Ross Imburgia: Mad Light Science

Ross Imburgia: Mad Light Science

Fiddling with old computer circuit boards and tapping out lines of code, Ross Imburgia prefers the term “tinkerer” to “artist.” Even though the brilliant light trails left in the wake of his colorful, strobing hula hoops might appear artsy at first glance, he maintains that his design process is closer to invention than creativity. Nonetheless, his easy laugh and relaxed demeanor evidence the satisfaction he feels at successfully implementing his ideas and creating prototypes for his fun, functional inventions. A circuit board plugged into a USB cable snakes its way up to his computer, while a tangle of wires and lights cycles through a rainbow spectrum of color, lighting up his basement studio/room as he elucidates his plans for Craft Lake City 2012, and how they work into the bigger ideas he has for the future of his inventive exploits.

After an intense demonstration of his light patterns in motion, Imburgia explains his exhibit: “I’m going to try to make it as much of a light show as possible and not just hula hoops … I want some kind of big backdrop display that is also linked up to software on the computer, flashing and doing all sorts of crazy shit like that … Just in terms of toys, I could make a lightsaber thing,” says Imburgia, explaining that it wouldn’t be difficult to simply alter his prototype to create them. “It’s probably a raver’s paradise. I’m not really into that scene, but they’d probably really dig it,” says Imburgia with a genial laugh.

Creating color-strobing hula hoops came somewhat unexpectedly for Imburgia. “Last fall, it started when my girlfriend, [Jess Dunn], asked for an LED hoop for her birthday. Instead of just going out and buying it … I just thought to myself, ‘Hey, I could build that!’” he says, adding, “I’ve always been a tinkerer, and I’m an engineering major at school.” Though he does point out that his major focus is on mechanical engineering, which is quite different from the task of electrically engineering a luminescent hoop, he contends that, “It’s cool to do something that’s not physical labor, something that’s engaging for your brain.” He appreciates the challenge and the opportunity to use his extensive collection of odds and ends scavenged from old electronics.

“I find that I generate a lot of interest just taking my stuff to festivals and giving it to my girlfriend. Within five minutes, there’s five people coming up to her and asking, ‘Where did you get that?!’” says Imburgia, who notes that the prototype has only come about recently, so he hasn’t had many opportunities to show them anywhere else. “Desert Rocks was the biggest one—it was actually the first one it was done for,” he says. He also showed them off at Pretty Lights. “We go to some dubstep shows because we figure people would be interested in it. The best exposure is to get it out there in the wild and see what happens with it,” he says.

(Originally published in SLUG Magazine)

SLUG Localized: Visigoth

SLUG Localized: Visigoth

Longtime friends Jake Rogers and Lee Campana started Visigoth in a two-week dorm room recording session on the University of Utah campus. Driven by a mutual desire to be in a “serious band,” the two started writing traditional heavy metal riffs. “Jake’s voice works really well in B-tuning. So, we tuned way down, and started playing this really heavy stuff,” says Campana. Despite its humble beginnings, Visigoth’s Vengeance demo is a solid prototype for the band that would soon begin raiding venues across the Salt Lake valley.

However, they’re careful to note that this was not a two-man project, even at the start. According to Rogers, guitarist Jamison Palmer was involved from the beginning, whether he realizes it or not. “We knew we were going to force him to play guitar for us,” says Rogers. Later, Matt Brotherton found himself “absorbed” into the band, joining after playing as the band’s temporary bassist. However, the band struggled to find a consistent drummer. 

When Mikey T.’s previous band, Killbot, split up, they had to cancel an opening gig for Holy Grail. He decided to attend the show anyway, where Visigoth was called in to fill Killbot’s set. After seeing them play, he approached them and offered to play drums as a consistent member. “At that point, every show for the past three shows had been with a different drummer,” says Campana. Palmer recalls his empathetic response to T.’s proposal: “Very yes.”

Each member of the band has roots in Salt Lake City’s metal scene. Campana and Palmer collaborated on the high-speed power metal of Destructinator, later joining on with Rogers to play doom metal with Savage Sword. While both of these bands are no longer active, Brotherton’s post-metal band, Huldra, will also be performing at February’s Localized show. “It’s probably going to be the peak of my popularity as a musician,” he says. “I’ve really gotta cherish this moment.”

The band focuses on keeping their live performances fun and charismatic, and their spirited stage presence is an aspect they share with much of their traditional metal influences. “Iron Brotherhood,” one of Visigoth’s better known songs, is intentionally written as something easy for the crowd to sing along to. “Heavy metal is unpretentious. The song is about going to a show with your friends, and it rules because you’re all enjoying it together,” Rogers says. “That’s what metal should be about.” Campana agrees that the song was written simply to be “fun to listen to,” and that his focus is on writing songs that have “something to offer that feels good.”

