Boheme Summer 2019

NORTH BAY 2019

Food Drink Music

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BROADWAY PERFORMERS ON THE MOST BEAUTIFUL STAGE IN WINE COUNTRY From shows such as Hamilton, Wicked, Les Misérables, Hair, Mamma Mia, The Book of Mormon and many more.

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Co Intriguing creatives of the North Bay

Food&Drink Alison Crowe 6

Brook Bannister 10 Chad Yarish 14 Dean Biersch 18 Derek Bromley 24 Evan Schiff 30 Shawn Hyer 32

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Food&Drink We live in a land of riches. For the hungry diner, the North Bay has it all—from burgers and tacos to the finest of fine diningl. Add in great wine, beer and spirits and it’s an embarrassment of riches. But it’s the people behind all this great food and drink that are the real story.

Alison

CROWE PERFUMIST

T

here is nothing at all contradictory about winemaker Alison Crowe’s career and her side passion for perfume, except for just one thing: never the twain shall meet.

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BOHÈME 2019 FOOD & DRINK

Winemakers rely on a trained nose, and as few olfactory distractions as possible, in the day-to-day tasks their profession demands, whether it’s nosing dozens of components for a blended wine, or smelling through hundreds of oak barrels to make sure a spoiled barrel doesn’t infect the rest of the lot. Wine tasters,

too, want a tasting room to be relatively neutral, aromatically, if they’re going to spend a few hundred bucks on a case of Russian River Valley Pinot Noir. So perfume and aftershave— the strong-scented commercial fragrances that people spritz on their body—are unwelcome in the wine world, if not downright no-nos.

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‘This is organic chemistry at its finest, it’s what makes us smell, and love, and cook.’ ««

Yet Crowe is fascinated by both the world of fine perfume and fine wine. “In my mind, they’re very connected,” says Crowe. “Whether you’re a chef, at home or restaurant, you have your ingredients, you’ve done your homework, and use the best raw ingredients. Making wine is like that—blending perfume is like that.”

Fine wine led the way to both a career in wine, and a passion for fragrances, according to Crowe.

Growing up in the small Southern California town of Carpinteria, she knew that farming “wasn’t as romantic as people would have you believe,” as her father’s side of the family were cattle ranchers, with citrus and avocado farmers on her mother’s side. But they loved to entertain and loved good wine, and took her around at an early age to visit notable Central Coast wineries like Byron, Zaca Mesa, and Firestone. Then one day, just 11 or 12 years old, she was given a Daniel Gehrs Grenache Blanc to sample. “And it smelled so much like grapefruit,” says Crowe. “It was this beautiful white wine.” She was entranced.

“Hey, I know this is wine from a grape,” she thought, “but how does this guy make it smell like

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BOHÈME 2019 FOOD & DRINK

pink grapefruit peel? The light bulb was— you can take a grape and make it smell this great and amazing.”

She began to dabble with aromatic plants and plant essences. “In my freshman year of high school, I planted my own herb garden at my folks’ place.

I wanted to play around with lavender and lemon verbena and rosemary.” After high school, Crowe signed up for winemaking study at UC Davis and took an internship at Chalone Vineyard.

“It was like wine camp,” says Crowe. “They had these lavender bushes that lined the driveway.

Every day I walked up the hill past these lavender bushes, and down at night. The scent the lavender bushes gave you in the morning and evening were completely different!

“At the same time they had this legendary Chenin Blanc—it’s very, very special and very aromatic and mineral rich.” At the end of the harvest, she got to taste vintages from the early 1970s from the winery’s library, and they were still vibrant.

Today, Crowe is director of winemaking, and a partner, at Plata Wine Partners and sister

wine brand, Garnet Vineyards, and is active in the Carneros Wine Alliance. She also grows lavender, roses, and lemon verbena at her Napa house, which she shares with her husband and two children, and collects and experiments with fragrances.

“I have taken it up a notch,” Crowe explains. “In the fall of 2014, I went to France for an agricultural conference in Montpellier.” But she also thought to herself, “I’m in France—let’s take a few days to chill.” Crowe went to Grasse, the perfume capital of France, to take a course in perfume blending from one of the oldest perfume houses. “Paris, that’s where perfume is sold—it’s not where it’s made,” says Crowe. The big scent houses source their jasmine, orange blossom, and citrus from around the city of Grasse.

“This is organic chemistry at its finest, it’s what makes us smell, and love, and cook.” Crowe explains that the “bass notes” and “heart notes” and other accents in fragrance blending are similar to wine bending. “It’s a great way to train the nose. I would argue that collecting perfume, and being a perfume connoisseur, makes me a better winemaker. You’re more

sensitive, more aware what goes together, what clashes.”

Like with wine, scent doesn’t have to be pricey or elite to enjoy.

“It can be as simple as a crushed lemon verbena leaf that you keep in your handkerchief next to your bed—or that awesome $10 south of France red you found in your local shop.”

Both passions can be just as enjoyable when moving up to a pricey Chanel No. 5, or Chateau de Beaucastel Chateauneuf-du-pape wine. “But we don’t have to be intimidated by them,” says Crowe.

“Wine is a social lubricant, but also a social barrier. It’s the same with perfume—if you don't know how to choose the right perfume, there’s stigma about that. It doesn’t have to be that way, and I wish both of these products could be more democratic and people could have a comfort level with wine, or perfume.”

“It’s like wine tasting—we all taste differently and experience wine differently, so I always encourage people to experiment and explore.”

Still, Crowe cautions wine tasters to use restraint when thinking of splashing on a scent and entering a public space, especially a wine or fine dining establishment. “I would never dream of drenching myself in scent when I go to a place like that. To me, that is putting a huge wall between yourself and what the chef has created for you to experience.”

As winemaker, Crowe says the wine drinker’s experience is front of mind.

“Every day when I go to work, I think of what can I do to make something gorgeous in a bottle.”

—James Knight

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“It was fun and it was a grind and a total education into how to write and play, and how brutal the industry really is.”

In 2011, as his mother contracted Lyme disease and gradually gave up the family business, Bannister and his wife moved back to Sonoma County, where he picked up winemaking professionally. “I wanted the family business to continue and I wanted her story and contributions to this really special industry to carry on.”

Brook

BANNISTER WINEMAKER, WOODWORKER, MUSICIAN

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any musicians and actors launch wine labels as a second or third career or pick another artistic outlet. Brook Bannister, head winemaker at Healdsburg’s Bannister Wines, always loved all of these three endeavours. Wine came into his life the earliest: When Bannister was just about 2 years old, his mother, Marty Bannister, started a wine services lab, Vinquiry.

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BOHÈME 2019 FOOD & DRINK

“I ended up following my mom around the lab and wineries and vineyards my whole childhood. She did everything one could do in the wine business—she founded the lab, collected wild yeasts, consulted for wineries, eventually started her own wine label.”

Bannister Wines was founded in 1989 when Bannister was in college and starting his musical journey in the L.A punk rock scene.

He wrote songs and performed, moving to Oakland and eventually forming the band The Heavenly States.

He toured with the band for four years;

In between all these life changes, he had always found time for woodworking. “I started a couple years after college, and kept it going during my first three vintages of 2013-2015, until the wine business became full time. I sneak a project in occasionally, but I wish I had time for more… It’s ironic too, because my neighbor and I salvaged a giant walnut tree that came down in the winter of 2017. It’s all slabbed up and ready to make something beautiful. I’m just searching for the time.”

