Music Picks: July 2-9
Santa Cruz County live music picks for the week of July 2 WEDNESDAY 7/3 GOSPEL PAUL THORN Paul Thorn has been releasing exceptional American roots records for two decades, sampling elements of the...
View ArticleHow Making Furniture Saved Cate Le Bon’s Music
Cate Le Bon was caught in a loop. For the better part of a decade, the Welsh musician had been recording, touring, recording, and then touring again in an endlessly repeating pattern. She had put out...
View ArticleMusic Picks: July 17-23
Santa Cruz County live music picks for the week of July 17 WEDNESDAY 7/17 JAM ROCK CALIFORNIA KIND What makes a jam band work is equal parts knowing your fellow musicians, plus a healthy dose of...
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The Composers Behind Cabrillo’s 2019 Contemporary Music Festival
From the opening salvo honoring Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to a sustained series of premieres by women composers and performers from across the globe, this year’s Cabrillo Festival of...
View ArticleMusic Picks: July 24-30
Santa Cruz County live entertainment picks for the week of July 24 WEDNESDAY 7/24 GARAGE THE ATOM AGE Saxophones are sexy! There are a lot of bands right now playing proto-punk and garage-rock—they...
View ArticleThe Return of Colombian Alt-Rock Icons Aterciopelados
Fans of the seminal Colombian alt-rock band Aterciopelados can rest easy—after years of contention, the frayed creative partnership behind one of Latin America’s most iconic combos has mended....
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The Santa Cruz Roots of Pat Simmons Jr.’s Music and Activism
Most mainlanders know the meaning of aloha, but fewer have heard of Aloha ʻĀina. That’s a bit ironic, considering that the concept of Aloha ʻĀina is arguably even more integral to the Hawaiian way of...
View ArticleMusic Picks: July 31-Aug. 6
Santa Cruz County live entertainment picks for the week of July 24 WEDNESDAY 7/31 COUNTRY NICHOLAS MERZ Nicholas Merz is a storyteller at heart, so it makes sense that his debut solo album The Limits...
View ArticleMusic Picks: August 7-13
Santa Cruz County live entertainment picks for the week of Aug. 7 WEDNESDAY 8/7 COUNTRY GRETCHEN PETERS As a tunesmith for hire, Gretchen Peters’ list of clients is like a music industry who’s who. Not...
View ArticlePreview: Marquis Hill Blacktet at Kuumbwa
Marquis Hill has a theory about time. “I look at it as I’m a part of this continuum,” says the 32-year-old trumpeter. “If you listen to someone like Kendrick Lamar—the rhythms that he’s spitting when...
View ArticleLove Your Local Band: Lauren June
Lauren June was struck by something a customer told her when she was waiting tables and dropped some glasses: “Gravity’s been heavier this week.” “I looked up at him and said, ‘That’s a really...
View ArticleMusic Picks: August 14-20
Santa Cruz County live entertainment picks for the week of Aug. 14 WEDNESDAY 8/14 COUNTRY PHIL MARSH Cats may have nine lives, but Phil Marsh has 10. A founding member of freaky Berkeley folk outfit...
View ArticleMusic Picks: August 21-27
Santa Cruz County live entertainment picks for the week of Aug. 14 WEDNESDAY 8/21 HIP-HOP REVERIE Life wasn’t always easy for Reverie, but at least growing up in L.A.’s Highland Park neighborhood,...
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Doors’ John Densmore on the High Cost of Not Selling Out
Before Jim Morrison was a legend—the pouty, slithering id of the freak-flag generation—the Lizard King was just another L.A. longhair in a rock band, sitting on the sofa during a tedious rehearsal at...
View ArticleMusic Picks: Aug. 28-Sept. 3
Santa Cruz County live entertainment picks for the week of Aug. 28 WEDNESDAY 8/28 INDIE ON DRUGS Some of On Drugs’ songs sound like they were recorded on a tape recorder; screams cut to buzzy...
View ArticleNicki Bluhm’s Nashville Rebound
On last year’s To Rise You Gotta Fall, alt-country singer Nicki Bluhm sings, “How can you know good until you know better?” with soulful passion. If that sounds like the sentiment of a break-up record,...
View ArticleMusic Picks: Sept. 4-10
Santa Cruz County live entertainment picks for the week of Sept. 4 WEDNESDAY 9/4 ROCK THE YAWPERS You always know a band is gonna rock when its name is a Walt Whitman reference. The Yawpers are...
View ArticleJazz Pioneer Bennie Maupin’s Next Chapter
Bennie Maupin doesn’t want to talk about the past. It’s not that the 78-year-old reed maestro has secrets to protect. He’s just more interested in where his music is going than where it’s been. Maupin...
View ArticleLove Your Local Band: Birdo
Heavy-blues stoner rockers Birdo play loud. So loud, in fact, that they provide ear plugs at their shows for the audience. This ear plug generosity isn’t just a show of mind-bending volume intensity;...
View ArticleBen Morrison Reawakens After Brothers Comatose
In 2016, Ben Morrison’s five-piece San Francisco bluegrass band Brothers Comatose sold out the Fillmore. Last year, it nearly happened again. It was a culmination of the 120-day-a-year touring schedule...
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