The Setlist

There are two Neils near and dear to my musical heart. The first I would hear cranking out of my father’s car when my sister and I were small. I have vague memories of him singing along to certain songs loudly, which implied that these were damn fine songs. The second Neil I didn’t really […]

We all have daily struggles in our modern lives, trying to scrape by and hustle a living out of the crushing jaws of the free market. Money issues aside, it’s easy to overlook the small things in life that we find meaningful and create joy. Stop and smell the roses, it has been said. The […]

Some music will always hold a dear spot in our lives. It could be a song that we listened to obsessively for days on end after a high school break up, it could be a full album, it could be the first live concert we ever attended, it could be “your song” shared with a […]

A couple of music festivals are now behind us with the Folklife Festival and Northern Nights having just wrapped up. But with upcoming festivals on the horizon such as the Roll on the Mattole and the Reggae On the River festivals, we don’t have too much time to relax and put our feet up before […]

A memory from the 20th century recently found its way back into my mind. During my somewhat unremarkable final two years in high school, I was able to leave campus for lunch. This was a big deal for us upperclassmen. It was also a prime time for many students to get in their cars and […]

We’re a county of music lovers, are we not? Here in Humboldt, we have our fair share of summer music festivals, which probably outdoes many counties with much larger populations. We’re also unique — if I may — as we have a high concentration of local musicians who make the pickings for a local festival […]

The Fourth of July is nearly upon us and, as a red-blooded patriot, I quested to write something about music, America and perhaps Brexit. After long thoughts about John Phillip Sousa, Donald Trump and David Cameron, I realized I was not up for the task. My mind wandered to a scene I came across last […]

By the time you read this you will hopefully have had enough time to deal with your grief over the Golden State Warriors blowing a 3-1 lead and giving the Cavaliers NBA Championship. It was painful for many of us up here on the North Coast, as we’re only 280-something miles away from Oakland, so […]

As much as it might make my life easier here in Humboldt County, I cannot pretend, nor claim, to be a Grateful Dead fan — hereinafter referred to as “Dead Head” — of the highest order. Although I knew a few fans growing up in L.A., The Dead just weren’t really in my musical orbit […]

This past weekend I made it out to a local bar to hear an out-of-town band play — I’ll leave identifying names out to protect the dignity of those involved — and as it happened to be during the Kinetic weekend, the looming potential of almost no one showing up came to be an actuality. […]