Roddy Rich shared a new music video for his Lil Durk collaboration, “Twin”. The track comes from Ricch’s new album, Feeding the streets IIIwhich dropped just at the beginning of the month.

In the visual, the two rappers shop at a designer streetwear boutique while knocking down bars. After letting off some steam from some retail therapy, they hit the streets, driving through the night side by side in matching cars.

“Call Durkio, I need an evil twin in that female dog / 20s, 50s, hundreds, I barely see a few dozen in that female dog,” Ricch raps. “All it takes, all I know / Front row, fashion show / Balenciaga, Parisian style.”

Durk joins in on the chorus, proclaiming Ricch as his twin, “Ayy, twin, that’s my twin / GLE, matching Benz.”

On tour with Post MaloneRicch appeared on Apple Music 1 with Zane Lowe to talk about making his latest album.

“I feel like having fun was the main thing we wanted to do with this album,” the rapper said. “At this point, we’re not worried about…I just feel like I didn’t want to worry too much about outside things, you know what I mean?” Just period. I didn’t want to worry about anything outside of the studio.

Watch the music video for “Twin” by Roddy Ricch and Lil Durk.

In other music news, by Eminem 8 miles the soundtrack went 6x platinum.

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Taylor Swift spoke on Friday about the box office debacle that took place this week, as many fans were unable to purchase tickets for his upcoming tour on ticket master.

“It goes without saying that I am extremely protective of my fans,” Swift wrote on instagram Friday. “It’s really hard for me to trust an outside entity with those connections and loyalties, and excruciating for me to just watch mistakes happen without recourse.”

Swift blamed Ticketmaster for the snafu, noting that there were a “multitude of reasons people had such a hard time” getting tickets.

“I’m not going to excuse anyone because we’ve asked them many times if they can handle this kind of request and we’ve been assured they can,” the singer wrote. “It’s really amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really pisses me off that a lot of them feel like they’ve suffered multiple bear attacks to get them.”

Swift added that she would try to “understand how this situation can be improved in the future.”

Sales for the singer’s new Eras tour began on Tuesday, but high demand rumbled the ticketing site, exasperating fans who were unable to obtain tickets. Customers complained about Ticketmaster not loading, saying the platform wouldn’t let them access tickets even if they had a presale code for verified fans.

On Thursday, Ticketmaster announced that the sale to the general public, which was due to begin on Friday, had been canceled due to “extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet this demand”.

“To those who didn’t get tickets, all I can say is that I hope to give us more opportunities to come together and sing these songs,” Swift added.

Ticketmaster’s troubles began on Tuesday, when the site launched a sale for “verified fans” – a mechanism to weed out bots that give presale codes to individuals.

The ‘verified fan’ platform was created in 2017 to help Ticketmaster handle huge demand situations, but as more than 3.5 million people pre-registered to be a Swift ‘verified fan’, the system was submerged. It’s the biggest check-in in the company’s history, according to Ticketmaster.

“Historically, working with ‘Verified Fan’ invite codes has worked because we were able to manage the volume coming into the site to purchase tickets,” the company wrote Thursday in a blog post that has since been deleted. “However, this time the sheer number of bot attacks as well as fans who did not have invite codes drove unprecedented traffic to our site.”

Ticketmaster noted that it “usually takes us about an hour to sell through a stadium show,” but the site has slowed some sales while delaying others to “stabilize systems.” It stopped everything.

The site appeared to have avoided major problems on Wednesday when presales began for Capital One credit card holders. But the company’s inability to keep up with demand for Swift’s tour as well as a lack of tickets to meet the additional demand essentially killed Friday’s scheduled sale to the general public.

Fans blamed Ticketmaster while others, including members of Congress, strongly criticized the company’s control over the live music industry.

“Ticketmaster’s strength in the core ticket market insulates it from the competitive pressures that typically drive companies to innovate and improve their services,” said Senator Amy Klobuchar. wrote in an open letter to its CEO on Wednesday. “It can lead to the kinds of dramatic service outages we’ve seen this week, where consumers are the ones paying the price.”

Senator Richard Blumenthal echoed Klobuchar’s concerns, tweeting that the tour “is a perfect example of how the Live Nation/Ticketmaster merger hurts consumers by creating a virtual monopoly.”

