CONTEST CLOSED

Ms. Lauryn Hill is easily in the top ten of hip-hop MC. She has swayed the line between vocalist, producer and songwriter, and is as comfortable with rap and soul as she is with reggae and R&B. After a hiatus from the public eye (her last album, the two disc MTV Unplugged came out in 2002), Ms. Lauryn Hill has announced dates for her “Moving Target: Extended Intimate Playdate Series.” She will make a stop at the Santa Barbara Bowl on Saturday, May 14th. The Hot 8 Brass Band will be opening, which is another solid reason to not miss this. Buy your tickets now, and get up close and personal with one of the most captivating women in the world. As a bonus, we’re offering one lucky person a chance to win a pair of tickets. Click continue to sign up, although I’d suggest you purchase some tickets now before they sell out! We’ll pick a winner by the end of the week. Good luck!!

“Moving Target: Extended Intimate Playdate Series” hits cities across the country including sets at this year’s Coachella Music and Arts Festival on April 15th and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on May 7th. In addition, Ms. Hill has also announced the creation of @MsHillMvngTrgt on Twitter as the definitive source for news, highlights and updates for the Moving Target Series as well as a place for her to communicate directly with her supporters.

Ms. Lauryn Hill’s prolific rhymes and powerful voice catapulted her into the public eye as a member of the Fugees, whose 1996 album The Score was certified six times platinum and took home two GRAMMY Awards for Best R&B Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal and Best Rap Album. In 1998, Ms. Hill established herself a creative force as a solo artist with her now classic debut The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. This iconic work earned Ms. Hill a record-setting ten GRAMMY Award nominations, five of which she took home, including Best New Artist and Album of the Year. The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill has sold 8 million copies worldwide. Ms. Hill has also been recognized for her humanitarian efforts, receiving an Essence Award for her work including the 1996 founding of the Refugee Project.

Ms. Hill recently ended a set of dates which included performances at the Sundance Festival in Park City Utah and an exclusive party held during Fashion Week celebrating the opening of Alexander Wang’s New York City Flagship store. Ms. Hill has been performing an innovative set list of classic material, evolved but faithful to the rigor, soulfulness and power of the original music from her groundbreaking solo album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill as well as classic Fugees numbers and a few covers honoring some of the music that Ms. Hill grew up influenced by.

Don’t miss your chance to see Ms. Lauryn Hill with special guest The Hot 8 Brass Band at the Santa Barbara Bowl on Saturday, May 14th.  Tickets range from $29.00 to $63.00, plus applicable service charges. The Santa Barbara Bowl, celebrating 75 years, is located at 1122 N. Milpas St., Santa Barbara, CA 93103, 805-962-7411.

Tickets available at all Ticketmaster outlets including:
The Arlington Theatre and the Santa Barbara Bowl Box Office.
To charge by phone please call, 800-745-3000.  Order online at www.ticketmaster.com

Just before the release of their second album, Antics, Interpol played on the top deck of a ferry, under a near full moon, in San Diego. Their music matched the night; darkly noir and vividly cinematic. Easily one of the best shows I’ve seen. Now, Interpol come to the UC Santa Barbara Events Center on Friday, February 4th. Don’t miss this show!! Plus, we’re offering one lucky winner a chance to win a pair of tickets. Scroll down for more details…

Nederlander & ASPB Present…

INTERPOL with opening act: SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS

Critically acclaimed, NYC indie-rockers Interpol will perform at the UC Santa Barbara Events Center on Friday, February 4th in support of their latest release, the self-titled Interpol. School of Seven Bells (Benjamin Curtis of Secret Machines & Alejandra Deheza of On!Air!Library!) will open the show.

