What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?
A roundup of live music in local venues
by Vanessa Salvia

Volifonix

Jason Webley

‘Tis that time of year again. You know you want to do something to celebrate the New Year. The question is, what will it be? Here are a few options to help you decide. If you have someone to kiss at midnight, they’ll be grateful you planned ahead. 

One grand holiday tradition in Eugene involves elbowing through sold-out crowds as you gawk at a parade of people dressed in their finest metallic ’70s-inspired wardrobes. Satin Love Orchestra is a New Year’s staple, performing disco and funk hits for all the party people. Their Valley River Inn Funkabration show (9:30 pm, 21+, $40) is selling out fast. The event, which will benefit Holt International Adoption, features a searchlight, red carpet and paparazzi. Live your Hollywood dreams! 

Another tradition sits a few miles away, in the reborn Vet’s Club Building, which has been hosting blues events for who knows how long now; this year, the Ty Curtis Band will play with The Vipers featuring Deb Cleveland at the Vet’s Club Ballroom (9:30 pm, 21+, $15 adv., $20 door, light appetizer included). The Ty Curtis Band placed second among 100 bands at the 2009 International Blues Challenge in Memphis, Tenn., and won the Rainy Day Blues Society’s 2009 Rooster Award for Best New Blues Act, so you know it’ll be smoking. At Diablo’s, bluesman (and EW director of sales and marketing) Bill Shreve will ring in the New Year with Gaye Lee Russell. The evening is a Tribute to Janice Joplin, with special guests after midnight (10 pm, 21+, $10). 

Floater plays the McDonald Theater (9 pm, all ages, $20 adv., $25 door, $35 VIP tix). Visit Floater.com to email the band your requests for their set list. A brave selection for opening act is Jason Webley, a wild child on the accordion, playing old-timey, folkish, gypsy music, sometimes interspersed with stories about sea shanties and such. Yeah, it’s hard to classify, and very cool. 

Cozmic Pizza’s New Year’s celebration features Eugene’s own 30-member mobile percussion ensemble Samba Ja providing a colorful (and loud) way to say sayonara to 2009 (10 pm, all ages, $5). Cozmic also welcomes Beat Crunchers (hip-hop, Brazilian and Afro-Cuban rhythms), and Tchioub Diwan (authentic West African drumming from Senegal). 

Check out the new Holy Donuts Café for a gustatory celebration featuring delicious foods from the Middle East, live music by Americanistan and bellydancing by Razia and Dunyah (7 pm, $30, reservations required at 510-6635). 

Medium Troy plays the WOW Hall with members of Reeble Jar along with Twinkle Thizz and the Big Dippers, T-Club and The Mossy Top String Band (9:30 pm, all ages, $6 adv., $10 door). Voted Eugene’s best band in EW’s 2009 Best of Eugene readers’ poll and “Favorite Local Act” in the WOW Hall’s 2008 poll, Medium Troy is “too raging to be a reggae band, too stony to be a rock band.” What are they? See for yourself. 

Volifonix’s Oregonisms was voted best album of 2009 by EW readers. See what the fuss is about at Luckey’s Cigar Club, as they appear with Partiband (10 pm, 21+ $3). 

As always, there’s plenty more going on around town that we didn’t have space for here. For more New Year’s Eve events, check our Calendar section this week and the Nightlife section next Thursday.