Santa Cruz Remembers Jack O’Neill

Cover Stories

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June 6, 2017

On foot, via bicycle and in cars, a trail of Jack O’Neill’s friends and fans snakes past his home at 23610 East Cliff Drive on Saturday, June 3. Flowers, O’Neill hats and hand-drawn pictures decorate the sidewalk in front.

Below the cliff, surfers carve up beautifully breaking waves. But no one will bark surfing advice at them from an oceanfront patio above—something O’Neill, who died of natural causes at the age of 94 on Friday—was known for doing.

Dripping-wet shortboarders climb the steps from the beach, pausing silently to admire the homage as they stroll back to their cars. The whole residential block feels eerily quiet, not just because of the somber mood, but also because of the obvious fact that Santa Cruz’s eye-patch-wearing legend, who lived for the ocean, is no longer standing watch over it.

Ask most any local about O’Neill and you’ll hear words like “visionary” or “revolutionized”—plus the observations that “He really put Santa Cruz on the map” and “We wouldn’t be warm in the water without him.”

Randy Hall, who’s lived in Santa Cruz since moving here with his family at age two, 65 years ago, went by O’Neill’s house last Saturday to drop off a glass vase of flowers that he left in the pebble-filled front yard, behind a faded wooden fence.

“It was an exciting time in Santa Cruz, back in the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, and Jack was such an innovator with the wetsuit and surfing, and there was always something interesting happening with his hot air balloon that he would fly all over [Steamer] Lane,” Hall says. “It was a sleepy old retirement town before that. With his innovations in surfing, it brought in a lot of energy. He was cool, and he would drive around in his old Jaguar. You just had a feeling that Santa Cruz was a center for a lot of lifestyles that were fun and healthy. He personified the surfing attitude. It allowed for the feeling of that experience to rub off on future generations.”

O’Neill was not the only one to experiment with neoprene water suits in the 1950s. But at his surf shop—first in San Francisco and then in Santa Cruz—he mastered the craft, making it his gift to the surf community.

“The wetsuit changed the nature of the sport exponentially,” says local historian Geoffrey Dunn. “Whether he developed the suit or not, he popularized it and commercialized it, and it changed the sport forever. When we were young here, buying a used O’Neill wetsuit was a score. They were like drugs. I remember when I got one. It was a short john. It was a great summertime suit. Instead of staying out for an hour, you could stay out for a few.”

Back in the ’50s, UC Berkeley physicist Hugh Bradner was also tinkering with neoprene and developed a similar suit, as did Bob and Bill Meistrell, two brothers in Southern California, but their designs were tailored more toward diving and not as durable. Drew Kampion, O’Neill’s biographer, says it was O’Neill who developed thicker layers of padding on various parts of the suit to make paddling easier without sacrificing warmth.

In the 1960s, the Santa Cruz Sentinel marveled at how warm those early suits were. Columnist Wally Trabing described the tight-fitting outfit as a “head-to-toe girdle that improves your figure by 20 pounds,” adding that “Once incarcerated, you feel vaguely like a can of beer that’s been all shook up.”

A decade later, O’Neill was testing out an early version of the surf leash and damaged his left eye, prompting him to start wearing the eyepatch that would become a trademark for him. “And then he got the pirate look going,” says surfing historian Kim Stoner, who has a ’62 O’Neill board hanging in his living room. “That fit Jack to a tee.”

O’Neill, after all, was an all-around nautical master. In addition to being a wildly successful businessman and a surfer himself, he was a sailor, a hot air balloonist and a windsurfer—not to mention an underrated bodysurfer. That pirate-like black eye patch—to go with his graying beard—would cement his image as an icon and even provide the company, which shared his name, with new logos. And when it comes to O’Neill, brand loyalty is no joke. Fans like Michael Thomas of Lodi wear O’Neill pretty much all of the time.

“I have a hat, some swimsuits, shirts, flannels. My girl, she rocks a couple bikinis from O’Neill and also a couple hats. My boys, same thing—swimsuits and a few shirts, a few hats, all those styles,” Thomas said Friday night as he perused O’Neill on Pacific Avenue, with his family still reeling from the news of the man’s passing several hours earlier. “His design is going to be imprinted for another 10 or 15 years. The style’s almost immortal. You can pick up some shirts from 10 or 15 years ago, and it looks like it just came off the shelves.”

Ten years ago, the style took on a life much bigger than Santa Cruz, when O’Neill sold the trademark to a European company—for more than $200 million, according to a source close to the deal. That decision spread the image and clothing logos even farther and wider. O’Neill Wetsuits, now a separate group, is still family-owned and run by Jack’s eldest son, Pat. There are only four O’Neill surf shops, all of them local and owned by the wetsuit company.

The man’s true legacy, at least as far as O’Neill himself was concerned, is in a catamaran called the O’Neill Sea Odyssey, which he helped design.

Close to 94,000 students from all over the Monterey Bay, San Francisco Bay Area and Central Valley have come for field trips on the 65-foot vessel to learn about marine biology and the fragility of Earth’s ecosystems. “When he looked out into the ocean, he saw a playground,” says Dan Haifley, executive director of the program. “He also saw a classroom, and he wanted to protect it.”

Many of those who come to Santa Cruz for a sail are low-income students, and it is often their first time seeing the ocean. Within the next year, the Sea Odyssey plans to welcome its 100,000th student, and it’s on a fundraising campaign to celebrate that landmark.

“Jack’s passing certainly is the end of an era for us. This was his vision. He started the organization, along with his son Tim,” Haifley says. “He regarded the ocean as a living entity. It has a lot of ecosystems in it. His philosophy was that the ocean is alive.”

O’Neill often told people the program was the best thing he ever did.

“The wetsuit is [Jack’s] commercial legacy, but I think the O’Neill Sea Odyssey is his spiritual legacy,” Dunn says. “It continues to give back to the community, and the world at large.”

Many surfers remember his goodwill through the years, like his support for the local junior lifeguard program and sunscreen awareness campaigns that he sponsored.

Nine years ago, the Santa Cruz Surfing Museum was at risk of closing due to city budget shortfalls. O’Neill gave it enough money to survive for four months, while the Santa Cruz Surf Club kicked fundraising efforts into high gear. “He did a lot of things for the surfing community,” Stoner says, “that people didn’t know about.”

The O’Neill family is asking that people send any memorial contributions in support of Jack’s love of the oceans to oneillseaodyssey.org. A group of locals is encouraging Santa Cruzans to break out their favorite O’Neill’s apparel for a citywide “Wear a Jack O’Neill Shirt Day” this Friday, June 9. The family and company are also planning a possible paddle-out in his honor.

Jack of all Trades

We asked people to tell us their stories of O’Neill. Here are some highlights:

Dennis Judson:

When O’Neill tapped Dennis Judson to be CEO in the 1970s, he gave Judson free reign of daily operations, letting him do whatever he wanted—that is until O’Neill had a problem with one of his hot air balloons. “He would shut down a factory and have everyone work on his balloon” Judson remembers. “I said, ‘Jack, what are you doing?! We have to get all this neoprene out. You know, the balloon occupied the whole factory. It was basically a giant spinnaker. And when the balloon was there, it was hard to work on anything other than that goddamn balloon.”

Jeff Pappas:

Jeff Pappas’ father Joe was O’Neill’s second employee at the Cowell Surf Shop. A longtime family friend, Pappas raves about the entrepreneur’s ability to think “three steps ahead” of everyone else. But his favorite story is a time in the early 1990s, when the two were sitting in an airport in San Diego preparing to fly home. O’Neill spotted two Catholic school girls and asked them what books they were reading. O’Neill had read all those same religious texts himself, prompting a deeply philosophical conversation before takeoff. “It was incredible how much he could communicate on so many different levels,” Pappas says. “So humble.”

Jon Foster

A former member of the O’Neill surf team, Jon Foster remembers one afternoon at the harbor, seeing O’Neill on a boat with sons, Pat and Mike, in the mid-60s. O’Neill taxied over toward Foster and called out, asking him to join them aboard. But as the teenager stepped one foot off the dock, O’Neill slammed the vessel into reverse. “Bam. Right in the water,” Foster recalls, chuckling at the prank. “He thought that was great fun. I knew I was a part of something when he could joke with me like that.”

Randy Gray:

Randy Gray’s parents, Bill and Jimmie Jean, used to hang out with O’Neill and his first wife Marjorie when they still lived in San Francisco. They ran with a crowd that included baseball great Joe DiMaggio, Randy says. His dad and O’Neill used to surf together in the days when watermen wore wool sweaters to stay warm. (A good sweater lasted a few waves until it got wet and waterlogged, forcing surfers to paddle ashore.) Then O’Neill came up with the idea of foam suits to keep surfers comfortable, suggesting Bill take out a mortgage on his house to invest in the business. Bill politely passed on the business venture and never lived it down. Randy says, “When he got older, he laughed about that: ‘Yeah, I told Jack, You’re full of shit!’” Although he was a good sport about it, O’Neill clearly got the last laugh.

Larry Dunham:

When Larry Dunham’s brother Roger joined the O’Neill surf team, the honor came with a surfboard. Larry remembers going to Pleasure Point with his brother to check out the surf at Pleasure Point in the mid-60s. Larry says he advised Roger not to leave his brand new board in the back of the pickup truck while they walked across the street, but he did it anyway. And when they came back a couple minutes later, the board was gone. “We were really blown away,” Larry says, “so we go back to the shop, and Jack said, ‘Roger, just pick out another one.’ He was that kind of guy.”

Tom Ralston:

Tom Ralston remembers one night he spent with O’Neill’s second eldest son, Mike, drinking at the Crow’s Nest. They finally got back around 3:30 a.m. to O’Neill’s home on East Cliff, where they were going to spend the night and where O’Neill had a trampoline that he loved using for exercise. “We were pretty lit when we went to bed,” Ralston says, “and Jack was on the trampoline at 5:30 that morning, and he was jumping on the trampoline to John Philip Sousa music.” The sound blaring marching band sounds rattled Ralston hard. To this day, he wonders if O’Neill was trying to screw with him and maybe teach him sort of lesson—maybe that “the early bird gets the worm,” Ralston says, “and if you’re going to be up until 3:30, you’re also going to pay a price.”

Suzanne Haley:

From her days working in the company, Suzanne Haley remembers one day O’Neill took everyone out sailing in his catamaran, departing from the Santa Cruz Harbor, en route for Monterey. As he pulled up to an end tie along the dock, the harbormaster barked that he couldn’t park there. The two men squabbled back and forth, with O’Neill repeatedly yelling back that he was only going to be there a minute while he grabbed a quick part for his boat in the shop. Then O’Neill took the whole team out for a long, fancy lunch and ordered a few bottles of wine. “That was Jack,” Haley says.

Drew Kampion:

Some remember O’Neill for his fondness for a special libation. “When Bruce Brown—you know, he’s the director of The Endless Summer—would come to town, Jack would sponsor his showings. The minute Bruce arrived, the martinis would start pouring,” says Drew Kampion, who ran an advertising agency that had O’Neill’s company as a client in the 1970s. “Jack was quite the party guy and an exuberant guy.” Later when Kampion penned O’Neill’s biography, he fondly recalls sitting on O’Neill’s couch with him for hours beside giant windows, as waves rolled in around him, from the Hook to Pleasure Point. “It was such a wonderful time,” Kampion says. “He was such an authentic guy. He still is, because he will always stay and remain in the present tense and keep going no matter what anyone else does after.”

Update 06/08/17: We originally misreported the name of the O’Neill CEO during the 1970s as being Dennis Johnson. His name is Dennis Judson.

Lawsuit Calls Cisco Responsible for Oppression Abroad

Local News

Jennifer Wadsworth

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June 6, 2017

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Lawsuit Calls Cisco Responsible for Oppression Abroad

Despite a narrow escape from police during his last visit, Charles Lee returned to his native China on Jan. 22, 2003, to relay a message that would cost him the next three years of his life. The physician—a newly naturalized U.S. citizen who lived in Menlo Park at the time—spent more than a year rehearsing the proclamation he would deliver by hacking into a state-run television broadcast. He wanted to tell viewers about the Communist Party’s brutal persecution of the Falun Gong, a quasi-spiritual movement outlawed in 1999 as an “evil cult.”

Instead, Lee walked straight into the arms of his captors.

Public security officers told him that they knew of his impending arrival, he says, and arrested him as soon as he stepped off the plane. Until his release in 2006, Lee says, he endured torture, forced labor and attempts to brainwash him into rejecting the beliefs that rendered him a political target. But the spyware that ostensibly helped party officials zero in on him and thousands of other Falun Gong practitioners wasn’t created in China. Rather, the censorship and surveillance system—dubbed the Golden Shield—was crafted and custom-built in his adopted homeland, at the San Jose headquarters of Cisco Systems.

