Following a two-year pause, Cali Roots is still one of the largest and most popular reggae-rock festivals. And the 11th annual gathering’s lineup is full of big-time acts, ready to perform for the 50,000 plus expected to flood the Monterey County Fairgrounds from May 26-29.
Cali Roots veterans Damian “Junior Gong” Marley (9:30pm, Sunday, May 29; The Bowl) and Atmosphere (6:05pm,Friday, May 27; The Bowl) join festival newcomers Ice Cube (7:10pm, Sunday, May 29; The Bowl) and Hirie (6pm, Sunday, May 29; The Cali Roots Stage). 2022 marks the event’s expansion from three days to four, kicking off Thursday with a full roster, punctuated by Stephen Marley (8:45pm, Thursday, May 26; The Cali Roots Stage) and Dirty Heads (9:50pm, Thursday, May 26; The Bowl).
Meanwhile, Santa Cruz’s The Expendables, another Cali Roots mainstay, play The Bowl on Friday at 3:20pm. The Soquel High buddies Geoff Weers (vocals and guitar), Raul Bianchi (lead guitar) and Adam Patterson (drums) formed The Expendables in 1997—bassist Ryan DeMars joined three years later. DeMars, an Aptos High grad, is thrilled to return to the Fairgrounds—the band played Cali Roots in 2019, before the two-year gap.
“Cali Roots was the first festival of our genre, and a couple of more festivals have popped up,” DeMars says. “You tour with these bands; you become really good friends, then you don’t see each other because you’re working with other bands. And then you come back to all these festivals; it’s like you never left playing with each other.”
The Expendables have come a long way. DeMars recalls the early days, opening for Eek-a-Mouse at the Catalyst and selling their demo In the Weeds at a table hidden in a dark corner next to the bar. Now, the quartet is a headlining act performing at a world-renowned festival.
The Santa Cruz-Cali Roots connection runs deeper.
Jeff Monser, the guy behind the entire event, hails from Santa Cruz. He went from slinging T-shirts at festivals around the country to creating Monterey’s most successful music festival ever.
Monser started with a $4,000 sponsorship from Kona Brewing Co. and a product sponsorship from Monster Energy, but it wasn’t quite enough. The artist/screen-printing shop owner had to put up most of the cash he made from his business and worked a second full-time job, screen-printing for Specialized Bicycles.
In 2010, Cali Roots debuted at the Monterey County Fairgrounds on the small Garden Stage. The afternoon event featured eight bands, with Dirty Heads headlining (Tribal Seeds, Thrive and The Holdup were also on the bill). About a thousand people attended.
In 2011, Cali Roots expanded to two days and drew 5,000 on both days—Monser had no previous experience producing music events before Cali Roots but knew he had struck gold.
In 2019, Ben Harper headlined the first night of Cali Roots’ 10-year anniversary. PHOTO: ProPix Medi
By its third year, Monser was out of his league. He had to bring someone on who knew what they were doing. Dan Sheehan—now, the festival producer and co-owner—came on and transformed the event into an internationally lauded gathering. The happening has hosted Slightly Stoopid, Matisyahu, 311,Don Carlos,Nas, Thievery Corporation, The Roots, Cypress Hill and Rebelution—it’s become a bastion of Memorial Day weekend; sold-out, smoked-out musical bliss.
Rebelution drummer Wesley Finley is a product of North Monterey County High School’s music department. He met bandmates Eric Rachmany (vocals/guitar), Rory Carey (keyboards) and Marley D. Williams (bass) at UC Santa Barbara. Finley says performing in a venue that he considers his home turf is incredible.
“It feels kind of surreal and serendipitous, too, in a way, just because I’m from here and I actually live just a couple of miles from the Fairgrounds,” he says. “I can hear music [from my house] sometimes. It takes place right here. It’s one of the biggest reggae festivals, it’s my hometown, and it’s also my birthday weekend—it’s this crazy culmination of circumstances that I get to be a part of, and it’s special to me.”
Night Market 831, inspired by global open-air street bazaars, is an inclusive, collaborative space for festivalgoers to experience a rotating roster of local performers, artists and artisans. No matter how big Cali Roots goes, it continues to embrace the local talent. Salinas reggae outfit The Rudians make their festival debut on Thursday, May 26 at 2:45pm on the Pop-Up Stage.
California Roots Music and Arts Festival happens Thursday, May 26 -Sunday, May 29. Monterey County Fairgrounds, 2004 Fairgrounds Road, Monterey. $141.35/Thursday single-day pass; $176.44/Friday, Saturday and Sunday single-day pass. californiarootsfestival.com.
Vivaldi, Bach, Mozart—what do they have in common? Baroque music, that’s what. Bold, ornamental and irresistible, Baroque music was the rock ’n’ roll of its day. Commissioned by kings, adored by everybody, Baroque songs, symphonies and oratorios still delight us three-hundred-plus years later.
Spanning (roughly) the years 1600-1750, it was the nursery for the complex performance pieces we know today as operas. The earliest operas arrived in northern Europe from Italy in the mid-1600s; their plots came from myth, legend, gossip and history, featuring love stories refreshed by comic relief.
In 1689, Henry Purcell wrote the first English opera, Dido and Aeneas. Purcell was a court musician and the organist at Westminster Abbey when he was a mere 21 years old. First performed in 1692, Dido and Aeneas—based on the story of Queen Dido of Carthage, who is said to have taken her own life after her heart was broken by the Trojan prince Aeneas—made the 30-year-old composer famous. And so he composed more music—but not too much more, because he died at the age of 36.
He followed up Dido and Aeneas two years later with The Fairy Queen, a delicious fairy-tale extravaganza which proved so popular that it was revived the next year with additional comic scenes and songs, including “The Plaint,” a mesmerizing solo reminiscent of Dido’s lament in Purcell’s debut work.
Alternately regal and spritely, Purcell’s melodies and harmonic counterpoints can suggest palatial processions, much as Handel’s did. The Messiah was composed 50 years after The Fairy Queen, yet many of its instrumental flourishes, solo arias with intricate coloratura vocal work and its broad rapturous choruses are similar to Purcell’s composing style. The Fairy Queen gives the audience shimmering choral landscapes on which to graze. Arias jump and leap through a gossamer web of coloratura vocal runs, much as the fairy queen and her entourage weave a gossamer web of enchantment in the spoken dialogues.
