An email from a New York PR firm showed up in my mailbox recently with a download link for a benefit collection titled, Occupy This Album. Amid the 100 tracks donated by musicians well known and unknown, one stood out, perhaps the ultimate Occupy anthem, “People Have the Power,” by Patti Smith. The live recording […]
Bob Doran
Freelance photographer and writer, Arts and Entertainment editor from 1997 to 2013.
Posted inNews
M. Night in the Classroom
You’ve undoubtedly heard that the famous director M. Night Shyamalan was in Humboldt recently making a movie called After Earth with the famous actor Will Smith and his son Jaden. You may have read, in passing, about the director’s visit with a group of young, local filmmakers. Here’s the inside story on that close encounter, written […]
Posted inMusic
Can We All Get Along?
South Central Los Angeles was set ablaze in the spring of 1992 after a jury acquitted a group of police officers charged with beating a black man, Rodney King. As riots rocked the city, King famously asked, “Can we all get along?” In early May of that year, with L.A. still smoldering, Terrence Kelly and the Oakland […]
Posted inMusic
Hold the Mayo
Saturday is the 5th of May, aka Cinco de Mayo, another of those quasi-holidays like St. Patrick’s Day pushed by marketing departments that wants to sell more beer, or in this case, beer, margaritas and tequila shots. Ask a reveler on bar row what it’s about and, unless you chance upon a history major, they’ll […]
Posted inMusic
“Tusen Tankar (A Thousand Thoughts)”
Last night’s concert by Kronos Quartet was truly amazing, a collection of tunes with an arch that started with “Aheym,” a song with Yiddish allusions by Bryce Dessner, guitarist for The National, written for Kronos to mark minimalist composer Steve Reich‘s 75th birthday. The quartet then moved into Arabic music, including “Tashweesh,” by the Palestinian […]
Posted inMusic
Music From Some Place
Nick Waterhouse is the latest sensation in the world of retro-soul/funk/whatever — he has his first album coming out any day — but he started out as what you might call a record store nerd. Growing up in Costa Mesa he spent his early years hanging around the Distillery, a classic recording studio not far […]
Posted inMusic
Making a Difference
Canadian folk icon Bruce Cockburn is back in town, playing a solo show Sunday at the Van Duzer. It’s not that long since his last visit, just two years, but a few things have happened in the interim. Probably most important, he has a new baby at home. He also finished the album he […]
Posted inMusic
Standard Bearer
Peter Mulvey is a guy with a guitar, and while it’s easy to pigeonhole him as another singer/songwriter in the folk tradition, that doesn’t do him justice. In the 20 years he’s spent as a recording artist he’s made 15 records, settling into a whole bunch of songs. He gets comfortable with them and in […]
Posted inMusic
It Ain’t Easy Being Green (Or Is It?)
I imagine it freaks out the Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau folks — it certainly goes against their plan to “rebrand” Humboldt — but 4/20 weekend is becoming an ever bigger deal locally. There’s even a chamber-esque business alliance banded together for something it calls Humboldt Green Week (the second annual) combining Friday’s unofficial pot-smoker […]
Posted inMusic
“The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”
Slo-mo version of a song written in the 1950s by Ewan MacColl for his wife Peggy Seeger, recorded by many bands, but perhaps best known from Roberta Flack’s cover in 1972. From the limited release album The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends
Posted inNews
Free Books!
Do you like to read? Since you’re reading this, we’ll assume yes. How do you feel about books? Despite any rumors you’ve heard, the book is not about to die — not if serious book lovers have their way. You may find a few local book fans giving away books next Monday, April 23 (and […]
Posted inMusic
Party Girl
It was more than 50 years ago when Wanda Jackson started mixing country with rock and earned a crown as the unofficial “Queen of Rockabilly.” The woman who once dated Elvis Presley and scored hits in the ‘50s and ‘60s is now 74, but she hasn’t stopped rockin’, nor has she been relegated to the […]