Santa Cruz Local Bands
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Andre Nickatina
With a knack for haunting lyrics backed by lo-fi beats, Andre Nickatina embodies part of the Bay Area’s acclaimed hip-hop culture. Raised in the infamous Fillmore district, Andre Nickatina delivers rhymes that are dark yet crowd appealing. Fans love the angst-ridden rapper for revealing new dimensions of himself—sans the contrived concepts and corny marketing ploys that most rappers resort to. The self-described “chewy blunt” smoker is known for his wild onstage antics—including ones that might raise the ire of the FBI now that their primary goal is fighting the war on obscenity. In 2005, Nickatina received the Bay Area Rap Scene Award for Underground Artist of the Year. Also armed with a penchant for producing, Nickatina formed his own music label Fillmoe Coleman Records in 1998. Since then he has produced nine albums and a short film. (Michelle Camerlingo)
Ariel
Every music-loving parent on the West Coast knows Linda Arnold's music. These same music lovers could easily be found standing in line at Starbucks listening to 'Your Kiss' or 'The Way', two songs by Linda's daughter, Ariel. Behold, Ariel's newest CD is getting a lot of attention outside of our small town. She's played piano, written songs and performed on stage with mom from a very early age. By her 14th birthday she'd created Mayim, an a cappella trio. In addition to teaching vocals lessons to individuals and couples, Ariel performs as leader of several Bay Area women's choirs. She's singing her way across Europe this June, so let's send her off in style. Cayuga Vault; $10; 8pm. (MM)
Arnocorps2
Holzfeuer doesn’t break character when he is with the ArnoCorps. Though it is rumored that he is a mild mannered Pixar employee for the majority of the week, if he is even remotely close to his band or its business he immediately slips into an Austrian accent and begins to flex gratuitiously. If an unsuspecting journalist approaches him backstage, any lulls in the conversation will be filled with quick sets of pushups or squat thrusts. Backed by the self-proclaimed “Greatest Band of All Time,” Holzfeuer expounds upon Austrian Folk Tales, the benefits of protein shakes and the theories of both Locke and Nietzsche. The band is known for forcing its audience to perform mid-set workouts and will take no amount of backtalk from mere mortals. Their massive pectorals and bulging deltoids will be supported by Count Dante & The Black Dragon Fighting Society as well as Meat Hammer. (PK)
Aza
The music of AZA is alternately ecstatic, passionate, haunting, and joyous. Masterfully crafted compositions give way to blistering improvisations as Fattah Abbou and Mohamed Aoualou weave their way through traditional Tamazight (Berber) music and dance. This time around the dynamic and dexterous Moroccan-born duo will play without their unusually skilled cohorts in order to explore a more intimate set. Expect a multitude of plucked and bowed strings, sharp polyrhythmic percussion and tight harmonies annunciated in numerous languages. Aza is a local musical treasure, but be warned – it is near impossible to avoid falling madly in love with these two musicians as they peel away your inhibitions by revitalizing an ancient music that is also really, really groovy. (Val Hall)
Birds Fled From Me
Indie
Camper Van Beethoven
While their status as a Santa Cruz band who "made it" is well-known, Camper Van Beethoven's reunion couldn't come at a better time to reconsider their considerable influence on modern music. Mixing punk, folk, guitar-skronk, country, ska and gypsy music, the band pioneered a sound in the mid-'80s that has in the decades that followed become the archetype of folk-tinged indie rock. CVB have pulled off the feat of releasing a CD, New Roman Times, that is just as vital as any of their work released during their formative years. Far from being a nostalgia act, the band have shown the young ones how it's done with an album just as eclectic, caustic and memorable as any of their work. It may not be 1985 anymore, but the opportunity to see this band play an intimate hometown venue like the Attic twenty years later is just as much of a treat. Vermillion Lies opens the show. (Paul Davis)
Carne Cruda
Never underestimate a band that includes tuba with a guiro attached to it. Anyone who can carry a rhythm on a serrated gourd while chunking out tumbao on the tuba is a musician worth watching. Carne Cruda has left our fair city for the coziness of a modified Oakland warehouse, but they will return for one night to play with Diego’s Umbrella. Camilo Landau, in between playing gigs with Quetzal, he has managed to keep this impressive group of musicians together despite their collective move. With the addition of former Ukiah resident and bassist Ayla Davila and virtuoso drummer David Flores to the mix, the group sounds tighter than ever. The trouble factory that is Cruda is quite adept at playing traditional Cuban music whose lyrics are guaranteed to upset all members of a multilingual audience. Besides, you have to love a band whose saxophonist grows a beard specifically to look more like Marx.