The dreamy and theatrical work, which will be performed this weekend by the UCSC Opera company, is made from vignettes of singing and dancing written to accompany Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Technically The Fairy Queen isn’t an opera, nor a dramatic play, but a hybrid of the two—a semi-opera. Edited by Purcell’s librettist, the spoken dialogue prompts the musical interludes for soloists and chorus. The spoken text is Shakespeare’s, and the musical portions don’t so much illustrate that text as embellish and interpret it. Giving visual opulence to the singers of the UCSC Opera program and Concert Choir will be costumes from San Francisco’s Academy of Arts University, wigs and makeup by Santa Cruz Shakespeare’s Jessica Carter, scenic design by Sean Reilly of Visible Gravity and lighting by Legend Theatrical’s Dave Dunning.
Director Sheila Willey calls “The Fairy Queen” a “baroque musical.” PHOTO: KEANA PARKER
Fairy Story
Shakespeare had been dead for 75 years when The Fairy Queen burst onto the English theater scene. Word is the debut production was incredibly costly, given its many moving parts. All of the short musical vignettes are introduced by Titania, the queen of the fairies, or her king, Oberon—or by an abundance of gods and goddesses who have little actual bearing on the dramatic story, but appear to add texture and color to the entertainment.
These little in-between scenes respond in imaginative ways to the acts of the Shakespeare play, interpretive musical commentary on the underlying emotions and agendas of the theatrical actors. Think of it as a play within the play, with supernatural beings added for visual and musical sex appeal. Here we find Juno, the Roman queen of the gods, the sun god Phoebus—and in the ultimate scene, Hymen, the goddess of marriage. Purcell’s librettist, of whose identity we are not 100% percent certain, included little scenes of crowd-pleasing comedy; e.g. drunken poets, perhaps an inside critique of the Bard’s comedic characters. Those familiar with Shakespeare’s play will be quite at home with this rare and very early opera. Those who aren’t will still enjoy all the gorgeous music and the spectacular sylvan setting of the UCSC Quarry amphitheater.
The fairy-tale story involves the interweaving of nature and magic, and the setting—a quarry amphitheater embraced by towering redwoods—is perfect to conjure the transition from everyday reality into the enchanted forest of Oberon and Titania, king and queen of the fairies. Purcell’s fantasy creation is strewn with sensuality and a bold emphasis upon pleasure.
Collective Dream
UCSC’s Opera Program is directed by Sheila Willey, who describes Purcell’s music interwoven with roughly 20 minutes of the Shakespeare play as a “Baroque musical.” The timing is serendipitous: the Santa Cruz Shakespeare season kicks off next month with a world premiere of Kathryn Chetkovich’s romantic comedy The Formula, which is also based on AMidsummer Night’s Dream. Willey and her colleagues—UCSC’s orchestra director Bruce Kiesling, concert choir director Nathaniel Berman and vocal instructor Emily Sinclair—chose Purcell’s work because it seemed to be the perfect joint project to link together the opera program, orchestra and concert choir.
“There will be short dialogues from the Shakespeare within the performance,” Willey explains. “Five short acts, with one intermission, roughly two hours.”
The group chose the Quarry as the venue before the quarantine.
“Then it became necessary,” says Willey, referring to the outdoor setting, but also to the fact that the university’s main musical performance space, the Recital Hall, has been out of commission due to structural malfunctions over the past two years.
“During lockdown, we did remote opera projects,” Willey says, with a slight roll of the eyes. “Even did one from the Quarry, shot with green screen and lots of creative filming. So I was very familiar with the space. We’re bringing in a ton of equipment. It’s so beautiful, and now that it’s safe to perform together outside, the quarry is perfect! Purcell’s early opera is intimate, intricate, charming and magical.”
Rock Concert
In her planning, Willey consulted with Quarry manager Jose Reyes-Olivas, who oversees the concerts that have filled the huge space over the past five years. Once the center of campus life, the Quarry Amphitheater has hosted countless political rallies and historic performances. The likes of Angela Davis, Ravi Shankar, Peter Singer, Joan Baez, Alfred Hitchcock and Dolores Huerta have filled this atmospheric space. But time took its toll, and the venue closed in 2006. But in 2017, the quarry reopened, with the Dean of Students taking over management, and plans to bring the amphitheater back to life as a vibrant venue for cultural events.
“We are really looking forward to welcoming our audiences to this magical open-air beauty of a venue,” says Reyes-Olivas.
Sara Harnden, Spencer Greene and Nyla Rizvi get into character in rehearsals for ‘The Fairy Queen.’ PHOTO: TARMO HANNULA
Now seating over 2000, the venue was carved from a former lime quarry, tucked within redwoods and amidst rocky outcroppings. An inspiring, almost meditative space in the quiet of midday, it will come to life this weekend with Purcell’s Baroque creation. The opera’s director reminded me that the production offers various seating options. “There are cushions on the amphitheater seats, people can bring beach chairs, or even have blankets on the ground, like the Santa Cruz Shakespeare productions.”
Division of Sound
UCSC Orchestra conductor Bruce Kiesling, who’ll be at the helm for this weekend’s performance, has brought in his Visalia-based professional orchestra to join hand-picked musicians from the university orchestra.
“We’re doing a split orchestra,” Kiesling explains. “Half student performers and half the Sequoia Symphony. The student players were hand-selected, by invitation, to play in this concert for which there is a very limited rehearsal period.”
Kiesling says that this instrumentation is historically accurate. “The orchestra would have been between 15 and 25 players in Purcell’s day.” In the late 17th century, such musical events were intimate, performed at the royal court and in smaller theaters than in our day. “Everybody will be lightly amplified, so everybody will be heard clearly,” Kiesling says. “The sight lines, even with such a large cohort of performers and musicians, will work just fine. The orchestra on the ground in front, the players on the stage and the chorus up behind the stage.”
