A Revolutionary Art Exhibit

The Schnitzer’s West of Center will flip the museum establishment in more ways than one

The UO Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art is trying to capture an era, an art movement, a revolution.  When artists use drugs, publications, shelter and lifestyle as tools for expression just as artists preceding them employed cameras, paint and clay; when artworks don’t fit neatly into a gilded frame or beneath a sparkling glass case, museums must adapt and turn the establishment on its head.  Continue reading 

A Reluctant Connection

Nearly every brief summary of Jacques Audiard’s Rust and Bone borders on the absurd, or at least sounds mawkishly sentimental: A young man, mostly unemployed and recently in charge of his five-year-old son, strikes up a relationship with a killer-whale trainer who is terribly injured in a freak accident. It sounds like a story that will veer into sentimental territory early, overflowing with reminders about the fragility and beauty of life. Continue reading 

Award-winning Boogie Woogie Blues

Colorado’s Lionel Young Band is rolling into town after a blues festival-filled year, and they are bringing along quite the pedigree. The band won the International Blues Challenge (IBC) in Memphis in 2011, and Young won the IBC as a solo-duo act in 2008, making Young the only two-time winner of the IBC in its 28-year history. In addition to critical acclaim, Young and/or his bandmates have played alongside Muddy Waters, B.B. Continue reading 

Leroy Bell has the X-Factor

When watching competitive music shows like X-Factor or American Idol, you expect the contestants are upstart performers. Often this is the case. However, when Seattle-based pop soul-singer Leroy Bell participated in the X-Factor in 2011, the other hopefuls likely didn’t realize what they were up against. The 61-year-old Bell (you read that right — 61, and he could take Lenny Kravitz in a hottie competition any day) has been in the music business since the ’70s.  Continue reading 

Black Prairie at the Shedd

If we’re going to be honest, the Decemberists hit their peak a while ago. This said, the macabre, folksy offshoot Black Prairie is on the up and up, and the group hits town on Friday. A completely separate project from the Decemberists, Black Prairie features some of the same members, but a sound all of its own: Blending strings, accordions and often virtuosic, swampy classical licks, it’s the sort of band that will make you want to lie down in the grass and watch the sunset. And when it’s dark, the romp and stomp can begin. Continue reading