Ever thought of walking down to Monterey? Well, Rachel Kippen has. Actually, Kippen has walked the bay more than a dozen times. It’s only 40 miles. Kippen is the executive director of O’Neill Sea Odyssey and will be sharing her knowledge and enthusiasm for exploring one of the longest contiguous stretches of walkable sandy shoreline on the West Coast. Our coastline offers locations to beach camp or lodge and to view seasonal wildlife, including seabirds, whales, snowy plovers, sea otters and more. Kippen will provide tips, encouragement and itinerary guidance for the treks, which can be done solo, in groups, on day trips or weekends, or a four-day jaunt.
INFO: 7pm. Thursday, Nov. 21. The Live Oak Grange Hall, 1900 17th Ave., Live Oak. Free.
Art Seen
Santa Cruz Tattoo’d
Featuring tatted locals with powerful stories about their ink, the MAH’s newest exhibit uncovers personal tattoo stories from across Santa Cruz County. Grounded in the history of tattoo legalization, this exhibition highlights the artistry and creativity of tattooing throughout the county. Stop by on opening day to dive into tattoo history and artistry found throughout the county, featuring the works of nine local tattoo shops and artists. Plus, there will be a temporary tattoo in the pop-up tattoo shop located inside the gallery. Photo: Mickey Ta.
INFO: 10am- 8pm. Exhibit runs Friday, Nov. 22-Sunday, Feb. 23, 2020. Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, 705 Front St., Santa Cruz. 429-1964, santacruzmah.org. $10.
Saturday 11/23
Dig Gardens 10th Annual Holiday Open House
One of Santa Cruz’s favorite boutique nurseries is turning 10 this year. Dig Gardens has always been a go-to for kitchen and home products, accessories and, of course, plants. A haven for plant parents, Dig always has some kind of new, exotic addition to any collection. In celebration of their first decade, Dig is hosting a holiday Open House and anniversary party that is a must for holiday shopping. All items in the store will be 10% off, and there will be a raffle and small bites.
INFO: 4-8 p.m. Dig Gardens, 420 Water St., Santa Cruz. 466-3444. Free.
Saturday 11/23
American Indian Art
Join the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History for an in-depth exploration of American Indian art through conversation and artifact exploration.From gift baskets to painted pottery to shell pendants and beaded clothing, American Indian art varies from region to region. During this seminar at the museum, Rebecca Hernandez will give a general overview of artistic characteristics across several regions and demonstrate how various artifacts are made. Hernandez is director of the American Indian Resource Center at UCSC, and her academic research focuses on American Indian identity constructs in America.
INFO: 1-4pm. Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History. santacruzmuseum.org. $20.
Thursday 11/21
Sparkling Wine Tasting Class
Champagne may be the king of sparkling wines, but there are truly outstanding examples of sparkling wines—produced according to the same methods and techniques as Champagne—made all over the world. The class will examine the different ways to make a wine sparkle; taste various examples and styles of sparkling wine from Champagne, California and elsewhere around the globe. The class is open to everyone from sparkling wine aficionados to those unfamiliar with fizz. Class size is limited to 24 people and designed for all levels. Students must be over 21. Tickets includes a taste of eight different wines and light refreshments.
INFO: 7-9pm. Equinox and Bartolo Winery and Tasting Room, 334 Ingalls St., Santa Cruz. 471-8608. $45.
On a summer day in Santa Cruz in 1997, two guys came out of Logos Books & Records on Pacific Avenue, one of them carrying a newly purchased used CD of Patsy Cline’s greatest hits. Neither was particularly jonesing to hear Patsy’s famously plaintive contralto. In fact, any CD—Tiny Tim, Twisted Sister, whatever—would have sufficed.
Patsy did not go into a CD player that day. Instead, she was slipped into a self-addressed stamped greeting-card envelope (sans jewel case), escorted to the Santa Cruz main post office, and put into the mail.
From that otherwise banal moment on an otherwise ordinary day came a revolution that has turned the movie and television industries upside down.
That was the day Netflix was born.
The men visiting Logos were Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph, who together created the company that has changed not only how millions around the world watch movies and TV, but which is also now challenging the hegemony of Hollywood in how entertainment is produced. Along with Google, Facebook and Amazon, it ranks among the most massively successful businesses of the 21st century.
But back in ’97, they were just a couple of schemers, trying to figure out a way to take advantage of this new tool called the internet. Their story is told in Randolph’s exhilarating new book That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea.
Netflix Co-Founder Marc Randolph’s new book is ‘That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea.’
The pair had already been kicking around the idea of an online video rental business. But the format of the times, the VHS tape, was too big and too heavy. Handling costs would have been prohibitive. They had, in fact, already scrapped the idea when the buzz began to grow about another format, the DVD, being developed in Japan.
They didn’t have a DVD—nobody outside of Japan did at that point. But they knew it would be identical to a compact disc. So they needed to see how the U.S. Postal Service would treat a vulnerable 5-inch plastic disc.
By that time, Randolph had already put in 20 years in direct marketing and sent out millions of pieces of mail.
“I had been to the San Jose central post office,” he told me in an interview in Scotts Valley, right across the street from the site of Netflix’s first office. “I’d seen those machines shoot those letters through at 16 gazillion miles an hour and bend them around corners, and all that.”
He was certain that Patsy Cline—whose biggest hit was I Fall to Pieces—would arrive to them in pieces.
The next day, Hastings and Randolph met in a parking lot in Scotts Valley, just as they did every day, for the carpool over Highway 17 to their tech jobs in Silicon Valley. Hastings nonchalantly handed Randolph the square envelope, containing the CD, in one piece. For 32 cents, the price of a stamp.
MAILING IT IN
It was not, however, the classic a-ha moment. It wasn’t like BoJack Horseman appeared to them on Highway 17 and laid out the whole glorious future ahead of them, Randolph says.
“It was more akin to finding the missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle under the couch,” he says. “We had this puzzle that we couldn’t complete. So we walked away from it. Then we found the piece that finished it. If the book is about anything, it’s not an epiphany story, nor is it some brilliant visionary CEO story, either. It was just luck. Lots of luck.”
