See if you can’t build a beer game around these Santa Cruz Blues Festival fun facts.
Posts Tagged: Music
The Making of A Blues Festival
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.
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.
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.
Music in May Turns 5
For its fifth season, this weekend, Music in May festival founder Rebecca Jackson will celebrate her muse. David Arben, the musician whose life experience affirmed and empowered Jackson’s dedication to her art, extended his influence to the festival from the days when Jackson was an undergraduate at the Juilliard School in New York and his pupil in Philadelphia. Arben, the only one of his family to survive the Holocaust, played with the Philadelphia Orchestra for 34 seasons, many of them as associate concertmaster.
Redwood Mountain Faire Lineup
TThe June 2-3 music and crafts festival looks to be a barn-burner, with the Brothers Comatose, David Lindley and a rash of other great local and regional bands in Felton.
Weekend Guide, May 3–6, 2012
Every once in a while a weekend rolls around that is so crammed with goodness we have to tell you about all of it. This is one of those weekends—so good luck deciding how to spend it!
Yo La Tengo Freewheels It To Santa Cruz
“It’s kind of an acoustic show, but mostly it’s a question-and-answer show,” says McNew by phone from Brooklyn. “The only thing we plan is what song we’ll open with.” Freedom and spontaneity take over after that, with the band fielding questions from the audience. “We’ll just sit there and stare at you until somebody asks a question,” says McNew.
Bassnectar’s UCSC Connection
When Lorin Ashton, better known by his stage name Bassnectar, performs at the Catalyst this Sunday and Monday, May 6-7, it will be a sort of homecoming. Since graduating, the UCSC alum has since gone on to become one of the biggest names in the electronic and digital music scene, but he remembers the city fondly as the place that nurtured his creative spirit.
