Springtime for something

For the fictional promoter Max Bialystock and his mousy accountant Leo Bloom, springtime meant dancing jackboots, along with singing guys named Adolf. Around here, though, springtime means we’re busy marching to a different drummer—with “march” being the operative word, even though we’ve just slipped into April.

Yes, it’s Sammies time. The 12th annual Sacramento Area Music Awards, when we honor all that is great and wonderful about our local music scene, were held Wednesday, April 2. This year, we’ve finally added a new category, electronica, because there are a number of acts composing and performing textural electronic music, and continuing to ignore them would be a mistake on our part. Accompanying electronica are 11 other categories, extracted from our diverse music scene.

And a wonderful scene it is, too, abounding with talented bands, musicians and songwriters. The winners, which you’ll find listed in our Arts & Culture feature, are this year’s representatives of a musical milieu that has proven to be surprisingly resilient and fertile, and some of them undoubtedly will go on to have promising futures in the world of music.

In the larger world, the one beyond who’s playing Old Ironsides on Friday night, things are much more uncertain: The war continues, and it isn’t quite the cakewalk that its neo-conservative supporters originally sold to the American people.

Meanwhile, closer to home, there is an ongoing divide between the city of Sacramento and the homeless people who camp along the American River Parkway. Of course, the city has the upper hand, and its police force has been busy rousting the homeless. Writer Cosmo Garvin puts a human dimension on the story, in this week’s cover.