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?”
Posts Tagged: Music
Tess Dunn Headlines Cystic Fibrosis Benefit
At 17, Tess Dunn, who finished up high school a year early so she could leave Santa Cruz, has already accomplished a lot. She’s released two EPs, performed on four Warped Tours and been featured on the Vans Off the Wall Pass the Bucket show online. She’s done all this in spite of three incurable diseases. And before she leaves for CSUMB, Dunn will also be headlining Moe’s Alley on Aug. 12 for a benefit for one of those diseases, cystic fibrosis.
Church Street Fair at Cabrillo Festival
This festival of music, art and wine brings alive the spirit of the Cabrillo Music Festival with performances and activities in a fresh outdoor setting. There’ll be fair food, too.
Q&A: Marin Alsop
As the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music gears up for its 50th anniversary season, maestra Marin Alsop talks about the festival’s reputation for embracing “the weird and the wonderful” and explains why, despite being insanely busy, she’s “completely satisfied.”
Laura Karpman, Chief ‘Girl’
Laura Karpman’s resumé looks like the result of a life without downtime. The genre-bending lead composer for Hidden World of Girls has won four Emmys for her sci-fi television scores and written music for video games, film, opera, string quartets and world premiere commissions. “I definitely do collaboration,” Karpman says. “All of these concert music pieces I’ve done lately so profoundly draw from my work as a film composer. Even the really technical stuff came directly from the TV work.”
Hidden World of Girls
What does it mean to grow up female? An ambitious multimedia collaboration between NPR’s Kitchen Sisters and the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music explores a dynamic question through sound, light, story and music. Hidden World of Girls</i has its world premiere Saturday, July 28 in Santa Cruz.
A Fundraiser for Hicko
It’s 10am and Thomas Hickenbottom, one of the founding fathers of Santa Cruz surfing, is showcasing lattices of berries and fruit trees laden with the summer’s bounty in the Eden he has helped to create around his Westside home. Breathing deeply, he presses the stoma that has replaced the vocal chords he lost to cancer and whispers excitedly about the fundraiser being held in his honor on Saturday, July 21.
Boulder Creek Bluegrass Fest
If the multiplicity of venues and festivals from the Boardwalk to Boulder Creek are anything to go by, Santa Cruz loves it some music. So when a beloved festival like the Brookdale Bluegrass Festival needed a helping hand (read: a new venue) after the Brookdale Lodge became… let’s call it indisposed, the Boulder Creek community rushed to its aid. This year, the revitalized Boulder Creek Bluegrass and Old Timey Festival is a smorgasbord of fiery finger-pickin’ spread out over three days and multiple locations.
Hop ‘n’ Barley Festival
Touted by the festival’s organizers as “the one and only beer and barbeque festival to attend this summer,” the Hop N’ Barley Festival just may have a prophecy on its hands—they are serving not only local sausages, but local sausages made with beer from local breweries. Whoa.
Mates of State Grows Up
Mates of State first made a name for itself for being unpolished and incomplete. The duo had only an organist (Kori Gardner) and a drummer (Jason Hammel). They both sang, usually at the same time. Their songs were loosely stitched together, often with one section awkwardly attached to the next. Yet their bubbly songwriting sensibilities and penchant for catchy pop-hooks made them a hit with indie college kids.
