Once a strictly blues festival, the Santa Cruz Blues Festival has come to encompass a wider range of music in the past decade or so, including rock ‘n’ roll, soul and roots music.
Articles by Aaron Carnes
Preview: 'Three Days of Rain' at Center Stage
In all families, there is at least some gap between how much kids want to know about their parents’ early adult life, and how much the parents would rather not divulge—which is ultimately probably a good thing. How many people really want the gory details of their parents’ college years? These communication gaps become the…
Liza Monroy Raises Questions About Marriage
When Santa Cruz author Liza Monroy heard that then-Mayor Gavin Newsom had ordered his city clerk to issue same-sex marriage licenses in San Francisco, she was so moved that she poured her heart into an op-ed celebrating a new era of gender-neutral marriage in the mainstream. But when she showed it to a friend, the feedback was a buzzkill: scrap it.
Local Hip-Hop Crew Slop Opera Returns
The crew in hip-hop used to be the standard, unlike today where most rappers are solo artists. Locals Slop Opera, who formed in 2004, have those old school hip-hop values—they’re overachievers, in fact, as most crews back in the day had three, four, maybe five guys. Slop Opera has eleven, which is even more than the ridiculously big Wu Tang Clan.
Steep Ravine Leaves Home
It’s become clear to Steep Ravine that being an acoustic band has its advantages.
The band formed in Santa Cruz in December 2012, and after deciding they wanted to give a legitimate shot to doing music full-time, they all moved into a small house in the East Bay late last fall. This way, their thinking went, they’d be more centrally located in the Bay Area music scene.
Crunching Your Own Numbers
Yes, technology rules our lives. And it’s true that everyone is more plugged in now than ever before. But maybe that’s not always a bad thing. If we can look away from Candy Crush Saga for a few minutes, there are actually some potential health benefits to be had from technology invading every aspect of our lives.
The latest one to hit the pop-culture radar allows people to monitor every detail of their physical health. With easy-to-use devices like Fitbit Tracker and Jawbone Up to calculate activity, sleep and other stats, as well as smartphone apps that quickly track everything from calories to heart rate, anyone can precisely graph the path to their health and fitness goals.
Dance and Lit Merge at Ishmael Beah Event
Harry Weston wants to put you on an emotional roller coaster.
Kendra McKinley Poised For Big Things
Kendra McKinley has risen quickly in the Santa Cruz music scene after playing her first show only a year and a half ago.
Top Picks for a Santa Cruz Halloween
Be it trick or treating or after-hours fright, Santa Cruz offers a host of Spooktakular fun.
Foodie File: Hoffman’s
Post “Restaurant Impossible,” Hoffman’s is adding some more pizzazz to their menu.
