“I don’t feel like we’re working smarter,” laughs Lorna Heptinstall.

“But we’re still working hard,” adds her husband, Dan, with a chuckle as their 4-year-old daughter crawls up in the Zoom interview to see what mum and dad are doing.

Along with parenting, the Heptinstalls are two-thirds of British folk-punk outfit Skinny Lister, who make their Santa Cruz debut March 21 at Moe’s Alley.

They’re describing the “absolutely mental” schedule the band had in 2011 that earned them the title, “Hardest Working Band in the UK” by British music copyright collective, Performing Rights For Music (PRS).

“We were doing three, four, sometimes five festivals in a weekend,” Dan recalls. “So when it came time to register all our performances in the UK with PRS, we came out on top. Above Ed Sheeran!”

An impressive feat for a band that not only plays a traditional style of music outside the eye of mainstream media, but also one that started off only as a bit of fun between friends at their local pub.

However, it’s easy to see why the group is so well loved in the U.K., throughout Europe and across the pond here in the U.S.

Formed in 2009, Skinny Lister was birthed by friends Dan Heptinstall, Lorna (then Thomas and dating Heptinstall), her brother Maxwell Thomas, Dan Gray and Sam “Mule” Brace. The later two of which had played with Dan previously in an indie band called The Alps.

“We used to live in a house in Greenwich and every Tuesday the pub next door had Folk Night,” remembers Dan. “So we would go down and get involved in the pub songs and shanties.”

Eventually the five friends decided they wanted to take the fun and camaraderie on the road and to festivals. Taking the name Skinny Lister–a nickname for an old school friend of Dan’s–they started touring locally around Britain.

Three years later, in 2012, Skinny Lister was invited to play America for the first time, hitting the South By Southwest festival in Austin, Texas along with the Vans Warped Tour. One year later they were back in the states rocking sets at Coachella and on tour opening for Irish punk outfit, Flogging Molly. It proved to be a match made in heaven’s own pub. .

“When we started there was something in the air about pub music,” Dan says. “Mumford & Sons and all that was happening. It felt reasonable that we could get further ahead with it than even a few years before.”

And get further they did.

Last year Skinny Lister released their sixth studio album, Shanty Punk. It’s 11 tracks range from beautiful–like the lamentful yet inspiring “Broken, Bruised & Battered”–to the blistering like “Unto The Breach.”

 In true pub tradition, Skinny Lister’s magic comes in the form of songs about drinking, fighting, friendship, traveling and tall tales. Some are fiction, while others are ripped straight from their lives.

“We’re storytellers,” Dan admits. “The essence of Skinny Lister is our stories, some more story than others.”

For instance, “Pittsburgh Punch Up” off Shanty Punk is about their bus driver on an early U.S. tour who started a drunken brawl at one of their gigs. Then there’s older tracks like “Hamburg Drunk,” about the band getting into a bit of shenanigans after a night of drinking in Hamburg, Germany. Or “Trouble on Oxford Street,” about a fight Dan got into–where else–on Oxford Street.

Those paying attention might also notice that, along with storytelling, Skinny Lister is also all about family. Of course there’s Dan and Lorna’s nuptials and the sibling bond between Lorna and Maxwell but it goes even further up the family tree.

And when it comes to Skinny Lister fandom, their father has become a story in his own right. He wrote and performed Shanty Punk’s second to last track, “William Harker.”  

“He’s otherwise known as ‘Party George,’” Dan laughs. “And he’s become a bit of a legend at our shows. We took him out across Europe on the tour we just did and he performed every night with us. He really does get the party started!”

INFO: 8pm, Moe’s Alley, 1535 Commercial Way, Santa Cruz. $25adv/$30door. 479-1854

PULL QUOTE:: THEThree years later, in 2012, Skinny Lister was invited to play America for the first time, hitting the South By Southwest festival in Austin, Texas along with the Vans Warped Tour. One year later they were back in the states rocking sets at Coachella and on tour opening for Irish punk outfit, Flogging Molly. It proved to be a match made in heaven’s own pub.

The exciting March program begins with the Matsuri Overture. Named for the Japanese word for festival the Matsuri Overture was composed in 2017 by Spain’s José González Granero. Now based in the Bay Area, Granero has been principal clarinet for the San Francisco Opera Orchestra since 2010. The composer recalled that he was inspired by a trip to Kyoto, Japan, during which the Ebisu Festival at New Year’s made a powerful impression on him. During this Festival participants pay their respects and pray for success, using special branches of bamboo grass they hope will bring good luck. Granero’s Overture captures the feel and excitement of both the ancient Japanese festival as well as the modern vibrant pace of Kyoto.

Emotional and eloquent, the Schumann Cello Concerto is a popular piece for solo cello and orchestra. Flowing from meditative depths into a soaring conclusion, this stunning concerto casts a spell. The three movements begin with the main theme performed by the soloist, which then leads to variations and improvisations upon that theme by the orchestral instruments. The slow second movement gives way to a final sonata moving from A minor to a mood-altering A major. This concerto is much-performed and considered one of the greatest Romantic works composed for the cello.

