Eugene Weekly

Betty and the Boy and four other folk, pop and punk bands will play at a benefit show to raise money for the annual Trans and/or Women’s Action Camp. TWAC was initially born from the idea of creating a safe space for trans and/or women in the social and environmental justice movement, according to Ariel Howland, organizer of and participant in the benefit show and camp. Eventually, that idea came into its own: a weeklong camp that focuses on community building and political activism. Continue reading →

In 2009, Shelby Earl quit her job on Amazon’s music team to record her first album. The Seattle singer-songwriter was excited; after three years of promoting other musicians at the internet giant, she was going to be the one promoted — hopefully.  “Then six months in it got really scary. It got really real and the money ran out,” Earl tells EW. “I told my mom I was freaking out.”  Continue reading →

I was pulling the Sam Spade act (à la The Maltese Falcon) last week, hovering over a slider and fries at the bowling alley up Hwy. 99 and watching some good-looking kids roll the rock. The place was damn near empty; just me, the kids and the gal at the counter spraying high-grade disinfectant into the guts of the smooth communal shoes.  Continue reading →

“This sounds really young, it sounds like early Helio Sequence,” says Brandon Summers, the band’s singer and guitarist, of the new record. “To me, it feels like a 90-degree sunny day in Portland.” The Portland-based alt-rock duo is back on stage for a West Coast summer tour, during which the band is unveiling tracks from the new album, due out in early 2015. EW caught up with Helio Sequence two days after they finished recording.  Continue reading →

New Orleans can justly claim to be one of the birthplaces of American music, with its legendary gumbo of Caribbean, African and European music influences providing the essential ingredients for the rhythms that spread from the Gulf of Mexico and conquered the music world.  Continue reading →