Teenager Prepares Bitchin Betties Skate Event in Name of Women’s Solidarity

Ella Haworth, 19, is emailing and calling left and right, asking friends for logo designs, getting permits, applications, sponsors and musicians lined up for what she hopes will be an all-ages women’s skating extravaganza on the evening of August 13th at Idlewild Skatepark.

Haworth needs to secure more funding though by July 13th.  Sponsors have already offered prizes for event winners but she is still short about $800 she said, to rent the park, get the application fee, a generator and an amplified sound permit, among other necessities to pull off a successful night of women’s skating and bonding.

“It’s always been really hard for me to find other girls to skate with and yes, of course there are girls to skate with in Reno, don't get me wrong, but every single time it comes down to like having competitions, I feel like I'm the only one that signs up and then they put me with the boys and then it's unfair. So my idea for starting all of this was I had just heard about Roe v. Wade being overturned. And that's a really big deal for me. And I was like, oh wow, ‘I need to have something where we can get all the women together.’ And then for a while I've been wanting to throw a women's skate competition. So it all kind of just mashed together. I'm like ‘whoa, women supporting women and women being badass.’”

There will be a donation pot for the Wild West Access Fund of Nevada which assists those seeking abortion care both inside the state and coming from outside.  Rollerskaters will also be integrated into the different competitions, as she recognizes they can be a different demographic than younger skateboarders.  Competitors will enter for free, and the public will be asked to pay five dollars. 

How did Haworth come up with the name and flyer for the event? “My friend drew it for me actually. I was like, ‘oh, well, what if the flyer was like a girl, like a skull girl with like rock and hair?’ Bitchin Betties is like a name for a badass chick.” 

Haworth is organizing the event in between working two jobs, at Safeway and Sierra Nevada Hemp Company. 

She says her goal is also to help the local skateboarding community better understand each other.  

“I just want everyone to get along because  especially in Reno, I don't know about other places at all, I know for a fact there's lots of like random secret little beefs that people have with each other,” she said. “And I think getting everyone together in one big open space kind of helps with that. You know, you get to see people in their environment, see people hanging out with your friend, with their friends and being like, ‘oh, maybe they're not so bad of a person.’”

Haworth started skateboarding looking up to an older brother. “I just wanted to do what he was doing genuinely. And so I would go like skate with my friends and then all of my friends who were girls, they had penny boards and I wanted to learn how to penny board with them. And I couldn't afford to buy a penny board because they're like a hundred bucks, but I had a bunch of old skateboard parts. So I put together a board and then boom, I'm a skater. This was like when I was like 14.”

Haworth said she struggled with online schooling, and with different family situations recently, so she had to put graduating from high school on hold, but hopes to finish her few remaining credits soon.  She finds being an event entrepreneur exciting, very much like skateboarding.

“It tears away, all your insecurity, it tears away your fear of things,” she said of her love of skateboarding. “It makes completing challenges in daily life easier simply because skating is such a challenge. And the fact that you have to put your mind to something really hard and nobody really teaches you skating either really it's you, that really does it yourself. So it's pretty much learning how to be self sufficient.”

You can donate to Ella’s endeavor here and support a young woman trying to create a #keeprenorad event for the community: https://www.gofundme.com/f/womans-skate-competition-idlewild-park?member=20407455&sharetype=teams&utm_campaign=p_na+share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=customer

Our Town Reno reporting, July 2022

Soil Solidarity Keeps Giving and Growing in Reno

Soil Solidarity is a recent nonprofit with anarchist roots, based in “Maddux House”, a brightly painted orange home with a community garden in its backyard.

Founder Katie Colling has years of experience in community outreach and activism. She previously co-founded the Reno Initiative for Shelter and Equality, which has had many endeavors, including community meals and a free market of donated items.

Soil Solidarity works with other local initiatives such as Hampton House Garden Project, Reno Food Systems, Biggest Little Food Not Bombs and Puff Puff Pass The Love, growing healthy food to support people in need.

“It's all given away,” said Colling of their organically grown produce. “We grow all the food for the homeless and pass it along to the people who serve it.”

Soil Solidarity now operates out of Colling’s own backyard after a failed attempt at a local church’s plot where plastic sheeting had been laid under the entire space.

Colling uses a no-till method to promote mycelium growth, the root systems of fungi that allows for healthy nutritious soil that is erosion resistant. It’s fostered through compost, which can include food scraps, yard waste, and some paper products. Mushrooms were introduced to speed up the process.

A pile of finished compost that “cooked” for eight weeks. Composting is the controlled rot of organic material to create nutrient-dense soil that improves plant performance. 

Compost turning is one of the chores volunteers of Soil Solidarity are tasked with. It is turned to allow for a quick and even breakdown of the material. Large pieces are sifted out of the compost and introduced into subsequent batches to start fungal growth.  Compost is then placed on top of the green cart and pushed through to remove clumps and large pieces, leaving behind airy and healthy soil.

“I started coming to volunteer at the community garden because nothing made me as happy as putting my hands in the dirt,” said Edwards (left), who is unable to garden at her own home.

Soil Solidarity uses organic and Indigenous planting methods. One of these is the Three Sisters method. Corn is planted in the center, beans surround and climb the corn, and squash is planted at the base. The corn acts as a trellis, the beans provide nitrogen to the soil, and the squash leaves shade the roots like a living mulch that retains water. Through these organic and Indigenous techniques, Colling says she is able to grow food in our difficult climate. 

The Three Sisters represent squash, beans, and corn and is an example of companion planting, where each plant in a plot contributes to the success of another.

“Our next garden project is to have housing on-site,” said Colling of long-term goals for the nonprofit. “Two tiny homes for staff who run the property. Two tiny homes for the interns who are learning how to run a project and the property, and six tiny homes for low-income residents. So it would be a 10-unit place with a garden and a community center.”

Our Town Reno Reporting by Ariel Smith

Sam Crabtree, Saying Goodbye While Hoping to Start a New Broadway Night Tradition

Sam Crabtree, 24, is a recent UNR grad with an acting degree. Tonight at 7:30 PM he is hosting his first cabaret night at Shim's Surplus Supplies, which he says will consist mainly of Broadway music rearranged into "a fun, informal night of song."

The cabaret show has been largely Crabtree's own doing, but he credits professors and friends who have guided and helped him make the show possible.

"There's not always been a strong connection between nightlife and the arts entertainment section of Reno," Crabtree told Our Town Reno as he made final preparations.

In addition to creating a local space for cabaret, Crabtree seeks to provide theatre students in Reno a place to grow their skills.

The big night comes just as Crabtree is planning to move out of Reno, to take on a theatre internship in Florida later this summer. He hopes to make the event big enough to pass it on to someone to keep up the "fun, frantic energy of cabaret."

"There's something so valuable for students to perform in front of a crowd of people who just want to be entertained," said Crabtree. He recognized a need for performers coming out of UNR to have experience performing for the public in addition to shows at the university for an already accepting audience. "There's something valuable about that in terms of crowd work and learning how to win an audience over."

Reporting by Ariel Smith for Our Town Reno

A Day at a Beehive with a Young Reno Beekeeper

At around noon on a bright sunny high desert day, Conor Croskery drove into the parking lot of Reno’s River School Farm in his Subaru Forester. He walked out of his vehicle barefoot and sat in the back of his SUV to put on his ivory white bee suit and shoes. He then walked over to the top-bar hive he had placed inside this farm a few days ago. He was there for an inspection.

“They're going to stay in the box. That's their home,” he said. “And so today I just had to come by. And since it is a different style of hive, I had to make sure everything is doing okay and it looks like all the comb is being built straight. There's no problem. The queen is laying eggs in the little honeycomb cells. They look happy, healthy. Nothing is going on. So just kind of a checkup to make sure everything's running smoothly.”

Twenty-four year old Croskery who was always interested in the natural world pursued mechanical engineering as an undergrad, but has kept up with bees as a hobby.

“So the undergrad that I went in didn't really support [this] at all because it was all math, science, thermodynamics, fluid dynamics. It is cool, though, now that I know those things because I can kind of look at the beehive in more of an engineering perspective,” he said. “Like ventilation wise, how is the heat going? What are the bees doing to move the heat throughout it? And they kind of have a deeper understanding of that. So that's kind of cool. But I wouldn't say anything in my undergrad necessarily, supported my bee hobby.” 

Croskery started beekeeping in his senior year of high school after he was inspired by a teacher at Carson High School who used to be a beekeeper. Though his parents never owned a hive, his father helped him build on.

“The new ones I built this year are made from old redwood decking that my parents tore out,” he said. “They used to have a pretty big redwood deck down in Carson City (where his parents live) and wanted more garden space. So they took that out and saved all the wood and I used that to build a couple more beehives because it's important to recycle. And the bees don't really care if the wood is old and gnarly looking.”

“Generally, if you buy bees, they're going to be from California, especially for this area, because they're more local,” he explained but this year Croskery got them from his Reno neighbor.  “I got them from a local beekeeper who is actually not that far away from me. He's like three blocks away who has just had his own bees for like six years. He breeds them here. He sells packages and little hives to people,” he added. 

Croskery has other hobbies like climbing, skiing and backpacking which he says is “adrenaline seeking” but finds beekeeping to have a calming effect on him.

“What kept me going with it was just that it's such a nice, calming and relaxing hobby to have, which maybe sounds counterintuitive because it's a box full  of stingy insects, but just actually getting into the hive and I just feel like you talk to the bees and the bees talk back to you,” he said. “And there's so many little things that you kind of learn about them.  The box hums at a different pitch or something depending on how they're feeling. If they're upset, if they're not upset, they'll fly in your face to be like ‘...hey, get out of the hive, we were fine with it ten minutes ago now or  we are not.’ So I kept going at it just because it's just such a great and rewarding hobby to have.” 

On his bee inspection at the River School Farm, he checked for cross combing in the hives and made sure that the bees were building perpendicular hives. He also checked whether the queen was doing fine and if the bees were producing food and making “bee bread which is pollen.”

Croskery checked each hive carefully to inspect that they were making honey and straightened one comb he felt was not perpendicularly aligned. While doing so, he talked to the bees to calm them down and make sure that they were not being harmed in any way.

“It's like when I'm getting in you have to reassure them, like, ‘hey, I'm not stealing any honey. I'm not coming in here to destroy the hive. I'm just trying to help. I'm not here to hurt any  of you guys.’ Honestly I feel like they're pretty receptive to it because I feel like when I talk to the bees and maybe it's just the mental thing, but I feel like when I talk to the bees, they're less aggressive.” 

Although he is extra careful, Croskery has been stung often by his bees but says that it doesn't stop him from keeping them. “The reaction your body has to it, gets mellower and then you just kind of get used to getting stung. And so it's just like a needle prick. Or maybe it's like a shot or something. I don't get the whole swelling and big red bump and burning and all that stuff. And again, it doesn't happen as often anymore. Like, it will happen occasionally and, and if you're coming like every three to four weeks, you get stung once or twice, I just feel like it's not that big of a deal.”

Croskery says he has lost a hive recently to extreme temperatures and sudden snow and was deeply affected by it.

