Santa Cruz Music and Nightlife
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'''at Catalyst; $15 adv/$19 door; 8pm<br />
'''at Catalyst; $15 adv/$19 door; 8pm<br />
When Bradley Nowell died in 1996 at the cursed age of 28 [see: Hendrix, J., Cobain, K., Joplin, J.] it was over the first rumblings from the music press that his band, Long Beach trio Sublime, was on the verge of becoming a mainstream success. What happened instead, whether by Nowell’s martyrdom or something bigger, is that Sublime was not only a success but helped define a generation. Almost 15 years later it’s still one of the greatest party bands to ever grace a kegger P.A. system. Rhode Island quartet Badfish pays homage to Nowell and Co. with true-to-art renditions of reggae, punk and hip-hop fusion classics like “40oz to Freedom,” “Santeria” and “Garden Grove.”
When Bradley Nowell died in 1996 at the cursed age of 28 [see: Hendrix, J., Cobain, K., Joplin, J.] it was over the first rumblings from the music press that his band, Long Beach trio Sublime, was on the verge of becoming a mainstream success. What happened instead, whether by Nowell’s martyrdom or something bigger, is that Sublime was not only a success but helped define a generation. Almost 15 years later it’s still one of the greatest party bands to ever grace a kegger P.A. system. Rhode Island quartet Badfish pays homage to Nowell and Co. with true-to-art renditions of reggae, punk and hip-hop fusion classics like “40oz to Freedom,” “Santeria” and “Garden Grove.”
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=== Friday, February 12 ===
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<li class="listing">
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{{#img:
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image=HuunHuurTu.jpg
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| alt= Huun Huur Tu & Carmen Rizzo at Rio Theatre in santa cruz, ca
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| class=floatleft-thumb
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}}
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==== Huun Huur Tu & Carmen Rizzo ====
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'''at Rio Theatre; $21; 8pm<br />
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In the race to come up with new musical sounds using electronic gadgets, computer programs and augmented instruments, a lot of musicians have forgotten about good old-fashioned human vocal chords. Correcting this oversight is producer and electronica guru Carmen Rizzo, who’s joined with the Tuvan quartet Huun Huur Tu on an album of “Tuv-tronica” based on the ancient art of throat singing. Using traditional instruments like the igil, khomus and doshpuluur to complement the humming harmonies, the collaboration roams into trancelike electronic soundscapes for a style that’s guaranteed to place it among the strangest additions to any play list.
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<li class="listing">
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{{#img:
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image=JustinTownesEarle.jpg
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| alt= Justin Townes Earle at Crepe Place in santa cruz, ca
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| class=floatleft-thumb
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}}
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==== Justin Townes Earle ====
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'''at Crepe Place; $15; 9pm<br />
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In most cases, the work of a famous musician's kid is nature's way of telling listeners to stay away. There's good reason for that: raised to the top via nepotism and name recognition, most children of notable artists have barely earned their stripes. Justin Townes Earle stands as one of the rare exceptions: estranged from his father Steve Earle for much of his youth, Earle made a name for himself in country music the hard way. This is evidenced in Earle's work—roadweary songs that draw from ’40s and ’50s folk and western swing more than they do the family trust. Despite the family brand, Justin Townes Earle is undoubtedly his own man.
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<li class="listing">
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{{#img:
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image=Stills.jpg
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| alt= Stephen Stills at Catalyst in santa cruz, ca
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| class=floatleft-thumb
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}}
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==== Stephen Stills ====
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'''at Catalyst; $29 adv/$33 door; 8pm<br />
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Stephen Stills is one of the few household names of the ’60s still touring. And while he's certainly earned the right to rest on his laurels—he stands as the only artist to be inducted twice into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame, for Buffalo Springfield and for Crosby, Stills and Nash—he continues to challenge himself. In fact, it seems that the irrepressible guitarist can't be held down: in January 2008 he beat an early prostate cancer diagnosis.Instead of laying low, he's has hit the road and released two albums since then: Pieces, a collection of outtakes by his '70s outfit Manassas, and October's Live at Shepherd's Bush.
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=== Saturday, February 13 ===
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<li class="listing">
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{{#img:
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image=Mermen.jpg
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| alt= The Mermen at Moe's Alley in santa cruz, ca
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| class=floatleft-thumb
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}}
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==== The Mermen ====
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'''at Moe's Alley; $12 adv/$15 door; 9pm<br />
