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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (July 19, 2007)
Incite Shades of Gray The digital revolution has made it easier for artists to create and tour multimedia works in which sound and vision comprise a unified whole and neither plays a subordinate accompanist role. In Eugene, you can find many of these artists at DIVA, which is pri- marily an art gallery, after all, but which com- mendably refuses to limit its concept of art to pictures that hang on the wall. As a result, it’s become a frequent host for innovative multi- media artists from not only the West Coast but also the world beyond. DIVA’s latest intermedia visitor, Incite, weds tightly constructed, concise bursts of deep bass, static and other fragmentary, sometimes spooky electronic sounds and tex- tures to strangely enticing psychedelic (if that word can be used for images restricted to shades of gray) abstract video projections. The stark, rapidly changing patterns some- how go well with the spare electrominimalism. The award-winning Hamburg-based duo (Kera Nagel and André Aspelmeier) plays interna- tional arts festivals as well as clubs, and the best way to get a glimpse of what they do is to check out their videos online (another com- ponent of the digital revolution) at www.incite.fragmentedmedia.org/video_incit e.html and www.myspace.com/incitefm The other performers on the bill, whose music will accompany short works by regional video artists, include New York City’s Clocks Ticking Backwards, whose intriguing elec- tronic sounds ride on more conventional beats, and Rejouissance, Jim Heffernan’s moody guitar-based rock. Five bucks ($3 for students) gets you mind expanding experi- ences for the eyes as well as the ears. Incite/, Rejouissance, Clocks Ticking Backwards and the JiRCs perform at 8 pm Saturday, July 21, at DIVA. — Brett Campbell less. Her songs aren’t exactly cheery; neither are they somber. They spark stirring emotion through unexpected vocal phrasing and inven- tive lyricism. “Like Anything, It’s Small” is par- ticularly worthy of adoration, as Short’s voice waltzes into the lines, “It’s cold here / It’s nice here / Life goes on enough here / Like any- thing it’s a small life that we live here / And I’m riding the end to a story that hasn’t begun.“ Some songs, like “On The Waterfront” (inspired by the Marlon Brando movie of the same name), sound particularly rustic thanks to winsome plucking. And Short croons lovesick on “Pullin’ Pullin’,” describing that familiar tugging when she thinks of her lost love. Short speaks in the same coltish voice with which she sings. She sweltered in Portland on a recent 100-degree day, describ- ing her job teaching art to kids in summer camp. After moving to Chicago for a while and spending a few months in L.A. (“It was not the place for me,” she says. “It’s a crazy city”), she is settled again in Portland. She has a new CD, finished but unre- leased, entitled Water For The Day. Label issues and her cross-country moves have kept it sitting on the shelf, but she’s hoping for a September release. She will be performing with stand-up bassist Gary James. Shelley Short, Vermillion Lies and Brian Kenney Fresno play at 9 pm Friday, July 20, Shelley Short Short Sharp Shocked Shelley Short isn’t just another sweet- voiced singer, although she writes tender, strummed folk songs in a style reminiscent of the Be Good Tanyas. While I was listening to her second CD, 2006’s Captain Wildhorse (Rides the Heart of Tomorrow), Neko Case came to mind. Short’s music has little in com- mon with Case’s other than a sweeping sense of the dramatic, but in a just world this 27- year-old would be as popular as Case. Case’s earthy voice gives her songs mass, but Short’s songs are delicate, almost weight- at Sam Bond’s Garage. 21+ show. $5 — Vanessa Salvia Grammatically Sound I must admit, I felt a little disappointed when I first found out that Vampire Weekend has nothing to do with vampires. I expected a group all dressed as Lily Munster and bad ver- sions of Spike from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer singing covers of “Highway to Hell” and Mudhoney’s “Suck You Dry.” As good as that sounds, what I got instead were four relatively unknown Columbia graduates singing about grammar, which I found to be surprisingly bizarre and yet entertaining in its own way. The band’s name actually refers to the name of a movie the lead singer, Ezra Koenig, made the summer after his freshman year of college. He says the movie was about a guy named Walcott who had to go to Cape Cod to escape a vampire invasion. With no other association to vampires, there are bound to be a handful of confused teens downloading what they think will be another song they can really sink their teeth into. Though they’ve been labeled an Ivy league-pop band, Vampire Weekend defies the stereotypical sugar-coated, my grandfa- ther and I love to listen to you on our yacht sound that typically surrounds the New York indie pop scene. With a mix of Afrobeat, a multitude of classical instruments, vocals that sound like the spawn of Paul Simon and Strokes frontman Julian Casablancas and one of the best band names ever, Vampire Weekend stands out from the preppy crowd. Every song sounds different from the next: The band spews out an African-inspired beat in “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa,” creates some charming schoolboy pop in “Oxford Comma” and tries its hand at ska on “A- Punk,” during which I couldn’t help but laugh at their smurfy interpretation. Proving to the music world that there is something to be said for collared shirts and an expensive edu- cation, Vampire Weekend puts the cool in col- legiate and does for the maracas what Will Ferrell did for the cowbell. I say to heck with the cowbells — we need more maracas. Vampire Weekend plays at 10 pm Friday, July 20, at the Indigo District. 21+ show. Free. — Deanna Uutela Raising Roosters and Raising Hell Smack in northern Humboldt County, 8 miles inland from 101, is the sleepy little shit- burg Blue Lake (pop. 1110). Surrounded by bucolic cow fields and daffodils, you’d think D ONALD D EXTER J R DMD LLC DENTISTRY Lively Organic Farm THE LANDMARK An Ocean view from every table 111 Hwy 101 in YACHATS • 541-547-5459 www.landmark-yachats.com Live at the Coast Come visit us at Lively Organic Farm Stand Open Saturdays 10-5pm – Starting July 21st Music 12-4 with Michael Kevin Daly & Willie McEachern 600 River Loop #2 • 461-2737 (3 miles North of Beltline off River Road) Contemporary care with traditional values. RESPECT • HONESTY EMPATHY • HUMILITY Blueberries • Plums • Beets • Sweet Onions Garlic • Cucumbers • Tomatoes Zucchini • Carrots • Basil • Melons Lettuce • Flowers and much more! THURSDAY, JULY 19, 9PM Curley Taylor & Zydeco Trouble From Louisiana, rising star in the zydeco world, catch him on the way up FRIDAY, JULY 20, 9PM Marci Curtis Band A hit on the Salme scene, blue and jazzy style with a hint if pop SATURDAY, JULY 21, 9PM Jerry Zybach Band Groovy blues and rock with one of the Nothwest’s top bluesmasters SUNDAY, JULY 23,9PM 2233 W ILLAMETTE S T , B LDG B Camp 3’s Cold Hard Cash 541-485-6644 www.drdexter.com Fresh Fish/Italian - Authentic Oregon since 1911 28 JULY 19, 2007 A Johnny Cash tribute within some other jamming happenings • Open Jam every Thursday 6:30pm •
