Arts DEVO

When holidays attack Here’s the news for December: There will be rain; some people will get the flu; Christmas will be happening every single day of the entire month. That is it. No climate shifts, vaccines or atheist rabble rousers will ever stop the cold, hard realities of the season, and no daily news outlets will ever have anything new to report on those fronts. It is happening; it will forever happen. So sayeth Arts DEVO.

Now, let’s do what we do (and what really matters at this time of year) and get together and have some fun in spite of it all. The partying should of course start with a song, and since I am overflowing with Krampusnacht spirit, I’d like to bring a certain beast of Alpine lore to sing along with us. Actually, it occurred to me recently that Krampus would make for a really cool band name. Of course, given his demonic goat-man appearance and his penchant for mayhem, I figured any band that’d be named after St. Nick’s foil would probably be playing some form of hyphenated-metal, which turned out to be a good guess. After a quick search, I found one Hungarian grind/death-metal Krampus; a brand-new crap-metal Krampus from the Midwest; and by far the most popular, a melodic/death/folk-metal eight-piece Krampus from Italy. Despite how promising that last description seemed, the Italians let me down. It turns out that the quickest way to make a death-metal band go limp is by adding violins and a flute. Not Krampus-worthy at all!

Thankfully, your suggestions for holiday songs that don’t suck have already been rolling in (and keep posting suggestions to Arts DEVO’s Facebook page—the mix will be finalized next week!). My fave new track so far (shared with me by CN&R staff writer/ukulele-master Ken Smith) is the Murder City Devils’ stein-swinging toast to a lonely Santa, “364 Days.” A perfect companion for those December blues:

St. Nicholas, St. Nicholas, at the North Pole364 days spent all aloneTake off your boots, pour a drinkTry not to cry, try not to think

Final notes This Saturday, Dec. 8, at 9 p.m., Lost on Main will host a farewell bash in honor of Bustolini’s Deli. According to a post by owner Bob Backstrom on the Bustolini’s Facebook page, the restaurant (and music venue/art gallery) is now closed for good after seven years with Backstrom at the helm. Come say “hello” to the party-friendly soup master (and buy him a beer and thank him for promoting local music!) as he throws this one last, big show featuring John Paul Gutierrez, The Shout Bamalamas, Waltzsaulsnakenstein, Big Tree Fall Down and Jeremy Gerrard.

Now speaking Tonight, Dec. 6, at Chico State: First, at 5 p.m., in Rowland-Taylor Recital Hall, Dead Kennedys guitarist East Bay Ray will be a guest of the School of the Arts’ SOTA Productions, to talk about the Internet Radio Fairness Act and the negative effect it would have on musicians’ ability to be fairly compensated for the use of their recordings. Then, at 6:30 p.m., in Ayres 106, anarchist community organizer/activist Scott Crow—one of the co-founders of Common Ground Collective, the nonprofit support network that helps victims of Hurricane Katrina—will talk about his experiences with the FBI and its ongoing anti-terrorism surveillance.