Bleeding of the Subconscious

Helio Sequence

“This sounds really young, it sounds like early Helio Sequence,” says Brandon Summers, the band’s singer and guitarist, of the new record. “To me, it feels like a 90-degree sunny day in Portland.” The Portland-based alt-rock duo is back on stage for a West Coast summer tour, during which the band is unveiling tracks from the new album, due out in early 2015. EW caught up with Helio Sequence two days after they finished recording.  Continue reading 

Behind Shelby Earl’s surprising “Swift Arrows” music video

Seattle singer-songwriter and rising star Shelby Earl will be hitting up Sam Bond’s Sunday night, Aug.17 (see “Burn Boats, Not Bridges” in the Aug. 14 issue of Eugene Weekly). While catching up with Earl over the phone last week, I had to ask her about the music video (posted below) for her hit song “Swift Arrows,” a video that is at once a hilarious, heartbreaking and disturbing David Lynchian vignette of a couple’s anniversary gone awry. Continue reading 

Texas Futura

Tone, taste and tenacity remain ZZ Top’s motto and rationale for their lasting popularity, lead guitarist Billy Gibbons tells EW.  “If you recognize it as ZZ Top then we’ve had a successful expedient in sonic branding. Taste is the stuff we play, how we play it, but, more importantly, the stuff we don’t play. Tenacity of course is stick-to-it-iveness and we have been pretty good at sticking around,” Gibbons says via email.   Continue reading 

Swag Soldier

Soulja Boy

Type “Soulja Boy” into YouTube, click the video for “Crank Dat” (with more than 158 million views, mind you) and dance along as you listen to the hip-hop song that took 2007 by storm. DeAndre “Soulja Boy” Way always knew he was going to be “the next big thing” in the rap game — and even said as much on the Wikipedia page that he created for himself when he was 15. He worked at Burger King in high school, but before he was 20 “Crank That” helped him earn a major record deal and a Grammy nomination.  But it doesn’t stop at the crank. Continue reading 

Mission from Mars

Photo by Kai Z. Feng

Bruno Mars knows exactly what he is doing, and he does it better than just about anyone in the business. Not only has he released two chart-topping albums — 2010’s Doo-Wops & Hooligans and 2012’s Unorthodox Jukebox — sold over 100 million copies of his singles and albums and won multiple Grammys, but he’d made a name for himself prior to all of this as a songwriter and producer. B.o.B.’s “Nothin’ On You,” for example? Co-written by Mars. Cee-Lo Green’s “F*** You”? Ditto. Continue reading 

True Trans Soul Rebels

Photo by Ryan Russell

In 2014, what does punk rock mean? “Playing as fast as you can? Playing three chords?” poses Atom Willard, drummer for Against Me! “Spiking your hair? Punk rock is doing what isn’t generally smiled upon by the masses,” Willard says. “Doing something you believe in and isn’t easy to do — basically going against the grain.” Willard says the gender transition of Against Me! vocalist Laura Jane Grace (born Thomas James Gabel) is one of the most punk rock things he’s ever witnessed.  Continue reading