Radio Radio Radio...

It's been a while!

2011-11-02T09:40:00.000-07:00

Friends, family and readers of Radio Radio Radio who happen across my website either on purpose or while finding photos of your favorite bands--

Indeed, you've likely noticed that this page hasn't been updated in a while. If you know me, you know that it's because my priorities have shifted and I'm getting my creative yayas out in different ways.

What I'm busy with these days (aside from too many jobs, but that isn't anything new) is my business, Music Lives On, which I run with my partner, Gabe Pressure. You might already be familiar with my Rock Chick Designs brand, and that's part of what we do. Gabe's side of things is Pressure Drop Apparel. In all, Music Lives On is musically inspired clothing, jewelry and accessories with a focus on environmental sustainability.

In other words, we love repurposing, reappreciating, creatively reusing... whatever you want to call it. I like making shiny, new, wearable art out of old, well-loved records, instrument strings, cassette tape, and whetever else I can get my hands on (or my friends offer me). Rather than collecting dust for eternity in the back of someone's garage, or going into a landfill, we're breathing new life into items that have already lived their originally intended life.

We entered in the 2011 Economic Fuel competition and were honored to have made it into the final eight teams, winning $1,000 as honorable mentions. It's nice to get the validation of successful local business owners telling you that your business is on the right track. We took that prize money and put it right back into the business, finishing our legal paperwork, getting our first batch of Pressure Drop Apparel shirts printed and buying some other small equipment.

A couple of weeks ago, a handbag that I crocheted out of cassette tape was featured in a Wall Street Journal article on cassette tape culture. All that time spent getting my journalism degree, and my debut in the Journal is because of my art business!

Anyway, I hope I don't lose you completely. I plan on leaving the website up for the purpose of article archives, and my Flickr page will stay, as well. But if you've got some time on your hands and want to see what we're up to, check out Rock Chick Designs and Pressure Drop Apparel on Facebook, and here is a constantly updating link to my online store, which I'm hosting through Etsy. If you're not already doing your holiday shopping locally, please consider at least keeping it handmade.

Ska & Dirty Reggae Weekend, 2/4-2/5/11 [photos]

2011-02-06T16:19:00.000-08:00

It's Sunday morning and I feel like I'm 17 again -- smack dab in the middle of the all-ages third wave ska scene that existed around Humboldt County when I was in high school. Only this time I'm 30, and feel like I'm high on a weekend that involved two-tone ska band The Toasters, who played Friday night at the Red Fox Tavern in Eureka, and dirty reggae band The Aggrolites, who played last night at Humboldt Brews in Arcata.

Friday night's show, put on by Norm at Bad Kitty Presents, started out with Pressure Beat Soundsystem's DJs Rotten and Gabe Pressure (disclosure: the latter is my sweetie) spinning classic reggae, ska and soul, to get the dance floor moving. The duo spins similar selections every Monday night at the Jambalaya in Arcata, all on vinyl. The Smashed Glass played a nice (but possibly overly long) set of Irish folk-punk, then the Toasters came up and the crowd broke into a complete frenzy.

The Toasters (who basically consist of Robert "Bucket" Hingley and a cast of rotating band members, depending on the tour) pretty much have their live show down to a science. Lead singer and guitarist Buck knows how to drive a crowd wild, and played everyone's favorite Toasters songs. After the show ended, the crowd -- a lot of new faces who seem to have come out of the woodwork for the show -- left satisfied and in good spirits.

Last night saw a number of return fans, mixed with a lot of folks who even differed from the first night (Where are all these folks on Monday nights?). Unlike the Aggrolites' last stop in Humboldt, which was nearly two years ago, they didn't have an opening band this time around, but opted instead to play two hearty sets of their "dirty reggae," which is sort of a mix of roots reggae and punk -- high energy, distorted, and easy to sing along to. Both sets felt, in a positive way, like listening to a highly skilled DJ, who's able to beat-match from song-to-song -- one tune would end, and instead of stopping to wait for the obligatory cheers and applause, the drummer (who, incidentally, plays together with the Aggros' new, high-energy guitar player in a band called the Bohunks) would throw down a fill that worked straight into the next song on the playlist. Interestingly, while the Aggrolites have a new album (a compilation of a series of 7" records they've been releasing over the last few months on Young Cub Records) due out at the end of this month, the stuck to playing only songs from their first few albums. The energy stayed high (in so many ways) the entire night, and the room was muggy at the end of the evening.

Here are photos from both evenings:

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White Manna, Hosannas, Gratitillium and Strix Vega 9-16-10 [photos]

2010-09-21T23:39:00.000-07:00

Mark McIntire of Gratitillium

Yeah, I'm working backwards again on photo editing and posting. That's kind of what time allows for in my little world.

Some bullet points about this show:

Local band White Manna is... loud. Totally different lineup than the last time I saw them, and they seem to be layering more noises on top of other noises. "Psych" for the sake of being psych isn't my favorite, but I get what the "psych rock" crowd sees in them.
Hosannas: Wow. A brotherly Portland duo, who sometimes play with a full band (their most recent album was recorded as such). Kind of chill, but without being boring.
Gratitillium: My surprise of the night, Gratitillium's bass play is Mark McIntire, formerly of Portland's No Go Know (in fact, Scott Taylor of NGK booked this tour for the band). McIntire described their music as sounding a lot like the shins, but I also heard some Vampire Weekend in there, and heard someone else throw Modest Mouse into the mix. The day after the show, I sent a track of theirs called "Monkey Play" over to KHUM, and Mike Dronkers has played it on the air a couple of times. If I had my way, I'd send the band back home from tour (after they played the Arcata date, of course) to get on recording their next album, but they've assured me that's next on the to-do list after returning from this tour and a short breather.
Strix Vega: I've watched/listened to this band move from clearly adoring everything Neil Young, to slowly start making the shift to the more psychedelic sounds of Pink Floyd and the Doors (Could it have anything to do with bass/keyboard/gong player Andy Powell's job as a DJ at local classic rock station KWPT "The Point"? Or perhaps he loved the classic stuff first. Only Powell knows.). They've started playing some epic instrumental pieces that just break my heart. Oh, and they finished this show by moving off the stage, into the middle of the dance floor, and playing "Carson Iceberg Wilderness," off the band's "Estranged Meadow" EP (you can also hear it in the music player, at the top of this page), acoustic. Instead of drummer Jay Forbes' full drum kit, he played only a floor tom, and Powell did his keyboard parts on (I'm not kidding) my grandmother's accordion. What a way to end the show!

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The Interlopers and Wepeel 9/18/10 [photos]

2010-09-19T14:32:00.000-07:00

The Blue Lake crowd was in effect at the Alibi last night, for Portland punk band The Interlopers. Apparently drummer Jeff Cooley is from Humboldt, and used to work with a bunch of the Mad River Brewery folks, who are quite stoked on their recent awards at the Great American Brew Festival (Congratulations, guys!). The band started the night with high energy, opening for local Weezer tribute band Wepeel.

Weezer announced this week that the band is going to be going on the road in the next few months, playing only songs from their Blue Album and Pinkerton albums -- I think it's an attempt to win back their original fans (like me), who haven't been terribly impressed by the band's last decade-or-so of releases.

Wepeel feels the same way as many of those old Weezer fans, so they only cover songs from the Blue Album and Pinkerton. CJ, the band's singer started out last night's show at the Alibi by telling the crowd, "If you want to hear 'Island in the Sun,' leave right now." The crowd stayed (even through technical difficulties which found the bass player borrowing the Interlopers' bass player's instrument), sang along, and moshed. CJ's Buddy Holly glasses frames, a nod to the 1994 Weezer hit of the same name and the band's lead singer Rivers Cuomo, were casualties of one of the mosh pits. The frames now sit on a shelf in my apartment.

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The Solitary Men & Full Moon Fever 9/17/10 [photos]

2010-09-19T14:08:00.000-07:00

Some say that tribute bands (and cover bands) are the death of the music scene. I would argue that since most of the members of the local tribute bands are also in other bands, this isn't true. What is true is that people love what they know (how else would Humboldt County support two classic rock radio stations, an oldies station, and countless other formatted radio stations?).

The Solitary Men (a Neil Diamond tribute) and Full Moon Fever (a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers tribute) have this figured out. And finally, after months of both bands playing around Humboldt County, they played together on Friday night at Humboldt Brews.

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Baltic Cousins 9/13/10 [photos]

2010-09-15T22:01:00.000-07:00

I'll admit, even more than Baltic Cousins' "folk-punk" descriptor, I was most excited to see the new band that Brad from Bellingham, Wash.'s now-defunct Black Eyes and Neckties is up to. I didn't expect the electric violin as part of the new trio (perhaps that's what makes it folk?), and I dug it.

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Rockabilly Night 9/13/10 [photos]

2010-09-15T20:40:00.000-07:00

My buddy Gabe Pressure, and his friend and fellow DJ Rotten, started a weekly rocksteady night at the Jambalaya, this Monday. Some initial issues with the sound got things off to a slow start, but the few folks who did hang out throughout the night had a lot of fun.

DJs are a challenge for me to shoot, so I played around a bit while Gabe was spinning.

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Haymarket Squares 8/20/10 [photos]

2010-08-31T02:08:00.000-07:00

The Haymarket Squares are described as punkgrass -- how could I *not* check out their show at the Jambalaya? Back to my thoughts on terrible used lighting, this was a three-piece band that was lit up by red, blue and green spotlights, from left to right. The blue spotlight was the least offensive (again, red is color, not light. And green? It makes everyone look like the Incredible Hulk), so I switched to shooting mostly in black-and-white, for the time I was watching this band.

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Eyes Anonymous 8/20/10 [photos]

2010-08-31T01:53:00.000-07:00

My favorite kind of night is the one that offers multiple shows within walking distance of each other. Friday, Aug. 20, was one of those nights.

And I'll let you in on a little secret of most of my black-and-white photography:
My most often-felt complaint about the local venues, as much as I appreciate all of the shows they put on and various egos and bad behavior of band members and patrons, is terrible lighting. Places like the Jambalaya and Humboldt Brews (Arcata Theater Lounge, too) have the potential for excellent band lighting, but they almost always have a sound person (read: not a lighting person) who's also in charge of running lights. Usually this person flips on the red light which, as a photographer, translates into color, not actual light. So either I have the drown out the mood lighting with my big ol' flash, or take the photos in detail-killing red, and edit them into black-and-whites later. Now you know.

This is Eyes Anonymous, a fantastically fun, local, '80s tribute band, which makes me crave karaoke like nobody's business. Luckily, they don't mind when the crowd sings along loudly to their take on Journey's "Don't Stop Believing." Above is the lovely Leah Crenshaw, walking like an Egyp-shee-un.

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The Anomalys 8/19/10 [photos]

2010-08-20T17:41:00.000-07:00

Thanks to my friend Mike, I found out yesterday about this punk show that was happening...yesterday (Yeah, I don't know how I overlooked that in the Budget Rock Night e-mails)... at the Jambalaya. The Anomalys (give 'em a break on the bad grammar, they're not from 'round here!) are here from Amsterdam, and just played a show in Portland with The Spooks.

Great show and extra points for the guitar player who gave me his drink ticket ("Oh, I've drank enough alcohol on the tour!") in trade for my buying their CD. It was a total win-win for me!

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Donny Barnyard & Sarah Blackwood 8/17/10 [photos]

2010-08-20T04:00:00.000-07:00

Sarah Blackwood is the singer of The Creepshow, but her solo act is nothing really like her band's psychobilly-without-the-fake-blood-sound or look. On her own (actually with her sweetie/backing one-man band Daniel Flamm), Blackwood is actually straightforward country, with a little bit of rock thrown in for good measure. Her love songs? Beautiful.

Donny Barnyard was booked to open the show, but when I showed up, I was pleasantly surprised to see a darned-near all-star backing band up on stage. Playing with Donny: Claire Reynolds on vocals and guitar, Colin Vance and Alanna Goldsmith on fiddle, Jake-o Wiegandt on guitar, Chuck Johnson on bass, Kevin Stach on guitar, and Paul DeMark on drums. I hope to catch this mish-mosh of local talent together again soon.

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The Spooks 8/16/10 [photos]

2010-08-19T20:14:00.000-07:00

A few shots from the last Budget Rock Night that'll happen at the Jambalaya -- it moves to the Alibi, next week. This is The Spooks, a sort of psych-surf rock band from Philly. They made me think a little bit about what it might have been like to watch a band in the '60s -- I think it was the way lead singer Wil moved while he played guitar -- dig up a Beatles video to see what I mean.

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The Solitary Men & Magnum 8/14/10 [photos]

2010-08-19T00:34:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday was sort of like a Battle of the Tribute Bands, with Full Moon Fever -- Humboldt's foremost Tom Petty tribute band -- in Arcata, and The Solitary Men -- the area's premier Neil Diamond tribute -- in Eureka.

Both shows (I heard) were really fun, and here are some shots of The Solitary Men and Magnum at Nocturnum in Eureka. It was a benefit for Eureka's new (coming?) pirate radio station, lest you think that folks dress up like pirates for no good reason (Well, this is Humboldt...).

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Dewi Sant & These United States 8-10-10 [photos]

2010-08-12T15:53:00.000-07:00

Whew! What a month it's been! I turned 30, got to claim every awesome event from the Folklife Festival to roller derby to Crafty Mavericks Summer Craft Extravaganza as my birthday parties, then started off August with a week as a counselor at North Star Quest Camp, and a whirlwind trip to Seattle, where I finally visited the Experience Music Project and saw the Kurt Cobain and Andy Warhol exhibits at the Seattle Art Museum. I have no complaints with my life.

Upon our return from Seattle on Monday, I got over to the Jambalaya in time to check out Rodents of Unusual Size, a super fun punk band at Budget Rock Night, but was too tired to grab my camera on my way out the door (I literally walked into my apartment, dropped my suitcase and walked back down to the Jambalaya... didn't even stop to check my e-mail).

Tuesday night was my first time in more than a week, where I actually got to hold my "real" camera (not my point-and-shoot) in my hands, and it felt amazing. HumBrews played host to Dewi Sant -- a band whose members hail from Seattle, Minnesota and beyond -- and These United States, from Washington, DC. I brought home CDs from both bands, and have listened to them on repeat since that night. They're dreamy.

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Scene Noir 8/3/10 - The Solitary Men

2010-08-02T07:24:00.000-07:00

Monica Topping
Tri-City Weekly

Over the last couple of months, I’ve let my love for our local Neil Diamond tribute band, The Solitary Men, be known. If it wasn’t enough that the original lineup of the band features members of some of my other favorite local bands of present and past, like Strix Vega, Que La Chinga, and the Great Salvation, the band is actually really good, and not just in an ironically hilarious way.

Before the Solitary Men had played their first show — a benefit for Six Rivers Planned Parenthood in early May — I sat down with singer and guitar player Bret Bailey at a local coffee shop, and I asked him why he was doing this. The audio fell by the wayside and I just finally found it.

A founding member and singer for local bands Que La Chinga and the Common Vice, Bailey grew up listening to Neil Diamond’s greatest hits album, which he figures has been embedded into his subconscious since he was an infant. At some point in the latter band’s life, Bailey had even considered turning it into a Diamond tribute — which he feels is far more dignified than calling it a cover band — on the side, but never got around to it.

“Vocally, I’ve always felt like I have my limitations,” says Bailey, “but I’ve always been able to do this semi-decent version of Neil Diamond.”

“‘Sweet Caroline’ has always been kind of one of my staple karaoke songs,” he says, “and there was once at Blue Lake Casino a couple years ago where I did it, and several ladies approached me afterward, and they were just gushing. They said that they had heard a Neil Diamond tribute band — probably a cover band — play a couple of weeks previous and that I did a better job, so it wasn’t like right away that I was like ‘Ooh, I should start a tribute band.’ It was like a funny idea that all of a sudden came into [fruition].”

Earlier this year, while hanging out at a local drinking establishment, Bailey brought up the idea of playing Neil Diamond songs to keyboard player Jorden Goodspeed — another former member of the Common Vice — and guitar player Ryan McGonagle of the Great Salvation and numerous other local projects.

“They seemed really stoked on it, and I kind of thought it would be one of those things where the next day happens, everyone’s sober again, and then they’re like ‘Well, whatever,’” says Bailey, “but they weren’t actually like that, so we started practicing acoustically.”

Common Vice drummer Clinton Smith joined in, and Bailey went on the search for a bass player. Strix Vega’s Andy Powell said no, the first two times Bailey talked to him about the Diamond tribute, but when he was asked a third time, he gave in.

Bailey’s first order of business for The Solitary Men was making sure all of his band mates — all Diamond fans of varying degrees — were familiar with more than just the greatest hits. The band’s set list includes everything from the most well-known tunes — “America,” “Sweet Caroline,” “Cherry, Cherry” — to more obscure tracks like “Dry Your Eyes,” which Diamond sang in the film “The Last Waltz.”

“We’re a tribute band and I think that there’s an expectation placed on us by certain individuals, like whenever they think of Neil Diamond, it conjures up this kind of Vegas cheesiness where I’m going to be wearing some white suit with chest hair glistening with sweat,” says Bailey, “and we might incorporate a little bit of that, but that’s not our primary focus.”

“We’re mainly looking at paying tribute to him as a songwriter — he wrote some really beautiful, yet simple, songs — and him as a performer. So we’re more interested in focusing on that, as interpreted by a rock band and all of us, individually.”

The Solitary Men play this Saturday on the F Street boardwalk in Eureka, during Arts Alive, then next Saturday, they’ll be at Nocturnum with local rockers, Magnum, in a show that benefits Eureka pirate radio efforts.

Monica Topping is the weekend mid-day DJ and host of the Slug Festivities Guide on 94.1 KSLG-FM. She loves singing along to The Solitary Men, but tries not to be too obnoxious about it, from the audience. She can be reached at Monica@kslg.com and through www.RadioRadioHumboldt.com.

Scene Noir 7/6/10

2010-07-05T20:06:00.000-07:00

Monica Topping
Tri-City Weekly

In the week following the Arcata Bay Oyster Festival, when only a few people came out to that Monday’s Budget Rock Night at the Jambalaya, the joke was that Arcata would likely be too hungover to move for a while.

But a couple of aspirin and a whole lot of hydration (perhaps also a hair of the dog) were the cure for that sunny day a couple of weeks ago and Arcata seems to have recovered, and possibly even become more energetic.

This week is one of those where I stock up on energy drinks and try to get a quick nap after work, each day, because to miss any of what’s happening would be a crying shame.

Depending on when your Tri-City hits your porch, you might still have a chance to get out to Budget Rock Night at the Jambalaya, this Monday (July 5), which features punk rock legend Kevin Seconds, who was the front man for the band Seven Seconds. It may be true that Humboldt has seen a lot of “that one guy from that one band” syndrome as of late, what with Lou Barlow a couple of weeks ago, a member of the Melvins at the Alibi in the past week, and Greg Ginn of Black Flag a few months back, but whether you’re a fan of Seconds for his solo work of his band’s music, it’s hard to beat the $3 cover.

Wednesday night, The Coup hits Humboldt Brews with some funky political hip-hop, delivered by front man Boots Riley and his five-piece back-up band. If you didn’t make the trek down to the Mateel to see The Coup play in December, don’t miss this opportunity. Riley and his band re-define what a live hip-hop show should look like, in part because the other half of The Coup, DJ Pam the Funkstress, doesn’t tour with the group (she stays back in the Bay Area, focusing on her catering business), and also because Riley’s band, comprised mostly of Oakland musicians who have known each other and played music together since they were children, are given free reign to be themselves and show off their skills on-stage.

Tickets for The Coup show — the first date of a short West Coast tour — are $22 in advance and available at the Works in Eureka and Arcata. I wouldn’t be surprised if it sold out.

Thursday night, local bass player Norm Crawford as Bad Kitty Presents brings The Rocketz to Eureka’s Red Fox Tavern. The Orange County psychobilly band will be playing with Hotrod Hillbillies, who describe themselves as “cowpunk” from Austin, Texas. While we don’t tend to have many rockabilly bands based in Humboldt, Crawford keeps the scene vibrant by bringing through some really great touring bands. And if stand-up bass and classic cars aren’t a good enough reason to get you out of your house, consider it an excuse to dress up — dudes in their dress jeans and their hair slicked back, and ladies in cute dresses and heels — I’m inevitably under-dressed for these shows, but they’re a lot of fun, nonetheless.

