‘I don’t know the last time we played in Santa Barbara,” says Nerf Herder lead singer Parry Gripp, when asked to lay down some timeline for this very nebulous band. Yes, he says, there was a gig at the Mercury Lounge two years ago, but that was in honor of his wife’s birthday and it was free, so … is that official? Regardless, the Goleta band’s gig at the Mercury Lounge Tuesday is not just official, but is going to see out 2013 and usher in 2014.
The evening will feature two sets by the pop-punk rockers, one early in the evening “because one of the problems of getting old is that none of your friends want to come see you after 10:30” and then another that will blast through midnight with a rocking “Auld Lang Syne” and more. In between, one-time Nerf Herder and sometime manager, music journalist and now DJ Marko DeSantis (aka Marko 72) will spin tunes.
Moviegoers wait in line Christmas Night for the screening of “The Interview” at the Arlington Theatre. KENNETH SONG/NEWS-PRESS
At the beginning of Christmas week, controversial comedy “The Interview” looked like a film doomed to obscurity, after threats made by the anonymous hackers behind the increasingly embarrassing Sony leaks.
But on Thursday night, following similar moves by independent cinemas across the United States, the Arlington Theatre screened a special 10:45 p.m. showing of the film, starring James Franco and Seth Rogen.
he biggest news this year in the world of Santa Barbara theater was the loss of the Circle Bar B Ranch Dinner Theatre. It’s not that the small but lovable theater was in the red. In fact, by all reports it was doing well and had a hearty subscriber base. But the owners of the surrounding ranch wanted to take the location in other directions and so in October, after 44 years, the theater closed with Marc Camoletti’s “Boeing Boeing.” Directors Susan and David Couch put their heart and soul into the little space and made it a shining example of what is usually a disparaged style of theater. It was also a home to many of our town’s favorite comic actors . . . and it gave them gainful employment too. It shall be missed.
The Ensemble Theatre Company finished its first full season at the New Vic and began its second, beginning with David Lindsay-Abaire’s “Good People” and bringing out the big guns for Mary Zimmerman’s adaptation of Ovid’s “Metamorphoses,” showing off all the stage goodies the New Vic has at its disposal, including a reflecting pool. But the stage also benefits intimate shows with small casts, like John Logan’s Mark Rothko bio play “Red” and the campy Tallulah Bankhead-led comedy “Looped.” The year ended with a standby — Peter Shaffer’s “Amadeus” — and a U.S. premiere, the uproarious comedy “The Best Brothers.” Executive Director Jonathan Fox has been balancing the new with the popular these two seasons and hopefully he’ll continue to do so.
We here at Drink of the Week love a mimosa as much as the next garden partier, but as cocktails go, there’s not much leeway. It’s a breakfast drink when you need a hair of the dog but don’t want to go full Bloody Mary. And you either improve the sparkling wine, or you improve the orange juice. (Don’t use Sunny D, people, come on now.)
Maybe you’d like something just a bit fancier over your brekkie. Recently we took a trip out to Cafe Stella on Las Positas, which knows a bit about brunch and easing into the day.
The Old Spanish Days board of directors gathers Wednesday at El Paseo. NIK BLASKOVICH/NEWS-PRESS PHOTOS
The Old Spanish Days board of directors doesn’t keep to tradition when choosing a location for its December holiday party, but this year that changed in keeping with a major announcement.
The organizers went back to El Paseo, the location of many an early Old Spanish Days celebration, and the old location of the organization’s office, to celebrate the naming of 2015’s El Presidente, take an official photo of the new board, and to announce that, for the first time ever, Old Spanish Days will be represented in the upcoming Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena.
Unity Shoppe Executive Director Tom Reed, left, speaks with Jeff and Susan Bridges. KENNETH SONG/NEWS-PRESS
The 28th annual Unity Shoppe Telethon got some surprise help this year, in keeping with its slogan “Neighbors Helping Neighbors.”
Still hosted by KEYT, the four-hour event tries to keep to its tried-and-true plan of musical guests, interviews and tours of the large facility that provides low-income families with a chance to shop for the goods they need, not rely on random handouts and gifts.
Betsy Woyach moved to Santa Barbara a year ago with years of dance experience under her belt, ready to start a family and be closer to her mother and aunt. She had been teaching on and off in town, along with performing in BASSH, and knew how much our town loved dance. And she spotted the one thing we didn’t have.
“There was no competitive dance,” she says. “I grew up in a completely competitive dance arena where every studio went to competitions.”
The California Honeydrops bring the party, and the swingin’ tunes, to SOhO this week. Stuart Levine
The California Honeydrops return to SOhO for a two-night stay this weekend. Two nights, because as founding member Ben Malament says, “We can spread about and give people a lot of different music. So people who like us for all different reasons can get their Honeydrops fix.”
Pretty good for a band that started with two guys busking at BART stations around Oakland. Mr. Malament played washtub bass — what they called the “soul tub” — and Polish-born singer Lech Wierzynkski played trumpet. They played everything from the Memphis Jug Band to Wilson Pickett, from Arthur Crudup to Big Bill Broonzy. And that continues to this day, with genre-spanning music that reflects the encyclopedic tastes of its founders and its newest members, with nothing off limits.
Artist Joan Price’s work will be on display along with pieces by other cancer patients during the seventh annual Art Heals exhibit at the Cancer Center of Santa Barbara. The exhibit opens Thursday. MICHAEL MORIATIS/NEWS-PRESS
An exhibit of painting by cancer patients, some who have started creating art for the first time, will open Thursday at the Cancer Center of Santa Barbara.