Like everyone involved, Kiesling is a big fan of The Fairy Queen’s composer. “Purcell is such a fantastic composer and a true musical dramatist,” he says. “The word-painting is incredible—the music makes a colorful companion piece to the words. Plus, it’s in English! And we’ll have scenes from the play itself to compliment the opera.”
Concert choir director Nathaniel Berman knew he wanted the choir to be involved in this year’s opera production.
“It’s magnificent music that works very well for younger singers,” says the longtime lecturer in choral music and director of UCSC’s wind ensemble. He illustrates his point by referencing opera composers such as Bellini—whose Norma or La Sonnambula, for example, makes technical demands of the vocalists (involving bel canto virtuosity) that are best handled by extremely seasoned opera performers.
“In our program at UCSC, we’re casting undergraduates in full operas. That’s rare,” he says. “Singers come here to develop their vocal techniques.”
Berman adds that while Purcell is a technical challenge for singers, the Middle Baroque period music is “extraordinarily accessible. The words are sung in rhyming couplets, in English so that it feels immediately intuitive for singers, and for the audience.” The choir director agrees with Willey that the music is “charming and joyful. The melody takes a journey through the voices and instruments. Rather than radically different music for voice and for instruments, it’s almost the same music from soloists to orchestra to chorus.” In other words, the melodies will become quickly familiar.
“Purcell is absolutely wonderful,” Berman agrees. “I have a personal connection to his music because Dido and Aeneas was the first opera I conducted in my professional career. And there are echoes of Dido in this semi-opera. And our singers love the music!”
That sentiment is echoed by one of the altos working with this production, Concert Choir singer Beverly Norleen, who has performed with a half-dozen local choral groups. She confesses that the music is “lots of fun to sing. I highly suspect that Gilbert and Sullivan lifted a few things from Purcell’s Fairy Queen when they wrote their opera Iolanthe, with all the fairies dancing and tripping about.”
Asked how hard it was to work on such an ambitious production during Covid, Willey confesses, “It’s insane. This production couldn’t have been more complicated. Bringing all the infrastructure to the Quarry would be daunting enough by itself. But the coordination of elements—I went over and over the scripts, trying to decide how much Shakespeare and how much Purcell to combine. Knitting things together. But it will look phenomenal. Our costumes are once again in collaboration with artists from the Academy of Arts University in San Francisco. We will use the surrounding quarry rocks a bit in the beginning, then centralize the action onto the stage as it grows darker.”
An opera production is as complex as performance gets.
“It’s such hard work. But getting to be creative with the students [is] so rewarding,” says Willey. “This is opera at its most engaging. It will be so special and memorable for the performers. After two years of lockdown, we’re not taking making live music together for granted.”
The Fairy Queen will be performed in the UCSC Quarry Amphitheater on Friday and Saturday, May 27-28 at 7-9:30pm. Tickets are $15-$32, free for students under 18 or with student ID. Proof of Covid vax required. Tickets at eventbrite.com, go to ucsc.edu for more information.
The June 7 primaries are right around the corner, and County Supervisor candidates are making their final case ahead of North Coast and Santa Cruz residents casting their votes to determine who will be their representative.
The three candidates vying for the spot on the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors include Santa Cruz City Council Members Justin Cummings and Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson, along with nonprofit director Ami Chen Mills. They all hope to represent District 3, which encompasses parts of Live Oak, the City of Santa Cruz and up the North Coast.
The race has focused on the candidates’ positions on hot-button issues like homelessness and climate change. That was until last Wednesday, when Chen Mills held a press conference where she claimed that Kalantari-Johnson broke campaign finance and election laws during a fundraiser hosted by advocacy group Santa Cruz Together. Chen Mills claimed she has a recording of Santa Cruz Together improperly soliciting donations for Kalantari-Johnson’s campaign at the fundraiser. Kalantari-Johnson refuted the claims, saying they are “entirely baseless and nothing more than a desperate political stunt.”
Regardless, as the race winds down, the three candidates are running in a district that is facing some of the most dire effects of climate change and the affordability crisis. We posed questions to the candidates that address top concerns for District 3 residents.
Ami Chen Mills: Having spoken to residents, local workers and students sleeping in their cars—and with several friends currently facing homelessness now—I believe the county must immediately declare a countywide housing emergency. Then we must engage the community in a wide-scale discussion toward solutions. This would likely include a countywide bond measure to build affordable housing and further incentivize and educate landlords to accept Housing Authority vouchers (Section 8).
Through the use of pension fund-investors, we can rapidly build “workforce” or “missing middle” housing with strict covenants for affordability, and prioritize occupancy for those who currently live and work here. We must use appropriate county lands such as the County Building parking lot and the Emeline complex site to build permanent supportive housing post-haste. We must pass a recommended countywide minimum wage of at least $22/hour.
The county must proactively plan for affordable housing along transportation corridors—and that includes changing the Housing Element and zoning in the County’s General Plan so that we are “pre-planning,” rather than reacting and “spot planning” for developments that support neighborhood diversity, affordable infill development, walkability, mass transit and homes for all of us.
Justin Cummings: During my four years on the Santa Cruz City Council, we have effectively leveraged local resources, including city-owned property, Section 8 project-based vouchers, and the city’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund to secure competitive grant funding for multiple 100% low- and very-low-income projects.
I am committed to working on similar strategies within the county. As County Supervisor, I plan to increase the percentage of affordable units in new developments from 15-20%, and would explore increasing the number of affordable units further in projects that receive density bonuses by using Section 8 housing vouchers. This would allow developers to receive market-rate returns on those units and provide housing for low- and very-low-income residents in the Section 8 program.
We also need to incentivize the production of workforce housing, to provide affordable housing opportunities for essential workers like teachers, city and county workers, service industry and more. We also need to increase pressure on the UC regents to create and provide affordable housing for students and tie UCSC’s enrollment to the number of beds they can provide students. Finally, we need to work with our state and federal legislature to allocate funding for the production of affordable housing.
Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson: We have an opportunity to plan differently as we revise our County’s Housing Element. We must pursue a new model that encourages both housing, safety and environmental sustainability. After adopting a strong housing element, we can revise our zoning ordinance to facilitate the approval of housing projects on sites identified as suitable for affordable housing for low- and middle-class individuals and families. This could include considering special fast-tracking for 100% affordable projects or expediting and removing barriers to building backyard ADUs.
