Fall Arts in Sonoma

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Fall Arts in Sonoma

Full Season

Pluck of the Irish: Master storyteller and musician Patrick Ball delivers a one-man musical and theatrical show about Ireland’s most famous bard, Turlough O’Carolan, starting Sept. 23 at Spreckels Performing Arts Center.

Fall puts big stars and local talent into the spotlight

Edited By Patrick Sullivan

TO EVERYTHING there is a season, as somebody or other once famously remarked. Judging from the action-packed schedules at local arts venues, fall is the season for star-watching. But, of course, we’re not talking about the celestial bodies twinkling in the sky. We’re referring to those fascinating individuals who sing, play, dance, paint, or write their way into our hearts and minds, illuminating dazzling new worlds right here on earth. The next few months on the Sonoma County arts scene offer star-power to suit every taste, but if you don’t know, you can’t go, so below you’ll find our selective guide to the fall arts, compiled by Yosha Bourgea, Greg Cahill, Paula Harris, Liesel Hofmann, and Patrick Sullivan.

September

Sausalito Art Festival

Sonoma Film Institute Enjoy quirky offerings of hard-to-find films (from independents to foreign language to the classics) when SFI opens its doors again for the fall season. First up: The Distraction, a low-budget story of a devoted young husband who strikes up a friendship with an attractive stranger, on Sept. 3 -4. Next: A tribute to the late Stanley Kubrick featuring Killer’s Kiss and Dr. Strangelove on Sept. 10-11. Darwin Theatre, Sonoma State University, 1801 E. Cotati, Rohnert Park. $4. 664-2606.

Gualala Arts Studio Discovery Tour As if the Sonoma and Mendocino coast wasn’t inspiration enough all by itself, the North Coast Artists Guild once again is sponsoring a tour of 27 artists’ studios along that evocative stretch of turf. Visitors will be able to meet the artists, view works in progress, and learn more about the making of Celtic emblems, stained glass, and chain-saw sculpture. Some artists will also be showing at the new Gualala Arts Center near the Gualala River. The tour is held Sept. 4-5 and 11-12 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. It’s free, but affords plenty of opportunities to purchase original local artwork. For a brochure including a map and photo index, call 884-1608.

University Art Shows An exhibit that explores the use of color in three-dimensional art kicks off the season at the University Art Gallery. “Chromaform: Color in Contemporary Sculpture,” which opens with a reception on Sept. 9, features the work of 13 emerging and established artists, including the quirky sculpture of Chris Finley of Penngrove, Sept. 9-Oct. 17 (Sonoma State University, 1801 E. Cotati Ave., Rohnert Park; 664-2295.) The Petaluma campus of Santa Rosa Junior College offers “All Souls: Photographs and Installations by Renata Breth,” Nov. 1-24 (Mahoney Library, 680 Sonoma Mountain Parkway; 778-2410)

Chamber Music Santa Rosa Junior College’s chamber concert season begins in its Newman Auditorium on Sept. 10 at 8 p.m., with the Swensen-Herch trio performing a program of Beethoven, Kodály, and Mendelssohn. Season tickets to the six-concert series are $80/general and $55/students and seniors. Individual tickets are $15/general and $10/students and seniors. 527-437 . . . . The Sunday Chamber Music Series at Sonoma State University kicks off Sept. 19 at 4 p.m. with the Navarro Trio performing music by Beethoven and Tschaikovsky; and on Oct. 17 at 4 p.m. it will feature a guest artist yet to be announced. On Nov. 14 at 4 p.m., the Navarro Trio will perform music by Schumann and Beethoven. All performances are in the Ives Concert Theater. $10/general, $8/faculty, staff, and alums, $6/students. In addition, there will be two free chamber music workshop concerts on Nov. 9 at noon, and on Dec. 7 at 7:30 p.m. 664-2353 . . .

Four on the floor: The Lark Quartet with Peter Schickele kick off an action-packed season at the Russian River Chamber Music Society on Oct. 9.

The Redwood Arts Council The Redwood Arts Council kicks off its 20th concert season Sept. 25 with the Amherst Saxophone Quartet. Other performances: Oct. 23, Geoff Hoyle; Nov. 20, Orion String Quartet; Dec. 3, the Aulos Ensemble. All performances are at 8:15 p.m. Locations vary. $17/general, $16/seniors, $10/students. 874-1124 . . . .It’s an action-packed season full of big names at the Russian River Chamber Music Society. Among the fall highlights: the Lark Quartet with Peter Schickele on Oct. 9; the St. Lawrence String Quartet on Nov. 13; and the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet on Dec. 4. (Plus, although it’s not in the fall, KITKA performs April 9–count on tickets to go fast.) Federated Church, 1100 University Ave., Healdsburg. $16. 524-8700 . . . . A chamber music series for the Spreckels Performing Arts Center features Santa Rosa Symphony music director Jeffrey Kahane and other symphony members. They’ll perform Johann Sebastian Bach’s Brandenburg Concerti–six works featuring various soloists, including Kahane on harpsichord. Nov. 4 at 8 p.m., First Presbyterian Church, 1550 Pacific Ave., Santa Rosa; Nov. 5 at 8 p.m. at St. Vincent de Paul Church, 35 Liberty St., Petaluma; Nov. 6 at 8 p.m. at the Raven Theater, 115 North St., Healdsburg. $22. 546-8742.

Opera Guild Another season of the Sonoma County chapter of the San Francisco Opera Guild’s popular preview lectures gets under way next month, with all proceeds benefiting Opera à la Carte, an education program that brings San Francisco Opera singers to Sonoma County schools. Lectures begin Sept. 10, at 10 a.m., with a presentation on Louise. Other lecture topics: Sept. 20 at 2 p.m., La Favorite; Oct. 7 at 7 p.m., Lucia di Lammermoor; Oct. 28 at 7:30 p.m., Wozzeck; Nov. 8 at 10:30 a.m., Idomeneo; Nov. 15 at 10:30 a.m., Nabucco. Locations vary. Meals are often packaged with the lectures. Annual membership is $15. $8 for a single ticket; $40 for the series of six (season tickets are for chapter members only). 546-4379.

Richard Thompson Hailed as one of the world’s greatest guitarists (by Eric Clapton, no less), Celtic rocker Richard Thompson wears his heart on his sleeve and his intelligent songs under a smart beret. Sept. 10 at 7:30 p.m. Luther Burbank Center, 50 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa. $25. 546-3600.

Art in the Park Stroll beneath the shady trees in one of the county’s most quaint Victorian neighborhoods while enjoying works by more than 50 exhibiting artists. The Petaluma Arts Association presents this 42nd annual event, featuring live music in the bandstand. Sept. 11 and 12, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Walnut Park, between Fourth Street and Petaluma Boulevard at D Street, Petaluma. Free. 763-2308.

The Thrill of Brazil coxinha de galinha and pao de queijo. 5409 Snyder Lane, Rohnert Park. $25 and $50. 588-3400.

Russian River Jazz Festival

Art for Life Compassion is still in style, as the ongoing success of the Art for Life Exhibit and Auction demonstrates. Now in its 12th year, the annual silent auction–a benefit for Face to Face: Sonoma County AIDS Network–thus far has raised more than $700,000 for AIDS services in Sonoma County. Featuring more than 250 works of art donated by Bay Area artists, this year’s free exhibit runs Sept. 15-17, from noon to 7 p.m. on Wednesday and Friday, and noon to 4 p.m. on Thursday. The auction is held Sept. 18 from 3:30 to 7 p.m. and includes food, wine, and live music, as well as a great opportunity to help people in need. $39. Friedman Center, 4676 Mayette Ave., Santa Rosa. 544-1581.

José Carreras This Spanish tenor is one hot ticket–his upcoming show sold out in near record time and at near-record rates (up to $250). Mortgage the house, sell the Lexus, and search for a scalper. Black tie is optional. Sept. 16 at 8 p.m. Luther Burbank Center, 50 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa. At 10 p.m., a pricey post-concert reception will set you back another $150. 546-3600.

Day of the Dead Exhibit Celebrate the memory of your deceased love ones at this exhibit based on Día de los Muertos. “A Tribute to Our Ancestors” includes altars made by Latino community groups; children’s art projects; watercolors; a sand painting by Oaxacan artists; and bronze sculptures by Mill Valley artist Ronald Garrigues. Sept. 16-Nov. 2. Sonoma Museum of Visual Art, Luther Burbank Center, 50 Mark West Springs Road. 527-0297.

Dragonfly Cultural Unity Festival A wide variety of musicians and performance artists provide entertainment at this three-day event benefiting the Dine Nation of Big Mountain, Ariz., and the Mayan Zapatistas of Chiapas. The featured bands include Spiral Bound, Cohesion, and Third I Posse. Sept. 17-19. On a 300-acre ranch in west Sonoma County; call for location. $40. 869-3114.

Something’s Brewing Sample the suds at the Sonoma County Museum’s 14th annual Something’s Brewing beer-tasting fundraiser, Sept. 17 from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. The event features unlimited tastings of hop-infused nectar from more than 25 Northern California specialty breweries. Delicacies from local restaurants and groceries will be available for those who wish to clear the palate between tastings. Prizes including free dinners and special tripswill be raffled off. Santa Rosa Veterans Building, 1351 Maple Ave. $20/advance, $22 at the door. 579-1500.

Smuin Ballets/SF Nutcracker shtick. Smuin’s pièce de résistance will be Chants d’Auvergne, a whimsical and witty romantic ballet set to lushly orchestrated French folk music. To see this terpsichorean treat, point your toes to 5409 Snyder Lane, Rohnert Park, on Sept. 18 at 8 p.m. or on Sept. 19 at 2:30 p.m. $26/general, $23/youth and seniors. 584-1700.

River Appreciation Festival The seventh annual River Appreciation Festival, co-sponsored by Friends of the Russian River, the Russian River Environmental Forum, and the Sonoma County Conservation Council, is a perennially popular blend of fun and education. This year, the event will be emceed by Supervisor Mike Reilly. Along with a presentation by state Secretary of Resources Mary Nichols and appearances by other elected officials, the event includes a barbecue, winetasting, readings of essays about the river, and live music. Sept. 18 from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. $25/advance; $30/at the door (the event routinely sells out ahead of time). Hop Kiln Winery, 6050 Westside Road, Healdsburg. 433-6491.

