This story is still developing and will be updated.
This morning, the City of Santa Cruz reported that critical flood protection rocks along the San Lorenzo River Levee had been removed sometime in the past few days.
The large rocks, known as rip rap, prevent erosion during high flood events. Sometime in the past few days, nearly three yards of the rip rap were dug out and replaced with unpermitted citrus tree plantings.
According to a city press release, this act of vandalism threatens the levee’s flood structure and jeopardizes the city’s FEMA certification for the levee system. City staff are currently repairing the damage.
After four months of being raised by a Watsonville High School student, Stinkers the pig is ready for market.
The 252-pound Hampshire cross was lazing in her pen Wednesday, soon after the Santa Cruz County Fair opened and after she waddled with a third-place ribbon for showmanship and a first-place prize for marketability.
During her piglet-hood, Stinkers was known to be frisky, frequently getting the “zoomies” as she broke into a run during her twice-daily walks.
Once, the pig even chased a passing bicyclist, says Hailey Brooks, 16, who raised the pig as part of her school’s 4-H program.
Last year, Brooks’ pig fetched $15 per pound, earning her a couple of thousands of dollars. She plans to use profits from Stinkers to raise a steer for next year’s fair.
Brooks says she’ll be sad when she sells the pig at auction on Saturday, but says she understands that is part of raising animals. She hopes to attend UC Davis, where she wants to study biology and go to veterinary school.
“It’s been a great experience for me,” she says. “I love what I’ve learned.”
Hundreds of people walked through the gates when they opened at noon, flocking to the animal exhibits, art displays and of course the food vendors.
New this year is Fry Burger, a Eureka-based business that offers what owner Trevyn Mullins describes as a “one-of-a-kind cheeseburger.”
Mullins says he was at home experimenting with different burger cooking methods when he threw a patty into hot oil.
“My family liked it, and now all my customers like it,” he says. “So it’s great to share it with them.”
The deep-burger that evolved from that momentous experiment has garnered fans at numerous fairs across the state, and a mention by celebrity chef Guy Fieri on his show Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.
“It’s a tastebud explosion,” he says.
The Santa Cruz County Fair is open every day through Sunday. For information, visit santacruzcountyfair.com.
The Santa Cruz City Council unanimously voted yesterday to rebuild the collapsed portion of West Cliff Drive back to two-way traffic upon the completion of cliff-protecting infrastructure.
Last winter, strong southerly blowing winds and large waves caused part of the roadway to collapse, reminding Santa Cruzans of the fragility of their beloved overlook. To those whose daily ritual consisted of a drive down to Natural Bridges and back and vice versa, (depending where they lived in town), the shock was even greater.
This week, construction will begin on four sea-walls on the most impacted cliff-sides. In the areas between the seawalls and the standing cliff-face, concrete will be used to reinforce the road.
“It’s like a really bad cavity in your teeth. You cannot just put a veneer over that,” said City Engineer Kevin Crossley.
The roadway from Columbia St. to Woodrow Ave. will be the first phase of the project to be completed, restoring traffic to two-lanes. Federal funds will contribute $5 million for the initial phase of the project, which costs $8.7 million in total. The rest of the money will come from a mix of city and state funding—the city plans on redirecting money from current projects to cover the construction costs, delaying work on other city plans.
Speed is of the essence, considering construction will be underway during this year’s El Niño—a weather pattern that typically brings rainier winter seasons. Crews will work 10 hour shifts and on Saturdays to expedite construction. Kevin Crossley said for now, West Cliff from Columbia to Woodrow is expected to stay open to pedestrians and bicyclists during the duration of construction.
The Bethany Curve part of the project, widening and elevating the lowest part of West Cliff, is expected to begin in Spring 2024 and will cost an estimated $10 million. Funding sources for that phase has not been identified. Bethany Culvert is the skinniest part of West Cliff and it will be closed entirely.
Dozens of people chimed in to give their thoughts on the future of West Cliff drive on Tuesday evening.