“I have long urged the DOJ to investigate the state of competition in the ticketing industry,” he said. said. “Consumers deserve better than this anti-hero behavior.”

The New York Times reported On Friday the Justice Department opened an antitrust investigation into Ticketmaster’s parent company Live Nation, citing people familiar with the matter. The investigation centers on whether Live Nation Entertainment abused its power over the live music industry, the Times wrote.

The Justice Department has reached out to concert venues and other ticket market players in recent months, asking about Live Nation’s practices and industry dynamics, the Times added.

The Justice Department and Live Nation did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment.

The backlash also highlighted the enormity of Swift’s popularity

The pop star has had countless hits over the course of her career, built up an ultra-loyal following of fans – better known as “Swifties” – and recently became the first artist to claim all 10 simultaneously. top spots on the Billboard Hot 100 after the release. from his latest album, “Midnights”, released last month.

His Eras Tour – which kicks off in Glendale, Arizona on March 17 and ends in Los Angeles on August 9 – hits 52 stadiums across the United States.

Ticketmaster noted Thursday that more than two million tickets were sold out on Tuesday for Swift’s upcoming tour – the most ever for an artist in a single day. The company also said ticket demand for the Eras Tour was twice that of the top five tours of 2022 and the Super Bowl. combined.

“Based on the volume of traffic to our site, Taylor would need to perform over 900 stadium shows (nearly 20 times the number of shows she does),” Ticketmaster wrote Thursday. “It’s a stadium show every night for the next 2.5 years.”

Tickets for Swift’s upcoming tour have also drawn astronomical prices on ticket resale sites, with some tickets being listed for tens of thousands of dollars.

Since her debut album in 2006, Swift has also established herself as a cultural icon with immense influence in getting things done in the industry. She has taken on music streaming services like Spotify

(PLACE) and Apple Music regarding artist compensation and is is currently re-recording his songs to reclaim his masters.

In many ways, just like Swift, so is the music industry.

Serona Elton, music industry professor at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music, further explained Swift’s popularity noting her success in music sales and touring. Most music is now consumed via streaming, she said, which is more popular among younger generations who skew slightly towards women.

“The demographic group that generates the highest percentage of music consumption is seen in her and is closely tied to what she sings,” she said.

Everything felt good in Richmond – seeing cranes and shipping containers across the street while enjoying a no-frills burger that was prepared in a food truck next to a gravel lot.

The arrival of The Backyard signals the addition of another food joint outside of Richmond’s Traditional Food Halls like 23rd St., where Mexican and Central American flavors are as abundant as at Mission and Fruitvale. It’s a sign of the growth of Richmond’s artisan food and beverage scene on the outskirts of town, where small businesses like Armistice Brewing, East Brother Beer, Wild West Cider and Rocky Island Oyster Co. have all found homes, despite being relatively out of sight and off the grid.

Like many independents food businesses located in unexpected placesthe Backyard runs the risk of being overlooked (see: Black Star Pirate BBQ, the BBQ destination near Point San Pablo that recently lost his lease). But Backyard owner Emmet Kauffman, a San Francisco born and raised entrepreneur, is used to the grind and ready for the challenge.

Here’s what the painter-turned-backyard chef has to say about Richmond’s latest spot.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

********

ALAN CHAZARO: Congratulations on opening this month. Tell us about the Backyard and your vision for this new space.

EMMET KAUFFMAN: I want the Backyard to be a place where people feel comfortable coming and not just having to buy a burger. If you need a place to hang out with your kids and let them run around and want a few small bites, you can do that.

The menu right now is simple, tight and delicious. I focus on those hearty, number one items that people want. We have a solid breakfast menu in an industrial area. This is for your working class people. You can stop and have a breakfast sandwich with cheddar cheese, soft eggs and sausage or bacon. You can add avocado and other toppings. We also have a breakfast box which is a deconstructed breakfast sandwich, with more eggs and a hash brown.

