aforementioned groups as well as Rocket From The Crypt–possibly the greatest rock 'n' roll machine of all time. Halloween will never be the same without RFTC's annual costume parties (which also doubled as a birthday party for my brother Greg and me, since we were born on Nov. 1) but at least I got to see him crank out some blues-based blasts last night. As hard-working, honest, and infectious as ever, John is a true rock god. The headliner was Obits, out of Brooklyn. Rick Fork (Froberg) is the main singer and guitarist. In Pitchfork, Jehu, and Hot Snakes, his more experimental guitar playing was a foil to the more rocking style of Reis. In Obits, there's more of a give-and-take between Fork the other guitarist, Sohrab Habibion (ex-Edsel, below). In contrast to The Night Marchers' nonstop barrage of guitar, Obits have a lot of space between the riffs, making a conversational and sometimes even surfy tone. Totally amazing to witness live–and the album totally rips, too. Nope, no Hot Snakes tunes, but a super rad show nonetheless with two of my favorite musicians a ton of great new songs.
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The video is finally posted. This is Breathing Underwater – the Scion art project I was asked to do. It's a mere one minute and it came out fun. The music by Goh Nakamura blows me away. It's him doing arty Beach Boys stuff. Since then, I've learned a lot, got a nice trip to Brooklyn, and had the odd honor of being considered an artist myself and even travelled as one. This is where we talk about it. Scion Installation 6: Video – Eric Nakamura & Saelee Oh Interview from Scion ART on Vimeo. Also the old post about the actual experience of going to the opening.
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