Many months later, when the Netflix idea was already well underway, Randolph learned exactly how lucky they had been. He writes in That Will Never Work that he was given a tour of the Santa Cruz post office and discovered that cross-town mail was handled in a different way—a gentler way—than out-of-town mail. If they had mailed Patsy Cline to anywhere else than Hastings’s Santa Cruz address, even to Randolph’s Scotts Valley home, the CD would probably have gotten scratched or broken. “And I wouldn’t be writing this book,” he wrote.
Netflix is not the only tech behemoth for which Santa Cruz is part of its origin story. According to Brad Stone’s 2013 book The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos visited Santa Cruz in 1994 to pitch some computer programmers on his idea for an online bookstore, and went as far as looking at office space in Santa Cruz.
But the Netflix story is more than incidentally about Santa Cruz. Randolph, 61, first came to Santa Cruz County in the late ’80s to work at the Scotts Valley-based software firm Borland International. He fell in love with the place, and part of his entrepreneurial vision before Netflix was to somehow establish Santa Cruz as a conducive place for tech.
“I did like the lifestyle aspects of Santa Cruz,” he says. “Being able to surf in the morning or go for a trail run. I really liked that the networks in Santa Cruz weren’t all Silicon Valley people. There was a diversity here—not necessarily in a racial sense, but more a diversity in viewpoint and background. I just felt that the range of people walking on Pacific Avenue was remarkable.”
Randolph was the original CEO of Netflix, but he left the company in 2002, and his new book is an often-funny, sometimes-harrowing romp through those early years of getting established in Scotts Valley. If the idea to send DVDs through the mail had been the company’s only innovation, it probably would have quickly sank in the swamp of internet get-rich schemes, particularly given the absolute dominance of Blockbuster and its competitors in establishing consumer habits when it came to watching movies at home.
The innovations had to keep coming, and Randolph and Hastings were up to the job. In the early days, when DVDs had reached the tipping point toward market dominance, Randolph remembered standing in the middle of the company’s San Jose warehouse looking at more than 100,000 DVDs. “I thought, why are we storing these here?” he says. “I wonder if there’s a way to store them at customer’s houses instead. Then Reed said, ‘Let’s let them keep the DVDs as long as they want. When they’re done with one, we’ll send them another one.’”
That was quickly followed by two other innovations that taken together spelled doom for the Blockbuster era: Charging customers a flat monthly subscription fee, rather than making them pay for each movie, and creating the famous Netflix queue in which customers could create a priority list of what they wanted to see and have it automatically delivered.
Winding Road
Early on, before Patsy Cline, Randolph and Hastings had developed a ritual. As the two took turns driving over 17, Randolph would pitch Hastings with an idea. And Hastings would, more often than not, deliver the verdict from which Randolph titled his book: “That’ll never work.”
Randolph’s pre-Netflix ideas were, in hindsight, not exactly brilliant: home-delivery shampoo, personalized dog food, custom-built baseball bats and surfboards. The Netflix idea developed in stages, after hours of research and discussion, and through a series of timely actions and lucky breaks. The Patsy Cline moment was a turning point, but there was no light bulb, no apple falling on Newton’s head, no epiphanies.
“Distrust epiphanies,” Randolph writes in That Will Never Work. “Epiphanies are rare. When they appear in origin stories, they’re often oversimplified or just plain false.”
Before he met Reed Hastings, Randolph was a veteran in marketing. He was a co-founder of MacUser magazine and started two of the first mail-order catalogues for computer products in the pre-internet days. He worked for years at Borland. Eventually, he helped found a start-up that was bought by a software development company run by Hastings, who decided to keep Randolph on after the merger.
Randolph’s tale takes on many of the roller coaster elements of start-up culture, from finding funding to recruiting talent to building an inventory to deciding on a name (among the names that lost out to Netflix were CinemaCenter, Videopix, SceneOne, E-Flix, and NowShowing. Of the final choice, now a familiar touchstone around the world, Randolph writes: “It wasn’t perfect. It sounded a little porn-y. But it was the best we could do.”)
The site launched in April 1998, and the book provides a tick-tock account of the site’s first days and weeks (Predictably, the server crashed the day of the launch). In the days before the company’s trademark red envelopes clogged mailboxes coast to coast, Netflix needed a marketing break. That came from an unlikely source: President Bill Clinton, who was at the time consumed in scandal. Randolph decided to offer Clinton’s full grand-jury testimony on the Lewinsky scandal on DVD to all customers for the price of 2 cents. That stunt got the media’s attention, and suddenly Netflix was news.
But by the next year, Hastings replaced Randolph in the CEO’s chair, Randolph took on the role of company president, and Netflix moved up Highway 17 from Scotts Valley to Los Gatos.
Netflix’s permanent residence in Santa Cruz County was not destined to be, for the most prosaic of reasons: geography and personnel.
“One of the fundamental miscalculations I made,” says Randolph, within sight of Netflix’s first office, “was that I assumed that the type of engineering talent we would need would be the ‘front-end’ talent: web design, user interface, etc. But it was really the ‘back-end’ people (servers, database administration) that we needed. And they were all clustered around Oracle in Redwood City. Try convincing someone from there to drive here, especially considering the amazing job opportunities they had closer to home.”
Even when it became inevitable that the company would have to move operations to the South Bay, Randolph wanted it in Los Gatos. “The thing I did fight for was, if we had to go over-the-hill, it had to be barely over the hill, as close as I could get. If I could have put it in [famous Highway 17 restaurant] the Cats, I would have. But we got University [Avenue], this side of Lark. That’s pretty darn good.”
Still, the company began its amazing life in Scotts Valley. It was there that they kept their first DVDs in an old bank vault, developed the business model that contributed to the company’s early success, and helped break Blockbuster’s hold on consumer home viewing habits.
Today, Randolph is unsparing on himself about moving the company out of Santa Cruz County. After leaving Netflix, he assumed a seat on the board of Looker, a data-analytics company based in Santa Cruz.
“It’s a big regret,” he says of leaving Scotts Valley. “It was a big failure on my part. But my karma has been restored with Looker. From the very beginning, we wanted this to be a Santa Cruz company and stay a Santa Cruz company. Luckily, I learned a few things about how I messed up the first time.”
Looking back at his role in the creation of one of Silicon Valley’s most powerful companies, Randolph says, “I’m a huge optimist. I’m not just a glass-half-full person. I’m overflowing. I’m a believer. I can believe anything can work. It’s just my nature. And it’s also a powerful viewpoint when you keep trying things that everybody else says, ‘That’ll never work.’ Still, you can be astounded when something really does work, especially Netflix, when it took so long to figure out how to get it to work.”
