Following our Trick or Treat run with the kids, we passed our younguns' off to the wives and proceeded to The Mercury Lounge in Goleta, CA. A small hidden club (and they like it that way), the theme of the night was Alice In Wonderland. Our pretty host dressed as Alice had decorated the club with cards and scenese from Alice while the Disney flick was shown on one of the walls. A DJ was spinning (okay pressing keys on his laptop) tunes between sets.… Continue

All the way from the planet Earth's little toe, Belgium, comes one of the most interesting sounding Surf bands to hit the scene in a long time. I'm talking about Los Venturas. KELP had the good fortune of playing a show with these young lads last night at the Mercury Lounge in Goleta, CA. It turned out to be one of the most entertaining gigs we've played in a very long time.



KELP has played many shows at The Merc over the years. We always do something different to entertain the… Continue

This past Thursday KELP pwas asked by the Santa Barbara Downtown Organization to perform for an event called First Thursdays. It's supposed to be an arts and music event held at different locations in the downtown area on State Street. State Street is the "main drag" of SB where all of the best places to eat, shop and get drunk are located. KELP set up on the corner of Anapamu and State in front of a museum and performed for 3 solid hours. We sold 25… Continue

The campus at UCSB in Santa Barbara, CA is by far the most beautiful campus setting in the world. Of course, I can only compare it to the college I went to in Brookings, SD ...home of the fighting Jackrabbits. Last night Kelp was asked to play an event at a beach called Depressions - great surf spot that is on the UCSB campus. We loaded our gear on to a 20' flatbed truck which was then driven to the beach. The students made a bonfire on the beach… Continue

The Santa Barbara Surfrider Foundation just held it's first annual Bikinis and Martinis benefit. We of course lept at the opportunity to play for an event that had two of our favorite things in the title! It was held at an art museum that was hosting an exhibition of surf inspired artwork. When we arrived on the scene, the place was filling up with people that were lining up for their martinis. By the time we played, it was packed full. We performed a solid hour of music, playing a majority of… Continue

For the past 31 years, Santa Barbara has hosted the Christmas Parade on State Street. Pretty much the same fare every year. Marching bands, the mayor waving at the minions, some balloons, kids walking with their youth groups and Santa Clause Trailing behind at the end. Kelp has been putting together some instrumental surf Christmas songs for a couple of years. We add them to the mix when we play shows near Christmas. This year we thought it would be cool to build a float and play in the…

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Every year we end up playing at a couple of Halloween parties. Sometimes it's at a club. Occasionally we play for a house party. Unless you know the hosts intimately, you never know what it's going to be like. Sometimes it can be extremely odd.

This happened to be the case this year. We were asked to play a house party about a week ago. The plan was for Kelp to play before a rockabilly band followed by a punk band. There would be over a 100…

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Kelp is preparing to go back into the studio to finish the new CD "Hello, Mr. Whaleshark!" Recording will take place at 7 South Studios. We recorded the Clash song "White Riot" a couple years ago for a Clash tribute CD at 7 South. The price is right and it's local. Can't beat that. Here's a list of songs that will appear on the CD so far. They will mean absolutely nothing to those that have note heard them but oh well...

Hello Mr. Whaleshark, Project Plankton, Revenge of the…

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This just in...

A DJ from the #1 radio station in Santa Barbara just contacted us and asked us to provide some tracks for a new surfing video. Kelp along with 5 other bands will be featured on the video. That's as much as we can say right now.

Several years ago, Kelp provided tracks for three surfing videos produced by Burnt Toast Productions in Ventura, CA. So this isn't our first stab at this medium.

We'll post more with links to where you can purchase the video when…

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Being categorized as a "surf" band allows us to play the occasional festival during the summer. For the second year we have been invited to play the Santa Barbara Sandcastle Festival. What could be more fun than carrying your gear across the sand on a hot summer day? Actually, it was a lot of fun. A popular Santa Barbara event, this year had a huge turnout. Kelp opened the day with a 90 minute set mix of classics such as Steel Pier and Jack The Ripper and our own…

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Just returned home following a birthday party for Kelp guitarist Paul Fritz (aka Pablo Fleece) We dined on carnitas, guac, beer and traunia (geek alert: traunia is the name of the drink the alien offerend Kirk and crew in the Trek episode "The Corbonite Maneuver". He offers it saying "this is traunia". It has become a tradition for Kelp to do a shot of tequila before every show saying "this is traunia") We took a moment… Continue

State Street - 4th of July 2006 in Santa Barbara, CA. That's Sam Frankeberger dead center, drummer for Kelp. Sam started Kelp with myself and Paul in a guest house I was living in back in '95 overlooking Rincon Point, a famous surfing spot in California. Sam split for personal reasons and was later replaced by a guy whose dad was the lead singer for REO Speedwagon. He was replaced by another guy from a speed metal band. I left town and moved to Brooklyn, NY…

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