Eugene Weekly

If you’re sailing down the Willamette River through Corvallis, don’t be surprised when you hear distant piano music. No, it’s not some river ghost — it’s probably the Barker Gypsies.  For the past three summers, the folk-pop duo of singer Catherine Ellis and keyboardist Brian Poucher has claimed a sandbar just offshore from their hometown’s Willamette Park and Natural Area as their base, playing for river-floaters and landlubbers alike.  “People can hear us before they see us,” Ellis says. Continue reading →

If you’ve spent time in a city, even little Eugene, you know the main characters on the sidewalk: the kid looking to bum a cigarette; the person staked out on a corner trying to convince you that the world is doomed; and the folks just angling to get you to buy their stuff.  This is how I bumped into Kevin Hustle in downtown Eugene. I’ll admit I was skeptical when he approached me with something along the lines of, “Hey, check out my demo.”  Continue reading →

In 2010, an earthquake ripped through Haiti and caused widespread devastation. Most of us saw the news reports, but what the headlines missed was the creative Haitian culture that Mother Nature could not shut down.  Lakou Mizik formed in the earthquake’s aftermath as a nine-person, multi-generational group that took the force of nature as an opportunity to share the rich Haitian society often misrepresented in mainstream movies and media, which might lead one to think that the only thing happening in the country is Vodou and disaster relief. Continue reading →

When folks who were born into the post-Woodstock era need a pop song that says “chill out, relax, you’ve got this,” chances are they sing the theme from TV show Greatest American Hero, which goes like this: “Believe it or not I’m walking on air/ I never thought I could feel so free.” Devon Geyer’s dad wrote that iconic TV tune. Geyer is the main man behind L.A. pop project Decorations, whose full-length debut, Have Fun, is out now on Frenchkiss Records. Continue reading →