Comedian Richard Stockton remembers walking through the halls of the Santa Cruz Police Department several years ago, following the lead of Zach Friend, then the department’s spokesperson.
Stockton and Friend were collaborating on a humorous video for Stockton’s recurring live Planet Cruz Comedy special. As Stockton remembers it, a cop in a room behind them sneezed and blew his nose. Friend turned, pointed over his shoulder and said, “Dude! Get a better coke dealer!” Friend, who kept walking down the hall, barked it loud enough for everyone within earshot to bust up laughing, Stockton says.
“I don’t remember that, but I wouldn’t put it past me, because that’s funny shit,” says Friend, now a Santa Cruz County supervisor, who resumes his recurring role as a guest at Planet Cruz this Saturday, Nov. 23.
Stockton’s story encapsulates what’s perhaps the worst-kept secret in all of Santa Cruz County politics: Friend, who represents the county’s 2nd District and lives in Aptos, is a relentless shit-talker. “I guess all the stuff I say was going to catch up with me sooner or later,” he says.
Friend’s wit is quick enough that he often starts talking trash before the recipient even sees he’s there.
A few years ago, I was withdrawing cash from an ATM downtown when I heard a voice say loudly—again, to everyone within earshot—“Doesn’t it suck when you can only withdraw 20 bucks out of the ATM?”
Recognizing Friend’s voice, I spun around once the machine spat out my money to see him strolling down Pacific Avenue alongside his wife Tina, then Santa Cruz’s deputy city manager. I fanned out two crisp $20 bills. “Look!” I said. “There’s 40.”
“Guess they let you overdraft, then,” Friend replied with a shrug, never breaking his stride.
Friend doesn’t remember this interaction, either, but hearing the story cracks him up. He says he doesn’t think of his remarks beforehand, and that he can’t explain the ways his brain works or how he thinks of the quips that he does—let alone why he says the things he does. He nonetheless believes that the run-in on Pacific shows that he thinks I’m underpaid for the work that I do. “I also think it’s ridiculous that ATMs won’t let you withdraw tens, but that’s another issue,” Friend quickly adds, his voice trailing off.
Stockton says he sometimes wonders how Friend would fare should he continue his rise through the ranks in the world of politics. Stockton’s curious whether the supervisor’s biting sense of humor and off-the-cuff remarks might hurt him in the long run. He notes, however, that recent presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke was knownto let a few F-bombs fly and still attracted wide-ranging support before dropping out at the beginning of November.
“Maybe it’s all right. Maybe things have changed,” Stockton says.
Friend says he’s found that voters want leaders to be real. “Inauthenticity is one of the biggest turnoffs to people who are in elected office,” he says.
There’s value, Friend explains, in a politician being open about who he or she is and what their values are. He also believes that he doesn’t change much from one situation to another, whether he’s on the dais, at a private event or meeting a reporter for coffee. “It just makes the days and nights a lot easier, because you’re not trying to figure out who you are in any given context,” Friend adds.
At DNA’s Comedy Lab this Saturday night, Stockton and Friend will riff on serious topics like housing, homelessness and environmental policy, with Stockton running a loosely rehearsed Q&A segment with the supervisor. They’ll also be taking topics from the audience. Friend says the scene wouldn’t work if the bits were tightly scripted.
Stockton’s Planet Cruz Comedy special, which has been running on and off since 2007, will also feature performances from fellow comics Sven Davis, Emily Catalano, “Larry Bubbles” Brown, Diane Amos, and DNA, as well as singer Alan Heit.
Friend isn’t the only politician Stockton has brought on his show. In previous years, Stockton featured Friend’s fellow county Supervisor Ryan Coonerty, who represents the city of Santa Cruz and the North Coast. Coonerty is funny, too, Stockton adds.
Onstage, Stockton’s persona is one of a pot-smoking burnout. Most of his stand-up material focuses on trying to get at the environmentally friendly, socially conscious and stoned-out id of Santa Cruz, or at least the stereotypes that surround the liberal town.
Friend, with his nice suits and his political background, provides a contrast with that vision of Santa Cruz. Stockton says riffing with the supervisor helps him in his effort to dig into the essence of the town. “It’s a way to bring real Santa Cruz into the show,” Stockton says.
Having watched their segments a few times, I’ve seen Stockton and Friend fill familiar roles in their two-man act, with Stockton playing the part of the goofball always going for the laugh. The more buttoned-up Friend sets up the punch lines as the straight man. (“Whoa! Is that an anti-Pete Buttigieg comment?” Friend facetiously asks me over the phone.)
Friend comes off as the more serious one, so the arrangement allows for Stockton to play an exaggerated version of his hippie self.
“I’m a communist who’s learned how to live in a capitalist world,” Stockton says. “Zach is a straight arrow. That’s good for us comedically. He gives me a hard time about my pot, and I give him a hard time for not smoking pot.”
Friend says there’s an added comedic wrinkle, in that he generally comes across as more off-the-cuff and more biting than what the typical voter might expect from a county politician.
Stockton concedes that he and Friend—a longtime local Democratic leader, going back even before his days in elected office—don’t see eye-to-eye in some areas.
Friend, for instance, doesn’t have the most liberal record on cannabis issues. This past spring, the supervisor voted against a county law change that aims to allow more cannabis businesses to come into the fold legally, but it passed anyway. Friend says it’s a complicated topic, and one that involves taxes, various environmental concerns and artificial timelines mandated by the state.
Stockton does say many of his friends ask him about his support of Friend, arguing that the supervisor isn’t even all that liberal. But the comic says that he trusts Friend’s judgment.
“If he’s governor some day, when the shit really comes down, I think he’ll make the right decision,” Stockton says. “I believe it. I wouldn’t do it if I thought he was an asshole.”
Planet Cruz Comedy will be at DNA’s Comedy Lab, 155 S River St., Santa Cruz, on Saturday, Nov. 23, at 7:30pm. Tickets $25 general admission/$20 seniors/$30 door. planetcruzcomedy.com.
In the center of a room in the Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter, 11-year-old Scarlett Rider is reading The Famous Nini: A Mostly True Story of How a Plain White Cat Became a Star to four kittens.
