By Dennis Yudt photos by Scott Duncan
The pub quiz – like the grilled cheese sandwich or a bicycle – is one of those simple yet perfect ideas: answering a wide variety of trivia questions with a group of friends over a pint or two in friendly competition with other teams for a prize of more beer. Kinda brilliant, isn’t it? Read more »
By Dennis Yudt Photos by Aaron Seminoff
One would think that if you were a local English professor, writer and musician who had made a stack of CDs with such notable talents as Sharron Krause, Califone, Bill Calahan/Smog, Tetuzi Akiyama, Garth Hudson from The Band, Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker from Low, and members of Wilco, that you would have a pretty high profile around town.
Unless your name is Christian Kiefer. And then you are a pariah. Read more »
By Dennis Yudt
Though Sacramento may be best known for producing slick radio rock on the order of Steel Breeze, Tesla, Cake and the Deftones, there has also been a strange side, filled with brilliant oddballs and sonic outsiders who are barely known even within our own community. Read more »
By Dennis Yudt photos by Scott Duncan
Recently, Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson and a few associates made a pit stop at the venerable Midtown watering hole, the Rubicon Brewing Company. While there, he was goaded into singing “Happy Birthday” to Charles Adrian Thomas, a Rubicon regular who was celebrating his 41st year on earth. Mayor Johnson, never one to oppose a majority voice, gamely serenaded the birthday boy, muffing up his name only slightly. By all accounts, the mayor did a half-way decent job, adding one more episode in the life and times of Mr. Thomas, or, as every good denizen of Midtown knows him: ‘Ground Chuck.’ Read more »