Once the weekend comes, hopefully the weather is amazing and sunscreen is abundant for the annual Mad River Summerfest, held at Pump Station #1 on West End Road in Eureka. The all-ages, free event runs from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. and the local beer garden benefits the Annie and Mary Rails/Trails. Music that day will include a really fun mix of bands like Ukesperience, the Lowdown, Akabella, the Fickle Hillbillies, the beautiful and resilient Courtney Weaver and one of my new favorites, Full Moon Fever — the new Tom Petty tribute band, which includes members of Strix Vega, The Nucleus and Yer Dog — as well as adorable hippie child/silk dancer, Gingko, who will blow your mind.

Mad River Summerfest will be followed by an after party at Humboldt Brews, with Ukesperience, for the 21-and-over crowd.

Happy summer, and don’t forget the sunscreen and hydration! You’ll thank me later for the reminder.

Monica Topping is the weekend mid-day DJ and host of the Slug Festivities Guide on 94.1 KSLG-FM. She also runs RadioRadioHumboldt.com, where she has posted the result of an interview she did with Boots Riley of The Coup, who talked about the time he worked as a telemarketer. She can be reached at Monica@kslg.com.

Full Moon Fever & Eyes Anonymous 7/4/10 [photos]

2010-07-05T19:45:00.000-07:00

When I found out that I wasn't going to be doing any live radio station broadcasts this year, I was pretty stoked that I'd be able to be at the Arcata 4th of July Jubilee all day... at least from opening (new Tom Petty tribute band Full Moon Fever) 'til near closing (local '80s tribute band Eyes Anonymous). I did do some time in the KHSU radio costume, which probably staved off a bit of the sunburn I would have ended up with. Thank goodness.

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Hellbound Glory 7/4/10 [photos]

2010-07-05T18:12:00.000-07:00

How is this the first time I've seen Hellbound Glory?

Hellbound Glory, Reno's scumbag country band, played four shows in three days, this weekend, and apparently a couple of their members couldn't stick around for the full weekend. So three members of local band Rooster McClintock -- Jake-o, Nathan Benbow and CW -- sat in on lead guitar, drums and backing vocals, respectively.

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North Coast Journal birthday 7/3/10 [photos]

2010-07-04T00:36:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday, Journal!

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The Coup - Wednesday, July 7, 2010

2010-07-01T01:35:00.000-07:00

Monica Topping
Radio Radio Radio

Boots Riley is working on making a movie — one where he is the main character, and the plot is inspired by his time working as a telemarketer, which is one bit of information that rarely makes it into Riley’s biographies, as written by other people. The soundtrack to the dark comedy, titled “Sorry to Bother You,” will be the next, highly anticipated, album from The Coup, whose last record came out four years ago.

Riley sees his skills as a salesperson as closely tied to those of a lyricist.

“A good salesperson figures out, in a very different way — in a very exploitative way — what it is that the person they’re talking to wants,” says Riley, “and where’s the bridge between the thing that they have and the thing that the person wants.”

His first job, in his pre-teen years, was going door-to-door to sell newspaper subscriptions., which is where he was forced to listen to people, to figure out the best way to get them to buy his product.

“When you write, you’re trying to figure out the best way to relate an idea, if it’s a grand political idea or an emotion,” he explains. “Doing telemarketing or any other sales, to be good at it, you’re doing some of the same things. Unfortunately, it was the worst kind of prostitution of my talent, but that’s what I started out doing.”

Riley’s political inclinations, which is where his energy was focused, starting as a teenager, were shaped while hanging out at neighborhood meetings, hosted by his parents — radical community organizers, in Riley’s own words. Neighbors would come over to the house and talk about trouble finding jobs, or how were trying to talk the landlord down the street into not evicting a family living in one of their homes, and the meetings would end with everyone playing games or listening to Stevie Wonder, Ohio Players and Sly and the Family Stone records.

“Their meetings didn’t look like meetings to me, at the time,” says Riley. “And that’s because these meetings weren’t separate from everyday life. I lived in a house that always had a lot of people coming in and out of it, and being part of our daily household life. It wasn’t just an abstract idea of community — it was actually people who lived in the neighborhood.”

The struggles the neighbors were involved in were personal and local, which translates into how Riley, as the main lyricist for The Coup, gets his own points across.

“I talk about all these grandiose ideas through everyday struggles,” he says. “So what I listen to are people talking about trying to survive. What I listen to are people thinking about how they’re going to spend their life. And I listen to the fact that most people are stuck in the mode of figuring out how to survive.”

Riley’s life as a lyricist and musician started around the time he was 17 or 18 years old, finally writing down the words he was rhyming in the first incarnation of The Coup. It’s not until the group’s second album came out, though, that he feels like he started growing as a writer and political advocate.

“I got better as a writer because on my second album, I decided I’m not going to use the words ‘communism,’ ‘socialism,’ ‘capitalism,’ ‘exploitation’ — any of these catch words. I’m going to say it all by talking about what’s going on in the world and not trying to consolidate these ideas into these catch phrases, which don’t usually even mean anything to the people using them, anymore.”

Using those catch phrases, Riley asserts, means never getting his point across.

“All you’re doing is using signifiers that put you in a certain category,” he says. “It’s like walking down the street dressed in black, with a black bandanna around you and a gas mask and you look like a black anarchist, but you’re not getting your idea across to the people seeing you. You’re just putting yourself into a certain category.

“And even if people are agreeing with you,” he adds, “they’re not relating to you. I want people to relate to me, and not just agree with me.”

Riley and The Coup take their message on the road for a short West Coast tour, starting next week in Arcata. For anyone who made the trek down to Redway in December to see the group at the Mateel Community Center, much of the live lineup will look familiar.

For the past few years, DJ Pam the Funkstress has stayed involved with her group’s recording sessions, but stays off the road to spend time focusing on her successful Bay Area catering business. On the road, Riley is joined by vocalist Silk-E, drummer Quebec “Q” Jackson, guitar player B’Nai Rebelfront and keyboardist LJ. This tour will also introduce the group’s newest member, bass player Marcus Phillips, who fills the shoes of Dewey Tucker, who played The Coup’s Mateel show in December. Barely a month after that show, Tucker was shot and killed on his way to band practice in Oakland.

The decision to bring Phillips into the touring band was an easy one, says Riley, who explains that unlike a lot of other big city music scenes, toward which outsiders migrate, Oakland’s musician pool is made up of players who have known each other most of their lives — they can duplicate each other’s styles.

“I could never replace Dewey, as a person,” says Riley, “and that’s the thing. It never was a problem for me as far as musically, but it was a problem for me, personally. It was a problem for all of us, personally. His good friend and our good friend, Marcus, is going to be playing the bass.”

About a month after The Coup’s tour, Riley will be out on the road with his other current project — a collaboration between himself and Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello — called Street Sweeper Social Club. They'll play the Van’s Warped Tour in San Diego on August 10, then hit Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and Washington, D.C. on the Rock the Bells tour.

Before he switches gears, though, Riley says he and The Coup are looking forward to playing for new and old fans in Arcata, which hasn’t happened for a few years. What Riley hopes will happen is that hip-hop fans’ notions’ of what a live hip-hop show should look and sound like will be shattered when they see The Coup with a full band.

The Coup plays Wednesday, July 7, at Humboldt Brews in Arcata. The show starts at 10 p.m. with Rude Lion Sound and other guests. Tickets are $22 in advance, available at the Works in Eureka and Arcata, and online at www.eventbrite.com.

Fall the Giants & Kingdom of Magic 6/28/10 [photos]

2010-06-29T08:50:00.000-07:00

Another Monday, another Budget Rock Night. I figured it was a good sign when I walked in the door and the DJ (Shattered Skull Sound System) was playing some punk rock, but that of course segued into some stuff with Cookie Monster vocals, and I popped in my earplugs (yes, I was finally smart enough to remember to throw earplugs in my camera bag) and waited somewhat patiently for Fall the Giants to start.

Local guys Fall the Giants encompass the things I like about metal music -- technical prowess, volume -- without having to deal with imperceivable vocals. Their entire set only consisted of probably five songs, but they were interesting and lasted nearly 10 minutes a piece. I dig these guys.

Kingdom of Magic is described as stoner-doom from Colorado. When they set up their amps, followed by stage lighting that *only* lit up said amps, I thanked them for the opportunity to get some nifty silhouette shots, and get home before midnight to start downloading photos. Without visible faces and hands, I had no need to stick around through the entire set, but I'm happy with the shots I did get of all three band members.

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Full Moon Fever 6/26/10 [photos]

2010-06-27T19:37:00.000-07:00

T'is the season for tribute bands (see my Scene Noir from last week), and who better to revere (other than Neil Diamond, of course) than Tom Petty?

Full Moon Fever -- with Pete Ciotti and Piet Dalmolen of The Nucleus, Pat Quinn of Yer Dog, and Jay Forbes of Strix Vega -- made its debut last night at the Jambalaya, to an enthusiastic crowd. The band played a long set of Petty's hits, as well as some b-sides, and ended the set with an offer for folks to visit their Myspace page to make requests for their upcoming shows.

Rumors of a future casino lineup featuring both Full Moon Fever and Humboldt's premier Neil Diamond tribute band, The Solitary Men, abound, but Full Moon Fever is confirmed to be playing at the Arcata 4th of July festival at 10:15 a.m. and the following weekend, July 10, at Mad River Summerfest (beware the terrible website, but keep an eye on it for updated lineup information).

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King Salmon Duo, Mister Moonbeam & Lou Barlow + the Missingmen 6/24/10 [photos]

2010-06-25T04:59:00.000-07:00

Last time Lou Barlow came through Humboldt, he played in the basement of the Eureka Vet's Hall. Smoky, stuffy and packed with people, the moment he started playing, the sound hit me and I remember getting nauseous. Thinking it more important that I find fresh air, ASAP, I missed most of his set. What a bummer.

Last night was my second chance at seeing Barlow play live. This time, local bands the King Salmon Duo and Mister Moonbeam opened the show, and Barlow had Mike Watt backers The Missingmen (Tom Watson and Raul Morales) as his touring band.

After sound checking with Hannah Montana's "Best of Both Worlds," Barlow played a few songs on his own, then called up Watson and Morales to join him for the rest of his set, which ran right up until Jambalaya management turned the house lights back on shortly before 2 a.m.

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Christian Mistress 6/21/10 [photos]

2010-06-23T00:09:00.000-07:00

There's somewhat of a misconception that the Jambalaya's Budget Rock Night (every Monday) is only metal bands, but thankfully, that's not true. This week (and next week) however, metal reigns over the Jam, and while metal bands have to try a bit harder to impress me, I had to check out this week's band, Christian Mistress, from Olympia, Wash.

I can't necessarily explain why I'm not easily impressed by female folk singers, but female-fronted metal bands are a lot more likely to get me out of the house than a male-fronted band. Maybe it's because women are less likely to let out the Cookie Monster growl? I like a good melody, so that may have something to do with it.

Whatever it is, this is Christian Mistress:

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Magnum & Zepparella 6/19/10 [photos]

2010-06-22T23:57:00.000-07:00

Post-Oysterfest on Sunday, Zepparella and Magnum packed the Arcata Theatre Lounge with recovering/sustaining drunk revelers. My words have little meaning when trying to describe a Zepparella show (holy hell, those ladies freakin' rock), and Magnum was a blast, as always. Also, the jazzercise videos on the projection screen during the Magnum set? Brilliant.

As for how my day went, I actually started to get my Oysterfest hangover before I went to sleep. Arcata knows how to throw a party, if there was any doubt.

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Scene Noir 6/22/10 - Tribute Bands

2010-06-22T13:09:00.000-07:00

Monica Topping
Tri-City Weekly

People love familiarity. Wait, let me rephrase that -- people take comfort in the familiar. It's a concept that has probably kept companies like Coca-Cola and Chevrolet in business for decades.

It's also the reason that, as frustrating as it may be for bands who write all of their own songs, people will swarm to the nearest casino to see a band that plays nothing but someone else's music.

Classic rock and country cover bands are nothing new, and if you've ever looked around to find something to do on a Friday night, you know that. Do you want to drive north to see the Roadmasters play country covers (with some originals), stay in town to check out the Band Behind Your Hedge's classic rock covers, or maybe head down to the Eel River Valley to get silly to Eyes Anonymous' '80s covers? These (or variations thereof) are often your weekend options.

Some bands choose to take the familiarity concept a little further, and design their entire set around one group or artist. A few years ago, I followed a group of my friends out to Blue Lake to see a Neil Diamond tribute. Smarmy as ever, the band was pretty decent, but somehow their skill level seemed to matter less than the fact that we knew almost every song they were playing, and we danced (and sang) the night away.

Bret Bailey, who local music scene fans may recognize from his former bands The Common Vice and Que La Chinga, said that he was singing karaoke one night and decided to dig out one of his standards -- a Neil Diamond tune. Some ladies heard him and told him afterward that they really liked it -- that his voice did justice to Diamond's music. That got some thoughts rolling around in Bailey's head, and in passing, he started talking to other local musician friends and gauging their interest in the idea of starting a Neil Diamond tribute band.

Bailey wrangled guitarist Ryan McGonagle of The Great Salvation, Zac Institute and other bands; drummer Clinton Smith, keyboard player Jorden Goodspeed and eventually, Strix Vega bass player Andy Powell to round out The Solitary Men, which Bailey was heading on vocals and rhythm guitar.

The Solitary Men started practicing early this year, and made their debut in early May, playing at Nocturnum nightclub in Eureka for a '70s themed Six Rivers Planned Parenthood benefit. They followed up with a benefit for Gulf Coast cleanup a couple of weeks ago. They pulled out all of the classic Diamond requirements -- “Solitary Man,” “Cherry, Cherry,” “Sweet Caroline.”

Bailey says that The Solitary Men are actually fans of Diamond, and wanted to stay pretty true to Diamond's original musical intentions, but given the entire band's history as rock musicians, it's really Neil Diamond through the lens of a rock band. And that is a beautiful thing. As far as I can tell, The Solitary Men are still working on booking gigs through this summer and beyond, but rest assured, I'll let you know when I find out where they're playing.

This Saturday, another classic rock tribute is debuting at the Jambalaya -- members of The Nucleus, Strix Vega and more have come together for Full Moon Fever (you probably need to sign into Facebook to see that link), a Tom Petty tribute. The show will start at 10 p.m. with a $5 cover. Before hand, starting around 7 p.m., the Jambalaya will show “Running Down a Dream,” a documentary of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, on their big projection screen.

Who doesn't love being able to sing along to entire set (or close to it) of music they love?

Monica Topping is the weekend mid-day DJ and host of the Slug Festivities Guide on 94.1 KSLG-FM. She also cannot get enough of her guy friends in sequined shirts and dreams of someday being one of The Solitary Men's backup singers. Check out her website, www.RadioRadioHumboldt.com, or e-mail her at Monica@kslg.com.

Henchmen & The Chop Tops 6/17/10 [photos]

2010-06-18T16:59:00.000-07:00

Good lord, I love me a good rockabilly show, and Norm from Bad Kitty Presents never fails to book those shows.

Last night, the Henchmen (out of L.A., and gloating about the Lakers fresh win in the NBA playoffs) opened for the Chop Tops, a Santa Cruz band. While the crowd was, um, intimate, the show was great. I love bands who will still put every drop of energy into a show played for a regretfully small crowd.

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Bug Girl & The Smashed Glass 6/5/10 [photos]

2010-06-18T08:57:00.000-07:00

More catching up...

Australia's Bug Girl is this really fun duo-- rocker chick on guitar and vocals and shirtless dude on drums. Of course, I'd have been happy just to hear them talk all day, but their music was very, very fun.

And you can't go wrong with The Smashed Glass. As usual, I had a hard time getting any shots of Brad (the drummer) that I was happy with (drummers are a particular photographic challenge), but I'm still pretty stoked with how this set turned out.

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Lila Nelson & Myshkin 6/10/10 [photos]

2010-06-16T00:54:00.000-07:00

I am a proud member of the Lila Nelson fan club... I can't believe there's anyone out there who hasn't been converted, at this point.

Sadly, Humboldt let Lila move to Oakland last year, so our chances to see her are few and far between, at this point. Luckily, she knows she can always come back to play for an enthusiastic audience.

Last week, Lila (who had Chris Wixson and Tofu Mike Schwartz backing her up) brought her friend Myshkin to open the show, which was very fun.

For this show, as my camera battery got closer and closer to dying on me, I pulled out my only fully automatic lens-- the LensBaby 3G. So the blur? It's artistic and completely intentional!

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Ukesperience 6/11/10 [photos]

2010-06-15T22:35:00.000-07:00

Working backwards in an attempt to start catching up on a *lot* of photo editing, I dragged a few friends out to Humboldt Brews last Friday for a Gulf Coast cleanup fundraiser, thrown by Humboldt Surfrider and Humboldt Baykeeper. The line-up was about the most swoon-inducing one I've seen in a long time: Ukesperience and the Solitary Men (Humboldt's very own Neil Diamond tribute).

Sadly, my camera battery was almost dead when I got there, so these were the shots I could get before the thing failed on me, completely.

BTW- If you want to volunteer for Humboldt Surfrider, my mom is the new volunteer coordinator! Follow the Surfrider link and shoot her an e-mail if you'd like to get involved.

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Frank Fairfield 6/14/10 [photos]

2010-06-15T02:39:00.000-07:00

After a brief hiatus that included the last-minute lead-up to, and execution of, the Kinetic Grand Championship, plus getting my own personal life in order (Oh, year of my 30th birthday, how you keep me on my toes), I'm back. It's not that I haven't been going to shows-- I've gone and just haven't had a chance to edit the photos or do as many interviews as usual. It's time to remedy that.

These shots are of Frank Fairfield, 20-something-year-old old-timey musician who, on his last trip to the Jambalaya, packed it like I've never seen done before. This time, the crowd was a bit more sparse, but no less attentive, holding almost a complete silence for most of Fairfield's age-defying set.

Thankfully, the stage lighting was perfect for my purposes and Fairfield is a very photogenic guy.

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Eyes Anonymous brings back the ‘80s

2010-05-17T08:32:00.000-07:00

Monica Topping
Radio Radio Radio

As far as cheesiness is concerned, it’s hard to beat the entire span of the 1980s. From leg warmers and slouch socks to side ponytails (crimped and held with a scrunchy) and neon-colored everything, it’s a decade that is also universally accepted as one of the most fun to dress up and celebrate. Eyes Anonymous provides the soundtrack.

“A lot of girls really like ‘80s music,” says guitar and bass player and singer Rich LaPreziosa. “Even girls that weren’t alive in the ‘80s have it on their iPods. And we try to cheese it up as much as we can.”

A four-hour set from Eyes Anonymous will include covers of everyone from Journey to Billy Idol to Corey Hart, and no matter the size of the audience, everyone leaves their insecurities at the door and dances and sings along with wild abandon. The band, decked out in combinations of spandex pants, headbands and coveralls, are obviously enjoying playing the music as much as the crowd enjoys hearing it.

Eyes Anonymous — including LaPreziosa, Rico von Rabenau on guitar and bass, Tyler Lusk on drums, Justin Schwartzman on keyboard and bass, and Leah Crenshaw on guitar and vocals — was formed as an excuse to get together with friends and have fun. Comprised of otherwise serious — some are even professional — musicians, they really wanted to do something that wasn’t going to be taken terribly seriously. They nailed it.

“We’re always getting songs suggested to us, and sometimes we can learn them and sometimes we can’t,” says LaPreziosa. “Sometimes there’s even songs that are too cheesy.”

Which ‘80s duo has managed to stump even the talented members of Eyes Anonymous?

“So far Hall and Oates has been too cheesy for us,” says LaPreziosa. “We cannot find a Hall and Oates song that we can actually do without busting up laughing.”

The band has also been careful to stay mostly out of the guitar rock of the decade, concerned that the genre is a slippery slope into turning into a full-blown heavy metal cover band. Though with most of its members being multi-instrumentalists, LaPreziosa admits that they’ve practiced a rocker or two, and may pull out The Scorpions’ “Rock You Like a Hurricane” at a near future performance.

The members of Eyes Anonymous each perform with other bands, in addition to this one. LaPreziosa and Lusk both play in The Miracle Show — a Grateful Dead tribute — and The Retroactives (“…a rock ‘n’ roll band where we’ll play anything we feel, except ‘80s music,” says LaPreziosa.); Von Rabenau is occasionally sitting in with The Retroactives while his band, Triple Junction, is on a short break, after the departure of its bass player; Crenshaw sings with The Bump Foundation; and Schwartzman plays primarily with Ishi Dube’s band, Massagana, and The Speakeasy Saints.

“Working with those guys is so great. Singing with Lia is something I love to do,” says LaPreziosa, “and working with Justin — I’ve been telling him how thankful I am for him, because he’s so talented and he pays so much attention to detail and he can help us get stuff together. We just all get along so good, and it’s just sort of our weekly socialize — we get together and play rock ‘n’ roll and have fun.”

