"For a brief period of time I find myself wondering if what I am doing is so abstruse that even the lexicographers think I am a nerd." If this is a thought you’ve had, then you’re probably right. You are a nerd. In attempting to read the entire Oxford English Dictionary in one year while […]
Julianna Boggs
Posted inMusic
Arcata Sectarian
In the beginning there was music. It was simple at first — grunting, belly-drums — later lutes. As the tribes spread, different groups developed their own traditions, such as Gregorian chants, Tuvan throat singing and elementary explorations into salsa. Today the world of music is an advanced and esoteric state of war, with Humboldt as […]
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Fleet Foxes/Blitzen Trapper
Robin Pecknold, lead singer for Fleet Foxes, summed it up nicely as soon as he hit the stage at the Arcata Community Center last Monday: "I’ve really got a bad case of school-dance anxiety right now. It’s like this is junior high, and we’re the house band for the most uneventful teen-movie ever made. But […]
Posted inMusic
Ghostride The Whip
If we were to put the Oakland Hyphy movement and its precursors on a timeline, it would look something like this, according to Ghostride The Whip: Black Panthers social solidarity movement … city wide crack epidemic of the ’80s … MC Hammer … Too Short … Mac Dre … Hyphy. Narrated by MTV anchor and […]
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Themselves
The Hunter Plaid Gallery was packed. There was a tall woman with a white flat top, short women with short skirts and an innumerable number of average height, nondescript men with mid-length hair, beards and beanies. With a $10 "suggested donation" cover, it paralleled a high-society column of fandom: A veritable Arcata gala, the open […]
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Kool Keith — Dr. Octagon vs. Dr. Dooom
Perhaps Kool Keith is krazy, but that’s part of his appeal. The New York native Doctor of Dooom and eight-sided polygons has been rapping explicit non-sequiturs since 1988, and experienced a brief institutionalization stint after the release of his first album with the Ultramagnetic MCs titled Critical Beatdown. Some 21 years later the man is […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
The Music Man
Squeezed between a barred-up Two Street Music and the typically dodgy Eureka Rescue Mission, stepping into the bustling and well-lit space of the Livella Studios grand opening party Friday night was a great relief. Dark and drizzling outside, the antechamber provided a burst of warmth and light, a collection of large, glossy paintings hanging from […]
Posted inNews
Late Night With KRFH Benefit Show
Having had a day or so to decompress, I can now say that Wednesday night’s KRFH student radio benefit at Big Pete’s Pizza was a mixed success, with over 100 people in attendance for the four-group electronic/hip hop show featuring thelittlestillnotbigenough , (n1nth)cloud , DJ Egadz , and Restiform Bodies of premier Bay Area hip […]
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Baby Jocks
"You’re listening to KRFH.net 610 AM, Radio Free Humboldt. I’m your host, Kate, and this is Mixtape Masterpiece. The time is currently 8:15 a.m. …" From 1982 to 1990 college radio had the prestige of setting the standard for American pop culture, bringing rise to a whole genre of pre-alternative "college rock" with bands like […]
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Merriweather Post Pavilion
Seeing how much Animal Collective’s last album, Strawberry Jam, blew, I have to admit I was nervous. There was a lot of discussion, as there always is about an upcoming release. Will it take the next step? Will it be in the right direction? If so there’s a sigh of relief, but if not we […]
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thebignooneunderstandsme
Now I’m not entirely certain, but I’m pretty sure that theb igno oneun derst and sme is latin for "the big no one understands me," the title of the debut album by local lovelies thelittlestillnotbigenough (read: the little still not big enough, or, individuals that have yet to reach a height necessary to do certain […]
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Top Five (+5)
Dawn. Mount Eerie (P.W. Elverum & Sun). The saint of all albums for 2008, Dawn is humble, beautiful, insightful, simple, honest, pure and good; sort of makes me want to cry. A slow-motion journey through the emotionally exhausted heart of Phil Elverum, it holds both renditions of older tracks as well as some fresh ones […]