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The Ultimate Bearhug

​OC Weekly and Music for a Cure team up this Thursday for Cocktails for a Cause, a monthly fundraiser/mixer that brings various people throughout Orange County together to support a local charity. Hosted by the gracious folks of The Observatory, this month's Cocktails is presumed to be quite the production featuring performances by The Make and sultry local duo, The Ultimate Bearhug. I caught up with Barrett Johnson and Doll Knight to get an update on their anticipated debut album, and their thoughts on the importance of music and giving back to the community. More >>

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Andrew Youssef/OC Weekly

Gang of Four

​Everyone here at OC Weekly and Heard Mentality is sending out good vibes and well wishes to photographer extraordinaire Andrew Youssef, a.k.a. Amateur Chemist.

If you read our blog regularly, you've read his concert reviews and would definitely be familiar with his fantastic photographs, such as the ones he took of Gang of Four at the House of Blues in Anaheim, or Blonde Redhead at the Glass House or A Perfect Circle at the Avalon.

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RMA Photography

​South Orange County is getting its own concert hall.

Construction is complete on a $73 million performing-arts center at Soka University, a majestic college campus in Aliso Viejo. The space, anchored by a 1,034-seat auditorium, will be used for dance and orchestra productions, plays, musicals, lectures, and community events.
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​Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the breast cancer awareness organization responsible for the all-pink-everything "Passionately Pink for the Cure" campaign, might have found their newest spokesperson in Nicki Minaj.More >>

www.myspace.com/tandollar

Tan Dollar at a previous Acrobatics Everyday

​At last year's Best Of, we said, "Not only does Acrobatics Everyday, a concert series at various locations on the campus of UC Irvine, bring unconventional entertainment choices to the university's students, but it also brings obscure artists to Orange County that would otherwise have nowhere else to play."  But wait, there's more! KUCI music director/Acrobatics Everyday mastermind Sam Farzin and company has other cool events going on.
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Keith May

Kia was the runt of the litter

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At an unincorporated no-man's land at mouth of Santa Ana River at border between Newport and Huntington Beaches sits a hidden dog beach--that other dog beach. While most automatically think of Huntington Beach's Dog Beach on Pacific Coast Highway, this one is a bit more secluded.

It's so unknown, in fact, that even when photographer Keith May asked a lifeguard at 74 about it, he had never even heard of such a place. The beach has no name, no cops, no leash laws. Just dogs running wild and having the time of their lives (there's even a few surfing ones in the mix, like Kia up there!) in the gentle surf and shallow river. When asked if he had to describe what city the beach is located in, May replied Newport, since the sandbar is on that side of the river. So Newport it is. More >>