SEPTEMBER 15, 2010 | VOLUME I, NUMBER 1 | EVERY OTHER WEDNESDAY |
Volume I, number 1 BANGIN' IT OUT EVERY OTHER HUMPDAY
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Q: how many times can we say bang on one page before it becomes obscene?
CONTENT. NEWS EATS ARTS FASHION MORE ARTS COMICS MUSIC HOROSCOPES
t seems like not so very long ago, there was a new paper in town.
It was so very full of promise and carried the hopes of a people unrepresented and unheard in the homogenous blur of the powers that were. Well, that paper lived up to the expectations of the naysayers and died out like a shooting rock star.
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But the ashes from that fire got lucky. Maybe it was a particularly auspicious day. Maybe it was in the cards—but those particles of voices and art and music and life landed on some particularly fertile ground. There was rumbling, some general hysterias, and the typical foaming at the mouth—then! an explosion! a crash! A Big Bang, if you will. And the bastard child of all those late night love affairs with the divine stepped into this future. The future we have been warned about is now—and the edge has peeled back to reveal we are it. You are it. Be bold. Be fresh. Be provocative. Be daring. Be unapologetically who you are. We will. See, we have this inkling that people are drawn to someone who wants to tell the monstrous truth. BANG! is the sound it makes. We can’t shut it out, we don’t have ear-lids. We are enveloped by the sound. It enters at will. Tell your own explosive truths. Let them enter the nervous systems of the unconscious. Speak so they may see you. The worst they can do is eat you. And that’s illegal. Welcome to BANG! Bronwynn Write me at editor at bangpaper dot com. We might publish what you have to say. Printing does away with anonymity.
BANG! GANG MANAGING EDITOR ART DIRECTOR
BRONWYNN MANAOIS
STEVEN WEEKS
ARTS EDITOR
NEWS EDITOR
SEAN ÄABERG
DANTE ZUÑIGA-WEST
MUSIC EDITORS
RIVER DONAGHEY, COLLIN GERBER SALES AND MARKETING
MARK SULLIVAN
CONTRIBUTORS
IAN AXE, TRAVIS BECKER, ALLISON DITSON, AMELIA HART, MEGAN HINKEL, JOSIAH MANKOFSKY, PATRICK NEWSON, MIKE SEAGER, TIM SULLIVAN, JOSHUA WHITE
BANG PAPER bangpaper.com 385 W. 2nd Ave. facebook.com/bangpaper Eugene, OR 97401 twitter.com/bangpaper ADVERTISING INFORMATION ads@bangpaper.com GENERAL INQUIRIES editor@bangpaper.com Printed by Western Oregon Web Press, Albany, OR © 2010 Bang Paper, LLC. The content herein may not be reprinted in part or in whole without the written consent of the publisher. Thank you.
EVERY OTHER WEDNESDAY
OR NEWS COMMENTARY?
NEWS BRIEFS
TUESDAY 8/31
Ian Axe
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President Obama declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq, even though 50,000 soldiers remain in country in a curiously titled “advise and assist” role. Troops were relieved to hear the news until they learned that the drawdown called for a hasty exit from Iraq via a one-way ticket to Afghanistan.
WEDNESDAY 9/1
A gunman stormed the Discovery Channel building today, armed with a pistol and what appeared to be a series of bombs strapped to his chest. Forty-three-year-old James Lee took three hostages and presented a list of programming demands, accusing the network of being superficially “ecoconscious.” Once Mythbusters hosts Jamie and Adam confirmed that the gunman was, in fact, armed and dangerous, police stormed in and shot Lee dead after an hours-long standoff.
THURSDAY 9/2
A report from the independent Pew Hispanic Center shows that the number of illegal immigrants entering the United States actually decreased 65% over the last two years. The report also noted that in that same time period, sales of American flags rose 23%, and instances of Americans angrily yelling something about Mexicans more than doubled.
SATURDAY 9/4
The University of Oregon football team destroyed lowly New Mexico 72-0 in their 2010 season opener, marking the first time in three years the Ducks have managed to steal more touchdowns than stereos in a single game.
