The daily Astorian., July 18, 2016, Page 10A, Image 10

10A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, JULY 18, 2016
Nebeker: Band
will hit the road
for cross-country
tour next month
Continued from Page 1A
Family focused
These unexpected turns in Nebeker’s life partly account for
the ive-year gap between albums. “And Then Like Lions” —
which debuts Aug. 12 — is the indie folk band’s third album,
after 2008’s “3 Rounds and a Sound” and 2011’s “We Are The
Tide.”
Once they inished touring on the second album, Nebeker
set off to write the third. But when his father’s illness became
known, “I decided to move closer to my parents’ home in Gear-
hart and spend as much time with my dad as I could,” he said.
“I was kind of spun out and didn’t really know what to do,” he
said. “I deinitely didn’t know what to write about.”
Bandmates Luke Ydstie and Kati Claborn, who live in Asto-
ria, had a daughter, Hazel, around that time as well.
“They weren’t ready to go into the studio then, either,”
Nebeker said. “We mostly just focused on family stuff that we
were going through. And then, eventually, it made sense again to
write the album.”
He scrapped his old ideas
and, fueled by his recent emo- ‘We kind
tional journey, took his work of had an
in a new direction. “It was a
very different album than I ongoing
was expecting,” he said.
New musical terrain
conversation
about
creative
process,
and we both
just would
get really
excited
about the
ideas that
would apply
both to
painting and
songwriting.’
Ryan Dobrowski, Blind
Pilot’s
drummer
who
co-founded the band with
Nebeker in the mid-2000s,
said Nebeker always “digs
pretty deep in his songwriting,
but I feel like he was really
ambitious with this one, tack-
ling some subjects that peo-
ple are generally afraid to talk
about, or talk about in great
depth at least.”
Given the rather heavy
content, the band “had to ind
the arrangements that were
appropriate for that,” he said.
“There’s that challenge of
trying to ind something that
feels hopeful, but not just like,
‘Everything’s great and has
always been great’ — because
things aren’t always great.”
As a band, they “try to ind
Israel Nebeker
that balance between sadness lead singer and songwriter of
and happiness,” he said.
the band Blind Pilot, talking
“Israel came with these about a conversation with his
songs pretty complete, and father Royal Nebeker
then to have them illed out
and do them justice — it was a good challenge for all of us,” he
said.
Ydstie, who sings and plays bass, said with “And Then Like
Lions” the band ventured beyond their comfort zone — past the
spare acoustic sound that deined their irst record and, to a lesser
extent, their second — and into uncharted musical terrain.
“There are some things that will sound more familiar to peo-
ple, and there are some things that are pretty different — tonal
palettes and different approaches, I think, arrangement-wise and
production-wise,” he said.
Recorded in chunks over the course of a year, “And Then
Like Lions” marks the band’s irst time recording with a well-
known label, ATO Records.
On the road again
Once again, Blind Pilot is facing the tempest of the “album
cycle”: recording, rehearsing, promoting, touring and shooting
music videos.
Come next month, the band embarks a cross-country tour,
including two shows, on Aug. 19 and Aug. 20, at the Liberty The-
ater, where Nebeker is a board member.
“We’re really happy to be doing these two shows at the Lib-
erty — and incredibly lattered,” said Dobrowski, who shares a
house with Ydstie and Claborn. “I was pretty amazed at how fast
that irst one sold out. It’s pretty cool to have that support after
going dark for a little bit.”
Touring is “what we love to do. We play music to play music,”
he said. “I think the band always gets much better when we’ve
played consecutive shows.
“There’s a really great thing that happens when you’re per-
forming night after night, and you really get into the craft of that,”
he said. “So I’m excited, not only just to get out on the road and
see all the great places again, but to sort of tap into that thing that
we can do when we start playing in front of an audience.”
Nebeker and Dobrowski performed Blind Pilot as a duo until
2008, when Ydstie, Claborn, and Portland members Ian Krist and
Dave Jorgensen joined.
