Santa Cruz and its surrounding areas are lucky enough to have the kind of nightlife usually found only in much larger cities. Week in and week out, the foundation for that scene is the multitude of excellent live music venues catering to fans of every conceivable genre. Here are 20 great spots to find music in Santa Cruz.
Posts Tagged: Music
Green Day to Play Santa Cruz Civic Dec. 4
It was reaffirmed just how just how big Green Day has become when the 2000-seat Santa Cruz Civic was announced today as one of the “intimate venues” the band will play as part of the first leg of their “¡UNO!, ¡DOS!, ¡TRÉ!” tour, before expanding into an arena tour in 2013. Green Day will play the Civic Dec. 4, with tickets going on sale Sept. 14 at 10am.
The Fresh and Onlys’ New Twist on Garage Rock
The latest “garage rock” movement—led by Ty Segall, Thee Oh Sees and the Fresh and Onlys—is proving to be the most diverse, least-retro-sounding group of bands to have the term slapped on them in the last 30 years. The Fresh and Onlys have perhaps strayed the furthest from the garage-rock sound with the release of their fourth album, Long Slow Dance.
Book Tells Story of John Cage
Many books have attempted to explain John Cage, one of the 20th century’s most controversial composers, but author Kay Larson’s is the first one to concentrate on how Zen Buddhism empowered him to create his music, liberate his divided mind, reconstruct his character, remove personal crises and thus allow him to transform the entire narrative of 20th-century art.
New Music Works Celebrates John Cage
Phil Collins recalls seeing John Cage and Lou Harrison at one of New Music Works’ early Avant Garden Parties. The two old friends, who’d been artistically and personally separated for several decades after they’d both studied with contemporary music icons Arnold Schoenberg and Henry Cowell (not the California landowner), had taken a walk together and returned to the party arm in arm.
Three Mile Pilot at Catalyst Atrium
For a lot of indie rock fans, Three Mile Pilot is just some obscure band from the ’90s that Zach Smith was in before Pinback, and Pall Jenkins before The Black Heart Procession. But they recorded some of the best, least-appreciated indie albums of their time.
Twelve Things You Missed at Outside Lands
Santa Cruz Weekly reporters ventured to Outside Lands this year and brought back the low-down on some of the festival’s best performances and moments (more than we care to mention involved portable restroom facilities…OK fine, we’ll mention them). In case you didn’t make it to the festival but still want to impress music-savvy friends, just reference one of these things.
Q&A: Dispatch
When Dispatch released its first album in 1996, the world was a different place. Alanis Morissette’s latest album was topping the Billboard charts, eventually selling over 7 million copies that year in the US alone. There was no Google or YouTube. There was no Facebook, MySpace or even Napster.
China Cats’ Scott Cooper Goes Solo
Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia once said, “Just because you’re a musician doesn’t mean all your ideas are about music,” but nobody told that to local musician Scott Cooper. Besides working as a sales rep for Drumskull Drums and a guitar instructor through UCSC, the 47-year-old single father also plays in five separate bands.
Heartless Bastards Take An ‘Arrow’
Erika Wennerstrom doesn’t mind explaining her band’s name. As frontwoman for the Heartless Bastards, she’s heard plenty of misconceptions about her band, including that it’s a death metal group and a man-hating rock band. But behind the oft-misunderstood moniker lies an American rock outfit that takes on themes of love, life and heartache with heartland style and a bluesy, alt-country flair. And the name? It was an incorrect answer to the trivia question “What’s the name of Tom Petty’s band?”
