“Everything is regular in Los Angeles, except us.”
But to answer who “us” is in the case of Domo Genesis and the rap and hip-hop family he shares, well, that’s another matter. Collectively called “Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All,” (aka Odd Future aka OFWGKTA), the 14-person group mixes members into multiple side projects. Mellow High, the trio consisting of Domo Genesis, Left Brain, and Hodgy Beats, is one incarnation, and they are coming to Velvet Jones Saturday.
DramaDogs only produce one play a year — recently, anyway — and have such short lives in the theater (only three performances), that many in town might not be aware of their long existence. E. Bonnie Lewis, co-director with husband Ken Gilbert, stars elsewhere in other company’s plays, but a DramaDogs show is her fullest expression of her art and DD’s techniques. Those techniques were out on full display in their production of “Defying Gravity,” Jane Anderson’s 1997 play about the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.
Or at least that’s the springboard for a play that means to tie together our dreams of flight with concepts of faith and art. Ms. Anderson’s play is a lightly comic collage of disparate parts that intersect at humdrum moments. There’s a Christa McAuliffe stand-in, just called the “Teacher” in the play (Michelle A. Osborne) and her child (Natascha Skerczak) who narrates the play as an adult, but plays a five-year-old in the scenes with her mother. There’s a retired couple, Ed and Betty, played by Juan Rodriguez and Meredith McMinn, who are touring the country in a Winnebago and head to the Kennedy Space Center to see the launch. There’s a NASA engineer C.B. (Joe Andrieu) who spends his after hours at a local bar, flirting with the bartender Donna (Erica S. Connell), and after the Challenger explosion, drowning his sorrows and blaming himself. And there’s Claude Monet (Ken Gilbert), the Impressionist painter who died in 1926.
For a band whose reputation rests on the darker side of human nature, the biggest surprise at Depeche Mode’s packed show at the Santa Barbara Bowl on Tuesday night was just how happy the band was on stage.
Smiles abounded. High-fives were given. There was laughter between musicians. And Dave Gahan loves to dance.
But, hey, the band members should be happy. Depeche Mode has lasted longer than most of its contemporaries without really altering its sound, never leaving that operatic, industrial electronica that fans know since the early ’80s.
Maybe that voodoo that he do is too rarified for us. Maybe people don’t know who Dr. John is, or confused him with Dr. Phil. Either way, as a fan of “The Night Tripper” and New Orleans music, it must have been a little disappointing to see such a small turnout on Friday night at the Granada. At 72, Dr. John has survived and deserves his legendary status. The faithful who did turn out — about half the theatre — witnessed a fine show.
He looked a bit feeble shuffling on stage, dressed in a pinstripe suit, a feathered fedora, numerous rings and jewelry, and using for a cane, his skull-topped walking stick. He took his time while the five-piece band amped up, his musical director and trombonist Sarah Morrow announcing the “Night Tripper” like he was a carnival attraction. But then he sat down at the piano — also decorated with two skulls and various voodoo paraphernalia — and age stopped being an issue.
Depeche Mode will always be associated with their hometown — the very small hometown — of Basildon, England, but Santa Barbara can lay claim to the band, on and off, since 2001. That’s the first time the band recorded some of its album “Exciter” — with its aloe plant on the cover, very SoCal — in our town. Since then, they’ve recorded three more albums here, most notably 2005’s “Playing the Angel” — entirely created at Sound Design studios downtown — and this year’s “Delta Machine.” Songwriter Martin Gore lives here, and is often seen walking about, and has DJ’d occasionally at clubs.
So their choice to play the Bowl this Tuesday, while in the middle of a massive world tour, is a little thank you to a city they’ve adopted.
Dave Gahan has been through a lot of illnesses since 2009 — there was a long bout with gastroenteritis, the removal of a malignant tumor in his bladder, and problems with his voice. You wouldn’t know it from the album and the tour, where he sounds like the Gahan of old. The band is clean and happy. The new tour is doing well.
When is a Danish band not a Danish band? When the majority of its success and career has been spent stateside. For New Politics, the opening band on this year’s KJEE Summer Roundup, that means New York City, Bushwick side in particular. But even then, this trio — two Danes and one American — haven’t had too much time to stay in one place.
“We’ve had a total of three weeks off since the album dropped,” lead singer David Boyd says. “I just looked at the schedule yesterday, and we’re booked until December 21 without a break.”
There were three kinds of cloud cover at the Rebelution concert at the Santa Barbara Bowl Sunday night. One was the marine layer, which by the end of the concert had slithered into town so far that the audience started to get damp; another was the dry ice smoke spilling from the stage; and the third was from the audience and … well, you can probably guess what it was and how it smelled.
This was the audience that had come out to see Santa Barbara/Isla Vista’s Rebelution. Nine years ago they were a reggae jam band who played their “front yard and back yard” as well as garage parties for UCSB students. Most groups like this would have dissipated after graduation, but Eric Rachmany and his group kept at it, releasing three albums, incessantly touring, and garnering followers in Hawaii and beyond, not just here. (Although KJEE has helped them out a lot.)
While the Solstice Parade makes its way up State Street to spill into Alameda Park, the Funk Zone will be setting up its own celebration for the first time. Called Bohemia at the Beach it’s the brainchild of Funk Zone resident James O’Mahoney, owner of the Surf Museum of Helena Ave., creator of Skateboarder magazine, and collector of fantastic ephemera. Instead of a grand event under one roof, Bohemia at the Beach has asked Funk Zone tenants — from galleries and art studios to bars and wineries — to do something special on Saturday afternoon to continue the Solstice themes, but with more of a gypsy, bohemian, beatnik bent.
“I’ve been wanting to do this for a while,” says Mr. O’Mahoney as we sit up on his rooftop lounge that overlooks Helena Ave. and Cabrillo, with the lagoon, beach and wharf beyond. “You’ve got 60,000 people going up to the park. You’ve got your drum circle and you can hold a stick of patchouli. And it’s always hot, so why not come to the beach?”
On an overcast, June-gloomy Sunday night, the Santa Barbara Bowl played host to two acts that defined rock radio in the late ’70s and early ’80s. Cheap Trick, masters of pop-rock, who have always zigged when other groups zagged, headlined a solid show of hits from their nearly 40 years of rock. And Pat Benatar, the electric and exciting rock singer who became one of the most popular acts on MTV in its early days with a string of hits, opened for the band, delivering a two-fer of classic fist-pumping good times. For the Santa Barbara audience, it was a no-brainer of summer fun.
First, it must be good to be Ms. Benatar. At 60 she looks pretty much the same as she did when she released her first single in 1979. Her voice, just a bit raspier than usual, can still hit all the notes. She’s still with her collaborator and husband of 31 years, Neil Giraldo. She must laugh in the face of AARP newsletters.
Four of the greatest hip-hop acts of that genre’s golden age – roughly 1986-1989 – took the stage on Sunday night at the Santa Barbara Bowl for the Kings of the Mic tour stop.
In order of appearance, this would make a great mixtape back in the day: De La Soul, Public Enemy, Ice Cube, and LL Cool J.
On stage it was mostly all positive, with sets chock full of hits and – for the latter two acts – enjoyable light and video shows. As for continued importance, only one of the acts still contributes worthwhile art to the culture.