ON Culture | Finding the Funny, the Festivals, and the Fire Benefit Shows
This edition of ON Culture was originally emailed to subscribers on January 31, 2025. To receive Leslie Dinaberg’s arts newsletter in your inbox on Fridays, sign up at independent.com/newsletters.
ON the Stage

Listening to Rickie Lee Jones’s music has been my happy place for more years than I calculate at this point. I’m so excited to see her perform at the Lobero on Saturday, February 1. The coolest chick in Coolsville has a jazzy new album called Pieces of Treasure (BMG Modern Recordings, produced by her longtime friend and collaborator Russ Titelman) devoted to the American Songbook, with her unique takes on terrific well-known songs like “All the Way,” “On the Sunny Side of the Street,” and “One for my Baby.” I suspect we’ll be hearing a lot of those tunes (I’m game) but I’m really hoping for “We Belong Together,” “Pirates,” and “The Last Chance Texaco,” among the many of her great tunes on my perpetual playlist. A few tickets are still available here.

The number of music festivals on the horizon is really kind of astounding. One of my favorites, Napa Valley’s Bottlerock — which takes place annually during Memorial Day weekend (May 23-25 this year) — has a list of headliners that includes Justin Timberlake, Green Day, Khruangbin (who we also get at the Bowl for TWO nights right before, May 21-22) , Sublime, Sofi Tukker, Remi Wolf, Ice Cube, Cage the Elephant, and many many more. Tickets are on sale now, click here for information.
Just Like Heaven Festival returns to Brookside at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena on May 10, with Vampire Weekend, Empire of the Sun, Bloc Party, TV on the Radio, and Rilo Kiley as headliners. If you haven’t heard of them, Rilo Kiley is the first band that the awesome Jenny Lewis was in and this will be their first performance together in more than 15 years. Los Angeles natives, Rilo Kiley commented, “As a band, we began here, and we feel so fortunate to return among so many artists and friends, to this community we hold so dear, in such a beautiful and meaningful place.” Additional artists include: Beach Fossils, Chris Cruse, Courtney Barnett, GROUPLOVE, Panda Bear, and Perfume Genius, among others. More information and tickets are here.
The BeachLife Festival, coming to Redondo Beach for its sixth year May 2-4, features headlining sets from Lenny Kravitz, Sublime (they’re getting around), and Alanis Morissette, as well as Train, O.A.R., Pretenders, CAKE, Mt. Joy, Jackson Browne, The Beach Boys, Santa Barbara faves ALO, and many more, including The Struts, who I loved at Bottlerock a couple years ago. Tickets are on sale, click here for information.

The generosity of our community in the aftermath of the wildfires in Los Angeles has been such a bright light in the wake of so much bad news this month. As I wrote about here, Alan Parsons, Jerry Harrison, Sophie B. Hawkins, Aishlin Harrison, and more performers are coming out to SOhO to do their parts to help with a benefit show at SOhO on February 13. Organized by FestForums and Santa Barbara South Coast Firefighter Foundation, tickets are just $40 general admission, with all proceeds going to the South Coast Firefighter Foundation to support the L.A. wildfire assistance efforts. To purchase tickets, see bit.ly/4h40Ffj.

Also coming up in town on March 8 is Rock for First Responders! With the nonprofit One805 folks putting together a benefit concert featuring Hootie and The Blowfish, Michael McDonald, Kenny Loggins, and Toad The Wet Sprocket, with still more artists to be announced. Details are still being organized but you can go to one805.org to sign up for alerts when tickets go on sale.

I saw two very funny women perform last weekend, Paula Poundstone at the Lobero on Friday and Fran Lebowitz at Campbell Hall on Saturday. Reviews are coming soon, but suffice to say, here that they were both excellent, albeit very different, and great reminders at how cathartic it can be to laugh out loud in a room full of other people who are also laughing. We need all the humor we can get, and that includes comedians Maria Bamford at the Lobero on February 8 (tickets here) and Mark Normand at the Granada on April 12 (tickets here).

The always enjoyable and oh-so interesting Folk Orchestra of Santa Barbara has their winter concert this weekend (January 31-February 2) with a program that explores “The music of Winter around the world — from the snowy Nordic lands of Sweden, Norway, and Finland, Plum Blossoms of China, and fiddle tunes from Appalachia — maybe even some help from Simon and Garfunkel.” Concerts are all over the county: in Los Olivos on Friday, January 31 at 7 p.m. at St. Mark’s-In-The-Valley Episcopal Church; in Goleta on Saturday, February 1, at 4 p.m. at Live Oak Unitarian Universalist; and Sunday, February 2 at 2 p.m. at Trinity Episcopal Church in Santa Barbara. Tickets are available at folkorchestrasb.com.
ON the Page

I picked up Laura Dave’s new novel, The Night We Lost Him, because I’m a fan of her work and the twisty mystery The Last Thing He Told Me in particular. Much to my surprise, not only is The Night We Lost Him an engaging story about an estranged brother and sister chasing down a fifty-year-old family secret that shaped their father’s mysterious life — and death — a big chunk of the action takes place in Santa Barbara County. Windbreak, the father’s favorite beach cottage getaway, is in Carpinteria, and one of the many mysterious women in the father’s life, Ceci, has a place in Los Alamos. They go there to find her and namecheck several places locals will know, including Bell’s and Babi’s Beer Emporium, and talk about how beautiful the area is, which is quite fun. The book is good on its own but having the local connection (Dave apparently lives in the Los Angeles area and visits from time to time) makes it even more enticing.

