I heard it through the grapevine, second-, maybe third-hand: Absynth Quintet was allegedly breaking up — again. A distraught Lila Nelson heard the story and offered mediation services. When I put the breakup question to AQ guitarist Ryan Roberts, he replied with a paraphrase from Mark Twain: "The rumors of our death have been greatly […]
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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Father Yod’s Band
The epic story begins on the Fourth of July, goes to Hollywood, on to Hawaii, expands from there with chapters here and there including a chapter unwritten that takes place in Arcata next Wednesday, Dec. 17, as a proto-psychedelic band called YaHoWha 13 comes to town for a show at Humboldt Brews. On July 4, […]
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Planet B-Boy
More nations compete in the breakdancing Battle of the Year than were participants in George Bush’s "coalition of the willing." The global nature of hip hop dancing is well documented by the 2008 film Planet B-Boy. Stunning images of fluid dancing are articulated by some of the most talented artists on the planet. The Battle […]
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Blitzen Trapper
"Blitzen what?" is the typical response you would get if you asked a handful of people about Blitzen Trapper. The next most common answer might be, "Yeah, I’ve heard of them. They’re pretty good." You would be hard pressed to find a more passionate response. Such was the scene outside of the Red Fox Tavern […]
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Live at Roadburn
Over the past three years, San Diego’s Earthless has steadily built a following based on the strength of its intense live performances and absurdly long, yet captivating, instrumental jams. Its reputation earned it an invitation to this year’s annual Roadburn Festival in Holland, where organizers unexpectedly asked Earthless to perform on the festival’s main stage, […]
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Smuin Ballet
I wanted to be dazzled. Christmas ballet programs are high-tech, high-quality entertainment. I wasn’t looking to be moved, only pleasantly distracted. From the start, Smuin Ballet’s The Classical Christmas wasn’t going to deliver. Although the requisite dance chops were present, the troupe’s unisons and executions were not piquant. The thing about great ballet: it has […]
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Dirt Don’t Hurt
Musician, songwriter and vocalist Holly Golightly hasn’t slowed up much. Since her time in the mid-’90s with the garage band Thee Headcoatees, the all-female counterpart to Billy Childish’s Thee Headcoats, Golightly has released over a dozen full-length studio albums. Her styles, like her moods, swung with each of her records, from rockabilly to folk to […]
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Not the King of Pop
I’ve never fully understood why Richard Thompson never achieved the popularity and the cultural icon status of some of his compatriots. He’s a stellar guitar player — when Rolling Stone magazine assembled a list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time, he was in the top 20. And his songwriting is absolutely brilliant. Songs […]
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Soft Airplane
The early songs by the lo-fi indie pioneer Robert Pollard and his "band," Guided By Voices, sounded as if they were recorded in a basement. They were. Today’s singers/songwriters have access to a wide array of technologies, old and current, allowing them to create recordings that you would never guess were made in someone’s basement. […]
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Furr
Portland’s Blitzen Trapper have been kicking around the Northwest for a while. Earlier records like Field Rexx revealed a band unsure of its identity. Lo-fi noise jams alternated with bluegrass field recordings, and it seemed like they could be just another annoyingly smart-ass indie band that mistook eclecticism for creativity (Beck, what hath you wrought?) […]
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Riding On
The name sets the stage: New Riders of the Purple Sage was theoretically an update on a cowboy band from the ’30s, which in turn was named for a seminal cowboy novel by Zane Grey, the guy who basically invented the Western genre. The New Riders came together toward the end of the ’60s. The […]
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Microcastle
Listening to the Atlanta-based band Deerhunter, you wouldn’t immediately suspect that the band has endured a great deal of drama. Yet it has. In 2004, prior to the recording of their first full-length album, Deerhunter (subtitled "Turn It Up Faggot"), the band’s original bassist, Justin Bosworth, died due to head injuries suffered from a skateboarding […]