Here they are, nine necessary know-abouts for the week ahead. It’s the new-overlords B9:
➤ He grew up on the 14 acres of the regenerative farm known as Pie Ranch, north of Santa Cruz near Pescadero. And it just makes sense that singer-songwriter Lucas Lawson carries with him the lessons of his Pie Ranch upbringing, which places an emphasis on food production harmonious with natural rhythms. The 2020 CZU fires destroyed the beloved 157-year-old farmhouse at Pie Ranch, and the pain of that loss has also shaped Lawson’s music, resulting in his debut album, “This Dirt.” On Friday night, Lawson brings his bluegrass-flavored acoustic sound to the Kuumbwa Jazz Center, to unveil his new album, “Flowers on the Road.” It’s a great opportunity to see how this intriguing young talent has matured and get a sense of the direction he’s going.
➤ Otter B Books is called that because Steve Lawton publishes books that “ought to be.” Otter B titles, including histories of the “cement ship,” Pogonip and other local touchstones, have enhanced and enriched the understanding of living in the Monterey Bay area. Next week, Lawton’s work is appreciated at a special event at Bookshop Santa Cruz.
➤ Slug and Ant might sound like something you’d find under your refrigerator, but they are also the performance names of the two men who make up the hip-hop duo Atmosphere. Together, Slug and Ant have swerved into various lanes thematically, to return ultimately to their signature obsessions, singsongy odes to angst and struggle. They drop in at The Catalyst on Saturday.
➤ “Bluegrass” is right there in the band’s name, but the Michigan-based five-piece group Greensky Bluegrass is anything but traditional. They essentially play brawny and soulful Midwestern rock using mandolin, dobro, banjo and other bluegrass-y instrumentation. It’s a thrilling Americana hybrid, and they’re showcasing it at The Catalyst on Sunday.
➤ Rugged blues and soul man Tommy Castro has played Moe’s Alley so many times, they should give the man his own parking space. This time, Castro and his crack blues band the Painkillers visit on a Sunday afternoon, which is always a chill vibe at Moe’s. The band comes to town with their spanking-new album from Alligator Records.
➤ She’s a brilliant bassist and jazz vocalist, but Meshell Ndegeocello is also a fiercely independent artist who follows her muse in daring directions. Her latest project, “No More Water,” emerges as a kind of collaboration with the great Black truth-teller James Baldwin, as well as an invitation to revisit Baldwin’s prescient writings.
➤ We are again at that moment of the year — it’s “8 Tens @ 8” time! Santa Cruz’s longstanding homegrown 10-minute play festival again rolls into Actors’ Theatre downtown. The festival consists of two programs, featuring eight plays each. So if you like one program, you can check out the other. That’s — if my math is right — 16 plays, each only 10 minutes long, but all with a beginning, middle and end. Is this a great idea or what?
➤ As a novelist, Rob Osler’s specialty is writing contemporary and often humorous mysteries with LGBTQ people as protagonists. Next Wednesday, Santa Cruz mystery novelist Nina Simon hosts Osler in an author-talk conversation about his newest novel, “The Case of the Missing Maid,” at the downtown branch of the public library. Come fall in love with Osler’s latest creation, the eccentric bicycling sleuth Harriet Morrow.
➤ The Crocker Theater at Cabrillo will be buzzing on Saturday evening as it hosts an event called “A Woman’s Song for Peace.” The dance/music concert, billed as a “creative cry for peace,” is in the midst of a West Coast tour, and it features iconic musicians Holly Near and Ferron, among several other performers. Perhaps a bracing tonic for the Inauguration Day blues?