Congratulations to Santa Barbara author Neal Rabin (see my interview here), whose quirky, comedic pirate novel FLAT won an Independent Press Award for humor, and was also a semi-finalist for the International Book Awards for Humor & Satire. I’ve known Neal for years and am thrilled to know that I’m not the only one who finds him really, really funny!
ON the Walls

Santa Barbara Museum of Art has some interesting things coming our way. On Saturday, February 1 at 5 p.m., an audio-visual live performance of Borderline Visible comes to California for the first time, after having been performed at ExtraCity Kunsthal, Antwerp, Belgium; IDFA, OnStage, Amsterdam; KANAL-Centre Pompidou, Brussels; and Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland. Bringing a photobook to life in a performance that fuses soundscape and narration, this 77-minute experience, scored with music by Oren Ambarchi and Perila, pieces together value and meaning from the human ruins of aspiration, history, and language, shifting back and forth along a journeyed path between Lausanne, Switzerland, and Izmir, Turkey.
On Saturday, February 15, at 3:30 p.m., featured artist Jane Dickson (whose work is on view as part of the exhibition In the Making: Contemporary Art at SBMA) will be in conversation with James Glisson, SBMA Chief Curator and Curator of Contemporary Art. Dickson, whose work was forged as part of New York’s late-70s counterculture, portrays strip clubs, diners, motels, sex workers, and their seemingly straight-laced foils: suburban homes, driveways, and businessmen. Tickets for both events are available here.
ON the Web

Santa Barbara Arts Collaborative (SBAC) recently announced they’re offering a community arts residency that offers workspace, funding, and support for art that builds community, fosters genuine conversation, reckons with social disconnection, and/or feeds local democracy and relationships between disparate people and groups. All artistic genres and disciplines will be considered. This sounds very cool. Projects will be awarded grants of between $5,000 and $15,000, receive one month or more of workshop space at the Community Arts Workshop, and the dedicated time of SBAC Staff to facilitate community collaborations. The SBAC will fund 1-3 residency projects to take place in 2025-26. Applications are due March 30. For more information visit sbcaw.org/residency.
ON the Calendar

This Sunday (February 2), join Santa Barbara Public Library and the Santa Barbara Chinese School for a vibrant celebration of the Lunar New Year! Enjoy fun activities like lantern making, paper cutting, calligraphy, shadow puppets, and spirited children’s performances at this free, outdoor event from 1-4 p.m. at Michael Towbes Library Plaza (40 E. Anapamu St.). Bring your family and celebrate the year of the Green Wood Snake alongside Santa Barbara’s Chinese-speaking community!
For a complete calendar of events this week and beyond, visit independent.com/events/.
Premier Events
Sat, Feb 15
9:00 AM
Santa Barbara
Spring Planting Sale at SB Botanic Garden
Sat, Feb 15
11:00 AM
Santa Barbara
Mosaic Makers Market
Sun, Feb 16
3:00 PM
SANTA BARBARA
Moonlight Reflections with Garbo (Encore)
Thu, Feb 20
6:30 PM
Santa Barbara
The State of Fire: Why California Burns Talk
Tue, Feb 25
9:00 AM
Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara Board of Supervisors Hearing – Deny Sable Oil Permit
Fri, Feb 28
6:00 PM
Santa Barbara
SBTHP Asian American Film Series presents….
Thu, Mar 06
4:00 PM
Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara Countywide Education Job Fair
Sat, Apr 05
7:00 PM
Solvang
Concert: Ozomatli
Mon, Jun 16
7:00 PM
Santa Barbara
Mary Chapin Carpenter & Brandy Clark
Sat, Feb 15 9:00 AM
Santa Barbara
Spring Planting Sale at SB Botanic Garden
Sat, Feb 15 11:00 AM
Santa Barbara
Mosaic Makers Market
Sun, Feb 16 3:00 PM
SANTA BARBARA
Moonlight Reflections with Garbo (Encore)
Thu, Feb 20 6:30 PM
Santa Barbara
The State of Fire: Why California Burns Talk
Tue, Feb 25 9:00 AM
Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara Board of Supervisors Hearing – Deny Sable Oil Permit
Fri, Feb 28 6:00 PM
Santa Barbara
SBTHP Asian American Film Series presents….
Thu, Mar 06 4:00 PM
Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara Countywide Education Job Fair
Sat, Apr 05 7:00 PM
Solvang
Concert: Ozomatli
Mon, Jun 16 7:00 PM
Santa Barbara
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