From the waves to the redwoods, it's all happening here.

The Middle School Diocesan Youth Retreat is an opportunity for middle school youth from across the Diocese of San José to gather for prayer, community, and a deeper encounter with Christ.

Calling all music lovers! Join our Music Club to jam, perform, and connect with fellow musicians. Everyone is welcome—come be part of the rhythm!

Ripatti & Rose - Live at Chaminade Resort & Spa

5:30-7:30pm As the lead guitarist for the China Cats and Painted Mandolin, Matt Hartle has established himself as the preeminent jam band guitarist for Santa Cruz and the Bay Area. You can also find him hosting a weekly deep dead jam, where he welcomes Bay Area players for Grateful Sunday shenanigans. Matt's unique voice and intricate playing style always gets the audience on their feet and feeling their groove. You'll be dancing to songs from legends like Jerry Garcia, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, as well as rock, blues, jazz, americana, and of course some Matt Hartle originals.

Join us at Bargetto Winery in Soquel on Thursday evenings for Live Music and Wine! 6-8PM No cover charge. Wine by-the-glass for purchase. Food will be available for purchase. Open seating, no reservations required. No outside food is permitted. For more info please call: (831) 475-2258

In 2026, jazz is often considered an old person’s genre. Let’s face it, it’s not like the jazz clubs are the hot spots all the kids are clamoring to get into. However, Sylvia Cuenca is trying to change that. A powerhouse drummer from the San Francisco and New York scenes, Cuenca is bringing together multiple generations of musicians together to play original numbers as well as standards throughout America’s past. Featuring saxophonist Rico Jones, pianist David Kikoski, Wallace Roney Jr. on trumpet, and bassist Essiet Okon Essiet, they are showing every generation why jazz will never go out of style. -Mat Weir; Good Times Santa Cruz

Do not miss this showcase!

Purchase tickets here Show 8pm // 21+ ***This is a standing room general admissions show. There will be a limited number of chairs located in the back of the concert hall. Seating will be first come first served. Bar and food will be open at 5pm.

Anthony Arya plays the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk with his band on the Colonnade stage Thu August 6th 8:30-9:30 pm.

Make the MAH your first stop this weekend with FREE First Friday. Explore all three floors of the museum and see our latest exhibitions, check out our giftshop, and hangout among art and history! Then stay into the night dancing to live music out in Abbott Square. First Friday hours are 12-8pm. See you then!

On August 8th, composer Clarice Assad’s new commissioned work, Kontrol, will premiere at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. The afternoon before, Assad will join D. Riley Nicholson, Executive Director of the Cabrillo Festival, and Pranav Anand, Faculty Director of The Humanities Institute, for a pre-rehearsal discussion about the inspirations for the piece, which explores impacts of AI on musical creation and performance, both now and in the near future. Stay afterward for the final rehearsal of Kontrol before the premiere on the 8th. Free and open to the public.

Free summer block party in Midtown Santa Cruz featuring live music, food trucks, local artists, makers, and family fun.

Offshore Sounds First Friday in Santa Cruz. Late hours at the record shop with local vinyl DJs and new arrivals.

5:30-7:30pm Local Honey is a Santa Cruz-based band that drips with honey sweet harmony and hums with tight, inventive musicianship. Local Honey's repertoire pays homage to some of the the big voices of the last seven decades, including Big Mama Thornton, Rachael Price, Gladys Knight, Stevie Nicks, Grace Slick, and Amy Winehouse, among other divas. They seek out feel-good songs with strong vocals and infectious beats and make them their own. Though Local Honey is a new band, all of them are veterans of the Santa Cruz and Monterey music scenes. Members have worked with Honeytone, Ten O'Clock Lunch, Come Together, Backyard Birds, Menage, and Bay Bop. Over the years they've played in different combinations at many venues, including Michael's on Main, Chaminade, Davenport Roadhouse, Hallcrest Vineyards, Joe's Bar and the Food Lounge.

Fully Charged will be ROCKING the Music Under the Stars Friday night concert series at Four Points by Sheraton in Scotts Valley on Friday, August 7th. The show starts at 5:30 PM. Summer Fun! Party Time! 🥳💃🏼🕺🏻🎸🤘🏽 Great drinks, food, and a beautiful outdoor space to dance the night away! Location is: 5030 Scotts Valley Dr, Scotts Valley, CA 95066 - FULLY CHARGED

We are a cover band out of San Jose playing a mix of Jam Band, R&B and Classic Rock. We tend to play songs just off the beaten track but that people still recognize. We cover a very wide variety of artists including Bowie, Amy Winehouse, Neil Young, Grateful Dead, Stevie Wonder, Hall and Oates, Eric Clapton, Phish, Paul Simon, Jimmy Cliff and more.

Rebecca Coupe Franks / Trumpet Nancy Heth / Vocals and Piano

Jug band music is often just seen as goofy, but it also has a rich history. It was born in the 1910s in the Southern United States. It blends African, European, and American styles of music. It can be played casually on a corner or a porch or professionally at large events like the Kentucky Derby. The genre even saw a revival in the 1950s. Today jug band music has expanded to include those who play the original jug band songs or people who use homemade instruments to make music. Members of the jug band Trolley Drop, Greg Meyer and Peter Thomas, will be diving deep into this fascinating and colorful history at the MAH. -Isabella Marie Sangaline; Good Times Santa Cruz

August First Friday 8/7/26 Music by Audio 3t7 Art by Edu Cerro Free!! Event runs 6-9pm

Every first and third Fridays at Cat Alley Street, our beat conductors take you on a high-style ride showcasing underground street sounds- Brought to you by Subterrestrials Records. Doors and Bar open at 6pm, Music at 9pm. No Cover, 21+

An outdoor music event held in the plaza, offering a chance to enjoy live performance in downtown Watsonville.

ALO stands for Animal Liberation Orchestra - because music liberates the inner animal, of course. As liberated as they come, Zach Gill, Dan “Lebo” Lebowitz, and Steve Adams have certainly been at this a long time. The trio met while still pre-teens in Saratoga, California, where they quickly connected through their love of music. In junior high, they got the idea to put together a band for their eighth-grade talent show. Zach recounts the struggle of the emerging artist thusly: “It’s hard to get all the pieces right, you know, you’re chasing a dream and an abstract vision, and you’re going through puberty. It’s kind of a lot.” Lebo elaborates, “We met at a time in our lives where we were coming of age and craving identity. Music, and more specifically, our band, gave us a vessel with which we could ‘set sail’ on the ocean of life”. And the rest is history, but history is always a crooked path. You end up where you belong, but the journey is never quite what you expected when you took the first step. Twenty five years in, Gill (keyboards/vocals), Lebo (guitar/vocals), Adams (bass, vocals) and newest addition, Bay Area drum legend-in-training Ezra Lipp (drums, vocals), have recorded their greatest work to date. Quite simply, this is what happens when a band doesn’t break up – the culmination of a lifetime of shared effort and camaraderie, four master collaborators at the peak of their craft with nothing left to prove, a near-telepathic cohesion. These guys have played with everybody. From royalty like Phil Lesh and members of the Grateful Dead to So Cal surf-troubadour Jack Johnson. If the show happened in California, you’ll almost always find one of them in the corner of the shot and, sometimes, even in the center. But you don’t really hear the band’s magic until you hear them together. And it urges repeat listening, because it’s a rich stew that only fully reveals itself with time, attention, a few tears, and a lot of love. ALO call their music “jam-pop,” and the de

Zach Adleman performs live at Kuumbwa Jazz in Santa Cruz for an evening of music.