“I do move my beehives around because like now we know that native bees are what you're supposed to be supporting,” he said. “And I don't want to deplete the food (for native bees) in an area. So I like to move them around to make sure the natives have food.” 

A Reno resident, Croskery insists on supporting native products by people around us. “Make sure the honey you're buying is local,” he said. “You can go to the farmer's markets. Most of the time beekeepers are at farmer's markets. I'm sure you could probably look them up and find them too. And there's organizations too. There's an organization in Reno that does beekeeping for vets who have PTSD and first responders. So you could support them because they're doing good work. They're trying to help people out. But buy local honey, buy any of the products. A lot of them have bee pollen too, and they have lots of stuff and most of them are great people and they'll answer any bee questions you have if you have them. If you want to keep bees, ask them to mentor you, maybe they'll help you out.” 

Our Town Reno reporting and photos by Kingkini Sengupta

Ried Indart, A Reno Trail Blazer in Mountain Biking

Ried Indart, 20, a student at the University of Nevada, Reno, plays a big part in the growing mountain biking scene in the Biggest Little City.

He is currently racing nationally for the Reno Tahoe Junior cycling team.

Organizations like NICA (National Interscholastic Cycling Association) and the Reno Tahoe Junior Cycling team have helped get more kids outdoors and on bikes at an affordable price.

New trails are being built and bike shops are thriving as summer rounds the corner.

What got Ried into mountain biking were his parents.

“My dad took my sister and I on a ride one day,” he remembers. “I didn’t like the uphill but I liked the downhill, so I never stopped riding after that.”

Ried says that mountain biking has helped him develop skills off the trails as well in regards to decision making, and finding one's path.

He points to the National Interscholastic Cycling Association known as Nica which organizes races and other events as a good entry point for kids ages 12-18 in middle and high school.

“They (NICA) help kids in Reno by setting up some skills clinics where a bunch of more experienced riders go around and help kids that are just getting into it learn the basics of riding a bike,” he said.

Ried does hear complaints about mountain bikers from time to time.

“If you see a mountain biker riding down a trail slowly, some people will take that as ‘oh they were trying to destroy the trail or skid all around’ which I think is not accurate so the attitude towards mountain bikers because of these stories in Reno has shifted.”

Many mountain bikers are trying to better their reputation by being more aware of others on the trails.

“I try to always treat other people on the trail, whether it's a hiker, mountain biker or equestrian all the same. I pull off to the side of the trail whenever anyone is coming whether I’m going up or down. I just try to make everyone smile and tell them to have a great day.”

Keep Reno Rad reporting by fellow rider Nate Francis

Christopher Torres, In Recovery for the Performance Art of Wrestling

For Christopher Torres, wrestling is more than a physical fight. It’s an art form, a violent theater and a way to tell a story. A story of underdogs versus champions, competitors creating their reputations and building up throughout matches to their signature moves. Torres broke their right arm in the ring just a few months ago. But they’re not letting the injury keep them down.

“I've come to the realization that maybe this is a good sign that I have to take a little bit of time off,” Torres said during a recent interview with Our Town Reno. “I don't feel like I'm competing at the level I could be. I feel at this time I'm really going to hone my craft, not only in the ring, whenever I'm clear to do that, but outside of the ring. I think the part about wrestling a lot of people forget is the character aspect. I feel personally, for myself, that the character aspect has been lacking for a while.”

Explaining the broken arm leads to a lot of common questions when people learn Torres is a wrestler. Is wrestling fake? Is it choreographed? Torres, for their own amusement, comes up with slightly different answers explaining the broken arm every time. For Torres, the arm is an opportunity to explain to the uninitiated the sometimes difficult realities of wrestling. 

“I've met so many different people, and all of these people want to make sure that the show that they're putting on is the best product that they're doing,” Torres said. “They're pouring their hearts and souls into this show, because it's something that they believe in. Wrestling on its own could be a religion. It could be cultish, but it’s a religion.”

Their own character has gone through a couple of different iterations and nicknames. Names like “Panic Torres” and “Firebrand” were prototypes, but, for Torres, a wrestling character requires both amplifying who you are as a person and giving the audience what they need to enjoy the match. It isn’t just a physical sport for them. It’s violent theater. And authenticity in this violent theater is part of the reason that Torres now uses their real name as part of their wrestling nickname, “ATOMIC” Christopher Torres.

“I want to be able to demonstrate to the world who I am, and I’m not going to be apologetic about it,” Torres said. “I’m not going to be rude to anyone or put down others on my way to getting to wherever I need to go, but I’m not going to hold back who I am. I’m going to show people what it is that ATOMIC Christopher Torres is. And that might be different from what my real-life Christopher Torres is. But is it? I’m using the same name. I’m using my same identity. I’m just turning [it] up a little bit more.”

Screengrabs from the Instagram page.

Helping the public see what they want to see sometimes comes into conflict with their non-binary gender identity. Torres said they are happy to stand with other wrestlers and to be a non-binary wrestler to show other people, inside or outside wrestling, to live their best lives whether people like you or not. Torres said that representation for marginalized gender or sexual identities in wrestling has been hit or miss, outside of a few specific promotions.

“I don't make a habit of correcting people on my pronouns only because I know a lot of people aren't going to make the effort to use my correct pronouns,” Torres said. “That's the reality of the wrestling industry.”

Torres wants to one day pay the bills exclusively through independent wrestling, which have smaller events than professional leagues like WWE. Torres though sees the independent events as more effective at developing a connection with the fans. A wrestler can point at a fan and ask them to cheer, and spectators have to learn quickly to dodge out of the way as a body flies into the crowd. 

“We are self-funding most of these shows,” Torres said. “We have to pay for the chairs. We sometimes have to rent a ring, because we don’t have a ring. We have to pay for the building. We have to make sure we have insurance for wrestlers, all these different things that you have to account for.”

Torres see the independent wrestling industry as growing, but they plan to eventually move to California, a scene with more events and more action. For Torres, wrestling is a place where everyone can find something to love. They encouraged anyone to check their area and any cities close by for any independent wrestling events to support. 

“Don't go in with any preconceived notions that this may be fake,” Torres said. “It may be choreographed or it may be bad, because, I’'ll be real with you, sometimes bad wrestling exists. But it's fun. Wrestling, all wrestling, can be fun. And that on its own deserves its merit as an art.”

Our Town Reno reporting by Jesse Stone

Louis Bubala, Helping Protect the Wilderness Around Us

Louis Bubala, a local lawyer specializing in bankruptcies, remembers how he started volunteering with Friends of Nevada Wilderness in 2004, a moment which would set his path for countless more hours of helping preserve the region’s ecosystem.

He had first moved to Reno and was looking to engage in outdoor activities. “I left after work on a Friday and I had my five- year-old son with me,” he told Our Town Reno during a recent interview. “And I didn't have a four-wheel drive vehicle and so this was September and it was pitch black by the time we got up to Gerlach and I was up there. So I just kept going, and driving. And eventually I saw some taillights and found the campsite. And we went out and just had a great time with Friends of Nevada Wilderness and BLM (Bureau of Land Management) staffers and I think we were working on the Soldiers Meadows Hot Springs, trying to figure out how to get that area cleaned up and protected.”

Fast forward and Bubala has now been a secretary on the Board of Directors of Friends of Nevada Wilderness for the last seven years. The organization works towards preserving and protecting public lands in Nevada as wilderness and educating people about the need for restoration of such wildlands. 

After his initial foray, Bubala kept volunteering and also started donating money for the cause. Friends of Nevada Wilderness, with headquarters in Sparks, has about twelve to fifteen full-time employees and about the same number of seasonal and contractual employees throughout the year. Bubala’s role as a board member is to ensure that they watch their expenditures and become more efficient in their roles.

“So wilderness is an actual defined term by Congress. Wilderness is an official designation of federal public lands that only Congress can approve. And it's the highest level of land protection that you can put on federal lands, so lands that are either managed by Bureau of Land Management, US Forest Service, National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife,” he explained. “And really, it's designed to keep that land in undisturbed condition. So there's a level of solitude, there's a level of protection, it becomes a reservoir for water for animals, for plants. It's not hard to get into those areas. But if you're getting in there, you're doing it on foot. There's no roads, there's no driving into it. There's no bikes that are going into the wilderness. So the impact that people have on those lands is really minimal. And we're working to try to protect that.”

Friends of Nevada Wilderness mostly focus on “advocacy and stewardship,” according to Bubala. This involves interacting with many different types of people.

“We work with local landowners surrounding these areas, because oftentimes there's an interplay with what they do,” he said. “We work with local governments, they often  need to know what's going to happen to the tax base, how is land going to be developed or not developed? We work with the Congressional staff and federal agencies, because those are the people that are ultimately managing it. And on the Congressional side, Congressman [Mark] Amodei, Senator [Catherine] Cortez Masto, Senator [Jacky] Rosen, those are the people who get to vote on whether or not we're going to designate lands as wilderness.”

Bubala still also enjoys the role of being a volunteer and “getting out on land.” He says this is the most crucial role for anyone helping out.

“We're working to make sure the public lands that we have that are designated for wilderness or in the surrounding kind of buffer areas, how do we get out there, get our hands dirty, and make sure that those lands continue to be a high quality area for the plants and animals that depend upon them. And it's really rewarding to be out there and see that happen and look at the landscape and realize that you had a hand in keeping it beautiful and gorgeous, and protected.”

Friends of Nevada Wilderness has a signup sheet on their website for volunteers. On the basis of this, crews are prepared to go up to wilderness areas and experience working and spending time with the expert teams (trail crews) that lead these expeditions.

“We have a couple of trail crews that work normally, four to five people on each trail crew and they will go out into the wilderness further out,” Bubala explained. “So those people have actual training, they get training from the Forest Service and other people on these huge broadband saws, where you've got one person on each side of the saw to cut these down, not cut down really, but trees that have fallen across the trail, they can cut them into multiple segments. They will often hike 10 to 15 miles a day to get out to some of these areas that need the tender care that they can provide.”

The website https://www.nevadawilderness.org/ includes many opportunities of how a person can be a part of the organization.

“It's an opportunity to disconnect, to get in contact with the land in getting contact with yourself,” Bubala said, encouraging others to follow in his footsteps. “They are a great group of people and we won’t work you to death because part of the deal is we want you to get out on the land and see it yourself and understand and appreciate how beautiful this state is.” 

Reporting by Kingkini Sengupta for Our Town Reno

A Little Loud, A Local Brother and Sister Band with Tech Expertise

Brother and sister Satchel and Shaine make up a Little Loud. With a unique sound and a friendly vibe, this duo has been interested in making music since a young age. They write and produce all their own music, perform locally and in other cities occasionally. Here’s a recent Q and A about their musical path with guest contributor Madison Castagnola.

Q: Your name is so unique, how did you come up with it?

A: Satchel: “It’s funny, our name actually came accidentally from our mom. My friend and I were jamming downstairs in the basement of our house, even before Shaine joined the group, and my mom yelled ‘hey, it’s a little loud!’ and we immediately knew that HAD to be our name.”

