Emma Hill « Frequency blog: Music news and reviews from Bend and Central Oregon, by Ben Salmon

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This week in GO! Magazine’s music section

Friday, October 7th, 2011

Portland soul-pop band Dirty Mittens are making the trek over to Bend for the first time for a show at McMenamins on Wednesday. I spoke with frontwoman Chelsea Morrisey about her band’s fine new album “Heart of Town” and making music in the 21st century. Here’s an excerpt:

“It’s a world where, when you have a good single, people want to hear it now,” Morrisey said. “They want to hear it on YouTube and everywhere. There’s no time to waste, really, because that song’s not going to be relevant (in a year).

“I can write a song this afternoon and have it up on Soundcloud in an hour,” she continued, “and it’s like people’s ability to do that just changes the way music sounds all the time. Trends are moving so much more quickly.”

One thing that’s not trendy, but timeless: A great live show. Dirty Mittens prioritize theirs, putting in hours to ensure folks who show up to a gig don’t walk away disappointed, because you never get a second chance to make a first impression.

“We’re in an era where people just don’t really focus enough energy on their live show anymore,” Morrisey said. “It’s so easy to get popular from an MP3 on (influential music website) Pitchfork, it’s like they don’t even need to because people are going to pay to see their show just to be seen.”

I hope you’ll click right here and read the whole thing.

A couple other things worth highlighting this week:
–Portland country band Cloverdayle features the vocals of Rachel Hamar, who grew up here and graduated from Bend High School in 1997. They’re playing Maverick’s Country Bar and Grill on Saturday. Read all about it right here.

–The second half of 2011 seems to have brought about a reggae resurgence in Central Oregon, including a show tonight by Richie Spice. Read about the reggae uprising and Spice by clicking here.

Elsewhere in this week’s music section: Polyrhythmics, Sonos, ukelele master Aldrine Guerrero, Riders in the Sky, Emma Hill, Strive Roots, and a couple of warm-up punk shows at Innovation Theatre before the big launch party next weekend.

Tags: Aldrine Guerrero, Cloverdayle, Dirty Mittens, Emma Hill, Innovation Theatre, Polyrhythmics, Richie Spice, Riders In The Sky, Sonos, Strive Roots
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This week in GO! Magazine’s music section

Friday, January 28th, 2011

Morning, folks. Short, simple roundup of what’s in GO! Magazine today. Find all this stuff at The Bulletin’s music page:

There are a bunch of solid shows in town this week, and it seemed to me that an inordinate number of them featured female artists, so I packaged those together. Click right here to read up on the contemporary folk of Beth Wood and Shireen Amini, the sultry Americana of Emma Hill, the soulful hip-hop of God-Des & She (who are headlining the That’s So Gay black and white party), and VJ Kittyrox, who runs the popular 80s Video Dance Attack party, which is exactly what it sounds like.

Elsewhere in this week’s music section: local band Roses at Gunpoint will play to raise money for paralyzed snowboarder Tyler Eklund, Empty Space Orchestra ends its four-week residency at Silver Moon, Elliot and Adventure Galley headline a Rise Up show at Century Center, The Quons are at Velvet, Willie Carmichael is at Three Creeks Brewing Co., and new music spot The Marilyn hosts Justin Lavik / Grace Laxson tonight and The Sweet Harlots Saturday. Plus, Mountain Country Idol has started in Redmond, pitting several local artists against each other over several weeks in an effort to find Central Oregon’s finest country act.

Tags: 80s Video Dance Attack, Adventure Galley, Beth Wood, Elliot, Emma Hill, Empty Space Orchestra, God-Des & She, Justin Lavik, Mountain Country Idol, Roses at Gunpoint, Shireen Amini, That's So Gay, The Quons, The Sweet Harlots, Willie Charmichael
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This week in GO! Magazine’s music section

Friday, August 6th, 2010

If you haven’t heard his name, at least take a few minutes to listen to William Fitzsimmons’ music. The guy writes beautifully downcast songs in the same vein as Sufjan Stevens and Iron & Wine’s Sam Beam. I talked to Fitzsimmons earlier this week about his current state of mind after going through some dark times. Here’s an excerpt:

Last year, Fitzsimmons told National Public Radio he was looking forward to writing new material and moving on from that dark place in his life. Earlier this week … he said he’s currently working on songs for a new album, which he hopes to release next year.