Glendi International Food Festival Greek treats and more await at this two-day ethnic food fest. The 11th annual Glendi celebration will include Balkan music by Anoush ‘Ellas and Debela Machka, folk dancing, crafts, books, and a children’s games area. Delicacies from around the globe include Greek gyros, Russian piroshki, and sweet-‘n’-sticky baklava. Sept. 18. from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.; and Sept. 19 from noon to 6 p.m. Holy Virgin Orthodox Church, 90 Mountain View Ave., Santa Rosa. $5/adults; free for kids under 12. 584-9491.

Kenny Rogers He knows when to hold ’em, and also when to fold ’em. Country star Kenny Rogers is comin’ to town to perform from his new Top 10 country-hit album She Rides Wild Horses. Sept. 19 at 7 p.m. Luther Burbank Center, 50 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa. $69, $59, and $49 (includes a country barbecue that begins at 5 p.m.). 546-3600.

Petaluma Poetry Walk A journey of a million words takes its first step at Deaf Dog Coffee, 134 Petaluma Blvd. N., on Sept. 19 at high noon with a reading by poets Gillian Conoly, Trane DeVore, Diana O’Hare, and others. So begins the fourth annual Petaluma Poetry Walk, an eclectic (and electric!) series of readings by acclaimed poets that also serves as a trip through seven downtown shops. Among the highlights: a reading at 4 p.m. featuring Suzanne Lummis, director of the L.A. Poetry Festival, and Joyce Jenkins, editor of Poetry Flash, at Copperfield’s Books, 140 Kentucky St. The day concludes at 6 p.m. with a reading by several poets, including event coordinator Geri Digiorno, at Andresen’s Tavern, 19 Western Ave. Free. 763-4271.

Cesaria Evora This acclaimed Cape Verdes singer brings her elegantly mournful songs back to the North Bay on Sept. 20 at 6 p.m. Luther Burbank Center, 50 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa. $28 (includes a special buffet-style dinner). 546-3600.

Susie Bright Full Exposure, her most personal book to date. Sept. 23 at 7. Copperfield’s Books, 138 N. Main St., Sebastopol. Free. 823-2618.

Loretta Lynn Everybody’s favorite coal-miner’s daughter brings her country stylings on Sept. 23, at 7:30 p.m., to the Luther Burbank Center, 50 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa. $45, $39.50, $35, and $29.50 (includes a country barbecue at 5 p.m.). 546-3600.

Patrick Ball One of the world’s most renowned storytellers and Celtic harp players, Sebastopol resident Patrick Ball presents the West Coast premiere of “O’Carolan’s Farewell to Music.” This one-man musical theater piece fleshes out the life, turbulent times, and captivating music of one of Ireland’s most celebrated and beloved musicians, Turlough O’Carolan, a blind 18th-century bard with a colorful past. This Pacific Alliance Stage Company production will be presented Sept. 23-26, Sept. 30-Oct. 3, and Oct. 7-10 at the Spreckels Performing Arts Center, 5409 Snyder Lane, Rohnert Park. $10/general on Thursdays at 7:30 p.m.; $15/general and $12/youth and seniors on Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m.; and $12/general on Sundays at 2:30 p.m. 588-3400.

Sebastopol Celtic Festival Celts in kilts invade the Sebastopol Community Center Sept. 24-26 for the fifth annual Sebastopol Celtic Festival. Beginning Friday at 8:15 p.m., the festivities kick off with a concert by Johnny Cunningham, Susan McKeown, and Distant Oaks. The rest of the weekend will feature a variety of traditional and modern music, including the ever-popular Celtic guitarist John Renbourn on Sunday, as well as workshops, dancers, microbrews, children’s activities, and feats of athletic prowess. 390 Morris St., Sebastopol. Friday night concert: $15/advance, $17/door. Saturday night concert: $23/advance, $25/door. Saturday and Sunday daytime events: $17/advance, $20/gate; free for children 10 and younger. 823-1511.

Pete Escovedo

Cabaret! Life is a you-know-what when international performers Lynne Jackson and Mike Palter bring a revue of their favorite Broadway and Hollywood melodies to Sebastopol on Sept. 25 at 8 p.m. The duo, who made their debut on the Dinah Shore Show and have performed at the Palladium and Carnegie Hall, will appear at the Sebastopol Masonic Center, 373 N. Main St., in a concert sponsored by the Sebastopol Center for the Arts. Tickets may be purchased at such outlets as the Quicksilver Mine Co. and Copperfield’s Books. $12/advance, $15/door. 829-4797.

Divafest

Horseplay: Corrie McCluskey’s White Horse will be displayed at the Camera Art 1 exhibit on Sept. 25-26 at the Montgomery Village Shopping Center in Santa Rosa.

Camera Art 1 Fifty known and emerging Sonoma County photographers–including such luminaries as Baron Wolman–display their most innovative work in this two-day festival. Sept. 25-26. Montgomery Village Shopping Center, Highway 12 and Farmers Lane, Santa Rosa. Free. 539-1855.

Festa Italiana Mama mía! It’s the ninth annual Festa Italiana hosted by the North Bay Italian Cultural Foundation to celebrate the cultural contributions of Italian Americans. Coro Allegro performs Italian folk songs in the afternoon. Plus dancing, Italian dishes prepared by local restaurateurs and chefs, art exhibits, vendors, a raffle, bocce ball, and a kiddies’ corner for the bambinos. Sept. 26 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Veterans Building at 1351 Maple Ave. (across from the fairgrounds), Santa Rosa. $4/advance, $5/door. 522-9448.

Ellingtonia

October

Comedy Competition The San Francisco International Stand-Up Comedy Competition returns for its 23rd year. The prestigious competition has helped launch the careers of Robin Williams, Dana Carvey, Marsha Warfield, and many others. Oct. 1 at 8 p.m. at the Luther Burbank Center, 50 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa. $24.50 and $21.50. 546-3600.

ARTrails Open Studio Tour Investigate the haunts and lairs of 117 Sonoma County artists during this 14th annual studio tour, which encompasses all sections of the county and an incredible variety of artists, from photographers to painters to printmakers. A good place to start the tour is at a preview exhibit running from Oct. 1 to Nov. 1 at the Sonoma County Museum, 425 Seventh St., Santa Rosa. (A gala reception will be held at the museum on Oct. 8 from 6 to 8 p.m.) The tour itself takes place on two weekends: Oct. 16-17 and Oct. 23-24. A catalog with maps is available. 579-2787.

Cotati Philharmonic Le Tombeau de Couperin, and Brahms’ Symphony No. 2. Hear Cotati’s new musical treasure at St. Joseph Catholic Church, 150 St. Joseph Way. Free. 762-4600.

Kid Extravaganza! The man himself–comic Tom Smothers–will perform yo-yo tricks at a variety show that also features extreme BMX riders, teen mariachi sensation Mayra Carol, mimes, hog callers, Frogzilla, and lots more. Oct. 6 at 6:30 p.m. at the Luther Burbank Center, 50 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa. $7-$10. 546-3600.

Sculpture Jam II Twenty sculptors work in teams to create art while the public watches. This year the artists (including Warren Arnold and Ron Rodgers) will craft six pieces around the theme of “Portals of Time.” Oct. 7-9. The old Diamond Lumber Yard, next to the Sebastopol Center for the Arts (which sponsors the event), on the plaza, Sebastopol. Free. 829-4797.

Suzy Bogguss This country singer stole the show a couple of years ago on the all-star Buddy Holly tribute CD, and has shown there’s plenty more where that inspired performance came from. Oct. 8 at 8 p.m. at the Luther Burbank Center, 50 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa. $24.50, $22.50, $20.50, and $18.50. 546-3600.

World Wristwrestling Championship It’s all in the wrist at the 39th annual World Wristwrestling Championship, held this year on Oct. 9 from 1 to 7 p.m. at the Mystic Theater in downtown Petaluma. Contestants from across the globe will gird their biceps to compete for cash prizes in 26 divisions, including novice and master, male and female, and, of course, left- and right-handed. $10 covers the entire day’s competition and the finals. Information and entry forms are available at 875-8879 or 778-1430.

Art Access ’99 For the ninth consecutive year, the artists of the Sonoma Valley open their studios to the public. Oct. 9-10 and 16-17. Free maps available. 938-1729.

Tangueros The suave and sexy tango revue that turned New York on its jaded head will appear Oct. 9 at 8 p.m. Luther Burbank Center, 50 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa. $27.50, $25.50, and $22.50. 546-3600.

Open Studios at Atlier One Meet some of Sonoma County’s most innovative artists and see where they work their creative magic during this open house at the Atlier One artists’ collective. Oct. 9-10. 2860 Bowen St., Graton. 829-1966.

Santa Rosa Community Concerts This community-based music series begins Oct. 10 at 7:30 p.m. with the Boston Brass Quintet performing an eclectic selection ranging from baroque to pop. On Nov. 7 at 3 p.m., the Jacques Thibaud String Trio will perform a varied program. Other upcoming concerts include the Moscow Chamber Orchestra in February, and the Los Angeles Opera Quartet in April. Luther Burbank Center, 50 Mark Springs Road, Santa Rosa. $17.50/concert, $55/all six (Oct. 10 is the deadline for season tickets). 542-2032.

Don Giovanni This Mozart opera–presented by the San Francisco Western Opera Theater–has it all: a Casanova, a trio of slighted women, a vengeful ghost, and plenty of spine-tingling drama and sublime music. Oct. 13 at 8 p.m. Luther Burbank Center, 50 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa. Tickets are $35 and $25 (English super-title monitors will not be visible from cheap, limited-view seats). A separate dinner buffet, beginning at 6:30 p.m., is an additional $30. 546-3600.

Susan Faludi The Pulitzer Prize-winning feminist author (Backlash) reads from her new book, Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Male. Oct. 15 at 7 p.m. Sonoma State University, Person Theater, 1801 E. Cotati Ave., Rohnert Park. Price to be announced. 578-8938.

Santa Rosa Symphony

Mary Black

The Mastermind Word for Word performs this imaginative Alison Lurie children’s story in conjunction with SMOVA’s Mexican Day of the Dead art exhibition. Oct. 21 at 6:30 p.m. Luther Burbank Center, 50 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa. $5-$8. 546-3600.

Cabaret queen: Andrea Marcovicci performs Oct. 23 at the LBC.

