Page 64 - Sonoma County Gazette MARCH 2020

Mar 18 ~ Sonoma Coast Municipal Advisory Council (MAC) Meeting ~ Join us at the Del Mar Hall in Sea Ranch for this meeting of the Coast Municipal Advisory Council. We’ll be talking about the process and priorities for TIF grants as well as much more. The agenda and supporting documents will be uploaded between one week to 72 hours before the meeting. 5:30 -7:30p at Sea Ranch Hall, 40600 Leeward Rd, Sea Ranch
Mar 26 ~ Measure M Parks for All Community Meeting ~ 5:30-7:30 p.m. Montgomery High Sschool, 1250 Hahman Dr, Santa Rosa INFO:
https://southeastgreenway.org/
Mar 27 ~ Windsor Wellness General Meeting ~ Public general meeting: how we can all come together to build a stronger & healthier community. Free Public Event, 5:30-7:30p, 15 Bluebird Dr, Windsor, 707-836-6100, windsorwellness.org
Ongoing ~ Chamber Perks - Coffee with Ambassadors - 3rd Fridays ~ Join us for a casual cup of coffee and the opportunity to talk one-on-one about maximizing your membership. Chamber Ambassadors are local business community members who volunteer their time to build relationships between the Chamber and the business community. Chamber Perks is held on the third Friday of the month and is open to members and prospective members. Brew, 555 Healdsburg Ave., Santa Rosa, 707-545-1414
DIRTY CELLO
The band has played some unusual locations. Once, at the bottom of California’s Moaning Caverns, they had to walk up and down 200 winding stairs seven times carrying instruments and sound equipment. Roudman recalls it as “painful.” Six months later, they did it again. They also played in a Nike missile base converted into a garage built into a hillside.
Growing up in Marin, her mother gave her a cello at age seven. She loves its sound. The girl studied classical music through college, and currently plays with the Oakland and Santa Rosa Symphonies as well as Dirty Cello and
the San Francisco Yiddish Combo Band, a klezmer group. With the Oakland Symphony, she did an Acura commercial at Golden Gate Park. After eight hours of shooting, they were on film for one second.
A local band that generates pure excitement, was started by cellist Rebecca Roudman and guitarist Jason Eckl, eight years ago. Roudman chose the name Dirty Cello because “I wanted to go beyond the limits of what a cello can do.” Also, “so
people would be like ‘what the hell
is Dirty Cello.’” Their professed
focus on blues, bluegrass, and rock
understates the fact that they’ll
play “anything that moves us
emotionally,” she says.
Thru - Mar 9 ~ LGBTQ+ Spiritual Conversations ~ A safe & sacred place to explore our spiritual journeys in light of our sexual & gender identities. Free, Drop In, Donations Welcome, 7-8:30p, Journey Center Santa Rosa, 1601 4th Street, Santa Rosa, journeycentersantarosa.org
Mar 29 ~ Hands-On Passover: A Kid Friendly Adventure Into The Passover Story ~ Kids experience the Passover story in costume, singing songs, play- acting, sampling holiday foods. Free. Reg req’d., 1-4p, Charles M. Schulz Museum, 2301 Hardies Lane, Santa Rosa, 707-579-4452, schulzmuseum.org
Ongoing ~ Undocumented: A Free Resource for Your Faith Community ~ Concerned about helping immigrants, refugees, and Dreamers? FREE videos and other resources are available. Don’t know where to begin? Trinity Church Wall Street offers these, including talks by religious and secular community leaders, useful background information, and links to a variety of organizations who are already involved in this important work. trinitywallstreet.org
Dirty Cello has toured the Middle
East, Iceland, and China. In the
latter, their music had to be submitted to censors looking for subversion, even though it was all-instrumental. Singing wasn’t allowed. The ever-vigilant Chinese changed the band’s name to Rock & Roll Cello. No wonder Roudman laughs a lot during our recent phone interview from her Novato home.
Roudman has backed up artists Isaac Hayes, Melissa Manchester, and Chuck Prophet, but “I got jealous,” she says. “I wanted to be the person leading a band, getting these cool solos.” Some classical artists feel constricted by the structured compositions required. “I wanted to put my instruments
to the limit, taking the cello and turning it on its head.” She sought improvisation, modeling herself after innovators like Jimi Hendrix and his “unbelievably crazy, impossible sounding solos.”
Cellist Rebecca Roudman
Dirty Cello’s six CD releases include their latest, Bad Ideas Make Great Stories. They have 65 songs available for live sets, with their selections depending on audience reaction. Their plugged-in acoustic music includes half covers and half originals by Roudman and Eckl.
An International Women’s Day show on March 7 at Hopmonk will benefit The Living Room, a Sonoma County day-care center serving homeless and at-risk women and their children. The show’s first half will have Dirty Cello backing up some of the North Bay’s top female musicians - jazz diva Stella Heath, rocker Shelby Lanterman, singer-songwriter Claudia Russell, and newcomers the Muted Jewel Tones. The second half will be all Dirty Cello – Roudman, Eckl as emcee and guitarist, Sandy Lindop on ukulele and piano, Jeff Wheeler on drums, and bassist Colin Williams.
Roudman tantalizes at shows, running through the crowd with her fiddle. “We feed off the audience’s energy. We feel powerful on stage.”
For more go to: https://www.dirtycello.com
64 - www.sonomacountygazette.com - 3/20