Music

People have asked us what we care about at BOW. Of course there are the dogs. But that's not really an answer. We answer that we care about community and charitable causes, our customers and staff; the wine and the music.

BOWMusic.

Notice how we have music most the time you're here? That's our iPods burning it down. We record onto them and set them to shuffle. Keeps the mix interesting and fun and surprising. The staff tries to get me to pull out my pod and insert theirs. To do that they need the right mix of fun and harmony: R&B and favorites and great singer-songwriters with a bit of the Rat Pack, Stones, Moody Blues, Pretenders, Robert Earl Keen Jr., Sam Cooke, Neko Case vibe. Throw in some Manassas and Little Feat, Neil Young and Marty Stuart, Jayhawks and John Hyatt. Mix it up with James Brown and k.d. lang, Eagles and Santana. Elvis Costello and Eddie Vedder. Clapton and Cat Stevens. Emmylou and Cassandra. Springsteen and Blue Man Group. Don't forget Beck & B.B. and Alison Krauss and Amy Winehouse. And of course Aretha.

That's music. That we can listen to day after day after day. That sets our tone and puts our place in order. When we pull out the glass to pour we know that you can stay and listen and enjoy the vibe. Man....dig the music!

I'm a Santa Cruzan. If you go to my Facebook page you'll see that I belong to two Santa Cruz groups. My favorite is "You know you're from Santa Cruz when..." If you link there you'll learn a lot about how I'm hardwired. The list even includes a blurp about an old restaurant that I briefly owned and managed. The Cooper House was a special place on the downtown open air Pacific Garden Mall. It was in the old county courthouse and it had opened in the late 60s as a bohemian art center , restaurant and bar. It had known many owners and managers by the time I called it home (I lived in the office for 3 months during the renovations and reopening) in 1986. It was special for many reasons with an outdoor bar and local characters such as "Rainbow Ginger" who at seventy years of age joyfully danced her spiritually rendered version of the seven veils nearly every day. Tom Scribner was a Wobbly organizer in the 20s and saw player in the 80s whose eerily wailing music filled the narrow alley spaces between the old buildings. And then we had Mr. Twister the Clown who performed for tips and fed the parking meters to save people getting tickets. My favorite character was my friend Don McCaslin who led his band "Warmth" playing every sunny day in front of the Cooper House . With his very long flowing grey beard and hair he led on the vibes with a collection of musicians from other bands and former greats who loved the scene as much as I did. The whole band played for us for $10 an hour and tips. They'd been getting $5 under the previous owner. I'd been listening to Warmth since arriving in Santa Cruz as a ten year old kid in 1972, accompanying my parents on the occasional downtown outing and gaining an appreciation for rigorous people watching which I have nurtured till this very day. Warmth played jazz and R&B standards. I used to sing "Mustang Sally" with them then offer everyone banana daiquiris at half off. Sound familiar?

During this time there was a great local radio station called KFAT out of Gilroy California. Now they are known as KPIG out of Freedom, California, just down from the neighborhood where I grew up. You should check out their website for some really great music webcasting: www.kpig.com. They're the oldest webcast radio station in the world. Who knew? Here in Marshall we have the oldest continually operating Ford dealership in the world. Who Knew?

Santa Cruz still has a great music venue called the Catalyst. The owner, Randall Kane, started out with a funky hippie deli in the glass atrium of a downtown senior citizen hotel. I was just a kid and would watch the typically very dirty and unkempt hippies slouch through and sit on the floors with their beaded leather pajamatop girlfriends. There was a lot of laughter and pot in there and spontaneous flute and conga music. The seniors...the old guys, just sat and starred at the wonder of it all. My how their world had changed overnight! I think that's where old Tom Scribner caught the bug and picked up his saw.

Some years later Randall packed up and moved to the old bowling alley at the other end of the downtown mall and opened the new Catalyst and brought in the Rolling Stones and Crosby Stills Nash and Young, and Bonnie Raitt and the Tubes and so many others famous and nearly famous. My favorite was the Beat Farmers fronted by Big "Country Dick" Montana. We hung backstage with them a few times. Dick dropped dead on stage a year after his docs told him to slow down or else. A lot of those guys didn't make it out alive. But they sure lived!

All that great music. All those characters. All that weirdness. It all shook to pieces in 1989 when we had the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Catalyst made it. The Cooper House didn't. My friends back home have often commented over the past two years of building BOW: "Of course you own a winery! It couldn't be otherwise. You've spent your life practicing for that job."

I guess that thinking about the music brings back memories. It also moves me. I've found so many communities over the years listening to music. That's probably why we're featuring lots of music at the winery throughout the winter. It seems that folks like hanging at the winery when we have music. Even better if it's live. Maybe when next you're in you can share a few stories that may come up listening to all the music. Sharon and I are pretty much always around. Looking forward to seeing you and hanging out.