No longer under construction, Man/Miracle’s debut takes shape

At first glance, Oakland-based rock quartet Man/Miracle may seem the complete opposite of North Korea’s Ryugyong Hotel, better known as the “Hotel of Doom” because it’s remained unfinished since 1987; it’s a 105-story pyramid admonished as an eyesore and modern architectural disaster. Drummer Tyler Corelitz, however, disagrees. Corelitz, who founded Man/Miracle in Santa Cruz with childhood friend Dylan Travis fronting, says the ominous building now gracing the cover of the band’s debut album, The Shape of Things, “matches visually what we had in our heads.”

Why is that confusing? Because Man/Miracle gets in your head via a rapid firing of bright pop melodies and dance-heavy energy crashing together in hand clapping, crowd chorusing and garage rock madness. Travis often convulses at the mic with his pipes wailing like Erasure’s Andy Bell (or the way Morrissey would if he were ever uncontrollably happy), and the band’s songs tend to be of the kind you want to avoid listening to on Highway 17 when it’s raining; their high-octane momentum follows a stop-and-start zeal that compels you to do the same. Bouncy, uptempo, uplifting. No oppressive communist regime or drab building in sight.

Emily Wells does classical violin and hip hop her way

More and more, old school strings are blazing in innovative ways; the trend of classical instrumentation in modern music is taking that which has long been and transferring it into what’s up next in unceremonious ways. For 27-year-old Emily Wells, a violinist since the age of 4 who procures experimental folk, what pulls her strings is hip hop. “I love rap music and Vivaldi,” her press bio begins. “Nina Simone and Biggie Smalls make my world go round.” Take a listen to any track off last year’s The Symphonies: Dreams Memories & Parties, and your scrunching eyebrows will relax into a state of understanding: a filo dough layering of pulsing violin strings encase hip hop backbeats and punchy vocals that meander between operatic croons, rap attitude and folk sweetness.

Former Sin in Space leader Cassidy Meijer kicks the dust off in The Cobwebs

At the start of the present decade, things were looking bright for local vocalist/guitarist Cassidy Meijer: His indie rock band Sin in Space was one of the most popular bands in town, and there was a sense among Santa Cruz audiences and music journalists that the group was going to make a big noise in the national college rock scene.

That never happened. Throughout his time in Sin in Space, Meijer was living with a heroin addiction stemming from an auto accident he was in at age 18, which left his left hand and pelvic bone broken. “Instead of dealing with the trauma, I got drugged … and liked to stay drugged,” he chuckles. Meijer’s habit led to the demise of Sin in Space in the mid-2000s, after which the vocalist and his girlfriend Sky ended up on the streets of Santa Cruz, San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley, living in bushes and “doing whatever we could to make money to get drugs and stay well.”

A couple of years ago, I was getting out of my car at the end of a long day when I suddenly heard salient live jazz grooves blooming in the vicinity. Pulled by musical gravity, I followed the polyrhythmic beats and found myself at the steps to a quaint red house. There I was, smack in the middle of a normally quiet Westside neighborhood; I could almost see the cartoon musical notes fluttering out the window and into the dark night. What else to do but knock on the door to investigate further? When that door opened, guitarist Sweeney Schragg stood perplexed as I told him how his music had led me to his home; his crooked-necked expression looked at me like I was a peculiar character who’d lost my way off Pacific Avenue. ... And that was my first meeting with Santa Cruz jazz guitar trio Quasimodal. Still practicing in that same tight living room, Schragg and co. (Pete Novembre on bass and Chris Haskett on drums) are celebrating a new CD on Thursday, Oct. 29. Delivering Discordia Concors to Kuumbwa’s dinner and jazz series, Quasimodal brings metal-loving Novembre’s aggressive attacks on standup and electric bass, Haskett’s uptempo swing and Latin nuances, and Schragg’s rhythm and blues rock past and Cabrillo College-trained jazz songwriting.  “There’s method in the madness,” a soft-spoken Schragg explains how he constructs chord progressions as vehicles for improv, in which instrumental mayhem meets to morph into harmony. “I want to write interesting melodic structures,” the 59-year-old begins, “so that people appreciate it with intellectual curiosity.” Stridently funneling all three musicians’ diverse techniques into one sound that’s footed in traditional jazz, Quasimodal can juggle light bossa nova ballads to heavier tones of rock power all on one stage. Offstage, however, I still sometimes catch Schragg crisply fingerpicking his Gibson L-5 and conjuring his next tune on his porch in front of that same ol’ door. The address? That’s my secret—the rest of y’all can catch him with Quasimodal at the Kuumbwa.

Lacy J. Dalton’s songs have an eerie way of coming true

Apparently when Lacy J. Dalton moved from Santa Cruz to Nashville in the late ’70s, she remained connected to this town in spirit: At the moment when the Loma Prieta Earthquake hit, the country music star was in the studio with Glenn Campbell, recording a duet called “Shaky Ground” that she’d recently written with tunesmiths Even Stevens and Hillary Kanter. The song was about, of all things, earthquakes. “It was just so weird!” the singer/guitarist/songwriter recalls. “And I got a call that there was a terrible earthquake in California.”

Once in awhile, a band hits the scene with a force like some astral phenomenon striking the sky; you can’t ignore it and its colorful, startling resonance leaves you looking for more. Maybe it’s no coincidence, then, that rock trio Green Flash has the name that it does: The band thrusts well-manicured musical ass-kickings seemingly delivered with a slow smile. Edgy. Raw. Intoxicatingly warm. Carly Flies churns out both heavily distorted electric guitar riffs and patient, clean fingerpicking embedded with drummer Peter Wallner’s hard-driving beats—with each citing Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine as influences. Then there’s bassist Raya Heffernan, who pilots the melodies and dramatic swagger with unrestrained, piercing vocals that wrap the artful package together like a shiny bow. The band, which started as a duo last year and solidified with Wallner in April, already has buzz around it and plays Thursday, Oct. 22 with Kurt Vile & The Violators.

