Archive for the ‘buzz’ Category
Frequency’s Grammy coverage
Monday, February 13th, 2012
[Video] Beats Antique at Midtown Ballroom
Monday, February 6th, 2012
I’ve written several times over the years about how I was shocked at the number of people who showed up to see Flogging Molly at the Midtown Ballroom in 2007. I knew they were a well-liked band, but had no idea they could pack a cavernous venue in little ol’ Bend, Oregon.
After Saturday night’s Beats Antique show in the same space, I now have a new standard to use when expressing my surprise at a band’s draw.
That’s not to say I didn’t realize the Bay Area-based global/electro/bellydance fusion band is popular. I just don’t think I realized they could fill Bend’s biggest indoor venue to the brim. But they did, with around 1,200 people, according to organizers. And it was a sight to see.
I’ll expand more on this — including some of the factors that contributed to Saturday’s explosive scene — in Friday’s GO! Magazine in The Bulletin. In the meantime, here are four videos of Beats Antique playing for a whole bunch of happy, smiling, dancing souls in Bend.
Tonight’s Larry and His Flask show moves earlier, outdoors
Saturday, September 17th, 2011
Citing “capacity issues” (which, frankly, have existed since the second this show was booked; it’s not like venue got smaller in recent weeks) (OK, I’m retracting that statement because I was reminded that while venues generally don’t physically shrink, their legal capacity certainly can. More on this as soon as I can get it.), local punkgrass powerhouse Larry and His Flask announced last night via Facebook that their show tonight has been moved outdoors into the parking lot of The Horned Hand (507 N.W. Colorado Ave., Bend), and earlier in the evening. Here’s the message from LAHF:
Hey everybody, Slight change in the schedule for (the) 9/17/11 show at the Horned Hand in Bend, Oregon. Due to capacity issues the show is being moved to the parking lot where capacity will not be an problem. Doors will be at 6 p.m. Music starts at 6:30 p.m. Larry And His Flask will be going on at 9 p.m. sharp. $6, 21+ There will be skate ramps so bring your deck! See ya’ll there!
Also on the bill: local punk legends The Confederats and one of my favorite bands in town, Tuck and Roll. So I’d encourage you to get there on time. It’s gonna be wild.
My favorite Sisters Folk Festival discovery: Cahalen Morrison & Eli West
Friday, September 9th, 2011
I’ve spent a lot of the past couple weeks listening to artists playing the 2011 Sisters Folk Festival, and I believe this is the deepest pool of talent ever at the event. You can find all our coverage by clicking here.
But I want to draw your attention to one act in particular. Cahalen Morrison & Eli West are a duo from Seattle. They play old-time music for modern times, and they are terrific. Here’s what I wrote in today’s paper:
Making old-time music in the 21st century is a slippery slope.
There’s a fine line, see, between playing compelling music that reverently recalls a long-gone era and grabbing a banjo, affecting a nasal twang and hamming it up in a bowler hat.
Cahalen Morrison & Eli West belong firmly in the former camp. The Seattle duo began touring just over a year ago, yet their first album, “The Holy Coming of the Storm,” sounds like the product of years spent perfecting songs, tightening arrangements, honing harmonies and tuning into each other’s musical souls.
Morrison and West use a fleet of stringed things to make old-growth roots music, where bluegrass, folk and country intertwine. Listen to the songs at www.cahalenandeli.com and note the rhythmic eccentricities of “On God’s Rocky Shore,” the vibrant, timeless picking of “Over There,” or the duo’s unconventional way with melody on “Lost Lovin’ Gal.”
Turns out playing old-time music isn’t so daunting when you have songs and chops like this. Morrison and West are, to quote bluegrass legend Tim O’Brien, “making music that the world needs.”
You have three opportunities to catch these guys over the next couple of days — one tonight, two Saturday — and I would strongly encourage you to do so:
• 9:15-10 tonight, Angeline’s Bakery
• 6-6:45 p.m. Saturday, Depot Cafe
• 8:45-9:45 p.m. Saturday, Bronco Billy’s
Here’s some video of Morrison and West performing to give you a taste of what they do! (There are more here.)
Central Oregon’s Week of Awesome Music, Part 2: The Shins
Tuesday, August 9th, 2011
This week features a ridiculous number of opportunities to catch quality live music in Central Oregon, so I’m highlighting some of the best options for each night. But remember, you can always find lots more at The Bulletin’s online event calendar.
