Artistic License to Wed

Performance artist Ryan Conarro explores marriage in the 21st century

The frontline of the fight for civil rights isn’t only in the courtroom or marching down the street, but on stage from Alaska to New York City to Eugene. Interdisciplinary performance artist Ryan Conarro visits the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art this week to perform his latest work, this hour forward, a multi-media production reflecting the changing state of marriage rights.  “It’s a piece exploring family, love, marriage, identity and the gay rights movement,” Conarro tells EW. Continue reading 

Ninkasi to quench thirst in Arizona

In their quest for "Total Domination," Ninkasi added a 7th state, Arizona, to their distribution list via Golden Eagle Distributors, who also handle clients such as Stella Artois, Budweiser, Goose Island, Widmer Brothers and Dogfish Head. Ninkasi brews will floweth from Arizona taps in late October, begining in the Tuscon and Phoenix.  Ninkasi expanded to Nevada this spring and the current distribution roster in addition to Arizona, Nevada and Oregon includes Alaska, Colorado, California, Idaho, Montana, Washington and British Columbia. Continue reading 

Proof of Life

At once uplifting and infuriating, Alive Inside is a new documentary that can’t help but tell two stories at once. On the one hand, this film is about Dan Cohen, a former social worker who some three years ago began bringing iPods loaded with music into nursing homes, where “patients” with dementia were suddenly awakened by the simple act of hearing the songs that once brought them joy. Continue reading 

Shiva ‘n’ Shake

The Shivas

K Records recording artists The Shivas nod toward vintage psyche and garage rock, but Jared Molyneux says his band isn’t merely a nostalgia act.  “We sound like a band that listens to a lot of garage music from the ’60s,” Molyneux says. “The sound and feeling of that style of music must have had a profound effect on us, as our music obviously resembles it,” he adds, referencing The Velvet Underground and The 13th Floor Elevators as well as artists like Sam Cooke, James Brown and Leadbelly.   Continue reading 

Welcome to the Machine

Dave Rawlings Machine

Among guitarists, if not across the wide world, Dave Rawlings is recognized as a stylist of the highest order, a folk traditionalist who is also a supreme innovator. For evidence of what this man can do with his 1935 arch-top Epiphone, witness “Revelator,” the first track on 2001’s Time (The Revelator) by singer and songwriter Gillian Welch, with whom Rawlings frequently collaborates. Continue reading 

Of Legends and Locals

The new classical music season, from Beethoven to the blues, is here

Bassist DaXun Zhang

Just as the arrival of shorter, cooler days signal autumn, the arrival of some big names, at least in the little world of classical music, tells us that the 2014-15 classical music season is underway. The Sept. 28 Eugene Symphony concert featuring the legendary violinist Itzhak Perlman playing Beethoven’s majestic Violin Concerto offers a chance to see one of the last of the really big-name classical soloists (there’s Yo Yo Ma and not many others left) who can fill up a venue as cavernous as the Hult Center on reputation alone.  Continue reading