The concert’s final offering, Igor Stravinsky’s Petrushka, is another beloved piece of music created for ballet, and was written in 1911 for the famous Ballets Russes company of Sergei Diaghilev. The composer was inspired by folk music to help create music for the crowds gathered to enjoy a traveling festival. Stravinsky wrote new melodies for the central character, the puppet Petrushka, who suddenly comes to life. The ballet was named for a puppet character well-known in Russian carnivals, much like Punch in English “Punch and Judy” puppet shows.

This popular and innovative piece of modern 20th century music contains unexpected orchestration, drumming, and dazzling sound design filled with energy and romantic descriptions of the private emotional life of the puppet. Poor Petrushka falls in love with a ballerina puppet in Stravinsky’s piece, and this ill-fated love is juxtaposed musically with the frenzy of the orchestral crowd scenes. Petrushka’s beloved ballerina prefers another puppet, the two rivals fight a duel, and well, you’ll find out how it ends. With its Paris premier starring the great ballet star Nijinsky, Petrushka’s music, design, and dance made it a very popular production.

 Guest soloist, Gaeun Kim will perform during this wide-ranging concert that brings together in a single performance festival music inspired by Japan, Russia, and one of the masters of the Romantic period of European music. Kim, a 20-year-old cellist based in New York, has won worldwide competitions and prizes since the age of four. This year she appears in Santa Cruz as part of a schedule which includes solo performances in New York, Poland, Switzerland, Korea, and Germany.

With its upcoming Festivalsconcerts the Santa Cruz Symphony has programmed another musical event the entire family can enjoy. Selections this time include classical music created for dance, a cello concerto to be performed by solo virtuoso Gaeun Kim, and a cross-cultural creation inspired by an ancient Japanese festival. Maestro Daniel Stewart leads the always memorable Symphony through these provocative pieces. Bring the whole family and let your ears be dazzled.

Festivals plays at 7:30 pm March 23 at Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium (talk at 6:30pm) and March 24 at 2pm at Henry J. Mello Center for the Performing Arts, Watsonville. Tickets $40-$110. SantaCruzSymphony.org

The string-tapping method employed by adventurous musicians isn’t new, and it wasn’t devised by Eddie Van Halen. Some 200 years ago, composer Niccolò Paganini used the technique on his violin. Jazz guitarist Barney Kessel used one- and two-hand tapping techniques in the 1950s, and Harvey Mandel was tapping the fretboard of his guitar while a member of Canned Heat. Guitarists across the musical landscape – Stanley Jordan, Buckethead and Steve Vai, to name just a few of many – use tapping as part of their approach to their instruments.

But none of the aforementioned artists sounds much like Marnie Stern, nor she like them. Though Stern is perhaps best known for the comparatively mainstream “day job” she held down for the better part of the last decade, the electric guitarist is among the most compelling exponents of the unconventional tapping technique.

“I had picked up the guitar when I was around 19,” Stern recalls. “I just learned a couple open chords, but I didn’t really play much.” Her musical tastes weren’t exactly adventurous; certainly nothing that might hint at the direction she’d eventually take. “I didn’t listen to stuff that wasn’t on the radio,” she says. But after college – “I don’t know why,” she admits – Stern decided to take the guitar seriously. Yet not too seriously: “I didn’t take lessons.”

Instead, Stern figured it all out on her own. And her autodidactic method yielded unexpected results. “The reason I have such an unconventional approach,” Stern laughs, “is because I didn’t know what I was doing!” But she had clear goals. “I wanted to try and convey a lot of emotion,” Stern explains. “I was trying to use the instrument phonetically, [tapping] back and forth on single strings to convey intensity.”

Intensity is an apt word to describe a key quality of Marnie Stern’s original music. Her debut album, 2007’s In Advance of the Broken Arm is a jagged, overwhelming listen, combining dazzling guitar pyrotechnics, a clattering, thrash-like rhythm section and Stern’s squalling vocals. There was little else like it; melodic lines crisscross and occasionally intersect, and that intensity never lets up. A high-profile review in The New York Times described Stern’s music as “riotous,” “raucous” and “wriggly,” naming her very first release as that year’s most exciting album.

Over the next six years, the guitarist followed that release with three more, culminating in 2013’s The Chronicles of Marnia. Each album built on Stern’s prowess and reputation as a shredder par excellence. Remarkably, Stern characterizes those years as “maybe a little more mellow phase,” though it’s a safe bet that few would describe any of the music on Chronicles as mellow: her yelping vocals on “Year of the Glad” suggest an agitated monkey who just happens to know how to play the electric guitar with unparalleled mastery.

But Stern’s career trajectory took an unexpected turn when she abruptly placed her solo career on hold, joining the 8G house band on Late Night With Seth Meyers. Even against the unconventional backdrop of her music, such a move seemed odd. And in many ways it was. “We had to write eight songs a day… it wasn’t my style [of music] at all,” she candidly admits.

And applying her unorthodox methods to the needs of a general audience wasn’t always easy. Sometimes she’d put a gonzo guitar line onto one of the songs. “They’d say, ‘Nuh-uh; too weird. Too dissonant. Not good for TV,’” Stern says with a chuckle, noting that she had to be “checked,” and often.