For lunch, we currently have two solid burgers: a Santa Fe burger and the Backyard burger. We also have a BLT and a grilled cheese. We use Acme Bread from Berkeley, which is delicious. We also serve toast [the restaurant’s take on a bruschetta], and we are preparing to expand it soon. Currently, we have the margherita toast. It’s my specialty: a bruschetta with goat cheese, cherry tomatoes, garlic, basil, balsamic. It’s like a fresh pizza. We also have avocado [toast] — micro-vegetables, sautéed tomatoes, drizzle of honey. We also offer charcuterie boards – we call this a “cutting board”, since we are on Cutting Blvd. in Richmond — but only on weekends. He serves about four – a full spread with brie, salami, nuts, fruit. Something fun to share.

My dream restaurant would be like something in Barcelona. A complete dish, tapas style. Fancy breads, sandwiches. That’s the direction we’re going, and we’re just starting to settle into our capabilities.

When did your interest in cooking start?

I was born and raised in San Francisco, and I was never the best in school. My mom tried to get me into programs I could click on. She knew that I had a passion for cooking. She enrolled me in a program at Marin. They held an event at the Fillmore Jazz Festival when I was 17. I worked with chef David Lawrence at 1300 on Fillmore, and he spotted me among everyone and told me to come back the next day. He made me make sweet potato gnocchi. I was a senior in high school and he hired me to work the line on the weekends with no previous experience. That was it for me. I stayed there for three and a half years. In the meantime, my father had his house renovated and the painting contractor was looking for workers. I got a job with a painting company when I was 19 and worked both jobs, 80-90 hours a week.

How did your work as a painter complement your growth in the food industry?

I got into painting full time and started running a painting business [in San Francisco] at 19 years old. I had a ton of experience, for about three years. Then I stopped painting and worked at Alexander’s Steakhouse, which had a Michelin star at the time. I gained experience there, and then I joined the California National Guard. I focused on my military training. At 21, I created my own painting company [Kman’s Kreations] and was in the National Guard for six years. I continued to run my painting business for 10 years. COVID shook that up, and I wanted to rethink things.

I was kicked out of San Francisco. A few years ago I moved to Richmond and saw an opportunity. The Army allowed me to move to Richmond on the VA loan. I fell in love here and took the leap back to my roots and my passion for cooking. I have over 10 years of experience running a business, building employees, working with clients and customers. This is my new passion project at 31 years old. I still have time to fail (laughs). Food is the best building type. You can build it, then eat it and taste it. You can modify it. It’s an art form. It reminds me of painting in a way.

Do you still operate your painting business in San Francisco?

COVID hit, and everyone went their own way. I have continued to be self-employed for the past two years. I got a text the other day to come paint a house (laughs). I actually have a product that I invented called sprayer saver. It’s a simple product that my brother and I started. It holds your bucket at an angle so you can get all that paint when using a paint sprayer.

Is that how you ended up behind the Whale Point Marine & Hardware store?

In the mid-1980s, 7-Eleven store managers in British Columbia faced a problem they believed was hurting their bottom line: teenagers hanging out the door.

The company felt that teenagers who lingered outside stores chased away other customers. BC management met with store staff and psychologists to brainstorm ideas to address the issue.

The solution they came up with seemed surprisingly simple: Play classical or easy-listening music known as Muzak in parking lots to keep teenagers from hanging out.

The music was used in 10 stores in British Columbia and quickly spread to more than 150 7-Eleven stores in North America, according to Californian musicologist Lily Hirsch. In the years that followed, the practice of using music as a deterrent was used around the world.

WATCH | The Background Music Helping BC Convenience Stores Keep Loafers Away

Hirsch’s book Music in the Prevention and Suppression of Crime in the United Statesincludes a statement from the company indicating that it began the practice in several of its BC-based stores in 1985.

Hirsch writes that there are earlier examples of companies using music to keep people from lingering, but 7-Eleven says it’s “the first company to deliberately transform the core function of programmed bait music to repellent” and that it “appears to be the first company to have sanctioned such an approach as policy.”

“I think other people did it unknowingly around the same time, but 7-Eleven took ownership of it,” Hirsch told CBC News.

This approach, developed by 7-Eleven in British Columbia, continues to appear around the world. Hirsch says she regularly comes across media reports discussing variations on the same theme.

In 2012, the Washington Post wrote about classical music performed at the New York Port Authority. In 2019, a city in Florida collected watch out to blast the children’s song baby shark to prevent homeless people from congregating outside an event centre.

