This is the contest's fifth year, and it is growing rapidly, influencing thousands of high school students to learn and perform poetry.

Kristin Margolis, the California state contact from the California Arts Council, said that "there is an incredible demand for the program, with 300,000 participants nationwide this year."

"California has the most competing in the nation," Margolis said. "We will have 40,000 students from 27 counties, which is a big jump from the 24 counties that competed last year and 20 counties the year before that."

The program itself was founded to inspire high school students to read poetry and learn, not just from today's poets, but from many poets before the 20th century.

"It is really important to encourage students to pick the poem and find something that has meaning for them," Margolis said.

The National Recitation Contest begins in the classroom, where students memorize poems and compete within their schools through their ability to remember, connect and perform their chosen poems.

Winners from each school continue on to compete in county contests and then state and national finals, where a single winner is chosen.

Margolis explained that it is such a great program because it can start by a parent, student or teacher hearing about it and deciding to get an entire school involved. There are no boundaries to who can participate because, as Margolis said, it is open to all students, whether home-schooled or in overcrowded classrooms.

"What is unique is that the program can run completely paperless," Margolis said.

Though she did say that supplies and poems are given to many of the schools, the Poetry Out Loud website has all 600 poems from which students can choose, making the contest accessible to every student.

This allows for a wide variety of students, some with very little resources and others who are in every available advanced class to compete on the same footing, Margolis said.

The competition is composed of a very diverse group of people, Margolis said, many of whom relate to poetry through hip hop and slam poetry.

The students gain more than just the knowledge of poetry - they gain confidence, public speaking practice and, as Margolis pointed out, "the feeling they have done something that they never thought they could do."

"All of the students really get the poems in their hearts, and we hear that they remember them years later," Margolis said.

The California finals will be held fro 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday in the Senate Chambers of the Capitol. This will be the second year of the finals being held at the Capitol.

Competitors will arrive at the Capitol the night before, allowing students to meet one another and bond through their poetry. Margolis said this "really allows them to root for each other."

The 27 winners from this year's competing counties will be reciting three poems for the California state finals. One has to be pre-20th century, one 25 lines or less, and the last is the student's choice. Students will be judged on their physical presence, voice and articulation, appropriateness of dramatization, level of difficulty, evidence of understanding, overall performance and accuracy. The overall score will determine a winner, and in the case of a tie like last year, Margolis said that the students must recite one of their poems again.

One state winner will move on to the national finals, which will be held at the George Washington University Lisner Auditorium in Washington, D.C. Semifinal rounds will begin April 26, and the finals will be held the following evening. The event is free and open to the public.

This year's competition is being sponsored by Target, which is donating gift cards and books to state finals participants to accompany their Poetry Out Loud certificates of participation.

Each state winner will receive $200 and a paid trip to compete in Washington, D.C., as well as a $500 stipend for the winner's school to purchase poetry books. The runners-up will receive $100 and a $200 stipend for their schools' library.

The winner of the national finals will take home $50,000 in awards and school stipends.

Monday's competition is open to the public, though space is limited. Since it will take place in the Senate Chamber, there are seats, but Margolis said she expects the chamber to fill up to standing room only.

The good news is that the competition will also be aired live on the Cal Channel, and a link can be found at calchannel.com.

Photo:
2009 California State Champion Spencer Klavan

The celebration featured guest appearances by Mayor Kevin Johnson, City Councilman Kevin McCarty and County Supervisor Don Nottoli as well as music, speeches, a raffle and a burger-eating contest. Several hundred people shuffled into The Squeeze Inn throughout the lunch hour for special prices on the burger known for its famous "cheese skirt," which extends an inch beyond the bun.

The burger is constructed by cooking a one-third-pound beef patty and putting "a giant handful of cheese" on top of, and around, the burger, said Squeeze Inn employee Keith Lenhart. Then an ice cube is placed on the grill while the cheesy patties are topped with a lid, creating a steam chamber for the cheese to melt quickly.

"We go through about 200 to 300 pounds of cheese per day," said employee Charles Rogers.

"And about 270 pounds of potatoes," added Lenhart.

Lenhart, who said he has been eating at the Squeeze Inn for 15 years, only recently started working there a few months ago. Now, he and Rogers are in the process of opening a new Squeeze Inn on the corner of Sunrise Avenue and Douglas Boulevard in Roseville next month.

