What’s In Your Fridge: Schwey | The Georgia Straight

What’s In Your Fridge is where the Straight asks interesting Vancouverites about their life-changing concerts, favourite albums, and, most importantly, what’s sitting beside the Heinz ketchup in their custom-made Big Chill Retropolitan 20.6-cubic-foot refrigerators.

On the grill

Schwey (Jacob Schwinghammer, Isaiah Terrell-Dobbs, Jarah Terrell-Dobbs, Chris Marriott.)

Who are you

(Jarah) Schwey’s the name. We are a band who, against our will, have been imbued with the power of making people move their feet. We love it. Making music has been a deep passion for all of us since we were very young, and you can tell when you listen to the songs we make!!! I bet you like what you hear if you listen to our new album! The first album was called Schwey, and this one is called Schwey 2: Cyber Soul because it is our second album and it follows the journey of our souls through the cyber realm.

First concert

(Jacob) The first concert this lineup of Schwey together was Experimental Waves at Dolly Disco near the end of February 2020. Shouts out to Max and Daniel @exp.waves for throwing our favourite recurring party in the city to attend and play. They bring in musicians whose hearts lay in exploration and in dancefloor music, and prime the crowd for a night that will get weird but probably resolve into unique grooves that can’t happen anywhere but at Experimental Waves. We danced to cumbia rhythms from Colombia by the Breaking Boundaries band and hip-hop fusion from Ital Blue. I guarantee this party will be a post-COVID, roaring ’20s, Vancouver staple.

Life-changing concert

(Jarah) A huge concert for me was at the Biltmore where I got to watch Phony Ppl play live. I haven’t gotten to see many shows where the whole band is extremely skilled and soulful at the same time, and they let the river of music flow so gently into my bones. The small size of the venue helped a lot, because I got to see some of my idols of songwriting and performance from a few feet away, at eye level. That’s when the stage isn’t what makes the experience dramatic, it’s just down to the good music.

Top three records

(Isaiah) Moodymann Black Mahogani  One of those quintessential albums—without it we would be nothing but lost souls pondering at what the point of anything is. I find myself listening to the first few songs, on a whim, and get lost in the world that’s sonically created to the point where I just go on a Moodymann bender. It’s been two years of only Moodymann I need help.

(Jacob) Floating Points Crush  Floating Points has always been there for us as well. We were listening to his album Crush a lot during the making of Schwey 2. It’s improvisational nature and temporal and spatial expansiveness helped us feel okay to include on our album some of the jams that breathe with the same space and life that we might have otherwise cut. This album ranges from some of the hardest hitting dancefloor heaters (that we raged to on the car stereo during the pandemic), to some ethereal tracks that make you question if you’ve ever truly known beauty or love.

(Jacob) Julia Jacklin Crushing  On a similar album-name-tip to Crush by FloPo is the album Crushing by Julia Jacklin. This one’s a cryer. IYKYK. What a voice. The way she hangs on the major seven on “Pressure To Party”, voice wavering but powering through slaps so hard. Slaps the tear ducts right into action. Honourable mention to A Hero’s Death by Fontaines D.C. An excellent existential post-punk EP. Also, we’ve done these questions before so if you’re looking for the true GOAT albums you must find the What’s In Your Fridge: Schwey from 2019. Thanks for having us back!

All-time favourite video

(Jarah) Jay Rock “King’s Dead King’s An absolute pinnacle of modern music videos. The zoom ins, the performances, the use of VHS, the SONG! Smooth like a calm lake and at the same time exhilarating as a shooting star!      

What’s in your fridge

(Isaiah) Peanut butter. I’ve got a small bowl of peanut butter in my fridge, exposed to the cold air, ready whenever I am, to be eaten. I think it’s been there for about three months but I believe peanut butter ages like a fine wine??? Who says I can’t eat three-month fridge peanut butter??

(Jacob) Ginger root in the freezer. Major life hack. It doesn’t go bad. Anytime you need ginger in a dish, get the cheese grater out and grate as much as you need onto the dish (you can even leave the skin on). No mess. No fuss. Banging fresh ginger in your stir fry. Good for depression.

(Jacob) Coffee grounds.  The story of used coffee grounds in the freezer begins with a hard-working, life-loving, pregnant momma rat looking to finally settle down and raise her little babies. She thought she had found, through a hole in the wall under a staircase, her dream home. Safe and warm she gave birth to 12 perfect pups. As the weeks went by her pups grew beyond her expectations, into smart, caring rodents with bright futures ahead of them. But as they grew, their feces piled up and up, and the humans who unknowingly coexisted peacefully with them in the past, in denial that the audible scratching throughout the house every night should be of any concern, began to smell the well-nourished rodent family within their walls. The human retaliation was fast and swift. Their traps irresistible. Tempting like nothing her young children had ever seen, the siren call of sausage covered in peanut butter claimed the lives of four babies the first night. Within a week, momma rat was all alone and she was scared. Everything she had worked for was taken from her. So she ran. And she didn’t stop running until her past was far behind her. It was all for nothing. Or was it? Only if she gives up now would her story end here. She realized she had a second chance. And she would make the most of it. Now, the narrator of this story does not know what came of momma rat, but he does know her family’s poop scent occasionally seeps through the walls, so he saves up used coffee grounds in a jar in the freezer, roasts them in the oven, and puts them on tea saucers around the house because it mitigates the smell along with the memories of the horrors he has caused.

You can check out Schwey 2: Cyber Soul here.