Resurecting the Starlight Drive-In

It’s been more than 20 years since a drive-in movie was last shown in Watsonville and today most people in town know the former hangout spot as .

Watsonville musician Michael Gaither released his third album, Starlite Drive-In Saturday Night, in June and hopes the music will make listeners nostalgic for parking the ’69 Chevy Camaro in front of the jumbo white screen and waiting for the cheesy snack bar clip to come on.

Gaither will throw a CD release party in the Codiga Museum at the Agricultural History Project in Watsonville on Saturday to make the album official and more importantly, celebrate the album with his fans, friends and family.

“This album was kind of Watsonville-inspired and I thought it would be really cool to do something in Watsonville,” said Gaither. “I’ve never had a chance to do a big release party for a record that came out start to finish like I liked it, and then I thought ‘Maybe the fairgrounds? Wait I know the Ag History folks, maybe they’d want to do something.’”

The AHP is located at the and it’s a spot where people can learn a thing or two about Pajaro Valley’s rich history of farming and crop growing.

“We’re trying to save the history through agricultural implements, milking machines, the ag industry, poultry, what went on in the house in the 1930s. Things that you probably knew as a kid and now they’re just gone,” said AHP vice president Fred Chamberlain.

But it’s not all about just reading the history of barns and family names like the Marinovichs, the Kellys, and the Porters. Kids and grown-ups can actually interact with activities in the museum or the beautifully restored tractors parked outside on the large courtyard.

“We’re trying to get kids involved so that they’ll remember that it wasn’t so long ago that somebody our age was driving something like that [tractors],” said Chamberlain.

Gaither is a big fan of the AHP and praises the efforts to restore the olden days of Watsonville.

“They’re preserving our local history and I really like that, so I wanted to do something that will help them out a little bit,” said Gaither.

His first two albums, Spotted Mule and Other Tales (2006) and Dogspeed (2009), were recorded at home using a computer and with any instruments that Gaither could get his hands on. This time around he went all out and spent the whole time recording inside a legitimate studio.

“I wanted to something a little different this time so I actually booked, scheduled, and budgeted for studio time,” said Gaither. “It was different in a good way. When your working in a home studio it’s usually you and a guy who has the equipment and kind of talk about the songs your working on, then bring in people one at a time to add their pieces to it.”

He spent five months with producer Dayan Kai up at Bear Creek Studios in Santa Cruz to record the album and it’s no mystery that the music in Startlite Drive-In Saturday Night was carefully worked on till it was deemed perfect under Gaither’s standards.

“The tricky part was you wanted to edit out some mistakes but you didn’t want to edit out everything so it sounded like it was saccharine and way too polished,” said Gaither. “It’s OK to have a little dirt left on, that’s kind of what we wanted.”

Gaither’s decision to put in a mix of guitar, violin, fiddle and even the accordion along with his lyrics about the good old times is a perfect blend of Americana, folk, country, and rock music all in one.

Take for example the song “Whisky Hill” and the perfect use of the fiddle throughout the entire song. The story of Billy and his adventure on Whisky Hill wouldn’t nearly be the same without the infamous instrument used heavily in mountain music.

In the witty song “Now It’s a Taqueria”, Gaither kindly complains about how a handful of restaurants the town once had are closed and are slowly being taken over by taqueria’s. The song includes a traditional Mexican sound of the accordion and acoustic guitar as well as a bit of Spanish dialogue to add some flavor to the track.

As for the days of reminiscing, the easy going “Still a Small Town” and the title-track “Starlite Drive-In Saturday Night” bring back the good times. These pair of songs will certainly take people down memory lane as Gaither sings about hanging a speaker on the car window, hiding friends in the trunk of a car, and his love Watsonville.

“The Starlite song has been around for a long time, it was one of those songs where I used to strum it, I played it in different key, and I tried to make it big,” said Gaither.

“I finally realized ‘This is really just kind of a talky story.’ So the track is just some percussion, bass, my guitar and harmonica. I figured out it doesn’t need any lead instruments, the words propel this thing along.”

And this Saturday night, people will get a chance to watch him perform tracks from the new CD along with Kai, Aaron Bagchee, Steve Kritzer and Steve Uccello, the group that helped Gaither make this album come to life.

“I’m excited because I’ve had this CD idea in my head for like a year and a half going ‘I want the drive-in on the front, I want these songs, I want to open with a happy love song, probably in this order’, just being able to have finally done was really exciting.”