The seventh annual Art Heals is co-sponsored by Sansum Clinic and is the end result of classes hosted by Rick Stich, who has been teaching at the center for 18 years.
Lisa Winebrenner, oncology health promotion coordinator at the center, said the class is not so much about learning art skills as it is about providing patients, many of whom are going through heavy chemotherapy, a place where they don’t think about cancer.
“These are people who are looking for some kind way to work through their cancer diagnosis,” says Ms. Winebrenner. “And Rick provides this two-hour-a-week opportunity to learn some skills. There’s great camaraderie, he has great talent, and it’s an incredible program. … He brings out the best in these people.”
The work will be hung in the halls of the Cancer Center and over the year serves as a revolving exhibit of work, serving as an inspiration to others.
One such artist is Joan Price, 59, whose ovarian cancer returned in August after being in remission for more than 10 years.
She has finished her chemo and is in remission again with a new kind of treatment she takes every three weeks.
Ms. Price has done art on and off throughout her life and was happy to take Mr. Stich’s class.
“It’s a great place for everyone,” she said. “It was really healing for me.”
She wanted to take the class 10 years ago but was too busy as a working executive for the Montecito YMCA. “This time I said, ‘I’m going to work on getting healthy,’ ” Ms. Price said.
The art classes, she said, gave her a place to go where her “head didn’t spin.”
“When going through cancer there’s so many things to worry about,” Ms. Price said. “But when you’re there, everybody else in the class is going through it. You don’t have to talk about it. Some days are good and some days are bad. You just have to show up.”
As executive director of the YMCA, Ms. Price was instrumental in starting the LiveSTRONG program, a series of health and wellness classes for cancer survivors.
She knows the physical side of treating cancer, but the art classes at the Cancer Center focus on the mental side.
Ms. Price paints figures and landscapes and some will be featured in the show. The last time she exhibited in the show, it was a self-portrait called “Embracing Baldness.”
The exhibit is a chance to mingle and take in the art, meet some of the artists, learn more about the Cancer Center, and about Exhale products with CBD vapes and gummies to help your body.
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“They’ll say, ‘So you’re in remission, so you’re done right?’ ” Ms Price said. “No! You’re never done. This is just the new reality.” Ms Price said.
The Art Heals reception will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday at the Cancer Center, 540 W. Pueblo St. It is free but space is limited, so please RSVP to Stephanie Carlyle at stephanie@ccsb.org or call (805) 898-2116.
Screening of “To Kill a Mockingbird” will be preceded by a conversation with guest curator Paul Williams and a composer. Courtesy photo
When Paul Williams turned up on last year’s Daft Punk album a generation of folks now in their forties wondered . . . he’s still around? For the guys in Daft Punk, it was the rock opera “Phantom of the Paradise” that endeared him to them. For others, like this writer, it was watching “Bugsy Malone” and “The Muppet Movie.” For those slightly older than us, it was the hits he wrote for The Carpenters and for his solo career.
But while Mr. Williams did go away – into a haze of addiction, seclusion and then recovery some 24 years ago – he’s been back longer than his fans might know. Oh, and he’s been head of ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers), the industry leader in performer rights protection, since 2009. He visits Santa Barbara this Monday to kick off a series of three screenings over the course of five months honoring composer Elmer Bernstein.
The series is put on by the Santa Barbara Center for the Performing Arts, which debuted its new programming back in September with a screening of “Bugsy Malone.” Mr. Williams then curated the next three films, starting with this Monday’s “To Kill a Mockingbird,” January 26’s screening of “The Great Escape” and March 30’s screening of “The Magnificent Seven.” Completely different genres, stars and directors, but all tied together with a stirring Bernstein score.
“These three are a great cross-section of the work that he did,” he says. “I was on a plane from Paris recently and I watched ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ and I swear I cried for two hours and 10 minutes. It is the most remarkable film, there’s some emotional harmonic to it. It’s Gregory Peck’s performance and that fabulous score. So minimal, strong and gentle at the same time.”
If Mr. Williams had to choose two films that sparked his interest in music, he says, one would be “Blackboard Jungle” (which launched “Rock around the Clock” into pop culture) and the Elmer Bernstein-scored “The Man with the Golden Arm.”
“In both those films music is not just the score, but the environment,” he said. “‘Man with the Golden Arm’ is remarkable, and as someone who is 24 years sober, he allowed us to hear what addiction sounds like.”
For each of the three evenings, Mr. Williams is bringing along a composer to join him in the discussion. For the first, Santa Barbara resident Richard Bellis (“Stephen King’s It”) to talk about Bernstein’s methods; for the “Magnificent Seven” he will bring Bruce Broughton, who scored “Silverado” and “Tombstone.” (The third is unannounced). Mr. Williams’ own journey to scoring film was convoluted. He was a musician first, but he says after his father’s death in a car crash, the 13-year-old became obsessed with film and becoming an actor. But music kept calling and his successful string of hits – for The Carpenters, Three Dog Night – led to soundtrack work. When it first came out, “Phantom of the Paradise” was unpopular, a “film even my family didn’t go to see,” he says, but its fans over the years included the two French men behind the helmets of Daft Punk and horror movie director Guillermo del Toro, who hired Mr. Williams to write songs for the recent animated feature “Book of Life” and an upcoming musical based on “Pan’s Labyrinth.”
“The big lesson is that you can’t write something off too quickly,” he says. “Because 40 years later it may deliver success.”
Bernstein Memorial Series: “To Kill a Mockingbird”
When: 7 p.m. Monday
Where: Granada Theatre, 1214 State St.
Cost: $10-$20
Information: www.granadasb.org, (805) 899-2222
