Weakness is a Thing Called Man 

The early 17th century Christian mystic Jacob Boehme, whom Hegel called "the first German Philosopher," wrote about the paradox of the human mind trying to hear the voice of God, noting that silence from the self is the key. "Your own hearing, willing, and seeing hinder you, so that you do not see or hear God." We are cosseted by our self-interest and incumbent senses, and therefore drowned by the distraction of existence and removed from the silence required to hear the breath of Creation. This example of early Western transcendentalism grabs at something foundational in many Asian traditions, albeit without the character of a central Godhead. I bring this up because, while I don't pretend to have heard the voice of God, I like to think about this concept when life gets stressful and/or the news cycle is overwhelming, which is fairly often lately. It's not a means of escape, but more one of perspective, which I tend to appreciate as I get older, which I am technically (legally?) doing this week. One year closer to renewing my driver's license, anyway. Have a good one.

Thursday

One of the stranger and more cinematic acts to break into the fringes of the American mainstream, a band that can be called Dadaist without flinching, is back on the road and coming to Humboldt. Sleepytime Gorilla Museum is possibly the only group to ever work the word "tintinnabulation" into a catchy song and have an impossible-to-define sound that is the true heir to the best sense of the term "art rock." This group is in its own class and very certainly worth your time, which can be exchanged for $25 ($20 advance) at Humbrews at 8 p.m. If you aren't up for it and want something a little cozier, at the same hour at the Logger Bar you will find LK — aka the bartender and my good buddy Logan — performing Neil Young's masterpiece After the Goldrush for free.

Friday

It's the first night of the eighth annual Zero to Fierce Festival, with events generally centered around the Arcata Playhouse and the Exit Theatre. Tonight's soiree sees an art gallery pop-up in the front of the Playhouse called the Womxn's Art Show, and features an all-ages and multimedia format. DJ Dastbunny provides the sonic ambience and, while tonight's 6 p.m. opening is free, the entire catalog of events from today to the closing on March 10 can be accessed with a festival pass purchased for $250. Tickets to specific individual events may also be purchased separately.

Saturday

Returning Humboldt County pop rock champions The Ian Fays are posting up at the Shanty tonight at 8:30 p.m. for Arts Alive. Popular hybrid rockers Strix Vega has dusted off the amps to join in on the jams, and a group named Rad Bromance, about whom I know near to nothing, has signed on for opening duties. If you are as intrigued as I am, roll through. It don't cost nothin' but your time.

Sunday

Many years ago, when I was a teenager, I snagged a ticket to one of Eureka's various blues music by the bay festivals, where as an aspiring bass player I had hoped to study some of the low end wranglers jamming in the assorted rhythm sections under the blue skies. A lot of acts played that day, but one that caught my attention enough to form a lasting memory all these years later was Tommy Castro, a Bay Area blues guitarist and singer who leans heavily on the Memphis soul and protofunk that made Stax Records an international name in the middle of the 20th century. Along with his band The Painkillers, Castro plays a world class form of electric blues music which is irresistible in its emotional punch. Tonight at 8 p.m. the group returns to Humbrews for the first time in a few years to rattle the boards ($30, $25 advance). Monday

Unless you are holding a festival pass for the Zero to Fierce Festival (which I suggest you ought to if so inclined), then I'm going to suggest taking a night off to enjoy something special. With respect to my new tradition of listening to the tunes of musicians who we lost in 2023, as well as the old — and getting older — tradition of celebrating, or at least just recognizing, my birthday (which happens this week), I am going to suggest checking out Huey "Piano" Smith. His work with his band The Clowns helped create and codify the rollicking boogie-woogie stomp of New Orleans music, a sound and place where I will always feel at home. Plus Patti Smith, another dear favorite of mine who is thankfully still among the living, converted the raucous joy of Smith's "We Like Birdland," into the final lines of an elegy on her incredible Horses album, a splendid mutation that could only bubble up in the divinely kissed petri dish of 20th century American music.

Tuesday

Phil Elverum is a prodigious musician from Anacortes, Washington, whose career gained steam early in his life when he founded the influential K Records act The Microphones in the late '90s. Since then, his art has been steeped in a whirlwind of love and loss, including the premature cancer death of his wife and longtime musical partner Geneviève Castrée. For 20 years, Mount Eerie has been one of his main monikers, with a catalog of tunes that play out like the soundtrack to the slow, crushing decay of a forgotten lumber mill, or an abandoned roadside motel haunted by a long-dead gutting fire. It is sound as story and language, the lyricism of drifting arrangements. The Miniplex is the place to hear things play out tonight, with Secretly Canadian Records artist Skullcrusher also onboard at 8 p.m. ($20).

Wednesday

The Wood Brothers have been recording and touring for more than two decades, during which time the Americana, jazz and roots music trio has established itself as an institution as influential and popular as Medeski, Martin and Wood, the trio where bassist (and brother) Chris Wood originally cut his teeth as a player. These guys are masterful musicians and even a little taste of their music will attest to a history of vast plateaus of sonic wonder. The group is playing an early show at 7 p.m. at the Arkley Center for the Performing Arts, where tickets are available for $54 general, $49 advance and $20 for Cal Poly Humboldt students.

Collin Yeo (he/him) recognizes that the extreme actions of Aaron Bushnell portrayed a moral clarity rarely seen in humanity at large. His last words were "Free Palestine."