So after having placed her own music on hold for eight years – an eternity in the career of most artists – Stern left Meyers’ show and relaunched her solo career. After “playing nice, happy music, I wanted to undo that,” she says. “I wanted to go no-holds-barred with my own stuff again.”

The fruit of that renewed focus and newfound freedom is the pointedly titled The Comeback Kid. Released last November, the album demonstrates that Stern’s heterodox approach to music is as sharp as ever. And though filled with musical in-jokes that most listeners couldn’t possibly understand, the music skillfully conveys Stern’s gleeful attitude. And that draws listeners in, even if they don’t get all of the obscure, Zappa-like references. “I’m aware of how wacky – and sometimes shrill and harsh – my stuff sounds,” she says. “I kind of like ‘taking the piss’ a little bit, and I’m not a person who takes myself too seriously.”

The lyrics on Stern’s early albums were the product of extensive effort. “I sat for endless hours working on lyrics,” she says. And those words often displayed the angst of a young woman. These days – at age 47 and with a young child – Stern is in a very different place. Stern’s vocals – often buried in the mix on those early albums – have taken on a more assertive character on the new record. “I’m in this very comfortable, happy period of family life, so the lyrics are very motivated by that.” Pausing for a moment, she shifts gears and adds, “But no one wants to listen to that!”

At her core, Stern is an instrumentalist. And with the exception of the drums (played by Arcade Fire’s Jeremy Gara), all of the sounds on The Comeback Kid come from Marnie Stern. For her tour in support of the album, Stern is joined by a second guitarist and drummer, but no bassist. “But then,” she points out, “there’s not much bass on the record, either.” Asked to sum up her live show in a few words, Stern doesn’t hesitate. “It’s very fun,” she says with a wicked smile. “It’s loud, and it’s real rocking.”

Marnie Stern with Wormsalt, 8pm March 26, Moe’s Alley (1535 Commercial Way, Santa Cruz) Tickets $18 advance/$21at the door.

Omar Sosa is dedicated to making music that promotes worldwide peace. Born in 1965 in Cuba’s third largest city — Camagüey – Sosa studied percussion and marimba, later adding piano. He moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1995 and later relocated to Barcelona. Sosa has recorded many multi-cultural albums with African and Latin American musicians like Paolo Fresu, Seckou Keita, Gustavo Ovalles and Yilian Cañizares.

88 Well-Tuned Drums is the new documentary about Sosa, directed by Soren Sorensen. It was released on streaming platforms on March 15 and the accompanying soundtrack album will be released on April 20 on Oakland-based Otá Records.

On April 1, Sosa returns to Kuumbwa Jazz Center with his Afro-Cuban Jazz group Quarteto Americanos; Sheldon Brown (saxophones), Josh Jones (drums) and Ernesto Mazar Kindelán (baby bass).

PLAYING PIANO WITH A GUN ON

JM: One interesting part of the film is when you performed with a gun slung across your shoulder. Tell me about going to Angola and Ethiopia in the 1980’s when you were doing your required Cuban military service, performing for troops.

Omar Sosa: It’s a really strong image, a strong feeling. Looking back at that now I have a different angle. I was young and basically everybody was trying to figure out a way to get out of the country. (Cuba) The four opportunities were to go to the Congo, Nicaragua, Ethiopia or Angola. Three of these – Nicaragua, Ethiopia, and Angola – were in a war at the time. I try to look at the world in a positive way, but I went to the war.

That time in Ethiopia was one of the first times I said to myself, “Where am I?” I was in the hospital of the people in the war. I almost died in Ethiopia because I got amoebas in my liver. People came to the hospital with no legs. I started to have a caution inside of myself to say, “War is not the way. It’s all about peace, not about war.” There’s no reason for war; it doesn’t matter what happened, we can’t kill each other as humans. Believe it or not, man, we still live in this problem today in different parts of the planet. And for me, this is unacceptable. I’m a peaceful person.

Playing piano with a gun was normal because I needed to keep the gun with me. But inside of me, I’m thinking, “Something’s wrong here.” Something’s wrong because we don’t even know why we were there! It’s basically what happens sometimes with young people in Israel; they’re in the army at 18, 19 years old.

JM: Now there are major wars in Sudan, Ukraine, Yemen and Israel/Gaza. I appreciate when people conscripted into the military refuse to participate in war.

Omar Sosa: Most of the time, this is not their work. It’s nobody’s work. War comes from the economic people around the planet wanting power and resources like land and oil. All the wars in Ukraine, Israel and elsewhere. This has been going on for centuries and we haven’t been able to learn. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like what someone says or does. You can say, “I don’t like that.” But you don’t pick up a gun and kill another person because you don’t like what they do. It’s all about power and who owns the resources of the planet.

Peace can be the solution because we have no choice! We need to live together! No matter how rich you are or how much power you have, we need to live together. Maybe in 10 years that guy from Tesla will go to the moon. But today, everybody’s here on Earth and we need to deal with the reality here. And the first thing that we need to do is protect our resources and pray to find a balance. No more “Take, take, take” without sharing.

ACROSS THE DIVIDE

JM: One of the many beautiful and powerful projects you’ve done is Across the Divide. (2009) This album explores the history of slavery and the roots of American folk music in Black culture. It combines early Blues and spirituals with Jazz, Afro-Cuban rhythms and spoken word clips from people like Langston Hughes. I wonder if you might be considering re-releasing Across the Divide?

