Imagine an embarrassing childhood photo, the kind your mom likes to take out and show relatives to humiliate you. Now image your childhood photos were broadcast for the world to see—you in your adorably dorky Girl Scout uniform, you in bangs with Pippi Longstocking pigtails, you with Lucille Ball. OK, that last one would probably be pretty bitchin’, but still, imagine you can’t seem to get away from your childhood that haunts you so often your only choice is to occasionally satirize yourself.
Welcome to Jenny Lewis‘ life, which might elicit pity except she’s weathered the childhood actor anchor and soared to new heights as a musician. Lewis began her acting career in 1983 as the voice of Ruby on It’s an Adventure, Charlie Brown, but she’s perhaps best known for her turn as Hannah Nefler—opposite Shelley Long and Craig T. Nelson—in Troop Beverly Hills (1989). She worked constantly over the next decade in films such as Foxfire, Little Boy Blue, and Pleasantville when she abruptly retired from acting to form the rock band Rilo Kiley with fellow child actor Blake Sennett, and Pierre de Reeder and Dave Rock.
The group was an overnight sensation, but they eventually disbanded in 2013, and Lewis has gone on to an amazing solo career as well as collaborations in groups such as Jenny & Johnny and Nice As Fuck.
This Thursday, July 28, Numbskull and Good Medicine present Jenny Lewis at BarrelHouse Brewing (7 p.m.; $35 at goodmedicinepresents.com).
Lewis’ songs can be autobiographical, for instance “Little White Dove” about visiting her hospitalized dying mother, who Lewis believes stole her acting money from shows like Growing Pains to fund illegal drug dealing, but she’s also said she wants listeners’ imagination to share a role in her storytelling. She’s been through the Hollywood ringer, navigating our patriarchal culture, and has come out the other side a strong-as-steel woman. Hear her roar!
Numbskull and Good Medicine also bring horticulturist-turned-musician Gregory Alan Isakov to the Performing Arts Center of SLO on Sunday, July 31 (8 p.m.; $45 to $57 at pacslo.org; ages 5 and older), with opener Daniel Rodriguez. A dollar per ticket will be donated to directly fund safe housing for Ukrainian refugees in Poland through the Palaces for People coalition.
They also are hosting country act Mike and the Moonpies with special guest Rob Leines at The Siren on Sunday, July 31 (8 p.m.; 21-and-older; $17 presale at goodmedicinepresents.com).
True grit
John Forgety‘s voice is so iconic. On songs like “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?” “Fortunate Son,” and “Run Through the Jungle,” that voice is unmistakable.
This Friday, July 29, you can see him live when the California Mid-State Fair presents An Evening of Music and Wine with John Fogerty as part of the Michelob Ultra Concert Series in the Chumash Grandstand Arena (7:30 p.m.; $45 to $80 at midstatefair.evenue.net). Don’t miss Forgerty’s bluesy, swampy, Southern, countrified rock, pop, and boogie sounds.
Visit midstatefair.com for the rest of this year’s shows, like Beach Boys co-founder Al Jardine on his The Family & Friends tour this Friday, July 29, on the free Frontier Stage, or country music superstar Kane Brown playing the Michelob Ultra Concert Series on the Chumash Grandstand Arena this Thursday, July 28 (7:30 p.m.; $35 to $125 at midstatefair.evenue.net).
Kaleo diet
The sad news is The Offspring show on Friday, July 29, is sold out at Vina Robles Amphitheatre, but Kaleo on their Fight or Flight tour plays Sunday, July 31 (7:30 p.m.; $35 to $59.50 at ticketmaster.com).
The Elektra/Atlantic rock band has been selling out shows across the U.S. and Europe, including Red Rocks, Grand Ole Opry, and the Ryman Auditorium. With recent hits like “Break My Baby,” “Backbone,” and “Hey Gringo,” as well as hits from their 2016 major label debut A/B, “Way Down We Go,” “Automobile,” and “Hot Blood,” and Grammy-nominated rocker “No Good,” they’ve got tons of arena-ready anthems to wow the crowds.