Andrea Marcovicci The celebrated cabaret star and actress (remember her as Woody Allen’s brainy girlfriend in the blacklisting drama The Front?) returns with a whole new batch of heart-rending torch songs. Oct. 23 at 8 p.m. Luther Burbank Center, 50 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa. $24.50, $21.50, and $19.50. Buffet style dinner, served at 6:30 p.m., is available for an additional $28. 546-3600.

Wild moves: The Savage Jazz Dance Company performs Oct. 23-24 at Spreckels.

Savage Jazz The Bay Area’s only all-jazz dance company celebrates the 100th birthday of Duke Ellington with two programs featuring a full band on stage. Oct. 23-24. Spreckels Performing Arts Center, 5409 Snyder Lane, Rohnert Park. $18/general, $15/youth and seniors. 588-3400.

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago This talented troupe, which offers what Fred Astaire once hailed as “some of the greatest dancing I’ve seen in years,” employs a wide variety of forms, including jazz, modern, ballet, and theater dance. Oct. 24. Marin Center, Avenue of the Flags, San Rafael. $25-$30. 415/472-3500.

Howie Mandel The comedian presents his skewed take on life and love on Oct. 29 at 8 p.m. Luther Burbank Center, 50 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa. $40, $35, and $30. 546-3600.

J. K. Rowling The popular British children’s author reads from the latest book in her best-selling Harry Potter fantasy series. Oct. 29 at 7 p.m. Co-sponsored by Copperfield’s and Readers’ Books. Location and price to be announced. 578-8938.

November

Double Delight II This family-oriented world music and dance show features award-winning Lakota hoop dancer Kevin Locke, a 40-member Greek dance troupe, and the Minoan Dancers. Nov. 3 at 6:30 p.m. Luther Burbank Center, 50 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa. $7-$10. 546-3600.

Masters of the Steel String Guitar Renowned musicians explore the diverse traditions of guitar music in this traveling show produced by the National Council for the Traditional Arts. Nov. 12. Marin Center, Avenue of the Flags, San Rafael. $18-$22. 415/472-3500.

Festival of the Harps Heavenly sounds abound at this eclectic 10th annual event, featuring Clairseach with Celtic harp great Ann Heymann, German harp virtuoso Rudiger Oppermann, and a newly formed harp orchestra performing a program of early music directed by medieval harp master Cheryl Ann Fulton. Nov. 13 at 2:30 and 8 p.m. Spreckels Performing Arts Center, 5409 Snyder Lane, Rohnert Park. $18/general, $15/youth and seniors. 588-3400.

Tom Jones

Perla Batalla This sublime Latin singer has performed with k.d. lang, Iggy Pop, the Gypsy Kings, and many others. Her latest CD, Mestizak, is a musical pilgrimage through the myths, colors, and cultures of Mexico. Nov. 16 at 7:30 p.m. Luther Burbank Center, 50 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa. $18, $15, and $12. 546-3600.

Balinese Shadow Play Prepare to be tantalized by this evening of evocative Indonesian puppetry and music Nov. 23 at 7:30 p.m. Luther Burbank Center, 50 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa. $15 and $12. 546-3600.

December

Explosive music: Steve Earl is part of the star-studded lineup at the Concert for a Landmine-Free World on Dec. 2 at the LBC.

Concert for a Landmine-Free World Emmylou Harris, Steve Earl, Nanci Griffith, Bruce Cockburn, and Patty Griffin headline this all-star lineup of socially conscious country and folk artists. Dec. 2 at 8 p.m. Luther Burbank Center, 50 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa. $85, $65, and $45 (on sale Sept. 3). 546-3600.

From the August 26-September 1, 1999 issue of the Sonoma County Independent.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Counterculture books

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Counterculture books

Cover Tunes

Nobody’s fool: Flavor Fav of Public Enemy knows what time it is.

New books focus on hip-hop nation, Mexican counterculture

By Greg Cahill

Refried Elvis: The Rise of the Mexican Counterculture (University of California Press; $18.95)By Eric Zolov

THE RECENT EMERGENCE of Latin pop sensations Ricky Martin and Jennifer Lopez has the media all aflutter. It’s a Latin cultural revolution! some say. No, it’s just a couple of Latin singers performing typical pop songs with an exotic flourish, others respond.

Let Entertainment Tonight settle the debate about the Next Big Thing. Author Eric Zolov–an assistant professor of Latin American History at Franklin and Marshall College who has impeccable timing–has delivered an in-depth book that traces the history of rock ‘n’ roll in Mexico and the rise of the native counterculture movement known as La Onda (The Wave).

It’s a fascinating and little-known story that in many ways parallels the close ties between the protest music of the ’60s and the turbulent anti-Vietnam War demonstrations in the United States.

But south of the border, student-led protests in 1968 resulted in a government-orchestrated massacre that successfully quashed the movement.

Zolov offers scrupulous detail and research but never bores us with academics. He deftly explains the ways in which imported U.S. rock and chart-topping Mexican bands like Los Teens and Los Locos del Ritmo sparked Mexican youth to question their middle-class values in a movement that fueled the greatest crisis ever in that nation’s post-revolutionary period.

In the process, Zolov uses La Onda as a keyhole into modern Mexican society, a phenomenon that remains largely a mystery to most gringos.

Move the Crowd: Voices and Faces of the Hip-Hop Nation (MTV Books; $16.95)By Gregor and Dmitri Ehrlich

TWENTY YEARS after Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five recorded the seminal “Rapper’s Delight,” hip-hop has given voice to the urban black experience, and then some. ThWriters brothers Gregor and Dimitri Ehrich have teamed with talented photographer jesse Frohman to create a visually stunning poackage that includes sound-bite remarks by most of the genre’s super stars–Chuck D, Queen Latifah, Chubb Rock, Ice Cube, Busta Rhymes, Cypress Hill, et al.–into a Gen X coffee-table book. You get lots of angry polemic about cruel cops, exploitative white folks, and the need to spread the gospel according to rap.

But read between the lines. A sort of cumulative effect of all these MTV-short-attention-span snippets is that Move the Crowd ultimately offers insight into the fabric of the street life that spawned the hip-hop nation, especially in the savvy, street smart, and independent female performers who stand head and shoulders above their cover-girl counterparts in the rock and pop worlds.

And while you may suffer white-boy rapper Vanilla Ice boasting that “most white people don’t have rhythm,” you also get this more thoughtful sentiment from Orlando Patterson on the white hip-hop connection: “For better or worse, the Afro-American presence in American life and thought is today pervasive. A mere 13 percent of the population, Afro-Americas dominate the nation’s popular culture: its music, its dance, its talk, its sports, its youth fashion; and they are a powerful force in its popular and elite literatures. So powerful and unavoidable is the Afro-American popular influence that it is now common to find people who, while remaining racists in personal relations and attitudes, nonetheless have surrendered their tastes, and much of the their viewing and listening time, to Afro-American entertainers, talk-show hosts, and sitcom stars. . . .

“The typical rap fan is an upper-middle-class Euro-American suburban youth.”

From the August 19-26, 1999 issue of the Sonoma County Independent.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Five Local Restaurants

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Five Local Restaurants

Cookin’ It Up

Country comfort: Sally Spittles, owner of Willow Wood Market Cafe in Graton, has created a cozy country-store feeling at her west county eatery.

Five local restaurateurs who’ve broken the mold

By Paula Harris and Marina Wolf

OUR TASK SEEMED simple enough: Spotlight five restaurateurs who’d emerged on the burgeoning Sonoma County dining scene and made a distinct impression. Piece of cake, right? Well, it wasn’t so easy.

We enthused about some recent restaurant openings, and we lamented the loss of old favorites. Who can forget the perfect pasta at the deliciously homey Mama Angelina, the eclectic Samba Java with its jazzy islands decor, the inexpensive, exotic, and totally authentic Himalayan Sherpa Cuisine, and, of course, the county’s costly gastronomic crown jewel Babette’s?

So, we pondered the current possibilities, jotted down lists, blackened our fingertips scouring the Indy archives, and grilled local residents on the topic.

The conclusion was surprising. Sure, plenty of excellent new eateries have fired up their ovens in recent years and made wonderful use of the local bounty of produce, but how many have made an impact because of their sheer uniqueness?

In this grape-sated county, it seems that the pricey, upscale wine country cuisine, pioneered more than a decade ago by John Ash and Lisa Hemenway, is becoming more ubiquitous by the moment. You could eat out at a dozen such fine local restaurants and be forgiven for confusing one meal with another.

When a couple of the trendiest new restaurants even named themselves after grape varietals, we couldn’t help but wonder if our eateries are overly catering to the zin-swillin,’ tourist contingent who hunger for the total Wine Country Experience.

We wondered about other mysteries, too. Why haven’t restaurateurs whet our appetites with more new and unusual ethnic eateries of late? And, seeing as we’re so close to the coast–with a bounty of fresh fish, crab, and farmed oysters–why hasn’t someone opened a decent seafood place?

It’s something to think about. . . .

Meanwhile, toques off to the following creative cooks who have made their unique mark on the local food scene in the past five years. May you continue to provoke our palates!

Sally Spittles & Matthew Greenbaum, Willow Wood Market Cafe

Willow Wood Market Cafe has word of mouth that many fancier restaurants would kill for. With lines that go out the door for its killer polenta, lovely seafood, and great dinner plates, the cafe has become a sleeper hit over the past four years as a destination for satisfying California bistro fare.

But owner Sally Spittles says she never intended for the Graton eatery to be as much of a restaurant as it has become. “If we had tried to serve filet mignon at the beginning, we would have been laughed out of town!” she says.

Instead, Spittles and her partner, chef Matthew Greenbaum, focused on good basic food–sandwiches and chalkboard specials–and on keeping the space welcoming to residents.

In that, too, the little country-store cafe has succeeded wildly.

Local art on the walls and Sunday night poetry readings (to be resumed later this fall) make it a magnet for west county culture seekers. Cartons of milk and loaves of bread, plus all the little fiddly British groceries you could put out for tea, support the “market” designation. And good coffee and a comfortable view of Graton’s main street make it a great place to just sit.

So in spite of the weekend crowds, the Willow Wood Market Cafe remains a hangout.

“Out-of-towners don’t understand the ambiance,” says Spittles. “They don’t really appreciate the core idea that it’s set up around community.”–M.W.