Eyes Anonymous is playing this Saturday at the Portuguese Hall in Arcata, for the Rutabaga Ball, where contestants will compete for the Rutabaga Queen title for this year's Kinetic Sculpture Race (coming next Memorial Day Weekend - May 29-31). Doors open at 7 p.m. and there is a $12 cover.

Scene Noir 5/11/10 - Comings and Goings

2010-05-10T23:27:00.000-07:00

Monica Topping
Tri-City Weekly

The past week-and-a-half or so has offered no shortage of live music. Each night, rather than figuring out what there is to do, has been more about figuring out which show to go to.

Weekend before last, it was Ladyfest Northwest vs. The Smashed Glass and Girlyman, on Saturday and Sunday nights, respectively. This past weekend, Peeping Thomas went up against The Buffy Swayze reunion on Friday, then Moth Complex went on at the Lil Red Lion at the same time that The Solitary Men, a Neil Diamond tribute, played a Planned Parenthood benefit at Nocturnum.

Short of wishing I could be at every one of these shows, you’ll hear no complaints from me.

I don’t often do theater shout-outs, but I have to thank Humboldt Light Opera Company for inviting me (as well as Bonnie Neely, Rex Bohn and Bob Doran) to be a part of the opening night of their production of the “25th Annual Putnam Spelling Bee.” Doran kicked our butts, fair and square, but we all had a great time. The production runs Friday and Saturday, through this coming weekend, at 7:30 p.m. at College of the Redwoods’ Forum Theater.

I have to give Courtney Jackson and Aimee Taylor of the Monster Women a huge pat on the back for pulling off Ladyfest Northwest — three nights of ladycentric music at three distinctly different venues. After getting out of the Spelling Bee, I was able to catch a bit of the first night of Ladyfest at the Accident Gallery. I caught a good portion of the Singing Nettles’ set, followed by the Lost Lockets (and their impressive stage dressings), both of which were pretty great. The Brendas closed out the night in accident-themed costumes (in honor of the Accident Gallery).

Saturday night, after getting out of the Planned Parenthood gala, I walked over to the Alibi for a night of punk music by Steel Tigers of Death and Neutralboy, both from the Seattle area, and local guys The Smashed Glass. Steel Tigers of Death was playing when I got there, and the following check-in from my Twitter account (@RockChickDesign) pretty much says it all:
11:22 p.m. When I walked into the Alibi, this band was all wearing nuns habits. Now they're in nothing but skivvies and Christmas lights.

Sunday night, I finally got to see Girlyman, a band which the Arcata Playhouse’s David Ferney had gotten me hooked on. The band, which describes itself as “the Indigo Girls plus a guy,” has gorgeous harmonies and hilarious stage banter. At the end, I wished that Girlyman could be my best friend. They said they’d take a vote and let me know…

As time flies faster and faster, this month is moving along far quicker than I really want, but before we get to the end (capping it all off with the 42nd Kinetic Grand Championship over Memorial Day Weekend!), there are a few shows I’m particularly looking forward to:
Saturday, May 15, Olympia, Washington, punk band Western Hymn (with formerly local Kris Cunningham) will be playing at the Lil Red Lion with locals Splinter Cell and the Monster Women.

Thursday, May 20, Eef Barzelay and his band Clem Snide will return to Humboldt Brews. This being the band’s second visit, and Barzelay’s third, if I remember correctly, KHUM and I have been trying to convince them to relocate to Arcata for a couple of years now. Maybe it’ll work this time?

Friday, May 21, Kyle Gass (of Tenacious D) will be at Humboldt Brews with his band Trainwreck. I heard that the last time Trainwreck came through, it was a pretty wild show.

Saturday, May 22, ‘80s tribute band Eyes Anonymous will help crown a new Rutabaga Queen for the 2010 Kinetic Grand Championship, at the Rutabaga Ball, held once again at the Portuguese Hall in Arcata. (Keep an eye on RadioRadioHumboldt.com for more info on Eyes Anonymous, closer to the Ball).

Hope to see you out at some of these shows!

Monica Topping is the host of the Slug Festivities Guide and weekend mid-day DJ on 94.1 KSLG-FM. She can be contacted at Monica@kslg.com.

Girlyman - Sunday, May 2, 2010

2010-05-01T22:35:00.000-07:00

Monica Topping
Radio Radio Radio
Before I had even read Girlyman’s biography, I listened to their newest CD, “Everything’s Easy,” and the first thing that jumped out was the vocal harmonies that resembled those of the Indigo Girls.

As it turns out, all of the members of Girlyman — Nate Borofsky, Doris Muramatsu and Ty Greenstein, all on vocals and guitars, and JJ Jones on drums — are heavily influenced by the Indigo Girls, and in their earlier days, Girlyman was even signed to Amy Ray’s Daemon Records.

The Girlyman story says that Muramatsu and Greenstein met in the second grade and grew up together, deciding in their teens to start playing guitar and write music. Calling themselves The Garden Verge, the duo released an album in the early-2000s. While going to school at Sarah Lawrence College, just outside of New York City, Borofsky — who himself was also studying liberal arts and performing as a solo artist — saw The Garden Verge play in a talent contest and became acquainted with the ladies. The duo and Borofsky's solo project stayed separate entities for another couple of years, until finally they decided to join forces. Girlyman’s first band practice was scheduled for — and subsequently rescheduled after the events of — September 11, 2001.

As is typical for any band that has been asked to describe itself, Girlyman had a hard time deciding what to call its style of music, and at some point, the trio settled on “gender pop.”

“‘Gender pop’ was something that we did because we kind of wanted to put a little bit of ourselves and who we are into the description,” says Borofsky, who wears makeup on stage. “In some ways, we don’t feel like we quite fit into normal gender roles, or we haven’t throughout our lives.”

“Musically, … if I have very little time to describe what we do to other people, I say it’s sort of like the Indigo Girls with a guy singing with them,” he says. “I try to just say it’s about the harmonies, because certainly for me, that’s the central part of what we do.”

It didn’t take long before the newly formed trio recorded and self-released its first album, “Remember Who I Am.” Daemon Records later picked up the album and re-released it to a national audience, and released the band’s second album, “Little Star.” Unrelated to the band’s record label being based in Atlanta, Ga., the members of Girlyman decided to relocate from New York City to Atlanta in the mid-2000s.

“I’d been living in New York for six or seven years and every time I’d gone down to Atlanta, it just kind of felt like home, in a way,” says Borofsky. “My only job was with Girlyman at that point, and when I came home from tour, I didn’t really want to go out that much, because I had been out on the road, and when I came home, I kind of wanted something a little bit quieter than Brooklyn was.”

Borofsky and Greenstein moved down first, and Muramatsu followed a year later. Ironically, Borofsky points out, the move happened after Daemon Records had stopped releasing albums, so it wasn’t as much a business decision for the band to move closer to its label, but a personal decision for all three members, who wanted to relocate.

Girlyman welcomed the addition of drummer Jones at the end of 2009.

“It was a big deal,” says Borofsky. “We’ve been together as a band for about eight years, and it was a big deal to add another member like that. To me, at least, it feels perfect. It feels like we waited until we found the perfect addition to the band, and that’s JJ.”

Prior to playing with Girlyman, Jones had been a member of touring band Po’ Girl, which just played at the Arcata Playhouse in November of 2009. Herself a songwriter, Jones hasn’t had much of a chance to contribute to the Girlyman songwriting process as of yet, but Borofsky says he looks forward to her input.

Girlyman released its newest album, “Everything’s Easy,” in September of 2009, after recording it completely on their own in Borofsky’s home recording studio in Atlanta.

“It was really a leap of faith on our part,” he laughs, “to think that we could do that, but we wanted to try doing it that way so that we could really take our time with it and we could try out different ideas on songs, and scrap them and re-do it if we didn’t like the direction it was going in.”

“With this (record), we wanted to do it that way and we also liked the idea of arranging some of the songs in the studio, which is something we hadn’t done before,” Borofsky continues. “All we had was a guitar part and a melody, and then trying to come up with the harmonies, it’s different when you’re doing it to something that’s been recorded than it is to something that someone’s just singing in front of you, and we also could really play around with what instruments would go on there and we weren’t limited to what we could perform live. If we wanted to try adding four or five instruments in the background, we could do that and see how it sounded and see which ones worked.”

Borofsky says that with rare exception, the band’s live concert resembles its studio recordings pretty closely, except for the lack of a touring keyboardist, and the addition of between-song banter in a live setting.

Girlyman will play at the Arcata Playhouse on Sunday, May 2, at 8 p.m. According to the Playhouse’s Facebook page, advance tickets are gone, but some will still be available at the door.

KHSU SHOWcase, week 5 - Thursday, April 29, 2010

2010-04-26T09:32:00.000-07:00

Last week of the KHSU SHOWcase is this Thursday at Humboldt Brews. We're calling it world music night (though that term kind of tweaks me... it's folk music from other parts of the world... how about that?), and it'll be another early one. 8pm, $5. Lovely and fun. See you out there!

Casey Neill & the Norway Rats 4-25-10 [photos]

2010-04-26T08:54:00.000-07:00

Casey Neill's band, the Norway Rats, is made up of some of Portland's best and brightest musicians. At its fullest, the band includes members of the Decemberists, the Minus Five, Dr. Theopolis and a pile more. Last night at the Arcata Playhouse, it featured Casey Neill on vocals and guitar, Chet Lyster on guitar and banjo, Jesse Emerson on bass and Ezra Holbrook on drums and vocals.

Having seen Casey and his band when they played at the Jambalaya after the release of the "Brooklyn Bridge" album, I knew that the singer's between-song banter was genuine and charming, and I also knew that the band's set would likely include everything from Celtic-tinged ballads to anarchist dance music ("I'm dancing on the ruins of multinational corporations/ HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!"). They delivered that and more. The night was finished with covers of "Pressure Drop" and Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros' "Coma Girl," (*swoon*) and more folks than not up, dancing and sweaty. I think everyone left the Playhouse with a bit of afterglow.

Here are some pics from the night:

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Canja Rave & The Zygoats 4-20-10 [photos]

2010-04-26T02:50:00.000-07:00

It's not often that I make an effort to avoid Arcata, what with being able to walk from my apartment to no fewer than a handful of venues in five minutes or less. One notable exception: April 20, or 4/20 in stoner lingo. Arcata was chock-full of "green" shows that night, so I grabbed a couple of friends and headed south to Eureka for the evening.

As I mentioned here, Canja Rave, a garage rock duo out of Brazil, rocked my little world a week earlier at the Jambalaya, so I wasn't going to miss them a second time through at the Lil Red Lion. I was pleasantly surprised when Chris and Paula greeted me with hugs and hooked me up with their first full-length recording after the show. Couple of sweet folks who put on a heck of a live show, and I hope they come back sooner, rather than later. This being their third U.S. tour, but first time coming through Humboldt, with any luck, we stick on their radar for future tours.

The Zygoats closed out the night, in your face and rowdy. I finally got to experience their new bass player, who seems to have picked up right were his predecessor left off. He doesn't seem like "the new guy," at all.

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KHSU SHOWcase, week 4 - Thursday, April 22, 2010

2010-04-19T09:26:00.000-07:00

This Thursday's KHSU SHOWcase reggae show is going to be off the hook. Rocker T, Ishi Dube, and I believe Dub Cowboy's opening. 9:30pm and $10 for this one.

The Bored Again & the Goddamn Gallows 4-18-10 [photos]

2010-04-19T03:13:00.000-07:00

It was a night for neck and knuckle tattoos and more Pabst tallboys than can be counted on two hands, at this rare Sunday night show at the Alibi. The Bored Again is listed as "one-man acoustic punk from Eureka," but that doesn't take into account that the aforementioned "acoustic" is a bass guitar, played expertly (if drunkenly) by Dave O of The Crooks/ The DTs/ The Smashed Glass fame.

The Goddamn Gallows followed (I wrote about them here), solidifying that psychobilly + accordion/washboard = gutterbilly. If I could nail down one favorite moment from their set, it would be when I noticed that the stand-up bass player (Fishgutzzz) has the words "DON'T FRET" tattooed across the knuckles of his hands. Think about it.

Fortunately, I skipped out before the moshing reached fever pitch, but unfortunately that was also before accordion/washboard player Avery breathed fire. Dang.

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Ghostwriter & Rooster McClintock 4-17-10 [photos]

2010-04-19T01:20:00.000-07:00

The crazies (and, coincidentally, the punk rockers) were out in full force at the Alibi on Saturday night. And by crazies, I'm not just talking about the scenesters who insist on contact dancing with a PBR tallboy in their hands (those are the punk rockers), I'm talking about this bizarre crowd of folks with no sense of personal space, who think that the polite excuse-me-you're-between-my-camera-and-the-band tap on the shoulder means "let me see your belly." No, really, don't show me your belly. Also, I'm not going to take a picture of it, no matter how long you stand in front of me, pointing at my camera, then pointing at your belly.

To say the least, it was a challenge to get band photos last night, so that I got this many was a triumph.

Oh, and my favorite quote of the night, from Rooster McClintock's Nate Benbow: "We didn't write this song, but neither did you, so it's alright."

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

The Goddamn Gallows - Sunday, April 18, 2010

2010-04-17T22:28:00.000-07:00

Monica Topping
Radio Radio Radio

I imagine that psychobilly, as a genre, was created by folks who were tired of cookie-cutter rockabilly music. But true to form for most genres, no band wants to be pigeon-holed — everyone wants to be different and stand out however they can.

According to The Goddamn Gallows’ singer and guitar player, Mikey Classic, “I kind of spent some time fine-tuning what we wanted to do, and trying to stray from the pack and stand out a little bit” — even from other psychobilly bands.

The Gallows added Avery on accordion/washboard and Jayke (a .357 String Band alumni) on mandolin/banjo player to their whateverbilly lineup of Classic, Fishgutzzz on standup bass and backup growls, and Baby Genius on drums, and called it gutterbilly.

The band was formed a few years back when Classic inadvertently met Fishgutzzz at a house party in East Lansing, Mich., where he thought he was surrounded by friends until he was getting ready to leave and a big gangster guy walked up to him, said “What are you looking at?” and clocked Classic in the face. In a room full of “friends,” he found himself fighting the guy and two of his cronies, with no help in sight — until Fishgutzzz stepped in, and the two became instant best friends.

Classic ended up following the bass player out to Portland, where the duo started the Goddamn Gallows, then a couple of years later, they moved down to L.A. for a couple more years.

“In December of 2007,” says Classic, “we decided to hit the road and not look back, and we’ve just been touring ever since, basically.”

He says the band is on the road nine or 10 months out of every year, and for the couple of months at rest, three of the band’s five members still settle down in Michigan. Classic says that during that time, he usually picks up a “crappy little job” like delivering pizzas, so the band can afford to print new merchandise before heading back out on the road.

The Goddman Gallows have four albums under their belts. The most recent one, “Ghost of th’ Rails,” was released last year. Classic says they’re preparing for the release of an as-yet-untitled live album, which they hope to have out this June or July.

Right now, the Goddamn Gallows are touring as a four-piece, with mando player Jayke at home for a couple of weeks, taking care of his kid and meeting the band back out on tour in Seattle. Also on this tour, drummer Steve Stabber is filling in for Baby Genius.

The band’s current tour had them opening for The Dwarves last week in L.A., and now they’re headed through California, Oregon, Washington and back out to the Midwest, before taking a couple of weeks off and driving down into the South.

They’ll be at the Alibi this Sunday, April 18, with The Bored Again, one-man acoustic punk out of Eureka. Music will start around 11 p.m. and there is a $5 cover. All Alibi shows are 21-and-over.

Mayer Hawthorne 4-13-10 [photos]

2010-04-15T09:15:00.000-07:00

Sadly, I now have a Muse concert between my memories of Mayer Hawthorne and this website post. Luckily, I have my Twitter posts from Tuesday night, to make up for it (I knew there was a reason I utilized Twitter this much). Oh, and a pile of photos.

Tearing down DJ Drez and prepping the stage for Mayer Hawthorne. The crowd isn't too small... sooo relieved.
11:19 PM Apr 13th via web

Now *this* is a well-dressed group of guys. Also? Not ugly. *purrrr*
11:35 PM Apr 13th via web

<3 Mayer Hawthorne <3
12:12 AM Apr 14th via web

It is impossible to be broken-hearted while listening to Mayer Hawthorne.
12:40 AM Apr 14th via web

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Canja Rave 4-12-10 [photos]

2010-04-13T09:57:00.000-07:00

It's not often (enough) that a Brazilian rock band comes through Humboldt. Canja Rave has been in the States for about a month, landing in Detroit, touring down to SXSW (there are a pile of very complimentary articles about the band, if you Google search them), and finally heading up this direction.

They were at the Jambalaya's Budget Rock Night, last night, and while there weren't anywhere near enough people there, the folks who were, had a blast. Thanks Ian for booking this band!!

Canja Rave heads down to the Caspar Inn for tomorrow night, Berkeley, Santa Rosa, San Francisco, then back up to Eureka to play at the Lil Red Lion next Tuesday, April 20, with local band The Zygoats.

For the sake of all that is good in this world of rock 'n' roll, please check them out. I can't decide what I loved more -- the band's fun garage rock or their between-song banter in Portuguese.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

KHSU SHOWcase, week 3 - Thursday, April 15, 2010

2010-04-12T09:18:00.000-07:00

Week #3 of the KHSU SHOWcase is this Thursday, April 15th, highlighting some of the funky programming on KHSU. Fuzz from Bump Foundation will be there with his other band, Crawdad. 9:30pm $5. Good times.

KHSU SHOWcase, week 2 - Thursday, April 8, 2010

2010-04-08T09:11:00.000-07:00

Week #2 of the KHSU SHOWcase is tonight at Humboldt Brews!

KHSU SHOWcase kick-off - Thursday, April 1, 2010

2010-04-01T16:25:00.000-07:00

In celebration of KHSU's 50th year, someone on staff (I'm told it was me, and who am I to argue) had the brilliant idea of hosting a month of live shows that showcase some of the various music programs we have on KHSU.

With that, we kick it off tonight at Humboldt Brews with The Monster Women, The Brendas and Mister Moonbeam, at 9:30 p.m. There is a $5 cover.

We'll be celebrating some of our "alternative" rock programs, like The Buck Calhoun Show, Alternative Therapy and Boy Wonder's Hot Circles.

Hope to see you there!

Skaberville to Dreadway ska mini-fest - Saturday, March 27, 2010

2010-03-25T08:36:00.000-07:00

As I've been sucked into my regular work this week, I want to sent a *huge* thank you to my friend, Gabe Pressure of Musical Occupation.

Gabe hosts the Pressure Drop Soundcast podcast and hosts a weekly show on Wednesday nights at RealPunkRadio.com.

This week, he interviewed Lars Nylander from The Impalers, one of the four bands playing this Saturday, March 27, at the Mateel Community Center, as part of the Skaberville to Dreadway ska mini-festival.

Special to Radio Radio Radio, Gabe Pressure talking to Lars. This interview is about 15 minutes in length.

David Starfire - Saturday, March 27, 2010

2010-03-25T00:05:00.000-07:00

Monica Topping
For the Tri-City Weekly (originally published November 17, 2009)

Without question, there has always been a sort of dichotomy between the worlds of live music and electronic music. There are certainly bands that have bridged the gap (from Linkin Park to Disco Biscuits), but usually a person is a DJ or a musician.

David Starfire is breaking that rule.

The grandson of a sought-after New Orleans saxophone and clarinet player, Starfire picked up his first guitar when he was eight years old, then moved on to bass, drum and keyboards, and was a full-fledged multi-instrumentalist by the time he was 16.

Interestingly, his parents were never musicians, themselves, though having both grown up in New Orleans, they understood the value of music and the arts. Starfire thanks them for grounding him a lot, as a kid (“I wasn’t a bad kid, but it was kind of their way of making sure I wasn’t hanging out with the wrong crowd.”), which gave him ample time to lock himself in his bedroom and practice, practice, practice. Of course, they probably would have preferred he be working on homework, but who wants to stop a kid with obvious discipline and drive?

Starfire says he played in a number of rock bands in and around Dallas, Texas, where he primarily grew up. When he left there in his late 20s, he headed for New York, then San Francisco.

“I had a band and it was great,” he says of San Francisco, pointing out that it’s hard to find like-minded people who are willing to put their all into the music, like he was, “but I was also getting bored with rock ‘n’ roll and guitars and that sort of instrument, and I felt like the music didn’t have enough depth to it. “I started looking into music and instrumentation from different parts of the world, such as Africa, India, Asia, and I got into world music. It was a lot more interesting and had a lot more depth than rock ‘n’ roll and pop music, and the music was a lot older, too—it had a lot more tradition behind it.”

