Quick Take
Jane Wiedlin of the pioneering pop-punk band the Go-Go's comes to Santa Cruz in the debut of "Legends Live and Local," a new performance series featuring an in-depth on-stage interview and musical performance with Wiedlin leading a band of local musicians at the Museum of Art & History. The event is the first of what could be a series of similar gatherings.
You buy your ticket to see an admired musician or musicians live and you expect a lot of great music and maybe, just maybe, a few great anecdotes in between songs. But a new partnership in Santa Cruz is creating an entirely new entertainment model.
Imagine a performer coming out on stage to sit with an interviewer for a revealing conversation about her early days, career, private life or views on pertinent subjects or people. Then, she straps on a guitar and performs a short set of favorites and/or surprises with an impromptu band of well-regarded local musicians.
That’s the game plan behind “Legends Live and Local,” a potential new performance series presented by author Jennifer Otter Bickerdike and Matthew Swinnerton of Event Santa Cruz. The event is scheduled for July 17 at the Museum of Art & History in downtown Santa Cruz, and will feature Jane Wiedlin, the guitarist for the celebrated 1980s band the Go-Go’s and an accomplished singer-songwriter in her own right.
Wiedlin will come to Santa Cruz to sit for an on-stage interview with Bickerdike, a scholar in the field of fandom and an accomplished writer and biographer — she published the definitive history of The Bangles earlier this year. The Santa Cruz native is also a longtime former music-industry insider, and in her life as an insider and academic, she has amassed an impressive contact list of well-known artists.
After chatting about her early days in the Los Angeles punk-music scene, her life at the height of stardom with the Go-Go’s and her personal music, Wiedlin will perform solo and then with a band of local musicians that includes Swan Porter, Marek Fulop-Furlano, Dylan Von Elgg, Gabi Bravo, Jerad Fox and David Da Silva.
Wiedlin will arrive a day or two earlier to rehearse three songs with the assembled band. “If we can get this kind of caliber of artists to come to Santa Cruz,” said Bickerdike, “doing this really hands-on mentorship with people, and creating a buzz, then it’ll make more and more people want to come out and experience it.”
Wiedlin, 67, was a college student in Los Angeles when the L.A. punk scene began to emerge in the late 1970s. She and singer Belinda Carlisle formed the Go-Go’s as a punk band, though they emerged in the early 1980s as a hit-making all-female new-wave pop band, largely on the strength of the dangerously infectious hit “Our Lips Are Sealed,” which Wiedlin co-wrote. The band was eventually inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as well as into the California Hall of Fame.
As a solo artist, Wiedlin went on to record and release four solo albums and another with the band Frosted. She also went on to a fruitful career as an actor in films and television.
Part of Bickerdike’s vision is to create another kind of experience for artists to connect with their fan base, rather than just another show on the schedule.
“My dream,” said Bickerdike, “is when people come to San Francisco or [The Mountain Winery in] Saratoga, they’ll be like, ‘OK, but I want to go down to Santa Cruz to do Legends Live & Local.'”
The Wiedlin event is the only one of the series that’s been scheduled thus far. Whether or not “Legends Live and Local” becomes a Santa Cruz tradition depends largely on how audiences react to the show. Bickerdike said that she already has up to five other performers interested in doing a show similar to the Wiedlin event. (She declined to reveal their names.) But her first job is to prove that the format can attract ticket sales.
“We’re hoping to break even,’” said Bickerdike, “but the reason we’re doing this is to show proof of concept. We want to show that people will come out to it, because we already know that the artists will have a great time, and it’s something worthwhile to invest in the [local music] community.”
Jane Wiedlin comes to “Legends Live & Local” on Thursday, July 17, at 6:30 p.m. at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. Tickets are now available.
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