WHERE DO BROKEN HEARTS GO? Alt-rockers extraordinaire The Ataris play at Velvet Jones tomorrow, Friday, July 24, and I imagine it will be a significant show for the band and audience alike. Why? Santa Barbara is home to the Blue Skies mobile home park, where lead singer Kristopher Roe took a photo of the famed neon sign to use for the cover of their 1999 breakout album, Blue Skies, Broken Hearts … Next 12 Exits, for which they are now touring to celebrate. They will play the album in its entirety on the Velvet stage, allowing fans to relish the emotional-punk-influenced hits penned in a pre-millennium S.B. — though started in Indiana, The Ataris really took shape here in town. Furthermore, Goleta punk band Lagwagon’s frontman Joey Cape produced the album, lending an extra layer of local connectivity.
Who knows if Roe & Co. found the 12 highway exits constituting Santa Barbara-Goleta especially heartbreaking. Blue Skies brings tears, as one Pumpkin-Smasher once wrote, and surely happy climes can magnify the sad times. But melancholy this show shall not be; The Ataris find their fun in forlorn experiences, and this Friday night homecoming will be plenty of fun, indeed.
GIRL POWER: For an alternative to the alt-rock, consider heading over to SOhO for the first of two Girls Rock S.B. Summer Showcases (the second is the following Fri., July 31). Each showcase follows a weeklong summer camp where young women are given the chance to form their own bands and write original songs. This Friday, July 24, is their chance to shine.