Talking with the Maestro: Taj Mahal arrives in town and drops a solid new record

Posted inMusic

Talking with the Maestro: Taj Mahal arrives in town and drops a solid new record

The Source Staff

They don’t make cars or blues heroes like this anymore.Taj Mahal has been playing his brand of blues music for 40 years now
and you might be inclined to think he's slowed down a stride or two
during that time. But after a 20 minute chat, the 66-year-old legendary
musician seems as quick as ever and endlessly excited about his
upcoming tour.

Taj is stopping off in Bend as part of a tour (along
with his trio) supporting his new album, Maestro, which is slated to
hit the shelves on September 30, just two days after his show at the
Tower Theatre. The album is a 12-track, wide-reaching collaborative
project meant to celebrate Taj's 40 years laying down music. A
collection of collaborations from an aging blues man might, on the
surface, sound trite - the late-career collaboration-heavy disc is
almost a right of passage - but thankfully, Taj has come through with a
record not only impressive because of who plays on the cuts (Los Lobos,
Ben Harper, Jack Johnson, Ziggy Marley, Phantom Blues Band) but because
they are genuinely good songs. And Taj seems to know they're good.

Posted inMusic

Setting its Roots: Bend Roots Revival gets bigger but stays free in year three

The Source Staff

It’s big, it’s three-days, it’s local and hey, it’s free…Bend Roots ’08.I like to think of fall as "locals time" here in Bend. The tourist flow
lessens and remains slow until the snow starts falling and that means
it's time for the people who actually live here to get out on the town.
And our music scene follows the same model - the big-bill amphitheater
shows are done for the year and the other out-of-town tours will soon
slow as well. So, thus, it's time for the local artists to get their
time in the spotlight.

In only its third year, the Bend Roots Revival
has solidified itself as the quintessential who's-who gathering of
Bend's musical community - well, at least the acts that fall somewhere
near the definition of "roots music"…sorry punk and metal bands. This
weekend brings three days of music to the Westside for what Bend Roots
director (and captain of local jamsters The Mostest) calls a "block
party." And it pretty much is a block party - and it's also one of the
best parties, block, birthday or otherwise, of the entire year if
you're a local music fan.

Posted inOpinion

Cozy, Friendly, Greasy Crook County

The Source Staff

We almost had to buy out the contents of a medium-sized shoe store this week to get enough BOOTs to hand out to Crook County officials.
The beginning of our story takes us back to early August, when Gene Gramzow did a neighborly thing and picked up the tab for several members of the county planning commission who were drinking at a Prineville restaurant.

Posted inOpinion

No Handouts, Just Bailouts

Eric Flowers

Upfront couldn't very well let the biggest financial meltdown since "I lost all my savings at a Vegas bachelor party" go by without comment. Well, there ain't a whole lot to say at this point except R.I.P. American economy. I wonder if that homeowner bailout that Bush pooh poohed less than a year ago is still feeling like the right thing now that the US Treasury is holding the $700 billion tab for the total collapse of the credit industry, fueled largely by a rash of home foreclosures and unregulated lending practices.
To help put this in perspective, Upfront visited the National Priorities Project (nationalpriorities.org) to see what else we might have been an able to buy for the cost of the bailout.
* Another Iraq War! ($555 billion)
* Health care for 200 million Americans
* 15 million police officers
* A renewable energy supply for 725 million homes
Instead we get vetos for children’s healthcare and corporate bailouts ramrodded down our throats. Thanks Gee?Dub.

Posted inOpinion

Wake Up, America

Eric Flowers

In the history of economics these are "interesting times", times when the great deceit that is "Free Market Reaganomics" was exposed for what it really is - a lie covering up a thieving game in which exorbitantly paid gamblers play high risk games with other people's money - a game in which winnings are privatized and losses are subsidized by the taxpayer. Is there no end to the bovine forbearance of the American taxpayer? In the interests of full disclosure, I'm a foreigner, living in Bend and I've had the benefit of several years of entertainment in which the American populace has been skillfully divided against itself by trivialities like gay marriage, gun ownership and the Oath of Allegiance while the aristocracy laughs all the way to the bank in their $750,000 cars.
The sight of an ultra-right, Neo-Con junta fervently nationalizing financial institutions Cuban style is high comedy indeed. Hey Ronald, what happened to "trickle-down" economics?

Posted inOpinion

Beware Parking Ticket Racket

Eric Flowers

 
I am writing this to let everyone know about a parking ticket scam going on in the dirt lot behind the Midtown (and please know it has nothing to do with owner or operator of the Midtown). Last Friday, Sept. 12, I parked in said dirt lot around 7:30pm to work at a concert at The Domino Room like I've done for the past five years. (I actually always assumed it was part of the Midtown's property, but it's not.) Upon returning home around 1am I noticed a parking ticket under my windshield wiper. When I opened the envelope it was issued for "Not having a parking permit" to park in that dirt lot, a fine of $25, and it was written up at 10pm! On a Friday!! The following Monday I called the issuing company, "Municipal Parking Services," out of Redmond, which is basically a guy and his cell phone, and inquired about the ticket. He informed me the owner of the dirt lot, a lawyer in town (who no one has anything nice to say about, btw) hired his company to ticket people at night during concerts for parking in his lot. He also told me new signs were posted and there was nothing I could do about it. Remember, I've been parking in this same spot for five years without a single problem.

Posted inOpinion

Facts Are Lost in GOP Campaign

Eric Flowers

The political cartoon (?) in the Sept. 18 edition of the Oregonian was right on! McCain is pointing to a graph saying "The Fundamentals Are Strong." The graph shows "LIES" up, "BALDFACED LIES" up, "WHOPPERS" up, "DENIAL OF OBJECTIVE REALITY" up, and "CANARDS" up! Palin is looking on with a big smile. Let's check for facts: Palin's acceptance speech "trips up on her facts, and Guiliani and Huckabee have their own stumbles on Night 3 of the Republican confab" (Source: www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/gop_covent'n)
Summary:
"Sarah Palin's much awaited speech at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night may have shown she could play the role of attack dog, but it also showed her to be short on facts when it came to touting her own record and going after Obama's.
We found Rudy Guiliani, who introduced her to be as factually challenged as he sometimes was back when he was in the race. But Mike Huckabee may have laid the biggest egg of all.

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