by Christine | May 16, 2013 | Welcome Column
Good morning from Whiskey Creek, where my special, once each year list that’s headed Things to Do Before Grass Valley is mercifully down to a mere 32 items, items like: download audible.com book for I-Phone (I listen to books like the twenty-two hunredred page Rise...
by Christine | Dec 14, 2014 | Welcome Column
One of the great things about the music we all love is that there is so much room for interpretation. Any good artist can take a tune people have heard many times before and put their own spin on it. As a listener, I’m often wedded to the first version I hear of a...
by Christine | Dec 4, 2011 | Welcome Column
Thanksgiving really begins a Holiday season long period of reflection and thanksgiving for all the great blessings in life. Sometimes Americans take for granted how wonderful life has been to them, even in the toughest of times. Maybe I’m a sentimental, sappy guy, but...
by Christine | Jul 30, 2015 | Welcome Column
Thursday, July 30, 2015 (Editor’s Note: Each of our Welcome columnists develops over time a sort of a telltale signature or fingerprint, a quality or characteristic that can be found in each of her pieces. Marcos’ was there almost from the beginning; regardless of...
by Christine | Jul 9, 2012 | Welcome Column
Well it is 2:20 a.m. on July 9th as I write this column. We were notified a few hours ago that the Mill Fire is coming towards my home and that mandatory evacuation is likely sometime after sunrise but they are not sure when. The sky all around us is a haunting orange...
by Christine | Feb 19, 2012 | Welcome Column
I swear there is a CBA conspiracy to hold events on every third weekend just to make my welcome column more difficult to write. The campouts seem to fall on third weekends, Grass Valley runs over the third weekend, and the winter music camp definitely is on this third...
by Christine | Oct 14, 2016 | Welcome Column
When I was in my early twenties playin’ in a low rent Rock & Roll bar band, I joined the musicians union. My dope addled thought process had surmised that union musicians make more money than non union musicians, and since a ham sandwich would have been more than...
by Christine | Nov 23, 2013 | Welcome Column
What makes social media social? Why is it such a popular medium for communication? More importantly why do we as a society think that we need – underscore NEED – to communicate with people we don’t know? And finally, what is so popular about the USE of social...
by Christine | Nov 17, 2009 | Welcome Column
I never understood Lloyd Butlers sense of rhythm until I saw Jimmy Rodgers on an old film clip. I think the song he was playing was “T for Texas”. I remember sitting back in my chair and saying to my myself, “He’s playing that like Lloyd.” Then I thought, no, Lloyd’s...
by Christine | Feb 21, 2019 | Welcome Column
A few months back I was browsing the shelves in a local thrift shop and pulled out a book entitled ‘Laurel Canyon’ by Michael Walker. In truth the title didn’t mean much to me, but I was intrigued by the explanatory subtitle “The inside story of rock and roll’s...