Interpol hit the national scene with 2002’s Turn on the Bright Lights” and have been seducing ears ever since with their richly atmospheric music. Their fiercely awesome sound, combined with striking visual presentation, has taken Interpol from small East Village bars to arenas worldwide, without losing the tension and complexity that have made them such an enigmatic, rewarding band. In September 2010, Matador Records released Interpol’s fourth studio album, the self-titled Interpol. From the highly melodic “Barricade” and “Lights” through the snarling “Memory Serves” and the extraordinary triptych of connected tracks that close the album, Interpol have never made work this emotionally resonant or packed with crescendos. Hypnotic, bizarre, always indelible, Interpol is the band’s magnum opus.

Tickets purchased in advance are $33, plus applicable service charges. Tickets at the door will be $38, plus applicable service charges. Tickets available on campus and at all Ticketmaster outlets including: The Arlington Theatre

To charge by phone please call, 800-745-3000. Order online at www.ticketmaster.com.

Enter to win a pair of tickets to see 90′s Hip-Hop pioneer Del The Funky Homosapien live at Downtown Brew in SLO, this Thursday (10/28) @ 7:30pm. Show is all ages.

A winner will be drawn around 2pm tomorrow. Good luck!

Hailing from Oakland, California, Del and his crew, the Hieroglyphics came out as a markedly non-gansta response to a burgeoning West Coast scene. After being put on at the tender age of 17 by his cousin Ice Cube, Del released two records on Elektra, I Wish My Brother George Was Here (1991) and No Need For Alarm (1993). Despite record sales in the hundreds of thousands, he recorded a third album, Future Development, which was never commercially released.

Del parted with Elektra and started work on the Hieroglyphics family album, 3rd Eye Vision (Hiero Imperium, 1998). Hiero went on the road and toured incessantly in support of the album for much of 1998. Del also spent a good portion of his time drawing, practicing Japanese, and playing mass amounts of video games.

Finally ready to unleash a new record on the world, Del comes with BOTH SIDES OF THE BRAIN. Seventeen tracks of pure Del. He says of his work on this album I’ve had complete control.” At times, Del has felt restrained by the formulas in hip hop and the expectations fans place upon emcees who have had hits. “I wish that I had the same freedom that someone like Bjork has when she puts out an album…” Apart from collaborations with PrincePaul, El-P (Company Flow), and help from a few of his Hiero co-horts (A-plus, Casual, Domino) Del handled the majority of production on this album.

By staying true to himself, Del has earned legions of adoring fans. He may have said it best in his classic, “Mistadobalina” when he declared, “it’s all in the mind and the heart.” Indeed.

Boo Boo Records and Downtwon Brew have a pair of tickets to give away for tomorrow night’s Trombone Shorty concert at Downtown Brew in SLO. For your chance to win, simply fill out the included form below and submit it before 4pm tomorrow (09/21).

For more info on Trombone Shorty, please see our previous feature here.

With MGMT tonight and the Blues Festival on Sunday, just think how lovely Avila will be in the heart of summer, on the longest weekend day of the year (officially, the Solstice is on Monday, June 21st. Put your day off request in now). So what better way to spend the sunniest day than with sunny, vibrant music. The Summer Solstice Reggae Festival comes to Avila Beach Resort on Sunday, June 20th with Fat Freddy’s Drop, the Dirty Heads, Alborosie, Still Time and Top Shelf. Tickets are on-sale now, here at Boo Boo Records or through Vallitix on-line. But we’re offering you a chance to pencil in your calendar now by offering one lucky winner a pair of tickets. Hit more and scroll down to enter.

Fat Freddy’s Drop
They’ve dubbed themselves “hi-tek soul,” but Fat Freddy’s Drop — featuring producer and leader Fitchie, vocalist Joe Dukie, saxophonist Warren Maxwell, trumpeter Toby Laing, trombonist Joe Lindsay, guitarist Tehimana Kerr, and keyboardist Iain Gordon — could just as easily be considered a modern reggae band that incorporates soul and dub. Prior to releasing their first album, 2005′s Based on a True Story, they were already well-known in their native New Zealand; the album shipped gold and became the first independent release to reach number one on the country’s chart. By the end of the year, the band had left an impression in several other countries, including England, where listeners of Gilles Peterson’s BBC Worldwide program voted it as the Album of the Year. Lead singer Dallas Tamaira (aka Joe Dukie) has an airy, soulful voice that sometimes comes across like a more nimble version of Roland Gift’s falsetto, while the band can shift with equal agility between house, dancehall, funk, and one-drop grooves, sometimes within a single track. There album is a hoot and a triumph.