“They need inspiration to become great cats,” she explains. Partway through the book, she yells, “I want to adopt one, mom!”
Her mother, Katie Rider, is sitting at a table not far behind her. “I want to bring one home myself,” she whispers, as if she doesn’t want her daughter to know she’s been tempted. So far, her will has held up. She brought her family on a whim Saturday evening after reading about the “Bedtime Stories for Shelter Pets” event at the organization’s Live Oak shelter. But she’s impressed.
“They seem to be listening to her,” she says.
In another room, young couple Holly and Jason Zappala sit on the floor in front of a row of kennels against the wall. Their 9-month-old daughter Oakley is on Holly’s lap in her pajamas (as many of the kids in attendance are) as Holly reads Can I Be Your Dog? to Olive, a black Schnauzer who watches them intently. Oakley reciprocates by reaching a tiny hand out toward Olive’s kennel.
“She loves dogs,” says Holly. “We have three rescue dogs at home, and 11 rescue chickens.”
The Zappalas are there to support the shelter, and they’re happy to have something they can bring their daughter to. “We just want to get her involved in animal rescue at an early age,” says Holly. “I can’t wait ’til she’s old enough to start going to some of their summer camps.”
This is exactly the kind of community the shelter organization seeks to build with these “bedtime stories” events, which continue every Saturday from 5:45 to 6:15pm through Dec. 28. They were conceived by the Animal Shelter’s Program and Development Director Erika Anderson, who was looking for a way to bring new donors—and especially new young donors—to the group (through the Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter Foundation) as it participates in Santa Cruz Gives this year. Each family that comes in to read gets a bookmark declaring, “I Read to a Shelter Pet at the Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter,” plus a postcard explaining how to donate to the group through Santa Cruz Gives. The card also explains how the funds raised through Santa Cruz Gives will go to support the group’s “Animobile,” which will help them transport animals from remote locations around the county to and from the shelter for spay- and- neuter services, and expand their free “Healthy Pets for All” pop-up clinics.
“I was just at one on Wednesday in Watsonville,” says Anderson. “We served 52 pets and signed up 19 free spay- and- neuter appointments at our shelter. We set up in the Veterans Memorial Hall with a volunteer vet team—free exams, vaccinations, flea-and-tick medication. We had pet beds donated by PetSmart. We had a bunch of dog and cat food donated by PetPals. We were giving it all away for free.”
Even Anderson seems a little shocked at the effect the bedtime stories are having at the shelter, especially around the dog kennels. “People are crying,” she says of the volunteers who are guiding families through the event. “For a lot of the staff, it’s because of how calm the dogs are right now.”
CUDDLING FOR A CAUSE
The Santa Cruz County SPCA is another animal welfare group trying something innovative to encourage donations through Santa Cruz Gives this holiday season. The group is hosting a series of “pop-up cuddle booths” around the county, and just did their first one on Saturday at Home/Work (future booths will be announced 48 hours in advance on the Santa Cruz County SPCA Facebook page).
The unique human-animal love connection is an important part of the project Santa Cruz Gives donors can fund for the group. Their “Support for Seniors” program has two main components. First, it provides veterinary care to the animal companions of low-income seniors.
“A lot of times, we’re helping them stay with their pet,” says Alison “Ali” Talley, the local SCCSPCA’s executive director. “We’re preventing their animals from being surrendered to a shelter situation.”
The second element of “Support for Seniors” connects senior people with senior pets, covering the costs of adoption, vaccinations, spay/neuter and microchipping.
Mandi Hart, the group’s shelter manager, says they’ve seen adopted animals do as much for their senior caretakers as the other way around. “The pet can end up being the reason the person gets up in the morning,” says Hart. “It’s the lifeline.”
The senior program was originally established by a gift from renowned botanist and UCSC pProfessor eEmerita Dr. Jean Langenheim, who also contributed a $1,500 challenge gift to the group’s Santa Cruz Gives campaign this year.
WHO LEADS WHO
The staff and volunteers at Unchained know a lot about what humans and animals can do for each other. In their ongoing program, Canines Teaching Compassion, young people—many of whom come from the juvenile hall system—are matched with a shelter dog that they are taught how to train for eight weeks. Santa Cruz Gives donations to the group will help fund a new “Dogs in Residence” program they hope to establish next year, which will allow teams of youth to provide foster care and training for rescue dogs.
Melissa Wolf, the founder and president of Unchained, says that in using positive learning techniques to train dogs that may not have experienced such a caring dynamic before, the young people in the program receive the same kind of unconditional love. “The dogs are immediately accepting of the kids,” says Wolf. “They don’t judge them for their background or previous behavior. The dogs come from perhaps a life of neglect or abuse, and that’s the case with some of our kids, too. They see themselves in their dog.”
Teaching and spreading empathy has never been more important in the animal-welfare community, she says.
“I think what animal rescue is seeing right now—and this is what we were born out of—is if you’re going to change the plight of animals, you have to start with people,” says King.
“Research has shown a direct tie-in,” says Anderson. “How we treat animals reflects how we treat people.”
The Ross Survival Camp, also known as Camp Phoenix, closed this past Friday, just a few days after it had opened. Given that the city isn’t doing much on homelessness right now, it would not have seemed crazy for Santa Cruz to opt to simply wait and see if the camp could be better run on its second go-round. But, nope. Everyone’s been kicked out, and it’s now going to be that much more likely that you’ll find someone camping in your front lawn, instead of on an empty patch of grass between a department store and a freeway.
FLOOD OF SUPPORT
Friday morning actually looked like it was going be a tough one for DIY homeless efforts.
The same morning that the Ross Camp ended, there was a small flood just on the other side of the pedestrian bridge. A pipe burst at the Day and Night Storage building, as activist Brent Adams announced on Facebook. Adams—who founded the program, as well as the Warming Center shelter—worked with volunteer Nancy Krusoe to clear out bins that house homeless people’s belongings. Adams wrote that just one user out of 250 had their belongings damaged.
It’s worth noting that, because of political infighting, strategic missteps and bureaucratic backlog, the city has not implemented many of the widely popular recommendations that the Homelessness Coordinating Committee brought forward two and a half years ago. One of the suggestions was for a storage program that would give the homeless community a place to put their things. And if it weren’t for Adams’ shoestring operation, Santa Cruz wouldn’t have that, either.
