A lush ecosystem thrives on either side of Mexico’s San Miguel River, feeding into a beach that surfers cherish.
“The sand is really critical for bringing a wave dynamic that’s been legendary for generations in the northern part of Baja,” says Nick Mucha, programs director for Save the Waves, a nonprofit based in Santa Cruz.
Companies there have been illegally sand mining along the coast and dumping into the pristine river, prompting Save the Waves to lead a charge to create the Arroyo San Miguel State Park, which would be the first state park in Baja.
“It’s really impactful to an area that doesn’t have protections,” Mucha says, “and the creek provides drinking water to 400 local residents.”
Mucha has been working with locals and government officials to see the process through. If approved in the coming months, the state park will protect 140 acres, providing hiking trails, biking trails and picnic areas—something locals are eager to see. “It provides a needed green space,” Mucha says.
The approach mirrors one that Save the Waves uses around the world, including in Santa Cruz, where the nonprofit has worked with city engineersto cut bacteria by 50 percent at Cowell Beach last summer, compared to the previous year. In Huanchaco, Peru, Mucha and his colleagues are working with residents to see what locals want from their newly protected surfing reserve there—something the nonprofit helped establish.
On the west coast of Ireland, Save the Waves worked alongside locals to fight an attempt from none other than Trump International Golf Links to build a seawall, garnering coverage from the New York Times and the Washington Post along the way. The organization secured more than 1,000 signatures opposing Trump’s initial proposal, and has turned in more than 700 letters opposing a newer, scaled-back version that Mucha says would be devastating nonetheless.
“Building any structure on the beach will make a huge disruption to that system—not only would it be detrimental to the surfing community, but to the ecological community as well,” he says. “There’s a lot of evidence that those seawalls narrow the beach in the short term. Why would anyone want to makes their beach disappear, just for a golf course?”
Laid out in black-and-white panels, it’s all there on a concrete wall along the Dream Inn near the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf—the history of the O’Neill surf company, which is also the history of local surf culture from 1959 on.
The porcelain-on-steelmural follows the life of Jack O’Neill, wetsuit inventor and surfing mogul, explains O’Neill marketing vice president Brian Kilpatrick, all through a picturesque photo history that’s nearly without blemish.
“What is that?” says Kilpatrick, digging his thumb into a graffiti tag on a blown-up photo of Cowell Beach that O’Neill took for Surfer magazine. “Why would someone do that? Dang.”
The series of images show a Santa Cruz coming of age. They tell the story of O’Neill’s young sons, Pat and Mike, sharing a makeshift skateboard—just a couple of disassembled roller skates nailed to a two-by-four—and carving down the hill. There’s one image of O’Neill, who ran a surf shop where the hotel is now, grinning ear-to-ear as he pushes a small boat with three Miss California contestants out for a quick sail.
Other shots display a side of him that’s bold, adventurous and whimsical—bordering almost on reckless.
“He was one of the first guys to fly hot air balloons in North America,” Kilpatrick says.
There were several incarnations of his aircraft, but in the beginning, O’Neill, a pilot in the Navy Reserves during World War II, would launch his hot air balloon from a catamaran, the Sea Odyssey—which today serves as an educational boat for kids’ field trips.
“His experimentation with that airship thing—when I see some of that stuff, I think, ‘Holy shit, he’s like a thousand feet up in there with a spinning blade behind him, with a little gas-powered lawnmower engine. Sketchy—the thing’s lighting on fire, you know what I mean?” says Kilpatrick, who’s dressed head-to-toe in black, from his sunglasses to his shoes. “No one was launching hot air balloons off of giant catamarans.”
Over the decades, the contraption evolved into more of an airship, rather like a one-man Goodyear blimp. O’Neill, who’s now 94, would take off from a beach in Santa Cruz, sometimes Twin Lakes, and try to make it to Monterey on prevailing northwest winds. The trouble was that prevailing southwest winds would kick up in the evening and blow him back toward the middle of the bay. Luckily, O’Neill had by this point invented the super suit, so when he ran out of fuel a few miles off the coast from Moss Landing and landed in the water, he could blow into his suit and inflate it, until the neoprene outfit looked like a giant balloon animal.
“He could blow it up and float in the kelp beds and float all night—or however long it took for his kids to pick him up. He was testing product, and pioneering adventure over the high seas,” says Kilpatrick, who’s worked for the company for 18 years.