Board Member of Bike Santa Cruz County, Amelia Conlen read aloud statements from residents who support more space for bikes: “I personally used to love walking on West Cliff but I’ve begun turning down friends who want to walk there because of the fast moving cyclists.”
On the other hand, Pelton Avenue resident Don Iglesias said, “We have people in our neighborhood who are in their nineties that look forward to being able to drive, have their sons or daughters drive them down West Cliff Drive. They look forward to it everyday.”
“We’re cruisers. We cruise. We’re the founders of Santa Cruz Woodies Club. We bicycle. We walk. All different types of cruising,” said Cathy Iglesias. “Two-way is really important to us because we get to see it in both directions.”
Looming over the proceedings is the 50-year vision for West Cliff, currently in the planning phase, where the real fight over West Cliff’s use and protection will be fought.
Mayor Fred Keeley questioned if FEMA and federal funds could be counted on in the future for emergency repairs, pointing out that the California Coastal Commission has as a policy of “managed retreat” from the coast and that we can no longer count on “one-in-hundred year” natural disasters happening so infrequently.
“I don’t know how we get to a fifty year vision when what’s going to happen likely is once or twice a decade we are going to have what happened this year. And how does that factor into a fifty year vision?” said Mayor Keeley. “If I was them [the Feds] I would not be interested in coming here every couple of years and dumping a whole bunch of money again.”
“It occurs to me we are not retreating at this moment,” said Mayor Keeley.
A Current substitute Teacher Being highly racist To a Latino Male While Working In a Mexican Community School by Pajaro Valley Unified School District. #fyp#racist#pvusdschools#santacruzcalifornia
A longtime Pajaro Valley Unified School District substitute teacher is no longer working with the district after being videoed making an expletive-laden, racist rant in the aftermath of a fender-bender. The video was uploaded to TikTok on Monday.
PVUSD interim Superintendent Murry Schekman did not name the teacher and did not confirm that the video was the reason she is no longer employed.
Schekman said that the teacher worked at Watsonville High School during the summer and more recently at Lakeview Middle School. Friday was her last day.
In addition to numerous expletives, the woman appeared to be yelling at a man who was recording her, accusing him of hitting her car on southbound Highway 1 near Capitola.
“I have insurance, but I don’t trust you,” she said. “You’re probably not even a citizen.”
In a letter emailed to the community, Schekman stated that PVUSD does not tolerate hate or racism.
“Our classrooms must provide a safe gathering place for students to learn about our nation’s ongoing struggle with racism, acceptance, and the ideals of liberty and justice for all,” he wrote. “We have a fundamental responsibility to actively ensure the safety, health, and social-emotional well-being of students as they grow into thriving, engaged citizens of our community, the nation and the world.”
Being a music promoter is like being a skier or farmer. You might get too much of what you want and it kills business, or too little.
Their livelihood can be made or broken by the weather, the competition, the ticket prices and the temperament of the acts they book.
I was part of the team that brought Ben Harper to the Santa Cruz Blues Festival and we took a beating with about a half-full audience. It was reportedly the first time in his career that Harper didn’t sell out a show. He still got his paycheck. I lost my house.
But I have no hard feelings. Harper was one of the first rock stars I interviewed while I worked at the Mercury News and his first album had just come out. He was playing a brew pub in San Jose for radio station KFOG-FM.
He was still living at his parent’s house in Claremont when we did the phone interview, and he told me that if I was ever up after 2AM to give him a call because he had to stay awake for early flights to Australia, where he was big.
Knowing that there was room to play soccer at the outdoor venue, Harper put on a memorable show, adding an hour to the scheduled setlist and giving fans one to remember. The band Was Not Was did the same thing, adding an hour to their set while fans were walking in.
We were trying to appeal to younger fans but took a beating because the band MGMT siphoned them off with a CIvic gig the same night.
Those sets may not have eased all of the pain of losing my residence, but they were among the finest hours of music I’ve heard.
So it is for promoters like Michael Horne, who brings in the three-day Mountain Sol Festival this weekend, and Britt Govea, who brings Sun Ra’s Arkestra to the Rio Sunday. They take big risks so we can see our favorite artists.
