Early on this week is a great time to catch great bands in the fringes of bigger genres. Noise punk, grindcore, psych rock and various other troubadours of the outré are hawking penillions of perverse metrics. If you are a fan of all things weird and glowing, from now until Cinco de Mayo is going […]
frog
Posted inArts + Scene
Music Tonight: Friday, December 14
Psych, jazz and raga ramblers Ms. God are puttin’ on The Jam tonight 9 p.m. ($3 suggested donation). Expect cyclical riffs and saxophonic passages with drums and rhythmic vocals. Also on the bill are the excellent and suitably heavy sounds of sympatico trio Frog. Rounding out the bill is a new band in town whose […]
Posted inMusic
A Cracking Good Time
When Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Nutcracker debuted in St. Petersburg 126 years ago this week, it was generally considered to be a confusing and poor adaptation of the sourced Hoffmann and Dumas fairytale. The composer would die less than a year later, never knowing the heights of popularity that his work would enjoy in the middle […]
Posted inMusic
Back in Town
I have written here before about my antagonistic relationship with nostalgia and the withering contempt it generates in me. As Spider Jerusalem from Warren Ellis’ excellent comic book Transmetropolitan observes, “The future is an inherently good thing.” However, with all of the familiar faces and returning musicians in this week’s column, I find myself flexing […]
Posted inMusic
Wellville Blues
When John Harvey Kellogg developed his now famous Corn Flakes in the end of the 19th century, the product was intended to promote better health through blandness, the idea being that an unexciting and flavorless beginning to the day would discourage the consumer from committing an act that the staunch Seventh-day Adventist considered to be […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Amphibian of the State
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife has tapped the California red-legged frog (Rana draytonii) to be our state amphibian. In other news, there is, in fact, such a thing as a state amphibian. So far, the Sequoia Park Zoo doesn’t have one of these little flippered fellows — which, according the the press release, […]