MONDAY 9/6
It’s Labor Day, and there’s not much for the working stiff to celebrate other than having the day off, if they’re lucky. Construction of swimming pools full of money has reached an all-time high on Wall Street, and tomorrow your job’s probably getting shipped to a small country you didn’t even know existed, along with your pension, benefits, and dignity. Meanwhile, the big debate in Washington is whether or not to extend tax breaks to millionaires. What’s that? You say you want a revolution?
TUESDAY 9/7
America is once again undertaking a great collective forgetting, with new polls showing that Congressional Republicans stand to make huge gains in midterm elections this Fall. In technical terms, this is like inviting someone over for dinner, only to watch them rob your house and violate your wife while insulting her cooking, stealing your car for the getaway, and then having them back to finish the conversation the following night.
THURSDAY 9/9
The engineering and technological might of the United States flashed an ugly grin today when a natural gas pipeline built in 1948 exploded in San Bruno, CA, destroying dozens of homes and damaging scores more. Seven people have been reported dead and several are still missing. Professional rodeo clown Glenn Beck claimed that the explosion was divine punishment against California for overturning Proposition 8.
SATURDAY 9/11
Today marks the 9th anniversary of the day nineteen Middle Eastern guys, or George Bush, or a CIA remote control, or a cruise missile destroyed the World Trade Center, Pentagon, and a field in rural Pennsylvania. In Lower Manhattan, Americans proved that we’re finally over that whole unity and togetherness bullshit that the attacks inspired in the first place, holding competing protests at Ground Zero to noisily debate the sacredness of an old, abandoned Burlington Coat Factory.
SUNDAY 9/12
MTV continued its steady gallop alongside the Four Horsemen with its presentation of the 26th annual VMAs, and Lady Gaga got a bunch of awards for doing something Prince and Madonna did twenty-five years ago.
TUESDAY 9/14
Eugene is in mourning, as local police finally discover the body of local newspaper magnate Reverend Dr. Marshall L. Cooligan. Cooligan was reported missing after disappearing without a trace earlier this summer. Authorities have yet to rule out foul play, though no suspects are in cus tody at this time.
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KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR THE TRUTH! Please contact us with news tips and classified briefings, local and international.editor@bangpaper.com
BANG! • september 15, 2010
MAN vs. DISCOVERY by t went on from 1pm to 4:48pm on September 1st at the Discovery Channel HQ in Maryland. A man toting homemade bombs and two pistols walked in and held three people hostage. “No one is going anywhere,” he said. The late James J. Lee had been holding a long-standing grudge against the Discovery Channel for what appeared to be, in his eyes, environmentally irresponsible broadcasting practices. In particular, he seemed most upset by broadcasts that he felt promoted childbearing, war and technology. His manifesto, a poorly written and seemingly erratic series of demands, directed at the Discovery Channel, reflects a desire to change the global industrial society we as a human family find ourselves in. In this piece of writing, Mr. Lee attempted to present the current state of humanity and its industries as failing and severely environmentally harmful. It would seem that issues such as attempting to curtail global warming, automotive pollution, and overpopulation would be met with support from like-minded activists/ individuals, were Mr. Lee capable of expressing his concerns in a more cohesive manner. However, his extremism in regard to such causes, as well as his choice of words, would leave most readers/listeners/onlookers a bit terrified. The following may further clarify his particular disposition: “All programs on Discovery Health-TLC must stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants and the false heroics behind those actions. In those programs' places, programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility must be pushed. All former probirth programs must now push in the direction of stopping human birth, not encouraging it.” “Humans are the most destructive, filthy, pollutive creatures around and are wrecking what's left of the planet with their false morals and breeding culture. For every human born,
ACRES of wildlife forests must be turned into farmland in order to feed that new addition over the course of 60 to 100 YEARS of that new human's lifespan! THIS IS AT THE EXPENSE OF THE FOREST CREATURES!!!! All human procreation and farming must cease!” This continued list of demands calls for the United States to put a stop to all forms of immigration immediately, and to find a way to build affordable housing for disenfranchised populations. Lee’s crusade against the Discovery Channel has been active since 2008 when he was arrested for an incident outside of the Discovery Channel headquarters in which he threw thousands of dollars into the air, referring to the money as "just trash,” and then paid quite a few homeless people to disrupt the general atmosphere along with him. Mr. Lee was arrested, fined $500, and given six months supervised probation for disorderly conduct. The judge ordered Lee to stay 500 feet away from Discovery communications. Three weeks later, with his probation over, Mr. Lee’s obsession over Discovery Channel broadcasts did not waiver, hence his one-man invasion of the channel’s headquarters this September. Most of the 1,900 Discovery employees had been evacuated from the building before the police even began negotiations. Of the three people held hostage, two were actual employees of the Discovery Channel, the third was a security guard. After negotiations failed to come to any positive conclusion, police engaged Lee after hearing what one officer described rather vaguely as a "pop." Apparently, the hostages enacted an escape plan, spearheaded by the security guard, a former US military officer. Amidst the struggle, S.W.A.T. team snipers shot and killed Lee by detonating one of the bombs on his person. No one else was harmed.
