8-Track Minds

The Analog Resurgence Tour comes to Luckey’s

Music nerds of Eugene unite! For all of you who raid House of Records looking for deleted Smiths singles and original (not rereleased) Frank Zappa albums, who own vinyl, cassette, CD and 8-track copies of the same album and especially for those who caught the High Fidelity reference, the time has come to commence under the roof of the Analog Resurgence Tour at Luckey’s on Thursday, Sept. 5. Running the show are two longtime members of underground DIY music culture, Russ Forster and Skizz Cyzyk. Their mission is simple: “Let’s be the Pied Pipers of the analog cause,” Forster says.

The night will include music courtesy of Forster’s punk band RAKEHELL and Cyzyk’s ukulele-based band Go Pill, and the two Renaissance men will be showing experimental short films they’ve produced including Cheese Tweezer, Well Intended World and Springtime for Eva. Also on the evening’s menu is the release of a new issue of 8-Track Mind Magazine, Forster’s music zine, which is an 8-track lover’s Bible but with more new releases.

Even though he’s an analog purist, Forster was surprised at the analog second coming. “If you would have asked me 10 years ago, I would have said no,” he says. The Illinois native has been involved in the underground music scene since the 1980s. He directed the 1995 documentary So Right They’re Wrong, which details obsessive 8-track collectors or “those passionate few for whom the ’70s never died.” Cyzyk is a musician and filmmaker who has produced music videos for the likes of Beach House and The Young Fresh Fellows. Vinyl continues to sell and Forster believes it’s because there is a more impacting experience gained through analog listening. “No one gets sentimental with CDs, but they do with vinyls and 8-tracks,” Forster says. “Analog and emotion are more closely aligned than digital.”

The Analog Resurgence Tour has stops throughout the West Coast including Olympia, Wash., and Berkeley, Calif., and it’s Forster’s way of giving life back to a fading format. “I feel like I’m a music archaeologist for things that are 30-40 years old,” Forster says. But the music format speaks for itself. “If you want an Al Green song to really knock your socks off,” he says. “I think vinyl offers that in a way that digital never really has.”

The Analog Resurgence Tour hits 10 pm Thursday, Sept. 5, at Luckey’s.