These aren’t big corporate entities. They are music fanatics like me and you. Go support them.
Brad Kava l Editor
Photo Contest
DOWN BELOW Santa Cruz Wharf Wonder taken on July 5. Photograph by Jim Potterton
Good Idea
Last week, the U.C. system awarded U.C. Santa Cruz’s Institute of the Arts and Sciences (IAS) $2 million to develop an art exhibition that advances climate resilience and social equity. Rachel Nelson, director of the UCSC Institute of the Arts and Sciences, will be teaming up with Ocean Science Professor Ari Friedlaender on the $2 million grant project to develop a traveling art exhibition that will connect climate change impacts on whales and other marine animals with the precarity of vulnerable human communities.
Good Work
California State Parks wants the public to weigh in on the future of Seacliff and New Brighton State Beaches to help protect these beaches from the impacts of climate change, such as sea level rise and extreme weather. Residents are invited to take an online survey to share information on preferred recreational activities and what they value when visiting the parks. Weigh in at: SurveyMonkey.com/r/ZZZH2BG
Quote of the Week
“Most propaganda is not designed to fool the critical thinker but only to give moral cowards an excuse not to think at all.” —Michael Rivero
It was a half-century ago, but 70-year old trumpeter Michael Ray still vividly recalls his first encounter with the Sun Ra Arkestra, as a teenager attending an outdoor music festival in suburban Philadelphia. “The first thing I noticed was all the musicians had suitcases filled with sheet music.”
Along with some jazz standards, the suitcases held some of the roughly 1,000 compositions recorded by Ra, the eccentric, trailblazing keyboardist and bandleader whose dozens of singles and more than 100 albums made him one of the most prolific musicians in history.
Ray is one of the longest-tenured members of Sun Ra’s Arkestra, which comes to Santa Cruz on Sunday, September 17 for an 8pm concert at the Rio Theatre.
It’s been 30 years since the visionary, Afro-futurist bandleader/pianist/composer/ poet/philosopher/mystic/trickster self-described space traveler left planet earth, but the band bearing his name continues to make new music and tour internationally, in the tradition of jazz “ghost” bands that keep going long after their leaders have passed.
Born in Birmingham, Alabama — or Saturn, according to his version — Herman “Sonny” Blount started his career back in the swing era as a pretty conventional pianist and dance band leader in his hometown.
In 1946 Ra moved to Chicago and worked as a pianist and arranger for the highly-under sung bandleader Fletcher Henderson. Ra spent less then a year in that role, but it had a major impact on him. He still played Henderson’s music for the rest of his career but focused mainly on creating music that mixed beauty and chaos.
In 1954 Ra became a bandleader with his own growing ensemble, the Arkestra, moving his base of operations to New York City in 1961 and then settling permanently in Philadelphia in the fall of 1968.
Somewhere around that time Ra decided that “space is the Place” – also the name of his best known composition – and started rewriting his backstory to fit a glitter- covered, future-focused stage show that put a galactic spin on the old dance band tradition of jazz as entertainment.
Ra’s career was a testimony to his resilience and ingenuity. He started the Arkestra during a period when touring big bands confronted extinction due to a tsunami of converging trends – the birth of rock n roll, the rise of television and the fast-rising cost of touring, among them.
The Arkestra became a 24-7 way of life not only for Ra but also for many of his sidemen, Ra set up a commune of musicians in Philadelphia, requiring some of his acolytes to live with him, drug- and alcohol-free at the band’s longtime headquarters, a building at 5626 Morton St. in Philly (now listed as a historic landmark).
Ra dealt with the dicey musical economy of the fading big band era by going DIY, starting his own Saturn record label, with hand-decorated album issued 100 or so at a time, today prized by collectors worldwide. It added up to dozens of singles and over one hundred full-length albums (some on major jazz labels), making him one of the most prolific recording artists of the 20th century.