Carrots, Bikes and The Law
Running over bicyclists with your car may or may not get you into trouble. by Mike Seager
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any car drivers, isolated in their protective steel boxes, plains: In the 70s, with cycling’s surge in popularity, America’s fail to realize how dangerous their high-speed heavy criminal courts began to be so overwhelmed with cases that, as vehicles are. They drive in a way that takes liberties part of a state-by-state court reform, car-bike collisions were with the lives of those around them in an effort to save time, and downgraded as criminal matters and turned over to civil courts prioritize their promptness over the safety of others. We live in for the purpose of meting out compensation to victims. Thus, a culture in which driving a car is not considered dangerous – a in most states, anything less than cases of wanton disregard for culture that is reinforced by weak laws and the devaluing of the human life, malicious intent or gross misconduct with a motor lives of people who choose not to drive. vehicle will merit little more than a ticket; and sometimes not Many of us have experienced it: you are riding your bike out even a ticket. on a nice country road and suddenly you see two cars heading “Until then, motor vehicle offenses were criminal,” explains toward you, side by side. A driver has decided to pass another David Hiller, advocacy director for the Cascade Bicycle Club in car and doesn’t care that you are in the way, or thinks they can Washington State. “Then, in exchange for waiving the right to make it without hitting you. The driver decided that saving a due process, and to unclog the courts, the trade-off was those few minutes is more important than the possibility of ending cases would be handled in civil court.” your life. As civil cases, says Portland, Oregon, lawyer Ray Thomas, This is what happened on February 10th when 38-year-old they do little or nothing to advance real justice. “You could driver Tina Marie Baker tried to have a carrot for a lawyer,” he pass a car on Highway 99 south says, “and you (the injured) will of Creswell, sideswiped an on- Apparently the legal system doesn’t really get the limit [of monetary comcoming vehicle, and killed cyclist care if you kill the cyclist or not, as long as pensation].” Johnny Cayton in a head-on colli“It’s extra work for the posion. She was going 15 mph over they don’t have to look for you afterward lice officer to go to court,” says the speed limit (70 mph) and Thomas, who specializes in pelater admitted to being in a hurry and driving recklessly. Her destrian- and bicycle-related cases. “Everyone just says, `Let the punishment for prioritizing thirty seconds of her life over Cayinsurance companies work it out.’” ton’s safety was 30 days in jail, probation, and losing her license “The lowest of the low” is how bike-vehicle collisions rank for 8 years. I’ve known people who’ve received thirty days in jail in the eyes of police, Thomas says. “They say, `Our job is to get for shoplifting. Is Baker’s punishment enough? criminals off the streets.’” Apparently, the legal system doesn’t really care if you kill the There are times when a driver gets punished severely for hitcyclist or not, as long as they don’t have to look for you afterting a cyclist, but it has nothing to do with the actual crash. A ward. In terms of jail time, the punishment for hit-and-run was few days ago there was a hit-and-run in Portland and the police 91 times more severe than the punishment for killing a cyclist. apprehended the driver soon afterward. Bike Portland reported The perceived devaluation of the lives of cyclists has long on the crash, and some the comments on the story echoed a been a point of contention for riders, and leaves many of us feelgrowing sentiment in the cyclist community. I’ll quote a coming that lawmakers consider us as little more important than ment from “El Biciclero:” deer. Consider the Texas case of forty-year-old Gilbert John Fortunately, they fled the scene and miraculously were still appreSullaway Jr., who hit and killed Gregory and Alexandra Bruehended, which means they can be prosecuted for hit ‘n’ run. What hler while they were riding their tandem on a country road last drivers often don’t seem to understand is that they can almost always fall. Sullaway was driving his truck at 70 mph when he veered get away with running over a cyclist if they follow a few simple rules: off the road and killed the Bruehlers, who were riding on the 1. Stay on the scene and act distraught. 