During his stint as a woodworker, Bannister had built custom furniture for hotels, private homes and restaurants. “I’m not a fine woodworker. The idea was always to work with wood species native to the Western U.S. and present them in the most natural form. It probably sounds corny, but when you salvage wood, it often already has a story and a size, so I try to let the piece dictate what it’s going to be.”

These days, Bannister combines making single vineyard Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Riesling and Zinfandel with playing with his son, making the occasional table and playing music.

“These are all products of the same creative approach to living and making,” he says. “I’ve always made things, and I try not to think about it too much. I don’t do much in the way of drawing a piece of furniture ahead of time and I don’t take a lot of notes in the course of winemaking. I have an idea and an impulse and I trust the subconscious part to create it. Things that are over-thought lack a living quality.”

—Flora Tsapovsky

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Chad

YARISH MEAD MAKER

“T

he first time I made a batch of mead, it turned out exactly the way I hoped it would, from its color to its taste,” says Chad Yarish, graphic artist, actor and amateur mead maker. “It was so tasty, and so good, I’ve been making it that exact same way every since.

I know a lot of people think they don’t like mead, but that’s because they’ve never tasted mine.”

The Petaluma resident is perhaps best known in the Bay Area for his performances with the Reduced Shakespeare Company, the beloved troupe behind such modern comedy classics as The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), The Complete History of America (Abridged) and The Complete History of Comedy (Abridged). Yarish is one of a pool of actors

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BOHÈME 2019 FOOD & DRINK

who frequently tour with the company, and a go-to player when Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor—the troupe’s writers and most visible performers—are shopping a new show. He just completed such a workshop on Hamlet’s Big Adventure, a comic prequel to the Shakespeare’s great tragedy, in which Yarish played both Yorick the Jester and Lilith Polonius, Ophelia’s mother.

By sheer coincidence, his previous stage appearance was in Spreckels Theatre Company’s February production of Hamlet, in which he played Horatio, Hamlet’s BFF. He’s also been seen locally at Cinnabar in Amadeus and The Odd Couple, and at Napa’s Lucky Penny Community Arts Center, in Beyond Therapy, The Miss Firecracker Contest and Blithe Spirit.

His “day job” is as a graphic designer for Fast Signs in Marin County. Yarish’s mead-making activities, he suggests, are just for fun.

For one thing, he doesn’t have room to make more than one or two batches at a time.

“That’s why I pretty much only make one style of mead,” he says, ceremonially placing a bottle of his very own home-brewed honey wine on the table. He then ever-so-slightly turns the vessel around to better display its ornate label. It’s a good one. On the neck it reads, “Drink me, but very, very carefully,” and lower down, on the body of the bottle, along with a graphic depicting a cartoon Yarish in full pirate garb, another label proclaims, “Killington’s: A substantial Cyser.”

That unfamiliar word, “cyser”, is defined (on the back of the bottle, very helpfully) as a mead made from both honey and apples.

“I make all the labels myself, too,” Yarish adds. “I am a graphic artist, so this is where everything I do comes together: my theatrical side, my artist side, and the side that likes to drink really good alcoholic beverages.”

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Wine Country Eats

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His fondness for mead, in particular, comes from his longtime association with the Society for Creative Anachronisms, where he began attending costumed events with friends in 2000.

Fortunately, the mead-making equipment Yarish uses does not take up much space in his apartment, another attraction to making mead as opposed to something more time-consuming and space-demanding, like beer.

“My character’s name was Machran Killington, which I’d gotten out of some old Irish war song,” he says. “The name stuck, so when I started making mead, it was Killington’s Mead.”

“I just shove everything into the corner and wait till it’s ready to drink,” he says. Most of his production is either given as gifts or shared with friends at SCA events like the annual Great Western War, the first weekend in October.

“When I started,” he says, “most of the meads I’d tried were a little too heavy on the honey, they were too sweet and syrupy. I wanted something a little dryer, something you could sip on all day at SCA events. So my friends suggested that, instead of using honey, and water and yeast, I use apple juice instead of water. I now use a very dry Champagne yeast, so it loses most of the syrupy sweetness and instead has a nice, earthy dry flavor to it.”

Still, there’s no mistaking the taste of honey in Yarish’s brew.

“Oh there’s plenty of honey in it,” he laughs. “I use 15 pounds of honey in every five-gallon batch. I use three of those five-pound jugs of honey you get off the shelf at the grocery store, dump ‘em in the carboy, and fill the rest up with apple juice, throw a couple of other extra things in there, and let it sit there for six months.”

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It’s drinkable after a month, he points out, adding that it takes about that long for the fermenting process to finish. The other five months are necessary for the spices to kick in and the dead yeast to settle. “You end up with this nice, clear golden color,” he says.

“My friends have a pirate camp,” he says. “We’re the Dread Ship Black Rose. We’re well known.

We have a tavern that we set up, which is basically a canvas awning with a couple of poles.

We set up a bar in there, with a lot of shelves, and I bring in bottles of this stuff to line the walls. And if people want to come by at night and sing some sea shanties with us, and have some grog or some mead, there it is.”

He points out that his meadmaking is a purely amateur pastime, and that he never sells the stuff, in part because he’s not legally permitted to do so, and partly because, well, back to that thing about how much space it would take up in his apartment.

“You can only make so much legally, and you can’t sell it without a permit,” he points out. “And though I never sell my mead, I have to say it would be a dream come true to be able to mass produce this, and sell it. But that would take a lot and I’m not sure how to scale it up that big. Though it would be cool.

So maybe, someday, a very long time from now.”

—David Templeton

Dean BIERSCH BEER PIONEER

“B

y definition, beer is the American beverage,” Dean Biersch says on a day that’s bright and sunny all across northern California, where he owns three HopMonk Taverns—in Novato, Sebastopol and Sonoma— as well as Twin Oaks Roadhouse on Old Redwood Highway near downtown Penngrove.

“Beer is not wine,” he adds.

Biersch doesn’t have anything against wine.

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Reds and whites are poured at HopMonk and some of Biersch’s friends grow grapes and make wine. Still, as he points out, wine and beer are worlds apart, much as a concert pianist and a honky-tonk piano player rarely if ever share the same stage.

Last year, Biersch attended the annual Americanafest in Nashville where he ate, drank, listened to great music and “stumbled on a young country artist named Lillie Mae at a honky-tonk.”

Lillie Mae is on the Jack White label and has a hit single, “Honky-Tonks and Taverns,” that sounds like it was recorded expressly for HopMonk.

Before long, Biersch will bring her and her brand of honky-tonk to one of his taverns.

Over the past dozen years, he has created four distinct venues where beer lovers, aficionados of live music and folks who appreciate good food congregate, kick back and let the good times roll. There’s free music nearly everyday, outdoors, at all four venues, featuring musicians like Billy D., Joel Schick and Francesca Lee. Born in San Francisco in 1957, the same year that Kerouac’s On the Road hipsters, Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty, hit The New York Times bestseller list, Biersch grew up

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Lo Coco’s C uc i n a R u st ic a

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‘I discovered ales just as the British were beginning to make the kind of real ales that had been pushed aside by the mass produced varieties after World War II.’ in Chico with a father who was a commercial artist and a mother who was a schoolteacher and later a therapist. No, he wasn’t named after Moriarty, but rather after actor, comedian and singer, Dean Martin, known in Vegas as “the King of Cool.”

sources of extra pure water from places like the Sierras.

