Music

Spoon
Transference
Merge Records

It doesn't take long for lead singer and songwriter Britt Daniel and the rest of this Austin-based outfit to establish on Transference that they're more than capable of picking up where they left off with the outstanding 2007 effort Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. But it's where the band goes from there that really makes Transference shine, not just apart from the rest of the band's catalog, but apart from most of the other indie pop style offerings out there.

There is no ska scene in Bend. In fact, there's probably not a ska scene in most U.

Otis Redding
The Soul Album
Released 1966

What a feat. In his short 26 years of life, Otis Redding left behind a bunch of studio albums and some of the greatest passion and desperation packed soul recordings. Otis is most known for his pop songs, but The Soul Album offers varying textures and styles that far surpass his other recordings. From horns that pull you in to soulful vocals that demand your attention and compassion, this recording has it all.

Lesli Wood, her short, asymmetrical hairstyle streaked with fire engine red, is rarely still on stage. She claps, she jumps and, now, with her new band, The Redwood Plan, she dances.
After a decade spent at the helm of Seattle punk act Ms. Led, Wood is now wrapping up her first year with The Redwood Plan, the dance-rock quartet she formed with several other mainstays of the Seattle's rock scene. Her crowds have traded mosh pits for hip-shaking, but the Lesli Wood that earned a reputation as the political rabble-rousing lead singer of Ms. Led still rocks.
She still rocks, that is, when she's on tour, like she'll be this week when she comes to Bend's Players Bar and Grill on Friday, but during most days, Wood, like so many of us, is behind a desk. You see, though her mostly black clothes and aforementioned distinct haircut might not suggest it, Wood is an attorney and has been for the past five years.

“I feel like I've come a long way. Not just as a musician, but as a person,” says Hanif Collins, who goes by the name Luck-One when he's dishing out his increasingly buzzed about brand of hip-hop in Portland clubs.
It's a Monday morning and Collins is getting ready to head to his day job as a marketer for a vinyl window company. But the job is just a fragment of Collins' intentionally busy schedule that also sees him writing and recording music, booking shows, running his own entertainment company, working with a non-profit organization as well keeping up with his voracious reading habit.

“You have to play a show.”
“Why?”
“You just have to play a show. What's the point of having a band if you're not going to play a show?”
“Where would we play?”
“I dunno, but you have to play a show.”
This back-and-forth replayed itself on a loop for a good hour in my kitchen. It was long after 1 a.m., making it officially my birthday, which gave me license, it seemed, to blur the boundary between friend and music writer. I'd already failed in an attempt to identify Olympia, Rainier and Pabst in a blind taste test earlier in the night, so I had nothing else to lose.

Blue Moon Bash
Some may find it odd that our very own Silver Moon Brewing Co would host a New Year's Eve party with the name “Blue Moon Bash,” but it's with good reason. Going with the moon theme, this will be the first New Year's Eve in 20 years that there will be a blue moon. In case you didn't know, a blue moon isn't actually blue – approximately every 2.7 years we get an extra full moon in addition to the usual 12. Silver Moon is bringing some of your favorite local bands under the big blue moon to their stage – Empty Space Orchestra, Mosley Wotta, and Eric Tollefson. And what makes it even better? It's absolutely free! Word is, in addition to tasty microbrews the Moon now serves champagne, so there'll be plenty of bubbly to go around at midnight. 9pm. Silver Moon Brewing Co, 24 NW Greenwood Ave. Free. 21 and up

Sufjan Stevens
The BQE
Asthmatic Kitty Records

Editor's Note: This review was scheduled to run in October, but never made it into the paper. But since it's one of the cooler albums of the year, we're running it anyway!
The BQE is cinematic suite inspired by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and the Hula-Hoop. It was commissioned by Brooklyn Academy of Music and performed live two years ago with the subject being the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. This stretch of road is considered to be one of the ugliest expressways in the country, but Sufjan's approach portrays it differently, as evidenced by the cover.

Oh, the music video. The revered opportunity for rock stars to be actors and actors to hang with rock stars. It's a chance for a band to get the faces behind their music out to the people and for fans to see a different side of their act.
Or, perhaps it was those things before shows like Jersey Shore and similar nonsense took over MTV. But the music video still exists and local band The Dirty Words, arguably our only vetted non-high-school indie rock act in Bend, is making one. But they're not really going to be in it.
The band has put a call out across the web for submissions from fans and anyone else who wants to be in a music video, asking them to record themselves “performing” the band's song “Damn Jacket.” They are not asking for high production value, actually they don't want that at all. Rather, the band is asking for distinctively DIY videos from webcams, cell phones and built-in laptops.