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After five years in Brooklyn, Eugene-born musician Justin King has come home. “All my oldest friends and family are here,” King explains. “It’s really where my roots are,” he continues. “Brooklyn was getting even more overrun and expensive and crazier and crazier. I wanted to come back and focus on my own music.” Since being back in town, King’s band King Radio has released a four-song EP, Adaline, available now on SoundCloud. Continue reading
If you’re anything like me, and I know many of you are, you grew up on a lot of ’80s and ’90s-era British guitar pop. Why? In my case, Brit bands seemed allowed a larger breadth of sensitivity and intelligence than their constantly macho Yankee colleagues. And, of course, there are those accents: romantic, working class, exotic and endlessly cool. Has the sound aged? Certainly. But in the end, haven’t we all? Continue reading
Before Elton John, Duncan Sheik and Green Day created original stage scores, before all those jukebox musicals featuring songs by Abba, Four Seasons, Carole King and more, even before Rent, Grease, Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar, there was Lionel Bart — a pop songwriter who never learned to read or write music and yet composed some of Britain’s biggest pop hits of the 1950s for Cliff Richard and other stars. Continue reading
It might be the way Makayla Meador carries her contagious energy or the fact she’s taking the local DJ scene by storm — whatever it is, something tells me to remember her name. Continue reading
Jerry Joseph has been called the Anthony Bourdain of music. “I finally realized I was never going to be a big fucking rock star,” Joseph says. “Nobody’s ever going to invite me to Saigon to come play a concert.” So the veteran Portland songwriter and longtime fixture on Eugene stages decided to take matters into his own hands and travel the world with his music. “I called people I knew, people that lived in Cambodia and Thailand," Joseph explains. "And I brought a camera guy with me.” Continue reading
When I listen to EDM, I’m brought back to freshman year when I was introduced to drugs, dub-step and sardine-packed shows. That’s when I first heard the badass-ery of Pretty Lights, an electronica sensation created by Derek Vincent Smith. Smith started Pretty Lights in 2004. He takes samples — mostly bits of songs from ’70s soul or ’90s hip hop — and laces them up with his own sound effects. Add in some rad light displays and MDMA and, voilà, you’ve got the Pretty Lights experience. Continue reading
Bonnie Bloomgarden of Los Angeles’ Death Valley Girls says her band’s latest release, Glow in the Dark (out now on Burger Records), was inspired by ancient Egypt. “We were asked to play a show for a mummy exhibit,” Bloomgarden tells EW. “These mummies had been in Chicago since 1890 until they came here to L.A. We realized this potentially could be the first time ever that they heard rock ‘n’ roll.” “What if we had the power to wake them?” Bloomgarden continues. “After we wrote the songs we thought, ‘Well, we’ve got to record them now.’” Continue reading
What do booze, Philadelphia and reggae-ska have in common? Mike Pinto. Pinto is a Philly-born singer-songwriter who cut his teeth playing at punk rock shows and the occasional coffee shop. Since the Philly rock scene wasn’t his jam, Pinto moved to San Diego, where he connected with the Sublime-loving community. Life in Philadelphia taught him how to be a storyteller, he says, and California helped solidify his “reggae-ska” sound. Continue reading
Norma Fraser and Thomas Mapfumo are legendary musicians, both residing right here in Eugene. If you’ve never heard of them, don’t beat yourself up. They’re better known in their countries of origin — Jamaica and Zimbabwe, respectively — than in the states. Continue reading
Deftones sound like an urban California traffic jam — the band’s innovative blend of alt-rock, metal, hardcore and emo creates heat, tension and eventually release. Earlier this year, the Sacramento-born Deftones released the long-awaited and critically acclaimed Gore. Last spring, when Deftones’ only Oregon show was announced at Cuthbert Amphitheater, it was for many the crown jewel of Eugene’s summer concert season. Continue reading