The Warming Center Program is throwing a fundraiser dinner on Friday, Nov. 22, at the 418 Project. Tickets are $45. For more information, visitfacebook.com/warmingcenter, email wa******************@***il.com, or call 588-9892.
WHEEL SEE
With the Street Smarts traffic-safety education campaign rolling out around Santa Cruz County, the California Office of Traffic Safety has awarded three new grants locally. All three grants, totaling $398,000, are going to the county of Santa Cruz—one for bicycle and pedestrian safety, one for impaired driving, and another for child passenger safety. The bike grants will fund classroom presentations on safety, walking field trips and bicycle rodeos in schools, plus distributions of bicycle helmets and lights to low-income community members.
That all seems worthwhile. Nuz certainly hopes the next generation of cyclists and motorists is better than the current ones.
A soothing, blue light washed over the Ugly Mug Coffeehouse in Soquel last Thursday, the air buzzing with an energy not entirely from the caffeine.
Roughly two dozen people sat captivated by the singer/songwriter duo performing in front. The woman sat cross-legged in a chair, layers of talisman necklaces sparkling against her crocheted vest and messy-chic hair. Her bandmate rocked a redwood-green cardigan and ripped jeans, reminiscent of a more put-together Kurt Cobain, as he strummed an acoustic guitar. The bohemian aesthetic blended perfectly into the vibe of Soquel’s favorite coffee shop.
“Last night I was supposed to tell the audience how my guitar got its name, but I forgot,” he says with a laugh. “But it was at a brewery, and everyone was wasted, so nobody noticed.”
It’s the type of duo you might expect to find in any independent coffee shop, except that not every coffee shop is visited by pop royalty like Paris “P.K.” Jackson—yes, that Jackson, daughter of the late Michael—and not many new bands are followed around by a film crew. Paris Jackson and Gabriel Glenn—Paris’ boyfriend and lead singer and guitar player for Hollywood’s self-proclaimed “mangiest band,” the Trash Dogs—play together as the Soundflowers. Their sound echoes Joni Mitchell and early Dylan while fitting in with the sound of newer folk artists like Two Gallants (minus the drums) and the Civil Wars. They actually played two shows in the Santa Cruz area on Thursday, with a set at the Blue Lagoon before the performance in Soquel. The question is: why here?
“You probably know almost as much information as me,” says Ugly Mug owner Steve Volk. The call proposing the show came randomly, and he admits his initial reaction was to worry if there would be an audience, since the Mug normally has music on Mondays, not Thursdays.
“But then I realized that’s probably not going to be an issue,” Volk says with a laugh. “When the universe gives you an opportunity like this, you should probably say ‘yes.’”
“[Santa Cruz] is such an ideal West Coast, California destination,” says Soundflowers manager Tom Hamilton. “And it coordinates so well with their music and their personalities.” He says both Santa Cruz-area locations were suggested to them “through friends.”
Recently formed, the Soundflowers performed their first official show earlier this year. Their Santa Cruz debut was the third night of their Full Moon Tour, which—as the name implies—began on the full moon and is the band’s first. While their social media teased a possible EP release earlier this summer, Hamilton says it’s still in the works and should be finished soon. In lieu of albums, they sold tie-dyed shirts, hand dipped by the band, with the Soundflowers logo printed on front.
It’s easy to chalk this up to nothing more than Hollywood elite trying to commandeer any minute crumb of the hippie movement that is left—part Woodstock, part Coachella, mostly Instagram. But that would be a cynical view, and a wrong one at that. Listening to their lyrics, it’s clear they are as genuine—sometimes dark and raw, other times innocent as a laugh—as the looks of love stolen between harmonies, or the way Jackson brushes back Glenn’s hair. And in true hippie fashion, they took no fee for the gigs, allowing the venues the option to make some money on a cover charge or not.
“It’s their lifestyle,” Hamilton says matter-of-factly.
As for their sets, being earlier in the evening and having to finish before the weekly scheduled Blue Lagoonies Free Thursday Night Comedy, the first was short and sweet. But with less of a time restriction at the Ugly Mug—and a smaller, more intimate space—the two seemed more at ease and opened up, interacting with the audience about the origins of certain songs, jokes and their best Morrissey impressions. Both also stuck around after the shows to meet fans eagerly waiting for selfies.
While most of the tunes were duets, they took turns on lead vocals, guitar and ukulele. At one point, Jackson covered Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song,” which Glenn later explained made him fall in love with her. He wasn’t her only admirer at the show.
“I love Paris,” says Eryka Ramos, who travelled straight from work in San Jose for the Ugly Mug concert, and was first to arrive. “It was amazing, up close and personal. It couldn’t have been any better, and was a once-in-a-lifetime thing.”
“You don’t hear about stuff like this happening,” agrees her husband, Robert.
Which raises another question: Will the Soundflowers return?
“Definitely,” Hamilton says. “We love it here! Know of any other coffee shops to play?”
Esoteric Astrology as news for the week of Nov. 20, 2019
This Wednesday (Nov. 20), Mercury slowly moves forward in its retrograde shadow. Friday, the sun exits Scorpio (deep waters) and enters Sagittarius (enduring fire). Sunday is a very auspicious (lucky, expansive, loving, wise) day, with Venus joining Jupiter. Tuesday is the Sagittarius new moon festival. Wednesday, Neptune turns direct, and next Thursday is Thanksgiving Day, our Day of Gratitude.
The theme of the season, from now through Jan. 6 (and especially at Thanksgiving), is gratitude, referred to in the wisdom teachings as the “Kingly or Royal Way.” It is a way of life everyone can adopt. The Royal Way is a state of constant and ceaseless gratitude and appreciation. “Gratitude” comes from Latin gratus, meaning “pleasing, thankful,” and is related to grace. It salvages humanity, brings forth deep joy, lifts others up, and creates a steadfast orientation toward the Light of Life itself.
Gratitude is an amulet and a talisman, creating merit and virtue leading to forgiveness. Gratitude liberates us from karma and sets us free. The autumn season, with its many festivals of Light, invites us to embark on a journey of gratitude together. When disciples and the New Group of World Servers offer gratitude, there is a radiance of solace, kindness and love that flows into the sorrow and suffering of the world.