Pat, who’s now CEO, and his siblings would head out in a motor boat to pick up their dad in the middle of the bay.
Beside the mural, which was installed nearly four years ago, is a plaque recognizing the site of the old Surf Shop Santa Cruz, now the site of the Dream Inn. Inside the hotel’s Aquarius restaurant is the Jack O’Neill Lounge—a bar with pictures of the icon, a prototype wetsuit and some of his favorite boards.
O’Neill actually secured a trademark for the term “surf shop,” something he never cared to enforce because it seemed like too much hassle.
Nor did O’Neill ever show any interest in selling his aircraft innovations.
But on the days that he took flight over the bay, his airship functioned as a unique advertisement, as it had the company logo and “O’Neill” in giant letters along the sides.
“His adventurous spirit courses through everything he does. I don’t think he was looking to market it. I think he was seeing it as a marketing tool, because there’s branding on the side of that thing, and you can’t miss it,” Kilpatrick says.
O’Neill knew that the sky was a good place to catch people’s eyes. He’d already had a business, after the war ended, flying advertising banners behind airplanes.
Kilpatrick says the obvious question that people have asked O’Neill for much of his life is “Why would you do something like that that?”
“He just says, ‘Why not? Because it hasn’t been done. Because I can.’”
In 2015 Small Farm Central published its CSAFarming Annual Report with data from more than 250 Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farmers and 53,000 memberships, and found that the most popular day to sign up was Feb. 28. That day was henceforth known as national CSA day, when CSA farmers offer discounts and promotions for their produce subscription services. This year, CSA Day falls on Feb. 24, and to support local agriculture Santa Cruzans can check out High Ground Organics and Live Earth Farm in Watsonville. Contact information can be found on the national CSA website.
Info: Friday, Feb. 24. All day. Various locations. csaday.info.
Art Seen
Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour at Rio Theatre
Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour
Celebrate the most majestic in adventure cinema shorts with the Banff Mountain Film Festival’s return to Santa Cruz for four heart-pounding days at the Rio Theatre, Feb. 23-26. Get on your hiking boots and prep the kayaks to paddle the world’s wildest waters, climb the tallest peaks, and journey to the most exotic locations. This year’s Friday and Saturday showings are sold out, but the same film program will be shown Thursday and Sunday to benefit the UCSC Wilderness Orientation Scholarship Fund.
Info: 7-10 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 23-Sunday, Feb. 26. Rio Theatre, 1205 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. riotheatre.com. $18-$20.
Wednesday 2/22
‘Dark Deleuze in the Dark’ with Andrew Culp at UCSC
‘Dark Deleuze in the Dark’ with Andrew Culp
How can darkness help us see beyond our own reality? That’s the question that Andrew Culp asks in Dark Deleuze, a reinterpretation of theorist Gilles Deleuze’s challenge to today’s world of compulsory happiness, overexposure and decentralized control. Culp’s politics urge us to get rid of our idols and cultivate “hatred for this world.” Culp will lead a discussion in the dark and on the dark Wednesday, Feb. 22.
Info: 5-7 p.m. DARC’s Dark Lab Room 108, UCSC 1156 High St., Santa Cruz. Free.
Thursday 2/23
‘$7.99 and a Wish’ The Musical at Center Street Theater
‘$7.99 and a Wish’ The Musical
Dac is a rebellious, channel-surfing teen and Jiggy is her best friend, a sassy feline with “a good head on her shoulders.” When an infomercial sells them a product gone wrong, Dac and Jiggy are sucked into their television set. They have to find their way out before the 10 o’clock news or else they’ll be stuck in TV land forever! Santa Cruz artists Tera Torchio, Jace Hardwick, Ariana Rice, and Erin Loofbourrow bring the zany tale of rollerblading bumble bees, a nerdy octopus, and a valuable lesson to life beginning Feb. 17 through Feb. 26.
Info: 7-9 p.m. Center Street Theater, 1001 Center St., Santa Cruz. dreambeeproductions.com. $12.
