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Upcoming Events in Santa Cruz
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Little Dragon
at the Rio Theater; $12.60; 8pm
When music schools said no to the aspirations of singer Yukimi Nagano and keyboardist Håkan Wirenstrand, the rest of the world said hell, yes. With drummer Erik Bodin and bassist Fredrick Källgren, Nagano’s high school friends, the four Swedes put their first album together by laying instrumental tracks separately and recording over each other while living together in their Gothenburg studio, the Seal Colony. With a name inspired by Nagano’s studio tantrums, Little Dragon followed its first world tour by revamping its sound on the new release Machine Dreams, resulting in an electronic soul/pop blend that pulses through the bloodstream and chatters teeth–in the best way.
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Hot Buttered Rum
at Moe's Alley; $12 adv/$15 door; 9pm
As festive as the syrupy concoction from which the band took its name, Hot Buttered Rum's bluegrass throwdowns are certain to delight fingerpicking aficionados. Hailing from the Sierras, the band effectively conjures that rural feel, evoking the sense of an all-night acoustic dance party in the middle of the woods. With equal measures of crowd-pleasing verve and virtuosity, Hot Buttered Rum's amalgam of bluegrass, blues, rock, jazz and old-time folk satisfies both the music wonks and partiers pulling off a jug of firewater. This show doubles as a release party for the band's latest, Limbs Akimbo.
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Port O'Brien
at the Brookdale Lodge; $12.25; 8pm
At the Festival in the Forest in Big Sur two years ago, the Oakland-based folk outfit Port O’Brien distributed a barrage of pots and pans to audience members to encourage rhythm participation in their highly contagious anthemic singalong, “I Woke Up Today.” Today, such rambunctiousness seems an eon away. The release of their new album, Threadbare, marks a bittersweet period for the group: in the early stages of recording their sophomore album, band member Cambria Goodwin’s younger brother was killed in a car accident. But instead of taking a break from recording, Port O’Brien’s core members, Goodwin and Van Pierszalowski, embraced the tragedy and used it to craft what may be their most alluring work yet. Singer songwriter Lauren Shera and Tyson Vogel of Two Gallants open tonight's show at the Brookdale.
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Turbonegra
at the Blue Lagoon; $5; 9pm
Norweigan leather-punk outfit Turbonegro staked its claim to fame on the subversion of gender and sexuality, so it's not surprising to find a tribute band inverting the equation. The six-piece San Francisco tribute act Turbonegra does just that, featuring six punk-ass chicks donning Turbonegro's faux-leather-daddy jeans. As a thought exercise, it's pretty muddled, but then again, so is Turbonegro's raison d'être. All that really matters is whether or not Turbonegra does justice to the sheer rocking majesty of their source material, which they clearly do.
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Dropkick Murphys
at the Catalyst; $22 adv/$25 door; 8pm
Punk rock and Irish culture have always been destined for each other. The Pogues of Ireland knew that in the ’80s, and the Dropkick Murphys of Boston figured it out 10 years later. Picture a drunken pub chant or Irish funeral dirge sped up and paired with electric guitars and amplified bagpipes, and you’ve got a good idea of the Murphys’ M.O. Coming up on their 15-year anniversary as a band—a lifetime in punk years—the Dropkick boys are at the top of their game and the top of their genre as the gold standard in Celtic punk.
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Vampire Weekend
at the Catalyst;$20; 8pm
Few indie acts rose higher faster in 2008 than New York's Vampire Weekend. Despite their reputation among the hipster elite as Ivy League snobs, the VW boys were able to uncover a rare, unexplored musical combination in Africanized indie pop. Songs like "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" and "A-Punk" were named in Rolling Stone's 100 best songs of the year in ’07 and ’08 as the band brought a playful and delicate edge to the indie rock craft. The Vamps’ sophomore effort Contra has more of a surf-rock sound but maintains the same clean pop sparkle and plenty of singer Ezra Koenig's big-word wit. See them live! As Columbia graduates, they’ve got a lot of school loan debt to pay off.
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Milton Nascimento
at Rio Theatre; $45 gold/$30 gen; 7:30pm
While musicians from around the world have recorded his songs, Brazilian superstar Milton Nascimento is often the most effective interpreter of his own music. With a gorgeous multi-octave voice and uncanny gift for combining disparate elements in his arrangements, Nascimento possesses a vast sonic palette. He’s gleaned influences from far and wide, seamlessly blending rock and jazz, Portuguese fado and Spanish guitars, Andean flutes and Gregorian chantsWhile his last North American tour celebrated the 50th anniversary of bossa nova, Nascimento will be drawing on his vast treasure trove of songs at the Rio Theatre on Monday with a powerhouse quintet featuring fellow Mineiros drummer Lincoln Cheib and guitarist Wilson Lopes Cançado. The sultry Chilean-born New York singer Claudia Acuña, who has recorded a series of ravishing albums with many of the finest American and Latin American jazz musicians, also performs as a special guest.
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Leon Russell
at Moe's Alley; $30 adv/$35 door; 8pm
His former partner in crime Phil Spector may have command the headlines of late, but session maven Leon Russell has his own share of eccentricities, starting with a beard that puts the members of ZZ Top, in their totality, to shame. Fortunately, Russell’s diversions are far more prosaic than Spector’s, even if he does have a share of infamy in the classic rock lore. As both a session player and a songwriter to the stars, Russell has few peers—he could probably retreat to a French villa on the songwriting royalties from “Superstar” alone (yes, the Carpenters song,) but even in his mid-sixties, Russell continues to take it to the road as a solo act. While many of the marquee stars he played with or wrote hits for burned out long ago, Russell is still holding it down, teaching a lesson of patience and long-term vision to the unheralded session players of today.
