There’s an anecdote about how the decline of the Roman Empire was experienced by the majority of people living through it. While movies and novels depict epic battles with cities falling to hordes of frontier warriors, most citizens who were ruled under the Aquila had a much less dramatic — but perhaps more meaningful — metric to mark the end of their relationship with sovereignty. It went something like this: Every decade or so, some guys would show up in the town to fix the big bridge and add some stones to the rampart walls until eventually they didn’t show up ever again. And that was that.
Historical epics are like football games in that sense. The narrative relies on the focus of the camera. Anyone who has ever been to a football game notices immediately that when you can see the entire field, the drama dissipates quite a bit, which is why you almost never see all the players at once on TV, but instead get to engage with the dramaturgy created by limiting the aperture to key players in the play. Kitchen sink dramas do that, too, creating devastating narratives by focusing previously anonymous moments in the loose and quiet desperation of domestic disintegration. The older I get, the more I see how much of nearly all human interaction involves putting an interesting spin on various events in the continuum to make shapes out of the fog. The tide of life is slow but relentless, and we try to channel its immensity into focused spurts to etch some words in the sand, or spray dazzling rainbows into an empire of sunlight that previously only acknowledged our existence with a monotonous litany of shadows. Preservation, whether it’s a fossil or a still life painting, is ultimately an imitation of life. Butterflies are one of the most beautiful creatures on the planet, and their apex of beauty is basically a just final flight on the eve of their extinction. Wings pinned to a board don’t capture anything of that casual fluttering gorgeousness.
Following this spirit, eulogies have been feeling imitative and forced to me this year, so I’ve been avoiding writing them, despite having done so many times in the past in this space. I think I’ll take a shot at some soon though, maybe next week. Until then, I just want to share that Carolyn and Brooks Otis were two of the sweetest people I ever had the pleasure of knowing, and I was lucky to have done so since I was a boy. “Rest in peace” seems like a silly tagline for two people who in life defined a rare peacefulness and ecstatic kindness. For those of you who might need more of a backstory as to why this relates to the Humboldt music scene, I’ll fill that in soon, I promise, but in the meantime you can always swing by Wildwood Music in Arcata.
Have a beautiful week.
Thursday
It is my pleasure to once again inform you that the Backseat Drivers will be holding it down at the Logger Bar this afternoon and into the early evening, starting at 4 p.m. This is a free gig, so come one and all to enjoy some finger pickin’ and harp blowin’ with a nice bass back end.
Friday
I was lucky enough to score a seat at Savage Henry last week for the Doug Stanhope show, and while in the joint, I was reminded why it’s such a neat venue, and versatile for comedy and music alike. In that spirit, allow me to suggest another metal night at 7 p.m. Blood Monolith is a D.C. death and grind band with members from bands like Nails and Ulthar. They’re sitting atop a bill with a bunch of local-ish talent, including Ukiah’s Thrichomoniasis,area volume freaks Locust Furnace and IGNiT. This all-ages show is $10. Bring an I.D. if you want to drink.
Saturday
Here are two shows tonight to cast a net across a broad terrain of experiences. First up on the hip hop tip at 6:30 p.m. at the Epitome Gallery, you will find an all-ages album release party hosted by local creative kingpins — and my good buddies — DJ Goldylocks and Flo J. Simpson — for Branches, a nine- song odyssey by Cali Los Mikyo,Thatfool AL and RA MHTP. Expect local art and food vendors to accompany this live performance of the new jewel in the Humboldt hip hop discography. A half hour later at the Humboldt Unitarian Fellowship, you can enjoy all that jazz courtesy of the highly talented duo of James Zeller and Katie Belknap, aka the Ponies of Harmony. Regular readers know these two are the real deal, and $25 is a fair price for such sweet sounds from these masters of song.
Sunday
In my capacity as a musical gadfly around these parts, I have been able to work a few different positions around the scene, and few more interesting than behind the soundboard. A lot can be learned from behind the control board about the sublime alchemy of live performance. British Columbia’s Ora Cogan is not just a fine songwriter, but a crack and snap bandleader, with excellent taste in her collaborators and the ability to walk the line between expectation and trust that is so vital outside of the studio and on the stage. I’m happy to report that she is back in town, and although I will not be manning the knobs and wires, I am excited to be in the audience. You can count yourself in that number too by showing up to the Outer Space around 7 p.m. and tossing down something between $10-$20 bucks. There are some great local birds in the bush too, with Bleater and octobercountry — the lovely lovechild of superheroes Gabe and March — providing a lesson in the world of possibility in your own backyard.
Monday
Apparently there is a Ukulele Fight Club at the Arcata Community Center every third Monday from 6 to 8 p.m. There’s a $3 drop-in fee, with a progressive punch card pay scheme for repeat participants, and an open call for players of all levels. The more I learn about this, the less it sounds like a fight club at all, which is all for the better, I suppose. By the way, if any uke players out there are looking for a quality vintage instrument made in Honolulu in a bygone age, I am selling a fine Kamaka model from the midcentury which I inherited and would love to see go to a worthy home. It’s a sin to collect instruments without playing them, and I do not wish to continue the nightmares associated with such blasphemous hoarding.
Tuesday
Good Morning. Saint Romance is an ambient folk supergroup made up of players from four different New York City bands — Good Morning Shepard, The Romance, and saint rémy — whose names form the Voltron entity at the beginning of this sentence. The group will be playing at the Siren’s Song Tavern at some point this evening, I would guess around 7 p.m., for some amount of money. Consider this a polite suggestion to the venue owners to update their calendar and promote their shows — especially the midweek ones — a little more vigorously.
Wednesday
To the casual observer, the Rudresh Mahanthappa Hero Trio seems like a bit of a mouthful, especially for the inelegant side of the American cud chewing and jug hooting crowd. As a guy with an often-mispronounced last name and an interest in music that gets a similar flattened treatment, that’s all just fine. Excellent things are usually uncommon, and in the land of beige and burgers, a little bit of multi-tonal stampeding hits like LSD sunshine on the black and white Kansas of Dorothy Gale and Truman Capote’s coldblooded killers. If you are in the mood for a night of proper jazz pick-me-ups played by some ascended monks usually found in bigger sonic temples, come through the Arcata Playhouse tonight 8 p.m. I guarantee you will find some sounds in the sax, bass and drums that were lifted from the Gospel of Hard Bop and woven into the rainbow exhaust of an anti-stupid supernova ($20, $15 students and seniors).
Collin Yeo (he/him) is listening to bluegrass this week.
This article appears in Your Local Coven.