Back in 1965, when musicians in San Francisco were just starting to invent psychedelic rock, an equally psychedelic folk/rock band called Country Joe and The Fish formed across the Bay in Berkeley, initially to serve as opening act at a campus performance by The Fugs and the poet Allen Ginsberg. In the beginning, the band […]
Music
Coverage of the music scene in Humboldt County with upcoming shows from locals and out-of-town acts, reviews, interviews and more.
Posted inMusic
Tim /Pleased To Meet Me
Hailing from Minneapolis, The Replacements were a fatalistic band. Headed by songwriter, vocalist and guitarist Paul Westerberg, the band drew praise from mid-’80s critics, and garnered a dedicated nationwide core of fans, but they couldn’t get enough radio airplay (thought to be too rough-around-the-edges) and thus didn’t sell enough "units." Meanwhile, live they were wildly […]
Posted inMusic
Way to Normal
Ben Folds has let his imagination run away with him — an imagination he’s always had, but which has been reined in for most of his recording career. First it was kept in check by the three-person, three-instrument trio Ben Folds Five, which, even when it began to add string quartets and flugel horns, retained […]
Posted inMusic
Is Nerdcore Dead?
Don’t be surprised if you see zombies walking the streets of Arcata Thursday. It’s not that Halloween has come early, and no, they’re not extras in a Jon Olsen video — they’re probably on their way to see mc chris at Humboldt Brews, as he brings the mc chris is dead tour to town. The […]
Posted inMusic
Kraftwerk and The Electronic Revolution
Kraftwerk is a tough band to cover in a documentary because the scope of their influence on modern music is so wide that it’s nearly impossible to grasp, and their discography is so multidimensional that something is bound to be left out. A comprehensive and interesting history on the band seems like a difficult task, […]
Posted inMusic
Ill Bill
Thursday’s Ill Bill hip hop show at Mazzotti’s on the Plaza was a complete "brodeo." What is a brodeo? A brodeo is an event where men bro down, or bro out. Basically, the audience was almost entirely composed of dudes (which I don’t really consider to be a great representation of humankind). At one point, […]
Posted inMusic
The Resonance of Objects
Their record company, Matador, refers to them as a “nomadic duo” and notes that Nathan “Naybob” Shineywater and Rachael Hughes, aka Brightblack Morning Light, are “currently living in rural New Mexico” (judging from the photo supplied, somewhere out in the desert). More immediately, Brightblack is in greener climes, on their way south out of Oregon […]
Posted inMusic
Ask Your Neighbor
Underground instrumentalist Phil Spirito has journeyed from one obscure band to another. His membership with rex brought him together with Chicago-based band, Red Red Meat, many of whose members — including leader Tim Rutilli, Ben Massarella and Brian Deck — would later form Califone. The mixture of these two bands would result in an interesting […]
Posted inMusic
Irie, or Not?
If you don’t pay close attention to what’s going on in Southern Humboldt you may not have heard that there was some serious confusion last week regarding two SoHum events: last Saturday’s Humboldt Hoedown and this Saturday’s Irie Boogie. Both affairs were scheduled for Southern Humboldt Community Park, a lovely spot right outside of Garberville […]
Posted inMusic
Brown Submarine
"Prolific" suggests "fruitful" or "productive." Former Guided By Voices bandleader Robert Pollard is beyond prolific. The 51-year-old songwriter from Dayton, Ohio, has been busy. Aside from the 16 full-length records released by his band GBV, Pollard has released 20 solo records under his own name, and he has released 25 additional records of "side projects." […]
Posted inMusic
Rock ’N’ Roll
Tom Stoppard is sometimes unfairly regarded as a playwright where ideas trump character, but in fact he has a rare ability to create characters who express themselves through the ideas they espouse. From his first success, Rosencrantz and Guilderstern are Dead, to his recent three-play epic of 19th century politics, The Coast of Utopia, he’s […]
Posted inMusic
Carried To Dust
From their early stages as Giant Sand and Friends of Dean Martinez, Calexico was a band that strove to hone their own sound — a mix of Ennio Morricone’s spaghetti Western soundtrack music, mariachi horns, experimental treatment flourishes and subtle percussion — while providing backup to various artists such as Michael Hurley, Victoria Williams, Richard […]