ARTS LIFE

WELCOME TO THE SUBURB DOME

THE WOLVES CAPTURES TEEN ANGST IN A SPORTS BUBBLE

The Wolves, which runs April 6-23 at Santa Barbara City College’s Jurkowitz Theatre, puts its all-female cast to work in the service of an intriguing premise. The Wolves are an indoor soccer team for high-school-age women. The play portrays a series of six warm-up sessions before their weekly soccer games. All of the characters—except one, known only as “Soccer Mom”—are identified in the script by uniform number. The dialogue they speak while performing actual soccer warm-up drills overlaps frequently. At times, the audience must choose which of the different conversations to follow, and those choices often depend on where one sits in the theater.

Director Sara Rademacher, an alum of the UCSB Dramatic Arts program with an MFA in Theater Directing from Columbia, will be familiar to many Santa Barbara theater fans from her work as cofounder and former artistic director of the Elements Theatre Collective. She brings a great deal of experience working with non-traditional scripts to the project and touts the play’s omnidirectional approach as a core strength. “The first thing to know about The Wolves,” she told me, “is that it means something different for everyone who sees it.” This is not just because of the overlapping dialogue; it’s also because “each woman is a real individual.” When playwright Sarah DeLappe premiered the play in 2016, critics immediately recognized the degree to which the writing departed from previous attempts to capture the natural way teens talk.

The Wolves received a Pulitzer nomination and became one of the most-produced plays of the decade. Audiences responded enthusiastically to the realism of its dialogue and the nuanced account it gives of adolescence in contemporary America. In her preface to the play’s reader edition, DeLappe asks and then answers the most obvious question by saying, “Why soccer? Astroturf and American exceptionalism. It’s essential that these girls are playing indoor soccer… These American teenagers exist, quite literally, in a bubble.” Rademacher concurs in DeLappe’s analysis, offering her interpretation of the City Sports Dome where the play takes place.

She sees the set, which replicates the sensation of being in a plastic sports dome facility, as a potent metaphor. “They are like baby birds in a nest,” Rademacher observed. “The big thing that happens happens outside.” SBCC Technical Director Ben Crop has been recording rehearsals and working with the sound to create an ambient echo chamber that reinforces this notion of living in a sphere sealed off from the outside world. SBCC has flagged the production as one that “Contains Adult Language &

COURTESY

Material,” which is true enough, but I hope it won’t keep teens and families from seeing the show. There’s nothing in it that wouldn’t pass muster on the Lifetime Channel, and it’s nowhere near as shocking as any average weeknight on basic cable. On the other hand, this is not to say that The Wolves is easy or complacent. For Rademacher, the challenge has been to keep her cast open to the ambiguity of the play’s ending, which can be heartwarming or unsettling, depending on your viewpoint. Like the overlapping dialogue and the distracting feats of athleticism, the play’s denouement asks the audience to choose, and it doesn’t tell you how to decide or what to think. Let’s hope that many people will choose to see it and take the opportunity to think for themselves, outside the bubble.

—Charles Donelan

ISLA VISTA: RESISTANCE AND PROGRESS

Marion Post Wolcott made her reputation in the turbulent period between 1938 and 1941 as one of the most active members of the Farm Services Administration photography team. She took thousands of photographs of the South and the Appalachians, all in the service of her progressive political views.

This exhibition highlights Wolcott’s work from the 1970s, when she lived in Santa Barbara and observed the social movements animating the community in Isla Vista. From peace marches to recycling drives, her photos document the emerging sensibilities of the counterculture with characteristic precision and dignity. The exhibit Isla Vista: Resistance and Progress is on view at the UCSB Art, Design, & Architecture Museum through May 1. —CD

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Maggie Nelson

MAGGIE NELSON’S FREEDOM RIDE

With people spending so much time speaking out against intellectual discourse, it’s refreshing to break away from shallow arguments and instead participate in genuine dialogue. Apart from the fear-mongering and the disclaimers, there’s still a robust community of scholars who get down to it. None more so than University of Southern California professor of English Maggie Nelson. Nelson, whose latest book is On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint, will appear on Thursday, March 31, at 5:30 p.m. in the Mary Craig Auditorium of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art as the latest guest in the museum’s Parallel Stories series.

