With three appearances in Bend within the last year, Hot Buttered Rum
is in danger of being mistakenly added to our roster of bluegrass bands
- and we wouldn't complain if they did join our team. The San Francisco
acoustic-that-sounds-electric band is teaming with fellow Bay-Area
roots musicians The Waybacks for a co-headlining tour. Since our
municipality has showed respect for both acts, it makes sense that the
tour is making a stop at the Domino Room.
Double Bay Area Goodness
Pinback Au Naturale
Smith (left) and Crow (right), deep within the realm of sickly soul.Pinback is a band of human beings. We suspected as much, but we had to see it to believe it.
The members of the San Diego-based band have a reputation for superhumanly intelligent melody and prolificacy, and their sound on studio recordings is a strangely precise exercise in dense, viscerally ethereal, rock-bred think-pop.
Blues to the Bone: Hillstomp reminds us why we dig the blues
They've got the bluesman strut down nicely.Henry Kammerer of Portland's gritty blues duo Hillstomp is trying to
explain why and how he and his bandmate John Johnson play the blues and
after hitting some dead ends: He remembers a quote from Keith Richards.
In an impressively accurate impression of the Stones axe man's
swaggering, drunken-sounding British accent, Kammerer mumbles a few
lines about blues being embedded in our collective bone marrow.
After some digging I was able to find the precise text of Richards' quote:
Blues
is one of the most fascinating forms of music I know, and I listen to a
lot of styles…It's in our bones. 'Cause probably we all come from
Africa. We just went north and turned white. But if you cut anybody
open, bones are white and blood is red, man. It's kind of deep, you
know? And I think maybe it speaks to us in that way. Ancient bone
marrow responding to the source.
Ol’ Fashioned Barn Dance: Brent Alan says a barn might be one of Central Oregon’s best music venues
This ain’t your uncle chester’s kinda barn.In addition to its "this-is-cowboy-country" architecture and street names, Sisters is also home to a deeper, more community-rooted attitude rarely seen these days. And it's most visible within the town's musical community. This is a town with less than 2,000 people and maybe another few thousand living in the surrounding areas, yet there's a healthy and talented pool of musicians that often join forces on recording projects and live shows. And if that's not throwback enough, consider this: The town’s most talked about indoor music venue is an old barn - now that's throwback.
Businesses to Media: Be Positive … Or Else
Members of the Central Oregon business community apparently believe they can make the real estate slump go away if they just think positive - and lean on the news media go along with their spin.
Salem’s Queens of Denial
Denial is not just a river in Egypt, as the old joke says. Apparently it runs through Salem too.
Pinback Video & Photos & Homeopathy
As you’ll know if you’re a savvy Bend concertgoer and/or faithful Sound Check reader, Pinback packed the Domino Room last Wednesday night. Despite sickness and technical problems, they pretty much tuned up the joint. Here’s some complimentary video and photos of the action, including a hidden close-up of Rob Crow’s cup of healing tea. Read on and click stuff to make it do stuff.
Kroger Campaign Greens Up
John Kroger seems to be shaping up as the environmentalists' choice to be Oregon's next attorney general.
Sportsmen Stung by Smith Snub
Hunters and anglers from Oregon and across the country who went to Washington last week to lobby for legislation on global climate change got a chilly reception in Sen. Gordon Smith's office.
Could Oregon Pick the Next President?
With Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama neck-and-neck going into the home stretch, it looks like Oregon could make history this year: Its presidential primary might actually matter.

