Gemcoska's PhotoBlog: March 2018

2017-04-08 Sabrosa Craft Beer and Taco Music Festival

So I found several posts that got lost among all the working and travelling I've been doing, well mostly the working. BUT, this music festival is coming back to town next month and I thought the timing worked well to publish these photos from last years festival... finally.

So there were a lot of things that I was really excited about for this festival. There were beer tastings, a bunch of taco trucks, Frost, Heidi and Frank from KLOS were there (I'm huge fan), Wee Man was there to host a taco eating contest and Kobayashi was participating, and I'm there with great friends! But really, the only reason I went and the reason I'm not going this year is the music. This year it’s Offspring and Pennywise, but last year it was Rival Sons, Sum 41, and Offspring. Killer lineup. I would chase anyone of these bands to a 500 person show without question. I’d pass on an arena show since Offspring and Sum 41 are hanging on to hits that are decades old and Rival Sons is still on their way up. But honestly, the best way to see bands are at these tiny shows and get up close and personal, and get backstage, and go to their after party, befriend them on a personal level, stalk them at all their shows, develop the same drug habits as them, become eskimo brothers with them, go to the same rehab facility as them, relapse with them, then eventually grow out of the rock star lifestyle with them and summer in the Hamptons with them. I’m telling you, it’s definitely the best way to see a band.

So we are well within the era of food trucks and craft beer. That’s all fantastic and it’s a way to provide access to large crowds for these small businesses and has given us unlimited variations and variety. The problem with this massive amount of variety is that you can’t taste everything. You just get too full… or too drunk. Lucky for me, I don’t drink… when I don’t want to… most of the time… some of the time… I don’t remember, I was drunk at the time. But seriously, unless a beer is a significant flavor standout, everything blends in. I have a trained palate people; I can pick out flavors. But the whole middle spectrum of beer nowadays is just kinda different hues of yellow and brown. Now it takes a fruity sour or a peanut butter coffee milk stout on Nitro to get me excited. I just sound stuck up now. I’m just saying, I like variety.

But what about the food? I’ve got some strong opinions on food, obviously. But food truck food especially frustrating. I’d like you to recall the last time you order from a food truck; not a white lunch truck; a hipster food truck. How long did you wait? How much did it cost? How much food did you get? I’d venture your responses are blue, 1980, and Alexander Hamilton. Lucky for you, there is no answer key so by default you are correct! As my last boss said many times, these gourmet food trucks make you wait forever for something that is twice the price and half the serving. The food we did have there was admittedly pretty good. However, can I get a handful of food truck that does that classic preparation of their selected food? There’s a reason that people are recreating old favorites; because they are good just as is! Every once in a while it’s nice to have a deep fried Korean lobster truffle cream puff with a mint chutney. However most of the time, I want quality ingredients, cooked with care and love, served in a manner that highlights the food. Don’t just put it on a stick, batter it and fry it then cover it with powdered sugar. Well, that’s fine if you’re at the fair, but there’s a reason the fair comes around only once a year. Carnies. Carnies are the reason.

ENOUGH BANTER. Let’s banter about the bands! Well I’ll banter, you keep avoiding whatever you’re avoiding by reading this. First up Rival Sons. So the exceptional Michelle Miller first introduced me to Rival Sons. She’s the one with the silky smooth, belongs in a Paul Mitchel catalog, oh I totally just woke up this way and I look fantastic, hair. You know what my hair looks like in the morning? It looks like a hat. Because what’s underneath is only fit for Miles to see. Between my morning hair and Miles’ morning beard hair, you’d laugh your face off; unless you didn’t like Asians, or puppies, or hair. In which case you’d go “Ewwwwww…. Asians (substitute puppies or hair here).” Then I would quietly judge you for judging me and Miles would not care because dogs are always happy. What was I talking about? I must be drinking on a plane. Oh wait, I’m drinking on a plane.

Rival Sons! So I feel like the term “Rock” is applied to so many genres of music. As a kid, I thought rock was pretty hardcore, loud, angry, and you had to be a badass to like it. Bands like Def Leopard, Pink Floyd, Alice and Chains, Nirvana… Granted my first concert was Nirvana and White Zombie; it was still super intense. But now that I’ve been exposed to so much music, I’m realizing that so many of the songs that I grew up with and knew as classics, are actually Rock classics. For me that makes Rock and Rock bands more accessible. Miller has pushed Rival Sons, Dorothy, and Deep Valley my way which are all fantastic Rock bands that I wouldn’t never have sought out before. Their sound is familiar steady rock sound modernized in their own way. Super not helpful I know. Instead, here is my favorite Rival Sons song. If I have one goal in this blog, it’s to finish it. If I have a second goal, it’s to make it fun to read. I betcha thought it was gonna be to expose you to another Rock band. You were right, but I seem to be having a hard time with getting to the point today.

During the break Frosty, Heidi and Frank came out to say hello to crowd. They are my best friends on my morning commute. They used to be on 97.1 Free FM which was all talk radio. It was Frosty, Heidi and Frank in the mornings Adam Corolla at some other part of the day, and some male chauvinist in the evenings. When 97.1 changed formats from talk radio to top 40, all those guys got canned. No joke I cried. Anyhow, Frosty went off to do ‘Real Radio’ in SF and Heidi and Frank did a daily podcast from their garage for a couple years. Then 95.5 KLOS (LA’s home for rock) pick up Heidi and Frank to do mornings; and after a couple years of success eventually got Frosty to join the team. Then happiness ensued.

The next band is Sum 41. They are somewhere between Rival Sons and Offspring in the age of the band but the lead singer still has the same hair. Come to think about it, so does the lead singer of the Offspring. I would put them in punk vs rock but they definitely fit in the lineup. I was so excited to see them that Steven and I pushed our way up to the front of the crowd and ended up right against the barriers. When they came out, I started snapping pictures between cheering. When they started playing I realized how old I was. I had totally forgot that this band creates a guaranteed mosh pit and silly me had my nice camera out along with a little drawstring backpack. 15 seconds into the first song I was on the ground among lots of stomping feet. I got to my feet as fast as possible and jetted straight through the mosh pit to the back of the crowd. I was half way through the crowd when I realized that I could stop running away from the mosh pit. It was then when I realized that I lost the lense cap to my camera, my sunglasses had fallen, and my drawstring bag was all kinds of broken. Steven, on the other hand, didn’t freak out and just took 10 steps back leaving him with a great spot. The lesson is, just because the music makes you feel like it did 10-20 years ago, you’re still 10-20 years older. Get out your walker grandpa; it’s time for bingo. Anyhow, my favorite Sum 41 song is Fat Lip. It’s got one of those breakdowns where the crowd sings and there’s no band playing. Definitely rad to see that live.

And then, there was tacos. See the numbers that are being held up? That’s the number of tacos eaten by each contestant. Predictably, Kobayashi tore up the contest. I forgot how many tacos he actually ate; I believe it was around 190 tacos in 10 minutes. Yeah, it was pretty gross. That contest ruined tacos for me for about one hour. Then I totally forgot about it and got back to MMMMMMMmmmm Tacos…

And now for the main event! OFFSRPING! Truth be told, I didn’t really like Offspring when they were really big. However, they’ve been around for so long and their music is so present everywhere on the radio that you can’t help but know all their songs. I mean who doesn’t know the cowbell part in Pretty Fly for a White Guy. Anyhow, all their music is a nostalgic throwback to my high school and college days which makes it super fun to jump around and sing to. Fun story, Offspring started off in a garage in Garden Grove, right down the street from Long Beach. When they were still rising up, our high school ska band got to open a show for them. Man I was way cooler in high school than I am now. LOL.