Sound Stories & Interviews

Existential and profound may not be two qualities that come to mind when most people think of hip-hop, but they probably haven't heard of Brother Ali, who once proclaimed himself in a rap the “cross between John Gotti and Mahatma Gandhi.”
While Ali's no stranger to the rap game, he owes allegiance to the indie label Rhymesayers where he's among a tight-knit family of other Minnesota-based rappers like Atmosphere and Evidence.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, NEIL. What the hell is this? I know: You're old, you're tired. You don't want to play the game anymore. I get it. But Dreams? It's just disappointing, man – especially on the heels of Home Before Dark, which was such a great late-career album.

More than 20 years ago, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones started playing Christmas songs on their tours during the holiday season. It began with bassist Victor Wooten playing a tune solo and soon grew into the entire band rocking out a medley of holiday favorites.
Over the years, they'd continue to toss out a Christmas tune during the appropriate season, but over the course of the band's legendary run as one of the premiere instrumental acts in the world, the idea of holiday music has never been too far off the radar.

Bands are supposed to move to Los Angeles to make it big. Or else New York, specifically Brooklyn these days. For the past 50 years (and maybe longer), bands from across the country have packed up and headed to one corner of the country or the other in the hopes that the magnificent flying rock and roll unicorn swoops down and carries them off to stardom.

It's almost as if they were coached by Steve Albini. On their latest record, Chicago indie rock band Shipping News channels its best Shellac: bleating out lyrics Albini-style on “The Delicate,” bringing melody and discord together on “(Morays or) Demons.”

Ascetic Junkies guitarist and co-vocalist Matt Harmon was riding a bike near his southeast Portland home when he noticed a piece of paper hanging from a tree. He couldn't quite read what was written on the page, but being the sort of curious individual who stops when he sees out-of-place items in trees, Harmon turned around and grabbed the paper. On it he found a crayon drawing featuring a bird flying out of the bottom of a cage. Then, there were the words “this cage has no bottom,” accompanied by an arrow pointing up at the tree.

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.