An Indie God, Flip-Flop Jams, and Hip-Hopping Hot Rods

Posted inMusic

An Indie God, Flip-Flop Jams, and Hip-Hopping Hot Rods

Mike Bookey

Look at those delightfully bright eyes. Thursday 7/31
With the big Alice Cooper show at the fair and string of events lined up for the weekend, the Domino Room didn't do too shabby for a Thursday night. Having seen Oberst in Bright Eyes a year prior, Sound Check walked in with an already expected presentation. He's Conor Oberst for Christ's sake, it was obvious what to expect and who you would see there. A mix of out of towners, scene kids and aging hipsters set the tone for a mellow crowd generally interested in what Oberst had up his sleeve with his Mystic Valley Band. Stereotypes aside, Oberst killed it. Bright Eyes seemed like a distant memory to hardcore fans (Sound Check included) and second place to a more maturely polished and truly better musician.

Oberst arrived on stage dressed in a American Apparel fitted orange T-shirt, members only jacket complete with matching orange golfer logo and fitted stretchy Levi's. The band opened with its single "Sausalito" with Oberst Johnny Cash style strummin' the rhythm steady into his torn worn acoustic. The anger and eccentrics of the past were blatantly constrained in his performance style. He let the music take its place now. People shouted out things like "You're My Golden Boy," " Killer boots!" "God Bless the Midwest" and various Bright Eyes titles, and Mr. Oberst played none of these. And why would he? The new material speaks louder than the past and would have set a different tone from the one he's evolved into.

The reverb coating over the amplified tones on the mellower album's tracks "Lenders in the Temple," "Eagle On A Pole" and "Milk Thistle" set a better encapsulating live sound than the album could ever produce. Unfortunately, this one might land in the "you kinda had to be there" bin. So, if you weren't you missed out on a truly awesome performance, the likes of which this town probably won't see again for a while. Sorry, losers.
 -Tauna Leonardo

Posted inMusic

Ghost Tigers From Beyond: Tiger Army is coming, lock up your caskets

Denise CaJacob

You should see his underwear. The word "psycho" conjures many images: psycho killer, psycho ex-girlfriend/boyfriend, psychosomatic, psychologist, psychosexual, any number of suffixes will bring about an exponentially larger number of thoughts. When you attach -billy to the prefix, the visuals shift to a highly stylized music genre, which is succinctly defined by the band Tiger Army.

The trio made its stage debut in 1996, sharing a stage with nouveau goth/emo/hairspray legends AFI at the infamous Gilman Street Project in Berkeley, Calif. Tiger Army linchpin Nicky 13 formed the band out of Influence 13, bringing band mate Geoff Kresge with him, assembling a crew that has changed throughout the years, but maintains the highly stylized visual and musical aesthetic that is psychobilly. The hair is pompadoured, the arms are heavily tattooed (these guys love the ink), jeans are pegged and the bass is upright. Tiger Army is like the sober, more cynical California cousin of The Reverend Horton Heat's Texas rockabilly legacy.

Psychobilly revels in the rock-and-roll lifestyle through ballads about Betty-Page-styled beauties that drive hearses from the graveyard to the chapel and back to the crypt, peeling out in the face of the undeserving dudes-the dudes that ditched them on prom night. The world of the Psychobilly is full of supped-up classic cars, high heels below pencil skirts listening to classics like Social Distortion and the Cramps. While we might miss out on a whole host of musical styles, Bend has actually been host to numerous psychobilly acts throughout the years including the Danish Nekromantix, Sweden's Horrorpops, So-Cal's Chop Tops and, of course, Tiger Army.

Posted inMusic

From Utah, With Love: Matt Lewis freestyle raps, loves alt-country and Alaska

Mike Bookey

Vandals shirt meets acoustic guitar. That’s a good way to describe Matt Lewis.Matt Lewis and his band live in Utah and they don't have a problem with that. Some musicians might think of Provo, Utah as about the last place they'd want to call home base. Hell, some folks, buying perhaps a bit too deeply into Utah's ultra-conservative reputation, might not even be aware that rock music is even allowed within the state - forever banned in some sort of sweeping Footlooseian state mandate.

That's not the case, because if it were, the Matt Lewis Band wouldn't have cultivated the funky rock vibrations that have earned them the ability to tour nationally, along the way selling a few thousand records without any record label support.

"It's been really difficult at times and it's also been really easy," the 30-year-old Lewis says of playing music in Utah.

