“Definitely bacon. I just love how it tastes. It tastes good with everything.”
“I’d rather talk about politics, because there is not much to say about bacon. ”
“Bacon. Thick cut, smoked applewood.”
“Definitely bacon. It tastes better.”
“I’d rather talk about politics while eating bacon.”
Santa Cruz Guitar Company founder Richard Hoover exists in a depth of technicality that I find, frankly, overwhelming—and I’ve played guitar for 25 years. Where I see an unfinished fretboard, Hoover sees a piece of mathematical precision. Where I see a piece of wood, Hoover sees a potential guitar top, and taps on eight or so spots to hear the different tones the wood creates. He can hear that the tones are in harmony with each other.
On a tour of his shop, Hoover talks to me at length about different kinds of woods, and explains that the room we’re in is “middle of the world” temperature and humidity. Those conditions, he explains, give his guitars the best chance of keeping their finely crafted integrity intact when they’re shipped all over the planet.
“Wood is a big deal for us,” he says, as he launches into the details of the polymerization and crystallization of resins that settle into the cells of the guitars. He takes pride in the fact that Santa Cruz Guitar Company, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this month, only sources responsibly harvested wood from family operations, and is transparent about its sources. The company also repurposes wood from a variety of unexpected places. The wood that “found us,” as Hoover puts it, includes an old redwood dining room table, mahogany from a boat that sank off of New Orleans, and spruce from Alaska that had washed out to sea.
He holds up a piece of cedar that was found in an excavation on Orcas Island and gives it a thump with his finger.
“Lovely tone,” he says quietly. “Just like a bell. It could be 1,000 years old.”
There are no assembly lines, there are no mass-produced parts, there are no tuned-out workers mindlessly putting in hours. Instead, the shop is full of focused craftsmen—the dozen or so that I meet are all men—working on one aspect of one guitar with great care.
Hoover brings me up to speed on the cellular composition of wood, sugars, moisture and dehumidification and assures me that he doesn’t expect me to remember everything. As I nod, I walk over to look at the wood against a wall. There’s a chest-high stack of gorgeous Indian rosewood that was reclaimed from a forest floor. The idea that it will be expertly transformed into guitars is thrilling.
As we admire the rosewood, Hoover explains that there are now dehumidifying machines, but that the stabilizing process for wood used to take many years of being left outdoors. Master violin makers would acquire wood, not for themselves, but for their future students.
“Pretty noble,” Hoover says, as he runs his hand across the top piece. I get the sense that his own students would say the same about him.
At age 16, Hoover wanted to know how guitars worked, so he did the unthinkable—and yet obvious—thing, and took one apart. He then faced the task of putting it back together. His mom, who was a research librarian at the local library, encouraged him to find a book on the topic. In doing so, she unknowingly set her teen on a course that would define his life’s work.
Unable to find information about guitar-making, Hoover settled for books about violin-making and became a student in an age-old lineage of artisans. At a time when guitars were being built in factories, not woodshops, Hoover set out to become a master guitar maker. Four decades later, he has unquestioningly reached mastery, and his company, Santa Cruz Guitar Company, is widely regarded as one of the finest guitar making outfits in the world.
For Hoover, sharing his passion and depth of knowledge is a way of demonstrating the care and craftsmanship put into his guitars. He’s supremely confident in his team and the guitars they build. He guarantees musicians that his company can get the exact sound they want, and then delivers.
Big guitar factories pump out a million guitars per year. In that time, Santa Cruz Guitar Company makes around 500 guitars, 70 percent of which are custom built. Each one is crafted with unwavering attention to detail.
The workplace we’re standing in is a woodworking shop—not a factory. There are no assembly lines, there are no mass-produced parts, there are no tuned-out workers mindlessly putting in hours. Instead, the shop is full of focused craftsmen—the dozen or so that I meet are all men—working on one aspect of one guitar with great care. Behind us, the rhythmic back and forth of sandpaper being used to get the perfect feel on a guitar neck is, for a moment, the only sound in the room.
Working in the shadow of great artists, under the watchful and caring eye of Hoover, the company’s craftsmen are becoming masters. When asked how many of them play guitar, Hoover looks surprised and says, “Well, all of them.” Then he adds with a smile, “But it’s not a prerequisite.”
Hoover considers his role of teacher and coach his legacy. When he started building guitars he found mentors in Santa Cruz-based hobbyist guitar makers James Patterson and Bruce McGuire who took time out of day jobs to teach Hoover the craft. He works to pay their generosity forward.
As Hoover began making his own guitars, he found that the handcrafted approach to guitar making was slow-going—he was only making three to four guitars per year. To speed things up, he embraced an open source ethos—which the company holds to this day—and opened up his process to others who wanted to learn. Within two weeks, two locals, Bruce Ross and Will Davis, approached him about making the “best possible guitar, without compromise.” Together, the three established the Santa Cruz Guitar Company. Ross and Davis have both moved on, but Hoover gives them a lot of credit for the company’s success.