2. Repeatedly utter one or shoulder. He dragged them 200 feet. Since he was not intoxiboth of the following key phrases: 'I just didn’t see him/her!' or 'He/ cated or impaired, it was determined that he broke no laws and she came out of nowhere!' 3. Not a rule for drivers, but it helps if the he was not cited or charged with a crime. The Bruehlers left becyclist was not wearing a helmet, because then, “they were asking for hind a seven-year-old daughter. it”, e.g., it is their own fault for getting hit. Fleeing the scene is a big Want an example closer to home? Last fall in Portland, mistake! Not only is an offense (hit and run) in and of itself, it is an implied admission of fault. All cynicism aside, I hope the victim fully Wayne Conrad Thompson got into an argument with cyclist recovers from all injuries without permanent damage. Mark Luther. According to witnesses, Thompson backed his SUV 250 ft at up to 29 mph, smashing into Luther and causing him severe brain injury. Luther is still struggling to recover. Let's consider the case of Joshua Clifton, who was racing his Thompson was given probation for the incident and a five-year car down 30th Avenue last October and hit and injured cyclist suspension of his license. Hart Godbold. Clifton then left the scene and was apprehended I understand that these examples are not all the same. several days later. Let’s compare Clifton to Baker, who killed Thompson was in a rage and may have been attempting to seher victim. In both cases the drivers were speeding and drivverely injure Luther (although Thompson says he was just trying recklessly. In both cases the driver struck a cyclist. The only ing to change direction). Sullaway was doing everything legally important differences are that Clifton’s victim lived and Baker’s before he hit the tandem—besides being 5 mph over the speed died, and that Clifton fled the scene and Baker stayed. limit—and just appears to suck at driving. Baker was driving Joshua Clifton was sentenced to 7.5 years in prison for felorecklessly, severely speeding, and acting with wanton disregard ny hit-and-run, filing a false police report (he reported his car for the safety of those around her. Despite these differences, all stolen after the accident), and driving with a suspended license. their punishments amount to nothing more than a slap on the Tina Marie Baker was sentenced to thirty days in jail and lost wrist. her license for a while. The lesson? Apparently the legal system I’m not advocating that we “throw the book” at every driver doesn’t really care if you kill the cyclist or not, as long as they involved in a car/bike crash. Some are just tragic accidents or don’t have to look for you afterward. In terms of jail time, the even the fault of the cyclist. But, I also know that every time I punishment for hit-and-run was 91 times more severe than the drive my car, I am putting the lives of those around me at risk. I punishment for killing a cyclist. understand this, and I drive knowing this. Why don’t others? If the danger of killing another human being isn’t enough to If Baker had killed someone driving a car instead of on a bike, motivate people like Baker to drive safely, then they need to be would the punishment have been greater? Are people on bikes threatened with something that will motivate them. Obviously considered “less human” than people in cars in the eyes of the the possibility of killing Johnny Cayton wasn’t enough to make law? Sadly, the answer is “yes.” In Oregon and most other states, Baker pay attention to safe driving, but maybe the possibility of hitting a cyclist is only a civil crime, not a criminal crime. Bicycle 5 years in jail away from her kids would have. Times Magazine recently published an article titled “Incivility: Am I saying that Baker, 48-year-old mother of three, should How Lawyers and Legislators De-Valued Your Life” which exhave received a steeper punishment? Absolutely. 30 days in jail
THIS PARTICULAR BICYCLIST was not wearing a helmet
Mike Seager operates We Bike Eugene www.webikeeugene.org
