Eugene weekly., January 13, 2011, Page 29, Image 29

music
Make a Joyful Noise
Fifteen years after fi rst hearing the music of Wayne “The
Train” Hancock with his debut Thunderstorms and Neon Signs,
I fi nally had the pleasure of talking to him on the phone, and his
gritty twang is just as authentic as his passion for juke joint swing
music. “If I wasn’t playing music, I’d be robbing banks,” Hancock
said from Las Vegas, where he’s preparing for his upcoming tour.
Hancock sports a tattoo on his shoulder that reads “Play Til You
Die.” “I don’t ever want to stop playing,” he says.
Hancock has made a name for himself playing unvarnished
Western swing — “It’s boogie woogie music,” he says. When he
fi rst started, he got run out of Nashville by bigwigs who told
him he was too raw, too twangy, too old-fashioned. It gave him
a bit of an attitude, and since then he’s been hell-bent on doing
things his way. Hancock is 46 now, and reckons he’s got another
20, maybe 30 years left in him. He doesn’t plan on changing
anything. “I haven’t changed since I started and I don’t want to,”
he says. “I never get tired of it.”
Just about everything Hancock says conveys a zeal for his
music and lifestyle. “In the Bible it says, ‘make a joyful noise to
the world,’ and that’s what I do. I like playing music and feeling
good when I do it. I don’t do it because of making a living, I do it
because I really got to do it,” he says. “I’m kind of like a doctor. It’s
a service. You go to the doctor to get shots if you want to get well.
If you need to get well spiritually, you come to us and I give you a
shot of music.” Wayne Hancock plays at 7 pm Monday, Jan. 17, at
WOW Hall. $10 adv., $12 door. — Vanessa Salvia
Acoustic, Shining, Enough
Recorded music, a beautiful thing that
provides relief from annoying workmates or
commutes from hell or the grind of everyday life,
can’t hold a candle to performers in person. But
Shawn Colvin’s lovely 2009 Grammy-nominated
album Shawn Colvin Live, recorded at Yoshi’s
jazz club in San Francisco, comes damn close.
The album sports fi ne Gnarls Barkley and
Talking Heads covers and features Colvin’s
distinctive fi nger-picking on a purely acoustic
album. Colvin also hits nearly every song
played millions of times on ‘90s radio or in the
headphones of the lovelorn. You want “Shotgun
Down the Avalanche,” “Sunny Came Home,”
“Polaroids,” “Diamonds in the Rough” or “Steady
On”? You’ve got ‘em
The warm sound of Live, intimate and inviting,
might remind listeners of evenings spent with
friends, the quiet that follows a laughter-fi lled
dinner as the singer takes the stage, the feeling
of hopping on a bike or opening the car door after
the concert, a little entranced, a little transformed
by the experience, comforted by song.
But why just buy the album when you could
see the real thing? Colvin, who hasn’t been
around Eugene in a few years, returns to the
Shedd’s Jaqua Concert Hall at 7:30 pm Thursday,
Jan. 20, in an acoustic show. Tix run an entirely
reasonable $32-$42. — Suzi Steffen
Contagious Music
Spanish infl uenza killed millions in the infamous
epidemic of 1918, but Infl uenza Italiana — the title
of a concert coming up on Sunday — is much
more benign. With a few exceptions, much of the
Baroque music we hear these days comes from
German composers such as J.S. Bach, Handel and
Telemann. But they and other northern composers
owed a decided debt to Vivaldi, Corelli and the
Italian music of the previous generations, including
less well known composers such as Caccini,
Castello, Cazzati, Falconieri, Merula and more. Their
music and more by German speaking composers
Froberger, Kapsberger and Rosenmuller (which
isn’t a law fi rm), who brought those scintillating
Italian sounds north beginning in the 17th century,
will be performed Sunday in a program devoted to
the Italian infl uence on Baroque music. Playing on the beautiful-looking and -sounding instruments and
in the styles appropriate to the time will be the Baroque ensemble Musica Maestrale, comprising some
of the region’s expert performers on authentic period instruments: Joanna Blendulf, often seen playing
viol and cello with Portland Baroque Orchestra and literally a dozen other early music aggregations in
the Northwest, San Francisco Bay Area and beyond; Eugene organist Julia Brown; Portland theorbist and
Baroque guitarist Hideki Yamaya, who plays in the Oregon Renaissance Band, PBO and at least three other
ensembles I know of; recorder player and — what do you call someone who plays the Renaissance ancestor
to the trombone? Sackbut-head? — Bryce Peltier, and singer Aaron Cain. Musica Maestrale performs at 4
pm Sunday, Jan. 16, at First United Methodist Church, 1376 Olive Street. $10. — Brett Campbell
Music can’t always focus on politics or religion, but Seattle indie pop
outfi t Ivan & Alyosha doesn’t shrink from challenging listeners’ beliefs
and worldviews. With its name that hearkens to a classic Dostoevskian
religious debate, the band might want its fans to infer that it incorporates
some faith-based topics. You would be correct in that assumption, but if
you’d write them off because of that you’d be selling yourself short.
On their new Fathers Be Kind EP, Ivan & Alyosha express their personal
faiths and weave their own brand of folksiness with something resembling
contemporary hymns. Tim Wilson’s voice and melodious guitar on the single
“Glorify” soar and jingle-jangle in a tune that seems more appropriate in
a whiskey bar than in a church pew. The title track explores the volatile
and impressionable impact that a father has on his children and does what
so many other poppy songs neglect in expressing a struggle to fi nd real
answers in an oft confusing and disenchanting world. “Well you know that
the light at the / end of the tunnel is dim / Don’t answer / To the mediocre
lies that have gone ahead,” laments Wilson. And while the tunnel may be
dimly lit for some, the curious intertwine of faith, personal struggle and
great music is vibrant enough to attract the masses. Cody Beebe and the
Crooks and Ivan & Alyosha play at 8:30 pm Saturday, Jan. 15, at the Axe &
Fiddle, Cottage Grove. 21+. $5. — Andrew Hitz
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I Believe
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