Your best bet for this fine Tuesday evening is to see indie rock giants The Shins at the Domino Room. Why? Because it’s a rare opportunity to see a band that can draw thousands of people to an amphitheater performing in a relatively tiny club. And because main man James Mercer has dozens of awesome, toe-tapping pop-rock songs in his quiver, and hopefully he’ll play a few of ‘em. But the pre-show word is that the band will be using this mini-tour of small venues to work out songs from the upcoming, long-awaited fourth Shins album, so I guess we’ll see what happens.
Oh, and here’s some actual news we hadn’t reported before: The excellent, Portland-based indie pop band Hosannas will open tonight.
Oh, and if you don’t already have your ticket, you’re out of luck. The show has sold out. If you’d like, read my story on the band here.
Coming tomorrow: Dierks Bentley …
The Shins are playing Bend’s Domino Room on Aug. 9
Monday, August 1st, 2011
Here’s some unbelievably cool news for your Monday morning: Indie-rock giants The Shins are playing Bend’s Domino Room on Aug. 9. They just announced the show via email.
You read that right. The Domino Room, capacity 500ish. (The band played to thousands at Les Schwab Amphitheater in 2007.)
James Mercer of The Shins
On Aug. 9, in eight days. (That’s soon.)
Wow.
Now all you have to do is get tickets! They’re available as we speak to members of the band’s fan club, and they should go on sale to the general public very soon Stay tuned to Frequency to find out where you can get ‘em.
Update: They’re on sale now for $25 (plus fees). There are links to purchase here and here.
Other details: It’s a 21+ show that starts at 8 p.m., with doors opening at 7 p.m. Needless to say, we’ll keep you up to date as more info appears.
The Bend date is part of a short “underplay” tour on the way to the band’s appearance at the Outside Lands festival, with shows in Eugene and Portland at venues that are much smaller than The Shins normally play. Underplay tours generally happen for a couple of reasons: to generate buzz and/or to allow a band to work out new songs or hone its live chops after a layoff.
All three seem like potential motivators for The Shins’ jaunt. The band has mostly disappeared since it finished touring behind its most recent album, 2007′s “Wincing the Night Away,” which debuted at No. 2 on Billboard’s album chart. Since then, frontman James Mercer replaced two of his longtime band mates, starred in a movie, and focused most of his attention on Broken Bells, a side project he shares with super-producer Danger Mouse (of Gnarls Barkley fame).
But with news trickling out of a new Shins album, perhaps Mercer thinks it’s time for the band to get its name back in the news by clocking a little on-stage time in a low-pressure environment. Whatever the reason, this is terrific news.
[Photos] Opening night at The Horned Hand
Saturday, July 16th, 2011
If a picture is worth 1,000 words, there are 12,000 words below about Bend’s newest art-hangin’ / clothes-sellin’ / music-playin’ / beer-drinkin’ space, The Horned Hand, which I introduced you to right here.
Still, I am going to add a few of my own.
Cobbled together inside the old Repeat Performance building at 507 N.W. Colorado Ave., the venue’s official opening is tonight, when California folk-rocker The White Buffalo performs (9 p.m., $7 advance, $10 at the door). But there was a sort of soft opening last night, featuring music by Harley Bourbon and Boxcar Stringband, beer by Boneyard Brewing (and cans of Old German), and food by The Codfather, a new cart in town that sells fish ‘n’ chips out of a huge red double-decker bus parked just outside The Horned Hand’s roll-up bay door.
The decor is exactly what head Hand Wesley Ladd described when we met last week in what was then a barren, rectangular box. It’s eclectic, full of found objects and thrift-store bargains. Hubcaps, animal horns, interesting art pieces and vintage signs cover the walls, and they’re all for sale, Ladd says. A couple racks of clothing sit along one wall below a stereo system and projector, which last night ran the 1973 cult film “The Holy Mountain” silently on the opposite wall. (It was really, really weird.)
The bar appears to be a couple of kitchen counter slabs draped across several large barrels. The “bar stools” are kegs with pillows on top. Seating is available across the room in both old molded plastic school chairs (one had “Room 126″ scrawled on the back) and bench seats from automobiles. There’s a picnic table up front. It’s just to the left of the stage, which looked to be about a foot tall.
Both bands were great. I had never heard Harley Bourbon before, but they’ve got Lucero’s sandpaper-throated alt-country down pat. I look forward to seeing them again. Boxcar Stringband swings, baby, swings. (Their CD-release show is tonight, by the way.) The place was rockin’ as I approached around 9:45 p.m., and Ladd closed the bay door at 10 p.m. out of respect for the neighbors. The Horned Hand got a lot hotter after that, and pretty soon its crew was cranking up fans in the corners to keep the air moving.