Willow Wood Market Cafe, 9020 Graton Road, Graton. 823-0233.

Manuel Azevedo, LaSalette

NOT EVERYTHING on the other side of the pond is French, just as not every restaurant in Sonoma serves wine country cuisine. Until you’ve been to LaSalette, you may not believe it, but once you’ve washed down a few spoonfuls of the briny cataplana (a Portuguese tomato-based seafood stew) with a mouthful of healthy young Portuguese red, you’ll know it’s true. When chef Manuel Azevedo opened LaSalette a year and a half ago, he was unsure how the area would take to his Portuguese-inspired cuisine: he was afraid that some people might find it a little rustic. But the response has been favorable enough to shift the menu to almost entirely Portuguese offerings.

In a few weeks, Azevedo will be adding theme nights as an excuse to serve up not just tapas, but Brazilian and other Portuguese colonial dishes.

Azevedo, with his Portuguese-speaking wait staff and a full menu of hearty Portuguese fare (not to mention a grand selection of port), is filling a huge gap in the county’s ethnic dining options–and that’s drawn attention from critics and food fans throughout the Bay Area. We’ve got some great longtime family restaurants, but very little new has emerged over the past five years that doesn’t have California cuisine written all over it. And even if he doesn’t start a trend in Portuguese cuisines, Azevedo is attracting the right folks to his place.

“Portuguese and Brazilian people will make day trips from out of town to have their food, and some locals are interested in the ethnic experience,” says Azevedo of his unexpected response. “They each get what they want.”–M.W.

LaSalette, 18625 Sonoma Hwy. (Hwy. 12), Sonoma. 938-1927.

Ray Tang, Mariposa

THE FIRST THING chef/owner Ray Tang did to shake up the local food scene last summer was open Mariposa, an upscale eatery in the county’s youngest town. Windsor was hitherto regarded as a culinary wasteland–now it’s definitely on the map. Then Tang created a menu filled with unfussy but sophisticated French country and wine country dishes, some with subtle Asian influences. While Tang does not want Mariposa to be known as an Asian restaurant (one reason, he says, is that Asian food doesn’t pair well with most local wines), he does acknowledge that some of those culinary influences are present. “Yes, those flavors are there, but don’t be afraid,” he says with a laugh. “You’re not going to find wasabi mashed potato on the menu.”

Tang, who worked at Postrio and Boulevard in San Francisco, and Lespinasse in New York, says he wants to put “fun” items on the menu and establish Mariposa as a wine country restaurant. Still, it’s his striking dishes, such as the sizzling black mussels with a sweet pepper curry and sautéed pea sprouts, and the delicately spicy lemongrass and cardamom crème brûlée with a flavor reminiscent of chai tea, that really stand out in a crowded field.–P.H.

Mariposa, 275 River Road, Windsor. 838-0162.

John Gillis & Gina Armanini of Cin Cin, formerly of the Girl and the Fig

IN 1997, opening chefs Gillis and Armanini worked with owner Sondra Bernstein to create the Girl and the Fig in Glen Ellen, a restaurant that was unusual in several ways. First, there was the Rhone-oriented wine list, which eschewed the ever-popular cabs and chards, and instead featured viogniers, marsannes, syrahs, and mourvedres–long before these became the trendy tipples they are today.

The restaurant, which seemed determined to be different, also offered flights of wines and ports, an artisan cheese menu and cheese-tasting bar, and a variety of dishes featuring Bernstein’s passion: figs in all their fleshy, chewy guises. “Sondra threw out the basic ideas and we ran with them,” recalls Gillis.

“We started with ingredients at the peak of their season and let their individual characteristics shine through. We didn’t like to manipulate the food too much.”

The creation of which Gillis is most proud is the restaurant’s signature fig salad with arugula, goat cheese, and pancetta in a port-wine vinaigrette. “It’s definitely a favorite among customers,” he says.

This summer, Gillis and Armanini left their Sonoma County digs and opened Cin Cin, a new Italian-inspired bistro in neighboring downtown Calistoga. Meanwhile, the Girl and The Fig’s new chef, John Toulze, is successfully continuing that restaurant’s distinctive traditions.–P.H.

The Girl and the Fig, 13690 Arnold Drive, Glen Ellen. 938-3634.

Michael Hirschberg, Mistral

IN A SENSE, every restaurateur and winemaker in the county is an educator, showing winers and diners the limitless range of possibilities for gustatory greatness. But when veteran Michael Hirschberg assumed ownership of the restaurant now known as Mistral, he took the concept of edible education to a new level.

With his new chef, Scott Snyder, Hirschberg offers a solid and well-advertised program of theme nights and tasting dinners for both wine and food; the current Mistral calendar is an 11-by-17-inch sheet filled to the edges with notes on upcoming events, including a merlot seminar on Monday, Aug. 23, a Tour de France dinner on Sunday, Aug. 29, a chardonnay supper on Sept. 19, and a Select Sonoma County fundraising supper on Sept. 28.

These are not idle ploys to get rid of overstock, but carefully planned events designed to introduce diners to the specialties of our region. With his background with Select Sonoma County and other local agricultural ventures, Hirschberg knows, almost better than anybody, how to acquire and showcase those specialties.

Mistral’s prices are reasonable, especially considering how much education you get, not to mention the great food, and the atmosphere can’t be beat for keeping the intimidation factor low.

Extra feng shui points for creating a Mediterranean haven in the middle of a business park.–M.W.

Mistral, 1229 N. Dutton Ave., Santa Rosa. 578-4511.

From the August 19-26, 1999 issue of the Sonoma County Independent.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Five Stories

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Five Stories

Signposts

Aftermath: Marc Klaas paused the day after police found the remains of his missing 12-year-old daughter, Polly. The highly publicized murder led Klaas to push for stringent sentencing laws.

5 underreported stories that marked our times

By Greg Cahill

OVER THE PAST five years, Sonoma County has seen phenomenal growth. Traffic congestion and frustration, friction between the rural and urban elements, the burgeoning grape-growing industry and its impact on the environment, the skyrocketing cost of housing, the threat of street gangs, and the travails of local government and public officials–all of these events challenge us, spurring a search for answers.

As the community comes to grips with those changes, the Independent has sought to provide a broader voice in the community–though the newspaper has not always danced to everyone’s tune. Our news and features have resulted in a boycott by progressives, a lunchtime picket by angry gender crusaders, and more than a few threatening phone calls from irate gun owners, all reinforcing that old journalistic adage that if you’re not pissing someone off, you’re not doing your job.

There was no shortage of stories over the past five years that mirror this patch of flawed paradise we call home. The threat of the ever-encroaching mall culture. The inadequacy of local law enforcement’s response to domestic violence, rape, and sexual assault cases. The globalization of the local wine industry. The environmental degradation of the Russian River. The endless quest to flush Santa Rosa’s wastewater. The challenge of learning to live with HIV. The creation of a sane legacy for our children0.

Here are five stories published between 1994 and 1999–and revisited for updates–that serve as signposts for that nebulous thing called quality of life–the way we live, who we are, what we make of this world.

The Selling of Marc Klaas

“It’s almost too difficult to talk about all of this,” says Marc Klaas, picking through a plate of Belgian waffles and blueberries at a noisy Petaluma café across the street from the storefront that served as the first Polly Klaas Volunteer Search Center.

“We miss her more than ever,” he adds, his voice cracking with emotion and barely audible above the din of clattering dishes and Baroque music booming from the sound system. “It doesn’t get any easier–not at all. She’s just this little memory that’s always going to be 12 years old now.

“God almighty–it’s so fucked up.” . . .

That was the scene a couple of weeks shy of the first anniversary of the ill-fated night when a knife-wielding bearded stranger–later identified as ex-con Richard Allen Davis–carried Klaas’ daughter barefoot and sobbing from the bedroom of her quiet westside Petaluma home into the moonlit night on Oct. 1, 1993.

For nine sorrowful weeks, the world had focused its attention on Petaluma, where an army of volunteers and police searched in vain for the girl who became known as America’s Child. In a media frenzy, hordes of reporters and film crews from around the globe converged on this usually quiet community.

By the time police discovered Polly’s body on Dec. 4 beneath a pile of debris at an old sawmill just south of Cloverdale, Marc Klaas was a media star–an angry man crying for justice. His ordeal earned him a front-row seat in a legal battle for tougher sentencing laws that social justice advocates–and later even Klaas himself–would regard as a draconian nightmare.

In an exclusive 1994 interview, Klaas discussed with the Independent all the ways that he and others manipulated the media to keep Polly in the public eye, only to be manipulated in return by image-savvy news hounds and struggling politicians–including President Clinton and Gov. Pete Wilson–all looking for Three Strikes to boost their careers.

With the Three Strikes law already adopted by the state Legislature, Klaas argued in vain during the interview against a then-impending state ballot initiative that would make it even tougher to rescind statutes that sent any three-time felon to jail for 25 years to life, even for non-violent offenses. “I just don’t happen to think that stealing a basketball, which is considered a serious non-violent crime . . . should be held over somebody’s head for the rest of their life,” he said at the time.

The first legal challenge for the new state law came months later–a Sonoma County case in which Superior Court Judge Lawrence J. Antolini had refused to throw the book at a transient convicted of stealing cigarettes. The higher courts overruled Antolini, declaring that judges had almost no discretion in these matters.

Since then, 80 percent of the 50,000 felons sentenced under Three Strikes (now in effect in 23 states) were convicted for non-violent crimes, fueling a prison-construction boom that critics say has undermined funding for public education and threatens to stall the state’s high-tech economic engine.

As for Klaas, he is living in Sausalito and still involved in child-safety issues, but for the most part he has dropped out of the limelight.

Mean Streets

Bam-bam. Bam-bam-bam-bam. Two bursts. Six shots. The piercing snap of gunfire in the night is routine for Santa Rosa resident Kathy Ferrell, and so is fear. “Of course I’m scared,” she says. “What goes through your head is: ‘I just hope a bullet doesn’t come up here and hit my daughter.’ I pray every night that it doesn’t hit one of my children.

“Why doesn’t somebody do something about it?” she asks. “I mean, the police are down here all the time, but always after the fact. I guess that’s the way it is with crime. I, myself, as a person, am fed up.” . . .

