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July 27, 2006

8 Questions for Jasmine Loucks

by BOB DORAN

The e-mails labeled "Weekend Related News" show up like clockwork every Thursday, offering a wide range of advice on things to do in the greater Humboldt Bay area. A weekday related update follows as needed. The events are not unlike what you'd find in the Journal's calendar, but there's a difference: The newsletter is written in a breezy conversational style, and all events are open to teenagers.

One that came in this Sunday (Monday Related News) began, "Hey everybody, look outside right now! See that! It's sunshine! What a beautiful weekend (apart from about 6:30 yesterday when it looked like Arcata was about to be eaten by that fog). But summer's coming to a close as far as school goes, only about a month of freedom left. Anyhoo, if you aren't too burnt out from the weekend, head over to &" and the author goes on to offer directions to a house concert featuring a visiting band, an event for those-in-the-know not listed in any newspaper.

The master of the WRN list is Jasmine Loucks, a young scenster who saw a need and set about filling it, without prompting and without pay, merely for the joy of spreading the word. To get yourself added to the WRN e-list, drop Jasmine a line at [email protected].

We sent her a few questions via e-mail. (Above: Jasmine Loucks, photo by Seraphina.)

1. Who are you?

My name's Jasmine Loucks. I'm an 18-year-old student at College of the Redwoods.

2. Where are from?

I'm born and bred Arcata.

3. What do you do?

Every Thursday I e-mail out information about all-ages events that go on Thursdays through Sundays. The events can be anything from shows to movies to plays to beach clean-ups, but usually take place between Trinidad and Fortuna and cost $25 or under.

The Weekend Related News, while originally created to keep teens in mind, is for anyone of any age. The information I get mostly comes from flyers that I see around downtown Arcata (I take about an hour every Monday and Wednesday to walk around and take notes off them), but some of it comes from websites like MySpace and HumboldtMusic.com, and recently some of it is e-mailed directly to me from both bands and venues.

4. Why do you do what you do?

Many of my friends used to complain that all the shows that happened in Humboldt were at bars. I originally started the posting with all the stuff I knew that was going on from my MySpace [page and those] for all my friends. After roughly a month of that I created the e-mail list and started going around at events trying to get people to sign up. I've had the e-mail list for a few months now, and have over 200 people signed up.

5. What's next?

I don't really know what direction this is taking me. Currently I'm working on moving out of my mom's house, and I've been getting involved with the Placebo, so the Weekend Related News will hopefully continue to grow in subscribers, but it probably won't go beyond an e-mail list, at least for now.

Some day I'd like to try and book a show with my favorite local bands, but for right now I'm just trying to make sure they play [Placebo's] Bummerfest, which I'm helping plan.

6. What's going on with Placebo at this point?

Well, a lot of the members are leaving for at least part of the summer. It seems like there might be a lot of turn-over in who's involved: Abe [Ray, Placebo founder] is moving to Portland at the end of the summer, and [boardmember] Julie [Ryan] is stepping back (or trying to). We've been having skill shares/workshops so that the people who are new and just getting involved (such as myself) can learn how to run the Placebo somewhat, and get new useful skills. We've also been booking a bunch of shows this summer to pay for rent on our new space at Empire Squared.

7. Why did you get involved?

Since I started going to a lot more shows and started doing WRN it kind of felt like a natural fit. I got to know a few of the members better just from being at shows, and they were friendly, nice and interesting, and also sort of pushed me to joining them. I went to my first board meeting in May in Arcata, and went to more since. The people are very cool to hang around with, and it also feels good to get some real work done. It's kind of exciting to plan something and actually make it happen.

8. Anything else you want to add?

I think that mostly covers it for me. I have to say, when I started taking notes off flyers I was pretty amazed at the amount of stuff there is out there for people of all-ages that no one seems to know about. The scene in Humboldt is so huge and so awesome, and I'm stoked that I get to be even a small part of it.

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