It’s the second and final night of the mini-music fest Thrash and Destroy at RampArt Skatepark in honor of international skate weekend, so if you missed last night’s “Thrash Metal Fest” offering at 7 p.m., you can still enjoy tonight’s “Punker Parade” at the same time, featuring performances by locals Racket and Imperial Destructo, along […]
Imperial Destructo
Posted inMusic
Computer World
A.I. sucks. From the name outward, it’s completely false. It isn’t and will never be an artificial intelligence, but it does operate as a plagiarism-fueled pyramid scheme for some of the worst people on the planet, while further destroying any concept of consensus reality and vetted information, making an already post-literate population far more stupid. […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Music Tonight: Saturday, March 1
The Siren’s Song remains open and as long as that remains the case, I will be discussing the gigs there, as we need to hang onto our quirky venues for as long as we can. Once gone, they don’t tend to return, nor does the gap left in their wake ever seem to be sewn […]
Posted inMusic
Mirrors in the Mirror
I’m chopping away at this on the last Monday in February, all the while considering, however far in the back of my head, that I’m about to, God willing, hit another birthday next week, on the first Wednesday of March. All night I’ve been listening to Estonian composer Arvo Pärt’s gorgeous Spiegel im Spiegel, one […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Music Tonight: Saturday, Nov. 9
The huntsman’s horns are calling out a familiar tune, for those with the ears to hear. Some old rituals are returning to our lands, bringing a warmth to this increasingly cold season of mists. I am referring to the return of metal show at the Eureka Veterans Hall, where after the doors open at 6 […]
Posted inMusic
Send in the Clowns
Due to the nature of deadlines and the passage of linear time, I have far less insight into the winner of the presidential election than you, dear reader, as I am writing this on Election Day. And I don’t want to make any predictions about it, either. I view coin-flipping as a byproduct of nervousness […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Music Tonight: Saturday, Feb. 24
The New Pelicans are somewhat of a phoenix-like group, having risen from the ashes of our late local folk country band The Handshakers with four of its members in the lineup, including guitarists and singer/songwriters Mike Bynum and Michael Walker, the latter a master luthier as well. The sound hits all the beloved notes of […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Music Tonight: Wednesday, May 3
If you are in the mood to see a big screen presentation of John Carpenter’s classic Reagan-Era dystopian (I’m being redundant, I know) sci-fi masterpiece They Live, then head over to the Arcata Theatre Lounge at 6 p.m., where $5 will get you inside and $9 will let you leave with a poster. I can […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Music Tonight: Saturday, Jan. 28
RampArt Skatepark is hosting an album release party for a compilation called URgE Skate Session, Vol. 1, and it looks like it’s going to be a real corker. 4 p.m. ($10). Eight (mostly) local bands of various levels of aggression and heaviness will be hitting the curved stage for the enjoyment of the gathered masses. […]
Posted inMusic
Lady Luck
Many years ago, in a Yankee cemetery in coastal Maine, I was pondering the grave of a young man who was taken out of the game by an “unruly bull,” in an incident that I can only imagine was every bit as dramatic and shocking as the gravestone (upon which I was making an etching) […]
Posted inMusic
Loving the Alien
Despite some of the disapprobation I get from the public as feedback for a few of my hotter takes in this column, I am not a particularly “woke” person nor do I have much interest in being one. The only reason I talk about politics so much in a local music column is that I […]
Posted inMusic
No Country for Old Young Men
I’ll admit I am a bit of a jerk. I try not to be but my heart is heavy. The first election I was old enough to vote in was Bush vs. Gore and since then it’s basically been a backslide through unending war, recessions, bailouts for the financial industry and lately a gross turn […]