On Stage

Smooth, Deep
and
Local

Kim Kelley
Bending Blue
Odds
are over the years you've heard the velvety vocals of long-time Bend
resident Kim Kelley. She started out as the lead singer and banjo
player in bluegrass band Mean Willy. Maybe you caught her in the
folk/fusion band Goober. Most recently, Kelley's gone solo and has been
performing around town with other local musicians like Deb Yager.
Kelley's
been warming up for the release of her debut solo disc Bending Blue, a
soulful, folksy album featuring striking vocals and irresistibly smooth
rhythms. The music behind the personal lyrics is strong with percussion
on many of the songs blending with the folk melodies to create
memorable beats like on "Into Your Blue," "Earth" and "Together."

The Mostest
Masala Mostest

If you think that the Mostest is essentially the collective name of anyone who plays in any capacity of Bend's roots music scene, well, you're not far off. The collective, captained by all-around music man Mark Ransom, has long rotated a slew of musicians in and out of its lineup, keeping what appears to be an open-door policy to its membership, culminating in live performances in which the stage looks as crowded as the cover of Sgt.

Recordings you may have missed but need to hear
Air
Virgin Suicides (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Released February 2000

Virgin Suicides, the motion picture soundtrack to the Sofia Copola film by the French duo Air, is one of those recordings that can transport you to a magical place. The record is truly the soundtrack for the film as both film and album possess a dream world mystique woven through bizarre story lines and peppered with moog and synthesizers that envelop the spectator and cause the listener to pause and ponder.

William
Elliott Whitmore
Animals in the Dark
Anti Records

Authenticity: How do you measure or even capture it? It could be argued that once a musician records their songs some of the true original spirit is already lost. The pure inspiration must be recreated, photocopied for the studio recording session making it difficult to capture the authentic feeling.

OK, so Bend's music scene might not be the most diverse in the Northwest, but don't tell that to Team Sound Check, which went from a club full of aging Deadheads to a raucous bar packed with metal heads in the span of 24 hours. How's that for genre shock?
Thursday night, we were at the Domino Room where Steve Kimock Crazy Engine brought in a dedicated fan base to watch the guitar master's new band, which funkified the place for two full sets of originals with a few choice covers mixed in for good measure.

The Decemberists

The Hazards of Love

Columbia Records
This
is how Decemberists front man Colin Meloy described the Portland band's
new record, The Hazards of Love, a few months ago: "…the tale of a
woman named Margaret who is ravaged by a shape-shifting animal; her
lover, William; a forest queen; and a cold-blooded, lascivious rake,
who recounts with spine-tingling ease how he came to be living so easy
and free."

Drone Trailer
Dicristina Stair Records

While ravenous movers and shakers devour Animal Collective's Merriweather, and the long list of other January/February releases (Antony and the Johnsons, Andrew Bird, Bon Iver, A.C.

And that's only half the band…"When you're used to crack, it's not the same when you go back to
huffing paint," joked Person People's K.P. from the Domino Room stage
at the band's raucous CD release show on Saturday night. Neither K.P.
nor any other of the 10 other accredited members of Person People smoke
crack or huff paint. We're 99 percent sure of it. What K.P. was
metaphorically alluding to was the surge of get-downishness that pumped
through a mostly full Domino Room when the group's live band took the
stage one-third of the way through their set.

Andrew Bird
Noble Beast
Fat Possum Records
John Lennon once likened styles of rock and roll to different types
of chairs. He wanted his music to be basic, solid wood. To use Lennon's
analogy, Andrew Bird's new album, Noble Beast, is a deceivingly
comfortable chair covered in a polka dotted sheet. If you lift up the
edge of the sheet, you realize that you're sitting in a decadent yet
delicately patterned creation that isn't a chair at all. You don't
quite know what it is.

Bird, whose last record, 2007's Armchair
Apocrypha, earned him a spot on several top ten lists, is a musician
before he is a rock and roller. Categorically, he's in the same realm
as Sufjan Stevens, Loney Dear (who helps on this album), and Elbow:
intella-rock, or perhaps geek rock. He sings in palindromes and
alliteration about human behavior and environmental apocalypses. Bird
backs his clear alto voice with his violin and other instrumentation,
as well as an orchestra of talent that includes the likes of bass
master Todd Sickafoose and Kelly Hogan, who has collaborated with the
likes of Neko Case.

Sound Check would like to announce that the winter music lull has
finally come to an end. We can say this with confidence thanks to the
massive pile-up of music that hit town last weekend.

It began with a
Thursday night jaunt to a packed and delightfully sweaty Silver Moon
Brewing Co. where That 1 Guy was using his patented Magic Pipe (which
is probably not actually patented) to stir the assembled masses into a
funked-out fury. He did the same for the under-21 crowd that packed the
sidewalk to get a look at That 1 Guy (real name: Mike Silverman) and
his magic tricks, metal breakdowns and constant smiles. Oh yeah, and he
turned his homemade instrument into a fog machine on two separate but
equally impressive moments.