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 […]
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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Dark Was The Night
On the occasion of its 20th year, the Red Hot Organization, an AIDS fundraising and awareness group, has released Dark Was the Night, a two-disc (or a three-disc vinyl) compilation with a "who’s-who" of indie rock of the past decade. Aaron and Bryce Dessner from The National worked with Red Hot founder John Carlin to […]
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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 […]
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Estranged Meadow
If you were a kid in the late 1970s/early ’80s and your parents loved you, then you must have gone to Disneyland, which means you must remember when Space Mountain glistened with newness and high tech. You also remember waiting … and waiting … and waiting … in the outside line expecting that once you […]
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The Hustle Gets Harder
Music maverick Adam Drucker, aka Doseone, or simply Dose, is an artist who straddles traditional boundaries and wears many hats. He started out in Cincinnati as a literate, high-speed, rhythmic rapper, a Scribble Jam champion MC who teamed up with DJ Jeff "Jel" Logan and headed west to Oakland. There he joined forces with like-minded […]
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Keep It Hid
Former Replacements frontman, vocalist and songwriter Paul Westerberg has recounted how he would constantly try to record songs on his own in hopes to record a solo record. Those hopes were usually dashed by curious band members asking Westerberg what he was up to. Eventually the song would become a Replacements song. But if you’re […]
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Something Old, Something New
It’s a brides’ thing: For good luck they’re supposed to wear something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. I’m not sure where it comes from, nor exactly why the phrase popped into my head. I don’t know anyone with pending nuptials; maybe it was going to see Rachael Getting Married (highly recommended, BTW) or […]
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Auf der Strecke (On the Line)
So the Academy Awards are on Sunday, and — here’s a rare doff of the cap to Coming Attractions Theatres — we’ve had the opportunity to see nearly all the films nominated in major categories (not counting Foreign Language Film, which has the most lamebrained nominating system imaginable). Unfortunately, short films get short shrift in […]
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The Crying Light
New York-based singer/songwriter Antony Hegarty is an artistic tightrope walker. Musically, he has confidently balanced the fine line between baroque and pop, feminine and masculine, earthly and ethereal. Hegarty, by sheer force of his original style, transcends such categories. As Hegarty explored transgender and identity issues for the inspiration of his previous 2005 release, I […]
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Traditional to Contemporary
One of the best concerts I ever attended was a show at the Van Duzer about 10 years ago with a stellar collection of Cuban masters on tour under the Buena Vista Social Club banner. When I mentioned how much I liked the band in a recent conversation with bandleader Juan de Marcos González, he […]
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Love and Luck
As you are undoubtedly aware, Saturday, Feb. 14 is Valentine’s Day. It’s not totally clear why the saint’s days for a couple of obscure Christian martyrs morphed into an international celebration of romance and love — and an excuse for the marketing of candy, flowers and greeting cards — but that’s what happened. Since the […]
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Get Guilty
It’s a little difficult to differentiate Allan Carl Newman’s solo work from his band’s output, with The New Pornographers. Newman’s influence over his Canadian band has grown, most evident in their 2007 release, Challengers. In fact, Newman has returned to Brooklyn’s Seaside Lounge Studios (with producer Phil Palazzolo and engineer/percussionist Charles Burst in tow) to […]