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.

Jovino Santos Neto serves up some spicy latin rhythms at the Old Stone Church.It's been a while since we had a helping of Brazilian jazz here in Bend, but after a ten-year absence, Jovino Santos Neto and his jazz trio return to Central Oregon to lay down their hip-shaking Latin beats, while sharing some knowledge with local musicians.

A native of Rio De Janeiro, Neto was raised in New York and some might remember him as a member of Hermeto Pascoal's legendary band from 1977-92. I had the pleasure to catch up with Neto over the phone last week and he told me that Pascoal was the main influence that made him want to become a musician, producer and arranger. Since 1993, Neto's trio has consisted of Chuck Deardorf on bass, and Mark investor on drums, both of whom have masterful skills of their own.

promoter extraordinaire Bret Grier on a break from the usual midtown mayhem. There's really no logical reason why Bend gets as much live music as it
does, but we'll offer one semi-rational explanation: Bret Grier. This
is the local promoter that has brought us Flogging Molly, John Butler
Trio, and Pinback (and that's just in the last couple of months)
through his company Random Presents. Bret is nearing in on a decade of
bringing us niche favorites as well as bands whose tour buses barely
fit in the Midtown Music Hall parking lot. Despite his very public work
Grier guards his privacy. So we were pleasantly surprised when he
agreed to an interview with the Source. Here’s a snippet of our recent
interview with Bend’s music man.

Great, strange things come from great, strange things. Case in point: EOTO, the electronic music duo comprised of former String Cheese Incident drummers Michael Travis and Jason Hann.