Dirty Heads
Following in the footsteps of their California brothers Sublime, Huntington Beach’s Dirty Heads mix hip-hop, reggae, and rock along with that laid-back, South Cali attitude. While those are the three main styles the group blend, they don’t always use all three idioms in the same song. Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan are even referenced in “Believe.” Billy Preston appears on keyboards in one of the last sessions he recorded before his death.

Alborosie
Alborosie, born Alberto D’Ascola in 1977, is a reggae artist born in Marsala – Sicily, Italy, but now residing in Kingston, Jamaica. He is a multi-instrumentalist, being proficient in guitar, bass, drums and piano. His musical career began in the Italian reggae band Reggae National Tickets, from Bergamo city, when he was 15 years old in 1993, in which he was known as Stena. In 2001 Alborosie decided to try a solo career. He moved to Jamaica to be close to reggae music’s roots and rastafari culture.[1] There, he started working as sound engineer and producer. He has also worked with artists like Gentleman and Ky-Mani Marley. His first solo album was called Soul Pirate. In the summer of 2009 he released his second album which was called “Escape from Babylon.

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Its Mother’s Day on Sunday. Aside from taking her out for Sunday brunch and pampering her with flowers and chocolate, consider escorting her to Avila Beach Resort to hear one of Spain’s most internationally accomplished acts, The Gipsy Kings, play beneath the palm trees with the scent of ocean air all around you. If you’ve been to Spain, you know its our sister-country from terrain, agriculture and zest for life. This show should be a magical spectacle. There are still seats available, but we are giving you a chance to win a pair of tickets. Scroll on down, and best of luck.

GIPSY KINGS
The Gipsy Kings are largely responsible for bringing the joyful sounds of progressive pop-oriented flamenco, called Sevillana in Spain, to the world. The band started out in Arles, a village in southern France, during the ’70s when brothers Nicolas and Andre Reyes, the sons of renowned flamenco artist Jose Reyes, teamed up with their cousins Jacques, Maurice and Tonino Baliardo, whose father is Manitas de Plata. They originally called themselves Los Reyes and started out as a gypsy band traveling about playing weddings, festivals, and in the streets. Because they lived so much like gypsies, the band adopted the name the Gipsy Kings. Later, they were hired to add color to posh parties in St. Tropez. Popularity did not come to Los Reyes right away and their first two albums attracted little notice. At this point the Gipsies played traditional, albeit passionate flamenco music punctuated by Tonino’s precise guitar playing and Nicolas’ exceptional voice. Though they had devoted fans, they still had yet to gain wider recognition until 1986 when they hooked up with visionary producer Claude Martinez who could see that the Kings had the makings of a world-class band.

Tickets are still available at all Vallitix Outlets, on-line at http://vallitix.rdln.com/ or by phone at 888.825.5484. We will pick a winner on Friday, May 7th.

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Sharon Jones is our Ms. Dynamite Soul. A spark plug with three-octave power, she hits the stage with adrenalized hysteria. And with her backing band, the Dap-Kings, replicating the musical references of the sweet blare of Muscle Shoals horns, the sultriness of Memphis soul and the clean, sophisticated Motown back beat sound, all with spot-on precision, the formula is impressive and unmatchable. Their new album, I Learned The Hard Way, comes out on Tuesday, April 6th, and we will be featuring the Daptone artist throughout the day at Boo Boo Records, playing the new Sharon Jones album fully at noon and 4pm.

And better yet, if you come down and pick-up I Learned The Hard Way on Tuesday, April 6th, you’ll be entered to win a pair of tickets to see Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings at the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles on June 26th 2010 at 8pm. We’ll also be giving away a signed LP to second winner.