★★
los xplorers
continued from page 1 b
of The Beach Boys through the pure rock and
roll of The Stones to the new wave sounds of
Devo Surprisingly they do them all
gracefully—the audience never gets the
impression that it's a rock band copying
various styles
To top it off they are fun to watch Stage
presence is important for bands who make their
bucks performing (as opposed to selling vinyl
discs) Hot Whacks understands rock and roll
and its knowledge is infectious If this is what
one means by the term "bar band then
perhaps the phrase should be positive instead
of perjorative by tom senor
Ion guitarsky group*,**
The Lon Guitarsky Group has been
knocking around Eugene for the past four
years But don't be mistaken because this is
not just another local band
This band has qualities of greatness
Real talent mixed with hard work and
dedication has put Lon Guitarsky above the
rest Their only mistake may be that they play a
kind of danceable jazz which appears to be
less palatable to Eugene tastes than
conventional rock and roll
But if you like good music Lon Guitarsky
has lots of it to offer The band s original tunes
carry plenty of punch and they are presented
with enough class to tickle the most cultured of
ears
Combine good original songs with some of
the best musicians in the area and Eugene is
given a band with a future Watch for Lon
Guitarsky They re going places
by Chris courtnier
Los Xplorers perform a mixture of musical
styles that guitarist Henry Cooper calls "rockin'
rhythm and blues The band s chief weakness
is that its repertoire contains no originals
Although many of their tunes may be new to the
audience because they are not well known the
audience still feels a little cheated
Los Xplorers has been together for a year
and has recently brought in a new drummer
Merlin Reiber Merlin has a strong, driving beat
that (dare I say it7 ) magically pushes the crowd
towards the dance floor—which of course, is
the band s main objective Reiber also brings
his outstanding vocal ability to the band
adding to its diversity
Los Xplorers produce a consistently
strong danceabie sound combining guitar
bass vocals, drums and intermittent harp and
sax riffs by wendy perotta
the megatones *
The Megatones play everything from 50 s
and 60 s bebop to contemporary hard rock
With all of this material in their repertoire they
only have one real problem they don't play it
well
The Tones are sadly lacking in the vocal
department Where strong exciting lead vocals
are needed to pound the lyrics home they tend
to have faint unaggressive lead vocals And as
if this wasn't enough, the harmonies are awfully
pitiful
Lead gurtanst David Newman is a Buddy
Holly look-alike and his hot licks are one of the
few things that make the band bearable
Unfortunately even Newman s talent can't
spice up The Megatones enough to give the
band any real flavor
All in all. The Megatones is one ot those
bland bands you listen to when there is no
cover charge For all practical purposes, it
might be better titled The Megabores
by chris courtnier
mithrandir ***
Mithrandir specializes in a happy spicy
kind of rock, often underscored by latin
rhythms, and a reggae tune thrown in here and
the-e
The three Smith sisters. Kathy Janey and
Kriss give the band most of its character and
their diverse instruments—two violins,
saxophone flute and mandolin—create a
unique bright sound The fiute and sax soios
are good The violin solos are excellent
Guitarist and lead vocalist George
Navarro writes the band s original material
The arrangements are simple and tasty but
don't make as good use of the diversity of
instruments as they might Sometimes the
metallic twang of the guitar doesn't blend well
with the relative smoothness of the other
instruments
This complaint aside however Mithrandir
is a good local band They know how to fill up
a dance floor, and can really build up
excitement within a tune
by matthew taylor
the party kings ***
Since The Robert Cray Band has moved
on and since the dissolution of The Bluetones,
The Party Kings now reigns as perhaps the best
and certainly the most popular blues band in
town
Singer and harp player Bill Rhodes lays
down the style and character of the band and
calls the tunes (which he pulls from his
immense blues library)
Each musician is good at his own craft
The vocals and harp ornamentations of
Rhodes and the guitar solos of John Ward
and Jim Cochran are spirited and true to the
spirit of the blues Ed Clark's drumming
shows a lot of skill care and focus
Together they get the crowd hopping
and stomping with the raunchy, vital power of
the blues Unfortunately they're not as
together as they could be A little more
listening and interaction between the band
members might bring out a tighter, more
cohesive sound The total sound is often not
the sum total of the individual talent, but
sometimes a merely better-than-average
repetition of familiar chord progressions
by matthew taylor
rock band
Although Rock Band (the first generic
rock group) doesn't play any originals, its
song selection is superb, including The Kinks,
The Stones, The Beatles Elvis and a medley
of several Buddy Holly and Police songs Its
versions are even comparable to the originals
With your eyes closed drummer Nol Trusty
might |ust as well be Sting His vocals on the
several Police songs are flawless
Overall the musicianship is the best in
Eugene Marty Emundsen, crawling out from
the depths of Richie Blackmore s "Rainbow"
and Black Sabbath s Iron City adds ballast
to the light material with his heavy
metal-tinted leads Steve Myers brings to mind
John Fogerfy with his distinctive, unpolished
singing and colorful guitar style Trusty's
drumming is no? to be sniffed at And it would
be indiscreet to describe how Tom McCauley
fingers his bass The members combine their
talents to produce some of the hottest sounds
around
Despite the fact that they don't do any
