Page 169 – Good Times

Finally, Some Water

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November 8, 2023

There was good and bad news for the 1,200 customers of the struggling Big Basin Water Company who have had their drinking water trucked in at a cost of $60,000 a month.

In the last two weeks, BBWC has stopped trucking in water, has cut the cost of importing water by 60% and is now able to stock reserve tanks.

However, “Well 4”, the primary source of drinking water for customers, was operating at about 100 gallons per minute, a third of its capacity.

That was the update given at a Nov. 2 town hall, where 50 people packed the Boulder Creek Fire Protection District headquarters and an additional 40 via teleconference.

“We have water ready and available and in reserve in our tanks,” attorney Nicholas Jaber said. “Likewise, for the first time in many, many months water levels are in fact, steadily rising in our primary tanks.”

The public meeting, which was hosted by the office of District 5 Supervisor Bruce McPherson, also served to introduce Jaber, an attorney with Silver & Wright LLP, who has taken on the task of steering the receivership. Silver & Wright signed on as the public receiver for BBWC on Oct. 5.

In the month since Santa Cruz Superior Court ruled to assign a public receiver for Big Basin Water Company’s (BBWC) drinking water operation to take over the company’s finances and bring it back into compliance with state water regulations, the efforts to steady the situation of the troubled private utility have begun to take shape. BBWC customers have been waiting years for a solution to the problems with drinking water and wastewater services.

Steady Flow

Since the receiver took over, problems with the flow of water from wells that feed the drinking water system for BBWC forced the operation to truck in water to serve customers. Jaber said that, on average, trucks would haul in around 4,000 gallons a day. In the last month, Jaber said it was a “huge problem” and “ financially unsustainable for the receivership.”

A positive development came with working with the San Lorenzo Valley Water District. Now, flow between the San Lorenzo Valley system and BBWC’s has increased from 15 gallons per minute to 62 gallons per minute.

The receivership has so far managed to stabilize the water flow, but in late October any progress made seemed in jeopardy.

When Silver & Wright took over as receiver on Oct. 5, BBWC’s operations were being managed by Central States Water Resources (CSWR), a private utility company which had entered into a tentative agreement to buy BBWC. At 6:30 a.m on October 20, CSWR sent out a notification to customers of BBWC it was terminating its contract as operator effective immediately.

Jaber informed town hall attendees that with the help of Santa Cruz County and Supervisor McPherson’s office they were able to secure $40,000 to “keep the lights on” at BBWC. The money was used for the “day-to-day operations” and “primarily-purposed to support water hauling.” Jaber also revealed that the county recently obtained a $240,000 grant from the California Department of Water Resources to fund the purchase of “emergency” water.

“Without these funding packages I’m not really sure where we’d be right now, but it would be pretty dire,” Jaber said.

Jaber acknowledged that customers would see an increase in their water bill as BBWC anchors itself and builds a comprehensive billing system. He said that, at the moment, they are purchasing water from San Lorenzo Valley Water District for roughly 13 cents per unit and are selling it to customers at about 3.5 cents per unit. How much the increase will be for customers is yet to be determined.

Jennifer Epp, a representative of the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, which regulates BBWC’S wastewater operations, said that her office was blindsided by the abrupt departure of CSWR. CSWR also operated the wastewater facility, and now officials are working on short-term solutions to keep the plant running. Roughly 30 customers are serviced by the plant.

The water board filed a complaint on Oct. 24 in Santa Cruz Superior Court against BBWC owners Thomas J. and Shirley Moore and CSWR, according to Epp. The court issued an order the next day requiring CSWR to run the plant until Nov. 9.

“We took them to court for basically walking away from you guys and we prevailed,” Epp said.

The wastewater plant is still running and decisions are being made on a day-to-day basis. The next court date is Nov. 9 and further steps will be determined after.

Monarchs Flutter In

Aiyana Moya

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November 8, 2023

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Lily Aravanis is fielding visitor questions, selling butterfly paraphernalia and on this Wednesday afternoon talking to a reporter all at once—still, she doesn’t skip a beat as she says that there are an estimated 3,500 monarch butterflies at Natural Bridges State Beach.

It’s the busiest time of the year for the small visitor center according to Aravanis, a marine biologist who works behind the desk at Natural Bridges.