Early on, the three would finish a guitar, put it in the car, and drive it to San Francisco to try to sell it to a shop. Hoover experimented with trying to connect with artists backstage to show them the company’s guitars, but he quickly learned that was not an approach he wanted to take.
“I did enough of it to know that I hated it,” he says, grimacing at the memory. “Nobody’s at their best with that.”
They got a break in 1980, when British guitar legend Eric Clapton saw a small advertisement for Santa Cruz guitars in Frets magazine and sent a handwritten letter requesting a custom guitar. Then, renowned bluegrass guitarist Tony Rice got onboard.
At that point, the shop was already making great-sounding guitars and people were “impressed at their sophistication and substance,” says Hoover. But when it came to buying a guitar, people would worry what their friends thought about them spending a lot of money on a Santa Cruz guitar rather than, say, a Martin.
“People didn’t have the confidence in their own ear, because we really are highly influenced by the burden of others’ expectations,” Hoover says. “But with a name like Eric Clapton or Tony Rice, not only did they know it was OK, but it was really a cool thing to tell their friends: ‘I didn’t buy a Martin, I got a Santa Cruz.’”
The family of Santa Cruz Guitar Company players is an all-star collection of master artists that includes Joan Baez, Janis Ian, Bill Frisell, David Crosby, Steve Earle, Norman and Nancy Blake, Brad Paisley, Ben Harper, Gillian Welch and dozens more.
Jazz guitar virtuoso Eric Skye, who has a signature Santa Cruz model, the OO-Syke, calls Hoover the sweetest, funniest, smartest person he knows. When the two toured the South together—Hoover to talk about Santa Cruz guitars, and Skye to play them—Hoover freely shared his vast knowledge and pocket wisdom with anyone who wanted to talk, including random people they met along the way who hadn’t the slightest connection to guitars. As they drove from state to state, Hoover would pull the car over to educate Skye about historical landmarks, such as Civil War battle sites.
“Traveling one-on-one with him is so amazing,” Skye says. “I’ve seen him have conversations in the airport with a paint salesman he just met from Montana, explaining the difference between mahogany and Indian rosewood for the 10 millionth time, like he was just telling it for the first time.”
Skye was drawn to Santa Cruz guitars because of the company’s integrity and the sound he’s able to get from the instruments. After much back-and-forth between Hoover and Skye about what his signature model could be, the prototype was “a hole-in-one.” Skye took one strum and said, “OK, we’re done.” He explains that, unlike a saxophone, which can be as quiet as a whisper or as loud as a car horn, acoustic guitars typically don’t have much dynamic range. Santa Cruz guitars, however, are incredibly responsive.
“I dig in, and it just has more and more and more,” Skye says. “And I pull back and it gets sweeter and sweeter and sweeter. It’s just a whole other thing. It’s a living, breathing thing. It’s not just a guitar.”
On Sept. 24, Skye performs with Colin Hay, Don Edwards, James Nash and many others, as part of a weekend-long celebration of the Santa Cruz Guitar Company. Festivities include concerts at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center on Friday, Sept. 23, the Rio Theatre on Saturday, Sept. 24, and a Saturday workshop at local Santa Cruz dealer Sylvan Music, a shop that Hoover refers to as “kindred spirits with similar values.” The weekend promises to be a gathering of Hoover’s friends and admirers and a showcase of the brilliance of Santa Cruz Guitars.
As my tour of the shop winds down, I’m struck by its timelessness. The woodworking tools, hanging neatly above a workstation, could be from 100 years ago. The small, curled wood shavings on a table, and larger ones on the floor below, serve as a reminder of the slow, meticulous process of turning raw wood into exquisite musical instruments.
On a cabinet is a faded poster from the 1984 Telluride Bluegrass Festival. Hoover and his team work today with the same care and craftsmanship as when the poster was new—and nearly 10 years before that. I imagine the guitars, being played all over the world, that have been built in that time.
I’m also struck by the attention I’ve received, and am aware that Hoover shares the same information and passion with anyone who expresses an interest—including other guitar makers. The shop offers a schedule of tours and other companies regularly visit to see if they can do what Santa Cruz Guitar Company does—but faster and cheaper.
Sticking to his open source ethos, Hoover is happy to show these would-be competitors around and answer their questions.
“People come in and want to find ways to scale what we’re doing,” he says, “But they can’t. There’s no secret to what we do—it’s mastery. It’s the right training and then countless hours of practice. You can’t scale that.”
In the final days of Bernie Sanders’ campaign over the summer, his tone shifted.
He ceased criticizing his opponent Hillary Clinton’s ties to Wall Street and finished talking about winning the Democratic nomination, as Clinton had by that point amassed a clear path to victory. The U.S. Senator from Vermont lauded his hard-working team and thanked people who had made their first foray into politics by helping to get the vote out for Sanders. He also pushed them to go one step further.
“Now we need many of them to start running for school boards, city councils, county commissions, state legislatures and governorships,” Sanders said via livestream on June 16. “State and local governments make enormously important decisions and we cannot allow right-wing Republicans to increasingly control them.”
