Out walkin’

One hopes that readers of this paper are already familiar with Sacramento’s Second Saturday art walk. It’s the one night a month when Sacramento art patrons wander the streets of Midtown, poking their heads into various galleries, boutiques and shops, peering at the art that hangs on every available wall space while nibbling cookies and drinking pretty bad wine. (It’s free, though, so why complain?)

Of course, the art is always accompanied by a fair amount of music. Local musicians, mostly singer-songwriters and jazz ensembles, set up on the sidewalks and in the corners of small shops to entertain passersby. It makes for an interesting evening, to be sure.

It’s also a night out for scene makers of all sorts. Last Saturday, local singer-songwriter Jay Shaner was spotted at Bodytribe Fitness, staring at angular portraits with his girlfriend. Toward the back of the room, Armando Rivera of the Noise Geniuses wandered through with Deluxe’s Katrina Skalland. Rivera reported that he’s working on a new Noise Geniuses album at Studio Z Recording—good news for indie rockers everywhere. Meanwhile, Skalland is preparing to record Deluxe’s first proper full-length album at the Hangar Studios, with help from local sound guru Dave Middleton.

Charles Twilling was there, too, wife in tow, talking about his new club, Junta, which hopefully will open in the next month or so. Twilling was optimistic as he talked about pulling in touring singer-songwriters and tapping into the indie-rock circuit he utilized heavily during the old Capitol Garage’s heyday. If Junta does what it promises to do, it will be a great all-ages venue for Sacramento. I hope it works. You should, too.

Back out on the street, Lance Jackman of Eight Four Seven told me about the band’s new EP; the band is currently recording basic tracks at the Hangar. This one is intended not as a saleable product (although I’m sure the band will sell some at shows), but rather as press-kit material.

Just up the street, Ross Hammond was helming a quintet in front of the 20th Street Art Gallery. It was a nice set: melodic mid-tempo jazz with a decidedly urban feel (courtesy of Hammond’s occasional wah-wah pedal). Hammond has always tried to bring jazz out of the regular venues to new audiences, and there he was doing it again. The people responded by pulling up lawn chairs in the vacant parking spots and listening.However, the “best of show” that evening went to OX, a man featured prominently in “Outside noise” (SN&R Cover, July 14). OX started his set at Le Fun by holding a dingy cassette recorder up to a microphone and chanting along to the sound collage emanating from the speaker. Occasionally, he blew into a train whistle. It was so weird it confused everyone, but we all loved it anyway. OX has released all of his hard-to-find cassette recordings on CD now, so people without cave-dwelling tendencies can get the whole OX experience in a format suitable for the digital age. Now I can finally put my cassette deck back in the garage.