Even for fire-wary and -weary Californians like myself, it’s been hard to comprehend the destruction of the Camp Fire, the Nov. 8 wildfire that decimated the town of Paradise in Butte County. That morning I was in Sebastopol, more than 100 miles from Paradise as the smoke flies. We woke up to clear skies. By […]
Redwood Curtain Brewery & Tasting Room
Posted inSpecial Sections
Pulling Back the Curtain
Redwood Curtain Brewing Co. is the best-known secret in town. Tucked in an unassuming business park on the outskirts of Arcata, it’s become a popular destination for Humboldt County beer enthusiasts and tourists alike. But, says beer pourer Chris Galleron on a bustling Sunday afternoon, locals still frequently visit the tasting room for the first […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Pulling Back the Curtain
Redwood Curtain Brewing Co. is the best-known secret in town. Tucked in an unassuming business park on the outskirts of Arcata, it’s become a popular destination for Humboldt County beer enthusiasts and tourists alike. But, says beer pourer Chris Galleron on a bustling Sunday afternoon, locals still frequently visit the tasting room for the first […]
Posted inEat + Drink
Humboldt on Tap
In a far corner of Redwood Curtain Brewing Co., four women face four canvases. In front of them are dollops of paint on paper-plate palettes. Beside them are Redwood Curtain sour beers. This is Happy Trees Sip and Paint, a two-hour painting class enlivened with good beer. It is run by Emily Michaels, who provides […]
Posted inMusic
Stop and Hear the Roses
It’s not often that I’m impressed with the trajectory of humankind. I wonder if we’ve hit a plateau and just can’t biologically evolve in any significant relation anymore to the technology we’ve created. The quantity of experience, and the quantity of stimuli that surround us in the 21st century is really mind-boggling, if we take […]
Posted inMusic
Tropicalismo
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 […]
Posted inMusic
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 […]
Posted inMusic
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 […]
Posted inMusic
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. […]
Posted inMusic
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. […]
Posted inMusic
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 […]
Posted inMusic
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 […]