Santa Cruz already has a long history of involvement in local politics, including one activist slate after another seeking office on Santa Cruz City Council, some of them more successful than others. But this year, the excitement generated by Sanders’ run propelled the opportunity for a new platform. Local organizers looked at data from online and phone surveys of their members . Then, they went to work on a candidate pledge.
“We saw what the priorities were and gave them categories,” lead organizer Shawn Orgel-Olson says. “They aren’t all of the priorities, but the top ones we found.”
The local election pledge that Santa Cruz for Bernie crafted last month was split into seven categories, including affordable housing, homelessness and police accountability. But its critics say the details of its platform are unworkable, and in some cases even illegal.
Out of 11 City Council candidates, five have signed onto the pledge: grant writer Steve Pleich, assistant professor Sandy Brown, internship coordinator Chris Krohn, nonprofit director Drew Glover and bike mechanic Steve Schnaar.
“One of the things I loved about Bernie Sanders is even though he didn’t win, he changed the debate,” says Schnaar. “You can’t expect everything to come out the way you say you want it, but I at least want to change the debate.”
Other issues on the platform include limiting UCSC growth, accelerating a $15 dollar hourly minimum wage, community gardens, and funding for more sustainable transportation.
It demands, for instance, that 25 percent of any new housing complex’s units be affordable, up from a previous requirement of 15 percent, and that developers won’t be able to pay in-lieu fees instead of actually constructing low-income units. “Affordable housing. That’s the story of this election,” says Chris Krohn who served as mayor in 2002 and hasn’t run for City Council since. He says he felt inspired and awestruck when he witnessed the optimism of Sanders firsthand in Philadelphia over the summer.
A few weeks ago, Schnaar, Krohn, Glover and Brown all won endorsements from Santa Cruz for Bernie, as well as from the People’s Democratic Club, after agreeing to the pledge.
But the local Bernie pledge hasn’t garnered universal praise.
Five-time Santa Cruz Mayor Mike Rotkin, who proudly supported Sanders earlier this year, wrote an email to the local committee critiquing the platform. The nearly 2,000-word letter, which was shared in a Chamber of Commerce newsletter, broke down the platform by bullet points, arguing that the pledge would be impossible to implement and that any candidate who signed on would have a difficult time getting elected in the first place.
“I respect and encourage your commitment to getting much more involved in local issues while we wait for the next presidential election to roll around, but hope that you find a way to make that commitment more meaningful and reflective of the realities of how these issues unfold in the context of our local community,” wrote Rotkin, who is out of the country and could not be reached for an interview.
Candidate Robert Singleton, who declined to take the Sanders pledge, says the platform’s beefed-up inclusionary housing rules would be illegal when it comes to rentals. Inclusionary zoning laws for rentals are currently in a murky gray area, due to a 2009 court ruling in Southern California. Singleton, who also supported Sanders this year, says he has a different plan to build denser housing, including units for Section 8 vouchers.
And Singleton, who co-founded the online forum Civinomics as a UCSC junior four years ago, says that, for better or for worse, it’s also too late for the city to try legislating how big the university grows, despite concerns people have about water usage.
“ We’ve tried that in the past and it didn’t work. The city lost tha t lawsuit,” Singleton says, recalling a 2010 court case. “Furthermore, UCSC— despite having more students and developing more—is using less water now than they were 15 years ago because they have more strict building standards.”
Steve Pleich accepted the pledge, as “there were no deal breakers in it, as a progressive politician,” he says.
Still, he feels that as the California population grows, it’s UCSC’s duty to admit its share of students, as the city agreed to five decades ago.
“I think that everyone deserves a college education. So with 16,000 students coming in, I think we need to supply them water,” says Pleich, who was the only one of five candidates to accept the pledge and not get an endorsement from the local Sanders group.
Undeterred, Orgel-Olson believes everything on the pledge can be accomplished. It’s simply a matter of initiative.
“None of the items are impossible,” Orgel-Olson says. “We just need a City Council with the courage to stand-up to special interests and advocate for marginalized people and issues to build a more just community.”
Additional reporting contributed by Jacob Pierce.
“Conservation is more than just putting up a plaque and calling something a park,” President Barack Obama said at the 20th annual Tahoe Summit as he beamed down over a sea of camera phones and sunglasses reflecting the cloudless blue sky and pulsing sun above.
“We embrace conservation because healthy and diverse land and waters help us build resilience to climate change. We do it to free more of our communities and plants and animals from fire, droughts and displacement,” he said.
Obama opened his remarks at the Aug. 31 summit with a few jokes—including a reference to Fredo’s tragic demise at the lake in The Godfather Part II—before switching to a more reflective and solemn tone. In some ways, the event in Stateline, Nevada was reminiscent of a music festival—one headlined by the Killers, who took the stage right after the president.
Obama discussed climate change and conservation at his highly anticipated landmark talk. Sen. Barbara Boxer, Sen. Harry Reid (Nevada) and Gov. Jerry Brown spoke as well.