The concert Michael Ray saw in his hometown set the course for the rest of his life. “I remember there were singers and dancers, and two drummers…..” Weeks later he encountered Ra again, riding the municipal trolley.
“I told him I really enjoyed the concert. He invited me to a rehearsal but I couldn’t make it because I had a Delfonics gig at the Academy of Music.” When he finally got to a rehearsal at Arkestra headquarters, “I saw Egyptian art everywhere, keyboards.. milk cases filled with cassette tapes and even music in the refrigerator,” Ray remembers.
“One of the first things he told me was ‘I know everything you need to know about music.’”
Described by the leader as “tone scientists dwelling in the half-between world,” Ra’s bands play music that might suddenly veer from Duke Ellington-style formality to nursery rhymes set to music, to abstract, electronic and acoustic cacophony. The sage who defined jazz as “the sound of surprise” could have been talking about Sun Ra and his evolving bands.
Listening to Sun Ra’s early records from the 1950s reveals that Ra was ahead of his time, anticipating developments like free jazz and electronics. Nobody could mix the past and the future like Sun Ra’s groups, with concerts full of aural and visual exotica.
After the leader, the Arkestra’s two best known soloists were longtime saxophonists Marshall Allen and John Gilmore. When they took the music “outside,” Allen and Gilmore’s double sax improvisations could sound like two howling wolves engaged in a game of primal tag.
Gilmore, also a respected mainstream tenor man, died in 1997. Multi-instrumentalist Allen succeeded Ra as the bandleader, but his age (99) has limited him to playing concerts in the Philadelphia area, where he still lives.
Although his cosmic public persona didn’t show it, Ra was a taskmaster, according to Ray, who retains some nostalgia for marathon Arkestra rehearsals that might last for 12 or 14 hours, “Until you fall asleep or try to sneak out of the room. He would tell us to go back and put some okra in the moon stew, But he didn’t want to leave the room ’til the food was ready.”
“It was ‘old school meets young kid,” Ray says. From the start, Ra tried to discourage Ray from listening to “Earth music,” like the Nancy Wilson cassette he had in his tape player. Ray grew accustomed to middle-of-the night visits from Ra, bearing freshly-written compositions for the band to learn.
“When you’re with Sun Ra, you’re in his world. He had a strange way of doing things, but after a while you get adapted.“
“He never got mad but he was a very strict bandleader, it was intense training all the time, always rehearsing. He’d say, ‘Always play with alacrity, or you can be replaced by a button.’ You always gotta be swingin’ on that horn.’ I guess that came from his time in the Fletcher Henderson group,” says Ray, who is writing a thesis on “vibrational music.”
The parts Sun Ra wrote for each band member could be pretty complicated, requiring those long rehearsals. “He would expect us to ‘Emulate what you hear, at the same time you hear it,” Ray says.
Still, few bandleaders in history inspired dedication and deep loyalty like Sun Ra. Ray attributes that to the leader’s exhaustive knowledge of music.“Sun Ra studied all forms of music, from country western to Brahms. He would mix all the genres together, but always have that ‘gutbucket’ thing; he was always connected to the blues.”
Ray estimates Ra’s blend of abstraction, complexity and down-home earthiness produced somewhere around 5,000-6,000 pieces of music, much of it still unheard by earthlings.
With around 13 members, including vocalist and violinist Tara Middleton – who took the place of the late, memorably regal June Tyson – the 2023 version of the Arkestra continues to tour the U.S. and abroad. Ray laments the current Arkestra’s very un-Ra like lack of rehearsals, which limits the performing repertoire somewhat.
He’s not always happy with current bandleader Noell Scott’s choice of material. “With 5,000 or 6,000 tunes, why are we limited to always playing the same songs on tour, his favorites?” Fortunately, this being jazz, the Arkestra can reshape them every night. And those tunes can take a lot of bending and twisting, like the metal skin of a spacecraft.
In his fifth decade with the band, Michael Ray is durable, too, still committed to the sky-gazing mantra “Space is the place.”
Something feels poetic about an upcoming book talk at legendary Bookshop Santa Cruz.