Chop Tops
The Chop Tops might be the hardest working band in Santa Cruz right now. Not only are they booked constantly, but their shows are marathons of high-energy, adrenal action. As a trio the band has developed a near telepathic synergy and over the years they have learned how to not only rock, but straight-out control a crowd. Now with a huge backlog of ripping rockabilly tunes in the basket, the band can hold court for hours, giving all their pompadour-ed and primped-up fans something to should about. One note of warning though, repeated applications of their sonic salve can be habit forming. Thankfully, it’s homegrown. (PK)
Comets on Fire
Bask in the vast, dark, fuzziness that is Comets on Fire. This legendary local garage band turned international SubPop sensations might share some charming anecdotes from their recent adventures in Europe. But we hope not, because charming is the last thing we want from the Comets. We thirst for their apocalyptically heavy riffs, their scattered emotionalism, their echoplex–ified textural mutations. Comets on Fire explore songs which conform in no way to verse–chorus–verse expectations. Their expansive Lo-Fi majesty will be superbly complemented by Massachusetts drone collage artists The Sunburned Hand of Man. I’m sure there is some sort of joke between demigods regarding sunburned hands and flaming comets. (Val Hall)
Craig’s Brother
Sometimes you just can’t keep a good project down. Witness the revival of the Family Guy. Off the air for three years, now resurrected by rabid fans to its former glory on Sunday nights. So too runs the story of Craig’s Brother. The group disbanded in 2001, but their presence on the internet never went away. Fueled by fan interest and the unique songwriting voice of Ted Bond, the group was kept on electronic artificial respiration for a few years before the group got back together. Finding a niche in the whole Jesus scene, the group has expanded its repertoire and no longer sings about hanging out with "just a bunch of drunks I can't stand.” Righteous Anger, Addiction Theory, Smithers and Tore Back also perform.
Depth Charge Revolt
Indie / Post-punk
Featured Local Band
The Devil Makes Three
Punky Blues
Drifting Compass
Coming on like the ghost of a bullet-riddled hillbilly, Pete Bernhard, Cooper McBean and Lucia Turino are exhuming the rootsy, backporch country rockin’ acoustic trio with otherworldly success. The Devil Makes Three spins a wicked web of transfixing tales—the songwriting is at times as captivating as a campfire, straddling the line between the grand tradition of the gritty, whiskey-swilling depressives of yore and your modern-day barfly. They’ve also got giddy, rollicking, two-stepping romps for those looking to cut a rug. But most importantly, they play the hell out of their instruments, picking and strumming with bloodied-finger intensity, coming together with a loose, relaxed style of playing and bringing it all home with Bernhard’s scrappy, scratchy voice and twangy vocal harmonies. (Mike Connor)
Dis Moi
Mayim may be able to dispel the chills of winter with their a capella offerings, but their show is in Fall, not on the Winter solstice. Dis Moi, Santa Cruz’s other proud three-piece a capella outfit makes beautiful music no matter what season they play in. The closely-knit ensemble is known for both its striking original compositions and arrangements of songs from around the world, including offerings from Nigeria and Bulgaria. There is an above average chance that the group will cart out Heather Houston’s “Lumin Solare Fiat,” for this show. After all, it was written for the winter solstice. Coincidence? I think not. (Peter Koht)
Dredg
Every once in a while a band comes along that simply rocks my socks off. Dredg is most definitely in that category. They play massive art metal concept rock that’s been treated to multi-layered, intricate production in the vein of Radiohead, Mars Volta and Pink Floyd, with a brilliant knack for combining weird avant-garde sounds with stunning melodies and beautiful vocals. The merging of jazz drumming, emotional singing and the perfect syncopation of bass and guitar along with the use of non-rock instruments like dulcimer, trumpet, and saxophone add a great sense of eclecticism and the moods range from slow, laid back jazz beats to pounding, adrenaline-pumping cadences of emotion. If Mars Volta and Sigur Ros met halfway, I imagine it would sound something like this and it's a rare, unusual treat.
