Eugene weekly., April 21, 2005, Page 30, Image 30

BY MELISSA BEARNS
Better Together
Music Alliance brings together Eugene‘s finest.
I
t wasn’t a table for outsiders. Even the
conversation was tight, the stories bounc-
ing back and forth as rhythmically as a
four count. A group of guys you wouldn’t nor-
mally see together — a businessman, a quiet
guitarist who lets loose on stage, a boisterous
Southern-born black singer and an Italian sax
player — hanging out in the cool darkness of
the Countryside Tavern, having lunch and
talking about the thing that brings them
together, the one thing that’s been a constant
for them throughout their lives: music.
Peter Giri, Paul Biondi and JC Rico are
arguably three of Eugene’s finest musicians.
They’ve gigged with each other more times
than any of them can remember and when
they’re together, they banter back and forth
shooting ideas, stories and all-in-fun insults
across the table like machine gun rounds.
“There’s a language entertainers have that
nobody understands but us,” Rico said.
“Normal people don’t know what it’s like to
Sole Seeker
The War On Self Tour
S
ole’s got too much to say about the real stuff to
waste his words on bullshit about bling and bitches.
This is hip hop for smart people, with big four-syllable
words and bigger concepts and ideas.
He calls his most recent release, Live From Rome, on
Anticon “the first album I’ve done that’s political,” but
that’s not exactly accurate. Sole has been political since
he was just a kid growing up in Portland, Maine and put-
ting out records on vinyl with the money he earned flip-
ping burgers at McDonald’s.
What sets him so far apart is that he’s humble and
he’s a seeker. On the phone, in person, in his music,
everything is an exploration that starts with a question.
26 APRIL 21, 2005
with dues and regular meetings. But the
be on the road in some raggedy-ass motel
union eventually closed shop as the core
with the couple in the next room pounding
blues/rock/gospel musicians moved away
the bed against the wall and cockroaches in
and the scene that had supported it disap-
the bathroom. When we’re together, that lan-
peared.
guage we have makes us laugh.”
Alderson, who worked with Bill Graham
Along with half a dozen other local musi-
and watched him put the Doobie Brothers
cians, they form the nucleus of the Music
together, was willing to
Alliance, a loose-knit
throw in some of his own
partnership between area
The Music Alliance
money to get the musi-
musicians who play regu-
Fridays @ The Countryside, 9 pm
cians he wanted together
lar shows at The
565 Harlow Rd, Spfd.
on the same stage. As
Countryside
and
Saturdays @ Peabody’s, 9 pm
word spreads the crowds
Peabody’s. Instead of
get bigger — Peabody’s is
competing with each other
packed shoulder to shoulder on Saturdays
for gigs and publicity, they promote and play
and the Music Alliance added a Friday show
at each other’s shows.
at The Countryside in early 2005.
It started at Peabody’s as a jam every
“When I came into it I had just been play-
Saturday night. Even with no promotion, the
ing gigs on my own,” Rico said. “But when
show brought in a larger audience every
you get this group together, well, that’s a lot
week until Saturdays were standing room
of power on that stage. I wouldn’t miss that
only. “But there was no vision for it,” Jay
for anything.”
Alderson said. “And no promotion at all.”
With an onstage chemistry that’s more
Alderson saw the potential for something
explosion than slow simmer, the Music
bigger. “We were looking for a band that was
Alliance puts on a booty-shakin’, jivin’ thing
a combination of all the great players in
that gets little old ladies out grooving on the
town,” he said. “There hasn’t been a blues,
dance floor next to swing dancing 30-some-
rock, gospel crossover in this town in
things.
decades and there is too much talent here for
something big not to happen.”
This Saturday’s show (4/22) brings togeth-
The idea for a collective of musicians
er some of the Music Alliance’s top players
working and playing together in a way that
including Rico, Biondi, Giri, Kenny Reed
supports and benefits everyone involved is
(drums), Byron Case (bass), Mo’Fessor (key-
nothing new. Back in the ’70s and early ’80s
boards) and Blue (harmonica) for what prom-
Eugene had a musician’s union complete
ises to be quite a show.
ew
“I’ve got further to learn than I’ve got to say /
Furthermore, I’m never taking a step for granted /
Nevertheless, I’m at odds with the fact that I’m just one
character on a stage / Oddly enough, designed to make
it to the next page,” he says in “Furthermore” off Bottle
of Humans.
By his late teens/early 20s, he’d started traveling to
New York regularly and the 1997 release of Live Poets
12 led to collaboration with other up-and-coming artists
including doseone, Atmosphere and the Shapeshifters.
His horizons got wider and his rap more political as he
focused on societal paradigms, toppling each one like a
house of cards with acerbic rhymes and wit.
Sole, Pedestrian, tel. jim jesus
The War On Self Tour
Monday, 3/25, 8 pm
WOW Hall, $10adv/$12 dos
“I’ve always had my beliefs and my ideas,” he said,
talking on the phone from some parking lot in New
England on his way to New York City. “But I can’t put
something on a record unless I’m 100 percent solid on it.
I’m not going to talk about Israel unless I understand
the conflict. I just try to be careful when I’m pointing the
finger that I think I’m right.”
He doesn’t read newspapers much any more, just
books. The most recent was “some Marxist literary cri-
tique.” And while Sole takes on the biggest issues facing
us personally and globally, the sly humor and self-reflec-
tion in his songs keeps them from ever getting too dark.
“There’s so many times I thought I should write a
philosophy book or make a documentary,” he said. “But
those things take time and it would just be more generic
leftist fucking fodder that no one reads. As a rapper in
this field, there’s a lot of space to say what I want.
Because not many people are approaching it this way.”
— Melissa Bearns