The bumper sticker read, “I’d rather be at a Tommy Castro Show,” and the crowd that filled Folsom’s Powerhouse Pub Saturday night agreed. Ben and Robin Penn chose Castro over the lighted boat parade, and others chose the show over competing concerts and Sacramento’s Second Saturday events, braving the cold and the Santa Pub Crawlers to hear Castro and his band. The band that performed Saturday night is not the same lineup fans will see in 2012, when Randy McDonald will replace Scot Sutherland on bass, Keith Crossan will take his sax skills elsewhere, as will Tom Poole and his horn and Tony Stead and his keyboards. Byron Cage will remain at drums. Castro fans were clearly not disappointe

Star Trek Directed by J.J. Abrams By Tony Sheppard Capitol Weekly I’ll open by cutting to the chase and saying that this is a neat movie, firing on all dilithium chambers and achieving everything I had hoped it would achieve, despite a host of hurdles to overcome.  So what about those hurdles…  Star Trek has a back story that’s intimidating to say the least. One has to decide whether to stick to the original canon or branch off in a new direction and enrage a generation of fans. Or, in the case of Trekkies, a generation and a next generation of fans. It’s now 40 years since the first TV series ended, and there have been six series, including an animated version, and 10 movies. Some of