Last Saturday, February 4th, at Deva Café in Modesto, marked not an Airplane’s inaugural show as a three-piece. And it was awesome.

I’ve seen not an Airplane play lots of shows, at lots of different venues, and Saturday’s show was the leanest and meanest they’ve sounded. Comprised of Nick Shattell playing the electric guitar (and sometimes the acoustic one, but it was the electric one that got me juiced), Jared Neilson on the upright bass (and sometimes the electric one, which was also juicy) and Chris Haupt on the drums (and also the mandolin, go figure), not an Airplane’s live show rocked and rolled in ways I didn’t totally know they were capable of. Well. Lie. I knew they were capable of it, because they’re all badass musicians. But I didn’t necessarily expect it. And that’s one of my favorite things about this band. The way in which the unexpected slips into their songs so seamlessly and fluidly that you don’t even grasp its unexpectedness until you realize you’ve gone from tapping your toe in time to a twangy bluegrass jam to throwing your head up and down, hair flying, “rocking out” in the purest way. While purity may not be a notion generally (or ever) mentioned in connection with rock ‘n’ roll, it fits here. Because what Nick Shattell and not an Airplane do is rock. As you watch them play, you know that they’re loving it, and you know that you love it, and you know that everyone else around you watching and listening is loving it. It’s pure rock ‘n’ roll, and it ain’t boring. I am excited as hell for them to really come into their own as a three piece, and if you aren’t excited as hell too, then we are not friends.

If you missed the show, check out their website, notanairplane.com for tour dates and go to one. And pick up their latest release, “It Could Just Be This Place”, if you haven’t already.

Photos by Julie Edwards

Lauren Hess of Agent Ribbons took some time out of her schedule to answer some questions via email for us here at Off the Air. Read on to hear about what’s in the works for the future of Agent Ribbons, and what they’ve been up to lately.

Off the Air: You guys are doing a fundraiser via Indiegogo.com, on that page you mention coming to California to do some recording for a release on Cassingle and Loving it. Where will you be recording in California and with whom? Also, why the decision to record a release for cassette, and how did you work a deal with Cassingle and Loving it? Who contacted whom, and how excited are you to be making more music and doing something different with it?

Lauren Hess: We will be recording with dear friends of ours, Art and Adie, in their house in Nevada City. They recorded our 7” “Your Love is the Smallest Doll” a couple years ago and are just great people with fantastic ears and ideas for music!

We like the idea of the cassette because I love tape and analog formats. The cassette has been coming back as of late, probably because of nostalgia and how cheap they are to make. I like the idea of having merchandise on many different formats.

Cassingle and Loving It is run by our friends in Portland and is tied to the awesome record store Record Room. They’ve released stuff from The Happening, Old Wars, Benjamin Schoos feat, Laetitia Sadier.

They have a whole bunch of awesome releases in the works too!

OTA: What plans do you guys have in the works for touring?

LH: We are planning to tour in May, hopefully a complete US tour!

OTA: Any other new music or releases coming soon aside from the cassette?

LH: Not yet, we hope to work on our next full length album this summer.

OTA: How is it being a working musician in Austin, and how does that compare to being a working musician in the Sacramento/Northern California area? Are there palpable differences in the types of gigs you play, audiences, etc.?

LH: There’s just so much more going on here musically, if you wanted to play every night, you could! People here are really receptive and open to live music in general. We have a small core fan base, but are constantly meeting new people at every show. The scene is very diverse here, but also supportive.
Theres no huge difference in shows here vs Sacramento. I feel like we are still establishing ourselves here where as in Sacramento or California in general, we had already put in the foot work to grow.

OTA: You guys have been a little off the radar lately, what have you been up to in the meantime, and how has time away from touring and recording helped or hindered your creative processes?

LH: We’ve been focusing on working and getting our personal lives in order. Plus we wanted to take some off to write more songs and practice. Our van also broke down so we don’t have the wheels to tour!

OTA: You also mention on your Indiegogo fundraiser page that you lost your violin player during this time, has this changed the band dynamic at all? Or affected your songwriting and songsculpting in other ways?

LH: We tried having a third member but it didn’t quite work out. We’re better a a two piece!

OTA: The other day, right after I initially got in touch with you guys, I was listening to NPR (capitol public radio) and a really cool song came on, and I was all like ‘what is this? this is badass,’, so I shazzamed that shit with my iphone and it told me it was Agent Ribbons, and I giggled to myself and thought about how cool that was. How cool is that?

LH: Very cool!!! We’re stoked to hear about any radio play! Haha, shazammed.

OTA: Do you guys get much airplay in other places? Or have fans in places that you might not expect? Or any other cool and kind of similarish stories that you just feel like sharing?

LH: We get airplay on some college radio stations, but nothing corporate.

OTA: I also noticed that you mention having been banned from the UK. Is this a story that is amusing and worth telling? If not, nevermind. Unless you wanna tell it anyway.

LH: Oh man, I wish I had time to tell it all! Basically, we didn’t have the correct paperwork to legally play in the UK . They sent us right home and banned us for 10 years!

OTA: Also, you guys have played in other places in Europe plenty of times, how do you like playing overseas? Where have you guys played? How receptive have those crowds been to Agent Ribbons?

LH: We love playing Europe! We have most of our experience in Spain, Portugal and France. The crowds are super supportive and quite the party animals!

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Be sure to check out the indiegogo fundraiser page for Agent Ribbons while there’s still time to donate by clicking here. You can still donate up until Monday night just before midnight, and while they’ve already reached their $4,000 goal, more donations equals more studio time, a nicer van, more gas money and etc. Also, if you donate more than forty dollars, you get some special handscreened Agent Ribbons goodies. Everybody loves goodies.

