At the Pickathon Music Festival last August, The Devil Makes Three—a three-piece jug band-ragtime-hybrid band—had a crowd of sunburned festivalgoers dancing with boots a-fire on top of tree stumps and bails of hay in the deep woods of the forested Pendarvis farm southeast of Portland. Granted, part of the charm of the performance was from […]
On Stage
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Oregon Anthems
Portland folk band The Weather Machine’s music is roped to its rustic roots
From the majestic coastline of Cannon Beach to the refreshing spray of Silver Falls and even the far-reaching 360-degree views from Pilot Butte, Portland-based pop folk band The Weather Machine visited all 185 Oregon State parks in making the music video for its ode to the Beaver State ,”Back O’er Oregon.” For Oregon native Slater […]
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Blood is Thicker than Water
Slaughter Daughter’s macabre, nomadic, punkgrass is double take-worthy
The Slaughter Daughters are simultaneously adorable and terrifying. The sister(esque) duo takes the stage in cowboy boots and sundresses with their hair tied up in pinup bandanas and proceed to grind out dark, up-tempo, yet downtrodden murder ballads and melodic but agonizing tales of lonely torment. It is confusing. A curious murmur slinks through the […]
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The Darkness Within
Portland’s Rainstick Cowbell exposes worldly ills with prophetic, acoustic punk rock
Like rolling tremors preceding a molten eruption, the agitated rock of Portland’s Scott Arbogast—who records as Rainstick Cowbell—is replete with hellish warnings of impending doom. Aptly, Arbogast will share those cautionary tales—mostly about greed and human mismanagement of things—Jan. 26 at Bend’s Volcanic Theatre Pub. On his latest album, 2013’s Damage Control Damage, Arbogast is […]
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Roots Rap
Country boys rise from Southern origins to national fame
When Nappy Roots hit peak popularity in 2002, gas cost $1.67 a gallon. George W. Bush was in his second year of office. That same year, he had a choking incident with a pretzel. Nickelback, Avril Lavigne, P!nk and Ja Rule topped Billboard’s pop charts and Nappy Roots, a Southern-fried hip-hop crew following in the […]
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Blues in Hand
Mark Hummel brings the Mississippi sax to Bend,
and he’s got friends
First and foremost, the Blues Harmonica Blowout tour—which has featured a rotating lineup since 1991—has legend Mark Hummel at the helm. Not familiar with him? Come out from under that rock. In the harmonica world—a place entrenched in weathered tradition—Hummel is what some might consider an ambassador between the tried and true history of blues […]
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School of Guitar
Rooted in tradition, Bend Guitar Blast performs and teaches
Seattle’s Experimental Music Project (EMP) includes a museum of historical musical artifacts; among them, an evolutionary chain of instruments leading up to the modern day guitar. Everything from bowl harps to Stratocasters are on display, and placards delineating the instrument’s evolution; all told, a rather flat-noted way to show off one of the most dynamic, […]
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Jazz Binge
The Oregon Piano Summit brings four pianists and 352 keys to The Oxford Hotel
Rarely do two pianists share the same stage. Even rarer is a performance with three. And four? That’s bonkers. Yet an ivory drubbing jazz concert featuring individual sets by four of Oregon’s premier piano artists is exactly what’s in store for Bend Dec. 27 and 28 at The Oxford Hotel. Instrumentalists Gordon Lee, Darrell Grant, […]
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Re-imagining Christmas
Naomi Hooley and Rob Stroup’s folksy take on holiday music
One is a smoky-voiced, piano-playing, 70’s-inspired vixen; the other a dusty blues guitarist and singer. Both longtime members of the Portland music scene, Naomi Hooley (of Moody Little Sister) and Rob Stroup (Baseboard Heaters, The Imprints) have teamed up to release the definitive Pacific Northwest Christmas album, Naomi Hooley and Rob Stroup’s Winter Wonderland. The […]
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Binding Two Continents
Portland folk artist Hanz Araki bridges his heritage with a flute
One tradition calls it a buinne, the other calls it a shakuhachi, but both regard the instrument more commonly known as the flute with extremely high esteem. Irish Japanese artist Hanz Araki honors that dual heritage by complimenting Gaelic folk music with the spiritual allure of masterful flute playing. It’s a sound that touches on […]