Music

It has been a good year in local music. In fact, one could make a convincing argument, as I may here, that 2010 has been the best year for local music in Central Oregon. Maybe it's the decline in bigger name acts coming to town or the fact that local artists can work on their craft rather than bother with pesky day jobs.

Nonesuch Records
I really couldn't feel more mixed about an album, a singer and a writer. Lonely Avenue is rooted in a cool concept: singer/piano man Ben Folds takes the words of Nick Hornby (High Fidelity, About a Boy) and makes them into songs. Easy enough, right? Well, no. Not at all.

The last time Built to Spill played in Bend, it was at the Les Schwab Amphitheater and it was raining. Wait, that's not quite accurate. It wasn't raining as much as it was dumping gallons of water from the heavens, leaving fans – many of whom were there primarily to see headliner Michael Franti and Spearhead – huddled under umbrellas and ponchos, waiting for the deluge to lift. Eventually it did, but long after the band had wrapped up its set.

I love Belle & Sebastian. We're great friends. We met early in college when roommates and other time travelers (the dudes who wear their collars up) were listening to the typical meathead rock that cheapens sex and rots your soul. I was looking for a new band to embrace and stumbled into Belle & Sebastian while trying to learn more about The Velvet Underground.

Noah Gundersen has dropped his own name from that of his band, known now only as “The Courage,” but that doesn't mean the songwriter's creative stamp isn't found on the band's new full-length record, Fearful Bones. Still, the record is a departure for Gundersen and company, who were originally known as a folky acoustic act when they began touring out of Centralia, Washington, making stops in Central Oregon at the Sisters Folk Festival. It's a remarkable departure, and the calling card of a band that's settling into its own sound.

This year Laura Veirs put out what most have considered her most complete album with July Flame and followed it up with several successful tours, making her name even more recognizable in the indie-folk rock world. But that's not why people want to talk to the Portland singer-songwriter. Veirs, you see, had a baby about six-months ago and that has managed to overshadow any musical accomplishments she may have racked up this year.

“Sufjan, follow the path – it leads to an article of eminent death.”
“Sufjan, follow your heart – follow the flame or fall on the floor.”
“Sufjan, the panic inside – the murdering ghosts that you cannot ignore.”

So goes “Vesuvius” and the mantra on The Age of Adz, Stevens most primal, explosive, and all-encompassing record to date. From the opening song, “Futile Devices,” Sufjan's vulnerable voice both echoes from the record's production and the themes he's dealing with: apologies, finding true love, concerns of future failure, distractions, overcoming demands, aging, death and the divine. It's dangerous, sexy and provocative. The bombastic synthesizers rarely let up, pushing beats, dissonance and shrills without ever abandoning Stevens' trademark melody, fluttering keys and orchestral punches.

Matt Hopper is from Wasilla, Alaska, but don't expect the rock and roll singer-songwriter to spend much time talking about that – or, for that matter, say anything about that city's most famous resident.
“To me, you either make good music or you don’t, it doesn’t have anything to do with where you’re from except maybe some of the lyrical content is derived from your surroundings and environment,” says Hopper, who is now based in Boise and has just released his most complete and fully realized record to date, Jersey Finger.

At a table in a coffeehouse somewhere in Madison, Wisc., sits a heavily bearded man who goes by the name Valient Himself. He's deeply engrossed in a fantasy novel by an author, George R.R. Martin, who he believes “blows Tolkien out of the water.” At some point during the half-hour telephone conversation, Valient Himself will talk about the fact that he and the rest of his band mates in Valient Thorr are not Earthlings, but rather hail from Venus. They're just forever marooned on our planet, he tells me.