On Freedom sets out Nelson’s extremely learned opinions on art, sex, drugs, and climate change. Although each of these topics could be the subject of a thoughtful magazine feature story or a newspaper op-ed, that’s not Nelson’s approach. Instead, she wields the traditional apparatus of academic writing with alacrity, bringing dozens of lengthy footnotes and hundreds of works cited to unravel some of the new century’s most tangled ideological knots. In a world of incessant haste and oversimplification, these long and detailed arguments counter the tendency toward the glib and superficial.

If you yearn for discussions of queer culture, addiction, or campus censorship that take ideas seriously and refuse easy answers, check out On Freedom, or better yet, get to the SBMA and hear what Nelson sounds like in person. For tickets and information, visit sbma.net. —CD

YETI BEATS GETS MULTIPLE GRAMMY NOMINATIONS

S.B. Teen Punk Dave Sprecher Turns Mega-Producer with Superstar Doja Cat

by Marko DeSantis

Ifirst wrote about Grammy-nominated record producer and multiple-hit radio songwriter Yeti Beats in these pages in June 1999. Back then, Yeti was a 17-year-old kid called David Sprecher, who was wrapping up his junior year at Santa Barbara High School, about to come out with his band Slimer’s second record and hit the road all summer long on the Warped Tour. In the piece, I intuitively described teenage Sprecher as “a soulful man negotiating his way out of his boyish frame.”

Now, that boy has become that soulful man and then some. As producer and songwriter, Sprecher is nominated for several Grammys for his work with chart-topping pop/hip-hop/R&B artist Doja Cat, whom he discovered and developed as an unknown back in 2013. He has worked alongside Doja ever since and helped nurture her into becoming one of the defining pop stars of the Generation Z era.

Their nods at the upcoming 64th Annual Grammy Awards include the coveted trifecta of Song of the Year, Record of the Year, and Album of the Year, among nominations in several other categories. With eight, Doja is tied for second-most nominations with Justin Bieber and H.E.R. That’s more than Olivia Rodrigo, Ariana Grande, or Billie Eilish! The 2022 Grammys will be held Sunday, April 3, at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

Sprecher was born in Los Angeles, but his family moved a few years later to Santa Barbara, where he attended Montecito Union School and eventually Santa Barbara High School.

Their good friends, the Fells, also relocated to S.B. around the same time. Their son Adam Fell and Sprecher have remained close friends since preschool, and today, Fell is Sprecher’s manager. Fell says, “Back in June of 2013, Yeti brought this girl [Doja Cat] to Quincy Jones’s house and told me he believed she would be one of the biggest stars in the world. Frankly, he had that steadfast belief in her before anyone in the broader music industry did.”

After graduating from SBHS in 2000, Sprecher moved to L.A. to attend Occidental College, where the ordinarily gifted student somewhat ironically received a D+ grade in an introductory Music Business elective. There, he also began to expand his sonic horizons beyond the punk and alternative rock of his youth. A college friend and bandmate nicknamed him “Yeti” due to his signature long hair and full beard; Sprecher added “Beats” due to his newfound obsession with hip-hop, deejay culture, beat-making, sampling, etc.

In 2003, Yeti Beats started concentrating on producing records in his home studio, carving out his niche in underground hip-hop and reggae, including work with S.B.’s homegrown modern reggae stars Rebelution. As his studio work grew, he opened a complex called the Himalayas, where he fostered a communal creative environment of upstart producers, songwriters, collaborators, and artists.

Sprecher recalled discovering a young singer/dancer/rapper Doja Cat (née Amala Ratna Zandile Dlamini): “An intern at my studio was playing songs off of SoundCloud, and he clicked on a really rough demo of a song called ‘So High’ with only 42 ‘views’ that then-16-yearold Amala had written and recorded by herself on her laptop in her bedroom and recently uploaded.”