That’s about the time that Starfire started producing his own electronic dance music, at home, which incorporated the worldly instruments. He had a friend, DJ Laird, who was pretty well-known around the city, and would play Starfire’s songs while he was doing gigs. Laird, at some point, asked Starfire to join him, and bring his guitar, and people really seemed to dig it.

Starfire, himself, started doing live DJ gigs, mostly spinning his own music via computer or CD, and once again saw a need for depth, so he began to incorporate his bass and an electronic drum, called the HandSonic, into his set. That’s what has started setting him apart from the masses of both electronic and live musicians.

When Starfire plays at the Arcata Theatre Lounge this Saturday, March 27, he’ll be joined by MartyParty, Masta Shredda and Mike D. The event starts at 10 p.m. and the cover is $10 in advance, $10 at the door until 11 p.m. and $15 after 11 p.m. This is a 21-and-over show.

Voodoo Glow Skulls - Friday, March 26, 2010

2010-03-24T07:32:00.000-07:00

Monica Topping
For the Times-Standard (originally published July 9, 2009)

The brothers Casillas are veteran punk rockers and their band, the Voodoo Glow Skulls, is 20 years strong and continuously reinventing its brand of ska-punk.

Formed in Riverside in 1988, the band was started by singer Frank Casillas, guitarist Eddie Casillas and bass player Jorge Casillas, along with friend and drummer Jerry O’Neill. The Voodoo Glow Skulls have seen every incarnation of a ska-punk band from no horns to a full horn section, and currently back down to a sax and trombone.

The band has also seen its share of record labels, having bounced from Epitaph to Victory Records a few years back. Now that they finished up their Victory contract with the 2007 album, “Southern California Street Music,” they’ve stayed busy with touring and exploring the possibilities in releasing music digitally, with few-to-no middle men getting in the way.

Singer Frank Casillas, also the band’s manager, was at home in Arizona last week, preparing for the band’s tour that starts out tonight in Anaheim with the Mighty Mighty Bosstones.

“The Bosstones are good friends of ours,” says Casillas. “They’re the first band that actually took us on our first national tour. We were touring as a really, really small band in basements and weird coffeehouses and stuff like that before we’d met those guys…but those guys took us on our first real rock ‘n’ roll, legitimate club tour and introduced us to the next level…touring-wise.”

The Voodoo Glow Skulls have seen the ska-punk genre of music go from underground to mainstream (with bands like No Doubt and the Bosstones) and then back to underground again, but they’ve pushed on. This is a band of professional musicians that loves playing music and loves touring. The only thing that’s really changed in the recent past is that more band members have families, which puts a damper on touring and leads the guys to finding additional jobs to make ends meet.

“Everybody in the band has a side job or a side gig,” says Casillas. “I manage the band so I’m pretty much busy almost fulltime, always handling and planning six months ahead, what we’re going to do. Our guitarist Eddie stays busy at home in the studio, because through the band, we’ve managed to get quite a bit of business for the studio. The other guys have jobs doing construction or working retail jobs or whatnot.”

Over the past 20 years, Casillas says the band has accomplished pretty much everything they’ve wanted to get done, from touring to seeing sights. Now, the band is enjoying doing what they want to do, on their own agenda, without a label or outside manager trying to control their time.

An interesting challenge for the band is the age gap between the four original members and the two newer guys.

“These guys are like 23, 24 years old,” says Casillas. “We’re all in our late-30s and early-40s, so it’s kind of weird playing with these young guys, but they’re into the music and they’re way enthusiastic.”

“It’s cool to have new, young guys that are into the music and who were being born when we were getting ready to do our first gig or something,” he continues. “It’s kind of trippy.”

The band found saxophone player Eric Fazzini and trombone player Ruben Durazo on Myspace, of all places, proving that the social networking site can be used for more than just promoting the band to its fans. Bulletins can also be used to recruit new, potential band members.

“We had people willing to move from other countries to try out for the band,” says Casillas, “and we have fun and we do good and we stay as busy as we want to be, but it’s definitely not a fulltime income type of situation, so to have people that are willing to move and change their lives to be in your band, that would be asking too much of somebody.”

The songwriting process for the Voodoo Glow Skulls is truly a byproduct of the digital age of music. The band’s rhythm section still lives close to each other, in the same neighborhood in Riverside. They write the music and hash out the details before making a recording in guitar player Eddie Casillas’ studio and sending CDs out to the longer-distance band members, Frank Casillas in Arizona, Durazo in L.A and Fazzini in Colorado, who plans to relocate to L.A. within the next couple of months.

“We’ll all study the music and figure out our parts and what we want to do and then we’ll get together eventually and we’ll start piecing the song together,” says Frank Casillas.

The Voodoo Glow Skulls have nearly an entire new album’s worth of songs written and recorded, which include all six current members of the band. Now, the plan is to take their time in finding the right label that will promote them in the right way. If all else fails, Casillas says they’re not afraid to consider releasing the album on their own.

In addition to laying down tracks for a new album, the band contributed a song called “Down for Life” to this year’s Vans Warped Tour compilation, and also made it available for streaming on its Myspace page, happy to utilize all the free promotion that didn’t exist when the band first formed.

“Obviously a lot of stuff has changed in a short amount of time with music, retail and all that stuff,” says Casillas. “The digital age is now here, so we’re riding this wave and seeing what’s out there and trying to write music first that we’ll like. We’re just trying to have fun and then once we feel we have an album worth of material, we’re going to see about our options (to release it).”

“In the meantime, we play shows and go to places and keep busy that way, as well.”

The Voodoo Glow Skulls will be playing at the HSU Depot this Friday, March 26, at 9 p.m. This is an all-ages show and local ska band Killbot Factory will open. Tickets are $15 general admission and $10 for students.

(Photo of Jorge Casillas taken July 14, 2009, at Arcata Theatre Lounge, by Monica Topping)

Killbot Factory - Friday, March 26 and Saturday, March 27

2010-03-24T02:10:00.000-07:00

For months now, I've had the intention of sitting down with members of local ska band Killbot Factory and asking them some questions, but something always seems to get in the way (this week, it's the KHSU Membership Drive that's kicking my butt and eating most of my waking hours). Luckily, Anthony, Adrian and Gaura over at HumbyTV (a new local video hosting and streaming Web site, and my video partners in promoting the local music scene) were on-hand for KF's opening slot for The Toasters, and asked them a couple of questions.

Hopefully this video will tide you over until the band nails down their plan for a permanent lead singer and I get my chance to have a heart-to-heart with them.

Killbot Factory has two shows this weekend. Friday, March 26, they'll open for the Voodoo Glow Skulls at the HSU Depot at 9 p.m.

Saturday, March 27, they'll be down at the Mateel Community Center for the Skaberville to Dreadway Express ska mini-festival, playing alongside ska pioneers The Untouchables, The Impalers and The Originalites. Doors open at 7 p.m. and tickets are $20 for teens, $23 for MCC members and $25 general admission, available only at the door.

Humboldt Roller Derby 3-20-10 [photos]

2010-03-24T01:40:00.000-07:00

Yes, Radio Radio Radio is primarily local music scene-related, but that doesn't mean I can't branch out a little bit into the periphery of the music scene -- like to books, crafts/art and... roller derby!!

I finally attended my first Humboldt Roller Derby bouts last Saturday night out at Redwood Acres Fairgrounds in Eureka, and I'm hooked. Freakin' intense. KSLG was doing its first ever live broadcast from the derby and I was supposed to be there to help out my co-worker/fellow DJ Myles, but instead of just sitting back with my arms crossed, he let me on the air with him and we (mostly him, but me a little bit) provided the color commentary for the super-quick-paced sport that is roller derby.

I started the night knowing next to nothing about derby rules, and by the end of the night I'm proud to say I understood a decent amount of what was happening. Now, to get my mouth moving as fast as these ladies roll!

It was also my first ever attempt at photographing such an event... between setting up equipment, checking mic levels, and grabbing interviews for Myles. Most of these are either pre-bout, and during the first bout, with the Redwood Rollers vs. Coos County Roller Girls. The Redwood Rollers (HRD's non-travel, a.k.a. "B" team) won! Sadly, in the second bout, with the HRD Allstars vs. the Oakland Outlaws, the opposing team gave our ladies a run (roll) for their money.

BTW- In that first photo, that's my fabulous friend Deric Mendes shredding the National Anthem, with Redwood Rollers blocker #69, Connie Lingus, carrying the flag.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

At the end of the night, my voice was shot and the Humboldt Roller Derby members told me I needed a derby name. A few have been tossed around, but so far, Meanica Toppling is hitting closest to home (thanks Gabe!).

If only I had time to take on roller derby practices...

Scene Noir 3-23-10 - KHSU SHOWcase, Kinetic Kouture, Ladyfest

2010-03-22T10:11:00.000-07:00

Monica Topping
Tri-City Weekly

Spring finally sprung this past weekend, and that means it’s time for new adventures. It’s not just about flowers, but also about getting out and trying something new, whether it’s experiencing a band you’ve never seen before or watching a fashion show with costumes made from repurposed and recycled goodies.

Right now, public radio station KHSU is half-way through its Spring Membership Drive, and as soon as that’s over we (yes, I work in the office there, so we) are kicking off a rather exciting month of live shows at Humboldt Brews, which we’re calling the KHSU SHOWcase.

Basically, every Thursday night in April, we’ll have live bands playing that represent the programming we have on KHSU. The first Thursday, April 1, we’ll have the Monster Women, the Brendas and Mister Moonbeam representing three of our “alternative” rock shows — The Buck Calhoun Show on Wednesday nights, and Boy Wonder’s Hot Circles and Mad Doctor Matt’s Alternative Therapy, both on Saturday evening.

April 8, we switch gears into the folky side of things with the Compost Mountain Boys and Tom Toohey’s new project, Bon Swing, showcasing Keys to the Highway on Monday afternoons and Sunday’s Folklife Woodshed, hosted by various members of the Humboldt Folklife Society.

April 15, Fuzz from Bump Foundation switches merch boxes and plays in his other band Crawdad, representing Thursday night’s Funky Junction show with Bud Culbertson.

April 22, it’s a Reggae Jamdown blowout with Rocker T and Ishi Dube. Dub Cowboy, who hosts the Friday reggae program, may even take to the turntables throughout the night.

Finally, April 29, we’ll close out the month with various world folk musics from AkaBella, Guinea Gbe and SambAmore providing a taste of what can be heard on Thursday afternoon’s Ethnic Excursions with Halimah the Dreamah and In the Tradition, Sunday nights with Dan Chandler.

If that wasn’t enough to put in your calendar, Kinetic season is underway and next Saturday, April 3, is the second annual Kinetic Kouture — a repurposed fashion show, which not only promotes sustainability through re-using and recycling items into fashionable wears (like an entire dress made from Victoria’s Secret bags, or another one made out of bubble wrap), but also helps raise funds for the Kinetic Grand Championship, which is free to watch every Memorial Day Weekend (May 29 through 31, this year), but costs a lot to put on.

Designers and models can get more information on the Kouture by visiting www.kineticgrandchampionship.com.

At the end of April, the ladies of the Monster Women, Courtney Jackson and Aimee Taylor, are planning Ladyfest Northwest, to run Friday, April 30, through Sunday, May 2. The festival will take place at a number of Eureka and Arcata venues and celebrate the coming of summer through live music and art.

So far, the Ladyfest Northwest Facebook page says that they’ve confirmed The Ian Fays, Romanteek, Barbara Manning, Agent Ribbons, the Monster Women (naturally), Universalia Jane and more, for the live music, plus they hope to show some independent films and present workshops on different subjects.

As far as I’m concerned, I love anything that revolves around live music and is intended to get folks off their couches and absorbing something new and different, so hopefully one of these events (or maybe more than one) will appeal to your senses. It’s healthy to try something new and you never know, you may come out of it with a new favorite band.

Monica Topping is the weekend mid-day DJ and host of the Slug Festivities Guide on 94.1 KSLG-FM. She also loves writing about and taking pictures of live music for www.RadioRadioHumboldt.com. She wears a lot of hats, but can always be found through Monica@kslg.com.

The DTs & The Smashed Glass 3-15-10 [photos]

2010-03-22T01:19:00.000-07:00

This show was advertised as a Smashed Glass show... a sort of warm-up for St. Patrick's Day.

The night of the show, I found out that the DTs (3/4 of the Smashed Glass) were opening, and while I don't think they'd practiced much before this show (the first in a couple of years), they were a blast. 15-ish songs, 25-ish minutes. Punk. Rock.

And I love the Smashed Glass. For the sake of full disclosure, I was in The Smashed Glass for a while, a few years ago, for about 6 months, before the band broke up. That was one of the most fun 6 months of my life (also one of the most drunk 6 months, thanks to all of the free shots of Jameson *shiver*), but the band broke up and then reformed ages later, as the (almost) original 4-piece. I still get a kick out of knowing most of the songs we played then, and crowds love them.

The DTs and The Smashed Glass, at the Jambalaya's Budget Rock Night:

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Quasi & The Monster Women 3-9-10 [photos]

2010-03-15T03:28:00.000-07:00

Monday night was supposed to be night #4 in a row of heading out to see live music (yeah, tell me there's nothing to do around here...), with Quasi on Tuesday night (I wrote about them here) as night #5. But due to a rock slide on Highway 199, both The Pack A.D. (at the Jambalaya) and the Cave Singers (a house show) were canceled. Foiled!

There was some concern on Tuesday morning, that Quasi would also try to take 199 from the North... it is the most direct route, after all... but they were caught in ample time to send them around to 299.

According to the band, that road was death-defying and they were practically kissing the ground when they finally rolled into Arcata, much later than intended. Word is that they were the last vehicle let through before snow chains were required.

But they made it! The same cannot be said, conversely, about Explode Into Colors, who were intended to open the show at the HSU Depot. So local band The Monster Women stepped up at the last minute and got their gear to HSU, to play that opening slot. They did a great job, especially with the lack of notice.

Once Quasi went up, I was thrilled to discover that their set list was mostly comprised of songs from their new album, "American Gong" (read my review of it here). It was fantastic.

Photos from Tuesday night's show:

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

The Long and Short of It, The Hard Ride and Electric Jellyfish 3-7-10 [photo blog]

2010-03-15T02:10:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the delay in getting these photos posted from a week ago. In short, the show was a blast... my second night (in a row) seeing The Long and Short of It (whom I wrote about here), and my first time seeing local guys The Hard Ride and Australian band Electric Jellyfish. It was... loud. And fun.

I'll let the photos say what I cannot articulate.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Rutabaga Royal Repast 3-13-10 [photo blog]

2010-03-14T18:08:00.000-07:00

Switching gears a little bit, here.

If you're not aware, I'm the Rutabaga Queen for 2004's Kinetic Sculpture Race, and as the Glorious Founder Hobart Brown always said, once a Rutabaga Queen, always a Rutabaga Queen. In 2007, I became one of the founding board members of Kinetic Universe, Inc., a non-profit formed (two months before the race) to save the Race from extinction... and now, I'm the Queen President III of KUI. Good times.

Here are some shots from our fabulous fundraiser at the Oberon Grill in Eureka.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Robbie Allen and the Outer Edge - Saturday, March 13, 2010

2010-03-12T21:49:00.000-08:00

Monica Topping
Radio Radio Radio

Sacramento isn’t exactly known for its (non-political) waves, so how does a surf band form where there is no surf?

“Actually, that’s one of the misconceptions about us,” says Robbie Allen, lead guitarist for The Outer Edge. “We do play some surf rock, but we’re actually just more-or-less instrumental. Especially when it comes to our albums and our own original music, we kind of branch out into a lot of different territory.”

The members of the Outer Edge live as far away as Petaluma (bass player Geoffrey Clegg) and Placerville (drummer Gary Christensen), but Allen and keyboardist William Charles are from Sac, so that’s where the band has laid its foundation.

Allen was playing in a few different bands and working on a solo instrumental record—on which he recorded all of the instruments but the drums—when he got a call from Christensen, who was trying to start a surf band and was looking to put together a group that could open for an Elvis Presley impersonator. The money was good, so they took the job.

“He actually asked us if we could open the show with whatever we wanted to do — maybe some ‘50s and ‘60s guitar instrumentals and surf and things like that,” says Allen, “so we picked a bunch of songs by the Ventures and…we played those, and afterward, we decided, ‘Hey, the crowd was actually cheering for our instrumentals more than they were the Elvis impersonator,’ so we decided we might be onto something.”

The Outer Edge formed in May of 2008, about a month before Allen’s solo album, “Artifical Horizon,” was released.

Allen explains that most surf bands try to stick with the 1960s sounds and styles, but “we don’t,” he says. “We really like to push it a little harder and use more modern tones and effects, and I like to use modern playing techniques in my style. I just like to try to make this music a little more contemporary.”

“We kind of get psychedelic,” he adds, and that might just be where the Outer Edge came from.

For the band’s recordings — like their album “Lost in the Sweep,” which was released in September of last year — they’ve stuck with the instrumental “genre” of music, but Allen says the live show is a little bit different. Christensen — a fan of classic rock — sings most of the band’s songs, though Allen — who likes Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and the Grateful Dead — pitches in on a few, throughout the set.

“We like to rock out and try to put on a good show,” says Allen. “We try to just have fun (and ) we try to make sure the audience has fun, too.”

He says they try to keep their shows family-oriented, but “we do get crazy with the guitar and things like that.”

The Outer Edge has recently been noodling around in the studio, taking a lot of ‘60s surf and instrumental songs and “kind of bringing them up to date a little bit, playing them more our style, using modern recording techniques,” says Allen. He hopes that album will be out some time this summer.

“Then after that, we’re going to be working on a new original album,” he says. “We’ve been writing some new songs … and we’re hoping to have that out by probably this winter or maybe by January.”

Robbie Allen and the Outer Edge is playing at the Arcata Theatre Lounge on Saturday, March 13, as part of Humboldt Surfrider’s membership drive. The event starts at 7 p.m. with a screening of the 1978 surf film “Big Wednesday,” and the band will start around 9 p.m.

Admission is $6, or free with a new or renewing $25 Humboldt Surfrider membership, and the event is open to all-ages.

Scene Noir 3-9-10 - Quasi "American Gong"

2010-03-09T09:26:00.000-08:00

Monica Topping
Tri-City Weekly

I don’t usually write record reviews for a couple reasons. For one, I’ve never been very good at creating new genre references off the top of my head, as the hipster reviewers tend to do. Second, who wants to hurt someone’s feelings? This is too small a town for that.

That said, in preparation for the band Quasi to play at Humboldt State University’s Depot this Tuesday, I got a hold of the band’s new album, “American Gong,” and threw it on in the background while I was getting some other work done. When the first listen ended, I started it again. And again after that. I couldn’t get enough of it.

Quasi’s visit to Humboldt has largely been promoted on the basis of the involvement of its band members — Sam Coomes, Janet Weiss and Joanna Bolme — in other projects, like Sleater-Kinney, Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, Built to Spill and others. I’d like to think that a band could not have survived for 17 years and released some 15 albums just on the strength of its members work with other groups, so I began paying better attention to “American Gong.”

Getting into “American Gong,” the simultaneously best and worst thing I can possibly say is that the album sounds like it was released in the early ‘90s. For me, that’s fantastic — the early-to-mid ‘90s are a time when I was discovering “alternative” rock music, which eventually led to me working at K-Slug, nearly a decade later. If you wanted to put a negative spin on it, though, it could almost be said that Quasi hasn’t exactly evolved much since the band formed in 1993.

“American Gong” definitely trends toward the more melodic side of the alternative movement. Straight out of the gate, “Repulsion” starts off with a crunchy bassline and heads into distorted guitars (is that a slide guitar I hear?) and male-female vocal harmonies. On “Little White Horse,” Coomes’ voice takes on a Frank Black quality, which mixed with female backing vocals from Weiss and Bolme, sounds very Pixies-like. “Everything and Nothing At All” feels like a down-tempo Flaming Lips song to me — melodic, piano-driven and contemplative. This is the track I expect an audience will be singing along to, lighters (or lit-up cell phones) held high in the air.

By the fourth track, “Bye Bye Blackbird,” as I started to reference the relatively obscure mid-‘90s band Hum, it occurred to me that maybe all of these bands that Quasi reminds me of, listened to the same sort of psychedelic records when they were all growing up, leading them to release albums that have the same sorts of noisy, distorted, but melodic nuances, reverbed vocals and all.

