Merced songwriter RC Essig, on his new album and the history of the Awahneechee
Plus, The Town Cryers get the 'Certain Songs' treatment.
In naming his latest album, Merced songwriter RC Essig had to stick to translation.
The album is called “wəhki'mahhii chechiiwəə təktəkkəthoy 'iwwinlek’ ” in the language of the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation.
You’ll find it by searching “Our Hearts Still Beat.”
“I have to go with ‘Our Hearts Still Beat’ because most of the platforms and meta data won’t accept the language,” says Essig, who has mostly recently been recording and performing under the moniker Awahnichi (along with his backing band The Talking Ghosts).
Some will remember his past projects El Olio Wolof or as Radioactive Cauliflower.
I emailed Essig to find out more about “Our Hearts Still Beat” and got some history on the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation in the Yosemite Valley. Answers have been slightly edited for sake of clarity and flow.
Let’s start with the album details.
“This album will be available mainly at the shows we’re playing during the month of June. Then, I am taking the record away and will be releasing it in 2025 on all platforms and on physical media.
Though I recorded the record myself at home in Merced, it was mixed by my good friend and long time collaborator Matt Orme in Fresno.
I met Matt when he and Brad [Basmajian] had Gardenside Studios and were running Greytank Records.
Gardenside introduced me to an amazing community full of artists like Jason Graham, Eatcho, Mike Howe, Josh Wigger, Vicente; that whole H Street collective.
It introduced me to Malcom, Greer and the Rademacher crew, It’ll Grow Back, Brother Luke, Pink Eye, Bell and The Dragon, No Cello, The Batteries, Sleepover Disaster, The Fay Wrays, Gypsy Cab and locations like Tokyo Garden and Studio Itz, where I met the Yesterday’s Chonies crew, and an endless amount of amazingly talented and well intentioned artists.”
This is a true project piece, in that it was created with a specific purpose and paid for with grant funding. Can you talk about that?
“It is a record that I have been wanting to write for a while.
It is a follow up to my first Awahnichi record ‘500 Seeds.’ ‘500 Seeds’ is focused on different animals from the Yosemite region and fictional stories I wrote about those animals.
This album, is based on different stories and traditions from my tribe, but instead of retelling the stories, I focused on creating or going into detail on a back story for the characters in the stories, or on the history itself.
What put me into motion on it was a grant that I accepted from the Heartland Creative Core, United Way Merced County and the California Arts Council.
The Grant was designed to fund artists and their projects, with a focus on social and environmental issues. It fit perfectly with my narrative.
My tribe is the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation based in Mariposa CA, though we originally were from Yosemite Valley as part of the Awahneechee.
Awahnee is our word for the Valley, chee means people. People of Awahnee.
In 1852, when a super shitty dude by the name of James Savage had a slave-run trading post that was raided, he was told that it was my ancestors who did it. He went in search of the Awahneechee.
After a failed attempt of searching us out, he was given a 100 man militia by the newly formed State of California to go in and clear us out of Awahnee (Yosemite Valley.)
This would be the first documented time that white folks set eyes on the Valley. By this time colonizers were masters of massacre. They killed us, enslaved us, took the women and girls as wives and drove us out. We remained a very scattered tribe. They beat and attempted to breed the Indian out of us, but we never really gave in.
We started to reform in the ’70s and have been fighting for Federal Recognition since 1980, with no success.”
Musically and lyrically, how does this album differ from what you’ve been working on and releasing with the Talking Ghosts?
“Awahnichi is me. Awahnichi and Talking Ghosts is a collaborative effort focused on more upbeat stuff. The lyrics are of a drastically different style. With Talking Ghosts, there is more reflection on life itself. While what I write traditionally ends up sad somehow, with Talking Ghosts I am writing more direct about depression, suicide, addiction and embracing the darkness that lives inside all of us.
When I write as just Awahnichi, it’s more story focused, which is traditionally what I do and have done in the past with El Olio Wolof or as Radioactive Cauliflower.”
There is a series of special concerts as part of the album’s release?
“Yes, the third component of the grant, after writing and recording, is to distribute the digital album.
The digital album is free at live performances, where I will be performing selections from the album with a seven piece band.
We are playing in Fresno at Sour Milk on Friday, June 21 with the homie Jonathan Low-Fi and The Hi-Way Kind. We will be playing in Exeter on Saturday June 29 at Bell Craft Brewing, where we will be doing double duty, with Awahnichi and Talking Ghosts playing as well.”
Other shows happen June 22 in Knights Ferry, June 28 in Mariposa and June 30 in Merced. The album is currently available on Bandcamp.
The Town Cryers get the ‘Certain Songs’ treatment
This is mostly a shout out to Jim Connelly’s “Certain Songs,” an old school blog series that is internet content the way it was meant to be, before all the micro-blogging and social-media influencing took over.
Without delving too far into the archives, it looks like Connelly has been writing the series for a decade at least. There are 2,859 separate entries, according to the latest, posted on Saturday.
Among them are several Fresno bands, including Sparklejet (on multiple occasions) and The Town Cryers, which Connelly featured last month.
For all the Bandgeeeeks (local music nerds like myself) this is historical gold. Not only do we get a breakdown of the song (“Love in the Cool Part of Town” from the 1990 album “In The Cool Part of Town”), but Connelly (a musician who was playing with Fresno’s Sedan Delivery) gives us a picture of the scene at the time (incestuous as it was). It’s an awesome discovery, which you can hear below.
That’s it for this week. Remember you can now hear me on the Homegrown Show Sundays at 8 p.m. on New Rock 104.1 FM. Follow my other writing at The Fresno Bee. If you have anything you think I need to be looking at or listening to, feel free to let me know: jtehee@gmail.com