Arts & Culture
Arts DEVO: Live/life music
Over the 15-plus years Arts DEVO has had this column space to write about whatever he wants, the “whatever” has most often been music. I’ve said here many times that my life revolves around it, […]
Arts DEVO
Arts & Culture
Arts DEVO: New day rising
I’m sure most everyone who reads this column is not a fan of Donald Trump, so since I’m speaking to the choir at this moment when most major outlets have announced Joe Biden as winning […]
Arts & Culture
Arts DEVO: Paradise two
Return to the Ridge In a couple of weeks, two years will have passed since the Camp Fire started in Butte County. As the CN&R editorial team has discussed the anniversary, it’s hit me that […]
Arts & Culture
Arts DEVO: Weekend plans
The old normal? A weekend of local theater? Music at Laxson Auditorium on a Friday night? A new Jed Speer mural? What year is this?! It can’t be 2020. Looking at the calendar right now, […]
Arts & Culture
Arts DEVO: Chico is still there
Everything old-school is new With the lockdown-triggered closures of some of the cornerstones of the local cultural scene—e.g., Blue Room Theatre, Blackbird—Arts DEVO worries about what Chico will look like at the end of the […]
Arts & Culture
Arts DEVO: Lockdown challenge, plus new Chico music
Labor Day to Krampusnacht The only way Arts DEVO is going to make it to the other side of this shelter-in-place (-inside, -in-smoke, insane) with his health intact is to check his consumption—of nightly beers […]
Arts & Culture
Arts DEVO: Grief, hope
“That’s the beauty of music. They can’t get that from you. … There’s something inside that they can’t get to, that they can’t touch. That’s yours.”—Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), The Shawshank Redemption Jenise Coon was […]
Arts & Culture
Arts DEVO: Three day weekend?
We live in this naturally beautiful place where creative exploration and having a good time can become a way of life. The Butcher Shop, for me, is the ultimate celebration of that, where Chico’s extended […]
Arts & Culture
Arts DEVO: Raining frogs
And then the smoke rolled in. Is it possible to add the wildfire and presidential election seasons to the flaming pile of 2020 and still come out on the other end sane? I feel like […]
Arts & Culture
Arts DEVO: Push play
Is Chico on pause? It might feel like nothing is happening, and that there’s nothing new to report beyond infection rates (1,321 confirmed coronavirus cases in Butte County as of Aug. 14) and the tally […]
Arts & Culture
Arts Devo: Be kind
Our neighbors One evening last week, I was driving down Orient Street near downtown Chico and saw a fully nude woman walking down the middle of the road toward me. She looked disoriented, had some […]
Arts & Culture
Notes from the scene
It has been months since Arts DEVO has had too much to write about in this column. But in this week after the CN&R put out its first print edition in more than three months, […]
Arts & Culture
Thank you!
This newspaper is in your hands because of you. You gave money in a shutdown economy during a global pandemic … to a broke newspaper! You gave money to Arts DEVO, literally. I still have […]
Arts & Culture
Arts & Culture
Bring that beat back
As his name suggests, Arts DEVO has a beat that he covers for the Chico News & Review. Pre-COVID-19, my notebook of story ideas and potential column fodder was always a mess of scribbles and […]