In the end, I feel like I’m just now discovering an album that an older sibling of mine (if I had one) would have loved, while my musical tastes were still transitioning from the New Kids on the Block to Pearl Jam.

If the songs on “American Gong” are even a taste of what Quasi will have to offer live, I’m excited about getting to check them out. You can listen to “Repulsion” and “Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouller” on the music player at www.RadioRadioHumboldt.com.

Quasi plays in The Depot on Tuesday night at 9 p.m. There is a $5 general cover, but the show is free for HSU students with a student I.D.

Monica Topping does the Slug Festivities Guide and is the weekend mid-day DJ on 94.1 KSLG-FM. Her ruminations on the local music scene can be found at RadioRadioHumboldt.com, and she can be reached at Monica@kslg.com.

Quasi - Tuesday, March 9, 2010

2010-03-08T23:54:00.000-08:00

Monica Topping
Radio Radio Radio

Quasi might be the most prolific band you haven’t heard of, releasing some 15 albums since the mid-‘90s.

Quasi’s claim to fame seems to be its band members’ connections with other bands you might have heard of, like drummer and singer Janet Weiss’s time with riot grrl band Sleater-Kinney; singer, keyboard and guitar player Sam Coomes’ work with Elliot Smith and Built to Spill; and Joanna Bolme’s bass playing with Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks. Both Bolme and Weiss, in fact, still play with the Jicks outside of Quasi.

The trio actually started out as a Coomes-Weiss duo, born out of the crumbling Portland three-piece Motorgoat, in 1993. After having a number of friends help out with studio recording efforts in the early days, Quasi settled on being a duo, until 2006, when Bolme came on the road with them for a tour with Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, and joined as a permanent member of the band the following year.

When Coomes refers to the early days of Quasi, he talks about his and Weiss’ decision to continue playing music after Motorgoat’s bass player left.

“We just basically carried on,” he says. “(We) changed the name, changed our approach a little bit,” and released their self-titled cassette in 1993.

“Interestingly, I think maybe now that we’re a trio again, I think we’re playing music a little bit closer to the trio that we had,” says Coomes, “although at that time, I think we were trying to do something a little bit heavier.”

Bolme is a friend of Coomes and Weiss, who Coomes says they’ve known for a very long time. She joined Quasi as a result of the band’s 2006 album, “When the Going Gets Dark.”

“The last record before this one,” says Coomes, “we tracked it as a duo in the studio, but then we overdubbed bass and guitar parts onto the songs and when it came time to tour, we kind of felt like the songs really needed to have at least a bass in there, so we recruited Joanna, and it was so much fun that we just didn’t let her go.”

Quasi’s newest album, “American Gong,” was recorded as a trio and released last month on the Kill Rock Stars record label. The album unmistakably oozes the grit and melodic noise of the mid-‘90s, and with limited overdubs, should be represented pretty closely in a live setting.

The band sets off on a record release tour this week in Arcata, heads down California, over to Arizona and Texas (in time for SXSW), and back home through the Midwest, before landing back in Portland by the end of the month. They’ll be home for a couple of weeks, then head back out to the eastern U.S. and Canada and American South, before hopping on a plane to Europe in May.

Quasi will play at the HSU Depot this Tuesday, March 9, at 9 p.m. with openers, and Kill Rock Stars label-mates, Explode into Colors. There is a $5 general cover and the show is free for HSU students with their current student I.D.

The Long and Short of It 3-7-10 [photo tease]

2010-03-08T09:05:00.000-08:00

After grabbing this shot of Ben from The Long and Short of It, last night at the Lil Red Lion, I could have easily stopped shooting. But I didn't. More pics to come, hopefully this evening.

Dragged by Horses & The Long and Short of It 3-5-10 [photo blog]

2010-03-07T14:01:00.000-08:00

Dragged by Horses played their first local show in six months (members of the band have been busy having babies, I hear), but they came back last night with a pile of newer material and rocked the heck out of the Alibi crowd.

The Long and Short of It, whom I wrote about here, put on a totally insane live show. Singer Ben Johnson is simultaneously the most insane and insanely photogenic frontman I've ever had the luck to encounter.

The Long and Short of it plays tonight in Eureka, at the Lil Red Lion with Electric Jellyfish and The Hard Ride.

Some shots from last night:

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Midlake & Matthew and the Arrogant Sea 3-5-10 [photo blog]

2010-03-07T12:07:00.000-08:00

Midlake has been through Arcata before, and I missed them, but at the suggestion of my friend Nate, I wrote about them (here), and got out to the show.

Matthew and the Arrogant Sea opened.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

The Long and Short of It – Saturday, March 6 and Sunday, March 7, 2010

2010-03-06T08:32:00.000-08:00

Monica Topping
Radio Radio Radio

One of the most common threads in metal music is references to mythology, comics and Dungeons and Dragons. The Long and Short of It is no different.

“We’re pretty nerdy,” says Ben Johnson, the band’s lead singer. “My brother and I are way, way, way into comic books. “

Johnson’s older brother Tim plays drums in the band and is, of course, blamed for Johnson’s love for the world of comics.

“It totally is his fault,” he says. “He’s my older brother!”

The Long and Short of It went so far as to have named their full-length album, which came out last year, “Caw!: An Unkindness of Ravens” — a reference to Sandman Comics. And if you didn’t know, an unkindness is the plural for a group of ravens (like a gaggle of geese or a murder of crows).
“It’s as if the songs are each birds, and it’s like a flock of birds,” says Johnson. “That’s what it alludes to, a little bit, among other things.”

The San Diego heavy rock band has been together for about seven years now, though its members have known each other for well over a decade. The brothers met bass player Brian Barrabee when they had moved to Santa Cruz from San Diego in the early ‘90s, during what Ben Johnson refers to as their “collegiate years” (though he admits, “we didn’t, any of us, go to college all that much.”) They met guitar player Matt Strachota upon their return to San Diego.

Oddly, having known each other for nearly 40 years, this is only the third time the Johnsons have been in a band together.

“We both played drums, like I’ve played drums in other things that I’ve done throughout time, so we haven’t been in that many groups together unless I’m singing and he’s playing drums, which this is the third,” explains Ben Johnson, who plays drums in Hostile Comb-over.

The Long and Short of It was formed at a time when Ben Johnson’s band at the time was on the road to breaking up and Barrabee’s band was doing the same. Tim Johnson hadn’t been playing music at all, at that point, so the three decided to search down a guitar player and start playing.

“We were talking about a couple of guys and they didn’t work out and we didn’t really audition anybody, we just kind of talked about it, and we just hung out with the first guy we asked,” says Ben Johnson. “We just started practicing (with Strachota) and it just worked out really well and we’ve been doing it ever since.”

The Long and Short of It has released two full-length albums and two EPs, but Ben Johnson says the band doesn’t really play anything off of the first album and EP, anymore.

“All of our songs have been getting more and more interesting to us and better,” he says. “We write as a collaboration, so it took a while to get where everybody wanted to get.”

“We pretty much just play our last full-length album and this seven-inch now, and we have been for about a year-and-a-half.”

The San Diego band has just released their second EP on seven-inch vinyl and CD, featuring brand new tracks “Welcome to Gnarlsberg” and “The Lancet.” Ben Johnson did the art work for it.

“We’re just pleased as punch with it,” says Johnson. “It’s kind of a meaner, more straight-ahead sound than some of the other things that we’ve done before. We’re excited about it.”

The Long and Short of It’s current tour is taking the band up through California, to Seattle, and back home through Portland and San Francisco. They have two Humboldt shows, allowing them to hang out for a day and take in the sights, which Ben Johnson notes is almost completely unheard of, on tour, but that’s how it goes when a band schedules its tour around playing at the Alibi on a Saturday night. This is the band’s fifth time doing so.

“We now book the Alibi first, or do something with Ian (Hiler, the Alibi’s booking guy) first, and then we book our tour around that,” he says. “There are not a lot of people who put in the work and the passion that Ian brings. He takes care of everything and it’s just a treat — it’s really a treat to have somebody like that, to be involved with them. If you can’t tell, I’m in love with the guy, so we stop through there every time we go through.”

The Long and Short of It will play at the Alibi on Saturday, March 6, with Dragged by Horses, who will be playing their first local show in six months. Doors for that show open at 10:30 p.m. and there is a $5 cover.

On Sunday, March 7, The Long and Short of It will play at the Lil Red Lion, at 5th and P Streets in Eureka, with Australian psych rock band Electric Jellyfish and local heavy blues band The Hard Ride. Music starts at 9:30 p.m. and there is a $3 cover.

Both shows are 21-and-over.

Midlake - Friday, March 5, 2010

2010-03-04T22:47:00.000-08:00

Monica Topping
Radio Radio Radio

Denton, Texas, band Midlake has been at once compared to both Radiohead and Jethro Tull. Conversely, in the recording studio, Midlake is trying to emulate a tone similar to early ‘70s-era King Crimson, which bass player Paul Alexander says is the best recorded sound in rock history.

Midlake’s early days as a band are often referred to as Herbie Hancock-influenced “funk jazz explorations.” It makes sense that at the time, most of the members of the band were soon-to-be drop-outs from the jazz music program at the University of North Texas. Alexander met drummer McKenzie Smith in 1997 and the two threw around the idea of starting a band, before heading off in separate directions. By 1999, Alexander and Smith had reunited and pulled in the remaining founding members of what would become Midlake — Tim Smith on vocals, guitar, keyboard and woodwinds, Eric Pulido on guitar and Eric Nichelson on guitar.

Midlake’s jazz days ended with its various members either graduating (Tim Smith is the only member of the band who actually graduated from the UNT music program) or dropping out of school and staying in the area.

“There’s a lot of music school dropouts around, and they just don’t leave,” says Alexander. “It’s sort of like a mental hospital, this town. You can’t leave it, you know? You just get stuck here.”

The band’s first post-jazz influence was Radiohead, which is pointed out repeatedly in reviews of the Midlake’s first couple of albums — 2001’s “Milkmaid Grand Army” and 2004’s “Bamnan and Silvercork.”

Shortly after the release and touring for the second album, Midlake re-entered their recording studio to begin the recording process for “The Trials of Van Occupanther,” which came out in the summer of 2006. Because the band members were all simultaneously working day jobs, Alexander says that it took a year to finish that album, and while they knew it was the best material they could have put out at the time, none of the band members were as happy as they wanted to be with their work.

As they went into a year-and-a-half of touring for “Van Occupanther,” the band’s sights were already set on getting back into the studio to record an album they could be really proud of.

“In the fall of 2007, we stopped touring and immediately started recording ‘The Courage of Others,’” says Alexander. “And then we took an endless two years to make ‘The Courage of Others,’ which was much longer than we thought we’d take.”

The bass player says that the band members were, at that point, counting Midlake as their full-time job, but they worked a lot of hours, shooting for perfection — so much so that they scrapped an entire album’s worth of material before settling on the songs that would becoming “The Courage of Others,” which came out in early February of this year.

While “The Courage of Others” was in the works, Midlake also spent quite a bit of time backing solo artist John Grant, who has played in a band called The Czars, on his new album, which is due out in April. So in essence, over a two-year span, Midlake recorded three studio albums, two of which are seeing the light of day.

Midlake stayed off the road the entire time they were in the studio for “The Courage of Others,” so when they started touring again in January of this year, they had some cobwebs to dust off of their live performance. And as tight a quarters as a recording studio is, a tour van is even tighter.

“Being in a band is kind of like being married to four other dudes,” says Alexander, who just returned from Europe with his band a couple of weeks ago. “Everything you like and hate about somebody is like a revolving door. It’s a real challenge.”

“The touring is the fun part,” he adds. “It’s really hard on your body and sometimes hard on your friendships, but that’s the fun part. You’re going out and playing the shows — it’s work, but it’s quite enjoyable.”

Midlake is currently touring the West Coast, before heading back toward Austin, Texas, for the South by Southwest music festival in a couple of weeks, then going back out to the Northeastern parts of the United States and back to Europe in April. In addition to the five-piece studio band that is Midlake, the touring band includes Max Townsley on electric guitar and Jesse Chandler on piano and flute.

Midlake will be in Arcata on Friday, March 5, at the HSU Depot with Matthew and the Arrogant Sea at 9 p.m. Tickets are $5 general admission and $2 for current HSU students with a student ID.

Scroll up and listen to “Acts of Man” from Midlake’s “The Courage of Others” on the Radio Radio Radio radio.

Lozen & Sugar Sugar Sugar 3-1-10 [photo blog]

2010-03-04T14:16:00.000-08:00

Have I mentioned how much I love Monday nights at the Jambalaya? This week, Sugar Sugar Sugar (who I wrote about here) and Lozen (written about here) bands kicked off Women's History Month in grand form. Who says the ladies can't rock?

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

(Photo by Monica Topping)

Lozen - Tuesday, March 2, 2010

2010-03-01T23:45:00.000-08:00

Monica Topping
For the Times-Standard (originally published Aug. 6, 2009)

The book “Warrior Woman” is about an Apache woman named Lozen. Lozen was a tomboy, always running and playing games with the boys of her tribe, one of the fastest and best horse stealers.

Someone gave a copy of “Warrior Woman” to Hozoji “Hozi” Matheson-Margullis, who then lent it to Justine “Juice” Valdez, and as both women identified with the warrior, they off-handedly discussed naming a band after the her, some day.

In 2004, Valdez was living in Bellingham, Wash., about two-and-a-half hours from her home of Tacoma, and she got a hankering to learn to play drums. She took lessons for a few months, before starting to jam with guitar player Matheson-Margullis, with whom she’d been friends since high school. Matheson-Margullis helped Valdez buy the first pieces of her drum kit and within a couple months of jamming together, the two were booked for their first show.

“I think people are often caught off-guard at the aggressiveness of our music,” says Valdez. “We’re not just strumming guitars — not that there’s anything wrong with that — but we just kind of play what we feel, and it’s really raw and natural.”

Both ladies write the music for Lozen and sing, but lately, during the band’s live shows and on the recently released full-length album, “Oona,” Valdez has taken on most of the vocals, via a headset microphone.

“It does feel crazy sometimes, like an octopus,” says Valdez, about drumming and singing together. “It’s kind of like a zen thing. One of my favorite things is to be all arms flailing and be singing at the same time.”

There’s a dynamic that’s exuded through the duo’s music — a no-holds-barred energy, that new and old fans seem to appreciate, especially in places like Arcata, says Valdez. Show-goers tell the band that they’ve got kids at home and rarely get out of the house for shows, but they always find a babysitter, when Lozen is in town.

Recently, Lozen was voted “Tacoma’s Best Metal Band,” in a scene where Valdez says there are a lot of bands who play that type of music, but Valdez theorizes that maybe people like them so much because they are hard rocking women.

“I always forget that dynamic — that it is just two of us and we’re both women,” she says. “I don’t think we really set out to be a two-piece, but now that you see other two-pieces, it’s rare that you see two female, and then two female with our style.”

This will be the second time that Valdez and Matheson-Margullis tour through Humboldt with their “Oona” album, which was released last April on a Tacoma record label that only pressed it onto 10-inch vinyl, though it also comes with a bonus digital download, for those without a record player.

Lozen and Bellingham, Wash., band Sugar Sugar Sugar (whom I wrote about here) will play tonight at the Lil Red Lion in Eureka. Tonight’s show will start around 9:30 p.m. and is 21-and-over.

This is the second of two Humboldt dates on the month-long tour, which will take the bands over the border into Mexico, up into Austin, Texas, and back through the Midwest on their way home.

Listen to Lozen's song "Rumbles," from their album, "Oona."

(Submitted photo)

Arcata Winterfest 2-27-10 [photo blog]

2010-03-01T06:52:00.000-08:00

As I wrote about here, to a scene geek like me, there is little better than live music in multiple venues, all within walking distance of each other. What is better is three of those venues (Humboldt Brews, the Jambalaya and the Alibi) working together to benefit a local non-profit (the music program at Coastal Grove Charter School). It's almost like event organizer Scott Carlson read my mind!

That's what Arcata Winterfest, which ran Saturday early afternoon through bar closing, was all about--buying violins for an elementary school. Perhaps the kids who benefit from Winterfest will be back in 10 years playing the same event that made it possible for them to become musicians...

Photos of The Bucky Walters at HumBrews, The Nucleus at HumBrews, The Smashed Glass at the Alibi, Moo-Got-2 at HumBrews and Woven Roots at the Jambalaya.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

And a big ol' thanks to Quasi, who will be playing at HSU next Monday, for their album "American Gong," which kept me company through the night, as I obsessively (or is it compulsively?) edited and uploaded these photos from Arcata Winterfest. Listen to "Replusion." Buy the album.

Sugar Sugar Sugar - Monday, March 1 and Tuesday, March 2, 2010

2010-03-01T02:09:00.000-08:00

Monica Topping
Radio Radio Radio

On Sugar Sugar Sugar’s last (and first) West Coast tour, they relied on the kindness and trust of venues along the route to give them a place to set up and play, often with little notice. Luckily, Sugar Sugar Sugar took a chance on Eureka, and the owner of Eureka’s Lil Red Lion bar, at the corner of 5th and P Streets, took a chance on Sugar Sugar Sugar.

This time around, Lupe Flores — the drummer for the Bellingham, Wash., rock band — called the Lil Red and booked it well in advance for the group’s second tour. They’ll be playing most of the dates — including a jaunt into Mexico, over to Austin, Texas, and back up through the Midwest — with Tacoma-based rock duo Lozen.

Sugar Sugar Sugar was the idea of lead vocalist and bass player Andru Creature, who was playing in another group when he had the idea to try something a little bit different, musically. He and guitar player Christopher Nunn had been talking for a while about playing together, but hadn’t followed through, until they found a mutual friend to play keyboards. The search for a drummer started shortly thereafter.

Flores says she was “boozy” the first time she met Creature, who was playing as the one-man-band Lonebird.

“I was watching him play… and I decided that he needed me to be his drummer,” says Flores. “So I went up to him and I was like ‘I’m Lupe and I’m going to be your drummer,’ and he was like… ‘Well, the thing about Lonebird is that I’m kind of supposed to be alone, you know?’ and I was pretty much heartbroken. Then he told me that he was starting this rock ‘n’ roll band and they needed a drummer and he called me up soon thereafter.”

The band started practicing together in November of 2007 and while Creature does most of the songwriting for the group, he says the songs are fleshed out collaboratively. Sugar Sugar Sugar released a live E.P. last year and last week released their debut studio album, called “Can’t Get Enough.”

Creature says, “It feels like we’ve been working on this record for eight, nine…” and trails off. Flores jumps in with “Forever.”

“We put out a live EP last year,” says Flores, “a six song live EP that’s pretty bitchin’, but I think we’re really picky — well I know we’re very picky — about how we want our recordings to sound because I think we’re such a live kind of band that it’s hard to capture…that energy in a studio recording.”

“I’m really proud of the way that studio album came out — it captures that live sound,” she adds. “But it also is…nice being able to overdub other instruments and clap tracks and whatnot.”

“Can’t Get Enough” was recorded on reel-to-reel with the band playing in the same room. They played each song over and over again until they were happy with the take, then went back afterward and added subtleties like hand claps, harmonica and piano.

“We didn’t want people to hear the record and then hear us live and think, ‘This sounds nothing like the record,’” says Creature. “The overdubs that we did make are very subtle.”

Flores says Sugar Sugar Sugar probably has enough material for three full albums, but as with most bands, money has held them back from recording all of it. She and Creature agree that hopefully the band will be financially able to head back into the recording studio after returning from this current tour in early April.

The band is excited to get out on the road for so long, and Flores says that they’ve discovered an interesting niche of psychedelic rock bands in the Midwest that they’re lucky to be playing with, later in the month.

“I don’t understand how that happened or why those people are there,” she laughs, “but I’m really excited that they are there.”

The hardest part, she says, about going out on a month-long tour is leaving behind the class full of pre-kindergarten kids that she teaches two days a week.

“The kids are so supportive,” says Flores. “On our last fieldtrip, I took them in our Sugar van and they all got to feel what it’s like being in a van and it’s really cute.”

“And then they pretended they were going on tour and they were running around the school, outside, with a bunch of drums.”

Flores says she plans on calling the kids and sending postcards regularly, while out on the road.

Sugar Sugar Sugar is playing two nights in Humboldt. Monday night, March 1, they’ll play with Lozen and DJ Hefe at the Jambalaya’s weekly Budget Rock Night, around 9:30 p.m. There is a $3 cover on that show.

The next night, Tuesday, March 2, Sugar Sugar Sugar and Lozen will be playing at Eureka’s Lil Red Lion around 9 p.m. Both shows are 21-and-over.