Additionally, it’s important to increase resources for affordable housing. We can do this through bond measures or special taxes that would fund the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, in addition to setting aside money from existing funding streams (i.e. should the county sales tax increase in November, designating some of these revenues towards affordable housing).
Throughout this process, we must ensure transparent community engagement so that we are listening to community needs and shaping projects so that neighborhoods don’t feel imposed upon.
District 3 encompasses areas that were hit hard during the CZU fires. Two years later, residents up the North Coast are still rebuilding their homes, many stalled by the county’s lengthy permitting processes. Where do you see room for improvement when it comes to helping people rebuild after wildfires? With wildfire risk increasing across California, what is your plan for ensuring residents’ safety during wildfire season?
Ami Chen Mills: Residential areas and wildlands of the unincorporated areas will be a priority for me as Supervisor for District 3. The county is combining the Public Works and Planning Departments, bringing various divisions into one building, under one supervisor. By the time I get into office, I will need to listen to constituents in Bonny Doon, Last Chance and Davenport to understand if this has been helpful. All planning staff should receive customer service training, and even attend meetings with burn area residents so they can hear their concerns as insurance timelines run down.
The Board must ensure the state hires enough firefighters to cover multiple fires in multiple regions. We must also thoroughly review our current contract with CalFire and give the county more authority over our fire districts. We must ensure volunteers are able to join with less rigorous commitments, and encourage better communication between residents of the WUI and local CAL FIRE leaders.
The Amah Mutsun Tribal Band sees it as their sacred responsibility to steward this land, and their burn program is in place to lessen the severity of wildfires. We must expand such burning and offer county land as “Land Back” and reparations to indigenous descendants.
Justin Cummings: As an environmental scientist, we have been sounding the alarm to address the need to reduce carbon emissions and prepare for the impacts of climate change. Each year we are now seeing record fire seasons across the state and the expectation is that it is only going to get worse in the short term. The county needs to create more low-barrier training opportunities to allow citizens to help defend their communities. We also need to create emergency policies that can help people expedite rebuilding after natural disasters. We need to pressure the state to purchase more aerial equipment that can help firefighting efforts.
Furthermore, we need to invest in communications so that when fires occur, people know how to mobilize and where to get accurate information. This can come in the form of both old and new technology by using sirens and radio to relay emergency information, the installment of pico microbase stations that can help increase internet access in rural areas, microgrids to help provide power during power outages, and cell towers to increase reception. We also need to create vegetation management plans based in rural, indigenous, and scientific knowledge so that we can mitigate the intensity of fires when they occur.
Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson: This is a priority for me. We have issued just over 140 permits to those who have lost their homes—a small fraction of those who need to rebuild. I will do a deep dive into addressing the red tape that is causing the delays. Many of our barriers to rebuilding rest with state statutes (i.e. around fire roads, septic tanks, water). I have strong relationships with our state legislators and have worked with them over the years on addressing local issues (i.e. homelessness, substance abuse, healthcare). I will leverage these relationships to reduce our local barriers to rebuilding for CZU fire survivors and plan ahead to put measures in place to both prevent and be better prepared for future disasters.
Additionally, I will look internally at ways that the Board of Supervisors can expedite these efforts. This may include waiving of certain standards (without impacting safety) and fees to allow people to build more quickly. Any of these policy decisions will require three votes on the Board of Supervisors to move towards action. I have built strong relationships with each Supervisor through my years of policy work with the county. Strong relationships and partnerships is what is needed to make changes that will help CZU survivors rebuild, and I will personally lead the charge to make this happen.
Homelessness is a top concern, especially for residents in your district. There is strong support for funding programs like mental health response and ensuring reliable services for the unhoused (storage, hygiene services, etc.). Residents in your district also rank emergency shelters and affordable housing projects as critically important to addressing homelessness. How will you prioritize these different areas and programs that need funding? How important are camping laws and restrictions when addressing homelessness?
Ami Chen Mills: As a member of the Santa Cruz Advisory Committee on Homelessness, and having worked in mental health for 25 years, we must do a far better job coordinating funds and services between the County and City of Santa Cruz.
We must utilize county lands to build housing, like our Project Homekey projects—and ensure support is funded to promote the success of residents. In the short term, we should explore appropriate sites for well-managed encampments and tiny home villages with opportunities for constructive activities, like growing food/permaculture gardens, libraries, peer support and mobile mental health so that community members who are unhoused feel a sense of belonging and purpose.
When dangerous and criminal behaviors are happening, we must address these, and ensure any correctional facility is therapeutic and a place where someone could turn their life around.
Our unhoused population has different problems that require different solutions. We need to complete a rigorous database to provide case managers and the county with comprehensive information about each individual. We must secure state and national funding to build direly needed rehab and psychiatric facilities, and enroll our housed population to volunteer so we can see ourselves, and feel ourselves, as one community.
Justin Cummings: As vice-mayor and mayor of Santa Cruz, I served on the City County Homeless 2×2 committee for two years and am familiar with the challenges the city and county face. During my time as mayor, we stood up the most homeless shelters in the history of the City of Santa Cruz, which had minimal impacts on the surrounding communities. I will prioritize services that have been effective and had minimal negative impacts on communities, so we can invest in models that work. Services will need to meet the range of needs for people experiencing homelessness.
Rental assistance is critical to keep people housed. Our working homeless need places to sleep safely, while we help them secure housing. We need to expand mental health and substance abuse treatment programs and beds, and expand case management. We must explore a variety of housing options—including managed encampments, tiny-home villages, safe parking programs, a navigation center—and expand these options throughout the county. Finally, the state of being homeless should not be criminalized. There are certain behaviors that our community finds unacceptable that should have consequences, but we need to start with a programming, housing and case-management approach first.
Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson: The growing crisis of homelessness in our community and the level of individual suffering is urgent and unacceptable. We need to take a regional approach to bring attention to the devastating and growing challenges around homelessness. One of the first steps is to move people out of unmanaged encampments and into safe transitional shelters/bridge housing with supportive services that are located throughout the county. The City of Santa Cruz cannot meet the needs of street homelessness alone. The other is unmet mental health and substance abuse needs. We need to examine our existing resources and programs, what outcomes they are producing, and where there are remaining gaps.
