MC Dracula
MC Dracula and Noiseferatu
Join Forces
Opting for a cape and fangs instead of
the traditional Adidas track suit and gold
chains (or teeth if you want to draw an odd
parallel), the world’s scariest rapper, MC
Dracula, will make his Eugene debut at the
Bijou Art Cinema’s “Weekend of the Living
Dead.”
Unlike the character he plays in his
famed movie appearances, MC Drac (as he
is more commonly referred to in the busi-
ness) leaves the horror at home and ap-
proaches hip hop with the utmost serious-
ness. People often hear his name and auto-
matically associate his music with the mor-
bid and creepy genre of hip hop known as
horror-core. But Drac’s PG-rated rhymes
have more in common with Dee Dee King
than Necro.
His debut album, Hauz of Dracula, was
recorded entirely via telephone. MC Drac,
who currently resides in Brooklyn, called
Carl Diehl, founding member of The JiRCS
video collage group, who recorded the im-
promptu session and later synched the
recording with hip hop beats off of his com-
puter.
MC Drac will host the Bijou’s three day
cult film fest, which showcases Night of the
Living Dead and Plan 9 From OuterSpace.
The extravaganza starts on Friday with a
live performance by MC Dracula (featuring
the Wolfman), Noiseferatu (a collaboration
between the Audio Schizophrenic and
Warning Broken Machine), and an interpre-
tive video collage version of Nosferatu
performed by The JiRCS. It’s a little short
of the Halloween holiday, but jumping the
gun adds to the quirkiness of the whole
event.
MC Dracula, the Wolfman, Noiseferatu
and The JiRCS play at the “Night of the
Living Dead” kick-off party, 11:15 pm, Friday,
Oct. 14 at Bjiou Art Cinemas. $4.
— Steven Sawada
Hippies Rejoice!
I’ve always thought of moe. as Phish on
Ritalin. Conceived in 1991, 3,000 miles
from grunge in a quaint corner of upstate
New York, moe. learned early how to pro-
duce jam-band style songs in a tight, radio-
friendly format. Not wanting to disappoint
the tripped-out college kid contingent
though, the band likes to color its live per-
formances with unexpected, theatrical
touches, like the time they played the
soundtrack to Willy Wonka and the
Chocolate Factory while dressed as char-
acterfrom the movie. In short, they’re a lit-
tle bit Widespread, a little bit Dead and ob-
viously, a whole lot moe.
Monday, Oct. 17 at the McDonald Theatre.
$25 adv/$28 dos. — Dave Constantin
McDonald Theatre. $15 adv/$17 dos.
— Danny Cross
No Sleep ’til Eugene
Young Turks
Tegan and Sara will bring some special
guests when they visit the McDonald
Theatre Tuesday, Oct. 18. Northern State,
a female hip hop group from Long Island,
N.Y., will hit up Eugene for the first time
ever.
Northern State (Hesta Prynn, Spero
and Sprout) perform a live set similar to
older Beastie Boys but with a little more
dance to it. Their focal topics are feminism,
camaraderie and, of course, rhyming. “One
of the reasons we decided to do [the Tegan
and Sara tour] is because we knew it was a
really good match,” said Spero. “They get a
Read a few reviews of The
Constantines’ three releases and you’ll
quickly notice a common thread: The band
is compared, with remarkable regularity, to
Fugazi, The Clash and Bruce Springsteen.
Does that make them regular-guy punk he-
roes? Not quite yet. But a definite nod to
each of these influences and a penchant
for taut guitar lines tied to sandpaper-
voiced vocals puts them in line for the title.
At one point on The Constantines’ self-
titled first album (released in Canada in
2001 and re-released in the U.S. on Sub
Pop in 2004), the singer intones, “Young
hearts, be free tonight / Time is on our
side.” In the liner notes, the lyrics are in
quotation marks, suggesting a tip of the
hat to Rod Stewart’s “Young Turks” — but it
comes off like they just share the senti-
ment without being ironic. The new
Constantines album, Tournament of
Hearts, doesn’t have quite the same raw
heart-on-sleeve nature as their first (de-
spite the title), but the intensity is still
there from the word go: “Draw Us Lines”
builds and crests with each verse-chorus
pair, the vocals recited like a manifesto
over pounding drums and alternating lay-
ers of guitar noise.
Tournament of Hearts never backs
away from a moment, even if that means a
few bits here and there don’t entirely work;
some listeners will thrill to the subdued,
cooed chorus of “Hotline Operator” and
others will want to fast-forward to the
ragged wails in another part of the song.
The band’s two vocalists, Steve Lambke
and Bryan Webb, share a rough, pack-a-
day tone; it’s easy to think there’s just one
singer. The vocal melodies split between a
chanting tone of barely restrained fury on
one side and a wry hand with a storytelling
influence on the other, but it doesn’t seem
safe to assume each singer only plays one
part in a band this dynamic.
The Constantines straddle a strangely
appealing line between a drawling,
Southern-rock influence and an ear to the
ferocious vocals and angular guitars of the
aforementioned Fugazi. They’re currently
on tour with The Hold Steady, who pair
their bar-rock swagger even more
brazenly with their character-driven song-
writing. The two bands play at 9 pm
Monday, Oct. 17 at the WOW Hall. $8
adv/$10 dos. — Molly Templeton
Gov’t Mule
Gov’t Mule was pulled from the skele-
ton of the Allman Brothers Band in 1994.
Founding father Warren Haynes was al-
ready a full-fledged Brother when he de-
cided to form a power trio with the band’s
bassist, Allen Woody and Dickey Betts’
drummer at the time, Matt Abts. The result
was fiery, blues-rock thunder seemingly
straight off the early ’70s classic rock cir-
cuit.
Woody’s untimely death in 2000 was a
tragedy from which the band might not
have recovered, were it not for the quick
release of “The Deep End” series in
Woody’s honor and the music community’s
support. The old-Mule vibe is still alive in
the current four-man lineup though, with
Haynes working the crap out of the Jimi
Hendrix/John Fogerty oscillating wah ef-
fect, especially on the slower stuff.
For this tour, the two bands will alter-
nate between who opens and closes each
show, I guess to keep everyone on equal
footing, and the audience on its toes.
moe. and Gov’t Mule play at 8 pm,
cool crowd and it’s diverse and obviously
it’s a lot of women.”
The group doesn’t know much about
Eugene but hopes for a pretty good show-
ing because of the headlining band and the
college audience here. Northern State also
hopes to be taken seriously by music fans
who don’t expect three white girls from the
suburbs to be able to roll off lines like “sex-
ism like racism and racism is ill/ MCs get-
ting faker than a three
dollar bill.”
“I think that we
have dealt our entire
career with that kind of
skepticism,”
says
Spero. “I think the best
we can do is to go out
there and show people
that we’re serious and
that we love what were
doing.”
Tegan and Sara play
with Northern State
The Constantines
Tuesday, Oct. 18 at the
OCTOBER 13, 2005 35