Lee is one of the lead plaintiffs in a class-action claim accusing Cisco of designing software, hardware and training to help China’s ruling party persecute Falun Gong adherents, who cultivate self-improvement through exercise and mindfulness. The lawsuit hopes to address an evolving legal question: Can American corporations be held liable if foreign governments use their product for repression?

The federal district court in San Jose dismissed the case in 2014, saying Falun Gong victims—many of whom sought refugee status in the Bay Area—failed to prove that Cisco knew its product would enable oppression. But last month, the plaintiffs asked the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to revive the allegations.

Attorney Paul Hoffman, who represents the Falun Gong members, says any perfunctory research would have alerted Cisco that its surveillance technology enabled systemic persecution. For more than a decade, Human Rights Watch, the U.S. State Department and the New York Times have reported how Chinese authorities subjected the Falun Gong to torture, enslavement, organ harvesting and “re-education” through labor. Cisco shareholders raised concerns in 2002, 2003, 2005, 2008 and 2010, according to Hoffman’s co-counsel, Terri Marsh.

The outcome of the appeal could have far-reaching impacts on how U.S. companies—and technology companies in particular—conduct business under authoritarian regimes. Although Silicon Valley touts its potential to promote human rights and democratization, it also creates tools of oppression, Hoffman notes. But at what point does a company become complicit?

“In the digital age, repressive governments do not act alone to violate human rights,” Hoffman says. “They have accomplices—including American technology companies like Cisco, as alleged by plaintiffs—with the sophistication and technical know-how that those repressive governments lack.”

Cisco attorney Kathleen Sullivan cautioned the court in 2014 about the risk of holding high-tech companies liable for violations of international law simply because they provide general-purpose technologies. “If you hold that creating networking equipment and services, the same routers and the switches that are enabling everybody in this courtroom to connect across the internet today, if you hold that that technology, because it’s customized for police use, is somehow specifically directed at torture,” Sullivan argued, “I submit there’s the danger that it would take [Silicon] Valley down with it.”

The Cisco case largely rests on how much the company knew when working with the Chinese Communist Party on the Golden Shield. Marsh says Cisco went beyond merely providing routers and switches. The high-tech firm took pains to market the Golden Shield system as a way to find practitioners of Falun Gong. As proof, she points to a Cisco document leaked to reporters on the eve of a U.S. Senate human rights hearing. In the 90-page PowerPoint presentation, Cisco engineers framed the Chinese government’s crackdown on “‘Falun Gong’s evil religion and other hostiles” as a lucrative opportunity.

“They use a term, douzheng, which literally translates to a persecutory campaign against a group or class of people disfavored by the Communist Party,” Marsh says. “Cisco used that term to describe the intent of this technology that they uniquely tailored for that very purpose.”

There’s another important question the Cisco case could help to answer. If corporations enjoy the rights of personhood—as secured by the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. FEC—then should they be held to the same standards of social responsibility? Corporations were designed to limit liability, says Francisco Rivera, head of the Santa Clara University School of Law International Human Rights Clinic. “If you invest in a corporation and things go bad, you only lose what you invested,” he says. “You don’t go to jail.”

But what if a corporation engages in human rights violations abroad?

U.S. courts are conflicted on that point. One possible remedy comes by way of an obscure 1789 law called the Alien Tort Claims Act, which has become a way for foreign victims of human rights abuses to seek relief in American courts. If aiding and abetting liability under the alien tort statute is to mean anything, Hoffman says, it must apply to corporations in cases like Doe v. Cisco.

In 2011, the same year Lee sued Cisco over its ties to Golden Shield, the United Nations adopted its Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights. Multi-national corporations pledged to uphold the voluntary standards proposed by a coalition of governments. “That was important because those guidelines were formed by governments and not the industries themselves,” Rivera says.

Silicon Valley, in recent years, has taken similar pledges. When then-candidate Donald Trump talked about creating a database of Muslims, the biggest names in the high-tech industry signed the “Never Again” pledge. “We refuse to build a database of people based on their Constitutionally-protected religious beliefs,” the statement read. The pledge acknowledged the role technologists played in past oppression, including IBM’s efforts to streamline the Holocaust. Cisco signed, as did Palantir, the controversial data-mining company that provides critical technology for Trump’s ramped-up deportation efforts.

“We’re at a point of having to move beyond voluntary principles,” Rivera says.

Santa Clara University law professor David Yosifon wants to see corporate rhetoric about social responsibility align with corporate law. He is working on a book—titled Corporate Friction: The Social Cost of Corporate Law and How to Fix It and slated for publication in 2018—that will outline a prescription for reform. “If we cannot keep corporations out of our democracy,” he says, “then we must have more democracy in our corporations.”

Puppetry Institute Brings Creatures to Life at the Octagon

A&E
Art

Steve Palopoli

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June 6, 2017

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Puppetry Institute Brings Creatures to Life at the Octagon

Now that I get how cool the Muppets are, I wish I could say that I was a big fan of them growing up. But the truth is I never really liked puppets as a kid, and didn’t connect with the Muppets’ vaudeville-throwback shtick.

Luckily, as an adult, I now have my kid to show me the error of my ways. Starting last year, when she was six, I have watched all the seasons of The Muppet Show with my daughter Frankie—and in the case of her favorite episodes, like the ones where the Star Wars cast or Steve Martin or Alice Cooper guest-starred, watched them dozens of times.

And I have to ask myself: how could I have been so lame? The Muppets have everything—laughs, touching moments, compelling stories, music, artistry—and under Jim Henson’s guidance, they delivered it all at a breathless pace. Somehow, it took me four decades to grasp this, while Frankie figured it out when she was in kindergarten. Every Muppet moment is a delight to her, and it’s also where her talent for doing voices—she can do pretty much all the Muppets, including the best Gonzo I’ve heard from anyone not named Dave Goelz—first materialized. Kermit, Fozzie, Ralph and the whole gang are just a part of who she is.

She has a soulmate in Puppetry Institute of Santa Cruz founder and artistic director Ricki Vincent. At four years old, Vincent was already so into puppets that his mom would actually wake him up if something puppet-related came on television. And when Jim Henson was on the Tonight Show precursor Tonight Starring Jack Paar in the early ’60s, she did just that. Henson did a routine with a primitive version of his Kermit puppet and an inchworm.

