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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.
Phish hasn’t played Eugene since 1994. Hard to believe, but look it up: It’s true. One might think inheritors of the Grateful Dead’s status of jam-band Grand Poobah would go along with Eugene like Tevas and Odwalla. But alas, nary a tour stop here for 20 years. Continue reading
Hailing from merry old England, Brighton’s Fujiya & Miyagi play up-tempo, minimal electro-pop that is addictive and danceable but, most of all, very, very British. Listen to the group’s 2014 release, Artificial Sweeteners, and you’ll hear UK dance-punk, house and hip-hop music as well as the sort of heady minimalism practiced by German bands like Can and Neu, groups that came to be known as Krautrock. Continue reading
Rearrange some Steel Cranes songs, add a little fiddle and steel guitar, and you’d have some no-nonsense, woman-done-wrong country music. “I write a lot of our songs on my acoustic and they often initially have a country feel to them,” says Steel Cranes vocalist and guitarist Tracy Shapiro. “We usually butcher things once Amanda [Shukle] is on drums and I switch to my electric,” she jokes. Continue reading
K Records recording artists The Shivas nod toward vintage psyche and garage rock, but Jared Molyneux says his band isn’t merely a nostalgia act. “We sound like a band that listens to a lot of garage music from the ’60s,” Molyneux says. “The sound and feeling of that style of music must have had a profound effect on us, as our music obviously resembles it,” he adds, referencing The Velvet Underground and The 13th Floor Elevators as well as artists like Sam Cooke, James Brown and Leadbelly. Continue reading
At first glance, someone simply piled junk in a corner: burned furniture, broken picture frames, shattered glass — debris from a house fire or human detritus stumbled upon in an abandoned home. Upon closer inspection, there’s method in the flow of objects; the process of devastation and decay is rendered in stark and arresting three dimensions and symmetry among the chaos. This is “Mourning the Ephemeral,” a 2011 installation from Eugene artist and UO MFA printmaking graduate Allison Hyde. Continue reading
Bay-Area singer-songwriter Sean Hayes released his last album, Before We Turned to Dust, in 2012. Dust is an engaging collection of indie folk and soul — cooler than skinny-dipping off the Northern California coast. Since then, Hayes tells EW via email, he’s left San Francisco, had another baby and began work on Dust’s follow-up. Continue reading
Featuring members of the popular, now-defunct Portland group Dirty Martini, Swan Sovereign plays taut, guitar-based indie pop, mixing ’60s girl-group harmonies with the sound of ’90s-era rock bands like Throwing Muses, Belly and The Breeders. Continue reading
If Eminem is the Elvis of hip hop — taking sounds of urban America and repacking them for the suburbs — Sean Daley (aka Slug) of Minneapolis indie-rap legend Atmosphere is Eminem in reverse: taking the subjects of suburban life and repacking them for the inner city. Continue reading
Bellingham’s Polecat plays up-tempo, largely instrumental Americana-roots-bluegrass-folk-reggae — forget it, let’s just say Polecat plays dance music and they play it well. “We are trying to move away from any sort of real specific designation for our sound,” vocalist and guitarist Jeremy Elliott tells EW. Continue reading
“We love playing house concerts because it’s always a listening audience,” says Jeff Poynter, vocalist and accordion player for Victoria, B.C.-based indie-folk outfit West My Friend. “We’re not really a bar band, and so we like audiences that show up to hear music. It’s great as well because you can really connect with the audience — talk to them throughout the show, hang out with them afterwards and learn a little about them.” Continue reading