Back before the Romans went and conquered most of the known world, simple Celtic/pagan folk were camping out in little villages in Western Europe. Every year on the 31st of October, as daylight hours became scarce, they celebrated the New Year in a party that made Coachella look like a Sunday come-to-Jesus meeting. They sang and […]
Travis Turner
Posted inMusic
Independence Day Traditions
The Fourth of July holiday weekend has a bit of tradition surrounding it and should send your favorite memories tumbling down the sensory chute and straight into your frontal lobe. I think of my first foray into lip-on-lip action — the girl I kissed on a family campout. My family camped at the same spot […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Summer Arts and Music Festival
According to the Mateel Community Center, summertime officially begins during the Summer Arts and Music Festival in Benbow. The festy-season opener was packed to the gills with good people and incredible music talent on Saturday, June 1. North Coast Journal freelancer Travis Turner was there and sent back a few images to make sure we […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Get Primed for It
Back in 1984 — with a head full of the sounds of Frank Zappa and Pink Floyd — bassist Les Claypool started fooling around with a drum machine and a few different band mates. He was trying to make a baby out of the musical DNA of James Brown and Eddie Van Halen with a […]
Posted inMusic
Praise Gospel
Beauty can be found in any creative work — whether the creator is a big bang, a hippie dude in a dashiki and sandals, or someone else entirely. This weekend, beauty is manifest in a gospel choir. The sound of 80 voices becoming one is like a sunrise at Moonstone Beach or a school of […]
Posted inMusic
Illuminating the Dark
For most of us there is that one artist that easily slides out of the iTunes quiver, loads itself into the Bose and fires you straight into the night. Reaching for it is as thoughtless as picking out socks. You know the music; you hear it in your sleep and hum it while walking down […]
Posted inMusic
Your Noise, My Now
In the 1950s a new sound was reshaping American culture. Parents in those days called it loud, repulsive and crude. They assigned racially provocative epithets like “jungle music” to it because of its roots in African-American blues, country, jazz and gospel. This, of course, drove a younger generation straight into its welcoming arms. That generation […]
Posted inMusic
Get Down to the Dirty-Dirty
In the world of electronic music - from bass junkies to hip-hop dub enthusiasts to screaming techies — nothing gets the heart pumping and hands sweating like mentioning a show guaranteed to bring the grime. This doesn’t mean the type of audience the show attracts or the amount of psychedelic concoctions that might be floating […]
Posted inMusic
The Road From The Old World To New Beats
Life is a million forgotten encounters, fleeting moments that move us in new directions. For Beats Antique — a trio of worldly musicians who have been infusing the electronica genre with an Old World sound for the last four years — a million moments converged to create brilliance. Humboldt County has been lucky. Some of […]
Posted inNews
Samoa 2.0
The small company town of Samoa has a eclectic array of people in its hundred-year-old homes. Pensioners, surfers and college students are drawn to Samoa for its quaint appeal. The town is accessible only through a private road, is serviced by its own volunteer fire department and has one of the greatest views of both […]
Posted inNews
Tragedy in Trinity
Just two days after allegedly confessing that she’d drowned her own 2-year-old daughter, Sophia, in the Trinity River, 30-year-old Claudia Pedreros of McKinleyville appeared in Trinity County Superior Court Tuesday afternoon to be arraigned on a charge of murder. As an interpreter read the charge to Pedreros in Spanish (she’s believed to be from Chile), […]
Posted inNews
Los Hechados
On Friday, May 28, a young man who we’ll call “Slim” stood in the living room of the home that he has shared with up to 10 roommates at a time for the last 14 months. The week previous, Slim had received notice from the person who sublet the home to him and his roommates […]