With locations in Sacramento, Galt and Napa, a Roseville location would be the fourth for the Squeeze Inn, which originally opened in Sacramento 34 years ago.

"This is the perfect location," Lenhart said of the burger joint's new digs on Power Inn Road in Sacramento. "I love it. It helps serve the people better, and (soon) we will get this great product out there in Roseville."

After being featured on Food Network's "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives," hosted by Guy Fieri, the restaurant gained national fame. It was later mentioned on "Good Morning America" and "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno."

It also gained notoriety for not being in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. After several lawsuits, the Squeeze Inn moved to its new location.

"We (would have) had to make changes to the restaurant that would destroy the character, so we decided to move to another location," said owner Travis Hausauer. "The great people of Sacramento gave us wonderful support, and it was amazing what everybody did for us. We're really happy with the location, and we hope to have another 34 years here."

Now larger and wheelchair-accessible, the new location still retains the feel of the old restaurant. It incorporates the entire front entrance, all the bar stools and many of the decorations from the old location.

Michael Whipple, a Certified Access specialist for ADA Resource Associates and wheelchair user, said the old Squeeze Inn location had some wheelchair accessible seating. Although he doesn't eat burgers for health reasons, he helped plan the new location to make sure everything from the entrance to tables to the bathroom, were completely accessible.

He presented Hausauer with a plaque to put in the window. It certified that the restaurant is now fully accessible.
 

Yes, forward. Thursday morning's decision by the Sacramento First Task Force to recommend - if just recommend - the complicated but far-reaching "land swap" proposed by Gerry Kamilos' and David Taylor's organizations, and supported by the NBA and other crucial organizations, means that we are moving forward. Finally.

There will be a lot of arguing about this for some time. As an assistant to Mayor Kevin Johnson, who is to be praised for making progress on this a hallmark of his administration, put it, "This was the easy part." But the fact is, it hasn't been easy even to get to this point.

That we have gotten to this point is something to be celebrated.

Passions run particularly high about this subject, and there are a lot of very certain, very loud opinions about it. But at least now we have a well-considered opinion from a group of smart, well-meaning, experienced people, including task force co-chairs Lina Fat and Chris Lehane, about the best way forward.

Because no matter what you might think of the deal that would redevelop the Cal Expo grounds, build a new state fairgrounds in Natomas and place a new arena and intermodal transportation hub at the heart of a redeveloped downtown railyard, at least it does this:

It moves us forward.

Those who want other options, be they rival developers or Sacramento's well-established NIMBY crowd, will still have ample chance to weigh in, as members of the City Council did Thursday morning. There were signs that territorial considerations would still come into play, especially in an election year, as District 1 representative Ray Tretheway continued to push for a larger role for Natomas, despite the task force's clear finding that that was not the logical way forward. There will be much jockeying and lobbying, and that's to be expected, even desired. That's how we do it.

There are many moving parts to this, sources of funding still to be identified, political agendas to be filled, and business and neighborhood interests to be resolved. At one point it was noted that this process could consume local government and businesses for the next two decades.

But that's good. That process, as tortuous as it will likely be, will create a lot of jobs, and at the end, we will have a much-improved city, with amenities we can only dream about right now.

And it could begin as soon as next Tuesday, when city staff brings the City Council its first report on the possibilities for financing, and in April, when some sort of timetable could be brought before the council.

The dream is legitimate. As a lifelong Sacramentan, downtown homeowner and resident, and frequent visitor to the current (and previous) ARCO arenas, I have not had a particularly strong opinion about where to put the new arena. I have, however, long been convinced that we DO need a new facility - and I say that as someone who has been to four Kings games in 15 years.

But as I've studied the issue, it has become clear to me, as it has to nearly everyone who watches these things, and as it was to the Task Force, that an arena needs to be downtown. Putting the arena in the suburbs would only continue to spread Sacramento out over more farmland and vernal pools and hillsides, put more people in more cars for more hours, and, worst of all, diffuse our vital cultural and commercial center just when it is finally, after decades of struggle, being established in downtown/Midtown.

As has been pointed out many times before, of the more than a dozen new arenas that have been built in the last decade, few have been built in suburban locations. That was what we did in the '70s, and like many of the urban choices made then, it was a mistake. As anyone who leaves our town can see, the placement of ATT Park in downtown San Francisco and of the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles has brought new life to those areas. Big, bustling, boisterous new life. Not to mention jobs and lower crime.

