in concert
Mike
Russo's
blues
guitar
Alex Colescott and Mike Russo
Portland blues guitarist Mike Russo played in the EMU Ballroom
Friday night, sponsored by the University Folk Club, and it was the
kind ofconcert where the audience smiles and the performers are at
their best.
Eugene folksingers Eric Park and Patty Larkin played first, doing
mostly original songs with good guitar playing and nice harmonies.
They ended their set with the “Old Willamette Rag,” everyone
clapping, stomping their feet, and singing along.
Mike Russo played with the greatest enthusiasm, booming out
verses with a rough voice, rougher than usual, he said, because of a
cold, and taking off into difficult leads with a pained expression on his
face like he didn’t believe he was going to make it through, then
smiling when he got back to the main part. He’s an easy-going per
former. who obviously loves what he's doing.
Songs ranged from well-known blues like “Baby Please Don’t Go”
to Woody Guthrie songs and country-western A lot of the tunes were
his own compositions and rearrangements of oldies like "Stack
O'Lee,’’ updated with lines like, “You want all my money, and my
brand new Cadillac.”
Toward the end of the set, Eugene guitarist Alex Colesott joined
Russo, trading off leads and singing. Colescott sang “Frankie and
Johnnie" while Russo played fiddle, and they did some bluegrass
tunes Before playing an instrumental called “Flat Top Fling," Russo
said. “I recorded it, wished I hadn’t...Didn’t play it right. Well see if
we can fix it up for you ” They fixed it up all right—it was the hottest
tune of the concert.
Alex Colescott’s guitar playing was perfect, without stumbles
Photo bv Peter Wilson
even at Russo’s incredible tempos. He doesn’t perform often in
Eugene, and it’s too bad, because he’s surely one of the best guitarists
in town
They did the last song and jumped off the cafeteria table stage
while everyone clapped and stomped and shouted for an encore. Russo
turned with mock surprise and said, “more?” and everyone stomped
and shouted harder, so they climbed up again and burst into a driving
rock and roll song.
It was one of the best concerts of the year, and I hope Mike Russo
gets back to Eugene again soon.
rock oil
Peter Wilson
A small Editorial Comment...In these days of Watergate, the
Middle East crisis and the energy crisis, it is easy to lose track of other
very important issues. One of them happens to be the state of the
economy. Everybody is paying more for everything. And as the prices
of necessities go up, so do the prices of non-essential items, music
being one of them In case you haven’t noticed, it costs you nearly $5
for a concert ticket now days. It doesn’t matter who the group is, $5
seems to be the minimum price. An exception to this are some of the
concerts at the University, where the Cultural Forum is simply trying
to come as close to breaking even as it can. It is not right to simply put
all the blame on the promoters—they are really not the ones at fault.
They are forced to charge ridiculous prices because of the price they
must pay to get a band to play. A small example is the Doobie
Brothers, a fairly popular group that played in this area last spring
For their appearance last year, if my memory serves me correctly,
the band got around $3,500. Now with a big hit record behind them
('The Captain and Me”), the band is commanding about $12,500 for a
90-minute appearance The Doobie Brothers are no different from
anyone else and I am just mentioning them because they happened to
be handy in a corner of my mind. The costs of concerts has
skyrocketed Many bands now travel with their own stage acts and
sound systems and many groups charter planes for a tour And then
there are the middle men, the promo men, managers, accountants and
financial aides that travel with and feed off the bands. And now we
have more. A little more than a year ago, record companies raised the
list price of all their releases from $4 98 to $5.96 per record Now
records are going up to a $6 98 list price The record companies are
smart. They are not making a wholesale price increase; across the
board no, they are going to try to slip it in unnoticed. From now on,
most of the big names in the record business will have their albums
priced at $6 98 The first example of this is the new Ringo album
Where will it all stop9 I guess now is as good a time as ever to put your
foot down. I’m not sure what avenue the consumer should take, or if
you even care. That seems to be the reason for the price increase: the
record companies know that they will sell just as many albums at $6.98
as $5 98 Apathy. Right’d)
Bruce Micklus
Huffy 10-Speed
BICYCLE
Reg.
| *69"
*
With Coupon
*59"
A.H.N.
Electric Train
Set
Complete, ready to use.
*1397
H.O.SCALE
Avalon
WINE-MAKING
KIT
Complete & ready to make wine
- just add water!
Re*i. *9"
With Ad
SCHARPS’
T.V.
9" Portable
Black & hite
*69"
SCHARPS’
T.V.
12” Portable
Black & White
32” Life-Size
WALKING
DOLL
9x12 ROOM SIZE
RUG
50 pet. nylon 50 pet. Polyester
skid-resistent tweeds
Reg. *3797
$9777
WithThisAd & §
Eugene Store Hours
9:30 to 9:00 Monday thru Friday
9:30 to 5:30 Saturday
12:00 to 5:00 Sunday