Eugene Weekly

The Minneapolis-based Davina and the Vagabonds have swagger — circa 1920s swagger, the kind found in the midst of big-band jazz and the blues. It was 2011 when Davina Sowers (vocals, piano, ukulele) put out her first full-length album, Black Cloud, and she and the Vagabonds have been crashing to the top of the modern blues scene ever since, winning accolades like one of the 10 top releases of the year (Minneapolis Star Tribune).  Continue reading →

When the Eugene Symphony chose a young, little-known conductor named Marin Alsop as its music director in 1989, both she and the orchestra were at best marginal micro-planets orbiting the farthest reaches of the American classical music solar system. By the time Alsop left in 1996, the New York native was one of classical music’s rising stars, crashing through a series of glass ceilings in a seriously sexist classical music milieu to score a handful of increasingly prestigious gigs with orchestras around the world, from São Paulo to Scotland. Continue reading →

On the night of March 30, Sam Bond’s Garage is going to be painted with some funkadelic jams, man. Lucy Arnell and Holly Bowling are bringing tunes laced with Phish-y influences and classic experimental sounds. Arnell, a self-described former New York City “concert bum,” moved to the West Coast in 2013. She then met and collaborated with guitarist Jason Abraham Roberts (Norah Jones, HYMNS) to produce her first EP, Side by Side, which later unfolded into a full-length album with a track featuring Jon Fishman (Phish) on drums.  Continue reading →

Young Florida rapper Denzel Curry — he turned 21 in February — is returning to WOW Hall as a headliner after his last stop in 2015 opening for Joey Bada$$ and Mick Jenkins. The evolution to headliner in one year makes sense: Before releasing his debut album Nostalgic 64 in 2013, Curry appeared on BBC Radio and performed at Coachella. His hard-hitting track “Threatz” has a phenomenal, psychedelic music video that has racked up 6.5 million views. Continue reading →