The charming Craftsman home-turned-restaurant at 3101 N. Main Street in Soquel has gone through several reincarnations in the last 10 years—most recently as La Gioconda, an authentic Tuscan kitchen headed by restaurateur Luca Viara—and is about to undergo another transformation under the ownership of chef Brad Briske.
Briske, whom Viara praises as “the perfect fit,” was the chef at the location during its Main Street Garden & Cafe days, and after honing his “food-as-medicine” philosophy and farm-to-table ethos as the head of La Balena in Carmel for the last few years, is excited to return home … or, rather, Home.
“I decided to name my restaurant Home because the space is an old house with a lot of charm converted into a beautiful restaurant where people will be taken care of. ‘Home’ is how I want my customers to feel,” says Briske.
Briske was a vegan before teaching himself how to butcher and use entire animals, and is extremely dedicated to sourcing the best local ingredients, which he says isn’t difficult in an area with such passionate farmers. He describes his cuisine as wholesome, holistic, Californian-Italian with a “whole animal and food-as-medicine philosophy.” Briske also teases the idea of doing a chef-served tasting menu at his new location, although he hasn’t quite worked out the details. He hopes to open the doors to Home this fall.
With the sale of the Main Street kitchen complete, Viara has time to focus on several other projects, including his casual and authentic pizzaiolo, Tramonti. The Seabright restaurant, opened in 2012, is flourishing, and he’s looking to open another location in Santa Cruz as soon as he can find an appropriate property. Viara, who was born in Turin, is also starting a small catering company with his former business partner, with whom he ran several successful ventures in Milan and Sardinia called “We Cook the Food We Love.” He expects to be online by November, while simultaneously opening Amore, an organic farm-to-table pizza spot in Kauai.
PARTY ON VENUS
Event Santa Cruz is celebrating three years of highlighting local movers and shakers with a Collaboration on the Lot party at Venus Spirits on Friday, Sept. 23. More than 20 beloved craft food and beverage makers will offer special collaborations, like a Verve Coffee and Humble Sea craft brew, along with live music and local artists. Tickets and info at eventsantacruz.com.
SAUSAGEFEST
Dust off your dirndls, ladies, and button up your lederhosen, lads—Sausagefest is back on Sunday, Sept. 25. This year, the tongue-in-cheek Oktoberfest-style festival will feature a competition between local sausage vendors like El Salchichero and Sun’s Out Buns Out, local craft beer and cider makers, autumn treats and live music at the Westside farmers market lot from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Hosted by Emily Thomas, owner of Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing and the Cremer House, proceeds will benefit the Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks. Tickets at scmbrew.com/events. Prost!
STEAK OUT
I was skeptical when my friend insisted we grab a steak for our backpacking trip over Labor Day weekend, especially since he also assured me we also did not need a grill or pan of any kind. I still wasn’t convinced when he let our cooking fire burn down and banked the coals to one side. I even tried to stop him when, after heavily frosting the outside of the meat with kosher salt, he placed it directly on the embers. Then I walked away and had a glass of wine (because everyone brings wine when they’re backpacking, right?). When I returned, he was cutting a perfectly charred, medium-rare steak that was amazingly ash free. I was delighted to eat my words and a delicious steak dinner on the trail that night. Next time you’re out in the wilderness, try it for yourself!
Thirteen years ago, the Santa Cruz Cancer Benefit Group threw their first Gourmet Grazing on the Green festival. The purpose was to help raise money for their organization, and it’s been incredibly successful in doing that. It’s also become a prime destination for local foodies looking to sample the best food, beer and wine in the area. Event director Keikilani McKay gave us a little more insight into this year’s event.
Anything new that people can expect this year?
KEIKILANI MCKAY: There are about 10 additional participants at this point. We have 29 wineries, breweries, and spirits, and then 30 restaurants. And a couple of lifestyle vendors; art and local products. New this year I have the Turkey Boat—they’re from Pajaro. We also have Odonata Wines—they haven’t participated in a few years. I have the Cremer House, Cantine Winepub in Aptos, Hive and Hum.
