ENTERTAINMENT
Saturday, March 18, 2017
East Oregonian
Page 3C
Cow punk band features semi-native Eastern Oregonian
T
he Treefort Music Festival in
Boise is always a joyous time
of year for Eastern Oregon
because of the cavalcade of bands
passing through the region on their
way to and from the festival looking
for gigs to pick up along the way.
An exciting act passing through
Pendleton this
year is the cow
punk band Jenny
Don’t and the
Spurs. Their
performance at
the Great Pacific
on Friday, March
24 is of particular
J.D.
importance
Kindle
because the
Comment
Spurs features
a semi-native
Eastern Oregonian
in their ranks: guitar and slide guitar
player Jeremy Terry, who performs
under the alias JT Halmfilst.
JT has developed a reputation
as one of Portland’s most active
musicians. His resume includes a
long list of punk, country, and rock
and roll bands to which he adds a
lead guitar style heavily influenced
by Link Wray, Nokie Edwards of
The Ventures, and Japanese surf
guitarist Takeshi Terauchi. For many
of the musicians that he works with,
JT is their first semblance of an
encounter with Eastern Oregon.
Born in Bremerton, Wash.,
and briefly raised in Alaska, JT’s
family moved up the Umatilla River
canyon, just short of the Bar M
Ranch, when he was four years old.
He would be bussed up to Athena
to attend school where he played
saxophone in the music program.
The summer after eighth grade
he formed a garage band with his
friend Keith Lavadour that was
dedicated covering Ramones tunes
and writing original material. “That
seemed pretty wild for us at the
time,” JT reflects, “because we
didn’t know anyone on the river that
played music.”
Jenny Don’t and The Spurs
Friday, March 24, 7 p.m.
at the Great Pacific
403 S. Main St, Pendleton
Contributed photo
Jenny Don’t and The Spurs: (left to right) Sam Henry, Jenny Don’t, JT Halmfilst, Kelly Haliburton
Halmfilst gives a lot of credit to
the Lavadours (including painter
James Lavadour) for stimulating
his creative impulses. “That family
was a huge access to culture that I
wouldn’t have got any other way. I
was aware of a larger world outside
of the Umatilla River canyon
because of them. Keith and I were
artists too. We were into drawing
and they were very encouraging.”
His first garage band and
aspirations to play in Athena’s
beloved drums and bagpipes
marching band were sidelined when
his mother remarried and relocated
the family to Portland during his
sophomore year of high school.
“It was really bummer at the
time too because I was leaving all
these people I grew up with to that
point, and I didn’t really like the guy
my mom had married either, but it
was at the right time because I was
getting into all this music that was
going on in the late ’80s, early ’90s,
so it was actually the perfect place to
be. I could see some of the bands I
was into at the time.”
It didn’t take JT long to form
a new band with his high school
classmates. His first project there,
Darwin’s Grab Bag, played grunge
punk style that was in vogue in the
early ’90s. By lying about their
age they were able to play a couple
shows at the legendary Satyricon.
Though they never toured the band
played plenty of shows around
Portland, made a few recordings,
and as JT puts it, “it definitely shot
me down the trajectory for what I
wanted to do the rest of my life.”
Thought Darwin’s Grab Bag
was short-lived, JT began to play
in a series of bands that eventually
veered towards country music.
Among the many bands JT joined
was the raucous and aptly named
Party Country. The band was
looking for a slide guitar to round
out their lineup so JT picked up
a vintage Supro model from Old
Town Music.
It was also during his tenure in
Party Country that JT received his
moniker. The band already had one
Jeremy in the band, so JT seemed
like an appropriate nickname,
though he felt he needed a surname
for album credits. JT originally
settled on Hamfist, but add l’s to
make it sound more Scandinavian
and reflect how Buck Owens
might pronounce “Hamfist” in his
signature over affected drawl.
Following a romantic breakup
in the late ’90s, Halmfilst moved
to Austin for six years. While there
he joined the Juanita Family, a
roots-country offshoot of the San
Diego math rock band The Last of
MOVIE REVIEW
Festivals
WHAT TO DO
Night life
Wee Bit O’ Ireland
Celebration
•March 16-19
•Heppner, various locations
www.heppnerchamber.com
Free. Get your green on and get ready for
some Irish fun. Live music, Irish brogue contest,
parade, sheep dog trials, Cruz-In car show, Welly
Toss, Road Bowling, meals, vendor displays, fund-
raisers and fun for youths.