Sunday, Oct. 29, author/photographer/former molecular biologist Nik Sharma—who sits atop a growing stack of cookbook resources like James Beard Award-nominated Season:Big Flavors, Beautiful Food and The Flavor Equation—presents Veg-table: Recipes, Techniques and Plant Science for Big-Flavored, Vegetable-Focused Meals.
It’s an inspiring compilation of 50+ vegetables from 15 different plant families that author/TV personality Sola El-Waylly calls, “everything you’ve ever wanted to know about produce…from their origins to the history of their cultivation, and, of course, all the ways to make them delicious.”
That feels fitting, even preordained, for several reasons. One, Sharma’s visiting the fertile bed that grows so much of what his book celebrates. Two, he’s doing it in the heart of a city that’s long pushed the seed packet on veggie-forward fare.
Three, he’s appearing with the enthusiastic endorsement of another pioneering author/chef/creative, Brant Terry, who spoke around this time last year at Homeless Garden Project’s Sustain Supper about justice and his book Black Food: Stories, Art, and Recipes from Across the African Diaspora, another incredible compilation.
“Veg-Table cements Sharma’s status as one of the most important cookbook authors of our time,” Terry says. “He always has his finger on the cultural pulse, and, with the recent uptick in interest in vegetable-forward cooking, this cookbook could not be more timely. Like his other books, this one is thoughtful, steeped in research, bold, and bursting with flavor.”
By the way, HGP’s Fall Sustain Supper lands Saturday, Oct. 28, with star chefs Yulanda Santos (Aubergine), Anna Bartolini (la Balena) and Emily Beggs (Kin & Kitchen) and featured speaker Charles Duhigg, Pulitzer-prize reporter and author of Smarter Faster Better and The Power of Habit.
While we’re talking recipes that tell stories, one atypical collection—which became an outright smash sensation on YouTube amid COVID—has earned a hard cover version. I met Max Miller at the Bay Area Book Festival this summer, where he packed the auditorium with his passion for researching recipes and sharing the stories that come by studying—and cooking—everything from World War II-era “s*** on a shingle” to what various classes ate aboard the Titanic. Interested explorers can check out “Tasting History With Max Miller,” both the video series and the cookbook, via his website. “I hear from viewers all the time, ‘I don’t love history but I love the stories you tell,’” he told me after the festival. “It’s like, ‘My dear, those stories are history.’”
youtube.com/c/tastinghistory
LATE SUMMER BUMMER
One of the area’s best sandwich shops, Reef Dog Deli of Capitola, closes Sept. 23. Chef-co-owner Anthony Kresge cites the expense of putting in a permanent parklet (and paying for building permits and to rent the parking spots), as reasons he’s going to shut down. Here’s hoping wonders like the Reefy (beef brisket pastrami made and smoked in house, melted Vermont sharp cheddar, onion jam, whole grain mustard on griddled Jewish rye) find a new home elsewhere.
Jewel, the megastar folk-rock-pop singer who was born of the 90s Gen X angst amid her grunge counterparts, is a perfectly measured cocktail of artistic talent, intellectual postfeminism and an advocate for mental wellness. And, despite being a multi-platinum, award-winning recording artist with one of the best-selling debuts of all time, this singer/songwriter supports happiness first, music second.
“I’ve always looked at it as a job to be a musician, but my number one has always been to be happy,” she says.
Jewel, 49, was born Jewel Kilcher in Payson, Utah, but relocated with her family shortly after birth to Homer, Alaska. “My grandmother had been an aspiring opera singer and poet in Europe before the Second World War,” she says. “They escaped the war and went to homestead in Alaska,” which is how Jewel’s family ended up in The Last Frontier.
“I came from a musical family, everybody played and taught themselves instruments,” she says. “Because she didn’t get to pursue her creative career, [my grandmother] taught all her kids to sing. It’s just very much in my family.”
Musician parents, Atz Kilcher and Nedra Carroll, divorced when Jewel was a child, but she continued to tour and sing with her father despite his alcoholism and abuse. “I grew up singing with my dad since I was 8, and singing with my parents on stage since I was 5,” she says. During this time, her dad also taught her how to yodel.
