rts.' Culture
Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2011
TheClackamas Print 5
ocals no longer ‘anonymous’
By Enk Andersen
Co-Editor-in-Chief
Nathan Sturgess Clackamas Print
to right) Wesley Mason, Bryan Edmiston, Ryan Antoine and Paul
a (not pictured) comprise the band called Known as Anonymous.
Orleans is known for many
gs: Hurricane Katrina, Mardi
s and jazz, to name a few.
Musicians such as Buddy Bolden, “Jelly
Roll” Morton and Antoine “Fats” Domino
paved the road for jazz in Louisiana, mak
ing the state a national icon for the genre.
But every once in a while, we see a shift in
where talent is produced. Who would have
thought that place was about 2,000 miles
northwest of New Orleans, right here in
Oregon City?
It would appear that Mardi Gras came
early with this band. Known as Anonymous
is a band currently attending Lonnie Cline’s
Vocal Jazz Ensemble class, adding the instru
mentals to the talented group of Clackamas
Community College students.
Playing together for close to five years
now, Ryan Antoine (drums), Wesley Mason
(guitar), Paul Paresa (piano/vocals) and
Bryan Edmiston (bass) perform outstanding
rhythms that I can only describe as being the
offspring of jazz and swing, should they get
together and elope.
Known as Anonymous puts together a
mix of sounds so smooth and lively that
not dancing to the music is hard to do.
Paresa plays the piano with such perfection
that the vibe is actually not much different
from that of Jelly Roll Morton’s “Honky
Tonk Blues.” Antoine drums like Bernard
“Bunchy” Johnson, putting emphasis to the
Southern-style jazz. Mason plays guitar with
rhythms sounding shockingly like Little
Freddie King, and Edmiston strums the bass
and looks like a back-in-the-day beatnik,
adding a flavor hard to find in mainstream
music today.
If this were a group of older, experienced
performers I would not be that taken aback
by their skill. The fact is, though, this band
just graduated high school. That’s right; this
is their first term at CCC, and they already
have the sound of experienced musicians.
At this point, the band tells me that they
are still trying to perfect their recordings and
sound and do not yet have anything other
than their demo. You can hear one of their
very, very early songs “We Don’t Play” by
searching for Known as Anonymous at you-
tube.com, but I must stress that the video
does not do justice to the work you would
witness today.
“I have this mixer that I came across and
we use that. It’s pretty decent for just a home
place, amateur tiling. It gets the job done,”
Antoine said.
“We are working on a lot of recordings,”
Mason said.
Now although there is no easy way to
listen to this group of reincarnated jazz/
blues/swing Louisiana musicians, you have
a chance to hear them live at the Roseland
Theater this Saturday, Feb. 19 at noon when
they perform for the Next Big Thing Tour.
So if you’re looking for something to do
this weekend, make sure you stop by to sup
port your fellow classmates by checking out
Known as Anonymous.
- 7/’ you or someone you know is in
a band or performs any type of music
in Clackamas County or at Clackamas
Community College, Erik would love to get
in touch with you. Feel free to e-mail him at
chiefed@clackamas.edu.
Show starts at noon at the
Roseland Theater on Feb 19,
located at 8 NW 6th Ave
Portland, Ore.
For more information go to
www.roselandpdx.com
+: Sake - discover appreciation for a long-lived favorite
By Joshua Baird
Its & Culture Editor
Y Then you think of
A/ sake, what do you
IV imagine? Dragon
bed men running down a
lin a festival? Yakuza men
[movies preparing to show
Md of organized crime who
pl bad mama j amas are?
fatever it is that comes to
[sake seems to be at the
[of Japanese culture for the
W western mind in more
han sushi, karate or ninjas
Fold be.
fe is a referred to as a rice
I though this is very much
■correct translation from
fe. Sake is no more a wine
■¡s a beer.
After all of the stuff I’ve seen
on TV and in the movies, I have
to admit I was kind of freaked
out by the idea of drinking sake.
I remember seeing Christopher
“The Highlander” Lambert chok
ing on it in “The Hunted,” and
then groaning one word, “Sake?”
The idea has always freaked me
out to be honest.
I poured a glass and, as I
always do, I smelled it first, but
there was no aroma to speak
of. The cold sake looked like a
goblet full of water at some fancy
restaurant, like Olive Garden or
anywhere that they don’t serve
up your drink in a mason jar. I am
starting to see how people get so
easily fooled by the appearance.
To make matters worse, I
was told the brand I bought,
Gekkeikan, was a horrible one
and that it was good for nothing
except cooking, like table wine
but worse.
Hesitantly, I lifted the glass to
my lips and took my first taste.
There was a surprising sweet
and bitter flavor to it. .1 was
impressed, so Lhad more. After
the initial bout with my fear of
sake, I have to say that for a
cheaper bottle ($7) it wasn’t ter
rible. In fact in some ways I
would consider myself a fan.
So after all of this I decided
that if I am going to really learn
to appreciate sake, I should prob
ably try another brand. This time
present aroma, almost floral in
nature. The first sip was smooth
and sweet with no bitter flavor
at all.
Saketini
2.5 parts gin
0.5 parts sake
Shake or stir with ice
in a cocktail shaker,
then strain into a cock
tail glass.
Joshua Baird, Clackamas Print
I went with Hakutsuru, which
retails for $9 a bottle. I poured
a glass and took a deep breath,
this time there was a much more
So mueh for sake being an
acquired taste; this took me all of
three sips of two different types
to acquire a taste for it.
Is it just me, or does every
culture refer to the alcohol native
to their homeland as either “The
drink of the gods,” or as “water
of life”? Sake is no different.
Though sake can be traced back
about 4,000 years to ancient
China, the Japanese were the first
to polish the grains of rice to
create the refined sake we know
today.
According to' Asianartmall.
com, “The earliest ‘polishing’
was done by a whole village:
each person would chew rice and
nuts and then spit the mixture
into a communal tub — the sake
produced was called ‘kuchika-
mi no sake,’ which is Japanese
for ‘chewing the mouth sake.’
According to me, that’s fieakin’
nasty.
So now what do I do? I plan a
trip to the sake distillery in Forest
Grove to check out the facility
(to read the web-exclusive story,
go to twenty-lplus.com after
Sunday, Feb. 20.)
Disclaimer;
Clackamas Print do not encour
age drinking to excess or underage
drinking of any kind. Remember
to drink responsibly.