Karl Denson gets vocal on his new album, Brother’s Keeper
When it comes to music, funk/jazz saxophonist Karl Denson is a man of few words. Up until now, the output we’ve heard from his band Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe (KDTY) has been largely instrumental, with the vocal tunes serving to figuratively tap a spoon against a glass and raise a toast in the middle of the dance party. KDTY’s latest album, the Motown-flavored Brother’s Keeper, however, is dominated not by instrumental acrobatics, but by singing. If Denson has become unexpectedly vocal on his latest offering, perhaps it’s because he has a message to deliver: In an era when the modern conveniences and freedoms that we enjoy also keep us separate from one another, Brother’s Keeper is a call for people to become more involved in the world around them.

Dark Star Orchestra lights up a rare acoustic show
Formed in 1997 as a Chicago bar band that played Grateful Dead tunes, Dark Star Orchestra (DSO) soon began touring upwards of 200 nights a year. With an increasing number of people hungry to see DSO, the band now plays the same large concert halls at which the original 1960s iconic band used to perform. DSO lead guitarist John Kadlecik—talking from the road in Seattle—reflects on the early years. “I had been initially playing with another Dead cover band, but my idea was to recreate shows in their entirety,” he reminisces. “When DSO caught on, we all quit our day jobs.”

Steve Earle recalls the late great Townes Van Zandt

Steve Earle’s admiration for Townes Van Zandt is nearly as legendary as the two men themselves. Point one: A teenage Earle started following the iconic country singer-songwriter upon discovering him in Houston back in 1972. Point two: He named his first son after him, the emerging Justin Townes Earle who’s now commanding attention for his own potent honky tonk delivery and lyrical skills. Point three: He just released an entire album covering 15 Van Zandt songs, simply titled Townes. Recording the core vocals and guitar tracks live in his New York apartment last September, the gritty Grammy-winning Earle is now taking the musical tribute—and his memories of one of the most underappreciated and prolific poets—on the road, and he’ll be hitting The Rio at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 7. When he talks about Van Zandt, whose infamous life of alcohol and drug abuse ended on New Year’s Day of 1997 at the age of 52, Earle’s tone shifts restlessly between poignant awe of the man and his influence, to somber lament (and riled frustration) for the fame, health and success that his idol never obtained. Like Van Zandt, Earle rose in the growlin’ blues, country-rock songwriting ranks only to fall to his own substance abuse and eventual imprisonment in the early ’90s. Unlike Van Zandt, he made it out of the darkness—sobering up and singing again to reclaim himself, a family and his lauded career. Townes Van Zandt epitomized the struggling, self-destructive folk phenom that could never quite enjoy the brilliance he emanated, and now Steve Earle is giving his greatest mentor what he could never hold onto in life: the spotlight.

Rapper Really Doe shares tales of a misspent youth
One day in Chicago in the late ’80s, a 9-year-old, self-described “spoiled kid” named Warren Trotter came home to a brutal shock: While he was out, his father had died of a heart attack. “The last words I said to my pops was, “A’ight, Dad, I’m goin’ to the store,’” Trotter recalls.

While a plentiful number of folks in the vicinity have fond memories of following one Jerry Garcia from gig to gig, Markus Puhvel joined quite a different frontman on a tour bus traversing quite a different country. Call him a Fabréhead, if you will, Puhvel spent the most formative of his musical education learning from Cuba’s iconic songwriter and tres player, Cándido Fabré. When Puhvel entered Cuba in 2001 he was a standard guitarist, when he left two years later (after his spontaneous travels alongside Fabré, a “fountain of inspiration”), he was a veritable addict of the tres guitar—and the distinctly bright, joyous sounds of its three pairs of metal strings are now the backbone to his Cuban son band, Bailongo. “I was absolutely transformed by Cuba,” Puhvel says. “I came back and have been playing Cuban music ever since.” With “bailongo” meaning “community dance party,” the six-piece he established two years ago is currently garnering a reputation for one dynamic call-and-response live show that makes the separation between stage and dance floor virtually seamless. Audience and band coalesce as each lights the other’s fire, and a flamboyant, uplifting spirit pervades for an unfailing pick-me-up. “It’s music built for audience participation,” Puhvel says of the band’s set of son standards and original fusion tunes. Polyrhythmic grooves take flight by way of congas, bongos, bass, maracas, clave and … saxophone? Yep. Saxophonist and singer Joe Mancino’s jazz-educated approach on brass replaces the traditional son set-up of trumpet or flute. That bebop-meets-Cuba blend adds to Bailongo’s ability to shift between time-honored Latin folk and jazz sensibilities. “We’re rooted in Cuban traditions,” Puhvel begins, “but taking it different places.” This week’s show at the Cayuga Vault is truly a peek into the closed-off world of Cuba: salsa lessons precede the concert, and a DJ spinning strictly Cuban tunes will fill in the gaps between sets.

Hope Sandoval returns with the Devil on her shoulder

Despite being a seasoned performer and the enigmatic voice behind the dreamy ’90s folk pop cult band, Mazzy Star, Hope Sandoval is notoriously pained by the thought of performing. It’s been eight years since a major tour, and her return to the road with Colm Ó Cíosóig in the Warm Inventions, which kicks off this Friday, Sept. 18 at the Brookdale Lodge, is no light affair—literally and metaphorically.