Now, some central city residents don't necessarily want new life in their neighborhoods. Sacramento's downtown and midtown have been quiet, nearly-suburban enclaves for so long that people have forgotten that they are, in fact, the urban core of our city. The mix of uses, particularly in Midtown, has led to some problems.

And the fact is, none of us really knows how this will affect us. I've heard dire warnings about traffic, about drunks, about noise, about air pollution, about raised taxes, and about what is essentially fear of what "those people" - sports fans, suburbanites, people with money to spend, people in cars, what-have-you - will bring to downtown.

But as Mayor Johnson has said many times, the time is now. Time is not on our side. And the future beckons: A new transportation center at the railyards will be the greenest step this city has ever taken, and increased density will stand us in good stead into the new century. A new state fair grounds in Natomas could be a showpiece for the entire state that would draw many more visitors here, and could be built in a greener, more sustainable manner than the lumbering old Cal Expo site. And having a whole new city on the old Cal Expo grounds would be greener and give more people the opportunity to live closer to downtown. To their work. To entertainment. To transportation.

To a vital new Sacramento that could finally take its rightful place as the last great undiscovered urban center of the western United States, a crossroads of north and south and east and west.

All of the details will be worked out over the next few years, as we move forward. Mistakes will be made, there will be setbacks, and arguments, and battles and wasted money. There may be a few new taxes, though that isn't going to fly in the current environment. As the mayor's assistant said, what happened today was the easy part.

But it was not easy getting even here. It took a lot of hard work, and thought, and thousands of hours of volunteer time, and negotiations. And because of that work, today, for the members of the Sacramento First Task Force, and the developers and local visionaries who pushed for this to happen, and above all to a mayor who has made progress his hallmark, was a great day.

So, this is a time to pause and take pride in our city for embracing new possibilities, even though we don't necessarily know where they will lead us. It is a proud moment, and we should savor it over the weekend.

And next week, we move. Forward.
 

In Kamilos’ plan, the Downtown railyards will be the site of a 19,000-seat sports and entertainment arena. In a second part of the plan, a new fairgrounds would be built at Arco Arena and on nearby land.

John Moag, a consultant for the NBA working with Kamilos, in January explained a third part of the proposal. For that part, Kamilos' development team intends to purchase the California Exposition & State Fair from the state. A mixed-use residential development would be built at the Cal Expo site. Funds from the new development would help finance the arena Kamilos plans to build at the railyards Downtown, Moag said.

The report presented to the City Council can be found here.

Staff reporter Suzanne Hurt contributed to this report.

On Sunday, March 14, 2010, Movies on a Big Screen is teaming up with the Sacramento Historical Society to present, Meet Mary Pleasant. The filmmaker, Susheel Bibbs, will be in attendance to speak following the film. The film begins at 7:30 PM, and the screening will take place at The Guild Theater, which is located at 2828 35th St, Sacramento. Admission is $5.00.

About Meet Mary Pleasant:
A unique, historical, performance documentary, unfolds the saga of Mary Ellen Pleasant the daring, unsung, 19th-century African-American activist and entrepreneur now called the Mother of Civil Rights in California. Narrated by the acclaimed actress Ruby Dee (SAG Best Supporting Actress, 2007), the film allows Pleasant to speak in live performance, using song, montage, re-enactment, commentary, and narration to enliven a backdrop of achievement, love, scandal, and American history. Pleasant's story is inspiring and important internationally. As entrepreneur, she amassed $30,000,000, and as activist, she changed modern-day civil rights law and affected civil rights throughout the US and in Canada.

Meet Mary Pleasant
Sunday, March 14, 2010
7:30 PM
Admission: $5.00
Movies on a Big Screen at The Guild
2828 35th St (corner of 35th & Broadway), Sacramento

http://www.moviesonabigscreen.com
http://www.sachistoricalsociety.org
 

The night began with DUI squaring up against More Balls than Brains, one of the best #8 seeds XOSO has had to date. The first few games traded off, with DUI taking a 2-1 edge. Then, with each game coming down to a couple players, DUI found a way to win each one, prevailing 7-1 in the match.

D3: The Mighty Drunks faced off against Beans and Rice, and took a commanding lead before relaxing, saving their arms for the #1 seed, DUI.

Money Shot beat Your Mom with relative ease, 8-3, and Out Like a Fat Kid beat Goodness, Gracious, Great Balls of Fire 7-3. In a heated matchup, Money Shot won the final two games to pull away and crush the dreams Out Like a Fat Kid had of winning their first title.

D3: The Mighty Drunks, who had shocked the dodgeball nation with an upset of Money Shot earlier this season, prepared to knock off the #1 seed in the semi-finals. They kept each game close, before DUI won the last two games, winning the match 4-2 and heading to face the Old Sacramento division's #1 seed, Money Shot in the finals.

All season long, Money Shot and DUI sat atop their divisions, hoping for the chance to prove their mettle against the other. Last night, they got their chance. DUI, facing what some considered a tougher road to the final match, didn't have what it takes to overcome a team bringing the heat and Money Shot won the championship 7-1. Money Shot was reborn this season after winning two titles under different names and with different rosters.

Thanks for a great season everyone, see you in a few weeks!

www.xososports.com

After all, it was a night designed and orchestrated by his team's management to promote him for the NBA's Rookie of the Year award.

As if he needed the t-shirts with Reke for ROY across the front to earn the award.

Evans provided his own legitimate promotion with his first NBA triple-double (19 points and game-highs of 10 rebounds and 10 assists) to lead the Kings to a commanding 113-90 victory over the Toronto Raptors before a crowd of 13,412.

Both Evans and the Kings had a slow start amidst all the hype. The Raptors led 45-40 at the half and Evans was three for nine from the field and had eight points.

However, the Kings put together their best quarter of the season with 43 points in the third, while holding the Raptors to 23 points on seven of 20 field-goal shooting.

Sacramento changed the game from a five-point deficit to a 15-point lead entering the fourth. The only suspense for the rest of the game rested on whether Evans could get a triple-double on his night.

The double-digit assists came last and the tenth came courtesy of a jump shot by Francisco Garcia, who remained true to his word.

"I told him if he wanted it," Garcia said of Evans, "give it to me."

Evans' triple-double was the first by a rookie in the Kings organization since Nov. 5, 1969 when the late Norm Van Lier did it with the Cincinnati Royals against the San Diego Clippers. Van Lier had 13 points, 10 rebounds and 11 assists.

Evans received a lot of help from his teammates. Five other Kings reached double-figure scoring on their way to shooting 29 of 47 (61.7 percent) in the second half and scoring 73 points.

Evans said he was embarrassed at times to hear the crowd chant, "ROY, ROY," while he was at the free-throw line. However, he also said that it motivated him.

"You hear the crowd chanting like that and it made me step up my game," he said. "I started being more aggressive and our whole team was more aggressive in the second half."

Evans said the Raptors players told him he was going win the award and then playfully provided a little verbal harassment.

Kings coach Paul Westphal said Evans has been one of the most consistent rookies he's seen.

"When you look at it objectively from day one all the way through now, (Tyreke) has consistently been up there averaging over 20 (points) five boards and five assists and really taking steps to change the culture of this team," he said. "I just think that his consistency, as well as the obvious talent he has, just makes it an open and closed vote."

Evans, whose face was plastered on sticks given to fans, couldn't remember if he had a triple-double during his one season at Memphis, but said it really didn't matter.

"If I did, this is the one I enjoyed the most," he said.

Toronto coach Jay Triano echoed the comments of most other coaches around the league.

"In the third quarter I thought we started to come back," said Triano, whose Raptors have lost seven of their past eight games, "then (Evans) just picked us apart. We can't stop him with one guy."

And that's what likely will make him the Rookie of the Year.

From homeless to headliner, Dat Phan knows what it means to work hard to achieve your goals. His story is another "American dream" come true for someone willing to put it all out there.

Phan, the youngest of 10 kids, started in Saigon, Vietnam, and landed in the ghettos of San Diego with his mother. There were times when they slept on bus benches.

"I credit my mom for keeping me out of gangs as a child,” Phan said. “My babysitter was Cox Cable, and it kept me off the streets."

It was during this period that he was inspired by the celebrities he watched on TV.

"It was during the time that Michael Jackson was still black and awesome!"

This all was happening as the ghetto violence surged around him, and it propelled him to get out by any means and not look back.

"When you grow up poor, you have to either work really hard to try and get where you want to be, or you'll just stay put," he said.