From the end of October to December, people from around the world come to see the monarch butterflies that are flying around Santa Cruz, concentrated in a few groves around the city. It’s only 1pm and the Natural Bridges gift shop and visitor center has been open for an hour, but already Aravanis says she has helped around 130 customers.

This is the best time of year to see the butterflies, Aravanis says, as they are still out flying from plant to plant as they try and stock up on food before going into hibernation.

“They’re still in their stage where they’re trying to fatten up as much as they can, so you’ll see some clusters, but you’ll also see them flying,” Aravanis says.

The butterflies will continue to arrive in the city and gather in groves up until the end of November, when they go into hibernation. Last year around this time there were an estimated 7,000 monarchs, but Aravanis is optimistic with the number of butterflies staff has counted in the groves so far—especially considering the storms earlier this year.

Before January of this year, Santa Cruz had around 8,000 monarchs hibernating throughout the city. After the series of storms that began New Year’s Eve last year, that count dropped to around 2500. Aravanis says that the drop in numbers could have been attributed to various factors, not all related to death: some monarchs could have blown to different areas, for instance.

Still, overall trends show the monarch population declining—largely as a consequence of climate change causing weather extremes, like wildfires and storms.

“Monarch butterflies are kind of like Goldilocks,” Aravanis says. “They really need an area that’s not too hot, not too cold. So if you start getting areas with more extreme weather patterns, then there’s going to be less places for them to survive.”

When Monarchs go into hibernation in winter months, Aravanis explains, they do so to conserve their energy to continue their trek down the state and into Mexico. More extreme weather likely means more movement—which, when considering that the butterflies migrate from as far north as Canada to central Mexico, can mean life or death.

“They have huge migrations, it’s a lot for a person to do that distance, and they’re butterflies,” Aravanis says. “They have a lot of environmental factors that are working against them, but they persist anyways.”

The other challenge is habitat loss, she says.

“We need to be protecting our groves making sure that they’re not being cut down, or the trees when they fall down that they’re replaced,” she says.

Aravanis, who graduated from UC Santa Cruz and would spend her spare time examining the tide pools at Natural Bridges, says that before she worked at the visitor center, she didn’t appreciate the butterflies as much.

“I didn’t realize just how cool it was. But the butterflies are really special. There’s something about them and like I have a science brain I don’t use the term magical lightly,” she says. “But there’s something about hanging out down the grove and watching the butterflies and it really kind of is magical.”

A Quest for Justice

Todd Guild

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November 8, 2023

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Glenn Schaller, whose grassroots work touched nearly every aspect of local progressive politics for the past four decades throughout California, died Oct. 30 in his Santa Cruz home.

He was 66.

His friends and family say that, despite his work on high-profile issues such as leading multiple campaigns or battling Proposition 8—the 2008 law that banned gay marriage—Schaller strove to stay out of the spotlight, maintaining that notoriety was not the reason for his work.

So, what was the reason?

“A quest for justice,” said Sen. John Laird—Schaller ran Laird’s campaign for Santa Cruz City Council in the 1980s. “That was just it all the way. If you ever talked to him, if he was ever surprised by anything, it was that somebody might not be doing their best in the quest for justice, and that just drove him all along the way.”

Born in East Northport, N.Y., Schaller was raised by politically active Republican parents who taught their kids the importance of civic duty by having them stuff envelopes or bring lunch to the people in the polling places, his sister Merrie Scaller said.

While his older siblings did anti-war work in their universities in the 70s, Schaller joined another brother and his family on a cross-country road trip in a converted school bus.

“He wandered around all over the place and ended up in Santa Cruz and fell in love with it,” Merrie Schaller said. “That was 1976.”

It was here that Schaller followed his first passion, studying early childhood education and embarking on a 25-year career in education.

In the meantime, he was involved in housing issues such as rent control with the Housing Advisory Committee. He was a founding member of the Community Credit Union and worked as a coordinator with Santa Cruz Action Network.

Glen was perhaps best known for his work supporting the LGBTQ+ community. His involvement earned him a proclamation in 1987 from Santa Cruz Mayor Jane Weed, Merrie Schaller said.

“He has been an ally to so many communities, and a mentor to a whole lot of people,” she said. “I am really proud of my little brother.”

It is not clear how Scaller died. He suffered from both congestive heart failure and diabetes, although neither has been linked conclusively to his death, his sister said.

What is clear, however, is that Glen Schaller was often so wrapped up in his community that he neglected his health, she said.

