San Joaquin Fair

Where did you go to High School?

With a mandolin and vocals, Central California band Poor Man’s Poison is joining into the folk-Americana craze that has become popular since bands like Mumford & Sons started winning Grammys. Poor Man’s Poison is opening for Darius Rucker in Stockton on April 25, and musician Tommy McCarthy took a few minutes to share about the band and their music.

Jolene Jones has been singing her entire life. But now, working between her hometown and Nashville, Jones is making a name for herself with her country album “Where Angels Go to Cry.” Jones, whose biggest inspiration was her father, shares about her journey as a musician and what she likes to do in Lodi.

(NAPSI)—A trio of new video games can easily revitalize your family game night, whether your family prefers to battle it out as their favorite superheroes, adventure through magical worlds or cut a rug.

It’s September, so as far as I’m concerned we are now in the midst of the holiday season. (Yes, I start celebrating a tad earlier than most, and I’m having to resist the urge to bust out the Christmas music before November.) For me, the first leg of this four-month celebration involves the viewing of as many horror movies as humanly possible — a valid goal year-round, to be sure, but particularly pertinent as we approach Halloween.

Country music star Martina McBride is bringing her signature soprano range and crooning ballads to the Central Valley for an intimate concert she says is a treat for her die-hard fans.

I typically preface reviews of Pixar films with a disclaimer stating that, while I admire their consistently engaging and often groundbreaking work, I do not share the majority opinion that they are the end-all and be-all of contemporary animated entertainment.

It has occurred to me that I discuss my personal goings-on a bit less than my fellow News-Sentinel columnists do, but in the interest of partial disclosure, I must confess that life has gotten significantly more difficult for me in the past few months. I’ve started a new job that requires many long, grueling, thankless hours in an undesirable environment. The possibility of complete physical and mental collapse is now very real.

1. Lodi Street Faire

As we begin the countdown to the start of the summer movie season (which, as per tradition, actually begins well before summer), I offer a brief preview of the remaining spring titles.

Typically, I spend the first six weeks or so of each new year playing catch-up with all the Oscar bait that was released around Christmas. But as it turns out this awards season didn’t produce as many true prestige pictures as expected, so starting next week we’ll be returning to new releases with a look at Steven Soderbergh’s acclaimed action flick “Haywire,” followed by a review of the Liam Neeson vs. wolves survival thriller “The Grey” (I’ll also briefly return to the 2011 awards contenders with a piece on “The Artist,” if it ever opens in the Lodi-Stockton area).

Hope you all enjoyed my top 10 list last week, and gleaned some useful recommendations. This week I’ll take a very quick look at “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” which made my “most promising films I didn’t see” list but ended up being one of the most spirit-crushing disappointments of the year. I honestly don’t have much to say about such an empty film, so I suppose I might as well squeeze in my predictions for the Oscar nominations, set to be announced on Tuesday, Jan. 24, at which point you will surely marvel at my peerless prognosticative abilities.

I could go on a rambling, ill-tempered rant about the shocking lack of worthwhile films released in 2011. I could easily wallow in righteous indignation, and throw up my hands in disgust and defeat as I impotently curse Hollywood’s artistic bankruptcy and offer my own theories as to why last year saw the worst theater attendance numbers in 16 years. And I’d be right to do it. But this time of year, I prefer to ignore the crazed, rampaging elephant in the room and instead celebrate the few diamonds in the rough that kept me from completely losing my mind over the course of the past 12 months. So let’s get to it:

Hope you all had a great Christmas and are enjoying the final hours of 2011. My holiday season has been quite relaxing indeed, with the exception of the screening blitz I’ve been embroiled in since I realized the first draft of my year-end top 10 list was woefully inadequate. I’m trying to cram in as many movies as I can before my list is due for publication next week, and the experience has been mind-reeling but, of course, invigorating in  its own way.

Sacramento Master Singer concert

The Lodi Community Band's annual Christmas Concert was a wonderful lesson in musical styles. They played jazz, orchestral, pop and traditional hymns, just to name a few.

How quickly things can change. Just a week ago, I was so desperate for a movie to review that I actually sat and watched “The Twilight Saga — Breaking Dawn: Part 1” for two hours. (I’ve broken bones, suffered through mono, gotten tattooed and had a wisdom tooth wrenched out of my head without Novocain, but honestly, all pale in comparison to the sheer unpleasantness of the “Twilight” experience.)

The unrivaled cinematic high provided by “Drive” was fun while it lasted, but now it’s time to start the long, hard slog toward awards season. The period between the end of summer and the beginning of Oscar season proper is typically a bit of a dumping ground populated by not-quite-ready-for-primetime also-rans, but there are still some promising titles on the horizon.

Lodi-based Christian band Time Horizon is playing a debut concert Aug. 20 to celebrate the release of their progressive rock album, “Living Water.” The event is free to attend, and profits from album sales go entirely to Living Water International, an organization that builds wells for drinking water around the world.    

Life without music would be like Lodi without grapes

My instructions for this week weren’t very specific — I was simply assigned to write up something “food-related” to stay with the theme of this week’s Lodi Living. And when I’m not given ironclad instructions, I tend to take advantage of the situation and use it as an excuse to get a little weird. So, I present to you a painstakingly assembled hodgepodge of awesome food-related things in movies, in no order and adhering to absolutely no rules or guidelines. Bon appetit?

1. Veterans summer art auction

Jackie Floyd, lead singer of the local jazz band Swing Shift, has always been immersed in music. As a student at Tokay High School, Floyd participated in choir and theater. Here, Floyd talks about performing with band members Jim Floyd, Pat Teczon and Don Denton.

Drake White, 27, is a country boy at heart, and he’s bringing his flare to Ironstone Amphitheater on Sunday, when he performs with Willie Nelson’s Country Throwdown. Here, the Alabama native talks about touring with one of his favorite musicians and the road to becoming a country singer.