PAGE 6 • GO! MAGAZINE
THURSDAY, APRIL 8, 2021 • THE BULLETIN
talent
The Bulletin
and Scalehouse,
a collaborative for the arts, have
joined together to raise donations to
help Central Oregon’s creative artists —
musicians, visual artists, performers and
creative workers — by offering grants
and a platform to bring attention to local
amazing talent. This is a crowdfunding
effort with a first-round fundraising goal
of $40,000. To make a tax-deductible
donation or apply for a grant, go to
bendbulletin.com/talent.
Bulletin file photo
John Batdorf is in talks to play a limited-capacity, socially distanced show at the Tower Theatre sometime in May. “I want to start playing in front of real faces and not just a computer screen,” he said.
John Batdorf gets back to writing
BY BRIAN MCELHINEY • For The Bulletin
J
ohn Batdorf, this week’s featured artist in the Central Oregon Creative Artists Relief Effort, was putting the final touches on a new album when the pandemic
struck. Needless to say, his planned supporting tour was canceled. With time on his hands and the world changing around him, Batdorf started writing. “It
was a positive thing artistically, not so great for the world health wise,” he said.
“But it was great that I was able to write a
song, which ended up being ‘Last Summer,’
which (was) the name of the CD. And it’s
just a song about our struggles with what
was going on at that time … and how we
just hoped it would go back to the way it
used to be.”
Despite that, Batdorf knows there’s prob-
ably no going back to exactly the way things
were before.
Eagle Crest resident Batdorf, known for his
work with folk-rock duo Batdorf & Rodney
and band Silver, has played music profession-
ally since the ’70s. But he had never seen any-
thing like COVID-19 and the effect it had on
the music industry and life in general.
“Even my kids that were 34 when it first
happened and 35 now, they just kept ask-
ing, ‘Have you ever seen anything like this
before?’” Batdorf said. “You know, because
usually you can say, ‘I remember when
that happened before, and we were able to
blah blah blah.’ Well this was so weird, and
nobody knew it seemed like in the begin-
ning, obviously because it was so new to the
world. And the way it escalated was really
scary. We were lucky that we live here in a
bit of an isolated place, although it did end
up hitting Deschutes County pretty hard
there for a couple of months.”
“Last Summer” came out in June, and
Batdorf played three online shows last year
— not quite the deluge that other artists
have done. He also played an outdoor show
at Faith, Hope & Charity Vineyards.
“I just spent the summer being outside,
fishing and playing pickleball,” he said. “I
didn’t have any desire to write or sing. I did
a few online concerts. But then in Novem-
ber, I was inspired and I started on this little
writing spree.”
That resulted in the six-song EP, “An Ex-
traordinary Ordinary Life,” which Batdorf
released in March. He wrote the EP with
help from longtime songwriting collabora-
tor Michael McLean, who also co-wrote the
song “Last Summer.”
Batdorf is in talks to play a limited ca-
pacity, socially distanced show at the Tower
Theatre sometime in May. “I want to start
playing in front of real faces and not just a
computer screen,” he said.
He’s glad to see CO CAREs stepping up to
help working musicians.
“It’s like this everywhere; none of the ven-
ues can be open,” he said. “And all the peo-
ple that play, especially the people that play
in the coffee shops or play in the local brew-
eries, they’re dependent on those nightly
gigs. It’s going to be devastating for them.”