Features Editor:
LisaToth
lisatoth@dailyemerald.com
Pulse Picks
Thursday: Get ready for tomorrow...
Friday: Buy those ’N Sync tickets...
Saturday: Hurry, they’re almost gone!
Full calendar listing on Page 6
Local
musicians
(from left)
Patrick Adams,
Trevor Brown,
Kyle Guyer and
Jake Portrait
are an ‘Easy
Target’ for
fans.
Courtesy photo
JUST A HOMETOWN ROCK BAND
Promoters say Easy Target is ‘really kicking butt’ in the Northwest
By Jen West
Oregon Daily Emerald
Rock band Easy Target has aimed and hit
the mark with Eugene audiences, becom
ing one of the biggest names in the local
music scene.
Easy Target will open for RX Bandits at the
Wild Duck Music Hall on Jan. 29. The doors
open at 8 p.m., and the show starts at 8:30 p.m.
“It all started’ with a ‘Fraggle Rock’ drum
set,” drummer Kyle Guyer said.
Then at age 16, Guyer said he began to take
his music seriously. In 1998, Guyer and his
skating friends, guitarist/vocalist Trevor Brown
and guitarist/vocalist Jake Portrait, began writ
ing songs for their Medford-based band.
Each member said their musical calling
came to them early.
“I was always a singer,” Brown said. “Then,
in seventh grade, I wanted to play the guitar,
and that was that.”
Brown said he was the only one in the group
to receive formal guitar training. Everyone else
is self-taught.
Though Medford gave the band their start, they
said that Eugene has offered them a home and
bassist Patrick Adams, whom they met in 1999.
Guyer said Adams fell in with the band
quickly. Adams said his music career also be
gan in middle school when he took up the
trumpet. Then at age 15, he said he started
playing bass with friends.
Through jobs and hard work, the band mem
bers said they managed to pay bills and school
tuition and even build a studio in West Eugene.
They said they are self-funded, and though
money can sometimes become tight, Portrait
said, “you always find a way.”
Since the band’s inception, Easy Target has
created a strong local fan base that has expand
ed to Portland and Seattle, playing for sold-out
concerts with bands such as New Found Glory
and The Ataris, according to concert promoter
Dan Steinberg.
Turn to Easy Target, page 7
University Theatre to play ‘Matchmaker’ with audiences
■The charm and innocence
of the 1880s comes to the stage
in a comic tale of romance
By Mason West
Oregon Daily Emerald
The University Theatre ushers in
the first performance of the new year
Friday with Thornton Wilder's “The
Matchmaker.”
Though director Jack Watson said the
play may not be familiar, more people
may be familiar with its musical incar
nation, “Hello, Dolly!”
“The Matchmaker” focuses on Dolly
Levi, a woman enlisted by a wealthy
store owner to help him remarry. In the
midst of this endeavor, other couples
fall in love and must overcome their
own obstacles — all with a little help
from Dolly.
“She is one of the great manipulators
of all time,” Watson said. Senior theater
arts major Jocelyn Fultz plays Dolly,
quite a different role from her lead last
April in the Greek drama “Electra.” Se
nior theater arts major Rowan Morrison
takes the other lead as “the old coot,”
Horace Vandergelder.
Morrison said. “The Matchmaker”
will have an older appeal than past
mainstage shows “Electra,” and Tony
Kushner’s two-part play “Angels
in America.”
Watson said the theater department
decided to choose an American play
with more general appeal, and he
chose “The Matchmaker” for “it’s abil
ity to be comic and philosophic at the
same time.”
“I don’t think it’s meant to be chal
lenging; it’s meant to be charming,”
he said.
The play, first performed in 1938, is
based in the 1880s. Morrison said the
play is Wilder’s attempt to explore the
humanity of the characters he creates
from this era. While Wilder created a
small gap between his own time and
the play’s era, the gap for Morrison is
much larger.
“One of the difficulties for cast mem
bers is to relate to this innocence that
we just don’t have today,” he said.
Turn to ‘Matchmaker,’ page 7
Teresa Koberstein (left), Jocelyn Fultz (center) and Rowan Morrison star in ‘The Matchmaker,’ the Thornton Wilder play
that was the basis for the musical and movie ‘Hello Dolly!’ The production opens in Robinson Theatre on Saturday.