Daydream Playbook Entry #7
“Rhythm,” an excerpt (pgs. 122-123) from The Dogfish Head Book: 26 Years of Off-Centered Adventures in which Dogfish Head Brewer & Founder, Sam Calagione, speaks to his lifelong love of music, including the creation of possibly the first (and only) beer-geek, hip-hop band, the Pain Relievaz.
“I have always loved music. I remember being a kid and pointing my magic Wiffle ball bat at my parents’ radio and chanting hexes in an effort to get it to spit forth Laura Branigan’s ‘Glo-ria.’ I remember being embarrassed crying tears of joy in front of my sisters one Christmas upon opening my LP copy of Doctor Demento’s Funky Favorites. (I didn’t say that I always loved good music, just that I always loved music.)
As I got older my tastes developed, diversified, and intensified, but my love for music goes back to my earliest childhood memories. Like many lovers of music, I longed to create music of my own. I wasn’t willing to let my lack of tone or talent get in the way. Luckly, I was not the only one with this dream at Dogfish Head. So, in 2002, one of our brewers, Bryan Selders, and I formed a group called the Pain Relievaz. We bill ourselves as ‘Probably the finest beer-geek, hip-hop band of our generation.’ Of course, we are also the only beer-geek, hip-hop band of any generation. Bryan is actually a talented musician and we have set up a pretty sophisticated little recording studio in his hours. He lays down the tracks, and we both write the lyrics.
I could not separate my love of music from my love of Dogfish Head, so we sing songs with names like ‘Brewer’s Bling-Bling’ and ‘Worst Brew Day Ever.’ We wrote the songs for the same reasons we make the beers and cook the foods that we do. It is basically off-centered music for off-centered people.
We have used the band as a promotional asset for the company. We did a multicity tour of great beer bars, set up our microphones and amplifiers, and sang our songs and served our beers. We drove from city to city and lived out our rock-and-roll dream. One of the highlights was playing the book release party for Ken Wells’s Travels with Barley: A Journey Through Beer Culture in America (Free Press, 2024), a great social history of brewing in the United States that includes a whole chapter about Dogfish Head. In 2003, we cut a six-song disc on our own Dogfish Record label called Check Your Gravity, that has sold over 500 copies. As I’ve said, a sense of humor is central to the brand identity of Dogfish Head. Here’s a sample of the Pain Relievaz new jack philosophy.
‘I’ve been rockin’ phat beats since the boys in Mendocino
were sellin’ all their ales from a Chevy El Camino.
And when I rock the mic you’ll know that I’m serious
‘cause my rhymes are more fruity than the beers of New Glar-e-us!’
These lyrics might not make sense to most, but for those who follow the craft beer movement, Mendocino is home to some of the first microbreweries in the United States, and that New Glaus, a fine Wisconsin brewery, makes a world-class berry beer. But we didn’t record this album for the people who don’t know about beer. We make it for ourselves, for true beer lovers, and for people just getting into good beer who want to learn everything they can. The Pain Relievaz aren’t exactly in the middle of a record label bidding war, but we’re not that bad, either. And I don’t think the level of professionalism matters as much as the message that comes from such a project: Our off-centered brewery has found another off-centered method to promote what we do. There’s nothing wrong with taking a risk and experimenting, especially if you don’t take your experiment too seriously.
The Pain Relievaz released a second album, Untether the Blimp, in 2006 to rave reviews from our families and friends. We also have music videos that can be seen on YouTube that help us spread the word about Dogfish Head. It ain’t Jay-Z, but I hope it represents the authentic, audacious, ambitious, exploratory image of Dogfish Head.