All year, Obama has been on something of a public relations tour, touting the successes that his administration has achieved over the past eight years, and bringing a more light-hearted tone to his speeches. But his trip to Lake Tahoe represented more than that.
The president has been doubling down lately on his environmental credentials—adding 400 more acres to Yosemite, for instance, on his visit to the national park in June, and ordering a halt to a controversial North Dakota pipeline last week.
On the same day as his speech in Tahoe, the White House announced $35 million to restore streams near Tahoe, manage stormwater runoff and reduce fire hazards, like dead trees, in the area.
Two decades ago, Tahoe’s emerald waters were becoming murky, and invasive species along with logging and unfettered growth were “wreaking havoc,” said Reid, who hosted the event and spoke before Obama.
Today, Tahoe is healthier, thanks to Republicans and Democrats working together, Brown explained. The lake, he said, is an example of how natural beauty can transcend politics. (It’s a trend that reaches beyond Lake Tahoe. The Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary has also benefited from federal protections and funding over the last three decades, even under Republican-controlled legislatures.)
The government spent $1.9 billion on the renewal of the popular tourist area that’s home to 290 species of animals. With more than 16,000 acres of wildlife habitat, 1,500 stream-environment zones restored and 2,700 linear feet of shoreline added, it’s “more pristine than it has been in decades,” said Reid.
“Lake Tahoe really is one of the world’s jewels, and there has been bipartisan support to protect it,” Tim Duane, a UCSC professor of environmental studies, tells GT.
Even so, Lake Tahoe’s surface water had its hottest year ever in 2015. Even while protecting natural areas, Duane says Republican leaders have found “ideological, political, and economic reasons” for ignoring bigger environmental problems like climate change, as average worldwide temperatures appear poised to shatter previous records for the third straight year.
In his speech, the president went after climate change deniers, even dropping a snarky comment about U.S. Senator James Inhofe’s poorly received presentation of a snowball on the Senate floor last year.
More than a quarter of U.S. emissions come from transportation, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Obama mentioned that for the first time ever there are now national emissions standards on commercial trucks, vans and buses.
Brown boasted that 25 percent of California’s electricity now comes from renewable energy, a number that legislators have promised to double by 2030. Raising his voice over thunderous applause, he praised car manufacturer Tesla’s billion-dollar electric battery plant in Nevada as well as the company’s electric car production in California. “Nevada and California are going to electrify and renew the world,” he said.
California passed the first state law regulating greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles in 2002, and since then has been implementing policies to reduce emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. Duane says low-carbon fuel and energy efficiency standards, along with a cap-and-trade program, have made the state a leader in renewable energy development and efficiency since the 1980s.
Duane spent the last 16 months working on a study looking at how the country can achieve its goal of an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. That, he says, is the goal we “really need” to achieve. In order to accomplish it, he says California needs to “ramp up investment in electric vehicles and their charging infrastructure.”
Duane calls the evolving transportation industry an “enormous business and economic opportunity.”
Looking out over the crowd and Stateline, Obama suggested conserving the natural environment is imperative not just for locals nearby, but also for “our entire ecosystem.”
“Just as the health of the land and people are tied together, just as climate and conservation are tied together,” Obama said, “we share a sacred connection with those who are going to follow us.”
There’s a tradition in Santa Cruz of candidate forums that are drier than stale toast.
Typically, a moderator with a list of questions holds a piece of paper and asks something along the lines of “Why is economic development important?” Then the City Council candidates, who are seated at a long table, ramble on for an eternity before smiling and handing the mic down to the next person.
“What usually happens at a typical forum is a group of us gets together and says, ‘OK, what are the questions?’ and the questions usually end up being leading questions whether you want them to be leading or not,” says Chip, the executive director of the Downtown Association (DTA). “The candidates tell you what they think you want to hear.”
This year, in lieu of a traditional forum, the DTA is inviting people to the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium on Thursday, Sept. 22, when council candidates will each give a nearly seven-minute presentation on their vision for downtown.
“Our big hope is that this will get the community thinking about the decisions the City Council makes and can make for downtown,” Chip says. “And what do we want to see in the next chapter? Downtown 2.0—or whatever version we’re on right now.”
The new format, a presentation style called PechaKucha that hails from Tokyo, lets candidates show 20 PowerPoint slides and speak for 20 seconds per slide. The DTA is hoping it will steer candidates away from pandering and inspire them to talk about what they really believe.
Candidate Sandy Brown, a downtown resident, is already loving the experiment. “I’m really excited to break out of the mold that we’ve been in for several decades now—those of us that have been involved in electoral politics,” says Brown, who is also a labor organizer and assistant professor.
She pictures a Pacific Avenue that’s more inviting and accessible to tourists and locals alike, saying she would like for local governments to be more supportive of local small businesses.
The Sept. 22 PechaKucha will have a tabling area for local nonprofits and stakeholders, like the Walnut Avenue Women’s Center, the Museum of Art & History, the Coastal Watershed Council and the Santa Cruz Warriors.