In many cases, this involves dipping into the band’s large list of non-musical influences. “The Brothers’ War” is a newer song, written as a reference to the storyline of Magic: The Gathering, a popular trading card game. They have recently begun incorporating an intro that covers the theme of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, which features Rogers on the flute, one of the first instruments he learned to play. Rogers says fantasy books and video games influence his lyrics—“the stuff we grew up with that was cool to us.” 

But growing up isn’t easy for metalheads in the Beehive State. “There’s nowhere for kids to play,” Rogers says, referring to the pitiful state of Salt Lake City’s all-ages venues. “So they start a band, play in their parents’ living room for a couple of weeks, and then just fizzle out because they can’t get any kind of recognition.” Even newer venues like The Complex are “so big, they’re beyond local,” according to Palmer. Though Kilby Court recently lifted its ban on metal shows, it hasn’t stopped underage kids from turning to unofficial shows. “Those have always been the best,” Rogers says. “Kids [can] actually come.” 

Along with recording their next release, Visigoth is considering a series of short weekend tours this spring. Campana says they are keeping the tours short to “cut our teeth on going somewhere, driving there, getting back and not losing anything.” Considering the stress that touring can put on even experienced bands, such a move might be wise before making a longer commitment.

Though critical of the venue situation, Visigoth’s members are adamant in their belief that Salt Lake City’s metal scene is very much alive. According to Rogers, Salt Lake City has, “Everything from death to black metal, all the way to power metal with keyboards. We do have a decent scene. It is very small, but it’s here.” Palmer agreed, adding that, “The only people who say that [metal is dead] are the ones who are not paying attention at all.” Especially when one looks outside the borders of Utah, the tide of traditional heavy metal is an undeniable phenomenon, from Sinister Realm and Argus to Spellcaster and, of course, the mighty Visigoth, the star of true heavy metal is on the rise.

(Originally published by SLUG Magazine)

Game Grid: Utah's Arcade Exclusive

Game Grid: Utah's Arcade Exclusive

Upon walking into Game Grid Arcade’s tight phalanx of flickering arcade screens, I felt like I had stepped into a part of the past I’d almost forgotten. Somewhere between the enticing medley of background music, cries of victory and “Game Over” screens, there was a nostalgic reminder of a time when the arcade was still in vogue. It was an age where anyone could step up to an arcade game and experience something out of the ordinary, whether it was stalking the zombie-haunted halls of House of the Dead, throwing down with the colorful cast of Street Fighter or racing a friend in pretty much any vehicle you can imagine. “To me, arcades provide a different sort of tactile experience, a physical experience,” says Adam Pratt, who opened the doors to Game Grid (located in Valley Fair Mall) in 2008. “In an arcade, you almost feel like you’re sitting in a racing machine of some kind. Or a tank.” 

Pratt’s enthusiasm for arcade games is infectious, and he is often seen playing a game alongside one of his regular customers. He borrowed the name Game Grid from the movie Tron, which he explains influenced his desire to own an arcade. “I don’t know if it was just nostalgia or something. I know it wasn’t the greatest movie of all time, but, you know, I loved it.” He idolized the protagonist, who also owned an arcade. “I thought that would be cool. It eventually came to a point where I opened [Game Grid] in 2008.”

Though he admitted that in his youth, he didn’t go to arcades very frequently, he vividly remembers his first arcade experience. “I was about six and at a friend’s birthday party, and wandering around [the 49th Street Galleria] arcade, which was almost pitch black, and trying to find coins. The first game I remember coming across was Discs of Tron. It mesmerized me as I was standing there. I was like ‘Whoa, this is so cool!’”

To Pratt, the arcade is a great place to gain skill at gaming, where new and inexperienced players can come and learn from the veterans. “When you’re playing with someone who’s really good at a game, they’ll give you tips. That’s really common on fighters, too, where sometimes you’re playing against someone who completely smashes you, but then that person starts helping you out. I like contributing to that,” says Pratt.  

This isn’t to say that Game Grid is only for serious gamers. Their most popular game, Terminator Salvation, regularly attracts non-players. “They just pick up the guns, because they’re these huge guns that make you feel
like Rambo.” 

Yet competition is still alive and well in the arcade. “It used to be really big in arcades to host big competitions. You might have heard of the documentary The King of Kong, where it’s all about competing for the top score.” In fact, Pratt discovered Salt Lake City’s competitive Street Fighter community when he installed Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition. “We had 60 to 80 people show up, and this being the space that it is, it filled up really fast. But it stopped a lot of people, people who just stopped to watch people play, because it’s fun to watch people who are good at a 
game play.”

Competition and skill aren’t the only reason to stop by Game Grid, however.Pratt’s wide selection of rare titles features several exclusive games that can’t be played anywhere else in the United States, let alone another arcade. Chase HQ 2, Warlords and Darius Burst: Another Chronicle are all exclusive to this arcade, along with the world-exclusive interactive comedy, The Act.

