Eugene Weekly

Philly-based musician Jeremy Quentin is one of those guy-that’s-a-band/band-that’s-just-one-guy types. He performs under the name Small Houses. The album art for Small Houses’ 2013 release Exactly Where You Wanted to Be shows Quentin standing alone, suitcase in his hand, staring into the middle distance, mustachioed like your dad in 1978. He could be laid-over at a Greyhound station — on his way to somewhere he’s dreading.  Much of the record sounds that way: lonely, lo-fi, heartbroken and introspective indie folk.  Continue reading →

“We’ve been gravitating toward a New Orleans jazz kind of sound,” says Mad Caddies founding member Sascha Lazor, “while still keeping the reggae, ska and rock aspect to the band.” The Mad Caddies are returning to Eugene in support of their 2014 Fat Wreck Chords release Dirty Rice, perhaps the band’s most nuanced and varied record to date. Continue reading →

Even via email, I got the sense musician Shawn Rosenblatt (aka Netherfriends) enjoys a good put-on. Listen to his music and hear a keen pop sensibility, a voracious musical sense of humor and stylistic attention-deficit disorder. In 2010, Rosenblatt started the 50 Songs 50 States Project. “I started a year-long project where I played a show and recorded a new song in all 50 states,” Rosenblatt says. “For Oregon, I played a show and wrote a song in Portland.” Continue reading →

Oliver Wood says you need to see his brother play the bass. “My brother is a world-class upright bass player,” he boasts. Wood, alongside his brother Chris Wood and drummer Jano Rixx, is one-third of hard-touring roots-Americana act, The Wood Brothers, who return to Eugene in support of 2013’s critically acclaimed record The Muse. Continue reading →

Seattle musician Whitney Monge calls her sound “alternative soul,” but don’t expect Aretha Franklin or Al Green — not quite, anyway. “Alternative soul means music coming from a place that we all have: our soul,” Monge says, admitting she’s influenced by heavyweights from soul music, but her sound is a mix of rock and blues. “It’s music that’s relatable. It’s music you can feel,” she says.  Continue reading →

Electronic dance music is hotter than ever, nowhere more so than in Eugene. “Eugene has been an incredibly supportive place for our band to really thrive and to develop our own unique sound,” says Nathan Asman, who alongside guitarist Keith Randel and drummer Travis Lien makes up the Eugene-based livetronica act Hamilton Beach.  “The livetronic-EDM [electronic dance music] scene is very strong and nurturing here,” Asman says, “and there’s no way we would be where we are as a band without the music scene here.”  Continue reading →

Originally out of Austin, Texas, the now The Dalles-based musician Ben Ballinger says if he had to pick another artist’s song to introduce himself it would be Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.” The song’s words and melancholy tone, alongside a fierce determination, resonate with him, he says. Continue reading →

Don’t hate Alexander Cardinale because he has it dialed in. The songwriter, who also sometimes goes by Xander, is coming off a tour with Melissa Etheridge. Cardinale says the exposure afforded him by touring with an established artist like Etheridge was intoxicating. “It’s a performers dream to get to take over a huge stage and have use of full expression,” Cardinale tells EW. “Literally, your expressions get bigger; your performance in general gets bigger; thus your energy is higher, you’re jumping around; the audience is on their feet. I love that.”  Continue reading →

In 1929, surrealist painter René Magritte scrawled under his painting of a pipe, “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” (“This is not a pipe”), in his famously enigmatic painting The Treachery of Images. Continue reading →

San Diego punk band Drug Control evokes the glory days of So Cal bands like Black Flag and Circle Jerks. “We take influences from older East and West coast bands and blend them into our style,” says vocalist Danny Lyerla.  And Drug Control’s 2014 debut demo is quintessential American hardcore: short, pummeling, unrelentingly aggressive and athletically angry. With song titles like “Enough is Enough,” “Fried” and “About To Snap,” the record seeps with the revolutionary nihilism hardcore music is known for.   Continue reading →