Whats-Happening: Page 657

One Percent for the Watershed

You can give back with Oakshire’s IPA

Drink

Remember those old Olympia beer ads? “It’s the water.” When it comes to good beer, it really is the water, and that’s why Oakshire Brewing has begun its “1% for Watershed” program, donating one percent of the profits from its Watershed IPA in the lower Willamette Valley to keep the watershed and its water clean and healthy. In 2013, the McKenzie River Trust (MRT) will receive the funds to continue its restoration and conservation work.  Continue reading →

Feeling Crotchety?

Drink

As usual, we begin this month’s wine column with a digression, about thinking and the emergence of taste, eventually returning to wine: In classes I taught at LCC, we had a rule: no use of cell phones during class (exceptions for possible emergencies). One morning, I was filling the whiteboard with notes and noticed a student in the back row looking down at his cupped hands. My students might think I’m a bit dim about their current stratagems but I knew what was going on. “Kyle,” I said, “are you on your cell?” Continue reading →

Lost Company

Film

It feels oddly rude to complain about a movie like The Company You Keep, with its sprawling cast of oft-underused actors from across generations and its well-intentioned plot, which sweeps Vietnam-era radicals up and drops them into the present. But Robert Redford’s latest film is an unsettled mixed bag, despite valiant efforts from Chris Cooper, Anna Kendrick, Richard Jenkins and Nick Nolte (to name just a few). Continue reading →

City in the Country

Music

Spirit Family Reunion is part of a long line of musicians based in New York City while playing the music of rural America. Like Dave Van Ronk, Bob Dylan and The Holy Modal Rounders before them, Spirit Family Reunion brings youthful energy and enthusiasm to antiquated sounds; screeching fiddle, unschooled harmonies, quavering mandolin and chugga-luggin’ freight train rhythms blend with the production value of a band busking on a Brooklyn sidewalk.  Continue reading →

Bleeping Indie

Music

Tom Van Buskirk and George Langford do whatever the hell they want. With Javelin, the pair of musicians explores a variety of sounds, channeling influences from across the spectrum of musical genres. “We were never interested in making a tight, recognizable sound,” Buskirk says.  Continue reading →

Swallowed by a Circus Heart

Music

Rebecca Loeb is a fresh-faced and breezy songwriter with the voice of a pop star. Her sound ranges from indie Americana to confessional ballads to cabaret-style waltzes — encompassing the quirky whimsy of Regina Spektor, the rootsiness of Patti Griffin and the dry wit of Randy Newman, who is an all-time favorite of the young musician. “I love the way he puts himself into his characters,” Loeb says, “and writes so authentically from so many different voices.” Continue reading →

Back Beat

Music

It’s been six months since Seattle hip-hop outfit Macklemore and Ryan Lewis played their sold-out show at the McDonald (pictured above) and they’re already back, headlining at Matthew Knight Arena on May 4. Is the thrifty (“Thrift Shop”) duo aware of the campus controversy this booking ignited after the ASUO originally allocated over 100G to Mallard Madness (a student-run concert series) to nab the show? Continue reading →

That 1 Guy

Music

There are many instruments out there, each with its own timbre, tuning and technique of play. You’ve probably seen or heard some of the weirder ones — dulcimer, tanpura, whamola, etc. — but the Frankenstein creation That 1 Guy brings to the stage will knock your socks off. It’s affectionately known as the “magic pipe,” and it ain’t hard to see why. Bashing at the thing with drumsticks makes a percussive drone, which Mike Silverman, the “1 Guy” in this project, uses to great effect in his fuller, more bass-heavy, freak-metal sound. Continue reading →

It’s a Wilde World

UO makes frivolous fun with The Importance of Being Earnest

Theater

Pithy, witty and wise, Oscar Wilde remains the toast of the sniff set. Though dead all these long and tedious post-industrial years, Wilde, the foremost icon of soft-soap Victorian sabotage, is always good for a sharp, stinging rebuke to the narcissistic pretensions of the bourgeoisie or some feisty fillip about sexual hypocrisy of the straight crowd. His aphorisms, with their subtle swish and sting, trip oh-so trippingly off the tongues of would-be wags everywhere. Morrissey, Truman Capote and Paul Lynde, Wilde’s closest modern kin, ain’t got nothing on the master. Continue reading →