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The sixth annual Next Big Thing contest proved once again that small-town Eugene is home to an incredibly talented and prolific music scene — so prolific that the competition has been divided into three categories for the first time: single/duo, band/group and youth (18 and under). Continue reading
Here’s to tooting our own horn: September’s First Friday ArtWalk downtown is upon us and Eugene Weekly is hosting. Meet us for the first stop of the guided tour at Tokyo Tonkatsu on the corner of Broadway and Charnelton (201 W. Broadway) at 5:30 pm Sept. 5 where we will introduce the first of the five ArtsHound on Broadway EW distribution box winners. Continue reading
When I heard author Jon Ronson interviewed on NPR recently about Frank, the film based on his book, I was excited. Having seen trailers featuring Michael Fassbender wearing a papier-mâché head, I was tickled to learn from Ronson that the story was inspired by a real person — Frank Sidebottom, the English musician and comedian who lead the band The Freshies as the ’70s sank into the ’80s. With Fassbender and Maggie Gyllenhaal on the roster, how could Frank be anything but a delightful whimsical romp? Continue reading
There’s a luring, mid-20th-century California cool to Natalie Gordon’s voice that sounds like it should be tumbling out of a poolside record player — part-Rosemary Clooney and part-Nancy Sinatra with the contemporary lilt of Shirley Manson and Amanda Palmer. Continue reading
Bellingham’s Polecat plays up-tempo, largely instrumental Americana-roots-bluegrass-folk-reggae — forget it, let’s just say Polecat plays dance music and they play it well. “We are trying to move away from any sort of real specific designation for our sound,” vocalist and guitarist Jeremy Elliott tells EW. Continue reading
Clean-shaven with slicked-back hair and sporting a perfecto leather jacket, rising hip-hop star G-Eazy could easily be mistaken for a cologne model. With his retro greaser look, G-Eazy (né Gerald Earl Gillum) has cultivated a unique style for his chosen genre, earning him the title of “the James Dean of hip hop.” Caught between flattered and exasperated by this categorization, G-Eazy is trying to stake his own ground. Continue reading
The plays of Shakespeare are infinitely flexible, capable of being transported across time to various historic eras and transplanted into soils that are vastly different than those originally intended. Some adaptations work splendidly, others not so much: I’ve seen the Bard by turns relocated to late-20th-century Venice Beach, wedged wickedly into Nazi Germany and, not too long ago, given the hipster goose of modern Manhattan. Continue reading
Move over birds of paradise, because “Birds of a Parallel Future” are spreading their wings. Technology and culture mag WIRED recently featured The Silva Field Guide to Birds of a Parallel Future — a digital video project of 18 bird species from the 31st century — by UO assistant professor of Digital Arts Rick Silva. “I did think about the specific alternate universe some — how the physical laws or evolution might have been different in a parallel dimension,” Silva told WIRED. Continue reading
In what would become his final film role, the late Philip Seymour Hoffman inhabits a classic fictional persona, that of the downbeat institutional man. As Günther Bachmann, a career spy heading an anti-terrorism unit in Hamburg, Hoffman — who died in February of a heroin overdose — puts an ingenious modern spin on the existential anti-hero who, against all odds and caught up in a tangle of lies and deceit, tries to do the right thing. Continue reading
“We love playing house concerts because it’s always a listening audience,” says Jeff Poynter, vocalist and accordion player for Victoria, B.C.-based indie-folk outfit West My Friend. “We’re not really a bar band, and so we like audiences that show up to hear music. It’s great as well because you can really connect with the audience — talk to them throughout the show, hang out with them afterwards and learn a little about them.” Continue reading