Do you ever wonder why it seems so much easier for Americans to fantasize about an apocalypse than a revolution? Or why we are more attracted to entertainment with visions of post-apocalyptic scarcity and violence rather than a peaceful, cohesive, post-revolutionary society that nurtures a livable future? For most of this new century, our culture […]
The Setlist
Our picks for the week’s best live music plus interviews and music news.
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Time in a Bottle
I was recently driving up and down the coast a lot in the space of a few days, specifically the area between Arcata and Trinidad, mostly for work but a bit for fun as well. Any amount of leisure driving counts as a vacation — in the financial sense of cost analysis anyway — in these […]
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A Nightmare on Main Street
If you ever find yourself wondering what being haunted or possessed feels like, think about a nightmare. Then wake up and try to move on. Think about a beautiful dream. Then wake up and once again try to get on with your life. If you have ever suffered from privation — a serious deficit of […]
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The Modern Prometheus
And just like that, we are back in the beginning of spooky season, the 10th month of the year — ridiculously and archaically named October — the month that not only ends with Halloween, but begins with what is now the ninth anniversary of my time writing about music, politics, people and art for this […]
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Autumn Falls
Hahaha well, dang. What is there to say, really? Is anyone else getting tired of these high water marks for various once-in-a-lifetime disasters we’ve been enjoying over the last decade? Not that I usually hold back too much, but I have the sense I can really let it fly these days because, well, who knows […]
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The World is No Better Than its Places
Recently, listening to the soundtrack to the seminal Jamaican gangster film The Harder They Come after a long time away from it, I flashed back to a long-forgotten nihilistic fantasy of dressing like a dandy, wearing some illegal weapons in my belt and dying in some flashy way before I reached an age where the […]
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Land Speed Record
The title of this week’s edition comes from Minnesota punk pioneers Hüsker Dü’s intense 1981 concert album, after the group had — allegedly — discovered a performance-enhancing drug that sometimes goes by the second word in the said title, but before they essentially invented pop punk. It is a rough and wonderful crash course of […]
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The Summer Wind
We have certainly entered the part of the summer where our nostalgia for the bright and lazy days of late June is colored by the scent of wood smoke and over-ripened fruit. The kind of sensation that curls over our nostrils and into our brains like the tendrils of cigarette vapors from Rick Blaine’s ashtray […]
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Read After Burning
Burnstitch Collective has been attached to many of the murmurs I hear about simple and great ideas around here, and I am going long this week to write about them because it’s both overdue and perfectly timely. They are putting on an all-ages DIY punk festival called Against All Odds at RampArt Skate Park this […]
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You Want It Darker
I’m writing this around the 90th anniversary of the murder of the Spanish poet Federico Lorca during the Spanish Civil War by the brutal Nationalist forces under the command of eventual dictator Francisco Franco. I say “around” because the actual timeline of his abduction and assassination is still uncertain, as are the whereabouts of his […]
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Into the Great Wide Open
Everyone gets the blues, they just come in different tones and intensities, and like every color and feeling, appear different in the summer. I am no different in this respect and have recently discovered the need to work on new habits and skills to change the wavelengths a bit. One such trick is writing myself […]
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Lazarus and Co.
Last Sunday, I found myself with my arms spread against the wood-paneled base of the chromatic brass battlements of the pipe organ at Christ Episcopal Church in Eureka, my left ear pressed against the wood, while the tubes roared out beautiful sounds after the morning mass. I am not necessarily endorsing this behavior — I […]