Sound Stories & Interviews

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.

Louis Jordan and his Tympany 5
Go Blow Your Horn
Released 1957

You might think you've been having fun, but if you haven't heard a good dose of Louis Jordan lately, you're a bore. Louis Jordan is the connection between the Big Band era of the '40s and the rise of R&B. At one point in the mid-'40s, Louis Jordan's recordings held the #1 spot on the black music charts for almost a year. Go Blow Your Horn reflects the upbeat feeling of pop culture of the '50s and puts you on the street corner in the jumping jive world of this incredible sax player.

There is a radio station in town – I won't hint as to where it resides on the FM dial – that has devoted itself to playing Christmas music around the clock. And “around the clock” is not being used figuratively here. If you wake up at 3:18am to take a leak, you can flip on your radio (if you are the type of person that has a radio in your bathroom) and get properly Mannheim Steamrollered. You can also drive to work tapping the steering wheel along to “Little Drummer Boy” and drive home tapping the same steering wheel to a different version of “Little Drummer Boy.”
So, yes, people love holiday music and it's for that reason that Aaron Meyer, one of the Northwest's most skilled violinists, has become a master of the season, even if he isn't exactly wild about “Jingle Bells.”

Erin Cole-Baker
Talon and Spur

Erin Cole-Baker has earned her stripes in Bend's local music scene. As one half of The Erins, Cole-Baker displayed strong songwriting capabilities and an ability to fit in well with different folk styles. Now, with her solo release Talon and Spur, we hear what seems like a matured songwriter whose songs are solidly structured and lyrically unique. The album proves one of the most complete folk-oriented offerings to come out of Central Oregon in recent memory. Rooted in Americana, the record also echoes the indie acoustic vibe that's been blowing up in Portland for the past few years.