Allan Rayman opens.
The Siren El Chorro
Everybody knows the place to go for live music in Morro Bay is The Siren, which has a bunch of great shows this week, but you may not know the owners of The Siren have another location, The Siren El Chorro, at Dairy Creek Golf Course, and they’re about to grow their smallish concerts there into full-blown shows.
“We’ve had a couple intimate shows with Moonshiner Collective, but those were designed to be for 200 or so people, and we can do 500-plus if need be because we have plenty of space,” explained Siren manager Monte Schaller.
This week, they have two upcoming shows that he says will feature “Concerts in the Plaza-type stage production.”
“It’s definitely on the higher end of anything we’ve done since taking it over a year and half ago,” Schaller noted. “They are ticketed. Low-back chairs are welcome with plenty of room in front to dance on the grass. Maybe think Sea Pines—it’s outdoors, targeting the scenic sunset as the money shot during the headliner’s set. Full food and beverage from The Siren kitchen available. The weather looks like it’s gonna be great!”
First up is the Central Coast Ska Festival on Friday, July 29, with Western Standard Time Ska Orchestra, Upside Ska, and Los Hooligans (doors at 6 p.m.; 21-and-older; $25 presale at my805tix.com).
Think Duke Ellington meets Jamaica in Western Time, which features “big band jazz arrangements of the 1940s colliding with the sound of Jamaican ska!” Upside Ska features a crew of local rude boys and frontman Eric Cotton of Bay Area supergroup The Cheeseballs. Los Hooligans “has laid its roots in a musical style known as traditional Jamaican ska and have branched out from there by infusing alternative, classic Latin, jazz, and R&B flavors.”
The Siren El Chorro also presents an Allman Brothers and Doobie Brothers double tribute night with Midnight Rider Band and China Grove on Saturday, July 30 (6 p.m.; all ages; $30 presale at eventbrite.com). Expect to hear the hits!
Meanwhile, over at the Morro Bay location, there’s a whole bunch of concerts. Visit thesirenmorrobay.com for a complete list.
Mozaic winds down
Festival Mozaic finishes its three-week run with a ton of great shows, including Tony Award-winner and Broadway star Brian Stokes Mitchell at the Fremont Theater on Friday, July 29 (7:30 p.m.; $20 to $97 at festivalmozaic.org). He’ll perform an evening of Broadway favorites with pianist Tedd Firth.
He’s enjoyed more than 40 years on Broadway, television, film, recordings, and concert appearances with the country’s finest conductors and orchestras. From Man of La Mancha, to August Wilson’s King Hedley II, to Ragtime, to Kiss of the Spider Woman—he’s been a reliable lead performer.
Visit festivalmozaic.com for a complete list of their remaining shows.
More music …
Lance Robison plays every Thursday at Big Sky Cafe, including this Thursday, July 28, from 5 to 8 p.m. His 2009 album Codependence Beach was funded by the sale of some reel-to-reel tapes of a Beach Boys recording session he’d been sitting on for years, chronicled in the New Times story “The Reel Deal” (Aug. 26, 2009). Great songwriter with great stories!
Eighties-style dance band The Molly Ringwald Project plays Concerts in the Plaza this Friday, July 29 at 5:30 p.m. Local singer-songwriter Ynana Rose will open the show at 4:30 p.m.
On Sunday, July 31, the Basin Street Regulars hosts a hot jazz concert featuring Night Blooming Jazzmen and Big Sirs of Swing beginning at 1 p.m. in the Pismo Beach Vets Hall ($10 tickets at my805tix.com. You can also stream the concert. Visit pismojazz.com for details).
Jazz vocalist Deborah Gilmore and Mo Betta Jazz Production present Paris Next Year, a concert of jazz standards on Wednesday, Aug. 3, at The Penny (doors at 6:45 and show 7:30 p.m.; $30 includes a light meal, dessert, and a beverage or $20 for dessert and a beverage at my805tix.com). Δ
Contact Senior Staff Writer Glen Starkey at gstarkey@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in 55 Fiction 2022.