By Hayes Carll. Lost Highway. "…sometimes it’s necessary to go a long distance out of the way in order to come back a short distance correctly." — Edward Albee, from The Zoo Story Though only in his early 30s, Hayes Carll seemed to have taken the long way ‘round. But his way. The Texas singer-songwriter […]
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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Homecoming
I don’t imagine they know each other, but Ethan Miller and Mario Matteoli have followed parallel paths. Both were born and raised in Eureka. Both left Humboldt County just out of high school and established music careers elsewhere, then quit their bands to establish new projects. And both are coming home this week for shows […]
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Acid Jazz at the Fox
They call it the "Red Fox Acid Jazz Experiment" with B. Swizlo and his Funky Friends, promising a "new line-up every week," on Monday nights at the Red Fox Tavern. This coming Monday they’re up to Vol. 3, and the plan, says keyboard whiz Brian "B" Swizlo (aka just plain Swiz), is to keep it […]
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Dystopia
Album by Dystopia Life is Abuse Records Dystopia’s reign over the 1990s hardcore crust scene, particularly here on the West Coast, is one of legend, with its tattered remnants still clinging to the fading black denim of scenesters new and old alike. It’s not that their brand of acrid and crushing doom-ridden punk was groundbreaking […]
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The Evangelist
Album by Robert Forster. Yep Roc Records The story of The Go-Betweens is, to paraphrase a Jean Luc-Godard film, one of a "band of outsiders," one of travelling along the fringes of contemporary pop music, without ever breaking into the mainstream. When The Go-Betweens first started, they developed in the mid-1970s alongside more "rogue" Australian […]
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Parsons Dance
Performance May 10 at the Van Duzer Theater. "That was cool," my 9-year-old exclaimed as the light went out after Hand Dance,performed by Parsons Dance, choreographed by artistic director David Parsons, a former principal dancer of The Paul Taylor Dance Company. Five pairs of hands were all that appeared, moving clever and playfully in the […]
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Third
Album by Portishead. Island Records Third is an unnecessary album. From the beginning, all Portishead needed in the way of legacy was a pair of albums that felt like they’d dropped out of nowhere — somebody’s attic, maybe, or rescued from the flooded basement of a bankrupt ’70s soul label. Portishead built songs carefully out […]
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Daniel Variations
Album by Steve Reich. Nonesuch. Steve Reich’s work stands today as one of the pillars of modern music. Along with his contemporaries Philip Glass and Terry Riley, his exploration of the potential emotional weight of the cyclical repetition of music phrases in the 1960s and ’70s was not only one of the last great movements […]
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Kimya Dawson
April 28 house concert in Arcata. House shows often make a virtue out of necessity, providing a place for touring bands that sometimes can’t find another venue, and providing a more intimate musical experience. The erasure of the segregation between audience and performer is a central tenet of the punk DIY ethic as well. So […]
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It’s Political
Casey Neill and the Norway Rats are on the road. I found Casey in Los Angeles getting ready to depart for San Francisco on a tour with a few more stops, including one in Arcata for a Saturday night show at the Jambalaya. Then its back to home base in Portland. Neill explains that the […]
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Scientist v. Evil Vampires
The minimalist, bass-heavy, effects-laden variation on reggae known as dub has some serious aficionados (this writer among them), but not a lot of people listen to it. The exception may be the music of Jamaican dub master Overton Brown, better known as Scientist, or The Scientist. Millions have been listening to his album, Scientist Rids […]
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The Feel Good Record of the Year
Album by No Use for a Name. Fat Wreck Chords. For fans of West Coast melodic pop-punk it’d be hard to find a better new album than The Feel Good Record of the Yearfrom established masters of the genre, No Use for a Name (NUFAN). When Tony Sly and Rory Koff started NUFAN back in […]