For the festival’s co-founder Bill Welch, putting together the line-up each year is part alchemy and part music science. He’s always loved booking acts at the festival who have some kind of history together, whether the audience is aware of it or not. “We try to book a headliner, and then complement it with some stuff that works well, and then some things that are going to make it really interesting. That’s kind of a wacky theme I’ve had over the years,” he says.
The Santa Cruz Blues Festival’s Top 20 Moments
I’ll never forget what it felt like to be backstage just before Ray Charles took the stage at the Santa Cruz Blues Festival in 2003. There was a crackling electricity in the air as the man himself stood waiting to be called up to play just a few feet from me. He was bobbing to the music and smiling his famous broad smile, but even so he couldn’t hide his intensity. His chin was slightly raised and his head cocked a little to one side—he was listening. Surveying. No matter how many thousands of times he had done this, no matter that he had to lean hard on his other senses to compensate for his lack of sight, he was not going to let a single detail about what was going on around him escape his attention. Whatever he was measuring—the mood of the crowd, the tightness of the band, the distance up the stairs—he seemed to lock it in just as his name was called, taking the stage to thunderous applause with the confidence of a musical legend.
Cabrillo Culinary Students’ End-of-Year Feast
Spring definitely brings out the hunger artist in us all. The opportunities to savor find local food and wine (and beer and ice cream) is too tempting to resist. For example, the food scholars of Cabrillo College’s Culinary Arts Program will present their final dining showcase of the spring semester this week, May 15–17, at the beautiful Pino Alto Restaurant in the historic Sesnon House.
Guitar Orchestra Redefines String Section
The post rock & roll generation needs little convincing that the guitar is an instrument worth its weight in gold. It contains worlds unto itself, but the buzzsaws and the walls-of-sound, the trippy feedback loops and shoegazey swirls which no longer ring false to the modern ear can seem worlds away from the staid conservatism many associate with the world of classical music.
‘Otter 501’ Tracks Pup From Stranding to Release
A young woman finds a stranded baby sea otter on a beach south of Big Sur after a storm. Peering down at the damp, shivering fur ball, she grabs her cell phone and makes a call, setting in motion a story about the otter’s struggle for survival and humans’ efforts to protect an iconic species.
California Forward’s ‘Perfect Storm’
The party line says California Forward is sailing steadily towards approval of its bipartisan reform agenda for repairing state government, either with a ballot initiative or through a legislative substitute that would satisfy critics on the left and right.
Letters to the Editor: May 16-22
“The federal assault on California’s legal medical marijuana industry is an attack on the sovereignty of California and Californians,” writes one US congressional candidate from Mendocino County.
An Unprecedented Outpouring
The death of Shannon Collins on May 7 has prompted a public outpouring of shock and sorrow that’s impossible to ignore. On Monday, May 14, a week after she was stabbed to death in broad daylight by a troubled and violent man she didn’t know, some 300 community members organized by Take Back Santa Cruz walked from the scene of the murder to her shop, Camouflage, on Pacific Avenue, completing the walk she wasn’t able to. Neighbors of the block on Broadway where the murder happened held a memorial on Sunday, and before that friends and family gathered there Friday for a vigil. Hundreds of people—some who knew the 38-year-old Collins, many who did not—have signed online memorials and weighed in on Facebook. The Sin Sisters Burlesque donated the proceeds of their Saturday show to the Collins family. The Rio Theatre put her name on its marquee.
Santa Cruz Bird Whisperer Tells All
The Westside is foggy and cold when Jon Young and I meet on Delaware Avenue, at the back entrance to Natural Bridges State Beach, for a morning lesson in bird language. With him is Josh Lane, a mentor at Young’s Bonny Doon–based 8 Shields Institute, a nonprofit promoting connection with nature.
Wavy Gravy’s Seva Fundraiser to Rock the Rio
When the Seva Foundation teamed up with Wavy Gravy in 1978, organizers found themselves with a steady supply of funding and musicians. Gravy is knee-deep in famous names and has the personality of an entire circus, hauling everybody he knows into his philanthro-activism. A few phone calls from Gravy and Seva’s latest benefit concert comes together, and it turns out that when the hippie clown blows the horn, water turns into wine and the Avengers assemble: this Sunday’s show at the Rio features Steve Earle, John Trudell, Dave Alvin, Peter Rowan, Nina Gerber and other roots rock luminaries in a benefit for Native American health care.
