 |
  |
 |
||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||||||||
Floating
and Flying The members of Hem are getting some serious mileage out of an article in The New Yorker that dubbed them "fairy-tale music." They do make soothing, slightly ethereal songs, and lead singer Sally Ellyson's voice is like a sleepy cross between The Cowboy Junkies and The Cranberries' Niall Quinn.
But Dan Messé (piano, accordion, celeste and glockenspiel)
is sick of reporters asking about the "fairy tale" of how Ellyson, who
had never crooned a note into a microphone, blew everyone away when
she tried out for the band. When he called it, "something that sounds
like one of those made up publicity stories," it sounded like a rehearsed
But it is a true story. And just like every other really great band, these eight Brooklynites have been pegged and labeled and stuck into a little box. Theirs is called countrypolitan. It's influenced by pop from the '60s and '70s — Glen Campbell, The Carpenters, etc. Messé said that on their first album Rabbit Songs, he was fascinated by children's music, lullabies and sing-songy melodies. "We wanted to write children's music for adults," he said. The music came out sounding sweet, gentle and kind of floaty, with little hooks that stick in your head. On Eveningland, their newest release, they've grown up. That sweet sound is a little more sultry, a little more luscious and deep. The melodies have more of an edge and the sad songs are so sexy, they make you wish someone would break your heart. And just when your eyelids start to feel heavy, they pick it up with songs such as "Dance With Me, Now Darling," that make you want to grab your honey and twirl.
Imagine
If I … Share Metamedia Cooperation is throwing a party organizers hope will bend and expand your mind. The experience Friday includes music by Raging Family, art installations, multimedia presentations, organic food and drink, massage, healing and talks by UO and Portland State University faculty. Explore ideas of group theory with UO psychology professor Holly Arrow. Or learn how Jackson Pollack's paintings use fractals when Richard Taylor speaks. Eugene's Maetreya Ecovillage, ProtoTista, Planetwork and City Repair Project will also debate and discuss their theories and ideas. Going to the sold-out Modest Mouse show? Don't worry. The event has late-night activities for folks roaming the streets after the concert. Local composer Jair is the main organizer behind the event and the Imaginify Community Network. In today's copyright culture of proprietary information, this emerging idea celebrates open-source culture or free culture. The idea is that people benefit by freely sharing ideas and being able to modify those ideas, as long as credit is given to the idea's originators. That way the ideas evolve over time. Developments in technology support this philosophy. For example the Linux operating system is open-source, meaning you can download it and have access to the actual code that makes it run, which allows you to modify it. Technologies such as "del.icio.us" (http://del.icio.us) allow webpages to be bookmarked and shared. Jair said many people practice and research ideas of thrivable culture, but call them different things. Imaginify's cyberspace meeting place celebrates "the connections between creative solutions in art, science and community," uniting people in disparate fields who work toward a common goal of sustainability and community.
Land
Speed Records
Jackstraw's high-energy bluegrass tunes have two speeds, fast and faster. With more than the usual display of musical competence and skill, these four guys play, pick, twang and sing songs that zip along with the velocity of the TGV, France's high-speed rail with top speeds exceeding 200 mph. Actually, that's not a totally fair assessment because it might make you think these Portland-based players just noodle away on their instruments. Not so. The songs on their self-titled 2002 release have lilting melodies and harmonies performed with joy, utterly lacking in pretense. "Ballad of Jamie Lynn," "Train 24," and "2,000 Miles" are slower songs that reach into your soul and hang on, leaving the voice of the vocalist still playing in your head long after the music's stopped. Jesse Withers (bass), David Pugh (mandolin), Jon Neufeld (lead guitar) and Darrin Craig (guitar) all sing and play with passion and bring a freshness as green as the smell of newly cut grass. They grew up sitting on the knees of acoustic musicians and falling asleep to those harmonies and melodies drifting through the night air. Raised in Kansas, Rhode Island, Colorado and Chicago, they first got together in 1997 and spent a lot of time experimenting, discovering the path away from the electric guitars, keyboards and drums, the sound so characteristic of the '80s and '90s, and back to an earthy homegrown sound. Jackstraw remains strongly rooted in traditional bluegrass harmonies and the topics of their songs rarely stray from the standard fare. But their sound is a little different, filled with a youthful energy that has lead many critics to call them the new generation of bluegrass.
