Nothing beats finding out one of your new favorite bands is playing a “secret show” at a tiny record shop for FREE. And the news just got better and better. The show was officially announced a few hours before it started, but in a small town such as ours word gets around fast. To top it off, word on the street was Zach Hill is now the drummer for WAVVES. Holy shit. I had to work that night but managed to swing getting an hour off to run over to Metamusic and see the show. I got there just in time to get a perfect spot and let my eyes adjust to the red lighting before they started.

It was so loud, there was so much feed back and it was so awesome. They announced it was the first show they had played with the current line-up and yes, I now have like hella scene points. (Is that still a valid form of street cred currency? Was it ever? I’ll have to check with my editor.)

Okay, this is the part where I’m all like “Zach Hill is amazing, blah blah blah and how challenging it must be for him to play in 4/4 and so on. And that Nathan Williams was playing his guitar like a (noun) from (place) and his vocals sounded like (verb) with a (object) on a (animal).” I am just gonna stop and go do laundry. Journalism was never really my thing.

Hiram Coffee

There I was. Enjoying iced tea and reading on my porch on a sunny afternoon. I took a shower at around six and headed downtown to grab a beer. Here’s where the plan falls apart.

6:30 Find Bryn drinking alone on the back porch of Pergolesi. Join him

6:50 Grab Bryn and head over to the Cypress Lounge for a sick art punk show

7:00 Burritos

7:20 The Screaming Females kick off the show. So good! This three piece from Philly destroyed. The lead guitarist/singer was this tiny girl that could fucking shred like a metal god.

7:45 More beer.

8:00 Shellshag, a cute couple that could beat the living shit out of any boyfriend/girlfriend band. Taking an interesting approach to drums, they rocked out so hard that you wanted to get what ever drugs they might be on.

8:50 The Cysts, part of some weird thrash scene revival that i was unaware of until then. I probably would have really liked them if i wasn’t distracted by a cute girl. (not Bryn).

9:20 We all got are dance on with Abe Vigoda. This is the second time I’ve had the pleasure of seeing them and they do not disappoint one bit. Last time I saw them they had a tape for sale of their new album Skeleton which a promptly bought and has been in heavy rotation in the truck stereo.

10:00 The show is over but one is about to start at Santa Cruz’s newest venue, The Parish Public House. And we’re off! I hop in a friends car and give up on having a nice quiet night at home.

10:15 We arrive at our destination to find the show hasn’t started yet. More beer! We grab a six pack and head over to a friend’s house on Dufour.

10:25 Three cute girls decide to shotgun beers.

10:26 Hilarity ensues. Having three cans of bud left and one fancy beer and our ranks having swelled to five we stand in a circle pounding the rest in rapid succession always passing the beer to an empty hand.

10:45 We head back to the show to find an opening band none of us are very interested in. We continue to chain smoke and shoot the shit.

10:55 After giving away all my cigarettes (I can never say no to a pretty lady even if there is four of them) I run over to the liquor store to resupply and somehow ended up with a cute little bottle Bushmill’s.

11:20 Oh my god. Botron starts playing. Imagine three kinda dirty punk kids playing the most perfect, schizophrenic mix of psych rock, metal, math rock and good ol’ southern rock. Hell yeah. Also this girl would not stop spitting on her boyfriend then performed drunken CPR on a Safeway security guard. WTFuck.

12:20 ish. Trying to figure what’s next we buy more booze and end up at my house.

Here’s where things start to get a little hazy.

1:00 I never went to college, but most of my friends did. So i have never played this drinking game Kings Cup.

1:30 I’m really drunk. And smoking inside.

2:00 More friends show up and my house mates come to investigate and end up part of the game. I am no longer wearing shoes at this point as a result of swearing like a sailor. Don’t ask.

3:00 my room smells like a fucking bar, but there is half a watermelon. Yay!!

3:30 DANCE PARTY!! the game has been abandoned due to lack of beer. I’m gonna go ahead and say that it was probably a good thing.

3:50 Jay-Z, strobe lights, animal masks, suits, ties, ladies, gentlemen, headdresses, whiskey, jacket related injuries (i’m really sorry about your eyebrow..)

4:30 The people start to filter out, and we start to clean up a bit.

4:50 “Want to watch True Blood??” “Sure!”

Sunrise.

Hooray for S.O.N.S. 09′

-Hiram Coffee (I’m a fucking journalist!)

