the hum / By Bob Doran

Mind-Altering Music

Following last year’s annual KMUD Lu’ah, organizers and master cooks JJ and Cousin Mark retired, and retired the name with them. Then JJ, aka Keke Kanaka Kapakahi o’ Kaliponi, passed on to that great lu’ah in the sky. Sunday, the station is reviving the event, renamed the Aloha Barbeque and Slack Key Festival. Now held at Beginnings in Briceland, it will feature Aaron Mahi, Martin Pahinui and George Ku’o, the same Hawaiian slack key players as last year, and it’s dedicated to JJ.

Got a note from Celtophile George Z. re: another Beginnings event, an Irish concert on Thursday, Sept. 4, featuring One for the Road, “a new band made up of some of the best young players, two from the States, Dave Cory from Portland and Kira Ott from SoCal, and two from Ireland, Pat Egan and Mick Walsh.”

Same Thursday, CenterArts takes to the Plaza with a show at Mazzotti’s featuring Austin’s wild and crazy Americana/jug band/assault team Asylum Street Spankers. Since pregnancy is in the news of late, we’ll note that lead singer Christina Marrs is expecting her third child and will begin maternity leave as soon as the Spankers return to Texas.

Things have slowed at the Lil’ Red Lion after a wild summer with tons of shows (and not enough patrons). I haven’t heard who is coming of late, but James Harkins, formerly of The Invasions, dropped by with a flyer. He’s debuting his solo act, James and the Junk Set, Friday at the Lion, playing guitar and a makeshift drum-kit. “Seriously everything came out of the junkyard or the recycling center,” he tells me, adding, “I’m playing all the songs my bandmates wouldn’t let me play because they weren’t punk enough.” Joining him, John Ludington, whose set at the Humboldt Folklife Fest’s songwriter night totally impressed me, and new-in-town songwriter Steven Lee Wood.

You might also see James at the Eureka Theater earlier that night. The WildRivers101 Film Festival kicks of a “Friday Fright Fest” with Jon “Akira” Olsen’s Zombies of Eureka assemblage of walking-dead vids featuring The Invasions,The Buffy Swayze, The Ian Fays, The Monster Women, Dynamite Sweater, The Ravens, The Professional Superheroes and Von Richter. (I’m in it too.)

Bad Kitty Norm describes it as, “sort of a homecoming. Lightnin’ Bill Woodcock was born in Eureka but left here as a toddler. The Lightnin’ Woodcock Trio is a tongue-in-cheek mix of blues and punk rock.” and they’re playing Monday at The Pearl, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Redwood Jazz Alliance opens its fall season with a concert by the Donny McCaslin Trio on Tuesday, Sept. 9, in HSU’s Fulkerson Recital Hall. I don’t know much about McCaslin aside from the fact that he’s been playing tenor sax since he was a teen, and he’s a Berklee alum — but the RJA folks have not hit a sour note yet, so I trust that he’s the real deal.

We told you about it months ago: iconic southern blues-rock band The Black Crowes and alt. psyche ex-locals Howlin Rain are playing the Van Duzer Wednesday, Sept. 10. There are plenty of tickets left in the balcony. Want seats on the floor? I can steer you to some online: $566 apiece, $1,132 for the pair. That’s how good this show will be.

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