Q: Did you have a background in music before starting?

A: Satchel: “It’s weird, pretty much no one in our family is musical but both of us are super into it. With production, you realize that a lot of it needs to be self taught, and you have to really love it to put in the time that it takes to really get better. Sometimes it can get difficult, even now, in the process of making a song, especially because we try to hold ourselves to the highest standards, but it’s all worth it when the final draft sounds perfect.”

Shaine: “We had some amazing people to consult, but the processes of songwriting, recording, mastering etc were all things we familiarized ourselves with.”

Satchel: “We are both math majors/computer science minors, and we work in tech. It’s awesome how music and music production overlap with that field, especially nowadays. And of course it’s super fun to make awesome songs!”

Q: How do you come up with your songs and lyrics?

A: Satchel: “It usually starts with a certain feeling that provides inspiration as to what the vibe of a song will be, then playing around with the guitar and keyboard until something sounds good, then putting it in Ableton and adding more chords and modifying/building it up from there. Sometimes I’ll go through that whole process and decide ‘oh man this song just isn’t good enough’ and start over from the beginning. You have to be very excited about a song for it to have any chance of making a release. Then I’ll send it over to Shaine and get her feedback and continue from there, just repeating the process until we have something great about which we are both really excited.”

Q: What do you love most about performing?

A: Satchel: “Honestly, we love the entire process, from songwriting and the moment when a melody finally comes together to production to taking it live and just seeing the audience have fun.”

Q: Does it get difficult being brother and sister in a band together?

A: Shaine: “We’re both math majors and comp sci minors, so we took many classes together and worked on projects together, and I think we have a solid team chemistry. Being in a music group together as well is definitely interesting, but good interesting. Coincidentally we’re both perfectionists too so that I think helps us, even if we don’t always agree on everything.”

Each sibling does some multitasking. Shaine plays piano while singing and Satchel is the DJ while also singing.

Q: What has been your favorite memory so far as A Little Loud?

A: Shaine: “One time I tried to get my brother to learn some choreography to one of our songs for our live shows. It was mostly just walking, but somehow walking and singing at the same time became impossible, and then the walking sparked an hour long debate about whether forwards and backwards was better than left to right, and that led to an intense introspection about whether his hips looked weird when he walked. We eventually decided to rain check the walking. I get a headache whenever I think about it, but I still plan on making us do choreography at one of our shows.”

Satchel: “That’s a tough question haha there’s so many, probably the first time people started really dancing and having fun to our music, it was at our second ever live show and both of us couldn’t stop smiling as we performed because it was just pure euphoria almost like ‘ok we’re actually doing something right yesssss’.”

Q: What are your plans for the future?

A: Satchel: “Our next show is at the Holland May 26th with Ryan Cassata, so that’s going to be super fun, and we have an awesome new project coming in the next month, so around the same timeline. Additionally, in our aforementioned upcoming releases, we are featuring an awesome new vocalist, Hailey Wilson, she goes by Hailey Dawn. She’s incredibly talented and we can’t wait for these new songs to be out there.”

Our Town Reno reporting by Madison Castagnola

Reno's Ever Changing and Evolving Bar Scene

I’m Carlos Perez, a local university student who prefers his nights best spent outside in the social culture of Reno, NV. Going out every night in the city is like opening a Pandora's box. 

I’ve spent my best night of my life here which involved taking a party bus to each and every bar, drinking practically for free, and finding myself $1000 richer from a solid roulette hit at the Eldorado casino. I’ve also experienced the worst night of my life here, more specifically, in jail. So it’s safe to say this place has left a permanent memory in my head. 

Reno’s a special place because it offers something that neighboring big cities can’t, a small town feel. It does this particularly well in its nightlife, because although Reno has a club scene, it's overshadowed by its impressive bar life.

I think there’s a void a lot of people experience when they leave our town, which is a sense of familiarity and comfortability in enjoying Reno’s bar culture. The fact that Reno is not too superficial for you is what I like most. 

The bar scene is a collection of different bars which carry its very own personality to which the common bargoer subscribes to and what's great is that nothing stops you from choosing a different scene each night. 

Z Bar is a cool place which I regard as the most underrated bar, I mean it's not everyone's first thought, but it should be. They offer pretty much everything you need in a bar: drinks, indoor and outdoor seating, and karaoke. The atmosphere is special because Z Bar you can’t have a bad time there unless you’re looking for it and it isn’t intense or overly flooded with noise which some people might prefer. 

Death and Taxes is arguable the coolest looking bar because of its completely black gothic look. I admire that they’ve established themselves to a professional standard of running a bar. Their cocktail list is impressive because they're not stiffing you with a terrible drink, in fact they have drinks there that most other bars can’t offer. Death and Taxes is not the party bar, you’re not there to be loud and indiscrete, you’re there for a solid conversation with friends. 

One of Reno’s most unknown bars is RedRock Bar. From first glance, you wouldn’t know it's a two story bar that offers pool and shuffleboard and the best espresso martinis around. My first time going here was when I was a part of a wave of college students who adopted the place for their party needs which didn’t last long. Nonetheless, the place is fairly divey and dim lit, great drinks, great bartenders, and even a bar dog who roams around greeting everyone. 

What’s not to love about TLC it’s the bar with a built-in sauna. When you combine a DJ, dancing, and a poorly ventilated venue, you’re going to find yourself sweating. TLC is short for The Loving Cup. The place offers decent outdoor, booth and bar seating. What I love about the place is the live music, dancing, and the fact that it's attached to a pizza place. You never start at The Loving Cup but you always find your night ending there. I’ve never visited the bar outside of a night out but I imagine it to be a typical bar, minus the very accessible pizza. 

I discovered the Arlington Saloon later in my college career and found it to be the last place I go after a night of drinking but only because they stay open pretty late and they offer a signature shot called the watermelon loco, a fan favorite. It’s located under the actual Arlington Towers off Sierra street and with a decently sized area to enjoy. They have your typical pool table and some arcade games that I’ve never seen anyone use. Arlington Saloon has their regulars, which you’ll find to be on the older side. It's a moderately loud place but a place where people go for casual conversations or to burn time because they're not ready to go home yet. I like this place because of its proximity to other bars, decent hours, and its signature drink, but other than that, it's not my first choice. 

What's cool about Dead Ringer is that they are very music based, and like its neighbor Alpine, they make sure to bring out local artists in the Reno area to allow them an audience to show their talents. The bar service is mediocre but the venue itself is amazing with their best feature being their outdoor patio. Dead Ringer is a very dim bar and the outside is something from an 80s zombie movie. They only open after 5pm so they tend to cater to the night time audience but nonetheless it’s a cool place to catch a concert. 

Bar Reviews by Carlos Perez shared with Our Town Reno

Dropping in on A Sunday at Sundance Books

The low creaks of the hardwood flooring and the smell of pulp from the books permeate through the air. The grandness of the old mansion is felt in the vast sea of books.

“Whoa this is awesome, I love it already,” a customer says as he enters, presumably for the first time. This is Sundance Bookstore, the old mansion turned into a Reno staple. 

Walking through each of the rooms in the store you can really get a sense of what those running it like to see. You will see many books with the focus on the empowerment of women’s voices as well as a wide range of cross-cultural novels. 

Hidden in a little hallway is the magazine shelf where you can see the zine scene alive and thriving. Bitch magazine was really a standout with its provocative language that hits hard with its feminist message. 

As you go up the stairs you will be greeted by a friendly dragon and find yourself with an almost overwhelming choice of fiction, nonfiction, spirituality, and lifestyle books. The room designated for fiction will have any reader wanting to go through their wonderfully curated works they have for sale. Whether it is Albert Camus, Dean Koontz, or Haruki Murakami there will be something you’ll want to take home with you. 

The huge collection of fiction books that can be found on the second floor of Sundance Bookstore. Photo taken by Jacob Kostuchowski.

“Can you order Gulliver’s Travels for me, specifically a classic edition?” a customer asks the woman working the front counter.

“Yes, we actually have a person who tracks down out of print books for customers,” she replies back to the man. This is clearly a place that cares deeply for literature and the people who wish to read it.

Christine Kelly, the owner of Sundance, also finds a way to help local authors through her publishing company Baobab Press.

A close look at one of the staff favorite cards that are placed around the store making books the staff think deserve extra attention. Photo taken by Jacob Kostuchowski.

The store has even more local authors on display, not just ones Kelly publishes. On this Sunday there was a local science fiction author trying to find his own book on the shelves. He could not find it, seeming likely that it was sold out.

The environment of this shop is unmatched, there is nowhere else in Reno where you can get a similar feeling. It is a place that wishes to truly cultivate the literary mind.

“Isn’t it fun coming to a bookstore?” a mother asks her two small children as she exits holding a pile at least five books high. 

Our Town Reno reporting done by Jacob Kostuchowski

A Student's Search for the Best Trails Around Reno

The sun is out and the weather is warmer during the springtime in Reno. The trails around town are a great way to enjoy nature blooming and see squirrels and chipmunks scurrying around. 

I am from Las Vegas and am here in Reno for my second year of college. Back home, I would go on a trail almost every weekend because I love to be outside. Reno has cooler weather so I was very excited to search for trails, hikes and walks I could do year round. Being outside helps my brain escape the maze of work from school and my job. 

Three trails that aren't too far from downtown are the Miners Trail to the “N,” Dorostkar Park Nature Trail and Silver Willow Trail. I used the “All Trails” app to search trails near me. The app gives directions to the trail through Apple maps and gives a good description of the trails. The app also has a feature where you can navigate the trail as you walk it to make sure you are on the right path. I ranked these trails on navigation, parking, difficulty, the view and the beauty from the ground. 

#1 Ten minutes away from the University of Nevada, Reno, is a trail right beside the Truckee River. The directions to get to Dorostkar Park Nature Trail were easy, correct and there was a small parking lot at the start of the trail. 

High trees and bushes surrounding a thin dirt trail was where the trail began. There were small divots to venture off to get close to the river. A couple squirrels were running through this part of the trail. Further along, the path becomes pavement and leads to a bridge that crosses the river. This view from the bridge was the best part of the hike. 

Next was a grassy walk close to train tracks where there was a small picnic table. A couple of people were walking their dogs but it was not crowded on a Sunday at 9:30 a.m. Part of the trail takes you near some houses and then it goes back to pavement to get to the parking lot.  The clear navigation for the 30 minute, easy trail made the experience relaxing. The view while going through the plants and at the bridge were amazing. Although there weren't many flowers or pretty colors, the animals and river made up for it. 

Northeast of downtown is the Miners Trail to the “N.” The trail is well known to college students, being just minutes away from campus. The views are what this trail is famous for because the N is toward the top of the hill. Photo by Kelsey Middleton. 

#2 Miners Trail to the “N”

The trail with many trails. This hour-long trail turned into a closer to two hour trail. 

On the app, it’s difficulty is ranked as easy but I would say it’s a medium. You start off by going a small slope down hill where you reach shallow water running through some rocks. From there on, it's a steep walk up to the top. The steepness isn’t horrible but with the elevation gain, that's what makes this trail a medium difficulty. I took some breaks on the steep part to catch my breath from the elevation gain. 

