Eugene Weekly

It’s easy to get confused by the ups and downs of today’s music scene. We’ve lost foundational icons like Prince and Bowie. Zayn left One Direction (and was kind of a butthead about it) and no one knows what the hell Iggy Azalea is doing. Shit has gotten weird. Alas, there is a twinkle in the far-off distance — hope shining through the dark, cold night. Oh, wait: That’s Aaron Carter and his frosted tips. Yes, folks, Aaron Carter (younger brother of Nick Carter from Backstreet Boys) is coming back to Eugene May 8  at WOW Hall. Continue reading →

Muddy Waters changed Pokey LaFarge’s life. “I was, like, 13,” LaFarge tells EW, recalling the time some “older cats” played him Waters’ classic 1963 album Folk Singer at a pizza joint. “I thought, ‘Wow, the blues are acoustic?’” LaFarge recalls. “It changed my life.”  Continue reading →

After opening its season pulling from classic Christmas fare (A Christmas Story) and pop-oriented crowd pleasers (the Burt Bacharach songbook), the Eugene Concert Choir will step out of the box a bit with two performances this Saturday, April 30: Latin American Folk For Kids at 11 am and Cantata Criolla at 8 pm, both held in the Hult Center’s Silva Concert Hall.  Each show takes advantage of the considerable talents of visiting vocalists Idwer Alvarez and Gaspar Colón, renowned operatic singers in their native Venezuela and, increasingly, around the world.  Continue reading →

Multi-culti is all the rage in music, food and the rest of today’s global culture. But mixing Latin American and European ingredients still felt pretty novel back in 1954, when Venezuelan composer Antonio Estévez wrote his colorful Cantata Criolla, which Eugene Concert Choir and Eugene Symphony will perform April 30 at the Hult Center’s Silva Hall. Continue reading →

Eugene old-timey country-blues act Breakers Yard releases its new album Tried & Untrue April 28 at Sam Bond’s. The self-produced record draws from traditions of pre-WWII jazz, country and blues.  “Generally, our band pulls from that tradition for our sound, although we each have our own favorite genres,” says Brandon Olszewski, Breakers Yard guitar, harmonica and fiddle player. “In a way, and ideally, we appeal to folks that don’t really know the traditional canon of old blues dudes and hot jazz bands.” Continue reading →

Something interesting happens at the end of Flatbush Zombies’ latest release, 3001: A Laced Odyssey. Halfway through the album’s closing track “Your Favorite Rap Song,” the music drifts away and in comes an extended series of voicemail-like recordings. Most are stoned treatises to the greatness of the Brooklyn hip-hop trio. “If this is the Flatbush Zombies, I just wanna say ya’ll fucking rock,” one voice says, holding in a bong rip.  Continue reading →

He descended on the Carter era of gas lines and bloody carpets and post-love funk like some infernal geek bastard child of Buddy Holly and Johnny Lydon, spitting out lyrical venom over gorgeous hooks and bellicose riffs that plumbed the deepest, darkest wells of pop music — billboard fuzz attacking itself with newborn impunity — all of it churned out with a churlish amphetamine sneer that belied his antediluvian genius for melodic universalism within the three-minute cliché of radio-radio rock. Continue reading →