Eugene Weekly

Though the final entry in the beloved Harry Potter series hit bookshelves seven years ago, and the last film arrived three years ago, The Boy Who Lived continues to live on thanks to the cheeky musical genre known as Wizard Rock, a musical phenomenon which I wrote about in 2007 for EW (“Raise Your Wands: Wizard rock arrives at the library”) just before the final Potter book was released. Wizard Rock combines Potter fans’ love of music and books, so listeners are treated to songs that are based on events from the series. Continue reading →

What were you doing at age 17? Well, 17-year-old Clementine Creevy of the L.A.-based band Cherry Glazerr is busy fostering an up-and-coming indie “it” girl reputation — but not before getting her homework done. The cherub-faced trio’s 2013 release Trick or Treat Dancefloor, out on Burger Records, recalls the early work of fellow female-fronted Southern California band Best Coast; think three chords soaked in reverb and rudimentary melodies alongside loose and stony percussion. Continue reading →

Sometimes opposites attract, and sometimes they create havoc. This could be considered the theme for 2014’s Debutantes & Dealers, the debut full-length album from Seattle folk-rockers Vaudeville Etiquette. Continue reading →

Emily Saliers was only 12 when Joan Baez’s Diamonds & Rust was released in 1975. And Saliers, half of the Indigo Girls folk-rock duo, listened to it nonstop. “I listened to the record over and over again until I could learn it,” Saliers tells EW over the phone from Canada. But her interest in Baez wasn’t just song-deep.   “I was very admiring of her politics and her journeys and the peace that she stood for,” she says. Continue reading →

Canadian songwriter and visual artist Chad VanGaalen has built a comprehensive little universe with his work, over which he rules supreme, whether through his spacey indie-folk songs or his R. Crumb-esque surrealist comic book-style illustrations.  Continue reading →

New bands play lots of strange places: bedrooms, basements and bars (empty or, preferably, full). On June 12, Seattle’s fledgling post-punk quartet Gibraltar plays Eugene’s Tiny Tavern, a venue that is, well … pretty tiny.  But it’s immediately apparent from their latest record, The New Century, that Gibraltar (featuring current and former members of Afghan Whigs, Visqueen, Exohxo and Spanish for 100) have arena-sized ambitions.  Continue reading →