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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 12, 2012)
music LET IT POUR in 2012 FALLINGSKYBREWING.COM Opening Very Soon! 1334 Oak Alley fri jan 13 The Essentials & Craig Chee 8pm • $5 Purple Sparrows 5-7pm • no cover sat jan 21 Son Mela’o 9:30pm • $12 Emerald Knights Debutant Pageant Drag Show 6-8pm • $10 tues jan 24 PCP and Sightless Airmen Portland Cello Project (PCP) is an interlocking mass of classical and indie rock music that will make you stop and ponder just what else cellos are capable of when in the hands of incredibly talented and stylistically brave musicians. The band also knows how to team up and collaborate with other impressive musical innovators, as it proved when it joined forces to create The Thao and Justin Power Sessions with said artists. The laundry list of PCP collaborators reads like a who’s who of eclectic pacesetters — Peter Yarrow, The Dandy Warhols, Mirah, just to namedrop a few. Maybe it’s because PCP has toured all over and with a vast range of different music acts from punk rockers to metalheads, or perhaps it’s just what you get when you listen to a band that has more than 800 pieces of unique music to showcase, but PCP is a group that lives up to its hype and then some. Oh, and as if you needed another reason to go see a show that can only be described as epic, PCP will be gigging with guest singer-songwriter Israel Nebecker from Blind Pilot — try finding something better to do; you will fail. Portland Cello Project with Israel Nebecker of Blind Pilot play 7 pm Thursday, Jan. 19, at WOW Hall; $15 adv., $18 door. — Dante Zuñiga-West Funk, Fun, Fermentation Watching a carboy of beer or a jar of kimchi gurgle with life or erupt from a blow-off tube is like peeking into an alternative universe. At the Fun with Fermentation Festival hosted by the Willamette Valley Sustainable Foods Alliance, you can learn all about that and more. “There are a myriad of health benefits,” organizer Christina Sasser says of fermentation and the event. She says that folks should go “also for the culinary delight, as a way to preserve and enhance, and to become more in touch with our bodies, ancestral traditions and current food environment.” The list of health benefits for eating fermented food is overwhelming: from anti-cancer to immune enhancement, allergy prevention, healthy hair and nail growth, to enhanced gut flora and food bioavailability. A diet rich in living foods might cause one to scratch her head before eating a slice of white bread or a pan full of greasy stir-fry ever again. But perhaps one of the best aspects of fermentation is the potential it has to bring people together in a community. The Fun with Fermentation Festival has been doing that for three years now. “It’s a great community-oriented gathering with an abundance of food and drink,” said Sasser. “It’s education focused with demos and workshops, and also showcases local artisan and sustainable food producers that create fermented products. It’s all part of strengthening local resiliency.” Fermentation is one of the oldest ways of preserving food. But be warned, that once you throw in your dietary lot with these funky yeasts and bacteria there’s little chance you’ll want to live life without them. The Fun with Fermentation Festival takes place 11 am-4 pm Saturday, Jan. 14, at WOW Hall; $10-$20 per person, $5 with 2 cans of food. For more info go to wvsalliance.org — Andrew Hitz No Empty Spaces Bend, Oregon — known for ski bums, sprawling subdivisions, beautiful scenery and ... experimental prog-influenced post-rock? No, I wouldn’t have guessed that either, but Bend’s Empty Space Orchestra is beginning to make a big noise both east of the Cascades and up and down the Willamette Valley. The classically trained group follows in the footsteps of bands like Battles and Mogwai — generally eschewing vocals and traditional song structure for trancelike ambient jams. The band’s recent release was recorded and engineered in Sacramento by Robert Cheeks (known for his work with the Deftones) and mixed in Seattle by Matt Bayless (known for working with Mastodon and Isis). Traces of those bands can be heard in ESO’s sound. Empty Space Orchestra is epic and heavy one minute, face- meltingly experimental the next, and the band ends up groovin’ like the heyday of the jazz-fusion era, fueled by the skronkin’ saxophone of multi-instrumentalist Graham Jacobs. Imagine Black Sabbath and King Crimson remixed by Lee Scratch Perry with Herbie Hancock sitting in. Throughout it all, these guys stay incredibly melodic and tight as hell thanks in no small part to drummer Lindsey Elias. She is one ferocious musician and a force of nature behind the kit. On the ESO website, Graham Jacobs explains “I was spending a lot of time thinking about what Miles Davis used to say: ‘It’s not about the space you play, but the space you leave.’ That’s where the ‘Empty Space’ came from … ironically we don’t leave much space in our music.” Empty Space Orchestra plays with VTRN 10 pm Thursday, Jan. 19, at Luckey’s; $5. — William Kennedy Rosie Ledet and the Zydeco Playboys Return of the Whomp 8pm • $14 adv/$18 door fri jan 27 Shook Twins & Opal Creek 8pm • $5 adv/$8 door CECE and Band 5-7pm • no cover sat jan 28 Pigs on the Wing Plays Dark Side of the Moon to Wizard of Oz • pig-wing.com 8:30pm • $8 adv/$10 door Tulsi and the Gnu Deal & Bad News Tooth 5-7pm •$5 sug. don. coming attractions feb 2nd Tracy Grammer feb 3rd Guy Davis feb 4th Breathe Owl Breathe w/ Emperor X feb 25th Chuck Prophet e every ev er wednesday FAMILY FAM NIGHT 6-7:30pm OPE MIC NIGHT All Ages • 7:30pm OPEN ever thursday every OPEN OP JAZZ JAM 5-7pm cozmicpresents.com Dubstep has become synonymous with blunt-force bass and overproduced breakless anarchy. Vibesquad and Kraddy, however, retain the grimy bubbles and ethereal space in their music that originally defined the style without sacrificing the raw modern power that fans eat up. Vibesquad, hailing from Colorado’s electric triangle, exhibits the obvious influence of early house and techno from his Chicago youth, allowing the bass to drive straight ahead, not careen through every layer of the mainstream superhighway. Controlling rubber decks through lush wobbles, Vibesquad kicks an organic funk-based groove. Tracks like “Porcupine” from Return of the Pudding People punch insistent, ephemeral dub that shiftily floats on the heads of the drums. Kraddy embraces a squelchy, grittier style. After his departure from the L.A.-based Glitch Mob in 2009, Kraddy’s solo stuff has switched from sonic urgency to a pounding sword-like stitchwork quilt of sampled cuts. Listening to Kraddy’s recently released Labyrinth EP, you get the sense of impending escape from the rat race, a bass escalation in your ribcage. Nonetheless, Kraddy maintains a punctual control over his sound, breaking perfectly and avoiding the temptation of jackhammer chaos. These two artists, both exhibiting different styles within a rapidly evolving genre, boast critical chops in utilizing the sounds of hip hop, jazz and grunge to further purée canonical music. Vibesquad and Kraddy play 8 pm Friday, Jan. 13, at McDonald Theatre; $15 adv.; $18 door. — Patrick Newson 541-338-9333 199 W 8th St • Eugene, Oregon corner of 8th & Charnelton 24 JANUARY 12, 2012 EUGENE WEEKLY WWW.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM • BLOGS.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM
