BY VANESSA SALVIA
Dark Back Roads
Balint is back, along with Heinl.
H
ungarian-born actress and musi-
cian Eszter Balint will return to
Eugene’s Cafe Paradiso on July 9
appearing along with Dayna Kurtz. Balint
is touring in support of her new Bar/None re-
lease Mud. Though she lived in Hungary until
the age of 10 and has lived in New York, Los
Angeles and France since, Balint’s music is
infused with a rural American coolness, an
artsy twist on traditional American forms of
folk. Mud, Balint’s second release following
2000’s Flicker, features Balint’s enchanting,
gothic-tinged voice, violins, vibes, piano,
pedal steel and French horn, along with a
feeling of “dark back roads of country and
blues, as well as rock.” I spoke with Balint by
phone from her New York home recently, to
find out more about what motivates this ac-
complished actress to make such sparse, dark
music.
“I don’t ever sit down and try to come up
with a conceptual approach to the music I’ll
be making. I just write what I hear in my
head, and for some reason I’ve listened to all
kinds of music in my life and I think that
maybe some of those roots-based folk, blues,
country-ish things have penetrated a part of
my brain and feel familiar to me at this point.
I think there’s something universal about that
sort of music.”
She goes on to describe the folk tradition
as feeling more like a foundation on which to
make other types of music rather than a par-
ticular type of music all its own and says, “It
has a basic, fundamental feeling, which ap-
peals to me.”
Balint had an early, successful film career,
and it wasn’t unexpected that she would grav-
itate toward writing her own songs. She had
studied classical violin as a young girl and
voice as a young woman. “I’ve always been a
writer, keeping notebooks or whatever, and
after a while it just made sense to put the two
pursuits together,” she explains. Her
Hungarian parents were part of a popular the-
ater group known as Squat Theater. At the age
of 10, Balint, her parents and the theater com-
pany moved from Hungary to Paris for a year
and a half. The company then relocated to
New York City, next door to the legendary
Chelsea Hotel, and a young Balint continued
stage performances. At age 15 she clicked on
screen in Jim Jarmusch’s cult classic film
Stranger Than Paradise. That role garnered
her other work in The Linguini Incident,
Shadows and Fog, and Trees Lounge, for
which Balint co-wrote and performed “Color
of Your Eyes.” She’s had music used in other
films including 2002’s Lovely and Amazing.
The seven years Balint spent in Los Angeles
“extinguished whatever small flames of pas-
sion” she felt for the film industry, and now
she is not seeking film work, though having
her music used in cool films would be great.
Balint is currently touring to support Mud
and “gestating ideas” for an upcoming
record.
Bobby Bare Jr., a happy confluence that
quickly led to a second national tour. With the
Decemberists, Heinl played nightly to sold-
out crowds, a feat that awed him, but left him
uncomfortable.
“Isn’t it ridiculous? I just have to not think
about it and try to have fun. I just block it all
out. Just try to have fun and meet people,”
says the down-to-earth Heinl speaking by
phone from the road. “When I left, my web-
site had 800 hits on it in a three-year period
then when I got back after 30 days it was
8,000.” While that experience marked the
first time Heinl had toured the states, he’s
now back on the road supporting Bobby
Bare Jr., son of the legendary
country singer Bobby Bare Sr.
and the two will be perform-
ing at Sam Bond’s on July
10. With Bobby Bare Jr.,
Heinl has been gone since
June 20 and won’t return
until July 18, a long
stretch that will culminate
in Little Rock, Ark.
Heinl’s recent release, With
Balint’s enchanting, gothic-tinged voice, violins,
vibes, piano, pedal steel and French horn, along
with a feeling of ‘dark back roads of country
and blues, as well as rock.’
W
hat do a karaoke machine, The
Decemberists and a fifth grade
journal have in common? The an-
swer is one of Eugene’s favorite musicians,
Tom Heinl. Heinl recently embarked upon a
very successful March through April, 30-day
national tour with Portland act The
Decemberists, a band that features former
longtime Eugene residents and that has been
gaining fame across the nation with their two
full-length releases. That serendipitous tour
came about when Decemberists member and
former Eugene resident Chris Funk ap-
proached Heinl about touring with them. At
the end of that tour, Heinl played a couple
shows with Bloodshot recording artist
they’re waiting for their band to come on. I
bring my stereo, and I bring my chair, my
lamp, and I just start singing to four track
tapes of myself,” explains Heinl, whose show
is rife with self-deprecating comic lines guar-
antees to bring a smile to even the hardest of
hearts. “It’s really fun to do. It’s like doing
karaoke.”
Now that The Decemberists’ New York-
based booking agent is booking him, a three-
week August tour with Sebadoh looks ex-
tremely likely, and “a new glorified home
tape or maybe a kid’s record” for Leisure
King is on the agenda. Heinl’s new-found
popularity has changed his everyday life
quite a bit. He quit his job, which he held for
13 years, at popular downtown restaurant
Anatolia and put all of his belongings
in storage. Now, with his cell phone,
his trusty karaoke machine
and his fifth grade journal (which
you can read online at
www.tomheinl.com),
he’s
spreading the Heinl gospel to ap-
preciative, if admittedly a little
confused, con-
gregations
across the
country.
ew
Or Without Me on Eugene-based
label Leisure King features
two parts which Heinl calls
“Stereoke.” The first “With
Me” section has vocals to hu-
morous and witty songs like
“Peein’ In An Empty,”
“Christmas Tree On Fire” and
“IHOP” while the second “Without
Me” section contains only music, so
that listeners can sing along with
the help of an included lyric
booklet. On stage, “I’m just
doing the Stereoke thing, so it’s
pretty funny. People like to
have a good laugh while
UpWest Arts & Public Radio
Leon
KLCC 89.7 present. . .
Redbone
Sept. 7
e
ye r ra gt im
ye r b a ll
a ds
tuesday
8:00 PM
ye r t
o rc
g
ye r s w in
yer tin pan alley
h son
gs
McDonald Theatre, Eugene
Tickets: TICKETSWEST 800-992-8499
www.ticketswest
JULY 8, 2004 27