“I moved out at 15 and started writing music to help with my anxiety, honestly,” says Jewel, having relocated to a private arts school called Interlochen in Michigan after winning a vocal scholarship. “It was just something that really calmed me down and helped me understand my world.”
At Interlochen, she really dug into songwriting and learned the guitar. Then, at 18, she moved to San Diego with her mom. “I couldn’t afford my rent after my boss withheld my check because I wouldn’t have sex with him, and so I ended up living in my car,” she says. “Then, my car was stolen and I ended up homeless.”
Things spiraled downward for Jewel, but she refused to let that get the best of her. Jewel turned to music—but a hidden vice was bubbling just below the surface.
“To cope, I never stripped or did drugs, but I was shoplifting as a way to deal with my anxiety and to provide for myself,” she says. “I used music to help get me through this. I came up with songs like ‘Who Will Save Your Soul’ and ‘Hands’ as a way to understand the world, my environment and the things going on around me.”
Just look at me sacredly, religiously, hungrily
Around the time that the singer found herself living in her car, she was also hustling to play gigs in coffee shops and bars in San Diego. While at a gig in PB’s Innerchange, she was discovered and later signed a record deal with Atlantic. “I ended up getting discovered while performing cover songs,” she says. “At first, there were two people, then four, then 12 and then 75.”
With the onset of this new success, Jewel’s anxiety grew. “I was getting panic attacks and agoraphobia [an extreme anxiety disorder that involves a fear of not being able to escape crowded places]—things weren’t going well.”
As her popularity expanded, she also saw the need to smarten up about the music industry’s business practices. “As I got more recognized, I wanted to study what that meant for myself, so I rented a bunch of books from the library about music contracts,” says Jewel. “If you’re given a $1 million advance, that’s expected to be paid back with interest, probably in millions, over the course of your career.
Jewel had a good run of hits from her 1995 Pieces of You album that contained songs like “You Were Meant For Me,” “Who Will Save Your Soul” and “Foolish Games.” This was followed by 1998’s Spirit, a more folk-meets-rock album starting to percolate with subtle hints of pop found in 2003’s O3O4 album.
“After Spirit, I took two years off before making more albums,” she says. “Later, I took seven years off to raise my son before returning to music.”
Kase, Jewel’s only child from her six-year marriage with rodeo cowboy Ty Murray, frequently duets with his mom on stage. Of their performances, the most notable was probably their December 2021 duet of “Hands” on the Masked Singer, the season that Jewel won the show.
In fact, Jewel’s most recent album, 2022’s Freewheelin’ Woman, came out less than six months after her appearance on the Masked Singer. “I wrote 200 songs to get the 12 I like for that album,” she told OneMind.org last March, “and dig into a deeper, more raw place of who and what I am now.”
In the end only kindness matters
Parallel to her growing musical career, Jewel has always aspired to delve more into human psyche and mental wellness. Just this year, she co-founded a virtual community called Innerworld. It is a membership-based platform that allows people to anonymously work through mental health challenges in a safe environment.
“I wanted to support accessibility with mental health and a virtual environment is a great way to do that,” says Jewel. The format is peer-to-peer with self-created avatars who are led by guides trained in Cognitive Behavioral Immersion [the term used for cognitive-behavioral skills within the metaverse], according to Innerworld’s press release.
“What’s really great are the results that we’re getting from this VR platform because it can help people from all over the world,” says Jewel. “We’re really making an impact and I think it’s just going to continue to grow.”
Prior to Jewel’s advocacy and participation with Innerworld, and simultaneous to the height of her career in the early 2000s, was her conception of the Inspiring Children Foundation.
“About 22 years ago I wanted to see if the tools I had built for myself would really work for others, so I co-founded the Inspiring Children Foundation,” she says. “It’s a non-therapeutic approach to helping at-risk youth understand their worlds.”
