Music In Review

CD by Pet Genius. Hydrahead. From the primal angst of Cave In to the quirky pop meanderings of his numerous side and solo projects, Stephen Brodsky has always displayed a penchant for inspired and inventive songwriting. What is baffling, however, is that outside limited circles of the indie underground, Brodsky has not received the success […]

DVD Directed by Dean DeBlois. Xl Recordings Since critics are legally required to refer to their music as "epic," you might expect a film about Sigur Ros, who are better at creating spacious hugeness than any other working rock (post- or otherwise) band, to be overtly grandiose itself. Two obvious predecessors, U2’s Rattle and Humand […]

Live performance Jan. 20 at Yoshi’s San Francisco Seattle-based jazz guitarist Bill Frisell claims two very different guitar players as main influences: Jim Hall and Jimi Hendrix. He was a student of Hall, whose cool harmonic style was Frisell’s primary jazz influence, and like most electric guitarists who came of age in the ’60s he […]

Live performance Jan. 18 at the Mateel Community Center Andre Nickatina, formerly known as Dre Dog, graced SoHum with his presence this past Friday, Jan. 18. That’s right, the Bay Area rap artist, along with a slew of other hyphy rap acts, played to a sold-out crowd at the Mateel as part of the Urban […]

On DVD from Buena Vista Home Entertainment It’s winter. Hibernating is perfectly natural, and for those who need justification for such activities as lying on the couch, allow me to encourage TV on DVD. No commercials, pause option and if you pick something like the Lost series, be ready for hours of uninterrupted top-notch entertainment […]

by Various Artists. Humboldt Free Radio Alliance. Take a look behind any local music scene and you’ll usually find a handful of dedicated people working hard to keep music alive and accessible. Fortunately for those of us behind the Redwood Curtain, there exist a number of individuals and organizations that selflessly commit themselves to this […]

Live performance at HSU’s Van Duzer Theatre, Jan. 8. The night lurked, heavy with portent, as a sickly white substance filtered through the theater’s airspace and settled ever so lightly about the seated audience, who breathed in and breathed out. In. Out. The lights were still on, so this was odd: Every particle of mysterious […]

A Graphic Novel by Derrick Jensen and Stephanie McMillan. Seven Stories Press As the World Burnsspares no shame. Derrick Jensen’s sharply worded satire delivers a litany of reasons — channeled through the dialog of two girls in pigtails and a one-eyed bunny — why our culture’s alienation from the wild is literally paving the way […]

HBO series Produced by David Simon HBO’s The Wire, now in its fifth and final season, may be the most critically acclaimed television series nobody knows about. In addition to receiving a Peabody award, the police drama has been rated the best in its genre by The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, TV Guide, TIME,and […]

by Various Authors Here are my favorites of the year. I don’t claim they’re the best, because I obviously can’t read everything. (I do try, though.) Potentially worthy candidates such as Denis Johnson’s Tree of Smoke and Ben Ratliff’s new book on John Coltrane remain on my shelf unread to taunt me into the new […]

by Various Artists Mahler: Symphony No. 9 —Berlin Staatskapelle Orchestra: Daniel Barenboim, conductor. Barenboim has been dogged by accusations of superficiality as an interpreter. I cannot imagine anyone pinning that label on this glorious, blazing performance. Barenboim and this superb orchestra completely get this score, in full sync with the deep, even frightening passion of […]

by Various Artists The most monumental release this year is certainly Rhys Chatham‘s A Crimson Grail, a recording of a piece scored for 400 electric guitars commissioned by the city of Paris. Moving far beyond the actual spectacle of having 400 guitarists playing to an audience of 10,000 in a massive French church, Chatham fashioned […]