“It’s rock ‘n’ roll tap dance.” That’s how Ryan Gravelle-an eight-year veteran of Australia’s Tap Dogs-describes the group’s 10th anniversary show, which hoofs into Santa Barbara this week as part of the Broadway at the Arlington series.
Owned and managed by Slipstream Sports, a sports marketing and development company led by Jonathan Vaughters, former number one-ranked U.S. cyclist, Team TIAA-CREF features some of the country’s top cyclists in pursuit of a singular goal: becoming the next world champions, Olympians and Tour de France Winners. Riders, including 3-time World Champion and new 2006 team member Danny Pate, will be on hand to greet fans as they dine at Chipotle’s San Francisco and Santa Barbara restaurants on February 17th and 24th, respectively.
Most kids learn how to ride a bike before they throw a baseball, shoot a hoop or kick a soccer ball. In fact, most children learn to balance on a two-wheels between the ages of four and eight.
Now that you have the keys to the car, are you one of the more than 57 million people in the United State who are still riding a bike today
The 2005 Pro Tour Team Champion, Team CSC is managed by former Tour de France winner Bjarne Riis and sponsored by California-based CSC (Computer Sciences Corporation). The 2005 spring season was the strongest ever for Team CSC, with a number of high profile wins by American Bobby Julich and Jens Voight (GER), in particular Juilch’s win Paris-Nice. With his victory in Paris-Nice, Bobby Julich became the first ever rider to wear the UCI ProTour leaders jersey.
The first annual Amgen Tour of California is set to race into the City streets of Santa Barbara on Friday, February 24th. Fashioned after the renowned Tour de France, the Amgen Tour of California will begin its 8 day journey down the coast of California on February 19th. After a short 3.1 kilometer time trial through the Embarcadero in San Francisco, the race caravan hits the open highway to take in Santa Rosa, San Jose, Monterey, and San Luis Obispo prior to arriving in Santa Barbara.
You may remember Michelle Shocked from the late ’80s, when her singles “Anchorage,” “If Love Was a Train” (both from the album Short Sharp Shocked), and “On the Greener Side” (from Captain Swing) inched up the pop charts. Or maybe you know her from her more recent appearances at Los Angeles anti-war events, or from the less commercially successful but no less virtuosic independent albums she’s produced since Captain Swing. Or maybe you’ve never heard of her at all. And that would truly be too bad for you, because this Texas native can kick some artistic ass.
In a career blessed by laid-back luck, terrific timing, and key childhood connections-oh yeah, and a mellow music-making talent-most wouldn’t call Jack Johnson a cunning businessman. The sometime Santa Barbara resident’s rise to global stardom seemed about as easy as catching your third shoulder-high wave at an empty point break.
The extraordinary Touch the Names, currently in production at Ensemble Theatre Company, pulls the audience into the shadows on a wall. The wall is the Vietnam War Memorial, and the shadows are the lost lives recorded there.
The Santa Barbara band Clark is the dreamy side-project of Gabriel Friley, whose main band is the excellent Widescreen Reason. This Saturday at The Mercury Lounge, the Clarksters will be lulling the crowd into auditory submission with a CD release show for their gorgeous new album Here Comes Tomorrow, (Silent Film Records). Friley’s vox and thoughtful acoustic guitar, coupled with wife Dana’s fingerpickin’ geetar and sweet backing vocals, blended with Andy White’s multi-instrumentation, bring to mind a little bit of Nick Drake.
My east-coast buddy Robert Pinsky’s Americans’ Favorite Poems project had dock workers and Bill Clinton, Air Force enlistees and my mother-in-law telling the world why they loved a work by Robert Frost or Dorothy Parker or Mowlana Jalaluddin Rumi, and then reading that poem aloud, a poem important to their lives.