Nearly a third of our last homeless count were youth and young adults under the age of 24, many having exited the child welfare system. We have started some of this work, but there is much more we can do to prevent our youth from ending up chronically homeless. We must support families from becoming homeless by working with and supporting community organizations that help with rent relief and other resources.
Finally, we have failed to build enough housing for our middle-class and low-income community members. All of this will take more financial support from the state and federal governments and I will look to partner with our state and federal representatives to make this happen.
The 2020 CZU fire left many viticulturists and winemakers in the Santa Cruz Mountains unsure about whether to harvest and process their grapes. If bathed in smoke, the fruit can absorb compounds that give finished wines a taste that ranges from mildly smoky to ashtray.
But these compounds can be challenging to detect in unfermented grapes. They are tasteless and odorless until saliva breaks them down during tasting.
“That’s when the distasteful properties rear their ugly head,” says UCSC chemist and Pelican Ranch Winery owner Phil Crews.
A few labs around the country test for the compounds, but “they’re not providing the right kind of data,” says Crews.
Most labs in the United States test wine grapes for smoky compounds called phenols that float around freely in the grapes.
“The problem with measuring those free compounds is as soon as they land on the grapes, they’re very quickly incorporated and bound up with those sugars,” says Josh Wurzer, President of SC Labs.
Using techniques from the Australian Wine Research Institute, Wurzer and Crews developed a way to test for the phenols bound to sugars. They argue that this gives a more accurate way to measure the smoke impact on grapes.
“You need about a Ziploc bag full of grapes. The testing runs about $250 a sample, and it takes overnight to get results,” says Crews.
SC Labs—primarily a cannabis testing lab—has received lots of interest since publishing a paper about the methods with Crews in March. They plan to continue offering the testing.
“We’re excited to open up a portion of our business to a whole new clientele,” says Wurzer.
“It should be totally accessible by anyone who wants to know if their products have been tainted.”
Stomping Uncertainty
Some winemakers are sending in grapes that have not been impacted in order to get baseline data for their crops. Some of the compounds associated with smoke occur in grapes naturally, but the levels depend on variety and location.
“I recommend people have their wine grapes and their wine tested even if there’s no impact,” says viticulturist Prudy Foxx. That way, if a fire comes through, they have numbers for comparison.
Foxx works with vineyards in the Santa Cruz Mountains and is impressed by the work of Crews and SC Labs. She emphasizes the need for most testing.
“There are only a few labs that even run these tests, and they became so overwhelmed that there was a huge backup. It was a nightmare,” she says.
“It’s bad enough to lose the value of the fruit. But then to go through the expense, the labor, the equipment of processing the wine can just be a big waste of everyone’s time and money. So you really need the answers.”
She also appreciates the variety of markers that SC Labs tests for. Most testing in the U.S. is based on a compound called guaiacol.
“But guaiacol itself is not necessarily a bad smoke impact,” she explains. “In fact, guaiacol naturally occurs in oak barrels, and it naturally occurs in the varietal syrah.”
A wine at one vineyard she works with tested a 4.2 out of six on the guaiacol scale, “but it ended up getting a 95 from Wine Enthusiast as a finished wine because it just did not express any of those negative smoky characters.”
Another perspective
UC Davis viticulture and enology extension professor Anita Oberholster has researched smoke exposure in wine grapes since 2017. She tests free and bound compounds in wine grapes.
Although Oberholster agrees with Crews that measuring sugar-bound compounds gives a more accurate picture of smoke impact, she also sees testing as a balance between accuracy and efficiency. Testing for free compounds “still has value,” she says.
Many labs currently don’t measure bound compounds because they don’t have the expensive equipment or training. Crop insurance is also based on free compound testing—usually guaiacol.
Before that can change, “we need to develop a robust baseline” for the sugar-bound compounds in wine grapes, says Oberholster.
“We’re going to need way more grapes to analyze from more regions,” she says. “And we know there’s a huge seasonal impact. So we are really going to need—for all our main varieties—at least three seasons.”
A Matter of Degrees
As the climate changes, winemakers must spend more time thinking about challenges like smoke impacts.
“The fires the last couple of years have been way earlier,” says Crews. “And that seems to be the trajectory with global warming.”
But the wine industry is resilient and creative.
“If not fire, it’s water. If not water, it’s temperatures or diseases,” says Oberholster. She remains optimistic about the ability of winemakers to adapt.
Oberholster, Foxx and Crews are also all quick to point out that smoke does not always spell ruin for a crop.
“The things that cause smoke impact break down pretty quickly in the air, so it’s really only very, very fresh smoke that has a high risk,” says Oberholster. “And there’s no carryover. Just because there was smoke one year in a region, there is no quality impact for the next year.”
Not every fire season will be as bad as 2020, says Oberholster. “But the probability is good that every year there might be a region impacted in California, and what we need is more labs like SC Labs so that people can get fast, reliable testing.”
ARIES (March 21-April 19): In defining the essential elements at play in a typical Aries person’s agenda, I’m not inclined to invoke the words “sometimes” or “maybe.” Nor do I make frequent use of the words “periodically,” “if” or “ordinarily.” Instead, my primary identifying term for many Aries characters is “NOW!!!” with three exclamation points. In referring to your sign’s experiences, I also rely heavily on the following descriptors: pronto, presto, push, directly, why not?, engage, declare, activate, venture into, enterprising, seize, deliver and wield. You are authorized to fully activate and deploy these qualities in the next three weeks.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): I like Joan Didion’s definitions of self-respect. As you enter a favorable phase for deepening and enhancing your self-respect, they may be helpful. Didion said self-respect is a “sense of one’s intrinsic worth,” and added, “People who respect themselves are willing to accept the risk that the venture will go bankrupt, that the liaison may not turn out to be one in which every day is a holiday. They are willing to invest something of themselves.” And maybe the most essential thing about self-respect, according to Didion, is that it is “a discipline, a habit of mind that can never be faked but can be developed, trained, coaxed forth.”
