Nashville’s Crys Matthews plays a right-handed acoustic guitar as a leftie, upside down to the casual viewer, with the tenor strings up top and the wrapped lower strings sitting on the bottom, a tradition which dates back to the pre-recording era of American blues music, and was the style in which Elizabeth “Libba” Cotton, the […]
Arcata Playhouse
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Music Tonight: Friday, June 20
Legendary singer/songwriter Jonathan Richman will be strumming his stuff at the Arcata Playhouse tonight at 8 p.m. He will be joined by longtime drummer Tommy Larkins, to tap into a back catalogue that stretches 50 years into the past, starting at a time when his group The Modern Lovers were changing the way people thought […]
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Music Tonight: Wednesday, June 11
Pierre Bensusan is a French-Algerian acoustic guitarist who has managed over a 50-year career to not only carve out his own sound from the brilliant force of his unique playing, but to become the master of one of the more versatile guitar tunings, DADGAD, which forms a bridge from Ireland to North Africa with its […]
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Music Today, Sunday June 8
Another Sunday, another afternoon matinee of choral music at the Arcata Playhouse. This week it’s the McKinleyville Community Choir presenting its Spring concert at 3 p.m. Admission is donation only. Enjoy.
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Music Tonight: Saturday, June 7
It’s a big show night tonight, which will hopefully make up for two quiet nights in the beginning of next week. Here’s what’s on the marquee for the evening. At 5 p.m., the Eureka Vets Hall is the venue for a benefit show for missing native man Ray Tsatoke, featuring Oakland grindcore band Bob Plant, […]
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Music Today: Sunday, June 1
The Redwood Interfaith Gospel Choir is presenting its spring concert just before the blooms go from vernal verdance to summer straw, nestled right between the Flower and the Strawberry moons. Which is just right, as far as I am concerned. This 2 p.m. matinee will be making the Arcata Playhouse thrum like a wooden diaphragm […]
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Music Tonight: Thursday, May 22
The Creative Sanctuary is putting on another jazz gig at the Arcata Playhouse, the first in a series basking in the glow of the formidable works of Art Blakely and the Jazz Messengers. Tonight’s program is an homage to Horace Silver, the post-bop pianist and co-bandleader who brought the group to his highest peaks of […]
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Music Tonight: Saturday, May 17
If you feel like learning something before grooving out, go to keet.org to register for a seat at the Arcata Playhouse for a free screening of the new documentary We Want the Funk! about the history of that groovy, butt-rattling genre of music. Afterward, you can enjoy a set of some of that good stuff […]
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Music Tonight: Sunday, May 11
More jazz on the docket tonight, when the Creative Sanctuary presents Jazz is Peace: A tribute to Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn at the Arcata Playhouse tonight at 7 p.m. The line-up features a rogues gallery of top-notch musicians, including James Zeller, Katie Belknap, Danny Gaon, Ramsey Isaacs, Allison Muench, Matt Seno and Tree. There’s […]
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Music Tonight: Saturday, May 3
True North Duo are Kristen Grainger and Dan Wetzel, who together have crafted a sound built of the finest aspects of bluegrass, pulling off large feats of instrumental prowess and vocal intensity that break containment from the usual restrictions of a less populated act in this genre of music. You can enjoy that sound this […]
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Music Tonight: Sunday, April 27
One thing I learned a long time ago in my playing days, especially in New Orleans and Nashville, is that groups and artists come and go with the charts, but studio musicians and backing bands endure because they are made from a different style of workmanship than your average stage-dweller. They have the chops and […]
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Music Tonight: Tuesday, April 1
Due to the increasingly absurd seriousness of the world married to an also increasingly evil and clownish state of domestic affairs, plus my previous underestimation of how painfully literal some people take in information in this column and beyond, I have learned not to engage in April Fool’s gags in print anymore. So I am […]