Can you explain briefly what the money raised will do?
All the proceeds go directly to the beneficiaries. SCCBG raises money to provide cancer services and research locally. The mission of the group is to help the beneficiaries fight cancer, and provide critical support services for families that are undergoing the trauma of cancer. The idea when we founded it was to simply give back to local services. The national organizations are doing a great job, but you don’t always feel the immediate impact in your community. This is an organization that delivers food to families that are undergoing cancer treatment, and don’t have time to make their dinner.
How many people do you expect this year?
Between 1,200 and 1,500. It started with about 250 people for the first several years, and it keeps growing each year. Last year, we had 1,200 attendees. We want it to grow, but we don’t want it to grow so big that it’s packed and overwhelming. Aptos Village Park is great, and we can accommodate about 2,500 people there. We want to keep it so you’re not fighting crowds.
How has the beer aspect of the event evolved?
The beer has definitely expanded over the last six years, especially with the movement here in Santa Cruz with craft beer. Discretion, Santa Cruz Ale Works, Santa Cruz Mountain Brewery are part, as well as Sante Adairius and Uncommon Brewers. It’s definitely growing into a larger part of the conversation.
INFO: Noon-4 p.m. on Sept. 24, Aptos Village Park, 100 Aptos Creek Road., Aptos. $55-$70. 465-1989, sccbg.org.
A gorgeous piece of property, tasting room and vineyards lie up Redwood Retreat Road in Gilroy: Martin Ranch. It’s always a joy to visit Dan and Thérèse Martin—they are happy, ebullient people who make everybody feel welcome. And their wines are exceptional, so a wine-tasting at Martin Ranch is always a rewarding experience.
Meeting up with some friends, we crack open a bottle of Pinot Noir 2012 Thérèse Vineyards Santa Cruz Mountains – Lester Family Vineyards. A stunning Pinot, this one, packed with gorgeous flavors that will make you want to drink it over and over.
“The wine’s garnet color shows off a real gem,” say the Martins. “Its bright raspberry spice up front moves into a silky vanilla middle palate with a seductive, lingering oak finish.” But I love the wine’s notes of leather and spice, and the overall earthiness of this superb Pinot ($47). When the grapes come from Lester Family Vineyards, you know you’re onto something good.
Martin Ranch Winery, 6675 Redwood Retreat Road, Gilroy, 408-842-9197, martinranchwinery.com. Open every first and third weekend of the month from noon to 5 p.m. on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Nourishing Generations Fundraiser
Nourishing Generations, a local Santa Cruz nonprofit, announces a fundraising party to celebrate bringing much-needed professional nutrition, cooking, and movement classes to kids, teens and adults in our community. The fundraiser will be held from 4-7 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 1 at Hale O’Hana, 2599 Soquel San Jose Road in Soquel. There will be delicious food, fine wine, a silent auction, and live music by Eric Morrison and the Mysteries. To purchase tickets visit nourishggenerations.org.
