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Laura Cortese jumps genres like freight trains. The young fiddler has appeared alongside rockers like Band of Horses, Patterson Hood and Michael Franti, while her solo work is drenched in Americana and classical sensibilities. “I think I knew pop music first,” Cortese says, explaining that her mom’s vinyl record collection influenced her at a young age with the likes of Otis Redding, Motown, CSNY and Elvis. Continue reading
“Golf is a good walk spoiled,” Mark Twain once said. In that vein, I would add that disc golf is a good walk enhanced. On several Sundays this spring, my partner and I have filled a bag with the candy-colored rubbery discs — drivers, putters, mid-rangers — and headed down to Alton Baker Park’s new course. Continue reading
Convening in the parking lot of an unspecified hardware store, passing around “vessels” filled with delicious beer and cracking sexually explicit jokes at any given moment, the Eugene Hash House Harriers will really throw you for a loop if you’re unfamiliar with the tradition (or if you can’t take a joke). The “hounds” do their best to follow the madcap path laid by the “hare,” and once they reach the end, it’s time for more fraternizing. Continue reading
Akickball outfielder hits the turf at Tugman Park in South Eugene. Play is halted while she’s carried to the sideline. Is it a twisted ankle — or worse? “Need some ice?” teammates ask. “Get her a beer — STAT!” responds a teammate helping her from the field. She ices down the calf cramp with a cold one, cracks it open and is soon sitting with her friends, laughing in the shade. Continue reading
endurance |enˈd(y)o͝or-ns| noun • permanence, duration • the fact, power or ability of enduring an unpleasant or difficult process or situation without giving way: she was close to the limit of her endurance • the capacity of something to last or to withstand wear and tear Continue reading
The somewhat elusive Springfield Ditch Projects gallery opened its latest exhibit May 18, and it runs through June 15. Ron Graff and Donald Morgan: New Work features the abstract expressionist paintings of Graff, a UO associate professor of painting, and 2-D and 3-D works of Morgan, a UO assistant art professor. Morgan’s graphic sculptures have had a playful (and sometimes dark) bent in the past, including a topographic wall hanging of Crater Lake’s Wizard Island, a pair of mirrored spider webs and a noose rack. For more information visit ditchprojects.com. Continue reading
After a week of trying to set up an interview with Les Claypool, the time and day was upon me. I was slightly nervous, but getting more so as each minute went by and the phone didn’t ring. Les Claypool stood me up. But, I consoled myself, perhaps it’s a good thing … you know, preserve the mystery in art, the “not knowingness” that’s magical when you buy a ticket and show up with no expectations. Then he called. Continue reading
Director Baz Luhrmann’s risky, gamboling Romeo + Juliet (1996) proved, once again, that Shakespeare’s best stuff can withstand any infringement of time and run with it — including gang warfare, palm trees and the wowzers of an acid trip. Recall, if you dare, the raw but playful sexuality of this scene: Claire Danes as Juliet, spying through a massive fish tank and catching her first aquamarine glimpse of Romeo, as the gaunt, slightly extra-terrestrial face of a young Leonardo DiCaprio seems to swim through the coral. It’s an exquisite moment. Continue reading
Listening to the music of Trevor Powers, more widely known as Youth Lagoon, is not so much a psychedelic experience as it is an exploration of Powers’ psyche. His sophomore release, 2013’s Wondrous Bughouse, is a mind-bending collection of rock and pop that blends a host of dissonant sounds together into a beautiful cacophony of noise that mirrors the storm going on inside Powers’ head. It is quite the trip. Continue reading
Once upon a time bands could wait a few albums before having a hit — U2, REM and Nirvana among others. This allowed artists to grow, change and most importantly experiment. These days, with the great contraction of the music business, bands-without-hits are signed and dropped faster than ever; many are never signed at all. Continue reading