Opera music was played outside a reception area and safe consumption site in Prince George last year, a practice local social workers called ‘cruel’ .

WATCH | Repetitive opera music at the Prince George Visitor Center:

7-Eleven did not respond to a request for comment on whether it was still playing music outside of any of its stores.

Victoria 7-Eleven criticized for using water drops

The convenience store chain recently came under fire after one of its stores in Victoria set up a system that deliberately leaked water from under an awning to deter people from loitering.

Advocates for the city’s vulnerable populations said the use of water drops to prevent vagrancy was demeaning, especially for the homeless.

A recent report in The Times-Colonist says the store, located on Quadra and Yates streets, has stopped using the tactic. CBC News has asked 7-Eleven for comment, but has not yet received a response.

Mark the space with music

Although the water drop deterrent didn’t last long, the company’s musical tactics seem to have lasted.

Hirsch said she first became interested in the subject after reading a 2006 news report about a suburb of Sydney, Australia using Barry Manilow music to repel teenagers.

Hirsch notes that most people have positive associations with music, making it a more subtle tool to avoid loafing. Dripping water is more intrusive than piping mandy through loudspeakers, she said.

“It was marking the space, communicating that this space isn’t yours, but they could use those positive associations with the music to create that kind of confusion and plausible deniability,” she said.

In September 1990, CBC News visited a 7-Eleven store in Richmond, British Columbia, which played Muzak outside the store. Manager Kevin St. Denis said it was a hit with at least one neighboring household.

“They hear it in their bedroom and say it helps them fall asleep,” he said.

While the music played outside stores can be soft and melodious, Hirsch says the message it sends is loud and clear.

“Really what’s happening is you’re separating space.”

The female king — by director Gina Prince-Blythewood historical epic starring Viola Davis about a powerful army of West African female warriors protecting their kingdom – is only the second film with a black female director to open at number one at the box office. The film’s fame means millions have had the chance to hear the song playing over the closing credits, but what has received far less attention is the story of a heartbreaking triumph tied to that fearless pop anthem, “Keep Rising.”

Jessy Wilson wrote and recorded it with producer Jeremy Lutito in the studio behind her East Nashville, Tennessee home during the summer of 2020. She barely touched a microphone after that, quickly drifting away from writing of songs. What brought her back one day in early October to that same small studio — and to the music — was the chance to truly embrace the song’s role in a powerful movie. With no label budget behind her, she had decided to create a royally deliberate acoustic version for a simple, live music video. “After all this time, I hope I’m like a pro, it’s like riding a bike,” Wilson explained after arriving at the scene and packing up her bag.

She certainly seemed in her element that day on set, not only the lead performer who knew her instrument and how to apply it to the supple insistence of the verses and the more fiery exhortation of the chorus, but the one leading the arrangement of the accompanying vocal trio. , too. Once she got the vocal takes she was looking for, finished lip-syncing for the videographers, and sat on the same couch where she came up with “Keep Rising,” she was a compelling storyteller.

The decision to briefly give up music was a big one for Wilson. She’s not a fan. By age 8, she had already convinced her mother and an agent that she had the vocal ability, stage presence, and motivation to start auditioning for off-Broadway roles. During his participation in LaGuardia, the Notoriety-famous performing arts high school in Manhattan, she lied about her age to land a regular gig at a coffee shop. “They all thought it was weird,” she recalled, “like, ‘Why does she come with her mom every weekend?’ Eventually I told them the truth, but for a while I just told them I was a student at NYU, because I really wanted that experience.”

She was hungry to learn the studio side of her craft when john legend hired her as a backup singer right out of high school. “I think I had only sung with him for about four weeks. And I said, ‘Can I come with you to the studio, please? I’ll be a fly on the wall. I won’t do no noise. . I just want to come,” Wilson said. “He was like, ‘Yeah, absolutely.’ “

It’s Wilson who provides resplendent, cooing echoes on Legend’s bossa nova-tinged 2006 track “MaxineShe branched out into songwriting with his encouragement, eventually providing cuts to other major R&B stars. Wilson thought she might become one of them herself, but didn’t. kept coming up against colorism in the industry: “Being a dark-skinned black woman, you know, being told it’s not marketable, being told it’s not worldwide, being told that no one could really relate to me because of my complexion.”

