Window on the Emerald Isle

Tap into Celtic heritage at the 11th annual Eugene Irish Cultural Festival

Michelle Mulcahy

More than 50 percent of Lane County residents have some Celtic heritage. At least that’s what Eugene Irish Cultural Festival organizer Peggy Hinsman has found in her research. So put down that James Joyce novel and head out to the 11th Annual Eugene Irish Cultural Festival Saturday, March 8, at Sheldon High School, with an opening concert Friday, March 7, at Beall Concert Hall featuring traditional Irish music. Continue reading 

He Don’t Auto-Tune Live

T-Pain

Yes folks, the father of Auto-Tune is coming to town. If you haven’t heard T-Pain before, there are four basic things you need to know: 1. He loves shawtys; 2. He actually has a good voice but uses Auto-Tune because he thinks it’s cooler; 3. He will buy you a drank if you are a shawty and/or know how to “talk money”; 4. He may or may not be in love with a stripper right now. Oh, he also lost four teeth in a golf cart accident, but that’s neither here nor there. Continue reading 

Ups from Down Under

Anna Lunoe

Australian electronic musician Anna Lunoe grew up discovering music the old-fashioned way: digging through crates of vinyl records at her local record store. “I was trying to find stuff my brothers didn’t know so I could one-up them,” Lunoe jokes on her website.  Continue reading 

Folk Is Not A Dirty Word

The Royal Oui

Songwriter Ari Shine met his wife, Adrienne Pierce, in L.A.; the two immediately connected over shared interests like Canadian folk-rock band The Grapes of Wrath. Shine says the two worked in the music business together for years as an “undercover duo.” “We co-wrote Adrienne’s records,” he explains. “We were doing a lot of music together [for soundtracks] but we weren’t a band.” Eventually Shine and Pierce struck out on their own, forming The Royal Oui. Continue reading 

Leimert Park, What’s Cool

Dom Kennedy

Despite never writing lines over three beats long, Dom Kennedy works a pretty contagious game. In interviews, the California-born rapper sounds like Muhammad Ali, toting himself as the hardest-working, most prolific, sensational, fresh, badass artist in hip hop today. While most of these claims can be taken with a gargantuan grain of salt, “hard-working” lands with great accuracy. Continue reading