Jewel’s mission was to help children understand what’s going on inside and provide them with behavior tools backed by science to help them become the best versions of themselves. “Therapy never worked for me, so I started this program for children that helps them in understanding mental health as well as themselves,” she says.
The program is leadership-based and provides youth with a “psychology for life,” approach, according to Inspiring Children’s press release. “We’re helping children with gratitude and how to deeply appreciate their opportunities, which brings out their best in everything that they do,” says Jewel.
Inspiring Children focuses on academics, athletics, entrepreneur skills, tennis, sports, and mentoring and mental health counseling to cultivate the program’s 10 pillars of growth. It does this through 40 tools to help children “find mastery in the art of living.”
“I think about the tools and skills that I needed when I was younger, and then really tried to address that when putting together this program,” says Jewel.
The early developments of what’s now Inspiring Children came at the height of Jewel’s anxiety and curiosity about her own mental health journey. “I never thought that I’d have a career in music,” she says. “It’s always been my mental health journey first, then music second. I would just write, play music and use poetry as an outlet.”
As Inspiring Children was in its infancy development, Jewel’s 2003 0304 was released and met with a bizarre controversy. Fans and non-fans were questioning her choice of genre-switching and experimentation, which fueled the artist’s rebellious nature against being pigeonholed as a 90s folk singer. “Oh no! A folk singer from the grunge era is attractive and put on a mini skirt,” she says. “I still stand by all of those songs.”
“Intuition,” specifically, made an uproar during that time. “Oh yeah, that song was very controversial,” she says. “People thought I was selling out and took the video seriously without seeing that I was making fun of videos of that time.”
I mean, there was even a ticker tape at the bottom of the video at one point saying, ‘Jewel’s music sounds much better now that she’s dancing’,” she laughs.
Jewel went on to create 10 more studio albums, including her most recent, Freewheelin’ Woman. “I really let myself immerse in a spiritual rewilding,” says Jewel. “This is sort of my reawakening to the raw creative energy that I started out with.”
The new albumblends Jewel’s classic prophetic lyrics with funkier beats than past albums. Most of the songs are danceable and woven with light notes of country-meets-blues-meets-disco. “I like to experiment and explore when it comes to music,” she says. “I make personal decisions for why I make music; because it makes me happy.”
In the past, Jewel has drawn on support from musical legends like Neil Young and Bob Dylan. “When I was on tour with Bob Dylan, he really encouraged me to stay true to myself and my music,” she says.
If she could, Jewel says that she would have loved to meet Etta James, Cole Porter and Ella Fitzgerald. “I feel like there are a lot of people I’ve drawn musical inspiration from,” she says. “If I wasn’t out there blending genres and paving the way, there wouldn’t be artists like Taylor Swift.”
Jewel is slated to play at this year’s Mountain Sol Festival in Felton’s Roaring Camp Railroads on Sept. 15 at 7PM. “I never really put together a setlist before a show,” she teases. “I kind of gauge it based on the crowd, so who knows what you’ll get!”
Before becoming co-owner of Shockwave Food, area native Brandon Burgess was a bouncer at the Felton Music Hall – the venue where the cuisine is currently being made and served. When Burgess originally tried the food and loved it, he was so inspired that he wanted to become part of the business and help it grow.
With a background in restaurants as well as personal training, nutrition and construction, he combines his business savvy with executive chef/co-owner Stephen Geyer’s food, which Burgess defines as Cali-fusion elevated bar and comfort food. Menu stand-outs are four-piece fried chicken, with mashed potatoes, green beans and a biscuit to complete the ensemble.
Diverse dishes include the barbacoa and miso pork tacos, the chicken shawarma and falafel wrap. Another rockstar is the double-decker Mountain Burger, a “Big Mac on steroids.”
Shockwave is only open when the Music Hall has a show (usually on weekends, check for hours).
What inspired you to become part of Shockwave?
BRANDON BURGESS: One night I was bouncing and went back into the kitchen. Stephen, our head chef, was having a bad night. He was saying he was going through a lot in his life and might have to look for other work. I told him his food was amazing and the best I had eaten in Felton, and I would hate to see him go. I asked to help in the kitchen, and he agreed to let me for a month to see how it went. That month we did a lot of business and we both agreed to keep going and see Shockwave reach its potential.