Back-street boys: Apple Valley Lane/Papago Court area teens posed in 1996 for an article about an area deemed “the most dangerous neighborhood” in Sonoma County. Gangs are still a problem, but things have improved, police say.

That was March 1996. After reading a three-inch item tucked in the back of the local daily describing a gang-related shooting and noting that local police had dubbed the Apple Valley Lane/Papago Court neighborhood that Ferrell and a few hundred other Santa Rosans called home “the most crime-ridden neighborhood in Sonoma County,” an Independent contributor set out for an in-depth examination of the situation. What he discovered was high crime and social decay exacerbated by absentee landlords, official neglect (the Santa Rosa City Council had promised low-interest loans to homeowners but failed to follow through on the pledge), a community wracked by ethnic differences, and police frustrated by limited resources.

Three years later, it’s still a rough neighborhood, but things have changed for the better. “There are still significant issues, but there is some neat stuff, too,” says Santa Rosa Police Chief Michael Dunbaugh. In 1998, the SRPD received a community crime-resistance grant that funds two patrol officers in the area. The 7-Eleven Corp. donated space for a police substation; local Asian, Hispanic, and Eritrean residents formed a multicultural center to help foster greater understanding and ease tensions; and a new neighborhood youth center is set to open soon.

“There are still problems associated with absentee landlords and gang issues, but there also is a lot of great dialogue underway in that neighborhood,” says Dunbaugh. “The neighborhood definitely is beginning to demonstrate a greater ability to push the gangs out.”

Sour Note

It just didn’t feel right. From the start, Raoul Goff, his three brothers, and their colleagues–with their “BMWs, cell phones, and cartel ponytails,” as one local describes them–stood out starkly amid the slow pace and quaint Victorian storefronts along the quiet streets of Occidental, the small west county town best known for its Italian restaurants and as a refuge for old-time hippies.

But it wasn’t just the newcomers’ stylish dress or their sometimes arrogant manner that seemed out of place to folks hanging around the popular Union Hotel saloon. There also were persistent rumors that Goff, a 35-year-old Sonoma County native, and some of his cohorts–who last year bought into a non-profit public trust that includes a kids’ camp, ecology center, redwood groves, oak woodlands, and grassy ridge tops–are devotees of the Hare Krishna faith, a secretive sect with a checkered past.

Some grumbled that Ocean Song’s new partners had concealed that fact. . . .

In July 1996, the Independent broke the story that Goff, the head of a San Francisco-based environmental organization called EcoCorps, had ambitious plans to transform the Ocean Song Farm and Wilderness Center into a busy religious retreat–a direct violation of the purchase agreement. Staff members at the beloved coastal retreat complained that EcoCorps had played a major role in the financial collapse of the organization and that the San Francisco partners had plans to take over the project altogether.

The story disclosed Goff’s connections to the Hare Krishna sect through past associations with a renegade Krishna leader who in the 1980s had created an armed camp outside of Hopland and with which Goff’s far-flung publishing interests had close ties.

As a result of the investigation, community members redoubled their effort to find partners to purchase Ocean Song and return the center to its original mission. These days, the supporters of Ocean Song are singing a happier tune. Former Green Bay Packer-turned-businessman Andrew Beath, 54, paid $800,000 of the $1.3 million paid to the Goffs for the coastal hillside property. But the fix is only temporary. Former staff members, who have raised $500,000 toward an option to purchase the land from Beath, have just 18 months to complete the deal. If they fail, Beath can resell the property.

Timber Wars

Upstream from everywhere in the Sonoma County basin, the evergreen mountains of Alpine Valley are home to spotted owls, towering Douglas firs, spawning salmon, and privacy-loving humans. St. Helena Road winds like a serpent through the valley. . . . In recent months, this idyllic forest setting has become a volatile battleground. . . .

Under a growing number of complaints from local residents frustrated by bureaucratic roadblocks in the efforts to deal with the plethora of logging underway in the county–much of it by vineyards coveting lucrative hillside plots prone to erosion and environmental degradation–the Independent in November 1997 presented the anatomy of a timber harvest plan, laying out in detail how the local logging industry had pushed hard on an Alpine Valley neighborhood northeast of Santa Rosa. At the time, E&J Gallo, Kendall-Jackson, and other North Coast vineyards were slicing through the county’s forests with little or no resistance from state and federal regulators, who virtually turned their backs on catastrophic timber harvests as long as the cuts were made to further agriculture.

The problem of “urban interface,” when quiet country living and the roar of chain saws collide, is still common, despite the adoption of a new hillside-planting ordinance advocated in the article and worked out over this past summer by growers and conservationists. Indeed, with implementation of the new county regulations just weeks away, vineyard developers–including those at pristine Quail Hill in rural Freestone–have redoubled their efforts to beat the October deadline and are bulldozing hilltops into local creeks at an alarming rate.

Meanwhile, former county Supervisor Ernie Carpenter stunned supporters earlier this year when he announced that he is working as a consultant for a proposed 4,000-acre vineyard conversion project–part of a massive 10,000-acre project that extends through west county into Mendocino County–that would lop down forests for the largest coastal winery in Northern California.

Jailhouse Blues

Joan McMillan’s journey “through hell and back” started last April [1998] on a short bus ride from the honor farm near the Santa Rosa Airport to the Sonoma County Jail’s main adult detention facility. Six months pregnant and busted for supplementing her welfare income, the 44-year-old faced jeers from male inmates sharing the ride. “I started having contractions,” she recalls. “I already had some [pregnancy] complications.”

It was a bad omen. At the jail, correctional officers placed McMillan in a tiny holding cell for nine hours, she says, and her physical condition began to deteriorate. “After eight hours I was experiencing dizziness and almost blacking out,” McMillan recalls. “My body was going into some kind of weird shock. I was sweating and I lay on the floor, freezing and shaking. . . .

“The next thing I knew, a female guard was kicking me on my hips and thighs, calling me ‘drama queen’ and ‘bitch.'”

That night the county jail staff moved her to an infirmary cell, but things didn’t improve, McMillan says. “I was throwing up, dehydrated, a total wreck,” she remembers.

“The medical treatment was horrible. I would ring the emergency buzzer when I was having contractions, but the guards, especially the younger ones, seemed preoccupied at the computers. They would ignore the buzzers as long as they could.”

The harrowing tales of neglect and alleged abuse at the Sonoma County Jail published in July of 1998 questioned the treatment of inmates and revealed that the health-care provider at the facility had an ugly past.

The two-part series earned the Independent the 1999 Lincoln Steffens Award for investigative reporting, and culminated three years of articles chronicling in-custody deaths, rampant sexual harassment of female sheriff’s deputies and correctional officers, and a porn scandal involving on-duty guards.

But change comes slowly at the beleaguered institution.

Assistant Sheriff Sean McDermott recently announced his plans to step down as jail chief as soon as a replacement is found. And the county Board of Supervisors has pledged to place the health-care provider’s contract renewal on the agenda next year for public debate.

New allegations continue to pour in to the newspaper from inmates.

Yet the public has shown little interest in the way inmates are treated or whether tax dollars are spent on possibly inadequate medical services.

As Abolition Road activist Charla Greene told the Independent last year, “Public opinion is against inmates.

“The feeling is they did something bad, so let them be treated bad.’ ”

From the August 19-26, 1999 issue of the Sonoma County Independent.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Peter White

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Peter White

Dream Time

Hep cat: String slinger Peter White paid his dues with pop-lite star Al Stewart.

Guitarist Peter White straddles the pop and jazz worlds

By Bob Johnson

GUITAR PLAYER and composer Peter White would prefer to be known as a good musician, rather than being lumped into the genre known as smooth jazz. “I have nothing personally against the term,” he says, “but I understand how it might disturb some pure jazz players. Remember, musicians didn’t come up with the term; it was invented by radio station guys. Some people say what I play is not really jazz, and my response is: ‘I never said it was.'”

If one were required to categorize White’s music, it would fall somewhere between instrumental pop and R&B. Listening to his seven solo albums to date (save for his 1997 Songs of the Season Christmas album), one can hear a steady progression toward more R&B-tinged tunes.

Nineteen years of backing English folk/rock legend Al Stewart has infused White’s playing with a smart pop sensibility. His skills on the Spanish guitar were showcased on the popular song “On the Border,” part of Stewart’s epochal Year of the Cat album. White’s first two solo albums, Reveillez-Vous in 1990 and Excusez-Moi in 1992, included tunes that White originally wrote for Stewart but that never saw the light of day, and perpetuated the unique interplay between acoustic guitar and saxophone made famous on Stewart’s Year of the Cat and Time Passages albums. In fact, White wrote the 1992 hit “Dreamwalk” specifically with Stewart’s sax man, Phil Kenzie, in mind.

“It takes the right players to make the guitar and sax sounds work together,” White says. “It doesn’t work well with a guy who plays loud and raucous. It works great with a guy like [jazz-pop star] Boney James, who plays a little softer but still with a lot of dynamics. He always leaves a space in his playing; he sort of slides into a phrase and fades out in the end, so it’s easy for me to slide the guitar in.

“It’s never jarring.”

WHITE PLAYED a great many jazz festivals in the early years of his solo career, and says being exposed to such musicians as James, Kirk Whalum, and David Sanborn motivated him to lend R&B touches to subsequent albums, including 1996’s Caravan of Dreams and last year’s Perfect Moment.

“I loved R&B when I was growing up–the Temptations, Four Tops, Spinners, Barry White,” he says. “It was a style I never broached with Al, but it works nicely, I think, with my type of playing.”

Amazingly, White never has taken a guitar lesson. He was motivated to learn the instrument after listening to a group of some repute from his native England–the Beatles.

What was it that attracted White to John, Paul, George, and Ringo?

“Their trousers,” he quips without missing a beat. “No, seriously, it was that the guitar was so prominent in their music. And then watching the video of their appearance at Shea Stadium with all the screaming girls . . . I thought, ‘That looks like fun.'”

So White went about learning the instrument “one string at a time, starting with the lowest string. Later, I remember watching Eric Clapton playing all these really high notes up at the top of the neck, and I didn’t even know you could do that.”

Other influences included Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page, and when White visited America for the first time on Al Stewart’s 1975 tour, the first thing he did was purchase a Les Paul guitar “because I wanted to be like Jimmy Page.” Coincidentally, within a week, White–with his new Les Paul in hand–ran into Page in a hotel elevator.