“I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth,” Biersch says.

Biersch discovered Mendocino’s craft beers before they became renowned in Northern California.

Nor was he raised with a pint of beer in his right hand. As a teenager he didn’t love beer, though there was plenty of it in Chico and around San Francisco State where he attended college.

Biersch didn’t drink a beer he really liked until he traveled around Europe in the 1970s and found decent food, drink and lodgings for $5 a day.

“I was a backpacker,” he says. “I camped out and discovered ales just as the British were beginning to make the kind of real ales that had been pushed aside by the mass produced varieties after World War II.” In the 1970s, young brew-masters in England and Europe paved the way for American craft beer makers who had their own styles, yeasts, hops and their own

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FOOD & DRINK

Innovative start-ups, such as the Mendocino Brewing Company, popped up in Hopland where it operated for 27 years, until it migrated to Ukiah.

“I had a friend with a ranch near Hopland,” he says. “I went up there, visited him, tried the beers and liked them a lot.”

In the late 1980s, Biersch joined forces with Dan Gordon and created the Gordon Biersch Brewing Company in Palo Alto.

Gordon had studied the art of beer making in Weihenstephan, Germany. Biersch had worked in Bay Area restaurants and knew about food, and, while he tried to escape the culinary biz, he couldn’t kick it.

For nearly a decade, he and Gordon owned and operated a brewery-restaurant. Then they went separate ways. Twelve years ago, Biersch moved to Sonoma County and opened the first HopMonk Tavern—“a sudsy wonderland” fans call it—in

Sebastopol. It was so successful that it lead to another in Sonoma—“a sweet spot,” Biersch calls the town. Next came Novato and then the Roadhouse in Penngrove.

“I wanted an environment where it felt like eating in a bar rather than eating in a restaurant and I wanted an outdoor experience similar to that of a European beer garden,” he says.

The word “tavern,” he explains, is meant to conjure something “rustic.”

To the mix of beer and food, Biersch had to add live music, from rock to honky-tonk.

Having come of age in the 1970s and 1980s when he attended concerts in big arenas, he knew he wanted an intimate setting. An all-acoustic iteration of Jefferson Starship played at HopMonk, as did some of the bands that Biersch had heard for years, including Camper Van Beethoven, which integrated, or didn’t, pop, ska, punk rock, folk, alternative country and world.

Jackie Greene, the San Franciscobased singer songwriter, also performed at HopMonk and so has Cracker, which originated in Redlands and has hits such as “Euro-Trash Girl.”

Biersch likes his beer and his bands as local as possible.

Still, HopMonk doesn’t make suds on site, but rather at a brewery in San Jose’s Japantown. Along with its own brand, 14 or so other brews are available, including Anchor Saison and Anderson Valley Summer Solstice.

“We have a great traditionalstyle German beer in the lager

category,” Biersch says. “The carbonation is natural and the beer is unfiltered. We also offer a British-style pale ale as well as a Hefeweizen—a wheat beer—and an IPA, which is the raging style of the moment.”

When Biersch looks back as his years in the land of beer, he turns nostalgic.

“I knew John Hickenlooper when he had a brew pub in Denver,” he remembers. “Then he became the mayor of the city, next the governor of the state and now he’s a presidential candidate.”

While Biersch keeps one eye on the race for the White House, he keeps another on local weather reports.

The fact that Sonoma is six to eight degrees warmer than it is in Sebastopol—Biersch keeps records—means that locals and tourists are more likely to sit outside, happily, in Sonoma than Sebastopol. Biersch also tracks beer industry trends and doesn’t fault the Lagunitas lords who sold their empire to Heineken.

For the moment, he loves the beer garden at HopMonk in Sonoma that comes with kids and bikes, families and their dogs, fire pits, fountains, beer, music and food.

“I recommend our hot Nashville fried chicken sandwich with a full bodied IPA,” he says. “That combo is what I enjoy these days, with Lillie Mae in the background singing, “Honky-Tonks and Taverns.”—Jonah Raskin Jonah Raskin is the author of “Field Days: A Year of Farming, Eating and Drinking Wine in California.”

The Tides Wharf & Restaurant

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A “Locals” Favorite since the 1930’s

a small sample of our menu Shrimp Cocktail • Pacific Red Snapper • Crab Cakes • Filet of Petrale Sole • Oyster on the Half Shell • Grilled Salmon Fried Calamari • Steamed Mussels • Smoked Salmon • Crab Cioppino• Dungeness Crab • Fish & Chips • Prawns & Chips Louie Salad • Bread Bowl Chowder • Bodega Bay Burger • Clam Chowder • Grilled Chicken • Hot Crab Sandwich • Grilled NY Steak Fish Tacos • Steak & Prawns • Linguini with Clams • Steamed Lobster Tail • Seafood Fettuccine • Steak & Lobster

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Derek

BROMLEY COFFEE SOMMELIER

M

usician, sommelier, business owner, and coffee connoisseur are just a few titles Derek Bromley has held throughout his life. Despite the multifaceted nature of his interests, Bromley has found a way to incorporate his expansive passions into one cup of coffee. To understand how his career evolved from a sommelier into a coffee truck owner, we must start from beginning, when the coffee beans were first planted.

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BOHÈME 2019 FOOD & DRINK

When he was just 4 years old, Bromley began acclimating his taste buds to the bitterness of coffee. “My mom got me started off on coffee….[it was a] mother-son hang out.” The coffees were, Bromley clarifies, heavy on the cream and sugar, but as the years passed a deep appreciation for black coffee grew.

While his mother was introducing him to the world of coffee, Bromley’s father was giving him a taste of French food. His father was a “French food and wine epicurean...I can remember tiptoeing through the kitchen as a young kid. I had to tiptoe so the blueberry souffle wouldn't collapse,” Bromley says.

When Bromley got his first restaurant job, he was exposed to people who made a living in fine food. “It wasn't just a cool thing my Dad did for fun on the weekends,” he says.

Bromley went on to enter the New York restaurant industry as a sommelier.

Ultimately, his interest in wine would lead him to Sonoma County, where he transitioned from sommelier to wine brand manager.

It was around this time that Bromley’s interest in coffee began to spike. The more he learned about coffee the more similarities he recognized between coffee and wine.

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“In wine, there is a tension between purists, who believe it is all about the terroir or ‘origin,’ basically where the grapes come from. And then there are those who believe it is all about the execution, the winemaker. It is the same with coffee beans and coffee roasters.” Bromley recognized the lack of coffee in the space between big coffee roaster companies like Starbucks and Peet's, and third wave coffee purists like Acre.

Bromley began his mission to color the gray area between Starbucks and third wave coffee.

“The flavor profiles was one of the key differences...I source the great coffees from the regions Acre and craft coffees are sourcing, but I take my roast just a little bit further to get those sugars front and center. You do not need to be an expert to grab onto it.”

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Thus began Ohm Coffee Truck, Bromley’s mobile coffee shop.

The meaning behind the name references Bromley’s passion for music, specifically his fondness for guitar. “A lot of people think it is the ‘ohm’ like yoga, but it is actually the electrical or amplified reference. I am a guitar player in my spare time, and I was sort of thinking about the benefits of coffee and kombucha, and it like amps you up, it enhances the experience you’re having, it enhances the moment.”