Tell me more about Felton Music Hall?
It is becoming the place to go in Felton for great entertainment, and good drinks and food. We have a wide range of music from country and bluegrass, to reggae and Grateful Dead-style. We also feature singer/songwriters, DJ’s and electronic music. The building itself is the oldest on the Felton strip and has quite a bit of history. It has a real mountain vibe with some cool architecture featuring natural woods, metal and brick.
Trust winemaker Randall Grahm to come up with an eye-catching label for his 2022 Clairette Blanche. It’s a picture of an eye – which Grahm describes as a “wide-open optical aperture.”
Named “Perfect Clairetty,” this 100% Clairette is “lightness captured in a glass.” Clairette is an ancient variety originating from southern France. Crisp and clean, it is definitely an “Old Skool cépage,” and “delightfully démodé,” says Grahm, who is never stuck for words! This lithe and agile wine ($30) has a primary taste impression of pome fruit – along with citrus, lemongrass and anise. Grapes are from Beeswax Vineyard in Monterey.
Nicole Walsh, winemaker for Grahm’s brand of Bonny Doon, owns and operates Ser Winery. She and Grahm share a tasting room in the center of Aptos Village, next to the Bay View Hotel. Bonny Doon Vineyard, 10 Parade St., Suite B, Aptos, 831-612-6062. Bonnydoonvineyard.com
An Evening with Friends – Hospice Fundraiser
Many local wineries have donated to the upcoming Hospice of Santa Cruz County fundraiser, An Evening with Friends – Silver Mountain Vineyards, Alfaro Winery, Stockwell Cellars, Ser Winery, Sarah’s Vineyard, Integrity Wines, Hallcrest Vineyards, and Equinox Sparkling Wine. These wonderful wineries are well worth a visit. An Evening with Friends is 4:30-8:30pm, Sunday, Oct.8 at Seascape Golf Club. Tickets and info: ev****************@ho**************.org or call 831-430-3084.
Chez Mima Redwood Retreat Camping & Cooking Mima Lecocq is an alum of one of this country’s most famous restaurants – Chez Panisse in Berkeley. She is now doing cooking classes in a most unusual setting – outdoors under the redwoods on her own private property in Corralitos. Accommodations are available in a rustic cabin or tent for a night or a weekend – and you can take your own food and wine! chezmimaculinary.com
Being a music promoter is like being a skier or farmer. You might get too much of what you want and it kills business, or too little. Their livelihood can be made or broken by the weather, the competition, the ticket prices and the temperament of the acts they book.
It was a half-century ago, but 70-year old trumpeter Michael Ray still vividly recalls his first encounter with the Sun Ra Arkestra, as a teenager attending an outdoor music festival in suburban Philadelphia. “The first thing I noticed was all the musicians had suitcases filled with sheet music.”
Sunday, Oct. 29, author/photographer/former molecular biologist Nik Sharma—who sits atop a growing stack of cookbook resources like James Beard Award-nominated Season:Big Flavors, Beautiful Food and The Flavor Equation—presents Veg-table: Recipes, Techniques and Plant Science for Big-Flavored, Vegetable-Focused Meals.
ewel, the megastar folk-rock-pop singer who was born of the 90s Gen X angst amid her grunge counterparts, is a perfectly measured cocktail of artistic talent, intellectual postfeminism and an advocate for mental wellness. And, despite being a multi-platinum, award-winning recording artist with one of the best-selling debuts of all time, this singer/songwriter supports happiness first, music second.
Before becoming co-owner of Shockwave Food, area native Brandon Burgess was a bouncer at the Felton Music Hall – the venue where the cuisine is currently being made and served.
Trust winemaker Randall Grahm to come up with an eye-catching label for his 2022 Clairette Blanche. It’s a picture of an eye – which Grahm describes as a “wide-open optical aperture.”