Bonny Doon Vineyard Day of the Doon Dinner
Bonny Doon Vineyard will be celebrating in great style at their next al fresco dinner at Popelouchum—winemaker Randall Grahm’s property in San Juan Bautista. Grahm promises “a magical late afternoon and evening affair” with a guided tour of the Popelouchum estate and partaking of library wine bottlings. Food will be prepared by chef Alexander Ong and the event is 4-8:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 15. Tickets are $140 for this multi-course feast. Visit bonnydoonvineyard.com for more info.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Even if you are a wild-eyed adventure-seeker with extremist views and melodramatic yearnings, you’ll benefit from taking a moderate approach to life in the coming weeks. In fact, you’re most likely to attract the help and inspiration you need if you adopt the strategy used by Goldilocks in the fairy tale “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”: neither excessive nor underdone, neither extravagant nor restrained, neither bawdy, loud, and in-your-face nor demure, quiet, and passive—but rather just right.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Some of my readers love me but also hate me. They are drawn to my horoscopes in the hope that I will help relieve them of their habitual pain, but then get mad at me when I do just that. In retrospect, they feel lost without the familiar companionship of their habitual pain. It had been a centerpiece of their identity, a source of stability, and when it’s gone, they don’t know who they are any more. Are you like these people, Taurus? If so, you might want to avoid my horoscopes for a while. I will be engaged in a subtle crusade to dissolve your angst and agitation. And it all starts now with this magic spell: Your wound is a blessing. Discover why.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): In my dream last night, bad guys wearing white hats constrained you in a canvas straitjacket, then further wrapped you up with heavy steel chain secured by three padlocks. They drove you to a weedy field behind an abandoned warehouse and left you there in the pitch dark. But you were indomitable. By dawn, you had miraculously wriggled your way out of your confinement. Then you walked back home, free and undaunted. Here’s my interpretation of the dream: You now have special skills as an escape artist. No cage can hold you. No riddle can stump you. No tangle can confuse you. (P.S.: For best results, trust yourself even more than you usually do.)
CANCER (June 21-July 22): The next four weeks will be a favorable time to come all the way home. Here are nine prompts for how to accomplish that: 1. Nourish your roots. 2. Strengthen your foundations. 3. Meditate about where you truly belong. 4. Upgrade the way you attend to your self-care. 5. Honor your living traditions. 6. Make a pilgrimage to the land where your ancestors lived. 7. Deepen your intimacy with the earth. 8. Be ingenious about expressing your tenderness. 9. Reinvigorate your commitment to the influences that nurture and support you.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): What tools will work best for the tasks you’ll be invited to perform in the coming weeks? A sledgehammer or tweezers? Pruning shears or a sewing machine? A monkey wrench or a screwdriver? Here’s my guess: Always have your entire toolbox on hand. You may need to change tools in mid-task—or even use several tools for the same task. I can envision at least one situation that would benefit from you alternating between a sledgehammer and tweezers.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): I’m confident that I will never again need to moonlight as a janitor or dishwasher in order to pay my bills. My gig as a horoscope columnist provides me with enough money to eat well, so it’s no longer necessary to shoplift bread or scavenge for dented cans of beets in grocery store dumpsters. What accounts for my growing financial luck? I mean besides the fact that I have been steadily improving my skills as an oracle and writer? I suspect it may in part have to do with my determination to cultivate generosity. As I’ve become better at expressing compassion and bestowing blessings, money has flowed to me in greater abundance. Would this strategy work for you? The coming weeks and months will be a good time to experiment.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Here’s my translation of a passage from the ancient Gospel of Thomas, a gnostic text about the teachings of Jesus: “If you do not awaken and develop the potential talents that lie within you, they will damage you. If you do awaken and develop the potential talents that lie within you, they will heal you.” Whether you actually awaken and develop those talents or not depends on two things: your ability to identify them clearly and your determination to bring them to life with the graceful force of your willpower. I call this to your attention, Libra, because the coming months will be a highly favorable time to expedite the ripening of your talents. And it all starts NOW.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): You can’t completely eliminate unhelpful influences and trivial saboteurs and debilitating distractions from your life. But you’re entering a phase of your astrological cycle when you have more power than usual to diminish their effects. To get started in this gritty yet lofty endeavor, try this: Decrease your connection with anything that tends to demean your spirit, shrink your lust for life, limit your freedom, ignore your soul, compromise your integrity, dishonor your reverence, inhibit your self-expressiveness, or alienate you from what you love.