From Soul to Metal in 24 Hours | The Source Weekly - Bend, Oregon

From Soul to Metal in 24 Hours

OK, so Bend's music scene might not be the most diverse in the Northwest, but don't tell that to Team Sound Check, which went from

OK, so Bend's music scene might not be the most diverse in the Northwest, but don't tell that to Team Sound Check, which went from a club full of aging Deadheads to a raucous bar packed with metal heads in the span of 24 hours. How's that for genre shock?

Thursday night, we were at the Domino Room where Steve Kimock Crazy Engine brought in a dedicated fan base to watch the guitar master's new band, which funkified the place for two full sets of originals with a few choice covers mixed in for good measure.

This show featured what was easily the highest-rocking-value-to-strangest-stage-presence ratio Sound Check has seen in Bend. Crazy Engine has Kimock tucked into a corner of the stage, the massive (and massively talented) Melvin Seals hunched over his Hammond organ while Kimock's youthful son John Morgan Kimock mans the kit alongside delightfully nerdy bassist Janis Wallin. Oh yeah, and the band also features a pair of female backup singers that could pass as Sound Check's grandparents. Yeah, they look weird up there, but damn, Crazy Engine brings the heat with their funky take on rock and soul. And it bears mention that this band has played less than 10 shows together.

On Friday night, Sound Check was bound for Dirty Penny, a Poison cover band turned self-serious glam rock outfit that has a set of "original" songs. It's hard to tell at times whether Dirty Penny is a tongue-in-cheek nod to pre-Clinton America, or an honest-to-God attempt to ignore Nigel Tufnel.

Either way, they're confirmation that nothing from the '80s will ever be cool again - no matter what kind of eyewear decisions that the Pitt-Jolie clan makes. That said, bandanas off to everybody that dug their stone washed jeans, Axel Rose wigs, or in the case of one reveler, male eyeliner for this exercise in self-indulgence. We won't forget you, babe. -M.B. and R.E.J.


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