Nickell’s Bag

I’m almost afraid to say anything negative about Oakland-based band Antioquia. After all, their latest album is called, “My Piano ate the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle.” I’d hate to see what it could do to this defenseless little blog.

Fortunately, there’s little to criticize about these four oddballs, whose well of inspiration seems to be located in a colorfully strange land halfway between Shakedown Street and Sesame Street. [Read more →]

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This is not the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. That idealistic glimmer faded from the horizon decades ago now, obscured by the gray clouds of reality in a culture not quite ready for full-fledged revolution. The starry-eyed 20-year-old of 1968 is today’s graying 62-year-old, peering at her first Social Security check through bifocal lenses.

Maybe she was the same woman sitting behind me last Sunday, the one complaining at intermission about the chilly air conditioning inside the Whitefish Performing Arts Center at a matinee performance of that most starry-eyed period piece of the hippie heyday, “Hair.”

If so, she was also the same woman whom I could hear sniffling back tears at the emotional ending of Alpine Theatre Project’s dazzling production. If the point of live theatre is to transport the audience to another time and place, this “Hair” does so with an exclamation point. [Read more →]

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With the ascent of Arcade Fire to the pinacle of rock stardom, the appearance of orchestral instruments on nightclub stages has become passé to the point of cliché. Even so, the Portland Cello Project stands out. Comprised of a rotating cast of eight to sixteen cellists, the Portland Cello Project has been sawing away in Stumptown for several years now, performing an ever-changing repertoire of rock and classical tunes. [Read more →]

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My wife just pointed me to Google’s “Life in a Day” project, which happens this Saturday. Basically the idea is to videotape everything that happens to you this Saturday, July 24, and submit it for possible inclusion in a film which will debut at Sundance next year.

I think we’re gonna do it; heck, maybe I’ll even post up the results here, for my own personal “Life in a Day.” (It wouldn’t be the first time for me, at least on a general conceptual level. Years ago, I co-produced a half-hour episode of the series, “Rox,” with the self-explanatory title, “A Day in the Life;” that whole episode (admittedly not one of our best) can be viewed here. We also did a similar one called “Up All Night”…which can be downloaded here.)

Anyway, this link provides the whole explanation of the “Life in a Day” project, from Google’s blog; and below is a video promo for it. Bonus points for their use of Vampire Weekend in the soundtrack…

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Scene: The Blackfoot River. A bright summer day. A flotilla of rafts and inner tubes bobs by the bank, amid a crowd of three dozen people in bathing suits. Stacy Ohrt-Billingslea, a suntanned 30-something actress, cups her hands over her mouth.

Stacy: (her voice booming down the river) “OK, everyone, we don’t want any disasters, so be safe out here, watch out for rocks, and don’t spill your beer.”

***

Cut to scene: A thin, dark-haired woman in a bikini, Jess Adam by name, thrashing in the river atop an inner tube, bouncing between boulders in an underwhelming stretch of whitewater.

Jess: “Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod, grab me, grab me, I’m going to die!” [Read more →]

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I had good fun pecking out this story, about a visit by artists from the Western Montana Paint-Out to the Raptors of the Rockies bird santuary. Kate Davis, who runs the place, even caught me in the act. Here’s her photo. :^)

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Just got word that freaky electro-funk duo Ghostland Observatory is coming to the Wilma Theatre in November. Here’s the press release with details…. [Read more →]

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They say that sometimes, the best-laid plans go to waste. Really, though, I’m not sure we had the best-laid plans in the first place. Oh, we had our beer and camping gear, some fishing rods and folf discs, and even a destination in mind: Lake Alva, where – presuming we could find a campsite – we would spend an extended Fourth of July weekend with our good friends, Cliff and Mo, and their 10-year-old daughter, Monroe.

Then, just as we were picking up our last supplies on the way out of town, the phone rang.

“Jo-Jo, we have a problem.”

It was Cliff. [Read more →]

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The Missoulian hasn’t received direct and detailed word on this yet, but according to Bob Dylan’s Web site, he’ll be playing Ogren Park, home of the Missoula Osprey, on August 31. Word has it he’ll appear with John Mellencamp, whose own tour site appears to confirm the show as well.

Reporter Jamie Kelly is working on firming up details on this; look for a story in Thursday’s Missoulian.

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Fans of the band Sublime may be surprised to hear that the band is coming to Missoula — after all, the band broke up in 1996 after lead singer Bradley Nowell died of a heroin overdose. But now, the band has reformed with a new lead singer, Rome Ramirez, and is touring under the moniker Sublime with Rome (the clunkier name was apparently required as the result of a lawsuit by Nowell’s family). Here’s the press release for the show… [Read more →]

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