Echo Red 2 Red XC
•April 1
•Intersection Main/Dupont streets, Echo
www.echored2red.com
$45/adults, $20/youths. In its ninth year, riders
start and finish in downtown Echo. Includes all
ages and skill levels with awards and a raffle after
the race. Race postponed from March due to trail
conditions.
Art, Museums
Terrific Tuesday: Sheep and Sheep
Ranching
This image shows Dan Stevens as The Beast, left, and Emma Watson as Belle in a
live-action adaptation of the animated classic “Beauty and the Beast.”
•Tuesday, March 28; 7 p.m.
•Heritage Station Museum, 108 S.W. Frazer
Ave., Pendleton
Free. John Doherty will guide listeners through
the history of the Doherty sheep ranch near Gur-
dane. A sheep ranching exhibit also is on display
in the main gallery.
A ‘Beauty and the Beast’
with a new dimension
•Tuesday-Sundays, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
•Peterson’s Gallery and Chocolatier, 1925
Main St., Baker City
www.petersonsgallery.net
Free. Features a collection of bright and col-
orful artwork by favorite artists. In addition, new
spring chocolate line is available. Opening recep-
tion held in conjunction with the First Friday Art-
walk. Runs through March 31.
Disney via AP
By JAKE COYLE
AP Film Writer
T
he Disney “live-action” remakes, of
which the new “Beauty and the Beast” is
but one in an assembly line, are starting
to resemble an iPhone software update. Click
a button and that old cartoon interface changes
Belle into Emma Watson, the Beast into Dan
Stevens and maybe fixes a few bugs in the
system.
“Beauty and the Beast,” that “tale as old as
time” (or, to pinpoint it, 1740, when the French
fairy tale was published), could certainly use a
few tweaks. It is, after all, a fable about finding
beauty within that ends, curiously, with the
once superficial prince falling for a beautiful
woman he’s kidnapped, whose name literally
means beauty. If you’d like to untangle those
ironies, please, be our guest.
Director Bill Condon’s film — let’s call it
“Beauty and the Beast 2.0” — often feels in
search of a purpose beyond the all-but-certain
dollar signs. Much of the live-action/digital
effects makeover is less lifelike than the
Oscar-winning 1991 animated film: It’s gained
a dimension but lost a pulse. The merely fine
acting and the lavish production design (the
sumptuous sets nearly swallow the performers
whole) dutifully strive to make this a worthy
enterprise.
Opposites attract, of course. And this
“Beauty and the Beast” is equal parts
dispiriting and enchanting: overflowing in
handsome craft, but missing a spirit inside.
Howard Ashman and Alan Menken’s songs
still have their infectious kick, but most of the
big musical moments feel more like very good
covers of the originals.
And yet “Beauty and the Beast” finds its
own verve — or, to quote Lumiere, “reason
d’etre” — late. Condon (having helmed much
of the “Twilight” saga, knows a thing or two
about young love and monsters), working
from a script by Stephen Chbosky and Evan
Spiliotopoulos, has taken many of the old
tale’s more cringe-worthy gender roles and
Let’s Call It Spring
Chuck Close: Portraits
“Beauty and the Beast”
★★★☆
PG, 129 minutes
mixed them up in the movie’s bright swirling
medley.
Belle’s bookishness is more pronounced,
thanks partly to the “Harry Potter” credentials
of Watson. Her performance is a little
minor key, still, but Watson lends Belle an
intelligence and agency that she has lacked.
She’s less of a Stockholm syndrome Victim
and more deserving of young girls’ admiration.
And the Beast, a pile of horns, makeup and
effects on top of the former “Downton Abbey”
star Stevens, is more haunted and melancholy.
But as the film nears its celebratory coda,
a buoyant pluralism bursts forth. Characters
— large parts and small — are freed from
their prescribed roles in a glorious dance,
shortly after Mrs. Potts (Emma Thompson),
Cogsworth (Ian McKellen), Lumiere (Ewan
McGregor) and the rest come to life.