Sprecher continued, “It immediately caught my ear. We looked her up on Facebook. She happened to live nearby. We messaged her and asked if she wanted to come over and make some music.”

He spoke to the girl’s mother, Deborah Sawyer, who was very supportive, and they arranged to bring her to his makeshift studio to work on some songs together. The pair hit it off, and he started picking her up every day. Sprecher says, “She was shy, but despite her young age, she already had a strong artistic vision, she could write great hooks, she could sing and rap—there was just something about her; she carried herself like a superstar from the start.” Sprecher acted as her de facto manager, collaborator, band member, and executive producer. Their work began to manifest into a series of internet uploads, DIY remixes, and eventually a major-label record deal. After a slow start with the 2014 EP Purrr!, they eventually gained momentum with their 2018 breakthrough Amala, which featured the viral YouTube hit “Mooo!” They followed it with the bona fide radio hit “Juicy.” Then 2019’s smash album Hot Pink delivered a #1 radio hit, “Say So,” setting an exponential trajectory up the radio and streaming charts into play. Doja’s billion-plus-stream- garnering current release Planet Her (2021), featuring hits “Kiss Me More” (feat. SZA), “Need to Know,” “You Right” (feat. The Weeknd), “Get Into it (Yuh),” and her latest, “Woman,” which, at press time, is her most popular song on Spotify and just reached #1 at rhythmic radio, continues to build every day. Sprecher lovingly calls it “an overnight success story … nine years in the making!” Doja’s co-manager Gordon Dillard explained in a recent interview with Variety magazine, “Yeti fully understands Doja’s sound and executes every time, creating and being part of her biggest records. They just never miss together.” Despite his enormous commercial success, these days, the

Yeti Beats and Doja seasoned producer eschews big fancy studios and prefers to

Cat’s Nominations work at home on his kitchen table with a simple MIDI controller, a pair of speakers, and his trusty old laptop. Sprecher humbly explains his process on his winning streak with Doja Cat: “We try to keep it fun and lighthearted. Amala · Planet Her (Deluxe): Album of the Year, Best Pop Vocal Album is such a unique talent. I just try to keep her inspired and give her a safe space to be creative.” “With each artist that I work with, I try to catch their vibe, · “Kiss Me More” (feat. SZA): Song of the Year, Record of the Year, and Best Pop Duo/ Group Performance really listen to what they want, and make something that’s authentic. It’s about catching the moment. Parts of myself enjoy the thrashing of punk or the kick-back groove of reggae; I listen to funk, disco, house, jazz, or pretty much anything. I · “Need to Know”: Best Melodic Rap Performance don’t wanna commit to making one genre of music. I aspire to be an eclectic producer.” Sprecher recently inked an exclusive publishing deal with · “Best Friend” (Saweetie feat. Doja Cat): Best Rap Song Warner Chappell Music and is currently in the home stretch of a still-hush-hush imprint label deal with a major record company. · Montero (Lil Nas X, feat. Doja Cat on the song “Scoop”): Album of the Year For now, though, Sprecher is, as ever, working on new music, his flow temporarily interrupted this week by the distinct task of trying to figure out what to wear to the awards ceremony. He chuckles, “Me and Doja have a pact between some friends from the early days—if she was ever to win a Grammy, then we’d all have to get tattoos of cats on our butts!” Manager Adam Fell concludes, “To say Yeti has reached the ultimate heights would be an understatement—and yet, he remains the humble and kind friend I remember from childhood. I also know that Yeti is only just getting started.” Either way, tune in this weekend to support another 805 music achievement and find out if fresh new cat tats are in order! n

SUPREME TEAM: Dave Sprecher, a k a Yeti Beats, seen here with recording partner Doja Cat and by himself, has gone from a member of a punk rock band to a platinum producer.