“Sometimes we get all involved with the public work and we don’t take care of ourselves or each other as well as we should,” she said.

Cabrillo College Trustee Adam Spickler, the first transgender man elected to public office in Santa Cruz County, said that Glen Schaller’s work extended to teaching other straight and cicgender people how to be allies for the LGBTQ+ community.

“Glen was just phenomenal, and he showed up in those ways politically, which really mattered at a time when things were really challenging for our community, in the 80s, in the 90s,” Spickler said.

Schaller led the statewide drive against Prop 8, which passed with 52% of the statewide vote, but was later declared unconstitutional.

He was also adept at recruiting young people who were upset about Prop. 8, but didn’t know how to get involved, Spickler said.

“Glen was masterful at pulling and drawing in youth,” he said. “And helping them understand that this was part of the larger fight for LGBTQ equality.”

Schaller put his skills and knowledge to use in the latter part of his career as a political organizer with the Monterey Bay Central Labor Council.

“He was a great strategist, a big thinker and had a good core compass,” said Executive Director Cesar Lara. “Glen was a tireless advocate for community issues, he made a big impact not just in the County of Santa Cruz but in the Central Coast.”

In a post on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, Rep. Jimmy Panetta said that Schaller “didn’t just preach solidarity, he lived it.”

“You could always count on Glen to be on the frontlines for workers, working families, and equality,” Panetta said. “In his passing, our community has lost someone who knew that we can and must continue to do better for one another.”

Community Speaks Against Pesticides

Tarmo Hannula

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November 8, 2023

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Members of the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) presented a plan on Oct. 30 that aims to strengthen the way the state regulates agricultural pesticides—but many members of the public expressed skepticism over the effectiveness of the regulations.

The four-year plan was presented in Watsonville to a crowd of about 50 people at the Ramsay Park Family Center.

If approved, it aims, among other things, to reduce California’s dependence on toxic pesticides, gradually replacing them with less toxic products and chemicals. Presenter Karen Morrison, the DPR’s Chief Deputy Director, also touched on being transparent to the public with a mission of “protecting human health and the environment.”

But people from Watsonville, Salinas, Gonzales and as far away as Santa Maria and Ventura took turns at the open mic to voice concerns and doubts about the plan.

One person questioned the timing of the meeting—4pm on a Monday—a time when many farmworkers are heading home to clean up for dinner and unable to attend.

Victor Torres, 17, addressed environmental and racial justice, saying he was exposed to pesticides at a young age and had to be rushed to the hospital.

“Many of those pesticides that were applied that day that caused my asthma attack are still on the market and are used throughout the state,” he said. “I am here today… to advocate for other members of my community that couldn’t be here today. Stop prioritizing profits over people’s lives.”

Woody Rehanek of Watsonville, a former farmer, said in the Pajaro Valley Unified School District, 67 farms, greenhouses and nurseries are within a quarter-mile of schools.

“16 growers are organic; 50 growers use conventional chemicals,” he said. “Conventional berry farms within a quarter-mile of schools use the carcinogenic fumigant 1,3-D, which has been banned in 34 countries. Does this make sense?”

He stressed that while California boasts the strictest pesticide regulations in the world, it allows 133 chemicals that the European Union has either banned or not registered for use at all.

“The European Union just voted to eliminate 50% of all pesticides by 2030, and 65% of restricted pesticides by that date,” he said. “California needs to follow this lead while converting to organic, regenerative agriculture. Instead, DPR proposes eliminating 50% of restricted pesticides by 2050.”

After reading the plan, retired certified organic farmer of 30 years, Tom Willey said, “I don’t know why there is no recognition or even encouragement for the adoption of organic production.”

He pointed out that there are around two million certified organic acres in the state and that such farming practices largely eliminates all toxic inputs into production systems, “and if that is seemingly your ultimate goal, I can’t figure out why you’re not willing to encourage the adoption of certified organic farming.”

Watsonville resident and former PVUSD middle school teacher, Sarah Ringler, raised the health implications on consumers as well as farmers.

“Getting rid of pesticides saves lives in the fields but it also saves lives of consumers—so why does the United States do such a poor job of protecting its consumers?” Ringler said.

From Mill to Rosé

Vine & Dine

Josie Cowden

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November 8, 2023

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Delicious aromas of fresh cranberry, ripe strawberry and vanilla bean introduce this bright 2022 Rosé by The Mill Keeper (under $20). “The mineral-driven palate is balanced by notes of watermelon and dragon fruit with secondary hints of white flower and crushed rock.” With its gorgeous salmon hue, its creamy body and bright acidity, this is a palate-pleasing Rosé and then some!