Bromley even correlated the style of coffee with styles of amplifiers. “My ‘tweed’ blend is my medium bodied, the fender tweed amp is what all the blues guys used...so much character in one note. The tweed blend is

about that; it’s elegance, it’s nuance.”

Bromley’s love for music took root in the same place where he was trying his first sips of coffee.

“I grew up in a musical household as well. Mom was a professional harpist and singer. She’s done theatre, jazz. I was always exposed to music.”

Bromley roadied for a band in exchange for lessons when he was a teenager. He played gigs at open mic night, and later played with a loosely formed band in college. Playing a concert at his fraternity, he had his first rockstar moment. “That was when I had my first ‘ohm’ moment; I had an out of body experience where I could see my fingers playing.”

Unable to resist his musical passion, Bromley continued to play guitar on the sideline of his professional life, and joined his wife’s cover band N2L. “It is really cool to have the creative energy flowing and to be building things together,” Bromley says about playing with his wife.

Recently, Bromley and his wife and two other bandmates started their own band, Mama Said NV (for Napa Valley).

“There are lanes you have to be in to be a cover band, and there is a creativity side that you can’t access.”

Balancing his own business with his guitarist persona, Bromley maintains a busy schedule. “Life is not dull.”

—Aiyana Moya

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Evan SCHIFF BEERMAKING WINEMAKER

E

van Schiff, winemaker for Coppola Winery, grew up immersed in wine culture.

Both of his parents belonged to prestigious wine clubs, and one day at the ripe old age of 7 Schiff decided to embark on the winemaking process himself.

Equipped with cranberry juice and red Kool Aid, Schiff created his own concoction to contribute to his parents’ wine racks. “I wanted to have my own beverage to talk about at the dinner table” Schiff says. “It exploded and shot red Kool Aid all over the carpet,” Schiff laughs. Schiff hurried to scrub the carpet clean, successfully keeping his Kool Aid explosion a secret from his mother for 30 years.

30 BOHÈME 2019

FOOD & DRINK

After this initial experience in “winemaking” Schiff was hooked. He attended UC Davis, receiving a degree in Viticulture and Enology.

Originally, he intended on going into the sciences, but decided to pursue winemaking due to the multi-dimensional nature of it.

“I think the thing about it [winemaking] that makes sense to me are all these different sides to it—there is science in how it pertains to agriculture, and it is almost like an art in its expression. It also relates to history and culture...I like to think about it like continuing on.”

To compliment his winemaking career, Schiff enjoys fermentation in multiple capacities.

His brother encouraged Schiff to explore the breweries local to Sonoma County. “Then I got into homebrewing with friends, and

it was almost like a barbecue setting, all hanging out. But then I really got into it. I started doing research on it, buying new equipment, I think I was the most invested,” Schiff laughs. “I also became really popular with my neighbors. Making beer at home, I would say, has been really connecting.”

Schiff’s fermentation hobby was not about to turn sour anytime soon. He started experimenting with making sourdough bread at home, and then with making his own vinegar. “I really enjoy mastering things, almost like being a chef. You are always tweaking the perimeters, and sharing and enjoying your creation. It is all about sharing and crafting.”

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HYER VINTAGE MOTORCYCLE RESTORATION

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t. Helena’s Harvest Inn is a peaceful place to work. Surrounded by lush greenery and set in quaint quarters, the inn offers refuge and relaxation, so much so that it’s hard to imagine any of its employees engaging with anything other than relaxing.

Shawn Hyer, Harvest Inn’s director of food & beverage, has a different idea. When he’s not running all the food operations here, he buys and restores vintage motorcycles. “I’ve always liked working with my hands,” he says. “It’s a nice change of pace from what I do every day.”

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BOHÈME 2019 FOOD & DRINK

Hyer discovered motorcycles in his late teens, riding into his early 20s and quitting for a while. But he couldn’t give up on twowheeled pursuits. He became a professional bike racer all the while tinkering with some kind of machinery. Eventually, his love of tinkering and his old affection for motorbikes united in a new hobby. For the past 12 years, as he’s built a career in hospitality and moved across the country from Park City, Utah.

Hyer buys and restores motorcycles from the 1960s and the 1970s, finding them at garage sales, on the street, wherever. The hobby, he says, is the antithesis to his day job.

“There’s controlled chaos in restaurants, unexpected dilemmas and challenges, and

you can prepare as much as you want but something always comes up last minute,” he says. “On the weekend, it’s just you and the machine. It’s a different type of problem solving, a great checks and balances.”

He restores the bikes on his own, sometimes with friends, giving them away or selling them once done. Hyer manages to find parallels between his passion for motorcycles and the inn’s kitchen. “It’s the same ideology, treating the ingredients with respect, without going too crazy, getting something beautiful out of it,” he says. “I like the simple things, and the simple things are beautiful.”

—Flora Tsapovsky

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Music The North Bay’s musical roots run deep and the variety of venues reflect the region’s thriving music scene. We’ve got top notch concert halls like the Green Music Center and Luther Burbank Center for the Arts and clubs of all shapes and sizes that cater to just about every style of music— from jazz to punk to folk to jam bands to reggae and beyond. Here are some the people responsible for all that great music.

Eki SHOLA MUSIC IS GOOD MEDICINE

J

azz musician Eki Shola spent years of her life perfecting a balance between her love of music and passion for medicine.

An internal medicine practitioner for many years through Santa Rosa’s St. Joseph Health, Dr. Shola – who trained in New York and moved to Sonoma County in 2010 — has worked with veterans in San Francisco and patients at Vista (a federally funded clinic caring for the underserved in Santa Rosa),

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BOHÈME 2019 MUSIC

and has written numerous medical articles.

And when not healing bodies through the medicinal arts, she heals hearts and minds through her inventively infectious songs.

Music, Shola says, is a relatively recent passion, one that she saw blossom to life during a very difficult time about eight years ago.

“After having my second child in 2011 via C-section, two weeks later, I flew back out to New York, with baby, to be with my mother

who was to have surgery,” Shola explains.

“We then found out that she had a rare and aggressive cancer, and in six months she passed away.”

During her mother’s illness, which she describes as “excruciating, but beautiful,” Shola flew back and forth to care for her mother and to oversee her many medical appointments.

“When she passed, there was one particularly difficult day,” Shola recalls. “My family

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‘Losing everything, my home office and the clinic I worked at, was the confirmation I needed to make the leap to doing music full-time.’ ««

and I had been planning her memorial, and we decided to take a break and just jam. We’re all musicians. It was the most cathartic moment ever, and it was the spark that turned me on to composing my own music. I spent the next few years writing an album and performing live while still working as a physician.”

During that time, she participated in NPR’s Tiny Desk competition, earning an international reputation, and has since performed her music all over the Bay Area, London, New York and beyond.

In the fall of 2016, Shola officially became an independent contractor so she could have more schedule flexibility, while her husband prepared to open a restaurant in Sebastopol. That restaurant was Revibe Café and Scoop Bar, which opened in early 2017, and despite strong reception from local fans, eventually proved unsustainable and closed in the fall of 2017.

That was a difficult transition, she allows, but another even harder transition was coming.

“Our lives truly changed forever, the month after we closed the restaurant,” she says, referring to the October fires that struck Santa Rosa, resulting in the loss of her home, the Vista clinic and

very nearly her and her family’s lives. “We drove through flames, barely escaping alive from the Tubbs Fire,” Shola recalls. “I lost the drafts of three books and three nearly-completed music albums.

Losing everything, my home office and the clinic I worked at, was the confirmation I needed to make the leap to doing music full-time, which is what I’m currently doing.”

As part of her own recovery, Shola participated in the recording and release of “Out of the Fire,” a CD of songs created as a benefit of musicians who lost their musical instruments in the fire. Then, last February, Shola released “Possible,” the first of three new albums, with the second due to be released in late summer, and the third in October, to mark the two-year anniversary of the Tubbs fire.

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The balance Shola has found works for her, she says.

Though she now considers herself a musician first and a doctor second, she has continued to write articles about medical issues, along with a personal blog on her website (EkisSHola.com), and to consult as a medical advisor, assisting pre-med students, and, she says of her rich music-andmedicine world, “I love it all!”

—David Templeton

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Neal BARBOSA Bob Hakins

ART ROCKER

L

ive music makes people do all sorts of things. Some folks are compelled to dance, some can’t resist singing along and some feel the need to shout “‘Free Bird’!”

For Neal Barbosa, live music puts him in the mood to paint, and he does it onstage while bands perform at venues throughout the Bay Area and beyond, a practice known as live painting.

Originally from Orange County and now living in Novato, Barbosa was already a talented young artist when he moved to the North Bay at age 15 to live with his “hippie uncle.”

“He introduced me to all kinds of music that was going on around here,” Barbosa says. “I really wanted to be involved in that, but I didn’t play an instrument at the time, so I

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BOHÈME 2019 MUSIC

asked myself, ‘What do I do?’ And I came up with the idea of live painting.”

Barbosa isn’t the first to paint live onstage; artists like Denny Dent have been painting along to live music since the 1960s, though Barbosa didn’t know about Dent when he started. Evolving organically over the last 15 years, Barbosa’s live painting was born out of a love for music and art, and his work synergizes both creative endeavors.

Barbosa originally went to gigs without a clue as to what he would paint, but he’s refined the process in the last decade and a half. These days, he’ll sketch out several rough ideas before the set so the crowd can watch a piece take shape in a timelier manner, usually over the course of three to five songs. Some pieces are portraits, some are abstract; Barbosa says it all depends on what energy he taps into once he hears the music.

Barbosa has painted onstage with renowned artists like Les Claypool, the Wailers, the New Mastersounds, Eric Lindell and others. He’s also a regular at gigs with popular local bands like the Pulsators, T-Luke & the Tight Suits, and the Miles Schon Band, and has painted at venues like the Mystic and the Phoenix in Petaluma, the Fillmore and the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, and at events in Boston, New York City, Hawaii and in Europe.

“I’ve worked with so many bands that like it, because it’s something new and something that gets the crowd going,” Barbosa says. “I’ve had musicians tell me that they can feel my energy, and vice versa, and it sparks them to do something a little more.”

When he’s not on stage you can check him out at his studio inside Glazed and Confused pottery in San Rafael.

—Charlie Swanson

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Dustin HEALD MULTI-FACETED ARTIST

W

hether he’s behind the counter at Stanroy Music Center in Santa Rosa, behind the microphone in bands like Luv’n Rockets, or behind the camera as a special effects makeup artist, Dustin Heald demonstrates a multifaceted ability to enhance the culture around him.

Growing up in Santa Rosa, Heald always had an interest in arts and music, though in his youth, much of that artistic joy came from creating Halloween costumes and applying monster makeup on himself and friends.

That hobby turned serious in 2004, when Heald left his sales job at Stanroy Music Center and embarked on a career-changing course that took him to Pennsylvania, where he attended the special make-up effects program at Douglas Education Center. That program is run by

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BOHÈME 2019 MUSIC

Hollywood effects legend Tom Savini (Dawn of the Dead, Friday the 13th), and Heald immersed himself in the world of gore and guts. Soon after graduating from the program, Heald got a job on a television series in Egypt, creating effects for an Arabic-language version of ER. At that point, Heald moved to Los Angeles and began working for the likes of Stan Winston’s studios, where, among other gigs, he produced molds that would be used in movies like Avatar and Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Heald never forgot his roots in Sonoma County, and when he and his wife were expecting their first child, they moved back to the North Bay. Soon after that, Heald’s old co-worker at Stanroy Music Center, Steve Shirrell, reached out to him with a new proposition; to buy and run Stanroy Music Center together. Heald jumped at the opportunity, and the two took over the longtime Santa Rosa music institution in 2013.

When he’s not running Stanroy or making monster masks, Heald also plays music in bands like the popular cover act Luv’n Rockets, a tribute to ‘80s group Love & Rockets. That tribute act gained enough popularity that they began performing in Los Angeles. One night, Love & Rockets bassist David J saw the group and jumped onstage with them. That led to Heald and the group playing as David J’s backing band at a few gigs and Luv’n Rockets bassist Darwin Meiners becoming David J’s manager.

This year, Heald debuts a new musical project, Seven of Swords, that he describes as a dark, psychedelic experience that comes complete with projected imagery, combining his visual and aural attributes. Visit Heald at Stanroy Music Center at 850 Fourth St., Santa Rosa. Monday-Thursday, 10am to 7pm; Friday and Saturday, 10am to 6pm. 707.545.4827.

—Charlie Swanson

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KC MOSSO MUSICAL IMPRESARIO

I

n a town of wineries and tasting rooms, Healdsburg’s the Elephant in the Room has made an impact with craft beers and live music.

Locals love it. The intimate venue is the product of Healdsburg native, musician, booker and occasional bartender KC Mosso and Santa Rosa public-house Toad in the Hole founder Paul Stokeld.

By joining their passions, the pair has crafted the Elephant in the Room into a friendly local venue that offers several nights of eclectic live music every week.

“It’s been quite an adventure,” says Mosso, who books bands from across the country to play along with the North Bay’s local collection of rock stars. “I do everything from rock ’n’ roll and reggae, to Tex-Mex and flamenco. I figure good music is good music.”

Mosso has been hosting and promoting live music in Healdsburg since he founded an

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BOHÈME 2019 MUSIC

open mic at Bear Republic Brewing Company in the 1990s. He’s brought international acts like the Wailers to the Raven Theater, put on local music showcases at the Ravenous Café and played in eclectic bands like Crazy Famous and Crowbot, his ongoing threepiece improvisational funk band.

When the space for the venue became available last year, Mosso contacted longtime friend Stokeld, and the two partnered up.

Stokeld coined the name the Elephant in the Room to acknowledge the watering hole’s beerfocused offerings in the heart of wine country.

“You could tell people just really needed some music in this town,” says Mosso. “I’ve been seeing people coming in that I haven’t seen in years. It’s been sweet to see people out there smiling and dancing.”

“I want people to feel like this is a sanctuary,” says Mosso of the venue. “I want to be able to create a safe space for people to enjoy music and each other.”

The Elephant in the Room is located at 177 Healdsburg Ave, Healdsburg. Open daily, noon to midnight. elephantintheroompub.com.

—Charlie Swanson

Les Chaney AND

CLAYPOOL

Thérèse Ruscansky

A MARRIAGE OF LOVE, SONG AND WINE

“I

know more about the music industry than I know about the wine industry,” says musician Les Claypool. “My own corner of the music industry pays for my part of the wine industry.”

