Music

Longtime local rocker and one-time Ranch Records employee Don Hoxie is so clear on his album opener, “Welcome,” that he's not impressed by the lack of skill and hard work demonstrated on current records. I agree, music seems too easy to record and sell. Problem is, few artists with strong musical chops make memorable albums. Yes, Joe Satriani might wail on gee-tar… but his albums blow. Just because you can play guitar doesn't necessarily give you the green light to record.

Whether it's by design or just a happy accident, the Les Schwab Amphitheater (LSA) concert series has managed to attract some of America's foremost songwriters and storytellers over the past few years, a line-up that includes Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard on the country side and Beck and Bob Dylan on the pop and folk side with plenty of good natured (classic) rocking in between – think Lynyrd Skynyrd and Steve Miller.

Mat Kearney, the pride of Eugene, Oregon, makes the sort of music that's perfect for doctors to make out to in hospitals. Not real doctors with their stethoscopes and decades of education and sleep-deprived, stress-laden minds, but rather television doctors. You know, the ones with the sort of good looks that make super models want to vomit more than they normally do and who trade sexual partners like Brian Cashman trades designated hitters.Of course, we're talking about Grey's Anatomy here, the television show that helped launch Kearney into the mainstream, exposing three of his songs, including the smash hit “Breathe In Breathe Out.”

If you judge Kousefly's Down By A Billion by its faux-metal cover art, you might expect late '90s-style rock. And while the local duo that has been gigging regularly around Bend for several years is anything but Godsmack wannabes, it takes several songs before the album realizes its direction.

This year's Pickathon brought together 44 bands, covering styles ranging from folk to indie rock and Americana on Pendarvis farm in Happy Valley, OR. Originally conceived as a “better way to throw a party,” by founder Zale Schoenborn, an engineer by day, the festival, now in its 12th year, welcomed more than 4,000 people to the sprawling 80-acre farm.
By most anyone's standards, the festival was a mellow affair. The weekend's uniform was flannel, wayfarers and a generous amount of dirt mixed with sweat that made for a natural sunscreen covering every inch of exposed skin. The mellow vibe was aided by the fact that each band played multiple times during the festival. Each of the six stages was intimate, from the 50-person indoor Workshop Barn to the Woods Stage, which, like its name suggests, was in the middle of the woods and made from tree branches twisted together. The main stages, the Fir Meadows Stage and Mountain View Stage, allowed anyone who desired to stand at the foot of the stage, and those seated on the lawn were shaded by huge spider web-like swaths of white and orange fabric.

The Quick & Easy Boys
Red Light Rabbit
PerCapita Records

Well, The Quick & Easy Boys have done the seemingly impossible – they've managed to make a largely funky record without coming off even the least bit corny. Those who've seen the Portland band live and wondered how the trio's energy-packed live show would translate to the recorded medium have a firm answer in Red Light Rabbit.

Robert Randolph has never really had a problem getting noticed. Musicians, critics and fans have been raving about him since he was a teenager, playing his pedal steel guitar only in church. While he received plenty of attention, he may have been considered more of a novelty than one of the most promising musicians of his generation.
Now, after going from church to bars to the jam band scene to mainstream popularity, Randolph seems to have truly hit his stride and settled into his own identity with his band's latest record, We Walk This Road, released earlier this summer. Produced by T Bone Burnett – who could be called the past decade's producer laureate of American roots music – the record finds Robert Randolph and the Family Band digging deep into the annals of folk and roots with covers of Blind Willie Johnson and Bob Dylan, as well as new takes on tracks from John Lennon and Prince. But the record also showcases, as it should, the fierce talent with which Randolph and his band are so equipped.

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti
Before Today
4ad Records
Not trying to be a jerky, judgy-McJudgerton here, but I absolutely hate the name of this band. It sounds like a joke. A not-funny one.

Dangermuffin isn't a radioactive muffin. It also isn't a dangerous robotic muffin that will aid other rebellious pastries in taking over the world in 2012. Rather, Dangermuffin is a self-proclaimed “Jamericana” band from Folly Beach, South Carolina that is storming the nation for the first time this summer and stopping in for a string of shows in Bend, a town to which they've already taken a liking to.
“We were out in Oregon at the beginning of the summer and we did the McMenamins Great Northwest Tour. Bend was the best [stop] by far,” says Dangermuffin frontman Dan Lotti.