Furthermore, be sure to come out to Deva Café at 1202 J Street in Modesto TONIGHT, FEBRUARY 4TH and watch Agent Ribbons bring the house down along with Not an Airplane and Shayna and the Bulldog. The fun starts at eight (8) o’clock (:00) PM (p.m.).

In the meantime, or if you’re reading this after the show has happened, entertain yourself by watching the video for “Oh, La La!” from their 2010 release Chateau Crone.

AGENT RIBBONS – OH LA LA from cassandra lee hamilton on Vimeo.

Off the Air is pleased to have reserved a spot in the entry way at Deva Café for local artist Kristan Roberson to show off and sell some of her prints. Kristan was kind enough to answer a few quick questions via email for us detailing her influences and creative processes. Check it out below.

Off the Air: What types of prints will you be selling at Deva on the 4th? What mediums do you work in?

Kristan Roberson: My prints’ originals are done with prisma pencil and micron pens, there are some that are acrylic on canvas, one is mixed media on a door that I found in an alley when I was living in SF. So basically anything I can get my hands on.

OTA: Who are some of your influences as an artist?

KR: The artists I work with at Foundation Tattoo are my main influences seeing as how I spend 40+ hours a week with them.

OTA: Has working in a tattoo parlor had any particular impact on your work?

KR: Tattooing has definitely influenced my artwork, maybe not so much the style as the process. It’s much more planned out and I’ve learned to exercise more patience if something isnt looking the way I want it to. I think this happened because people bring in pictures of things they want tattooed and you (the tattoo artist) are responsible for translating that image into a good tattoo. once you can do that, there are endless possibilities for interesting imagery. It’s exciting, really.

OTA: What things (aside from people and other artists) influences your work?

KR: Women and animals are in a lot of the art I make, I guess those are the ‘things’ I like to incorporate most. I love old photos of gypsy women and circus/victorian themes for inspiration.

OTA: Thanks a lot, Kristan. Looking forward to seeing your stuff at Deva on the 4th.

KR: I cant wait!

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Be sure to check out Kristan’s table at the Off the Air show this Saturday. In the meantime, check out her tumblr page to see some badass images of her work by clicking on THIS LINK RIGHT HERE!

Gracing the Off The Air stage at Deva Café on Saturday, February 4th for the first time will be Shayna and the Bulldog out of Davis, playing in support of their latest self-titled release. If you haven’t checked these guys out, we can fix that. Stop not having listened to them, and download their EP The Youth We Knew for free from their bandcamp page. Their latest is also available for streaming on the aforementioned bandcamp page, as well as at their site. Also you can like them on facebook and look at their pictures and read all of their wall posts and do whatever other facebook stuff you might do.

And as you may or may not have already been informed, Agent Ribbons and Not an Airplane are both also playing at this show! How excited are you for that! So excited, I know. But if you’re not as excited as I think you should be, stay tuned later this week for an exclusive interview with Agent Ribbons as well as something special from Nick Shattell of Not an Airplane.

Dana Falconberry’s new ep Though I Didn’t Call It Came is pleasant and pretty, a lovely four track sampler of things to come from the Austin, TX based singer-songwriter. But to call the album just pretty and pleasant would be to sell it short, because this is a delicately crafted and ornately arranged set of songs that will grab your heart through your ear and make you feel things.

The EP opens with “Petoskey Stone” (the state stone of Michigan, a fossilized bit of corral whose hexagonal pattern design can only be seen while the stone is either wet or polished. Google pictures of them, they are nice to look at), which acts as the foundational piece of the collection. The track begins with the building up of instruments – harp, guitar, stick clicks and hand claps, which slowly crystallize into a beautiful wall of song whose simultaneous delicateness and fullness envelop the listener, and as woodwinds and ethereal harmonies jump into (probably not jump, more like hop lightly onto) the mix, you’re already sucked in. And by the time you think you’re ready to start singing along and bobbing your head more than gently, the song fades away, like a dry, unremarkable Petoskey Stone washed away by the tides of Lake Michigan back into its depths before slowly washing back on to shore where you, the listener, find the patterned little beauty and put it in your pocket to carry with you throughout the rest of the EP.

The other tracks on Though I Didn’t Call it Came are equally light and delicate, ornate and simple. While Falconberry sings about the comforting aspects of nature, the companionship found in the stars and the birds in the trees, you can’t help but agree with her. So natural are her arrangements, her harmonies, her instrumentation. And this is what’s really so great about her music. Not that you hear Dana sing about nature’s comforts and think to yourself Oh! She’s right, she is, but that the music itself makes you feel what she’s saying. It all seems so natural, so unforced and unprompted. It’s hard to tell whether the tracks are arranged and produced with respect to the lyrics, or whether the lyrics reflect the harmoniousness of the arrangements. And in all likelihood, it’s neither. The music and the songwriting seem intertwined in a way that is so organic and connected from the ground up that to simply call the EP ‘pleasant and pretty’ is to commit a grave offense against Though I Didn’t Call It Came, whose pleasantness and prettiness isn’t just aesthetic beauty, but the result of a meticulously crafted and beautifully performed batch of songs. As the title reflects, this is the type of music that grabs you by the guts and takes over all your insides without you ever having asked it to. It is comforting and wonderful, and it feels so damn good.

Listen to Though I Didn’t Call It Came, available 1/24 from our friends over at Crossbill Records out of Sacramento, and check out the music video for “Petoskey Stone” below.

Petoskey Stone Video from dana falconberry on Vimeo.