review

Live Feb. 8 at the Van Duzer Theater If a creek could gather itself together into human form and walk onto a stage to pour forth its voice it would sound like the Del McCoury Band. There, the clear, crisp water pattering over hard rocks, merry and relentless as Rob McCoury’s banjo headed pellmell toward […]

Book by Sherman Alexie. Little, Brown Young Readers A diary is kept, usually in secret, as a means of disclosing one’s true feelings. To publish a diary during one’s lifetime is simply social suicide. Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,however,is meant to portray the fictitious observations and drawings of a boy, […]

Live Jan. 27 at the Red Fox Tavern. Last week offered a stunning collection of hip hop shows — more touring legends than anyone could possibly see in seven days. The competition for fan dollars was stiff and many folks had to choose between conscious star Mr. Lif, Masta Ace’s new supergroup EMC and LA […]

CD by The Magnetic Fields. Nonesuch Records Distortion is supposed to be Stephen Merritt’s take on the Jesus and Mary Chain’s Psychocandy.This from Merritt himself, who’s been touting J&MC’s 1985 masterpiece as the last good pop album ever made in recent interviews. (Maybe he never heard Radiohead. Or Oasis. Or Nirvana. Or the Postal Service. […]

Live performance Jan. 20 at Yoshi’s San Francisco Seattle-based jazz guitarist Bill Frisell claims two very different guitar players as main influences: Jim Hall and Jimi Hendrix. He was a student of Hall, whose cool harmonic style was Frisell’s primary jazz influence, and like most electric guitarists who came of age in the ’60s he […]

CD by Pet Genius. Hydrahead. From the primal angst of Cave In to the quirky pop meanderings of his numerous side and solo projects, Stephen Brodsky has always displayed a penchant for inspired and inventive songwriting. What is baffling, however, is that outside limited circles of the indie underground, Brodsky has not received the success […]

DVD Directed by Dean DeBlois. Xl Recordings Since critics are legally required to refer to their music as "epic," you might expect a film about Sigur Ros, who are better at creating spacious hugeness than any other working rock (post- or otherwise) band, to be overtly grandiose itself. Two obvious predecessors, U2’s Rattle and Humand […]

Live performance Jan. 18 at the Mateel Community Center Andre Nickatina, formerly known as Dre Dog, graced SoHum with his presence this past Friday, Jan. 18. That’s right, the Bay Area rap artist, along with a slew of other hyphy rap acts, played to a sold-out crowd at the Mateel as part of the Urban […]

On DVD from Buena Vista Home Entertainment It’s winter. Hibernating is perfectly natural, and for those who need justification for such activities as lying on the couch, allow me to encourage TV on DVD. No commercials, pause option and if you pick something like the Lost series, be ready for hours of uninterrupted top-notch entertainment […]

by Various Artists. Humboldt Free Radio Alliance. Take a look behind any local music scene and you’ll usually find a handful of dedicated people working hard to keep music alive and accessible. Fortunately for those of us behind the Redwood Curtain, there exist a number of individuals and organizations that selflessly commit themselves to this […]

HBO series Produced by David Simon HBO’s The Wire, now in its fifth and final season, may be the most critically acclaimed television series nobody knows about. In addition to receiving a Peabody award, the police drama has been rated the best in its genre by The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, TV Guide, TIME,and […]

Live performance at HSU’s Van Duzer Theatre, Jan. 8. The night lurked, heavy with portent, as a sickly white substance filtered through the theater’s airspace and settled ever so lightly about the seated audience, who breathed in and breathed out. In. Out. The lights were still on, so this was odd: Every particle of mysterious […]