Getting closer to the N, there is a small path that goes right to the bottom of the N. The app has you go further up and that takes you to the top of the N. I took the shortcut to the bottom but ended up walking alongside the N to the top. 

The views from the lower elevation all the way to the top were incredible. No noise from the road was heard, just the birds chirping. There were pretty bushes and flowers at the top of the hill. However on the way back down, I found a trail that led inside a bundled up row of trees. There was water flowing in the middle of this bundle and signs to read about the area.​​ A small circle of white rocks to pick up and share was near a tree on the path. This trail, when followed going toward the road, leads to Rancho San Rafael Park. I did not take this whole trail but I will look to do it soon. 

The hill with the N has many biking trails which were busy on a Saturday at noon. Lots of dog owners were doing the trail at this time too. With such a wide open area, the path did not seem crowded at all. The navigation was simple to follow and there was a lot of parking. 

Although there were more places to adventure on this trail, the elevation of going uphill was more of a workout than I expected after reading it was ranked as easy. 

A little further from downtown is the Somersett community. The Silver Willow Trail takes you on a wide paved path at the bottom of a hill. The best views are of houses and hills further away. Photo by Kelsey Middleton.

#3 Silver Willow Trail

There was nothing very exciting about this trail. The nature around the paved path was dull. In one spot, you could see a little bit of water and that was about it. The sound of birds, seeing the large houses on the hills and the view of the hills further away were the best part of the Silver Willow Trail. 

It took about 45 minutes to walk this 1.7 mile out-and-back trail. It was easy to find and navigate. There was a big arrow on the pavement near the beginning of the trail that looked like it took you to another dirt path. I am interested in going back and following the arrow. The parking was just at the end of a cul de sac, but it wasn't busy when I went on a Wednesday. 

Our Town Reno Nature Reporting by Kelsey Middleton

Hunter Rand, Getting Back into Comedy and Dealing with his Mom

Hunter Rand, the cofounder of the local Eddy Westin and Company multimedia boutique, picked up the microphone recently for the first time in years at a community event, at the Holland Project put on by Hawah Ahmad, a local Washoe County Commission District 3 candidate. 

Rand did comedy throughout his previous collegiate career, doing a lot of standup with the UNR-based Wolf Pack Comedy Club. As he put it, he had the opportunity to go further with a full-time career having worked with BET and MTV as well as opening for other comedians. However, he said he chose college over comedy due to the societal pressure. 

Rand said he doesn’t regret the decision and still has love for the art form. He said that he rags on his mom quite a bit. 

He recited an instance where she came to one of his sets without him knowing she was there; he essentially roasted her the entire time, only to have her throw a shoe at him. He said they didn’t talk for a year afterwards. 

Rand includes a lot in his sets, one being his heritage.

“There’s a lot of stigma attached to stereotypes and I was afraid of that stigma, and now I openly embrace it. I’m proud to be Dutch-Indonesian, I’m Indish … I’m proud of my heritage,” Rand said. 

As for what pays the bills, Rand initially worked for a while as an intern at the Nevada Women’s Basketball team managing their social media, before becoming their director of social media. He then turned to teaching video production to high school students for two years. 

Discovering teaching was not for him, he then cofounded Eddy Westin and Company doing everything from design to website building. 

Why the Ahmad event to relaunch his career?

With the local campaign season in full swing, and an array of candidates to choose from, Rand said: “Don't vote for people simply because of your party, you should vote for people because you actually believe in them, and all of these local candidates put their phone numbers on their website. You should call them and figure out who’s going to advocate for you.”

Our Town Reno reporting by Matthew Berrey

Mo Oetjen, a Reno Renaissance Woman, from Throwing TDs to Giving Back and Making Music

Coming into unknown territory is always risky and terrifying. Change is inevitable in our lives, but it is always so scary. Making the leap into a foreign concept is tough for any individual to tackle, quite literally in this sense.

Mo Oetjen, 38, plays quarterback for the Nevada Storm, which is Nevada’s only women’s tackle football team. Nevada Storm moved up from D3 to D2 over the course of the past couple of years and are the reigning champions of D2 of the Women’s Football Alliance.

“I didn’t know it was a thing until somebody told me,” Oetjen said. “I was at a restaurant and someone came up and said ‘you should try out for the women’s tackle football team’ and I was like, what?”

Oetjen grew up here in Reno and graduated from Reno High School. She went to go play softball at Feather River college before going to play in Michigan for Concordia University for her last two years in college where she also got her bachelor’s in psychology. 

She has worked at a Coral elementary school as a student mentor since February and before that, she worked for a foster care agency and a day treatment center for at-risk teens for 15 years called Koinonia. 

She lived with a single mother growing up while her mom also raised her sister and brother. Dad was still in the picture, but she only got to see him every other weekend. They had moved around a lot in the Reno area growing up. Oetjen didn’t get to see a lot of her mother growing up as she worked multiple jobs to keep her and her siblings afloat. 

However, Oetjen has no plans of leaving the 775 anytime soon. She has even started her own clothing company called “Ease the Soul”.

“I like Reno and my family’s here so that’s probably a big motivator for me to stay,” Oetjen said.

Oetjen had never played football before as the only sports she has known how to play were softball and basketball. 

“I just threw the ball around with the boys,” Oetjen said.

As of now, the league doesn’t have enough funding and the women have to pay to play. It’s been slowly growing over the years with fan outreach. She tried out when she was 33 and made the team and has since found a love/hate relationship where she sees the brighter pastures of playing such a difficult sport. 

“Football is amazing, sports can teach you so much about life,” Oetjen said. “It helps you become a better person. There are so many rules that move over to your actual life. Playing football, the difficulty of football really helps grow a human being. I’ve never played in a sport that’s so difficult, maybe because I didn’t get to start when I was a little kid. Softball I started when I was 5 and I played it until I was 22 at the serious level, so like I could play that with my eyes closed. Then coming out to football, I’ve never played it, I didn’t know all the rules. I mean I watch it, but I don’t know the game and it’s a lot more work and intense than I would’ve thought.”

In her first year with Nevada Storm, she was very confused by the culture shock. She used to be scared to go to practice because she felt like she didn’t know a lot of the hardships that come with football. She started off as a wide receiver and cornerback before she moved into the quarterback position which brought on a whole new set of challenges with learning the playbook, reading the defenses, moving up in the pocket, recognizing blitzes, etc. 

“It’s pushed me through a lot, but there’s a lot of times you don’t want to keep playing because you’re like this is so much, but I also think that’s the positive because it pushes you past your limits, it pushes your body, it helps me want to stay in shape because I’m not younger. It’s kept me in amazing shape the last 3 or 4 years,” Oetjen said.

At the time of writing this, Nevada Storm is 2-0 and hopes to win another championship this year.

“We have a really good team of women, we are like a family,” Oetjen said. “It’s given me that and people being so supportive in our community, the support from our community has been huge. A lot of people that find out we have a football team get really supportive about it. I want the little girls to know that they can play those sports, for me it’s just fun. But I want to open it up so that they can make money hopefully one day like NFL players do. So it’s about me finding ways to open it up for the next generation.”

As if football isn’t enough to satisfy her, Oetjen is also a rapper. She wrote poetry a lot as a kid. In 9th grade, she and one of her friends started rapping back and forth with one another and decided that they wanted to record it. They recorded all their raps onto cassette tapes. Once she went off to college to play softball, music took to the sidelines, but once she was over that she decided to get back into it. 

“I would say my favorite part of it is writing, and performing,” Oetjen said.

She has performed a bunch of shows, and she recently opened up at the Knitting Factory for E-40. She also opened up for other hip-hop legends such as Kurupt and Dogg Pound. She’s done a bunch of shows around the west coast in places such as Las Vegas and Oregon.

Oetjen hasn’t released any official music in seven years due to the fact that her football schedule consumes her entire life. She has still been recording and making music herself and with other artists. She has enough material to where she wants to put out an album soon. Music has been on and off, but when the pandemic hit she got really back into it. She has been attending a few open mics at Virginia Street Brewhouse. 

“2Pac is my favorite rapper, he’s just inspirational for anyone,” Oetjen said. “He can speak to anyone and his music has lived on for years and I think he’ll continue. He was such a strong speaker and just wanted things to change. People like that are just inspirations to me, just anyone that can go through really hard situations and come out on top and still live in the positive. It’s so easy to get knocked down and become a part of the negative.”

While Tupac Shakur might be her biggest musical influence, her mom is the one who lights the fire in her to take life by the horns and accomplish the amazing heights she has reached.

“My biggest inspiration is my mom, she’s been through a ton and has always stayed strong and pushed through,” Oetjen said. “She’s always been super empathetic towards people even though she’s been through a crazy amount of trauma and difficulties in life and just never losing that care or love for humanity.”

When Oetjen was six years old she faced an untimely tragedy when her grandfather was murdered. 

“That was probably one of the hardest things to deal with and as a kid, you don’t really understand what’s going on and you have all these fears and anxieties that you can’t rationalize with,” Oetjen said. “It affected my entire family and my mom started an outreach program for victims of violent crimes. I did a lot of speaking as a kid on that. I think it was amazing I’m so glad that I did those things, and I don’t think I realized how big of an impact it did have on me. But I think it made me stronger and I was able to share my story with people who were able to help me in those times.”

She didn’t fully understand it at the time when her mom pulled them all into the room. It’s hard for a kid to grapple with something as tragic as that. Now Oetjen has been making to sure to invest back into the community in helping troubled youth and trying to give them the right tools so they can succeed.

“It’s really hard, but it’s very rewarding,” Oetjen said. “I love that I can build a relationship with the kids that’s probably my favorite part because if you don’t have a relationship then their probably not going to want to listen to you or take anything that you have to say seriously. When I worked at Koinonia a lot of the kids were troubled youth and had been through a lot of trauma so they’re not going to trust you, I mean it would take a year sometimes for them to believe that you care about them.”
Koinonia is a family service foster care system, where their main goal is to put kids through therapy, help with school, social skills, and dinner. Kids get referred there by therapists, court, or parents. It’s all about the rehabilitation of kids. She still keeps in contact with over 75% of the kids. She has no desire to have children of her own as she doesn’t feel the need since she works with kids and has been almost everyday for the past 15 years. 

She even fostered a high school student for a year and half. The girl didn’t have anywhere to go so Oetjen decided to take her in and help her finish out high school. 

For her future plans, Oetjen is thinking about getting her masters in counseling so she can further spread her wings in that field. 

“I want to find exactly what I want to do in life like I love working with kids and at-risk kids who need extra help or people in general that need help,” Oetjen said. “I just want to make things easier for those I can help. I care about the community so I’m just trying to find where I can fit in with that.”

Our Town Reno reporting by Jaden Urban

From Dealing with Graves’ Disease and Mental Illness Local Musician DANKAA Perseveres

When we are born, we are signing up for the things that come with being human. We unintentionally sign a spiritual waiver that we will experience a lot of joy, heartbreak, tough times, and depressing moments that will shape the person we end up becoming and embracing. Being a human entails that we will all have our own unique experience that makes us stand out amongst a large group of people with who we share a lot of physical similarities, but ultimately, what’s inside is very different.