Saturday 2/25
Winter Dance Fest 2017
The Tannery World Dance and Cultural Center brings the best and brightest of the contemporary dance world of Santa Cruz, the Bay Area and beyond, with the Winter Dance Fest 2017. After a highly acclaimed sold-out show last February, the Colligan Theater welcomes back the remarkable dawsondancesf—a “uniquely daring group” of seasoned professionals now in its 10th season—with their Santa Cruz premiere of les verites. According to founder Gregory P. Dawson, les verites revisits the theme of disrupting traditional forms of choreographic process through a rich, energized style of movement, and a focus on creative experimentation that allows the audience to feel part of the performance. Music by composer and arranger Ron Kurti, saxophonist Richard Howell, and the Classical Revolution Quartet. Opening performance will be by Santa Cruz’s own dancer and choreographer Molly Katzman and Co. The Festival also offers a master class with Dawson from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 25. (Call to reserve your space.) Info:: 8-9:30 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 25, Colligan Theater, 1010 River St., Santa Cruz. tanneryworlddance.com, 425-1440. $18-27.
Frigid waters. Jagged, tooth-like rocks. Great white sharks. And a punishing swell that folds in half, willing and able to crush anything in its way.
When they break, the waves at Mavericks look like nice, average-sized surf—from the shore. But that’s really only because, at 2 miles out, the action is a lot farther away than it looks. With its waves occasionally topping out at more than 60 feet, this break is anything but average.
For years, the famed surf spot was a boys’ club of big-wave surfers, slowly expanding to friends of friends who were brave enough to step up to the challenge. The first woman to ride it was Santa Cruz’s Sarah Gerhardt in 1999.
Fans of Gerhardt, who now serves as chemistry department chair at Monterey Peninsula College, were excited to see her announce that she would compete in this year’s Titans of Mavericks contest, along with five other women—thanks to a decision from the California Coastal Commission that it needed to diversify the contest in order to receive its permit. This season marked the first time women were invited to the contest, which has happened in various forms over the last 18years. Unfortunately, board members officially canceled this year’s contest, one week after Red Bull—the event’s broadcaster and only sponsor—filed suit against its management groups for breach of contract.
It was a blow to Mavericks fans, and this landmark in women’s surfing will have to wait one more year, at least. Until then, Gerhardt, who has two children, will keep shredding. She spoke to GT about her history with the event, and her life in surfing.
BOARDED UP Sarah Gerhardt, the first woman ever to surf Mavericks, was among the invitees to this year’s contest, until it was canceled. PHOTO: NIKKI BROOKS
How long have you been surfing?
SG: It will be 30 years next year, a long time. And I surfed Mavericks for the first time 18 years ago, so it’s been a while.
What’s that first ride like?
Incredibly different than the first ride at Waimea or Sunset that I had surfed before, just because the place is so intimidating. Every single wave out there is so powerful. Every single wave out there can break you. It’s pretty cold, and the rocks are not friendly, and the sea life is not friendly.
I was definitely very intimidated by the surf spot. I had gone out twice before and not caught waves—just sat and watched it. So that first wave was really, really magical and amazing. It was amazing how long the drop was. Usually, you drop in one second and it’s over. I dropped in—one, two, three, four. Then I got to the bottom. It’s like a roller coaster ride, you know?
Does your stomach go into your throat a little bit?
That happens more before you go over the wave. You know when you’re driving and you go over a little bump, and you get a sense of weightlessness? There’s that sensation right around the 30 seconds before you catch the wave, and then it’s over so fast. It’s not a very long time on the wave. It’s more like, “OK, I’m doing it, I’m doing it.” You get an adrenaline sensation before riding the wave, and then right at the drop-in at that critical time, when you’re making that commitment. And then on the ride, you’re thinking, “Let’s get it done.”
How cold is it at Mavericks? Is it much different from Santa Cruz’s waters?
Yeah, Santa Cruz will be in the 50s to 55 in the winter. But I’ve surfed Mavericks at 49 degrees, maybe even 48, so every degree feels like five degrees colder. 50 is freezing. It’s really cold.
What’s your favorite big wave anywhere?
Pico Alto’s pretty amazing. My husband and I surfed there in Peru. That was rad. In terms of quality and length of ride, Mavericks is probably it. I’ve surfed all along the North Shore and Outside Alligators and Outside Lost Cabin.
What do you think of this winter’s waves? There have been some massive swells the past couple months, but a lot of the days have been choppy.
It started out as a really amazing winter. It started late. The first Mavericks swells weren’t ’til November. But then it broke 12 consecutive days, and it hasn’t done that since the 1997-’98 winter, which was an El Niño. November was incredible. December started to fall apart, except for two really good days, and then the whole contest controversy happened right after that. Everyone was asking, ‘Why wasn’t the contest held?’ The contest could have been held on multiple days this season so far. It hasn’t been a terrible season.
