 |
  |
|
 |
||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||||||||
You're
Fading Out
I like Steve Albini. I worship, esteem, respect and admire some of the albums he has produced in his illustrious career, and I include his own band Shellac's music among my pantheon of favorites. Low's Things We Lost In The Fire, The Pixies' Surfer Rosa, PJ Harvey's Rid Of Me and Nirvana's In Utero are all absolutely untouchably great albums produced by Albini that will live forever. His production skills are so legendary that bands hire him all the time, but needless to say, not every final result is in the same league as those albums. The Slow Signal Fade's Steady is not one of those albums. My husband, who is the world's biggest smartass, listened to them for five minutes and said, "Oh, it sounds just like The Cranborings." While that's not quite how I would put it, the Cranberries comparison is legitimate, with the caterwauling female vocals and dramatic rise and fall in tone. Much of The SSF's music has a spacier, more psychedelic feel than The Cranberries. They let the notes sparkle and fade for just the right amount of time, and vocalist Marguerite Olivelle builds up to trembling crescendos that Jefferson Airplane's Grace Slick would be proud of. The band weaves layer after layer of texture into the music, with each instrument seeming to stand out without overpowering the others, an effect likely enhanced by Albini's wizardry. The SSF has released two previous EPs, 2002's Kindling and 2004's Through the Opaque Air. Though the four band members live in Los Angeles, they hail from everywhere else. But Saturday, they'll be here in Eugene.
The
State of Rock
The development of Oregon's rock scene really took shape with the formation of a juggernaut band in 1992. They've been on the radio a lot with songs about drugs, romantic relationships, AM radios and soccer moms. And their frontman has some really badass white hair. Whether you've been an aficionado of Oregon rock music for decades or simply got into the local scene in the past few months, there's no denying that Everclear and mastermind Art Alexakis had a hand in putting Oregon on the map for music fans. The band's albums have had twists and turns that parallel Alexakis' own ups and downs. Sparkle and Fade was about drugs and road trippin' to Santa Monica. So Much for the Afterglow focused on love and the family, while Good Time For a Bad Attitude unleashed the fury of a life filled with depression and monotony. And their new project? It's more of those life-changing person-to-person interactions. "[The lyrics] kind of run the gamut of a relationship," Alexakis says. "There's sad stuff, happy stuff, lovey stuff, betrayal and pissed-off anger stuff like our new song, 'Hater'… and then I get into a place where I'm comfortable in my own skin again. This is by far the most autobiographical work I've ever done." The band has also switched out its original three-piece setup for a five-piece group that Alexakis thinks will help his songwriting mature even further. "Everyone in the band are just phenomenal musicians and we all click together," Alexakis says. "It sounds like Everclear, but a little bit older. I'm letting a lot more of my old Stones influences, some Motown as well, but it's still basically singer/songwriter rock." The band headlines 97.9 KNRQ's "97 Days of Summer" show at the Secret House Vineyard in Veneta. The festival will also feature the Presidents of the United States of America and The Supersuckers as well as performances by local acts Northwest Royale, alterEGO and more. Come get a taste of the true innovators of Oregon's rock scene.
The
Folk Everything Man
Lately Eugene has become a hotspot of folk and bluegrass, with bands lighting up the bars downtown night after night. This isn't a fad with players who've popped up for 15 minutes of fame and will disappear just as quickly. The scene has been around for years, and Ashley Raines has paid his dues. Raines can pick up just about any instrument and piece together a song right before your eyes. He also happens to have a rather nice singing voice. But the real core of his signature sound, especially on his most recent record, Machine Kills, comes from music that's made up of the bare essentials. "With Machine Kills, it's simply electric guitar and drums," Raines says. "I wanted a sound that was easier to convey live, I wanted it stripped down. With the four previous albums, if I had gone on tour and wanted to convey exactly what was on them, I would have had to have 20 guys on stage." The new album was indeed a whole new songwriting process for Raines. Primarily a lyrics-first writer, for Machine Kills Raines wrote the music first in the studio, and followed by writing words later to match the feel of the song. Departure from the norm was something that took time to adapt to, but it worked out far better for him in the end. "I've always been a lyrical writer." he says. "It's actually very difficult to have words and then try and find the music to try and match the emotion that the words are conveying. Once I got into the stride of doing it the way I did Machine Kills, it got very, very easy. The music will direct me to the emotion that needs to be there for the words. When it comes to folk music, being a jack-of-all-trades musician and lyricist like Raines is quite the gift. And for a town with a history of supporting its singer/songwriters, he's a perfect fit.
