the hum / By Bob Doran

Not Out of Love

Don’t wait until Black Friday, start your holiday shopping on Sunday when The Crafty Mavericks present Handmade Holidays: An Indie Winter Fair at the Bayside Grange. You get a combination of alt. crafters and alt. music with the ubiquitous one-man-band Mister Moonbeam and Monster Women spin-off Clean Girl and The Dirty Dishes plus ATL’s Michel Sargent working his slide projector. Note: This is not a nighttime thing; it runs from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m.

Fiddler Hanneke Cassel returns to the Arcata Playhouse Monday, Nov. 23, joined by guitarist Christopher Lewis and cellist Natalie Haas, who played on Hanneke’s just released disc, For Reasons Unknown. Born and raised in Oregon, Hanneke worked the contest circuit in her younger days, winning the U.S. National Jr. Scottish Championship twice. In ’98 she won a Berklee College of Music Strings Award, which took her to Boston to study at the prestigious institution and expand her horizons. Her take on new acoustic music has a decided Scottish/Celtic bent, but with touches of bluegrass, even Chinese music.

Bluesy singer/songwriter/guitar-slinger James Hunnicutt stops off in Eureka Tuesday, Nov. 24, for a show at Nocturnum as his All By My Lonesome tour (named for his latest album) winds its way back to his home base in Washington. If Hunnicut’s name sounds familiar, it might be because he’s also played in Wayne “The Train” Hancock’s band. As you might guess, this time out he’s playing his lonesome songs solo.

Another Wayne “The Train” alum hits Nocturnum Wednesday (would that be Thanksgiving Eve?): Guitarist/vocalist Grizzly Izzy Zaidman, former leader of speed metal/bluegrass cult band Unclefucker, now heads up Izzy and The Kesstronics, a Brooklyn band playing rootsy garage rock with hints of rockabilly and surf music.

As Izzy explains in an eloquent rant on MySpace, The Kesstronics are “last of a dying breed” born and raised in the musical cauldron that is New York City. “As your babysitter’s car horn blows ‘La Cucaracha,’ your 5-year-old ears hearing the new Sugar Hill Gang song two miles from Sugar Hill, living in fear with your ears pinned open for the footsteps of your daily violent crackhead confrontation, later to relieve the tension at a Cro-Mags show with people with similar concerns. The merengue playing at the bodega where you buy malt liquor for your high school hooky sex party, desperately trying to figure out what the F your Trinidadian weed dealer is talking about. Exploding manhole covers, pigeons cooing on your window sill, voodoo drum circles in your local park, finding the courage to finally confront your friends and say, ‘Hey, I like the sound of the banjo and fuck all y’all if you don’t!’ This is a small glimpse into the world of what molds a musician born and raised in NYC. Laugh, because crying will get you nowhere.” 

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