Where the Rock Stars of the Marching Band World Come Out to Play

Riverside Was and Is Southern California’s Drum Corps Hotspot

A futuristic scrapyard setting. Three 60-inch TV screens showing black-and-white static. A lookout tower. Then: a steady beat from a player on a drum set, cymbals crashing, and marimbas rolling to a tense crescendo after a voice over the loudspeaker asks: “And as we reach to the stars, who will be watching and what will they see?”

This was the show the Riverside City College indoor drumline put on at the Winter Guard International percussion championship this April. We called our show “So This is Earth?”—a musical way of asking what …

by Sean Vega | June 27, 2014

Making Mom a Movie Star

Creating a Documentary About My Mother’s Work in the Fields Helped Me See Her in a New Light

by Janelly Martinez | April 23, 2014

On a typical morning, my mother, Camelia Maribel Sanchez, drives 15 minutes from our house in Coachella, a small city in the Southern California desert, to the bell pepper fields …

Painting Portraits in a Bankrupt City

I Moved to San Bernardino to Pursue My Ambitions. I Found a Place That Had Lost All Ambition of Its Own.

by Ruben Chavez | March 31, 2014

Early in 2013, I moved to San Bernardino with my girlfriend at the time and our 1-month-old daughter. I had family there but hadn’t lived in San Bernardino since I …

Fresno Wants to Be Your Guinea Pig for Art

Don’t Underestimate the Central Valley As an Incubator of Galleries, Fringe Festivals, and Graffiti Art

by Sarah Rothbard | February 27, 2014

In the Central Valley, art is as likely to reach you on a street corner or in a pop-up performance space in someone’s garage as it is on a museum …

You Call That Art?

Yes, and It’s in Unexpected Places All Over the Central Valley

February 25, 2014

Art is all around us in California—whether it’s whizzing by on the side of a city bus or brightening the facade of a once-dingy building.
Thanks to new technology and …

Can California Go Rogue?

Why an Eclectic Fringe Festival in Fresno Is a Model for the State’s Future

by Joe Mathews | February 19, 2014

Does California need to go Rogue?

I’m not talking about secession or flying Sarah Palin down from Alaska but about what may be the most important California arts event most Californians …

The James Irvine Foundation

Where the Rock Stars of the Marching Band World Come Out to Play

Riverside Was and Is Southern California’s Drum Corps Hotspot

Making Mom a Movie Star

Creating a Documentary About My Mother’s Work in the Fields Helped Me See Her in a New Light

Painting Portraits in a Bankrupt City

I Moved to San Bernardino to Pursue My Ambitions. I Found a Place That Had Lost All Ambition of Its Own.

Fresno Wants to Be Your Guinea Pig for Art

Don’t Underestimate the Central Valley As an Incubator of Galleries, Fringe Festivals, and Graffiti Art

You Call That Art?

Yes, and It’s in Unexpected Places All Over the Central Valley

Can California Go Rogue?

Why an Eclectic Fringe Festival in Fresno Is a Model for the State’s Future

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How Southern Rock Reclaims Regional Identity While Facing Down Old Ghosts

By Reinventing Rebel Attitude, the Allmans and Their Brethren Forged a New Genre

Modesto’s Marvelous MoBand

For More Than 90 Years, A Band That Is Open to All Binds Together a California City

Cleveland Rocks, Even in the Dead of Winter

The City’s Unpretentious Music Scene Thrives Year Round, Under Bridges, on Porches, and Outside of the Country’s Most Famous Music Hall

Rock on, Grandpa

More Than Ever, Aging Bands Are Strapping on Guitars and Squeezing Into Leather Pants to Strut Back on Stage

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