“It was a very new concept for me, because back home, my mom and dad taught me to love my complexion, to love my Darkness, to love my features that look like African features,” he said. she continued. “It was a rude awakening when I realized that wasn’t the world’s view and that somehow black people are true victims of white supremacy in terms of how we see ourselves, even in the mirror. When you have so much inside of you, it is very painful too, because you are waiting for someone to give you that [professional] down, and you expect someone to see you that way [as an artist].”

After accompanying Legend to Nashville on a songwriting expedition, Wilson decided to give the city a try, moving in 2013. In songwriting circles, Wilson was introduced to his white musical partner Kallie North and to their soulful roots rock duo. muddy magnolias was a revelation for an adjacent country scene that made more room for black music radiation than black music-manufacturers. “These first two months of life here,” Wilson said, “I walked around Music Row over and over, and said, ‘God make me a pioneer.'”

With Muddy Magnolias, Wilson finally landed the recording contract she was working for, a success that she said was twofold. “The [vocal] mix was second to none. It does something to the heart when you see a black girl and a white girl up there singing in harmony, what it means to the spirit,” Wilson said. “But also, you have to think about the business side. It wasn’t a gimmick for us, but I think the industry found it easy to remember.”

Country singer-songwriter Brittney Spencer took note of the mark left by her black predecessor when she was an employee of a health food store that regularly filled Wilson’s juice orders, and the recently called to tell him. “I think the opportunities that a lot of artists like me can get right now is because little by little people have been sowing seeds,” Spencer observed in a separate interview. “And even though this space wasn’t necessarily ready five, seven years ago, man, I was there and I looked at it and I didn’t forget.”

When Muddy Magnolias broke up, Wilson began to find his voice as a solo artist on the sensually sophisticated and atmospheric side of rock and soul with the Patrick Carney-produced album. Phase. She wanted to complicate the perception of her as “just that big singer.” “Phase gave me an opportunity to shut up,” Wilson said. “People underestimate the power of being silent. I made an intentional decision never to open my voice beyond a certain place on my album, because I had sung all my life and wanted to hear the intricacies of my voice on record. … I wanted people to hear what I had to say.”

Around the same time, Tyler the Creator found Wilson on social media, urging him to sing on his album IGO; he hadn’t been able to get his voice out of his head since he’d heard it escape from “Maxine”. But those professional landmarks gave way to a series of personal losses. Wilson’s beloved grandmother passed away and his father, a New York City healthcare worker, barely survived COVID-19 at the start of the pandemic. Then she and her husband lost a pregnancy.

“Unfortunately after four months we lost our child,” Wilson said. “I felt like I was in a hole. I kept looking for things to hold on to, but nothing was pulling me out. It’s hard to even really communicate or even think about those times, because desperation was just…” She trailed off, unable to find sufficient words.

In her aggravated grief, it became difficult for Wilson to deliver the songs she owed to her publisher. One of them she submitted was “Keep Rising”. “When I wrote the song, I was talking to black people,” she explained. “There’s a part of the lyrics that I also talk about myself: ‘I’ve been walking for so long. How far is it to get to where we’re going?’ Like, how long do we have to wait in America? How long does Jessy have to wait? When will we be considered enough? When will I be considered enough?

At the time, Wilson didn’t have much hope of anything coming out of this song, or any of the others she wrote. She lost her publishing contract in early 2021 and turned to visual art. But on what would have been her baby’s due date in 2022, she received some big news. The director of The female kingPrince-Bythewood, had originally considered Terence BlanchardThe entire film’s soundtrack score, but her search for the right music to transport the audience away from the closing scene had led her to “Keep Rising.”

Sent out a collection of unreleased tracks to listen to, Prince-Bythewood found in Wilson “exactly what I wanted audiences to feel. It gets you up and moving. It felt like it was written for the movie.”

“One of the things that excites me the most,” she added, “is that I love hearing Jessy’s story and who she is as an artist, where she was at the when that call came in. I love that we have the power to uplift artists who deserve it. And Jessy, her voice, the depth that she brings to her work, absolutely deserves this opportunity.