Omar Sosa: We are connected! I’m working on a new album with Tim Erikson called Atlantica. It is beautiful, simple music full of soul. If everything goes right, it’s going be out in 2025. We’re also planning to release a record in October that I did in South Africa nine years ago called Badzimo’ with percussionist Azah and singer Indwe.

FIVE OR SIX JINGLES

JM: Early in your music career you wrote jingles for TV commercials.

Omar Sosa: I need to tell you that this was the best money time in my life! And I was so ignorant! I spent a lot of money in restaurants and I had a lot of friends. I had a table in different restaurants in Quito (Ecuador). Everyday I was writing five or six jingles and they paid $2000 or $3000 for ten seconds!

But in Cuba we never had education to tell us that money is a tool. Our education was to work with the government and every month they’ll give you a salary. In a way this is something interesting because you focus on what you want. And in Cuba, I was focused on creating music. I was a musical director of Xiomara Laugart, one of the most famous singers at that time in Cuba.

I created a band with a couple friends called Entrenoz (Between Us) and the first music I wrote for the band sounded like a jingle! I said, “No! This is not what I want!” Later I made a band with a friend from Palma de Mallorca, Spain. He called me, “Omar, I want you to be the piano player.” I say, “OK.” So, I told my boss in the jingle studio, “Hey brother, I’m done.” He said, “You want to leave all this money?” But the only thing I was doing was eating and drinking, drinking and eating.

GOOD FOR MY SOUL

JM: I learned from the film that you lived on the streets in Cuba for a while.

Omar Sosa: Being homeless in Cuba, you still had some opportunities because the weather is great. It’s never very cold like New York, Boston or Canada. Like I was saying in the movie; the street is tough, brother. I wanted to sleep somewhere quiet and I chose a funeral home. It was quiet, clean and smelled good. Because you know, when somebody dies, the families and friends bring flowers and the flowers smell beautiful.

JM: I’m happy that your life got better and better. And that you have made all this beautiful music around the world.

Omar Sosa: I need to give a big credit to my religion. My father told me when I was initiating in the Santería religion, “Omar, music is your life and you have a mission to make an influence so that all cultures come together in a peaceful and human way.” This is what I do. I simply combine cultures and try to live peacefully myself. No matter if you were born in Burundi, Palestine or Singapore; we are all humans. In one way or another, all of our traditions connect. Art and music are one way to create unity.

Listen to this interview with Omar Sosa on Thursday at noon on KZSC 88.1 / kzsc.org on “Transformation Highway” with John Malkin.

See Omar Sosa at Kuumbwa Jazz Center, shows at 7 and 9pm. Tickets $52.45/Students $29.14. (320-2 Cedar St, Santa Cruz)

Modern-day kings of instrumental surf music Los Straitjackets are touring to celebrate their 30^th anniversary. The masked quartet comes to Moe’s Alley March 29.

Surf music is often associated with a specific time and place. The rock subgenre featuring instrumental tunes built around sonorous electric lead guitar enjoyed its heyday in the late 1950s and pre-Beatles early 1960s. And the form is most closely associated with Southern California. Artists like Dick Dale, The Chantays (“Pipeline”) and The Surfaris (“Wipe Out”) were exemplars of the style. But as with all trends, the popularity of instro-surf crested, then ebbed.

But it never washed away completely. Several subsequent revivals have brought surf music back into the limelight. And the unbridled joy, excitement and humor built into the style has meant that surf music has continued to delight new generations. Today it inspires and influences musicians who might not have even been alive during the original surf era.

Without a doubt, the most heralded and successful of modern-day surf revivalists are Los Straitjackets. Founded in (of all places) Nashville in 1994, Los Straitjackets put their own unique spin on the form. “We wanted to play instrumentals, and we wanted [our show] to be vintage entertainment, like the Ventures,” says guitarist Eddie Angel. As for the name, “we liked the absurdity of it.” he admits.

Dressed in matching outfits and sporting matching custom guitars, the quartet cuts a distinctive image. All four members appear onstage wearing Mexican luchador masks, and the group spokesman addresses the audience in a hilarious, gringo-fied Español. The band executes tightly choreographed stage moves while spinning out impossibly catchy, twangy and heavily reverbed instrumental tunes,  inevitably eliciting broad smiles from everyone in the audience.

Today Angel leads the group, joined by longtime member Pete Curry (a Bay Area native who played with an early lineup of the Chocolate Watchband) on bass, guitarist Greg Townson and drummer Chris Sprague.

Los Straitjackets’ music is a dazzling mix of originals (with vintage-sounding titles like “Caveman” and Rampage”) and inspired surf-instrumental reworkings of unlikely tunes like Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” and Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” The group is astonishingly versatile:  they’ve collaborated onstage and on record with rock heroes like Deke Dickerson, Marshall Crenshaw and Nick Lowe; a new Los Straitjackets album with Lowe is due later this year. They’ve released nearly 30 albums and brilliantly in breathing new life into a genre that was popular more than a half century ago.

