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If all you know of Soul Asylum is a touching little torch song called “Runaway Train,” listen up: Long before that unexpected hit was released in 1992, Soul Asylum had achieved a rare kind of cult status among fans of guitar-heavy alt-rock — a status founded largely on the soulful songwriting and indubitable white-boy groove of frontman Dave Pirner. Continue reading
Like something from your grandma’s collection of 45s, “10-gallon funnyman” Sourdough Slim harkens back to the days of the singin’, yodelin’, joke-tellin’ cowboy. You might be asking yourself: Is the world really waiting for a revival of the Burl Ives, Will Rogers and Gene Autry sound? The answer is: Probably not. But like a dusty little gem found in a secondhand shop, Slim (né Rick Crowder) shows that you didn’t know what you were missing the first time around. “My true calling as a cowboy was not on the range but, rather, on the stage,” Slim says on his website. Continue reading
Looking at lineups for some of the major local venues this summer, it appears that audiences and/or bookers want one prolonged and mostly vanilla sausage fest. For Cuthbert’s 2014 season, of the nearly 40 acts scheduled to grace the amphitheater stage, seven include women (counting the Eugene Symphony’s free concert July 19). The Lane County Fair does not fare better: Of the eight acts to hit the main stage, there will be one musician who’s a woman — Pat Benatar (July 26 with Neil Giraldo). Continue reading
Throughout the opening night performance of Grease at Actors Cabaret of Eugene, I noted that my 8-year-old companion, and the elderly gentleman next to him, were both alternately laughing, clapping or simply enthralled. Young and old, they were watching a musical from the 1970s about teenagers from the 1950s; they were both loving it. Continue reading
The Hult Center is reviving its former Wildly Wicked Women of Comedy series, kicking off July 19 with comedian Suzanne Westenhoefer, an LGBT pioneer who starting doing standup in New York City in the early ’90s. Raised in Pennsylvania Amish country, Westenhoefer is definitely a trailblazer: She was the first openly gay comedian to land an HBO special and the first to appear on Late Night with David Letterman. Continue reading
Last week, a friend wanted to know if she should see Snowpiercer. The easy answer is “Yes.” The longer, glibber answer was, “Did you want a sci-fi movie about class warfare? Then yes.” She replied, “Isn’t that what all sci-fi movies are really about?” Continue reading
Unlike previous efforts, Mike Last feels The Stagger and Sway’s latest release, Fun and Games, is a rock ‘n’ roll record — a sound the quartet has moved toward since adding Brian Schierenbeck on lead guitar. “Brian played our last CD-release show,” says Last, Stagger and Sway’s vocalist, rhythm guitarist and primary songwriter. “But he wasn’t on the record.” Last says Fun and Games has “a little more grit to it — a little more teeth. It’s more of a band record.” Continue reading
“We love Eugene,” says Ashley Edwards, vocalist and songwriter for Durango, Colorado-based Hello Dollface. “The vibrancy, the grit, the consciousness, the food.” The band’s bass player, Jesse Ogle, attended the UO, Edwards says, and this time ’round through Eugene, Hello Dollface’s “heart-quenching desert vagabond soul” will be backed up onstage by some local players: Ben Scharf, Matt Calkins and Brad Erichsen of local jazz-funk group Eleven Eyes. Continue reading
Shanna Trumbly was sitting in a cave roasting hotdogs when she saw the hummingbird. The Eugene artist was visiting Yachats with her family and, while on a hike, they had taken shelter from the rain. “Out of the corner of my eye, I see this little bzzz,” she says, fluttering her hands. “There are no flowers around or anything. It was just like rock walls and the ocean … It was so bizarre because it wasn’t even a place where a hummingbird would be hanging out.” She adds, “Right when it flew off, the rain stopped.” Continue reading
Nothing says ’Merica like star-spangled hot pants. Allison Ditson flips through a stack of her handmade garter shorts and swimwear while Prince’s “I Would Die 4 U” fills her warm attic studio. Fabric is draped over every nook and cranny — in stars and stripes, neons and florals, glittering golds and black mesh — making the cozy space look like the shared dressing room of Wonder Woman, Betty Grable and Katy Perry. Continue reading