Founded by Tom Gamble, The Mill Keeper in Napa was inspired by Napa’s first mill keepers of the mid 1800s, “who transformed the Napa Valley into a thriving, prosperous community.”

The Mill Keeper wines (by Gamble Family Vineyards) are generally inexpensive and sell out quickly. If you can’t find the Rosé, then try their Bordeaux Blend, Cabernet Sauvignon, or a tasty white blend of Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay. These wines are mostly sold at wine and spirits stores all over. The Gamble Family Vineyards wines are available to taste at their beautiful facility surrounded by vines.

Gamble Family Vineyards, 7554 St. Helena Hwy., Napa, 707-944-2999. Gamblefamilyvineyards.com

Holding an Event at Silver Mountain

Have an event planned for fall? Silver Mountain Vineyards has a lovely venue for private events such as a reunion, birthday or anniversary. Their vineyard sits at 2,100 feet – with stunning views of the Monterey Bay. The venue space can be either casual or elegant, depending on your needs. A Vineyard Amphitheater offers a large space with tables and seating, and there is also a gazebo. Or simply make a picnic reservation – with picnic and table awaiting you on arrival.

Silver Mountain Vineyards, Silver Mountain Drive (off Old San Jose Road), Los Gatos. 408-353-2278. Contact Ann at wi******@*******tn.com for info.

Silver Mountain’s Santa Cruz tasting room is at 328D Ingalls St. – just off the Swift Street Courtyard complex. Silvermtn.com

Street Talk

Street Talk

John Koenig

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November 8, 2023

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How do you feel about setting your clock to “fall back”? Do you prefer early mornings or longer days?

“I like having a longer day. I like when it’s bright and happy, and you can be more productive. It’s easier to stay in bed when it’s dark. But I don’t like changing the time, just let it be natural.!”

“I didn’t know the time was changing. I woke up and it was an hour earlier than I thought. It was nice because I hadn’t gone busking for a while, so it felt like I had more time to do that.”

**Zoe K, 21, “Olympic” Hacky Sack Player**

“I’d rather have the day last longer, but I don’t pay attention to time. If I have to be somewhere on someone else’s timeline I’ll be there, but personally I just follow the sun doing its thing.”

**David Regus, 40, Self-Defense Instructor**

“I enjoy longer nights. I live in the mountains of Bonny Doone, so I get to see more stars. But I don’t like the time changing—I’d rather settle on a steady time and just let the day do what it’s going to do.”

“I have mixed feelings. I don’t like the longer nights, but I have early morning meetings so it’s a lot easier to get up in the morning. It would be a lot easier if we kept the same time all year.”

“When you fall back it feels OK, you get an extra hour of sleep—but when you spring forward, you feel like you’re being robbed. They say that heart attacks increase when we spring forward.”