The Toasters & Killbot Factory 2-24-10 [photo blog]

2010-02-26T23:21:00.000-08:00

I was fortunate enough to move to Humboldt County in 1995, as the third wave of ska was in its prime (or at least height of popularity) and we had tons of regional and national ska bands coming through town, playing all-ages shows.

Despite my newly acquired driver's license, I have ska to thank for my losing a pile of weight, at the time, and having fun doing it. I could really use another local ska revival. ;-)

Wednesday night, Shane and I got down to Arcata Theatre Lounge with my scooter club friend Dave and Gabe Pressure (who interviewed Buck from The Toasters here), in time to see Killbot Factory opening for The Toasters (who I wrote about here). I managed to get some photos in between dodging flying elbows from the moshpit and dancing, myself.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

(Photo of Buck from The Toasters by Monica Topping)

Pete Bernhard, Blushin' Roulettes & The Bad Lilas 2-23-10 [photo blog]

2010-02-25T11:04:00.000-08:00

I shouldn't be so shocked that Pete Bernhard of Devil Makes Three fame (whom I wrote about here) was able to sell out the Jambalaya on a Tuesday night... especially on the heels of a sold-out DM3 show at the Eureka Theater last month.

As Bernhard, himself, pointed out when I spoke to him a little more than a week ago, "It’s not exactly like the Devil Makes Three, so you can’t really expect that." He added "if you come wanting to hear the Devil Makes Three, you might be kind of disappointed.”

I don't think anyone was disappointed. By the end of the show, the room looked just as packed as it did at the beginning, which is usually a pretty good indicator.

Locals The Bad Lilas and Mendocino band Blushin' Roulettes opened.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

The Toasters - Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2010

2010-02-23T09:52:00.000-08:00

Monica Topping
Radio Radio Radio

If Buck Hingley would have had his way, growing up, he would have become a spy for the British Secret Service and New York ska band the Toasters never would have existed.

“I originally wanted to be a spy,” says Hingley, who grew up in the U.K. “I was a big James Bond fan when I was a kid and I wanted to work for the British Secret Service, but it’s all kind of an old boy network there, so I got a little bit disillusioned with that whole British establishment and everything.”

Hingley was sort of a late bloomer as far as playing music goes. He didn’t learn to play the guitar until his late teens and says that was just a way of burning off stress from working on his A-levels (the British equivalent to a high school diploma). He didn’t join a band until he’d gone to university and even that was quite by accident.

He was working for a company called Forbidden Planet in London, selling comics and science fiction, horror books and toys, when Hingley was sent to New York in 1980.

“…They sent me over to New York to, let’s say, regulate the personnel — I had to fire a bunch of people and rehire them,” says Hingley, “and originally I was just supposed to be there for six months, but I ended up staying longer and then I didn’t want to go back, so that was the original reason for going.”

A few of his New York co-workers played instruments, so they started getting together to jam and Hingley taught them how to play ska music. The lineup shuffled around to include other people who were “more ska-minded” and out of that group basically evolved the original lineup of the Toasters, in 1981.

By 1983, Hingley had started Moon Ska Records, which released not only the Toasters’ music, but also many other ska bands, until 2000, when it finally shut down. He founded Megalith Records in 2002 and has continued to release ska records in a time when the genre has been kept sort of underground.

“(That’s) not the worst place for it to be,” says Hingley, “because the music goes back to the fans and the bands who really want to play the music for the music’s sake, and not because there’s an ulterior motive of getting rich and famous or going on the road.”

“I think the fact that it’s gone back to the fans and the bands who really love it is a great thing for the health of the music and what happens there, of course, is you get a whole new wave of younger bands who are playing the style and it starts all over again. It’s kind of a self auto-rejuvenation, I would say.”

Hingley “voted with (his) feet” and relocated his family from New York to Spain in 2005, but has continued touring with The Toasters. He expects the band will be playing 150 and 200 shows this year, but in order to maintain his family life, he only tours while his kids — a college-aged son and 12-year-old twin daughters — are in school. Of course, he’s been a touring musician since before he was married or had kids, so his family is pretty used to the routine, by now.

At this point, Hingley is the Toasters’ only original member, so putting together a touring band, he says, is “a little bit like Mission Impossible.”

“I go through the files, and because we plan the touring out quite a long way ahead, I’m able to send the guys out a list of where we’re going for the year,” he says. “Quite a lot of the guys I have with me now play in other bands, so I’m always able to get some top-notch guys simply by working around when their other bands are on the road.”

The Toasters’ current touring lineup includes former and current Westbound Train members Jesse Hayes on drums, Thaddeus Merritt on bass and Rich Graiko on trumpet. They also have trombone player Arjen Bijleveld of Holland’s Rotterdam Ska-Jazz Foundation on this tour.

“The interesting thing is that even though we’ve been on the road for 30 years, there’s always somewhere we haven’t played,” says Hingley.

Arcata is one of those places.

The Toasters will be at the Arcata Theatre Lounge this Wednesday, Feb. 24, with local bands Killbot Factory and Vigilante Death Squad. Doors for the 18-and-over show are set to open at 8:30 p.m. with music starting around 9:15 p.m. Tickets are $10 advance and $12 at the door.

Listen to The Toasters’ “Talk Is Cheap” and check them out both on Myspace and their regular Web site.

Also, my friend Gabe Pressure talked to Buck and has the audio posted here, on the Musical Occupation podcast.

ALO & Chris Velan 2-21-10 [photo blog]

2010-02-22T19:15:00.000-08:00

For the sake of keeping it brief, Chris Velan opened the show and had the crowd captivated and dancing almost immediately. And ALO (whom I wrote about here) whipped the packed room into a sweaty frenzy, mixing older songs with ones from their new album, "Man of the World." It was impossible to not leave that show with a smile on my face.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Scene Noir 2-23-10 - Arcata Winterfest

2010-02-22T15:06:00.000-08:00

Monica Topping
Tri-City Weekly

Reason number three that I love living in Arcata: I love having most of my favorite live music venues within walking distance of my apartment.

The only thing that could possibly be better than being surrounded by venues that offer live music, in my little world anyway, is having those venues work together for a local non-profit. (Well, that and having more of those venues be all-ages, but that’s a column for a different week.)

Scott Carlson, who works at Humboldt Brews, came up to me a couple of months back and mentioned an idea he’d been discussing with a couple of the restaurant-venue’s competitors — an all-day music festival starting in the early afternoon and ending at closing time, where one wristband would get you into HumBrews, The Jambalaya and The Alibi. By mid-January, the details were secure and Arcata Winterfest was set for this Saturday, Feb. 27, with doors opening at 2 p.m. and running until 1:30 a.m. Ticket sales will benefit Coastal Grove Charter School.

Humboldt Brews will open up their new stage in the afternoon, with SoHum reggae/ska/rockers The NPK starting the party around 2:30 p.m., followed by the Fickle Hill Billies at 4:30 p.m., Bucky Walters at 7 p.m., The Nucleus at 9:30 p.m., and Moo-Got-2 playing from 11:30 p.m. until closing.

Around the corner at the Jambalaya, local honky tonk ‘n’ rollers Rooster McClintock will start those festivities at 2:45 p.m. Miles Ahead, the Miles Davis tribute, will start at 5:15 p.m., followed by The Miracle Show at 7:15 p.m., Synrgy around 10 p.m. and Woven Roots going on at midnight.

The Alibi will get into the live music action around 9:30 p.m. with The Smashed Glass and Fall the Giants.

Hopefully I’m not the only one who’s noticed that the start times at the various venues are off-set, at least a little bit, allowing folks to see at least some of every band’s set, should they choose to do so. Good move on Carlson’s part.

Single-venue wristbands are $15, but you can experience all three venues for only $17 in advance or $20 at the door. If you’re into the less crowded V.I.P. experience, which includes live music from The Bad Lilas at the new Robert Goodman Winery plus special viewing areas at both the Jambalaya and Humboldt Brews, tickets are $50 and very limited.

Carlson tells me that he hopes to make Arcata Winterfest an annual event (just like its sister event, Mad River Summerfest, in its second year, this July), expanding out to the other live music venues in the future, but logistically he felt like he needed to start out sort of small (if you can call three venues of non-competing live music “small”).

Details for Arcata Winterfest, as well as all of the event’s sponsors, ticket venues, changes and additions to the line-up can be found at www.ArcataWinterfest.com.

Create a playlist at MixPod.com

Monica Topping does the Slug Festivities Guide and is the weekend mid-day DJ on 94.1 KSLG-FM. She also keeps track of the local music scene online at www.RadioRadioHumboldt.com. She can be reached at Monica@kslg.com .

Pete Bernhard - Tuesday, February 23, 2010

2010-02-21T23:57:00.000-08:00

Monica Topping
Radio Radio Radio

Pete Bernhard always wanted to be a musician when he grew up. With both a father and older brother as musicians, it seemed like an obvious choice.

When he was ready, Bernhard left the small Vermont town he grew up in and moved west to Nashville, then Olympia, Wash., where he joined a band and went on the road, touring south into California. When a band mate and he broke down in Santa Cruz, they crashed with an old friend of his from Vermont and Bernhard became the voice and main songwriter for The Devil Makes Three.

Bernhard says he doesn’t have any hobbies. When he’s not on the road or in the studio making music, he says he’s at home writing music and practicing what he already knows. There are songs he writes that fit best in the high-energy, acoustic string band setting, and there is the remainder, which Bernhard says he can hear drums or pedal steel on. The former are incorporated into The Devil Makes Three’s repertoire, and the latter turns into Bernhard’s solo material.

In 2006, Bernhard released his first truly solo album, “Things I Left Behind.” That album, he says, was recorded quickly and released right before The Devil Makes Three went back out on the road, so he only got about 1,000 copies printed and toured for it one time, but didn’t have much time to do anything else with it.

He followed up that release last September with “Straight Line,” on Milan Records, which he says he likes more that the prior album.

“I’d say I ... (got) to spend more time on (‘Straight Line’) and I like that,” says Bernhard.
“I didn’t really feel rushed. It was during a time when The Devil Makes Three had time off.”

“I (also) like playing with other people,” he says. “The other record is sort of just me and a guitar and a couple of friends play on it, but this is more like playing with a band, and I really enjoy playing with other people, even though it is a solo record and it’s different people playing on the record, it’s really fun. I think it makes me play better.”

“Straight Line” features friends Max Hart on bass, pedal steel and organ and Jason Chase on drums. The duo also backs up Bernhard on the road, though in Bernhard’s perfect world, Hart would be able to focus on playing pedal steel, organ and vocals, and the band would pick up an additional bass player, but right now, he says, that’s “just not logistically possible.”

Bernhard met both of his band mates in the Sacramento area, where he’s been living most recently. Hart lives in New York now, but comes out west to play with Bernhard and other musicians.

“They’re just guys who I ended up playing with for fun, not necessarily to make a record or to go on tour, but it just ended up going so well that we kept doing it.”

Bernhard embarked on the current leg of his solo tour for “Straight Line,” last week in Los Angeles. He’ll be playing in Arcata on the heels of a sold old show with The Devil Makes Three last month at the Eureka Theatre.

One thing that Bernhard points out about his solo shows is that it is not a Devil Makes Three show.

“The songs vary a lot more,” Bernhard says of his solo project. “There’ll be more slow and when they’re fast, they tend to be louder. I guess what you can expect is a little bit more of a straightforward band. It’s electric bass, drums, electric guitar — I do a lot more finger-picking.

“It’s not like people who like the Devil Makes Three won’t like it, because I think they will,” he adds. “I’m the same songwriter as I am in the Devil Makes Three, but if you come wanting to hear the Devil Makes Three, you might be kind of disappointed.”

Bernhard plays at the Jambalaya this Tuesday night with Mendocino’s Blushin’ Roulettes and locals The Bad Lilas. Tickets are $7, available at the Jambalaya and at the door, if there are any left. The 21-and-over show will start around 9 p.m.

Listen to Pete Bernhard's "Warning", from his "Straight Line" album.

(Submitted photo)

Blessed Deep & thirtythreeandathird 2-20-10 [photo blog]

2010-02-21T20:24:00.000-08:00

Last night at the Alibi, Blessed Deep (which I wrote about here) played with local instru-metal band thirtythreeandathird (lower-case, one word, that's the way they like it!). After interviewing all three members of Blessed Deep and hearing about their influences, including Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and the Pixies, I looked forward to checking them out. After last night, I get it. Hope they come back.

And of course, thirtythreeandathird was rocking a very enthusiastic crowd when they came on.

Some photos:

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Samba Na Chuva & Peeping Thomas 2-19-10 [photo blog]

2010-02-21T18:20:00.000-08:00

DJ Red, Peeping Thomas (I write about them here) and Samba Na Chuva -- the concept was a fun one... the idea of samba girls dancing during a Peeping Thomas set was fun to imagine. what I didn't could on was Peeping Thomas' Thomas Gai actually dancing *with* the Samba Na Chuva girls. It was a thing of beauty.

Sadly, I got there after DJ Red had spun his first set, but here's what I got of Samba Na Chuva and Peeping Thomas. And uber-thanks to one Terrence McNally for letting me play with his remote camera flash equipment. The really well-lit samba girl shots are the product of that little experiment.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Absynth Quintet w/ Sundown Poachers 2-18-10 [photo blog]

2010-02-21T15:38:00.000-08:00

Absynth Quintet played with the Sundown Poachers on Thursday night at Humboldt Brews. Sundown Poachers opened with their set of mostly goofy, but highly energetic mix of folk, Americana, bluegrass and stoner tunes (they call it "FolkaTripdaChronic"). Then Absynth came on -- actually playing as a sextet that night, with Zebulon Bowles on fiddle -- and the room exploded with sweaty dancers.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

ALO - Sunday, Feb. 21, 2010

2010-02-19T23:37:00.000-08:00

Monica Topping
Radio Radio Radio

There was a time when recording a band’s music meant gathering the group around one microphone and arranging people closer or farther from the mic, depending on how loud you wanted each voice or instrument.

Times changed, first, with the advent of multi-track recording, then with digital recording and editing, where one wrong note could be fixed later, without interrupting the session, now.

When ALO — Dan “Lebo” Lebowitz on guitar and vocals, Steve Adams on bass and vocals, Zach Gill on keys and vocals, and Dave Brogan on drums and vocals — went into Jack Johnson’s recording studio at his home in Oahu, the band decided to return, as much as possible, to the old style of recording. While they recorded digitally and with more than one mic, they set up in a way that forced them to be as cohesive as possible.

“Here, we literally just set up the way we would set up if we were just writing music together — set up in a big circle — but literally my guitar was pointed at the drums,” says Lebo.

“With a lot of past recordings, it’s been more like over-dubbing, constructing things that way, whereas this, we really tried to go more organic, all get in a room and play,” he says. “…There’s all sorts of drums bleeding onto the guitar tracks, all sorts of guitar bleeding onto the drum tracks, which you know a lot of people wouldn’t want to do because it makes it impossible to edit … but we just decided to commit to getting good performances altogether.”

ALO’s past two albums — “Fly Between Falls,” released in 2004, and “Roses and Clover,” released in 2007 — were recorded between the Bay Area and Santa Barbara, where the members of the band live. Because of the distance between band members, Lebo says the group would get together before going into the studio and write songs and get inspired, but by the time they got into the recording studio, some of the magic was gone. Consequently, while a lot of the songs from both albums were recorded partially live — as in all of the band members playing together at the same time — their amps were placed in separate, sound-proofed spaces, so overdubbing could still be done easily.

“I think one of the things that was really cool about doing this one in Hawaii is that none of us live there, so it was nice for us to all be taken out of our routine,” says Lebo. “Hawaii was nice because everyone was just out there and you couldn’t do your normal day-to-day thing because you didn’t have that option.

“I think it just brought us all really focused around recording. The album was the only reason we were there — well besides the beautiful place, of course.”

ALO was in Hawaii for three weeks to record its new album, “Man of the World,” which just came out on February 9. Johnson, who owns the band’s label, Brushfire Records, worked very closely with them on this recording, even going so far as to lend his own vocals to the mix on a couple of the songs, leading Lebo to admit that Johnson “sort of became a member of the band over the process of making the album.”

The band is excited to take the new album out on the road, but recognizes the challenge of their fans wanting to hear what they know. Lebo figures that while the album is still fresh, much of ALO’s live set will incorporate much of their older music with a sprinkling of the new songs. As the tour goes on, though, and the album has been out for longer, he hopes they’ll be able to focus more on the new tracks, and hopes the audience will be familiar enough with it to sing along.

ALO hit the road in the last couple of weeks for their fourth “Tour d’Amore,” which benefits the Bay Area’s Music in Schools Today program.

“For us, it’s something that’s real close to home because everyone in the band went to public school and basically learned a lot about music from our public school music classes — bands and choirs — and we all really grew up benefiting from that,” says Lebo, who was in jazz band, concert band, jazz choir and concert choir in high school. “I don’t think we would be the musicians we are — I know we wouldn’t be — if we wouldn’t have had that in high school.”

ALO will play this Sunday, Feb. 21, on Humboldt Brews’ new stage with opener Chris Velan, who has done a lot of work with Jackie Greene and Tim Bluhm. The show will start around 9:30 p.m. and there is a $12 cover. This is a 21-and-over show.

Blessed Deep - Saturday, Feb. 20, 2010

2010-02-17T16:11:00.000-08:00

Monica Topping
Radio Radio Radio

It could almost be said that Blessed Deep is the brainchild of someone that’s not even a founding member of the band.

While the trio that is Seattle’s Blessed Deep — Nate Brown on guitar and vocals, Holly Deye on bass and vocals, and Andrew Barkau on drums — has only been playing together since August of last year, the concept for an improvisational stoner rock band was originally proposed by another Seattle musician who started a group over a year ago with Brown and Barkau. But when it came time for their first show, the other musician didn’t even show up and the duo performed anyway.

Brown and Barkau — who used to be in Seattle bands Lake of Falcons and K Records band The Curious Mystery, respectively — work together at a store in Seattle called Trading Musician, so those two collaborating on a musical project could have been expected. Barkau works a second job at the city’s Sunset Tavern with bartender Deye, who has been in both Chuck Yay-Grr! and Lillydale, and they had bonded over similar tastes in music on many occasions. One day, Deye says she got a text message from Barkau, who asked what she was doing that weekend.

“I said ‘I don’t know, what am I doing?’,” says Deye. “‘You’re going to come play really heavy ‘70s rock ‘n’ roll with me and my friend Nate,’ and I texted back ‘You are right, that’s exactly what I’m doing.’ We all got together and it was really fun, and we kind of spread out more than just that original premise, but that’s still kind of the backbone of it.”

Deye says she hears a lot of people describe Blessed Deep as a mix of Deep Purple and Black Sabbath meets the Pixies and Sonic Youth. Brown adds Built to Spill to the mix.

“Sort of early heavy metal-slash-classic rock with sort of ‘90s experimental post-art rock kind of stuff,” says Barkau, and he adds “I try my best to be the ‘70s rock engine.”

“It’s funny, living in this generation, we’ve all been exposed to so many different genres — especially three music geeks like us — and it’s really fun to see that it’s almost impossible for us to stay just in one genre, because we all have so many different things that we like,” says Deye.

All three members of Blessed Deep can be credited with the songwriting, which might account for the heavy influences from so many different directions.

“This is the most collaborative process I’ve ever been in with a band,” says Deye. “Usually it kind of gets defined as to who’s writing each song, but with this band, most commonly it starts with one of us having a riff and then the other ones joining in and then we just start scatting sounds over it, and then Nate and I kind of take turns on ‘Okay, I really feel the lyrics on this one.’”

Being relatively new, Blessed Deep has yet to hit a recording studio to put out a high-quality recording. Deye points out that the songs on the band’s Myspace page are all rough demos, but they’ve decided to take all of the current songs out on the road, work all of the bugs out of them, and schedule some time to record after their tour.

Blessed Deep left mid-week on a 12-day tour that will have them playing 11 shows from Salem, Ore., down to Los Angeles, and back north again by the end of the month. Deye has never played a show in Arcata, but says she’s excited to come through and get to see some good friends of hers who live in this area. Brown is excited to play at the Alibi again, after first playing that venue with Lake of Falcons a few years back.

Blessed Deep will play at the Alibi this Saturday, Feb. 20, with local instru-metal band thirtythreeandathird. Doors for the Alibi open at 10:30 p.m. and it is a 21-and-over venue. There will be a $5 cover.

(Submitted photo by Isaac Person)

Peeping Thomas - Friday, Feb. 19, 2010

2010-02-17T06:17:00.000-08:00

Monica Topping
For the Times-Standard (originally published Oct. 29, 2009)

Peeping Thomas is not a band that takes itself terribly seriously.

