the hum / By Bob Doran

abstract dissident

Same night in Arcata, KJ Sawka lays down live drum-n-bass and jungle beats and what’s described as “other types of alien-sci-fi electronic music.” This is a guy who creates sample banks for other producers. How that translates into a live show, I’m not sure, but he’s on tour with Halo Refuser, a Portland-based producer/keyboardist who plays with the all-star jamband The Everyone Orchestra and the electro-beat band Surrounded By Ninjas.

Elsewhere in Arcata Saturday night, Seattle garage punk vet Brother James Burdyshaw runs his soulful band The Bug Nasties through its paces with the magnificence of Magnum drawing in the adoring hometown crowd.

And starting early that same evening (5-ish) Hunter Plaid Gallery hosts a very musical closing reception for Kristen Hunter‘s pinhole camera/cyanotype photography and the ongoing Post-Apocalyptic installation. And, they note, “It’s also a fundraiser to obtain conditional use permit to allow the gallery to have such things like workshops, movie nights, puppet shows, live music, art battles, etc. Starting around 6 p.m. six local bands take the stage: thelittlestillnotbigenough, The Hard Ride, Mt. Mountain, Dragged by Horses, Ashes and Plush Fuzz.”

Put on yer boots and grab yer hat, The Roadmasters are coming to the Arcata Theatre Lounge Friday night bringing straight-ahead country music to downtown Arcata. Of course the venerable band (started in 1976) doesn’t just play cowboy music. As they note on their website, “We are known best for country rock, but perform a large variety of different sounds, getting our inspiration from Kiss to Garth Brooks, and everything in between.”

Speaking of country, The Michael Paul Band, a big hat band from Oakley (east Contra Costa County), is in town to work the local casino circuit. Friday they’re at the Wave; Saturday they hit Bear River Casino.

Rooster McClintock is another local band that’s a bit country, but not exactly straight-ahead — more crooked and honky tonkish. They play Wednesday at Humboldt Brews opening for Austin’s self-proclaimed “Dirty Old One-Man Band” Scott H. Biram, who’s touring behind a new Bloodshot disc, Something’s Wrong/Lost Forever. If you’ve seen Scott wailing twisted country blues on his rack-held harmonica, then switching to demented, distorted vocals, all while banging out notes on his hollow body Gibson and stomping out the beat on a homemade amplified stomp board, you know what you’re in for. He’s get a hellhound on his tail, the Devil’s not far behind and he’ll be happy to introduce you.

The note from Joe, of G.R.A.S.S., was mainly to let me know that the band is playing at Curley’s Monday, June, 1, with the first set broadcast live for KHUM’s Backporch. But he also included an apt description of how a band comes to be: “We were just friends who liked to jam. Anthony and Dan asked Mark to come and jam, and the seeds were sown, that was, what, 2002? Around 2003, Harmonica Joe came on the scene, new to town. Mark told the boys, ‘Share.’”

And so it goes. That’s what it’s all about: sharing music you like, with your friends, and sometimes with people like you — listeners.

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