Life has this funny and cruel way of challenging us for a variety of different reasons and causes. For some, it is more traumatic and life enduring than others, but we as humans are all destined for some sort of struggle as we try and navigate and try to fulfill our purpose.

Going through your childhood, for the most part, you have this sense of hope and uplifting energy that the world is yours to take on and concur with. However, after a divorce and watching your support system change and diminish is tough to grapple with for any child. It can change our perception of love and what the norm of a relationship is supposed to look like.

Then what if you acquire a life altering disease that makes you question if your life is even worth living?

This was the reality that Danika Brown, 20, also known as her stage name DANKAA, had to face and overcome. When she was 13 years old, her body started to eat away at itself. She would sleep for a few days at a time then build the strength to go shower, eat, and get the school work that she had missed, and then would go back asleep for a couple of days. This was a vicious cycle that would go on for 3 years straight. 

“I got this disease when I was 13 called Graves’ disease and I went to sleep for 3 years,” DANKAA said. “I was asleep from the time I was 13 all the way until I was 16. Basically, my body was eating itself and it couldn’t properly distribute energy from any part of my body. So, I kind of just laid there for 3 years and went to sleep.”

It was a depressing period for DANKAA where she didn’t feel like she could do anything. She was 6 foot and weighed 99 pounds. After three years, she got her thyroid taken out and was put on synthetic hormones that she will have to be on to regulate her body for the rest of her life. After going through the procedure, she finally felt whole again.

“All of a sudden I woke up and I was able to be a human again and live in the world and I feel like that really drives me as a human being and everything I do because I understand what it’s like to not be able to live and now that I’m awake. Everything I do, I do it to the fullest,” DANKAA said. 

From Alaska to Edmonds

DANKAA grew up in Anchorage, Alaska with her mom, little sister, and dad. Once her parents split her mom found a new guy. Just when things were already bad dealing with a divorce and her disease, she says her stepdad was just more fuel to the fire. She explains he was very abusive, physically towards her mom and little sister. She watched her happy and hippie-like mother lose all the joy and become miserable. She remembers he was also verbally abusive and created a toxic environment in the house. They were together for eight long years before her mother left him and DANKAA finally got the version of her mom back that she had been missing and longing for.

“Honestly it’s been so inspiring just watching her break away from the toxicity that like a narcissistic person can have on you and watching her grow into a better version of herself,” DANKAA said. “She’s so strong and awesome and glowing now.”

After dealing with her dark upbringing, she found a passion for volleyball. It was one of the few things that brought her some sort of light in her life, that she would move out of Anchorage when she was 18 to Edmonds Community College in Washington with a scholarship. She quickly rose to captain, All-American, and was nationally ranked. 

Then just as she seemed to find her purpose and fulfillment, another dark chapter was just beginning to unveil itself before her very eyes.

The Beginning of a Long Road

In September of 2020, something dark and twisted started happening to DANKAA. She started to hear demon-like voices in her head.

“It was like my brain was tapped into a radio station that wasn’t me and it wasn’t my head,” DANKAA said. “It was like an incessant dialogue of just all these different things talking to one another all the time. They started out pretty light, but I went through some traumatic things, and in those traumatic things happening the voices turned very dark and self-inflicting. Literally from November 2020 all the way to May 2021, I’m not even  exaggerating every single second of every single day there was a voice in my head and it was so dark and it would be like ‘kill yourself, kill yourself, kill yourself.’ Like every second of every day.”

As the thoughts became too much to bear and ignore, DANKAA started having severe panic attacks.

“The minute I woke up and heard the voice I would just be shaking and sobbing because I was just like, ‘I like myself, I don’t want to die’ but after it just went on for so long I was just like maybe there’s a reason it’s telling me that,” DANKAA said.

She was supposed to move on to the next level in her volleyball career and play Division 1, but the voices were ultimately a hurdle she couldn’t overcome or move around. Every time she would step onto the court, she would have a panic attack and couldn’t get her mind focused as the thoughts had her in a deadly chokehold.

The day before the final game of her sophomore season, she checked herself into a mental hospital as she tried to find any hope of getting control of her mind back. She felt she was very close to caving into the thoughts and doing something very harmful to herself.

Mental illness unfortunately runs in her family. Her dad goes through his own issues as well as her little sister, who first tried to kill herself when she was 11 and has since tried several more times.

“Having dealt with my sister trying to kill herself a bunch of times I just understood that I needed to reach out and get help because I didn’t want to hurt the people who love me in my life like that,” DANKAA said. 

She says her time at the mental hospital didn’t do anything to really help her situation. She got out four days later and was all alone in Seattle. The voices still had hunkered into her head and gave themselves a place to stay and she didn’t think they had any desire to leave, so she had to drop out of college and stop playing volleyball to go be with her family in Alaska. 

She moved back with the family for a few months hoping they could rid her of her pain and the mental beating she was taking. 

“I was just like I don’t want to just keep crying in front of my family nonstop every day so I went back to Seattle,” DANKAA said. “I partied my f***ing brains out while literally doing every toxic behavior, maniac whatever I could to distract myself.”

After a couple of months of partying to find ways to cope through escapism, she found her way to Reno to live with her cousin. 

How DANKAA Found ‘Coping Skills’ 

Other than volleyball, DANKAA had found a new passion for music. Out of nowhere, music just started to erupt from her body. She started recording into her voice memos by herself in her closest. She was reluctant and shy to share with people that she started making music. It all started in the summer of 2020 as she was still playing volleyball and going through her mental health troubles.

“It was an emotional outlet for me,” DANKAA said. 

DANKAA dropped her first song in September of 2020 and it got 10,000 streams and she was getting a lot of positive feedback from a wide range of people. 

She used to be very shy and insecure about her music, but over the course of time, she has grown very confident in her ability to make music and claims herself as an artist. 

Since coming here to Reno, DANKAA didn’t know anybody here. It wasn’t until some guy messaged her on the dating app Hinge, that she was going to find a group of people whom she would belong. My friend DJ Stanton, who also goes by his stage name Scuba DEEJ, had sent her a message, but not a typical message someone would receive on a dating app. He saw that she made music and listened to her song, “In My Nature”. Scuba was enthralled by the song. I remember when he called me freaking out about this new artist he found that lived here and he wanted her to make music with them. 

Connecting with Other Musicians with their Own Struggles

Scuba asked her if she wanted to come to a studio session, that he and the Reno group Shift the Wave, a group I’m a part of, were having and an immediate bond was formed.  

“I met you guys and genuinely it was so inspiring  and in hearing Gip and everything he had gone through, I was like ‘Ok, I’m going to get good’,” DANKAA said.

I covered a story on my friend Jordan Gipson, J Gip, who had a dark past with his mental health that made him try to take his life on multiple occasions. DANKAA shared that meeting him and talking to him about his struggles was very helpful for her wanting to get the help she needed. 

In October is when DANKAA decided to go back to Alaska and try and get her mental health where it needed to be. She was officially diagnosed with bipolar disorder and was put on lamotrigine, which is a mood stabilizer and the voices finally stopped. 

“But I literally remember one distinctive day where I woke up and I was like ‘they’re not there!’,” DANKAA said. “Once I got the medication I could finally breathe and be a human again… I still definitely have my good and my bad days, but I’m not stuck in the darkness anymore. I do understand that when I am feeling sad and when those things are happening that they’re only temporary now and that they’re not forever. There is a light waiting for me.”

“Reno is probably the best thing to ever happen for me. I’ve been given opportunities I could ever imagine if I was in a different city. Also, Reno is a city that’s full of artists and creative people. Everyone really supports everyone here and I think that’s awesome.”

A New Song and Video

DANKAA recently released a new song and video with Reggaeton artist Aghen called, “Animal Lovers” and the song has been played on some national radio stations. She is going on tour with the artist,Jazzy Jane in the coming weeks. She is currently working on her album titled, “Make Music, Don’t Kill Yourself” a direct homage to the troubles she has gone through over the recent years. 

“Writing [music] is just what makes me feel ok and it gives me a place to organize all my thoughts and make them feel a little less chaotic in my head,” DANKAA said. “I just really hope in being so vulnerable and sharing those things with the world that people will feel a little less alone.”

Family Bonds

DANKAA makes music that is very heartfelt and displays who she embodies. “My favorite song I’ve ever made is ‘Coping Skills’,” DANKAA said. “I made it the first day I got out of the hospital on my bedroom floor for about six hours and I’ll never re-record that song because it is so raw and 100 percent on how I was feeling that day and that period of my life. The messages I have received from people that have heard that song that felt a little less alone, it meant the world to me.”

She has a very good relationship with her parents to this day as she is very open about her mental health to them. “I am very close with my sister,” DANKAA said. “I love her so much. I understand her and she understands me more than anyone in this world ever will. But it just sucks because she still hasn’t found her light at the end of the tunnel yet, but I hope to be like an inspiration to for her and everything I’m doing just to show her that you can.

“Above anything else with my music, I just want the platform where I can reach so many different types of people who are going through so many different things in life and I just want to project this message of love and oneness and coming together with everyone I interact with and with those who see me perform and those who hear my music. I just want everyone to know that they’re loved and there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.” 

Our Town Reno reporting by Jaden Urban

Local Drag House Haus of Valoure Creates Space for More Inclusivity

A Rich History With Renewed Opportunities

In the past few years, the art of drag has had much more exposure than ever largely due to the visibility of drag competition shows like Rupaul’s Drag Race and The Boulet Brother’s Dragula. With more visibility comes more people interested in the art form, and Reno is no exception. 

The Biggest Little City has a long history with drag performers. It’s a hub for the non-profit organization The Silver Dollar Court which started in 1976 and still functions today as a donating entity to various charities. 

Back in the 80s and 90s, it used to be that the only way you could engage with a community of drag performers was through such organizations like the SDC or through various pageants put on around the country. While that can still be the case, the advent of social media has led to an explosion of people accessing both the art form and the communities of people engaging with it. 

This has been the case in Reno, where there are now several drag shows happening both during the week and throughout the weekend, including many performers coming from a variety of groups in the area. 

One such group is the Haus of Valoure. They are a drag house made up of Latina queens, having only formed a year or so ago.

“I believe drag is for anyone and there’s so many forms in drag, there’s no yes or no in drag. All the baby queens I think they should just be out there and explore their gayness.” -Xitanya Valoure @xitanya_v who has been a part of the house from the beginning, who spoke on the subject of their Latin identity within the greater drag scene in Reno.  Photo by: Matthew Berrey

A House of Latina Queens

“We are a house of Latina queens, so we are pretty diverse when it comes to what we perform, it can be something in English, something in Spanish. I think a lot of the queens here in Reno, or anywhere in general forget where they come from, and so performing something in Spanish is also very nice and rewarding to see, especially from someone outside of drag, at least that’s what I’ve been told,” Xitanya Valoure said. 

Her house mom Deevina feels the same way although emphasized that it’s just an aspect of their drag and not the whole story. 

