The morning holds its breath as each day begins with the uncertainty of whether the first exhalation will be expressed as a sigh or a scream. Or maybe all and more, with laughter filling out a frightening new combination. The news is just awful all the time, isn’t it? Everything we understood in years past to be unsustainable but holding firm is now much less sturdy or falling away entirely, with the biggest speculation not being if it will peel off the structure, but how load bearing it was and how much damage will come in the wake of its collapse. While we shed a frightening amount of these foundational beliefs, the sound of cheap construction is deafening, as new illusions are being taped up everywhere, manufactured by mobs of frantic hands trying to cover the brutality of the widespread demolition with some kind of meaning.
The industry of dreams represented by the dazzling culture machines of Hollywood and popular music has given way to an atomized landscape of social media fabrications. The number of people working to create and share narratives has increased while the stocks and labor value have plummeted. When a mighty thing falls and dies now, it isn’t replaced by another titan, but rather run over and picked apart by the agents of rot, who are legion. Hordes of bacteria and ants scuttle over the twilight of the giants in a feeding frenzy that resembles the chaos of pure static. This isn’t a vibrantly choreographed interpretation of revolution; this is a free-for-all fire drill from a cast of terrified strangers who all occupy a high rise inside a fresh, burning crater. This is the elegant lobes of the brain meshing violently with the stem and basal ganglia in the hot, wet wake of the unspeakable. We are time traveling through the stages of evolution inside the multidimensional wormhole of a mushroom cloud, and every new day is an advent calendar that hides monsters instead of candy, a Pandora’s Box via subscription.
I don’t think it’s a stretch to say we’d all like things to be different. I know I would.
I don’t know how to make that happen, though, and I suspect few of us do. That’s the tricky thing about living in the present: There’s rarely any perspective until the moment has passed. But still we do what we can as it comes and try to focus on the local beat. There’s a very real possibility that we aren’t equipped to consider full engagement with anything larger most of the time.
Enough of that, here’s a mea culpa. I got the dates wrong on the featured show last week — it happened on Saturday and I accidentally had it on Friday. I’m sorry to the good folks in Frogbite and their fans. If anyone wants to keep me honest and up to date for all events to be considered for this column, please drop a line at music@northcoastjournal.com. Happy holidays.
Thursday
The blues seem like a good soundtrack to roll out the carpet of this coming weekend and its official shift into winter, so how about a trip to the Logger Bar? There you will find a free gig by The Back Seat Drivers starting at 4 p.m., or as we call it these days, sunset’s foyer.
Friday
Here are some local treats to stuff your stockings with. First up, Moss Oak Commons, where it’s Freq Night again, with music from the crossroads of experimental electronic sounds, tap loops, treated guitar amp worship, holy synths and modulators, and lo-fi grooves. Check out Hudson Glover, Luker, Samantha and Aermac 8 at 7 p.m. for a suggested $5-$10. When ponying up the dough, consider that this show is a benefit for Food Not Bombs.
There are two cosmic gigs an hour later. At the Wild Hare Tavern you will find Peggy Martinez and Barking Dogma playing the tunes of stellar being Kevyn Dymond for a mere $5 at the door.
If you are set on Eureka as your port of call, head over to the new-ish Siren’s Song Tavern where the same door fee will grant you access to the music of Halfwing, Widdershins and Good Time Charlies. Huzzah.
Saturday
It’s solstice eve, and due to the coming of another more celebrated eve on Wednesday, I’m loading the underboughs of this evening with shows to balance the silent nights ahead. The big shebang is happening over at the Arcata Playhouse, where the Jingle Jam Holiday Benefit, packed with so many local shining stars, will be happening in two forms, the first at 4 p.m., which will be for children. Santa will be there, and it’s free with an online reservation and an accompanying adult. The main event is happening at the same location at 7 p.m. with a sliding scale cost from $20-$50 and all proceeds go to Humboldt Domestic Violence Service and North Coast Children’s Services. Among the many fine musicians performing are a rock-solid rhythm section courtesy of bassist Danny Gaon,drummer Ramsey Isaacs and pianist Matthew Seno, as well as a whole Twelve Days of Christmas list of singers, including Claire Bent, Ruby Ruth George, Katie Belknap, Jacqueline Dandeneau,some sisters Penner, James Zeller, Matthew Cox and more.
Around the same time at the Outer Space, there’s a farewell show for Polimana and Jess Carey,aka Mold, who are leaving the county for a new horizon. Fellow celebrants include Fig, Sylvie and Petal Talk, a botanically named crew of indie folksters making good music. Sliding scale and negotiable $5-$10.
OK, two punk shows and one more holiday group jam to finish the menu. The punks are at 8 p.m., with Moss Oak Commons hosting Image Pit, PEST, Radical Apes and Executive Order for $5-$10 sliding scale, while Siren’s Song Tavern has drinking band Olympians The Smashed Glass and Generational Trauma for $3. And finally, keyboard wizard B. Swizlo presents A Funky Ass Humboldt Hip Hop Holiday at Humbrews at 8:30 p.m. Aboard the mothership tonight are supergroup HOTFOOT performing the tunes of the late reverend James Brown, along with DJ Goldylocks on the ones and twos spinning heat for mic snipers like Nac One, Flo J Simpson, RuffIAN and more. There will also be live art by DMise and Ovr.thr. Woof, what a night!
Sunday, Winter Solstice
Rounding out the holiday fun before we hit the holy stretch of silent nights, how about a matinee of a classic? The Sundance Ballet Company presents The Nutcracker at 2 p.m. at the Van Duzer Theatre. Nothing I write here will do much to help promote something that was famous before I was born and will continue to be so long after I have fallen out of the race, so I’ll just note that tickets are priced as follows, $25 for adults, $20 if purchased in advance, with $5 removed from those figures if you are buying for kids 12 and under. Merry Christmas.
Collin Yeo (he/him) welcomes the contrast of the darkness of winter and its merry night lights with a spirit that can only truly be appreciated with the expanding gift of astigmatism that each new year brings.
This article appears in An Absence of Abalone.