Nicholas Taplin has been making photo essays on DIY music culture since 2005.  His documentation style is kind of “gonzo journalism,” but tries to include lots of detailed facts.  His website (where all of his work is published) is Post-Consumer.com.

This photo essay covers the Cheree/Share show at Eli’s Mile High Club 2022-07-15.

Before this night’s show at Eli’s Mile High Club, I hadn’t been to a show in nearly six weeks, largely due to having been carjacked, and it took forever for my car which had been recovered to finish getting repaired. I was feeling extremely restless, and I knew I needed to go to a show. Once I got my car back, I chose to go to this show at Eli’s because 1. Zach’s new band Cheree was going to play, and 2. Oakland punk singer and drummer Gina Marie (who is my age peer and former recording client) would be DJing (which I had never seen her do before).

I was unfamiliar with Nyx Division, but Sectarian Bloom recorded an EP with famous Oakland (now LA) recording engineer Andrew Oswald that I like. Andrew also recorded records for two of Zach (of Cheree) bands, along with many many other Oakland DIY bands.

Eli’s is currently my favorite Oakland music club.

This is Gina, who DJ’d this night, and she also sings for the band Adrenochrome. I was really curious about what DJing selections she would make. In addition to being in “dark punk” bands, I know Gina has a Riot Grrl background, and she recently took her daughter to the Mosswood Meltdown festival to see Bikini Kill and the (very young and very talented) The Linda Lindas.

This is Alejandro, Eli’s sound board operator for this night.

Gina played a fantastic selection of music, with styles ranging from Disco to New Wave to Riot Grrl.

I was utterly stoked to see Vanessa at this show. She used to be in the band Lacker I’ve made a live video for, and totally unexpectedly, I learned she was the singer for Cheree. Lacker was Vanessa’s first ever band, and what I loved most about that band was how raw and textured her singing was.

Vanessa came to the show with her friend James.

I appreciated Vanessa’s fashion at this show.

This is Zach, who plays guitar and programs the Akai MPC beats for Cheree. I have filmed all of the bands Zach has been in the last 6 years except for Cheree. The first time (in 2016) was his old band Lil Dowager, which he played bass and sang/screamed in. Tucker Bennett was the drummer in that band and Matt Ferrara was the guitarist. It’s totally wild that Matt was in that band and now is in the SF jangle pop band The Umbrellas (who are on Slumberland Records). Zach says Matt being in (the Devo-influenced band) Toyota was possibly the stylistic bridge between Lil Dowager and The Umbrellas.

In 2018 I filmed Zach’s band MEM he had with Zoe Stiller, where Zach was on bass and Zoe drummed and sang/screamed. That band was fucking trippy (and in my video I got wild color). Later, I filmed Zach’s band Praying (which he plays bass in), who seem to want to be the loudest band in Oakland.

Zach says that like with Lil Dowager, he started the Cheree project but it’s run as a group effort. Zach informed me that tonight Cheree wasn’t going to play because their other guitarist Mikayla got Covid, so their friends’ band Share (who live in Oakland, SF, and LA) were going to play instead.

Zach and me.

Zach

Zach loves Oakland because he’s made quality friendships here. He also appreciates that it’s a truly diverse city, while not feeling too big. He also really really loves Oakland’s climate.

This is Oliver Pinnell, whom I had never met before and I deeply liked. He plays bass in Share, just turned 30, recently got married, grew up in the East Bay (Antioch), went to UCSC (where I got my first BA degree), and has also lived in Olympia (where I did for a year), until settling down in Los Angeles (where he now lives). I wanted to know more about the DIY scene in LA, because LA has been a subject of some interest/debate for people in Oakland recently, because the LA DIY scene is reportedly getting more active. A friend of mine familiar with it recently said “In some weird spiritual pole shift the music scene in LA has become the less pretentious place to just play your music and go be an adult.”

Oliver joined the popular indie rock band Jay Som in 2015 and was initially playing bass in the band, but within a year the band reorganized and he started playing lead guitar in the band. In the band Half Stack he was one of the three guitarists, and no one was really lead or rhythm. He also played rhythm guitar for a tour in the death metal band Warp Chamber.

I noticed that there was seemingly nothing about Oliver’s personality which would have been out of place in my friend group at any point in my life since entering college. Also, while I myself am not a Deadhead, it really charmed me that he apparently is one. Friends of mine took me with them to see a Grateful Dead reunion show in (I think) 2015 with the guy from Phish playing in place of Jerry. The music felt like white noise to me, but I really liked seemingly everyone who came to that concert, which is saying a lot since the concert was so large.

Oliver and Zach.

This is Share, playing in place of Cheree.

After Share played, Sectarian Bloom went on, but my desire to socialize more pulled me back outside.