Yeah, some of us casual fans of Mavericks wondered why the contest wasn’t happening. Then news reports came out about the lawsuit and that it was essentially canceled for this year. Did you find out about all of this the same way we did?
I was definitely wondering. I felt very suspicious about the event not happening when it wasn’t held in November and certainly when they didn’t a couple weeks ago. Definitely.
How does it feel knowing that this landmark event for women’s surfing won’t happen this year after all?
I was really excited for all of the other women. For me personally, I have a job. For me, surfing isn’t it—it’s not my job. I still surf big waves, but it’s not going to be my future. But it’s really disappointing for the women who are pursuing surfing as a career. This is a huge disappointment. I hope for their sake and the sake of all of the competitors that the WSL [World Surfing League] will pick it up. I know they’ve applied for the permit before, and they were denied the permit. If they could pick it up and it were part of the big-wave tour next year, that would be fantastic and hopefully have the stability that it needs because the Mavericks contest has had a bunch of different sponsors, but it hasn’t had stability.
Obviously none of us know what happened, but it always seemed challenging to make Mavericks a bigger festival, with music and everything, when it can be called at a moment’s notice and might not happen every year.
All of the big-wave contests have a waiting period. And the only other paddle that’s independent would be the event at Cowell. And Quiksilver was the first to sponsor Mavericks. Quiksilver, as a surf industry sponsor, made a lot of sense. But Cartel as a management company, without being able to pull in major sponsorship, didn’t make sense. They didn’t have a major sponsor. And that’s really important. The advantage to having a long waiting period is that it’s tons of advertisement. You get two to three months of putting it out there—hey, the event might run!—piquing people’s interests. So from a marketing perspective, it’s probably not that bad. But Cartel didn’t have a major sponsor. How are they going to pay for it?
Like a lot of people, I couldn’t pull myself away from my iPhone as new details about the fast-spreading #DeleteUber boycott came rolling in on Saturday, Jan. 28. Unlike most of those people though, the news hit especially close to home. Not just because, as an Uber driver in Santa Cruz, I knew I would be feeling the fallout financially, but also because as a fervent opponent of the current president, it was shocking and disorienting to suddenly find myself on the receiving end of anti-Trump protests.
In case you haven’t been following the story with the same obsessive thumb scrolling, it all started when protesters swarmed airports that weekend to protest Trump’s executive order banning all travelers from seven Muslim countries—a ban later halted by Seattle federal judge James Robart after the state of Washington filed a lawsuit claiming it was unconstitutional. In a show of solidarity with those affected by the ban, the New York Taxi Workers Alliance announced they were halting all rides to and from JFK airport for an hour. An hour after the strike, Uber removed all surge pricing for rides to the airport, which critics saw as opportunistic (though Uber later claimed it was done to make getting to and from the airport less expensive). One Twitter user, @Bro_Pair, drew attention to the announcement from Uber, giving rise to the rapidly trending hashtag #DeleteUber.
Within 24 hours, 200,000 Uber users deleted their accounts. While this may seem like a drop in the bucket compared to Uber’s 40 million active riders worldwide, it was a huge public relations blow to the company. It didn’t help Uber’s case among Trump protesters that footage of the company’s CEO Travis Kalanick meeting with the president as a member of his Economic Advisory Board had recently aired. In a blog post, Kalanick said that he would rather have a “seat at the table” so that he and other business leaders could propose reasonable policies to Trump.
Eventually, Kalanick announced that he was stepping down from Trump’s team, and he set up a $3 million legal fund to help drivers, many of whom are part of the immigrant community, with legal fees.
DRIVER DILEMMAS
Some of the riders I had the first week after #DeleteUber trended seemed to be going through the same internal struggles that I was about being associated with Uber. One friend paid me to drive her and her friends to dinner, and she took Lyft back.
Although rides were down, I still had my share of passengers. Eitan Seri-Levi, who ordered a ride for a responsible beer run, told me he had considered deleting his Uber app, but decided against it. He said that a few years ago, when he was a freshman at UCSC, there was no easy way to get around—yes, there were taxi cabs, but they were not as immediate as an app at your fingertips and a driver at your door in less than 10 minutes—so perhaps a certain amount of brand loyalty played into his decision.
