How can two people with no electric guitars make such explosive rock and roll? Royal Blood would be happy to demonstrate with their show at the Catalyst Club Saturday. Traveling from one beach town to another, Worthing, England's Royal Blood consists of Ben Thatcher on drums and Mike Kerr on vocals and bass, although his use of effects pedals and amps allow him to mimic the sound of a bass guitar.
"Pickle" and "mafia" are a pair of words one would not expect to go together, but The Pickle Mafia are all about bringing together seemingly disparate styles. Although rooted in jazz and playing at Kuumbwa Jazz on Nov. 12, the Rochester, New York-based trio do not categorize themselves as strictly jazz.
The members of Santa Cruz Americana/vaudeville trio Bonny June and Bonfire love Halloween, so much so that they perform a special concert every October by adopting vampiric personas and performing a mix of new Halloween songs and Halloweenified versions of their own songs and tunes they have frequently covered. This year's concert will see the trio return to Kuumbwa Jazz Saturday for a mix of music and comedy.
Fans of Grammy-winning, genre-spanning multi-instrumentalist Meshell Ndegeocello will be delighted to know that she is playing at Kuumbwa Jazz Thursday night. What's more: She will be playing not one but two shows.
The role female comic artists have played in horror comics will be explored in the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History's new exhibit "Werewolf Hunters, Jungle Queens, and Space Commandos: The Lost Worlds of Women Comic Artists," which opens with a special reception Friday.