Angel admits that while he and his band mates were serious about Los Straitjackets from the start, it was a bit of a goof. With the wrestling masks, Aztec medallions and Shadows-style synchronized moves, “we didn’t know what we were doing,” he admits with a laugh. “We just thought it looked cool. I didn’t think we were going to make a career out of it.”

When Los Straitjackets began, Angel was already a rock veteran. “I had been in bands my whole life,” he says. “Moved to Nashville, got a record deal, lost a record deal.” But when he donned that luchador mask, everything changed. “I realized that something magical was happening,” he says.

Angel recalls a recent gig in Connecticut. “This one blonde girl was out there dancing. So Greg jumped out into the audience with his guitar, and started dancing with her while he was playing.” After the show, the woman approached the group and introduced herself as Tina Weymouth (Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club). “She and her husband Chris Frantz were at our show!” Angel says with pride.

Los Straitjackets with Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys, 8pm  Friday, March 29, Moe’s Alley (1535 Commercial Way, Santa Cruz) $30 advance/$35 door.

With a stage name like Rev. Billy C. Wirtz, you’d expect that the man would be an evangelist of some kind. And you’d be right. But Wirtz—born William Wirths in Aiken, South Carolina, just up the road from where James Brown was born 19 years before him—isn’t selling old-time, fire-and-brimstone religion; no, he’s on a mission to spread the good news about American roots music. A bona fide renaissance man of song, Wirtz is a singer, songwriter, humorist, broadcaster, journalist, historian, author and filmmaker.

And he considers all of his various creative endeavors as part of one big calling. And that’s been the case ever since long before he got started as a recording artist with 1983’s Salvation Through Polyester. “I still do a comedic live presentation,” he explains. “But within the comedy, I’ll play an old classic and talk about how it evolved.”

A Rev. Billy C. Wirtz concert is a history lesson wrapped in a rollicking, laugh-riot live show. He might start out by playing one of his originals: maybe a new one like “Go Little Golf Cart,” about the alleged naughty goings-on in the Villages, Florida’s deep red, Disneyfied and 95% white community. From there, Wirtz might launch into a lively, fast-paced discussion about “Got My Mojo Workin’,” the blues classic popularized by Muddy Waters.

“But Muddy didn’t write ‘Mojo,’” Wirtz will explain. Composed by Preston Foster in 1956, the song was first cut by a woman named Ann Cole. “She and Muddy were on the same bill at the Manhattan Casino in St. Pete,” he’ll tell the audience. Waters had been looking for a blues song that combined country beats, like Chuck Berry had done with “Maybelline” in 1955.

Helping the audience to appreciate that blues, gospel, country and rock ’n’ roll are closely woven strands of the tapestry that is American music, Wirtz will then demonstrate that “Got My Mojo Workin’” and Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” are, in his words, “the identical song with the same beat.”

After pausing to let that fascinating fact sink in, he continues. “I put stuff like that in between ‘Mama Was a Deadhead’ and ‘Roberta’ [from 1989’s Deep Fried and Sanctified] and all the classics.”

Wirtz’s other pursuits dovetail with his own music-making. For years now he has hosted radio shows like Reverend Billy’s Rhythm Revival, broadcast in different forms on Santa Cruz’s KPIG-FM, Western North Carolina’s WNCW and Tampa’s WMNF. “I’ve been doing the show for about 15 years now,” he says.

As a music fan with a deep well of knowledge paired with insatiable curiosity, Wirtz is the ideal person to explore and document overlooked corners of musical history. One of his current projects is a documentary about 92-year-old pianist Leon Blue. A member of classic blues band the Mannish Boys, Blue’s extensive credits include work with everyone from “king of Western Swing” Bob Wills to Ike & Tina Turner to Lloyd Price to B.B. King. The documentary isn’t quite finished yet, but Wirtz has his title: The World According to Leon.

Wirtz writes often for America’s oldest blues periodical, Living Blues, and other outlets. In 2022 he won an award in Florida for Best Nonfiction Magazine Article. That history of the state’s so-called chitlin’ circuit was, according to a well-connected acquaintance of his, “a bad motherfucker for a documentary.” Work is about to commence on that project. “We begin by interviewing Alan Leeds, who was James Brown’s road manager for 15 years,” Wirtz says.

Rev. Billy C. Wirtz’s passion for music is contagious, and it knows no bounds. He loves the wild stuff, and he has dedicated life and career to spreading that love to listeners, readers and audiences. “When the segregationist preachers screamed about the devil n-word music, they said it would lead to premarital sex, and to interracial couples dancing,” he says with a smile and hearty laugh. “And they were right!”

Reverend Billy C. Wirtz with Bob Malone, April 6, Kuumbwa Jazz, 320-2 Cedar St, Santa Cruz, 7:30pm $30/$45
gold circle.snazzyproductions.com

Could it be that Andy Frasco is maturing? He returned to touring this winter, and fans can expect Andy Frasco and the U.N. to bring the party on stage (or somewhere in front of the stage when Frasco is crowd surfing). But the singer/keyboardist is toning down the partying and other shenanigans that typically happened on and off stage on past tours.

“I’m doing it for my liver,” Frasco said, when he phoned in for a recent interview. “I’m all about the party, but I want people to know that I’m a songwriter, too. So I’m just really dialing in my songwriting, really dialing in my musicianship, so I know I can’t blame my partying for my shitty songs…I love partying and I love giving the people their entertainment, but I also want to give them something to think about.”

