Sound Stories & Interviews

Freebird!Let me preface this article by saying a few things straight from the hip. I'm from northern New York. My favorite store is JCrew, I love sushi and Greek food, classical piano and don't really think Larry the Cable Guy is funny. But my favorite band of all-time is Lynyrd Skynyrd.
 
I've been made fun of, openly gawked at, and called a liar when I tell people who've met me more than once that I am, in fact, a Skynyrd fan. Because Skynyrd is a "gateway" band, I also have a special place in my heart for Southern rockers like ZZ Top, Molly Hatchet, .38 Special and most of the bands of that era that include the word "Brothers" in their name.
Regardless of what you think about Skynyrd’s music, or its fans, you have to respect the band's "to-hell-with-change" philosophy. Bon Jovi cut his hair, Bono started wearing stunner shades, but Skynyrd is still playing largely the same set list as the band toured on in 1975. Onstage the band is proudly immune to fashion trends. Long scraggly hair, jeans and simple shirts are still the norm. In other words, Nuthin' Fancy. The dress code underscores that Skynyrd is purely about the music. This means over-the-top guitar solos and a hint of country twang. It's about how "Freebird" can literally give you chills sometimes and the opening chords of "Gimme Three Steps" means the party's officially started.

Hey mr. Dj.The mix tape. You made them on your twin cassette boombox with your massive ear goggle headphones in your locked bedroom. They were two sided, magnetic labors of love. The goal was to amass a cohesive and unique string of tracks that made for perfect listening - it was all the music that was fit to go on tape.
 
The venerable DJs of Bend are debuting their mix tapes ("mix CDs" actually, but "mix tape" is much cooler to say) and obviously the product they're peddling is far more expertly produced and artistically presented than what you threw together on your ghettoblaster - but the idea is still there. Almost a year after the closing of the Grove, the unofficial (or perhaps official) nest of Bend's DJ culture, the familiar DJ names reappear at the Tulen Center for a two-room show to display their new wares.
One of Bend's elder statesmen of the ones and twos, Brian Barisone (DJ Barisone), just finished up work on his mix tape aptly titled "Boombox," and sat down to talk before heading over to the PoetHouse for an Elevate Underground Art Festival fundraiser that featured the return of fellow beatsmith DJ Lacuna.

As tends to be the practice of this publication on the eve of any party-intensive holiday, we would like to take this opportunity to bully you into following our recommendations for a good time. In the past, we've given you plans for a perfectly ridiculous St. Patty's Day and laid the pavement for a marathon New Year's Eve (complete with both bluegrass and bull riding) so there's really nothing stopping us from pushing you in the direction of a Fourth of July weekend so explosively awesome that you'll have no problem using puns as corny as "explosively awesome."

Where does the leather end and the man begin?Danny Vernon prefers to be called an Elvis "tribute artist," rather than an "Elvis impersonator." He's clearly aware of the connotation that accompanies the word "impersonator" and is pretty serious about what he does.
This is why when I ask him to slip into his Elvis character over the phone and answer a question like "what are your thoughts on Michael Jackson, your former son in law?" he's not all that thrilled. He laughs at the request, but it's a trying-to-be-polite sort of laugh - a let's-change-the-subject laugh.

All Hail the King and LucilleIt was the summer of 1969 and there was a party goin' on backstage at Ravinia, the outdoor concert venue 30 miles north of Chicago. The classical music squares running the joint, they'd never seen anything like it: For sixty years, backstage had been the site of oh-so-sedate and oh-so-cerebral pre-concert soirees, fore-fronted this summer by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's Maestro Georg Solti. And, man, if he'd got wind of this, he'd never have stood for all the laughin', drinkin' and cussin' this then-21-year-old journalism student saw and heard when he was admitted backstage to interview the even-then-legendary B. B. King. Here he was all crisp in his burnt-orange sharkskin suit a half hour before his first gig at Ravinia, maybe 45 miles but cultural light-years away from the Regal, Chicago's black music Mecca, which King repeatedly sold out.

Don’t know the language? Learn it from E-40.The last time E-40 came through town, about 14 months ago, this publication - the one you're reading right now - discussed the plus-sized rapper at length, but only briefly touched on his illustrious lexicon. The Bay-Area hip-hop mogul (who is approaching legendary status or as already achieved it in some circles), is best known for helping to cultivate the rambunctious and at times intentionally ridiculous "hyphy" sub-genre of rap and is returning to continue the lessons that he began with his 2007 Bend show. We thought we'd also help in the educational process.
 
The "hyphy" phenomenon is still alive, perhaps not as much as it was two or three years ago when the bump-and-crunch sound and "go dumb" dance moves lit up the hip-hop world, but alive nonetheless as you'll see when E-40 and his troupe of high-energy cats work the Midtown into a frenzy this week. Although "hyphy" has been a part of Bay-Area hip-hop culture since the mid-1990s, the movement didn't fully take hold until the major success (as in top ten Billboard success) of E-40's 2006 record entitled My Ghetto Report Card. Loyal hip-hop aficionados know all about E-40 and the hype of the "hyphy," (perhaps learning this from the documentary DVD E-40 and the Hype on Hyphy) but this article is not for the astute hip-hop fan. This is for the McSweeney's-reading sort of Joe or Jane who's main exposure to rap music comes in the form of 15-second intervals emanating from the cracked windows of passing Honda Civics on Third Street. In short, this is for the uninformed.

Through the looking glass with Reed Thomas Lawrence.The left arm of Reed Thomas Lawrence is resting on a sidewalk table in front of a downtown Bend coffee shop clearly revealing a tattoo that covers a healthy chunk of the appendage. The tattoo is a three-frame strip of film with one frame occupied by Salvador Dali's "Sleep," another filled with an Andrew Wyeth realistic work, and a third that remains blank. I ask if this is an intentionally blank canvas awaiting a stamp that represents the next phase of the rising soul-soaked Bend songwriter's life.
 
He laughs and then casually remarks that he's simply not sure what piece of art he'd like to drop into that particular frame. My attempt to connect the un-needled skin with a figurative blank canvas falls flat, but Lawrence gets where I'm coming from. In the last year, Lawrence has transformed from an amiable singer songwriter about town to a thriving up-and-comer who's become the fascination of Los Angeles musicians and producers. In the days before his self-titled album drops (slated for a July 15 release), things in Lawrence's life are still moving as fast as ever.
The 25-year-old Lawrence has Abercrombie good looks and almost never stops smiling - a combination of traits that for whatever reason doesn't come across as annoying as it should. Sitting across from Lawrence is Franchot Tone, the producer/engineer who's collaborated with a swath of artists including Ben Harper and Garth Brooks and has recently moved to Bend to work with Rage Productions (where Lawrence also works as a marketer). It was only a matter of months ago that Lawrence got a call from Tone, who is also a member of the Los Angeles reggae troupe Culver City Dub Collective.