Another Santa Cruz resident who drives for Uber as a second job, and asked that her name not be used, told me she was also morally conflicted about #DeleteUber. She was furious that Kalanick had joined Trump’s advisory team, and she was ready to sign up to instead drive for Lyft, which has only recently arrived in Santa Cruz and doesn’t have a big enough rider population yet to make it financially viable for most drivers.
Nor is Lyft’s record squeaky clean in the eyes of many Trump opponents. While Lyft did donate $1 million to the American Civil Liberties Union, it’s been criticized by the same activists who supported #DeleteUber for its ties to Carl Icahn. Matt Rosoff of CNBC wrote that, “Lyft financierCarl Icahn did a lot more than Kalanick to help get Trump elected. He was an early and vocal supporter of Trump during the campaign, claiming that the businessman would be much better for the economy than Hillary Clinton, and Trump appointed Icahn as a special advisor on regulation in December.”
Personally, I have found my Uber gig to be a rewarding side hustle, although I wish it weren’t tainted with ethical scandals, and I’m not ruling out moving over to Lyft should that become a better option. It is not my sole source of income, and it would be hard to earn enough to make a living if it were. It does provide me with some interesting encounters with locals and visitors, though, and there are many like me who are staying on and hope to push the company in a more progressive direction.
Uber has been dogged by other controversies in the past, including settling a highly publicized labor dispute with drivers who wanted to be recognized as employees rather than independent contractors. The latest scandal came just last weekend, when an ex-Uber employee named Susan Fowler Rigetti published a blog post on Sunday, Feb. 19 that went viral, detailing a year of alleged sexual harassment by her manager. Kalanick tweeted a link to her blog post with the comment, “What’s described here is abhorrent & against everything we believe in. Anyone who behaves this way or thinks this is OK will be fired.”
Whether employees will be successful in changing the company’s ethics remains to be seen; however, it was employees at Uber headquarters in San Francisco who—noting that many Uber drivers are immigrants who will be harmed by Trump’s policies—applied pressure to Kalanick to distance himself from the president, both in meetings and in a 25-page Google Doc that shared employees’ stories of how Trump’s immigration proposals will affect their loved ones.
HASHTAGGING FOR CHANGE
The Santa Cruz Uber driver I spoke to is also an activist, and felt that whatever the setback to her bottom line, she was happy to see that #DeleteUber seemed to send a message that people are ready to use the power of their money to affect change.
Leslie Lopez, director of Oakes’ CARA (Community-based Action Research and Advocacy) program at UCSC, agrees.
“There are a lot of people who have never thought about politics who are waking up right now and wondering what they can do to resist and change this administration,” she told GT in an email. “They are going to use social media to stand up and be counted, or connect with other people, to learn more, to do more.”
Lopez says #DeleteUber showed how effective “apptivism” can be, because it required just a few thumb strokes to contribute to an action that had an immense impact, with little risk to the participants. Nor is it the only example of social media’s fast-growing power; after all, the Women’s March movement that drew millions to action in cities around the world grew out of a simple Facebook post by a woman in Hawaii. In addition to the historically large turnout at the marches, there are now 1,297,955 Instagram photos with the hashtag #WomensMarch for people to scroll through and connect with other participants. Hashtag activism has quickly become a useful way to bring like-minded people together.
“#DeleteUber, #DivestWellsFargo, calls for boycott, walkout, general strike, etc. These are all exciting,” Lopez writes. “I think we are going to see more ‘lightning actions’ like #DeleteUber, because once people figure out how easy and effective it is, they’ll be really creative in figuring out what else to do.”
One would expect an understanding of kid-friendly performances to come naturally to Tandy Beal. After all, the renowned Santa Cruz dancer spent a decade as artistic director of the Pickle Family Circus, and two more running the Moscow Circus in Japan. She did learn a lot about entertaining kids, but perhaps just as important is what she learned about entertaining their parents.
“When I was directing the Pickles, what always interested me was, ‘How do you make humor for two totally different age groups?’” says Beal. “What I would love when I’d stand at the back of the theater is I’d hear laughs coming at different times—you know, this is the kid laugh, this is the adult laugh, this is everybody’s laugh.”
Though most of us have probably never stopped to think about it, this is exactly what defines all of the best kids’ entertainment, from the Muppets to Pixar movies to the poems of Jack Prelutsky. It has to work on two levels, for kids and adults—but to be truly great, it has to have a third, shared level as well.
