Sound Stories & Interviews

Oh Keller (third from left) you're so funny.A lot of people originally went to see Keller Williams expressly
because the musician didn't have a band behind him. But now, after more
than a decade of touring, people are rushing to see him because he does
have a band playing with him - rather than the loops and
multi-instrumentational wizardry that's built his reputation.

Williams,
who's not a single-name diva by any means yet is often referred to by
fans on a first-name basis, unveiled the WMDS a couple years back, but
has since moved away from the timely acronym (after learning there was
another band going by that moniker) opting rather to dish out all the
members of the band, calling it Keller Williams with Moseley, Droll and
Sipe. That might sound like a law firm to some, but for devoted live
music fans, it's much more than a list of names - it's a venerated
who's who of improvisational musicians. Keith Moseley played base in
the String Cheese Incident, Gibb Droll is as genius of a guitar player
as there is on the touring circuit and Jeff Sipe is the percussive
powerhouse that once anchored the cult jam band Aquarium Rescue Unit
and toured with Leftover Salmon.

The old Larry & His Flask. Check out the updated version at two shows this weekend. Larry and His Flask, Redmond's fun-loving punk band is back in electric
action for the first time in three months. If you've ever been to a
LAHF show before, you'll notice one big change - a different drummer.
Other than that, expect the same high-energy anything-goes all-out rock
shows (complete with death-defying leaps off of the speaker towers) the
band has been known for since its inception five years ago right around
Halloween.
The band, which currently consists of Jeshua Marshall,
Jamin Marshall, Dallin Bulkley and Ian Cook, is playing shows with
Hands On Throat drummer Sean Rule and looking for a new permanent beat
keeper. Their former drummer, Beau Batts, left the band in August after
their national tour ended.
"He decided to leave for personal
reasons," explains Jeshua, "And reasons that didn't consist of living
[out of] a van and being poor," he adds.

The answer to the age-old Question: How many Person People members can you fit on the Domino Room stage.
Gathered around a table tucked in the back of a downtown coffee shop,
four members of Person People (less than half of the hip-hop
collective's total enrollment) are contemplating what it means to be
what many people consider Bend's most exciting band. After all, they
are the only local act with a known name for its devoted following: PP
Heads. Also, they've recorded what very well might be Central Oregon's
most well constructed hip-hop record to date.
"It feels good to get
some recognition for making music for so long," says founding member
KP, one of the act's MCs, after a few beats of thought.
In the
past year and a half, Person People have come to build a fan base
that's far more expansive than the following they accrued during the
group's first four-plus years. What was once a rapper-and-DJ act is now
a fully functioning band, complete with an instrumental section that is
an all-star lineup in its own right. The shift has given Person People
an appeal that's drawn not only increasing numbers of devoted hip-hop
fans into the fold, but also the roots music fans that make up the core
of Bend's musical fandom to give them crowds that often amount to 200
or more people.

portland
friday 24
Umphrey's McGee
Indiana's famous anything-goes jam band is known for their exciting concerts and mix of pop-rock, jazz, prog-metal and classical. Touted as the heirs to Phish's throne (which, with the reunion of Phish, now makes UM lowly princes of jam bandom we suppose) and with the June release of Jimmy Stewart 2007, the band is on tour with a slew of new songs to mix in with fan favorites.

Ray LaMontagne:
Gossip in the Grain
Ray LaMontagne got his groove back. His new album, Gossip in The Grain, is by no means breaking new ground, but with soul singers leaning on a wall of horns in the upbeat opener "You are the Best Thing," Ray sets a mood much more akin to his debut Trouble than to the beautiful bleakness of 2006's Till the Sun Turns Black.

There are some folks we ardently believe music and politics should be separated by some sort of church-and-state dividing line. These are people who cut their ties with the Dixie Chicks when they went anti-Bush and dumped their Pearl Jam CD collections when Eddie Vedder wrote "Bushleaguer."
But cutting a line between music and politics is tough, seeing as how the relationship originated long before rock and roll. It seems the reality is that the intersection of music and politics is a busy street corner, full of fender benders and jaywalkers - especially in the weeks leading up to a presidential election.
The local music community is jumping right into the intersection of Music Street and Political Avenue on Wednesday the 29th at the Silver Moon with the Bend installment of "Singin' About a Revolution," an event presented by former Bendite Cris Kelly, which is also taking place in Portland and Ashland. Kelly is a musician who plays in the Ashland-based band One Horse Shy and says politics has certainly played a role in his musical career.

I've had several weeks now to digest the new Metallica album. But I'm still having trouble processing the notion that this band after the singing lessons, symphony collaborations, self-help videos and general not-kicking ass could put out an album worthy of their name.

They don’t smile much up there in Canada.Think for a minute. How much do you really know about the Canadian
music scene? If you think that you maybe remember hearing that Alanis
Morisette was Canadian (and who can forget Snow and "Informer") then
probably, like the rest of the world, you overlook Canada's
contribution to the music scene. The thing is, you shouldn't. Canada
has been pumping out some talented bands for the last century - some of
them have made it mainstream (like Great Big Sea and Our Lady Peace)
and some of them are just being discovered.

Lucky for you, two
Canadian-bred promising and popular acts make their way into Bend for a
show that will prove that The Country Above the United States has more
talent than just Shania Twain and the Barenaked Ladies … and Snow.

He’s not joking around.Americans have watched Wall Street crumble to ashes bringing our
economy to a dangerous low, gas prices that have skyrocketed to a point
where soccer moms have to take out a loan to get the kids to school, an
election parading forward with a lot of talk about everything but
solutions, and two wars that have cost three trillion dollars and more
than five thousand American lives. To take a catch phrase from the
current campaign rhetoric, "It's time for some tough talk." The
Recountdown Tour which began in September is the latest spoken word
outing for hardcore orator Henry Rollins, a master at his unique blend
of talking tough, and will be coming to the Midtown Ballroom on
Saturday night. This newest engagement is not only a chance for him to
address the madness plaguing our country, but also, in his words, "to
celebrate the end of the Bush era."

The native of Washington, D.C.
began this recent tour in September and will be venting his disapproval
to fans across the United States and Canada. Though he could speak for
days on the follies of the Bush administration, which he has at great
length over the past two terms, the content of the Recountdown Tour
addresses the current parties battling it out for the Oval Office.

Silver Moon in a Can?
Hey there Jake Bellows, You wanna Miller Lite?When Jake Bellows, the front man for increasingly buzzed about band Neva Dinova (see last week's issue for a full feature on the Omaha band), pulled a can of Miller Lite from behind his amp on the Silver Moon Brewing Co. stage and took a long pull, the crowd (Sound Check included) that had just had its attention super-glued to the triple guitar attack of the band cringed politely.