The Beat Goes On

The Dip Keeps Local Music Thriving…

The energy in the room was palpable when Redding punk bands The Melodramatics and JimmiRig played a sold-out show at The Dip last November. 

In the 150-person capacity venue, the crowd knew all JimmiRig’s songs, belting out “Stronghold” and “Something More.” Amongst the audience were the two owners of The Dip—brothers Aaron and Jon Gumm—who planned many of the JimmiRig shows back in the late 1990s/early 2000s and are today still providing one of Redding’s only live music venues. 

“In the early days when we were having shows at the grange hall (in Palo Cedro), I’d just get people’s phone numbers and text them, but now we have to have a website and be all over social media,” Jon says about what it was like getting people to live shows then versus now. 

Music has always been a part of the brothers’ lives. Aaron’s first concert was the Warped Tour ’98 up at Boreal ski resort and he remembers seeing The Vandals and Chixdiggit! with Jon. 

“I used to go to CD stores and record SNL music acts on VHS. At that time, you didn’t know who was playing that night, so we’d get excited when they had someone good on,” Jon adds. 

Flash forward to 2026, and the Gumms are 10 years into running The Dip at 1730 California St. in downtown Redding. After graduating from high school, the Gumms bought Serendipity on Lake Boulevard on the north end of town, running it as a coffee shop/live music venue for all ages. They left the business in 2006 (it’s now a Little Caesars) and years later planned to build a music venue/restaurant on a lot in downtown Redding. Despite having blueprints, savings, and interviewing two chefs, the idea never came to fruition.

Fortunately, in 2015, they caught word Billy Bombay’s (the bar that is now The Dip) was for sale and they took it over, holding their first live show on September 18, 2015. “We kept it ‘The Dip’ because people know that name. The first show we hosted was Belda Beast and Be Calm Honcho,” Aaron says. 

The venue has had more than 1,000 bands come through since its opening, and obtained a liquor license in 2024, cementing it as a 21-and-older venue. 

Soon after, The Dip created the Bomb Squad.

“Our first St. Patrick’s Day here was so busy and the rider for the band that played had all this stuff on it and we got most of it, but they didn’t eat or drink any of it, so Aaron did like 15 variations of Irish car bombs that night. It became a challenge—we tried making them with Midori and experimented making a tequila bomb,” Jon says. The candy cane bomb tastes like a Thin Mint cookie. Jon’s favorite is the pumpkin pie bomb, while Aaron likes the peanut butter cup. Other bombs they’ve made include the waffle bomb, cinnamon toast crunch bomb, Fluffer Nutter, spicy paloma, Dippocino, praline bird dog and key lime bomb. People who’ve done at least five car bombs are inducted into the Bomb Squad and given an official name, such as Jon Bomb Jovi, Luke Skybomber and Bomb Ross.

The Bomb Squad is popular with regulars, but the live music is the bread and butter of The Dip, despite Redding being a tough market. “We’ve been told we’re ‘too city’ for Redding,” Aaron says, with Jon adding, “People always say, ‘If you were in Portland, you’d be huge.’” There are a lot of things to do already in Redding, and The Dip competing with other entertainment businesses vying for locals’ attention is a challenge. 

“We need every single person (21 and older) who likes live music to come to a lot of things here; our business relies on this place selling out more often. But some people love us and have been coming to our shows wherever we’re at for years. We’ve fulfilled our business statement, that’s the paradox,” says Jon. 

There would be a void in the local music scene without The Dip, so the Gumms are optimistic they can keep the place running. “I want to do this forever and we still turn the lights on every day. It’s a labor of love, and a hard business to get into. But music is what drives us and now we’re just trying to figure out what we can do to get crowds here every night,” Jon adds. 

And then Jon shares what his favorite show was at The Dip. “I’d say the most memorable concert I’ve ever been to here was JimmiRig [at the November 2025 20-year reunion show]. I kind of teared up…it was a full circle moment. Everything felt right. I felt like I was 20 again and instantly remembered why we chose to do this in the first place.”