Lorin Ashton / Bassnectar writes: "Santa Cruz, California is one of my favorite places in the world. It is special to me for countless reasons, and it is one of my favorite places to play music. I am stunned, and saddened that the City of Santa Cruz decided last minute to not allow our show to happen tomorrow [Thursday, May 3rd].

"Basically, there is a very vague city ordinance #9.36.010... Now had they told us this 6 months ago when we booked the show, that would have been understandable (it still would have been weird, because we already did one successful show at the Civic Center, and are not going to play music any louder than last time) but having this happen so last minute is basically putting us in a very difficult situation. Now they have told us we will be shut down if we play at our normal volume (the same volume we played at last time, and the same volume we play at in cities all across the country), forcing the show to be cancelled. We offered to start way earlier than normal, and to have music end by 10pm, and they had zero interest in finding a solution."

Lorin Ashton grew up in San Jose, and moved to Santa Cruz in 1996 to attend UC Santa Cruz. In the Fan Bass section of the Bassnectar website, Lorin writes about the Origins Of Bassnectar, "Years of drumming had prepared me and I thought that since I was already throwing ill parties, why not play at them as well? Until that time I had never considered being a DJ (although I was taking the Electronic Music minor at UCSC and playing with tons of amazing gear). I was mostly focused on making events happen, and making music, in addition to going to school (I majored in “Community Studies” at UCSC, and also minored in Education)..."

In 2010, Bassnectar wrote to the Santa Cruz Independent Media Center, and invited us to table at their concert, which we did, on February 14th, 2010 at The Catalyst. "Bassnectar envisions a community space for non profit outreach at concerts, filled with organizations such as yours."

City of Santa Cruz Forces Bassnectar to Cancel at Civic Center | Bassnectar.net