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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.
Once upon a time bands could wait a few albums before having a hit — U2, REM and Nirvana among others. This allowed artists to grow, change and most importantly experiment. These days, with the great contraction of the music business, bands-without-hits are signed and dropped faster than ever; many are never signed at all. Continue reading
Portland’s The Quick & Easy Boys are bringing the party back to Eugene in celebration of their new record Make It Easy. The Boys’ bread and butter is an infamously high energy live show — so EW asked bassist Sean Badders what putting out a new recording means to a band in the age of the internet. Continue reading
The Oregon wine industry is a driving economic force, particularly in Lane County. Statewide, the wine business employed approximately 14,000 people in 2010: everyone from winery managers to vintners, from servers in tasting rooms to those tending the vineyards. And as the Oregon wine industry expands, it’s following a nationwide trend — employing more and more women in an industry once dominated by men. Continue reading
Spirit Family Reunion is part of a long line of musicians based in New York City while playing the music of rural America. Like Dave Van Ronk, Bob Dylan and The Holy Modal Rounders before them, Spirit Family Reunion brings youthful energy and enthusiasm to antiquated sounds; screeching fiddle, unschooled harmonies, quavering mandolin and chugga-luggin’ freight train rhythms blend with the production value of a band busking on a Brooklyn sidewalk. Continue reading
Rebecca Loeb is a fresh-faced and breezy songwriter with the voice of a pop star. Her sound ranges from indie Americana to confessional ballads to cabaret-style waltzes — encompassing the quirky whimsy of Regina Spektor, the rootsiness of Patti Griffin and the dry wit of Randy Newman, who is an all-time favorite of the young musician. “I love the way he puts himself into his characters,” Loeb says, “and writes so authentically from so many different voices.” Continue reading
Seattle’s The Cave Singers came out of the darkness around the same time Fleet Foxes did. But while the Foxes are all angelic harmony and shimmering guitars, The Cave Singers offer a grittier, bluesy take on indie-folk; if the Fleet Foxes serenade you from the town square, The Cave Singers stomp and clap on the back porch with vocalist Pete Quirk mixing a gruff, unschooled, gospel holler to the mix. Continue reading
In nature, colors communicate: Red means danger and avian mates are selected based on the hue of their feathers. In fact, when it comes to birds, the males almost always display brighter plumage and greater ornamentation than their female counterparts; think ducks, peacocks and birds of paradise. Charles Darwin concluded that sexual dichromatism (the color differences between sexes in species) is caused by an evolutionary-honed female preference for bright colors in males. Continue reading
If you’ve never heard Built to Spill, let me first ask you this: Have you been living on the moon for the past 20 years, or in a subterranean cave with no light or sound? ’Cause if you haven’t, then there’s really no other excuse to have missed out on some of the most vital and interesting guitar rock produced in the Northwest since Nirvana. Continue reading
I noticed a Kickstarter campaign the other day; someone is transcribing the flow of popular rappers into traditional music notation and wants help funding a book about it. I hear you can study “turntablism” at Boston’s Berklee College of Music. Does this mean rap is dead — or that it’s finally part of the establishment? Neither, if San Francisco-based indie rap icon Andre Nickatina has anything to say about it. Continue reading
The ’90s are back. Tribute nights to the decade of the Gap are popping up everywhere; Matchbox 20 is touring with the Goo Goo Dolls, and Boston-based Little War Twins kick off their album Marvelous Mischief with “One Bottle”— recalling the coiled-up intensity of fellow Bostonians and ’90s icons The Pixies before settling into a Ani DiFranco-esque easygoing folk-swing backbeat, but unfortunately falling a little short of both. Continue reading