Josh Gad, the MVP of many a Disney
movie, plays LeFou, the doting sidekick of
the caddish Gaston (Luke Evans), the dopey
pursuer of Belle’s hand. LeFou spends much
of the movie hinting at his affection for his
lecherous friend, but LeFou, too, earns a
chance for redemption toward the end. That’s
all it is — an easy to miss suggestion that
LeFou might find another love. And yet this
slightest wink of homosexuality has drawn
the ire of some who, it’s worth noting, raised
no concerns over a romance between an
imprisoned girl and a beast or, for that matter,
a candelabra and a feather duster.
In fact, “Beauty and the Beast” would be
better if it dared more such moments and went
further with them. Nevertheless, the uproar
suggests even this must count as progress.
Perhaps we’ll be ready for a truly up-to-date
“Beauty and the Beast 3.0” in another few
decades.
The Juanitas. The Juanita Family
eventually relocated to Portland
(and even made an appearance at
the Main Street Cowboys’ Greatest
Free Show in The West during the
mid-’00s).
Two years ago JT happened to
walk into a bar being tended by
Jenny Don’t. Her backing band The
Spurs had just lost their lead guitar
player. When asked if he knew
of any available guitar players JT
modestly replied that the would be
up to the task.
With The Spurs Halmfilst is in
perfect company with a lineup of
veteran Portland players: singer
and guitarist Jenny Don’t of the
rock band Don’t, bassist Kelly
Haliburton of Pierced Arrows, and
Sam Henry, drummer of legendary
Portland punk bands The Wipers,
The Rats, and Napalm Beach
(among countless others). Their
sound is what one would expect
from Portland punkers who’ve taken
a shining to country music: rough,
unrefined, and embracing the outlaw
aspects of the genre (“Trouble With
The Law” and “Take Me To Jail”
are a few of their song titles).
With a freshly released live
album “Live from Bonn, Germany”
and a forthcoming album entitled
“Call Of The Road,” it is expected
that Don’t and The Spurs (with
Halmfilst in tow) will blow through
Pendleton like a tumbleweed. This
will be the perfect time to catch them
and Halmfilst’s guitar work, which
was born of the Umatilla River.
■
James Dean Kindle is
a Pendleton musician and
executive director of the Oregon
East Symphony. Contact him at
jamesdeankindle@gmail.com.
•Tuesday-Fridays, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Saturdays,
noon-4 p.m.
•Pendleton Center for the Arts, 214 N. Main St.
www.pendletonarts.org
Free. Selections of Close’s work from the col-
lection of Jordan Schnitzer.
Eastern Oregon Regional High School
Exhibit
•Monday-Fridays; 11 a.m.-4 p.m.
•Nightingale Gallery, Loso Hall
•Eastern Oregon University, La Grande
www.eou.edu/art
Free. Features talented high school artists
from across the region, including art students from
Pendleton and Echo high schools. Runs through
March 21.
“The Path of Totality”
•Monday, April 3; 9 a.m.-5:30 p.m., art accept-
ed
•Friday, April 7; 5:30-8 p.m., opening reception
•Crossroads Carnegie Art Center, 2020 Auburn
St., Baker City
www.crossroads-arts.org
$15/members, $20/non-members. Up to three
pieces accepted by amateur and professional art-
ists depicting the theme inspired by the upcoming
Aug. 21 total solar eclipse. Show and sale runs
April 7-29.
DJ music
•Saturdays, 8 p.m.
•The Pheasant, 149 E. Main St., Hermiston
Karaoke w/DJ David
•Saturdays; 8 p.m.
•Riverside Sports Bar, 1501 Sixth St., Umatilla
Lock, Stock & Lipstick Ladies’ Night
•Saturdays; 8 p.m.-2 a.m.
•Sub Zero Restaurant & Lounge, 100 W. High-
way 730, Irrigon
No cover. Drink specials from 8-10 p.m. Live
DJ with female-friendly music.
Whiskey Wednesday Game Night
•Wednesdays; 3-7 p.m.
•The Pheasant, 149 E. Main St., Hermiston
No cover. Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, PlayStation
3 and Nintendo 64.
Digital Karaoke
•Thursdays and Fridays, 8 p.m.
•The Pheasant, 149 E. Main St., Hermiston
LOL Comedy Jam
•Thursdays; 8 p.m.
