The Zócalo Interview with Actor John Ratzenberger

John Ratzenberger is everyone’s favorite mail carrier and piggybank, and now he’s attending Tucson Comic Con’s 15th anniversary. The first time he ever stepped foot in Tucson was to handle a cracked windshield that he got on a trip from Washington, DC, which he said was a great experience regardless of the situation. He also randomly picked up a puppy from a couple at a truck stop which he called a “Heinz 57” breed. He hasn’t truly explored the city and everything it has to offer, but he’s looking forward to seeing the clouds and experiencing the monsoon season, or what’s left of it at least.

“I never wanted to become an actor; it wasn’t on my list of things I wanted to do. I was a carpenter,” Ratzenberger reminisced when asked what led him to pursue acting. “I went to visit England for a week to visit someone I went to college with, and I ended up staying for 10 years. He and I formed a traveling comedy show called ‘Sal’s Meat Market,’ and it turned out we did pretty well for ourselves.” Ratzenberger started as a writer for a sitcom and then auditioned for Cheers, and the rest was history.

Some advice he wanted to share with his younger self and with everyone else besides: “You play the cards you’re dealt. Whether you’re a poor family or rich family . . . you play those cards. You don’t have a choice as a child, so it comes out as it comes out. I think that one thing I would tell myself as a young man is don’t be too anxious about things you can’t control. You can’t do anything about it anyway!” 

John Ratzenberger will be attending Tucson Comic Con Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and is signing at booth Celebrity Signing C2. He made sure to emphasize that First Responders and active-duty Military get a 50 percent discount on signings and photo ops.  He will also have a panel Saturday August 31st at 2:15pm in Panels 105.

Doug Jones: The Zócalo Interview with Tucson Comic Con’s Guest of Honor

Tucson Comic Con is back for its 15th year, and this year Doug Jones is joining the fun as the guest of honor. People may be familiar with Jones, but even if you’re not it’s likely that you’ve seen him in a movie or show you’ve watched. From Pan’s Labyrinth to Hocus Pocus to the final frontier in Star Trek Discovery, Doug Jones has done a lot.

Zócalo correspondent Brianna Ward had the chance to chat with him before Tucson Comic Con and learn more about his favorite roles, grueling makeup processes, and his last visit to Tucson while filming the movie Tank Girl in 1994. He spoke very highly of his time here, despite the July heat, and is looking forward to returning for the convention.

Doug Jones will be attending Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and is signing at Celebrity Table C1. He will also be hosting a Spotlight panel on Saturday August 31 at 1:15pm in Panels 105.

Radney Foster Brings Words and Country Music to Town

If you’re a fan of country music, you know Radney Foster. Even if you don’t know that you know Radney Foster, by way of hits like “Nobody Wins,” “Crazy Over You,” and “Just Call Me Lonesome,” you know versions of his songs sung by Holly Dunn, Keith Urban, Tanya Tucker, Sara Evans, and other top artists. Altogether, as of this year, Foster has penned eight number 1 hits, two of them performed by him, and plenty of lesser-charting tunes, some with the help of backup singers like Mary Chapin Carpenter and Kasey Musgraves and a host of marquee players.

Foster will be making his next Tucson stand alone—“just me and my guitar,” he tells Zócalo—performing from across his catalogue, but especially from his last album, For You to See the Stars, which has a book of stories of the same title to go along with it. That book was an unexpected gift from a time when he lost his voice for six months. “You go for a month and the doctors say you still can’t speak,” he recalls, “and you start second-guessing what the hell you do for a living. Anyway, I wrote a note to my wife—I wish I still had it, or I’d frame it—and told her I was going to write a short story based on a song of mine called ‘Sycamore Creek’ just to keep myself from going crazy,” he says. “She picked up and pen and wrote, ‘You should, because you’re driving me crazy.’ And thus began my literary career!”

That literary career wrapped around the music nicely, because once he’d written a few stories that weren’t based on already written songs, he realized he could reverse-engineer the process by writing songs inspired by the stories. The two-way method worked, and once the album and book were assembled, Foster realized that he had an ideal situation as compared to most authors: “I can go out and play 75 gigs in a year, and that’s like doing signings at 75 bookstores—with me being the bookstore.”

