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Los Angeles Times
2 days ago
- Business
- Los Angeles Times
Safe and sound: Orange County's oldest music store reopens in Laguna
Wave Baker, a longtime employee of Sound Spectrum, will tell anyone who listens that the place has 'an energy of its own.' So when the Laguna Beach-based record shop, which opened on South Coast Highway in 1967, closed in October, Baker had a feeling it wasn't over. Whether it was more than a feeling, what happened next was more than he hoped for. A music-oriented family came forward with a bid, planning to revive the business and restore the building. James, Audrey and Sadie Jean Wilcox, siblings who grew up in the nearby city of Tustin, worked together to reopen Orange County's oldest music store. After spending more than two decades working under the original owners, Jimmy and Edith Otto, Baker was asked to remain on staff. 'In a sense, I'm a bridge from the old to the new,' Baker said. 'I met with them, and we got along, and they wanted my help. I said, 'Well, I come with one condition — my left and my right arm. Travis [Garman] and Niloo [Aghaseyedali] were part of the old, and now we're all three part of the new.' James, 28, recalled visiting Sound Spectrum during surfing trips to Laguna Beach. In December, when he learned the iconic record store had closed, he called Wave. Within a week, the family had submitted an offer that was accepted. 'At the end of the day, a record store sells music,' James said. 'The special thing about this store is that it has sold music for so many decades. It sold music through the vinyl era, through the cassette era, through the CD era, and then all the way back again. 'In my opinion, the special part about this store is that it's past trends. It doesn't need to sell off of these trends. It can just keep selling music that touches people's hearts.' As for the responsibility that goes with inheriting a legacy of 57 years of service to the community, James said that Jimmy Otto created a business that could stand on its own. 'Jimmy was very much someone who could stand on his own, and he made his store stand on its own,' he added. 'We hope to keep that same energy, really forever. We believe that this store is so sacred and special. The special thing about music is that it does last forever.' James also called it a 'special moment' to have the keys to Sound Spectrum passed on to his family by Edith Otto, who also gave them a tour of the store. Audrey, 30, who is due to be married this year, compared the commitment to preserve a community staple to a wedding. 'There's like this union,' Audrey said. 'I have this connection with the former owner. … I feel like the Sound Spectrum itself is like a being of its own. I feel less that I'm the one that's deciding what happens to it and more that I'm listening to what it needs, being more like a steward to what the store wants, listening to that and making it happen. That's been my biggest source of inspiration is just what … everyone needs.' The Wilcox family's music industry experience has been driven by a burgeoning career for Sadie Jean, 23, as a singer-songwriter. James and Audrey, both of whom have business backgrounds, have helped manage her career. She has nearly two dozen shows lined up in Europe this fall, and she's preparing to release her first album later this year. Sadie Jean revealed she has been writing songs from a young age, but she was unsure if her family would embrace that side of her. 'It was so funny because once I told people I could sing and write songs, my family was like my biggest champions,' Sadie Jean said. 'Now they manage me, and my siblings manage me. My career became like a really big family thing, and my parents go on tour with me. All of a sudden, we're like a music family after being so like not at all. 'I think it just made so much sense when we found out that the record store in our community that we love was about to be gone forever. It felt so serendipitous. It was like a calling that we had to take it on and save it because music is built into our family culture now.' The return of the record store was celebrated with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Thursday evening, music pumping as people perused the aisles stocked with selections of vinyl, CDs and posters spanning the decades. Local artists also collaborate, leading restorative efforts at the store. Amanda Burke touched up a mural by Bill Ogden, and a display by Brighid Burnes in the front window depicts musicians jamming away on various instruments. 'I saw many fathers or mothers say to their kid, 'I bought my first record here in the '80s,' Baker said. 'I want that little kid to be able to say that to their kids 30 years from now, long after I'm gone. I know the importance of that feeling. … That's what I want to keep. That's part of what I want to help survive.'
Los Angeles Times
14-04-2025
- Science
- Los Angeles Times
Mystery deepens as dead whale washes ashore in Huntington Beach
A dead 50-foot gray whale washed ashore in Huntington Beach on Friday, according to officials with the Pacific Marine Mammal Center. The cause of death of the young adult female is not yet known, said Glenn Gray, chief executive of the Laguna Beach-based nonprofit. Employees of the center performed a necropsy of the body on Saturday morning. The whale had no signs of physical injury, Gray said. Such marks are typically seen if a whale is struck by a boat, bitten by a shark or entangled in fishing gear. Samples from the body have been sent to a lab for testing. 'It may take a couple weeks,' he said. 'We'll share with the public what we know.' Scientists say gray whales have been dying in large numbers this year. At least 70 whales have died since the beginning of the year in the lagoons of Baja California in Mexico, where they go in the winter, according to Steven Swartz, a marine scientist who studies gray whales. The whales are now headed north to their summer feeding grounds in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. In recent weeks, three gray whales have died in San Francisco Bay. Researchers aren't sure why higher numbers of whales are dying. The bodies of some of the dead whales have appeared depleted and malnourished, leading some scientists to believe the problem could be a lack of food. Alisa Schulman-Janiger, who has led the Los Angeles chapter of the American Cetacean Society's gray whale census at Rancho Palos Verdes since 1979, said the number of whales she and her volunteers have observed migrating north this spring and swimming south this past winter is the lowest on record. Earlier this month, a minke whale that spent days swimming in Long Beach Harbor died, despite efforts by marine wildlife experts to reroute it back to deeper waters. Investigators with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration were trying to determine what caused the minke whale's death.