Chip concedes that the new setup won’t let a moderator ask tough follow-up questions at the event if someone makes up some lofty facts
“It’s totally up to them. There is a risk,” Chip says. “We can have a candidate sell us a nice vision that’s based on nothing, but who knows?”
Of course, there are other approaches for keeping candidates honest, too. The best forum I ever attended was 2012’s InsideScoop at Kuumbwa Jazz, hosted by Cruzio, Santa Cruz Next and Civinomics. Moderators posed different rapid-fire questions for various candidates to keep everyone guessing. At a couple of points, they asked for “a show of hands” to see who supported items like public wireless Internet or a Tannery project for tech.
All night, they teased, and even mocked, candidates who gave lame answers.
Chip remembers helping host a similar forum with then-GT news editor Chris J. Magyar in 2008. “We totally had fun with it,” Chip remembers, of his pre-executive director days. “And I was kind of a color commentator. He knew all of the issues inside and out, and I got to be a smartass.”
The forum will be at 6-9 p.m. at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium on Thursday, Sept. 22. Visit downtownsantacruz.com to register. Free.
Wayne Hancock has no use for setlists. The gravelly voiced, tough-talking underground music legend in the making prefers to let his audiences holler out the songs they want to hear—or he just plays whatever he’s in the mood for, and his band of ace musicians joins in.
In the tradition of Western swing great Bob Wills, Hancock’s band members never know when it will be their turn to step into the spotlight for a solo. He just calls out someone’s name, mid-tune, when he wants him to do his thing.
“Nobody plays a part unless I say,” says Hancock matter-of-factly.
He tells the story of a fan who once said to him, “I really like your music, but I hate it that you introduce everybody every time.” One of Hancock’s friends responded, “He’s not introducing them, dumbass, he’s calling a part.”
The old-school technique keeps the band members on their toes and keeps Hancock’s sound fresh and tight. The group doesn’t rehearse—they don’t need to. Instead, they keep their skills honed playing hundreds of dates a year, with each performance driven by Hancock’s be-ready-for-anything approach.
“No one can ever come to my show and say, ‘I know just what he’s going to play,’” he says. “No you don’t. I might pull out a song that I haven’t sung in 25 years.”
When asked how he describes his sound, which straddles country, rockabilly, Western swing, roadhouse blues and big band, he admits that he struggles with that question. He grew up listening to Hank Williams, Bob Wills and Glenn Miller, and hasn’t strayed too far from those classic sounds—he just pulls them all into one.
“I’ve tried different names over the years,” he says, “Juke joint swing and this and that, and, of course, honkytonk. I tell people it’s like boogie swing. It’s dancing music.”
As with all great dancing music, a Wayne Hancock concert is quite a scene. People party and carry on in the great juke joint tradition, yelling at the band for the songs they want to hear, or whatever else is on their mind. This is just the way Hancock likes it.
“I don’t like an audience I can’t cuss at and get a response back from,” he says with a laugh.
Beyond the good-time nature of his shows, Hancock considers his work a service. He has a tattoo that reads “Play ’til you die,” and his idea of his perfect death—which he stresses he doesn’t want to happen now—is to die backstage, by himself, after a great show. He long ago gave up on the idea of being a big star, but he understands that hard-working people need to get out and let loose among friends. He tends to lowball his fees to keep his concerts affordable.
“We do the country doctor thing,” he says. “We go out to the smaller venues—venues that a lot of people I know won’t even touch—because we like that and it’s a needed, necessary thing.”
He says he “ain’t ever going to make a millionaire living” but that he wouldn’t know what to do with that anyway.
“I think if I had a lot of money like that, it would really take a lot of fun out of life,” he says. “It would be nice to have $25,000-$30,000 in the bank, but it’s more important to make good music.”
Hancock is outspoken about his distaste for today’s pop country music. He says he hasn’t listened to country radio in decades. His last record, Ride, unintentionally landed in the Top 40. “I won’t do that again,” he jokes.
Hancock has a new album due out in October. It’s his 10th record in a career that spans 30 years. His longevity is a testament to his toughness, his consistency and his loyal community of fans.
“When you’re on the road that long, people start becoming like family to you,” he says. “It’s your work, and you’re entertaining them, so you help each other out in that way. We’ve all grown up and grown old together.”
Wayne Hancock will perform at 9 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 16 at the Catalyst, 1011 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. $12/adv, $15/door. 423-1338.
A few years back, I was lucky enough to see Prince when he did one of his spontaneous sets of Bay Area shows. He did two in San Jose and one in Oakland, and I saw all three. At the time, Prince was at the top of the list of musicians I most wanted to see, and I gotta say, he was everything in concert that I hoped he would be.
But the biggest surprise of those shows was Sheila E., who played an opening solo set and also came out to play with Prince. I had grown up with Sheila E. hits like “Glamorous Life” and “A Love Bizarre,” but I wasn’t prepared for the ferocity of her presence onstage or the sheer physicality of her performance—right from the moment she rose out of the floor to start her set, already whirling and pounding on her stand-up drum kit.