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Work too much and push yourself too hard, Sagittarius. Eat corn chips for breakfast, ice cream for lunch, and French fries for dinner—every day, if possible. And please, please, please, get no more than four hours’ sleep per night. If you have any extra time, do arduous favors for friends and intensify your workout routine. JUST KIDDING! Don’t you dare heed any of that ridiculous advice. In fact, I suggest you do just the opposite. Dream up brilliant excuses not to work too much or push too hard. Treat yourself to the finest meals and best sleep ever. Take your mastery of the art of relaxation to new heights. Right now, the most effective way to serve your long-term dreams is by having as much fun, joy, and release as possible.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): I propose that you and I make a deal. Here’s how it would work: For the next three weeks, I will say three prayers for you every day. I will ask God, Fate, and Life to send you more of the recognition and appreciation you deserve. I will coax and convince them to give you rich experiences of being seen for who you really are. Now here’s what I ask of you in return: You will rigorously resolve to act on your core beliefs, express your noblest desires, and say only what you truly mean. You will be alert for those times when you start to stray from the path with heart, and you will immediately get yourself back on that path. You will be yourself three times stronger and clearer than you have ever been before.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): If you loosen yourself up by drinking an alcoholic beverage, don’t drive a forklift or ride a unicycle. If you have a hunch that your luck at gambling is peaking, don’t buy lottery tickets or play the slot machines. If you’re drawn to explore the frontiers of intimacy, be armed with the ancient Latin maxim, Primum non nocere, or “First, do no harm.” And if you really do believe it would be fun to play with fire, bring a fire extinguisher with you. In presenting this cautionary advice, I’m not saying that you should never push the limits or bend the rules. But I want to be sure that as you dare to experiment, you remain savvy and ethical and responsible.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): I invite you to explore the healing power of sex. The coming weeks will be a favorable time to do so. You are also likely to generate good fortune for yourself if you try to fix any aspect of your erotic life that feels wounded or awkward. For best results, suspend all your theories about the way physical intimacy should work in your life. Adopting a beginner’s mind could lead you to subtly spectacular breakthroughs. (P.S. You don’t necessarily need a partner to take full advantage of this big opening.)
Homework: Name the one thing you could change about yourself that would improve your love life. Testify at freewillastrology.com.
Wednesday is the United Nations International Day of Peace. It calls all of humanity to gather together in a spirit of peace and to commit to intentions for peace even amidst differences. There are peace day activities everywhere around the globe. Everyone is asked to participate in a public or private activity related to peace.
At noon the United Nations, the Peace Bell, given to the U.S. by Japan, will be rung. Simultaneously we are called to a “Moment of Silence” at noon in every time zone, creating a united “Peace Wave” around the world.
Students from around the world participate in Peace Day at the United Nations. They are called Peace Messengers. We can be a Peace Messenger, too. But first we must know how to bring about peace.
I have written about this before. I will write it again. There is an esoteric equation that tells us how to bring about peace. Goodwill = Right Relations = Peace. We begin with Intentions for Goodwill (in all actions, thoughts and speech). Goodwill becomes Right Human Relations (RHR with all Kingdoms; mineral, plant, animal and human). RHR then creates the first steps toward an active and ongoing process called Peace.
The New Group of World Servers, as our action for peace, will be reciting the Great Invocation every 15 minutes on Peace Day. For an event map and information on how to get involved, visit internationaldayofpeace.org.
Wednesday night, Mercury stations direct, at 15 degrees Virgo.
Thursday morning, Sun (at the equator) enters Libra, and autumn begins. Persephone enters the underworld. Ceres grieves. The plant kingdom begins to withdraw. The apples, persimmons, pomegranates and guavas ripen.
ARIES: The sign Virgo and the lunar eclipse brought to the forefront in your life aspects of service. This is a time of asking all of us what and whom we serve. In daily life the issues of order and organization have become important, along with health and well-being. Virgo asks us to purify. The eclipse lets things fall away from our life. You discover renewed faith in yourself.
TAURUS: A new level of courage is offered so you can begin to take little risks along the way. In order to bring forth the new realities it’s good to call forth confidence in yourself that what you see and feel are correct and are actual directions as to your next step in life. You must learn a bit more about working as a team with care and cooperation. Sharing, too.
GEMINI: Home and work in the world are both activated by Virgo and the Pisces lunar eclipse. Both need a new level of attention, for both are changing. You work instinctively when it comes to family and home. Your wounds seem to be stimulated when you think of work in the world. Recognize them and allow them to wash over you. Take Ignatia Amara (homeopath for grief). Home at this time safeguards you.
