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New York rapper Michael Quattlebaum Jr., aka Mykki Blanco, is as much a performance artist as a musician. A published poet and art school dropout, Quattlebaum’s alter ego Blanco is inspired by teenage girls and drag queens — mixing the right-now youth culture of Rihanna, the decadent gutter of the New York art world, queercore and Riot Grrrl icon Kathleen Hanna. Continue reading
Coming on the tail (feather) end of Rio de Janeiro’s world-famous Carnival, Eugene Arte Latino and Students Helping Street Kids International (SHKSI) host the Carnaval Brasil! 7 pm Saturday, March 14, at Cozmic; $12, kids 12 and under get in free. Costumes are encouraged, so break out your glitter, feathers, sequins and, of course, rhythm: Samba dance lessons start at 9:15 pm. Continue reading
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is one of the peaks of Stephen Sondheim’s stellar career as America’s greatest musical theater composer, which, after multiple Tonys, Grammys, a Pulitzer and other laurels, received another boost with 2014’s film version of his musical Into the Woods. Continue reading
This week, visiting London professor Stephanie Jordan’s lecture “Rites of Spring: A Century of Tradition,” looks at Igor Stravinsky’s famous dance score, from its riotous premiere to its many creative permutations, at 1 pm Thursday, March 5, on the UO campus. And next week, Pablo Luis Rivera presents an interactive evening of music and dance, featuring Puerto Rican Bomba, a traditional musical style combining Spanish, African and Taino cultures, 7:30 pm March 12; $8-$12. Continue reading
Many of my colleagues wish 50 Shades of Grey had never been written. I wish it had been written thirty years ago. I’ve been doing BDSM since we called it S/M. (In the early ’90s, someone mashed together B&D for bondage and discipline, D/s for dominance and submission and S/M for sadomasochism to coin the acronym BDSM. I liked it better when it had fewer initials.) Continue reading
“You’re all a bunch of phonies” has long been one of punk rock’s favorite accusations. Providing a fresh and funny take on that old gripe are the firebrands from London, Ontario — Single Mothers. While first-gen punkers railed against flower power, Single Mothers take aim at the hipster, DIY and Etsy-crafter crowd, as well as any scene’s inevitable decline into self-parody. Continue reading
“I want to say that no artist has mentioned Eugene, Oregon, more in songs,” Eugene-born folk-rock artist Mat Kearney tells EW. For example, the lyrics to “One Black Sheep,” from his latest release, begin with a reference that only Eugene fans could appreciate: “I was born a love child of the seventies/ Touched down at Sacred Heart … In the city of hippies and angel dust.” Continue reading
What does one do after breaking up a successful and influential band? If you’re Christopher Hall of The Dreaming, you start again, but this time as a supergroup. In the late ’90s, Hall’s previous project, Stabbing Westward, took modern-rock radio by storm with singles “Shame” and “Save Yourself” before calling it quits in 2002. Unwilling to remain idle, Hall and drummer Johnny Haro formed The Dreaming later that year. Continue reading
New York musician Marco Benevento recorded his 2014 release Swift about as far away from the big city as possible: Cottage Grove. Renowned producer and musician Richard Swift (The Shins, Foxygen) lives in Cottage Grove. Swift consistently supported Benevento’s shows at local venue the Axe & Fiddle. When Benevento heard Swift’s production work on Foxygen’s We Are The 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic (also recorded in Cottage Grove), he knew he wanted to work with him. Continue reading