Mi Ami

Honestly I wanted to go to a different show that night in San Francisco. It was Mi Ami and Double Daggers at The Knockout. It would have been so awesome. I saw Double Daggers play the night before at the Crepe Place and they are yet another fantastic post-punk band that seem to be popping up out of nowhere lately, which pleases me immensely. Hailing from Baltimore, this brutally loud three piece put on one hell of a show that had me running to my car to get ear plugs as soon as the first chord was struck. The lack of guitar worked surprisingly well leaving bass, drums and vocals to deliver a sound that had me nodding my head in glee. The singer was all over the place, tangling innocent audience members in mic cables and almost tripping me on several occasions. A fellow VitaminC4 writer was forced into a sort of slow dance with lead vocalist Nolan Strals much to everyones amusement (but certainly not hers). I picked up their latest release “More” out on Thrill Jockey and I must say I was far from disappointed, needless to say I highly recommend it for those who like that high energy, heavy post-punk sort of thing.

Mi Ami on the other hand is my new favorite band. Their live show I had the good fortune of seeing a few times is nothing short of amazing. Another three piece band now out of San Francisco features ex-members of the D.C. super group Black Eyes and embodies everything you liked about them too. With bass and drums holding down a tight rhythm you can dance to, it allows the third member to lay down spastic guitar and high pitched vocals over it. Their album “Watersports” out now on Quarter Stick is by far the best thing I’ve heard in a long time. If ever you have a chance to see either of these bands live you better do it, no excuses. None.

Deer Tick was good too. And so was Emily Jane White. I didn’t watch Dawes.

-Hiram Coffee

As of late a good majority of young hip kids that are able to rent houses with the help student loans or minimum wage jobs are doing their part to fill a void that has plagued us for years.
These fine ladies and gentlemen have been kind enough to let strangers into their homes and host shows for your entertainment. For the past couple of years a noise ordinance has been strangling the Santa Cruz music scene with a what could only be described as complete and total overkill. It went from your neighbors calling in a complaint, cop shows up, you get a warning and worst case scenario
you end up with a $32 fine if it happens again in 24 hours, to you get a warning then if it happens once more in a 12 month period, $250 fines for you and your housemates and your landlord. To make it even better the fines start doubling if it happens again. But, it seems they have finally let up and people are taking full advantage of it.

Before the noise ordinance most of the shows in Santa Cruz were house shows. I could go on and on talking about the good old days when you could throw a metal show in your kitchen but i don’t think that’s where we want to go with this article. The editing manager has informed me this is not really “a place to talk about how drunk we used to get at house shows that happened four years ago” but rather “ an article to inform readers about how drunk they can get at house shows now.” Now that the house show is becoming more and more frequent with a much lower probability of failure it’s time to start stepping up and supporting your new neighborhood venues. Here are some pretty basic guidelines to follow when attending one of these events.

-Don’t be a dick! You’re in someones home so be fucking courteous.

-If the tenants of the house/warehouse/apt/decrepit old building tell you to leave or do anything else listen to them, they are in charge.

-Do not steal or break shit. That just sucks.

-If there is a donation for the bands, beer, or house throw in some cash.

-Bring some booze, it’s never a bad idea.

-Bring your friends!

Now if you are thinking about hosting a show in your house here are a few suggestions.

-Make sure everyone you live with knows it’s happening. You do have to live with these people and i find it’s best no to piss them off. THEY KNOW WHERE YOU SLEEP!

-Sometimes it’s a good idea let your neighbors know but on the other hand sometimes it’s not. Use your own judgment.

-End it early, avoiding tickets is an under appreciated art form that is very difficult but very possible.

-If things are going poorly and no one seems to be having any fun, add beer. It works like a charm.

-IF SOMEONE IS BEING A DICK KICK THEM OUT! you have every right to and you should.

-Have fun.

Now that the guidelines are set it’s time to set the stage and do as Andrew WK so gracefully said, “YOU’D BETTER GET READY TO DIE!”. Wait, I’m mixing up my WK quotes, “PARTY HARD!”
there we go. Let’s take back the music scene, one house at a time.

Hiram Coffee

“Sounds of the Mighty San Lorenzo”

There’s a new art co-op in town. The Tannery has been going full speed ahead – putting on shows, art openings, and establishing a low income housing option for Santa Cruz artists. It’s pretty impressive if you ask me. I recently had my first visit to the Tannery and got to poke around for a bit. They have a nice little art gallery and a tiny recording studio packed full of old musical equipment that had me drooling just a bit. There is still a lot of construction going on for the apartments, but it doesn’t seem to bother the current tenants that are making all of this possible. I’m still not sure how they got the city to fund most of this though. In the past couple of years city officials have spent a lot of time and money on new ordinances to make exactly what the Tannery is doing impossible, like the noise ordinance that was passed that shut down house shows and turned Santa Cruz into a black void where a pretty awesome music scene used to be. But now it looks like things are finally on the up and up. The “Sounds of the Mighty San Lorenzo” comp is proof that not all hope is lost.