The fact is, by the time the pandemic hit in spring 2020, Frasco was not in a great place. He’d been drinking too much and doing cocaine, and his life-of-the-party behavior had left him wondering who his friends were and battling some genuine bouts of depression.

No one wanted the pandemic, but being forced off of the road gave Frasco the much-needed opportunity to take a hard look at himself, figure out how to get his life in a better place and decide if he still truly loved writing music and going on tour.

“I was just very selfish,” Frasco said, citing one of the contributing factors to his emotional issues.

“I was, like, doing things and not thinking about others. All of a sudden people wouldn’t start calling me back. I was realizing maybe it is me. I always blamed everyone else that I am on an island. But maybe I’m putting myself on an island.

“Before the pandemic, I didn’t want to be there. And I was faking a smile because I was just too depleted,” he said. “I had to look at myself in the mirror, like what are you doing this for if you’re not going to wake up? You preach happiness and you’re not even happy, so why do you keep (doing) it?”
One significant change was to kick his cocaine habit. He also cut back on drinking, although he admits he still enjoys his beverages.

But the supply of Jameson liquor is lasting longer these days, as he and his band have moderated their intake onstage these days.

“There’s still drinking. I’m not going to lie to you there,” Frasco said. “But it’s definitely more toned down. We’re drinking a half a bottle of Jameson a night, not the full bottle.”

The changes in behavior won’t surprise those who’ve been paying attention. Especially on 2020’s Keep On Keeping On and then Wash, Rinse, Repeat., the album that arrived in April 2022, it was clear Frasco wasn’t just offering escapism in his music.

That was a main theme for Frasco after he founded Andy Frasco & the U.N. in 2007, began touring and released the first of what is now nine studio albums in 2010.

One look at song titles like “Mature As Fuck,” “Blame It on the Pussy” (from 2016’s “Happy Bastards”) or “Smokin’ Dope n Rock n Roll” and “Commitment Deficit Disorder” (from 2014’s Half a Man) and it was obvious that Frasco and company were bringing the party with funny, sometimes bawdy lyrics, a disregard for rules, decorum (and sobriety), and a rowdy sound that mixed rock, funk, blues, soul and pop.

The approach generated a good bit of popularity, as Frasco and the U.N. began what became a consistent routine of playing roughly 250 shows a year—a pace that continues to this day. Along the way, the band especially caught on in the jam band scene and festival circuit.

But Frasco started to shift the narrative of his songs to more thoughtful subject matter. He kept the music buoyant and catchy, but the lyrics now wrestled with topics like getting older, maintaining his mental health, finding happiness, being considerate and appreciating life as it happens.

Keep On Keeping On arrived shortly after the pandemic hit. With touring halted, Frasco didn’t worry about taking the next musical step for quite awhile.

Instead, he took to social media. He hosted a video I Wanna Dance With Somebody Dance Party, and started podcasting. His current series, Andy Frasco’s World Saving Podcast, features interviews—some of which get downright deep—with musicians and other celebrities, commentary and comedic bits. The series has gained considerable traction and Frasco, who is frequently joined by co-host Nick Gerlach, will continue doing these podcasts even as he returns to a full schedule of touring, songwriting and recording.

With all of this activity, it wasn’t until about six weeks before he was due to return touring in 2021 that Frasco realized he wanted to have new music for the upcoming shows and charged into making Wash, Rinse, Repeat.

He traveled to several cities to write and record with other songwriters, a process that helped him sharpen his songwriting chops.

“It was basically like going to songwriting school,” Frasco said. “I wrote with 20 different songwriters and I wrote with, like, 15 different songwriters in Nashville, and I wrote with a couple of guys in Charleston and a couple of guys in L.A., and instead of like the mind state of I know everything, I went in there with my mind state of I don’t know anything. It kind of helped me grow into the next phase of my career.”

Feeling he was in a creative space, Frasco spent a chunk of 2022 making his current album, L’Optimist. The new album reflects a new development in Frasco’s life.
“I think it’s a love album. I finally committed to someone and I’ve been writing about her,” Frasco said.

The songs, though, aren’t all about romantic bliss.

“It’s scary as hell. I’ve never had a relationship,” Frasco revealed. “I don’t even know what the fuck I’m doing. That’s what I’m writing about. Like, is this OK?”

Some of the songs from L’Optimist are popping up in set lists on Frasco’s current tour with his band, along with material from his back catalog.

“I have two different philosophies when I write songs,” Frasco said. “Sometimes I write songs for the record and sometimes I write songs for the set. And these new songs, I was really focusing on trying to write it for both. It’s been really nice. It’s given me confidence that I can write songs for both the (album) and for the live show.”

April 4, 8pm, at the Felton Music Hall

As an elite-level saxophonist and composer, Donny McCaslin plays in many different jazz clubs and other venues all over the world. But Kuumbwa Jazz Center, where he and his quartet will perform on April 15, is the place that inspired him to spend his life playing and writing music.

His return to  his hometown should bring back a flood of memories.

All of his blood family—with the exception of his wife and children—still live around Santa Cruz, including a brother, a sister and their spouses and kids. They are paying their own way into the nonprofit Kuumbwa, he noted proudly.