‘This is my thing’
Nebeker, who now lives south of Cannon Beach, said the
music that most resonates with him inds “a universal core within
a deeply personal sentiment,” citing Bob Dylan, Joanna New-
som, Neutral Milk Hotel and Talking Heads as some of his main
musical inluences.
Asked whether their work seeds his own, Nebeker said, “It
has to be that way, right? Just the nature of art, and the way that it
moves through history — it doesn’t come from nowhere.”
His lyrics — charged with lares of intense feeling and snap-
shots of nonlinear storytelling — recall the work of Beat poets
like Jack Kerouac, an author he read as a teenager. Kerouac’s
experimental 1960 novel, “Book of Dreams,” had a profound
impact on Nebeker’s songwriting.
“That was it for me — that idea of capturing these strange
sort of gestures of expression, but not totally on solid ground,”
he said. “The communication seems to happen on a more emo-
tional level.”
But Nebeker’s greatest artistic inluence remains his father.
“We kind of had an ongoing conversation about creative pro-
cess,” he said, “and we both just would get really excited about
the ideas that would apply both to painting and songwriting.”
Neither father nor son would encroach too far onto the other’s
artistic territory, though.
“He played banjo, and I still draw for myself and do water-
color,” he said. But, “for some reason, it just always felt like, ‘No,
that’s your thing, and this is my thing.’”
“And Then Like Lions” is now available on preorder, which
comes with the single “Umpqua Rushing.” Tickets are still avail-
able for the band’s Aug. 20 performance at the Liberty Theater.
Fort George Brewery Instagram
The Pokemon cartoon monster at Fort George Brewery.
Pokemon Go: ‘People are realizing
there’s a whole world out there’
Continued from Page 1A
“It’s nice and safe,” said
Katrina Gasser, Kaden’s
mother, who was pointing
her phone into the water as
she attempted to catch a crab
Pokemon. “I see it as a family
activity.”
The downside
Some players, however,
have taken the cultural phe-
nomenon to the extreme. Play-
ers nationally have been so dis-
tracted by the action on their
phones that they have walked
into trafic, crashed cars and
fallen off bluffs. Others have
trespassed on private property,
risking an armed confrontation.
Contestants hurriedly walk-
ing around downtown Asto-
ria from marker to marker
show that the North Coast is no
exception to the craze inspired
by Japanese ictional characters
created in the mid-1990s.
“Well irst of all, I’m up
before 2 p.m. and I’m out walk-
ing so that’s cool,” said Holly
Wolfgram.
Having been a fan of
Pokemon for a while, Wolf-
gram, 20, sees the new app as a
way to get out and connect with
others. Poke Stops and the com-
mon goal to “catch them all”
serve as conversation starters
when players come across each
other with their phones out.
“People in this town are pretty
closed off and it’s opened up a
whole new world,” she said.
Players can’t yet send mes-
sages through the game, but the
competitive aspect and physical
closeness gets strangers talking
to each other face-to-face.
“When I was a kid, I didn’t
play it,” said Luke Wenker.
The 29-year-old was out for a
walk with his girlfriend and had
loaded up on supplies as they
walked to the Poke Stop at the
pier. “It’s silly, but I just wanted
to see what it was all about,” he
said.
John Gentner, the owner of
Metal Head, has watched the
phenomenon unfold from his
shop downtown. “People are
already glued to their phones,
but this is a new intensity,” he
said. “One guy today came
right in and was just worried
about catching a Pokemon
instead of acknowledging
anyone.”
Gentner describes himself
as a low-i person living in a
hi-i world but doesn’t neces-
sarily think Pokemania is a bad
thing. “I see a lot of people hat-
ing on it. As much as I want to
be a ’get off my lawn guy,’ at
the end of the day, people are
getting outside. People are real-
izing there’s a whole world out
there.”
Herzig: Councilor is not shy about his politics
Continued from Page 1A
city and his fellow councilors
to give greater weight to com-
ments from individual resi-
dents on policy issues.
He helped convince the city
in 2014 to support the Astoria
Warming Center at the Astoria
Senior Center while the build-
ing was under renovation. The
warming center — an emer-
gency shelter for the homeless
during the winter — moved to
First United Methodist Church
last winter.
