Each year we write, create, build and perform a large summer pageant-play-extravaganza. These performances last about an hour, include an ensemble of professional musicians who create an original score of... Read More →

What makes the poetry of the Bible different from other ancient poetic traditions? Placed in its ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean context, Professor Vayntrub highlights the unique characteristics of biblical... Read More →

The final words sung on the sixth album by WHY? are an apt place to begin: “Hold on, what’s going on?” Because while there’s much familiar about the oddly named Moh Lhean-mastermind Yoni Wolf’s sour-sweet croon, his deadpan poet’s drawl and ear for stunningly fluid psych-pop-folk-whatever arrangement-a great deal has changed in the four years that’ve passed since 2012’s Mumps, Etc., an LP that honed the band’s orchestral precision and self-deprecating swagger to a fine point. It’s significant that this is the first fully home-recorded WHY? album since the project’s 2003 debut. Made mostly in Wolf’s studio and co-produced by his brother Josiah, the result is obsessive, of course, but also intimate, and flush with warmth and looseness. But the biggest transformation is a bit subtler. After years of eying his world, in part, with a cynical squint, Wolf here learns a new mode. While Moh Lhean never stoops to outright optimism, it chronicles our hero finding peace in the unknowing, trading the wry smirk for a holy shrug, and looking past corporeal pain for something more cosmic and, rest assured, equally weird. A low tone opens the album on “This Ole King” as acoustic pluck and upright bass form a Western bedrock beneath Wolf’s fragile voice. But as the song pushes on, the playing gets brighter and the vocal becomes a mantra-like hum inspired by Ali Farka Touré’s blues, before rolling into a second part rich with chiming keys and twisting harmony-Brian Wilson’s kaleidoscopic vision of pop. If there’s new litheness here, it’s probably because Wolf spent much of the time between albums collaborating-with ex/muse Anna Stewart as the fuzz-pop duo Divorcee, and MC Serengeti as the puckishly depressive Yoni & Geti. And if there’s a lithe newness, it may be that Wolf excised some nostalgia via his 2014 solo tapes-one re-recording choice raps from his own catalog, and another covering cuts by artists like Bob Dylan and Pavement. It’s no wonder, then, that “The Water” handily morphs a moody folk tune into some strange new form of full-band dub. Or that “One Mississippi” bounces along happily over a flurry of bizarre percussion, whistled melodies, and trippy synthesizer blips. Perhaps most impressive is “Consequence of Nonaction,” which vacillates between a quiet meditation for guitar/voice/clarinet, and wild, sax-strewn astral art-funk. Movement is a key theme of Moh Lhean. It’s a breakup album without a romantic interest-coded within the lyrics is a tale about fleeing the seductions of a wintry figure for something synonymous with spring. “Easy” plays like a ward against the old ghost who haunts “January February March,” while “George Washington” places our host in a tiny watercraft, “paddling for land/hand on heart and heart in hand” as that faceless malevolent force stays ashore. While writing these songs, Wolf suffered a severe health scare far from home. Rather than drive him to depression, his brush with mortality imparted an incongruous impression of peace and connection to the living. At the end of “Proactive Evolution,” wherein WHY? enlists mewithoutYou’s Aaron Weiss to celebrate the stubborn persistence of humankind, Wolf samples not only thinkers like Sharon Salzberg and Ram Dass, but his actual doctors-the voices that helped shape his new outlook. Sure, Wolf poses as many questions as ever. Moh Lhean’s gorgeously psychedelic closer, “The Barely Blur” with Son Lux, puzzles over the nature of existence. But rather than leave us with the macabre chill of death, as many a WHY? LP has, the song dissolves into the infinite-the sound of the Big Bang. Links: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

This is a general admission seated show. Hot Tuna, Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady, perform with a well-honed and solid power – always in the groove from their years of experience and mutual inspiration. Started as a side project during Jefferson Airplane days, the constant, the very definition of Hot Tuna, has always been Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady. The two boyhood pals have never wavered in one of the most enduring friendships in Rock history. From their days playing together as teenagers in the Washington, DC area, through years of inventive Psylodelic rock in San Francisco (1996 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductees), to their current acoustic and electric blues sound, no one has more consistently led American music for the last 50 years than Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady, the founders and continuing core members of Hot Tuna. At the 2016 Grammys, Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady were honored with Lifetime Achievement Awards. “Jorma Kaukonen is a force in American music, equally adept at fingerpicked acoustic folk and blues as he is at wailing on an electric.” – Acoustic Guitar Guitarist and vocalist, Jorma Kaukonen is a highly respected interpreter of roots music, blues, Americana, and popular rock-and-roll. Jorma’s repertoire goes far beyond psychedelic rock; he is a music legend and one of the finest singer-songwriters in music. Jorma tours the world bringing his unique styling to old blues while writing new songs of weight and dimension. “Jack Casady is virtually unparalleled–and yet he has one of the most truly unique electric-bass voices in rock…he can melt into a supportive role but when opportunity knocks, he bursts forth with creative lines–both simple and ornate–that are unlike any you’ve heard” – Premier Guitar One of the most unique innovators in the sixty-year history of the bass guitar, Jack Casady made his sweeping melodic mark helping to create the “San Francisco Sound” with legendary rock group Jefferson Airplane. Jack went on to track with Jimi Hendrix, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Warren Zevon, members of the Grateful Dead, John Lee Hooker, and Gov’t Mule. Casady, regarded as one of rock’s greatest bassists, is certainly one of its most original. “Hot Tuna is a Psychedelic-Blues Institution” – Rolling Stone Magazine Electric Hot Tuna Website | Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley Website