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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (July 21, 2005)
now. Instead, the singer chose to continue mak- ing music in K’s Choice, a project she originally started with her brother. It was a good choice. Several European gold and platinum albums later, Bettens is finally getting around to that solo project. The accomplished songwriter will release her first full-length solo album, Scream, Aug. 23. But the album doesn’t contain as much scream- ing as it does the folk-pop sensibility that made K’s Choice so popular internationally. Scream was still a risk for Bettens, both in style and content. The record is somewhat autobiographical, detailing the break-up of Bettens’ marriage and her experience coming out as a lesbian. From track to track, the album changes from mournful love-and-loss songs to faster, tumultuous tracks that betray the angst of Bettens’ recent experience. Her raspy, husky voice is soothing and the simple lyrics should appeal to mass audiences. Instead of breaking away from the sound that made K’s Choice a success, Bettens chose to stick to the genres she’s familiar with and has created an album sure to please longtime K’s Choice fans as well as new radio listeners. Sarah Bettens is playing the early show at John Henry’s with Ashleigh Flynn, 7 pm, Saturday, July 23. $10. — Sara Brickner Aerodrone The Dreamy Delirium of Faun Fables Déjà Vu All Over Again My first college roommate would love this band. Living with her for one term was enough to turn my mild dislike for Jimmy Eat World into an aversion. I also clearly remember her play- ing the song “Amber” by 311 over and over again while I tried to study for my honors class- es (remember that song? “Whoa, amber is the color of your energy, whoa”). Maybe our differ- ences in musical taste reflected deeper, more fundamental differences in character, because we never really bonded. But that’s not the point. The past three years of college have been ones of extreme soul searching for me and the upshot of all of that is: I enjoyed listening to Aerodrone’s demo album. Yeah, they sound a little like Jimmy Eat World, but I’m over all that. Aerodrone sounds like a bunch of guys that just want to rock. Check out their song “Give Up.” They’re a little angsty, but they’re having fun. And so will you, if you go to their show 8 pm, Thursday, July 21 at the WOW Hall. $8. — Ursula Evans-Heritage 26 JULY 21, 2005 See You On the Battlefield, Metal Warrior Vampires, dragons, doomed warriors and the grim reaper: shady go-betweens usually relegated to the world of role playing games, comics and other rites and rituals of the geeky. Rarely ever do these creatures of the night congregate in one place. But as Phoenix-based heavy metal band Rapid Fire rolls their big-top metal revival through town for the second time this year, rest assured, the damned will defi- nitely make an appearance. Although many local headbangers have yet to behold the Rapid Fire phenomenon, their stage show (topped off by a touring vampire, grim reaper and dragon) is legendary, and their repu- tation as heavy metal shredders is almost fabled. When was the last time you heard a metal band utilize a harpsichord, church organ, male chorus and two dueling guitars all in one song? And if you can imagine the guitar riffs of Metallica circa Master of Puppets, and the demented vocals and on-stage theatrics of Ronnie James Dio thrown into one big cauldron boiling over with metal elixir (a liquid concoc- tion that the band lugs on stage with them for every show, also known as the source of their mana, or metal shredding power), you too will revert back to your pimply high school days, whipping your head back and forth and pump- ing your sign of the goat proudly in the air. “We do worship the metal gods,” explains bassist Brandon Kinchen. Many metal converts can testify to the sav- ing grace of the Rapid Fire experience. But there are still many heretics out there yet to be blessed. If you were worshipping at the church of folk or the temple of hip hop last March, or your buddy just loaned you their copy of Brace Yourself, don’t fret for you can still be saved. Rapid Fire plays with My Serpentine and PB Army, 10 pm, Friday, July 22. $3. — Steven Sawada Not Screaming Sarah Bettens, the former singer for Belgian rock group K’s Choice, had been approached to do a solo records long before The strangest thing about Faun Fables’ appearance in Eugene this weekend is the mys- tery of why they’re not playing the Faerieworlds Festival. This is music for faerie rings and wooded clearings frequented by hooting owls, not cavernous bar spaces ringing with the clack of pool balls. But so it goes, when a band’s on tour. Faun Fables is primarily the work of Dawn McCarthy, who also spends time in Sleepytime Gorilla Museum; she is joined by her SGM band- mate Nils Frykdahl, who plays, among other things, autoharp and broom. McCarthy has an otherworldly voice, restless and reedy but also, as on “Sleepwalker,” deceptively throaty: At least one listener nearly mistook her for fellow psych- folk musician Devendra Banhart, whose voice shares a similar strange, muted androgyny. The band released last year’s Family Album (and re-released 2001’s Mother Twilight) on Drag City, an indie label out of Chicago. On first glance, the label seems an odd fit — this trip- ping through the forest music alongside the roaring rage of Shellac? But Drag City is also home to neo-folkie Joanna Newsom, who plays harp and sings strangely like Lisa Simpson in the body of an elf, and who couldn’t be a more perfect labelmate for McCarthy and friends. McCarthy’s songs are a strange combina-
