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Hot Lung
“It’s hard to be in the gray of things, that’s what I’m finding,” Joe Clements says after a thoughtful pause.“Everyone wants absolutes. It’s either this way, or it’s that.” The singer for Santa Cruz...
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Old Friends for Lacy
Talking with Lacy J. Dalton about her Jan. 28 benefit at Moe’s Alley for beloved Santa Cruz guitar player Jimmy Jackson and his wife Ellen O’Hanlon, I mention I’d just listened to “Crazy Blues Eyes”...
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Urban Heat plays inaugural Santa Cruz gig
In the music world, some bands have “it” and some bands don’t. In fact, many don’t. However, when one does have it, its music hits with an unworldly force that some never recover from. Just...
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The Kills Return to the Catalyst
There aren’t many bands who naturally ooze coolness quite like The Kills, the minimalist indie sleaze duo made up of Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince. Two rockers steeped in art and poetry, dripping in...
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David Wilcox — Guided Tour
While many artists express serious reservations about the Spotify music streaming platform – and with good reason – North Carolina-based singer-songwriter David Wilcox has taken a different approach:...
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Going for Baroque
Prepare your ears for the astounding rock music of the 17th century. The 51st season of the acclaimed Santa Cruz Baroque Festival is upon us, and is already the stuff of legend. While it would be...
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Silversun Pickups Take Chances
“You can definitely ruin your chance when it arrives,” says Brian Aubert. “So you have to keep your eyes open when luck is staring at you.” The lead singer, guitar player and co-founder of the Los...
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Big, Big Business
When Big Business–the sludge metal duo of Jared Warren (bass, lead vocals and synthesizer) and Coady Willis (drums, backing vocals)–started in 2004, they weren’t necessarily planning for the future....
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Matisyahu Brings the Heat
Millions and millions have seen the viral clip, but before now no one has heard the deeper story behind it. The clip reveals a Honolulu coffee shop busker singing the Matisyahu anthem “One Day” when a...
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Otoboke Beaver an Unhinged Experience
In the age of instant access, fast streaming and the option to have any style of music from around the globe playing at one’s fingertips, nothing’s shocking. Been there, done that. Seen it all in the...
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Robert Fripp and David Singleton Talk Music
David Singleton is a composer, sound engineer, producer, author and co-founder – with guitarist Robert Fripp – of the record label Discipline Global Mobile (DGM). Since 1992 Singleton has “reluctantly...
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Everything Under The Gun
“So I thought, ‘Oh, it would be fun to try to bum people out instead of making them jump around for once,’” recalls Ian Shelton, lead singer for post-hardcore act, Militarie Gun. Ok, that might not be...
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Jess Williamson Awakening
Jess Williamson finds comfort as the outsider and strength in the “other” on her current album, Time Ain’t Accidental, an often brutally poignant chronicle of the healing miles between rejection and...
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Melissa Etheridge looks back to move ahead
Novelist Thomas Wolfe once quipped that you can never go home. Clearly, he never met Melissa Etheridge, whose latest album, One Way Out, consists of seven songs she penned in the late 1980s and early...
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Wolf Jett’s Album Release Party at the Kuumbwa.
Wolf Jett’s drummer, Jon Payne, and lead vocalist Chris Jones, understand the double-edged chainsaw nature of mountain life, for better (and worse), than most. Childhood friends, Jones and Payne...
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Get The Skinny
“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...
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World Festivals Here
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...
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Marnie Stern
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...
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Omar Sosa Plays Kuumbwa
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...
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Los Straitjackets
Modern-day kings of instrumental surf music Los Straitjackets are touring to celebrate their 30th anniversary. The masked quartet comes to Moe’s Alley March 29. Surf music is often associated with a...
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