the hum / By Bob Doran

Humgrass

The String Thing at ATL, plus reggae, Hydropods and a couple of house concerts

(Sept. 10, 2009)  You’ve heard of the Northwest String Summit, the annual gathering of sting music bands and fans near Portland. Humboldt has its own version, on a much smaller scale: The String Thing. Chief instigator is Ryan Roberts, who plays guitar in Absynth Quintet, a stringband that falls somewhere along newgrass/gypsy-grass lines. He hopes to make the Thing an annual event.

“We wanted to have a string summit of our own,” said Roberts. “We play string festivals all the time, but there wasn’t one in Northern Humboldt. There’s Bluegrass and Beyond [at the Mateel], which we’re all playing next weekend, but that’s a Southern Humboldt thing. The Arcata Theatre seems like the right venue. At first we were thinking we’d get a couple of out-of-town bands to mix it up, and that might be a long term goal, but for this first one we decided to focus on what we have here.”

Absynth Quintet. Photo by Nate Luna

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And what we have here in Humboldt is some good shit. Of course Absynth Q is playing, and there’s a semi-import, harmonizing guitarist Angela Rose and cellist Kate Stone from Mendocino’s Blushin’ Roulettes. Bluegrass stalwarts The Compost Mountain Boys provide a more traditional approach, and The Bucky Walters have their own looser update on stringband music.

“I picked bands that represented what I think of as Humboldt County stringband music,” said Roberts. “You have the elders in Compost, then you’ve got Kate and Angela’s old timey haunting vocals thing, which I adore. They’re from Mendo, but it’s still a Northern Cali flavor in lyrical content and all. Then you have us playing, I don’t know, accelerated spazgrass, or gypsy-Americana swing, or jamgrass or whatever. Then The Buckys are somewhere between us and regular bluegrass with their own take and approach. And we have Michael Walker and The Tell You Whats; Michael definitely has his unique approach.” And he’ll be aided by members of Absynth, aka the Tell Yous.

The plan is for collaborations along the way. “We all know each other, and we’ve all played together one way or another — that’s what made this whole thing come together as easily as it did — so the plan is to switch it up as much as we can,” Roberts concluded. So what shall we call it? Switchgrass? How about humgrass? It all comes down Friday, Sept. 11, at the Arcata Theatre Lounge. That’s Arts Arcata night, so they’ll offer some sort of free preview for Arts-A strollers before the main event.

As local bluegrass fans know, The Compost Mountain Boys have a regular once-a-month Thursday gig at Humboldt Brews. Sept. 10 is the next one. You can also hear the above-mentioned Bucky Walters Saturday afternoon at the Kneeland Music Festival (by the Fire Protection District office). Charlie Pecora, Way Out West and Old Dog will be up there too. Consider either show a String Thing pre-preview.

Wasn’t St. Croix reggae star Army just here? Well, he’s back with his 7th St. Band, playing Thursday, Sept. 10, at the Red Fox with Ishi Dube opening.

Seems like the flow of reggae never stops: Richie Spice and his brother Spanner Banner hit Nocturnum Saturday night with support from Jah Culture (Jah Sun and Stevie Culture) backed by Gravity, with DJs Selecta Prime and Itchie Fingaz on the turntables (and vid-deck).

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