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Will Kennedy is a freelance writer and a senior music writer with Eugene Weekly. He lives in Eugene with his wife, daughter and two cats. All of whom politely accommodate his obsessions with Doctor Who and The Smiths.
There’s no one element that stands out in “Opaque.” Smoke Season’s most popular single from 2014’s Hot Coals Cold Souls starts unassumingly, with guitarist Jason Rosen’s reverb-drenched Gibson SG carefully plucking out a G chord. Singer and keyboardist Gabrielle Wortman then moves into the mix, showing off her range with a few octave leaps before launching into the sort of arms-wide-open chorus that U2 built stadium tours around. Continue reading
The Conjugal Visitors’ M.D. “Maz” Elsworth is from Kentucky — the Bluegrass State. He says he considers his Eugene band to be the “Cascadian” equivalent to the Appalachian sound he grew up around. “The epitome of Cascadian, whiskey-land jazz,” Elsworth tells EW, describing his band’s old-timey music, “Cascadian party music.” Continue reading
Boston duo Tall Heights is comprised of childhood friends Tim Harrington and Paul Wright. The pair got their start as street performers. “We were living on what we made out on the street,” Harrington tells EW. He says that playing music on street corners gave Wright and himself a unique opportunity to hone Tall Heights’ sound. “It was four to six hours a day of performing,” Harrington continues, adding that intensive practice helped the musicians gel creatively. Continue reading
Gill Landry of Nashville-based alt-country string group Old Crow Medicine Show says his solo work sounds nothing like his well-known band. “It’s more personal,” Landry tells EW. “It’s more songwriting in the vein of a Townes Van Zandt vibe — not so country, two different things really.” Landry is touring in support of his self-titled 2015 release, out now on ATO Records. Continue reading
Look around and you’ll find the seeds of a comedy scene germinating in Eugene. More and more, nationally touring comics are stopping to perform locally, and several venues — such as Luckey’s, The Green Room and Sam Bond’s — are hosting comedy nights. A cornerstone of Eugene comedy is the NW Women’s Comedy Festival, now entering its 10th year. Festival founder Leigh Anne Jasheway says that in the early years the event was the only women’s comedy festival between Seattle and northern California. Continue reading
Eugene actor David Stuart Bull has been performing Dylan Thomas’ timeless story A Child’s Christmas in Wales for so long, people have forgotten exactly how long it’s been. Ib Hamide, owner of Café Soriah where Bull performs the piece, says 27 or 28 years. Bull says it’s been more than 30. “This will be, by my count, the 31st year,” Bull claims. What’s not debatable is that his annual performance of the piece is a local tradition. Continue reading
Playwright David Ives (A Flea in Her Ear, Venus in Fur) calls his play The School for Lies a “translaptation” of French playwright Molière’s classic 1666 farce The Misanthrope. Lies is now playing at University Theatre under the direction of Tricia Rodley. Ives has maintained much of the source material’s language. The play is written in rhyming verse, and Ives adds well-timed modern zingers for comic effect. Continue reading
Fun fact: You can join a band even if you can’t play an instrument. “When we started the band I did not play any instruments,” Mallory Graham of Nashville’s The Rough and Tumble tells EW. “And I was terrified to do so.” Graham says her college friend Scott Tyler convinced her that if she agreed to play music with him, her lack of musical experience wouldn’t be a problem. Continue reading
“I remember hearing when I was a lot younger that the universe was infinite,” says Mike Rummans, bassist from ’60s garage rock band The Sloths. “If you kept traveling in space, you’d just go on forever and ever.” Continue reading
Jonny Lang made his name as a 16-year-old blues guitar prodigy. Since then, he’s dabbled in rock, blues, gospel and pop — all the while remaining one of the most respected guitar slingers in the business. Like John Mayer meets Eric Clapton, Lang’s got the voice — and good looks — of a teen pop idol, evidenced in 2013’s pure pop-leaning record Fight for My Soul. All in all, there ain’t much left for blues purists in Jonny Lang, despite the record kicking off with a boogie-blues riff from track “Blew Up (The House).” Continue reading