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It wasn’t many years ago that San Diego rapper Twisted Insane was homeless, struggling to get by, hustling CDs for food in mall parking lots and on busy sidewalks. Bouncing from one metropolitan area to another, the horror-core hip hopper would build a following and relocate, honing his craft while building a small but viciously loyal fan base. Continue reading
Colorado musicians Hello Dollface have deep roots in Eugene. Besides frequently playing the Oregon Country Fair, two members studied music at the UO. In collaboration with its non-profit music education program, iAM MUSIC, the band has even founded a festival in Colorado, which Hello Dollface vocalist Ashley Edwards says is patterned somewhat after OCF. Continue reading
Roll Jimmy Kimmel, Elvis Presley and Jim Carrey into a single explosive entity and you might come close to Eddie Cantor’s impact on American entertainment. Rising from an impoverished Russian Jewish immigrant New York family, the little, bug-eyed and singing waiter parlayed his broad talents and irrepressible personality to Vaudeville before doing a decade on Broadway at the Ziegfeld Follies, eventually becoming one of the dominant figures on American radio in the 1930s and ’40s. Continue reading
You love Jackson Browne. I guarantee it. Forget about his most recognizable soft-rock radio staples (though, like any self-respecting listener, I’d always prefer Browne’s “Take It Easy” over that “More Than Words” song). Forget even Browne’s tries at activism. Lives in the Balance, his 1986 album condemning U.S. policy in South America, is a strikingly admirable use of his talent, but this consciousness of the greater good is only a symptom of an even more powerful quality. Continue reading
After four years and three venues, G.L.A.M. arrives at its grand finale and celebration, a pink party at Luckey’s Club Saturday, Aug. 1, to send off the whole G.L.A.M. family in style. The drag show Eugene has grown to love began as Gays, Lesbians And More, offering a positive venue to queer folks and their allies. “It was about people who didn’t have a space,” says producer/emcee Anthony Barber, aka Diva-Simone Slaughter, who has performed in Eugene since “Baby Got Back” was the flavor of the week. Continue reading
The documentary Cartel Land is about the Mexican drug trade in the same way Moby Dick is about a fish — nominally, symbolically, as a single point of contact in a tale so monstrously bloated with violence, corruption and thwarted desire that it baffles comprehension at every turn. Just when you think you have a bead on this film, it wriggles free of easy assessment, turning morality inside-out to such an extent that life itself becomes a blur of guilt and complicity, every hand bloody. Continue reading
Something wonderful is happening: I’ve got Third Eye Blind’s cute-ass frontman Stephan Jenkins on the phone, and he’s asking me if I want to hang out. “I don’t know anyone in Eugene,” he coos. I reply coolly: “You know me, man.” “Well, now you have my number.” Continue reading
In 1995, three partners — Todd Davis, Bart Caridio and Mark Jaeger — set out to build a brewpub based on a mutual love of the craft and the brew itself. The trio found a spot, once a garage operated by the grandson of Eugene pioneers Allen and Rachel Bond. The location fell short of the ideal size for a brewery, but after careful consideration and falling in love with the building and its history, Sam Bond’s Garage was born, or rather reborn. Continue reading
If Las Vegas Weekly gave an award for “Band with Best Beards,” Sin City rock quartet Bobby Meader Music would surely win. In fact, based on beard weight alone, you might guess Bobby Meader Music hailed from the great, hairy Northwest instead of the glitz and glamor of Vegas. “I just didn’t shave one day ’cause I quit my job at the Bellagio,” Bobby Meader tells EW, laughing, “and I still haven’t shaved.” Continue reading
