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If you’ve been waiting for new songs from Bad Mitten Orchestre — one of Eugene’s hottest acoustic groups — the wait is over. The Orchestre is coming out in full force Saturday, July 21, to put on its CD release party for the new album BabyGone Broke On Through. Continue reading
I would like to see Bill Nighy be a nice guy in more movies. He’s so effective as a ragged, aging musician (Love Actually) or as, say, a creepy ancient vampire (the Underworld series) that I forget what a wonderful actor he is in ordinary roles. Continue reading
Kerry G. Wade carefully combines pragmatism and found objects in his handcrafted furniture on display at the Jacobs Gallery. His materials are simple: old water skis, toboggans, snow skis and board games. All are used, all are authentic and all are reminiscent of Wade’s childhood. “I love the nostalgia that vintage material brings about,” Wade says. “It brings a sort of mystery.” Continue reading
‘Green Destiny’ by New Flesh ‘Kung Fu Allstars’ by Brent Cheshire Continue reading
Nothing in this life is certain but death, taxes and the Oregon Country Fair. Here in Eugene, the Fair is part of our very atmosphere; it is the air we breathe. You can feel it coming weeks before it opens, wafting in the breeze like some hippie hurricane about to unleash its (not quite free) love on our stomping grounds. You can see it on the streets, with the increase of young seekers sporting ragged backpacks and dreadlocks and bare feet padding on broiling pavement. Continue reading
Real Oregon Country Fair-goers remember “Field Trips” with the Dead: the magical times when Kesey and his Merry Pranksters pranced around the grounds, ensuring every last face was stolen off Owsley’s freshest batch, coaxing you to slip into the oblivion of one of Jerry’s jams. Sounds molten just thinking about it. Fruition Continue reading
The Oregon Country Fair is debuting a new addition: This year revelers can stroll along on the maiden voyage of a new loop that veers off through an as-yet-virginal section of the forested fairgrounds. “It’s taken a huge amount of work to put in the new loop,” OCF General Manager Charlie Ruff says. “We’ve been looking at areas to develop new paths for many years.” Continue reading
Some people go to the Oregon Country Fair to lose their inhibitions, their worries, their minds or all of the above; more often than not, though, they just end up losing their cell phones. “Smart phones have memories,” a Samsung LG phone recently lost at the Country Fair tells me. “No pun intended,” the phone jokes, flicking an ash from his cigarette into the street where we are talking. Continue reading
Sorry folks, there’s actually no definitive evidence suggesting that Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, to whom the reversed title of this story can be credited, ever made it to the Fair, but it didn’t take more than three years — after the Fair’s beginnings in 1969 — for our annual psychedelic parade in Veneta to start taking on other famous faces. Continue reading
Woody Allen is a great American filmmaker, though I’m not sure if I should place that somewhat queasy statement in quotation marks or simply note that, as an assertion, it drags the luggage of several qualifiers. Continue reading