Overall, I’d say it was a successful first night. I’d guess 100 or so folks came through, maybe a bit more, and many seemed to know each other, fueling the feeling that this wasn’t a brand new spot in town, but a longstanding neighborhood hangout. I was talking with local graphic designer and rock ‘n’ roller Dana MacKenzie, and he said “It feels like this place has been lived in for a year.” Or maybe he said eight years. I don’t know. It was loud. Either way, I couldn’t agree more.
Around 11:15 p.m., I headed out the door to find Ladd shushing a group of folks on the front lawn whose chatter was growing louder. That kind of thing is nice to see, and it’s a smart way to go. The Horned Hand has tremendous potential to be a vital cog in Bend’s nightlife and music scene, if it can navigate the hurdles that any business like it faces: red-tape headaches, annoyed neighbors, apathy on the part of locals. I hope it clears all of those and whatever else comes its way and sticks around for a good, long while. You should, too, and you can show your support starting tonight.
To the photos! (Sorry for the quality. I am not a great photographer and conditions were challenging.)
Note The Codfather's double-decker bus just outside the bay door.
Larry and His Flask: new video, album preorder
Thursday, June 30th, 2011
A couple of notes on local thrashgrass blur Larry and His Flask:
1) The guys’ new album, “All That We Know,” is now available for preorder right here. There’s an array of colored-vinyl options for collector nerds, plus one package that comes with a hip flask engraved with the LAHF logo. Awesome!
2) The band filmed its first official video at the Rise Up Warehouse in May, and today, it showed up on Altpress. Behold:
I’m starting to wonder if the Flask might return home from the Warped Tour an even bigger deal than I thought they would. Scroll through their Facebook, Google their name … you’ll find a lot of folks out there falling in love with this band.
Countdown to Shabazz Palaces Day / The Best Songs of 2011 So Far, Part 1
Monday, June 27th, 2011
As regular readers know, Frequency was fortunate enough to read about and fall in love, love, love with Shabazz Palaces a full two years ago, when it was still a mysterious, futuristic hip-hop project bubbling up from Seattle. So I’ve been anticipating for a while now the release of “Black Up,” the first full-length album from former Digable Planet Ishmael Butler’s amazing new project.
Anyway, release day is tomorrow, and y’all should all go cop the record from Subpop so you can get a sweet patch with your order. In the meantime, check out the final track on “Black Up,” below. It’s called “Swerve… The reeping of all that is worthwhile (Noir not withstanding)” and it is without question one of my favorite tracks of the first half of 2011. The whole album blazes, but the smeared, shimmering synth line here marks “Swerved” as a standout. I cannot get enough of this track right now.
You can stream “Black Up” in its entirety by clicking here. Oh, and Pitchfork just weighed in with an 8.8.
Don’t miss Cheyenne Marie Mize tonight before Vandaveer
Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011
McMenamins Old St. Francis School hosts a whammy of a double-bill tonight in Father Luke’s Room as two rising nu-folk artists — Vandaveer and Cheyenne Marie Mize — perform both separately and together.
I’m hearing some buzz around Vandaveer’s appearance in Bend, and with good reason; the band’s newest album, “Dig Down Deep,” is a wonderful listen, full of modern, melodic Americana from the pen of Mark Charles Heidinger, who calls Washington D.C. home, but grew up in the great state of Kentucky.
There is no question that Heidinger knows his way around a song, and “Dig Down Deep” is a strong effort that’s well worth your time. But I’d argue that an even brighter — if slightly less developed — talent will open tonight’s show. Mize’s 2010 album “Before Lately” is a stunning collection of beguiling folk songs that tend to take the path less traveled to your ear. Her songwriting is slyly unconventional; she often zigs when you expect a zag, and she’s not afraid to challenge listeners with the occasional aural curveball, not unlike her stylistic ancestor Chan Marshall (aka Cat Power) or one of her contemporaries, Sharon Van Etten. The result is an album that sounds like a warm summer night spent laying in the grass staring up at the celestial expanse above. Mize was born to be your tour guide through the constellations.
Here she is doing the “Before Lately” track “Waiting” last year in Portland for the Into The Woods folks:
All of that is the long way of saying that tonight, rather than saunter from dinner over to McMenamins at around 7:30 or 8, you should make a point to be there at 7 p.m. to catch Mize’s opening set. Then, as a special bonus treat, you’ll get to see her play with Vandaveer. (Mize is also from Kentucky, and has been touring and playing with Vandaveer for a while now.)
And, as usual, this show is free. Which … which is just crazy.
Hey, as long as you’re here, check out Vandaveer (with Mize) playing “The Nature of Our Kind” from “Dig Down Deep” in an abandoned pool, filmed by the La Blogotheque squad:
Vandaveer | The Nature of our Kind | A SxSw / IC Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.
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