"I hated growing up here as a kid because I thought the place was just so conservative. As I've grown up I've really, really started to love it here," he continues. He goes on to discuss his youth listening to punk bands like Rancid, NOFX and Social Distortion

Posted inCulture

Our Picks for the week of 8/8-8/13

Intern

World Hoop Day
friday 8
Bring your hoops to Harmon Park and help raise money to create quality hoops for underprivileged children in Central Oregon and around the world! The Hula Hoop craze continues to build and gyrating Bendites from young to old can be found pretty much everywhere these days. Relive your childhood and make some sweet hoops for a good cause. 4pm-6pm. Free, donations accepted. Harmon Park. 1100 NW Harmon Road.
Tiger Army
friday 8
Warped Tour Vets and AFI buddies Tiger Army are bringing their brand of psychobilly to our beloved Domino coming directly from a slew of dates in Finland, of all places. Check this week's Sound article for more information. Domino Room. 8pm/doors, 9pm/show. $15/advance, $17/door. 51 NW Greenwood Ave.

Posted inNews

Calling All Skaters:The Division Street Skatepark Project wants you to help them build a dream park

Mike Bookey

You want a skatepark? Then get your ass out there and build yourself one. That is the philosophy that fuels a group of local skateboarders looking to build a park below the Highway 97/Division Street underpass.

The fact that there is a faction of Bend's skateboard community out to create a new facility is hardly news - the issue of skate parks in Central Oregon has been a hot button topic for more than a year. First it was the vandalism and petty crime going down at the skate park at Ponderosa Park, then it was the debacle surrounding the skate facility at Awbrey Butte's Quail park, which ultimately led to the beginner's park being removed. But it's when you hear Jason Chinchen of the Division Street Skatepark Project discuss his goals that the polyurethane wheels of intrigue start to spin.
Chinchen has been riding a skateboard since 1984 and in short, his plan for the Division Street project, is to create a skate park for the people and by the people. This is how he describes, albeit perhaps less Lincoln-esque, his plans for creating a premier-level skateboard park. It's not a city project or a Parks and Rec project, it's a skater project, Chinchen says while leaning against one of the many boulders that currently occupy the patch of land currently under the control of the Oregon Department of Transportation.
"People don't really realize that we're going to build it. You're going to build it. The guys reading this article are going to build it," Chinchen says as we stroll through the currently vacant lot that he wants to transform into 15,000 square feet of skateboarder paradise.

Posted inOpinion

The Boot: Oregon’s Own Daddy Warbucks

Intern

Oregon’s Megaphone. Loren Parks is a man of many interests. The 81-year-old multimillionaire made his bundle from Parks Medical Products in Aloha, OR.

Before moving to Nevada in 2002, Parks gave more than $6 million to Oregon politicians and ballot initiative campaigns, most of them conservative. After he left the state, the money kept pouring in - some $600,000 to support ballot measures in 2006, plus another $900,000 for Republican Kevin Mannix's unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign that year.

And the Parks money stream is still gushing this election season. According to a recent report by the progressive group Democracy Reform Oregon, Parks contributed more than half of the amount given in support of the eight initiatives that qualified for this year's ballot - a total of $839,606.
Parks also gave more than $550,000 this year in support of initiatives that didn't make it to the ballot. And on top of that, he gave $175,000 to Mannix to help retire his campaign debts. Add it all up and it comes to well over $1.5 million.

Posted inOpinion

Home Sweet Home (Foreclosure): The local real estate market, ticket price collapse, etc.

Intern

Crash, what crash?

Some folks continue to look for a silver lining, or at least a light at the end of the tunnel, for the local residential real estate market. Witness the industry folks who say prices are holding steady even as sales volume has plummeted. (And even that is up for debate as one broker told Upfront, pointing out that the median sales price is down 13 percent for the first six months of 2008 versus the same period last year.) And despite the industry's loud proclamations that Bend's market is unique and unlike any other place in the country, immune to the storms that have nearly sunk the industry, the reality is that Bend and Central Oregon's real estate is tied to the health of larger markets - particularly Southern California as well as Seattle and Portland. And the prognosis for those markets isn't good. More importantly the overall economic picture for the nation has yet to brighten. According to the New York Times unemployment is at four year high and the manufacturing sector, particularly the automobile industry continues to tank with GM posting the worst year in the history of the automobile industry - the entire industry - with losses of $38.7 billion.
On the housing front, industry insiders are predicting that the mortgage crisis will only worsen as the collapse in the subprime market spreads to prime loans and near prime loans. According to the Times, evidence of the looming crises is already amassing. Delinquencies in alternative prime loans, which usually include a mix of adjustable rates and interest only components, quadrupled between April 2007 and April 2008. Meanwhile defaults for prime loans doubled during that same period as buyers struggled to keep pace with the mortgage payments amidst the softening economy and tightening credit market that has prevented homeowners from refinancing to more favorable terms.

Posted inOpinion

That Wasn’t Skynyrd You Heard

Intern

Note to Shelby Harwood: I hate to break it to ya, kid, but "Lynyrd Skynyrd" effectively died in a plane crash in 1977! No offense, but I suspect you hadn't even arrived on the planet yet. I was a mere 16 when I saw them at the Long Beach Arena (in Long Beach, CA) earlier that year and I happened to have been walking down by the Deschutes river this evening.

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