Over the course of the past decade or so, Claypool has learned volumes, thanks to his compact tasting room, Pachyderm Station on Gravenstein Highway, and the wines—just 1,000 cases—made by Claypool Cellars, from locally cultivated grapes.

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BOHÈME 2019 MUSIC

“It's hard to live around here and not know about wine,” Claypool says. “[My wife] Chaney and I were drinking so much Pinot we thought it would be cheaper to make our own.”

settles unsettled stomachs on rough waters.

Except when they’re on the road together, Les and Chaney inhabit Pachyderm Station, which they transformed into an extension of their living room.

“The last thing I want to hear is my music when I’m not performing it,” he says.

“It’s a clubhouse and a hub,” Les says.

The Pinot Noir flows freely, as does the conversation. Guests who want a nonalcoholic beverage can drink Les’s “SeaPop,” a soft drink with a ginger herbal blend that

Surprisingly, Les doesn’t play any of his own recordings at Pachyderm Station.

Claypool doesn’t think of himself as a Renaissance man, but there’s a whole lot of the Renaissance in his head. Leonardo Da Vinci would recognize his genius for writing lyrics and melodies, inventing cool stuff like “SeaPop,” and tastefully decorating Pachyderm’s Tasting Room, mostly with funky, artistic stuff from CraigsList.

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‘It's amazing to me that Chaney and I ended up in the same place where my ancestors lived and worked and died.’ ««

The Claypool extended family has grown ever since the wine label started in 2007. The music and the wine fans often overlap and are indistinguishable from one another.

Claypool doesn’t make the wines for Claypool Cellars. Ross Cobb and Katy Wilson do that, and do it with finesse, while they also make their own wines at Cobb and at LaRue. Ross is also a bass player, which makes him extra special.

Both Les and Chaney Claypool follow the whole winemaking process, harvest and crush included. Les Claypool designs the wine labels and helps select vineyards and blends. His printed signature is on the back of each label. If you join the wine club at the gold or platinum level, one of the perks is a signed bottle.

He and Chaney met in Berkeley in 1988, and have been married 24 years. Their kids, who grew up in Sebastopol, are grown ups now and out of the house where their parents have lived ever since they traded the East Bay for Sonoma County in 1994.

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“When we met I was playing music in clubs in Berkeley and Oakland that don’t exist anymore,” Les Claypool says. “As someone once sang, ‘The times they are a-changin.” Chaney Claypool adds, “My parents were 1960s hippies in Iowa; I moved to Berkeley for college, met Les, worked at Chez Panisse, where I was introduced to wine and embraced California. Moving to Sonoma was a culture shock. We didn’t know anyone up here.”

For years, Les was on the road making music, while Chaney stayed at home, raised their kids and held down the fort.

“Now we travel together in an old tour bus we call LaFawnduh,” Chaney says. “That’s a Napoleon Dynamite reference. We camp out on days off and see the country.”

Traveling provides Les Claypool with time to meditate on the parallels between making albums and making wine.

“I’m amazed at how many variables are involved with both,” he says. “When mixing an album some might like a bit more kick

drum, or saturate the vocals and the guitar. In winemaking, there are barrel and toast choices, how much of the whole cluster, when to pick, how long to cold soak, and when to rack.

“All these variables in both worlds help determine the thumbprint of the mixer/producer and the winemaker.”

He adds, “The albums I’ve been making with Sean Lennon are

fueled by our Pinot Noir. Sean is blissfully addicted to them.”

Les Claypool grew up in the East Bay listening to John, Paul, Ringo and George; Abbey Road was the first Beatles album he heard—over and over again until he knew the songs and the melodies by heart. Given his Beatles history it seems inevitable that he and Sean Lennon would connect, play music together and perform together.

“Sean had a much different upbringing than anyone I know,” Les says. “He’s humble, intelligent and curious. He’s like a brother.”

The name of their band is Claypool Lennon Delirium.

On their latest album, South of Reality—which has a surrealistic image on the cover—and that sounds both trippy and whimsical—there are echoes of the Beatles and Pink Floyd, too.

The album features mindexpanding tracks such as “Amethyst Realm” and “Psyde Effects.”

Ever since he started Primus, the band that first made him famous 35 ago, Les has shunned major recording companies and avoided the corporate world. A decade or so ago, he gave an interviewer advice to pass on to young musicians starting out: “Play as often as you can with as many different people as you can. I've followed my own advice and have never regretted it."

Neither wine making nor life on stage as an accomplished bass player and innovative lyricist were on the horizon when he was a boy.

The men in the Claypool family worked with their hands, taking cars and motors apart and

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‘It's hard to live around here and not know about wine.’ ««

putting them back together.

After work they drank beer.

“I’m not a beer guy,” Les says.

“And I’m not a big sports fan. I go to watch the Giants so I eat a Sheboygan, one of those smoked sausages.” He adds, “My daughter thinks I’m weird. I tell her weirdness is a subjective thing.”

If Les is weird, or at least passionate about esoteric matters, there are thousands if not millions of fans who share his brand of weirdness and his appreciation of the esoteric. Every year for the past decade, he’s played at HopMonk in Sebastopol, which sells out to wine club members.

Every New Years’ Eve for the past 27 years he’s played at Bay Area venues, including the Warfield and the Fox Theater.

Les is a man with well-established habits, like fishing and foraging

for wild mushrooms in the Sebastopol hills. He also has deep roots in the community that has embraced him. Not long ago, he discovered that his great-great grandfather and his great greatgrandmother, who were Italian immigrants, settled in Sebastopol.

“It's amazing to me that Chaney and I ended up in the same place where my ancestors lived and worked and died,” he says.

Chaney adds, “West County has definitely changed a lot since we moved here, mostly for the better.

There’s more good wine and good food to be had and a great circle of like-minded individuals to share them with. From what I’ve seen, it’s one of the better places on the planet to reside.”

Check out claypoolcellars.com for more.

—Jonah Raskin

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Callie WATTS ROCK ‘N’ ROLL WAITRESS

O

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f all the great regional rituals of rock & roll— Porchfest, a new release from John Trubee, the occasional Tom Waits sighting—Friday’s rock concert T-shirt day at Mac’s Deli in downtown Santa Rosa may well be the best of them.

Watts is a working mom and singer for the Big Fit, the local powerhouse outfit of funk, soul and R&B that’s seen an evolving cast of funksters through its ranks over a remarkable 15 years on regional stages. The band (formerly known as Frobeck) has played with heavyweight funk and soul acts over that time, including George Clinton and War, at venues and events ranging from the Rancho Nicasio to the Sacramento Music Festival.

The whole staff bustles through their shifts in rock T’s—and there’s nothing like lunch with a side of soul and a Journey T-shirt when Callie Watts comes around for a refill. And, if you ask, an update on the latest goings-on in her always-grooving music career.

The Santa Rosa resident’s also got a solo side that’s quite distinct stylistically from the high-energy drive of the Big Fit. She grew up in Santa Rosa on a diet of classical music and classic rock, and was heavily influenced

by Joni Mitchell as a youth. The Aretha

BOHÈME 2019 MUSIC

Franklin influence comes through loud and proud when she belts out the backup harmonies for the Big Fit. When she’s not bringing the humble joys of deli classics to Mac’s customers, Watts can occasionally be spotted across the street on 5th Street for a long set at A’Roma Roasters with bandmate Kris Dilbeck.