The group started out intending to do covers of a 1980s punk band called Sloppy Seconds, and what has come to pass is an original mix of punk, ska, country and “sissy reggae.”

Guitar player Tad Sutera — of the Cutters, Petey and Associates and countless other bands — wrangled the original group that has become Peeping Thomas — Kris Sundeen on sax, Joey Thornburgh playing drums, the newest member, Tim Claasen, on six-string bass, and Thomas Gai (pronounced “guy”) is the “singer with no other musical ability.”

The band originally kicked around “Thomas Gai and the Straights” as a potential band name, playing on the possible and constant mispronunciation of Gai’s last name. When that didn’t stick, they kept searching.

“Naming a band is like naming a boat,” says Gai. “There are a lot of good ideas and Peeping Thomas just stuck, because we kind of wanted that weird connotation.”

And because they don’t take themselves too seriously.

Sometimes, the members of Peeping Thomas dress up in costumes for their shows, unrelated to any silly holidays.

“We’re kind of like the Village People, except for the cop and the Native American, we’ve got the real estate agent, the handy man, the nursery salesman, but a lot like the Village People,” says Gai.

“We once dressed up as Aztec beer warriors,” says Sundeen. “You can look on Facebook and see the photos, but we made costumes entirely out of 12-pack containers.”

“And duct tape,” adds Gai.

One element that makes the Peeping Thomas experience what it is, is the party atmosphere. The band prefers to play house parties and bars.

“We’ve never had a cover, thus far,” says Gai, “so parties and bars where people are already engaged in the act of partying, we enjoy because we’re not there to be watched, we’re not there to be spectacalized — we’re there to rock.”

“It’s all about fun for us,” adds Sundeen.

“It’s the loss of inhibition,” continues Gai. “That’s why people go to live shows and Humboldt County’s awesome because we’re one of the last refuges in America…where people can actually dance and not be all weirded out. You go to the city and people are all too cool to dance.”

“We’re not trying to be some reggae dancehall scene where you have to wear certain clothes and pay a $10 cover to get in,” says Sundeen. “It’s about having fun with your friends and if you like the music, that’s cool, if you don’t, that’s cool. Most people seem to have a good time, regardless.”

“If you have to have fun by drinking, please drink,” laughs Gai.

Last year, Gai embarked on a month-long cleanse, giving up caffeine and alcohol and lost a good deal of weight. While Gai experienced his first-ever sober practices during that month, and he was happy with the results, playing a show is not something to be done sober, for this band.

“There’s a certain point where drunkenness interferes with the lyrics, but reaching the fulcrum, where it starts to tilt the other way, that’s the fun,” says Gai. “Because right up to that point is glory, because I think your subconscious really comes out and you can do the full cosmic vibe.”

“I’ve heard you compared to Jim Morrison,” says Sundeen.

“Now that I’m thinning out, maybe the shirt will come off again [like Morrison],” says Gai.

Peeping Thomas will play at Humboldt Brews this Friday, Feb. 19, with DJ Red and Samba Na Chuva (“We’re going to have samba dancers!” says Gai.). The show starts around 9:30 p.m. and there is a $5 cover.

Listen here to “Subaru,” off Peeping Thomas’ album “Casual Encounters.”

Megaton Leviathan & The Makai 2-15-10 [photo blog]

2010-02-16T18:02:00.000-08:00

I'm loving Budget Rock Night, every Monday at the Jambalaya.

Last night, Portland's Megaton Leviathan (I wrote about them here) and Chico's The Makai. I'm still trying to get my hearing back, but it was a lot of fun.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Zepparella 2-13-10 [photo blog]

2010-02-15T16:30:00.000-08:00

It's hard to put into words how freaking amazing Zepparella (whom I previewed here) is as a live band. The thing is, when you take four women and make them into a Led Zeppelin tribute, it can either be really good or really bad. Anything in between -- that doesn't do Zeppelin's music justice -- is undeniably bad.

Zepparella doesn't know the meaning of mediocre.

I would be shocked if Saturday night's show at Humboldt Brews wasn't sold out. The ticket line was darned near out the door when I got to the venue and the room that houses HumBrews' new stage was packed. During the band's set break, nobody wanted to give up their spot for a bar-run, for fear of losing it for the night (some relented and dealt with the consequences).

Here are some pics from Saturday night:

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Tornado Rider and Gooferman 2-11-10 [photo blog]

2010-02-15T01:40:00.001-08:00

Thank goodness for Twitter (find me @rockchickdesign), while I'm on the go. While once upon a time I thought in terms of blog posts, now my thoughts are 140 characters or less, and can be posted from wherever I have cell reception.

Some thoughts from Thursday night's Tornado Rider (which I wrote about beforehand) show with Gooferman at the Arcata Theatre Lounge:

Just got home from choir practice, threw on some teal glitter eyeliner and am hoofin it to Arcata Theater for Tornado Rider. 9:34 PM Feb 11th from web
The DJ's got the bass so heavy it feels like a massage. Gooferman and Tornado Rider to follow. Bzzz bzzzz bzzzz (Arcata Theatre Lounge) 10:14 PM Feb 11th from web
Surprising-- Tornado Rider is playing first. Hands down, the most entertaining live show EVER! 10:58 PM Feb 11th from web
Crowd seems to be commanding an encore from Tornado Rider... And they're back! Gooferman (klown band) still to come at ATL. 11:29 PM Feb 11th from web

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

And now for Act 2, Gooferman:

Tornado Rider is a tough act to follow. Can it be done by a klown band? Time will tell. Gooferman starting now at Arcata Theatre. 11:37 PM Feb 11th from web
To clarify, these are not like Dell'Arte clowns. They look more like Insane Clown Posse clowns, but they say they're not. Nightmares! 11:49 PM Feb 11th from web
They're kind of like f***ed up raver kids gone metal. But with hot klown backup dancers. 11:52 PM Feb 11thfrom web
Tornado Rider boys have joined Gooferman klowns on-stage. Makes them mildly less freaky. Or maybe different freaky. 12:12 AM Feb 12th from web

Megaton Leviathan - Monday, Feb. 15, 2010

2010-02-14T16:14:00.000-08:00

Monica Topping
Radio Radio Radio

Metal music doesn’t have to be angry — sometimes it can be used as a conduit to achieve personal growth and spirituality, says Chris Beug of Portland’s Megaton Leviathan.

Named after lyrics from Judas Priest’s “Delivering the Goods,” Beug says that when singer and guitar/synthesizer player Andrew Costa formed the band a couple of years ago, the band’s moniker was as much a nod to one of its main musical influences, as it was a reference to how Costa saw himself, as the time.

Beug — who also plays in a black metal band called Mary Shelley, an electronic music hybrid called Static Opera and his solo death-folk project, Cascadian Winter — joined the band less than a year ago, having moved to Portland from Olympia, Wash., where he had grown up and was managing an all-ages music venue. When it was time for a change of scenery, Beug followed the lead of many before him, who were looking for a supportive and thriving music scene. When he got to Portland, he answered an ad for a bass player in a “‘psychedelic minimalist doom band called Megaton Leviathan,’” he says, “and I was like, ‘That’s exactly what I want to do.’”

As soon as Beug joined the band, they started putting together some recorded demos to take on the road. Costa, the band’s prolific songwriter, has albums upon albums worth of material, so they set about working on their first self-titled demo, recorded in the basement of Costa’s house in Northeast Portland — “…in the fuckin’ getto,” says Beug — which came out in time for the band’s October tour, last year, and included their former drummer, Matt Brim, who had also been a founding member of the group. They had started recording a second demo and making plans for a spring tour, when Brim left the band.

Scrambling for a new drummer, Costa called Kathryn Joy, with whom he’d played in a band called Billy Dirt Cult, and she sat in on one of Megaton Leviathan’s shows. After that, Joy decided to join the band, helped finish up the 2010 demo, and will be joining them out on the road for the next couple of weeks, on a tour down to Los Angeles and back up to Eugene, Ore.

“We both feel really fortunate to have a woman as talented as Kathryn playing with us,” says Beug. “It’s so nice to break up the all-dudes-all-the-time thing that goes on with rock ‘n’ roll. There’s not enough women playing heavy music. I have a lot of respect for the women that do play in heavy, intense bands.”

Upon returning from this tour, where Megaton Leviathan will share the bill with Chico band The Makai, and well as Olympia’s Wolves in the Throne Room — of which Beug was briefly a member — they will begin work on a 7-inch record and hope to find a record label that will fund their first full-length record.

Megaton Leviathan will land at the Jambalaya on Monday, Feb. 15, with The Makai, for the venue’s weekly Budget Rock Night. There is a $3 cover and it is a 21-and-over show.

“This is really very spiritual music for us,” says Beug. “We’re very much engaged in trying to share our — more than an artistic vision… for me, personally, my wonder and joy of living in the Pacific Northwest and trying to bring a bit of magic that’s here, everywhere I go.”

Listen to “Guns and LSD,” from Megaton Leviathan's '09 demo.

(Photo borrowed from Megaton Leviathan's Myspace page)

Zepparella – Saturday, Feb. 13, 2010

2010-02-12T14:19:00.000-08:00

Monica Topping
Radio Radio Radio

There are so many decisions to make in starting a new band, from the name to what kind of music they will be playing.

Half of the members of Zepparella, the Bay Area’s all-woman Led Zeppelin tribute band, were members of an AC/DC tribute called AC/DShe, prior to this. In that band, they all took on “characters” of sorts, in the band members they emulated — Gretchen Menn was Agnes (Angus) Young and drummer Clementine was Phyllis (Phil) Rudd. The members studied videos of AC/DC, hoping to perform as close to the way AC/DC does, as possible, from the way Bon Scott walked on-stage to Angus’ infamous duck walk.

Zepparella has toned down its emulation, not because of any less intense love for the original band, but because Zeppelin, unlike AC/DC, was much more improvisational. Now, when the ladies of Zepparella — Menn on guitar, Anna Kristina on vocals, Nila Minnerock on bass and Clementine on drums — watch a video of their musical heroes, it’s about learning how to sound like them, and not just look like them.

“Gretchen and I started this band because we wanted to learn two of our favorite musicians’ catalogs,” says Clementine. “I just had the thought one day, ‘If I want to be a better drummer, I will learn John Bonham’s parts. If I can play John Bonham’s parts, I’m just going to be better.’ She felt that way about Jimmy Page.”

“Our first intention with it was to really get inside of the music, and later on, we decided to do it on-stage.”

Most of the members of Zepparella came together through various musical pursuits. Minnerock and Clementine began playing together more than a decade ago in a band called Bottom. Originally started in New York City, the band moved to the Bay Area and picked up Menn as a second guitarist. Menn and Clementine played in AC/DShe, then started work on Zepparella. Kristina, Zepparella’s singer (who hits Robert Plant’s high notes like he did back in the day) is a Bay Area stage actress and vocalist.

Another area in which this Zeppelin tribute differs from the AC/DC tribute — which still exists in the Bay Area, just without Clementine and Menn — is that Zepparella has released a couple of live albums, showcasing their talents. “Live at 19 Broadway” came out in 2005 and “Pleasing Pounding” followed in 2007.

“The reason that we have made records is because Zeppelin’s music has so much improvisation in it that we do actually make some of the songs our own,” says Clementine. “We’re improvising within the structure. So whereas we learn the song how it is on the record, you know Zeppelin never played ‘Immigrant Song’ the same way — they always did a different thing in the whole middle section, so we do that, too.”

Zeppelin’s improvisation has opened the door for the members of Zepparella to interpret the songs in their own way, while staying true to the energy and brilliance of the band’s original catalog of music.

If Zepparella doesn’t keep its members busy enough, they each have their own original musical projects, as well. A few months ago, Menn and Clementine’s side projects — Sticks and Stones and The Solid, respectively — played in Eureka. Clementine says The Solid is currently writing songs and Menn is working on acoustic guitar duo called Lapdance Armageddon. Kristina is writing a solo album and working on another side project, as well.

Zepparella will play this Saturday, Feb. 13, at Humboldt Brews, at 10 p.m. Tickets are $15 advance — available at the usual local outlets and online at www.passionpresents.com — and $17 at the door. It is a 21-and-over show.

For Zepparella’s current tour, Clementine says they had hoped for local band Magnum (which features three ex-members of Judas Priest tribute band Sad Wings of Destiny) to open their show in Arcata, but the band declined. Contrary to rumors — dubbed ZeparellaGate (yes, Zepparella was spelled wrong) — that flew around social networking site Twitter, Magnum declined the opportunity not because of drummer Steve Bohner’s fear of opening the show, but because he had knee surgery late last year, which put Magnum on hold for a short while. The Arcata show, as a result, will have no opening band.

(Submitted photo)

Straightjacket Striptease - Friday, Feb. 12, 2010

2010-02-10T17:35:00.000-08:00

Monica Topping
For the Times-Standard (originally published July 30, 2009)

When last we spoke to Darcy Daughtry, about a year ago, she was playing guitar and singing in a band called The Hot Daughtrys with her older sister Donica on bass and friend Jamie Obeso on drums.

After a shift in priorities, Donica decided to quit the band to focus on becoming a nurse (“If you’re going to be a nurse, you can’t be anything else,” says Daughtry), leaving Daughtry and Obeso to start a new project.

The Daughtry sisters referred to their prior band as a “sister act,” with the addition of Obeso. Their songs were folky, but silly and irreverent. With the new project, Straightjacket Striptease, Daughtry decided she wanted to rock a little harder and maybe try her hand at writing more serious songs… which has sort of worked, so far.

“I thought that I was going to get away from the comedy, but I just can’t help but write comedy,” says Daughtry. “This time, I think it’s more subtle. For instance, one of our songs is kind of emotional and deep, and then you realize it’s about (Nintendo character) Mario and his life.”

“The music, itself, is less goofy, but the subject matter is still just as eclectic,” says Obeso, who met Daughtry during NCRT’s summer of 2006 production of “Chicago.”

Also a little goofy, the name of the band, Straightjacket Striptease, which Daughtry says is supposed to bring to mind an image of awkwardness.

“It is absolutely supposed to be awkward,” she laughs. “I’m finding that I had a very specific image in my mind of this totally not-sexy dance -- someone completely failing at strip-teasing in a straightjacket -- but as I tell it to different people, they have a different idea.”

After deciding to rock a little bit harder with the new band, Daughtry and Obeso set out to find a bass player. Along the way, they brought in a second guitar player for a few months, named Dennis, with whom Obeso had played in his old ska band, Tsu Tain Guu Faitaa, and Dennis introduced them to bass player Morgan Ober. Daughtry refers to Ober as “our angel.”

In the months that Straightjacket Striptease has been together, they’ve been fortunate to semi-regularly grace the Eureka Theatre stage during Arts Alive.

“The coolest thing that I think we’ve done is played for Vagina Monologues, which was at Aunty Mo’s,” says Daughtry. “Vagina Monologues was so fun and everyone was way into it.”

Basically, in not having enough time to write a complete score to accompany the Monologues, the band supplemented the performance with bits of its own music. Additionally, they played full sets both before and after the performance, during the production’s run last February.

Last summer had Straightjacket Striptease playing a couple of shows in Eureka before Humboldt State University started back up again and Ober returned as a senior, studying finance, and Obeso returned to the music department and contemplated adding a minor in journalism (“It’s a labor of love,” not money, says Obeso.).

Straightjacket Striptease will appear at the Lil Red Lion in Eureka, this Friday, Feb. 12, with the Karmanauts at 9 p.m. This show is for those 21-and-older.

Saturday, Feb. 13, the band will play an all-ages show at Empire Squared (47-B West Third Street in Eureka) with The Bored Again and Killbot Factory at 8 p.m.

(Photo by Monica Topping)

Tornado Rider – Thursday, Feb. 11, 2010

2010-02-10T03:13:00.000-08:00

Monica Topping
Radio Radio Radio

How does one describe the music made by an amplified, wireless, distorted cello, attached by a guitar strap to its human, who is running through the audience and singing songs about fantasy lands and pretty girls… while wearing next to nothing?

Singer and cello player Rushad Eggleston describes his band Tornado Rider as rock ‘n’ roll, pure and simple.

Eggleston has never been one to conform to what’s popular. In part, he says that’s because he didn’t watch a lot of TV while growing up, and after dropping out of high school in Carmel, while other kids his age were hanging out and partying, he was in his bedroom practicing his cello. His refusal to conform, then, isn’t so much a rebellion against the mainstream as it is an attempted creation of a new mainstream.

The teenaged Eggleston ended up moving to the East Coast to attend Berklee College of Music in the late ‘90s. He earned a Grammy nomination in 2002 with the group Fiddlers 4 and co-founded alt. bluegrass band Crooked Still, while living in Brooklyn after graduation. Eggleston parted ways with Crooked Still in late 2007, moving back to Monterey to be closer to his girlfriend-at-the-time, a model who was living in L.A., and to save money on rent by living with his mom, when he wasn’t on the road.

After forming a series of projects and having each one eventually disband due, in part, to lack of commitment from his band mates, Eggleston says he was looking to start something new with people who were committed to making it work. The new band, unlike his folksy roots, would be loud(er) and (more) energetic.

“Folk music is reaching down somewhere primordial,” says Eggleston about his prior projects. “A lot of the times it feels to me like it’s full of the same spirit that rock ‘n’ roll is full of, where it’s just like pure transcendental fun and power.

“When it all lines up and you’re playing some fiddle tune, it makes everyone want to dance and just go crazy. So I was starting to get to this place where I was realizing that, and playing the cello harder and harder and faster and faster, and also having been into rock music in the past, I started to notice, like ‘Wow, what would it be like if I was not just trying to revamp old fiddle tunes and keep pushing the folk envelope. I need to rock out for real, and not just pretend.’”

So Eggleston began pushing the rock envelope — ala Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival, 45 years ago — and plugged his cello in through an amplifier and a distortion pedal.

“The guitar did not start out as a rock instrument,” says Eggleston. “Nor did the bass or the drums. It was just a matter of time.

“Just like some people reach puberty later, the cello reached its rock puberty at a much later age than the guitar did,” he adds.

Starting a rock band, for Eggleston, is something he always figured he’d do at some point, probably with a guitar. Prior to starting Tornado Rider with drummer and longtime friend Scott Manke and bass player Graham Terry, Eggleston says he had thought about electrifying his cello, but it was really this band that solidified the idea. Turning a historically classical instrument into a tool of rock ‘n’ roll, says the highly energetic Eggleston, was the “only natural outcome of me being a cello player.”

Since Tornado Rider formed in 2008, the band has toured relentlessly, hoping to work its way up through the musical ranks and into the supportive arms of a record label. In 2009, prior to hitting to road on their way to a music festival in Florida, the band holed up in its basement-cum-practice space and roughly recorded an album called “Do You Have Time?,” but they have yet to lay down a true studio album, and that’s something Eggleston says they’re working hard toward accomplishing.

One of the newest elements added to Tornado Rider’s live experience is Eggleston’s wireless headset microphone, which, rather than tethering him to the stage during a song’s verses, allows him to “be jumping up and down or rolling on the floor, or like running out into the crowd or doing a slide or,” he adds without a second thought, “hanging out underneath the bass player or whatever” — all perfectly logical reasons for donning a wireless mic.

Tornado Rider’s theatrics may only be topped Gooferman — friends of the band with whom they will be playing the first few dates of their two-week tour.

“They’re basically just a really — I don’t know how to describe them — I want to say crazy dudes,” says Eggleston of Gooferman. “They all dress up in, like, full-on clown costumes, but like modern clowns. They look like some really cool, radical clowns and they’ve got a heavy metal guitarist and like a punk bassist and a bunch of cool songs. It’s just really super energetic and fun music.”

“KNOW THIS!” says Gooferman’s biography. “We are NOT Juggalos or affiliated with the (Insane Clown Posse). We don’t rap, we don’t play metal and we aren’t evil klowns. We’re lifestyle klowns. Biiig difference.”

Gooferman, Tornado Rider and DJ T-Dub will be at the Arcata Theatre Lounge this Thursday, Feb. 11, at 9 p.m. There is a $10 cover and this is a 21-and-over show.

Photos from Tornado Rider's first Humboldt show in December 2008, with Absynth Quintet:

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

(All photos by Monica Topping)

Scott H Biram - Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2010

2010-02-09T22:46:00.000-08:00

Monica Topping
For the Times-Standard (originally published May 29, 2009)

Scott H. Biram jokes that he has metal in nearly every limb in his body and the bonus of x-ray vision and a view of the future (“I think we’re going to have to get gas in about 20 minutes.”). He’s only half-kidding.

