A sound read

Jonathan Carabba and Melissa Welliver go to 100—as in issues of their bi-weekly local music-and-arts mag, Submerge, which they started up in February 2008 and celebrates a centennial this week with a hot gig at Ace of Spades. Welliver—who designs and edits and founded the mag—and Carabba—who runs advertising and gets first dibs on the cool stories—are now engaged, still cranking out issues and still diving into the local music scene with the passion and curiosity they had at issue No. 1.

Pretend you’re in a band: What’s your name?

Jonathan Carabba: Little Metal Panda! We were outside of Rubicon [Brewing Company] one time, and Ground Chuck took a piece of chalk and drew our Boston terrier’s face (her name is Panda) super huge on the sidewalk. He muttered something about how our dog’s face looked like the dudes from this black-metal band after they did their faces up with black-and-white paint. I was like, “Little Metal Panda is the best band name ever.” Please don’t steal it.

Share your most memorable show experience of the past four years.

Carabba: We were hanging out at Torch Club one time and A.C. Myles, who was playing lead guitar for the Cole Fonseca Band that particular night, came out into the crowd mid-solo and called me out and made me chug a full bottle of beer in front of a capacity crowd. Everyone was cheering me on, so I pounded the beer, and he took the empty bottle from me, never missing a note, and used it as a slide and just murdered a slide-guitar solo. It fucking blew my mind.

Plug a favorite local artist.

Melissa Welliver: I love Kill the Precedent. … Appetite is another favorite. Not only is their album something I rock out to regularly, but when we we’ve been able to see them live with a full band, it’s also been great.

Carabba: Local experimental-indie rockers the Speed of Sound in Seawater are one of my faves, and they have kind of gone unnoticed by local press for the most part. Horseneck is a good, new hard-hitting three-piece that I’m digging. Attwater is a local country-pop band that is about to hit it big, for sure. I’m also fascinated and intrigued by Death Grips and all the hype around them.

For fun: your all-time, any three-band in history, dream lineup for a gig?

Welliver: Is it weird if I say an all stand-up comedy bill? Aziz Ansari, Chelsea Handler, Mitch Hedberg. If it has to be music: T.I., Murder City Devils, At the Drive-In.

I actually went to an At the Drive-In and Murder City Devils show at Great American Music Hall back in the day. If T.I. could have just played that night, I would have already seen this dream lineup.

Carabba: If it’s “dream lineup,” I’ve got to go with: Jimmy Hendrix, Pink Floyd, the Mars Volta. Damn, I like trippy stuff, huh?

You actually get a week off work: What’s your dream vacation?

Welliver: Vacation? What’s that? No, it’s funny you asked that; I’m struggling with two scenarios right now. I’m 100 percent torn between South By Southwest or going somewhere beachy to just get away and disconnect, but I doubt disconnecting would be even possible for us.

Carabba: If I had to choose, I would say a chartered heli-snowboard trip in Haines, Alaska. Or maybe British Columbia somewhere. Somewhere with lots of snow and steep lines. It’s funny how different our dream vacations are.

The best thing about making a magazine with the person you’re going to marry?

Welliver: I’d say the perfect thing about working together is that we both are passionate about Submerge. It’s nice to be both in it.

Carabba: I love working with Melissa. … We are the perfect combo, really, in business and in life. Our skill sets combined are that of five people, at least, when it comes to getting shit done. We are constantly working, but we are building something special together and supporting the local arts community in a huge way at the same time, so it’s worth it.

Is there anything you’d “lovingly tweak”?

Welliver: If I could fix one thing about Jonathan, it’d be that I wish he was better at accounting so that I don’t have to do the boring stuff like taxes.

Carabba: I was just going to say the same thing to you, lovingly, of course. =