Ian Pierce

Tag: Santa Cruz

  • ACID BATH (again)

    I know I already saw them this year, and I know I already did a photo dump from the concert, but when I heard that Acid Bath was going to be playing at the Quarry Amphitheater in Santa Cruz, I had to be there after my trip to the desert. Especially because the Melvins, who are my musical heroes, were one of the openers, along with High on Fire and Windhand, who are also amazing bands that I love.

    It was really cool seeing what they’ve done with the Quarry! When I went to school in Santa Cruz, the Quarry was basically condemned, all in ruins, with no one using it for anything except to smoke weed or drink. I’m not sure it’s quite like “Red Rocks in the Redwoods” as advertised, but it’s still pretty neat!

    And for the record, I assume some of you might be asking, “how can you enjoy stoner metal if you’ve never been stoned?” To that I reply: how can you enjoy death metal if you’ve never been dead?

    ~ Ian

  • no kings day, santa cruz, march 28, 2025

    As an aside to this whole post, I’m going to say it was incredibly frustrating to see that the vast majority of protestors in Santa Cruz (about 90%) were boomers. Millennials and zoomers are the largest age demographic in the US, and we were extremely few and far between. It is pathetic to see older people willing to stand up and fight for the future of our country when the people who will inherit it show such unbelievable apathy. There are a bunch of criticisms of young people (or not that young anymore, in the case of older millennials) that are completely invalid, but it’s true that millennials believe that putting out a Twitter hashtag constitutes activism, and that zoomers will do whatever the influencers that their TikTok algorithm serves them will tell them to do.

    Nonviolent protests in Minneapolis got ICE to stand down and back off. In my city, the current mayor was elected by only a couple hundred votes. If I and a few hundred people decided not to vote that day, Seattle wouldn’t have our most progressive mayor in a generation.

    Cynicism is not wisdom, and memes are not action. My generation needs to learn that, because not caring will only end with us being crushed by oligarchs and techno-feudalists, and ensure that the future looks like a boot, stamping on a human face, forever.