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Love Your Local Band
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Written by Amanda Martinez
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Wednesday, 14 November 2007 |
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I can’t decide what strikes me more about singer-songwriter Keith Greeninger’s music; his textured voice, a measure of authenticity with its patina of crag and slur or the courage of his poetry, boldly tender and sincere. The characters in his songs have lived and suffered, they’re a little worse for their wear, ragged, scarred, maybe lost but never broken, and Greeninger points out, careful to always use the proverbial “we,” that acceptance and love are our way forward. “It don’t matter where you’ve been, I love you for the shape you’re in,” Greeninger sings in the eponymous track of his latest release Glorious Peasant. The disc finds Greeninger supported by a bevy of instruments and back-up vocals, a departure, he says, from his past folk ruminations shaped only by his lone acoustic guitar; its tracks weave the weary life experience from alt-country with the spiritual optimistic catharsis of gospel, the conclusion in sum of its lyrics being that innocence can be recovered. Holding that belief is perhaps what made Greeninger the ideal songwriter to spearhead a recent project with County schools in which local songwriters helped classes of fourth through sixth graders write and record their own songs. “When kids actually get the opportunity to be listened to, I mean you can’t believe what they’re writing,” says Greeninger. The disc titled Songs from the Santa Cruz County Schools has the requisite tracks that relish the insouciance of youth, including the euphoric “Summer Vacation,” but most of the songs grapple with weightier issues, sometimes surprisingly so as in the lyrically good-natured, but subtextually poignant “I Am Not An Alien,” a track recorded by fifth graders at the predominantly Hispanic Freedom Elementary. “To tell you the truth, when these kids write a song…and say things like they will find a way to end world slavery, I don’t know where that comes from,” says Greeninger. “But they seemed to choose issues that concerned them.” All proceeds earned by the disc are donated directly to County schools. Info: Saturday, November 17, 7 & 9 p.m. The Kuumbwa, 320-2 Cedar St., Santa Cruz. $19/adv, $23/door. 479-9421. 
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Interviews
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Written by Damon Orion
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Wednesday, 14 November 2007 |
GT goes back to the future with former Bauhaus/Love and Rockets bassist David J.
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Read more...
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Interviews
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Written by Dylan Travis
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Wednesday, 14 November 2007 |
Having mastered a swagger beyond their years, the local teenaged quartet Vox Jaguars has indie labels swooning
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Interviews
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Written by Mike E. Splain
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Wednesday, 07 November 2007 |
Brazilian legend Caetano Veloso continues to evolve his country’s music with a new record that is indisputably rock ’n’ roll
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Love Your Local Band
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Written by Dylan Travis
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Wednesday, 07 November 2007 |
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There are probably more animal hospitals in Santa Cruz County than human ones. Google counts at least ten in Santa Cruz and Soquel, but it seems like there’s more than that on Soquel Avenue alone. It’s appropriate, then, that an indie band as eclectic as Mountain Animal Hospital (MAH) would choose the weirdest of the bunch to name themselves after. “It’s a mobile vet in Ben Lomond that neuters cats and dogs on the bus, does surgery,” explains Nick Overhauser, drummer and guitarist for the group. “We don’t know too much about it, we just walk by it every day.” In context with California indie’s current nature-obsessed aesthetic, the name might scream “freak folk!” Nothing could be further from MAH’s sound, a complex, experimental brand of progressive indie rock. “We’re all into Yes! and old ‘70s prog rock and it’s a modern spin on that, with indie rock influences like the Velvet Teen and Dredg. It’s modern rock texture with the structure of old prog rock,” Overhauser says. A live MAH show is an impressive production. Overhauser and Chris Holcomb share guitar and drum duties (and are equally proficient at both instruments), while bassist Jeff Carroll never fails to turn any venue into an enormous resonating box for his inventive bass lines. Singer Cameron Harskamp manages to croon in an eerie, sometimes discordant falsetto while fiddling with laptops, pedals, and keyboards, leading his band to cathartic prog-rock climaxes. However, all this technical prowess didn’t just come from nowhere. “I think that if you have a great passion for music, you will become a great musician,” Overhauser says. “You’ll always be thinking about it, you’ll always be setting aside time to work on it. It’s just about how much you care about it, and that’s all that really matters.” Info: 8 p.m. Caffe Pergolesi, 418 Cedar St., Santa Cruz. Free. 426-1775. 
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Interviews
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Written by Damon Orion
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Wednesday, 07 November 2007 |
Years of hard partying haven’t managed to kill Ween dead
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Interviews
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Written by Chris J. Magyar
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Wednesday, 07 November 2007 |
Rupa & the April Fishes bring worlds of experience to the stage
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Reviews
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Written by Dylan Travis
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Wednesday, 31 October 2007 |
Hip Hop artist Brother Ali digs deep into his life’s experiences for lyrical inspiration
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Interviews
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Written by Mike E. Splain
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Wednesday, 31 October 2007 |
Women are claiming the spotlight in a genre long since publicly ruled by men and, according to jazz guitarist Mimi Fox, it’s about time
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Interviews
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Written by Amanda Martinez
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Wednesday, 31 October 2007 |
The sitar may have been her musical legacy, but at 26, Anoushka Shankar possesses a sound that is all her own
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