Come spring in the mountains and the time when the snowpack sets up hard at night and stays covered with a thick layer of hard crust for most of the following day. With the first signs of thick crust comes the start of the “crust cruising” season.
Cruising: Lust for the crust
Posted inFood & Drink
I Believe the Children are Our Future
There is a slow degradation of society happening that is often head through assertions that today's youngsters (as in 21, but barely so) are less healthy and less educated than preceding generations. But there is another measurement that should be taken into account and that is their drinking habits.
There is a certain downward spiral that has been happening for the past 60 years. Our grandparents drank brandy from snifters and threw their heads back in laughter while sharing a Tom Collins. They learned how to dance the twist, the jitterbug, and the cha cha. They spent money on dry-cleaning their three-piece suits and stiff dresses to go out and enjoy themselves.
Posted inMusic
Rock Hard, Win a Van: Why (almost) every band in Central Oregon is competing in Last Band Standing
On a rainy Wednesday afternoon, at least one member of 38 different local bands has gathered at Boondocks Bar and Grill. Yet upon entering the spacious Newport Avenue nightclub, hardly any of these musicians can be found – and that's because, quite predictably, they're all huddled around the bar. There's free beer to be had and some of these rockers, rappers and blues players seem more stoked about this (not to mention the equally free Chinese food) than they are about the fact that in a matter of about two months, one of them will win a package of goodies worth $30,000.
This is the scene at the kickoff party for Last Band Standing, a battle-of-the-bands-style competition produced by Combined Communications, the parent company of The Twins (98.3) and Clear (101.7), that will pit these acts against each other. The contest, spearheaded largely by Combined's Jennifer Meyer, features shows with four to five acts each night, beginning on Thursday and continue each Thursday through July 1.
Posted inMusic
Guerilla Music with Larry and His Flask and Yenn
Sometimes the best shows you'll see aren't the ones for which you buy a ticket, or in some cases, even go indoors.
That was the case this past Saturday, which happened to be Record Store Day, an audiophile holiday that was celebrated at Ranch Records downtown with a mostly word-of-mouth promoted slate of live music involving Larry and His Flask and Yenn. But that didn't stop a slew of people (like, I dunno, probably 300 or so… jeez, I'm not a mathematician) from gathering on Brooks Street behind Ranch.
Sound Check rolled up just in time to see Yenn, the relatively new-to-the-scene local throwback roots-pop act, play an acoustic set. When electric, the band is super-spacey to the point of being psychedelic, but acoustically, the songs were far more subdued, and a bit more intelligible, with hand drums providing the beats while front woman Christina (they're all about the first-name-only basis) leads the way with her explosive voice.
Posted inMusic
The Besnard Lakes: The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night
The Besnard Lakes
The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night Jagjaguwar Records
The Besnard Lakes, the Montreal rock act with a constantly growing appeal, gave their record an apt title, because this album is essentially a 46-minute roar.
The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night, is a record dripping in shoegaze sweetness and songs that build anticipation. Montreal couple Jake Lasek and Olga Goreas, like to spread themselves all over the musical landscape and use their third album to do just that. The first track (really just an intro for the first song) “Like The Ocean, Like The Innocent Pt. 1: The Ocean,” is in itself, a sea of sound, featuring long shaky guitar notes layered with ambient synth noise that lead us into the inner sanctuary of the continued movement on “Pt 2: The Innocent” and continues for the rest of the album. “Albatross,” a love song just as flowing as the first track, is laced with a smile by The Besnard Lakes as they introduce some rhythmic drumbeats and guitar melodies.
Posted inCulture
Our Picks for 4/21 – 4/29: Last Band Standing, Tony Furtado, Empty Space Orchestra, Earth Day and more
Last Band Standing
thursday 22
We've got a story in the Sound section about what happens when you put 38 bands in one room and then head to Boondocks for the first show of the Last Band Standing competition. This week features Capture the Flag, Tentareign, Never Heard the Shot, G String Stranglers, and Kleverkill. $3/adv at BIGS, $5/door. 8pm. Boondock's Bar and Grill, 70 NW Newport Ave.