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): “Reality is not simply there; it does not simply exist,” claimed author Paul Celan. “It must be sought out and won.” I think that is excellent advice for you right now. But what does it mean in practical terms? How can you seek out and win reality? My first suggestion is to put your personal stamp on every situation you encounter. Do something subtle or strong to make each event serve your specific interests and goals. My second suggestion is to discern the illusions that other people are projecting and avoid buying into those misunderstandings. My third suggestion is to act as if it’s always possible to make life richer, more vivid and more meaningful. And then figure out how to do that.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Wilma Mankiller was the first female Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation. She said, “The cow runs away from the storm, while the buffalo charges directly toward it—and gets through it quicker.” Political analyst Donna Brazile expounded on Mankiller’s strategy: “Whenever I’m confronted with a tough challenge, I do not prolong the torment. I become the buffalo.” I recommend Mankiller’s and Brazile’s approach for you and me in the coming days, my fellow Cancerian. Now please excuse me as I race in the direction of the squall I see brewing in the distance.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): The New Yorker is an influential Pulitzer Prize-winning magazine that features witty writing and impeccable fact-checking. In 2017, its stories exposed the extensive sexual misconduct committed by movie mogul Harvey Weinstein—and helped lead to his prosecution. How did the magazine get its start? It was co-founded in 1925 by Harold Ross, who had dropped out of school at age 13. He edited every issue for the next 26 years. I’m sensing the possibility of a comparable development in your life, Leo. In the coming months, you may get involved in a project that seems to be beyond the reach of your official capacities or formal credentials. I urge you to proceed as if you can and will succeed.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Virgo-born Jocko Willink is a retired naval officer and author. In his book Discipline Equals Freedom: Field Manual, he lays down his manifesto: “Become the discipline—embrace its cold and relentless power. And it will make you better and stronger and smarter and faster and healthier than anything else. And most important: It will make you free.” While I don’t expect you to embrace Willink’s rigorous ethic with the same fanatical grip, I think you will benefit from doing the best you can. The cosmic rhythms will support you if you make a fun and earnest effort to cultivate liberation through discipline.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): “Some nights you are the lighthouse, some nights the sea,” writes Libran author Ocean Vuong. According to my astrological analysis, you are better suited to be the lighthouse than the sea in the coming days. Lately, you have thoroughly embodied the sea, and that has prepared you well to provide illumination. You have learned new secrets about the tides and the waves. You are attuned to the rhythms of the undercurrents. So I hope you will now embrace your role as a beacon, Libra. I expect that people will look to your radiance to guide and inspire them.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): “Movie people are possessed by demons, but a very low form of demons,” observes author Edna O’Brien. She should know. She has hung out with many big film stars. Since you’re probably not in the movie business yourself, your demons may be much higher quality than those of celebrity actors and directors. And I’m guessing that in the coming weeks, your demons will become even finer and more interesting than ever before—even to the point that they could become helpers and advisors. For the best results, treat them with respect and be willing to listen to their ideas.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): I’m all in favor of you getting what you yearn for. I have no inhibitions or caveats as I urge you to unleash all your ingenuity and hard work in quest of your beautiful goals. And in the hope of inspiring you to upgrade your ability to fulfill these sacred prospects, I offer you a tip from Sagittarian author Martha Beck. She wrote, “To attract something that you want, become as joyful as you think that thing would make you.”
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): According to author Caroline Myss, “You should see everything about your life as a lesson.” Whoa! Really? Each trip to the grocery store should be a learning opportunity? Myss says yes! For example, let’s say you’re in the snack foods aisle and you’re tempted to put Doritos Nacho Cheese Tortilla Chips and Lay’s Barbecue Potato Chips in your cart. But your gut is screaming at you, “That stuff isn’t healthy for you!” And yet you decide to ignore your gut’s advice. You buy and eat both bags. Myss would say you have squandered a learning opportunity: “You’ve harmed yourself by blocking your intuitive voice,” she writes. Now, in accordance with astrological omens, Capricorn, here’s your homework assignment: Regard every upcoming event as a chance to learn how to trust your intuition better.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): An Aquarian poet was disturbed when a suitor told her, “I’m really very fond of you.” She responded, “I don’t like fond. It sounds like something you would tell a dog. Give me love, or nothing. Throw your fond in a pond.” I don’t advise you to adopt a similar attitude anytime soon, Aquarius. In my oracular opinion, you should wholeheartedly welcome fondness. You should honor it and celebrate it. In itself, it is a rich, complex attitude. And it may also lead, if you welcome it, to even more complex and profound interweavings.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): “I need a playlist of all the songs I used to love but forgot about,” wrote Tumblr blogger Yuyuuyuyuu. I think you could use such a playlist, too, Pisces. In fact, I would love to see you receive a host of memos that remind you of all the things you love and need and are interested in—but have forgotten about or neglected. The coming weeks will be an excellent time to recover what has been lost. I hope you will re-establish connections and restore past glories that deserve to accompany you into the future. Homework: Is there a postponed dream that you might be able to resume working to fulfill? What is it? Newsletter.FreeWillAstrology.com
Balletto Vineyards lies in the famous Russian River Valley wine region. With its cool and foggy climate, this area produces wines of great depth and distinction—the 2019 Pinot Noir is one of them. Grape grower John Balletto and winemaker Anthony Beckman create wines that showcase the region’s diverse environments and soils. The weighty red wine’s ($32) plentiful dark fruit and rich aromatics will delight any Pinot lover’s palate. Grown on sustainably farmed estate vineyards, Balletto says, “Their vines are like family. We want to care for and nurture them as such.”
Balletto Vineyards, 5700 Occidental Road, Santa Rosa. 707-568-2455; ballettovineyards.com.
Artichoke Festival
I went to the Artichoke Festival years ago when it was held in Castroville, also known as the “Artichoke Center of the World,” and tried sweet artichoke pie. It was delicious! The 62nd annual Artichoke Festival will be held at the historic Monterey County Fairgrounds Saturday, June 11, and Sunday, June 12. The theme is “The Heart of the Harvest.” Tickets are on sale now or at the door (family packages are available). Santa Cruz celeb and American Idol finalist James Durbin performs Saturday on the main stage. Wine tasting passes ($25 per person or part of the “It’s a Date” package) are also available. A bit of well-known trivia: Marilyn Monroe attended the festival in 1948 as Artichoke Queen. artichokefestival.org.