“All I could do was look at him and say, ‘You’re Jimmy Page,'” he recalls.

White’s basic shyness caused him to be “scared to death” when he first stepped out of the background to front his own band. But, he says, he enjoys it now, especially when his music motivates an audience to dance. “I don’t take that as an insult at all,” he says.

“In fact, it’s a great compliment. It’s the ultimate in audience participation because you know your music has gotten through to them.”

Peter White co-headlines with trumpet player Rick Braun on Sunday, Aug. 22, at 3 p.m., at Rodney Strong Vineyards in Healdsburg. For details, call 433-0919.

From the August 19-26, 1999 issue of the Sonoma County Independent.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Bodega, Saturday Night

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Bodega, Saturday Night

Sweet and Sour

Wild bunch: The cast of Bodega, Saturday Night goes all out for laughs.

Bodega, Saturday Night’ offers an uneven variety show

By Daedalus Howell

IF VARIETY is the spice of life, then Bodega Theatre Company’s variety show, Bodega, Saturday Night, an evening of original sketch comedy and music modeled after television’s Saturday Night Live, puts the nut in nutmeg and the pap in paprika.

Billed as “a comedy and music revue,” Bodega, Saturday Night is an uneven, oddball melange of corporate-bashing comedy, adolescent shtick, and middlebrow humor penned by Jedd Crow and Steve Hastings and directed by Lee Rhoads. It’s a light, ebullient diversion, which, in some ways, may herald the return of old-school vaudeville. The bits exist for their own sake, devoid of a unifying premise and packed into 90 minutes–with nearly 20 performances in all and many genuine laughs.

Apart from skits, the show features tap dancing, numerous musicians (some funny and some decidedly un-), and a man who can play John Philip Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever using his hands as an instrument. Or at least it looks that way–theatrical trickery may be, er, afoot. Indeed, this company is crafty. Watch for actors planted in the Casino’s conjoining dining space swilling Olympia beer and exhaling sputum all over neighboring diners. What at first appears as just cause to reinstate prohibition is actually an elaborate setup for later stage-borne antics.

Seventeen-year-old singer Rachel Bockover opens the show with a folksy rant featuring the line “We really freaked her out, we had our titties out, uh-huh,” and returns with a poignant ballad of love gone awry.

Writer-performer Crow’s “Rent-A-Granny,” a one-note premise that finds actress Susana Crofton interested in chartering matriarchal services from Vince Craft (who is also the show’s de facto host), typifies much of the show.

Characters such as Swami Satchabanana and Madame Pin-Shin Yao (ethnic caricatures featured in Crow’s sketch “The Overpopulation Conference”) are a refreshing smack of political incorrectness–and timely since India recently matched China’s 1 billion population mark.

Writer Hastings appears as an intentionally hapless stand-up act, performing a song about a dingo that he segues into with the old “what’s a bush doctor–an Australian gynecologist?” gag. Hastings can be endearing, however, as when he repeatedly loses his guitar pick in his instrument’s sound hole and frequently refers to crib notes taped to his guitar.

Singer-songwriter Ernie Noyes steals the show with both of his musical appearances: he describes his bad attitude in a song in which he sings that he’s a “godless, pervert commie” who “smokes mari-ju-wanni,” and he later closes out the night with a well-crafted transvestite cowboy ballad à la countrified Tom Lehrer.

The interactive portion of the bill comes with Craft’s solo interpretation of The Wizard of Oz at breakneck speed, replete with costumes, props, and “a little dog too.” Throughout, he encourages the audience to sing along with the musical bits.

Though often silly, discursive, and underdeveloped, Bodega, Saturday Night does achieve its share of belly laughs. The earnestness of the performers and the eerie notion that they’re having more fun than the audience is sufficient cause to let down one’s guard (and indeed, taste) and be merrily entertained.

Bodega, Saturday Night plays on Saturday, Aug. 28, at 7 and 9 p.m. at the Theatre in the Casino, 17050 Bodega Hwy. Tickets are $10. 876-1858.

From the August 19-26, 1999 issue of the Sonoma County Independent.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Talking Pictures

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Talking Pictures

Private Parts

Political follies: Dave Foley and Dan Hedaya get Nixonian in Dick.

Comedian Debi Durst thinks some people don’t know ‘Dick’

By David Templeton

Writer David Templeton takes interesting people to interesting movies in his ongoing quest for the ultimate post-film conversation. This column is not a review; rather, it’s a freewheeling, tangential discussion of life, alternative ideas, and popular culture.

“WELL, that settles it,” barks Debi Durst, as the lights come on and we stand up to leave. “We can now safely say that Richard Nixon was the best Dick we’ve ever had in the White House.”

Well, he’s certainly the funniest, as portrayed by actor Dan Hedaya in the gleeful new Nixon-era White House satire Dick. The movie stars Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams as a pair of oh-so-sweet, but not-so-bright D.C. teens who change history after accidentally bumping into presidential henchman G. Gordon Liddy in mid-Watergate burglary.

Later, they bump into Liddy again, this time on a high school tour of the White House, and are soon being questioned by Dick–excuse me, President Nixon–himself. Thinking the girls might know something, he makes them his official dog-walkers. Before long, the well-meaning twosome have escalated the president’s increasing paranoia–they get him hooked on marijuana-laced cookies–and sabotaged his cover-up scheme: they record eight-and-a-half minutes of Olivia Newton John love songs on his secret Oval Office tape machine.

When Nixon begins to show his true colors–cursing, breaking laws, kicking the dog–the girls hatch a plan to ruin him. Remember Deep Throat, the mysterious informant to Washington Post whistle-blowers Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein? Well, guess who she was?

“Just goes to show you,” Durst remarks, “it doesn’t take much to bring down a Dick.”

DEBI DURST–she’s married to political humorist Will Durst–is something of a San Francisco legend. A determinedly eccentric stand-up comic and sharp-tongued satirist with a great laugh that sounds like Woody Woodpecker on uppers, she’s been a major mover-and-shaker on the Bay Area comedy scene for years. I was charmed to learn that Durst was also the voice of the “Corpse Kid”–“There goes Christmas!”–in Tim Burton’s Nightmare before Christmas.

Wearing a vintage, handmade red-white-and-blue jacket–“I don’t know anyone who didn’t make something out of an American fag at one time or another,” she says–Durst leads the way from the theater and into a nearby bar. She’s clearly ready to talk.

“Unlike a lot of kids today, who don’t know Dick,” she says, grinning, “I know quite a lot about Dick. So ask me something.”

“Well,” I say, “let’s start by comparing Dicks.”

“Cool,” she says. We quickly make a list of actors who’ve portrayed Richard Nixon in various films: Anthony Hopkins in Oliver Stone’s Nixon. Rip Torn in Blind Ambition. Philip Baker Hall in Robert Altman’s Secret Honor.

“And now Dan Hedaya, who was born to be Dick,” Durst crows. “Dan Hedaya’s Dick was by far the best and greatest that I have ever seen. Anthony Hopkins’ Dick pales in comparison to Dan Hedaya’s Dick.

“John Belushi would have been great in this part,” she adds. “I’m really sorry we never got to see John Belushi’s Dick.”

“Hmmmm. Are the Dick jokes ever going to peter out here?” I want to know.

“Good one. And probably not,” Durst says, laughing. Later, at my inference that the film might have been a bit far-fetched, even for a satire, she says, “Not a bit. I didn’t think Dick was too hard to swallow at all.

“Prepare yourself,” she cautions. “This could go on for hours.”

“DID YOU SEE that couple in front of us, with the kids?” Durst says, a little later. “You could tell they were sitting there going, ‘Jesus, how do we explain this?’ They’re going to have to go home and have a history lesson now. God forbid.

“But seriously, if it wasn’t for Dick, we wouldn’t know dick. Think about it. Historically, presidential dirt was always covered up, ignored by the press–until Watergate came along and blew it wide open. White House cover-ups–cheating and lying and paying people to shut up–that goes way, way back.

“Nixon,” she observes, “was just the first Dick to get caught.”

Ouch.

“In the Kennedy days,” she continues, “the press kept its mouth shut about JFK’s little peccadilloes. But after Dick–let’s just call it A.D., shall we?–it’s been open season on presidents.

“It’s funny to think about it now,” she goes on, “but back then we really did have this sense of respect for the authority and office of the president. It was, as we were taught in school, ‘the highest office of the greatest country on the planet!’ God bless America! Now it’s kind of unthinkable that anyone would completely trust the president.”

I recount my memory of watching Nixon’s famous resignation on TV (followed, on one Los Angeles radio station, with a live rendition of Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead). Durst was in college at the time.

“We were rehearsing a play in the theater building,” she recalls, “and the teacher came running in shouting, ‘He’s quitting! He’s quitting!’ We all started shouting, and ran into the office where there was this little tiny television–and there he was, giving his speech, saying ‘You’re right. I’m wrong. I’m leaving. Now you won’t have Dick to kick around anymore.’

“After that, it was like a great big party. We ran outside to see if anyone else had been watching, and everybody was there, standing around laughing, shouting, mouths hanging open. We were kind of giddy. We kept saying, ‘It’s over. It’s over. Things are gonna be better now.’

“Ha,” she adds.

“So what I want now,” she goes on, “is more Dick. The movie, not the guy. I mean, who knows how much Dick they had to chop to make this a two-hour movie.

“Yep. That’s what America really needs a whole lot of uncut Dick.”

From the August 19-26, 1999 issue of the Sonoma County Independent.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Runaway Bride

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Wed Menace

not romantic.

By David Templeton

Writer David Templeton takes interesting people to interesting movies in his ongoing quest for the ultimate post-film conversation. This column is not a movie review; rather, it’s a free-wheeling, tangential discussion of life, alternative ideas, and popular culture.

Suzanne Finnamore holds up three fingers–one for each year of her still newlywed-ish marriage. As she does so, her multi-diamond wedding ring sparkles in the moody light of this people-packed San Francisco pub, Liverpool Lil’s.

Strangers from other tables turn their heads to look at the ring.

“Technically,” Finnamore shouts, folding her fingers away and straining to be heard above the post-Happy Hour tumult all around us, “we won’t be married three years until September 21–but I tend to round up.”

She takes a sip of white wine.