It’s not the first time Foster has been to Tucson. One of the first gigs he played with his duo Foster & Lloyd, in the 1990s, was at Old Tucson, while, on going solo, he found his way to the Maverick on several occasions. “But it’s been a minute or two—well, maybe ten years, anyway—since I’ve been to Tucson, and I’m looking forward to it.”

For all that, his connection to the Old Pueblo is, by serendipity, many decades old now. The Del Rio, Texas, native says, “When I was a kid, I used to ride my bicycle down to the record store on Saturday mornings. The very first 45 I bought, way back in 1967, was ‘Different Drum’ by a band called The Stone Poneys”—a band fronted, of course, by Tucsonan Linda Ronstadt, singing a song written by Foster’s fellow Texan Michael Nesmith.

For a preview of coming attractions, here‘s Foster and band performing the title song from his book and album. The stories and songs will continue on Friday, November 17, at 8:00pm at 191 Toole. General admission tickets are available here.

Yuckin’ It Up at Tucson Comic Con 2023

Tucson Comic Con returned this year with a star-studded lineup, fun panels, and an excellent exhibit hall. The exhibit hall is always the highlight of the convention, and this year was no different. Small local artists shared the aisles with long-time Tucson Comic Con staples like Bookmans, Zia Records, and Tucson Games and Gadgets, which allowed guests to seamlessly explore the more than 300 vendors, with plenty of variety, unlike the repetitive displays so often seen at other conventions. There was a large variety of artists highlighted and a strong sense of diverse interests represented.

In the hallway above the exhibit hall the cosplay and specialty group area returned. Here, groups like the 501^st Legion and the Arizona Brown Coats set up their displays of Star Wars and Firefly memorabilia and costumes while also encouraging fans to join in and become a member of these fan clubs. Continuing down this path led to an exciting display of fake battles, also known as Live-Action Role Playing (LARP), where guests were given foam bats and allowed to attack each other as if it were the Middle Ages. It was a sight to see, but one that might have been missed due to its location. While it’s fun to see everything in this specialty area, it can cause a major traffic jam. Navigating through can be a bit difficult and at times it might have had a bit of a deterrent effect, making some people choose to skip it entirely.

This year the celebrity guests were quite the draw for convention goers. Chandler Riggs (Carl Grimes in The Walking Dead), Tracy Lynn Cruz (Yellow Ranger in Power Rangers), and Honky Tonk Man (WWE Hall of Famer) had long lines throughout the convention and full panels full of questions from fans. Another exciting event that happened throughout the weekend was the ability to play a Dungeons and Dragons campaign that was run by Luke Gygax, author, gamer, and son of the creator of the game, Gary Gygax. Being able to play with the son of the creator seemed like a dream come true for some of the fans that joined in. There was also a significant amount of comic book guests in attendance, which is always great to see for a comic convention. Guests like Jimmy Palmiotti, Amanda Conner, and Tucson native Henry Barajas joined the convention for the weekend, also hosting panels and chatting with fans on the exhibit hall floor.

Along with the Dungeons and Dragons experience, the game area of the convention hosted many board game sessions. From established board games to brand new playtesting games, there were plenty of options for Tucsonans to explore. In this section there was an area set aside for people to paint miniature figures for their games. It was quiet and peaceful, with just the right amount of calm for someone to spend a few hours making sure their figure looks just right before debuting it to the world. On the other side, Cobra Arcade and Next Level Arcade had a few arcade cabinets set up with classics like Mortal Kombat and Galaga available for players of all ages.

For its 14th year, Tucson Comic Con did a fantastic job of keeping the heart of the convention while also making sure there were new and exciting sights to see. The variety of vendors, the different forms of entertainment, and the fact there was so much to see and do throughout the weekend made Tucson Comic Con one more reason to take pride in our city.

Photographs by Jake Ward

Get Your Yacht-Yachts Out: Yächtley Crëw Is Hoving into Town

Back in the 1980s, when downtown was a pretty quiet place, I lived across the street from a fellow who would open his doors and windows, turn up a Christopher Cross album—if you don’t know, you may not want to know—and play his drums along with it at maximum volume. I’m not sure if there were noise ordinances back in the day, but I retaliated by opening my doors and windows and playing The Clash and Dead Kennedys a decibel or two louder. The phantom drummer seemed not to mind.