“Kuumbwa is a very special place for me; I was fortunate to have access to it as a child, so much great music; seeing (drummer) Elvin Jones and the Jazz Machine and McCoy Tyner, a couple weeks later, really changed my life. I really appreciate Tim Jackson and his vision for that place, and how it’s grown. It’s very special to step on that stage and play in front of the community that I grew up with.”

Memories like the weekly gigs his dad, Don McCaslin, would do at the Cooper House—“helping him set up and then sitting on the bandstand all day.” Donny started learning the saxophone at 12, and by 14 was sitting in with combos led by his dad, who was at the center of a jazz scene from  the ’60s to the ’90s.

McCaslin, 57, attended Aptos High School and got an early start with the school’s jazz program, led by veteran musician Don Keller. After high school he attended the prestigious Berklee College of Music and after getting his degree, he joined vibraphonist Gary Burton’s band for four years. In 1991, he relocated to the jazz mecca—New York City.

His career got a boost in 2014 when orchestra leader Maria Schneider recommended him to the late David Bowie. Bowie’s people came to hear McCaslin’s combo play in a Manhattan club “and the next day he emailed me asking to record some music.” In November 2014, McCaslin played saxophone on Bowie’s single “Sue (Or in a Season of Crime).” After that, he played on and contributed arrangements to Bowie’s 2016 swan song album, Blackstar, which won five Grammys.

Bowie’s influence was a major factor in McCaslin taking a major, stylistic turn, when he decided to try foot-pedal-controlled electronics effects to shape his saxophone sound. This effect evolved into being the main thrust of McCaslin’s live shows. “It’s become another tool to expand my sound. I imagine that sound now when I am writing. So, [Bowie] was very prescient.”

McCaslin says the music the band plays this time at Kuumbwa will largely consist of tunes from his most recent release—last year’s I Want More.

Last March, he played Kuumbwa as part of a 40-year reunion of the salsa band he played with as a 16-year old, Los Schleppos Tipicos.

This summer he’ll be playing several festivals overseas, and at the Kennedy Center in NYC with the Bowie tribute orchestra, with 75 pieces and his combo.

“The Bowie experience had a profound effect on my own music,” McCaslin says. “Suddenly, everything felt possible in a way it hadn’t before—hybrid concepts, how to put influences together…everything felt more possible.”

Lately he has also been touring with another iconic pop star,  Elvis Costello. Hardcore jazz purists might not appreciate the nontraditional effects pedals, but being confined by genre “rules” is unhealthy for any creative musician. And McCaslin’s words pretty well sum up what the original creators and movers of jazz roaming the earth have always done, moving the music forward, preventing it becoming a sort of aural museum artifact. Donny McCaslin plays at Kuumbwa Jazz Center at 7pm. Tickets $47.25/$42 adv/$23.50 students. 320-2 Cedar St, Santa Cruz. kuumbwajazz.org

changed this to plural from Tipico

Shemekia Copeland isn’t sure what to make of the Blues Music Award for Instrumentalist Vocals that she received recently.

Does it mean she’s the best singer in blues, male or female? Or was it another way to honor her after she’d already won 14 BMAs in categories from the B.B. King Entertainer of the Year (the top prize), to Album of the Year and Contemporary Blues Female Artist.

She said she was shocked with the award. “I feel like I’m more of a storyteller than a singer. The one thing I can say is I don’t sound like anybody else. My voice is different. That’s one thing I appreciate about myself,” Copeland said.

Widely considered today’s Queen of the Blues, Copeland is back playing shows this year, bringing her songs and vocals to fans around the country.

But she won’t be playing straight-up traditional blues, at least in terms of subject matter.

“In order for anything to grow, it kind of has to evolve,” Copeland said from her California home in a recent interview. “That’s kind of been what I’ve done for a long time—evolve and grow as an artist so my music can do the same. That’s very important for me.”

That evolution can be heard on Done Come Too Far, Copeland’s album from 2022, which is the final installment of a trilogy that also includes 2018’s America’s Child and 2020’s Grammy-nominated Uncivil War—records that find her reflecting on Black America’s past, present and future.

“It’s always been important to me to sing and talk about things that others don’t,” she said. “I want to be different and I want to talk about what goes on in the world. I’m very much trying to bring people together.”

That’s the aim of searing history-based songs like “Too Far To Be Gone” which addresses the Civil Rights movement with allusions to Rosa Parks, John Lewis and Martin Luther King, Jr., and “Gullah Geechee,” which looks at the ongoing impact of slavery.

When it comes to facing difficulties and having burdens to bear, Copeland believes people should recognize we’re all the same. 

“It shouldn’t be ‘my ancestors went through something worse’ or anything like that. That’s one of the things that gets lost,” she said. “We should all be aware of what others had to endure and be sympathetic. Not just ‘screw you.’”

There are other topical songs on the album as well, like “Pink Turns to Red,” on which she decries the country’s gun violence epidemic, and “The Talk,” about a Black mother talking to her son about an encounter with police—something Copeland will soon have to do with her boy, Johnny.

Done Come Too Far isn’t all serious. There are also a pair of funny songs, a zydeco number and a torch song, “Why Why Why,” that’s a stunning showcase for her voice.

