the hum / By Bob Doran

A Cup o’ Kindness

What are you doing New Year’s Eve?

(Dec. 27, 2007)  Well, we’ve survived another year. To paraphrase (and reverse) Dickens, 2007 was neither the best of times nor the worst of times. So we’ll take a cup of kindness yet, and make plans to celebrate the coming of a New Year.

You might want to stay home and see if Dick Clark is still alive for another “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” with all those hot bands du jour, but if it’s something live you’re after, as usual options for the eve’s festivities abound.

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We’ll start within walking distance of my house. The Jambalaya has an eclectic collection of local indie bands: alt. country/rock by Yer Dog, alt. Victorian grunge by The Common Vice, metal from Ashes and something-grass by The Bucky Walters.

Reggae? You got it — at Humboldt Brews, where Humboldt’s most irie band Ishi Dube and Massagana keeps the one-drop churnin’ and burnin’ into the wee hours of Ought-Eight.

Looking northward you have those grass-roots groove-rockers Kulica returning to their old haunt, Six Rivers in McKinleyville, for a New Year’s party. Kulica’s ace mandolinist Jason Hodel is one of the ukulele players in UKEsperience, so it’s natural that they open the show.

Up in Trinidad, Humboldt’s hottest honky tonk band, Rooster McClintock, once again takes over the Ocean Grove, which they refer to as their “hometown joint.” They promise, “It’s a bit crazier every time. Sure to be over the top.”

And down the road at Cher-Ae Heights Casino Jimi Jeff and the Gypsy Band play “old-school funk, Hendrix, Prince, blues, R&R” and more Hendrix.

At that other casino, the one in Blue Lake, the Wave has bluesy rock by NightHawk. (Is Clint Warner still filling in on guitar? I think so.) Same time at the Sapphire Palace, it’s the return of Diamond Eyes, with Neil Diamond covers for those who like that sort of thing.

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