Free Will Astrology

Astrology

Rob Brezsny

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November 8, 2023

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ARIES (March 21-April 19): Your victories-in-progress are subtle. They may not be totally visible to you yet. Let me describe them so you can feel properly confident about what you are in the process of accomplishing. 1. A sustained surge of hard-earned personal growth is rendering one of your problems mostly irrelevant. 2. You have been redefining what rewards are meaningful to you, and that’s motivating you to infuse your ambitions with more soulfulness. 3. You are losing interest in a manipulative game that doesn’t serve you as well as it should. 4. You are cultivating more appreciation for fascinating and useful problems.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Taurus physicist Richard Feynman was a smart and accomplished person who won a Nobel Prize. He articulated a perspective that will be healthy for you to experiment with in the coming weeks. He said, “I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it’s much more interesting not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I’m not absolutely sure of anything, and there are many things I don’t know anything about.” Give Feynman’s approach a try, dear Taurus. Now is an excellent time to explore the perks of questioning everything. I bet you’ll be pleased with how free and easy it makes you feel.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): To earn money, I have worked as a janitor, dishwasher, olive picker, ditch-digger, newspaper deliverer, and 23 other jobs involving hard labor. In addition, I have done eight artistic jobs better suited to my sensitive temperament and creative talents. Am I regretful or resentful about the thousands of hours I toiled at tasks I didn’t enjoy? A little. But mostly I’m thankful for them. They taught me how to interact harmoniously with a wide array of people. They helped forge my robust social conscience. And they motivated me to eventually figure out how to get jobs I really loved. Now I invite you to take an inventory of your own work life, Gemini. It’s an excellent time to evaluate where you’ve been and where you want to go in the future.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): There are so many kinds of sweetness. Zesty spicy sweetness. Tender balmy fragrant sweetness. Sour or bitter sweetness. Musky piquant sweetness. Luscious succulent sweetness. One of my favorite types of sweetness is described by Cancerian poet Stephen Dunn. He wrote, “Often a sweetness comes as if on loan, stays just long enough to make sense of what it means to be alive, then returns to its dark source. As for me, I don’t care where it’s been, or what bitter road it’s traveled to come so far, to taste so good.” My analysis of the astrological omens suggests to me that you are about to commune with at least three of these sweetnesses, Cancerian. Maybe most of them.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Author Dan Savage advocates regular indulgence in sloth. He notes that few of us can “get through 24 hours without a little downtime. Human beings need to stare off into space, look out the window, daydream, and spend time every day being indolent and useless.” I concur, and I hope you will indulge in more downtime than usual during the coming weeks. For the sake of your long-term mental and physical health, you need to relax extra deep and strong now—to recharge your battery with delicious and delightful abandon.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): According to my deep and thorough analysis of your astrological rhythms, your mouth will soon be a wonder of nature. The words emerging from your lips will be extra colorful, precise, and persuasive. Your taste buds will have an enhanced vividness as they commune with the joys of food and drink. And I suspect your tongue and lips will exult in an upgrade of aptitude and pleasure while plying the arts of sex and intimate love. Congratulations, Mouthy Maestro!

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In addition to being a masterful composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) played the piano, violin, harp, bassoon, clarinet, horn, flute, oboe, and trumpet. His experience led him to believe that musicians best express their skills when they play fast. It’s more challenging to be excellent when playing slowly, he thought. But I will invite you to adopt the reverse attitude and approach in the coming weeks, Libra. According to my astrological analysis, you will be most successful if you work gradually and incrementally, with careful diligence and measured craftiness.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): In my horoscopes for Scorpios, I tend to write complex messages. My ideas are especially thick and rich and lush. Why? Because I imagine you as being complex, thick, rich, and lush. Your destiny is labyrinthine and mysterious and intriguing, and I aspire to reflect its intricate, tricky beauty. But this time, in accordance with current astrological omens, I will offer you my simplest, most straightforward oracle ever. I borrowed it from author Mary Anne Hershey: “Live with intention. Walk to the edge. Listen hard. Play with abandon. Choose with no regret. Continue to learn. Appreciate your friends. Do what you love.”

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): In her poem “Requiem,” Anna Akhmatova says, “I must kill off memory . . . and I must learn to live anew.” I think most of us can benefit from periodically engaging in this brave and robust exercise. It’s not a feat to be taken lightly—not to be done more than once or twice a year. But guess what: The coming weeks will be a time when such a ritual might be wise for you. Are you ready to purge old business and prepare the way for a fresh start? Here are your words of power: forgiveness, clearing, cleaning, release, absolution, liberation.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): We need stories almost as much as we need to breathe, eat, sleep, and move. It’s impossible to live without them. The best stories nourish our souls, stimulate our imagination, and make life exciting. That’s not to say that all stories are healthy for us. We sometimes cling to narratives that make us miserable and sap our energy. I think we have a sacred duty to de-emphasize and even jettison those stories—even as we honor and relish the rich stories that empower and inspire us. I bring these thoughts to your attention, Capricorn, because you’re in a phase of your cycle when you will especially thrive by disposing of the bad old stories and celebrating the good ones.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): I could be wrong, but I don’t think so: You are smarter and wiser than you realize about the pressing issues that are now vying for your attention. You know more than you know you know. I suspect this will soon become apparent, as streams of fresh insights rise up from the depths of your psyche and guide your conscious awareness toward clarity. It’s OK to squeal with glee every time a healing intuition shows up. You have earned this welcome phase of lucid certainty.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): In Indigenous cultures throughout history, shamans have claimed they have the power to converse with and even temporarily become hawks, coyotes, snakes, and other creatures. Why do they do that? It’s a long story, but one answer is that they believe animals have intelligences that are different from what humans have. The shamans aspire to learn from those alternate ways of seeing and comprehending the world. Many of us who live in Western culture dismiss this venerable practice, although I’ve known animal lovers who sympathize with it. If you are game for a fun experiment, Pisces, I invite you to try your own version. Choose an animal to learn from. Study and commune with it. Ask it to reveal intuitions that surprise and enrich you.