The compilation is divided into two discs, a folk side and a rock side which is very fitting considering the two genres are more or less the two predominant scenes in town. The whole thing is done up very professionally but still manages to hold on to some of that diy charm that all great things have. With a hand printed cover and forty something tracks the comp is a very straightforward representation of what our little town has to offer. It also works well as a sort of re-introduction to Santa Cruz as well as announcing our presence to the world.

So naturally if you’re going to release a compilation with two sides it’s only right to have two shows to showcase both genres being represented. The first night was the folk night featuring Mylo Jenkins, Hod, Birds Fled From Me, Johanna Lefever and various other acts. The second night brought us Brown Irish, The Spurts, A Dark and Stormy Night, BATTLE/MTN\, etc, etc. Both nights were fantastic and sold out. If you were there you were a part of something that hasn’t happened here for a long time. You were there for the beginning of something new and beautiful. The start of a music scene that has long since died in our sleepy coastal town. And if you weren’t there, well you missed out. Don’t worry though, like i said it’s just the beginning.

The Sounds of the Mighty San Lorenzo is available at Metamusic, Streetlight Records, Logos and other local stores. Check it out.

Hiram Coffee

Through Hell and High Water is the first album I’ve heard in a long time that made me remember that “metal-core” didn’t used to be a bad word. It used to refer to bands like Unbroken, Converge, and even Pg 99, bands that pierced the barrier between heavy metal (and its marriage to hooks and melody) and joined it to the anger and dissonance of punk rock. The kids might be obsessed with tight jeans and neon colors, and might care more about their Facebook profiles than the only place in town where they can see shows, but there will always be bands who see far beyond that. One listener remarked: “I thought we were still listening to Coalesce covering Led Zeppelin.” These guys remind you that while hard-core may be a genre unto itself, it still manages to tip its hat to the blues-tinged hard rock of the last 40 years.

More like The Awesome! Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get down to business. I recognized at least a couple of these guys from Harry & The Hitmen, the most technically accomplished and interesting Santa Cruz jam band that I never really cared for. I’ve never been a jam band kind of guy, I’m more interested in what would it would sound like if you tried to play the Fibonacci sequence on a Guitar Hero controller, but that’s my personal struggle. In fact, why am I even writing about music?!?

The Terrible! carries over a lot of the, well, the cred from H&TH, the precision and the fluidity and the soul, and then makes it more… apocalyptic. It’s still precise but it’s extremely discordant at the same time, with a healthy smattering of epic guitar wheedling over a nice solid doom-y bass line. I think it’s how the Pixies would sound if they all at the same time discovered that their families had been murdered. It’s the kind of music I would want to be listening to on an elevator on the way to the 88th floor of an office building to face off with my arch-nemesis who has made a name for himself in the world of organized crime and is also quite good with throwing knives. I back it.

Ethan James

My first thought when Nan Miller started singing was “Oh my God! That guy has a setting on his microphone that makes him sound like M. Ward!” It was just one of those little half-egg-shaped deals, but I thought what with technology being what it is and all that I just might have stumbled onto something ground-breaking. I still think that would be a good idea (patent pending, motherfuckers) but once the song was over and he paused to say something cute back to the giggling audience sitting cross-legged in a semi-circle around him, I realized that it was just a normal mike. There was a little reverb on it or whatever, but it was really all his doing.

This turn of events inspired dueling emotions. On the one hand, I was excited that his voice really is that silky and ethereal and nuanced. On the other, I was pretty bummed because my dreams of sounding like M. Ward are apparently much farther away than a special order at The Starving Musician. Nan went on to give us several more soulful, heart-string-intensive ballads in addition to a very nice Leonard Cohen cover that I didn’t recognize. Make yourselves easier to find on Myspace, people, all of this arduous fact-finding has delayed my trip to Safeway too long already. I found myself quite entranced, and the crowd gobbled it right up. They did, however, call out several songs by name, not to mention some anecdote from Nan’s past, so I’m going to go ahead and file them under “biased”.

In summation, I can’t be 100% sure who Nan Miller looks to for influence, once again because of the no Myspace thing, but I’d wager we’re looking at a roster of folk-rock legends and iconic singer/songwriters like Cohen and Dylan and all the usual suspects. Presupposing this, I’d say he’s done a very studious and successful job of emulating these heroes. That’s both a compliment and a criticism in a sense, but it’s a lot more of the former.

