When Fraktal and Burningleaf Productions throw a party, you know it’s not just music — it’s a full-sensory takeover. Beats Antique’s signature fusion of electronic beats, live instrumentation and theatrical performances lands at the Historic Eagle House for two epic nights: Friday, March 7, from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. and Saturday, March 8, from […]
Zero One
Posted inMusic
What a World
I have a lot on my mind and no space to get to any of it with the proper clarity due, so I will instead drop a snapshot. First off, the title of this week’s column comes from my favorite Bill Frisell album Ghost Town, which I am listening to as I’m clacking at the […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Music Tonight: Friday, Aug. 9
I am hearing news that this afternoon and evening will see the final Arts Arcata, which I am receiving with stoic indifference because I have learned to never say die about our institutions — even when the organizers of those institutions are saying it — and because Arts Arcata honestly never did much for me. […]
Posted inMusic
Silent Nights
It’s no secret that our nightlife, bountiful as it may be for an area as remote as Humboldt County, ebbs and flows. Especially this time of year, when the holidays and the schools more or less dictate the terms regarding the potential audience numbers needed to lure bands, promoters and venues into production mode. That’s […]
Posted inMusic
The Many Rites of Spring
The birth of the modern world, the fresh and terrible 20th century, is a tough date to pin down, but an argument can be made, culturally at least, that the natal fluids ran red and voluminous in Paris on May 29, 1913, when Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring debuted to an audience that was so […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Music Tonight: Friday, March 17
As I have mentioned here before, I am not a fan of this holiday, mostly celebrated in this country by mixing two of our less savory national pastimes: binge drinking and lying (in this case, about being Irish). Blame it on my former life as a bartender, I have a reflexive revulsion for this green […]
Posted inMusic
In Bloom
I remember describing irony in a high school English class as something that fundamentally deals with opposites. I was looking down when I said it, having at the time not yet developed any of the obnoxious confidence that I am now unfortunately surging with. One girl in the class took my downward gaze as evidence […]
Posted inMusic
Time Zone Twenty Twenty
This is going to be brief because we are still in the lean days of the winter break. But even though I am writing in the last days of 2019, I would like to wish you all a hearty welcome to 2020. All of those twos and zeros seem pretty futuristic, don’t they? Well the […]
Posted inMusic
Reggae? Maybe …
The first big concert that I remember going to without an accompanying adult was Toots and the Maytals at the old Arcata Theater — when it was still mostly just a movie theater — sometime in my early teens. I can’t remember the date or my exact age because more than 20 years of life […]
Posted inMusic
Halloween Haunts
It’s the last week of October and you know what that means, fellow Halloweenies. So I am going to keep this intro brief and instead stuff the page with a week of goodies for your social calendar. Get out, have fun and be evil within reason — reason being a rare thing in the spooky […]