Homework: What increasingly unnecessary duty could you abandon and thereby fuel your drive to be free? Newsletter.FreeWillAstrology.com

Acid Mothers Temple

Music

Bill Kopp

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November 8, 2023

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Musical prophets without honor in their home country, Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. have been making mind-melting psychedelic music for nearly three decades. The quintessential underground band is among the most prolific groups in all of music, and its free-wheeling, improvisational excursions have earned it a devoted cult. Led by guitarist, founder and mainstay Kawabata Makoto, the group comes to Santa Cruz’s Moe’s Alley for one performance on Nov. 9.

The origins of psychedelic rock – that is, rock music influenced directly or indirectly by the culture of consciousness-expanding drugs – extend back to the mid 1960s. Arguably the first-ever group to describe its music using that label was a Texas-based group, the 13^th Floor Elevators. Both the Beatles and Grateful Dead were early leaders in the movement, one which eventually spread around the globe.

One of the least likely places for psych rock to have taken hold was Japan. Mid-’60s Japan was experiencing a homegrown cultural flowering of its own, thanks to figures like filmmaker Kurosawa Akira and printmaking artist Saitō Kiyoshi.

Pop music in Japan wasn’t immune to global trends: the so-called GS (“Group Sounds”) scene was a decidedly Japanese take on Western rock and pop styles like surf and garage rock. And by the late part of the decade, influential Japanese personalities who had visited places like London, New York and San Francisco brought back records, tapes and stories of the burgeoning psychedelic movement.

Yet the psych rock scene in Japan would remain quite small, and never really broke through to the wider public. “I don’t know so much about the Japanese underground scene,” says Kawabata, leader of Acid Mothers Temple, today the premier Japanese psychedelic group. “I’m not sure there was any psychedelic rock scene in ‘60s and ‘70s Japan.” He suggests what did exist was likely “just bizarre copies of Western music.”

Kawabata’s own musical journey began in 1978. And in those early days, few seemed to appreciate what he was doing. “Nobody could understand my music, so I couldn’t connect with them,” he says. But he followed his inspiration, making his own psychedelic rock, imbued with an Asian character.

Drawing not only from American and British styles, AMT often incorporates elements of noise (from avant-garde composers like Karlheinz Stockhausen) and drone (from the repetitive and hypnotic motorik of German “krautrock”).

The results are every bit as heady as a Grateful Dead “space” piece, but with a Japanese quality all its own. For his part, Kawabata characterizes AMT’s studio work as musique concrète, using recorded sounds as raw material.

The first official AMT album, Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. was released in 1997. Asked how the album was received by the Japanese public, Kawabata laughs. “Totally no reaction,” he says. The media there ignored it, too.

But the five-track album (featuring a nearly 20-minute drone freakout titled “Speed Guru”) did get noticed. UK magazine The Wire named the album one of the year’s best. The group – a shifting cast of players with Kawabata as the guiding force – embarked on a busy schedule of concert tours around the globe. A staggeringly prolific outfit, AMT has released more than 100 albums to date.

While early psychedelic music pioneers found inspiration among the drug culture. Kawabata’s group stands apart from that tradition.

“All of my music comes from my cosmos,” he explains. “I catch music from my cosmos, and I play with instruments to people. So I don’t need anything like mind-altering substances.” His goal is to remove ego from the process. Because, he says, “my ego/personality gets in the way of reproducing music.”

And while flashing, colored lights and surreal projected visual images are often part of the psych-rock aesthetic. Kawabata says that his group doesn’t emphasize those things. The group often plays in near-darkness.

“I can’t even see my stage,” he says. “Anyway, the most important thing is the music; if people have their own [mental] images from our music, that’s the perfect visual for me.”

The music of Acid Mothers Temple is sometimes said to bring on a state of trance. Kawabata’s goals, though, are decidedly more down to earth. “Music is just music: nothing more, nothing less,” he asserts. “I want to make people happy. Only this.”

Acid Mothers Temple w/ Dead Leaf Echo + Mammatus, Thursday, Moe’s Alley.

