• Nicholas Dominic Talvola

It's St. Patrick's Day and it seems like only a year ago we had our music scene chock full of Celtic tunes. Start off your Irish Appreciation Day at Mad River Brewery with Seabury Gould, who'll be on for free around 3:30 p.m. for those of you who have already called in sick to work. At 6 p.m., Cadillac Ranch takes over from Seabury to keep the good times coming. Six Rivers Brewery hosts a two-hour set of free Celtic-inspired music from The Gatehouse Well at 6:30 p.m. Just a half hour later, Good Company and Fingal team up at Siren's Song Tavern for the St. Patty's music, along with a performance by the Academy of Irish Dance, all for free. The RLA Trio is hosting a former-local-dynamite trumpeter Nicholas Dominic Talvola who grew up in Arcata but moved to Europe 14 years ago and has been gigging around out there with some pretty big acts. Welcome him back at 7 p.m. at the Westhaven Center for the Arts with a sliding scale of $5-$20. We're not done with Celtic music yet folks; you'll find Whoops! non-accidentally playing Irish music at Cafe Mokka at 8 p.m. for free — and it's all ages — and later at The Jam in Arcata you've got The Vanishing Pints playing around 9:30 p.m. Not sure on the ticket price for this one but you know it'll be a blast. Rounding out our St. Patrick's Day are big-timers The Meat Puppets who return to Humboldt Brews at 9:30 p.m. These fellas have been on the punk/alt rock SST music scene since 1980 and have blazed their own trail through the changing musical landscapes since then. I hear they may have some more acoustic-based songs this evening, which would be a treat. Stonefield opens this $20 show.