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John Cariani’s 2004 romantic comedy, Almost, Maine, flopped when it opened in New York but is now the most produced play in our high schools, which might just tell you everything you need to know about this play that is beseechingly quaint and cosmically cute but not altogether lacking in bite. Continue reading
The Oregon Arts Commission, in conjunction with The Ford Family Foundation, announced the names of 23 artists who will receive Career Opportunity Grants with a total of $61,744 awarded. Scottish-born, Portland-based fiber artist Jo Hamilton received $1,500 for the Contemporary Northwest Visions exhibit and accompanying catalog opening April 1 at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. Although Hamilton paints as well, her crochet “paintings” of people and cityscapes are her signature work. Got grant envy? Continue reading
Photos contributed by Jeremy Mabe Continue reading
Spike Jonze’s Her takes place in a clearly futuristic Los Angeles, a spotless, sparse playground for disconnected souls, filmed as a place that is perpetually sunny and disconcertingly sad. Through this shiny, metal-and-glass metropolis march hundreds of humans having the sort of disconcerting earbud conversations we’re becoming accustomed to now. These folks aren’t talking to a friend on the other side of the country, though; they’re talking to their operating systems. Continue reading
Matt Knight Arena has booked Grammy-winning rock group Tool for March 7 and pop king Bruno Mars for Aug. 11. We’re glad to see these big names in music coming to Eugene, but besides these two concerts, a handful of UO basketball games and monster truck rumbles, Matt Knight’s event calendar is glaringly empty for 2014. What happened to concerts being a crucial source of revenue? And why is one of the country’s most expensive basketball arenas ($200 million-plus) sitting empty most of the year when it could be booking bigger music acts? Continue reading
Seattle surf rock revivalists La Luz are lucky to be alive. Just this past November, on the way home after a gig in Boise, the band was involved in a serious car wreck. Their van was totaled and their gear ruined. Luckily, the band members incurred relatively minor injuries. Undeterred, La Luz recouped and is now back out on the road. Continue reading
For a town who voted Sol Seed EW’s Next Big Thing 2013, and whose big summer concerts included Slightly Stoopid, Rebelution and Matisyahu, the Passafire-Ballyhoo! double bill Feb. 6 at Cozmic is bound to be a big show. Continue reading
When people talk about the glory years of alternative music, most of the bands that get mentioned are from the alternative rock, Brit-rock or grunge strain — Pearl Jam, Oasis, Soundgarden, Nirvana. But the alternative pop bands who came in a shade before these guys made quite the impact on the Generation X music scene too; Toad the Wet Sprocket was among the most notable. Continue reading
After joining and then replacing the great Thomas Mapfumo in the Zimbabwean band Wagon Wheels in the late 1970s, Oliver “Tuku” Mtukudzi became one of Southern Africa’s most popular singers, rasping his uplifting lyrics in his native Shona language, as well as in Ndebele and English, over a bubbling beat of compulsively danceable mbaqanga and other African rhythms and American R&B-influenced grooves. Continue reading