Altman-icana

Prairie Home Companion

prairiehome.jpgGarrison Keillor, Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, and Virginia Madsen star in a film written by Keillor and directed by Robert Altman.
Die-hard fans of great American artists Garrison Keillor and Robert Altman approach the new Altman-directed, Keillor-written script with an emotional cocktail of trepidation and elation. Would a film version of Keillor’s beloved Prairie Home Companion pry apart the personal imagery we radio fans have concocted around such regular features as the Ketchup Advisory Board and the Chatterbox Cafe? Or would Keillor’s domineering personality, and his blend of faux folklore and dark wit, overshadow the artistic persona we’ve come to know and love about Altman’s films?

Ageless

Chicago, with Huey Lewis and the News

At the Santa Barbara Bowl Saturday. June 10.
Saturday night’s show at the Bowl definitely catered to a mature crowd, but being at the younger end of the spectrum, I too was taken back to family road trips and late summer nights belting along to the rock radio staples of my childhood.

Bit by a Dead Dog

TALKIN’ LOUD, SAYING NOTHING: You may not be able to teach old dogs new tricks, but the good news is that sometimes you can’t always fool them with the same old ones. A case in point is George Bush‘s notable failure to gain traction last week by yanking the old Marriage Protection Amendment out of mothballs. In this case, Bush sought to explain how the homosexual threat to the sanctity of marriage had grown so dire that the Constitution itself needed to be changed.

Multi-Polar Energies

Ensemble for Contemporary Music

At Lotte Lehmann Hall, Tuesday, June 6.
In the finale of the exciting, cerebral, and ever-underrated concert series from Ensemble for Contemporary Music, geographical poetics and dynamic extremes made for a happy convergence. Mayan references blended with stellar solo turns on viola and cello, and visiting composer-in-residence Ursula Mamlok, German-born and long N.Y.C.-based, offered compact bursts of contemporary chamber music wisdom.

Reverend Karen Weingard

Living Big

You can’t miss Reverend Karen Weingard of Center of the Heart. A lithe woman in her 60s with the taut skin of someone half her age, she is a vision. She highlights her auburn hair with streaks of royal purple and crowns of dyed ostrich plumes or rhinestones. She gilds her clavicle with glitter. Her eyelids sparkle green and silver, her ears and nose with diamond studs. She wraps herself in vivid velvet and chiffon. “Live life BIG for God,” she exhorts, and, clearly, means it.

Dread-Free and Silver Hair

THE DYLAN JUDAH REPORT: Well, Santa Barbara’s most notorious dread shaved his dome recently, but his dancehall reggae style is still in full effect. Says current L.A. resident Dylan Judah, “Big t’ings are happening, bro!” Those things include Dylan and Sugar Black – who together are known as Black Judah – signing record deals with both Scientist’s DubMusic.com label to support the albums they’ve done under Mountain Paradise Records and a Bay Area upstart company called Teflon Blood, which Dylan claims is aiming to take Jamaica by storm.

Dakar Calling

Baaba Maal Comes to the Live Oak Music Festival

As usual, this year’s Live Oak Music Festival program takes its listeners on a dizzying trip all over the musical map. But the highlight of this edition comes on Sunday evening, with the eagerly awaited arrival of Baaba Maal, the globally beloved vocalist from Senegal.

20/20 Hindsight

The Musical Journey of T Bone Burnett

Fourteen years between albums goes a long way in explaining why some in the general public might not instantly recognize the name T Bone Burnett. But while his own releases have been sparse, his remarkable musical empathy has guided an impressive array of undertakings, from producing for the likes of Elvis Costello and Roy Orbison, composing music for Sam Shepard plays, scoring the soundtrack for O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and guiding the vocals of Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon in Walk the Line, the biopic on the life of Johnny Cash.

“Wrong Way” Armstrong Sentenced

Travis Armstrong, the contentious voice of the NewsPress editorial pages, was fined $1,600 and sentenced to four days behind bars for driving the wrong way down Santa Barbara Street one Saturday night four weeks ago; at the time, his blood alcohol level was 0.23, which is nearly three times the legal limit of 0.08.

BORN BEHIND BARS:

Further proving that storks can visit anybody, anytime, anywhere, an inmate at Santa Barbara County Jail unexpectedly gave birth in her cell without even knowing she was pregnant.

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