$20 advance/$25 door/Doors 7pm / Show 8pm

21 and over

Things to do in Santa Cruz

Things To Do This Week

GT Staff

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November 8, 2023

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THURSDAY

THEATER

YOU WILL GET USED TO IT

Playwright Preston Choi tackles bureaucracy by employing the fantastical in “You Will Get Used to It.” Anyone who’s worked in an office will relate to the unsettling feeling that something just isn’t quite right; Choi takes this gut feeling into the physical, setting his characters in a room that also features a hole that’s… oozing goo. Add to that a mysterious sound, almost like a person crying, and that uneasy feeling starts to ramp up towards fear. What could be scarier than late-stage capitalism? The play is directed by Rebecca Wear and is on its final run this weekend. It closes on Sunday. JESSICA IRISH

INFO: 7:30pm, UCSC Theater Arts eXperimental Theater, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz. Free. 459-2974

FRIDAY

ROCK

ALTIN GUN

Grammy-nominated Turkish psych-rock band Altin Gün has recorded a live studio album like no other: Aşk reimagines ten traditional Turkish songs in the band’s signature ’70s Anatolian folk-rock style. These ancient tales of love and loss become surprisingly danceable under Altin Gün’s trippy roof, so concertgoers would be wise to bring their most dazzling pair of dancing shoes. Their hypnotic live performances are transcendent experiences of deep funk, synthpop, and cosmic reggae all wrapped up in Anatolian sensibilities. This is a band that made a sci-fi music video to illustrate their single “Doktor Civanim” as a tribute to pandemic health workers; anything could happen. ADDIE MAHMASSANI

INFO: 8pm, Felton Music Hall, 6275 Hwy 9, Felton. $29/adv, $34/door. 704-7113.

PSYCH ROCK

COVEN

Holy Hell. Literally. This show might happen ten days after Devil’s Night, but if old Belial does appear in the flesh he will most likely be rocking out to Coven. After all, this late ’60s band from Chicago pretty much single-handedly created occult rock with their first album Witchcraft Destroys Minds & Reaps Souls. That debut also ended with the first-ever recording of a Satanic Black Mass, which in itself is the first time the words “Ave Satanas” were ever used in rock music. Can’t get much more metal than that, right? WRONG. For years the metal community has debated whether or not Coven influenced Black Sabbath in, well, everything. Oh, and Jinx Dawson also has claims on using the devil horns before Dio. MW

INFO: 7pm, Catalyst Club, 1011 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. $25/adv, $30/door. 713-5492.

SATURDAY

HEALTH FAIR

VETERANS DAY CELEBRATION

The Vet’s Hall is a hub for all things good: local punk shows, weekly Tango classes, and, of course, veterans. This Veterans Day is an all-out extravaganza at the hallowed hall, starting at 11am-4pm with a free health fair supporting former soldiers and their families. For the next chunk of the day, from 4pm-11pm, a fundraiser takes place for the Veterans Village of Santa Cruz County, which helps homeless vets transition to permanent housing. The Dylan Rose band headlines with support from a local lineup of dreams: Rumble Steelskin, Locomotive Breath, Bog Iron and James Durbin. AM

INFO: 11am, Veterans Hall, 846 Front Street, Santa Cruz. $20/adv, $25/door. 454-0478.

JAZZ

LOWDOWN BRASS BAND

What the Dirty Dozen and Rebirth brass bands are to New Orleans, the LowDown Brass Band is to Chicago. They have a similar mission, to keep brass band music evolving as a modern form rather than turning into a static, museum piece. Mixing hip-hop, jazz, reggae, and soul, the high-energy septet is touring to support their two “pandemic lockdown” albums, The Reel Sessions and LowDown Nights. The Graduating Class and Uncle Dog will open. DAN EMERSON

INFO: 9 p.m. Moe’s Alley, 1535 Commercial Way. $15 adv./$20/door

AMERICANA

STEVEN GRAVES

*taps microphone*: Ahem, ahem: are there any Grateful Dead fans out there? Anyone who loves beer and a good time? If the answer to either of those questions is a yes, it’s probably a good idea to check out Steven Graves. He lives in Nashville, owns paisley button-downs, and sings about being a “Lovin’ Man”— aka, this music is a good, rootsy time. Graves’ voice reaches Jerry Garcia plaintiveness in more than one song, evoking that heart twinge that only true vulnerability can prise from the depths. It’s the perfect sound for a Saturday afternoon, swaying alongside a beloved. JI

INFO: 3pm, Discretion Brewing, 2703 41st Ave, Ste A, Soquel. Free. 316-0662.

