The diminishing returns of nostalgia are nothing new, but their false glitter is one of the central lodestones guiding the artistic compass of my generation. Millennials didn’t invent sentimental cultural artifacts — they were first minted years ago — but we did kind of define the demand built around recycling their continued relevance. It’s one […]
Collin Yeo
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Music Tonight: Wednesday, Dec. 10
Back over to the Miniplex tonight at 8 p.m., where Modern Nature will be weavingpastoral found sound fables with living splashes from the free jazz color wheel. Theband is on the Bella Union Label, founded by two thirds of the Cocteau Twins if youwant to check out the music at home. Also on the ticket […]
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Music Tonight: Tuesday, Dec. 9
He may have hung up his Cumbia hat for the year, but professional gigger and Makenuhired side iron Daniel Nickerson is still active on the scene, tonight with a set of solomusic over at the Redwood Curtain in Myrtletown. This is a free show with musicstarting at the dark hour of 6 p.m.
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Music Tonight: Monday, Dec. 8
Speaking of all-ages fun, the new Siren’s Song Tavern is hosting a trio of rockingdelights tonight at 8 p.m., where $5 gets you in the door and on the floor in front ofSuper Apes, Clean Girl & the Dirty Dishes and Lxs Perdidxs.
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Music Tonight: Saturday, Dec. 6
Making up for a canceled gig earlier this year due to illness, prog art rock supergroupThe Stick Men are back in Arcata tonight, this time at The Wild Hare Tavern. KingCrimson alums Pat Mastelotto and Tony Levin are joined with German composer andinstrumental master Markus Reuter for a night of inspired space jams. Opening up […]
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Music Tonight: Friday, Dec. 5
Local cumbia superstars Makenu will be playing their last gig of 2025 tonight atHumbrews at 8:30 p.m. The headliner is, appropriately, Oakland’s ragin’ psychedelicCumbia outfit Bicicletas Por La Paz. Judging by the colossal turnout I witnessed thelast time Makenu played at the Basement, expect the dance floor to be packed thisevening in the spotlight of […]
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How to Bring a Blush to the Snow
It’s the last month of the year, which means I will be listening to a lot of winter tunes as we barrel towards the solstice. Top of that list lately has been Victorialand, the fourth album by the Scottish band Cocteau Twins. Released in 1986, the record is a swirling terrain of sounds inspired by […]
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Hot Freaks
It’s Thanksgiving again, a complicated holiday for a lot of folks for many different reasons. I certainly have mine. Tradition is a funny thing and often gets expressed as a desperate attempt at the impossible: to sustain the existence of an immutable, geologically timeless structure on a human terrain defined by the changing whims and […]
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Message in a Bottle
I’m writing to you from the murky depths of last week, ahead of a quick retreat away from wi-fi and glowing things, so apologies if I have missed some massive earth-shattering event in the news cycle. What that could be is anyone’s guess, as we have all learned time and again that things that should […]
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Music Tonight: Wednesday, Nov. 19
Tunisian singer-songwriter Nour Harkati is a master of the Guembri, an ancient three-stringed West African instrument similar to a lute and a banjo. Now living in New York City, the surprisingly young man has put together a fantastic band to showcase his unique sound, which mixes organic bass tones of his instrument with the frenetic […]
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Music Tonight: Monday, Nov. 17
Oakland soul and R&B outfit The California Honeydrops keeps on keeping on nearly two decades since its inception, returning to town to fill up the Arcata Theatre Lounge tonight at 8 p.m. If you want to dance to something live and not canned, this is a good option. Tickets start at $45.
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Music Tonight: Sunday, Nov. 16
Clan Dyken returns to town with its Beauty Way Benefit for the indigenous people of Big Mountain, Arizona, to give direct aid in their effort to resist incursion on their ancestral lands by the extractive death’s head of the U.S. government and its affiliate private industry demons. The doors open at the Arcata Playhouse at […]