She’s working on some solo recordings and one of them that’s been posted on her Facebook page, Watts’ take on David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance,” is nearly unrecognizable from the original, and gorgeous in its execution.

It’s a true re-adaptation of the late Bowie’s eighties hit to something entirely other, as her mesmerizing high-end vocal evokes a

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‘The thing that keeps me going in music, is simply the compulsion to make it. It’s been with me as long as I can remember, and it’s not going anywhere soon. ««

sensibility that’s somewhere vast and tempting, somewhere between the gritty and the ethereal. Listening to her version gives clear evidence of why Callie cites Bonnie Raitt as another of her musical idols.

“After Bowie passed, Kris and I were feeling the loss,” she says, “as well as celebrating his catalogue. Since I pay tribute to many of my musical influences in my show, it made sense to work up a Bowie tune since there wasn’t one already in the set list. I was thinking about a piano ballad, which may still happen, but it was Kris who dreamed up the cool idea of taking ‘Let’s Dance’ and reworking it into a ballad. The moment he said it I heard in my head how it would be—ambient and haunting— and when Kris started playing an acoustic guitar part which shimmered, I couldn’t wait to record it. It’s a part of my acoustic show I always look forward to in particular, and audiences seem to respond well to our rendition. It was definitely an inspired idea, and Kris did a fantastic job with the production.”

The irony is that while “Let’s Dance” is a pretty great song, it’s

not really a get-up-and-dance song, and maybe that’s the point.

Listeners will sway to Callie’s version all the same, in that sort of fiercely determined and yet laid-back California manner that sort of defines Callie herself. As she likes to say, “There’s a bit of funk in my folk”—and the same can be said of a rugged and refined North Bay that supports top-tier working artists like her. A bit of funk, lots of folk—and tons of soul. It’s a recipe for continued success, much deserved.

“The thing that keeps me going in music,” she says, “is simply the compulsion to make it. It’s been with me as long as I can remember, and it’s not going anywhere soon. I tend to busy myself too much with projects that distract me from making my own records, because performing is great and gigging is fun, and my loved ones make such incredible music that I get excited about my contribution to their stuff and focus on that.

Making an original album is the one area in my musical journey which is incomplete, so at present, recording my upcoming record will be the motivation to keep being creative and making art.”

—Tom Gogola

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Arts From galleries, to museums and wide open spaces, the North Bay is a ready source of inspiration for artists and dreamers. Here are some of the people who make the region a more beautiful place.

Louis BRIONES MAN OF MANY HATS

L

ike many of us, Louis Briones, the newly appointed executive director of the Sausalito Art Festival, discovered Marin while staying with a friend nearly 20 years ago.

Growing up in Santa Fe where Briones claims his mother’s family has been for 300 years, it’s fair to say he has art in his bones.

After attending college at New Mexico State University, he went on to Louisiana for a graduate degree and began a career working in several advertising agencies in Texas.

Fast forward to today and Briones, who now invests in startups for a living, brings his

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ARTS

years of advertising and marketing savvy to the Sausalito Festival, now in its 67th year.

“We are rebranding the festival —it will have a new look and feel,” and unsurprisingly “we will roll out a new advertising campaign,” says Briones.

Transitioning from his role as a longtime board member to the director has been eye opening.

“The board thinks up great ideas and it’s the executive director who has to execute them,” explains Briones who admits that even with 1,200 volunteers, the festival is a massive undertaking with many moving parts.

Along with plans to elevate the food offerings at the festival, Briones is also working on a new “art of transportation” exhibit that aims to blend the art world with technology and will feature

a Chris Craft boat, a Tesla automobile and an Airstream. Plans are also afoot to change the gala event to better support the artists.

While Briones has embraced his new position, he still finds time for other pursuits, including sitting on a board for the organization Expedition Balance that helps military veterans with PTSD and mental health issues through yoga, mediation and artistic expression.

For someone who appears to be comfortable wearing many hats, it seems Briones is a good match for his new role. With everything from music lineups, to beverage sponsors and artist management, he is up to the task.

—Tanya Henry

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Bryan DREW BASEBALL AND THEATER

A

Historic Park, but also plays infield for the Tigers, the Rohnert Park/Santa Rosa-based team that is part of the Redwood Empire Baseball League.

Drew was born and raised in San Diego, and moved to Sonoma County in 2005 to attend Sonoma State University, eventually graduating in 2009 with a degree in communications.

That’s certainly true of Bryan Drew, who not only works as a financial associate for Transcendence Theatre Company, best known for producing the popular Broadway Under the Stars series at Jack London State

“Baseball’s always been a passion of mine,” says Drew, who recently moved from Petaluma to Boyes Hot Springs to be closer to Transcendence’s headquarters in Sonoma. “I played for years in high school, and always wanted to find a way to make it a part of my life, one way or another.”

“I came up here expecting to play baseball for SSU,” he admits, “because the school has a great baseball program. But at the time, being 18-years-old and away from home for the first time, and seeing how competitive the baseball program was, I realized that if I did baseball, it would take up the entirety of

good infielder learns to do all sorts of things (catch a ball, tag a runner, avoid a collision) all while keeping one foot firmly on the base.

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»»

««

my college career. So I kind of stepped away from baseball and just had a good, active college life, staying very active.”

Upon graduation, he settled down in Petaluma after landing a job at a local mortgage company.

“It was during the recession, and I got that position right out of college, so I was pretty excited to have a job at all,” Drew admits. “I eventually moved into a treasury role, doing wire transfers and reconciliations for residential and business loans.”

As he rose in the company, discovering that his attention to detail made him good and fast at his job, he says he always dreamed of working for a company that was a bit more creative, and a little less high pressure. But he admits that working for Sonoma County’s largest, highest-budgeted nonprofit theater company was not something he ever dreamed of. The company, which set down roots in Sonoma County in 2011, has been performing musical reviews in the old winery ruins at Jack London’s onetime ranch and home, and this year will be making its first foray into staging a full musical, with a June run of the popular “A Chorus Line.”

After answering an online posting for a financial associate, Drew joined the team in March 2018.

So what exactly is a “financial associate”?

“Basically, I help our co-artistic director Brad Surosky create every single contract that comes in, for performers, event staff, anything that’s not one of our full-time employees,” he explains. “I help

create those contracts, which could range from 200 to 300 contracts a year, because we have so many people flying in and flying out every year, from all over the country, and some from Canada.

It’s a big job. It’s not a job I ever imagined doing back in college, but now that I’m here, I can’t imagine wanting to do anything else except this, and obviously, also play baseball on the weekends, when it’s baseball season.”

In 2014, after years away from the field, Drew began playing baseball regularly with the Tigers, part of the area’s amateur adult baseball league.

“I took a shot and tried out, and ended up on a team in Napa,” he says. “I survived my first season, but my team didn’t. The team disbanded, but then the Tigers’ manager reached out to me and asked if I wanted to play with them. That was in 2015, and I’ve played with them ever since.” He currently plays first base, and last year was voted his team’s most valuable player in 2016, the same year the team won the league’s lower division championship.

“It’s a blast,” says Drew. “It keeps me in shape, and as long as my body works, I’ll keep playing. It’s a great team, a great group of guys and everyone has a great attitude.