Electric Leaves
Indie / Ambient / Americana
The Expendables
Bodily harm and property damage follows this four piece like Breezies flock to Sean Paul concerts. When not mounting the stage to throw out dub-influenced, surfer-friendly rock, the Expendables entice and incite each other into ever escalating feats of physical idiocy. It would be hard to explain to the attending physician just what possessed you to shoot yourself in the nuts with an Airsoft gun or why you Evan shoot a bottle rocket at you, but I’m sure most staffers at Dominican have heard “Adam made me do it.” Fresh of the release of their DVD, the Expendable return to the Catalyst stage where in addition to thoroughly rocking the joint, they will encourage lewd. lascivious and potentially dangerous behavior. Hopefully bottles of piss won’t be involved. (PK)
Fainting Goats
The origin of Fainting Goats can be traced back to one fateful evening in a Juneau, AK karaoke bar circa mid 2003. It is here that future band members, executing near perfect El Debarge classics were suddenly vaporized and teleported to a small garage in laid back Santa Cruz CA's east side. A gestation period began, orchestrated by towering Sophia Loren like beings on floating, stone surfboards. A series of dreams revolving around turbo charged pinto wagons, boy meets girl, and city sized sombreros in the sky introduced a catalyst.
Giraffes? Giraffes!
Experimental / Indie / Psychedelic
Good Riddance
Singer Russ Rankin of punk legends Good Riddance has a bone to pick with the U.S. government. Don't we all? His take on our sad condition is that we Americans are so blinded and manipulated by the corporate press that we accept a flawed two-party democracy which his quickly falling into fascism. Doesn't that just make you want to put on your combat boots and jump into a big, angry mosh pit? Los Dryheavers (without a doubt this writer's favorite band name ever) will open the show with their fiery punk en espanol madness. First fill yourself with beer during the Dryheavers set, then fill yourself with righteous political ire with Good Riddance. (Val Hall)
The Huxtables
The Huxtables (whom critics say are “fun”) are perhaps the most ridiculous band ever to come out of this town. Not ridiculous or campy like the Aquabats, but just plain absurd. Like eighth season Simpsons absurd, no, Monty Python absurd no, “Fishing with John” absurd. Just plain silly. With songs about Dungeons and Dragons armor classes, falling for the post lady and playing video games at Ferrell’s this band celebrates the inner geek in rhymed couplets. Joined in concert by the bovine-based punk of Mule Train and Camus-rock of Nothing Left, this almost-but-not-quite final show of Battle of the Bands might possibly be the highlight of the series. Bring your ten sided dies folks, cause “ We are thee Huxtables, and you can’t fuxtables with us – no way!”
Jack Bowers
Jack Bowers has been on the scene in Santa Cruz almost as long as the Redwoods. First playing the Kuumbwa in the year of my birth, 1978, Bowers toured California with his folk/rock group Okanookie, backed up Lacy J. Dalton when she was known as Jill Croston and even managed to put in some time on a commune. Luckily, his time spent with the unwashed was less intense than the time being done by the majority of his students in the last twenty years. In 1981, Bowers presented a songwriting workshop at Soledad State Prison. Out of that experience, he managed to create a groundbreaking music theory and jazz improvisation program within the walls of the facility. While this performance will feature tunes and charts from all stages of Bower’s illustrious musical career, the centerpiece will be the premiere of his “Soledad Suite,” a piece based on the power of music to move even the most caged of souls. A multimedia experience, the Suite will feature the talents and contributions of photographer Pail Albert and poet Blair Braz–Valentine.
