Local cumbia superstars Makenu will be playing their last gig of 2025 tonight atHumbrews at 8:30 p.m. The headliner is, appropriately, Oakland’s ragin’ psychedelicCumbia outfit Bicicletas Por La Paz. Judging by the colossal turnout I witnessed thelast time Makenu played at the Basement, expect the dance floor to be packed thisevening in the spotlight of […]
Music
Coverage of the music scene in Humboldt County with upcoming shows from locals and out-of-town acts, reviews, interviews and more.
Posted inThe Setlist
How to Bring a Blush to the Snow
It’s the last month of the year, which means I will be listening to a lot of winter tunes as we barrel towards the solstice. Top of that list lately has been Victorialand, the fourth album by the Scottish band Cocteau Twins. Released in 1986, the record is a swirling terrain of sounds inspired by […]
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Hot Freaks
It’s Thanksgiving again, a complicated holiday for a lot of folks for many different reasons. I certainly have mine. Tradition is a funny thing and often gets expressed as a desperate attempt at the impossible: to sustain the existence of an immutable, geologically timeless structure on a human terrain defined by the changing whims and […]
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Message in a Bottle
I’m writing to you from the murky depths of last week, ahead of a quick retreat away from wi-fi and glowing things, so apologies if I have missed some massive earth-shattering event in the news cycle. What that could be is anyone’s guess, as we have all learned time and again that things that should […]
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Music Tonight: Wednesday, Nov. 19
Tunisian singer-songwriter Nour Harkati is a master of the Guembri, an ancient three-stringed West African instrument similar to a lute and a banjo. Now living in New York City, the surprisingly young man has put together a fantastic band to showcase his unique sound, which mixes organic bass tones of his instrument with the frenetic […]
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Music Tonight: Monday, Nov. 17
Oakland soul and R&B outfit The California Honeydrops keeps on keeping on nearly two decades since its inception, returning to town to fill up the Arcata Theatre Lounge tonight at 8 p.m. If you want to dance to something live and not canned, this is a good option. Tickets start at $45.
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Music Tonight: Sunday, Nov. 16
Clan Dyken returns to town with its Beauty Way Benefit for the indigenous people of Big Mountain, Arizona, to give direct aid in their effort to resist incursion on their ancestral lands by the extractive death’s head of the U.S. government and its affiliate private industry demons. The doors open at the Arcata Playhouse at […]
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Music Tonight: Saturday, Nov. 15
Moss Oak Commons is the place to be for another installment of Freq Night by Open Head Records. Tonight’s offering features the avant folk tunes of Olympia, Washington’s Wicking Game, along with local electroclash act Parking Structure, the lovely storytelling digital torch songs of God Z Dog and the drone folks of Mountain Mahogany. This […]
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Music Tonight: Friday, Nov. 14
The Arcata Playhouse is hosting the Writer’s Roundup Songwriter Showcase with Ruby Ruth George, Polimana, James Zeller and Fo Fera. The setup is fashioned after the popular Nashville — and elsewhere — style of rotating performances and storytelling, featuring a whole slew of genres from progfolk to jazz and country. These are some of the […]
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Music Tonight: Thursday, Nov. 13
The possibility of a Beatles reunion was permanently revoked before I was born, and now, people like myself who are fans of those world-changing Liverpudlians yet never shared the planet with them are close to outnumbering those who did. Regardless of your age, it’s a done deal, so we are left with tributes and satellite […]
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Songs of Love and Hate
I was texting with my sister last week after her birthday and she was in the process of making a playlist of the worst songs ever written. This was unsurprising, as we are like-minded shitheads, despite her being a formidable and dangerous Scorpio lady. We agreed on a few additions from each camp: her suggestion […]
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Music Tonight: Wednesday, Nov. 12
Sometimes I have nothing to accompany me as I type up this column other than the howling ghosts of regret and loneliness that course through the space between my ears like a cruel, spectral turbine. And sometimes I have some swanky new tunes to accompany the ceaseless screams from the abyss torn into existence by […]