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It might seem an obvious comparison, but there are few better ways to put it: The Mermen's furious guitar riffs really do come with the rolling force of a tidal wave, with heavy swells of reverb that crash into one another to marvelous effect. The San Francisco trio has found a way to take that most economical of forms, surf rock, and tie it to its theoretical antithesis, psychedlia. On paper it shouldn't work, but over the past two decades the Mermen have proven that it can. Though the band performs regularly, it's far from prolific, and it's latest release, In God We Trust, is the first in a decade. A new album by this outfit is reason enough to celebrate, but the Mermen's special talents lie in the live serendipity of improvisation and scatterbomb guitar lines.
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</li>
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=== Saturday - Sunday 2/13, 14 ===
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<li class="listing">
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{{#img:
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image=McMurtry.jpg
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| alt= James McMurtry at Don Quixote's in Felton, ca
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| class=floatleft-thumb
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}}
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==== James McMurtry ====
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'''at Don Quixote's; $20; 8pm Sat; 7pm Sun<br />
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When James McMurtry was 7, his mother gave him a guitar and taught him three chords. "The rest," he says, "I stole as I went along." The guitar-slinging Texan has been crafting insightful and illuminating songs ever since, bridging the human and the political, the subtle and the absurd. Twenty years and 10 albums have established McMurtry's place in the "roots and roll" scene and proven him to be a capable songsmith known for his astute and to-the-point lyrics. As he sings in "Too Long in the Wasteland," "I didn't mean to say it, but I meant what I said."
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=== Sunday, February 14 ===
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<li class="listing">
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{{#img:
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image=BassNectar.jpg
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| alt= Bassnectar at Catalyst in santa cruz, ca
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| class=floatleft-thumb
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}}
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==== Bassnectar ====
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'''at Catalyst; $20 adv/$24 door; 8:45pm<br />
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Attention, consumers in the market for a new subwoofer speaker! There’s an easy test to determine if a product will live up to the demands of the modern urban music environment. Simply insert an album by San Francisco freeform electro-crunk outfit Bassnectar into the home P.A. and note how long the potential woofer woofs before melting, exploding, or attracting the attention of armed authorities. If the door is indeed kicked in by a SWAT team and the speaker remains intact, buy it. If not, extinguish flames and return for refund. Either way, listeners and neighbors will witness severe abuses of low frequencies for which the only cures are repetitive hip gyrations and long-term counseling.
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</li>
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=== Monday, February 15 ===
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<li class="listing">
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{{#img:
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image=DirtyDozen.jpg
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| alt= Dirty Dozen Brass Band at Moe's Alley in santa cruz, ca
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| class=floatleft-thumb
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}}
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==== Dirty Dozen Brass Band ====
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'''at Moe’s Alley $15 adv/$20 door; 8pm<br />
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It takes great force to shake the weathered pillars of New Orleans’ fabled jazz and funk scene, where brass bands come cheaper than crawfish gumbo and names like Neville, Marsalis and Armstrong stand as monoliths of intimidation to would-be horn blowers hoping to leave their mark. So in 1977, when a church music program for disadvantaged youth produced the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, the assumption was that it would go down as a heartwarming but ultimately forgettable musical endeavor. Instead the group, led by trumpet player Gregory Davis and featuring a rotating cast of musicians, installed itself as a premier horn act in a city carved from brass.
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=== Tuesday, February 16 ===
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<li class="listing">
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{{#img:
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image=EntranceBand.jpg
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| alt= The Entrance Band at Brookdale Lodge in Brookdale, ca
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| class=floatleft-thumb
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}}
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==== The Entrance Band ====
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'''at Brookdale Lodge; $12; 8pm<br />
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The latest incarnation of the artist formerly known as Entrance is a freak-folkadelic three-piece band that plays it slow and low with face-melting, stoner-rock grooves. The addition of Paz Lenchantin (bass) and Derek W. James (drums) to Guy Blakeslee's guitar and vocals allows the Entrance Band to create sonic landscapes that Blakeslee, who played for years as a solo act, could only dream of. Touring in support of its self-titled debut album, put out on Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace label, the power trio is rolling a thunderous sound across the country and up the mountain to Brookdale.
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Revision as of 13:42, 4 February 2010

