Frequency blog: Music news and reviews from Bend and Central Oregon, by Ben Salmon | The Bulletin

Sounds from Central Oregon and beyond

Archive for the ‘locals’ Category

Local music news: vote for The Tree Dwellers, new songs from We Are Brontosaurus, Chicks with Picks, and El Dante is no more

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

Odds and ends from your local music scene:

-Man, I blew it on this one. For the past several days, Bend’s The Tree Dwellers have been competing for votes in a national battle of the bands happening at something called garagebandplayoff.com. Their voting window closes tomorrow. So go here and vote for them. Vote for them a bunch; it’s not against the rules.

More than 100 bands entered this thing, according to Dwellers keyboardist Forrest Grenfell, and The Tree Dwellers were selected as one of the top 24. If you go vote for them enough, they’ll move on to the top 8. The champ will be crowned on Dec. 18.

-Youthful indie rockers We Are Brontosaurus has posted three new live recordings on its MySpace profile. You should go check out “Nausea,” “Post Modern Post” and “Mr. Man,” because these guys are getting better fast.

-In the non-teenagers category of this post, I’m sad to report that local funk-rock-jam band El Dante has split up. I asked guitarist Gabe Johnson for a reason and got the long version, which I tremendously appreciate, but I’m not going to go into here. Instead, the short version: Different band members wanted to play different styles of music, and that caused a rift in the group. Some other stuff went down, too, but yeah, that’s pretty much the main thing. It happens. A lot.

Word on the street is a couple bands may be rising from El Dante’s ashes, but mum’s the word on that for now. I’ll let you know what’s up as soon as I hear something official.

-Silver Moon Brewing & Taproom will host a benefit for the local women’s shelter Saving Grace on Nov. 27, and the lineup will feature four local, lady-led bands. Very cool, right? I think so. Anyway, here’s the flyer:

Tags: El Dante, Silver Moon, The Tree Dwellers, We Are Brontosaurus
Posted in locals, news | No Comments »

Video: Zombies do the “Thriller” dance on the streets of downtown Bend

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

From Thursday night. This is absolutely fantastic.

Thanks to Luke Menasco for passing this along.

There are two other videos from different vantage points here and here. If you can only watch one, though, make sure it’s the one above. It’s the best.

Posted in locals, oddities | 3 Comments »

Eric Tollefson goes to L.A.

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

The marquee at Whisky a Go Go touts Bend's Eric Tollefson

Late last week, local blues-rock singer-songwriter guy Eric Tollefson sent along the picture at right.

It’s not the world’s greatest photograph, but it’s the content that matters: On Oct. 20, Tollefson and Tim Schroeder (a local guitarist and employee of The Bulletin) traveled to Southern California to perform at the world-famous Whisky a Go Go nightclub in West Hollywood. “Driving up and seeing the Whisky for the first time in person and having this on the marquee was too cool,” Tollefson said. It was, he said, “the time of our lives.”

The Whisky has occupied the same corner in West Hollywood since early 1964, and it has hosted most of rock ‘n’ roll’s biggest names, including The Byrds, The Who, Van Halen, the Ramones, Guns N’ Roses and Nirvana. The Doors were the club’s house band for a while.

Tollefson got the gig after his sister saw a Whisky ad calling for acoustic acts to play the club and submitted a link to his MySpace page and his cell number. “I was going to follow up and send them our new electronic press kit, and they ended up calling me the next week to offer me some dates,” Tollefson said. “(I) was shocked and excited.”

After playing the legendary club with Schroeder, Tollefson called to thank the Whisky staff and was offered more dates, he said. Next time, he hopes to take his entire band — which includes Pat Pearsall and Lindsey Elias of Empty Space Orchestra — down to L.A. “The good news is, they want us as a steady gig,” he said.

Tollefson is also working on other out-of-town dates in Idaho, Colorado and Nevada, he said.

Only six months ago, Tollefson was a relative unknown when he burst onto Bend’s music scene with his album “The Sum of Parts.” Maybe you knew who the guy was, but I pay pretty close attention to local music, and I had never heard of him before I wrote this article in advance of his CD-release gig at Silver Moon Brewing in April.

In the months since, though, Tollefson has done very well for himself, regularly headlining Silver Moon and scoring spots opening for Jackie Greene and G. Love & Special Sauce. That’s no shock, really. From the first time I listened to “The Sum of Parts,” I thought this guy had an opportunity to find an audience outside Central Oregon, thanks primarily to his catchy songs and easygoing vibe, like Jack Johnson if he were from the mountains instead of the beach.

If you haven’t seen Tollefson live, your next chance locally is at Nov. 7 at Silver Moon. Rumors of a Tollefson/Empty Space gig at the Domino Room in December are floating around, too, so let’s hope that comes to fruition.

Tags: Eric Tollefson
Posted in locals, out of town | No Comments »

Person People branches out

Friday, October 23rd, 2009

Local hip-hop collective Person People is on its way over to Eugene as we speak to rock a show at that town’s venerable music venue, the WOW Hall, as an opening act for Wu Tang Clan legend Ghostface Killah. Check out drummer Jared Forqueran and the new PP van!

It’s good to see these guys (and gal) with the van, the out-of-town dates, and the seemingly new-found drive to build the PP brand beyond Central Oregon. A few weeks ago, the crew did a short tour through Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, and after the Ghostface gig, they’ll play in Portland on Saturday night, a special pre-Halloween show in Bend next Friday, and then two dates in Boise and Portland opening for jazz-hop icons Digable Planets.

This is a big deal for Person People. One of the best ways for a young band to carry its name and sound beyond its hometown is to score opening slots for bigger, better-known acts of the same ilk. A fan of a band like Digable Planets, for example, may take notice of Person People’s unconventional mix of rock and hip-hop, and may even drop by the merch table to pick up a copy of the band’s excellent 2009 album “heARTbeats.” That’s money in the pocket, but even more valuable is the potential for impressing some folks and the word-of-mouth marketing that follows.

It’s no coincidence that Person People’s sudden burst of activity and travel comes shortly after it signed on with Gabe Johnson’s locally based (but nationally reaching) booking agency In The Pocket Artists. I saw PP DJ A-Bomb at Silver Moon a while back and asked him where all this road-warrior energy was coming from. “Gabe’s doing his job,” was his reply. So when I saw Johnson at the Bend Roots Revival, I asked him why he signed the band. He said he saw a series of Person People concerts over the past year or so that convinced him the group had tightened up its act and was ready to take its show on the road and, specifically, into bigger cities.

He’s right. Since the band’s inception in 2002, Person People has been a bit of an enigma on the local music scene. For a long time, they seemed to possess the talent needed to break out beyond our region, but lacked a certain something — motivation, business acumen, money, or all of the above — to make it happen. But things have changed. The group has a very good (and good-looking) album it can offer now, and the addition of the live instruments not only took PP’s live show to another level, but sets the band apart as a unique entity and sound on the regional hip-hop scene.

The partnership with In The Pocket is another piece of the puzzle, and an important one. With the agency’s resources and contacts on board, Person People’s horizons are a lot broader these days. Let’s hope these trips to neighboring states and dates supporting big names are just the beginning.