Pratt and I sat down to play Darius Burst: Another Chronicle, a sidescrolling shoot-em-up game whose Chronicle Mode features literally thousands of missions and challenges. Many of them require you to round up a few friends and explore its vast universe of battles with giant sea-creature spaceships. With each success, new levels and features are unlocked for everyone who plays afterward, so each personal victory directly affects the experience of those who play after you. As we played, Pratt explained the machine’s features, and even posted a high score after a particularly hard boss fight with a massive space-faring sea turtle.

When Game Grid first opened, it wasn’t the only arcade in the mall, but something about this small, yet surprisingly modern arcade has kept going where others have failed—and it isn’t finished growing. Pratt intends to expand if he can find a bigger location, explaining that his intention is to use sites like Kickstarter to finance the expensive search. “I know it’s not a food, water, shelter necessity that we offer, but it’s always been fun to go out, whether by yourself or [with] your friends to just ... play around. We want to be a place where people can feel comfortable hanging out and enjoying themselves, and get something unique out of it.”

(Originally published in SLUG Magazine)

Demigods: Alas, Behemoth is Upon Me

Demigods: Alas, Behemoth is Upon Me

Calling it his “most precious child,” Behemoth’s guitarist and vocalist Nergal doesn’t feel like reducing his music to a simple catchphrase. “I just grab my guitar, and pour all my emotions into new riffs and new songs, and the last thing I care about is whether it’s in the ‘blackened death metal’ box,” he says. “Behemoth is Behemoth.” Though recent years have posed a slew of trials for the band—especially Nergal’s leukemia diagnosis in 2010— he emphasizes that Behemoth is a “tight, solid unit again.” With a long year of touring ahead, Nergal aims to bring better live production and renewed energy to make these tours “something that an extreme metal fan can be proud of.”

“April and May are going to be the best months because we can tour the United States,” says Nergal, anxious to get back on the road. “We’re touring Russia, then South America and the U.S. in the coming months, then it’s festivals in Europe.” Such an intense touring schedule would prove difficult for any band, but Nergal seems to view it as a challenge rather than an ordeal. “Touring Europe didn’t kill me,” he says, but he still intends to find time for himself during the gaps of his tour. “I really want to find at least two weeks for my own personal vacation. I just want to fuck off somewhere where no cell phone can reach me. So I can really step in solid grass, and get away from everyday bullshit.”

With such a rigid touring schedule, writing new music inevitably takes a secondary priority. Nonetheless, Nergal assured me, “I’m constantly writing.” The band won’t have much time in the rehearsal room, but he finds ways to record his ideas. “[I] put something together, wait two, three months,” he says, “we play it again, try to change something, and it gets older and wiser.” Even as he emphasizes that the songwriting process hasn’t intensified yet, he claims to have “four solid rough catches of new songs.” The band hopes to release a new full-length early next year. “[We are] just taking our time. We wanna make sure that the album we’re going to put out is going to be a totally honest, sincere piece of music. It just needs time,” says Nergal.

Nergal cites the Slovenian avant-garde band Laibach as a major non-metal influence for his music. “In front of me, I have Laibach’s Opus Dei. It’s hard, heavy stuff. It corresponds with the metal sound, but it’s one of the few bands to really inspire me to write metal music.” The band’s influence on the metal movement is undeniable, and their hard-hitting martial industrial style has some definite resonance with Behemoth and the early death metal movement, “Their opus magnum was Macbeth. I remember Morbid Angel, back in the day, would be using Macbeth as their intros for their songs and I believe Vader did the same. It was a special time for a lot of metallers.”

In the time since his 2010 bone marrow transplant, all signs seem to indicate that Nergal is winning his fight against leukemia. Following his departure from the hospital in January of 2011, his recovery has continued in a positive direction. “I haven’t been taking the immunosuppressive drugs for a long time now. My morphology is like any normal healthy human being. I have no reasons to complain,” he says.  His focus has been on staying active and eating healthy, and he hopes that his recovery will continue. 

At the time of his release from Uniwersyteckie Centrum Kliniczne, however, Nergal’s financial situation was rapidly deteriorating. “I spent long months in the hospital, and I pretty much lost all my savings. I came out of the hospital with huge debt.” However, he soon received an offer to participate as a judge on the first season of the Polish television show, Voice of Poland. “I got the offer about a year ago and I decided to take it, and it paid well. So, why not?” Nergal says, “It was a good deal for me. The cool thing about the whole situation is that me and my contestants won the program. And we won it with heavy metal.” However, he has declined to return to the show for a second season, turning his full attention to touring with Behemoth. 

“I know there [are] legions of extreme metal fans who are dying to see Behemoth, in probably the best shape ever,” says Nergal, “It’s been a while since we played in Salt Lake.” With a laugh he says, “Salt Lake City, correct me if I’m wrong, is the capital of pornography in the United States. I’m really excited about coming back to your city, man.”

(Originally published in SLUG Magazine)