Contents

Upcoming Events in Santa Cruz

    Thursday, February 4

  • Bossa Nova and Beyond at Kuumbwa in santa cruz, ca

    Bossa Nova & Beyond

    at Kuumbwa; $12 adv/$15 door; 7pm
     Acts like Charlie Byrd and Stan Getz lit the bossa nova candle at both ends in the late ’50s and early ’60s. Its popularity burned bright but fizzled out quickly, and today the samba-soaked Brazilian style is mostly a fond memory for jazz heads who pine for its sexy, subdued rhythms and mesmerizing vocals. For New York’s Sandy Cressman and Moscow’s Masha Campagne, bossa nova is more than just a memory, and at Kuumbwa this Thursday, the two singers rendezvous, bands in tow, to celebrate the music of Antonio Carlos Jobim, Dori Caymmi and Daven Agundez, some of the form’s most influential framers.

  • Zoe Boekbinder at Crepe Place in santa cruz, ca

    Zoe Boekbinder

    at Crepe Place; $8; 9pm
     A geeky heartthrob for awkward boys and girls alike, Oakland's Zoe Boekbinder is best known for her work with her sister in the beloved two-piece outfit Vermillion Lies, but her solo work holds up equally well. Offering up equal servings of vaudeville, jazz, pop and coffeehouse folk, Boekbinder sounds like she could be Jolie Holland's quirky, Ditty Bops-obsessed little sister. But while Boekbinder's influences are apparent, a listen to her solo debut, Artichoke Perfume, confirms that the Monterey-reared chanteuse is undoubtedly her own talent, with a singular sensibility and songwriting skill.

    • Friday, February 5

  • Dave Rawlings Machine at Catalyst in santa cruz, ca

    Dave Rawlings Machine

    at Catalyst; $22 adv/$25 door; 8pm
     The musical other half of bluegrass star Gillian Welch, Dave Rawlings has had a major hand in ushering in the current bluegrass renaissance. After branching out on his own last year under the name Dave Rawlings Machine, the multi-instrumentalist and frequent contributor to indie outfit Bright Eyes saw his widespread musical favors returned by Welch, Conor Oberst and Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers in the form of collaborations on an album. The result, A Friend of a Friend, is as simple as it is profound, with understated instrumentation and country-wise lyrics. It’s a coming-out party for a man who’s stayed too long behind the indie rock curtain.

    • Saturday, February 6

  • Y&T at Catalyst in santa cruz, ca

    Y&T

    at Catalyst; $19 adv/$23 door; 9pm
     Hard rock pioneers Yesterday & Tomorrow shortened their name to Y&T, as it was easier for the tens of thousands of screaming fans to chant at their stadium concerts. This left the breathless audiences with enough wind to call out for such hits as “Summertime Girls,” which not only burst from radio stations across the world but also added some sex appeal to Baywatch. And after 36 years of hard-hitting heavy metal punctuated by gold records, earth-shaking world tours and a heavy rotation on MTV, Y&T are bringing their melodic power ballads to jumpstart the Santa Cruz fan base.

