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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (May 29, 2003)
EVERY THURSDAY NITE IS MOJO’S Open Mic T A L E N T C O N T E S T $50 Prize will be awarded every Thursday nite for the winning act! hosted by Jon Michaels from KKNU • Singers can bring karaoke discs for back-up • Comedians • Guitarists • Musicians • Any Performers Welcome SIGN UP - 8PM • FIRST ACT - 8:30PM I-5 Coburg Exit ★ 686-8686 BY VANESSA SALVIA Glam Rock and Surfabilly Ovulators, Harris highlight the week. F our Eugene women, heavily armed with mascara and glitter, have emerged as one of the area’s most ex- citing rock bands. The Ovulators are find- ing fans among those who enjoy an energetic, glitzy, glammy stage show. The foursome, guitarist Kelani Larsen, bassist Dori Prange, guitarist Tina Sarno and drummer Katie Kirincic, has been a band for about a year. E.P. An August out-of-state tour is planned and by that time they intend to have a pack- aged recording available. The Ovulators per- form on May 31 at Luckey’s Tavern, along with the Shudders. Musician Jet Harris has become one of the Northwest’s premier purveyors of “surfa- billy,” with his distinct blend of surf guitar style and rockabilly rambunctiousness. An Ovulators live show is a dynamic exchange and interplay of energy as the women sing harmonies and back-up and trade off lead singing duties. Sarno and Larsen were good friends and Sarno was friends with the other two. Larsen says “They had been talking for a while about being in a band together and I had a band space so they finally called me up one day and said ‘You want to have band practice?’ We did and we just haven’t stopped.” The women first honed their chops on covers, even though Sarno and Larsen have been songwriters “forever.” Initially, playing songs penned by others was a way for the band to have a foundation of equality. Now, the group performs mostly originals. Each woman brings songs to the table and each will likely sing her own song. An Ovulators live show is a dynamic exchange and inter- play of energy as the women sing harmonies and back-up and trade off lead singing duties. The foursome works together well cre- atively and avoids any power trips over who wrote what or what got changed in a particular song. “The music making has always just sort of flowed for us together. We’ve just lucked out.” While the band’s political perspectives occasionally make their way into lyrics — usually in a humorous way — the focus is def- initely on just playing rock music, having fun and being creative. Experientially, the band takes cues from favorite glam rock artists like David Bowie. Musically, it’s whatever the women feel like doing. “It definitely has a punk edge. I like to say straight-forward rock. It has a little bit of psychedelic-ness in it and we like to jam a lot. We’re really into glam rock and our stage presence and show is a re- ally big aspect of who we are,” says Larsen. The musicians have recorded six songs and have talked about shaping that into an Originally from Condon, a small town in Eastern Oregon, Harris arrived in Portland for the promise of a record deal with his old band, Boys Club. That deal fell through, and Harris relocated to Eugene in 1983. He played with the Jackals for a while, formed Jet Harris and the Road Rockets, then spent some time performing as a duo. As he de- scribes it, “acoustic stuff with a sax player. We ended up playing just keggers and stuff.” The surfabilly siren song was too strong to resist, however, and he reformed a couple years ago with bassist Russ Whitlach and drummer Steve Eckroth backing him up as “his Hot Rod Hellcats.” “They’ve played together for like 25 years now, so they’re pretty tight. It just kind of fell into place,” he says, adding they would like to move into having an upright bassist in the near future. Despite all the years Harris has been play- ing, he has very little recorded music to show for it, having struggled with perfectionist feelings that something has to be utterly fault- less before he’ll release it. “What I have is like five songs total that I’ve recorded in my studio and then millions of songs that have never gone out of the studio. I don’t like to just write a song and record it at all, but I’m starting to loosen up on that. I have to per- form it for at least a year before I’m even in- terested in recording it. That way it just starts to become natural.” Harris and the Hellcats will perform their super cool rock and roll, “part Carl Perkins and Elvis Presley and part Link Wray and Dick Dale” Saturday night at Cottage Grove’s Tap ‘N’ Keg . ew HOT BODY INTERNATIONAL P R E S E N T S MISS NUDE FLORIDA ALISHA LEE JUNE 18 SHOW TIMES: 9 PM , 11 PM , 1 AM THANKS FOR MAKING HOT BODY EXOTIC DANCERS MAGAZINE CLUB OF THE YEAR 2165 W. 11TH AVENUE ❤ EUGENE ❤ 683-6021 Monday - Friday 12-2 Saturday & Sunday 2-2 www.hotbody.com MAY 29, 2003 25
