Mike Bookey

Okay, so which one is the devil?The Devil Makes Three is used to inspiring confusion. When the Davis, California-based trio played one of the last shows at the Grove about a year ago, there were a lot of people excitedly talking about the "bluegrass band" playing that night.
But as guitarist and lead singer Pete Bernhard, as well as anyone who's ever seen the drummer-less, almost acoustic trio knows, The Devil Makes Three is not bluegrass at all.
"Most of the time when people see the stand up bass, they immediately think bluegrass. But that's not what we do," Bernhard says.
To explain the Devil Makes Three conundrum, let's propose a hypothetical scenario. You're at a wedding reception where you know hardly anyone, so you spend a considerable amount of time strolling through the buffet line where you see what appears to be a platter of burritos. The tortillas are rolled with the ends tucked in, adhering to proper burrito folding prototype and they're warm to the touch, just how you like your burritos. So you, as a casual burrito enthusiast, excitedly bite into the tortilla, only to find that this isn't a burrito at all, but rather some sort of spinach, turkey and cream cheese wrap. You're disappointed because you wanted a burrito, but you eat it, not wanting to be seen spitting fake burrito into the garbage can. But as you eat, you realize that you like spinach, turkey and cream cheese wraps and proceed to devour the remainder of the platter in a display of unbridled gluttony.

There is typically something artistic going down at Mirror Pond Plaza (often referred to as "The Circle" among locals), the picturesque brick area bordering Drake Park. Most times there is a guitar strumming busker or perhaps some fire dancing or juggling, or maybe something a bit more structured - I once saw a group of 15 or so pre-teens perform a musical number from Aladdin in full costumes.
On Saturday, there won't be any youth productions of Disney musicals - I don't think - but there will be a remarkably diverse showcase of Bend's local music. Often thought of as the unofficial center of downtown Bend, the Plaza makes for the most fitting location for the first-ever Downtown Sound; a free all-day gathering of 14 local acts ranging from indie rock to hip-hop.
Seeing as how the show sprang in part from the brain of Jay Tablet (JT) an MC in Bend's own Cloaked Characters (who are slated for an evening performance before Mosley Wotta closes out the show), the music does lean toward the DJ and hip-hop faction as the day goes on. That said, the diversity of acts is nonetheless impressive and is another sign of what seems to be a recent synergy taking place between Bend's different musical camps. We're probably not going to see a bluegrass/punk/hip-hop collaboration at Downtown Sound, but the range of artists on the bill suggests that we might not be too far from that sort of hootenanny taking shape.

Being all sly about it. There is probably a tribute band for every major American or European rock band you can think of and most of them have names that unmistakably link them to the band they idolize and emulate. Zeppelin tributes have names like Led Zepagain, Physical Graffiti, Whole Lotta Zep and Beatles emulators go by monikers like the Backbeats and Hello Goodbye. There's a Portland band called Appetite for Deception - and yes, they play the music and wear the leather of Guns N' Roses.
 
On Sunday, Joey Porter brings his nine-piece Sly and the Family Stone tribute to the Les Schwab Amphitheater for the Summer Sundays kickoff, and I thought this would be a great opportunity to discuss the tribute band phenomena.
Some, and possibly most, tribute bands are the result of an excessively enthusiastic love of a particular band gone overboard. When I was 13 years old, I found myself having unintentionally become the guitarist of a Nirvana tribute band. The intention was never to become a tribute of any kind, but we played Nirvana songs exclusively while wearing our Nirvana T-shirts and listening to Nirvana on cassette tapes during breaks in our rehearsals. We wore our guitars right around crotch level, just like Kurt Cobain and Krist Noveselic, and donned thermal undershirts while trying to let our hair grow long. I grew out of that Nirvana phase, but I can see how some might stick with it, taking the delusion to the next level by making a career of not being a rock star, but pretending to be a rock star.

This band is not playing at your church this sunday. Honest. You can try to avoid the Grateful Dead. You can attempt to bury your tie-dyes and ticket stubs in the closet and scrape those dancing bears off the back of your Volkswagen. But you can never quite get away from the influence of the Dead, even 40 plus years since the band's inception and almost 15 since its end. There's a slew of factors contributing to the lasting power of the band's influence, but none as impacting as the fact that most of the band is not only still alive, but still playing music - and not just music, Grateful Dead music.
This is why a band like Donna Jean and the Tricksters, although new to the scene, will find success. The band also put out a remarkably fresh-sounding self-titled record - that helps.
As the more adept Dead-o-philes, probably already deduced by now. This band is made up primarily of the Dead's longtime vocalist Donna Jean Godchaux and the Zen Tricksters - a New York-based jam band that's been around since before anyone referred to such acts as "jam bands."