CANCER: Learning new things and sharing your knowledge and experiences with others is what is needed now. You often keep information to yourself under your shell of protection. This is good for you. However, there are so many who need your knowledge, expertise, ways of knowing and living. Please consider sharing more. In the months to come you will want to travel and perhaps move.
LEO: Security, your own and for others, becomes a significant focus along with finances and resources, sexuality and spirituality. They are all different levels of resources in your life. Begin with making yourself secure and comfortable. Then move onto others in need. Perhaps they are another kingdom (animal, plant, mineral). Ponder upon what intimacy means to you. It’s time to begin a new creative endeavor (again).
VIRGO: You may be called to act with courage and confidence concerning how you identify yourself. Events may occur in which who you thought were your friends may actually turn out not to be. What this means is that a new journey has begun for you as old ways begin to pass away. It’s good to assess your wardrobe. As we change internally our appearance in the world must change too.
LIBRA: Inner spiritual resources will come to your aid when you feel lost or at sea without direction. Prayer helps, storming heaven does too. Much of what you have relied upon, even desires, fall away. You’ve built up strong inner resources over the years. Though it seems as if answers are covered by a mist, persevere in your prayers of asking and the veils will fall away.
SCORPIO: There may have been expectations that didn’t quite work out as planned or hoped for. There are people, friends, hopes, wishes and dreams hovering about in the airs around you. Who and/or what are they? Be sure to communicate with those who love and support you. Soon new challenges will come your way. That’s the way for Scorpio. It’s always something … reorienting, transforming, dying, shifting, or being born.
SAGITTARIUS: Something happened during the retrograde that was unusual. You were called out to be a different persona, to uphold a new, reality, to assume a different task in the world. You undertook this with bravado and a sense of theatre. But underneath a deep spiritual value came forth. This experience will hold you to something new in the future. As the clouds clear and the mists part, you will understand.
CAPRICORN: So many things felt uncertain, cloudy and misty over the past weeks. Things in form and matter got lost, laid in the sun, fell apart. There was disappointment, perhaps. Now life turns around again, falls into place. New plans are made, new encouragements and enthusiasm. Hands are steadier, ideas able to be turned into action. New opportunities await. They’re all around you. Choose all of them. You laugh.
AQUARIUS: You’re learning how well you can provide for yourself. You’re recognizing that your creative efforts keep you well-protected and cared for. I have written many times that Aquarians are the ones who come from the future. So they know the future. Rather like an “unthought known.” And therefore all that they experience prepares others who watch them for that future, for the times to come. You are valuable. You are our forerunner.
PISCES: There is a seeking for clarity about the nature of your relationships with intimates, friends, acquaintances. Some have fallen away and some you no longer want to be part of. This signifies that you are walking down a different road now, entering into new studies and world relationships, working on new and different goals. At first there’s sadness. Then you turn toward the new lands offered. A new world comes into view.
GT tends not to have a “music issue,” per se, because we cover so much music every week. But if we did have one, this would probably be it. The funny thing is that we didn’t stuff so much music coverage into this issue because we were trying to make some grand statement, or because we were keeping to a theme. There was just so much happening this week, we didn’t know what else to do.
First, there’s Cat Johnson’s in-depth look at why, as it celebrates its 40th anniversary, Santa Cruz Guitar Company is producing some of the best instruments in the world. After spending some time with company founder Richard Hoover, you probably won’t look at a guitar—or maybe even just wood in general—the same way again.
This weekend is also the Santa Cruz Mountain Sol festival up in Felton, and I interviewed Sheila E., who performs Sunday, to mark the occasion. Known not only for her solo hits but also for her collaboration with Prince, she’s just released a tribute to him that’s extremely moving. With her up at Mountain Sol Saturday and Sunday will be George Clinton with Parliament Funkadelic, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and a lot more.