“We just add that to our drag. It’s not necessarily something that identifies us, because you know we don’t want to be ‘Oh, the Latinas’… at the end of the day we love what we do and it doesn’t really affect the whole part of us being Latinas because we just love drag itself,” she said. 

When asked whether or not having that Latin based performance within the community is important, she said, “Oh one-hundred percent. Yeah definitely because it’s showing how proud we are of our roots, and also how we aren’t shying away from doing other things like our own music, our own language just because somebody else might not like it… It's good because it’s giving some representation out there that this is what we are doing, this is what we are capable of doing and what we enjoy doing.” 

“For me, the way I see it I shouldn’t have to do anything or explain myself as in like why I do things a certain way, we’re all here living life only once, we get to do what we like what we enjoy without having to stop it because somebody else might not be okay with it.” -Deevina Valoure @deevina.belicia photo by: Matthew Berrey

Bringing the Community to Shows

In the short time the house has been putting shows together, they have shown to be a large force in getting a lot of Hispanic and Latinx people out to their shows. 

“We bring out a lot of the Latino crowd, and that’s not our focus but it’s very nice to have that crowd feel welcomed. And that’s what we want, we want everybody to feel welcomed,” Xitanya said.  

According to the latest 2020 Census data, the Hispanic and Latinx community in the greater Northern Nevada Region is hovering around 24 percent. As the community increases, so does the importance of representation of that community especially within these kinds of queer spaces. 

Within Latinx culture and communities, the experience of queer Latinx people can be difficult in part due to the idea of machismo, which is the idea of strong and aggressive masculine pride. 

For Zamantha Amourosa, creating this drag identity is in a way a rejection of it: “In the Latin culture, being feminine is already looked down upon so I think that’s something that we really try to attack within our community, and I mean there’s been plenty of opportunities for us as well, as far as participating in events that focus around the Latinx culture.” 

“I’m a big fan of everyone, drag is a way for you to express yourself and basically take control of that femininity that people put you down for. Whenever I see someone getting into drag I always cheer them on because it’s something that… I mean it’s helped me gain more confidence and make me a happier person, so just seeing them get into that type of mindset and putting themselves in that type of environment I’m always here for.” -Zamantha Amourosa Valoure @zamanthaxamourosa photo by: Matthew Berrey

A Welcoming Space

Having a space that is welcoming and encouraging for anybody to engage with is incredibly important, especially for queer people today. Apart from bringing out the Latinx community and bringing more diversity to the drag scene here, the Haus of Valoure just wants to highlight the art of drag and make a more welcoming place for all who want to enjoy it. 

“If you’re thinking about doing it, do it. Because honestly like I mean even though you’re in Reno you still get opportunities out here, if you ever want to do events you can reach out to any of us and we’d be more than happy to bring anyone on and get them started with shows and things like that,” Zamantha added.

Reporting and Photos by Matthew Berrey for Our Town Reno

SUP: Comforting the Community with Smiles and Soup Through the Pandemic

A Humble Beginning

Homemade soups, sandwiches, and salads– does it get any better than that? For the owners of the popular Midtown dining experience known as Süp, the answer is a firm no. 

Coming from a background of food service- including both private cheffing and restaurant business- Christian and Kasey Christensen were eager to start up the grills and start stirring soups at a restaurant of their own. 

Süp was established in August 2007 by the wife and husband duo. Süp’s rotating soup menu offers a plethora of unique choices, personifying cultures and places through taste; but perhaps, it is best described with four words: the ultimate comfort food. 

The food isn’t the only part of the Süp experience that brings about a sense of warmth and comfort to every person who enters their doors. Even on the chilliest of northern Nevada days, the people running the restaurant are bound to bring a smile to your face and a good meal to your table. 

A picture of one of the indoor dining areas available at Süp. The family business started with less than ten tables at a smaller location, and have now moved to the expanding and growing Midtown district.  The new space has given the owners and employees at the restaurant a chance to welcome over one hundred people at a time, and new ways to order food for the average consumer. 

Operating a Business in a Pandemic

The first wave of the SARS-CoV-2 virus triggered nationwide stay-at-home orders, leaving employees to navigate unemployment and business owners attempting to continue operations in a way that kept their staff healthy. For Kasey, her employees’ safety was priority over anything else.

“As far as work goes, we were able to keep everybody healthy, which was the biggest and most important thing for us,” says Kasey. “So, we changed everything, we didn’t do any indoor dining for almost a year. I talked with the staff a lot and I wanted them to feel most comfortable with what we were doing, and so I kept doing my best to gauge where they were at and we did what was going to be safest for them.” 

Closed from March to May in 2020, Süp was no different than the rest of the world as they waited for further guidance on how to respond to the transmission of the new Coronavirus. “There was this really huge place of not understanding and our staff is the most important thing to us, and wanting to keep them safe, we didn’t really know how to make that happen in the beginning. So, we kind of took a step back and until we figured out what to do and how to operate safely,” Kasey details.

The effects of the pandemic were indiscriminate, and further exacerbated hurdles many people were already facing. Kasey was no exception. “My dad had passed away literally one month before COVID had shut everything down and so my mom was living with us. We wanted to protect her health and we also wanted to protect the health of all of our employees too, and there were just so many unknowns, so we closed for two months total.” 

As cases slowed down and the world began to re-open, Kasey and her husband broke out a new game plan.

“We followed all CDC and local government guidelines with mask wearing and sanitation practices, as well as trying to keep minimal staff on at all times. We tried to make sure that the same staff were working together so that if someone did become sick we could try to track who had come into contact with them,” Kasey recounts.

“Luckily, all of those precautions really helped and kept a lot of our team safe. I have had no employee-to-employee transmission throughout [the last two years], which was really amazing.” 

A photo of Süp’s outdoor dining area. It consists of a deck that has a canopy that helps maintain cool or warm weather for outdoor guests, twinkle lights, and patio heaters. Photo by Chloe Cross. 

Taking Care of Soup-er Staff

Kasey and Christian not only placed the comfort of their team at the forefront of decision-making, but they also went as far as to alleviate food insecurity for their staff while the restaurant was shut down.

The couple launched a campaign where the proceeds from gift card purchases went towards groceries and necessary goods for their staff.

“We did weekly groceries for the staff in those two months we were closed. Each week we’d buy toilet paper as we had access to stuff through our vendors that they didn’t have access to. I mean, no one was able to find toilet paper. So we got things like that and we would do big grocery bags each week with some meats, some vegetables, some dry goods and things like that.” Without her staff, Kasey says, they wouldn’t have a business. 

“We wanted to try to figure out how to take care of them,” Kasey says. 

Süp employees working in the kitchen, with a back door that temporarily served as a pick up window for take-out orders. As the business has transitioned back to in-person dining, they now have parking spaces reserved for curbside pickup, a new point-of-sales system, and accessible online ordering. Photo by Chloe Cross.

Connecting with Staff and the Community

When speaking about her staff, Kasey couldn't help but get emotional as her eyes gleamed with pride. 

“We get one life, and so how you spend your time is really important. To think that people spend part of their time working with us is just the most magical and humbling thing. The fact that people spend part of their time working with us is the greatest honor of my career and life, honestly.” 

Throughout the whole interview, Kasey could not speak to the success of her business without crediting the work of her staff. The passion, energy, and compassion of her staff is integral to Süp’s mission of connecting with the community.

Kasey talked a bit about what she looks for in a team member, “I go off of gut a lot, I’m all about trusting gut and spirit and there’s feelings you get when you meet someone that tell you if they have potential, maybe they don’t have much restaurant experience but if I see that they’re eager or passionate about this then everything else is totally trainable.” 

A photo of two Süp employees in the kitchen, taken in 2020 right after the restaurant reopened for take out orders. At this point, COVID-19 precautions were in full swing. Photo courtesy of Kasey and Christian Christensen.

Taking Care of Each Other

Kasey says that in the fast paced world of counter service, it is quintessential to have positive and friendly employees that can not only take care of their customers, but each other.

“I really look for individuals who stand out for being confident and for being friendly and kind first and foremost; the rest of it? Well we’ll be able to figure it all out as long as they’re willing to learn and be able to admit mistakes. I think admitting when we’re wrong is a big part of growth and being the best we can be.”

The relationship the owners of Süp have with their employees is collaborative and honest, as they rely on their staff for daily insights on how to grow the business and make it better each and every day.

“I used to wait on every table and take every order, and now almost 15 years in I don’t have to play that role anymore,” says Kasey, “but I have a team of folks that do, so their insight into what they see and what they experience is invaluable. I mean its just… I can’t do anything without it. So I take their input into how we run things and how we operate and the importance of that really can’t be overstated.” 

Süp is about people before anything else. Connecting people, showing gratitude for people, and creating love and support for everyone involved.

Süp is located off of South Virginia street, sharing a block with numerous other local businesses. 

A Network of Community Collaboration

Kasey and Christian have worked to maintain relationships with their fellow business owners through mentorship and a web of collaboration.

Süp gets all of their bakery items from local business Rounds, and their coffee from The Hub, also local. The quality of their product is vital to their mission, and working with local sources helps preserve that dining experience.

"Everything we do is made in house from scratch: all of our sauces are stocks, we roast our turkeys, we try to buy organic as much as possible and we source locally when we can with farm goods," Kasey shares. "We took all the good stuff from this farm to table movement but did it in a way that is quick and easily accessible for folks so it doesn't feel so far away and hopefully fits within a realistic budget,” she said.

This model also helps to reduce the restaurant's carbon footprint, preserves the quality of the products they serve, and invests directly back into the community.

Co-owner and founder, Kasey Christensen as she sits down for her interview with our reporters. She started her business with her husband, Christian, in 2007. Photo by Chloe Cross.

Cookies and Neighbor Solidarity

Kasey spoke of fellow business owners Haley and Jessie, who own the breakfast joint Two Chicks, which lives on the same block as Süp. 

“When Two Chicks first opened we kind of mentored them because we had been in the game for a moment and Haley and Jesse have now helped mentor me through rough times.” Kasey’s advice for any local business owner is to be open to relying on those around you. “Just constantly learning and being a support system for the others around you, the more you let the competition part of it go and the more you just work together and collaborate, I just feel there is such power behind that.” 

If you’ve ever dined at Süp before, you know every meal comes equipped with a small, chocolate chip cookie. 

As with many of the other trademarks of the Süp dining experience, these cookies have a story behind them. 

“So Christian's family is from Denmark and his Nono,” Christian’s grandmother, “used to make all these cookies every Christmas. She would have all of these people over to her house and they would make cookies together. When we got married we used that cookie as a little gift to each of the guests, with a little recipe card and their name at the table. So it was his Nono’s cookie, then our wedding cookie, and then it became our Süp cookie.” 

Naturally, this was a lot of cookies to make in one day. As their business expanded, they began sourcing their cookies from Rounds Bakery. However, the spirit of Nono’s cookie is preserved with every meal served. 

A char grilled steak baguette with tomato bisque soup. Each sandwich is served with a mini chocolate chip cookie and cranberry salad. Photos by Vanessa Ribeiro. 

