Eugene Weekly

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 →

Doesn’t that name sound familiar? This Patch of Sky got its name from a Lord Leebrick Theatre sign in 2010. Since then, the six-member band has carved a neat place for itself in the haunting, wordless world of symphonic post-rock. Despite having songs in World Cup promos, documentary trailers and upcoming blockbusters, the band members have stayed in Lane County, touring the coast every once in a while but mostly writing and laying down tracks. Their eponymous album (released in August) was featured on numerous Best-of-2014 lists, and they’re already working on a new LP.  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 →

Coty Hogue grew up in a small Montana town of about 850 people with a music-loving family, but the notion of making a living performing for an audience wasn’t part of that experience.  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 →

You know how your head always starts bobbing and your toes start tapping whenever you hear that certain song? Maybe it’s a Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis or Chuck Berry tune. Whatever it is, it makes you want to move. Daddy Rabbit falls into this category.  Songwriter Robert Jacobs also writes catchy, poppy love songs with local band Long Tall and Ugly and folky roots music for Crooked River, but Daddy Rabbit gets him to the source of his love for music. Continue reading →