The Summer of Furtado: A new record in the making, Tony Furtado returns to Bend

Bluegrass is only skin deep. Tony Furtado very well might seem like a perfectionist upon first inspection. But that might not be completely accurate. First he's not a jerk. Invariably, perfectionists are jerks, mostly by necessity. Striving for perfection just has that effect on people. Perhaps it's more accurate to just say that Furtado really cares about his music.
 
Furtado is packing his bags for a trip to Boston when I catch up with him on a Friday afternoon and he's telling me about the plans for his new record, which is the reason he's heading across the country from his home in Portland. About a year and a half ago, Furtado released Thirteen, his 13th record featuring 13 songs (not a coincidence) and while the CD enjoyed a favorable response, he nonetheless had some reservations about the product. And this is where the hints of perfectionism come through - only to be quickly and casually quelled by an air of realism that seems to have been shaped by Furtado's lengthy recording career.
"In the end you just have to let it go. Everyone around me is like 'this is great!' so you have to kind of be like, 'cool,' and let it go," Furtado says.

DBT is coming to ouR house. Can I get a hell, yeah!When your Alabama/Georgia-based band features a three-guitar attack and you have two albums with the word "South" in the title and a third with the word Alabama in it, it's sort of hard to escape the Southern Rock label.
 
In the case of the Drive-by Truckers, it may be well earned. But it's a little unfortunate because the band, which makes an unexpected stop in Bend next week, has pretty much transcended the Southern Rock genre, bearing little resemblance to previous torch bearers like Molly Hatchet and Lynyrd Skynyrd. You won't find any cliché two-guitar harmonies on Truckers albums or in its shows. There are no cowboy hats and giant belt buckles; no Stars and Bars on the band's tee shirts.
While the band often wears its Southern pride on its sleeve, it's an aching pride. At their best, the band's songwriters - at least five different writers have contributed songs to band's studio albums over the years - explore themes that resonate well beyond the South. The band's songs, which are defined by their storybook narratives, tend to focus on ordinary people whose lives fall apart by violence, drug abuse, sickness, death and poverty.