Sound Check

Looking for some new tracks to load on your device, or to pop on your vintage-replica record player? Check out these new albums. Hear These, Now! Temples: “Volcano” (Fat Possum) Three years ago, Temples took dead aim at T. Rex, early David Bowie and Pink Floyd, and crafted a slab of fuzzy, rockin’ British psych […]

This review is a little late, which is ridiculous, considering that the self-titled “full length” from the Keith Morris-fronted OFF! clocks in at only 15 minutes.   And even though they pack sixteen songs in fifteen minutes, it really shouldn’t take more than a day or two to pull a review together for this album.  But OFF! are hardcore royalty and, honestly, I was just a little intimidated.  If you don’t recognize his name right off, Keith Morris founded the legendary Black Flag, stuck around for one album, and then left to found and front the seminal L.A. hardcore band Circle Jerks for the next 13 or so years. The remaining members of OFF! are also celebrated musicians on the scene—guitarist Dimitri Coats (Burning Bridges), bassist Steven McDonald (Red Kross), and pummeling drummer Mario Rubalcaba (Hot Snakes, Rocket from the Crypt).

Near the end of almost every set the Bend Roots Revival this weekend, the band or performer would say something like, “Isn't Bend Roots great?” or else thank festival creator Mark Ransom for his efforts to continue the celebration of local music. We at Sound Check gladly echo those sentiments because last weekend's fifth-annual Bend Roots was instantly memorable and, as we often say, the best party of the year.

You can try, but it's pretty tough to say you don't like Michael Franti. You can be the sort of person who somehow, someway, hates hip-hop, punk rock, reggae, folk and dance music all at once and still find yourself unable to dislike the giant, dreadlocked artist. Franti's career has seen him making music from each of those genres, and probably others, too – and even if you don't like his albums, go ahead and check out his smiley, carefree, barefooted, uber positive, wild-as-all-hell live show and then try not to at least smile.
Now, there is probably someone reading this thinking, or perhaps saying aloud, “Hey jerkwad. I don't like Michael Franti or his stupid face or his stupid music.”

Oh boy. It was a sweaty weekend in live music. We're talking Patrick Ewing, better-change your-shirt-at-halftime sort of sweaty. So here's what happened: hot temperatures collided with a migrating front of wildly awesome live bands, causing the music scene to collectively and shamelessly sweat for no less than three days.
Sound Check perspired thoroughly this weekend, too. And you should know that when Sound Check sweats, it's not a sexy glow but rather a violent drip of toxins that falls from our brows as we bob our heads to the music. That's precisely what we were doing on Friday night at the Domino Room where Domino Room was celebrating the release of their new album, Darker the Night.

Sound Check decided to change it up last weekend and rather than roll super deep (which we always do, oftentimes laden with silver medallions), we split up – one faction stayed in Bend to monitor the Les Schwab Amphitheater activities while the other headed northward to the Sasquatch! Festival.
So here's how things went at Sasquatch! We arrived on Saturday morning to find the campgrounds were full of crazy Canadians on crazy juice, but we managed to settle down on a quaint piece of grass and then make our way down in time to see Mumford and Sons, then the delightfully incredible Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. Then it was Broken Social Scene and Miike Snow, the Hold Steady, topped off by dancing with Vampire Weekend and general mayhem provided by My Morning Jacket. And that was just Saturday.

Sound Check likes surprises. Dang it, we actually love surprises. If you were to stand outside our office and soak us with a fire hose when we came out, we wouldn't even kick you in the nards. We'd actually be jazzed about the whole affair – as long as you yell “surprise” before you drenched us.
Thus, we were pleased as punch (punch is quite pleasing) with this surprise-filled week of live music that began at yet another Thursday night Last Band Standing gig at Boondocks Bar and Grill. It was there the emo/alt-rockers of Elliot – fronted by Corey and Casey Parnell and their self-described Justin Bieber haircuts – took home the audience vote and advanced to the next round. But after punking out like it was 1999, runner-ups Tuck and Roll earned a wild card and also advanced. The surprise here was yet another huge turnout for Last Band Standing- – did people think one of those guys was actually Justin Bieber or something? Either way, this is excellent for local music.

Last week in the Picks section, we coined the term The Weekend of Brain Boilingly Awesome Music™ (TWOBBAM™ for short) to describe the onslaught of music going down in Bend from April 22 to 25. So, you probably want to know, is Sound Check's collective brain boiled? Yeah, it kinda is.
We began on Thursday night for the first installment of the local music marathon that is Last Band Standing competition, which featured sets from Never Heard the Shot, Capture the Flag, Klever Kill and G-String Stranglers. At the end of the night it was the crafty metal rockers of Klever Kill who took the fan vote with pop punkers Capture the Flag earning the wild card to the next round. Thrash-punk outfit G-String Stranglers didn't win anything, but took home an honorary award for most audience-directed F-bombs.

Sometimes the best shows you'll see aren't the ones for which you buy a ticket, or in some cases, even go indoors.
That was the case this past Saturday, which happened to be Record Store Day, an audiophile holiday that was celebrated at Ranch Records downtown with a mostly word-of-mouth promoted slate of live music involving Larry and His Flask and Yenn. But that didn't stop a slew of people (like, I dunno, probably 300 or so… jeez, I'm not a mathematician) from gathering on Brooks Street behind Ranch.
Sound Check rolled up just in time to see Yenn, the relatively new-to-the-scene local throwback roots-pop act, play an acoustic set. When electric, the band is super-spacey to the point of being psychedelic, but acoustically, the songs were far more subdued, and a bit more intelligible, with hand drums providing the beats while front woman Christina (they're all about the first-name-only basis) leads the way with her explosive voice.