    • Sunday, February 7

  • Leslie & the Badgers at Crepe Place in santa cruz, ca

    Leslie & the Badgers

    at Crepe Place; $8; 9pm
     Specializing in threadbare country-folk ruminations and down-home barnburners, Leslie and the Badgers are striking in their simplicity and straightforwardness. What is most refreshing, however, is lead singer Leslie Stevens' utter lack of guile. There's a sincerity and clarity to her lyrics and delivery that raises competent country-rock arrangements to a much higher level. While the tales of these songs betray the band's urban roots, Leslie and the Badgers don't come off as a crew of city-slicker dilettantes; Stevens embodies the role of the put-upon country siren with a such a credibility that she does proud the artistic legacy of the ultimate good woman done wrong, Loretta Lynn.

    • Monday, February 8

  • Charisma! at Kuumbwa in santa cruz, ca

    Charisma!

    at Kuumbwa; $25 adv/$28 door; 7pm
     Lee Morgan was a seminal influence in hard-bop trumpet and a major player in building the mythos of Blue Note Records during the ’60s. To the eternal loss of the jazz canon, Morgan tragically died in 1972 at the age of 33, but his influence looms over bop-inspired players to this very day. Charisma! is an all-star tribute to Morgan's work and legacy organized by trumpet player David Weiss that features both saxophonists from Morgan's final band, Billy Harper and Bennie Maupin. The septet is rounded out by Eddie Henderson on trumpet, Geri Allen on piano, Dwayne Bruno on bass and Billy Hart on drums, performing songs from Morgan's entire repertoire.

    • Tuesday, February 9

  • Badfish at Catalyst in santa cruz, ca

    Badfish

    at Catalyst; $15 adv/$19 door; 8pm
     When Bradley Nowell died in 1996 at the cursed age of 28 [see: Hendrix, J., Cobain, K., Joplin, J.] it was over the first rumblings from the music press that his band, Long Beach trio Sublime, was on the verge of becoming a mainstream success. What happened instead, whether by Nowell’s martyrdom or something bigger, is that Sublime was not only a success but helped define a generation. Almost 15 years later it’s still one of the greatest party bands to ever grace a kegger P.A. system. Rhode Island quartet Badfish pays homage to Nowell and Co. with true-to-art renditions of reggae, punk and hip-hop fusion classics like “40oz to Freedom,” “Santeria” and “Garden Grove.”

    • Friday, February 12

  • Huun Huur Tu & Carmen Rizzo at Rio Theatre in santa cruz, ca

    Huun Huur Tu & Carmen Rizzo

    at Rio Theatre; $21; 8pm
     In the race to come up with new musical sounds using electronic gadgets, computer programs and augmented instruments, a lot of musicians have forgotten about good old-fashioned human vocal chords. Correcting this oversight is producer and electronica guru Carmen Rizzo, who’s joined with the Tuvan quartet Huun Huur Tu on an album of “Tuv-tronica” based on the ancient art of throat singing. Using traditional instruments like the igil, khomus and doshpuluur to complement the humming harmonies, the collaboration roams into trancelike electronic soundscapes for a style that’s guaranteed to place it among the strangest additions to any play list.

  • Justin Townes Earle at Crepe Place in santa cruz, ca

    Justin Townes Earle

    at Crepe Place; $15; 9pm
     In most cases, the work of a famous musician's kid is nature's way of telling listeners to stay away. There's good reason for that: raised to the top via nepotism and name recognition, most children of notable artists have barely earned their stripes. Justin Townes Earle stands as one of the rare exceptions: estranged from his father Steve Earle for much of his youth, Earle made a name for himself in country music the hard way. This is evidenced in Earle's work—roadweary songs that draw from ’40s and ’50s folk and western swing more than they do the family trust. Despite the family brand, Justin Townes Earle is undoubtedly his own man.

  • Stephen Stills at Catalyst in santa cruz, ca

    Stephen Stills

    at Catalyst; $29 adv/$33 door; 8pm
     Stephen Stills is one of the few household names of the ’60s still touring. And while he's certainly earned the right to rest on his laurels—he stands as the only artist to be inducted twice into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame, for Buffalo Springfield and for Crosby, Stills and Nash—he continues to challenge himself. In fact, it seems that the irrepressible guitarist can't be held down: in January 2008 he beat an early prostate cancer diagnosis.Instead of laying low, he's has hit the road and released two albums since then: Pieces, a collection of outtakes by his '70s outfit Manassas, and October's Live at Shepherd's Bush.