originals Rock Band is one of the finest
bands Eugene has to offer
by gordon brown
sequel *
A Portland-based band Sequel has been
decaying in one form or another for over five
years Their music is contrived high-energy
pop of which about half is. unfortunately,
original None of the originals, including the
exalted Gossip has the bite of a toothless
Chihuahua and the covers include music by
such groups as the much-respected Bay City
Rollers On stage Sequel substitutes
well-rehearsed theatrics for spontaneity Bass
player Todd Osmond er umm, Jensen
heaves his microphone stand off the stage in
a rock and roll frenzy only to have a roadie
right on the spot for an easy catch and
subsequent replacement
While Jensen is the band's excuse for
energy, guitarist and band leader Gregg Gibb,
er umm, Georgeson. appeared to have
swallowed one too many Valiums before
taking the stage and could barely keep his
eyelids propped open Georgeson can play
quickly with flash when pressed buf reminds
me of a guitar student who's mastered a cute
lick but can't come up with a lead to use it in
He doesn't even have the good sense to cop
interesting licks off of other musicians
Sequel plays middle-of-the-road
AM-oriented pop, and if you didn't know any
better, they might even make you think you re
rocking Danny Field manager of Steve
Forbert and Iggy Pop, said it best when
describing a Pointer Sisters show long ago I
thought we invented rock and roll to get away
from crap like this
by gordon brown
sneakers ***
The Sneakers style is hard to define A
third of the act consists of covers ranging
from R & B versions of My Girl” and Who
Do You Love to the punk sound of Police
and the Thieves The remaining two-thirds of
the show consists of original material
Songwriting, like performing, is a group effort
for The Sneakers with no one member
dominating.
The group's drummer, Marquis O , sees
the band's music as a combination of many
musical styles "We re not really a New Wave
band We re dance-beat rock The pop artists
of the 60 s, The Stones, The Kinks, and The
Beatles, to name a few. have influenced our
music a great deal."
The Sneakers are in the process of
putting together their second album The
songs on the first, guitarist Billy Rich says,
were "fast tunes with dumb words." The
second album, Rich says, will have more
substantial material that will "make people
think "
Whatever they re doing, it seems to have
a good effect on the audience The constant
movement and electricity generated on stage
is transmitted to the crowd, almost compelling
them to dance Bass, guitar, drums, sax.
keyboards and vocals are woven together to
produce the tight sound that has made The
Sneakers one of the best bands in the area
by wendy perotta
photo by Chris courtnier
what's his name
& all those other guys ****
What s His Name and All Those Other
Guys isn't really a band The amazing thing is
that, with only one rehearsal behind them,
eight musicians can come off sounding better
than bands that have been playing together
for years
Keyboardist Mike Van Liew writes
arrangements of tunes by Lee Morgan, The
Jazz Crusaders and Weather Report. Drawing
from a large pool of extremely talented and
highly-trained jazz musicians, he gets a band
together every once in a while ”,
It is hoped that What's His Name etc. will
appear less sporadically in the future. Heavy
duty jazz-funk with a cooking rhythm section
and a nice array of horns isn’t easy to come
by in this town Make sure you don't miss
them, because you never know when another
"every so often” will come along
by matthew taylor
wheatfield ****
Wheatfield offers a huge variety of music
served on a silver platter. There may never
have been a more diverse group of musicians
to regularly assemble in Eugene.
Fiddles, accordians, harmonicas,
trumpets, and mandolins are used along with
guitars and keyboards to produce the band's
distinct brand of "good-time music.”
Wheatfield has its foundations laid in
bluegrass, but plays anything from country to
punk And they play it well.
They've got funked-up versions of songs
like "A-Train” that draw all those who can
walk to the dance floor The smiles that can
be seen on the peoples’ faces are genuine,
because Wheatfield seems to promote a
genuine type of happiness.
Wheatfield has large followings in both
Portland and Seattle, so the time that they
spend in Eugene is sometimes short. When
the band does make an appearance, it’s worth
your effort to go out of your way to see them.
by chris courtnier
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Pen Demo
presented by
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of
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Wednesday,
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Scheduled Demos:
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Sign up in the Art Dept.
Free Pens given
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13th & Kincaid
Mon-Fri 8:15-5:30
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^Backstage
HALLOWEEN
BACKSTAGE HAS IT!
Masks (presidential, monster, alien, animal, fantasy, celebrity, bird, devil, skull; half,
whole, paper mache, domino, harlequin), fishnet hoses and human noses (all varieties),
mustache and beards, sneers and ears (elf, Human, pig, cat, rabbit, dog, etc.), spats and
hats (derby, top witch, wizard, tri-corn, fez caps, sherlock, civil war, straw, sailor,
crowns, tiaras), Afro wigs (all colors and stripped) short frizzly wigs and long shieney
wigs, crepe hair, latex spirit gum, feathers and bows, fangs, lips, Streaks and Tips, tails
and nails, tights with hi-lites, gloves (hi-lo), fans, canes, sox, bagels and lox, garters,
bald caps wands, tutus, blood and
guts, glasses with noses, red noses,
rubber chickens, teeth, lashes,
THEATRICAL MAKE-UP
(water, grease, pancake, rouge) in
every imaginable color-WE GOT
IT! Clown white, lipstick and nail
polish (Black/green/red/glitter)