With the return to a quieter and less chaotic state after the big car extravaganza last week, the Monterey Peninsula turns inward and embraces the quality of life residents enjoy on a day-to-day basis.
The Sand City West End Celebration that takes place this weekend is where residents can come out of hiding to celebrate our artistic community and to gather with friends from all around the area as a gift from Sand City.
The event started quietly over 20 years ago as primarily a Sand City artist open studio expo. Today this two-day local arts and music extravaganza adds to the open studios with three stages of music for both days, a street art fair spread out over the core of the business district where shopping in the outdoor air is a joyful breeze and a variety of food and beverage vendors to fuel the fun.
Community arts organizations also serve to entertain with interactive displays and engaging activities. Individual businesses host art displays and live music stages that add to the festive atmosphere. You can expect to see lots of friends and streets filled with art lovers and supporters. You just might find that special work of art to adorn your home, or jewelry piece and/or clothing to adorn your body.
“It’s a Sand City event, a gift to the community,” said producer Steve Vagnini. “I just happen to represent the City. The gift is we can bring the community together to celebrate the arts and music scene. It’s really a local community event. We have so many great events in Monterey County, but most of them draw tourists from all over. It’s kind of nice that it happens right after Concours, a nice little juxtaposition when all the out of town people leave and the cars go away and then the very following week, just before the fair, there’s another local event.”
Vagnini takes care of booking the bands and accepting vendor applications, and managing the event itself, so he’s core to the design of the festival each year. He has a regular group of volunteers who handle the set up and break down of the stages, provide hospitality for the participating artists, and who provide security all around the footprint of the event, in addition to the Sand City Police Department, which mans the entrances. Parking is limited around the city, so for convenience the free MST Trolley shuttle will pick up passengers at the bus terminal in the Sand City shopping area and run every 15 minutes from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. Green Pedal Courier will again provide a free bike valet service at the corner of Ortiz and Contra Costa.
There are over 150 artists, crafters and vendors and more than 30 bands over the course of the weekend. For the complete rundown of artists and musicians, map of artist locations and the schedule of band appearances, visit the event webpage at www.westendcelebration.com.
Headliners on the Independent, Redwood and the Hear and Now stages, plus two free range stages are blues guitarist/singer Coco Montoya, genre bending Americana artist Joe Craven & the Sometimes, the Rayburn Brothers, Sensory Tribe, The Transducers, Al James Band, The Tremelos, Venus Daze, Carolyn Sills Combo, Latin Jazz Collective, Casey Frazier Band, Cement Ship, The Brad “Guitar” Wilson Band, The New Wave Band and featured artist River Voices, who have chosen the event as a record release celebration of its brand new five-song EP recording “Heart On Her Sleeve.”
“What’s cool about these five songs I think,” said band founder/songwriter Jaqui Hope, “is they’re all different moods. They’re coming from different places. Yearning for a love that’s not reciprocal, there’s one when somebody you’ve known for 10 years turns around and asks you for a date and how weird that is. Another one that’s about secrets.”
The name River Voices from the beginning was meant to represent the sounds of water weaving through rocks, making different sounds that inevitably blend together to make a beautiful flowing sound, according to Hope. About a year and a half ago when the band first formed, there were three women singers who did blend their voices beautifully, and their choice of songs were centered on women’s stories. Hope wrote a few originals, it was early in her process of learning, and the band did mostly cover songs. By this time last year the original three had grown beyond the a cappella trio to include a full backing band which appeared at the 2023 West End Celebration. Singer/songwriter Linda Arceo came into the band as an acoustic guitar player, keeping in check her solo performer persona.
“I had fun and it gave me a chance to connect differently with somebody singing and then also it helped with my chops playing and I learned how to pay attention differently. I really enjoyed it. I did it for something like almost a year like that,” Arceo said.
Early this year, the two other vocalists who shared the stage with Hope decided to move on to other projects and it left Hope with her band and a decision how to proceed. She had continued working on original music, and in an organic way, Arceo stepped up to the front and joined Hope in her quest to become an all-original band. Arceo has seven of her own original music album releases, with radio airplay and a contrasting musical style to Hope, but it turned out to be a great pairing and now they share songwriting duties and blend their two voices. And in a way that no one could predict, they’ve formed a solid friendship whereas before Arceo joined the band, they hadn’t really known each other except on a casual awareness of each other on the music scene.
