School’s Out

BIKO BASH: Isla Vista’s Biko House bids goodbye
to the school year and welcomes back a hometown celebrity with a
technically -free-but-make-a-donation show at 7:30 p.m. on Friday,
June 2. In honor of the return of KCSB regular Maggie
Muldoon from Ghana, the musically inclined co-op will be
featuring local indie acts like With the Strength of 10,000
Monsters, Jaguar Dear, and DJ
Crabhat. Erin First, vocalist for 10,000
Monsters, describes the band’s sound as “space-age robot rock.” If
that’s any indication of what the rest of the lineup might sound
like, then prepare for another fun night at what has emerged as one
of the area’s most reliable purveyors of quirky and genuinely
alternative music. The Biko House is located at 6612 Sueno Road.
— Drew Mackie

SHOWGROUND-FUL O’ BLUES: In yet another
awe-inspiring blues booking for the Santa Barbara Blues
Society — the nation’s oldest, mind y’all — the nearly
40-year-old Roomful of Blues will make its only
SoCal appearance on Saturday, June 3, 8:30 p.m., at Earl Warren
Showgrounds. Roomful reminds us that blues isn’t necessarily about
being down ’n’ out — their jams, available now on their recent
release Standing Room Only, are fun, danceable, and
inspiring. They’re legends already, so catch ’em while you’ve got
the chance. Visit sbblues.org. — Matt
Kettmann

CHILLA VISTA! The antithesis to the rowdy Isla
Vista Halloween experience, a groundbreaking event is launching
this weekend out there: Chilla Vista, a festival that’ll
revolutionize the community by bringing together students, faculty,
and Latino family residents in a day-long celebration of
sustainability, arts, music, and education. The festival is the
product of Sociology 194, a UCSB course sponsored by Professor
Dick Flacks and coordinated by student
Jake Lehman. Participants will be able to boogie
down at two stages of music, interact with health-related
education, observe cultural performances, and discover their
neighboring artists, not to mention the accompanying Farmers
Market, children’s carnival, and film festival. Chilla Vista will
be using a 100 percent renewable energy and a zero-waste model,
environmental examples that will inspire the community year-round.
So come chill out on Sunday, June 4, noon-8 p.m., at People’s Park
and Embarcadero Hall in I.V. — Sophia Kercher

MUSICAL CO-OPULATION: Co-Opula may
sound like the porn version of a bad vampire movie, but to the
residents of UCSB’s four student-housing cooperative units, this
concert doubles as a celebration of all manner of alternative music
and a means to get Isla Vista residents interested in shared
living. The third annual Co-Opula will feature I.V.
mainstays the Hairbrain Scheme, the low-fi ladies
of Clitorectomy and the Mutilators, psychedelic
jazz outfit Silent Wei, trippy ambient quartet the
Animatronics, as well as several others. The event
also includes sideshows featuring magic and fire-juggling, just in
case band names that reference female circumcision weren’t
eye-catching enough. Co-Opula is free and begins at noon
in Anisq’Oyo Park in I.V. on Saturday, June 3. — DM

RETURN OF GABE: Homeboy Gabe
Lackner makes a return visit to his favorite stage at SOhO
tonight, June 1, to unleash some of his new songs that’ll be part
of Reflection, his second solo release this summer. He
recorded most of it earlier this year off Mountain Drive with
Randy Tico and his dad Tom during
a short stint in town away from his Brooklyn pad, where he’s been
producing some hip-hop in between gigs at the Rockwood Music Hall,
on N.Y.C.’s Lower East Side. The new stuff is more acoustic, he
says, so get ready for a mellow, fun evening. — MK

JUST ANOTHER MAD MONDAY: The SBCC
Monday Madness Big Band, comprised almost entirely of
working, professional musicians, held forth May 22 at SOhO and very
nearly blew the roof off. Led by S.B. jazz legend Isaac
“Ike” Jenkins, the band proved again that it’s one of the
tightest, most vital jazz ensembles going. Harmonically and
rhythmically sophisticated, adventurous charts by great arrangers
such as Gerry Mulligan and Bobby
Shew were the order of things. A version of “Perdido” that
featured a joyously screaming brass chorus sent shivers up my
spine, and the centerpiece of “Cherokee” was two flugelhorns
trading four-bar breaks in what was actually an old-fashioned
cutting session, à la 1950s N.Y.C. Jenkins has returned to the jazz
band after a seven-year absence and he’s done it with a vengeance —
we’re lucky to have him. — Stanley Naftaly

Y MAS: Nurse Jennifer Lamberts
and her buddy Patrick Corley are enduring a
210-mile bike ride this summer to raise awareness and funds for
Chron’s and colitis disease, and all they’re asking of us is to
come by their fundraiser party at the Creekside on Saturday, June
3. Headlining the event is Smoking Guns, a Central
Coast band that plays everything from Van Morrison
to Metallica. … On Friday, June 2, Red’s in the
Funk Zone is hosting three off-the-wall acts starting at 9:30 p.m.
There’ll be automatic:automatic playing their
incarnation of “free rock,” Orange County’s rocksters the
Traveling Accident, and our very own Das
Supaschthros. … The Soledadeez are
dropping their debut CD with a gig at SOhO next Thursday, June 8,
so see next week’s Indy for a feature on that. —
MK