“That’s what got me totally hooked,” says Vincent. “I kept begging my grandmother, ‘I need to make a worm! I need to make a worm!’” Finally, she gave him an old coat and a pair of scissors, and he started making inchworm puppets. “Because it was a big coat, I made hundreds of ’em.”

By age eight, he was turning the family garage into a puppet theater. Mom, who wanted him to be a lawyer, had to be wondering what she’d started. “She thought I was nuts,” he says.

Vincent was obsessed with puppetry into his teens, but lost interest as he moved into his rebellious years, eventually owning a lucrative piercing business. After 9/11, though, he felt like he wasn’t doing anything meaningful with his life, and rediscovered his puppet passion. A $50,000 grant to do a puppet burlesque show in Austin was his first big success, and he eventually set up shop in Monterey. But as he started doing puppet shows on Pacific Avenue as “Dr. Mercurio,” Vincent started to feel more of a connection to Santa Cruz. When he saw a chance to move here, he did.

Now he’s opened the Puppetry Institute in the Octagon, after the Museum of Art and History chose him as their artist in residence. He took a month and a half to turn the inside into a glorious puppet laboratory, filling it with creatures of all types and in all stages of development. Foam and glue give the giant open studio space the smell of constant activity and creativity.

“It’s got the puppet-y madness smell,” he says.

And indeed, “Dr. Mercurio’s Octagon of Imagination” is the stuff of puppet-y madness. Vincent does workshops that allow kids and teens to make their own Muppets, and he does a Creature Shop where anyone can come in and get hands-on experience helping him put feathers in a phoenix, or a horn on a unicorn, or whatever else his crew is working on at the time. There’s even a class where cosplayers can make their own costumes.

“Why go and order something that’s going to cost you $1,200, when you can learn how to make your own stuff?” he asks. “Same thing with Burning Man.”

Though he loves to get kids started on puppet design, there’s an adult side to the Puppetry Institute, too—like the show he’ll be doing this week, June 8-10, at the Octagon, “The Doctor Is Out: The Last 48 Hours in the Life of Hunter S. Thompson.” Vincent researched and wrote the play (on a typewriter, no less), and created the Thompson puppet that he voices in the show.

He’s been searching for a permanent home for the Institute after the residency is up in August, and just made a deal with the Museum of Discovery in Capitola to move into a dedicated space there. The museum’s bookmobile will also be refitted to serve as a mobile puppetry workshop that Vincent can take to local schools. He sees it as the latest in a long line of collaborations that fuel his passion.

“The biggest thing I’m trying to build here is a sense of community,” he says.

‘The Doctor is Out: The Last 48 Hours in the Life of Hunter S. Thompson’ will be performed Thursday, June 8 through Saturday, June 10 at 8 p.m., with a 9:30 p.m. show Friday and Saturday, at the Octagon, 118 Cooper St., Santa Cruz. Tickets are $12-$22 sliding scale. For more information on Vincent’s workshops, go to thepuppetryinstitute.org.

Preview: Cory Branan to Play the Crepe Place

A&E
Music

Aaron Carnes

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June 6, 2017

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Preview: Cory Branan to Play the Crepe Place

When Nashville singer-songwriter Cory Branan wrote “The Vow,” he was processing the passing of his father, and reflecting on his relationship to him. (“My old man was young once/So the photo album claims”) The song could have been on his last record, 2014’s No-Hit Wonder, but Branan felt the song was too personal. What would audiences get out of it?

His wife felt all he needed to do was play it at some shows, which he did. Audiences loved it. The song is one of 14 tracks on Branan’s new record Adios, which he’s presenting appropriately enough as his “death” record. The title, Spanish for “goodbye,” kind of makes that clear.

Still, it’s a coincidence that so much of the album was themed around death—Branan hadn’t set out to write it that way.

“A lot of it was death itself, death of old lives, death of ideals, and what do you do with the pieces that are left over, Branan says. “It’s the theme I’ve been working on since the first record.”

In fact, he kind of laughs now at the idea that Adios is a death record, since he never called it that until it was finished and his management was asking him for info on it for the press release. They ran with it.

“They want to have a story to give to the press. I was like, well, you can call it a death record. It’s got a lot of it on it. It does oversimplify matters. It lets me know who actually listens to the record,” Branan says.

Apart from “The Vow,” which is a somber track, as well as a handful of others, musically the album has an upbeat tone. Even some of his darker material is performed like upbeat singalongs. “Another Nightmare In America” is a blunt indictment of police brutality. He focused specifically on unarmed black teens. Musically, the song sounds like the feel-good heartland rock tune of the summer.

“It tempts you to bop along and ignore the lyrical content, like we sort of bop along in our daily lives and ignore a rigged system. It’s got some weight without drawing attention to itself,” Branan says.

Aside from “Another Nightmare,” opening track “I Only Know” is the most powerful track on the record. Its connection to death is more metaphorical. The song, an almost radio-pop-rock song, talks about letting go of the past and moving forward. It also touches on what is the larger theme of the album: death and rebirth, which makes sense in his life. In addition to losing his father, he finds himself a new father.

“It was definitely personal for me, having done a lot of dumb things in life,” Branan says. “I’ve finally made some good choices. It was also looking at my kid and I was trying to find some sort of hope that’s not naïve, that’s tempered with the things I’ve seen—and put that in a balanced kind of pop song.”

One thing that has always defined Branan’s records was how jarring they were. This album is his most cohesive. Yet at the same time, he stretches his influences. There’s not much of the punky-Americana sound from his earlier years; he jumps around to rock, country, New Wave and pop. What connects it is a strong connection to eclectic ’70s rock music.

“I knew I wanted to make a record that had a lot of head room, like the ’70s records. When the band gets louder, the record gets louder. I was trying to inject a lot of life into it,” Branan says. “It was fun to make. The studio is never really natural and fun for me, but I was with great musicians, a great engineer.”

The album has a spontaneous element to it often lacking in modern rock albums. That, he says, is the product of him enlisting “overqualified, underprepared musicians,” meaning great musicians that he didn’t show demos to until they were in the studio.

What really gives the album life is how malleable it is stylistically. Branan, not wanting to write a “vaudeville” country album, as he calls it, allowed himself to go into whatever territory felt natural. As an example, he cites the song “Visiting Hours,” which sounds like a New Wave song.

“I always try to be authentic to the things that I love,” Branan says. “I grew up in the south, but I also grew up glued to MTV. I listen to everything. If it feels authentic to me to use it to get the song across, then I’ll use it.”

INFO: 9 p.m., June 14, Crepe Place, 1134 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. $10. 429-6994.

