The nudge of a fellow fan swaying close by, the scent of pale ales
filling the room — there’s a gravitas to seeing dwell music in a
bodily place that you just don’t get from a digital present. Digital
band Tycho understands the reverence one can really feel for a music
venue. Band chief Scott Hansen composed the dreamy synth songs
for the album “Dive” in a transformed storage two blocks from
Harlow’s nightclub, the place he loved seeing exhibits. In a
full-circle homecoming this weekend, Tycho will play a
three-night collection of “Dive Dwell,” the one West Coast
efficiency of the set. Beginning final evening and persevering with
by Saturday evening, the Grammy-nominated band will carry out
the album in full, adopted by a mixture of songs from their
oeuvre.
“We get to do issues our personal manner right here. … There’s not a variety of
hoops to leap by.”Daniel Romandia, expertise booker and advertising director,
Harlow’s
Though Tycho may very well be thought-about a Sacramento band, its members
have been unfold throughout the nation for many of their run
— Hansen in Oakland, Zac Brown in Sacramento (he says he
will stroll to the Harlow’s exhibits), Rory O’Connor in Brooklyn and
Billy Kim in Fullerton, California. Hansen left Sacramento in
2006, though he was “not keen to depart Sacramento.” On the
time, the musician and designer had simply begun working with Brown
and was content material composing dreamy digital music in his
Harlow’s-adjacent garage-turned-studio.
Brown remembers the storage, which boasted a dwelling area over it,
as “the dream for a musician.” Hansen remembers that interval as an
incubation the place he “began feeling very strongly in regards to the
materials,” which straddles chillwave and indie rock. “That second
in time,” he says, “that little couple-year stint there felt like
a bunch of stuff set the stage for the longer term and type of got here
collectively proper at that final minute.”
That pivotal interval is crystalized for Hansen as a result of,
simply as his music was gaining momentum, he moved to San Francisco
to simply accept a job supply as interface designer for an organization that
would develop into Adobe. Six months later he stop full-time design
work and dedicated to creating music as Tycho, and people
garage-made songs would develop into “Dive,” the band’s influential
album launched in 2011. (Hansen’s design acumen continues to
inform the music, which throughout dwell exhibits is punctuated with
ethereal visuals that punch up the instrumentation.) Quick-forward
to this drizzly weekend in late 2022, one pandemic 12 months previous the
album’s 10-year mark, and the band will carry out “Dive Dwell” as a
particular ode to Harlow’s. It is going to be their first present there since
2014.
“Sacramento is every thing. Like, that was the backdrop for the
complete factor,” says Hansen when requested if Sacramento influenced the
album, which a Pitchfork
reviewer said conjures pure landscapes. “I grew up in Honest
Oaks … and on the time, the realm we moved to was fairly rural. It
was rolling pastures and, like, previous decaying barns,” he says. “In
Sacramento, you’re feeling such as you’re all the time on this cocoon of timber
and foliage.” His transfer to San Francisco supplied a brand new palette of
inspiration to attract from: “Extra like windswept, craggy. San
Francisco is usually a harsh atmosphere, you’re on the ocean, and
there’s one thing actually attention-grabbing to me about that.”
Though the sound of “Dive” is soothing, its composition is
unmistakably cerebral. Brown remembers the complexity of performing
“Dive” throughout early excursions and almost getting misplaced within the
intricate progressions. “We’ve these ear displays, and I needed to
give myself voice cues on what to do on sure songs, as a result of I
didn’t know them but.” Now he can play them in his sleep, he
says.
Tycho band chief Scott Hansen says though he enjoys the “large
presentation” and “sensory overload” of bigger exhibits (pictured),
there’s something particular in regards to the “vibey” really feel of the midsize
Midtown Sacramento venue, Harlow’s. (Photograph by Andrew Rosas,
courtesy of One other Planet Leisure)
Figuring out the songs so fluently permits the band members to deal with
crowd interplay, a bonus to enjoying a membership like Harlow’s.
“It’s actually cool, since you get that power proper in entrance of
your face with individuals 5 ft from you, versus enjoying
the Greek Theater the place you need to amplify actions,” says
Brown. “That makes me the happiest, after I can inform persons are
having an excellent time.” Being near his bandmates on Harlow’s
slender stage, reasonably than 60 ft away, is one other profit, says
the guitarist.
Internet hosting Tycho on the Harlow’s stage was an intentional
bid by the venue’s expertise booker and advertising director, Daniel
Romandia, who has been reserving musicians who carried out
“nostalgic, iconic exhibits” as a part of a “Harlow’s Anniversary
Sequence.” The thought is to “nearly recreate these payments,” he says.
Up to now he’s included bands like Shannon and the Clams and Tender
Kill. When it got here to reserving Tycho, Romandia says the band and
their agent have been enthusiastic a couple of synchronous present that might
rejoice each Harlow’s and “Dive.”
Forty years is loads to rejoice for the J Avenue membership, however so
is the feat of getting by the pandemic and not using a closure.
Though Harlow’s proprietor and operator Jim Cornett says they “have
not recovered,” the efficiency area has hosted 400 acts this
12 months, 450 in the event you rely its upstairs venue, The Starlet Room.
Cornett credit the membership’s longevity to its variety of
leisure acts. “A enterprise like this, you want to have the ability to
attain each viewers, each patron you will have, all ages group,” he
says, including that along with live shows, they host comedy,
burlesque and artists of all types.
“It’s actually cool, since you get that power proper in entrance
of your face with individuals 5 ft from you. … That makes me
the happiest, after I can inform persons are having an excellent
time.”Zac Brown, bass guitarist, Tycho
Romandia provides that their impartial, non-corporate standing retains
them nimble. “Type of like what our tagline says, we’re dwell and
impartial. We get to do issues our personal manner right here,” he says.
“Like, Jim owns the place, he’s the individual that I’ve to reply
to anytime I do have any selections to make. There’s not a variety of
hoops to leap by.” Cornett, who labored for the worldwide ticket
gross sales firm Dwell Nation for 10 years and the live performance manufacturing
firm Invoice Graham Presents for 16, is aware of firsthand it may be
“arduous to maneuver by a company fashion.” With Harlow’s, which he
purchased in 2012, he has management: “Right here, now we have an thought and we might
have the ability to put it into work inside three days.”
Harlow’s has placed on 400 exhibits throughout its fortieth 12 months, spanning many
music genres and efficiency kinds. (Photograph by Sier Bafaiz,
courtesy of Harlow’s)
Hansen considers Harlow’s and different midsize golf equipment in Sacramento
to be locations for particular exhibits, as a result of comparatively main bands
that come to the Bay Space would possibly make a cease within the capital too.
“The cool factor is, you get bands which might be too massive for Harlow’s
enjoying Harlow’s, as a result of they worn out the market the evening
earlier than in San Francisco, so that you get to see this intimate present,”
he says.
Tycho’s return to Harlow’s is a technique to look again earlier than shifting
ahead with the brand new album they’re writing, which Brown describes
as extra daring, stripped down and uncooked. To Hansen’s thoughts, it’s
necessary to first take a beat and stand within the area the place it
all started. “Presentation-wise, that is probably the most significant,” he
says. “We’re really within the place. Bodily it’s so near
the place Zach and I have been geographically at the moment. It’s a very,
actually particular alternative and I’m actually grateful for it.”
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