As you might expect, the process has been refreshing.

“It’s a little different. It’s nice, because I’m in a different place in my life than I was a few years ago, fortunately,” Fitzsimmons said. “Things aren’t quite as dark or as morbid, so writing the songs … I don’t want to say it was fun, but it sure as hell was a lot more fun than it was before.”

Fitzsimmons has been unveiling those new songs at shows over the past month. He describes them not as happy, but hopeful.

“I decided I kind of wanted to write about things that were more in the line of healing and restoration, sort of the polar opposite of what I was writing about before,” he said. “So instead of things being destroyed, it was (about) things being mended and fixed and put back together. It feels good but it also feels right. It feels like it’s where my head has been.”

I hope you’ll click here to read the whole thing.

Elsewhere in this week’s music section, you’ll find short stories on the fine, fuzz-pop band The Parson Red Heads at McMenamins Old St. Francis School, the three-day jazzstravaganza that is Jade’s Jazz Festival in La Pine, and the Southern jam band Dangermuffin, who win the “hard worker” award for playing four shows in town over the next six days.

Plus: David Bromberg, Jena Rickards’ CD-release show, Emma Hill and Her Gentlemen Callers, David Jacobs-Strain, Five Pint Mary and the Bend Fire Pipe and Drum Band, and an early heads-up on High Street playing a show to benefit Sisters schools. Want more options? Check out The Bulletin’s complete music listing.

Tags: Dangermuffin, David Bromberg, David Jacobs-Strain, Emma Hill, Five Pint Mary, High Street, Jade's Jazz Festival, Jena Rickards, Sisters Starry Nights, The Parson Red Heads, William Fitzsimmons
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This week in GO! Magazine’s music section

Friday, February 5th, 2010

Bearfoot will perform Saturday at Sisters High School for Sisters Folk Festival’s Winter Concert Series. Here’s an excerpt from my story on the band:

Bearfoot’s wings are fully spread on “Doors and Windows,” released last year on Compass Records. It’s the band’s first album with new fiddler/vocalist/songwriter Odessa Jorgensen (formerly of The Biscuit Burners), and it was Bearfoot’s first recording session powered by a record company. Compass exerted a little bit of welcomed influence, Hamre said.

“They kind of made us focus — which is good — more on radio play,” she said. “(They helped us) make the CD cohesive, where all the songs make sense together.”

Indeed, “Doors and Windows” is a wonderful and mature album, apropos of a modern-day string band that has grown up before the eyes of bluegrass nation. It’s jam-packed with toe-tapping melodies and gorgeous vocals, not to mention songs that keep one foot in old-time music and one in the pop-grass world that made superstars out of Alison Krauss and Nickel Creek.

Read the whole thing here.

Here’s an excerpt from my column on last weekend’s Grammy Awards:

(Pink) sauntered out clad head-to-toe in white, like some Star Wars princess. Snooze. But then she shed the robe (leaving her nearly nude), climbed into a long white sheet draped from the ceiling and performed a full-on acrobatics routine a few dozen feet in the air, half while dripping wet. And she never missed a note. This was no joke; I actually worried for her safety, but she nailed it. Maybe she was raised in the circus. I barely heard the song, but she deserves (credit) for her guts.

My recap of the rest of the show isn’t nearly as positive. Read it here.

Also in the music section this week: Cash’d Out pays tribute to The Man in Black, The Aggrolites open for Slightly Stoopid, singer-songwriter Emma Hill returns to town, Rise Up throws a Haiti benefit concert, Gary Fulkerson plays guitar at Velvet and local metal band Inimica leads a heavy bill at Players. And, as always, there’s more in our complete music calendar.

Tags: Bearfoot, Cash'd Out, Emma Hill, Gary Fulkerson, Grammy Awards, Inimica, Rise Up, Slightly Stoopid, The Aggrolites
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