Not
So Modest
If you haven't heard of Modest Mouse, you're woefully behind the times. Sorry. It's true. Whether you like indie rock or not, the name should ring a bell. If not, now you've read it and you know they're a BFD in the music scene today. They're up for two Grammy's for cripes sake. But there's no point in writing a whole big thing on them since both shows at the McDonald Theatre sold out and they're working on their tans right now and aren't available for interviews. But Cass McCombs, their opening act, has received little ink and he is available. See how that works? Pairing the late '80s Brit, psychedelic, drone pop sound with today's leaders of indie rock seemed a little strange at first listen. But McCombs' music combines modern-day lyrical style and rise-and-fall harmonies with the darker grit of post punk and snakey little twists that make it work, at least most of the time. McCombs prefers to conduct his interviews by e-mail. Maybe that's because it's pretty hard to end up misquoted. Anyway, his quirky personality comes through even in type. Here are a few excerpts from our e-interview. How have your musical tastes changed over the years? I have no musical tastes. Taste is the destroyer of music. How disgusting it is to impose personal style and preference upon a thing of ultimate beauty! The only way to love music is with an infinitely open mind. Just as the only true love is platonic. I regard taste as I do racism: with spite. So did you think being a rock star and opening for a two-Grammy nominee would be more glamorous? I hear you've been couch surfing? Glamor is always seen from an outsider's perspective; the grass is always greener; which is terrible and ungrateful way of thinking. I wouldn't wish to try on anybody else's shoes. and with what problems I do have, I'm perfectly able to deal with them myself. No fear. If you're lucky enough to have scored a ticket to the show, get there early enough to at least catch a few of his songs and position yourself strategically amidst the mob.
Three's
Just Charming
Somewhere between Houston and Dallas, the ladies of Trés Chicas were having a grand old time. One might say that for a band on a grueling 18-stop tour that stretches from South Carolina to Texas to Washington, they were having way too much fun. On tour with Grammy nominee Tift Merritt, the Trés Chicas Caitlin Cary, Lynn Blakey and Sara Bell (sitting in for Tonya Lamm) take their backgrounds in rock, Irish, and folk and create a sound that's a mix of Southern girl rock and country. Their ballad-like tunes, with strong melodies and an even stronger blend of rich, gorgeous harmonies, draw on love, loss and life for inspiration, then throw in a decidedly soft feminist twist. The tunes are catchy — good for driving and singing along. The opening track, "Sweetwater" draws you in like an oasis of cool in the scorching desert, soaking you with sweet heartache and the beauty of moving on. But these ladies are no wilting wall flowers. They have nerve, I tell you. Lamm can't join the tour because she's got a newborn — a month in a 16-passenger bus would be a little much. Now if they had a real bus, she could come. So one night, after a few drinks, the Trés Chicas decided that the best way to get that bus would be to write Dolly Parton a letter asking if they could borrow hers. "We thought she'd understand the dilemma of women musicians trying to travel with children," Blakey said. "The letter that we wrote has a lot of things crossed out because we kept saying, 'oh we can't say it like that.' We wanted to be respectful, not too pushy." If that letter is anything like their music, they'll get that bus. Their sweet melodies work their magic with subtlety. -MB
AX BILLY GRILL & SPORTS BAR BEANERY BLACK FOREST
CAFE PARADISO CLUB TSUNAMI COFFEE GROVE COOPERATIVE COZMIC PIZZA@THE STRAND COUNTRY SIDE RESTAURANT DA HOUZE DOWNTOWN LOUNGE DUCK INN EMBERS SUPPER CLUB EUGENE WINE CELLARS GOOD TIMES HiDEAWAY LOUNGE JO FEDERIGO'S JOE'S BAR & GRILLE JOGGER'S BAR & GRILL JOHN HENRY'S LATITUDE 10 CAFE LAVELLE'S WINE BAR & BISTRO
LUCKEY'S CLUB CIGAR LUNA MAC'S AT THE VET'S MCDONALD THEATRE MONROE STREET CAFE OREGON ELECTRIC STATION OVERTIME GRILL PEABODY'S PERUGINO QUACKER'S RAMADA INN SAM BOND'S GARAGE Bingo with Tom and Scott K--9 SAM'S PLACE SAMURAI DUCK STACY'S COVERED BRIDGE SWEETWATER'S TAYLOR'S BAR AND GRILL TINY TAVERN VET'S CLUB BALLROOM WETLANDS
WOW HALL YUKON JACK'S
CORVALLIS AJ'S BOMBS AWAY CAFE CLUB ESCAPE FOX AND FIRKIN MURPHEY'S NEW MORNING THE PEACOCK PLATINUM
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
