PAGE 4 • GO! MAGAZINE
ALL THINGS MUSIC
Thursday, March 25, 2021 • ThE BuLLETIN
Submitted photo
From left, Wynona, Michael and Evan Holmes walk down Grafton Street in Dublin during their trip to Ireland in June 2019.
Continued from previous page
and his spirit and his phenomenal per-
formances that he puts on.”
Born in Portland and raised in
Klamath Falls, Michael moved to Bend
in 1980 and quickly became an influen-
tial member of the city’s music scene. In
addition to his most recent work with
Five Pint Mary, widely recognized as
one of, if not the only, Irish rock and
folk groups in Bend, Michael played
African inspired marimba music with
The Carmen Marimba Band in the
’80s and ‘90s and led the punk band
Jojo Beanstalk in the ’90s. Michael and
Sarah also joined the Gospel Choir of
the Cascades early in its history, around
2007.
Sarah, a native of St. Paul, Minne-
sota, who moved to Bend in 1988, met
Michael in 1990 or 1991. Her band at
the time, Fishtail Cadillac, would often
play shows with The Carmen Marimba
Band. It was love at first sight, she said.
The couple married in 1997.
“He was a really talented musician,”
Sarah said. “And he just played with —
just like all of these years. He just comes
to life on the stage. He just so enjoyed
music so much, and he would always
just put on wonderful performances.”
In 1999, Michael and Sarah founded
Be-Bop Biscotti, which they sold in
2006. They also operated Be-Bop Cof-
fee House, which became a haven for
local jazz musicians, from 2005 to 2007.
“We were holding that up on our
own, and we just took it as far as we
could,” Sarah said. “But it’s Bend, and it
was just very hard. … We had a small
group of people who really, really loved
it there and were there every single day
and night, but it wasn’t enough.”
University of Oregon Jazz Studies In-
structor and drummer Torrey Newhart
played Be-Bop regularly while he was
in high school in Bend.
“I feel like my whole life before and
after Be-Bop, there really hasn’t been
a thing like it again in Bend, which is
kind of a bummer,” he said. “You need
an actual jazz club where people go
just to love that music if you’re going to
have that music exist in your commu-
nity in a non-trivial kind of a way. It felt
real, it felt honest.”
Five Pint Mary had been Michael
and Sarah’s musical focus since they
formed the group in 2009.
Originally more punk-leaning, with
eight members, the band released its
self-titled debut album in 2011 before
reconfiguring its membership and
sound in 2012.
“I would call it more folk or tradi-
tional, and just a whole lot more origi-
nal music,” Sarah said. “Michael was a
wonderful songwriter, and he and Rick
Havern, who is our banjo player, would
co-write songs together.”
The band’s lineup — Sarah on vo-
cals and Irish whistle, Michael on gui-
tar and vocals, Evan Holmes on fiddle,
banjoist Rick Havern, mandolinist
Matt Gwinup and bassist Tyler Cra-
nor — was stable for nearly a decade.
The group released two more albums,
2014’s “Carry a Song” and 2017’s “Vari-
ations.”
“This is the longest I’ve ever been
in a band,” Gwinup said. “They really
do become like a family. They’re my
friends, but even your good friends you
don’t see every week. We would meet
every week for practice, or twice a week
sometimes, and we were doing these
projects together. It’s like a big hole is
just there suddenly.”
Havern, leader of the Summit Ex-
press Jazz Band, recalled auditioning
for the group.
“I went onto YouTube and saw some
videos, and decided to learn one of
their songs,” Havern said. “Turns out
that the song I chose called ‘Whis-
key Lass,’ Michael wrote it. So when I
went, he says, ‘OK, what do you want
to play?’ I said, ‘Well, let’s play ‘Whis-
key Lass,’’ and he kind of got that big
old smile he always had on his face, and
just said, ‘OK, let’s hear it.’ It was pretty
cool. He goes, ‘That’s it, you’re in.’ … I
think he must have told me, ‘Well, that’s
pretty ballsy.’”
Gwinup and Havern praised Mi-
chael’s leadership in the group, as well
as his songwriting.
“He was a very humble guy,” Gwinup
said. “He would always bring a new
song and we’d be like, ‘Wow, this is re-
ally cool,’ and he’d be like, “Arrrgh.’ Or
about his singing, he would always be
self-conscious about his singing be-
cause he had a real gravelly voice. But
we’re like, ‘Michael, that’s perfect, we
play pirate-y, Irish songs. That’s great;
that’s what we want.’”
Havern remembered Michael be-
ing open to any idea, no matter who
brought it to the group.
“He was great to rehearse with. He
was always energetic and always ex-
cited; he was always excited to play,” he
said. “I’ve never seen anybody that gets
— God, he just got so into playing, and
the sweat would be rolling off of him
and he’s just pounding away.”
The band is recording its fourth al-
bum, “Kings and Queens Be Damned,”
at Central Oregon Recording with pro-
ducer and engineer Matt Fletcher. Mi-
chael recorded most of his parts, Sarah
said, and the band plans to finish.
“We’ll still continue to meet as a
band,” Havern said. “... The dynamics
are just going to be different. I don’t
know if we can do a lot of the songs
that we do just because of that dy-
namic, and I’m not certain if Sarah and
Evan will be able to play with some-
body else as a replacement if you will.
There’s certainly no replacing him.”
Michael’s friend Tim Toliver set
up a GoFundMe page to support the
Holmes family, which can be found
here: https://bit.ly/2NMXznl.
e e
Reporter: 541-617-7814,
bmcelhiney@bendbulletin.com