Dine Al Fresco at Sustain Supper and Avant Garden Party

Christina Waters

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June 6, 2017

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Dine Al Fresco at Sustain Supper and Avant Garden Party

All-star chefs, community activists, food-lovers, and hard-working organic farmers will gather on June 10 for the Sustain Supper, an al fresco meal that unfolds in the fields overlooking the ocean to benefit the Homeless Garden Project. I have been moved, delighted, well-fed, and enlightened at the past two Sustain Suppers I’ve attended. The organic dinner will occupy long tables spread under a canvas tent in the Garden’s fields. The event is a chance to share a meal with community leaders and friends, and to hear apprentices’ stories about learning opportunities that have changed lives.

Last year Brad Briske and his culinary team created wood-fired seafood entrees that paired well with wines from Bonny Doon Vineyard and Burrell School. And yes, everything does taste incredible when cooked and served outdoors. In past years I rekindled many old friendships, caught up with former university and newspaper colleagues, and enjoyed the overall mood of celebration—such incredible luck to live in this remarkable place. The outdoor meal starts off with wine, appetizers, and a brief, always interesting tour of the grounds. Then everybody stakes out dining turf and settles in to meet tablemates and begin dinner. The food is outstanding, full of seasonal invention, and invariably ending with an inspired dessert. Engaging talks follow, with this year’s keynote given by ace tech evangelist Guy Kawasaki, an Apple and Wikipedia author and all-star inspirational guru. The chance to hear Kawasaki would be enough of a power-inducing temptation for most people. But there’s much more. This year the four-course dinner is prepared by another top culinary quartet. Working with local, organic ingredients, chef/entrepreneur Andrea Mollenauer brings her Lifestyle Culinary Arts catering expertise to the task of appetizers.

“When asked to guest chef,” Mollenauer explains, “I try to let the farm availability guide my choice.” She also admits that she likes to let other guest chefs choose their menu items first and then she “fills in the gaps once the other chefs have started to conjure up some magic.” Creating small dishes and the vegetarian entrée is seasoned chef Gema Cruz, the leading light of Gabriella Cafe’s kitchen and a woman who knows her way around brilliant flavor pairings. With luck, participants can expect some Oaxacan inflection of her menu choices. The main entrée will be created by John Paul Lechtenberg, whose handiwork has reinvigorated the kitchen at Hollins House for the past several years. The delicious assignment of creating dessert falls to Dave Kumec, the founding genius of Mission Hill Creamery. Hopefully a seasonal ice cream innovation will be part of his plan. And I’m hungry already! Saturday, June 10, 4-7:30 p.m., $16 -$150. store.homelessgardenproject.org/sustain-supper.

Avant Garden Africa Party

Join some sensational musical artists and friends for an afternoon of pulse-raising music, the always-exciting food wizardry of chef Jozseph Schultz and a silent auction that includes a six-day South African Safari! Always one of the top cultural events of the summer calendar, the New Music Works Avant Garden Party happens Sunday, June 11 from 2-6 p.m. at The Garden, 2701 Monterey Ave., in Soquel (sliding scale tix from $17-$25). Fabulous African music, new and old performed by singers, composers, musicians, the Senegalese Dance and Drum Ensemble, Bill Walker’s atmospheric electric slide guitar, even a solo harp piece by Lou Harrison performed by the wondrous Jennifer Cass. Food to evoke the soul of Africa—as longtime locals know Schultz is a world cuisine expert and wields a wok to contend with—and music to match. Details and advance tickets at newmusicworks.org.

Gemini Festival of Humanity, Goodwill & Great Invocation Day

Risa D’Angeles

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June 6, 2017

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Gemini Festival of Humanity, Goodwill & Great Invocation Day

Friday, June 9, is the full moon and the third Spring Solar Festival of 2017. This Gemini Solar Festival has many names—Festival of Humanity, Festival of Goodwill, of Unification and of Humanity and World Invocation Day. The new and full moon days are esoteric (spiritual) holy days. At present the world’s many religions have different holy days. However, “In the future world, humanity everywhere will keep the same holy days. This will unite spiritual efforts and resources and voice a united spiritual invocation. Each year humanity will participate together in three great Festivals—the Festival of Easter (Aries), of Wesak (Taurus) and the Festival of Goodwill (Gemini).”

The Festival of Goodwill calls to the Spirit of Humanity everywhere to have Right Relations with all the kingdoms (mineral, plant, animal, human, spirit). The Gemini Festival acknowledges the Divine nature and inherent intelligence of humanity, stating that “all minds are created equal.”

The blessings of Wesak (Taurus) are distributed to humanity on this day through the Light of Gemini. A great tide of love flows around and into the Earth. This light brings forth goodwill, right conditions and harmony, unifying Heaven and Earth. A synthesis occurs between whatever is opposed and/or separated. Everything becomes One again. Goodwill is the keynote, the “touchstone that can transform the world.” Intentions for Goodwill create Right Human Relations which creates Peace in our world … it is the only Way.

All around the world on this day, people are reciting the Great Invocation, the Great Mantram of Direction for Humanity. Search YouTube and watch Eleanor Roosevelt reciting the Great Invocation at the Gemini Festival, World Invocation Day, June 1952.

ARIES: Identifying as a creative generates a sense of goodwill. Creativity calls you to initiate new endeavors that respond to all of the changes coming your way in terms of work, relationships and how you’re recognized. Everything is not what we think it is. Observe the world with poise. Tend to health with a focus on proper digestion (probiotics, enzymes, green foods, etc.) and raised vitality.

TAURUS: Home sustains your relationship. There’s much to be done at home. What is the larger picture concerning your life, geography, relationships, partnerships? Careful working in the hot sun. You may not be absorbing enough water. Maintain adequate electrolytes each day. Something challenges you, calling you to consider other realities. Perhaps it’s your health. Read the Medical Medium’s books.

GEMINI: Mercury, your planetary messenger, is in Taurus, calling for illuminating communications with others. A line of light beams from Sirius streams directly into your heart, unifying polarities, calling you to love (Ray 2) more. Then the 12 petals of your heart open and new revelations come forth. Study Venus, land, soil, gardens, greenhouses, communities and neighborhoods.

CANCER: Communication may feel hidden away behind veils. You may have a sore throat. You may feel frustration. Those around you may be acting out those feelings for you. There’s a situation with money. Whatever you give opens a gate to receiving. Always what we give is returned tenfold—a cosmic law. Is there a wound or hurt occurring? Are your feet painful? Do you feel limited in some way? This will pass.