Today, The Clash has attained grand old band status. Christopher Cross, meanwhile, has gone from ironic to iconic—at least, that is, among lovers of what has come to be called “yacht rock.” The music may stretch back 40 or 50 years, but the phrase dates only to 2005, when an online video series called Yacht Rock paired music taken from the soft rock, smooth jazz, and easy-listening slots on the radio with the image of idle-rich Californios plying the waters off Los Angeles. The show’s theme, naturally enough, was called “Sailing,” a song written by none other than Christopher Cross.

Enter Yächtley Crëw, a SoCal septet that has been gleefully celebrating the yacht rock genre for the last seven-odd years. So successful has its homage to squishy sweetness been that the band is crafting tunes of its own on an album to be released in the spring on Jimmy Buffett’s Mailboat Records, with an advance single, “Sex on the Beach,” earning airplay around the country.

Expect none of that on January 14, though, when Yächtley Crëw will bring its maritime magic to the Rialto. Instead, the band will play its favorites from a long setlist (with, one supposes, something by Mr. Cross lurking somewhere in it). Expect nothing tongue in cheek, either: the band is serious in its love for the genre.

“I had the concept of this doing yacht rock because I had started listening to it at home a lot. I was tired of listening to rock ‘n’ roll,” says the band’s bassist, who goes by the nom de musique Baba Buoy. “I mean, I love rock ‘n’ roll, but you can only hear it so many times, and then I started to go back toward the music from when I was a kid.” He brought aboard a drummer friend who goes by the moniker Sailor Hawkins, then turned to the Los Angeles iteration of Craigslist to recruit musicians who had played in a variety of bands from metal to jazz and had similarly come to embrace the—well, sunny side.

It took a year of auditioning to pull it all together, topped off with the arrival of its lead singer, Philly Ocean, who the friend of a friend had heard wowing the crowds at a karaoke bar somewhere in the Valley. “We finally got it going and down the road,” says Baba, “but I insisted that we had to do more than just stand there and sing, so we’ve got some pretty fun choreography in there, too.”

Along with the dance steps will be renditions of hits by the likes of Michael McDonald, Robbie Dupree, the Gerry Rafferty of “Baker Street,” and other yacht rock leviathans. Don’t come with requests, though. “We come out like Bon Jovi,” says Baba. “We play our set, walk off, and do an encore. It’s fun and funny, and people really seem to like it. It makes us feel like rock stars.”

Yächtley Crëw will be making its maiden voyage to Tucson at the Rialto Theatre (318 E. Congress St.) at 8:30 pm on January 14. Doors at 7:30. Tickets are $30 general admission and are available here.

Large-Scale Sculpture Show Opens

You may have driven by it dozens of times without noticing, but for the last several months a corner of Brandy Fenton Memorial Park, on River Road and Alvernon Way, has been made into a Sculpture Garden. Come Saturday, December 17, and you may not be able to miss the fact as sixteen large sculptures are inaugurated there, easily visible to passing traffic. With a range of artists that includes Joan Waters, Pamela Ambrosio, Greg Corman, and Anuar Portugal represented under the aegis of Sculpture Tucson, the Sculpture Garden will feature the show until May 27, 2023.

The show will formally open on December 17 between 10am and 2pm, when the artists, juror Kim Boganey, and representatives of Sculpture Tucson will be on hand to celebrate the occasion. We’re all invited to join them—and, promises sculpture garden manager Robin McArdle, there’ll be coffee and doughnuts on hand to go along with some spectacular art.

Tucson’s Demon City Wreckers Return after a Near-Dozen-Year Absence

Demon City Wreckers are back for the first time since 2011 and playing a 20th anniversary show at 191 Toole on Sunday December 4 with psychobilly legends Koffin Kats.

Demon City Wreckers have been a fixture of the Tucson psychobilly scene since 2002, when they played their first show together as a band. Mike O’Brien had wanted to get a band together but had some difficulties doing so. After a little while, he turned to a few friends he had known for years and recorded an EP as a sort of recruiting tool to get permanent members of the band. Little did he know that doing that would form the original lineup of Demon City Wreckers (originally Left for Dead). The original members consisted of Mike O’Brien, Jericho Davidson, Ian Philabaum, and Jason Mashburn (who sadly passed away in 2006). Over the years David Williams, George Palenzuela, Sean Williams, Drew Combs, Jimmy Hixson, and Ed Slocum have also been a part of this killer band. The band’s close friend Scott Northrup has also been involved as their manager/band counselor/backbone.