    • Saturday, February 13

  • The Mermen at Moe

    The Mermen

    at Moe's Alley; $12 adv/$15 door; 9pm
     It might seem an obvious comparison, but there are few better ways to put it: The Mermen's furious guitar riffs really do come with the rolling force of a tidal wave, with heavy swells of reverb that crash into one another to marvelous effect. The San Francisco trio has found a way to take that most economical of forms, surf rock, and tie it to its theoretical antithesis, psychedlia. On paper it shouldn't work, but over the past two decades the Mermen have proven that it can. Though the band performs regularly, it's far from prolific, and it's latest release, In God We Trust, is the first in a decade. A new album by this outfit is reason enough to celebrate, but the Mermen's special talents lie in the live serendipity of improvisation and scatterbomb guitar lines.

    • Saturday - Sunday 2/13, 14

  • James McMurtry at Don Quixote

    James McMurtry

    at Don Quixote's; $20; 8pm Sat; 7pm Sun
     When James McMurtry was 7, his mother gave him a guitar and taught him three chords. "The rest," he says, "I stole as I went along." The guitar-slinging Texan has been crafting insightful and illuminating songs ever since, bridging the human and the political, the subtle and the absurd. Twenty years and 10 albums have established McMurtry's place in the "roots and roll" scene and proven him to be a capable songsmith known for his astute and to-the-point lyrics. As he sings in "Too Long in the Wasteland," "I didn't mean to say it, but I meant what I said."

    • Sunday, February 14

  • Bassnectar at Catalyst in santa cruz, ca

    Bassnectar

    at Catalyst; $20 adv/$24 door; 8:45pm
     Attention, consumers in the market for a new subwoofer speaker! There’s an easy test to determine if a product will live up to the demands of the modern urban music environment. Simply insert an album by San Francisco freeform electro-crunk outfit Bassnectar into the home P.A. and note how long the potential woofer woofs before melting, exploding, or attracting the attention of armed authorities. If the door is indeed kicked in by a SWAT team and the speaker remains intact, buy it. If not, extinguish flames and return for refund. Either way, listeners and neighbors will witness severe abuses of low frequencies for which the only cures are repetitive hip gyrations and long-term counseling.

    • Monday, February 15

  • Dirty Dozen Brass Band at Moe

    Dirty Dozen Brass Band

    at Moe’s Alley $15 adv/$20 door; 8pm
     It takes great force to shake the weathered pillars of New Orleans’ fabled jazz and funk scene, where brass bands come cheaper than crawfish gumbo and names like Neville, Marsalis and Armstrong stand as monoliths of intimidation to would-be horn blowers hoping to leave their mark. So in 1977, when a church music program for disadvantaged youth produced the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, the assumption was that it would go down as a heartwarming but ultimately forgettable musical endeavor. Instead the group, led by trumpet player Gregory Davis and featuring a rotating cast of musicians, installed itself as a premier horn act in a city carved from brass.

    • Tuesday, February 16

  • The Entrance Band at Brookdale Lodge in Brookdale, ca

    The Entrance Band

    at Brookdale Lodge; $12; 8pm
     The latest incarnation of the artist formerly known as Entrance is a freak-folkadelic three-piece band that plays it slow and low with face-melting, stoner-rock grooves. The addition of Paz Lenchantin (bass) and Derek W. James (drums) to Guy Blakeslee's guitar and vocals allows the Entrance Band to create sonic landscapes that Blakeslee, who played for years as a solo act, could only dream of. Touring in support of its self-titled debut album, put out on Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace label, the power trio is rolling a thunderous sound across the country and up the mountain to Brookdale.

Retrieved from "http://www.santacruz.com/Calendar"

San Jose Jazz Festival