ARIES: It’s most important to find time for reflection and contemplation, because there’s such a rush of activity, ideas and ideals flowing here, there, everywhere this season. There’s a desire to travel, discovering new realities important to your well being. Without pause, they will be missed. It’s also good to review what is of value while observing what’s occurring in the world. How are you aiding in building the new society, and what do you envision for the future?
TAURUS: You continue to tend to the care and well-being of others. Sometimes you remember to care for yourself. You must remember that you are a valuable resource. If you are not tended to well enough, you no longer can be a resource for others. Ideas and visions for the new era continue to appear. Their manifestation into form has been elusive. There is an esoteric equation for manifestation. We see the need, we call in the resources, we imagine the outflow of abundant resources. It’s an Aquarian triangle (and art) with Uranus at the center.
GEMINI: It’s most important to reflect upon what your relationships are based upon. Include all relationships, but begin with your most intimate one(s). Consider what’s taken for granted, what’s understood and not understood, and what allows you to be most truthful. Is there talk about moving, relocating and rethinking resources? A new path comes forth, and a new message within the relationship. Listen with patience, perseverance and serenity.
CANCER: Your idea of a schedule quickly dissipates, and you find yourself with no routines, plans or the ability to take control of daily events. Anything you’ve thought of doing simply melts into states of chaos, which is seeking the next level of harmony. However, the harmony’s not manifesting for a while. The best thing to do is to read, study and prepare nurturing foods for others. They will receive it as manna (goodness) from the heavens. You are that.
LEO: The past year has been rather serious for many, especially you—restructuring and disciplining us in confronting the past, and bringing forth new ways of thinking. This new moon with its Sagittarius fire calls you to a new study, possible journeys to recreation, children, pleasure, creativity, games, fun, enjoyment and being with others who think as you think. Is there a wound that has come into your awareness, a sadness, a loss? Do you need to communicate about it so the veils of sorrow can drop away?
VIRGO: Family and parents, the foundations of your life, your childhood, beliefs learned while young and carried into the present time will be on your mind for the purpose of appraising, cleansing, clearing, and eliminating all that is no longer useful. Be aware that moodiness, brooding, and perhaps intense feelings will arise. Contemplate and evaluate these with intelligence, patience and careful observation. There’s a brilliance in them, like a jewel to be polished.
LIBRA: It’s good to be in touch with siblings, communicating with them, sharing news, family gossip, hopes, wishes, dreams, plans, and ideals. Do all things with family that makes everyone feel empowered. Do not allow anything (ideas, sorrows, pain, unforgiveness, misunderstandings, etc.) from the past obscure your connections. Allow nothing to be misconstrued. Communicate with the intention to make contact, which releases love. Your family loves you.
SCORPIO: The entire world’s in a state of reorientation, a condition you know well, for you experience reorientation continually. The entire world is in a Scorpio state of transformation, testing, of dying and regenerating, so that the new era can come forth. Your importance in this great shift is the fact that your research abilities become the core information source for the new culture and civilization. What are your present tasks? What are you using your resources for? Are you happy?
SAGITTARIUS: There’s an opportunity now, not wanting to waste a moment of life’s energy or time, to redefine yourself, your self-identity and purpose. You’re able to change your mind about who you (think you) are and how you see yourself. Be aware that your presence is very impactful to many others around you. Issues and decisions you thought were concluded reappear for re-evaluation and reassessment. New rhythms, tempos and patterns are appearing. Just let the music play. It’s magic.
CAPRICORN: You may feel you’re waiting in the wings for new realities to appear. It’s like planning a garden—arugula, kales, onions, wintergreens, thyme, oregano, parsley–waiting for spring and the first green shoots to appear. Everything on inner levels is being restructured. You feel this, but it hasn’t manifested in your outer world. Everything is in right time. Be as reclusive as needed to allow the roots and flowers and blooms of a new reality to anchor, grow, become strong, later to reshape your life with a new sort of beauty.
AQUARIUS: In the weeks and months to come, you discover your true friends, what groups support your endeavors, and whom you can turn to for nurturance, needs and simple friendship. So many of humanity are misinformed. Become a researcher (not a reactor) so you can provide humanity with true information. Then you become part of the education of humanity. Assess your life’s journey. When traveling, follow the rules of the road for safety and direction.
PISCES: There have been thoughts on writing, perhaps a small book or two, perhaps a publishing company of the new art, charts, games. It’s good to think of new endeavors, considering them without making final decisions. Acknowledgements and recognitions come forth unexpectedly. Careful of miscommunication to and with the public. Tend to previous tasks, and continue to work with focused consistency. New tasks will appear. The Hierarchy looks on.
For a generation of indie rockers, the 1999Built to Spill album Keep It Like a Secret is one of the great heavyweights, an album up there with the undefeated champs like Pavement’s Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, and Modest Mouse’s Lonesome Crowded West.
Located in the band’s catalog between two longer, more meandering albums, Keep it Like a Secret plays out almost like a pop record—nimble and confident and endlessly resourceful—but something much more daring. Pitchfork called it one of the 50 best indie-rock albums of the Pacific Northwest.
In February, Keep it Like a Secret hit its 20-year anniversary. Doug Martsch, Built to Spill’s singer, guitarist and sole constant, has been revisiting the album.
“I think the record still sounds really cool,” he says over the phone, from a Seattle green room. “I listened to it a little bit before we learned the songs. [Producer] Phil Ek did an amazing job recording it. It’s ambitious. I like that about it.”
On opener “The Plan,” the band spends half the song developing one of its catchiest hooks before taking a sharp turn, digging into a massively discordant bridge, shrieking with feedback. When the melody finally returns, the song opens bright like a clearing in a forest. On mid-album highlight “Time Trap,” the band develops a groove and coaxes it into a fine bloom, only to stop abruptly and begin the first verse at a different tempo.
“There’s this balance in music,” Martsch says. “I don’t know how it’s accomplished, but I’m always trying to do it, where things are conventional, and are pleasant to the brain, but are challenging, too. The Beatles did it, so it’s not a new thing.”