Beal has brought the search for that powerful triad to this year’s third annual series of ArtSmart concerts, which kicks off this weekend with Saturday’s performance by Latin percussion ensemble Ka-Hon. It continues March 18 with the Venezuelan Music Project’s Jackeline Rago, and wraps up April 22 with the “Magic Carpet” show that will feature several groups showing off rhythms from around the world. All performances are at 2 p.m. at Veterans Memorial Building in downtown Santa Cruz.
“One of the things I try to look for in the artists that we bring in is that they can speak on two levels, to adults and also to children,” says Beal. It’s led her company to jokingly advertise the shows as “an opportunity for children to bring their parents and their grandparents to something.”
“The family may be thinking they’re doing it for their kids, but actually if the show does it right, then it’s for everybody,” says Beal.
It’s not easy to find talent that’s up to those standards, but it helps that Beal and her husband Jon Scoville have been performing, producing shows and bringing music to area schools for years. For instance, last year’s ArtSmart series featured percussionist Keith Terry, who Beal first hired for the Pickle Family Circus years ago. Terry, in turn, led her to one of this year’s artists, Rago.
“I actually met Jackie when she was performing with Keith, maybe 10, 15 years ago, and I never forgot her. I went, ‘Oh my god!’ She did this incredible thing with a Venezuelan instrument called quitiplas. It’s just wonderful. So people stay on your radar through the years,” she says. “And often the best artists perform with each other. For example, Bryan Dyer, I’ve known him through SoVoSo for years. But then he came in and sang with Linda Tillery’s Cultural Heritage Choir, and he came in and did percussion and singing with Keith Terry a different time.”
The series emphasizes interactivity and education folded into high-energy entertainment. This weekend’s featured group, Ka-Hon, includes musicians from Brazil, Mexico and Peru, and is dedicated to demonstrating the range of world beats that can be played on a simple wooden box known as a cajón. Rago teaches the traditions of Venezuelan music through the Venezuelan Music Project, while also performing in Bay Area groups. And the “Magic Carpet” show will feature groups representing a range of cultures, including the thunderous drums of Watsonville Taiko; Corazon en Flor presenting Baile Folklorico from Jalisco, Mexico; Roots of Brazil; and more. This is an internationalist series for an isolationist era.
“I’ve been trying to bring in world art for the kids,” says Beal. “With where we are in the country right now, it’s all the more important that we see the beauty and value of world cultures other than our own—and what it is that’s making up our own.”
The ArtSmart Family Concerts series begins on Saturday, Feb. 25, with a performance by Ka-Hon at 2 p.m. at the Veterans Memorial Building, 846 Front St., Santa Cruz. Early discounted tickets for all three concerts in the series are still available through tandybeal.com. Full-price tickets per show are $15 adult, $10 children 16 and under.
For Sanae Yamada—one half of psychedelic rockers Moon Duo, along with Ripley Johnson—the most surreal aspect of relocating from the Bay Area to Portland a few years back was the difference in seasons. Portland’s were pronounced, but she had barely noticed the cyclical shifts in San Francisco. Over time, her memories of Northern California became more difficult to place in time, because there weren’t weather clues attached to them.
This realization, in part, inspired the group’s most ambitious project to date: a two-album exploration of the hidden energies in our universe. It’s kind of about weather, but it’s also about the unseen spiritual energies that guide our world. The album is divided into the dark (Occult Architecture Vol. 1, released this month) and light (Occult Architecture Vol. 2 comes out later this year).
“It wasn’t like we sat down and were like ‘let’s make a record about the seasons,’ but removing myself from the context of the seasons gave totally different qualities to my memories,” Yamada says. “It was more the binary aspects of things that we were talking about—the existence of opposites that contrast each other, at the same time define each other, and make up this whole.”
In a way, the concept of the record isn’t different than anything the group has done on its previous three LPs. Examining the occult, the spirituality of the natural world, and even the weather (the album Circles was partially inspired by the sunniness of Colorado, where they recorded it) has always been a part of how the duo makes music. What is different is the size and scope of the project—the two albums were made back-to-back to give them the feel of a single project. Going into it, they didn’t know if it would even work.
“It’s a very daunting concept to take on. I don’t by any means think that we covered it. We just opened a few doors, I guess,” Yamada says. “I think that the investigation of the cycles and the patterns and structures that make up our reality, matter and consciousness and all of those have been an enduring fascination for both of us.”
