Spooky Sounds and Sights

Halloween traditions, choral treats and jazz tricks

Along with creating lots of work for area dentists, Halloween heralds a couple of happier traditions. Mood Area 52’s annual live, original, tango-tinted score (for electric guitar, cello, accordion, bass, horns, toy piano and plentiful percussion) for F.W. Murnau’s classic vampire flick Nosferatu is always a hoot, and this year, the Oct. 31 show at the Bijou Theater is augmented by the band’s bonus original string band soundtrack to Buster Keaton’s 1921 short film The Boat. Sunday afternoon’s (Oct. Continue reading 

Doris’ Day

Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All — an L.A. hip-hop collective — burst out of nowhere toward the end of the aughts, filled with young, snot-nosed hooligans that acted as fresh tinder to a flickering rap scene. Consisting of mostly teenagers, OFWGKTA’s brightest star happened to be its youngest. Earl Sweatshirt, born Thebe Kgositsile, was barely 16 when he released his self-titled debut mixtape in 2010. It took only a few seconds into his every-mom’s-nightmare music video “Earl” for you to realize he was something both twisted and special. Continue reading 

A Very Gentle Gentleman

Just when many proclaim “Last of!” or “Never again!” along comes a chap like Rufus Wainwright, the sort of entertainer some say “they just don’t make anymore.” Sir Elton John, for one, calls him “the greatest songwriter on the planet.”  Continue reading 

Holy Buckets!

Rubblebucket is a bucket load of fun. Do you like fun? Do you like dancing? Do you like a woman leading six men into the head-bopping, toe-tapping, hip-swiveling, horn-happy fray, fighting off mediocre mainstream pop with trumpets, trombones and saxophones?  Continue reading 

Back Beat

Hip hop hits Eugene pretty hard this week, and it certainly runs the gamut. First up, of “Tell Me When to Go” fame, is California’s E-40 — who’s collaborated with Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg and Tech N9ne — at 9 pm Thursday, Oct. 24, at Studio 44 (44 E. 7th Avenue). At Studio 44 the following night, 8 pm Oct. Continue reading 

Arts Hound

With Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq on the tips of our tongues, it’s easy to forget or simplify past quagmires — the Vietnam War for one. Vietnam vet and history buff Marc C. Waszkiewicz has made it his life’s work to make sure we don’t forget with his upcoming documentary, Viet Nam: An Inner View, set to premiere in 2014. Catch a sneak preview of Waszkiewicz’s oeuvre 7 pm Thursday, Oct. 24, at Tsunami Books. Continue reading