A lot of important figures in the music world have passed away recently, three that I consider quite notable are saxophone god Wayne Shorter, multi-instrumentalist and hired gun David Lindley, and bassist Steve Mackey, whose work with one of my favorite Brit bands, Pulp, was both melodic and charging. However, the last week has seen […]
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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The Many Rites of Spring
The birth of the modern world, the fresh and terrible 20th century, is a tough date to pin down, but an argument can be made, culturally at least, that the natal fluids ran red and voluminous in Paris on May 29, 1913, when Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring debuted to an audience that was so […]
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Hootin’ and Hollerin’
At the end of the preface to Hegel’s difficult but rewarding work Elements of the Philosophy of Right, the philosopher evokes the image of Minerva (in Greece, Athena) the goddess of wisdom and justice. Minerva’s wise owl, we are told, only takes flight with the coming of the night. This means we can only grasp […]
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In Bloom
I remember describing irony in a high school English class as something that fundamentally deals with opposites. I was looking down when I said it, having at the time not yet developed any of the obnoxious confidence that I am now unfortunately surging with. One girl in the class took my downward gaze as evidence […]
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Beautiful Era
I have probably mentioned here before that I like going for walks, often at odd hours to avoid other people. This isn’t out of any misanthropic impulse, but to stay out of the way of traffic, which is the pedestrian’s natural enemy. They aren’t long walks, either, I just need a space and time where […]
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Stormageddon
In the first act of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, when a violent storm is destroying a ship before leaving its occupants stranded on Prospero’s island, the lowly Boatswain marvels at the power of Mother Nature, noting how humankind’s world of hierarchy and political intrigue is nothing compared to her fury: “What cares these roarers for the […]
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Dream Operators
Because I make it a point to listen at home to the music of as many of the artists that I cover here, the algorithms on all the sources and apps I use are completely wrecked, a situation I actually find delightful, even if I don’t personally enjoy all of the music. Another nice byproduct […]
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One World
I’m pretty horrified at the lack of comprehensive coverage of the ongoing vinyl chloride train derailment catastrophe. If you don’t like my bummer intros, skip ahead to a rather dynamic week of live music. For the rest of you, hear me out: At this point, it seems like the original run of HBO’s Chernobyl got […]
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Love Is
People are complicated creatures with a vast catalog of needs that are often compressed, and therefore barely expressed in the gulf of space between thought and expression. I have considered love a lot over the years, and as someone who tends to translate the world through music and literature, I often get the moment wrong, […]
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In Dreams
I’ve been a little out there lately. Mostly late at night, when “the candy-colored clown they call the Sandman” whispers in my ears to inform me of the evening’s entertainment to be displayed in the oneiromantic playground of my dreams. I have a couple events to blame it on, as two of my best friends […]
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Lady Luck
Many years ago, in a Yankee cemetery in coastal Maine, I was pondering the grave of a young man who was taken out of the game by an “unruly bull,” in an incident that I can only imagine was every bit as dramatic and shocking as the gravestone (upon which I was making an etching) […]
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Neither Saint Nor Cynic
In an attempt to better understand the ancient world (which, for the purpose of this article, I will define as any period before my brain came online in the late 1980s), I have been reading about the philosophy of the Cynics of Greece. So far as I can tell, their prime character, Diogenes of Sinope, […]