It’s never easy nail down a music genre. As with many things ineffable, the more you describe them, the more elusive they seem. Much like quantum physics, the more microscopic your view, the more you see, ad infinitum. This paradoxical quandary hit me while trying to pin what it was about Sugar Candy Mountain that […]
Mad River Brewing Company & Tap Room
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Pandemic
There’s a lot that makes Humboldt stand out among the other 57 rather bleh counties in our great state. (OK, Mendocino is pretty cool. And Trinity has the Trinity River, so that’s awesome.) I don’t want to make this a long list of what Humboldt has going for it, but rather to point out one […]
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Looking for America
Among the few American songwriters who have profoundly impacted the American Songbook as I hazily define it, most would agree Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan are somewhere toward the top of the list. I wouldn’t be alone in putting Paul Simon way up there, too. With his early songwriting career rooted in folk music and […]
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4 + 20 More
Humboldt has its own complicated and multifaceted relationship with its best-known cash crop. Whether you are hip enough to call it cannabis or still call it “the dope,” it’s tough to fully appreciate the extent of its influence on our county. I don’t have the space/time/patience to go into depth here in this column but […]
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There and Back Again, a Musician’s Tale
We here in Humboldt are lucky. It’s easy to forget but deep down we know that. We live in a rural part of the state that’s hard to get to and have a low average median income for a family of four compared to much of the rest of California, if my memory is correct. […]
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Parties, Pre-Parties and Celebrations
Thursday Get your string thing on tonight — sounds dirtier than I planned it — down at The Jam in Arcata where local string bands Thursday Night Bluegrass and The Gatehouse Well take the stage around 9 p.m. for a $5 show. Be prepared to cut a rug. At the famous Logger Bar in Blue […]
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The Godfather
Just like many of you, I can remember exactly where I was when I first heard James Brown. I was a kid riding along in my mother’s car in the morning with the radio on. Her favorite station would play what they called “golden oldies,” which didn’t mean much to me as an 8-year old. […]
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Music in the Time of Crisis
Every year it’s harder to tell the next generation borrowing money for college is a good idea. Tuitions are on the rise — imagine them ever going down! — and student loans linger longer and longer. However, one tremendous benefit of college remains: being surrounded by peers who share the sensitivities to the overwhelming and […]
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Don’t Let Me Fall
It’s one of those great weekends where we have a chance to hear one of our hardworking local bands draw a line in the musical sand and commit its work into a recorded snapshot of time. All that’s a silly way of saying, Wild Otis is releasing its debut album called Don’t Let Me Fall […]
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The Substitute
One of the many things in life that make me feel overwhelming guilt is the fact that I don’t make it out to many shows these days. (I won’t spend the time here blaming our children for robbing me of almost every free moment of life and making my body shut down at 8:30 p.m. […]
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The Rebel Incubator
June 12, 2003 should be a local holiday. On this day, a raucous and deafening cultural event took place, the immediate effects of which have been overshadowed by the sonic mushroom cloud that continues to unfold to this day. The site of this Manhattan Project was The Alibi. The elements fused together were local bands […]
Posted inPerfect Trips
Perfect Summer Trips
This is the time of year about which English poet John Keats waxed romantic, describing, “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness/ Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun.” Keats not your thing? OK. Hip-hop duo Twiztid, bosom friends from Detroit, rapped thus: “Seasons change and summer turns to fall/ Every minute of my life, I remember […]