Arts DEVO

Down on Main Street There is at least one thing that Arts DEVO has learned about music in Chico during his decades of paying attention: Good bands that play music of the party-ready dance genres—funk, jam, reggae, hip-hop, etc.—will always be popular in Chico. Punk, indie, metal and jazz might all feature acts that are well regarded by many discerning observers, but it is unusual for them to extend their reach across Chico’s funky spectrum—from the groovy hippie elite to the booty-shaking youngsters.

With that truism in mind, there looks to be reason for Chico’s party people to rejoice as Lost on Main—the downtown nightclub with the at times unpredictable schedule—is going through some potentially stabilizing changes that hold the promise of providing a regular calendar of the kind of live music to which Chico likes to get down. First, new booker Jonas Beeler (who used to work with one-time Chico promoter Azariah “Z” Reynolds of Bobolink Productions) has started curating an impressive schedule of dance-floor-filling acts for the semester—Dead Winter Carpenters (Feb. 1), Pimps of Joytime (Feb. 13), Dumpstaphunk (March 1), among others.

Second, Beeler has been working with the club to revamp the inside of the space, with new paint and lights going up this week and the stage returning to the opposite side of the building (where it was when the late Matt Hogan’s Mr. Lucky club was in the space).

Time will tell whether or not the fresh vision for the ever-changing club will stick, but the first steps toward new club life will happen at back-to-back “Grand Rebirth” shows next week: the Dead Winter Carpenters show (Feb. 1) and a more low-key local-band event the night before (Jan. 31), featuring The Rugs, The LoLos and Broken Rodeo.

Michael Jackson, King of Hop Next time you press a Trappist-style dubbel to your lips or are discussing the nuances of a barrel-aged old ale at the craft-beer bar, take a second to raise your glass and give thanks for the other Michael Jackson. Known as The Beer Hunter for the documentary TV series of the same name that he hosted in the early 1990s, the late Jackson is the influential beer writer who, thanks in large part to his seminal work, The World Guide to Beer (1977), was instrumental in bringing knowledge of the huge variety of great beers in the world to the U.S.

Next week, Thursday, June 30, at 6:30 p.m., Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. pays homage to the beer pioneer with a free showing at the Big Room of the recently released documentary Beer Hunter: The Movie.

Hire a muralist I got a note from Chicoan Judy Fox the other day saying that she had some walls around the patio of her house that she wanted to brighten up, but that she didn’t want to just brush on a fresh coat of paint. So, she said that she posted an offer on Craigslist to trade studio space to an artist who would come paint a mural on her walls instead. Local musician and painter Daniel Vera answered the ad and he is in the middle of making Fox’s home a work of jungle-inspired art. Wonderful!