Sounds Good Music.2005
Grace Notes
A Loop Is a Loop Is a Loop
Just Plain Bob
Sublime Spindles
Bye Bye BVH
U Love 2 Swoon
Pukemeisters
Young Tree Grows
What Is Hip?
Grace Notes
Introducing the creamy goodness of our first annual all-music guide
In honor of the first annual North Bay Music Awards (the NORBAYs), a celebratory bash for the community slated for Friday, June 10, we in editorial have decided to throw a party of our own, right here in these pages. Just as it’s great fun to celebrate design, literature, comestibles, best ofs and other items that fall firmly under the heading of “special,” we’ve always wanted to roll up the rugs and do a special all-music issue.
(Those with long memories might recall that we’d evidently–and curiously–also once wanted to do . Resigning to the irrational and irresistible is such pleasure.)
And as for parties, what do we know? From an editor’s point of view, there’s nothing like rounding up eight writers, assigning them the broadest of all topics and then watching them do exactly what they want to do for prompting the donning of paper hats, the forking up of cake and the hanging of streamers. Add a full club and concert calendar, and see the editor enjoy a sad, little editor tingle as the corks pop.
Who, for example, would have guessed that Hannah Strom-Martin, who ordinarily writes rather loftily on literature in these pages, would instead pen a thousand steaming words of love poetry to the band U2 and their 14-year-old release Achtung, Baby? You think that you don’t want to read about the past? You’re wrong; you do when it’s this delicious.
The ever-marvelous Ms. Sara Bir checks in on her newest fave, 20 Minute Loop, as they load the van in San Rafael to take off on a tour patterned loosely after Meriweather Lewis’ alleged 1806 troubling of the natives. Endless fanny jokes later (never agree to play a club called Hiney’s), the sideways lyricism of the group shines through.
Radio veteran Bruce Robinson, who got his start at age 16 as a jock at KWYO in booming Sheridan, Wyoming, reports on the new and slightly chilling phenomenon of the mono-monikered radio station. BOB-FM, which many parents will recognize as being that “Turn Your Knob” station that the household teenager has newly programmed into the car radio, originates its cool quotient from Canada. Indeed.
Meanwhile, Gabe Meline takes us on a backward-looking tour of the Bennett Valley House, an experiment in communal living that’s been successful for over a decade but this week falls victim to the ordinary glory of the hot!hot!hot! real estate market. Karl Byrn introduces us to Pa Spindle and his entire Spindle family, a group of avant-ambient popsters wholly unrelated and delightfully difficult to pin down.
R. V. Scheide spends an informative evening with Lance Ozanix of Skitzo, the puke-positive rocker who’s staked a career on antifreeze and vomit. Chris Peck looks at the musical and ethical values that make an independent record label a success, even in the mega-biz of the music industry. And Jeff Latta uses the Bohemian‘s own cache to carry away an armload of new discs that just might define the new kewl in cool. (Dear, good music gods, please say it ain’t so.)
And such sweet pie is just for starters. Plan to join us at the first annual NORBAY awards, a night of nonstop live music, awards, food, drink and fun as we celebrate the North Bay’s vibrant and eclectic musical community together under the stars. NORBAY winners will be announced in the June 15 issue. You don’t wanna wait that long.
And hey, thanks for coming to this party.
–Gretchen Giles
From the June 1-7, 2005 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.
