This edition of ON the Beat was originally emailed to subscribers on November 24, 2022. To receive Josef Woodard’s music newsletter in your inbox each Thursday, sign up at independent.com/newsletters.
Everyone knows him as Spencer. Mr. Barnitz does have a last name — which he shares with his fine-voiced sister Liz — but Spencer long ago attained first name basis/status in Santa Barbara. But this regional rock star — or, as Spencer put it at the Lobero last Friday, “international local artist” — couldn’t do it alone, and would never want to. He is completely entrenched in the limber, cross-genre, and bilingual grooves of his expansive band Spencer the Gardener and, critically, is also fixed on the notion of keeping strong links to his community of fans and neighbors.
Friday’s Lobero soiree turned out to be a throbbing fun-tank of Spencer-mania. The sold-out occasion was made possible by the new collective known as Hello Santa Barbara! — producers and situation-makers Emile Millar and Terri Wright, along with filmmaker Robert Redfield, director of an upcoming documentary about Spencer. Redfield could be seen roaming the room and stage with camera in tow, capturing footage for the film in progress, which will hopefully have its premiere at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in February. Excerpts of the film were screened before the exhilarating and heartwarming three-hour show by STG. Even in its teasing preview form, the film seems to hit all the right buttons (my Independent colleague-in-crime Matt Kettmann and I appeared as resident pundits).