Biram doesn’t particularly want to talk about the 2003 him-versus-semi truck accident that left most of the bones in his body broken and part of his intestine removed. What matters is that he lived through it and has moved forward with intensity unmatched by anyone else calling themselves a one-man band. Biram comes across as one part angry at what the world has handed him and one part glad to be alive.

Biram is back on the road in support of his seventh solo album, “Something’s Wrong/Lost Forever,” which came out last week on Bloodshot Records. This is his first time back on tour since he stepped out of his van in March, on the last day of his French tour, and tried to catch a plastic bag that was blowing out the door. The way he says it, his body fell one direction and his left foot stayed against the curb, causing a compound fracture, “like Joe Theismann” experienced in the 1980s.

“Every limb in my body does [have metal in it], except for my left arm,” says Biram. “I have a rod through the center of my femur in my right leg, a rod through the center of my whatever it is, tibia, fibia, whatever the big one is on the lower left leg; I have a plate in my left knee with six screws, I have a plate in my right arm with six screws and I have a big scar in my stomach from where they took a foot-and-a-half of my intestine out.”

At this point, Biram is back up and hobbling around without the help of crutches or other assistance, since the March break. The incident led to a cancellation of some touring throughout Canada, the Midwest and the East Coast, but that has all been re-scheduled now. Biram doesn’t sit still easily and even in the forced downtime, he played a couple of shows in his hometown, near Austin, Texas. He adds that during the last show he played before he left on tour, a mosh pit broke out when he threw down a one-man cover of some Metallica. As long as he avoids the mosh pits, hopefully Biram can continue to heal.

One thing about Biram is that aside from his very clear blues influence, he also likes to mix in a little bit of country and a little bit of punk rock, as well. Biram’s live-show is straight-ahead, cranked to 11, raw energy, but his new album is a bit more melancholy. The opening track is 37 seconds of a phone message Biram left for a friend back in 2003, while he was doped up on morphine, in a military hospital after his accident.

“After about a week-and-a-half of being on morphine and being in Intensive Care and being next to this other guy that was dying, and people in fatigues all around me,” says Biram, “the morphine hit me and I thought I was locked in a feed store behind enemy lines and I tried to escape and they tied me down. I got one of my hands loose and I called my friend and left that message. I just needed to put it somewhere.”

“I feel like the new album’s a little bit melancholy, like the songs are actually depressing to listen to,” he continues, “but I think the general feel of the songwriting and the tone of the lyrics is just a kind of melancholy feel and the title of the record, ‘Something’s Wrong,’ obviously… and I thought that was a really good lead in to all of that.”

The album’s songs start slow and build up to the faster-paced and more in-your-face tracks that are more indicative of Biram’s live show. He played all of the instruments on the album with the exception of two songs—“I Feel So Good” and “Hard Time”—on which the Black Diamond Heavies and the Heavies’ John Wesley Myers played with Biram.

“The rest of the keyboards on there are all me,” says Biram. “A recording project is a lot different than the live stuff. I’m just trying to get the best sound out there on a record and also maybe showcase my abilities on different instruments.”

Biram plays this Wednesday, Feb. 10, at the HSU Depot at 9 p.m. Tickets are $5 general and free for HSU students.

Some photos from Biram's last Humboldt County show:

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Red Eye Junction 2-8-10 [photo blog]

2010-02-09T19:36:00.000-08:00

"We're Red Eye Junction from San Louis Obispo, and we play both kinds of music."

Country and Western, of course.

Taken last night at the Jambalaya's Budget Rock Night.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Scene Noir 2-9-10 - Newfangled fundraising

2010-02-08T14:06:00.000-08:00

Monica Topping
Tri-City Weekly

A few weeks back, I used Scene Noir to tell you about the fundraiser that Absynth Quintet was working on. They were hoping to raise $2,000 through a program called Kickstarter, which resembles the Internet version of a public radio or TV pledge drive.

Interestingly, after cross-posting my column on my blog, Radio Radio Radio, I got a comment from an anonymous being (I don’t assume “person,” when they won’t leave their name) basically suggesting that raising funds for a recording in any way other than taking it out of the band members’ pockets was cheating.

“That would be nice to have other people pay for your recording,” asserts the commenter. “This fundraiser they're doing is lame and makes them look like spongers.”

While it kills me a little bit on the inside to even give this anony-commenter a response, I start by congratulating the Absynth Quintet on hitting its $2,000 mark a week before the February 1 deadline. 49 backers disagree with the assertion that the band looks like “spongers” and their third album is on its way.

The ability to wisely use one’s resources is a quality I’ve always admired in people. As a friend of mine told me, “back when I was in a band, if we wanted to put out an album, we had to borrow money from our parents.” Prior to about 15 years ago, short of somehow finding a way to get grand funding, a band’s best resource probably was its members’ parents. Now, a band’s best resource is the Internet!

Where I think the commenter is off the mark is the idea that bands or artists using the Kickstarter program are taking donations from people without a return — that I (or you) are being expected to feel bad and give $10, $50 or $2,000 to the band, no strings attached. To the contrary, each of these pledges (which are now technically donations, since the band hit its goal) come with rewards, just like a donation to KHSU might, but instead of receiving a Car Talk tote bag, the donator is getting a signed copy of the band’s new CD, a dinner for four or a custom-made banjo.

At the risk of sounding condescending, the Internet is a wonderful and magical thing. It allows a person to self-diagnose aches and pains, quickly send a message to someone on the other side of the world, watch a video of a penguin escaping certain death by hopping on a tourist boat, comment on a blog without revealing one’s identity… and raise money for good causes without shorting the landlords on rent.

The neat thing about a program like Kickstarter is that the project that hopes to be funded needs to be deemed worthy by the folks who have money. Local a cappella group AkaBella is using the Web site to fund its upcoming tour, which I’m sure they’ll be able to pull off. There are folks on there who are trying to find backers for book publishing — one of which was a book of blog comments, which at last glance wasn’t doing very well — independent films, and other artistic endeavors. In a way, the success of a project is demand-based. I like the idea of your book, so I’d like to see it printed; I don’t like your band, so I’m not giving you my money.

It’s not about begging money out of people — it’s about using your resources and giving fans a sense of pride, knowing they helped put out your new CD, which they are then more likely to buy more of to give as gifts. And the best part for a band going this route? Not having to pay back their parents, later on.

Monica Topping is the host of the Slug Festivities Guide and weekend mid-day DJ on 94.1 KSLG-FM. She fully supports the arts and envisions a world where it’s easier for artists to do what they love and stay out of debt doing it. She can be reached at Monica@kslg.com, or by commenting on this blog.

Splinter Cell and The Underlings 2-6-10 [photo blog]

2010-02-07T15:42:00.000-08:00

A few days ago, I posted an article I'd written about Eugene, Ore., band The Underlings. Influenced by the Minutemen, the Stooges, the Clash... punk rock at its finest.

Last night I got to check out their EP release show with local guys Splinter Cell -- members of the Hitch and the Buffy Swayze, a.k.a. 3/4 of Henpecker. Super fun night and even got the boyfriend out of the house with me.

Here are some photos:

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

From Haiti to Humboldt benefit - Ukesperience 2-5-10 [photo blog]

2010-02-07T14:36:00.000-08:00

I started my night at the Arcata Theatre Lounge for the Arcata Skatepark Phase II benefit, so Shane and I didn't get to the Bayside Grange until pretty late. By the time we got there, Kulica was finishing up their set, Marla Joy pulled the last of the raffle tickets and Ukesperience was about to start (and there was parking, right outside!).

Some pics of Ukesperience:

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Diamonds Under Fire 2-5-10 [photo blog]

2010-02-06T23:23:00.000-08:00

A few shots of Vanessa Silberman's solo project, Diamonds Under Fire, from Friday night at the Arcata Theatre Lounge:

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Read more about Diamonds Under Fire on Radio Radio Radio.

Quick & Easy Boys and The Bridge 2-4-10 [photo blog]

2010-02-05T14:29:00.000-08:00

I got do an interview with Portland band The Quick & Easy Boys' drummer, Mike Goetz, last October, but didn't get to see them when they were in town that time around, when they played with local boys Rooster McClintock. They returned to Humboldt Brews last night, this time on tour with a band called The Bridge, from Baltimore. Fun show.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

(Submitted photo above. Everything in slideshow by Monica Topping.)

The Underlings - Saturday, Feb. 6, 2010

2010-02-04T17:35:00.000-08:00

Monica Topping
For the Times-Standard (originally published Sept. 17, 2009)

The Underlings’ singer, lead songwriter and guitarist, Ed Cole, moved from Del Norte County to Arcata, right after high school. The decision, he says, was a natural one.

“It was a logical progression to go to Arcata,” says Cole. “It was the closest creative, freaky little city. It had much appeal to anyone growing up in the sticks, where there wasn’t much of that.”

Cole jumped around local bands between 1988 and 1992, including one that he calls his favorite local project, Garden Weasel, with The Hitch and Magnum’s Steve Bohner, and in 1992, Cole followed his wife at the time to Eugene, Ore., where he’s since been involved in various musical pursuits.

Around three years ago, Cole placed an online ad on the local Craigslist, looking for band members with a shared interest in groups like The Minutemen, Ted Nugent and The Ramones. Through the ad, he met bass player-singer Dave Peterson and he already worked in a produce warehouse with drummer Bryant Grace.

“I guess what makes this band special for me is just the fact that all of us are kind of in the same age group,” says Cole. “We’re all around 40 now, and our influences go back 20, 30 years from the current stuff. The current generation of bands that are influenced by Nirvana and Modest Mouse and stuff that was happening 10 years ago, we go back 20 years more than that. We can’t help that we’re kind of stuck in the ‘70s with our hard rock-slash-punk influences.”

Underlings, or subordinates, not only sounded like a good theme for a punk rock trio, but Cole says the name fit the group well.

“We all are slaves, in various capacities, at our jobs,” he says. “For some reason, we all end up being pretty low on the totem pole of life, and we feel like underlings. But we feel like capable workers and we get the job done efficiently.”

In October of 2008, The Underlings released an album called “Operational Excellence.” They've followed it up with a three-song, seven-inch record, released recently on local Meth Bog Records.

Since all three members of The Underlings have jobs and families, it can be tough to get out on the road for much more than a long weekend tour, but they'll be in Arcata this Saturday.

“It’s fun, as adults, to figure out how to work a band into your life,” says Cole. “You put so much time into it, but it’s kind of relegated to hobby status, and the way we have to conduct our lives — we have to support families and work a lot — we’re like a half-time band.

“Finding our own meaning for working together as a band is pretty fun,” he continues. “You decide you have to get along with people that are sometimes abrasive to you. You have to get along with ideas that you don’t always agree with, but it’s interesting. I think right now, the challenge is being with other people and creating. It’s a fun thing to do.”

The Underlings will play this Saturday, February 6, at the Alibi with local band Splinter Cell — a new project from former members of The Buffy Swayze, Henpecker and The Hitch. The new EP will be available for $4.

Doors for this show open at 10:30 p.m. with music starting around 11 p.m. This is a 21-and-over show.

Diamonds Under Fire - Friday, Feb. 5, 2010

2010-02-03T23:56:00.000-08:00

Monica Topping
Radio Radio Radio

Where Diamonds Under Fire’s Vanessa Silberman grew up, there wasn’t a gas station for 45 minutes and there certainly wasn’t a record store anywhere close. In the mid-‘90s, as Silberman was living with her mom in Kauai, Hawaii, her popular music education was based on Columbia House’s “10 CDs for a Penny” deals. Luckily, Columbia House was hawking Silverchair, PJ Harvey and Nirvana CDs, at the time.

Silberman remembers picking up her first guitar when she was around 11 years old.

“I had a family friend who had a guitar and he offered to let me borrow it,” she says. “I had no idea how to play guitar and I remember getting it and being so excited and not even knowing how to play anything at all. I remember turning on the distortion and I remember parents coming in, ‘Turn that down!’ and that was like my next seven years, every 15 minutes, ‘Turn that down.’”

The budding songstress took occasional guitar lessons, but primarily taught herself to not only play the instrument, but write music, which is something she says happens all the time, from driving around Los Angeles in her car to sitting in her apartment and fiddling with her acoustic. Singing and playing guitar — her primary roles in Diamonds Under Fire — have led to Silberman taking on other instrumental duties in the recording studio, as well. Rarely she’ll bring in a friend or hire a session player to accompany her on drums or strings, but for the most part, what you hear on any of her alt. rock-tinged demos, she recorded herself.

Silberman says she owes much of her sound and her creative inspiration to her rural Hawaiian upbringing, without TV or much radio, and with occasional trips to the library, where she could peruse the back-issues of “Spin” and “Rolling Stone” magazines.

“When you’re in a place like that, you’re really forced to find your own experiences and creativity,” she says. “There’s just so much more, versus being given all this electronic stuff… where it’s like you have everything.”

Diamonds Under Fire has been the moniker of Silberman’s mostly solo project for the past seven or eight years. She’s 27 now and has had her songs featured on “Vans Off the Wall” compilations since 2005. Still, she says she feels like her life has just begun. This performer and writer has big plans to release a lot of albums well into the future.

On the road, the lineup of Diamonds Under Fire is restricted to as few members as possible. Due to the economy, Silberman says most of her musician friends can’t afford to take the time off work to travel, and besides, she can’t afford to pay them anyway. As she sets off on a two-week tour this week, landing in Arcata on Friday, Silberman says she may be on the road on her own, or she may end up having another musician with her.

Diamonds Under Fire is playing this Friday, February 5, at the Arcata Theatre Lounge as a benefit for the expansion of the Arcata Skatepark (officially dubbed “Phase II”). Silberman says that while she grew up around skating and could probably kick out an ollie or two if needed, she’s just excited to be playing a show that benefits the community she’s playing in.

Doors for the event open at 6 p.m. and music starts around 7 p.m. There is a $6 cover and this is an all-ages show. The benefit will also feature projections of skate videos from Thrasher.

Thanks to Silberman for allowing Radio Radio Radio readers a listen to the Diamonds Under Fire song, “Binge Thinking.”

(Photo by Lindsey Byrnes)

Mystic and Sabac Red 1-30-10 [photo blog]

2010-02-01T02:08:00.000-08:00

Monica Topping
Radio Radio Radio

Mystic is the hardest working lady in show business, hands down. Say what you will about Lady Gaga, Mystic worked full-time "to keep the lights on" and was a full-time student, holding a 4.0 GPA (yes, straight A's) all the way through graduation a year ago, while she toured the country as a conscious hip-hop artist and poet, and dreamed about creating a youth art space in her community. As graduation came and went, Mystic started work on forming her Urban Dream Foundation, which sits on the back burner right now, so she can focus her time on creating an art curriculum for students at the Amin Institute in Afghanistan, an orphanage and clinic which she was turned onto by rapper Immortal Technique.

Since the earthquake in Haiti, Mystic has followed what has been happening with the surviving children and families and lent her time and energies to raising funds to benefit the survivors. She dreams of connecting school children in Los Angeles (where she lives and works) with children in Haiti, to show the kids that they have support from their peers.

All this, and she hopes to release her album, "Beautiful Resistance," sometime this year.

Mystic flew into Humboldt on Saturday to play at Mazzotti's in Arcata with her DJ of 10 years, DJ Bonds. The Bay Area's Sabac Red opened the show.

Follow Mystic on Twitter to keep track or (and support) her inexhaustible humanitarian efforts.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

(Top photo also by Monica Topping)

Mister Moonbeam, The Common Vice & Strix Vega 1-30-10 [photo blog]

2010-01-31T16:52:00.000-08:00

World, meet Mister Moonbeam... my newest local music crush. Bret Bailey of The Common Vice told me a couple of weeks ago that Mister Moonbeam now tied with Strix Vega as his favorite local band.

Mister Moonbeam, thank you for blowing my mind with your silver streamers, fog machine, crazy loop machine and fun lights. Oh, and the getting up from your guitar/keyboard to dance in the audience, *while* you were magically playing. Amazing.

Also on the bill, The Common Vice (it was Bailey's 34th birthday... older than Jesus!) and Strix Vega. Much fun was had by all.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Tomorrows Bad Seeds and Trevor Hall 1-28-10 [photo blog]

2010-01-29T01:32:00.000-08:00

Tomorrows Bad Seeds and Trevor Hall, taken Jan. 28

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Myra Melford - Friday, Jan. 29, 2010

2010-01-28T01:48:00.000-08:00

Monica Topping
Radio Radio Radio

Myra Melford wouldn’t say that she plays Indian music, but certainly, she considers the works played by her band, Be Bread, to be influenced and inspired by time she spent in Calcutta, studying North Indian music.

Melford grew up right outside of Chicago — home to certain types of blues music. From a young age — right around kindergarten, by her recollection — she was taking classical piano lessons from a blues and boogie woogie piano player, who would end each lesson by teaching her how to play in those traditions. The lessons continued through the beginning of high school, when her focus shifted to other interests, as they often do at that age.

When Melford got to Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., she picked up playing the piano once again, though realized quickly that classical music was not where her heart was. That’s when she began to study jazz and improvisation.

Melford ended up in New York, playing jazz in various groups and being commissioned to compose and perform music through grants. It’s been said that California loses its best jazz musicians to New York, but after 20 years in the Big Apple, the opposite happened — Melford decided that she could combine her love of teaching with her desire for a little bit more steady income, and set about trying to find a university that would allow her to accomplish both. She ended up at U.C. Berkeley in 2004.

“I had played in some of the bigger cities in California,” says Melford. “I’d been to San Francisco and the Bay Area, and to San Diego and to L.A. and Santa Cruz, while I lived in New York, but it wasn’t until I moved out here that I started discovering that there are a lot of other great places to play, and Arcata and the Redwood Jazz Alliance is, by far, one of my favorites anywhere in the world.”

Melford has played in Arcata with Marty Ehrlich and Trio M — for a Redwood Jazz Alliance show in January 2008 — and most recently on the Van Duzer stage with Jenny Scheinman, with whom Melford collaborated for formerly local Scheinman’s “Shalagaster” album in 2004.

“It was hard for me to leave New York,” she adds, “but now I’m very, very happy to be living in some place beautiful and with so much natural beauty and a much mellower lifestyle, which is suiting me very well.”

In 2002, after returning from a Fulbright Scholarship in Calcutta, Melford formed Be Bread with core players Stomu Takeishi on acoustic bass guitar, Cuong Vu on trumpet and Brandon Ross on acoustic guitars. The group has had different incarnations over the years, and one of those changes has been the addition of clarinetist and composer Ben Goldberg, whom she met in Berkeley. Melford had also been playing with drummer Matt Wilson in Trio M, “and it just occurred to me a couple of years ago that he would sound fantastic in Be Bread, so I invited him to be in the ensemble,” she says.

The band released its first album, “The Image of Your Body,” in 2006. The title of the album, as well as the band’s name, was borrowed from a poem of the same name by 13th century Persian mystic, Rumi, which Melford says was kind of autobiographical for her, because it was about someone moving out of the city, and she had just made the move from New York to California.

THE IMAGE OF YOUR BODY
—Rumi

You've made it out of the city,
that image of your body, trembling with traffic
and fear slips behind.
Your face arrives in the redbud trees, and the tulips.

You're still restless.
Climb up the ladder to the roof.
You're by yourself a lot,
become the one that when you walk in,
luck shifts to the one who needs it.
If you've not been fed, be bread.

“I’ve been a student of meditation and Eastern philosophy for a long time, and it just kind of captured that idea that I want to express through my music, which is to offer something nourishing and positive and uplifting to people, and at the same time, it’s that idea that we have to find that in ourselves. If we’re looking for that kind of nourishment in the world, the first place is to look within for that. So if you’ve not been fed, be that food — be bread.”

“The Whole Tree Gone” is Be Bread’s second studio record, released less than two weeks ago. The tracks for the new record were originally written for a project Melford was working on, which utilized both her skills on piano and harmonium, but when a recording session was started for those songs, it didn’t take Melford long to realize that she had too much material for one album, so the harmonium tracks were put on the back burner. “The Whole Tree Gone” features Melford playing only the piano, with her band.

Melford is on the road this week, playing CD release shows in Berkeley and Santa Cruz, and ending in Arcata, as part of the Redwood Jazz Alliance’s 2009-2010 season. She says the band’s live set will include songs from the new record, as well as older material and the harmonium pieces that didn’t make the recent record.

Myra Melford and Be Bread will play at Humboldt State University’s Fulkerson Recital Hall this Friday, Jan. 29, at 8 p.m. Tickets are $15 general admission and $10 for students and seniors.

Thanks for Melford for allowing Radio Radio Radio to offer this listen to "I See a Horizon,” a track from her new album, “The Whole Tree Gone.”

(Submitted photo by Valerie Trucchia)