The first record, which is supposed to represent darkness, doesn’t sound how one might imagine it would. It features fast-driving, precise playing; a heavy dose of New Wave synth offset by guitar parts. The vocals are different than any previous Moon Duo album—it sounds like singer/guitarist Johnson is in a trance. It’s squashed, almost expressionless.
Yamada explains to me that the intention wasn’t to make a dark album in the sense of something evil or drowning in sadness. The word that stuck out for them when they made the album was “claustrophobic.” Yamada achieved this texture by using exclusively synthesizers (i.e., no organs), and keying in sounds that had “a lot of growling sounds and gurgling sounds, little sharp stabbing textures.” She was thinking about a cave space, she says, like liquid bubbling up from the ground. The vocals were recorded normally, but were mixed in a way that gave them the compressed sound.
The upcoming second album has no such effects applied to the vocals. The most important thing was for it to sound expansive and summer-y. Yamada still only used synths, but this time she applied a different sound palette. “I tried to make more sugary sounds, like granular floating textures,” she says. “Like dust in the air.”
Sheer ambition of the project aside, the most remarkable thing about this pair of records may be the way it has expanded the group’s sound beyond the confines of the psych rock genre they are most often associated with.
“We definitely get labeled psychedelic, which I actually don’t mind so much, in that the term itself is a pretty expansive term. I think a lot of things could fit under the heading,” says Yamada. “But I think in its current iteration, there’s definitely a fairly identifiable sound that goes along with it that we don’t necessarily fit that well.”
Two years ago, armed with a big space at 1001 Center St.—and even bigger ambitions—Sally Kane and her partners Cat Hernandez and Andrea Mollenauer decided to open a multi-use suite of food spaces for everyone to enjoy.
“We’ve got a huge commercial kitchen,” Kane explains as we chat at the “front door” retail and showcase portion of the Santa Cruz Food Lounge. “We wanted to be an incubator kitchen, and now we’re home to almost 10 local food purveyors. We wanted to give young businesses a way to create their products without having to invest in their own bricks-and-mortar spaces.”
Fogline Farms, Kickin Chicken and others now create artisanal items from the former India Joze kitchen. “And there’s the front of the house,” Kane continues. “We make our liquor license available for a variety of events, and the restaurant can be used for pop-ups. It’s our way of supporting local businesses.”
A large lunch party was in high gear the day I visited. Food Lounge does regular in-house catered events, and takes part in the wildly popular First Friday art crawl. “But we also do Night Market on second Fridays. Mostly consumable foods, like a farmers market graze,” Kane says. “Vendors set up tables and sell various items. It’s great for people early in their careers to get feedback on their products.”
The Food Lounge acts like an inviting neighborhood salon. “People can come in a group and sample a lot of little tastes—usually with live music. It’s great customer contact,” she says.
And then there’s the Pantry retail space in the very front of the Lounge. Open from 11 a.m.-5 p.m. every day except Sunday, it offers beautifully displayed local honey, seasoned salts, chutneys and jams, as well as take-away lunch items and drinks. “We have Happy Hour nightly during weekdays, where all our tap drinks are $5 from 4-6 p.m. And the evening food service begins at 4 p.m.,” she says.
Kane says that everything about the multi-function space—catered meetings, space for rent, outdoor courtyard seating, commercial kitchen—encourages collaboration. And she believes that all of the vendors using the common kitchen seem to share the space in sync. “It all works,” she says.
After two years, “we’re still plugging away, even though we all still have our day jobs. I think we’re doing a great job inviting the community into this space. We wanted it to be a comfortable place, a place that a single woman could come and sit at the bar and feel at home,” she says. scfoodlounge.com.
Home Salon Party a Hit
Now that the debut Kitchen Table Restaurant Week has come and gone, it looks like the dining-parties-in-private-homes idea cooked up by Tracy Shaw is a big hit. At one installment last week, I sampled the impeccable harvest of walnuts from Nicole Facciuto of Corky’s Nuts, followed by course after small-plate course, cooked while we watched by Chef Gonzo. Seared sea scallops, shrimp in spicy chimichurri, chicken skewers with mango sauce, lamb lollipops with fruit chutney, fine wines, and Dana Scruggs trio jazz. Yeow! Intrigued? You bet you are. Check salasoiree.com to see how it works.
