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Los Angeles hard-rock act Stitched Up Heart has a unique approach to self-promotion: They make music and share it live. With a handful of festivals and a few hundred shows under their belts since their 2010 inception, the band members shirk online promotion and big-hype tours in lieu of a simple work ethic and nose-to-grindstone approach. Continue reading
The members of Eugene post-rock band This Patch of Sky are just a bunch of romantics. “For a bunch of tattooed, bearded guys, we make pretty music,” guitarist Joshua Carlton jokes with EW. The band returns to the stage Aug. 22 at WOW Hall, alongside Hyding Jekyll, Children and Seattle’s Rishloo. But the reach of This Patch of Sky goes far beyond our fair valley; after picking up New York-based management, the band has scored several high profile licensing opportunities for its brand of post-rock. Continue reading
Five years ago Pantheon frontman Skyeler Williams saw an opportunity where others might have merely seen cause for complaint. He perceived what he calls “a consistent exclusion of heavy music at community events.” Luckily for Eugene’s metal scene, the hardcore vocalist is not the type to take things lying down. As the music booker and sound engineer at downtown bar The Black Forest, Williams decided to take advantage of the tools available to him and set out to change things. Continue reading
In 2008, songwriter Kimya Dawson’s caustic naiveté perfectly captured the precocious character Juno from the popular film of the same name. Dawson got her start alongside Adam Green in New York “anti-folk” duo Moldy Peaches. Together they made acoustic music that winked at folk and psychedelic idioms alongside sometimes surreal and sometimes hyper-real lyrics. Continue reading
Idealized non-conformism is not a revelation. Forty years ago, the punk movement built its own little utopia on a foundation of middle fingers. But what causes a movement to become a factory setting? Isn’t there inherent irony in a generation of non-conformists conforming to non-conformism, especially when that generation seems hard put to define the word irony? Continue reading
Jazz sometimes gets slagged as mainly grooves for dudes, but women have always contributed enormously to the genre, even if they’ve not received attention proportionate to their contributions. This Thursday, Aug. 13 at The Shedd, the Oregon Festival of American Music (OFAM) showcases three of the most popular female jazz singers of the 1920s. Continue reading
Chicago duo Zigtebra is comprised of vocalist Emily Rose and guitarist Joseph Dummitt, two half-siblings that weren’t close as children. Fate led the pair to the Chicago-based avant-garde dance troupe, True Magical Love. “We reconnected there,” Dummitt tells EW, explaining the Zigtebra project was born from the Windy City’s experimental performance art scene. “We started getting weird on stage,” Dummitt jokes, “did a lot of experimental theater, short open mics. We played wherever would have us. It eventually turned into us writing songs.” Continue reading
New releases: Hot off playing the mainstage at Oregon Country Fair, local blues-rock band Blue Lotus is gearing up for a six-state tour to promote its new album, Across the Canyon, recorded at Ninkasi Studios. The band’s fifth album is “a collaborative experiment that weaves elements of progressive rock, jazz and improvisational rock ‘n’ roll with hints of ’60s psychadelia,” the band says via press release. Catch them before they hit the road for a Grateful Dead set Saturday, Aug. 15, at Blairally Vintage Arcade, 245 Blair Blvd. Continue reading