We just try to have fun and win, which we do fairly often. That’s a nice by-product.

“It’s a great balance for me,” he adds, “helping Transcendence and playing for the Tigers. I guess I get to play for two great companies, two great teams and that’s just a fun, fantastic thing all around.”

—David Templeton

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J

J Cannabis

The North Bay figures prominently in the history of cannabis. The hidden valleys and canyons of the region have long been the source of some of the world’s premium—and illicit—weed. Now that we’ve entered the legal era, the North Bay and Sonoma County in particular are on the forefront of a new cannabis-based economy. It’s still early days, but it’s an exciting space to watch and the North Bay is right in the middle of the action.

Karli WARNER A HARMONIZING LIFE

W

hen it came time to choose an instrument to play in the 6th grade while attending elementary school in North Lake Tahoe, Karli Warner knew one thing for certain. If she was ever going to score a college scholarship based on her music, the less popular the instrument she played, the better.

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So, she chose the euphonium.

“My school had a great music program,” recalls Warner, who now lives in Petaluma. “I liked the tuba a lot, I liked the sound of it. But I knew I couldn’t play it because my arms were not long enough. Then I thought of the euphonium, and instantly realized I’d have a better chance of getting a scholarship if I learned to play that particular instrument, so I did learn it, and I did end up with a scholarship.”

A euphonium, for those not in the know

about such things, is a low, brass instrument similar to a baritone horn, but with a slightly larger, conical (rather than cylindrical) bore. A bore is the interior cavity of a brass or wind instrument, the size and shape of which has tremendous impact on the sound it produces.

For Warner, it was just the first of many alternative paths her life would take. Each of them, like the uniquely resonant bore of her beloved euphonium, would lead to possibilities (musical and otherwise) only available to those willing to take a chance most others never even notice is an option.

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‘We found that women were looking for things that most companies just weren’t doing.’ ««

Consider that part of the reason she’s currently the co-founder of Garden Society, a Sonoma County based cannabis company created by and for women.

But back to the euphonium.

“My scholarship was for the University of the Pacific, where I also started dabbling in theater, musicals and singing in choral groups,” Warner says. “In addition to playing the euphonium, I played the trombone. And I was full-blown planning on being a music major, but it was a very competitive program, and I ultimately realized it was not what I wanted to do every day of my life. I must have changed my major four times, trying to find my place.”

She ended up with a degree in communications (minoring in music, naturally), and afterwards landed an internship at a Los Angeles agency representing Napster. After a few years in

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Southern California, Warner followed her love of good food and drink to Napa, where she became involved in the wine industry. While doing PR for various wineries and catering companies, she indulged her love of music in numerous ways, playing with local groups and community theater companies, performing in the orchestra pit and occasionally on stage.

entrepreneur Erin Gore to found Garden Society, a boutique cannabis company creating gourmet edibles, strategically serving a clientele of mostly professional women who use cannabis regularly.

“We are girlfriends, wives, moms, sisters, bill-payers, breadwinners, caretakers and peacemakers,” proclaims Garden Society’s mission statement. “We are multitaskers, with a huge passion to pursue all this world offers. We are a sisterhood of like-minded women. We are pioneers, in search of new, more holistic ways to rejuvenate from the rigors of our daily lives.”

“In short, we make high-quality cannabis products that women relate to,” Warner sums up, adding that quite a few men are customers as well, but that she and Gore felt it was important to find ways to serve women primarily, a demographic that was conspicuously underserved until Garden Society broke out big right out of the gate.

“At a small theater in Carson City, I was in a production of ‘The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,’” she recalls with a laugh. “I loved doing theater. When we moved to Sonoma County, I was about to audition for a show at 6th Street Playhouse when I found out I was pregnant. I haven’t really done much on stage since then, but someday I’d like to get back to that. It was fun.”

“In the market,” she explains, “there were not a lot of brands that were targeting women specifically, and based on our own anecdotal research, we found that women were looking for things that most companies just weren’t doing. Women want something delicious, something with chocolate, something that doesn’t just get us high, but is also a good fit for people who care about really good food and wine.”

It’s not just parenthood that has been keeping Warner off the stage, of course. In 2016, she teamed up with Sonoma County

The grassroots operation was initially self-funded, but last year, Gore and Warner secured $1.3 million in fundraising.

“We have a healthy profitable business, and we’re growing quickly,” says Warner.

When asked if there are any notable lessons she learned from playing the euphonium that have proven valuable as a cannabis entrepreneur, Warner immediately starts counting them off.

“First, as a young musician, you have to be absolutely committed to rehearsing and practicing, if you intend to get into a school on a scholarship,” she says, “so I learned to be very disciplined. Second, in the theater world, I had to get over stage fright quickly, to ignore the adrenaline of it and just perform when the curtain rises, and as an entrepreneur, you have to be on all the time. It’s the same thing. When it’s time to be on, you have to be on.

Third, being in business—especially on the marketing end of it—it’s all about telling a story, and that’s what theater is about. It’s what music is about, too. With Garden Society, I love telling our story, I love speaking and talking with people about what we’re doing.”

Though she says she’d love to get back into theater at some point, with a fast-growing business and a young child, that’s probably not going to happen anytime soon.

“But I do take my euphonium out from time to time,” she says. “And I sing. I’ve found a group of five women and we get together and harmonize once in a while. Music is a part of me, and no matter how busy I get, I always manage to find a way to indulge in it, at least a little bit. If something is important, you find a way to make it work.”

—David Templeton

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Mickey

HART

DEAD DRUMMER ROLLS OUT CANNABIS BRAND

M

arin County’s Grateful Dead roots notwithstanding, the county maintains an arms-length relationship with cannabis as cities take a go-slow approach to permitting dispensaries. But cannabis culture lives on in Marin.

No doubt the Dead’s heady days in Marin fueled drummer Mickey Hart’s new cannabis brand: Mind Your Head.

It sounds like a spinoff off of Jefferson Airplane’s “Feed Your Head,” though with a bit more emphasis on mindfulness and consciousness, not on the idea of following a White Rabbit into a drug-induced Wonderland.

The first product from Mind Your Head is a

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tin with 10 one-third gram pre-rolls called “Magic Minis.” Naturally, there’s a drawing of a skeleton on the cover created by Hart, who now calls Sonoma County home. This one is running—he’s not a couch potato—and he carries two drumsticks, one in each hand.

The press release from Mind Your Head doesn’t actually say that Hart has smoked pot. What it does say is that the pre-rolled joints (is there another form than pre-rolled? Why not just call them joints?) seek “to share an essential part of the inspiration behind his [Hart’s] work as a musician and artist.”

The enterprise is a partnership with Left Coast Ventures and features the Chemdog strain, named after the man who reportedly discovered the strain outside a Indiana Dead show in 1991.

In spite of Hart’s corporate backing, Magic Minis could be a case of too little too late.

Willie Nelson has his line of pot products and so does Francis Ford Coppola. Indeed, prerolled, dispensary-sold cannabis cigarettes have been around for years. Sonoma County’s Garden Society has been making theirs and distributing them all over California. The company has built up a loyal following, though there’s no famous name behind it, and has succeeded in attracting middleaged, professional women to their products.

Still, the product launch is further evidence of the mainstreaming of the once-black market industry.

—Jonah Raskin