Ella’s Turns 10!
Stop by Ella’s at the Airport and Cafe Ella in Watsonville all this week for daily specials in honor of 10 years serving a fine locally-sourced menu to South County foodies. Make sure you enter the gift card drawing on Friday, Feb. 24. “There aren’t a lot of businesses in Watsonville that have been around for over 10 years,” says Maricruz Santillan, Cafe Ella manager. We agree. Congratulations to founder Ella King! ellasinwatsonville.com.
Corporate cafes have become eclectic, interesting eateries, especially around Silicon Valley. The only problem is that their clientele is usually limited to nearby employees. Not so with Green Hills Café, a corporate café for Central California Alliance For Health in Scotts Valley, which is open to the public as well as to the staff, and offers a surprisingly wide array of menu options. Chef and owner Jason Perez talked to us about their creative menu.
The menu ranges from tacos to yellow-curry-crusted rock cod to beef bourguignon. What inspired the eclectic approach?
JASON PEREZ: My background is pretty varied. I worked in corporate cafes for years. I worked at Google and Cisco and Apple, so I’ve learned a lot of different styles of food. Our concept is we have a captive audience, and we want to keep them coming back as opposed to leaving and going elsewhere. So we want to provide enough of a variety on our menu that people won’t get bored. We try to feature all different flavors from around the world. We’re a café without borders. We’re just trying to be unique and offer a lot of different things.
It seems like you offer even more on the daily specials than on the everyday menu.
That’s what we do. Part of my contract is that I have to provide one vegetarian option and one non-vegetarian option special per day. On top of that, I do a really healthy, fresh salad bar. I have a grill, so I make my own veggie patties, burger, chicken sandwich, things of that nature, and pastries. Stuff like that. It’s unique for a corporate café since we’re open to the public.
How does the produce bar work?
We call it the produce bar because we do a lot of things. We do romaine lettuce, but we also do baby greens and spinach. We also do our own kale—it’s cured here, and we put it on the salad bar. We also cook quinoa. We have that out there. Tofu. A lot of other stuff. We’ll cook our own peas. It’s not canned. Everything is fresh. It’s a fairly good-sized salad bar. The dressings are all made from scratch. It’s always nice to be able to have a coleslaw or corn and black bean salad, something on top of just cucumbers and stuff like that.
Sometimes known as “the forgotten grape,” Carignane is not always easy to find. But winemaker John Schumacher at Hallcrest Vineyards has made not only an interesting Carignane, but also one from organically grown grapes. Fruit for the 2013 Carignane was harvested in Mendocino, where the climate of this upland valley is cooler than surrounding appellations—and just perfect for vigorous red Carignane grapes.
Carignane is quite often used as a coloring component in blends, and due to its high acidity and tannins, it requires skill to produce a wine that is smooth, elegant and drinkable—and kudos are due to Schumacher for his expertise.
“Organically grown from Mendocino County, Carignane is a bright and opulent wine,” says Schumacher. “Aromas of Fuji apple, apricot jam and cracked peppercorn fill the glass.” The wine is “soft on the palate with a velvety finish,” Schumacher adds of his well-made Carignane, which sells for $18 at Hallcrest Vineyards.
I often make a Greek dish of baked eggplant with béchamel sauce called “papoutsakia” (little shoes), which is quite rich and requires a pairing of a more astringent wine. Always imbibing on a glass of wine while cooking, I opened the Carignane to try. This was worth two glasses before dinner.
Schumacher, whose name is synonymous with good wine, is known around these parts for his skills with the grape, and earthy approach to making wine.
Not all Hallcrest wines are organic, but Schumacher has created an abundance of red and white varietals under his other label, Organic Wine Works, including Zinfandel, Barbera and Chardonnay—all of which are reasonably priced.
Hallcrest has a beautiful tasting room for trying more of Schumacher’s wines, and it’s the perfect spot to take a picnic, which the winery welcomes. Schumacher purchased the winery back in 1987, when it was called Felton Empire. He changed the name to Hallcrest, and congratulations are in order as he’s now been making wine for 30 years.
Hallcrest Vineyards/Organic Wine Works, 379 Felton Empire Road, Felton, 335-4441. Open daily noon to 5 p.m. Tasting fee is $10 which is waived if you spend $50 or more. hallcrestvineyards.com.
