Eugene weekly., May 10, 2012, Page 34, Image 34

music
Alice in Download Land
Although Moonalice is a fairly new band, having had its fi rst concert in 2007, the group is
composed of old pros who have been making music for a long time with rock ‘n’ roll legends,
including Rod Stewart, Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead.
One of the most essential members of the band is Pete Sears, whose repertoire includes
playing accordion, bass, guitar, keyboards and vocals. When Sears isn’t laying down the bass line,
he’s playing guitar — lending his youthful voice to old classics. Whether he’s singing a folk-rock
tune or crooning a love song to the audience, Sears is extremely diverse in his talents and always
puts on a good show.
You’d be hard-pressed to fi nd a band as accessible as Moonalice — a fi ve-piece that not only
puts its albums online for free, but also does live “Mooncasts” of every one of its concerts.
Moonalice also created a band-operated, satellite-based HTML system that allows all of its
concerts to be broadcasted to smart phones and iPads. The group’s ingenuity has served them
well, as Moonalice has recently been recognized by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for having the
fi rst platinum single ever to be downloaded from a band’s own servers.
Moonalice plays 8 pm Sunday, May 13, at WOW Hall; $18 adv., $20 door.
— Hailey Chamberlain
Cottage Grove’s Steampunk Cabaret
A week ago I met a girl on the side of the road. She was a radical-anarchist type with black
skinny jeans, a half-shaved head and a few well-manicured hairs growing off her chin. We struck up
a conversation, which eventually turned to music, she being a saw player.
“I fucking hate folk-punk,” she said. “It’s all the same. Just go up to FolkLife in Seattle and they’ll
all be lined up and down the street with their guitars, banjos, washboards and fi ddles all playing the
same Tom Waits rip-off about train-hopping, dumpster-diving, drinking shitty whiskey and loitering.”
I’m pretty sure some of that criticism was self-deprecation, but what she spoke of had much
truth to it. The washed-up traveler (skinny mongrel in tow) has become as loathed an archetype
as your modern day Ray-Ban-clad hipster or Deadhead pot-smoking hippy. And for good reason —
they’re all dead ends for civilization. But Aeon Now! is the light at the end of the folk-punk tunnel.
An amalgam of visual artists, thespians and long-time musicians, Cottage Grove’s Aeon Now! is
a psychedelic schlitz waltz through Alice’s Wonderland. It’s a tea party fueled by whiskey and steam.
Dirges like “My Clock Explodes (When I’m Alone)” fi nd lead vocalist and squeezebox extraordinaire
Olive Delsol hurling all her raspy, gutter-soaked energy and raunchy theatrics at the crowd. And
like a band of Victorian ragdolls, this cabaret takes you on a trip that spans from gripping punk to
theater of the insane.
Think of a downsized gulag-esqe Vagabond Opera and that puts you pretty close to what Aeon
Now! sounds like. Spin that with a few concepts like community, radical social change and Mutual
Aid, and you’re about dead on. Put on your boots — maybe even a petticoat or a pocket watch —
throw down a shot or two of distilled grain ferment and you’re ready to hit the fl oorboards.
Aeon Now! plays with Mood Area 52 and Strangled Darlings 9 pm Thursday, May 10, at Sam
Bond’s; $1-$5. — Andrew Hitz
Beards, Brothers, Banjos, Bluegrass
Maybe it’s the fact that they got their start as dirty travelers
busking all over the globe (Australia, et al); maybe it’s because they
all have similar, somewhat muddy tastes in folk music; maybe it’s the
fact that they’re constantly commuting between Portland and Eugene
to continue their musical lifestyles. Whatever the cause, local folkers
Wainwright Brothers encapsulate a truckin’ vagabond sound with
perfection. And it makes you want to stomp your feet until the bottom
falls out of Sam Bond’s.
“Indie roots, bluegrass inspired, boot-stomping are our main
self-descriptors,” says banjo player Dylan Macnab, and he’s right,
for all intents and purposes: The band’s tunes range from silk to
sandpaper, each one a mystery waiting to be unraveled until the
vocals come in. But whether the singing sounds like a fi erce Tom
Waits impression or a strange Harry McClintock at age 20, it’s never
a let down — just know that you won’t be getting your usual dose of
bluegrass out of these kids. Spearheaded by Macnab’s banjo twang,
the instrumentation is as dusty as a southern broom and rugged as
the beards the band members sport. But the songwriting is inherently
modern, and this lends the Brothers their toe-tapping idiosyncrasy.
They’ll probably make you wish you knew how to dance, but then
you’ll realize you don’t need formal training; expressing yourself is fun
enough.
After almost a fi ve-month hiatus (during which percussionist/
guitarist Will Glaser was abroad), the Brothers are reuniting to what
will hopefully be a welcoming crowd in the town that knows them
best. Erin Howe (of Bad Mitten Orchestre) joins the fellas on fi ddle and
she’s got just the right measure of savage violin skill to make the folk
go down like whiskey — smooth, but with an intoxicating burn.
The Wainwright Brothers and Montana Skies play 9 pm Wednesday,
May 16, at Sam Bond’s; $1-$5 door. — Andy Valentine
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