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Return
of Mare Wakefield Band, Sort Of
A good songwriter with a great voice has two choices: continue as a good writer or push to be a great writer. Mare (pronounced "Mary") Wakefield chose to push, majoring in songwriting at Boston's Berklee College of Music. A graduate and a newlywed, Wakefield returns to Eugene armed with her fourth CD, Take Me Home. "[The CD] is the best I've ever done," said Wakefield when we spoke recently, while she and her husband were driving west to begin their 19-shows-in-20-days West Coast tour. A talented guitarist, Wakefield and husband Nomad Övünç (pronounced "Uvunch") met at Berklee. Övünç produced and arranged Take Me Home, marking the first time Wakefield has collaborated closely with another. "I've never worked that intensely with someone else. All the other CDs I've made, I've been the head honcho," said Wakefield. Since graduating, Wakefield and Övünç have shifted homebase to Nashville. Vast quantities of skilled session players and the general musical culture made the town appealing. "The great thing about living in Nashville was the amazingly talented musicians we had access to," Wakefield said. Among those new friends on the CD are harmony vocalist Amelia White and dobro player Kim Gardner. "Everyone's really approachable and really helpful," Wakefield said. "There's a lot of musicians in Nashville so you'd think there would be a lot of competition, but more than any competition I really feel a sense of community, of people wanting to help each other out." Wakefield's CD exhibits a shift toward a more rootsy, country-tinged folk. Call it Nashville's influence, or the true Mare emerging (she did grow up in Texas), this CD showcases her strengthened talents beautifully. Wakefield sings about the ominous, the poignant and the universal with a smile and a light heart. Joining her will be David Burrows on drums and Övünç on bass.
Fan
Mail Dear Invisible, First of all, I want to say thanks for not being lame. I know this might not be the most eloquent way to begin a fan letter, but it pretty much conveys what I want to say right off the bat. So … thanks.
Second of all, it says something for a band when you go to see their live show and you wish that the show wouldn't end. It really says something about a band when the reason you went to the show in the first place was to see the band that is playing after the band that you wish would never end. Does that make sense? Let me put it this way: Your live show rocks. As an audience member I can really tell that you guys are into your music, and that makes the show infinitely cooler for me. When you love what you're doing, other people want to love it too. And well, to be honest, you make it hard for people not to love you. Why, you ask? Well, to begin with, your music is tinged with this quirkiness that is set off in your lyrics and choice placing of xylophone. But even though you know how to have fun, there is a heavier element to your sound; something transcendent and haunting in the piano and guitar that vaguely reminds me of Death Cab for Cutie. Or maybe Yo La Tengo. But the vocals are more Modest Mouse … but never mind the comparisons. I think you've taken the best elements of these bands and put them together to create a sound that could just be the sound of my new favorite band. Another thing about your live shows — the videos in the background are a nice touch. I mean, they don't really make sense, but they're just so coordinated with your music that it's like watching the visualizer on iTunes or something. Not that I sit in front of the computer and watch it or anything. Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks and keep up the good work. Everyone alive should go your (Invisible's) show. Sincerely, An Invisible Fan
Ring
Around the Posies If you took a seven-year hiatus from your primary occupation, the result would probably make your mother cry, your belly grow, and your plans for the future disintegrate in the face of infomercials, PBR and utter shame. The Posies could have taken this route during their break from releasing new music.
But they're better than you, so they graced their fans with a live album, a greatest hits, and a box set. And founders Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow collectively appeared on 12 other albums. Don't worry: We know you, dear reader, would have been just as constructive — even with the PBR. With seven years to contemplate how to reintroduce The Posies' sound, you'd think the new album would have been years in development. But Auer, Stringfellow, drummer Darius Minwalla and bassist Matt Harris wrote and recorded Every Kind of Light in three weeks, a frenzied pace foreign to The Posies of the 1990s, yet resulting in a sound vibrant and alive. "It was a little bit like skydiving for the first time. You didn't know what to expect," says Auer, as the band drives through Canada, smack-dab in the middle of a 25-shows-in-25-days tour stretch. "It's an experiment that worked … There's much more room for exploration in the music. We'd spend time chasing a sound. It was very refreshing in that sense." The break-up seven years ago was a mutual one between Stringfellow and Auer, bandmates since their days breakin' all the rules and living dangerously in the high school choir together. "This is how much of a stud I am," says vocalist and guitarist Auer. "I lettered in choir three times." The sound of The Posies in the 1990s was less choir and more inspired pop, usually focusing on the timeless themes of love and love lost. But with Every Kind of Light, things have changed a bit. Expatriate Stringfellow (who lives much of the year in France) introduced some politically-charged lyrics to the familiar Posies equation, evident in "Could He Treat You Better," which is an old-fashioned he's-a-prick song; only the prick is George W. and the abused is our nation. "They're all songs about relationships," says Auer. "It can be a relationship with a person, your beliefs, or the place you live."