Yahoo
12-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Mystery deepens as another dead whale washes ashore in Southern California
A dead 50-foot gray whale washed ashore in Huntington Beach on Friday, according to officials with the Pacific Marine Mammal Center. The cause of death of the young adult female is not yet known, said Glenn Gray, chief executive of the Laguna Beach-based nonprofit. Employees of the center performed a necropsy of the body on Saturday morning. The whale had no signs of physical injury, Gray said. Such marks are typically seen if a whale is struck by a boat, bitten by a shark or entangled in fishing gear. Read more: Gray whales are dying off the Pacific Coast again, and scientists aren't sure why Samples from the body have been sent to a lab for testing. 'It may take a couple weeks,' he said. 'We'll share with the public what we know.' Scientists say gray whales have been dying in large numbers this year. At least 70 whales have died since the beginning of the year in the lagoons of Baja California in Mexico, where they go in the winter, according to Steven Swartz, a marine scientist who studies gray whales. The whales are now headed north to their summer feeding grounds in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. Read more: Minke whale that spent several days in Long Beach Harbor has died, officials say In recent weeks, three gray whales have died in San Francisco Bay. Researchers aren't sure why higher numbers of whales are dying. The bodies of some of the dead whales have appeared depleted and malnourished, leading some scientists to believe the problem could be a lack of food. Alisa Schulman-Janiger, who has led the Los Angeles chapter of the American Cetacean Society's gray whale census at Rancho Palos Verdes since 1979, said the number of whales she and her volunteers have observed migrating north this spring and swimming south this past winter is the lowest on record. Earlier this month, a minke whale that spent days swimming in Long Beach Harbor died — despite efforts by marine wildlife experts to reroute it back to deeper waters. Investigators with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration were trying to determine what caused the minke whale's death. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
12-04-2025
- Science
- Los Angeles Times
Mystery deepens as another dead whale washes ashore in Southern California
A dead 50-foot gray whale washed ashore in Huntington Beach on Friday, according to officials with the Pacific Marine Mammal Center. The cause of death of the young adult female is not yet known, said Glenn Gray, chief executive of the Laguna Beach-based nonprofit. Employees of the center performed a necropsy of the body on Saturday morning. The whale had no signs of physical injury, Gray said. Such marks are typically seen if a whale is struck by a boat, bitten by a shark or entangled in fishing gear. Samples from the body have been sent to a lab for testing. 'It may take a couple weeks,' he said. 'We'll share with the public what we know.' Scientists say gray whales have been dying in large numbers this year. At least 70 whales have died since the beginning of the year in the lagoons of Baja California in Mexico, where they go in the winter, according to Steven Swartz, a marine scientist who studies gray whales. The whales are now headed north to their summer feeding grounds in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. In recent weeks, three gray whales have died in San Francisco Bay. Researchers aren't sure why higher numbers of whales are dying. The bodies of some of the dead whales have appeared depleted and malnourished, leading some scientists to believe the problem could be a lack of food. Alisa Schulman-Janiger, who has led the Los Angeles chapter of the American Cetacean Society's gray whale census at Rancho Palos Verdes since 1979, said the number of whales she and her volunteers have observed migrating north this spring and swimming south this past winter is the lowest on record. Earlier this month, a minke whale that spent days swimming in Long Beach Harbor died — despite efforts by marine wildlife experts to reroute it back to deeper waters. Investigators with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration were trying to determine what caused the minke whale's death.
Los Angeles Times
31-01-2025
- General
- Los Angeles Times
Blunt-force trauma found on humpback whale that washed up in Huntington Beach
A collision with an ocean vessel may have been what killed a humpback whale that washed ashore in Huntington Beach last week, according to officials with the Pacific Marine Mammal Center. The body of the 26-foot long, 2- to 3-year-old female was initially spotted at the site of a blue mussel farm in federal waters off the coast of Huntington Beach on the evening of Thursday, Jan. 23, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Spokesman Nick Rahaim said in a statement. It was pushed off of aquaculture equipment and eventually drifted onto the sand Saturday morning. Biologists with NOAA's West Coast stranding Network, Laguna Beach-based Pacific Marine Mammal Center and the Ocean Animal Response and Research Alliance in Los Angeles examined the whale. They found significant blunt-force trauma on the right side of her head that suggests she might have been hit by a boat. Humpback whales are known for leaping from the water and crashing down on their bellies. They are found in all of the world's oceans and are known to migrate great distances. Crashes with boats are one of the major causes of death for humpback and many other species of whales, Pacific Marine Mammal Center officials said in a statement. Others, like entanglement in fishing equipment and pollution, are also related to human activities. Their population dwindled by as much as 95% of historically recorded figures before a moratorium on commercial whaling went into place in 1985. That as well as their addition to the endangered species list in the 1970s have been pivotal in a steady recovery in their numbers over the decades. It's typically rare for whales to become stranded on dry land, but at least one other has been reported in California so far this year. The body of a gray whale appeared on Oso Flaco Beach in San Luis Obispo County on Jan. 19. And a collision with a vessel may have been what killed a young fin whale that washed ashore on Ten Mile Beach in Mendocino County in September. Elsewhere, as many as six whales — including three humpbacks — became stranded on the south shore of Massachusetts within a six-month period. And on the other side of the Atlantic, an entire pod of 77 pilot whales washed up on a beach in Orkney off the northeastern coast of Scotland, one of the largest mass strandings recorded in decades. Biologists collected samples from the whale found in Huntington Beach before crews cleared it from the beach. Further analysis will be performed, and researchers plan on issuing a complete report at a later date.