“Why I’m interested in doing this is because it is all original music,” Arceo said, “and to tell these stories, and to have a safe and fun place to write music. I really like the idea it’s a creative project. My day job is not creative at all and I love working with Jaqui. All these years we’ve been working around each other. We knew who each other was, but we’d never played or did anything together.
“I just want people to know there’s original music that needs to be heard and we’re having fun with it and there’s stories and things to be said. Some are Jaqui’s serious personal stories. We agreed we needed to write a fun, dancey song. So to come up with ideas like that is fun for me.
“Life had gotten heavy for me before this and I wasn’t writing. I had no enthusiasm to write. But now Jaqui will call me with an idea and it’s almost like a challenge. And I really get into it.”
This first recording from River Voices was started last year, with Hope engaging with producer Jesse DeCarlo, who brought in musicians he knew could deliver what they wanted on her songs. Most of the songs come from her life stories with a song or two devised through creative writing. The intention for subsequent recordings to to be all about the collaborative efforts of Hope and Arceo, presenting to the audience a kind of Indigo Girls from Monterey vibe. Their inspirations are many, and stylistically what they perform ranges from bluegrass/alt country, singer/songwriter to out and out rockers. The rock comes from Arceo’s pen, who could represent a Melissa Etheridge vibe.
The full band for its Sunday, 1 p.m. hour-long, all originals set on the Independent Stage is Hope (songwriter and vocals), Arceo (songwriter, vocals and acoustic guitar), Rory Glass (bass), Sam Nilsson (electric guitar), Laurel Thomsen (violin), John Nava (percussion) and Martin Binder (drums).
“The joy of playing music with a great friend, that’s the gem at the center of River Voices,” Hope said. “It’s in our collaboration and the fun we have creating together. The fact that I can write something and collaborate immediately and have somebody to be my sounding board. That’s really valuable.”
There’s lots of great talent at this weekend’s free Sand City West End Celebration, Saturday, 11 a.m. – 5:30 p.m., and Sunday, 12 p.m. – 5 p.m.
There’s a few more events I’d like to make sure you know about coming this week and later on in the fall. This Saturday evening at the Monterey Marriott’s Characters Bar, contemporary jazz vocalist Marilyn Scott appears with the Bill Spencer Trio, Spencer on keys, Skylar Campbell on drums and Pete Lips on bass. The Grammy-nominated Scott is a songwriter as well as an accomplished singer who has collaborated with many acclaimed artists and musicians. Showtime is 8 p.m., no cover, 350 Calle Principal, downtown Monterey.
Tickets are on sale for the debut of a new immersive festival experience called Worlds Away, which takes place at the Monterey Fair & Event Center Oct. 12. In addition to the DJ/EDM music from The Chainsmokers, Tiësto, Lauv, R3HAB, Sam Feldt, Lost Kings, Ayokay, with additional artists to be added, there will be cutting-edge technological innovation creative-directed by Vita Motus, whose previous work includes show-stopping art installations at Coachella, Electric Daisy Carnival, and the Super Bowl Halftime Show. These enthralling experiences will carry into the evening as well, with the festival atmosphere shifting when the sun sets from a vibrant daytime celebration to a mesmerizing nocturnal experience containing stunning light displays and holographic projections that will illuminate the fairgrounds, creating an otherworldly ambiance that will captivate the imagination. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit https://www.worldsaway.io/.
And keep an eye out for the full story on the appearance of Lenny Williams and his band Sept. 1, at the newly expanded Deja Blue in Seaside. Williams is known for his tenure as an early vocalist with Tower of Power and for the 1978 hit song “Cause I Love You,” among other things.
Darryl Choates, owner of the club, has expanded into the next door space and created what he’s calling the Event Center with the capacity to hold 375 patrons. This will be the first show held in the room. Tickets are $50 for the sneak peek into the new space. There will be VIP tickets available for $100 that includes a small mixer prior to the show, available through Eventbrite in advance.
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