When England’s Field Music, fronted by brothers David and Peter Brewis, released their debut album in 2005, they were known as a precise, quirky pop unit with influences ranging from Steely Dan to XTC. At times it seemed they were striving for something beyond their means, resulting in impressive failures. Their successes, on nuggets such […]
Music
Coverage of the music scene in Humboldt County with upcoming shows from locals and out-of-town acts, reviews, interviews and more.
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Festivus!
Scott Carlson had an idea. He wanted to bring the local music community together for an all-day festival showcasing the wide range of great bands playing here. His plan was to have bands playing all day in various Arcata venues with attendees able to wander from place to place, all as a benefit for some […]
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Realism
"I have a strange relationship to variety," singer/songwriter Stephin Merritt said in a 2008 NY Times interview. "I like variety." Merritt’s prolific work accurately reflects his statement — from leading his band, The Magnetic Fields, to working on numerous side projects, including a recent scoring of an Off Broadway musical adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s tale […]
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Ready for Her Close Up
You probably know her from her surprise hit, "Luka," a compelling first-person story/song about a boy who’s a victim of child abuse that somehow became a Top 10 hit in the ’80s. But did you know Suzanne Vega is also considered "The Mother of the MP3"? When German audio engineer Karlheinz Brandenburg was designing the […]
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Love, etc.
How did the heart become the symbol of love, the supposed romantic focal point in our bodies? It may trace back to a time when the heart was considered the center of thought, because surely love is something that comes from the mind. But when your heart seems threatened, you quickly learn how much you […]
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Winterdance
Virginia Niekrasz-Laurent has been training ballet dancers here in the vast expanse that lies behind the Redwood Curtain, as far away from the dance Mecca of New York City as one can get, since 1972. Going further back into Humboldt dance history, she began her studies at the Betty Merriweather Studio, the very first in […]
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Moving Chairs
The new offering from Denmark’s Efterklang, Moving Chairs, joins the slew of top-notch recordings released this year. On this, the quartet’s first studio recording since their stunning 2007 offering, Parades, Efterklang uses contemporary pop influences as starting points, creating an engaging spectrum of songs while providing the band’s most accessible record to date. Led by […]
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Out in Front
The recent release of A Friend of a Friend, under the banner of The Dave Rawlings Machine, marks the first studio release from Nashville-based musical duo of Dave Rawlings and Gillian Welch since 2006 (with the release of Gillian Welch’s Soul Journey). "For this record and this tour," Rawlings said in a phone interview with […]
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Seen and Unseen
When Trevor Hall first started writing songs he was still in junior high and was emulating punk/skater bands like Rancid and NoFX. "But I liked all kinds of music," he said, calling from his home in Laguna Beach. "From there I kind of went into a reggae era — I got into Bob Marley, Burning […]
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Rain on the City
It seems that three is a lucky number for the gifted singer/songwriter Freedy Johnston. His new record of originals, Rain on the City, his first in eight years, is his third attempt at finishing the release. The result is Johnston’s finest recording since the overlooked masterpiece co-produced by T-Bone Burnett and Roger Moutenot, Blue Days […]
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Devil Makes Three
So much was right about Thursday night’s Devil Makes Three show at the Eureka Theater. The fact that the show sold out — 850 tickets! That it was all ages. The appropriateness of the venue — restoration underway, but not complete — for a band that delivers a new twist on old-timey. Most of all, the […]
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Transference
Formed in 1993 in Austin, Texas, Spoon, fronted by songwriter, guitarist and vocalist Britt Daniel, has offered an impressive catalogue of pop songs influenced in equal measure by early Gang of Four, Wire, The Velvet Underground and Can (the band’s name is derived from a Can song). Instrumentally, the rhythms are angular, jagged and choppy, […]