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Moe's Alley Presents: RICK ESTRIN & THE NIGHTCATS
Sun, 26 Jun, 4:00 PM PDT
Doors open
3:00 PM PDT
Moe's Alley
1535 Commercial Way, Santa Cruz, CA 95065
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Tickets are currently unavailable on TicketWeb
Description
Get ready folks... we've got Rick Estrin and the Nightcats hitting the stage at Moe's Alley!
Price: $15.00 - $20.00
Doors: 3:00 PM
Shows: 4:00 PM
Rick Estrin and the Nightcats
For more than 30 years and nine albums, Rick fronted Little Charlie & The Nightcats, flawlessly combining his songs, vocals and harmonica with Little Charlie Baty’s one-of-a-kind guitar excursions. The band won international acclaim and toured the world repeatedly. They were nominated four times for the prestigious Blues Music Award for Band Of The Year. With Charlie’s retirement from touring in 2008, Rick took over leadership of the band. He knew the only way to replace Baty’s mind-melting mashup of blues, jazz and roots rock was to find someone with an equally insane and daredevil guitar approach. Rick knew that would be a tall order to fill. As luck would have it, Kid Andersen, who had been working with another harp legend, Charlie Musselwhite, became available. “Kid’s a fearless nut on the guitar,” says Estrin. “He’s really the only guy who could fit in with us.” With an unpredictable, uninhibited style that perfectly meshed with Estrin’s wildly imaginative songs, the new band charged out of the gate.
Since the 2009 release of Rick Estrin & The Nightcats’ celebrated Alligator Records debut Twisted, the 2012 follow-up One Wrong Turn and 2014’s crowd-pleasing You Asked For It... Live!, the band has continued to tour non-stop, winning new fans at every turn. They’ve performed at festivals and concert stages from San Francisco to Chicago to New York, and all over Europe, with recent stops in Norway, Switzerland and Poland.
Event Information
Age Limit
21+

Electric Blues
Rick Estrin & The Nightcats
Rick Estrin & The Nightcats
Electric Blues
Blues vocalist, harmonica master and songwriting legend Rick Estrin, leader of the musically fearless, wildly entertaining, award-winning band Rick Estrin & The Nightcats, doesn’t like to talk much about his own musical superpowers. But ask him about the Nightcats—multi-instrumentalist/musical mastermind/producer Christoffer “Kid” Andersen, keyboardist/organ wizard/bass player Lorenzo Farrell and endlessly creative drummer Derrick “D’Mar” Martin—and he’ll be happy to sing their praises. “This band is killer. I’m enjoying this all more than ever,” says the man who’s been performing and recording professionally since the early 1970s. “It’s a blessing—there’s so much energy, so much collaboration. The band is just so good right now. And the live show is better than ever.” Living Blues calls Rick Estrin & The Nightcats “a terrific blues band with a real character for a front man,” continuing, “Clever, well-crafted songs framed by first-flight musicianship…hugely entertaining, intelligently conceived and executed roots rock with a wickedly cool and otherworldly twist on tradition. Estrin’s harp work is masterful.”
Rick Estrin & The Nightcats’ new album and the band’s sixth release, The Hits Keep Coming, packs a powerful punch, with phenomenal musicianship and lyrics—both serious and humorous. Produced by Andersen at his legendary Greaseland USA studio in San Jose, California, the record captures the band’s chemistry and magic in what is certainly among their strongest, most urgent and most cohesive releases so far. The Hits Keep Coming is modern blues at its most potent, intense and fun in all the right places, as Rick Estrin & The Nightcats deliver twelve groove heavy, hard-hitting songs, including ten written or co-written by Estrin and two surprising covers (one obscurity from Muddy Waters, one from Leonard Cohen that Estrin would have liked to have written). From the foot-stomping opener Somewhere Else, to the harsh reality of the title track (with backing vocals by The Sons Of The Soul Revivers), to the mu sically infectious, lyrically harrowing song about addiction, The Circus Is Still In Town, The Hits Keep Coming is a lyrical and musical tour-de-force.