On Stage

Door Number One:
Russian surf-party-pop rock band Igor & The Red Elvises must believe in the power of suggestion. Why else would they pepper performances with lead singer Igor Yuzov declaring that they are every crowd’s favorite “Rokenrol ”band?
In an effort to be unlike anything that exists in music today The Red Elvises wear velour animal print suits. They sing songs with nonsensical lyrics. They basically make love to their instruments as they play. Their formula takes what Elvis did with his hips and lips, blends it with what The Surfaris did with their guitars, and for good measure, douses the whole thing with good ol’ vodka-drinking fun. It’s one part crazy and two parts genius.

The best adjective for Big Head Todd & The Monster’s 20 plus year career might be found in the title of their latest collection of original songs—Rocksteady.
The rock band has steadily released an album roughly every two years, toured like clockwork and remained friends through it all. Since their early days as a college band at the University of Colorado in the 1980s, BHTM have made strong jazz and blues influenced pop rock with a calm yet edgy demeanor. And though it may appear the band works harder than most, according to front man Todd Park Mohr, it’s always been about enjoying the experience.

Don’t let the dirty punk rock dandy/pierced/tattooed look fool you. Hopeless Jack and the Handsome Devil are serious about making it.
This Saturday night they’ll help christen the new Crux Fermentation Project at the brewery’s grand opening along with the Kentucky Longrifles and Boxcar Stringband.
We’re focusing on these guys, who’ve been playing together since the first night they met at a bar in 2010, because they are one of the hardest working bands we’ve come across in awhile.

Every genre of music has a list of iconic bands considered pioneers of the craft—bands who took the genre some place it didn’t even know it wanted to go. When it comes to bluegrass music, Boulder, Colorado’s Leftover Salmon is at the top of that list.
It’s been nearly 25 years since the fortuitous New Year’s Eve in 1989 that led members of the Left Hand String Band and the Salmon Heads to come together cheekily as Leftover Salmon. It was supposed to be a one-off gig but ended up being a night that surprised them all.

How does a guy rebound from growing up with a drug dealing mom and a heroin-addicted father? After sufficiently distancing himself from those demons, he becomes a rap artist with smooth flow, an edgy presentation and sex on the brain.
Hollywood hip-hop artist Mickey Avalon leveraged all of those characteristics when he recorded his sophomore album Loaded. Released in April, it’s a record that samples everything from blues rock to ‘80s synth as backdrops for deliciously dirty rhymes, and one he had to jump through hoops to make.
“I had the record ready,” explained Avalon during a recent phone interview. “But the [record] label was taking too long and I didn’t want to wait. I had to go somewhere else to put it out.”

One of the most critically acclaimed and popular New Wave bands of all time, the Talking Heads is one of the few groups I can think of that deserve a cover band in their image. Lifelong musician Matt Engel agrees, and says that The Talking Heads was a major influence on his original music and vocal style. After playing covers of Psycho Killer with his touring band, he decided to take on the task of learning more of The Talking Head’s material. Joined by John Tortorici and Harry Hulsizer, friends and band mates from the Arcata, Calif. music scene, Naive Melodies was formed, and the guys started working their way chronologically through the Talking Head’s dense catalogue of material.

When Paul Richards, Bert Lams and Hideyo Moriya take the Tower Theatre stage on Friday it will be a homecoming of sorts, not for the three musicians per se, but for their instruments, at least.
Two of three members, you see, play guitars that were built wholly or in part in Central Oregon. So when you hear Moriya or Richards burn through the guitar solo of Queen's “Bohemian Rhapsody” – something they are known to do frequently – give a silent little thanks to Breedlove Guitar Co. which opened the door for the California Guitar Trio in Bend.
The trio was here in 2009 as part of the annual Breedlove guitar festival and is looking forward to returning to Bend as part of their marathon 2012 tour. This time they're bringing friends, and not the hanger-on, drink-all-your-beer-and-crash-on-your-living-room-couch kind. No, they're actually bringing another guitar trio, The Monteal Guitar Trio.

Music junkies of Bend fear not, All You All has new material for your local music fix. RISE UP presents an EP release show that is guaranteed to transform the PoetHouse into a killer dance party fueled by three rocking regional bands.
All You All is a band with a heavy blues sound and a simplicity that is reminiscent of Jack White. Their ambient male and female vocals, drenched in reverb, make for a smooth sound, which compliments the Bend band's familiar and relatable lyricism. Copies of Incandescence, their new EP, will be available for purchase, giving the crowd a taste of material both new and old.
No strangers to the Bend music scene, Adventure Galley is never far from the fun. Four of the six members of the synth-heavy band grew up in Bend but have since relocated to the Willamette Valley in order to pursue their musical aspirations.

The demure Midwest finger style guitar maestro makes his Tower Theatre debut this weekend in a performance that the Tower is dubbing, “An Evening with Leo Kottke.” It seems a fitting bill for a man whose conversational performances and colorful storytelling seem more suited for a coffee house than a stadium. Perhaps that's because Kottke originally made a name for himself at Minneapolis' Scholar Coffeehouse, near the University of Minnesota campus. It wasn't long before Kottke's signature sound landed him a recording contract in 1969. Kottke used the studio time to record 12-String Blues, which established Kottke as a groundbreaking, if hard to classify, guitar player.

It's doubtful Bellingham's Polecat is trying to put chair manufacturers out of business, but if they continue booking shows at the current rate of 100 per year, their infectious, jig-inspiring brand of fiddle-laden music will certainly reduce the demand for places to rest your backside in favor of dance floor space.