Jackie Rocks Band
Pop-rock / Alternative
Lost Boys
Punk / Hardcore
Man/Miracle
Rock
MAYIM
Last year’s breakthroughs have a way of becoming today’s clichés. It seems that too few artists manage to transcend this unfortunate formula and shine ever brighter as time unfolds. Escaping the ravages of time and vagaries of fashion is what places vocal trio Mayim among Santa Cruz’s most precious natural resources. Drawing on a lifetime of experience (Ariel Thiermann, Jemila Alldis and Natalie Bridgeman have performed together since high school), these divas have crafted an intimate dynamic that blurs the boundary between song and singer. The only problem is a scarcity of live concerts- this rare appearance offers up trademark a capella compositions alongside new arrangements featuring cellist Barry Phillips and guitarist Michael Kraus. (MES)
Monsters Are Not Myths
They live amongst us. In closets behind the winter coats, under the bed, in rooms to dark to make out the furniture. They are not myths, these monsters, they are here, they are real and they will eat your soul (and your esophagus too). Luckily a local trio is dedicating its entire recorded catalogue to excising the threat of monsters living amongst us. To follow on this goal, they have release another recording of stripped down indie pop and rock called Vague Smiles. It’s title is an appropriate approximation of how your face will appear as they launch into infectious little ditties about Jello Shots, Reganomics and Dress Up Time. The kids these days, they’ve got their priorities straight. Fight the monster menace, support the myth busters. (PK)
Mountain Animal Hospital
Progressive / Indie / Rock
Miznoma
Funk Rock
Mule Train
Indie-country / Punk
Ray Brown’s Great Big Band
Anyone in this town who cringes when they hear Fa over a dominant chord has Ray Brown to thank. For the last three decades Ray has been at the forefront of jazz education in the Monterey Bay Area, both at Cabrillo College in Aptos and UCSC. While his ears are remarkable and his teaching style effective in the extreme, the man’s real talent lies in arrangement. He’s penned charts for Stan Kenton and Count Basie and his book of arrangements is a highly coveted repository of harmonic invention. Whether he’s sprucing up his brother Steve’s chart, “Major Brown’s Minor Blues.” or reworking “On Green Dolphin Street” Ray writes horn arrangements that are strikingly literate, instantly catchy and always properly voice led. He’s a treasure, whether as a musician, an arranger, a teacher or a mentor. (Peter Koht)
Sambada
Rivalry, whether friendly, coincidental, or bitter, is a curious animal—the Beatles or the Stones, Coke or Pepsi, The Metro Santa Cruz or, uh, nevermind. Two local bands: Sambada and SolCaribe are up against each other on this, the most packed night of the Santa Cruz entertainment calendar. Sambada, purveyors of fine Brazilian grooves and high energy musical showcases will mount the stage at the Catalyst. Dancers will dance, singers will sing and the bacchanalian exploits inside will only be matched by the hedonism that will go down outside on Pacific Avenue. The long-standing guardians of the Samba line, Sambada shows are always enjoyable pastiches of arpeggiated chords, booming drums and swaying, sweaty flesh. (PK)
Serendipity Project
I have been spending a lot of time thinking about words lately, which is fortunate given the linguistic acrobatics that this group facilitates on a regular basis. While researching the Serendipity Project's frantic freestyle battles, I came upon the history of the word serendipity. It’s a word invented by the English author Horace Walpole, and its based on the old word for Sri Lanka: Serendip. Neat. Like my accidental discovery of that bit of historical curiosity, many local hip-hop heads have been pleasantly surprised by the discovery of this group's originality and energy. Combining audience participation and some terribly awesome chops, this group is one of the brightest spots on the scene in our little town. They will be brightening our lives Wednesday at the Catalyst and Thursday at Club Octane with special guest Radioactive.
Sheena
Rock / Electronica / New Wave
STS9
Electronica / Rock
Universal Language
Though I am sure that members of this group will balk at the association, this band really resembles the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas. Musical materials move without tariff or import duties between various regions with little oversight or interference from administrative agencies. However, unlike the FTAA, Cuba is highly involved in these musical exchanges. In fact, the son montuno seems to be the least common denominator in this groups eclectic mix of Carribean, Mexican, Peruvian and American music. With the addition of several new members, including the interstellar jazz prophet Joel Ford and the baby Italian stallion Gianni Staiano, this group is now approaching double-digit membership. With special guest Radioactive, this band is set to take to the stage with their mixed bag of musical tricks and influences. Catalyst; $7–9.53; 9pm (PK)
The Vox Jaguars
Garage Rock
The White Album Ensemble
The talented and local members of the White Album Ensemble have done what the Beatles themselves never could – they played the entire classic album straight through in an impressive display of ingenuity and skill. Then they performed the entire Rubber Soul and Revolver albums. Most impressively and recently the band performed Sgt. Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour complete with live string quartet, tabla drums, tambura drones, and trumpet fanfares. So basically, these guys know every Beatles song inside and out. Now they are taking that talent and going acoustic at the intimate and sonically pleasing Kuumbwa. This is a great opportunity to comfortably hear this great and powerful music performed live. All you need is love.
Wubakia
Psychedelic / Progressive / Jam Band
