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-