Even though Phan took a drama class while in high school, he admits to being shy and introverted until after he graduated and enrolled in Grossmont Junior College in San Diego. After leaving school at 21, he decided to make his mark in the comedy world.

For the next seven years, Phan worked tirelessly at his trade as a starving artist, driving from one gig to the next, taking odd jobs, (he was once robbed at gunpoint while working as a doorman at the Improv in Irvine, Calif.), sleeping in his car or on friends’ couches.

All that time, he was working on his writing, graphing and charting each sentence and keeping his notebook with him because, as he said, "I was too poor for a laptop, and the notebook was all I had."

"I'm still am very obsessed with my techniques as I am writing my material. I analyze where the beats are, the wording and how many syllables," he continued. "Movies are never done without storyboards, timelines, formulas and equations. They are engineered for success. James Cameron didn't make Avatar without a plan!"

In 2003, while no longer homeless, but renting a space so small that there was only room to sleep under his desk, he continued to pursue any opportunity that presented itself.

While living on cheap ramen and generic Red Bull, Phan scraped together enough money to send a demo in to NBC for an experimental reality show they were looking at. That experiment was the inauguration of "Last Comic Standing."

After auditioning in person, he was chosen by the talent scouts for "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" to be a part of the show, beating 2,000 other comics.

On the show, his obsession with verbal technique brought him ridicule from other comedians, as the nation watched more experienced comics like Ralphie May, Rich Vos and Dave Mordal verbally abuse and taunt Phan for his inexperience and his "Zen-like" approach to comedy.

Through it all, Phan kept his cool, and his technique proved them all wrong as he took the top prize in the show, beating each one of them week by week until he was crowned "Last Comic Standing."

"Was the meanness depicted on the show accurate?” we wondered.

"If you are going to throw a steak (development deal), into the middle of a pack of wolves (comics) that are hungry, you are going to turn a lot of comedians into animals,” Phan said. “Stick all of them all in the same cage (house) for a month, and you get the madness that is a reality show."

With the national primetime exposure the show provided, Phan landed a part in the Kim Basinger movie, "Cellular," did voiceover work for "Family Guy" and began touring the country.

"That's my movie claim to fame right now. Five minutes as the only Asian character in a movie full of Caucasians!"

Phan went on to be named by the Smithsonian as one of the "Top Ten Most Influential Vietnamese-Americans" and frequently assists Stanford University's The Jade River Campaign, which provides research and assistance to Asian victims of hepatitis B and liver cancer. Phan's mother suffers from a form of the disease.

"How's life today?" we asked.

"Well, I am in a relationship now so my life is a lot more boring than before,” Phan replied. “I used to be the guy out on the hunt for girls – now I just hunt for Girl Scout cookies. How does it define you when you are trolling supermarkets for Girl Scouts like you are looking for your crack cocaine dealer?"

“Do you know ‘Flight of the Conchords?’ ” he responded when asked about his next projects. "I am trying to add the guitar to my act to accent the Asian material that I do."

Going back to his technical and perfectionist outlook, Phan said, "If you look at music theory and comedy theory, they have a tendency to contradict each other on beats, counts and callbacks. Because of this, I am working with a team of people to get this right. It's fun, and it has refreshed my enthusiasm for writing comedy as well."

Will he be performing music at this Sacramento appearance?

"Not this time,” Phan said. “It just isn't ready. I will, however, be slipping in some new comedy material. I am constantly trying to keep my act fresh."

Phan has a DVD he recently released called "Dat Phan Live" and his first R-rated CD called "You Touch, You Buy!" Both are available on Phan's website: www.DatPhan.Com.

Dat Phan will be appearing at the Sacramento Punchline this week, from Thursday through Sunday for five shows.

The Comedy Guy

Steven Bloom (a.k.a. The Comedy Guy) is the founder of SacramentoComedy.Com, the Official Guide to Sacramento Comedy. This Sacramento comedy website is dedicated to interviews, comedian bios, videos and consolidating all of the Sacramento comedy events to a single site. You can send your questions directly to The Comedy Guy at Steven@SacramentoComedy.Com

"It was so long ago I can't remember," said Andrews, now 24. "I remember my mom saying I was playing (trombone) and some people crowd-surfed me to the stage, and they put me on the stage, and that was it."

He earned his name because he could play a trombone before even being as tall as the horn.