Keep it Like a Secret was the band’s second major-label release. First was the ponderous, nearly doomed Perfect From Now On, a Gordian knot of a record filled with interweaving guitar parts and sinuous counter-melodies. Though Perfect went on to be a critical hit, by the time it was finally released, it had become something of an albatross to Martsch. After a painstaking original session that saw Martsch playing everything but drums, neither he nor producer Ek were happy, so they started over from scratch. After another full recording session (this time with a real band), the master tapes from the second session melted while en route from Seattle to Boise. By the time it was done, Perfect From Now On had taken almost a full year to record eight songs.
“That record before was a real drain,” Martsch says. “Working on those songs took so long. It became really complex, and taxing. I was burnt out.”
When time came to start working on a follow-up, he opted for its diametric opposite: shorter songs, and more collaboration.
“I think it was the first time where we made a record where the guys were more set in the band,” he says. “We all played together a lot and had been for a while. It was more collaborative in spirit and music.”
Twenty years later, the album still sounds fresh, unperturbed by the changing currents of music in the intervening years. Counter-intuitively, a strange status as a major-label band without any hit singles may be the secret to enduring success; rather than coming to the band from a specific song, fans tend to form connections with Built to Spill albums.
“We’ve been blessed to have a long career without any of the pains of success,” Martsch says. “The fans who are there have found it on their own. Nobody shoved it down their throat at some point. Nobody’s waiting to hear just one song. It’s incredibly satisfying, the career I’ve been able to get out of this.”
Built to Spill perform at 8pm on Thursday, Nov. 21, at the Rio Theatre, 1205 Soquel Ave, Santa Cruz. $32. 423-8209.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): “Beware of what disturbs the heart,” said Ibn Mas’ud, a companion of the prophet Mohammed. “If something unsettles your heart, then abandon it.” My wise Aries friend Artemisia has a different perspective. She advises, “Pay close attention to what disturbs the heart. Whatever has the power to unsettle your heart will show you a key lesson you must learn, a crucial task you’d be smart to undertake.” Here’s my synthesis of Ibn Mas’ud and Artemisia: Do your very best to fix the problem revealed by your unsettled heart. Learn all you can in the process. Then, even if the fix isn’t totally perfect, move on. Graduate from the problem for good.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Taurus social critic Bertrand Russell won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950. He’s regarded as the founder of analytic philosophy and one of the 20th century’s premier intellectuals. But he went through a rough patch in 1940. He was adjudged “morally unfit” to accept his appointment as a professor at the City College of New York. The lawsuit that banned him from the job described him as being “libidinous, lustful, aphrodisiac, and irreverent.” Why? Simply because of his liberated opinions about sexuality, which he had conscientiously articulated in his book Marriage and Morals. In our modern era, we’re more likely to welcome libidinous, lustful, aphrodisiac, and irreverent ideas if they’re expressed respectfully, as Russell did. With that as a subtext, I invite you to update and deepen your relationship with your own sexuality in the coming weeks.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): In her poem “What the Light Teaches,” Anne Michaels describes herself arriving at a lover’s house soaked with rain, “dripping with new memory.” She’s ready for “one past to grow out of another.” In other words, she’s eager to leave behind the story that she and her lover have lived together up until now—and to begin a new story. A similar blessing will be available for you in the coming weeks, Gemini: a chance for you and an intimate partner or close ally to launch a new chapter of your history together.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Some scientists deride astrology despite being ignorant about it. For example, they complain, “The miniscule gravitational forces beaming from the planets can’t possibly have any effect on our personal lives.” But the truth is that most astrologers don’t believe the planets exert influence on us with gravity or any other invisible force. Instead, we analyze planetary movements as evidence of a hidden order in the universe. It’s comparable to the way weather forecasters use a barometer to read atmospheric pressure, but know that barometers don’t cause changes in atmospheric pressure. I hope this inspires you, Cancerian, as you develop constructive critiques of situations in your own sphere. Don’t rely on naive assumption and unwarranted biases. Make sure you have the correct facts before you proceed. If you do, you could generate remarkable transformations in the coming weeks.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): As you glide into the Season of Love, I’d love you to soak up wise counsel from the author bell hooks. (She doesn’t capitalize her name.) “Many people want love to function like a drug, giving them an immediate and sustained high,” she cautions. “They want to do nothing, just passively receive the good feeling.” I trust you won’t do that, Leo. Here’s more from hooks: “Dreaming that love will save us, solve all our problems or provide a steady state of bliss or security only keeps us stuck in wishful fantasy, undermining the real power of the love—which is to transform us.” Are you ready to be transformed by love, Leo?
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Burrow down as deep as you dare, Virgo. Give yourself pep talks as you descend toward the gritty core of every matter. Feel your way into the underground, where the roots meet the foundations. It’s time for you to explore the mysteries that are usually beneath your conscious awareness. You have a mandate to reacquaint yourself with where you came from and how you got to where you are now.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): It’s natural and healthy to feel both the longing to connect and the longing to be independent. Each of those urges deserves an honored place in your heart. But you may sometimes experience them as being contradictory; their opposing pulls may rouse tension. I bring this to your attention because I suspect that the coming weeks will be a test of your ability to not just abide in this tension, but to learn from and thrive on it. For inspiration, read these words by Jeanette Winterson. “What should I do about the wild heart that wants to be free and the tame heart that wants to come home? I want to be held. I don’t want you to come too close. I want you to scoop me up and bring me home at night. I don’t want to tell you where I am. I want to be with you.”
