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Don’t Think Twice, Mike Birbiglia’s second feature (following Sleepwalk With Me), starts with the rules of improv comedy. One of the rules: It’s all about the group. If you break that rule, everything falls apart. Even — or especially — if you break it by attaining the success every member wants. 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
Oregon Performance Lab is back for its second summer of theater workshops, bringing rising playwrights of America to Eugene. Described as a “three-week pop-up laboratory,” OPL connects artists with venues, actors and an audience for theatrical experimentation. The wife-and-husband team of Willow Norton (artistic director) and Corey Pearlstein (creative director) are based in New York but have roots in Eugene. On the heels of last year’s successful inaugural season, now they are fueling even more ambitious plans. Continue reading
It’s such a good idea. Why didn’t someone think of it sooner? “I was out one day moseying around on Skinner’s Butte,” Robert Newcomer says. “I thought, ‘Wow, this is fairyland up here.’” Newcomer, a native Texan and theater arts educator who relocated to Eugene four years ago, is directing Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the inaugural production of Bard on the Butte. Continue reading
The day after Erika Fortner graduated from art school in New York, she headed straight to Berlin to work on a $5 million 80-foot long mural for banking behemoth Goldman Sachs. She wasn’t alone; Fortner was one of about 30 art assistants in the employ of abstract painter Julie Mehretu, a 2005 MacArthur “genius” grant awardee who Goldman Sachs commissioned in 2007 to create “Mural.” Continue reading
Mike Leckie was lugging an armful of his hand-cast sculptures of athlete Ashton Eaton up the stairs at the 2012 Olympic Trials at Hayward Field when someone from above offered him a hand. It was Eaton himself, the new world-champion decathlon runner. Oddly enough, Leckie was bringing the sculptures up the stairs as a gift to Eaton and his mother for the racer’s new 2012 world record. Continue reading
It goes without saying that horror, strictly speaking, is not among cinema’s most expansive genres. Most times, it’s as conservative and formulaic as porn, and its requisite elements are as familiar as a bowl of chicken noodle soup. Continue reading
Sometimes a band’s strength lies not in its particular sound but in each player’s ability to unite fully behind the sound, to present a single battlefront, to commit individual expression to one common purpose — to communicate, combust and even, at times, self-immolate as a whole. Continue reading