Ask nearly anyone in St. Augustine and you’ll get the same response: “Planet Sarbez is one of a kind.” Opened in late 2013 by Ryan Kunsch and Glenn Turbeville, two Flagler fine arts grads, this gallery-cum-gourmet grilled cheese and craft beer spot-cum-intimate music venue stands as one of the Oldest City’s most eclectic gems. And it almost didn’t survive Hurricane Matthew. But one successful GoFundMe campaign and a boatload of benefit shows later, Sarbez is about to celebrate its third anniversary with a 24-hour party — featuring nonstop live music.
Fittingly, the main headliner is another St. Augustine original: sun-drenched psych-rock trio The Young Step. Ben Whitson, Micah Gilliam and Lauren Shirer all arrived in the 904 around 2010 — Ben from Michigan, Micah from Oregon, and Lauren from Chicago — but didn’t come together as a band until 2014 (after Gilliam and Shirer had met, married and formed The WillowWacks). The most interesting thing about The Young Step (other than the fact that the Gilliams are working as full-time musicians with a 3-month-old baby at home) is that neither Lauren nor Ben had played rock ’n’ roll, a fact that Micah believes gives them an edge.
“They’re newbs,” Micah laughs, “but they’re pretty freaking good for being new. There’s an interesting chasm between us — they learn a lot from me, but also bring a lot of fresh ideas to the table.
They’re more pure in a sense of not having lost their context and still being really close to what they believe in. It’s a cool combination of our own rock ’n’ roll recipe mixed with New Wave stuff and groove-based music. And everything cliché I might do as a veteran player gets offset by Ben and Lauren not knowing the clichés at all. So we’re inspired by other music without copying it in any way. That’s the aesthetic I want to hold on to more than anything else.”
So far, what they’re holding on pretty damn well, especially for an independent band. They recorded their debut album, El Clasíco, at Micah’s home studio, mixed it at the legendary but now-defunct Magic Shop in New York (“cool but sad,” Micah says), and printed a few hundred copies of vinyl and cassette via their own Organic Vinyl label. “We started off slow, just having fun with it,” Micah explains. “Then Ben put his foot down and said, ‘I want to make a record.’ And the people around us reacted to it in a way I didn’t expect. I’ve been in a lot of bands that I thought were great, but people would be like, ‘It’s good, whatever.’ But The Young Step has more energy. Our music hits a sweet spot — it feels familiar, but not like anything you’ve ever heard. That’s the most exciting thing about it.”
Thanks to Micah’s nationwide network of friends and associates, The Young Step were able to take off on a nationwide tour coinciding with El Clasíco’s release last fall, even when their best-laid plans went awry. “We weren’t planning on having a baby in 2016,” he laughs. “We found out we were pregnant in January, finished the record in February, released it on vinyl in October, and here we are, still going ‘HAM’ and putting all our eggs in this basket.”
Gilliam explains they’re still trying to figure out what to do next in terms of touring — “probably 15 to 20 cities where people know us and love us and can help out with the babe,” he says. “It’s really all about my wife. She’s badass but very chill; it’s not this hectic, flabbergasted situation about the baby all the time. We chill and the baby chills, too. She looks to us for the vibe. But we are trying to do this band up against obstacles that most musicians don’t have to deal with.”
Luckily, Gilliam says The Young Step has passionate supporters in Planet Sarbez, where they’ve performed often (most recently for El Clasíco’s release party). “There’s really no place like it,” Micah says. “Ryan and Glenn have so much a love from the community — they break all kinds of city codes in terms of what your building is supposed to look like, but they always get the petitions signed to keep it the way it is.”
Laughing, he adds, “It’s kind of like Shredder’s liar from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but for good kids. Well, maybe that not good of kids — but we’re definitely not the Foot Clan. The whole place is sort of a small, living, breathing work of art. It’s a little gem.”
Just like The Young Step: “We want everything we do, including our music videos, to feel like us,” Gilliam finishes. “If it doesn’t, what’s the point in doing it?”
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