2006 - Page 119 of 269 - The Santa Barbara Independent

Uncategorized By Brett Leigh Dicks

Beauty and the Beasts

KISS. At the Chumash Casino, Friday, July 28.

Towering in silver platform boots and sporting a black lycra bodysuit that strategically exposed a bare chest, Paul Stanley clasped the microphone stand and observed, “Sometimes the cheap seats suck, but not tonight.” Rather than inferring the conspicuous absence of cheap seats for the night’s performance, Stanley was instead presumably making reference to KISS’s usually intimate setting. For two nights, the musical veterans squeezed their lavish stadium antics into the “confines” of the Chumash Casino. While the ballroom setting afforded KISS fans a chance to get close and personal with their idols, it didn’t seem to affect the band’s trademark explosive theatrics.

By Indy Staff

BAD SCANNERS OR BAD BUSINESS?:

After three long months in the courtroom, a trial in which a local company is suing General Electric (GE) for $12.8 million in lost profits went to a jury last week. Since May, Vitascana Santa Barbara-based mobile body scanning businessand GE Healthcarewho leased Vitascan the portable scannersbattled over why the company failed in 2003 after just two years of business.

By Felicia M. Tomasko

Gypsy Nights

Gipsy Kings. At the Santa Barbara Bowl, Sunday, July 23.

“I don’t understand a word they’re saying, but this is a great song,” announced someone halfway through the Gipsy King’s Bowl appearance two Sundays ago. This sentiment is common in the U.S., where the French ensemble’s crossover popularity is groundbreaking for a non-English language group. Songs are sung in the gypsy dialect of gitane, and the combination of lyricism, driving dance beat, and universal themes of love, life, and loss produces irresistible live shows.

Uncategorized By Sam Kornell

Capps Calls For Ceasefire

Santa Barbara Congresswoman Lois Capps joined three other members of the House of Representatives last week in calling for President George W. Bush to pressure Israel to accept an extended ceasefire while negotiations between Israel and Hizbullah proceed. Capps-who has long supported a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict-said in a telephone conversation that Israel’s continued aerial bombardment of southern Lebanon, as well as its deepening military presence on the ground, is counterproductive to Israeli and American security interests and is causing unjustifiable suffering and destruction in the small, embattled nation that fronts Israel’s northern border.

Uncategorized By Elizabeth Schwyzer

The Best Come Out West

Summer Intensive Final Performance, presented by State Street Ballet

At the Lobero Theater, Sunday, July 23.Proud parents, friends, and dance fans braved sweltering heat Sunday afternoon for a performance culminating State Street Ballet’s month-long Summer Intensive Workshop, fanning themselves with folded programs as the dancers sweated it out beneath stage lights. Now in its ninth year, the program offers an annual opportunity for students aged 12-21 to sample the life of a professional dancer-a full-time training program of technique classes, coaching, and rehearsals leading up to a full-length public performance.

By Indy Staff

Pick It Up

Tally Hall’s Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum: Ann Arbor, Michigan’s resident jokesters offer a 14-song romp through goofy hip-hop, polished pop, and quirky wordsmithing, perfect for the college drinking crowd.

By Michelle Drown

Fact or Fiction?

The Tale of Bandido Joaqu-n Murieta

By Elizabeth Schwyzer

Letting it All Hang Out

ASzURe & Artists

At Center Stage Theater, Wednesday, July 26 and Saturday, July 29.I had a hunch that this was a company whose masterclass I should take if I were reviewing their performance. Aszure’s teaching, like her choreography and her dancing, is fearless. She’s a risk taker and a speaker of truths-whether they’re convenient or not. “You were holding on to that moment,” she told one dancer in Saturday’s class. “Let it go-just let it all out.”

Angry Poodle By Nick Welsh

Viva el Perro!

ODDZ-n-ENDZ: In dire days such as these, I make a point to aim for the capillary. If I lunged for the jugular-and actually connected-chances are good I’d drown in the ensuing flood. That’s why I rejoice in the arrival of silly season, in which political campaign managers lob verbal scuds at each other’s candidates when few people are paying attention and even fewer care.