A lifelong musical collaborator and former paramour of Prince, she has of course been asked a lot of questions about his tragic death earlier this year. But the best answer she could have given is her new song “Girl Meets Boy,” a haunting, emotional tribute set against a stark melody.
As she prepares for her first-ever “Glamorous Life” cruise—from Miami to Nassau and back over three days in February, with a line-up that includes herself and some of her famous family members, as well as Ozomatli, George Lopez and more—she’ll perform on Sunday, Sept. 18 at the Santa Cruz Mountain Sol Festival at Felton’s Roaring Camp Meadows. The two-day festival features 10 acts, including headliner Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros on Saturday, Sept. 17, and bill-topper George Clinton with Parliament Funkadelic on Sunday.
Sheila E. is a Bay Area native, whose father Pete Escovedo is beloved throughout Northern California for his contributions to the Latin Jazz scene and whose uncles include singer-songwriter Alejandro Escovedo and pioneering West Coast punker Javier Escovedo of the Zeros. She spoke to GT about her new single, her memories of Prince, and just how crazy she’s willing to get to entertain an audience.
Having seen you live, I can attest that you really know how to make an entrance. Are you going for maximum psychological impact on the audience?
Absolutely. I always try to come up with things that I would look at as a fan and go, “What if they did this, oh my god—that would be amazing!” I really try to top myself, and do something different. At one point on my tour—this is crazy, but I wanted to come out on stage with that jetpack that back in the day, when you first saw James Bond, you’d see him flying. I wanted to do that back in the ’80s! They refused to let me do it. Insurance was going to be like a million dollars. I’m always trying to do something crazy like that.
Along the same lines, during your set you do some amazing drumming tricks that are very visual. Do you plan these things?
I live in that moment, so I have no idea what I do sometimes. I never know what’s going to happen. Sometimes I know I want to do something, and I try to think of things before I get onstage. But sometimes it just happens on the spot; I do something and it’s like “Oh my god, that worked, I gotta do that again!” When you don’t think about it and you just go, things happen.
Most drummers sit behind the set, which obscures the physicality of what they’re doing. But you really put it on display. How did you develop that style?
Growing up, my mom and dad had parties at the house almost every weekend. We just had people in our house all the time. So we were always performing. Back in the day, we were listening to a lot of Motown music and Stevie Wonder and James Brown. We would start dancing and trying to mock what we saw on television. We loved the attention of people either laughing at us or clapping.
I don’t think I’ve seen someone who looked like they were having so much fun drumming. There’s this joy that radiates from the stage when you play.
What you see is how I feel, absolutely. I have a blast. To be able to go on stage and do what I get to do, my god. I make myself laugh, and I make myself smile.
Did other instruments not inspire those same feelings? I’m curious why you gravitated to drums—a rare instrument for a singer to stick with.
I think because my dad played percussion, watching him doing jam sessions and rehearsing and practicing to LPs back in the day. Just being around drums and percussion all the time. But I wasn’t going to be a musician, I wanted to be an athlete. My mom was an athlete, and I just loved competing. Betting and competing—who’s going to be the best, I bet you I’ll beat you—it was always that in the house with all of us, all the time. I think it was in third grade that my dad suggested I play violin. I’m like, violin? But it was awesome, because then I started learning classical music, loved it, and got scholarships to play violin, as well. And then I was running track, and I was training to be in the Olympics at 13. I wanted to win a gold medal, I was breaking records in the Bay Area that hadn’t been broken in 20 years. I was also, at 14, on an undefeated women’s soccer team. I loved sports. And then one day at 15, I played with my dad in San Francisco, I think it was for Mayor Moscone. We played a show in front of 3,000 people. It was his band Azteca, an 18-piece band. Playing like that, with that awesome musicianship, I’d never experienced anything like it. It brought tears to my eyes, my entire body went through every single emotion that you could have, just about. My dad was crying, we hugged and I was like, “I want to go out on tour with you.” Two weeks later, I was flying to Bogotá, Columbia with him, and that was the beginning of my career.
That’s interesting to hear about the competitiveness in your house growing up, because I noticed that when you were onstage with Prince, too. How much did you two push each other as performers?
We basically did that naturally, but sometimes we’d have side bets. Back in the day, we’d bet, and it wasn’t even how well you played—’cause you know, we would always try to compete—but other stuff: playing ping-pong, basketball, pool. Who was the best-dressed. We would bet each other money. I think I was the only woman in his life who would compete with him like that, at that level. That’s why we were such good friends—I stood up to him, he stood up to me.
‘Girl Meets Boy’ is a moving tribute to him. What I like especially is how you stripped it down to simple vocals and piano melody. You made it your own style instead of trying to recreate something that would be recognizably ‘Prince-like.’ What inspired that?
