Eugene weekly., August 11, 2011, Page 27, Image 27

music
THE UNIVERSE IS
EXPANDING
NOW THERE ARE THREE PLANETS ORBITING THE SOUTH
OPEN
11 AM – 10 PM
EVERYDAY
Out and Outdoors
Meet Kate Reid, Canadian folk singer, queer activist and musician extraordinaire
— she wouldn’t say that last part, but it’s true.
Reid is a legit fulltime starving artist from north of the border whose music is
geared toward the day-to-day, in a queer way.
It is fi tting that Reid is the headliner for the Eugene/Springfi eld Pride festival, as
she is a passionate voice from a culture far more friendly to the LGBT community
than our own.
“I feel very aware of what I am when I’m in the U.S.,” Reid says, “I’m a voice of hope.”
A diligent guitarist since her high school years, Reid began her stage show as a
21-year-old singing Janis Joplin tunes with her father’s bar band. Her style is neo-
folk music meets slam poetry, often self-deprecating and very engaging.
Though her presence on the microphone is brazen, offstage Reid is shy and she
speaks openly of her performance fright. “I was terrifi ed of jumping on stage and
doing something I felt so passionate about,” she says.
When asked about the scene in Canada, in contrast to the one she plays in when
touring the U.S., Reid says, “I love pride festivals like the one in Eugene. In the U.S.,
with the struggles with marriage rights, it’s important music like this is played and
that we (LGBT community) are visible in our celebration.” She adds, “We have to
keep pushing.”
Kate Reid plays 6 pm Saturday, Aug. 13, at the Eugene/Springfi eld Pride Festival;
don. — Dante Zuñiga-West
Sideshows and Snake Oil
J.P. Whipple might be the offi cial wastrel journeyman of alternative folk music.
Acoustic guitarist, one-man orchestra, storyteller and lovable maniac, Whipple is a
performer whose music is episodic and glaring.
He has as many songs as he does nefarious pseudo-drunken stories about
traveling through the country. Some of his joints, like “Paycheck Blues,” sound like
they belong in the next Rob Zombie movie, playing in the background of a Captain
Spaulding scene; others, like “Stick with Me,” are gypsy-esque odes to unapologetic
degeneracy — if you’re smelling what he’s cooking, you’re gonna dig in.
Whipple’s lyrics weave their way up through the spiral staircases of his
careening adventures. His voice is a mixture of Tom Waits and the late Charles
Bukowski, though he experiments with both pitch and tone. Live, Whipple channels
a vaudevillian, old-timey, creeped-out, almost carnie aesthetic that is well worth its
weight in snake oil.
Whipple’s latest album, Bible Milk, though seemingly under-produced, sounds
like something you’d buy off of a traveling weirdo at just the right time in just the
right place. Small towns and the artsy neighborhoods of big cities are full of wanna-
be musical bum-princes who push their eccentricities to the forefront without
having the talent of true charisma; Whipple is who these people want to be.
J.P. Whipple plays 8:30 pm Saturday, Aug. 13, at The Axe & Fiddle; $3 — Dante
Zuñiga-West
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