“It’s weird. As the product of a broken home, I always feel the specter of divorce hanging over my head,” she says, managing to sound confessional and intimate while still making herself heard. “But I read somewhere that the divorce rate goes down dramatically after the first 40 years. Isn’t that helpful? Hardly anyone gets divorced after being married for 40 years.

“So the way I look at it, I’ve got three years down and only 37 more to go–then I’m safe.”

“Are you checking the years off on the wall somewhere?” I suggest.

“Oh, sure,” she laughs. “Like a prisoner in a cell.”

My guest is the author of Otherwise Engaged (Knopf; $22.00), a sharp-witted, very funny novel about marriage that plays like a series of clever one-liners disguised as an epic emotional journey. In the book, Eve–Finnamore’s hyper-determined heroine–walks an emotionally rocky road from the moment of her engagement to the day of her wedding.

“Michael leaves his socks on the floor when he takes off his shoes,” she writes. “This used to be fine. But now a sock on the floor isn’t just a sock on the floor. It’s a sock on the floor for the rest of my life.”

Picked from the slush pile at Knopf–Finnamore closed the deal on the day she gave birth to her son, Pablo–the novel has hit the literary funny bone of men as well as women, and seems poised to become a runaway hit.

And speaking of runaways.

We’ve just divorced ourselves from a screening of Runaway Bride, the remarkably un-cynical–dare I say “sweet?”–comedy starring Richard Gere and Julia Roberts. In the film, she’s a commitment-phobic charmer with a history of leaving men at the altar (literally; she’s done it three times), and he’s the newspaper columnist who’s career depends on her doing it a fourth time.

Finnamore liked it.

“Though Richard Gere was playing a straight man who owned a cat,” she says. “A straight man? With a cat? I’m sorry.

“Some things really did ring true, though,” she allows. “Remember when Richard Gere is watching those videos of Julia Roberts’ three ‘almost-marriages?’ You could see–especially in the second one–that she was visibly hyperventilating as she was walking down the aisle.

“That’s exactly how I felt when I got married. I was a wreck. I didn’t expect to be, but I was. The intensity of the moment overwhelmed me.”

“Hmmmmm. Aren’t weddings supposed to be romantic moments?” I ask. “Isn’t romance kind of integral to the “perfect wedding” that you read about in Modern Bride Magazine?” Or see in Julia Roberts movies.

“Oh no! No!” Finnamore shouts “There’s nothing romantic or intimate about a wedding. Once you have more than five or six people, it becomes a group event and you lose all hope of intimacy. To me a ‘romantic moment’ with my husband is just the two of us.

“It doesn’t include a whole lot of other people. It doesn’t include legally binding contracts, or caterers, or people in tight dresses and funny hats.”

“I said something to my husband, just the other day,” Finnamore relates, “and it really was, I felt, a landmark moment. Our son is now almost a year old, and we’d been having what we call ‘an interesting week,’ where everything that could go wrong did go wrong.

“So I said to my husband, at the end of this long, tumultuous day, just before we went to bed, ‘Well, I guess we’re really married now.'”

A temporary decrease in the bar’s volume allows Finnamore to lower her voice.

“It’s weird. Three years of marriage,” she murmurs, “and it wasn’t until that moment, that very moment, that I finally felt like we were actually married.”

“Is this ‘married’ in a good way?” I ask, carefully.

“Oh yeah, married in a good way,” she nods, solidly. “But also married in a real way.”

“I don’t think you really get married on the day of the wedding,” she expounds. “You have an opportunity to start working toward a marriage at that point, but I don’t think the marriage actually occurs until later.”

“In my opinion, weddings are one of the few public rituals that we have left in our society. I mean, what else have we got? There are no more public hangings. Weddings are about it, right?”

“Funerals,” I mention.

“Okay. Weddings and funerals,” Finnamore says. “But people mostly just get cremated now–then there’s a little wine and cheese thing afterwards, so even funerals are going the way of the dodo. Pretty soon, weddings will be all we have left.

“Well, weddings and divorces,” she says sitting up straight. “Divorces are now more common than funerals, aren’t they? What we need is some really fun ritual to accompany our divorces. There’s no divorce cake. There’s no divorce shower. There’s no divorce rehearsal or rehearsal dinner. It’s really a shame.”

“What about a public sock-burning,” I suggest.

“That could work,” she laughs. “God knows we need something, cause as long as people keep getting engaged, people will keep on getting divorced.”

From the date-date, 1999 issue of the Sonoma County Independent.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Richard Heinberg

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Richard Heinberg

Harvest of Fear

Seeds of doubt: Author Richard Heinberg thinks genetically engineered crops may yield a grim harvest.

Author Richard Heinberg takes a skeptical look at genetic engineering

By Patrick Sullivan

UNDER COVER of darkness, a small group of people enters the quiet cornfield and goes to work among the rows, using their hands and feet to pull up crops and stomp them flat. When the intruders finish their task and depart, they have ensured that the harvest isn’t going to match the expectations of the farmer–who is, as it happens, a plant biologist at the University of California at Berkeley.

The crop stompers also have fired the first shot in what may be a newly confrontational battle against genetic engineering in the United States.

For this is no ordinary cornfield. Before the crops were destroyed, the Berkeley location was the site of a university experiment in genetically altered corn, part of an attempt to learn which genes are responsible for corn’s nutritional traits so that researchers can eventually produce sweeter or more protein-rich plants.

The crop-stomping incident, which took place earlier this month, underscores the strong reactions provoked by genetic engineering, the controversial high-tech practice of manipulating DNA to, among other things, create new varieties of plants and animals. While supporters call it the best hope to end world hunger, opponents say genetic engineering poses an ominous threat to human health and the environment.

The group of crop-pulling protesters–which reportedly included activists from Sonoma County–was inspired by environmentalists in Europe, who have long employed such tactics to dramatize their opposition to what they call “Frankenfoods.” According to some observers, the Berkeley crop pull and two other recent actions targeting genetically modified commercial cornfields in the Central Valley may be the first time these tactics have been employed in the United States.

And it won’t be the last, according to Richard Heinberg. The 48-year-old Santa Rosa author, whose latest book, Cloning the Buddha: The Moral Impact of Biotechnology, a radical critique of genetic engineering due out in late August, was not involved in the Berkeley action. But Heinberg–who will read from his book on Aug. 26 at New College of California in Santa Rosa–supports such tactics because he fears that Americans are rapidly turning their farms and supermarkets over to genetically modified foods before anyone determines what dangers those products may pose.

While Heinberg’s book paints a grim picture of the power and momentum of the biotech industry, the author says the tide may now be turning. Americans, Heinberg says, are waking up to the dangers of genetic engineering. In part, that’s owing to new scientific evidence about the unexpected side effects of the technology, including a recent Cornell University study that found that pollen from a widely planted variety of genetically modified corn kills the larvae of the monarch butterfly, an important pollinator.

Still, despite growing public awareness, Heinberg–who is a faculty member at New College of California–argues that the urgency of the situation demands such radical actions as crop pulls–and such radical critiques as the one made in his book.

“This process [of implementing biotechnology] is moving very quickly, and I’m convinced that the likelihood of serious unintended consequences is very large,” Heinberg says. “I think in a situation like that, somebody does need to yell fire in a crowded theater, because there really is a fire.”

MANY AMERICANS don’t realize how deeply biotechnology already touches their lives. The United States now grows an estimated 75 million acres of genetically modified crops. Roughly 60 percent of the processed foods sold in America contain genetically engineered ingredients. But the average consumer doesn’t know that, in part because no labeling is required for such food–a fact that looms large in Heinberg’s book, which calls for legislation mandating the clear labeling of altered ingredients.

Of course, such measures have been proposed before, but so far both government regulators and the biotech industry have strenuously resisted. That’s partly because many polls show that a large percentage of Americans would refuse to consume food they knew to be genetically engineered, so putting such a label on a product could bankrupt a company.

Some defenders of biotech also argue that there’s no good reason for labeling because genetic engineering is, in one sense, nothing new. After all, humans have been breeding plants and animals to get desirable characteristics for thousands of years.

Genetic engineering, some supporters say, is simply a high-tech version of that traditional process.

But Heinberg and many others argue that such modern techniques as cloning and gene splicing allow scientists to tinker with organisms in fundamentally new ways to produce, as Heinberg puts it in Cloning the Buddha, “genetic changes that would never occur in the wild or through the most intensive breeding.”

The results of that process can be both impressive and terrifying. On the one hand, scientists are producing crops that grow quickly and resist pests. On the other, genetic engineering sometimes produces unexpected side effects that range from the inconvenient–like food allergies–to the potentially catastrophic.

In his book, Heinberg tells the alarming story of an attempt in the early 1990s to genetically redesign Klebsiella planticola, a common soil bacteria, to break down lumber companies’ wood waste into useful fertilizer.

The new organism was apparently on the fast track to EPA approval before an alert Oregon microbiologist determined that it was both lethal to plants and extremely competitive. If it had been introduced into the general environment, the new strain of Klebsiella might have spread quickly and wreaked ecological devastation, turning forests and fields into dead sludge.

HEINBERG USES such incidents to buttress his contention that Americans must work quickly to learn everything they can about genetic engineering in order to come to grips with the urgent practical and moral issues that surround it.

“This technology is poised to reshape our lives at very basic levels: the food we eat, how we reproduce, what our children look like,” Heinberg says. “These are pretty important issues, and we really can’t just leave them to the experts, because the experts tend to be very highly trained in very narrow fields of knowledge. They really aren’t equipped to make the kind of basic ethical judgments that affect all of society.”

Cloning the Buddha goes straight to what its author sees as the root of the problem–the mechanistic scientific worldview that spawned biotech in the first place. In an era where new technology presents us with difficult choices, Heinberg believes that we need a new ethic–and even a new spirituality–to sort out right from wrong.

For an example of these sticky dilemmas, Heinberg turns away from agriculture to offer his readers the difficult issue of genetic therapy, which may soon be used to alter the DNA of human gametes or fertilized eggs to prevent some diseases.

“Well, on a micro level, yes of course, anybody would have to agree with that,” Heinberg says. “But how do you define a disease? Tay-Sachs? Sickle cell anemia? Sure, everybody would agree that those are diseases. How about shortness? Or male-pattern baldness? Are these diseases that would require genetic intervention?

“Where do you stop?”