Cinematic
Jazz The meteoric career of Roscoe Arbuckle, the innovative silent-film actor/director everyone called Fatty, ended in tragedy: A member of the early movie pantheon with Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd and the rest, he was falsely accused of rape and murder in 1921. As an acclaimed recent biography reveals, despite an innocent verdict and jury apology, the Hollywood studio heads made this gentle, funny man a scapegoat for the movie business' newly revealed seamy side, his career never recovered, and he never received his due as one of cinema's great pioneers.
Acclaimed jazz trumpeter Dave Douglas was so moved by Arbuckle's story that he wrote music designed to evoke the atmosphere of some of his finest films. On Tuesday, Oct 25, Douglas brings one of his dozen acclaimed ensembles to The Shedd to play that music live, accompanying some of Arbuckle's early classics, including Fatty and Mabel Adrift. Like Miles Davis's celebrated scores for Elevator to the Gallows and Jack Johnson, Douglas's electric music doesn't try to replicate the sounds of the movie's time and place; instead, it uses modern instruments (sax, turntables, keyboards, rhythm section and of course Douglas's own athletic trumpet) and grooves to enhance the exciting, madcap, sometimes tender moments in these amazing comedies, and it works beautifully. No one interested in jazz, improvised or other new music, should ever miss a chance to catch one of America's most creative musicians — not least because, even though this is his third visit, the music will be utterly different from his previous Eugene shows. There's more enticing jazz on Oct. 22 when Tom Bergeron brings one of the Northwest's premiere improvisatory groups, Whirled Jazz, back to Luna with guest guitar god Don Latarski. I caught part of their Luna show last month and, even though the musicians were clearly still reading some of Bergeron's complex new compositions, they still knocked me out. Bergeron is a true master of the saxophone, Latarski's fretboard skills are well known hereabouts, and trombonist Keller Coker's creamy tone and agile solos belie his instrument's apparent ungainliness. The Brazilian inflections of some of the tunes are by no means bossa lite but instead tastefully integrated world music along the lines of Duke Ellington and Dave Brubeck's multiculti jazz excursions. On Oct. 21, Luna hosts another band that channels influences from other cultures when Seattle's Hot Club Sandwich returns to play music reminiscent of the hot Grappelli/Reinhardt Parisian Gypsy swing of the '30s. Speaking of Gypsy music, you can hear the real thing on Oct. 18 when the Legends of Bulgarian Wedding Music return to the UO's Agate Hall for a concert and dance party featuring music from the Balkans. If you think American jazz masters are virtuosos, give these guys a try — they might nonchalantly flit through a half dozen odd meters in a single song, improvise as imaginatively as anyone I've heard — and play it all at warp speeds I didn't know human hands were capable of attaining, whether on sax, guitar, clarinet, accordion, drums or vocals. If you like to dance or party at high speed, this is the show for you. We think of the sax as primarily a jazz instrument, but Otis Murphy will demonstrate his instrument's classical heritage in a concert at the UO's Beall Hall on Oct. 13, in music by Gershwin, Bizet, Piazzolla and more. Another recommended UO show happens at Central Lutheran Church (18th & Potter) on Sunday afternoon, Oct. 16, when university musicians will play and sing a variety of sacred and secular works from the Italian Baroque period, including music by Monteverdi, Frescobaldi and more. The big classical news is fiddle deity Itzhak Perlman's appearance at the Eugene Symphony's 40th birthday bash on Oct. 17 at the Hult Center. He'll solo in Beethoven's mighty Violin Concerto and the show features music from Bizet and Rossini. On Oct. 20, the symphony will play one of those ever-popular orchestral classics, Gustav Holst's spectacular The Planets, along with much less often heard works by William Walton (a concerto featuring the superb violist Nokathula Ngwenyama) and Anton Webern. New music and dance fans should be at the WOW Hall on Oct. 26 when Portand's East/West Continuo accompanies Agnieszka Laska's dancers in two shows. I saw this enchanting program in Corvallis last week, and the music or dance alone would be worth the price, but Laska's choreography intimately engages with the music. Koto player Mitsuki Dazai solos on Portland composer Tomas Svoboda's spacious "Autumn" (a narrative dance about relationships). She's joined by flutist Tessa Brinckman in Jack Gabel's cross-cultural "Through a Gentle Rain," featuring kimono-clad dancers. The most ambitious choreography accompanies J.S. Bach's powerful sixth suite for solo cello, as the dancers circle cellist Justin Kagan. You can read Rachael Carnes' preview in the EW Bravo archives for Sept. 22. The WOW has another winner Oct. 18 when the compelling Seattle singer Heather Duby joins Minus the Bear and two others.
