Smith (left) and Crow (right), deep within the realm of sickly soul.Pinback is a band of human beings. We suspected as much, but we had to see it to believe it.
The members of the San Diego-based band have a reputation for superhumanly intelligent melody and prolificacy, and their sound on studio recordings is a strangely precise exercise in dense, viscerally ethereal, rock-bred think-pop.
They've got the bluesman strut down nicely.Henry Kammerer of Portland's gritty blues duo Hillstomp is trying to
explain why and how he and his bandmate John Johnson play the blues and
after hitting some dead ends: He remembers a quote from Keith Richards.
In an impressively accurate impression of the Stones axe man's
swaggering, drunken-sounding British accent, Kammerer mumbles a few
lines about blues being embedded in our collective bone marrow.
After some digging I was able to find the precise text of Richards' quote:
Blues
is one of the most fascinating forms of music I know, and I listen to a
lot of styles…It's in our bones. 'Cause probably we all come from
Africa. We just went north and turned white. But if you cut anybody
open, bones are white and blood is red, man. It's kind of deep, you
know? And I think maybe it speaks to us in that way. Ancient bone
marrow responding to the source.
This ain’t your uncle chester’s kinda barn.In addition to its "this-is-cowboy-country" architecture and street names, Sisters is also home to a deeper, more community-rooted attitude rarely seen these days. And it's most visible within the town's musical community. This is a town with less than 2,000 people and maybe another few thousand living in the surrounding areas, yet there's a healthy and talented pool of musicians that often join forces on recording projects and live shows. And if that's not throwback enough, consider this: The town’s most talked about indoor music venue is an old barn - now that's throwback.
Jovino Santos Neto serves up some spicy latin rhythms at the Old Stone Church.It's been a while since we had a helping of Brazilian jazz here in Bend, but after a ten-year absence, Jovino Santos Neto and his jazz trio return to Central Oregon to lay down their hip-shaking Latin beats, while sharing some knowledge with local musicians.
A native of Rio De Janeiro, Neto was raised in New York and some might remember him as a member of Hermeto Pascoal's legendary band from 1977-92. I had the pleasure to catch up with Neto over the phone last week and he told me that Pascoal was the main influence that made him want to become a musician, producer and arranger. Since 1993, Neto's trio has consisted of Chuck Deardorf on bass, and Mark investor on drums, both of whom have masterful skills of their own.
promoter extraordinaire Bret Grier on a break from the usual midtown mayhem. There's really no logical reason why Bend gets as much live music as it
does, but we'll offer one semi-rational explanation: Bret Grier. This
is the local promoter that has brought us Flogging Molly, John Butler
Trio, and Pinback (and that's just in the last couple of months)
through his company Random Presents. Bret is nearing in on a decade of
bringing us niche favorites as well as bands whose tour buses barely
fit in the Midtown Music Hall parking lot. Despite his very public work
Grier guards his privacy. So we were pleasantly surprised when he
agreed to an interview with the Source. Here’s a snippet of our recent
interview with Bend’s music man.
Great, strange things come from great, strange things. Case in point: EOTO, the electronic music duo comprised of former String Cheese Incident drummers Michael Travis and Jason Hann.
The Rawk Zone, where clothes are flying and riffs are ripping everywhere you look.Call Sound Check a pigeonholer, but there's something a little
contrived - Jack Black-esque, if you will - about five young women
taking to the stage to fulfill their rock dreams via the prepaid glory
of AC/DC's music.
Thing is, Jack Black kicks all the ass he wants, and so does Washington tribute band Hell's Belles.
You gaze around the crowded smoke filled room. The party is a cacophony
of people laughing, drinking and in different stages of discourse and
intercourse. Staring out the window is that one strange girl who
doesn't really want to socialize, but has an allure that everyone wants
to know. Chan (pronounced Sean) Marshallm better known as Cat Power, is
that girl. A storyteller whose story needs to be coaxed outward, but
when you invest the time to listen, it pays in huge dividends.
Poor Man's Whiskey
Taking a stab at replicating Pink
Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon isn't completely new - several bands have
pulled off the rock opera in its entirety, but to play the entire
record with in a bluegrass vein? That takes some guts. But San
Francisco's Poor Man's Whiskey isn't backing down to the challenge. The
band's acoustic lineup brings as many as seven string-playing yahoos
onstage to play a rock-influenced brand of bluegrass.
Like to rock, don’t like talkRob Crow is in a band, but doesn't seem all that jazzed to be talking about his music. He's polite and seems to appreciate that we're writing about him, but not all that enthused to discuss his much-revered new record. But when I bring up Star Wars … there's a little extra spark in his voice.
The men of Pinback obsess over science fiction to the point that Crow says he should get a tax break for his devotion to the genre. At times, it's hard to tell whether Crow, the band's multi-instrumentalist, is a musician that's into sci-fi movies, comics, and video games, or if he's maybe a sci-fi nut who just happens to be a damn good musician.
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