At a time when, according to Heinberg, a basic genetic engineering laboratory can be put together for as little as $20,000, gene therapy is just one of the difficult issues likely to confront Americans in the near future.

The author hopes we’ll be ready.

“It’s entirely possible that genetic engineering could have a wide range of ethically acceptable uses once we have put it under some kind of public control and scrutiny,” Heinberg says. “What I’m saying is that we haven’t had that conversation yet. We haven’t thought through the issues.”

A three-part series on biotechnology begins at New College of California on Thursday, Aug. 26, with Heinberg’s reading. The series continues on Sept. 28, with a lecture by Dr. Ignacio Chapela, chair of the Microbial Biology Department at UC Berkeley. Finally, on Oct. 26, Britt Bailey, co-author of Against the Grain: The Dangers of Genetic Engineering of Crops, lectures. All events begin at 7:30 p.m. at 99 Sixth St., Santa Rosa. A $5 donation is requested. For details, call 568-0112.

From the August 19-26, 1999 issue of the Sonoma County Independent.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Five Artists

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Five Artists

Fantastic Five

Head trip: Riding the crest of the Internet’s hot MP3 craze, Petaluma-based Headboard may be the county’s best unsigned band.

Five local artists to watch

By Patrick Sullivan

GO AHEAD–just try it. Try to nail down the five visual artists, actors, musicians, and other local creative types with the biggest potential to make a startling success out of their budding careers. You’d have better luck playing the lottery.

Creativity, after all, is everywhere in Sonoma County. There are those who strive for the big time, hoping to make it into the pages of Rolling Stone, or at least ARTNews. And there are others who aim for nothing more and nothing less than to simply enrich our community’s cultural life with their artistic efforts.

But all excuses and explanations aside, there are some folks on the crowded local scene who seem to exude potential, to sweat it from their pores, to pour it out onto the canvas and the stage. And while recognizing true talent is a treacherous task, leaving it unmarked is worse. Therefore, below you’ll find our list of five local artists to watch out for in the first five years of the next millennium. You’ve already met them in the pages of the Independent, but we think they deserve a fresh look. If you want our advice, don’t take your eyes off these folks, because they’re on the move.

Headboard Pop Band

ANYBODY WHO thinks the Unabomber had a point about computer technology will not find a receptive audience in the members of Headboard.

Founded in 1994, the Petaluma-based pop/rap/ska band–which counts everyone from the Beachboys to Public Enemy among its influences–has engaged in serious flirtations with major label success at least twice in its tumultuous history. But now, the five-member outfit is riding to national exposure on the cresting wave of MP3 online music technology, which permits Internet users to download music to their computer.

According to Headboard’s Glen Rubinstein, the band regularly places in MP3’s top 40 lists and has had over a million downloads of their music since they first went online last December. That kind of exposure allowed the band to take a summer break from its usual heavy-duty touring schedule (the musicians played 150 shows last year). Instead of driving across the country, Headboard has been at Grizzly Studios in Petaluma recording a single for a small European label.

But the MP3 exposure does more than sell music: it also puts Headboard’s name in the mouths of recording industry executives.

Headboard begins playing live shows again this fall, and the 23-year-old Rubenstein thinks a major label deal may again be in the works when they play a showcase gig next month at L.A.’s notorious Viper Room. Still, grim experience has taught Rubenstein not to pin his hopes on the mercurial music industry.

“That’s not my primary goal–to get a record deal,” he says. “If it happens, that’s a thrill. If not, we know what we’re doing.”

Mitch Altieri & Phil Flores Filmmakers

IT’S AN EASY mistake to make. After the incredible out-of-nowhere success of a dark horse indie film like The Blair Witch Project, you might have the notion that independent filmmaking is as easy as a walk in the park . . . or a hike in the woods. But it just ain’t so, as any number of enterprising dreamers with busted bank accounts and no distribution deal can tell you.

Welcome to the real world, where hard work doesn’t always pay off.

Place in the sun: Filmmakers Phil Flores and Mitch Altieri are aiming for Sundance.

So here’s the question: How do you tell the desperate dreamers from the next big thing? Sometimes you get a feeling, a vibe, an intuition–and Mitch Altieri tends to inspire that feeling more than most. Maybe it’s his easy confidence, or maybe it’s his track record. After all, he won the coveted Bay Area Cable Excellence Award for his first film, King’s River, which he wrote and produced for public television when he was just 19.

In any case, it’s hard to talk to the Petaluma filmmaker, now 26, without getting the distinct feeling that he’s on track to success. For more than a year now, Altieri and his partner, Phil Flores, 27, have run their own production company, American Whitehorse Pictures, while also working on their first feature film, Long Cut, which tells the story of a young girl and the gentle ex-convict who tends horses on her grandfather’s ranch.

Scrapping together even the relatively meager (by Hollywood standards) budget required to shoot the film wasn’t easy. The Whitehorse Pictures partnership had to rely on their own ingenuity and the proverbial kindness of strangers. Altieri is quick to give ample credit to community support: wardrobe items were provided by the Santa Rosa Saddlery, and Two Rock Ranch donated film locations.

Now, the end of the road is in sight. According to Altieri, Long Cut will soon be completed, just in time to submit it to the Sundance Film Festival, the traditional kingmaker in the world of independent film.

“We’re hoping to have a rough cut done somewhere in the next two or three months,” says Altieri, adding confidently, “The boys from American Whitehorse Pictures will be going to Utah.”

Chris Finley Visual artist

IN THE WORK of Chris Finley, the aesthetic of the video game collides with the world of contemporary art. Neither may ever be the same. Of course, the 28-year-old Penngrove painter and sculptor, who takes creative inspiration from the computer games of his youth, is hardly alone in having a unique vision. What sets him apart is that other people like what he sees.

This January the Independent reported that Finley was one of four Bay Area artists accepted into an exhibit at the prestigious San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Museum-goers who attended the Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art exhibit were treated to Finley’s unusual installation piece. Titled Level Three: Buzz No Thank You MMM Pizza with Steamy Crotch Hippitty Hop Head-Butt Moo, the piece was especially notable for its interactive component, which allowed people to head-butt a “hippitty hop” and thus elicit a moo from a painting of two women sunk deep into a giant pizza. Sound weird? Sure, but museum-goers loved it.

Video vision: Artist Chris Finley has his eye on the future.

“I had to replace the hippitty hops several times because people kept hitting their heads on it so much,” Finley explains.

After the SECA exhibit, Finley’s career really took off. A commercial gallery in San Francisco that exhibited his work sold every piece. At the moment, you can’t see Finley’s art locally, but he does have shows coming up in both Los Angeles and New York.

Finley still maintains his studio in a renovated chicken barn in Sebastopol, but that could change if his plans for the future work out.

I think I want to just continue making the quality of work I’m making,” he says, and then laughs. “And, of course, I’d like to get a much bigger studio and hire some assistants.”

Mayra Carol Singer

SANTA ROSA singer Mayra Carol has all the usual marks of a rising musical talent. She works hard, taking her show on the road to venues across California. She constantly strives to improve both her musical ability and her stage presence. And she’s even been featured on national television.

About the only thing that separates Carol from your average 20-something poised on the brink of success is that she has one heck of a head start. She is, after all, only 13 years old.

But the young mariachi singer–who has performed everywhere from Santa Rosa’s Art in the Park summer concert series to Sabado Gigante, a Spanish-language variety show that attracts some 100 million viewers around the globe every week–demonstrates more maturity than a lot of musicians two or three times her age. She’s even pressed a CD, called Mensajera del Amor, Spanish for “Messenger of Love.” Take that discipline, add in an ample amount of natural talent and a supportive family, and combine it all with the music industry’s current red-hot interest in the Latin music trend, and it’s clear that Carol is in the right place at the right time.

Of course, the teenage singer probably has a few other things on her mind besides honing her already remarkable voice–like school and growing up. But her many local fans would hardly be surprised to see her move onto the national stage for good. They only hope she sticks around a while longer.

Brian Bryson Actor/Playwright

FOR ACTOR-playwright Bryan Bryson, the wood of the stage is proving to be a springboard to success. The 30-year-old Santa Rosa resident has long maintained a fruitful relationship with Actors’ Theater, playing lead roles in such plays as Arcadia. But last January saw his career reach a point of departure with the successful debut of his solo theaterwork, Romance: A One-Man Show, in AT’s Bare Stage Series.

A philosophical comedy, Romance details the exploits of the brass-balled Mr. Billman, president of a video dating service, who sends a zealous matchmaker to spark amour between a Zen-head drug addict and an ex-erotic dancer. Bryson not only wrote the play, but also played all the parts, integrating video monitors and a bit of cross-dressing to deliver an exciting performance that provoked rave reviews from audiences and critics alike.

Now the actor is taking his show on the road. He’ll be restaging Romance at next month’s San Francisco Fringe Festival.

So what’s the secret to his success?

“I think what gives me the edge is the fact that I’m allergic to lawn furniture. Since I was a kid I’d break out into a rash–I can’t be around the stuff,” quips the irreverent Bryson. “I’ve got a thumb on my right foot.”

But seriously, folks.

“Some people like to do crossword puzzles and go skiing–I like to do theater,” Bryson finally admits.

Romance premieres at the San Francisco Fringe Festival on Sept. 9 at 10 p.m. at Il Teatro 450, 449 Powell St. For details, call 415/433-1172.

Daedalus Howell contributed to this article.

From the August 19-26, 1999 issue of the Sonoma County Independent.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Fall Arts in Sonoma

Full Season Pluck of the Irish: Master storyteller and musician Patrick Ball delivers a one-man musical and theatrical show about Ireland's most famous bard, Turlough O'Carolan, starting Sept. 23 at Spreckels Performing Arts Center. Fall puts big stars and local talent into the spotlight Edited By Patrick Sullivan TO...
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Wed Menace not romantic. By David Templeton Writer David Templeton takes interesting people to interesting movies in his ongoing quest for the ultimate post-film conversation. This column is not a movie review; rather, it's a free-wheeling, tangential discussion of life, alternative ideas, and popular culture. Suzanne Finnamore holds up three...
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Fantastic Five Head trip: Riding the crest of the Internet's hot MP3 craze, Petaluma-based Headboard may be the county's best unsigned band. Five local artists to watch By Patrick Sullivan GO AHEAD--just try it. Try to nail down the five visual artists, actors, musicians, and other local creative types...
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