On Stage

The dilemmas of Footloose could have been solved instantaneously if Kevin Bacon had access to a Beats Antique album. Bomont City Council be damned, there is no way to stand still when you hear their unique hybrid of face-melting dubstep combined with world electronica. Add live percussion, a violin player and a resident belly dancer and you have a Beats Antique show. We challenge you not to dance.

You have been hearing plenty about the surging and expanding world of Americana music in this paper and most every other music publication this side of Tiger Beat and how bands like Mumford and Sons, The Avett Brothers and, hell, even our own Larry and His Flask are changing our conception of traditional music.
A strong argument could be made that Danny Barnes – a Texas-bred, Seattle-based banjo and guitar player initially known as the front man of the Bad Livers – was one of the original musicians to pretzel Americana sounds into new ground. With the Bad Livers and as a solo artist, Barnes blended rootsy, acoustic sounds with alt-country, rock and even some funk to create a style unique to his name.

Over the years, the river of reggae music that has flowed through Bend has at times been a rushing torrent, but then sometimes slowed to a mere trickle as it has over the past year. That's the way live music works in a town like this. But when good reggae comes through the city, people definitely pay attention and they should be paying attention to Anthony B's appearance at the Domino Room next Thursday.
Straight out of Jamaica, Anthony B has garnered a reputation as one of the most dynamic live reggae performers currently touring, thanks to his powerfully energetic dancehall vocals that pair nicely with his philosophical lyrics. His latest album, Rastalove, far exceeds what some might expect from its slightly trite title, providing thick layers of political and social messages. The guy knows what he's doing. The 35-year-old has released more than 20 albums during his relatively short career.

Over the past three years, there have only been a few out-of-town artists who have made the sort of impact on Bend's music scene as Brandi Carlile. Whether opening shows at the Les Schwab Amphitheater, like she did this summer for Ray LaMontagne and three years ago for Sheryl Crow, or headlining with her band at the Tower Theatre, Carlile has used her deftly crafted songs and booming voice to draw a crowd. In fact, she's sold out every show she's played at the Tower, including Monday night's gig.
Actually, to say that these shows have sold out is an understatement. Even when the Seattle folk-meets-rock singer had a two-date run booked in March of 2010, both shows were sold out in a matter of days. Bend loved Brandi Carlile, providing her ample radio play and standing ovations and by all appearances, it seems that she likes us back, given the litany of compliments she sends from the stage to the crowd during her performances.

For more than 40 years, Tower of Power has been blazing its own trail with a rich collection of lush brass and orchestral ballads, ceiling-busting funk numbers and socially conscious vibes-soul music. But, that all might have turned out differently had TOP founding father and tenor sax player, Emilio Castillo, failed to listen to his father – not once, but twice. After moving from Detroit to the East Bay at the age of 11, Castillo was busted, along with his brother and best friend, stealing a T-shirt at a major department store. His father gave him a choice, and a notebook.
“He said fill it with why you’re never going to steal again,” Castillo recalls. “And when you’re in that room filling out that notebook, I want you to think of something that’s gonna keep you off the streets and out of trouble or you’re never coming out of that room again.

Billy Mickelson has a cello. And that's about it. Well, at least on stage.
And if there's one thing we know about cellos, or at least we think we know about cellos is that they are absolutely, never cool – at all. But Mickelson, who has served as a member of Larry and His Flask, Mr. Potato, The Dela Project and several other acts since high school, has accomplished the impossible. With his new solo act, Third Seven, Mickelson is spending most of the summer on the road armed merely with his cello, the neck of which is topped with a skull, some loop pedals and a microphone. It's with this seemingly scant arsenal that Mickelson has created the haunting yet accessible tunes that are fueling a nationwide tour, which includes one last stop in Bend on Wednesday before he heads all the way from Portland, Oregon to Portland, Maine.

Marshall Glickman digs jazz. And when it comes to listening to it live, he prefers that experience to be in an intimate club setting.
Those are but two of the motivations behind Glickman deciding to organize and promote, in conjunction with Combined Communications, a series of jazz performances by topflight musicians at the Oxford Hotel starting in mid-January and concluding in late March.

For the most part, when a band or performer comes to Bend, there's talk of the show maybe for a few days, but then the chatter dies down and you don't hear anything about that act until they come back to town. But on occasion, there are shows that reverberate through the local music scene long after the band's tour bus has rumbled out of town.

Bend has, for the past decade and maybe even longer, had a collective fascination with bluegrass, leading to the emergence of several local twangy acts and a steady string of acoustic bands stopping off in town. But here's the thing – if it weren't for a guy named David Grisman, there's a good chance that the modern bluegrass movement (sometimes annoyingly referred to as “newgrass”) would have never taken hold with the younger generations of music fans.

Before his shift as a cashier at Fred Meyer begins on a Friday morning, Dan Pantenburg takes some time to chat about his main love, his band, The Autonomics, one of Bend's most promising rock acts and one that's found a bar following despite the fact that none of its members are of legal drinking age. This week band is releasing an EP entitled Good Luck and Medicine, an impressive five-track rock assault that was produced by Empty Space Orchestra's Shane Thomas, and are celebrating the debut with a string of three shows on three consecutive nights.