Tony Furtado
friday 23
This is the first show in what we're calling The Weekend of Brain-Boilingly Awesome Live Music™. Furtado is a longtime stalwart of the Oregon roots music scene, using his multi instrumental abilities to stir a crowd, especially in this region. Remember when he rocked the streets at Bite of Bend? Excellence. $10 at bendticket.com. 8pm. Old Stone Church, 157 NW Franklin Ave.
Posted inNews
Words Can't Hurt Me: The city's tourism bureau and Bend's private convention center just can't play nice
Cyclocross Nationals, USA Cycling National Championships, Xterra Trail Running Championships, the recent governor's conference on tourism and soon the National Beard and Moustache Championships (not a misprint). It's hard to catalogue the list of accomplishments of Visit Bend, the city's publicly funded tourism promotion agency, over the past year or so.
It's an impressive list of achievements particularly in light of the dismal tourism economy that has seen vacancies rising at most area hotels and resorts.
Many observers have attributed Visit Bend's recent success to CEO and President Doug LaPlaca, a former ski industry executive who took over the helm of Visit Bend after a rocky patch for the non-profit organization that saw the forced departure of its former CEO, Mike Glover.
Posted inOpinion
Free the Troops: The case for professionalizing the U.S. military
The number of new U.S. Army recruits who are high-school dropouts soared during the Bush years, peaking at 29.3 percent in 2007. The economic collapse made life easier for military recruiters. “Only” 17 percent of soldiers who joined in 2008 failed to graduate from high school. But high unemployment hasn't resulted in enough new high-quality soldiers and sailors.
Recruit quality is important. Uneducated or incapable soldiers are less likely to do well operating high-tech equipment. And they're more likely to do stupid things, like beating up, robbing and raping civilians in U.S.-occupied territories.
The U.S. military is bigger than ever. But it's becoming dumber. It's also getting meaner: in 2008 one in five recruits received a “morals waiver” because they had a criminal record, including felonies. “The main reason for the decline in standards is the war in Iraq and its onerous 'operations tempo'–soldiers going back for third and fourth tours of duty, with no end in sight,” reported Slate's Fred Kaplan in 2008.
Posted inNews
Election Endorsements: Dugan For D.A.
The Mirror Pond duck race, The Deschutes County Fair, The PPP and Mike Dugan. What do they all have in common? They're veritable institutions in Deschutes County. In Dugan's case, he's served as the county's “top cop” since George Bush (the original) was in the White House. Dugan hasn't faced a challenger since 1990. That's a lot of time to make enemies in a job that can be a political lightning rod. Interestingly, though, his first challenge in two decades is coming from within, sort of. Attorney Patrick Flaherty is a fellow democrat, a surprise to us given the amount of heat that Dugan has taken for his public support of the controversial tax measures 66 and 67 and his relatively prominent role in the local Democratic Party. Dugan's active role in local and state politics doesn't really bother us, after all measures 66 and 67 had as much of an impact on law enforcement budgets as it did on schools. Flaherty argues that there isn't a place for politics in the DA's office.
Posted inOpinion
Seismic Sensations: A volcano erupts, SEC bombs Goldman Sachs and a puke-o-rama
The author has been sent on the road to discover a lost country formerly known as America. He is reporting from a rally against Earth Day, or immigration, maybe sunburns or whatever makes white people mad, on assignment for Or-Bust.com and The Source Weekly.
Fabulous Fab's Fool's Gold(man)
So you bought a “synthetic” financial product from a trusted Wall Street giant, betting the billions in the bundled mortgages you now own will do well, unaware that the seller is laughing out loud and also betting billions, but that you'll lose your shirt. Akin to snatching a lemon off a used car lot, there should be laws against such behavior (fraud), but not when the situation involves Goldman Sachs, who was “surprised” by the SEC filing a civil lawsuit last Friday. Sparking a sell-off of the firm's soaring/suspect stock and erasing over $12 billion of its market value, the bank/demon is defending its behavior by saying no laws existed to prevent it from short-selling (betting a stock will fall) its “synthetic CDO” financial product named Abacus in 2007.