Prince-Bythewood asked Wilson to adapt two lyrics to the period of the film and accept a feature from the legendary singer Angelique Kidjo, originally from the region where the film is set, then known as the Kingdom of Dahomey. “She’s the First Lady of Benin, basically,” notes the director, “so important to empowering girls in Africa, an incredible activist. I wanted her voice and I kind of wanted to bridge the gap, America and Africa.”

Wilson didn’t mind making these adjustments at all. “I feel so connected to the intent of their mission for what they want this film to accomplish in our industries,” she said with serene conviction. “I want to see more opportunities for women who have a message, who are dark skinned. And so if I can somehow open doors, then I feel like I can cling to that, the possibility of that, because my new purpose.”

Undefined: readMore

Now the sweat has dried. So are the signatures on the stacks of records the guys from Washington’s hottest band Enumclaw sold during what frontman Aramis Johnson calls the best local young indie rocker show so far. day – a Friday night album release earlier this month in a crowded Easy Street Records, a rite of passage for the hometown, is making headway.

Between a wonky power strip, a brief shortage of tape, and a sliding drum kit, it nearly went off the rails. In what might have been the biggest show of support for the rumored rising quartet in western Washington, a friend of Johnson’s cousin knelt in front of the bass drum to physically hold her in place during a fun and frenzy that, for about an hour, transformed the West Seattle boutique into the coolest punk house on California Avenue Southwest. Three weeks later, the dude’s ears are probably still ringing.

“The drummer needed so much help tonight,” jokes LaDaniel Gipson, the soft-spoken, steady-handed drummer in question who is perched on the ledge of the parking lot outside Easy Street as cars whiz by. pace.

Still surrounded by friends who made the trip from Tacoma, sitting among the guys from Enumclaw decompressing after an adrenaline-filled set and meeting each other is like being in the post-game locker room with the winning team, recounting how calamity nearly cost them the game while popping champagne (or in this case, passing around a bag of Doritos), while taking it. Every few minutes a car full of friends or fans passes by – either leaving the show or heading to the nearby Benbow room where the band will continue their ‘Save the Baby’ release party with a DJ set late into the night – shouting inside jokes and unleashing a stream of festive horns.

“I can’t believe we were there for 45 minutes straight, just like signing, signing, signing,” guitarist Nathan Cornell says with bewildered vertigo. “Weird. It’s a feeling of gratitude.

The past year and a half has brought a wave of new experiences for accelerated band Tacoma that caught the attention of the DC music community (and the indie world at large) when 2021’s “Jimbo Demo” EP released. is unrolled music blogs are on fire before they even played a show. Since then, Enumclaw has graced required Seattle festivals, signed to Fat Possum imprint Luminelle Recordings, and landed desirable opening slots on tour with an eclectic mix of bigger acts, including their current run with Illuminati hotties. favorites of “tender punk”, which ends on November 19. at the Neptune Theatre.

Meanwhile, there has been a steady increase in the number of Enumclaw t-shirts bearing their flashing slogan, “Best Band Since Oasis”, spotted on local rock shows. Different from everything the western Washington rock scene has seen in recent years.

Despite all the hype, the band who formed after a night of karaoke at Bob’s Java Jive insists they felt no pressure to deliver as they set about recording their first feature footage in Tacoma.

“It happened so fast, we didn’t really stop to think about it,” says Johnson, the amiable singer who sports a hard-to-miss mustache and his heart on his sleeve. We were just like ‘We are the [expletive] and this album will be the [expletive].’ We were in the studio jumping like we were about to sell 50 million copies and if it’s not going triple diamond, we’ve done something wrong.

The triple diamond may be a tall order (even for the Taylor Swifts of the world), but Gipson’s “no-jump” claim certainly rings true. From the melodious jangle-and-fuzz on songs like “2002” to the more acoustically closer “Apartment,” there’s no filler on their impressive debut album peppered with Tacoma-area references.

Johnson’s deeply personal and direct lyrics flow from his lips with the intimacy of a house party on the back porch, confiding in listeners his most vulnerable and easily relatable emotions. Beyond Johnson’s words and wispy, non-choirboy vocals, the album’s intimate feel is in part due to its home recording at ALMA, Tacoma’s venue and restaurant complex with a recording studio. in-house recording, and a quick chemistry with producer Gabe Wax, chosen for his work with pensive indie rock songwriter Soccer Mommy. Every night at 6 p.m., Johnson’s mother would drop by the studio with dinner.