Quri Quinoa Vodka
There’s nothing more fun and thirst-quenching on a hot day than a vodka and tonic with lots of ice. I recently came across an exciting vodka made in Peru, Quri Quinoa Vodka, and it’s delightful. Crafting Quri starts with the world’s best quinoa—sourced from a Peruvian family farm on Lake Titicaca. Glacier water from the Andes is one of the essential ingredients used, along with five different kinds of yeast. A bottle of Quri Vodka is $35 and is available online. shop.qurivodka.com.
Jared Carr was a modern-day nomad living out of a converted school bus before Whale City Bakery Bar & Grill hired him as a barista. Born in Kansas City, Missouri, and raised in Santa Cruz, Carr thinks he got his wanderlust from his dad, who was a truck driver. He’s thankful he landed in Davenport—the small-town family diner emits plenty of good vibes and boasts ocean views of the whales migrating north to Alaska from January until March. The menu features traditional diner fare, but the spot’s scratch-made baked goods have gained considerable notoriety. Some stand-outs include the ham and cheddar croissant, vegan apple and chocolate muffins, an assortment of pies and not-to-be-missed staples like the giant glazed Bearclaw filled with a sweet brown sugar mixture and topped with sliced almonds. Whale City is open every day from 6:30am-6pm. Carr recently discussed the cherished pastries and his way of life.
What makes your baked goods best?
JARED CARR: We make them fresh every single day; the bakers show up at 3am to have them ready by 6am, and they really put a lot of love and personal attention into each and every pastry. We source most ingredients locally, and the recipes come from the original bakers and owners passed down family traditions. We are one of the very few places where you can grab a pastry and a coffee and enjoy them on the beach in a matter of minutes.
Tell me about your nomadic lifestyle.
Living in Santa Cruz, I have no reason to leave. But with such a high cost of living, I’ve chosen this alternative lifestyle where I live in a school bus that I bought and built out into a small house on wheels. It has allowed me the freedom to live in Davenport and serve this awesome community and the diverse assortment of people from all over the world that pass through. And it also allows me to save my money in hopes of one day buying property in Santa Cruz and building my future home.
Whale City Bakery Bar & Grill, 490 Highway 1, Davenport. 831-423-9009; whalecitybakery.com.
In the back patio of a vintage neighborhood we discovered a delicious pocket of Italian cooking. In addition to its authentically Italian menu, Sugo Italian Pasta Bar has another secret attraction—its intimate back deck. How could this little wine garden even exist? We were charmed by lunch under a tented awning strung with lights behind the original Lillian’s. The menu reflects the tastes and origins of Sugo’s Italian proprietors, and we sipped one of those incredibly thirst-quenching San Pellegrino Limonata drinks ($2.50) while choosing. (The menu offers a range of craft beers as well as appealing Italian wines. But we were there for lunch.) There are deep Italian roots in this sector of the galaxy. I can recall hearing the butchers in Shopper’s Corner a few blocks down the street, all gesturing and joking in Italian to each other back in the day.
Sugo’s menu offers classics of contemporary Italian cuisine—not Italian-American, nor simply Italian-style cooking. We soon found out the Italian insistence on beautiful plates is alive and well in this hideaway dining spot (to access the dozen outdoor tables out back, you go around the side of the building and through a little wooden gate.) Sugo’s pasta bar concept is easy as pizza pie. You choose the sauce you want from a long list of classics like aglio e olio, pesto, puttanesca, alfredo, etc. And then you can select your favorite pasta to go with. Ditto with the pizzas. But we aimed deeper into the menu and went for the salmon ravioli special with a dreamy tomato sauce, inflected with diced fresh tomatoes and a dash of cream ($21) and an order of Pollo Marsala ($19), which involved a huge plate of chicken scallops smothered in fresh mushrooms. Filling the rest of the generous plate were incredible roast potato slices, browned and crisp along the edges with bits of rosemary. And a little hill of al dente market veggies—long ribbons of brilliant orange carrots, crimson peppers, atop a nest of baby spinach. Marsala and olive oil perfumed everything. The ravioli were as good as any I’ve ever tasted. The sauce was sensuous and addictive. My companion swore every bite of his marsala delivered him straight back to Italy. The word “fantastic” came out of his mouth more than once. We might have liked a bit more salt in the chicken dish— dishes are prepared with an obvious minimum of salting. We enjoyed our takeaway portions the next day for a memorable lunch at our house. Next time we’ll come for dinner, order wine with the meal and finish it with some house tiramisu. Sugo is a neighborhood treasure.
Venus Spirits Kitchen manager Lindsay Eshleman is launching a series of cocktail classes. Her first installment sold out in a matter of days. But you can sign up for the second class, All About Gin, scheduled for June 22 at 5:30pm. Included is a distillery tour, a guided tasting and cocktail tutorial. Get your ticket fast! $60.
Held at the Venus Spirits Distillery, 200 High Road, Santa Cruz. my-site-102720.square.site.
Be Good To Yourself
If you haven’t been to your favorite restaurant in a while, what are you waiting for? Remember the words of culinary nomad Anthony Bourdain. “Order the steak rare. Eat an oyster. Have a negroni. Have two. Be open to a world where you may not understand or agree with the person next to you, but have a drink with them anyways. Eat slowly. Tip your server. Check in on your friends. Check in on yourself. Enjoy the ride.”
According to the PG&E, thousands of people across the Greater Bay Area experienced electrical outages today, with more than 10,800 customers in Santa Clara County and more than 7,000 customers in Santa Cruz County losing power.
The Santa Cruz County disruptions were weather-related primarily, including several where vegetation came into contact with power lines—such as on Smith Grade Road where a tree hit the company’s wires—PG&E spokesperson Mayra Tostado said.
And in Felton, a tree fell into power lines on Big Trees Park Road.
Meanwhile, for the 1,650 plus customers who lost power in Watsonville around 10:15am, the cause remains under investigation, according to PG&E.
The utility said the Santa Clara County disruptions since 3am today were mainly weather-related; however, one was due to a vehicle hitting a power pole on Quimby Road in San Jose.
