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Get Thee To The Whit

Music in eugene’s most famous neighborhood

Culture

Ask a certain segment of Eugene’s population and they’ll say the Whiteaker Block Party, now in its eighth year, eclipsed the Eugene Celebration in relevance a long time ago. And with the celebration on hiatus until 2015 (and folks pulling the Festival of Eugene together), the Block Party now gets its chance to shine as the premier civic blowout of 2014. Every year, music is a central part of the event, and this year the Block Party boasts a powerhouse of local talent.  Continue reading →

Parking in the Whit

WCC steps up to solve problems

Culture

During the Whiteaker Block Party, parking is usually a pain, with drivers scouring residential streets for a spot, sometimes giving up and parking illegally. This year, the Whiteaker Community Council is trying to alleviate the problem by opening up at least two gravel lots in the neighborhood for $5 per car. The WCC will use its share of the funds for a big long-term goal: a public parking lot in the Whit. Continue reading →

Bigger is Better

The Whiteaker Block Party celebrates Its eighth year

Culture

What started as a small crowd partying in an empty parking lot in the Whiteaker among amps and beer kegs has grown, in eight short years, into a neighborhood-encompassing celebration of community and unique Eugene culture. Featuring a couple dozen local bands, food and craft vendors, an art and kid zone, carnival games, a dunk tank, beer gardens and even a bike valet, on Saturday, Aug. 2, from noon to 10 pm — it’s the Whiteaker Block Party (WBP). Continue reading →

Once More, With Feeling

Film

John Carney’s Once (2007) was a lovely, intimate film, the story of two musicians whose romance played out artistically. Once is now a Broadway powerhouse, made a little tidier but no less affecting, and Carney is back with a movie that’s almost Once again: two drifting, lovelorn souls brought together through musical collaboration. Continue reading →

Battlespace

Music

There’s something about Warpaint’s double music video for “Disco//Very” and “Keep it Healthy” that rings of the 1996 alt-witch flick The Craft. Perhaps it’s four badasses walking towards the camera, or Theresa Wayman’s and Emily Kokal’s ode to ’90s fashion wearing a plaid mini skirt over jeans and a Chicago Bulls T-shirt respectively. Continue reading →

Ghosts of the Southwest

Music

Tuscon, Arizona, duo Sweet Ghosts took their name from a poem by Jack Gilbert: “Again and again we put our sweet ghosts on small paper boats and sailed them back into their death …” And listening to Sweet Ghosts’ latest release Certain Truths, it is easy to imagine “sweet ghosts on small paper boats.” The album is melancholy and acoustic with the pitch and drift of a boat on water.  Continue reading →

Petty Party

Music

Alongside Neil Young and Bob Dylan, Tom Petty has one of the most distinctive voices in rock music. And when you have a distinctive voice, it gets spoofed a lot by comedians. So I ask Mike Campbell, longtime lead guitarist with Petty’s band The Heartbreakers, which comedian does the best Petty impersonation? After giving it some thought, Campbell laughs. “Ask Jimmy Fallon, he’ll give you a good answer,” Campbell says. Continue reading →

Festival Frenzy

The end of summer packs a punch from the Oregon Festival of American Music to Beloved

Music
Noura Mint Seymali plays Tidewater’s Beloved Festival Aug. 8.

A major attraction of the Oregon Festival of American Music’s two-year exploration of the so-called American songbook in Hollywood is rediscovering the original incarnations of stories most of us remember only from the later movies they inspired. The 1949 Jule Styne-Leo Robin musical, based on Anita Loos’ theatrical adaptation of her Jazz-Age comic novel Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (running Aug. 1-10), is perhaps best known from the 1953 film, which helped make stars out of pneumatic gal-pal leads Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell. Continue reading →

Everything but the Bathroom Sink

Music

Miranda Lambert is one of country music’s top female artists, but she has a gutsy-ness and grittiness that many women in country lack. She’s got sass and strength as well as suffering and insecurities, and isn’t afraid to reveal any of it in her lyrics. Lambert, who is performing at Sweet Home’s Oregon Jamboree, just released her fifth album, Platinum. She also just turned 30, and along with that milestone came self-scrutiny and pangs of aging. Continue reading →

Arts Hound

Visual Arts

A new fashion duo is taking the reins of the Whiteaker Block Party Fashion Show this year and they’ve got some tricks up their secondhand sleeves. Briah Izreal and Oblio Stroyman, new owners of the Whit boutique Redoux Parlour, will host a resale runway show with the help of St. Vinnie’s Creative Projects Manager Mitra Chester at 9 pm Saturday, Aug. 2, at the Cornerstone Glass Stage (1068 W. 2nd Ave.) preceded by a performance from the darkwave ensemble Black Magdalene. “We’re not working with designers this year,” Izreal says. Continue reading →