Also featured in this issue are locals punkers SA90, Americana favorite Wayne Hancock, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, and a local tribute to the late Guy Clark at Kuumbwa that should be a knockout. See you next “music issue”—that is to say, next week.
Re: “Is Prop. 47 Broken?” (GT, 8/24): I read Prop. 47 before I voted “No.” I’m in favor of releasing those incarcerated for victimless crimes (such as drug use, prostitution, etc.), which this proposition falsely hinted at addressing. I realized immediately the destruction to victim’s lives that would be caused by including petty thieves. Being a victim of these crimes myself in the San Lorenzo Valley, the resulting negative consequences to theft are: a feeling of personal assault, the inability to practice a trade without the necessary tool, the cost of replacing the items, and the impossibility of replacing personal items such as pictures, heirlooms, and no-longer-made knick knacks. Not to mention the raising of the grand theft denomination to $1,000, which isn’t petty theft to a poor person. Petty thieves were already being released between one to six months—barely a slap on the wrist. They would shrug it off as the cost of doing illegal business, and be back to their old ways as soon as they were released. Is it any wonder that they don’t worry about being caught at all under this Prop. 47 change? It leaves no incentive at all to grow a conscience to become a better person and member of society.
John Cosgrave
Boulder Creek
Market Values
Just finished the olallieberries article (GT, 8/31). So, the bottom line is external market forces forced the berry’s demise, not climate change. Just trying to “keep it real” as Randy Jackson used to say on American Idol.
Let’s not go haywire thinking any warming trend is man-caused.
Tom Legan
Wine grape grower | Corralitos
Online Comments
Re: Rail Trail
I agree with a lot of what Trail Now and their supporters are saying regarding the rail trail. There is, however, one small point to consider: Our transportation infrastructure in the county consists primarily of Highway 1, and is very centered around individual car ownership. The bad news is that climate change (caused in large part by cheap energy and cars) is here, and oil prices are likely to rocket up in the near future. The current price of oil is bizarrely low, and it will not stay like this. If we put all of our eggs in one basket (cars and highways), we may soon be really screwed. No, electric cars will not save us (they require too much energy to make and charge). For this reason, we need an alternative such as a train service running from one end of the county to the other—and more public transportation in general. Kudos to Trail Now for raising issues with the current plan. None of these issues are insurmountable, so let’s support a rail option because our transition to a fossil-free future will likely be made a whole lot easier with this infrastructure in place.
-Alex Yasbek
Re: METRO Cuts
The Santa Cruz Bus Rider’s Association arose to defend our public transportation. The old guard is working to protect the old economy by directing public into private companies, giving to cronies, and funneling our resources into their concerns and away from the base of the people.
— Elise Casby, Founder, SCBRA
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GOOD IDEA
BOOKED SMARTS
The slugs are inching their way toward elite status. UCSC was named the 30th best public university in the nation by U.S. News and World Report in their latest college rankings. It was number 79 overall on the list of 310 national universities, up from 82 the year before. It was also ranked 26th for best value colleges and number 17 on the list for ethnic diversity.
GOOD WORK
SPEED NEED
Santa Cruz Skateboards made the Guinness Book of World Records last week, when Kyle Wester broke the record for downhill speed, topping out at a terrifying 89.41 miles per hour at an undisclosed location on a steep, winding mountain road. Sporting a zip-up speed suit, Wester used a Road Rider board with Shred Mags wheels and Mob Super Coarse Grip Tape.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
Quote of the Week “A strong spirit transcends rules.â€
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.
The Disassembler
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.
BODY OF WORK Richard Hoover, founder of Santa Cruz Guitar Company, in the company’s workshop. PHOTO: KEANA PARKER
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.”
Crafting a Reputation
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.
TAKING SHAPE Richard Hoover says other companies have tried and failed to bring a mass-market approach to Santa Cruz Guitar Company’s craft. PHOTO: KEANA PARKER
“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.”
The Big 4-0
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.”
“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 beforeObama.
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.”