It just kind of happened like that. It started with my guitar player Michael Gabriel—we were in the studio at 1 in the morning, some of the other band members had left, and he said, “I think I have an idea.” I was like, “I think I have an idea? Let’s just put it down.” He got his phone, because he had sung something in his phone, a little melody, like “la la la.” And I was going, “Wait, hold on, let’s just press record.” So he got his guitar, and we wrote it within the hour. I was already singing the words and the lyrics. It happened very quickly. When songs are like that, I love it. They’re few and far between, those kinds of songs—at least for me. But we were still going through emotion, it was late at night. I couldn’t even sing the rest of the song—I put down the idea of it, but I couldn’t stop crying. So I had to wait, and every time I got ready to sing it the next day, I was like “I can’t sing it, I can’t sing it, it’s just too hard.” But by the fourth day I had to sing it, because we were going into two days of rehearsal for BET and I wanted to release it after that performance so that people could understand what we were doing, what’s been happening, what’s on my heart.
Saturday, Sept. 17: Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Steve Kimock, G. Love & Special Sauce, Third World, Mike Love. Sunday, Sept. 18: George Clinton Parliament Funkadelic, Pimps of Joytime, Sheila E., Katdelic.
The festival will be held 11 a.m.–7 p.m. Sept. 17-18 at Roaring Camp Meadows in Felton. One-day tickets are $65; $25 for youth ages 11-17. Two-day passes are $115. santacruzmountainsol.com.
This eight-piece ensemble from Seattle is the type of country band that requires some dancing boots, dancing hat, and dancing whatever-the-hell-else-you-need to keep yourself from being a wallflower. They evoke an old-timey swinging country sound. It’s got swagger, style and with all those people on stage playing the songs, a lot going on: sweet harmonies, toe-tapping piano, steel pedal, violin, you name it. This is whiskey-soaked, small town honkytonk music. Does the thought of driving to a dive bar in the middle of a quiet town 100 miles away frighten you? No worries. To reiterate the reviewer’s wise words, they will bring the party to you. AARON CARNES
INFO: 9 p.m. Crepe Place, 1134 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. $10. 429-6994.
Dub was originally an offshoot of ’70s reggae. Basically it was the first “remix,” with the producers taking existing songs and making new tracks out of them. The results were often hypnotic and surreal. Mad Professor was one of the leading figures of the second wave of dub in the ’80s, when producers started to work with digital technology. Mad Professor also helped move the genre outside of reggae. He worked with several reggae artists, but also Massive Attack, Sade, and the Orb. AC
INFO: 9 p.m. Catalyst, 1011 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. $18/adv, $22/door. 429-4135.
From a one-man orchestra to a burning bandleader, multi-instrumentalist Gary Regina displays all facets of his creative pursuits in an evening featuring two distinct ensembles. Best known as key component of the Santa Cruz world music scene via his work with the bands Special Fun and Worlds Collide, Regina has spent years honing a performance practice using live looping, layering various instruments in real time to creating sumptuously detailed soundscapes. He follows a solo In the Loop set with a full band performance, focusing on saxophone with guitarist Baird Miller, keyboardist Bill Spencer, bassist Bob Wider, drummer Brian Loftus, and special guest vocalist Johnny Fabulous. ANDREW GILBERT
INFO: 7 p.m. Kuumbwa Jazz, 320-2 Cedar St., Santa Cruz. $18/adv, $23/door. 427-2227.
With their unique blend of thunderous Americana mixed with garage rock and a country-blues twist, the Stone Foxes have claimed the self-appointed title, “San Francisco’s rock band.” Their swampy sound includes lyrics that span a variety of topics, from gentrification to income inequality. That consciousness extends beyond the stage, however, and manifests in their Goodnight Moon Project: an effort to humanize the homeless through music and cinematography. The project involves a canned food drive; fans are encouraged to donate non-perishable food items at Stone Foxes concerts—you’ll get a poster in return—and the band will personally deliver the goods to local soup kitchens. KATIE SMALL
INFO: 9 p.m. Don Quixote’s, 6275 Hwy. 9, Felton. $15. 335-2800.
At age 60, Sharon Jones has made a career out of survival and revival, both her own and that of the funky, horn-driven 1960s soul sound that she helped usher into a new era. The singer worked as a prison guard before rising out of obscurity through Daptone Records. After being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2013, Jones made a brutally honest documentary about her experience. The cancer eventually went into remission, only to return a year ago. Jones is still fighting—she had to cancel the European leg of her summer tour, but told Rolling Stone last month that performing is as effective a therapy as any pill. “When I walk out [onstage], whatever pain is gone,” Jones says. “You forget about everything … I have cancer; cancer don’t have me.” Her powerful voice has been compared to a train—when Sharon Jones sings, you’d better get out the way. KS
INFO: 9 p.m. Catalyst, 1011 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. $35/adv, $38/door. 429-4135.
Blame Sally is a long-running, musical collaboration between four San Francisco-based female singer-songwriters. In addition to their efforts as a quartet, the members all have various side projects, including solo work and other bands. On Saturday, Monica Pasqual, who plays piano, accordion and sings, brings her new band, the Handsome Brunettes, to town to celebrate the release of their debut album, Is Fortune a Wheel. Joining Pasqual are Blame Sally percussionist Pam Delgado and cellist Joshua McClain. Also on the bill is fellow Blame Sally member Renée Harcourt and her new project, Dear John Love Renée. CAT JOHNSON
INFO: 7:30 p.m. Kuumbwa Jazz, 320-2 Cedar St., Santa Cruz. $22/gen, $30/gold. 427-2227.