LEO: After too much time with groups you will seek to retreat. Sitting amidst your Sun are remembrances and emotions from the past calling you to a state of healing and liberating forgiveness. Gratitude follows forgiveness. It’s important to value every person, event and occurrence in our lives. When we do so, a vital life-force flows forth and all restrictions and obstructions disappear.

VIRGO: Enter into any new endeavors slowly; resting along the way so that your physical body, emotions and mind can get used to new rhythms and realities. You are in a state of change and reorientation. New values and resources emerge from deep contemplation and considerations. A new 18-month cycle is beginning. Are you considering a restructuring of your home environments?

LIBRA: You move from being in the world and serving there to the needed comforts of home, attempting adequate time for both. Deep emotions (Pluto) call you home while a sense of wanderlust calls you to travel. Both are of comfort. Daily life seems veiled, yet happy, with realities ever-shifting. At times, you’re called in four different directions. Only the Angels of the Four Directions are consistent. Ask them to accompany you.

SCORPIO: Try to be charitable when communicating about other people’s lives, choices and resources. Maintain ethics and kindness within the many variations of reality. Your values have shifted. This is good. Home becomes a place where you seek comfort from the past. A wound seems to come out of nowhere. A return to spiritual resources would help. A return to prayer, to Mass, to church are needed in times of reorientation.

SAGITTARIUS: It is good to focus on the value and quality of all your life experiences. You want to have comfort and ease with money and resources. Questions appear concerning what you most value. Create a list of values—personal, political, work, education, profession, people. What is of value in terms of relationships and communication? And why? Your “other” self is in need of being discovered.

CAPRICORN: An illumination, a fruition, a completion and then a new beginning occurs at the full moon. Do you (like Libra) feel stretched upon a cross, called in four directions? It feels very difficult. Acknowledge all four realities. Place an angel at each of the four directions. Stand at the center of the cross and willingly, intelligently and lovingly work from there. The angels speak these words: purity, dedication, love and service. They are potencies (powers) to work with. Just for you.

AQUARIUS: Careful with money. Keep track of it. Neptune’s afoot. Be extra careful with communication. Use words to help and praise others. Kind words nurture you. Careful driving. Stay focused. Each day seems filled with responsibilities, tasks, errands, in order to create comfort and nurturance. Attempt to be less strict and more conciliatory. People will listen more to you with depth and concern when you are kind(er).

PISCES: You sense a new level of work will appear soon, a transition into a greater world. It awakens new states of self-identity and the ability to work with and serve others in greater capacities. The world seeks education and nurturing. You have the qualities needed. However, you feel a great tension and unease of not being in the right place. Yet you must continue forward. Something changes soon. Bravely, mindfully carry on.

Rob Brezsny’s Astrology June 7—13

Rob Brezsny

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June 6, 2017

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ARIES (March 21-April 19): If you chose me as your relationship guide, I’d counsel you and your closest ally to be generous with each other; to look for the best in each other and praise each other’s beauty and strength. If you asked me to help foster your collaborative zeal, I’d encourage you to build a shrine in honor of your bond—an altar that would invoke the blessings of deities, nature spirits, and the ancestors. If you hired me to advise you on how to keep the fires burning and the juices flowing between you two, I’d urge you to never compare your relationship to any other, but rather celebrate the fact that it’s unlike any other in the history of the planet.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): The Milky Way Galaxy contains more than 100 billion stars. If they were shared equally, every person on Earth could have dominion over at least 14. I mention this because you’re in a phase when it makes sense for you to claim your 14. Yes, I’m being playful, but I’m also quite serious. According to my analysis of the upcoming weeks, you will benefit from envisaging big, imaginative dreams about the riches that could be available to you in the future. How much money do you want? How much love can you express? How thoroughly at home in the world could you feel? How many warm rains would you like to dance beneath? How much creativity do you need to keep reinventing your life? Be extravagant as you fantasize.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): “When I grow up, I’m not sure what I want to be.” Have you ever heard that thought bouncing around your mind, Gemini? Or how about this one: “Since I can’t decide what I want to be, I’ll just be everything.” If you have been tempted to swear allegiance to either of those perspectives, I suggest it’s time to update your relationship with them. A certain amount of ambivalence about commitment and receptivity to myriad possibilities will always be appropriate for you. But if you hope to fully claim your birthright, if you long to ripen into your authentic self, you’ll have to become ever-more definitive and specific about what you want to be and do.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): As a Cancerian myself, I’ve had days when I’ve stayed in bed from morning to nightfall, confessing my fears to my imaginary friends and eating an entire cheesecake. As an astrologer, I’ve noticed that these blue patches seem more likely to occur during the weeks before my birthday each year. If you go through a similar blip any time soon, here’s what I recommend: Don’t feel guilty about it. Don’t resist it. Instead, embrace it fully. If you feel lazy and depressed, get really lazy and depressed. Literally hide under the covers with your headphones on and feel sorry for yourself for as many hours as it takes to exhaust the gloom and emerge renewed.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In the early days of the internet, “sticky” was a term applied to websites that were good at drawing readers back again and again. To possess this quality, a content provider had to have a knack for offering text and images that web surfers felt an instinctive yearning to bond with. I’m reanimating this term so I can use it to describe you. Even if you don’t have a website, you now have a soulful adhesiveness that arouses people’s urge to merge. Be discerning how you use this stuff. You may be stickier than you realize!

