Katherine Ho and The Goodlanders at M.Special on State Street

Katherine Ho and her acoustic band, The Goodlanders, will be displaying their multidimensional musical chops at M.Special Brewing Company’s State Street taproom on Saturday, November 19. 

Both Ho and the other members of The Goodlanders — Greg Brallier, Drew Jones, James Rosenthal, and Tim Wright — followed unique paths toward their current musical careers.

Ho was launched into the public’s attention as a contestant on season 10 of The Voice. Later in 2018, her version of Coldplay’s “Yellow” was played in the film Crazy Rich Asians and received more than 17 million global streams. Not only did this help Ho’s musical career, but it also presented an opportunity for her to advocate for the AAPI community, as she noted, “I always felt that being Asian made me lesser-than…. I often felt invisible, telling myself that that being Asian meant I was to be a side character in mainstream U.S. society. It wasn’t until seeing Crazy Rich Asians — when I saw people who looked like me represented in Hollywood in such a stunning, triumphant, ‘main-character’ light — that I truly felt proud of my identity for the first time in my life.”

The Goodlanders formed, as guitarist Drew Jones notes, “as an employee-based band to play at company functions. Three of the current members continue to work at Teladoc Health in Goleta and Katherine was an intern there who has since left the company to further her education.” Since then, they have evolved into an esteemed local band, performing a mixture of original and cover tracks of various genres. Jones says that the band’s “goal is to play music we like and that we believe the audience will enjoy. We also want to provide a platform for Katherine to build on her live singing experience.”

At M.Special, Ho will showcase her new single, “405,” which demonstrates the latest evolution of her musical career and describes her experiences with first love and how “that experience helped me find magic in the mundane. Attention is a limited resource, so when we’re stressed out or in a constant state of fight-or-flight, our brains often miss out on life’s beauty.” 

The Goodlanders will also perform their original “We’re Back,” written by Greg Brallier and inspired by the lift of COVID pandemic restrictions.

Admission to the show is free, and further information can be found here.

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