Year Around Folk: In its 13th year, Sisters Folk Festival has roots in music and its hometown

Posted inMusic

Year Around Folk: In its 13th year, Sisters Folk Festival has roots in music and its hometown

Mike Bookey

Mr. Red on Blonde himself, Tim O’Brien finally makes his way to the Sisters Folk Fest this weekend.It's late in the afternoon on a late August Thursday afternoon and that means Brad Tisdel is in his office and working late. It's only eight days before his labor of love, his raison d'etre (for the French speaking, or perhaps the hyperbolic), the Sisters Folk Festival takes flight. There's plenty of "i"s left to dot and "t"s to be crossed before the 13th installment of the roots music celebration, but Tisdel, the local singer-songwriter as well as the festival's artistic director, still makes time to talk about his hometown's cultural engine.

"The idea is to take a three-day music festival and make it have a year-around presence that's educational and also entertaining for the community," Tisdel says of the Sisters Folk Festival's standing in Central Oregon.

For several years now, the festival's presence has been felt on every page of the calendar whether it be through the Americana Project, Tisdel's in-school music education program, or perhaps the winter concert series, which this past year brought another solid lineup of national touring acts to Sisters. And as if the reach of the Sisters Folk Festival influence isn't expansive enough, Tisdel also recently launched Musical Memories, an inarguably innovative program that brings local musicians into senior communities to play tunes from yesteryear.

If you add in the Americana Song Academy, a songwriter’s summer camp of sorts that precedes the festival, it might be easy for some to forget that there are still three days at the beginning of September where the Sisters Folk Festival itself still exists. Starting on Friday and extending through Sunday while overtaking much of Central Oregon's favorite cowboy town, Sisters Folk is boasting a lineup this year that's full of national performers and as strong as any past gathering.

Posted inCulture

Our Picks for the week of 9/5-9/11

Mike Bookey

Person People

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Person People was originally slated for a Show Us Your Spokes benefit date at Parrilla and more than a few people were bummed to see their name pulled from that bill. BUT, BUT, BUT wouldn't ya know it, Bend's high-profile, high member count hip-hop super group simply moved their appearance back a week to coincide with a fundraiser for the Division Street Skatepark, which you might have read about in the Source a couple weeks ago. So, go get yourself some Person People, because these guys don't play all that often, but when they do, they bring the friggin' heat. 7pm. Parrilla Grill, 635 NW 14th St.

Sisters Folk Festival

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In its 13th year, the Sisters Folk Fest is as lively as ever and again taking over the quaint cowboy confines of little ol' Sisters with folk music of all shapes and sizes. Turn the page and learn more about this stalwart of Central Oregon's musical summer. Visit sistersfolkfestival.org for tickets, lineup and more valuable information.

Posted inNews

Bucks & Beer: Hops are more expensive, thus so is beer, but you’re still drinking

Mike Bookey

So much fuss over a little leaf. Times are getting tight, at least that's what we keep hearing, especially in this part of the country. People are driving less in an attempt to spend less of their hard-earned cash on gas, they're eating out less as food costs increase, but here in Central Oregon, where we have a brewery for about every 15,000 people, it appears that people are still drinking.

We might be cutting down on our road trips, but we'll be damned if we stop drinking our locally made beer, or so say our local brew smiths. If there were ever a sign that there is confidence in the local beer industry, it is Three Creeks Brewing Co., the new craft brewery that Wade Underwood recently opened in Sisters. Underwood previously lived in Phoenix while operating an Internet-based company that he subsequently sold before settling in Sisters with the intention of opening the city's only craft brew pub.

"We're opening at an interesting time, that's for sure," says a laughing Underwood, a University of Oregon grad whose interest in brewing stems back several years to the early days of McMenamins.

"If you look at all the business models, it would tell you not to build this," Underwood says, citing models that suggest that a community needs at least 150,000 people to support a craft brewery. But he says the Northwest is an exception, and furthermore, Central Oregon is an even more substantial exception, supporting six brewing establishments before Underwood opened the seventh.

Posted inOpinion

The Merkley / Smith Furniture War

Intern

The campaign weapon of choice. Holy credenzas, will the Gordon Smith / Jeff Merkley Furniture War ever end?

It began in mid-July, when Oregon's (and the West Coast's) only Republican senator began running ads accusing the Democrat Merkley, the speaker of the Oregon House, of spending $2 million on new furniture and carpeting for legislative offices.

The ads were a little misleading in a couple of respects. For one thing, Merkley didn't approve the outlay all by himself - it was authorized by a bipartisan legislative panel. And if you weren't paying close attention, the ad could give you the idea that the whole $2 million was spent on Merkley's office.

All the same, the ad appears to have worked.

Before he fired the first shot in the Furniture War, Smith's ads had concentrated on downplaying his Republicanism and playing up his bipartisanship. That strategy wasn't too effective - in fact, a Rasmussen poll in early July actually showed Merkley a little bit ahead of Smith. After the first furniture ad, things turned around.

Posted inOpinion

Going off the Rails: Damage control for the GOP and rescue me

Intern

Now familiar with the whole background check thing. GOP

After the historic DNC Convention in Denver, which saw some 84,000 Obama supporters gather to hear his acceptance speech at Invesco Field, home of the Denver Broncos, Republicans were surely looking to make a huge splash with their convention in St. Paul, Minn. But after a strategic start which saw McCain steal a bit of Obama's thunder by announcing his pick for V.P. the day after the DNC, things have sputtered and then spiraled for the GOP. First Hurricane Gustav rolled up on a beleaguered Gulf Coast as Category 4, stealing the Republicans’ thunder, wind, lightning, fire and a few other yet to be identified elements, and forcing the convention planners to temporarily delay the kick off of the "festivities" in St. Paul, Minn. Instead of getting back on track, though, the McCain train appears to have jumped the rails with revelations that his largely unknown pick for VP was keeping secret that her unmarried 17-year-old daughter is five months pregnant - something that is sure to rile the party's deeply conservative Christian base. Sarah Palin, the self-described "hockey mom" and first term governor may have a few more skeletons in the closet. At the very least, the former beauty queen whose most extensive political tenure was on the Wasilla City Council is feeling the burn of the national media spotlight. As of Tuesday morning the web was lighting up with stories that had Palin under investigation for firing her state transportation director, a move that some said came after he refused to fire the ex-husband of Palin's sister. Palin, who made her name, in so far as she has one, as a crusader against oil company corruption in her home state, also risks being pulled into the scandal surrounding Alaska Senior Senator Ted Stevens, for whom she has reportedly done fundraising. But the real barometer for the Palin Pick may be the website intrade.com, which put odds on whether Palin would be pulled from the McCain ticket on its popular betting/forecasting site.

Posted inOpinion

Reviewer Should Get A Clue

Intern

Letter of the Week

We give bonus points around here for righteous anger and indignation and we heard more than a little bit of that over our off-the-cuff review of the Art in the High Desert piece.
So, while we take it on the chin, we'll hand out a pat on the back to Steven Douglas for his pointed letter on our piece.

Posted inOpinion

Close Encounters

Intern

I saw a huge UFO over the Cascade Range last week that had numerous lights and a beam of red light searching the ground for something. Has anyone seen this thing too? It was huge, probably a mile across, and at night right above Mt.

Posted inOpinion

Let ‘Em Drown

Intern

Thank you Paul for finally speaking the truth. That spillway is a DEATH SENTENCE! I'm glad that in your entire five summers here (winters in Arizona?) you are finally acting upon "hearing" of the dangers of the spillway.

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