Book by William Shatner with Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens. Pocket Books. A year from now a new Star Trek movie will be hitting the big screens, featuring new young actors playing Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock and the rest of the original series crew, in a prequel to the TV series. J.J. Abrams (creator of the […]
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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Where You Go With The Notes
In a certain sense, Patty Larkin is your basic singer/songwriter, a woman with a guitar who plays chords and melody, works on them to fit her intelligent lyrics. She’s been doing it for 20-some-odd years, starting out busking on the streets of Cambridge then learning jazz licks at Berklee. Then about 10 years ago her […]
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Pure Abstractions
Spring dance concert April 17 at HSU’s Van Duzer Theater Thursday evening’s opening performance of HSU’s spring dance concert, Pure Abstractions, was a total blast. Being a modern dancer from New York, I could barely contain myself when I heard the opening strains of a live quartet playing John Coltrane’s Impressionsas groupings of modern dancers […]
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The Ten Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare and How It Changed America
Book by David Hajdu. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. As the medium of comics has gained mainstream respect in recent years, several books have looked back on the unruly, disreputable origins of the art form. The most recent of these is David Hajdu’s chronicle of the early days of the comic book, its rise to mass […]
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A Virtual Landslide
CD by Pete Molinari. Damaged Goods. With the release of his second full-length album, A Virtual Landslide, singer-songwriter Pete Molinari has created a beautiful, warm and sincere record of classic heartbreak songs. A Virtual Landslide is a series of perfect marriages, artistically speaking, making it one of the finest albums to be released so far […]
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Godzilla Plays the Tango
The note from Lisa B was straight to the point: "Performing at Jambalaya in Arcata on Thursday, April 17, is Yo Tango!, Humboldt’s new Tango band, from 7-9 p.m. $5 cover. Come dance the Tango or just enjoy the music." Being a tango fan, I was intrigued. I actually learned to tango, a little bit, […]
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Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!
By Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Anti-/Mute Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!, the new release from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, is Cave’s pop record. Well, it’s his version of pop. Following on the heels of the elegant, stylistic, white gospel, two-disc epic Abaittoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheusand the cathartic dirge of his Grinderman side […]
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Terror’s Advocate
DVD, directed by Barbara Schroeder. Magnolia Home Entertainment Terror’s Advocate opens with a bucolic scene of the Cambodian countryside, followed by patient shots of a pastel-colored temple amidst the trees and carefree monks strolling barefoot down a dirt path. Cue the soft, tired voice of Pol Pot, the notorious leader of the Khmer Rouge, responsible […]
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Massive Conspiracy Against All Life
CD by Leviathan. Moribund Records. Leviathan, aka Wrest, is a one-man black metal project from the Bay Area that has played a crucial role in the development of American black metal, bringing a sense of legitimacy to a scene that for years was perceived to be inferior to its Scandinavian counterpart. Massive Conspiracy Against All […]
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Sway: A Novel
By Zachary Lazar. Little, Brown. Zachary Lazar’s Sway: A Novel is a guide to self-involved characters slopping around in the sexual mud and quicksand of the ’60s. All of the characters are members of The Rolling Stones or were associated with them as the 1960s counterculture went the wrong way. Many had to scream "Gimme […]
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Sixty Days and Counting
Book by Kim Stanley Robinson. Bantam Dell. This is the third and concluding volume of Kim Stanley Robinson’s trilogy about an alternate present or near future when the world is forced to face a catastrophic climate crisis. But this isn’t another apocalyptic dread-feast. Extraordinary events shape and bend the everyday, but they don’t break it. […]
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Puzzle Pieces
There’s a certain fusion of ancient and modern in the music of Toubab Krewe that grabbed me instantly. At first listen you might think it’s an African band, perhaps brothers to the electric Saharan desert blues of Tinariwen — and they are — but Toubab Krewe is from Asheville, N.C., and their musical merger comes […]