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Ancient Mayans used chili and magnolia and vanilla to prepare exotic chocolate drinks from cacao beans. The beverage was sacred and prestigious to them. It was a centerpiece of cultural identity and an accessory in religious rituals. In some locales, people were rewarded for producing delectable chocolate with just the right kind and amount of froth. I suspect, Virgo, that you will soon be asked to do the equivalent of demonstrating your personal power by whipping up the best possible chocolate froth. And according to my reading of the astrological omens, the chances are good you’ll succeed.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Do you have your visa for the wild side? Have you packed your bag of tricks? I hope you’ll bring gifts to dispense, just in case you’ll need to procure favors in the outlying areas where the rules are a bit loose. It might also be a good idea to take along a skeleton key and a snake-bite kit. You won’t necessarily need them. But I suspect you’ll be offered magic cookies and secret shortcuts, and it would be a shame to have to turn them down simply because you’re unprepared for the unexpected.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): You’re like a prince or princess who has been turned into a frog by the spell of a fairy tale villain. This situation has gone on for a while. In the early going, you retained a vivid awareness that you had been transformed. But the memory of your origins has faded, and you’re no longer working so diligently to find a way to change back into your royal form. Frankly, I’m concerned. This horoscope is meant to remind you of your mission. Don’t give up! Don’t lose hope! And take extra good care of your frog-self, please.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): People might have ideas about you that are at odds with how you understand yourself. For example, someone might imagine that you have been talking trash about them—even though you haven’t been. Someone else may describe a memory they have about you, and you know it’s a distorted version of what actually happened. Don’t be surprised if you hear even more outlandish tales, too, like how you’re stalking Taylor Swift or conspiring with the One World Government to force all citizens to eat kale every day. I’m here to advise you to firmly reject all of these skewed projections. For the immediate future, it’s crucial to stand up for your right to define yourself—to be the final authority on what’s true about you.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): “God doesn’t play dice with the universe,” said Albert Einstein. In response, another Nobel Prize-winning physicist, Niels Bohr, said to Einstein, “Stop giving instructions to God.” I urge you to be more like Bohr than Einstein in the coming weeks, Capricorn. As much as possible, avoid giving instructions to anyone, including God, and resist the temptation to offer advice. In fact, I recommend that you abstain from passing judgment, demanding perfection, and trying to compel the world to adapt itself to your definitions. Instead, love and accept everything and everyone exactly as they are right now.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Lysistrata is a satire by ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes. It takes place during the war between Athens and Sparta. The heroine convinces a contingent of women to withhold sexual privileges from the soldiers until they stop fighting. “I will wear my most seductive dresses to inflame my husband’s ardor,” says one. “But I will never yield to his desires. I won’t raise my legs towards the ceiling. I will not take up the position of the Lioness on a Cheese Grater.” Regardless of your gender, Aquarius, your next assignment is twofold: 1. Don’t be like the women in the play. Give your favors with discerning generosity. 2. Experiment with colorful approaches to pleasure like the Lioness with a Cheese Grater, the Butterfly Riding the Lizard, the Fox Romancing the River, and any others you can dream up.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Take your seasick pills. The waves will sometimes be higher than your boat. Although I don’t think you’ll capsize, the ride may be wobbly. And unless you have waterproof clothes, it’s probably best to just get naked. You WILL get drenched. By the way, don’t even fantasize about heading back to shore prematurely. You have good reasons to be sailing through the rough waters. There’s a special “fish” out there that you need to catch. If you snag it, it will feed you for months—maybe longer.

Homework: Even if you don’t send it, write a letter to the person you admire most. Share it with me at Freewillastrology.com.

Music Picks May 31—June 6

GT Staff

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May 31, 2017

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Music picks for the week of May 31, 2017

THURSDAY 6/1

COUNTRY

JACKIE LEE

Hailing from Maryville, Tennessee, Jackie Lee is one of the rising stars of pop-country music. The baby-faced artist grew up singing in church with his three-piece band and listening to his dad’s classic country music. But Lee’s mom had a soft spot for ’80s pop music, and exposed the young Lee to artists like Michael Jackson and Phil Collins. Lee’s first foray into the Nashville music machine was as a straight-ahead country artist, but after his mom’s death in 2016, he did some soul-searching and decided to bring more of his influences into his music. The result is radio-friendly country music accented with electronics and what’s been dubbed a “modern sound.” CAT JOHNSON

INFO: 9 p.m. Catalyst, 1011 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. $12/adv, $15/door. 423-1338.

THURSDAY 6/1

FUNK

ELEKTRIC VOODOO

In many ways, San Diego’s music scene mirrors that of Santa Cruz’s. For instance, both cities loves good solid live dance music. Elektric Voodoo is a new band out of the great laidback southern California city that featuring lots of local faces people entrenched in the scene down there will be familiar with. The members have played with Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, G-Love, and Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. The band takes a lot of popular styles (blues, funk, swirling psychedelic rock, Latin music) and casually blends it together into a fun, feel-good, positive-vibe-filled package. AARON CARNES

INFO: 8:30 p.m. Moe’s Alley, 1535 Commercial Way, Santa Cruz. $7/adv, $10/door. 479-1854.

THURSDAY 6/1

FOLK/FUSION

JAYME STONE’S FOLKLIFE

If you’ve been around folk music for any length of time, you’ve likely heard the name Alan Lomax. An ethnomusicologist, folklorist, archivist, musician, activist and more, Lomax captured and preserved countless field recordings from the early to mid-20th century. On Thursday, Jayme Stone, who’s been dubbed “the Yo-Yo Ma of the banjo,” and his musical collaborative pay tribute to the Lomax legacy by reworking a number of songs from the Lomax collection, including Appalachian ballads, work songs, a cappella singing from Georgia’s Sea Islands and Bahamian sea shanties. CJ

INFO: 7 p.m. Kuumbwa Jazz, 320-2 Cedar St., Santa Cruz. $22/adv, $27/door. 427-2227.

FRIDAY 6/2

CELTIC

WAKE THE DEAD

Tired of the same old cover bands? Then Wake the Dead is here to let the songs fill the air with a unique twist. Since the year 2000, the seven-piece jam band has covered everyone’s favorite Grateful Dead songs—along with classic, 1960s standards—with Celtic flavor, turning the twirling Deadhead dances into Irish jigs. The Bay Area band is touring off its fourth album, Deal, which was actually one of two records it released last year. So light a candle for St. Stephen, adorn your hair with scarlet begonias and get those chips cashed in to keep on truckin’ this Friday at the Kuumbwa. MW

INFO: 8 p.m. Kuumbwa, 320 Cedar St. #2, Santa Cruz. $20. 427-2227.

FRIDAY 6/2

ROCK

JESSE COLIN YOUNG

One of the finest songwriters of our time, Jesse Colin Young has been singing about social justice, peace and the environment for the last 50 years. An Americana artist before Americana was a thing, Young fuses American roots music with rock, blues, folk and jazz—even bringing horn players into his band—to create a genre-transcending sound of his own. And holding the whole thing together is Colin’s honest, enduring voice. CJ

INFO: 8 p.m. Rio Theatre, 1205 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. $30/gen, $45/gold. 423-8209.

SATURDAY 6/3

INDIE

PRISM TATS

LA’s Prism Tats is a rock ’n’ roll outfit much in the way that Tom Waits plays American roots music. In other words, the elements are all there, but it just sounds strange when it’s all put together. Prism Tats’ self-titled debut album was released last September, and is the solo creation of Grant van der Spek, originally from South Africa, and lover of all things rock, as well as crazy waking dream sub-realities and drum machines. He somehow takes these primary colors to make a painting that feels like what would pass for Picasso’s version of the Beatles. AC

INFO: 9 p.m. Crepe Place, 1134 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. $10. 429-6994.