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): The Louvre Museum in Paris displays 38,000 objects throughout its 18 acres of floor space. Among its most treasured 13th-century artworks is The Madonna and Child in Majesty Surrounded by Angels, a huge painting by Italian painter Cimabue. When a museum representative first acquired it in the 19nth century, its price was 5 francs, or less than $1. I urge you to be on the lookout for bargains like that in the coming weeks. Something that could be valuable in the future may be undervalued now.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Sagittarian performance artist Marina Abramović observes that Muhammad, Buddha, Jesus, and Moses “all went to the desert as nobodies and came back as somebodies.” She herself spent a year in Australia’s Great Sandy Desert near Lake Disappointment, leading her to exclaim that the desert is “the most incredible place, because there is nothing there except yourself, and yourself is a big deal.” From what I can tell, Sagittarius, you’re just returning from your own metaphorical version of the desert, which is very good news. Welcome back! I can’t wait to see what marvels you spawn.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Upcoming events may bedevil your mind. They may mess with your certainties and agitate your self-doubts. But if you want my view about those possibilities, they’re cause for celebration. According to my analysis of the astrological indicators, you will benefit from having your mind bedeviled and your certainties messed with and your self-doubts agitated. You may ultimately even thrive and exult and glow like a miniature sun. Why? Because you need life to gently but firmly kick your ass in just the right way so you’ll become alert to opportunities you have been ignoring or blind to.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Every writer I’ve ever known says that a key practice to becoming a good writer is to read a lot of books. So what are we to make of the fact that one of the 20th century’s most celebrated novelists didn’t hew to that principle? In 1936, three years before the publication of his last book, Aquarian-born James Joyce confessed that he had “not read a novel in any language for many years.” Here’s my take on the subject: More than any other sign of the zodiac, you Aquarians have the potential to succeed despite not playing by conventional rules. And I suspect your power to do that is even greater than usual these days.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): “If you are lucky enough to find a way of life you love, you have to find the courage to live it,” wrote Piscean novelist John Irving. In the coming weeks, Pisces, you will have the power to get clearer than ever before about knowing the way of life you love. As a bonus, I predict you will also have an expanded access to the courage necessary to actually live that way of life. Take full advantage!
Homework: Possible definition of happiness: the state that results from cultivating interesting, useful problems. What’s your definition? freewillastrology.com.
The tracklist on Hippo Campus’ breakout album Bambi reads like a mental breakdown explained in a spoken-word piece: “Mistakes,” “Anxious,” “Doubt,” “Why Even Try.” But what comes out is one of the most gorgeous, effervescent records of 2018, with layered, etheric pop songs that are rich in harmonies and punctuated by finely produced electronics. The songs express loneliness, but do so cathartically, as if to say, “You aren’t alone, because we all feel lonely.” This year, the group released demos of the record, as if to show the exquisitely raw and post-punk foundation these songs started out as before being transformed into the glossy opuses that landed on Bambi. AC
9pm. Catalyst, 1011 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. $25. 423-1338.
JAZZ
PRESERVATION HALL JAZZ BAND
A bastion of traditional New Orleans jazz since the early 1960s, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band has radically expanded its preservationist mission in recent years. The ensemble contributes to the extraordinary new album by Haitian collective Lakou Mizik, HaitiaNola, and A Tuba For Cuba, the soundtrack for the recent documentary about the ensemble’s 2015 trip to the communist nation. The island-crossing sojourn has accentuated the Cuban DNA present at the creation of New Orleans jazz, and the talent-laden ensemble is touring with several top-shelf Cuban artists, including Havana-reared multi-instrumentalist Yusa. ANDREW GILBERT
7:30pm. Rio Theatre, 1205 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. $42. 423-8209.
THURSDAY 11/21
HIP-HOP
REXX LIFE RAJ
Rexx Life Raj is one of the best new emcees to come out of the East Bay’s vibrant scene. The rapper steers clear of auto-tuned mumble rap, and the gritty pessimism of some of his contemporaries. Instead he delivers old-school bars that are introspective and uplifting. He got a late start with releasing music, though he wrote from a young age, compounding by copious time rolling verses over in his head while working as a delivery driver. His latest, Father Figure 3: Somewhere Out There, is an incredibly intimate album that feels both like a homemade tape and a marvelously produced, soulful rap record on pop radio. AC
If God was Nick Cave, Devon Welsh would be the choir boy writing his solemn worship tunes. Originally the singer for the warbly synth-ballad duo Majical Cloudz, Welsh went solo last year, and has already released two albums of uncomfortably honest devotionals, with music so minimalistic, it’s nearly inaudible behind his deep, majestic baritone. He ponders plain truths about himself, not shielded by even the thinnest metaphors. Instead, demanding you confront his humanity, and perhaps your own in the process. Just like Lord Nick Cave would want. AC
What do you get when you cross Danny Elfman at his most playfully eerie, and the fret-shredding surf guitar work of Dick Dale? That’s not a rhetorical question, I’m asking you, what do you get? I don’t know! But I’m guessing it would sound something like L.A.’s Atomic Ape: an exotic blend of instrumental stylings that defies easy categorization. On 2014’s Swarm, the group sound variably like the soundtrack to a haunted beach, and a haunted bazaar. One way or another, there’s some ghosts involved. MIKE HUGUENOR
9pm. Blue Lagoon, 923 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. $8. 423-7117.
ROCK
HIDALGOS
Will the wolf survive? Thirty-five years ago, David Hidalgo and Los Lobos asked that very question on their sophomore album, and today we can say the wolf not only survived, but thrived! Hidalgo’s gritty vocals and East L.A. sound is part Tex-Mex, part blues ‘and all rock ‘n roll. At Moe’s Alley, Hidalgo will be joined by his sons Vincent Hidalgo (bassist), and Social Distortion member David Hidalgo Jr. (drums). MAT WEIR
Orgone has always been a group of nomads of soul, following the funk where it goes. On 2018’s Undercover Mixtape, the L.A. collective dropped some rare grooves channeling both Stevie Wonder and the Daptones. Since then, the group has added the dynamic Adryon de León as full time vocalist. This year’s Reasons finds the group making the most of de León, going full disco-soul a la Cheryl Lynn & Donna Summer. The album swaggers out the gate with slinking bass, strings, a sizzling beat, and huge, funky hooks. MH
Jono Zalay used to have this pipe dream of one day being a neuroscientist. He put away this childishness to pursue a steady, dependable career in comedy. Good thing he did! Zalay’s antics have gained him internet viral status with his some A+ DMV trolling. He’s landed some cushy writing gigs at Comedy Central, Amazon, Fox and more. MW
7 & 9:30pm. DNA’s Comedy Lab, 155 S. River St., Santa Cruz. $20/adv, $25/door. 900-5123.
SUNDAY 11/24
POWER-POP
M. LOCKWOOD PORTER
Chico’s M. Lockwood Porter has both the dapper looks and unmarketable name of a classic power-pop artist. Which is good, because he writes some pretty classic tunes. Think Graham Parker, and Nick Lowe. But unlike them, Porter sneaks a bit of mountain twang into his pop, and a dash of Tom Petty here and there (the man clearly has an affinity for Tom Petty). This year’s Communion in the Ashes opens with a white knuckle title track bordering on first wave punk, all overdriven Fenders and four on the floor. The lyrics ain’t bad, either. MH