Unique Touches

The restaurant incorporates other unique touches that contribute to the dining experiences of their customers, with the revolving soup menu being a huge part of their business’s brand, as well as local Reno street signs as markers for customer’s orders. 

This dining model was a product of intentional reflection of businesses that Kasey and Christian enjoyed dining at. 

“We used to live in Colorado and there was a place there where they did a bunch of soups per day and living there we loved that concept of like multiple soups, it was really awesome, because there’s not really a lot of soup places,” says Kasey. 

“But we knew we wanted sandwiches and salads and stuff like that, while also maintaining that fast counter service style. Both Christen and I had worked in fancier fine-dining table service restaurants so we wanted something that was quick but still brought all of the good things that came with that farm-to-table dining experience.” That very model was accepted by the Reno community with welcoming arms, with Süp now maintaining a faithful and growing customer base. 

Before the pandemic shut down all non-essential businesses, Kasey and Christian had plans to move to a second location. But “with so much weight in the world” it was difficult to move forward, says Kasey. 

Striking a Balance

Kasey said a large part of how she has been able to cope through this pandemic has been through balance; learning to prioritize the things that make her happy and being able to step back when needed. 

“I think with my dad being ill and then COVID hitting it was just so much that I really couldn’t…. It was hard to function, and trying to figure how to maneuver through this world so stepping back was really an important step,” she shares.

With the restaurant business requiring speed and efficiency, it can be difficult to strike that balance in a meaningful way. “I don’t know, it’s like there’s always this voice that’s like ‘come on, more, do, hustle, become, be’ and sometimes it’s okay to just…be.” 

Kasey says that despite COVID changing their plans, that she and Christian have still been experiencing tremendous loyalty from their customers.  

“I’m so grateful for all the community support we get through all of our customers, it’s just been huge throughout this whole [pandemic]. We serve soup which is comfort food, so for a pandemic nothing sounds better than, ya know, grilled cheese and a tomato bisque.” 

Kasey says that while their plans for a second location have been delayed, that is not to say there won’t be one in the future. However, for the time being, she was going to focus on her staff, herself, and her family. 

“To be honest coming off this last fall, I was rough, I was feeling real down. The end of COVID was harder than the beginning for me, just because of the longevity of it and with the omicron strain having so many people being ill and sick, and just this heaviness in the world. I felt like, with coming out of such a tumultuous time and feeling so unsure of things, people were just looking for a little sense of normalcy.”

The whole team at Süp is proud of the way they have been able to serve and connect with the community throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, however long it lasts.

Our Town Reno reporting by Chloe Cross and Vanessa Ribeiro

Noelia Calvillo, an Empath Spoken Word Poet Writing about Inflictions

At 15, Noelia Calvillo started curating her poems for her first poetry book, Inflictions, and three years later it was independently published to Amazon. In her collection of poems, Calvillo shares her experiences as a queer woman of color, and recounts her battles with mental illness, heartbreak and loss.

“I feel like a lot of the topics I talk about, a lot of people don’t talk about … deeply,” Calvillo said, attributing that as her motivation to publish.

Calvillo calls herself an empath, and has felt the pain of others on a personal level. She hopes that Inflictions can be a source that shows her readers that they are not alone in the deep emotions they may feel.

“If you are reading this, I hope you enjoy it and take it seriously,” Calvillo wrote at the beginning of her book. “My first experience with love is printed on the pages of this book, cherish it in a way no one else has.”

The process of publishing wasn’t an easy one. Calvillo is not well versed with technology, and spent three weeks editing the pdf files for her book until it was ready.

“It still isn’t perfect, but it was good enough,” Calvillo said in regards to the tedious process of continuously editing her files.

Even before publishing, the three years spent writing was difficult for her. Calvillo draws inspiration from emotional pain that she feels in her life. If there’s nothing to note, or if something is too much for her to even talk about, she has difficulties putting pen to paper.

Her affinity towards writing darker pieces is what inspired the title of her book, Inflictions.

“The root word is infliction and that means to inflict [pain],” Calvillo said. Her book is a collection of painful moments recounted into poetry, so she went with the plural version of the word.

While the themes are dark, Calvillo feels a great sense of accomplishment because being published is something she has always wanted. However, that feeling is accompanied with fear.

Calvillo believes that most people, after sharing their work, would feel fear of judgment, but that wasn’t what she feared.

“I was scared that someone with a greater following or more popularity, would steal my work and claim it as their own,” Calvillo said. “And people would believe them because of their social standing and influence.

Calvillo has also felt disappointed. She believes that her work is deserving of more recognition and praise.

Despite this, Calvillo isn’t disheartened by the current lack of attention to her work. She isn’t finished yet, and acknowledges that this book is just the beginning for her.

“I believe in divine timing,” Calvillo said. “I know [recognition] will come to me when the time is right.”

Reporting by Lynn Lazaro for Our Town Reno

Greg Gilmore and the Fever Dreams Taking Hold with Premonition

Getting through the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown was a super challenging and unique experience for everyone. Filled with so much uncertainty and fear, we were all wondering what the future was going to hold and when the grass was finally going to look greener on the other side.

Greg Gilmore and the Fever Dreams were in the studio getting ready to record their debut album. As lockdown happened, they slept in a recording studio in Sacramento and fleshed out good material for their record. 

This band consists of Greg Gilmore, 33, lead vocalist, songwriter, and rhythm guitarist, Brendon Lund, the bassist, who used to play for Buster Blue, a local Reno band that had quite the notoriety. Then you have Jorge Pulido-Rubio, the lead guitarist and the newest member of the band, Jeff Knight, the drummer, and Adam Landis, who plays the keys.

Today I sit with the namesake Greg Gilmore to talk about the band, his own musical journey, and what he looks to do with this band to make them stand out.

Gilmore grew up in Bishop and moved to Reno when he was 19. While according to him, the most eventful day of the year in Bishop is Mule Day, he did say that it is a very pretty city and did like it there. He got his first guitar when he was 12 and started taking it seriously when he was 16. Gilmore moved here to pursue music with some friends. He no longer plays with them anymore.

Since moving to Reno, Gilmore is now on his fourth band and has worked on a variety of projects over the years. He felt the transition was pretty seamless as the music community here in Reno is very welcoming and easy to move around in. Gilmore is holding the flashlight.

The Beatles were the foundation that Gilmore heard as a kid that pushed his love for music to new heights. 

“I would refuse to listen to anything else until I was about 12,” Gilmore said. “My folks would put anything else on and I would have a temper tantrum. But then I started to get into Tom Petty and into more contemporary stuff like the White Stripes. [I’m] a big Jack White fan.”

Music inspires us all in certain ways and has many different purposes in our lives, whether it be making us happy, dancing, or helping us get out of a hard time. Artists always have a deep connection with the art at hand.

“It’s a really expressive, therapeutic type of a thing, at least for me and hopefully the listener as well,” Gilmore said. “If you can do something that makes people feel better about themselves, it’s a good thing. It’s hard to do and especially needed these days.”

Gilmore shares that his music is directly inspired by his life experiences, but doesn’t make it super specific in hopes of it being more relatable to the listener who may be going through some similar tribulations. One’s therapy could be another one’s realization in their own situation. 

Over the years Gilmore’s progression as an artist has changed drastically with the wealth of life experiences he has gone through. One of his first bands, The Canes, was heavily influenced by Nirvana, which resulted in a more disjointed, abstract sound. His last group Silver focused more on creating a vibe and worked more on song structure. He now focuses more on song cohesiveness and making music that he would prefer to listen to.

“Usually I bring in a soft skeleton and then we just flush it out until it becomes a full arrangement,” Gilmore said. “We work together on the arrangements for the most part, but usually I’ll have the verse and the chorus, and the brigdes written.”

The band’s debut album will be getting an official release May 7th. They have vinyl, CD, and cassette preorders available on their website right now. A review of their album is being planned for on Our Town Reno prior to the release. 

Gilmore has played with all members of the band for five-six years except for Pulido-Rubio, who joined when the band transitioned from Silver to Greg Gilmore and the Fever Dreams. As Silver, they had put out a couple of EPs until the lead guitarist quit and that’s when Pulido-Rubio fit in like a glove with the other members. 

Another reason for the name switch was the difficulty of finding the band under the name Silver as there were many bands and artists that used the term in their name. However, there is now only one sole Greg Gilmore on Spotify, and the band has been rolling with the name ever since. 

Gilmore shared that coming out of COVID lockdown that everyone became more of homebodies and have a more difficult time going out.

In regard to how this band is different from his past bands, Gilmore shared that the song writing is more of the same as he is still the one doing it. When Pulido-Rubio joined, it opened up a new sound for the band, specifically an alternative indie sound. Which is where the band has shifted most of its sound, but the band likes to touch multiple genres such as rock, folk, pop, dance and country. 

The band has only played three shows that were outdoors, but haven’t done any proper venue shows. They do have a release show for their new album at Cyprus on May 7th. They’re excited to get this band some recognition as they build up their new brand and first record. 

Gilmore also has been working on his own solo efforts. At the end of last year, he was going through a tough time with a break up and went up to Montana to take care of sister who had been sick for a while. He found it to be a necessary escape from reality.

For the three months he was up in Montana, Gilmore started working on one of his most personal and adventurous package of music to date. He started listening to a lot of Bruce Springsteen, specifically, his album “Nebraska,” which was directly recorded on a Tascam PortaStudio with a pair of Shure SM57s.

Gilmore was very inspired by this so he went to the only music pawn shop in the area and got a great deal on a tape recorder and started working on his new solo album that he hopes to release by the end of this year. He only plans on using a guitar, a harmonica, and a couple of microphones for the making of it. Gilmore’s intention was to prove to himself that he could make a solo project and used it as a therapeutic release for the troubles that were coming into his life. 

“I love recording, and I love production,” Gilmore said. “My least favorite thing is all the business nonsense. The bookings, the emails, and you know shaking people down for money.”

When I asked him if they had a manager, Gilmore said: “I mostly take care of anything. I’m bit obsessive about that kind of stuff. I do all of our album art. I do all of our art direction for our photos. I do all the booking and the scheduling. Scheduling is the worst thing about bands, getting everyone scheduled together. Everyone’s got personal lives I get it, you know. It’s just tough to juggle all that stuff and it can drive you a little bonkers, but it’s usually worth it.”

Our Town Reno Music Reporting by Jaden Urban

Flamingos in the Tree, from Freshmen in Dorm Rooms to Indie Basement Pop

With a name as interesting and off the wall as “Flamingos in the Tree” the band is bound to make some otherworldly music, which if you check out their music it’s definitely the case. 

When moving to a whole new city, officially being on your own can be quite a scary and growing journey, especially during your college years when it feels like the world’s rug is getting ready to be swept out from under you.  Music and creating a band can create an outlet for the change you are going through.

Flamingos in the Tree consist of four such members, Daniel Escovar, vocalist and guitarist, Jarvis Humlick, drummer, Spencer Thomas, and James Pizzo. Only Escovar and Humlick were able to show up for the interview.

