Teens Sing Event

This Sunday, May 27, at 8 pm, KEYT will air the Teens Sing for Santa Barbara sold-out concert that took place on March 9 at the Marjorie Luke Theatre. The concert raised $65,000 for the Unity Shoppe Santa Barbara and Montecito Disaster Survivors Fund and featured the talents of local teens, as well as Montecito local Kenny Loggins. 

The concert footage was filmed and edited by Jeff Martin of KEYT and includes vignettes from Loggins, Teens Sing co-creators and co-producers Jackson Gillies, Tali Ratcliffe, and Kiara Lin, and Montecito mudslide survivor Lauren Cantin, who most recently sang with Brad Paisley at his benefit concert on May 12 at the Santa Barbara Bowl. 

The concept for the concert was born from co-producer Lin, who wanted to help the Cantin family and the Montecito community following the January mudslides. Cantin lost her father, Dave, and her brother, Jack, remains missing and is presumed dead. Lauren was rescued from the mud after six hours; her mother, Kim, also survived. “Visiting Lauren and her mother in the hospital and knowing that we’ve lost so many people, that houses and families have been torn apart, I couldn’t stand to see my community as it was. So on January 10, I decided to organize a benefit show/concert.” Lin said. “We realized this show was a way of representing the younger population, who also felt compelled to help but had no way of doing so.”

“These are some of the most talented kids in SB, and it was a joy working with them. They’re fiercely dedicated to proving they too can make a difference, and they’re on fire, believing that if they can dream it, they can make it happen,” said Loggins, who helped co-produce the show and secured several of the musical acts. 

For more information, visit www.teensingforsb.com, or tune into KEYT Channel 3 at 8 pm on Sunday, May 27. 

Book Signing at Chaucer’s

“To see my name next to Gore Vidal’s on the shelf in a bookstore is something I’ve joked about for years. I’d gently run my fingers along the spines of the other books, announce to anyone in the vicinity, stranger or not, ‘My book will be right about here, see? Right here.’ Apparently, when we joke about something enough times, the joke manifests itself into reality,” says MJ contributor Jon Vreeland.

On Tuesday, May 29, at 7 pm, Chaucer’s Books will host the launch of Jon’s debut book, The Taste of Cigarettes: A Memoir of a Heroin Addict, a book he wrote while majoring in English at Santa Barbara City College from 2014-16.

Next Tuesday, you may ask anything you want during (or after) the Q&A portion of the event about the book, addiction, and so forth. There will also be a few minutes of reading, along with refreshments, a lot of special people, and of course, the book signing.