Their first show was with the very popular psychobilly band Nekromantix, and when the band caught wind that they were playing at Club Congress they opened for them. Thanks to their connections in the music scene, they were able to reach out and secure the opening slot alongside another band known as The Last Call Brawlers. The band recalls the show as being “high energy” and that the Nekromantix were great performers and a lot of fun to open for.

The last time Demon City Wreckers played a show together was in 2011, and ironically it looked very similar to their upcoming show on December 4. It was the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and they played Club Congress with the Koffin Kats, who hail from Detroit. The band fondly remembers that show and the moment when Mike broke his bass. Instead of stopping the show, Mike asked Koffin Kats bassist Vic if he could borrow his bass. Vic agreed anxiously, but Mike returned the instrument to Vic unharmed. The Koffin Kats, being longtime friends of Demon City Wreckers, reached out to them to play this reunion show, and the band agreed without hesitation. The first practice back after many years went smoother than the band had anticipated and Ed Slocum noted that it was “like riding a bike, for the most part.”

The band’s foundation is good-hearted friendship, and they say that “the states/cities/venues/bands/friends/fans and even enemies shape the whole damn experience.” They also encourage anyone who has an interest in the live music scene to go after it and to make memories with no regrets. Demon City Wreckers are excited to take the Tucson stage again, and you never know what to expect, especially now that they’ve resurrected the band after almost a decade.

Don’t miss out on their 20-year anniversary show at 191 Toole, Sunday December 4, doors at 7pm, show begins at 8pm. Tickets are $15 in advance  (available at https://www.191toole.com/events/koffin-kats-191-toole/), $17 at the door.

Dorothy Doesn’t Surrender

Though it was the first week of October, monsoon season decided to make one more appearance the night that Dorothy rocked the Rialto Theatre. After they commuted through lakes and downpours, the venue welcomed concertgoers with the promise of a night full of excitement and rock and roll. Regardless of the rain, Tucsonans came out ready to party, and the crowd was even more amped up after the opener, Mac Saturn, brought a fun electricity to the stage.

Dorothy Martin, lead singer of Dorothy, came out and instantly had the crowd moving with the funky guitar riffs and her powerful voice. The blue aura of the stage lighting, paired with the perfectly placed and timed fog machines, gave her an almost angelic look while she belted into the microphone. Adorned in a shiny overcoat, she twirled and danced with a Stevie Nicks flair. Her presence onstage is undeniable, and it is backed up by her vocals, which could make even the sourest person smile.

Dorothy’s music is reminiscent of blues rock, a genre that holds the spot between classic rock and newer rock fans quite well. The songs they sang have graced local radio stations for some time now, and it seems safe to say that their popularity and fan base will grow even more in the coming years. Each member of the band brought seasoning, talent, and stage presence to the performance.

Throughout the set they kept the energy high and never faltered. Even in the first song, the melody made the whole audience move in time with dancing and clapping. When they slowed it down for an acoustic song, Dorothy and guitarist Sam “Bam” Koltun commanded the audience’s attention all the way through, and instead of going to the bathroom or checking their phones, the crowd stayed transfixed on the show that was unfolding before them. The band ended on a strong note and left the audience chanting the “one more song” mantra, which unfortunately never came to pass. It was an experience.

The Word Alive Cycles Through Life

The setting: Arizona toward the end of the aughts. The “post-hardcore” scene was in its early infancy, and bands around the country were experimenting with new sounds and things that had never been done before. Bands like Jimmy Eat World and The Bled had put Arizona in the map in a mainstream way, but the post-hardcore scene had not yet found its footing. Enter The Word Alive.

The Word Alive started in 2008 in Phoenix, when Arizona post-hardcore legend Craig Mabbitt decided he wanted to start yet another new band to take the world by storm and recruited some friends from the Phoenix area, Zack Hansen and Tony Pizzuti, to play together. Soon after forming The Word Alive, Mabbitt became a full-time member of Escape the Fate, and Hansen, Pizzuti, and the other members wanted to focus on growing The Word Alive’s presence. They replaced Mabbitt with Tyler “Telle” Smith, who was a prominent vocalist in the scene. Smith, Hansen, and Pizzuti got to work on writing new music and touring the country. Fearless Records signed them in 2009 and soon after released their EP Empire. After touring nonstop, the band slowed down to record their first full-length album, Deceiver, and from then on The Word Alive took over the scene.