They have been in a band for four years and started in the dorms of Argenta for their freshman year. They had met in the common space through the dorms. The band formed almost instantly once the members met each other. They decided to unite as a band even though they really didn’t know each other. Most bands, especially local bands, form a tightly bonded friendship then become a band, but this was a counter result. The guys ended up forming this bond through the stressors and environment that are created once you form a musical group. 

Each of the members all moved to Reno from different spots around the West Coast to come to school at UNR. Humlick is from the Tahoe area, Escovar is from L.A., and the other two are from Roseville and Las Vegas. 

Given that the band didn’t have anything specific to build off of for a name they had to resort to different options. The name was birthed from a random name generator, which first came out as “Hounds in the Tree”. The band knew their music didn’t represent the aggressiveness or high energy that comes with hounds. They knew they had to come up with an animal they felt represented their brand and message the best. 

“We were like flamingos, flamingos are cool,” Escovar said. “Pink is a cool color and then we were like alright, Flamingos in the Tree. I mean we have our own meaning, but we want to leave it up to interpretation.”

The band slowly started to form when Escovar and Thomas had this fire of creative energy and wanted to start building larger instrumental compositions. The two lived across the hall from each other and a constant back and forth started to flourish where they would run to each other’s room to share what new creation or idea they had come up with.

“We had a long point where we only played music together,” Escovar said. “But it definitely grew once we started playing more shows and as we started rehearsing a lot more we really started to find a friendship. The friendship and camaraderie really grows through the music as we feel ourselves progress as musicians we feel the friendship grow as well.” 

The band had an immediate chemistry that birthed so formlessly that it was inevitable that these guys were supposed to play with each other. The band each recognized their own strengths and how they helped elevate each other to a higher level. They’ve also been supportive of each other as students.

Humlick graduated from UNR last December with a major in biochemistry. Humlick is passionate about two things: music and science, so going to school for biochemistry and being in a band worked perfectly for him. Escovar is currently getting his political science degree because while he also has a passion for music, he has a big passion for learning and writing as well. Both decided to stay in school and graduate because they enjoy it, and to have a safety net if music didn’t ultimately work out financially for them.

“Short term we want to be able to play music and live off the expenses, I like traveling,” Escovar said. “We’re going on tour June 10 and it’ll be nice that we’ll be making money for that and then send it into the tour so we’ll be traveling for free… We don’t really book anymore. People will just text us and ask if we want to play.”

The two said that the release of their first song, “Thorned Rose” was the big leap that helped propel them to a larger audience. They claim that it’s a song that really defines who they are and their sound. 

Humlick the drummer is also a Laboratory Technician with the City of Reno. “Performing live is just a blast,” Humlick said. “Not only are you feeding off the energy of the crowd, but also each other. At this point, we’ve been playing with each other for so long that we know each other’s idiosyncrasies. I can just look over at Dan [Escovar] and shoot him a little look or a little wink and then we’ll do something at the end of the song.”

“It is kind of like a therapy you just get to vent and be honest with yourself when you’re creating and you also get to live in the moment like when we’re all playing as a group,” Escovar said. “It’s hard to think about the past or the future while we’re playing.”

The two shared how going to LA was quite an inspiration. It showed them that things were becoming much more real and the idea of making it in the industry started to grow stronger. Playing for a new crowd and a new environment was very refreshing. 

The Reno rock/indie scene has a very close bond with one another. Escovar and Humlick shared how they have a good relationship with a lot of the bands and are open to playing shows and recording songs with just about anyone.

“I love the culture that has sprouted from Reno post-COVID,” Escovar said.

The band just released a new single titled, “Toes” which is available on all streaming platforms. They are also set to play at the Biggest Little Festival on April 30. Their tour starts on June 10 with the release of their new album also happening on the same day. 

Our Town Reno reporting by Jaden Urban

From Fallon to Reno to an Album, the Evolution of the Will Shamberger Band

From the time that I’ve started covering local bands and musicians here in Reno, you see a large range of variety from genre to genre. From the Hip-Hop scene to the Hardcore scene to the Indie scene to the Alternative scene and to the Rock and Roll scene, it has all been a unique experience. 

One experience that has really stood out to me the most, is the Will Shamberger Band. From their goofy personalities to their mind-boggling performances, this is a band that demands your attention if you are in the same vicinity as them.

“It’s cool to get together and make noise,” Shamberger said. “The amount of bulls*** you go through together being in a band whether it be showing up and being like, ‘Are we getting paid?’ ‘Well I don’t know’ or picking up and lifting all of our heavy s***. Once you’re there and you play it makes it all so much worth it. It trumps every band thing.”

“It just feels f***ing good, there’s not a way to say more harmfully than that, it’s fun,” Stone said. “It’s great just like playing a sport or whatever people do.”

“Especially with people who you feel like click, you play well together with,” Marrow added. “{Like when} y’all finish a song together on the same note and you look around like ‘We nailed that.” 

“We all come from different musical backgrounds,” Gomes said. “So when the music is made, Will being the principal songwriter and kind of the guy who has the ideas and lays down the foundation of what it is. We get to do the fun stuff and come up with, ‘Ok that sounds cool. What can we do something that is different from then I heard it, but is still palpable and everyone’s cool with it.’ I think that’s the funnest thing for me.”

The guys carry a one of kind stage experience when you see them live. With Stone passionately banging on his drums to Marrow’s calm and slight rhythmic motions while he strums the bass to Gomes going crazy on the guitar playing like a madman who is playing guitar for the last time to Shamberger cathartically singing every ounce of his heart out. 

While the band has been only officially together for about two years now, there is a lot of history with how the guys came together to have the time of their lives doing it is what they love the most.  

Shamberger and Gomes have known each other for about 12 years, but they’ve been friends for about 8 years. The two have always done music, they just did it separately. The two, sort of, had a little “beef” because they each played for the two different bands at their high school in Fallon. Mind you, it was the two only bands at the school. Eventually, things would subside as the two had respect for one another. They started to jam together and a chemistry started to form. They had a group early on where Shamberger played drums and Gomes played the guitar.

Shamberger also really liked the original band that Jesse was a part of in Fallon. He had followed them closely then started to gain a friendship with Marrow when Marrow started to go into the coffee shop where he worked at the time. After a while of gaining that friendship, Stone also got a job at the same coffee shop that Shamberger was working at. They had an issue holding a drummer down in the newly formed group as the band claims the first one had a “chicken adventure” that made them leave and the other one apparently had better things to do than spend his time in the band. The band claims that there are no hard feelings with them and that they think they’re great people. Stone had mentioned to Shamberger that he’s a drummer when he had heard that they needed a new one, which made Shamberger want him in the band, and Stone fit like a glove. 

“I wouldn’t say we were the most musical band,” Gomes said in regards to past band formations. “Besides Will, Will being the songwriter and the principle guy as the namesake. It kind of starts with what Will does. At least for as long as the duration of this band and what we do. We’re kind of like, what does Will have going on and we look at what does and then we go, ‘Ok that sounds sick, let’s see what we can figure out with that.”

After the band had officially come together, they did a bunch of shows in their hometown of Fallon to get things started. Recently they have done a ton of shows in Reno. In the past 9 months they’ve played over 20 shows here in the 775. They even just had their first show in California for this band this past weekend. 

The band had a tour and a bunch of shows lined up before COVID, however, due to the pandemic, they weren’t able to make a lot of those shows work. Fallon's restrictions during COVID weren’t super intense so they were still able to pick up a few shows to play during the pandemic. 

While the pandemic might’ve been damaging in a lot of ways, it somehow brought the band even closer and tightly connected than before. “It was what it was,” Gomes said. “But then you just pick your s*** back up and do it again.” 

“When COVID hit, like us just as a band kind of shifted gears and we started practicing like every week nonstop for like a year straight,” Marrow said. “We got way tighter and way better. It really honed us into the band that we are now and I look back at those practices very fondly.” 

“Like quarantine sucked, but we definitely made the most of it,” Stone said. “We had a lot of fun practicing.”

The band described how they don’t do it for the money. They simply do it for the joy that the music brings them. When talking to one of his friends, Gomes had been asked why he puts up with all the troubles that music can cause. Gomes turns to the guy, who is a cowboy and he asks well do you do it for the money, the guy immediately understood what he was meaning. The cowboy explained to him that he didn’t cowboy for the money, he cowboyed for the sole reason of that is what brought him joy and happiness and he was willing to do whatever it takes to maintain that. 

“Never needed a better explanation than that,” Gomes said. “I mean if I don't make any money, you can bet I’m going to play guitar. At the end of the day, I need to play some jams. Out of everything in this world that’s all I want to do. Music has taught me the best values and the best life lessons that I’ve ever had in this world and if I can even just be a part of that for somebody here.”

New music and goals are on the horizon for the band, who hope to get an album out this year.

“Our short-term goal is to finish our album,” Shamberger said. “Our long-term goal is to just play music for as long as we like to or as long as people would like us to.” 

The members shared the differences in the creative process when playing live versus recording for a studio version of a song/record. 

“It’s different and sort of new for us,” Shamberger said. “I think it’s super rad just to see how they turn out. It’ll always be a different song, it will forever be a different song every time we record it, but it’s cool to hear it in a way where it’s like no this is the song now.”

“Live we are a little loosey-goosey,” Stone said. “We like to improv and stuff. When we record we definitely do it differently because it’s like how many stops can we pull out.”

The band recorded their last EP where each band member would take turns doing their parts to each song for the entire EP. They would work on multiple songs at a time. Now for their new album, the band doesn’t stop working on a song until it is pretty much completely finished and the band agrees that it is a way better process. 

“As far as the words are concerned and the meaning behind that, Will is kind of the focal point behind that,” Gomes said. “I’m biased because I’ve been doing this with Will for quite some time, but no Will just has an excellent brain for the stuff I like to hear. I’m not a smart guy, but I’ll tell you, his words move me. I would be hard pressed to say that they don’t move anybody else. So, with that, the different songs that he writes I feel bad sometimes because I just bring the sprinkles on top of it, so I’m like am I doing too much here or not enough like what should we do. Having a cornerstone is something that you can’t really put a price on.”

“For me as a guitar player, I like to shred, I like to get weird…,” Gomes said. “But at the end of the day the s*** that really moves you, especially when it comes to what I do on the instrument or what anyone else does on the instrument, it’s the stuff that really connects with you on another level. That’s not superficial. It’s not like ‘Oh that was a hot show’ or ‘That was sick because they played their instruments well’ like naw. It connected with you on another level you just think about it later. Will’s music always did that with me even when I didn’t even have any contact with Will.”

The band has no regrets in the two years they have been learning with one another. They have this bond and chemistry that is immediately felt upon the first time either meeting them or seeing them. If you get a chance check out one of their shows if you can.

“We have a good time,” Gomes said. “These are my brothers. We have fun doing this. There’s no point in doing this if you can’t get some enjoyment out of it if you can’t get a rise out of it. We have a good time, every time… We love Reno,” Charlie said. “We love to play in Reno. We love that we have an audience here, and very happy to have an audience here because we come from nowhere.”

Our Town Reno reporting by Jaden Urban