A torchbearer for the blues, Bay Area guitarist Joe Louis Walker spans the distance between blues legends Mike Bloomfield, Buddy Guy, T-Bone Walker, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, and the crop of contemporary blues artists. Already a Blues Hall of Fame inductee, Walker has a reputation as a powerhouse guitarist and vocalist, and prolific songwriter. His sound and open approach to styles and genres helped lay the foundation for blues-rock acts the Black Keys and the White Stripes, and his blend of the blues, soul, gospel, rock, and funk is a testament to his depth of musicianship. CJ
INFO: 4 p.m. Moe’s Alley, 1535 Commercial Way, Santa Cruz. $15/adv, $20/door. 479-1854.
Duo Bachaco couldn’t have come from any other place in the world besides Miami. The band’s music has a true cross-pollination of cultures. The members sing in English and Spanish, and they play reggae, pop, rock, cumbia, reggaeton. It’s sunny and fun but has an intense late-night dance club vibe. The music screams “Don’t even come out unless you intend to spend the next two hours showing off your best moves.” A never-shuts-down town like Miami is perfect for this band. It may not be permanent spring break in Santa Cruz when they roll through, but be prepared to go all in. AC
INFO: 9 p.m. Moe’s Alley, 1535 Commercial Way, Santa Cruz. $7/adv, $10/door. 479-1854.
This year has dealt some heavy blows to music lovers, with the loss of David Bowie, Prince, and Bernie Worrell to name just a few. The folk music world took a huge hit with the passing of Guy Clark. One of the finest songwriters of the last 50 years, Clark balanced his stuff-that-works approach to life and music with a musical sensibility that made him one of the great singer-songwriters of his time. On Sunday, local acts, including Sharon Allen, Sherry Austin, Carolyn Sills & Gerard Egan, Michael Gaither, and KPIG’s Sleepy John Sandidge pay tribute to the legend. Proceeds benefit victims of the Sobranes fire. CJ
INFO: 7:30 p.m. Kuumbwa Jazz, 320-2 Cedar St., Santa Cruz. $25/gen, $40/gold. 427-2227.
Folk trio from Prince Edward Island, Canada. Wednesday at Don Quixote’s
Minneapolis-based sibling duo supports Brett Dennen. Wednesday at Rio Theatre
Celebrated blues guitarist out of Nashville. Friday at Pocket
Dark Star Orchestra founding member and his ace band. Friday at Moe’s Alley
British indie-rockers. Monday at Catalyst
For four decades, Radical Reels has brought adrenaline-inducing action films about climbing, paddling, biking, BASE jumping and snow sports to audiences around the world. Presented by the Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival, the mini-fest is a traveling selection of the best films from Radical Reels night at Banff. This year’s topics include balloon skiing (yes, that’s a thing.), mountain biking in Africa, scouting snowboard runs with paragliders, backcountry skiing in Japan and more.
INFO: 7 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 25. Rio Theatre, 1205 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. $16. 423-8209. WANT TO GO? Go to santacruz.com/giveaways before 11 a.m. on Thursday, Sept. 22 to find out how you could win a pair of gold circle tickets to the showing.
“Patient Zero,” the opening track off of local band SA90’s debut record Johnny On The Phone, could be a lost X track—emotionally intense, dissonant dark punk rock.
The rest of the record is solid, too, from start to finish. That may be because, although SA90 is relatively new to the local scene, most of the members are long-time punkers. Several used to be in the Sealants, and before that a whole slew of other punk rock bands. Now in their 40s, they continue to rock out, talk shit about hippies, and live the punk rock lifestyle.
“I feel like I’m still doing the same things I was doing 30 years ago, how I live my life,” says bassist Mark Hanford. “The reason punk rock has lasted as long as it has is because it never really had a goal. It had the goal of upsetting the status quo, but it didn’t have the goal of making the world a better place. Being an adult doesn’t preclude being able to play this really fun, sometimes silly, sometimes intense music.”
The one addition to SA90 who’s newer to the scene is singer Celina Bottini, who brings a lot of the emotional intensity to the music. She writes all of the lyrics, and they are a reflection of her not-so-stable life growing up.
“It really helps me to express a lot of dark periods in my life that I’ve overcome. It’s been therapeutic to me, where I can start talking about events, situations, relationships that tortured me for years,” Bottini says.
The musicians and Bottini are coming from two very different places, but the band connects in a very visceral place. As Hanford puts it: “It’s like three guys that didn’t have a rough childhood picked up this girl that had a really tough childhood, and gave her an outlet to express herself.”
INFO: 9 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 21. Blue Lagoon, 923 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. $5. 423-7117.
09/14/16 Update: Mark Hanford identified as the bassist.
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