ENTERTAINMENT (Continued from page 41) so nice and Kotor is similar to Santa Barbara in that both places have water on one side and mountains on the other. It turns out the culture is quite similar, too. Everybody goes to the beach, and they have a relaxed, happy lifestyle. I felt quite at home and everybody was excited to hear about America.” Now Bashore and Agate – who attended the Music Academy of the West’s summer festival in 2015 and now enjoys a varied career that includes numerous recitals and recent appearances and a recording with Coldplay – will serve as the home team for the other side of the exchange, as Montenegran violinist Nastasja Vojinović and pianist Andrija Jovović are headed our way for a pair of performances on Friday, January 31. The foursome will play a variety of selections from the standard classical repertoire, showcasing the instruments in a number of combinations. “We’ve only communicated by email, but they seem very nice,” Bashore said. “And one of the things I learned from the cultural exchange is that there really aren’t any vast differences in rehearsals, concerts, and the music itself. That cheesy line that music is the universal language is actually true. When I was there, I was able to rehearse with people as if I’d known them my whole life. Now the musicians from Kotor are flying in on Wednesday night and we will only have one day to prepare. That speaks to their quality that they can be ready to go in 24 hours. I’m really looking forward to it.” The Santa Barbara-Kotor Sister Cities concert takes place 7 pm Friday at Weinman Hall on the MAW campus. Visit www.sbkotor sistercity.com.
Changing Sprockets: 3 Qs with Glen Phillips We caught up with Glen Phillips, the lead singer-songwriter of Toad the Wet Sprocket, coincidentally just a few days after the death of Terry Jones, one of the stars of the seminal comedy group Monty Python. The Santa Barbara-born alternative rock band took its name from one of the troupe’s skits back when Phillips was just 15; Eric Idle had created the phrase as an absurd title for a rock band in a skit where a journalist delivers a nonsensical music news report. The moniker might be one of the biggest regrets of Phillips and band mates guitarist Todd Nichols, bassist Dean Dinning, and drummer Randy Guss, but Idle – who reportedly learned about the band when he heard a Los Angeles DJ identify a song on the radio as being by Toad the Wet Sprocket – took it in stride. “He jokingly said he’d never sue us if we gave him a gold record if we ever earned one,” Phillips recalled. “So, we sent him one when we did.” That would have been after Toad, which formed in 1986, found chart success in the 1990s with a succession of such singles as “Walk on the Ocean,” “All I Want,” “Something’s Always Wrong,” “Fall Down,” and “Good Intentions” before disbanding for almost a decade in 1998, during which Phillips launched his artistically lauded solo career that still has him making new albums and performing all around the country, including gigs at SOhO several times a year. Over the ensuing dozen years, Toad reunited and began a run of nearly annual targeted summer tours while pursuing other interests during the off-season, which for Phillips includes leading weekly community singing sessions at
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active. A couple of seasons without new music can make things stale and that’s where trouble can start because you need changes and newness and frontiers. If we’re in the mode of exciting each other in that way, it goes better. Everything feeds each other.
d New iPaoo! t p u t se
Glen Phillips and Toad the Wet Sprocket play two shows at the Lobero, Thursday and Friday, January 30 and 31
a private Montecito home. “It just feels so elemental,” he explained. “Before people began singing at each other in concerts, we sang with each other. It’s something we evolutionarily expect.” This weekend, Toad will perform as a band in town for the first time in several years, with two shows at the Lobero on January 30-31. Phillips filled us in on the details. Q. It’s been a while since Toad has played in town. Why now for these two shows at the Lobero? A. Because we realized, hey, it’s been too long. We were overdue, and the gap was getting ridiculous. My mom, my brother, all of our families, they haven’t heard us play in years. For all of us to have the whole families there is a big deal. More than anything these shows are for our parents… But playing in town is always a bit strange. There’s a part that’s really warm and has that hometown feel. But we’re also nervous because all of a sudden we have a huge block of friends and family. There are stresses we don’t have other places. Just making out the guest list alone is ridiculous. There’s a whole lot of people we love here! But it’s still a lot of fun to look out and see all those familiar faces. Of course we don’t want to mess up. So it’s kind of like Thanksgiving stress. Mostly it’s wonderful. Speaking of familial situations, Toad has famously had some internal strife over the years. How are things now? We’re working on new material, and we’re always better when we’re
“Every man has two countries: his own and France.” - John F. Kennedy
How about the old songs? Some of your most popular ones you wrote as a teenager or in your early 20s. Do you still enjoy singing them? It’s all ever-changing, and it’s nightto-night. Some songs you sing because people want to hear them and some you still just like a lot. For the most part, I’m grateful that these songs still resonate in some way. The good things about asking the big questions – about life, like why are we here, what are we doing, how do we find happiness, what does it mean to be moral – you can keep asking those forever. The answers change more than the questions. So if the songs are asking them (which ours do), they don’t age badly... Having practiced regret, it’s hard for me not to think of what I might have done differently, but I’m proud of our material in Toad.
A Final Weekend of SBIFF
The red carpets have all been rolled back up, the klieg lights turned off, and filmmakers have gone on to the next festival along with their movies. But there’s still one final freebie for local film lovers before SBIFF calls it quits on its 35th festival. That would be the Third Weekend screenings, which although curtailed from the slate of nine or more films in the earliest years of the add-on will still show three of the most popular and acclaimed movies that screened during the official fest. Screening on Friday, January 31, The Flying Circus, which won the Jeffrey C Barbakow Best International Feature Film, follows a troupe of actors from Kosovo who weigh the risks of illegally crossing the border into Albania in the hope of meeting their idol, Monty Python’s Michael Palin. The Birdcatcher’s Son, a period drama set against the rugged landscape of the Faroe Islands that finds birdcatcher Esmar and his wife facing eviction from their farm unless they have a son, claimed the Audience Choice Award. It screens Saturday, February 1, while the following night brings Best Documentary Award winner Bastards’ Road, a story of pain, hope, and redemption that chronicles an Iraq War veteran who embarked on a 5,800-mile journey across the country – on foot – to visit fellow veterans and families of the fallen. All the films screen at 6:30 pm and admission is on a first come, first served basis at SBIFF’s Riviera Theatre. •MJ 30 January – 6 February 2020
