Thursday, February 4, 2021 • The buLLeTIN
GO! MAGAZINE • PAGE 3
LIVE
MUSIC FOR
THE WEEK
p.23
ALL THINGS MUSIC
bendbulletin.com/golisten
Black History Month
from a musical perspective
Bend artists
discuss Black
Lives Matter,
tokenism,
more
BY BRIAN MCELHINEY • The Bulletin
B
lack history is American history, and nowhere is that more clear than in popular music. From early slave hymns, moving into gospel music in churches, to
folk, ragtime, country, jazz, blues, R&B, rock ’n’ roll and the explosion of subgenres that fall under the “rock” category, Black artists had a guiding hand in
all of it.
As part of GO! Magazine’s Black History
Month issue, I chatted with local Black mu-
sicians about their thoughts and experiences
surrounding the month, especially in light
of a renewed focus last year on the Black
Lives Matter movement. Throughout the
interviews, tokenism kept popping up: the
notion that I’m only talking to these artists
because they’re Black, and it’s Black History
month. The only way to address that was
to lean into it, and present the artists’ voices
with as little editing as possible.
That said, these interviews have been cut
for length. Most of them are paired with a
key track from the artist, to create a short,
Bend-centric Black History Month playlist.
“LOVE IS LIKE OXYGEN,” MILO MATTHEWS
Bassist, singer and songwriter Milo Mat-
thews has maintained ties to Bend for the
past couple of years, even as he’s continued
to travel the country and world in his 1985
Ford bus. He’s back on the road now (he
spoke from Olympia, Washington), but said
he’ll be in Bend sometime in the spring.
“Love is Like Oxygen,” originally by the
band Sweet, is from Matthews’ latest proj-
ect, a series of cover songs titled “The Last
Goodbye.” He plans to release a new cover
every two weeks.
What are your thoughts about Black
History Month and everything that goes
around it?
I used to celebrate Black History Month
back in the day, where it’s an honorary
month because of Martin Luther King. It’s just
a recognition of history and people’s achieve-
ments. But also, they would focus on TV spe-
cials and commentary. But then after a while,
it dissipated for me personally because I didn’t
really respond too well because I just kind of
considered myself a citizen of the world. I kind
of lost the vibe and the support of doing Black
History Month until just this last year. … But
in this past year, I’m just recognizing that.
Q:
A:
Continued on next page
Dean Guernsey/Bulletin file photo
Bassist/singer/songwriter/loop artist Milo Matthews stands outside his bus in Sisters in early 2020.
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