SATURDAY 6/3

REGGAE

ITALS

The Itals were one of the great multi-vocal, roots reggae harmony groups in the ’70s, though not as huge as many of the household names from that time. They really found their footing in the ’80s when the easy-grooving, Rasta-loving reggae sounds were being replaced by aggressive, hip-hop-influenced dancehall. The Itals were one of the key groups that helped keep the reggae flame lit during that time. They continue to do so to this day. Ancestree Reggae opens. AC

INFO: 9 p.m. Moe’s Alley, 1535 Commercial Way, Santa Cruz. $15/adv, $20/door. 479-1854.

SATURDAY 6/3

ROCK

JOYRIDE & HEARTLESS

Sometimes a cover band comes along that nails the tribute songs so well, it becomes a phenomenon on its own. This Saturday Don Quixote’s has not one, but two of these rare gems. Joyride has been the Bay Area’s premiere—and only—Cars tribute band delighting audience members with the pop hits of Ric Ocasek, Benjamin Orr and the rest of the New Wave boys. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Heartless delivers the sounds of ’70s female-fronted hard rock group Heart. Both acts transcend time with classic hits that are good for every magic man and even your best friend’s girl. MW

INFO: 8 p.m. Don Quixote’s, 6275 Hwy. 9, Felton. $10. 335-2800.

MONDAY 6/5

JAZZ

JEAN-LUC PONTY

When French violinist Jean-Luc Ponty appeared on the jazz scene in the late 1960s, the instrument hadn’t contributed anything new to the genre for more than a generation. Plugging in, the conservatory-trained master muscled his way into era-defining jazz/rock fusion bands like John McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra, while blowing away rock and pop audiences with Frank Zappa and Elton John. On this tour, the 74-year-old innovator is revisiting some of the ambitious compositions from his prolific Atlantic years (circa 1975-85) with some of the players who recorded with him in the 1980s, including keyboardist Wally Minko, guitarist Jamie Glaser, bassist Baron Browne, and drummer Rayford Griffin (a nephew of trumpet legend Clifford Brown).  ANDREW GILBERT

INFO: 7:30 p.m. Rio Theatre, 1205 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. $32/gen, $45/gold. 427-2227.

IN THE QUEUE

DEVA PREMAL & MITEN

Spiritual chant masters. Wednesday at Rio Theatre

T.I.

Hip-hop out of Atlanta. Thursday at Catalyst

HARPIN’ JONNY & THE PRIMADONS

Rock, groove and blues. Friday at Don Quixote’s

ROYAL JELLY JIVE

Soul, rock, swing and hip-hop fusion. Friday at Moe’s Alley

KENDRA MCKINLEY

Bay Area chamber-pop. Monday at Crepe Place

Giveaway: Blackheart Burlesque

A&E

Mat Weir

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May 31, 2017

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Since their website launched in 2001, the pierced and tattooed women of SuicideGirls.com have excited every gender with their scandalously provocative pictures and videos. In the last four years, the women have taken their show on the road, performing burlesque around the country and globe. See your favorite Suicide models as they return to the Catalyst and seductively strip and shake to pop culture themes like Star Wars, Legend of Zelda, A Clockwork Orange and more. Since this is a burlesque show, no one under 18 is allowed.

INFO: 9 p.m. Tuesday, June 20. Catalyst, 1011 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. $25-$135. 429-4135. WANT TO GO? Go to santacruz.com/giveaways before 11 a.m. on Wednesday, June 14 to find out how you could win a pair of tickets to the show.

Love Your Local Band: Decrepit Birth

A&E
Music

Mat Weir

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May 31, 2017

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“I would say preparing for the tour after three years was a little nerve wracking,” says Santa Cruz native Matt Sotelo. “When you’re touring more often, you’re more in the zone.”

The guitarist is referring to the three-year hiatus that his band, local death metal act Decrepit Birth, took after 2014. Earlier this year the metalheads hit the road again, hyping their first new record in seven years, Axis Mundi, to be released on Nuclear Blast Records on July 21.

“The reaction to our new songs live has been more positive than any other in the past,” he says. “They were written to be more live-friendly anyway, so that doesn’t surprise me.”

While the band officially started in 2001, the origins of Decrepit Birth can be traced back further than that. Locals might remember seeing them play house shows on the east side of town as far back as 1995, before blast beats and technical guitar riffs in metal went mainstream. In 2003, the band dropped its debut album, . . . And Time Begins, a brutal release of straight-up death metal with crunching songs and guttural vocals. But after the release of their third full-length, Polarity, Decrepit Birth decided a break was in order.

“My wife and I had our son right after Polarity, so that was a big factor,” Sotelo explains. “But even then, we continued to tour for four years after Polarity came out.”

For Axis Mundi, Sotelo, singer Bill Robinson—also a Santa Cruz native—drummer Samus, and bassist Sean Martinez, knew they wanted to do something different. The result is a hybrid of what Decrepit Birth has done in the past with chaotic and experimental technical death metal riffs, and a return to the genre’s roots with songs like “Epigenetic Triplicity,” a 250-beats-per-minute assault on the senses. As with the band’s previous work, the cover art is by renowned metal artist Dan Seagrave, who has worked with other heavyweights like Morbid Angel and Entombed.

So does this mark the official return of Decrepit Birth for the foreseeable future?

“There are a bunch of options on the table for us, but we haven’t decided on anything yet,” Sotelo divulges. “As for more hometown shows, that’s up to Santa Cruz.”

INFO: 6:30 p.m. Sunday, June 4. Catalyst, 1011 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. $22/adv, $25/door. 429-4315.

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Jack of all Trades

We asked people to tell us their stories of O’Neill. Here are some highlights:

Dennis Judson:

Jeff Pappas:

Jon Foster

Randy Gray:

Larry Dunham:

Tom Ralston:

Suzanne Haley:

Drew Kampion:

Avant Garden Africa Party

JACKIE LEE

ELEKTRIC VOODOO

JAYME STONE’S FOLKLIFE

WAKE THE DEAD

JESSE COLIN YOUNG

PRISM TATS

ITALS

JOYRIDE & HEARTLESS

JEAN-LUC PONTY

IN THE QUEUE