Herzig has at times had
prickly relationships with city
staff and councilors. He was a
critic of the team style of leader-
ship under former Mayor Willis
Van Dusen — claiming that the
council was often in “lockstep”
with the mayor — and described
himself after his irst year at City
Hall as the sole dissenting voice.
Over the past few years, his ver-
bal jousts with the more conser-
vative Warr have been a feature
at council meetings.
Diversity project
Active in the Democratic
Party, and a regular presence
on the Occupy Astoria Face-
book page, Herzig is not shy
about his progressive politics.
Outside the City Council,
Herzig is a leader in the Lower
Columbia Diversity Project, a
group that has promoted pub-
lic discussion on race, sexual-
ity and social justice issues.
Herzig’s partner, Charles
Schweigert, is an accomplished
painter and sculptor. The cou-
ple has placed their South Slope
home on the market.
CBH: Complaints circulated around North Coast for years
Continued from Page 1A
Response to
critical reviews
Complaints about Clatsop
Behavioral Healthcare had cir-
culated on the North Coast for
years and, in many ways, were
similar to the challenges in
mental health care experienced
across Oregon and the nation.
But after a woman with a his-
tory of mental illness jumped
off the Astoria Bridge in April
2015 — and it was discovered
that she had multiple inter-
actions with police and the
agency in the months before
her death — the agency came
under greater scrutiny.
The agency is on track to
respond to a critical Oregon
Health Authority review in June
that validated many of the pub-
lic and internal concerns about
management and quality of care.
The state review found that
the agency will need regulatory
oversight “until stability in the
community mental health sys-
tem is reached.”
“I think the things that they
identiied in that audit are all ix-
able,” Baker said. “And the chal-
lenges with CBH aren’t any-
thing that people don’t already
know and have heard about.”
The Oregon Health Author-
ity review was provided to The
Daily Astorian by an anony-
mous source in June. The state
formally released the report
to the newspaper on Friday in
response to a public records
request.
A separate internal investi-
gation into Clatsop Behavioral
Healthcare’s management was
also conducted after the labor
union that represents workers
at the agency took a “no coni-
dence” vote in the former clini-
cal director.
The indings of the investi-
gation have not been released
publicly, and the agency has
declined a request by The Daily
Astorian to disclose the conclu-
sions. Three top administrators
left the agency after the investi-
gation, and two federal lawsuits
have been iled over manage-
ment issues.
Baker said in an email Sat-
urday that the agency is unable
to release the internal report
“because it contains personal
and personnel information sub-
ject to attorney-client privilege.
“However, the CBH board
took the indings seriously.
Existing and newly installed
CBH management are in the
process of addressing the ind-
ings of the report. We have
every conidence that the orga-
nization will be much stron-
ger moving forward and more
effective in partnering with
other stakeholders and in serv-
ing the behavioral health needs
in Clatsop County.”
Clear expectations
County Manager Cameron
Moore believes it is important
for the county to make clear
what the expectations are for
Clatsop Behavioral Healthcare
going forward.
The county Board of Com-
missioners could hold a work
session in August with Baker,
the agency’s board, Greater
Oregon Behavioral Health and
the Oregon Health Authority to
outline responsibilities.
“I think we’re all happy that
we’re inally seeing things at
CBH move in a positive direc-
tion,” Moore told county com-
missioners Wednesday night.
“But I also think it’s very
important now that the com-
mission, the CBH board and
state agencies make sure that
we’re all on the same page
going forward.”
Baker has been meeting
with civic and law enforcement
leaders throughout the county
to help restore the agency’s
reputation.
“It’s really been to reach
out and thank them for their
patience, assure them that
we’re committed to being a
strong, vibrant organization.
That we’re open to problems,
challenges, criticism,” she said.
“We want to address that. We
want to be an organization that
this community is proud of.”
But she also knows she
will be judged by whether the
agency improves.
“I don’t expect people to
just believe everything that
I’m going to say,” Baker said.
“They need to see action. So
that’s what I’m going to do.”
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