The Word Alive toured frequently and became a well-known part of the Fearless Records roster, touring on the “Fearless Friends” tour in 2011 and releasing six full-length albums with the label. In 2020 the band parted ways with Fearless in order to focus on their future and their new sounds. In 2021 they also parted ways with Pizzuti, leaving Smith and Hansen as the only remaining longtime members of the band.

When the events of 2020 turned the world upside down, The Word Alive kept their spirits up by writing and recording new songs. Their newest album, Monomania, experiments with a more accessible sound, focusing more on clean vocals and melodies as opposed to harder guitars and screaming their first albums highlighted. Though not fully in the post-hardcore scene, The Word Alive still sticks to their roots in a few of their songs by highlighting Smith’s vocal range, from singing to screaming (but for only a few bars).

The band is currently touring and celebrating the 10-year anniversary of their second full-length album, Life Cycles. Catch them on Saturday, September 17, at 191 Toole with Dayseeker. For more information visit https://www.191toole.com/.

Local Blues Band Mason Launches Its Sophomore Album

The blues come in many flavors and tones, from the muddy depths of Skip James’s “Devil Got My Woman” to the soaring heights of Henry Thomas’s “Bulldozer Blues” all down the line to the blistering Stones and Winters and Wolfs—Howling and Peter, that is. There’s the bouncing lilt of Freddie King’s “Get Out of My Life, Woman,” the bright top notes of B.B. King’s “The Thrill Is Gone,” the rumbling menace of Albert King’s “Born Under a Bad Sign”—and that’s just the Kings. It’s a genre that forgives experimentation while valuing tradition, one that eludes easy definition but that, as the saying goes, you know when you hear it.

When you hear Mason, you’ve landed on the more modern variations on the form. The band’s second album, My Kind of Trouble, hints at pyrotechnical origins: “Electric Kisses” has undertones of Hendrix, “Hey Sally” of the Clapton-era Delaney & Bonnie, back in the days before Clapton turned into a paleocon antivaxxer, that is. But, nodding to the ancestors aside, the album is also a fresh take on blues rock, supported by virtuoso musicianship and smart songwriting chops. So surefooted are Mason that they recorded most of the 11 songs on the album in a single take, laying them down in two live sessions of 4–5 hours apiece at Waterworks Studios here in Tucson.

The quartet’s pedigree isn’t that of your ordinary barroom blues band. Jacob Acosta, lead guitarist and vocalist, started out as a jazz saxophonist but then, while attending school on the East Coast, picked up a guitar and began writing songs. Returning to Tucson, he took a degree in music education while founding bands devoted to alt rock, shoegaze, acoustic rock, Americana, and, of course, blues while teaming up with deep house artists and, to date, releasing 16 albums. “I love constantly having my music interest and styles evolve,” says Acosta, and his résumé proves the point.

His bandmates are just as versatile. Drummer Andre Gressieux has played in symphonies and off-Broadway in a production of Pippin, as well as in a long string of bands. Like Acosta, he switched instruments, starting off on violin before picking up the drumsticks. Barry Young, the band’s bassist, was a trumpeter at first and didn’t find his first four-string until he hit 30, when he took off with a range of bands playing grunge, desert rock, metal, and prog. Jason Allen, who plays rhythm guitar, played piano, trumpet, and even marching-band tuba before settling on bass and, after moving to Tucson in 2011, joining Acosta in various musical configurations.

The group makes a righteous racket, and, as Acosta points out, isn’t confined to the blues—indeed, My Kind of Trouble includes hints of surf, sixties rock, and even reggae, though never losing the thread that runs back to three chords and the truth. They’ll be celebrating the release of the CD at 7:00 pm (doors open at 6:00 pm) on September 9 at Hotel Congress (311 E. Congress). Tickets are $8 in advance, $10 at the door. Tom Walbank opens. Promises Acosta, “Our sound goes best with a little bit of pageantry and fun, and if you come out, you’ll see we throw a good party.”