Eugene Weekly

Musicians have been touring for years — it’s just part of the profession. Incidentally, touring musicians have had us up, out of our houses and walking to various venues for most of our lives. But mellow-shimmer genius Will Johnson found a way to turn this practice on its head. He’s embarked on a Western States Living Room Tour, which is exactly what it sounds like. The moody-voiced Missouri crooner is literally playing in people’s living rooms up and down the West Coast, and he’s making a stop in Eugene this week to play at an undisclosed location. Continue reading →

Rare is the band that can say they are still recording half a century after they began, but that is the case for the pioneers of ska music, The Skatalites. Formed in Jamaica in 1964, the band’s music has influenced the likes of The Police, No Doubt and Sublime, and early on they backed notable bands like Toots and the Maytals and Prince Buster and “The Wailing Wailers,” featuring Bob Marley. Continue reading →

The ’90s are back. Tribute nights to the decade of the Gap are popping up everywhere; Matchbox 20 is touring with the Goo Goo Dolls, and Boston-based Little War Twins kick off their album Marvelous Mischief with “One Bottle”— recalling the coiled-up intensity of fellow Bostonians and ’90s icons The Pixies before settling into a Ani DiFranco-esque easygoing folk-swing backbeat, but unfortunately falling a little short of both. Continue reading →