Music Picks: Sept. 18-24
Santa Cruz live entertainment picks for the week of Sept. 18 WEDNESDAY 9/18 CELTIC THE TANNAHILL WEAVERS When Scottish group the Tannahill Weavers formed in the late ’60s, the idea of playing...
View ArticleTitus Andronicus Watches the World Burn
Punk music doesn’t get much more high concept than Titus Andronicus. By the time the New Jersey upstart released its second record in 2010, there were already album-length metaphors, recordings of...
View ArticleOingo Boingo Reunites for Dead Band’s Party
My parents took me to some concerts when I was a kid, but Oingo Boingo was the first concert I cared enough about to get to myself—which is saying something, since I wasn’t even old enough to drive...
View ArticlePatti Smith’s Lonely New Year at the Dream Inn
My family and I have a New Year’s tradition, born of my daughter’s experience living in Korea. We bypass staying up past midnight—a custom too freighted with booze and melancholia anyway. Instead, we...
View ArticleLove Your Local Band: Enemy Of My Enemy
When vocalist Christa Bortolin first met up with Brian Ziel and Jason Graham to play music, she was under the impression that it would be old-school skate-punk. For one thing, the group’s resumé...
View ArticleMusic Picks: October 2-8
Santa Cruz County live entertainment picks for the week of October 2 THURSDAY 10/3 CABARET MARCHFOURTH Have you ever watched a band and wondered to yourself: Do they really need three guitarists? Isn’t...
View ArticleMusic Picks: Oct. 9-15
Santa Cruz County live entertainment picks for the week of Oct. 9 WEDNESDAY 10/9 INDIE ZACH DEPUTY By now, most people have seen someone perform solo with a bunch of instruments and a looping rig, and...
View ArticleHenry Chadwick Resets After Indie Success
In 2016, local singer-songwriter Henry Chadwick’s life flipped upside down when he released his debut solo EP Guest At Home. One of the songs, “Alright,” was getting an unusually high number of Spotify...
View ArticleJoel Ross Brings Vibraphones Back
For his new combo Good Vibes, Joel Ross assembled a band featuring some of jazz’s most prodigious young improvisers. The Chicago-reared vibraphonist spent months crafting a book of tunes designed to...
View ArticleSanta Cruz Rapper Evo2raw’s Biggest Comeback Yet
By last year, it seemed like local rapper and UCSC alum Ivan Kovacevich—better known by his stage name Evo2raw—had turned a corner in his music career. He was fresh off a mixtape that landed him a...
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Santa Cruz County live entertainment picks for the week of Oct. 23 WEDNESDAY 10/23 HIP-HOP KOOL KEITH No one knows the exact moment alt-rap became an official subgenre, but whenever it was, Kool Keith...
View ArticleMannequin Pussy Pushes the Boundaries of Punk
When Philadelphia punk rockers Mannequin Pussy were getting ready to record their third full-length record, they were excited that Epitaph was interested in releasing it. The only problem was that old...
View ArticleMusic Picks: Oct. 30-Nov. 5
Santa Cruz County live entertainment picks for the week of Oct. 30 WEDNESDAY 10/30 INDIE PILE If you like your indie rock angular, sharp and a little menacing, then Pile is what you have been looking...
View ArticlePreview: Mellow Fellow at Catalyst
Last year, Ralph Lawrence “Polo” Reyes played his first show ever under his washed-out, downer-pop moniker Mellow Fellow. That first show was at a dive bar in his native Philippines. Once word got out...
View ArticleMusic Picks: Nov. 6-12
Santa Cruz County live entertainment picks for the week of Nov. 6 WEDNESDAY 11/6 FOLK VETIVER Fifteen years after their acclaimed debut, indie-folks Vetiver release their seventh album this month, and...
View ArticleDan Bern on Smashed Guitars and His Move to Santa Cruz
“Now we’ve reached the part of our show where we invite notable people on to ask them questions about things they know nothing about. Speaking of ignorance, a couple of weeks ago we featured a story...
View ArticleSteel House and the Trouble With All-Star Ensembles
While Steel House’s 2017 debut album was quickly deemed an artistic triumph that expanded the possibilities of jazz, the trio’s greatest accomplishment may have been the sheer feat of logistics it...
View ArticleEddie Spaghetti’s Solo Resurgence
The Supersuckers just got back from a month of touring Europe with the Australian hard rock band Airbourne, and the band’s longtime frontman Eddie Spaghetti was reminded of a valuable lesson about rock...
View ArticleMusic Picks: Nov. 20-26
WEDNESDAY 11/20 INDIE HIPPO CAMPUS The tracklist on Hippo Campus’ breakout album Bambi reads like a mental breakdown explained in a spoken-word piece: “Mistakes,” “Anxious,” “Doubt,” “Why Even Try.”...
View ArticleBuilt to Spill’s Rio Revival
For a generation of indie rockers, the 1999Built to Spill album Keep It Like a Secret is one of the great heavyweights, an album up there with the undefeated champs like Pavement’s Crooked Rain,...
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