MC Dracula and Noiseferatu Join Forces Opting for a cape and fangs instead of the traditional Adidas track suit and gold chains (or teeth if you want to draw an odd parallel), the world's scariest rapper, MC Dracula, will make his Eugene debut at the Bijou Art Cinema's "Weekend of the Living Dead."
Unlike the character he plays in his famed movie appearances, MC Drac (as he is more commonly referred to in the business) leaves the horror at home and approaches hip hop with the utmost seriousness. People often hear his name and automatically associate his music with the morbid and creepy genre of hip hop known as horror-core. But Drac's PG-rated rhymes have more in common with Dee Dee King than Necro. His debut album, Hauz of Dracula, was recorded entirely via telephone. MC Drac, who currently resides in Brooklyn, called Carl Diehl, founding member of The JiRCS video collage group, who recorded the impromptu session and later synched the recording with hip hop beats off of his computer. MC Drac will host the Bijou's three day cult film fest, which showcases Night of the Living Dead and Plan 9 From OuterSpace. The extravaganza starts on Friday with a live performance by MC Dracula (featuring the Wolfman), Noiseferatu (a collaboration between the Audio Schizophrenic and Warning Broken Machine), and an interpretive video collage version of Nosferatu performed by The JiRCS. It's a little short of the Halloween holiday, but jumping the gun adds to the quirkiness of the whole event. MC Dracula, the Wolfman, Noiseferatu and The JiRCS play at the "Night of the Living Dead" kick-off party, 11:15 pm, Friday, Oct. 14 at Bjiou Art Cinemas. $4. — Steven Sawada
Hippies Rejoice! I've always thought of moe. as Phish on Ritalin. Conceived in 1991, 3,000 miles from grunge in a quaint corner of upstate New York, moe. learned early how to produce jam-band style songs in a tight, radio-friendly format. Not wanting to disappoint the tripped-out college kid contingent though, the band likes to color its live performances with unexpected, theatrical touches, like the time they played the soundtrack to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory while dressed as characterfrom the movie. In short, they're a little bit Widespread, a little bit Dead and obviously, a whole lot moe.
