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DaviD CassiDy D in s.B. Dy sidy said. People ask him what it’s like, and he doesn’t know what to say. “I’ve been doing it so long, it’s like breathing. I don’t know what another reality would have been. I’m just living mine, and it’s been quite extraordinary.” His show at the Granada will be “a map of where and how it began, and how now, in 2017, I’m going to say good-bye to touring.” It will be something of a homecoming for Cassidy, who lived in Montecito in 1976 with then-wife Kay Lenz. “If I ever move back to California, S.B. is the only place I would consider living. I truly love it there,” he said. He lived on an 11.6-acre Spanishhacienda-style property with a few horses, and remembers having great times at Joe’s in the late ’70s in his getaway home from the L.A. bustle. The years have a tinge of pain now, as he looks back on the marriages that didn’t work out. “I made very poor choices when it came to relationships. I’m not real good at it; I just never have been,” he said. But in all, it’s been a great life on the road. “I just can’t tour anymore. I know it’s time. I’ve done it at the highest level. I’ve been embraced by millions and millions and millions of people all over the world,” Cassidy said. See him at the Granada for one last chance to cherish his work live in person. Cassidy plays Sunday, February 19, 7 p.m., at the Granada Theatre (1214 State St.). Call 899-2222 or visit granadasb.org. granadasb.org
ing grown up in a family that was doubly musical and theatrical, “I had no intention of pursuing my career as a musician or as a singer,” he said. He credits his father for influencing him “enormously” on the professional front, with work-ethic adages such as “You never show up late,”“You never take a shitty job for money when you know it’s crap,” and “The only thing that survives is talent.” The grueling tour schedule “was so emotionally and physically demanding, but I never resented it. People thought I hated it; I never did. I’ve had phenomenal opportunities with who I’ve gotten to work with, on every level, some of the greatest musicians in the world,” Cas-
—Richie DeMaria
three’s a Festival at SBCAST Three is the magic number on Sunday, February 19, when SBCAST (S.B. Center for Art, Science and Technology) will host its first-ever 3-Minute Film Festival. With a schedule of 18 films from all over the world, it’s a celebration of compact renderings of cinematic forms, perfectly sized statements in a mediascape of YouTube channels and Twitter feeds. Coming just a week after the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, it’s something like a palate-cleansing petit four course following the larger cinematic feast of the previous weeks. Festival director and SBCAST curator Lynn M. Holley put out a call for three-minute works made within the last three years and falling into one of three categories: narrative, documentary, and experimental. Holley views the short films as concise expressions in tune with our increasing need for communication speed. “It comes down to tweeting and texting,” she said. “I think it’s
harder to sit through longer films now unless they’re super good.” But what’s more, she said, this style of filmmaking asks creators to sharpen and condense their craft akin to a poem for a novelist, and it’s a great format for young Sundream filmmakers. The festival will showcase live-action and animated shorts from countries such as Iran, Italy, Japan, and Romania, as well as three area films. Highlights include a pair of S.B. student films created through the Dance on Camera Mentorship with student dancer/filmmakers from the 2016 Arts Fund Mentorship Program, one of which will feature live music by Freya Phillips and Curran McCrory to a piece arranged by student producer Allie Cole, and another by a Ukrainian exchange student in her second year at Anacapa High School.
“The two films are brimming with vitality and mystery and set at the shore, which has its own significance,” said mentor Robin Bisio. The festival will conclude with a longer piece, the 10-minute Till Human Voices Wake Us, starring Lindsay Lohan and preceded by a reading of T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” after which the film is named. In all, it will be a short, sweet showcase of stimulating cinema. For more information, see 3minutefilmfestival .com. —RD
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ife has been one long, incredible journey for David Cassidy, and no one knows it better than the man himself. His show at the Granada Theatre this Sunday, February 19, will be a special one, as it will be the last one he ever plays on the West Coast. “This is the thing I love to do the most, but I just got to a point that my body, after 49 years, was beat up by working and traveling and touring from all over the world,” said the Partridge Family idol, who has arthritis. “But I still have a fire in my gut for it.” That fire was stoked from a very early age for the pop sensation, whose life has been the inspiration behind many a biopic and behind-the-scenes retrospective. He knew as young as 3½ years old the destiny that lay ahead, when he saw his parents perform in a matinee when they lived in Manhattan.“It changed my life because I knew exactly what I wanted to do: go back to New York and work for a theater company, get an agent, and start going to auditions, and that’s exactly what happened,” said Cassidy, whose career really took off after a casting director invited him to audition in L.A. In a quick matter of time, he found himself playing Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” for a little pilot with the working title The Family Business. Things didn’t exactly go as expected, and the unbelievable whirlwind that followed, with Cassidy vaulted to then-unprecedented levels of teen adoration, was totally unintended. Though he knew he could sing, hav-
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teen idol Waves Good-Bye to West coast
The ChiefTAinS Return to S.B.
On Tuesday, February 21, UCSB Arts & Lectures welcomes The Chieftains back to town at the Granada Theatre as they celebrate their 55th anniversary tour. Perhaps no band has been more responsible for reviving traditional Irish music worldwide than The Chieftains, who have spread the storied sounds of their Emerald Isle not just around this world but even beyond its orbit. In 2013, The Chieftains performed with Canadian astronaut Commander Chris Hadfield, who played acoustic guitar from the International Space Station along with a band, and two years prior, Irish astronaut Cady Coleman played an antique wooden flute and a shiny pennywhistle in space, donated to her by The Chieftains. Yet there is no removing The Chieftains and their founder, Paddy Moloney, from their sense of place, no matter how many miles their sounds have traveled. When I spoke with Moloney on the phone, he was in his home in the mountains of Glendalough, and he spoke of how the spirit for traditional Irish music swells strongly in the town of his youth. “Young musicians are coming up all the time, playing the music that we used to played all around the parish,” he said, where it’s “still vibrant and the people are wonderful” not far from the dreamy green hills of Luggala, “the most beautiful place in the world.” Though they’ve toured many times, after all these years, he said, there is no snuffing out the fire for Irish music burning in Moloney. “If it’s in you, it’s in you,” he said. “It’s one of the great folk arts of the world. It’s thought for the mind, nourishment for the soul, and food for the stomach.” This tour will see the band “getting more into the poetry side of things,” with recitations of poetry set to music, including works by John Montague — the recently passed-away author whom Moloney considers “the greatest Irish poet of all.” Moloney feels Irish music could help bring the world greater peace. “The world is a small place, with so much violence and twisted minds … I wish to God they could all get a tin whistle and a songbook and have a good time. The world would be a happier place.” The Chieftains play Tuesday, February 21, 8 p.m., at the Granada Theatre (1214 State St.). Call 899-2222 or visit granadasb.org. —RD
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FEbruary 16, 2017
THE INDEPENDENT
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