We’ve all been in a funny spot lately, and we all know why, so I won’t drag the pen across that point any further. One thing about living through such disastrous and deeply stupid times is that we are all aware of the horrors enough that a wave of the hand says more than words for all sensible people. And anyone who likes what’s currently being unleashed by the most vicious idiots with the most destructive power in human history can similarly be dismissed with another very simple hand gesture as well, one using fewer fingers.
When waking life is colored by a stupid nightmare with varying levels of intensity across the globe, nightlife becomes all the more important. Both music and dreams really matter now, not as a distraction or numbing agent, but more to remind the spirit that it has a massive scale of bright sensations and mysteries beyond the revulsion it has at the despicable ugliness inflicted on the world. To feel that revulsion is correct, but it is also right to acknowledge the universe of beauty these craven demons can never experience, and to know that absence is their fatal weakness, just as it is a mighty source of collective power for us.
A society that puts its worst people in power and its best people in mass graves will never survive to know peace. And if music and dreams have anything in common, it is that they prove we were not born to kill, and better things bloom from the compost of dead nightmares.
Thursday
The Siren’s Song is hosting a smokin’ amp rock show tonight. Blackplate needs no introduction in this column, but merely a reminder that they are one of the loudest and best heavy sound dealers around these parts. Lady in Waiting is, according to Sean Casement from the aforementioned band, a local supergroup featuring members of Small Craft Advisory, Snow Removal and Jack Spyder Sparks Band, as well as being a “fully realized shoegaze band” who blew the top off my source’s head when he saw them live. Apparently, they cover a Slint tune in a fashion that must be experienced live. Topping the bill is Band Name of the Week: Fuckwolf from San Francisco, who sound basically exactly as you might think. Come and see just how truly perfectly named Fuckwolf is when the doors open at 7 p.m. Bring $10, too.
Friday
The Miniplex is hosting a local alterna-pop tonight at 8 p.m., when the sonic cavern will be taken over by the ever-ebullient Jacki & the Jollies and the interestingly named act Heaven’s Taint, playing power punk covers and others. I’ve seen Jacki & Co. get their jollies at a diverse range of venues, from the bucolic outdoor bandstands to bouncing wooden bar floors, and they always have the right stuff for the occasion. Both groups are certain to bring the noise tonight and the $5-$10 sliding scale price of admission is quite a steal.
Saturday
Another big day for fans of loud, amplified electric guitars and battered-attitude drums. The ever-fantastic metal guerrilla cell Psyop Victim sits atop a bill with Hotel Riot, Bipolar Bear — featuring members of the Hitch, the Cookers and Scurvy Dogs — and Dave O’s fantastic bass-driven punk bullhorn TheBoredAgain. More interesting still, it’s all going down at the Carlo Theatre in support of the great clowns of Dell’Arte. This manifest is a matinee affair, with doors at 1 p.m. and music at 2 p.m. To sweeten the pot, there’s a free afterparty at 5 p.m. at the Logger Bar with the finest drinkin’ band The Smashed Glass. Blue Lake Rock City all day.
Sunday
Six Rivers Brewery is the place to be for a special session of dance, untethered ecstatic worship and an open mixer and celebration of joy for Humboldt’s queer community. Starting today and going forward, DJ Thornestar and The Outlaw Jamie B will be hosting Sanctuary Sundays on the third Sunday of the month, This month’s edition called a Spring Fling with encouragement from the organizers to show up in fine floral prints of all colors and patterns. This is a free, inclusive event, with the only stipulation that it is adults-only. I’ll add my own caveat that while you don’t have to be queer to be here, you must love thy neighbor, so no shitheads. Fuck’s sake, Jesus didn’t die on the cross and I didn’t spend an age studying the Gospels to let the bozos set the tone. Love each other, dammit; our time under the sun is far too brief to let some assholes cast shadows on anyone’s joy.
A little later and farther down the road — specifically at 4 p.m. at the Bayside Grange — bluegrass singer and songwriter Laurie Lewis is back in town with a couple of her right hands, specifically Brandon Godman and Hassee Ciacco, to play some tunes from her latest release O California! for those of you lucky enough to grab a ticket ($35). Don’t balk at the price, Lewis is a treasure, and this is a benefit concert for the Bayside Emergency Disaster Plan.
Monday
It’s the big stoner holiday once again, and for those who celebrate, Humbrews has a 4/20 bash just for you. Trinidadian reggae singer Marlon Asher is back in town to cultivate more good vibrations, and he is joined by local roots reggae band Irie Rockerz. Burn one down — sensibly, of course — and get loose while it’s still possible in our uncertain world. At 9:30 p.m., $25, $20 advance.
Tuesday
Nothing else but a regular reminder to go check out some fantastic jazz courtesy of the Opera Alley Cats at the Speakeasy at 7 p.m. There’s no cover, so bring some cash for refreshments and the musicians’ fund.
Wednesday, Earth Day
It’s Earth Day again. If you are feeling like the movement for environmental justice is a bit on the rocks right now, you are not alone. Having the disgusting administrators of our nightmare system openly rejoice in making the planet unlivable through short-term extraction and unspeakable violence is a failure of that system, not of your conscience. The pain you feel is from the struggling sparks of the flame of an eternal fellowship — guttering now but never extinguished — with the finest souls of our species who have throughout our troubled history understood that you cannot compromise with extinction.
The clarity of this truth turns parallel lines of suffering into a connected web of human voices yearning for universal liberation in peace and dignity. We are united in our grief and horror with those who suffer even further, but rather than build a pyramid of oppression designed to put a reactionary hierarchy that ranks our woes, we find solidarity across the globe in this matrix of righteous desire. Remember that as a second noble truth, we are united in our suffering and indignation and only in that solidarity will we create a plan for full liberation. Be suspicious of anything that will divide us; it favors only a sympathy for the oppressor that is malignant to the cause of true freedom.
In that spirit, I will suggest yet another installment in the film series curated by Shine a Light on Palestine, playing at 7 p.m. at the Minor Theatre. Tonight’s film is called Foragers, a 2022 film about elderly Palestinians whose practices of sustenance foraging on their ancient homeland is being threatened by … take a wild guess. Tickets are a sliding scale $10-$20 and towards direct relief for the people of Gaza.
Collin Yeo (he/him) is, like everyone he loves, an earthling.
This article appears in A Wing and A Prayer.