Oliver really likes the Olympia band Broken Water, which he pulled up on his phone.

This is Jordan. He plays bass for Cheree.

This is Jordan with his romantic partner Morgan.

This is Dylan Allard. He’s the drummer for Share, and he also plays bass in the popular Oakland band Fake Fruit, and has a solo project called Freak No Hitter. He’s lived in Oakland since 2013, and grew up in Antioch (he became friends with Oliver Pinnell in high school). Dylan used to be in a “loud rock band” called Crush with Oliver and (Share guitarist) Jeff Day. Dylan runs a small professional recording studio called The Creek, which has done all of the additional recordings on the new Share record which Jack Shirley recorded live the drums and most of the guitars for, and is mixing.

For Fake Fruit, Dylan met (FF leader) Hannah D’Amato at a house show in Oakland in 2017. Hannah asked him to fill in on bass for the band a few times, and then when the band’s full time bassist moved away, the band asked him to join permanently.

Dylan’s favorite musicians are Neil Young and John Coltrane. Regarding the current popularity of music streaming services, he says: “If you google songwriting you’ll see stuff like ‘Have the first ten seconds be good because Spotify metrics say that people will skip a song within the first thirteen seconds.’ But all that stuff, those kind of analytics… it denies the basic truth that music is older than language. It’s our most ancient form of communication, and our most ancient communal activity after eating together. That’s why artists make it. That’s why people LOVE it.”

Okay so this is Ida Belisle. I was kind of blown away by her. I can’t believe she’s lived in Oakland and been active in the scene here since 2015 and I’d never met her before tonight. Right off the bat, she totally charmed me because when I asked her who she was she said “I’m a nobody,” and it read as genuinely humble but still joyous. As I talked with her more, it became clear that she’s close with tons of people I know doing lots of work in the Oakland DIY scene. She used to play keyboard for the popular Oakland band Body Double, whose excellent “Milk Fed” 2020 record (which Ida plays piano on) got rave reviews (and I remember Henry Rollins expressed intense enthusiasm about the record on his KCRW radio show). That record was put out on (former long time Oakland resident and passionate DIY music participant) George Chen’s Zum Audio record label.

Ida now plays bass for the new band Flamingos, which also has in the band Tyler Bell from Golden Drugs, Nic Russo from Dick Stusso, and Al Miner from The Classical. Flamingos are soon to have their first record produced by Luis Gutiérrez, and Ida says the band is looking forward to Luis doing his Brian Eno-esque treatment of the band. To my observation, Luis is currently the main producer-engineer for hire in the Oakland DIY scene who seriously involves himself in the band’s arrangements, and takes unique approaches to recording vocals and drums.

Ida has the “Sly Ida” radio show on the (UC Berkeley) KALX radio station, which is on every other Friday from 6pm to 8pm. I’ve looked on the KALX station’s website of Ida’s music selections and they’re great!

Ida is now 30 year old, and feels old and young simultaneously. She is currently unemployed, but used to work at the St. James Infirmary, which is a free health clinic in the Tenderloin providing services for sex workers. It also offers needle exchange services. She was born in Japan but left there when she was 6 months old, then lived in England for 4 years, then France for another 4 years, then moved to North Phoenix and then Scottsdale, AZ for middle school and high school. She says she felt very alienated in Scottsdale and didn’t have access to any artsy/weird folks, but then when she was 18 she moved to Tempe, which she had a great time in because of the vibrant and joyous punk scene there. She says she misses the desert itself, and feels a deep connection to the land there and the mountains.

Ida’s life goal is to pursue art, music, and community as directly, honestly, and soberly as she can. She says life is short and the conditions are cruel and she wants to live a good life and serve her highest passions as deliberately and dedicatedly as she can. She’s also curious about completely quitting alcohol and has a bit of a fantasy of leading an ascetic life.

This guy was a friend of Share’s.

Vanessa met Zach through the Oakland music scene and Zach’s band Praying played a show with Lacker. Zach later posted an Instagram story asking if people wanted to collaborate on a new project with him, and he reached out to Vanessa if she wanted to do vocals for Cheree, which she did, and the band started.

Since attending tonight’s show, I have now heard the mixes of Cheree’s new record, which was produced-engineered by Ry Ellery (who works out of the Sharkbite recording studio in Oakland). Cheree’s new record is AMAZING!!! Ry did such a good job with it. I don’t know when that record is gonna come out, but I expect it will be a major release.

Share guitarist Jeff Day.

Jeff says there’s no default rhythm/lead guitar positions in Share, but Jeff does more of the “noise” guitar in the band, whereas Peter is more of the “shredder.”

Zach and Vanessa of Cheree.

The End