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t was June 2017 when Tartar Control—a Los Angeles hardcore band consisting of two “Mormon missionaries,” a cardboard box robot and goofy, unhinged energy—graced Café Colonial for a night. Mid-song, the band used their best ministerial voices to plead for the audience to sit on questionably hygienic flooring. The crowd obliged—but it couldn’t settle down, and for the first time in human history, a sitting mosh pit broke out. It didn’t help that Tartar Control’s singer dove offstage and rolled around in it.
Cam Evans snapped a photo of this insane people pile, where some appear to be swimming. The photo captures the night’s vibe better than your typical band shot. Everyone seems to be having the time of their lives. But after Café Colonial closed down in November, moments in that janky Stockton Boulevard art complex will now only exist in photos, social media posts or in publications such as Sacramento is Burning.
DIy MAG sACrAMenTo Is burnInG CApTures A rAuCous renAIssAnCe In The CITy’s punk sCene
Sacramento is Burning is local photographer Cam Evans, pictured here shooting the Crystal Method at Concerts in the Park on July 27, 2018.
Photo courtesy of Dan james. all other Photos courtesy of of cam evans.
20 | SN&R | 12.06.18
That’s the name of Evans’ new, one-off 60-page magazine, where the Tartar Control photo made the cover. It’s not just a gallery of cool shows the local photographer curated from February 2017 to August 2018. It’s a portrait of the city’s sometimes-crazy, wildly diverse, aliveand-kicking punk scene. Plenty of publications in town shine a spotlight on local musicians, but Evans’ publication is strictly photographs. He likens what he’s doing to rock photographer Shit Show Dave, who documents LA's punk scene, and San Diego world music travel-photog Adam Elmakias. It’s a whole lot of showing, and not a lot of telling. “His photography is really dynamic and captures the whole atmosphere of a show,” says Alyssa De la Rosa, the bassist for Las Pulgas, who are playing the magazine’s release show at Phono Select Records on Saturday. “Even though Cam doesn’t play music, he’s very much a figure within the music scene.” In the pages of Sacramento is Burning, people of varying ages, cultural backgrounds, genders and styles blast out punk in dive bars, outdoor festivals and dingy DIY spaces. Photos show Drug Apts. getting psychedelic-weird at Red Museum on 15th Street, Destroy Boys shouting heart-on-sleeve at Blue Lamp on Alhambra Boulevard, and Dead Weight getting communal street-punk sing-alongs going at Café Colonial. He inadvertently captured the city’s music landscape influx. At least six Sacramento venues either closed or stopped booking live music, including Café Colonial (and its sister venue the Colony next door) and downtown: Starlite Lounge, the punk house Casa de Chaos, Naked Lounge and Station 1. “It just seemed like a bummer that most of these neat venues closed, since I feel that there are not any good all-ages venues to host local or traveling independent artists,” Evans says. But that's not why he picked the magazine's name. Evans says when he first contemplated the zine last year, wildfires had ravaged the area.
Captain Cutiepie getting noisy at Casa de Chaos, a Midtown punk house where basement shows were aplenty until was vacated last December.