BY ADRIENNE VAN DER VALK
The Eyes Have It
After a year of transition, Eleven Eyes
hits a jazzy stride
I
2nd Annual
TRACK TOWN WEEK
Sunday June 10th – Saturday 16th!
Sunday: Brew Bus Valet pick-ups/drop-offs
for Post Pre Party & Brewery Olympics
Schedule: 11:30 AM – Prefontaine Brew Bus leaves the Pub, drops off at
Race, 3:30 PM – Prefontaine Brew Bus leaves the Race, drops off at Pub
5:00 PM – Open House & Brewery Tours
6:00 PM – Post Prefontaine Party with Brewery Olympics
6:30 PM – Prefontaine Movie Screening, 7:00 PM – Raffle Drawing
Monday: Patio Grand Opening & Pig Roast
Schedule: 5:00 PM – Open House & Brewery Tours,
6:00 PM – Patio Grand Opening, 7:00 PM – Raffle Drawing
Tuesday: Track Town 100 Meter Ale Bottle Debut
Schedule: 5:00 PM – Open House & Brewery Tours, 6:00 PM – Track Town
100 Meter Ale Bottle Debut, 7:00 PM – Live Bottling Demonstration,
7:30 PM – 2007 Awards Presentation, 8:30 PM – Raffle Drawing
Wednesday: Rogue Spirits Summer Drinks Debut
Schedule: 5:00 PM – Open House & Brewery Tours, 6:00 PM – Rogue Spirits
Summer Drinks Debut, 6:30 PM – Special Rogue Nation Movie Screening,
7:00 PM – Bingo!, 7:30 PM – Raffle Drawing
Thursday: UofO Graduation Celebration
Schedule: 5:00 PM – Open House & Brewery Tours,
6:00 PM – UofO Graduation Celebration, 7:00 PM – Raffle Drawing
Friday: Mr. Bill’s Anniversary
Schedule: 5:00 PM – Open House & Brewery Tours,
6:00 PM – Mr. Bill’s Anniversary & Trophy Presentation
8:00 PM – Mr. Bill’s Travelling Trivia Anniversary Show
Saturday: Dog Wash
Schedule: 1:00 PM – Dog Wash to Benefit the Greenhill Humane Society
844 OLIVE ST. EUGENE, OREGON 97401, (541) 345-4155
30 JUNE 7, 2007
t all started as a senior recital.
Five years ago, music major
Tim McLaughlin wrote a half
hour composition to fulfill a
requirement for his graduation
from the UO School of Music. He
assembled a band of musicians he
had met while gigging around
town as a horn player and the rest,
as they say, is history.
“Luna had just opened,”
McLaughlin remembers when asked
about the band’s early days. “Adam
[Bernstein, of Adam’s Place] asked if
I had a bigger, funkier band that
could play there. We got a gig at the
Eugene Celebration the same year.”
Never a demure little jazz ensemble,
Eleven Eyes has been building its “big-
ger, funkier” sound ever since, incorpo-
rating electronic loops, samples and
extended instrumental improvisation into
their popular live shows. Their latest
project, a live CD ideally to be released
this winter, will include tracks captured at
their upcoming five year anniversary
party at the WOW Hall.
“We’re using a show we did at Jimmy
Mak’s in Portland. We want to represent
something from Eugene and from
Portland, which are both hometowns for
us,” McLaughlin says.
Eleven Eyes’ lineup has shifted in the
half-decade since its inception. Not only
have band members come and gone, but
they’ve switched up instruments and trad-
ed around primary responsibility for the
electronic elements of their music.
Longtime collaborator MC Monk Metz is
appearing with the band more often and
will lend his vocal stylings at the anniver-
sary show. Sam Berrett is the most recent
addition to the band.
“Sam’s our new drummer,” McLaughlin
says with enthusiasm. “He’s got a great feel
for the music, a natural insight for the con-
Eleven Eyes 5th anniversary show
9 pm Saturday, June 9
WOW Hall • $7 adv., $8 door
cept we’re going for. He’s really responsive
to working with drum loops.”
After taking some time to regroup,
Eleven Eyes is back on the road, playing
all over the West Coast and planning to
break farther afield. According to
McLaughlin, their goals include working
outside the U.S.
“We want to do more extended tours to
the East Coast and we’d like to get to
Europe,” he says. “We have a sense that
people over there would have a great
appreciation for what we are doing. We’re
feeling really strong about where we are
right now. This is, arguably, the best the
group has ever sounded.”
McLaughlin says the band is feeling
“refreshed vigor” for making music
together, constantly experimenting with
new sounds and pushing the borders of
what Eleven Eyes has done in the past.
“I like starting with a riff,” he explains.
“Starting from that and building more tex-
ture around it, going back and forth from
the instrument to the computer. It’s never a
set thing — that’s the beauty of it. You just
have to listen for it when it calls, whether
it comes from a saxophone or from inside
your head.”
ew