One of Bend’s favorite dudes, G. Love aka Garrett Dutton, is bringing the Special Sauce back to town on Thursday. This time, he’s supporting a more rustic, acoustic album called “Fixin’ to Die” that he made with Seth and Scott Avett of The Avett Brothers. I chatted with the man about his new musical direction.

“We thought of those last three records as a triumvirate,” he said. “With the economy and the state of the record business and everything like that — it being harder and harder to sell records — it was just like, you know what, we gotta do something really different. So we decided we were gonna go back to my roots as a coffee-shop singer and a Delta bluesman and really … go all the way with that.”

Enter the Avetts, a couple of North Carolina boys whose new-school old-time string band is at the forefront of the current roots-music revival. Once the G. Love camp decided on the direction of the new record, they set their sights on the ideal producers.

“They do things in such an honest way,” Dutton said. “We felt like (we should) go back to making records how I used to make ’em: real stripped down, live performances, no frills. Just good, old-fashioned, honest music.”

Sounds like Dutton was super-inspired by working with the Avetts. Click here to read the whole story.

In Feedback this week, I tell you how you can support your local music scene by supporting Bend’s local, independent radio station, KPOV and it’s local, independent record store, Ranch Records. And then I tell you why you should.

You see, places like KPOV and Ranch are vital to the uniqueness of a town like Bend. With them in place, interesting, different and/or obscure music can infiltrate our town and our ears, thanks to DJs and record store clerks who are as passionate about good music as you are.

Each is as important a piece of the local music scene as a punk club, a jam session or an exciting new rock band. And without them, our funky little town would be a lot less funky, and a lot more boring.

Funky is good. Boring is bad. The existence of KPOV and Ranch are good things, and their existence depends on your support.

I hope you’ll go read the whole thing by clicking here.

Elsewhere in this week’s music section: the wonderful Gregory Alan Isakov plays the PoetHouse, The Swingle Singers visit the Tower Theatre, Andre Nickatina returns to the Domino Room, Sapient’s back at MadHappy Lounge, Paleface comes to McMenamins and Silver Moon hosts Tone Red tonight and Boxcar Stringband Saturday. Solid!