SUNDAY

JAZZ

THE PICKLE MAFIA

The New York-based trio Pickle Mafia describes its music–with tongue firmly planted in cheek–as “arena jazz fusion.” But that description is more indicative of the band’s sense of humor than anything. They’re not really an arena band; the group’s website describes its sound in slightly more detail as a well-played blend of jazz with hip-hop, Latin, and pop, which is certainly compatible with a cozy venue like Kuumbwa. DE

INFO: 7 pm, Kuumbwa Jazz Center, 320-2 Cedar St. $25. 427-2227

MONDAY

LITERARY

JOY BUOLAMWINI

Artificial Intelligence is everywhere today. In the news. On the internet. Even in our cars. But what are the moral implications of this new technology? Will it truly free humanity to evolve faster or will it turn into the human-destroying Skynet theorized in dystopian sci-fi movies? Dr. Joy Buolamwini might not have all the answers, but she knows a thing or two. In fact, as one of the leading computer scientists and digital activists, Buolamwini has been called “The conscience of the AI revolution” by Fortune. This Monday Dr. Buolamwini will be at the Cowell Ranch Hay Barn to discuss her new book, Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What is Human in a World of Machines and How to Avoid the Trappings and Pitfalls of Digital Oppression. MW

INFO: 7pm, Cowell Ranch Hay Barn, Ranch View Rd., Santa Cruz. $10-$33. 423-0900.

WEDNESDAY

INDIE

PRINCESS CHELSEA

Princess Chelsea went viral in 2011 for a song about smoking. The song, “Smoking Duet,” is simultaneously kookie, cute and relatable. She uses twee and pop influences to tell the story of a couple squabbling over smoking. But she’s been involved with a lot more than that song, including several bands like Disciples of Macca, a Paul McCartney covers band. She also has continued to release new music. Her 2022 record Everything Is Going To Be Alright, contains all the storybook-gone-adult elements of her earlier work, and then some. The cinematography and bizarre stylings of the “Time” video makes it worth a view, even if it didn’t go “Smoking Duet” level viral. AARON CARNES

INFO: 8pm, Catalyst Club, 1011 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. $18/adv, $20/door. 713-5492.

Letters

Letters to the Editor

Letters to the Editor

-

November 8, 2023

0

WATSONVILLE AIRPORT RETORT

Developers never stop developing airports across the US. Several times the Watsonville Municipal Airport was about to be closed, as in one case when the inexperienced pilot took three people and luggage with full fuel on the trip to Tahoe and instead crashed on take-off, making the airport “unsafe”.

To keep pilots safe, Watsonville should have long ago invested in a control tower, based on traffic density which at times resembles Pacific Avenue on Friday nights. They should make mandatory pilot remedials on communications in this area. I could write a book on near misses and near hits that local cowboys do every weekend there. Well, many blessings to those that still fly there, I do not anymore. And relating to security and making a runway longer, please add metal detectors and TSA luggage checks.

Aston Martin 500

MORE AFFORDABLE HOUSING PLEASE

If we’re truly concerned about increasing housing opportunities for local workers, we must support the Housing for People’s initiative on the next ballot. It restricts building to six stories without a vote of the people and requires 25% of the units to be affordable which puts in place reasonable restrictions on developers to NOT destroy the character of Santa Cruz as a livable town. It does not restrict the amount of housing built.

I am wondering if Dan Brumbaugh’s letter (GT 11/1/23) is the beginning of a disinformation campaign by developers to protect their exorbitant profits. How can requiring 25% of units to be affordable be a Negative, when recent developments utilizing loopholes have produced only around half of the 25% affordable units?

Locking in affordability will surely HELP those who cannot remain here when a house costs more than $1million, shared-house bedrooms are up to $1500 and a studio apartment rents for more than $2000.

Susan Martinez

Santa Cruz

NOT ME 2

I wouldn’t pay a penny to U2 or spend a month’s salary to see any group. I was lucky to see them live in their prime and now I am content to listen to them in my home.

Mindi Garman

ME 2

Wow! I have been wanting to go but the cost is huge. Good to hear that it was worth it. U2 is amazing to see live and that venue sounds like a once-in-a lifetime experience.

Trish Canepa

Good TimesGood Times

Good TimesGood Times

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