Plus, there’s Copeland’s version of her late father Johnny “Clyde” Copeland’s “Nobody But You,” which can only be heard as a loving nod to her past.

At 8 years old, Shemekia joined her father on stage at New York’s famed Cotton Club and spent her teenage years learning the blues and the business with her dad.

Signed to Alligator Records at 18, Copeland immediately became a blues and R&B sensation, hailed for her vocals, performance and personality. Her 2000 album Wicked garnered the first of her four Grammy nominations and 2005’s The Soul Truth earned eight Blues Music Awards, establishing her as one of the genre’s top artists.

With 12 albums and decades of performing now under her belt, the 44-year-old doesn’t feel like all that much is different decades after she began singing with her dad.

But she said she’s grown up.

“I love that. Aging has been the best thing that’s happened to me. Age and acceptance have been wonderful for me,” she said.

Perhaps the biggest change for Copeland came six years ago, with the birth of Johnny, who’s named for her father. She said wants her son to have confidence, to be himself and love himself unconditionally.

“I really want to make the world a better place for him,” Copeland said. “I want to be the best version of myself I can be for him.”

Her husband, Brian Schultz, who makes the new album on the semi-autobiographical “Fell in Love With a Honky,” grew up in Nebraska, in Scottsbluff. But she said the move has been great for her family and her husband, who says “he’s never going back anywhere it snows.”

Copeland is a steady presence on the live music scene, but maintains a schedule more akin to country acts than hard-touring rock or blues musicians, who commonly play five or six shows a week on tours that last a couple of months or so at a time.

“I don’t consider myself a touring musician,” she said, noting she likes performing on weekends, rather than being out on long tours.

“I love going out and performing. I’m a weekend warrior,” she said.

New music, new moves, what better way to celebrate spring? NewMusicWorks and Tandy Beal & Company join together for an extraordinary coupling of music and movement featuring premiere scores by seven living composers, plus new choreographies by Tandy Beal—guaranteed to swing and surprise.

On board are world premieres by Philip Collins, Michael McGushin, Cary Nichols and Stan Poplin, and near-premieres by Hyo-shin Na and Matthew Schumacher, plus a vintage 1990s classic by Jon Scoville.

Hats, a suite by composer Jon Scoville commissioned and premiered by NMW in 1997, was written for clarinet, alto and soprano saxophones, violin, cello, double Bass, piano and percussion. Scoville’s luscious creation is described by impresario/composer Phil Collins as “a five-movement suite of infectious jazziness, celebrating styles from the Caribbean to Harlem. With dances choreographed by the one and only Tandy Beal.”

We checked in with local legend Tandy Beal about her ideas for this new and refreshed choreography. “The heart of the project is an insouciant arc of music that Jon made,” Beal responded, “funny, phat, boisterous, with one beautifully lyrical section. Each of these sections takes its name from a particular style of hat.” It all came about, Beal explained, since “we had all been hibernating through Covid. So I opened the invitation to some other wonderful Santa Cruz dancers to share the joy, to remember who we all are and, once again, to be able to share the skills we have. So these are new and tailored to fit the dancers and this music. Nancy and John Lingemann will do one of their gorgeous tangos to Borsalino, for example, and Karl Schaffer directs MoveSpeakSpin with one of his great prop dances with Jane Real, Laurel Shastri and himself.”

Beal said she has “updated a few repertoire works to delight people—hopefully! In these uneasy times,” she mused, “we need a moment to remember the bearable lightness of being, and that an ebullient spirit is what gets us through.”

Musically, this concert is filled with sizzle starting with a stunning piece by Philip Collins for two soprano voices. Another new work combines the incredible chemistry between Stan Poplin’s double bass and Cary Nichols’ electric guitar. Michael McGushin’s world premiere of The World showcases soprano, clarinet and string quartet. Satellites by Matthew Schumacher features piano and electronics. Domestic Counterpoint is a 2024 world premiere by Philip Collins, who describes the work as “a new octet, composed in memory of Judy Foreman” for orchestral ensemble. Many Paradises, a 2024 work by Hyo-shin Na was written for violin, cello and piano. And two more world premieres, one by Michael McGushin for soprano and piano, with text by poet Jane Hirshfield, and another by Philip Collins for two sopranos with text from a Sappho fragment.

And then the house will rock with the movement of Scoville’s Hats, illustrated by Beal’s choreography. The dances include Trash Can Lid, choreographed by Tandy Beal and performed by Keith Cowans and Jane Real; Skimmer, choreographed by Beal, and performed by Raina Sacksteder and Nicolette Kaempf; Mad Cap, performed by MoveSpeakSpin, Jane Real, Karl Schaffer, Laurel Shastri and directed by Karl Schaffer;Borsalino, choreographed and performed by John and Nancy Lingemann; and Flat Hat, choreographed by Tandy Beal and performed by Keith Cowans, Raina Sacksteder, Nicolette Kampf, Jane Real and Saki. Gorgeous stuff for all the senses.

Dance of the Living Composers Saturday, April 20, 7pm, Peace United Church of Christ, newmusicworks.org Tickets: $35 general; $30 seniors; $15 students.