That one affected more than 2,000 customers.
And some blackouts were intentional.
“We have a current planned outage in Los Gatos impacting more than 40 customers for upgrades to electric equipment on Glen Una Drive,” Tostado said. “On Bascom Avenue in San Jose, we have more than 100 customers out due to planned wildfire risk reduction work.”
Those improvements are meant to make the grid more reliable and resilient.
The National Weather Service has issued a wind advisory for parts of the Bay Area, including the Santa Clara hills, that extends throughout the day.
Gusts were clocked up to 45 miles an hour across the Western Sac Valley and nearby elevated terrain.
Experts warn residents of the region to expect gusts in the 30-40 mile an hour range.
And while they’ll likely lessen toward the evening, PG&E is preparing for another wind push through the night.
But that’s only anticipated to bring gusts of 25-35 miles an hour in some areas.
“PG&E crews have been working around the clock to restore power to customers impacted by outages,” Tostado said. “Never touch downed power lines because they could be energized and are extremely dangerous.”
Report downed wires to 911 and then PG&E at 1-800-743-5000, and PG&E customers can view outage information at pge.com/outage.
During the intimate and soaring performance by experimental indie band Son Lux at the Felton Music Hall on May 14, lead vocalist and synth-maestro Ryan Lott paused to give the few-dozen attendees standing in rapt attention some insight into the modern Hollywood machine.
Everything Everywhere All at Once, a movie contemplating the multiverse by directors Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan, has been showing at the CineLux, just across the sandhills in Scotts Valley, and Lott shared about their own awe-inspiring experience of crafting its soundtrack.
“It’s a very crazy and beautiful movie and just an unbelievably rewarding project for us,” he said, explaining the material, for it had been germinating for years. “For our last song, we’re going to play the first piece of music that we sent the directors.”
They began by messaging fragments—raw bits and improvisations—trying to get the tone right.
The piece—which would become the endlessly complex and triumphant “Unbind” on their 2021 album Tomorrows was the perfect way to kick off their artistic back-and-forth with “the Daniels,” Lott recalled.
“We just felt like there was something about it that resonated in the same way that the movie did—full of beauty and chaos,” he said, adding they loved what they heard. “It was an early sign for us of the kind of synchronicity we were going to have as a creative team.”
And while the specific song didn’t make the final cut, its bones did.
“It went on to become a foundation of one of the main themes in the film,” he said, as they brought the house down with that alternate reality of a track. “Thank you again so much for being here.”
I have vague memories of anxiously awaiting a radio announcer’s back-announcement, following a stunning over-the-air number, on some long and rambling vehicular journey years ago. That’s how I first came to seek out Son Lux. The group is comprised of Lott, Rafiq Bhatia (guitar) and Ian Chang (drums).
And when it happened again, with an equally brilliant—yet understated—track, I filed away the group in the “quality” section of my musical brain for safekeeping. When you find a wine, no one else seems to know about that always goes down smooth with an intricate finish or a surfboard from a local shaper that works well in the range of waves that tend to hit the shores of your home break.
Every time I try to look them up online, I start by mistakenly typing “Sun Lox,” as if I were searching for a tasty bagel recipe.
During the past several months, when I looked ahead to potential shows to hit across the entire Greater Bay Area region, this one kept standing out to me.
So, after pumping up my bike tire, peddling down to the San Lorenzo River, and taking in the rise and fall of bird sounds at dusk, I headed over to the Felton Music Hall.
As soon as Son Lux’s sounds hit my eardrums, I was instantly reminded of why the group first made an impression on me.
Because what I heard from the stage might as well have been the backing track to the joyous chorus I’d just witnessed outdoors.
During a break between songs, Lott said they’d just had the good fortune to take in some of nature’s bounty here, too.
The frontman emphasized he loves this size of the show just as much as their larger gigs. And lest any of the hipster-leaning attendees wondered if the group was bothered the hall wasn’t packed to the gills, he put that notion to rest. He said—maybe more.
“We’re feeling awesome—this is an amazing place to be,” he said to a crescendo of claps and cheers as the band transitioned into their next piece. “This song is like an old friend. It’s the only old song we’re playing in this set.”
They were about to treat Felton to “Easy,” with staccato drums and a mysterious guitar line.
On the YouTube version of the track, their record label explained how the song’s elements had become interwoven into the broader popular music landscape.
“Halsey sampled Son Lux for her song. And Fall Out Boy also sampled Son Lux for one of their songs,” the pinned comment read. “Regardless of how shitty or amazing you think their songs are, both were licensed samples. Meaning no one ‘stole’ anything from anyone. But Son Lux indeed wrote this shit, and Halsey’s folks certainly paid us for the privilege of using this audio. In turn, we use the money to continue to put out amazing music, which will undoubtedly continue to be sampled in the future by less talented people.
And here, Son Lux was reimagining it, once again.
“We couldn’t help ourselves but rethink it a bit,” Lott said. “This is an old song in a new way.”
Lott’s vocals sound like the emotive murmurings of Caribou. The instrumentation is orchestral but electronic, like Max Cooper.
I imagine you might end up with something similar to Son Lux if you mixed the Grateful Dead with Refused and threw in Floating Points as the icing on the cake.
Comparisons to Jamie XX, Joy Orbison and Four Tet are not unwarranted. Chang’s crisp drumming added a rolling—almost breakbeat—aspect. Bhatia provided the sound textures to wallpaper the room and filled in the cracks of the floorboards.
The way Lott cued the glissando violin sample on the angled-down synthesizer during “Plans We Made” demonstrated precision musicianship.
He kept pushing his glasses to the bridge of his nose to keep them in place—as part of the rhythm of the performance.
At times, the space felt like a chapel, thanks to the vaulted ceiling overhead. At others, like a cozy nightclub featuring underground DJs.
And when, during one of the songs, Oakland-raised opener Nappy Nina came to perform with them on stage, it was as if we were transported to a hip-hop throwdown or spoken word competition in the East Bay.
Overall, the show was a gentle reminder to trust your instincts in music and life.
Don’t forget that everything everywhere is not necessarily as grim and tedious as you initially think.