Sunday night, Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue will play their high-energy set at Harlow's. Opening will be The Nibblers, a seven-piece rock band led by local singer Hans Eberbach and Mumbo Gumbo members Lynn Michael Palmer, Jon Wood and Reggie Marks.

Andrews grew up listening to jazz and other sounds in the musical Tremé neighborhood of New Orleans, the same neighborhood that jazz forefather Louis Armstrong called home. Both his mother and his brother, trumpeter and bandleader James Andrews, inspired him to embrace music.

He attended the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, a high school that produced other talented artists like Harry Connick Jr., Nicholas Payton and Wynton and Branford Marsalis. After graduating, Andrews quickly received an invitation to tour in Lenny Kravitz's band at the age of 18, which allowed him to see the world and grow as a musician.

Around the same time, he began releasing albums with his brother, a quintet, and his current band, Orleans Avenue, a project that mixes funk, hip-hop and pop. In 2006, Andrews had the opportunity to perform with U2 and Green Day for the reopening of the New Orleans Superdome.

He also shared the stage at the New Orleans House of Blues with Wynton Marsalis, who said of Andrews, "Shorty possesses the rarest combination of talent, technical capability and down-home soul," adding, "I'm his biggest fan."

Though Andrews is known first and foremost as a virtuoso trumpet and trombone player, he recently started singing.

"My brother James is a singer, and my grandfather was an R&B singer," Andrews said. "I was listening to some of (my grandfather's) music, and it inspired me, and (so did) Lenny Kravitz. Everyone in New Orleans sings, (including, for example,) Louis Armstrong."

Voice, trumpet and trombone all represent part of his character, but Andrews said the two horns best convey who he is. As for his band's sound, he described it as "supafunkrock."

"Supafunkrock to me is just rock, hip-hop and funk from New Orleans," he said. "We just put it in a gumbo bowl, and that's what it is: high-energy funk-rock dance with elements of different things."

Andrews is not just steeped in the culture of New Orleans - it's his passion. His new album Backatown, which will be released April 20, is a personal record about growing up in New Orleans and reaching where he is today.

He explained that Backatown is New Orleans slang for "the next neighborhood over." So "backatown" for the Tremé would mean the Seventh Ward, the French Quarter or even Bayou St. John, he explained.

The album has a number of modern, gritty elements including hip-hop rhythms, according to Andrews. Guests on the album include Kravitz, Marc Broussard and Allen Toussaint, who plays piano on a cover of his own song, "On Your Way Down," the album's only non-original song.

"People in Sactown know how to get down," added Andrews, who played at Sacramento's now-closed Hard Rock Café in May. "The energy I get from the audience and fans, it makes my energy go higher than normal. It's a wonderful feeling to get that energy, and I give it back."

Tickets cost $17.50 in advance and $20 on day of the show. Tickets can be purchased online (here) and at R5 Records, located at 2500 16th St. Harlow's is located at 2708 J Street. The show begins at 8 p.m.

Photographs 1 and 2 credit Jane Richey.

Photograph 3 credit Kirk Edwards.

TCB, originally from Los Angeles but now calling San Francisco home, formed in 2005, when front man "Orlandissey," newly aware of his Morrissey-impersonation skills, posted a Craigslist ad seeking fellow The Smiths tribute musicians.

"We believe that the music of The Smiths still interests people and brings them together because the words of Morrissey and the music of Johnny, Andy and Mike are timeless" Orlando said. "Morrissey's lyrics transport you into 'his' England where love, acceptance and kindness are lacking and so desired which one could argue is true in our present world".

Since TCB's formation, the band has seemingly been on a perpetual tour of the West Coast, hitting Sacramento's Blue Lamp each time it comes through.

"We enjoy playing at the Blue Lamp," Orlando said. "Ed, the owner, is always supportive and a fun person to deal with. You can tell that the people who come to our shows are people who really know their Smiths and Morrissey solo tunes."

Joining TCB is rock band and local institution The Snobs, 2008 Sammie winners for Best Rock Band.

The group has two albums under its belt. The first, a four-piece recording called Stepping Large, Laughing Easy, was released in 2004. One saxophone addition and a few rearrangements in lineup later, The Snobs recorded their second album in 2009 in Sacramento's Track Shack with producer Jeff Tamelier.

Described as psychobilly and punk, The Snobs sound has been compared to that of The Clash and The Stooges.