Gov't Mule was pulled from the skeleton of the Allman Brothers Band in 1994. Founding father Warren Haynes was already a full-fledged Brother when he decided to form a power trio with the band's bassist, Allen Woody and Dickey Betts' drummer at the time, Matt Abts. The result was fiery, blues-rock thunder seemingly straight off the early '70s classic rock circuit. Woody's untimely death in 2000 was a tragedy from which the band might not have recovered, were it not for the quick release of "The Deep End" series in Woody's honor and the music community's support. The old-Mule vibe is still alive in the current four-man lineup though, with Haynes working the crap out of the Jimi Hendrix/John Fogerty oscillating wah effect, especially on the slower stuff. For this tour, the two bands will alternate between who opens and closes each show, I guess to keep everyone on equal footing, and the audience on its toes. moe. and Gov't Mule play at 8 pm, Monday, Oct. 17 at the McDonald Theatre. $25 adv/$28 dos. — Dave Constantin
No Sleep 'til Eugene Tegan and Sara will bring some special guests when they visit the McDonald Theatre Tuesday, Oct. 18. Northern State, a female hip hop group from Long Island, N.Y., will hit up Eugene for the first time ever. Northern State (Hesta Prynn, Spero and Sprout) perform a live set similar to older Beastie Boys but with a little more dance to it. Their focal topics are feminism, camaraderie and, of course, rhyming. "One of the reasons we decided to do [the Tegan and Sara tour] is because we knew it was a really good match," said Spero. "They get a cool crowd and it's diverse and obviously it's a lot of women." The group doesn't know much about Eugene but hopes for a pretty good showing because of the headlining band and the college audience here. Northern State also hopes to be taken seriously by music fans who don't expect three white girls from the suburbs to be able to roll off lines like "sexism like racism and racism is ill/ MCs getting faker than a three dollar bill." "I think that we have dealt our entire career with that kind of skepticism," says Spero. "I think the best we can do is to go out there and show people that we're serious and that we love what were doing." Tegan and Sara play with Northern State Tuesday, Oct. 18 at the McDonald Theatre. $15 adv/$17 dos. — Danny Cross
Young Turks Read a few reviews of The Constantines' three releases and you'll quickly notice a common thread: The band is compared, with remarkable regularity, to Fugazi, The Clash and Bruce Springsteen. Does that make them regular-guy punk heroes? Not quite yet. But a definite nod to each of these influences and a penchant for taut guitar lines tied to sandpaper-voiced vocals puts them in line for the title.
At one point on The Constantines' self-titled first album (released in Canada in 2001 and re-released in the U.S. on Sub Pop in 2004), the singer intones, "Young hearts, be free tonight / Time is on our side." In the liner notes, the lyrics are in quotation marks, suggesting a tip of the hat to Rod Stewart's "Young Turks" — but it comes off like they just share the sentiment without being ironic. The new Constantines album, Tournament of Hearts, doesn't have quite the same raw heart-on-sleeve nature as their first (despite the title), but the intensity is still there from the word go: "Draw Us Lines" builds and crests with each verse-chorus pair, the vocals recited like a manifesto over pounding drums and alternating layers of guitar noise. Tournament of Hearts never backs away from a moment, even if that means a few bits here and there don't entirely work; some listeners will thrill to the subdued, cooed chorus of "Hotline Operator" and others will want to fast-forward to the ragged wails in another part of the song. The band's two vocalists, Steve Lambke and Bryan Webb, share a rough, pack-a-day tone; it's easy to think there's just one singer. The vocal melodies split between a chanting tone of barely restrained fury on one side and a wry hand with a storytelling influence on the other, but it doesn't seem safe to assume each singer only plays one part in a band this dynamic. The Constantines straddle a strangely appealing line between a drawling, Southern-rock influence and an ear to the ferocious vocals and angular guitars of the aforementioned Fugazi. They're currently on tour with The Hold Steady, who pair their bar-rock swagger even more brazenly with their character-driven songwriting. The two bands play at 9 pm Monday, Oct. 17 at the WOW Hall. $8 adv/$10 dos. — Molly Templeton
THURSDAY
OCT.
13 FRIDAY OCT.
14 SATURDAY OCT. 15 AX BILLY Tim Clarke
Trio—8
LUNA Mary
Flower, Jerry Zybach—9; Blues SUNDAY OCT.
16
INDIGO
DISTRICT XBXRX, On the First Day ... They Were Kittens, Meet Me
in the Frozen Torso Heap—9; Post-hardcore, noise rock MONDAY OCT.
17
WOW HALL The Hold Steady, The Constantines, Tim Fite—9; Rock TUESDAY OCT.
18
MCDONALD THEATRE
Tegan and Sara, Northern State—8 WEDNESDAY OCT.
19 CORVALLIS 2527 Monroe Ave.
• 757-7221 126 SW 1st St. •
738-9015 SA David Feinberg
& Mark Bielman—8; Jazz duo 126 SW 4th
Club Guide AX BILLY GRILL & SPORTS BAR 999 Willamette
• 484-4011
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