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Grand Archives and Man/Miracle
at the Crepe Place; $10; 9pm
The panoramic pop of Grand Archives should go down smooth for Band of Horses partisans, and for good reason—Grand Archives is the project of former BOH guitarist Mat Brooke. That signature guitar sound is in evidence here, as crisp, arpeggio guitar lines rise from the atmospheric arrangements like mist from a lake. Far from derivative, Grand Archives demonstrates the integral role Brooke played in defining the Band of Horses sound while standing alone as its own confident and realized project. Openers Man/Miracle, formerly of Santa Cruz, offer a jittery counterpoint to the proceedings, with a sound that weds romantic pop to angular post-punk.
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Birds Fled From Me
at The Black Lodge; free; 7pm
Underground rock show alert! Three of Santa Cruz’s most up-and-coming indie acts are set to play a free show at the Beach Hill house-turned-venue the Black Lodge. Hugely talented and equally adorable indie starlet Rachel Williams and her band Birds Fled From Me will headline the event with their brand of syrupy sweet pop numbers. One-man rock show Craig Prentice, a.k.a. Hermit Convention, brings his microphone, looping pedal and bass guitar—all the tools he needs to drop poetic, Dylanesque yarns. And finally, local trio Green Flash will be on hand to color spacey surf rock scribbles all over the bill. All told, the show should be a stethoscope pressed to the pulse of the Santa Cruz indie scene.
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Wooster
at the Cypress Lounge; $12; 8:30pm
Wooster celebrates the release of its new album The Heights of Things with a downtown bash engineered to show off the band’s original brand of funkabilly. Vocalists Caroline Kuspa and Brian Gallagher form the yin-yang of sweet and sandpaper over the shredding of lead guitarist Zack “Nutty” Donaghue bone-crunching riffs. Drummer Nate Frederick and bassist Bobby Hanson, the recently added rhythm section, funk it up for everybody, and organist Gianni Staiano and hornblower Dustin Hengl round out the sound that makes this group stand out. Bringing together Santa Cruz’s favorite styles–hip-hop, rock, reggae and blues–Wooster is becoming one of the highest heights on the Santa Cruz music scene.
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Loch Lomond
at The Brookdale Lodge; $12; 9pm
It’s most likely that Portland indie pop quintet Loch Lomond named itself after the famous 172,000 acre Scottish lake by the same name and not the 175-acre swimming hole northeast of Santa Cruz, but we’ll call it a tip of the hat anyway. The group, fresh from a starstruck tour with the Decemberists, plays sparkling pop riffs beefed up with the matriarchal bellowing of Miss Jade Eckler. With the Loch monsters comes Santa Cruz’s quintessential prog rock set Mountain Animal Hospital. Soon to finish their much-anticipated followup to 2008’s Startled by Deer, the MAH boys bring a complex, virtuosic approach and the most nasal falsetto on the California coast.
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Suicidal Tendencies
at The Catalyst; $22 adv/$24 door; 9pm
Skatepunk godfathers Suicidal Tendencies have been mining teen angst for decades, making the band's petulant screams of defiance to authority figures a bit jarring considering the advanced age of its members. Even though he's no longer the snot-nosed punk that led the band during its salad days, vocalist Mike Muir is just as sneering and pissed as he always was. Creatively, the band has been treading water for a long time—it hasn’t released a full-length album of new material since 2000—but there's nothing wrong with a band that has penned so many seminal punk and metal anthems taking a victory lap.
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Finch
at The Catalyst; $14 advance/$17door; 6:30pm
Originally a Deftones cover band called Numb, Finch has become a post-hardcore powerhouse in the past decade. Over that time they have worked with three different labels and quite a few members, all the while evolving their sound. After their well-received first album, What It Is To Burn, Finch released Say Hello to Sunshine, which has a different and much more authentic post-hardcore sound. Currently in the process of recording their third and reportedly darkest full-length album, Finch brings new material to the Catalyst with co-headliners BlessTheFall for the Atticus 2009 fall tour.
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Steve Gadd
at The Kuumbwa Jazz Center; $27 adv/$30 door (7pm); $22 adv/$25 door (9pm)
From behind his trademark Yamaha skins and dozens of artists over the years, including Paul McCartney and Erik Clapton, comes drummer Steve Gadd, one of the most influential names in the art of jazz beats. Through sitting in with Dizzy Gillespie at the tender age of 11 and studying music while in the army, Gadd formed his unique blend of compositional and wildly fun drumming. Now he’s blasting his way through Santa Cruz, and he’s bringing his friends along. With saxophonist Ronnie Cuber, guitarist Paul Bollenback and organist Joey DeFrancesco, this show is a can’t-miss for any self-respecting jazz fan.
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Snoop Dogg
at The Catalyst;$49 adv/$54 door; 8pm
It’s a classic American story: Young, ambitious Crip grows up to face cocaine charges and do time in prison; then he raps in front of the right guy and ends up a world famous hip-hop star, producer, DJ, actor, pimp, pornstar, habitual criminal, legal marijuana spokesman and multi-millionaire. Yes, Cordozar Calvin Broadus speaks for many when he says this great country is “off the heezy fo’ sheezy.” And though you may have to save your weed money for a couple weeks to afford the tickets, the mere act of observing Mr. Dogg with one’s hands in the air, waving like they just don’t care, is said to affect the brain is the same way as the stickiest of the icky.