While many songs come from a dark place – self-reflection in the midst of an unhappy romance (“Save the Baby”) or the absence of a close friend struggling with schizophrenia (“Park Lodge”) – Enumclaw’s live sets have increasingly taken on a fun punk-rock intensity thanks in large part to bassist Eli Edwards, the band’s screaming spark plug, who is also Johnson’s younger brother.

“The music that matters most to me is music that I can see myself in,” Johnson says. “I try to write from this place. …And we’re a rock band, you know. We are not here to cry together. I mean, if you want to shed some thug tears, that’s fine too, but we’re here to have a good time.

Less than two years after releasing their debut single, “Fast N All,” before Edwards had even learned his instrument, this combo is clearly connecting with people.

Johnson recalls two encounters with fans at a particular concert in Denver “that started to put things into perspective for me.” Before the show, they met someone who had driven several hours to be there, rushing to a hotel and making a weekend just to see them.

“It was pretty cool,” Johnson says. “And then when we came out on stage, there were these two black guys in front of the crowd and one of them was wearing a ‘Best Band Since Oasis’ t-shirt. He must have bought it before the show. After the gig, we talked to him, he’d brought his cousin and he said, ‘You guys inspired us to start a band. We didn’t know we could be in a band until we saw you do it It was really special.

Before forming Enumclaw, Johnson, who grew up in Lakewood, made a name for himself as an underground DJ/party organizer on the local hip-hop scene, founding the popular Toe Jam series. Tacoma rapper/producer Khris P remembers first meeting Johnson in 2014 at eTc Tacoma, a local clothing brand with a downtown boutique that has become one of the city’s cultural hubs.

“This little guy walks up to me and says, ‘Hey, give me a beat. I’m gonna be famous, I’m gonna be a star. I looked at him, I was like, ‘Who’s the [expletive] are you? ‘” As the two grew closer over the years, Khris says it was clear Johnson was destined “to do something big.”

“Aramis has such charisma and determination that it’s hard to deny,” Khris says. “Just meeting him and getting to know him, you could tell he was ready for something.”

Johnson has never been hampered by his lifelong desire to be famous. Such an admission would have been old-fashioned in some of the past rock movements that resonate through Enumclaw’s music, but in the world of contemporary indie rock, a bit of wholesome bravado sounds refreshing and honest.

One of Enumclaw’s greatest strengths in his young career has been his ability to organically split the bills with a wide range of acts, from big gigs with chillwave graduate Toro y Moi (who wore an Enumclaw shirt during his Capitol Hill Block Party set on the main stage) and touring with shoegazers Nothing, to local shows with the mainstays of Tacoma rap GLENN and Khris P or Olympia hardcore GAG ​​pivots.

For Edwards, it’s been a joy to see how different crowds react differently to the same songs. “Playing with a bunch of different headliners and playing in front of a bunch of different crowds will eventually lead to us having a really cool and diverse audience,” he says.

“We want to bring monoculture back,” Johnson jokes. “We are the group for everyone.”

On Saturday, the San Diego Opera will present “El Ultimo Sueño de Frida y Diego” (“Frida and Diego’s Last Dream”), a Spanish-language opera making its world premiere at the San Diego Civic Theater.

Co-written by Latin Grammy-winning composer Gabriela Lena Frank and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and librettist Nilo Cruz, the two-hour opera will retell the Kahlo-Rivera love story of a new and unique point of view – the afterlife.

Beginning in August, the San Diego Opera gave Union-Tribune photographer Nelvin C. Cepeda access to various stages of the opera’s development, during which he was able to photograph electricians , decorators, stagehands, costume designers, musicians and actors at work behind the scenes.

San Diego Opera: ‘El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego’ (‘The Last Dream of Frida and Diego’)

When: 7.30 p.m. Saturday and 1 and 4 Nov. 2 p.m. 6 Nov.

Where: San Diego Civic Theater, 1100 Third Ave., San Diego

Tickets: $19 to $315

Call: (619) 533-7000

On line: sdopera.org