Sound Stories & Interviews

The Kids are all right and they're all here.The youth music scene in Bend sometimes feels like one of those things
that you're pretty sure exists, but you've never actually seen, so
you're not sure - like a panda bear or a McRib sandwich.
After two
years of trying to track down some sort of high school basement show
where we could send a youthful reporter (or at least youthful looking
reporter), it seemed like we'd found a real-live teen-age rock show.
The show at PoetHouse Art on Saturday night was a fundraiser for Rise
Up International, the Bend-based socially conscious clothing retailer
and humanitarian outfit, and featured a lineup that included names like
Mosley Wotta and Empty Space Orchestra, but it was the other acts on
the bill like Mirf the Bing and others that filled the room with mostly
high-school aged fans.

Braille: read him with your ears.Braille, the Portland-based rapper, is playing in Bend on Saturday night and the show is only his third appearance in town. One of the two other times was when he opened for James Brown at the Les Schwab Amphitheater. That's right…that James Brown, as in The Godfather or Soul, "Sex Machine", sequined cape James Brown.

The clean-mouthed hip-hop artist was picked by Brown's management to open shows for the Godfather between 2005 and 2006 in equal part for his positive (and f-bomb lacking) tunes and also his high-grade musical talent, both of which were thought to bode well with Brown's diverse and generation-spanning crowd. As Braille (real name Bryan Winchester) says, "You know, you don't want to be saying, 'Get your f'in hands in the air' when you've got somebody's grandma out in the crowd."

Relax, Mr. Tisdel. You've earned it.Editor's Note: This profile was originally slated to run in our Local
Heroes issue, but was inadvertently omitted. Better late than never, eh?
The
fact that Sisters has about 10 times as much musical energy as a
typical American town of its size is not an accident. While some of
this is due in part to the vein of creativity that seems to run through
the center of the cowboy town, a good deal of recognition also should
be handed to Brad Tisdel.

GROUCH: OUT TO STEAL YOUR CHRISTMAS.At the rate that hip-hop shows - both indie acts as well as
bling-and-boast rappers-are stomping through town as of late, it seems
we need a whole space dedicated to hip-hop music in this paper. While
we don't exactly have real estate reserved for that purpose quite yet,
we will give you a de facto column with this update on the Grouch and
Eligh show coming up at the Domino Room on Monday night.

Prepare to be stomped…again.You can overstay your welcome here in Bend. And I'm not talking about
your ski bum cousin who slept on your couch for three months last
winter. Rather, I'm referring to out-of-town bands that reappear in
town over and over, eventually losing their appeal after that new band
smell wears off. We've seen it with reggae bands from Eugene and jam
bands from the Bay area.

But there are a few bands that we don't mind
letting lounge around the figurative couch that is our music scene.
Perfect example: Portland's gritty blues rock duo Hillstomp. By this
publication's count, the band's show at the Domino Room on Saturday is
its fourth appearance in the last year. One might expect the numbers to
dwindle with each show, but that isn't the case - these guys are
gathering larger crowds each time they cross over the Cascades.

Tim Cash: he could be your future music video director.Hey you there! Yes you, the one holding the newspaper.