Ethan James

The transformation of the Crepe Place from a funky, old-school Santa Cruz restaurant to the epicenter of what appears to be full-fledged renaissance in the music scene in this town has been a little odd for me. It seemed that overnight, bands like Red Sparowes, who used to bypass Santa Cruz entirely on their national tours, were packing the tiny room at the corner of Seabright and Soquel with people who genuinely seemed to enjoy the music, who didn’t just stand around drunk and indifferent while the bands were playing. This is a great boon for a scene that has long been wracked by apathy and Johnny-come-lately faddishness. Now that dance-punk appears to be over (thank god) for the most part, and the hardcore scene has been reclaimed by the sober people, the fashion of the day, particularly at the crepe place, seems to be of the freak-folk, boots and beads and beards sort. Which is why it was especially nice to see the three dudes of BATTLE /MTN\ deliver a set of some actual Rock music the other night at our beloved creperie.

The dudes consist of one skinny, hyper vegan kid on drums, one brooding, bearded fellow smelling vaguely of whiskey on the first of two guitars, and their leader, a handsome Chinese gentleman with some killer dance moves on guitar and vocals, and they laid it the fuck down at this, the second ever live show they’ve played. The songs veer between instrumental, spazzy post-Don Caballero jams played at Fang Island (google ‘em) speed, and moments of downright heaviness such as the song I know only by the name of “The Stony Jam”, a riff heavy Sabbath throwback that allows the handsome mister coffee to really get his scream on. Of great interest was the song that presented the band as a four piece, with their fourth member playing the electric guitar with a slide. It added a great deal of texture to the songs, which can sound a bit thin at times, and the fleshed out, four piece sound made me think of some of the post hardcore music of the nineties that I used to love and has since disappeared from the face of the earth, for the most part. Think early Unwound, or maybe the mellow parts of bands like Indian Summer and Shotmaker. All in all, a great deal of promise from a really fun band.

However, as we all know, any time you leave the house, you leave yourself open to interaction with any of the endless number of fucking kooky douchebags that this town has to offer. There was this little motherfucker doing his moshing thing in a roomful of people who were standing completely still, and this is made even more inexcusable by the fact that this dude was at least five to ten years older than myself (I am twenty five). Not only did he fall face first and into my lady friend and I (he was apparently in the grips of some kind of guitar induced epileptic fit) he then lay on our fucking feet until we kicked him away. This was then followed by the classy move of knocking the singer’s mic stand over and being so intoxicated that he couldn’t really stand it upright unassisted. It was about nine thirty in the pm at the time, by the way. I heard later that he caused so many problems during the next band’s set that the promoters had to get him in a headlock and forcibly remove him from the venue. Good work bro. First dude ever 86′d from the fucking Crepe Place. Kind of impressive, almost. But I also heard that this same dude’s cab broke down and he had to walk to whatever shit hole apartment or relative’s basement he resides in, so I guess he got his. In conclusion:

BATTLE /MTN\: Awesome, with a lot of potential
DRUNKEN IDIOTS: Everywhere. Be on your guard.
THE CREPE PLACE: Unlikely though it may be, so far the best place to see a show in Santa Cruz at the moment.

Daniel Strong

Worldwide lovers of the finer things are rejoicing at the news that Mudhoney, yep Mudhoney, is back in vinyl and digital action in 2008 with The Lucky Ones, the band’s eighth full album in a mere 20 years of triumphant rocking.

The Lucky Ones redefines stripped-down, “back 2 basics” ramalama, certainly when it comes to Mudhoney’s recent past. I mean, it’s not like the band’s other twenty-first century works (2002’s Since We’ve Become Translucent and 2006’s Under a Billion Suns) were proggy, topographic explorations or anything—far from it. Yet this new one is deliberately and aggressively raw. It sounds as lean and as full-on as any modern equivalent one cares to mention. Recorded in a scant 3.5 days (including overdubs) with Tucker Martine (who also recorded four songs on the previous album), Mudhoney went in armed with a batch of new material expecting to spend a fair amount of time getting it right. Bang—and bang again after some mixing—and a new album was birthed in record time, faster than anything else the band’s done to date.

Borrowed from Sub Pop Records’ Mudhoney page

Wooden Ships, SF Dirty Stealer, Sleepy Sun support and open the show.

Show time: 8:00 pm Tickets $15 adv, $18 door available at: Ticket Web, Streetlight Records 831-421-9200, The Crepe Place 831-429-6994