•Wildhorse Sports Bar, Wildhorse Resort &
Casino, off I-84 Exit 216, Mission.
No cover. March 23: Mike Wally Walter; March
30: Julian Michael
Mac’s Trivia Night
•First Thursday of month, 8 p.m. No cover
•Mac’s Bar & Grill, 1400 S.W. Dorion Ave.,
Pendleton
21 and older. East. Drink. Think. Teams of 2-8
compete in trivia contest with other teams. Live
host and prizes.
Wine tasting
•Fridays, 4-8 p.m.
•Sno Road Winery, 111 W. Main St., Echo.
Open Mic
•First/third Friday each month, 8 p.m.-midnight
•The Packard Tavern, 118 S.E. Court Ave.,
Pendleton
www.facebook.com/groups/pendletonopen-
mic
Karaoke w/DJ David
•Fridays; 8 p.m.
•Riverside Sports Bar, 1501 Sixth St., Umatilla
Cimmi’s Late Night Martini Lounge
•Fridays; 9 p.m.-midnight
•Virgil’s at Cimmiyotti’s, 137 S. Main St., Pend-
leton
No cover. Features martinis, mixology and
music.
Theater & film
“Treasure Island” Auditions
•Monday, March 27; 10 a.m.
•A.C. Houghton Elementary School, 1105 N.
Main Ave., Irrigon
Free. Auditions for the Missoula Children’s
Theatre production is open to ages 6-18. Rehears-
als will be held throughout the week with a perfor-
mance scheduled Saturday, April 1.
“Moana”
•Friday, March 31; 7 p.m.
•Vert Auditorium, 480 S.W. Dorion Ave., Pend-
leton
www.pendletonparksandrec.com
Free. Family-friendly movie. Concessions
available for purchase.
Music
Hot tickets
Live Music Thursday
•Dave Stamey: (award-winning cowboy enter-
tainer). April 7, Liberty Theater, Dayton, Washing-
ton. ($20) via www.libertytheater.org
•2-Day Midget Wrestling Fiesta!: (Micro
Wrestling Federation). April 14-15, Midway Bar &
Grill, Hermiston. VIP, front row and general admis-
sion ($20-$40) via thepheasant.ticketleap.com
•Chippendale’s. April 29 at Wildhorse Resort
& Casino. Tickets ($34-$54) available via www.
wildhorseresort.com
•Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend: April
13-16, Las Vegas. Early bird four-day pass ($140)
through March 15 via www.vivalasvegas.net
•What the Festival: June 16-19, Wolf Run
Ranch, near Dufur. Three-day music, art, film and
interactive festival. Features 90 electronic music
DJs on eight stages and the largest splash pool in
North America. Camping options available ($300-
$2,500) via www.whatthefestival.com
•Northwest World Reggae Festival: (music,
camping, food, vendors) July 28-30, Marcola,
20 miles northeast of Eugene. Early bird prices
($120) via www.nwwrf.com
———
Want to get your event listed in our calendar?
Send information to community@eastoregonian.
com, or c/o Tammy Malgesini, 333 E. Main Street,
Hermiston, OR, 97838.
•Thursdays 7-9 p.m. No cover
•40 Taps, 337 S.W. Emigrant Ave., Pendleton
4More
•Saturday, March 18; 8 p.m. No cover
•Wildhorse Sports Bar, Wildhorse Resort & Ca-
sino, off I-84 Exit 216, Mission
Dufur Hoot
•Saturday, March 18; 6:30-9 p.m.
•Historic Balch Hotel, 40 S. Heimrich St., Dufur
www.balchhotel.com
No cover. Featuring an evening of Central Or-
egon Bluegrass.
Jam Night
•Friday, March 24; 6:30-9 p.m.
•Historic Balch Hotel, 40 S. Heimrich St., Dufur
www.balchhotel.com
No cover.
Brewers Grade
•Friday, March 24; Saturday, March 25; 8 p.m.
No cover
•Wildhorse Sports Bar, Wildhorse Resort & Ca-
sino, off I-84 Exit 216, Mission
Jamie & Luke
•Friday, March 31; 6:30 p.m. No cover
•Sno Road Winery, 111 W. Main St., Echo