Blue Notes
The audience at Eliza Blue's upcoming performance can expect to sit quietly and experience a range of emotions falling on the melancholy end of the spectrum. Blue is a straight-ahead singer/songwriter, a woman and her guitar featuring few thrills but possessing a stark intensity that can make her songs almost uncomfortably intimate experiences. Fans of Maddy Prior and Margot Timmins will immediately warm to her hushed, milky vocals and the simplicity of the arrangements on her 2005 EP One Year, which evoke comparisons to Leonard Cohen, Neil Young and Gillian Welch. While not a gimmicky artist or one likely to get audiences out of their seats, Eliza Blue is a performer capable of mesmerizing listeners with a set of heartbreaking, grown-up lullabies. Eliza Blue bases her musical career out of the chilly city of Minneapolis, and there is an unaffected streak of icy honesty that runs through her lyrics. "I never earned you but I made you pay/ I couldn't hold you but I asked you to stay" she laments in "Turnstile," one of those rare breakup songs that accepts rather than projects culpability. Be it her Midwest sensibilities or a personal penchant for bare bones poetry, Blue is a lyrical crafter worth experiencing if you have the emotional energy to spend. Eliza Blue performs 7 pm Wednesday, June 7 at Cozmic Pizza. $5. — Adrienne van der Valk
Liar Liar Pants On Fire I wouldn't lie, The Liars' new release Drum's Not Dead is some weird shit. It's great in a way I can't define except to just say that it's weird. Listen yourself and you'll say it's weird, too. You might also call it abstract, ambitious, cinematic or even revolutionary. The band — Angus Andrew, Aaron Hemphill and Julian Gross — relocated from New York to Berlin in search of new physical and emotional landscapes. On Drums, their third album, that change shows. The band found inspiration in two fictional characters, Drum and Mount Heart Attack. Drum manifests with two drum kits and ritualistic pounding beats. Drum is the life-affirming creative force, the yin. Mount Heart Attack responds to Drum, the equal and opposite reaction, the manifestation of self-doubt, the yang. Throughout this album there's an otherworldly feel. Drum's tracks are at times insect-like in their repetitive nature, with the insistent drumbeat echoing the same lyric spoken over and over. Mount Heart Attack's music is human and warm, at times beautiful in a haunting way. Despite the fact that track four, "Drum Gets A Glimpse," is calmed by peaceful cricket chirps at the end, it still seems more suited to an alien colony than an earthly summer night. Coming from so few reference points, the CD plays out like numerous little time bombs set to go off at random intervals, keeping you constantly alert and aware. This is one album I look forward to exploring further, and I think seeing this performed live would be extremely cool. The CD also comes with a DVD of 36 short films, three per track. Some are backstage vignettes, some animated and some pull the viewer through an epic visual journey, not surprising since Andrew formed the band as a multimedia experiment in art school. The Liars play with The Apes and The Rabbits 9 pm Wednesday, June 7 at WOW Hall. $8 adv./$10 dos. — Vanessa Salvia
See Straight
When the world is so full of hyphenated musical genres that answering the question "So, what kind of music do you like?" causes you to lose your breath, something is wrong. It's almost quaint to hear something so straightforward as The Glasses. Led by a true geek (he wears low-cut Converse with argyle socks and works in a library) from Seattle, this trio is pop, simple pop. You don't really buy that hefty pronouncement, do you? The truth is, The Glasses play literate indie-power-chamber-pop with a Brit-psych twist, but they do it so well that they deserve a gimmick to get people to their show. You agree that pop is an easier label, don't you? Mostly, it is sufficient; the rhythm is more important than the melody, and the lyrics, though cute and smart, could very well be variations on "da dee da da." The Glasses play songs from their new release modern day ichabod crane 9 pm Wednesday, June 7 at Luckey's. $3-$5. — Jef Stout
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
