Arts Hound

October 2 is will be a doozy in Eugene’s art scene: Walk like a slug: The new SLUG queen, Queen Markalo Parkalo, hosts First Friday ArtWalk Oct. 2. First stop is 5:30 pm at The New Zone Gallery for its annual “Salon du Peuple” show. Then follow the slime to Eugene Weekly’s distribution-turned-art boxes — ArtsHound on Broadway — at Bijou Metro, The Wayward Lamb, Tokyo Tonkatsu and Noisette Pastry Kitchen (read more in “Street Views” this issue).  Continue reading 

Rolling It out

Recreational users can buy pot at medical dispensaries starting Oct. 1, and other updates

Free joints, lines around the block, medical marijuana express lanes — the first day of October will surely be a day of celebration for many and, perhaps, a headache for others.  Oct. 1 marks another milestone for cannabis legalization in the state of Oregon: Medical marijuana dispensaries will be able to legally sell limited amounts of pot to recreational users — customers without an Oregon Medical Marijuana Program (OMMP) card — who are over the age of 21 with valid proof of age. Continue reading 

Gardening in a New Era

This summer really got me thinking. Should summers like that of 2015 become frequent, just how much yard am I interested in watering? I let some areas go dry this year, out of sheer exhaustion combined with a sense that it’s inappropriate, with all of Oregon in a state of drought, to have sprinklers going all the time. Some areas I placed on a regular but restricted water regimen. It has been interesting to see what survived and what did best. Continue reading 

Scaggs Shuffle

A master of his unique craft, in whatever way that craft may be defined

Boz Scaggs

It’s likely that the moment little William “Boz” Scaggs met a new friend, Steve Miller, at their highfalutin Dallas boys’ preparatory school, neither knew that a page was turning in American rock history.  Each of them, 15 years old, had messed around with guitars throughout their little-boyhood, and they found they shared an impassioned interest in the blues — a trait rare amongst their demographic that would inform their musical trajectories. Continue reading 

Welcome Back Wakefield

It still feels like coming home

Mare Wakefield and Nomad

The now Nashville-based folk musician Mare Wakefield, along with her husband and musical collaborator Nomad, has had a pretty good year.  “We were finalists in two songwriting competitions at two pretty big high-profile folk festivals,” Wakefield tells EW. But what really excited Wakefield was the opportunity to meet folk-music icon and personal hero Judy Collins at Falcon Ridge Folk Festival in New York.  Continue reading 

Nostalgia and Everything After

Counting Crows

Counting Crows

Talking to Adam Duritz on the phone is like watching nostalgia incarnate walk through the door. The idiosyncratic voice of the Counting Crows frontman is still as raspy and boyish as ever, a key to his charm. That voice helped define a post-Nirvana ’90s.  If you are old enough to remember that now seemingly quaint decade, you probably remember Counting Crows and how they blew up the pre-emo alt-rock scene — “Mr. Jones” and “’Round Here” blaring from every radio station in an age when that counted for something.  Continue reading 

At the mercy of Mercy Killers

One-man play about health care and the American dream comes to the Very Little Theatre

Michael milligan in Mercy killers

Joe, the blue-collar mechanic at the center of VLT’s Mercy Killers, considers himself the ultimate all-American — a red-state, Rush Limbaugh-listening son of the American dream. All that changes when Joe’s wife is diagnosed with cancer and he falls through the rabbit hole into a world of exorbitant medical costs and unyielding insurance networks. Out-of-pocket costs are demanded from “pockets that just aren’t that deep.” A man who has staked his life in the value of hard work now stands to lose everything to a heath care system that seems not to care at all. Continue reading