Eugene weekly., October 09, 2003, Page 51, Image 51

BY VANESSA SALVIA
QUASI PLAYS THE WOW HALL ON SUNDAY.
Twisted Pop
Quasi proves relationships change, but don’t end.
P
ortland twosome Quasi has been
bashing out beautiful but bitter pop
music for 10 years, and the band is
now celebrating a brand new CD, Hot Shit.
Ex-husband and wife duo Sam Coomes and
Janet Weiss transmogrified their energies
from their failed marriage into twisted pop
music preoccupied with melancholic mus-
ings on the injustices of life.
The two have earned their right to revel
in misery: Coomes started out playing in
San Francisco’s Donner Party, followed by
a partnership with Elliot Smith, while Weiss
also pounds the skins for post-punk starlets
Sleater-Kinney.
But you know all this. What you might
not know is that Hot Shit will change the
way you think about pop music.
The 11 songs veer into dreamlike terri-
tory. On the title track, Weiss keeps pace
On Hot Shit, their sixth release, Coomes
explores his bluesy side even more than in
the past, an unsurprising move since he
recently released Blues Goblins, a CD of
classic blues covers. All instruments on Hot
Shit are played by Coomes and Weiss, with
the exception of Brent Arnold’s cello and
Ollie Glatzer’s viola on three songs. This CD
is full of the salty-sweet music, acerbic and
desperate lyrics and A-plus drumming we
have come to know and love by one of the
Northwest’s most intriguing acts. Quasi
performs Sunday at the WOW Hall in
Eugene.
Acoustic roots country trio Corb Lund
Band germinated in Alberta, Canada in
1994. While all of the members were
engaged in other musical efforts at the time,
they desired a “side project” in which to
“play music familiar to their rural roots.”
. . .Hot Shit will change the way you think about pop music.
with a train-track beat while Coomes swirls
his guitar around like fog. When the vocals
kick in, it’s typical laconic Coomes’ style
with the lyrics: “Wild Goose or Holy
Grail?/ Red herring or the Great White
Whale?/ Not many live to tell the tale./
Little things that just don’t matter/ Still
could get me mad as a hatter/ Hot shit on a
silver platter/ I let go and I float away — a
million miles in a couple days/ I just came
back to say goodbye.”
Lund’s life has been informed by his child-
hood experiences growing up on the family’s
fourth generation horse and cattle farm, and
his all-original music expresses this rustic
experience. As little Lund grew, he turned
more and more to music, studying jazz gui-
tar and bass and forming an indie-rock band,
the smalls. Lund toured Canada with the
smalls until its recent demise in 2001.
This change paved the way for the Corb
Lund Band, and the group recently made its
U.S. debut with Five Dollar Bill. (The band’s
Canadian debut was cassette only, and was
followed in 1999 by Unforgiving Mistress.)
The CD’s title track is typical Lund — a
saga of Prohibition-era booze running on
horseback over the U.S. and Canadian bor-
ders. With songs about oil riggers
(“Roughest Neck Around”) and bronco rid-
ing (“Buckin’ Horse Rider”) there’s a lot of
honkey tonk and a little outlaw for every-
body, with songs ranging from romantic to
raucous. The verbose Lund is as much a
storyteller as he is a musician, and his sto-
ries are often surreal. With Lund’s experi-
ence and unique perspective, he has found a
way to lyrically and musically portray life
in the rugged outbacks of the Great White
North. On the CD, Lund is joined by
upright bassist Kurt Ciesla and drummer
Ryan Vikedal, whose name you might rec-
ognize from Nickelback.
Due to Vikedal’s full-time commitment
to Nickelback, Lund will be joined on tour
by fellow Albertan Brady Valgardson. The
Corb Lund Band will perform Wednesday
at Sam Bond’s in Eugene.
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