Sound Stories & Interviews

“I feel like the ska janitor, you know? I'm coming through with a broom and cleaning up everybody's mess,” says Rob “Bucket” Hingley, the front man and sole remaining original member of The Toasters.
His metaphor is more than apt. While it's difficult to know for sure, The Toasters were most likely the first ska band to come out of America back in 1981. Now, some 30 years later, they are one of the most well-known bands of that genre still on the touring circuit. Sure, they benefited from the ska explosion of the mid-1990s, but whereas so many of those horn-laden, suspender-wearing acts faded into oblivion (you just don't hear people talking about Save Ferris anymore, do you?) the Toasters, or at least Hingley, has survived. And if he has to clean up the genre, then so be it.

There's something about seeing music outside. Maybe it's the bigger crowds or the fresh air or the fact that you can spill a few drops of your beer on the ground without feeling too bad about it. Over the past three years, the music at WinterFest has become one of the biggest draws of the annual event – which is worth noting, given that WinterFest also includes ice sculptures, motorcycles and skiers/snowboarders launching into the stratosphere.
Last year, temperatures well below freezing didn't discourage folks from crowding in to the Old Mill to see performances from acts like Sweatshop Union and Dirty Dozen Brass Band, among others. Without WinterFest, we in Central Oregon would be looking at a gap in outdoor live music as long as seven months, which explains why folks are willing to bundle up and head out in the middle of February.

Johnny Cash
American VI: Ain't No Grave
American Recordings/ Lost Highway

Editor's Note: For all of you that caught the Cash'd Out show at the Domino Room last weekend (check www.tsweekly.com/blender for video from the show), here's some more about the Man in Black to keep you in the country spirit.

The final installment of Johnny Cash's posthumously released American recordings series, American VI is full of hurt, devotion, malaise and dejection – everything, really, that you'd expect from a well-rounded Cash album. The first few tracks – particularly his cover of Sheryl Crow's “Redemption Day,” a song I had to pause twice to keep from breaking into tears at the office – are bone-chillingly haunting, and eerie in the beautifully sad way that only Cash could pull off honestly.

It's been more than three weeks since the devastating earthquake hit Haiti, taking 170,000 lives (and possibly many more) and decimating the infrastructure of the already poverty-stricken island nation. There's been an outpouring of donations and other support from not just the neighboring United States, but also from around the world, to help the country.
The stories surrounding the earthquake, most of them heartbreaking, have flooded the media, and the phrase “Text Haiti to 90999… ” has become omnipresent. But as time goes by, the news reports will begin to fade. According to Jesse Roberts, founder of the locally based humanitarian non-profit, Rise Up International, Haiti's need for aid will endure.

It's a Friday afternoon in Portland and like so many others of us on this, or any other Friday afternoon, Sean Badders is trying to make it to happy hour in time.
But he's not rushing to grab a cheap beer and some discounted hot wings. Rather, Badders is en route to meet up with the two other members of his band, The Quick & Easy Boys, at the Laurelthirst Public House. This is where for the past year the band could be found about once a month, playing to the sort of crowd that likes to, as Badders puts it, “dance at six o'clock in the afternoon.”
For the past couple years, people have been gladly dancing and drinking along to the sounds of The Quick & Easy Boys in Portland as well as the other cities through which the band has toured. They've become, in a way, the ideal bar band – a three piece rooted in rock and roll that wears its funk and honky tonk influences on its sleeve. Maybe this is what the Hold Steady would sound like if they came up in Oregon and not New York City.

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.