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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (July 17, 2003)
BY BRETT CAMPBELL ESCAPE Monday, July 21 at 7 Crosby, Stills & Nash Tuesday, July 22 at 7 Jackson Browne, Keb Keb’ Mo’, , Steve Earle Sunday, July 27 at 6 Tori Amos with Ben Folds Saturday, August 16 at 7:30 OFAM with Rita Moreno Steve Earle, Jackson Browne, Keb Keb’ Mo’ Wednesday, Sept. 24 at 7 Drummers of West Africa Mood Music Unusual instruments and sounds invade Eugene club scene. Friday, Sept. 26 at 7 Widespread Panic (ON SALE 7/19) Tuesday, Sept. 30 at 7 James Taylor (SOLD OUT) Thank you, sponsors: The Register-Guard / Symphony One / KLCC / Oregon Arts Commission WOU Regional Resource / Center on Deafness / UO Sign Language Club 22 JULY 17, 2003 M ood Area 52 makes music that’s as danceable as it is different from the norm. The “classical” instru- mentation (cello, accordion, bass, sometimes violin, sax, and/or vocals), vintage-clothing cool and choice of style — mostly tangos — set this band apart from the usual jeans-clad, guitar-bass-drums outfits. The sound will ap- peal to fans of, say, Pink Martini, but like that band, MA52 is more than just another neo- lounge act. The members have played with such local groups as the Visible Men, the Daddies, Los Mex Pistols and more, and those influences find their way into the music. An hour or so of tangos can get old, so the group is diversifying its repertoire, including some nifty originals. For the show on July 25 at Sam Bond’s, the core trio will provide a live soundtrack to one of the most atmospheric films ever made, La Jette, a series of stills that tells a harrowing speculative fiction story; it was the basis for Terry Gilliam’s recent Twelve Monkeys. The concert also features an off- shoot called Scrambled Ape, a small brass ensemble performing some of the delightful music of the great animated film music com- poser Raymond Scott and other cartoonish jazz. MA52 is also playing on the patio at Taco Loco most Saturdays this summer. On Saturday, July 19 Sam Bond’s hosts another great show featuring bodacious ban- joist Danny Barnes. I used to marvel at his group, the Bad Livers, at their wild punk/ bluegrass shows in Austin, and the guest stars on his new album (Darol Anger, Tim O’Brien, Bill Frisell, et al) attest to the high regard he’s earned among musicians. He’s added more jazz and art music streams to an already teeming river of American roots music influences. That same night, Celtic music fans might want to head instead over to Café Paradiso to catch Golden Bough. Combining traditional and original music, this veteran trio deploys Celtic harp, penny- whistle, fiddle, mandolin, accordion, guitar, harmonica, recorder and bodhran on gentle ballads as well as upbeat jigs, reels, and more. Jazzy electronica hits town on Friday, Aug. 1 when Portland’s Surrounded by Ninjas comes to the Wild Duck, with Eugene’s own Eleven Eyes opening. With Asher Fulero on keyboards and DJ Joel Barber eschewing the use of samples and sequences, Surrounded by Ninjas is forced to rely on live improvisation to create its danceable soundscapes, which helps counter the mechanistic feel of too many techno/laptop acts. Eleven Eyes leans a little more to the jazz side, but with plenty of lively turntable and electronica accents. This concert shows how jazz and electronic music can combine to produce a really entertaining hy- brid 21st century sound. One day, an eight-year-old Rachel Trachtenburg picked up a cheap slide pro- jector at a yard sale, brought it to her parents’ Seattle home and her dad, Jason, made up lit- tle tongue-in-cheek ditties about the images they found on those and other discarded slides found at flea markets and garage sales. The titles of these songs ranged from “Fondue Friends in Switzerland,” and “Mountain Trip to Japan, 1959.” A gimmick and an act were born, and newspapers and magazines around the coun- try have picked up on the outsider-art appeal of the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, with Jason on keyboards and vocals, wife Tina Piña Trachtenburg on vintage carousel slide projector and Rachel on drums. (For a taste of their act, check out NPR’s re- cent “Morning Edition” feature online.) Now based in New York, the family might appeal to fans of They Might be Giants, Jonathan Richman and other irony-inflected faux naïf acts, and their anti-corporate angle should go down well in Eugene. Should be a fun show (Wed., 7/23, WOW Hall and so should the next night’s WOW concert featur- ing the Jazz Mandolin Project, the ambi- tious Vermont trio that appeals to fans of avant-garde jazz and fusion along with a jam band audience. ew