(or less?) would be a fine punishment if it Baker had been driving safely and courteously and her hitting Cayton truly was just a tragic accident, but she was not. By her own admission, she was driving unsafely. As long as the punishment for killing a bicyclist is only a slap on the wrist, some people will continue to drive with wanton disregard for public safety. Drivers need to realize that sending a two-ton vehicle careening down a street at high speeds is dangerous to everyone around them, and maybe the fear of jail time if they make a mistake will motivate people to drive more safely. The culture around driving needs to change, and that cannot happen until drivers are held responsible for the handling of their vehicles. Oregon has made some progress on this front. In 2008, the Vulnerable Roadway User law went into effect in Oregon, but so far it seems to have done about jack shit for changing driver behavior. The BTA did good work pushing the law through, but it was severely neutered in the process. It was extremely difficult to create an enhanced penalty when further criminal consequences were not an option, but BTA legislative committee member Doug Parrow tweaked our original language to include a non-criminal alternative of a $12,500 fine (up from $750.00) and a one-year license suspension (no license suspension was previously included in a conviction for careless driving). Additionally, to create an inducement for careless drivers to improve their driving skill and pay the community back for their actions, a traffic safety course requirement and 100-200 hours of community service were included as an alternative to the fine and suspension—if the program is successfully completed, then the suspension and fine would be suspended. Police officers and prosecutors told us they were sometimes frustrated in serious accident cases because Oregon did not have a vehicular homicide law and its criminally negligent homicide law requires a gross deviation from the standard of care, which is close to a recklessness requirement. The Vulnerable User law provided a way to create real consequences for careless or negligent drivers without sending them to jail. That’s right. If you are driving a car, it is not criminal to kill someone who is not in a car, and the Oregon Legislature prefers it that way. Changing this would have led to “widespread resistance” because the jails are too full. Full of shoplifters, minor drug offenders, and the occasional hit-and-run driver who didn’t know that all you have to do to get away with murder is stop and say, “I just didn’t see them.” Please be careful out there, no matter what form of transpor tation you choose. We are all humans. september 15, 2010 • BANG!
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The Locavore’s Dilemma by Patrick Newson
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here are my tomatoes? I want them, and I want them now. I have waited and I have waited and I have waited. I have resisted purchasing tomatoes from supermarkets via Mexico. I have refrained from theft. I have restrained myself against the simplicity and ease of a global, commercially enterprising agriculture. And it has been difficult. I have smelled the pungency of the tomato plant. Late afternoons have teased me and I am done with their fickleness. I want sweet red cherry tomatoes. I want the sunset to kiss the yellow pears, the gold nuggets. I want the satisfaction of a serrated knife piercing the ripe flesh of a roma tomato, its rounds falling into my salads. I want the aroma of bubbling sauce, the meditation of fresh gazpacho. I want the goddamn T in my goddamn BLT and I want it two months ago. What the fuck? Well, that’s actually the same question many local farmers have been asking themselves this summer. That, and when is it going to stop raining? When are these morning clouds going to disappear? Why is it so cold at night? See, back in June, you might recall, there was a period of some three weeks which devoted itself to a thorough soaking of all available tilled earth. For Annette Pershern, owner and manager of RiverBend Farm in Pleasant Hill, this necessitated a planting delay because the fields were too muddy. “We got a late start,” she says, “just the subtle changes in weather patterns can have huge differences.” This isn’t breaking meteorological news by any means, but farmers’ dependence on the weather is of consequence. The consequences have extended throughout the summer in the form of low fruit yields across the spectrum, not just tomatoes. Tomatoes, however, have been the ones making me hurt the worst. This year, circumstance and wherewithal have allowed me to eat exclusively local and seasonal produce for the first time in my life. Once the rains had quelled and the greenhouses began to empty their children into this fertile valley we call home, summer swung its mighty hips and I have been gorging myself since with beans, greens, squash, beets, peppers and the other bountiful produce we associate with longer days. But the fruit which requires a hot, dry climate—tomatoes, eggplants, peaches, blueberries—has been more elusive. Unnaturally, I could walk into any grocery and find the stuff I want and make my ratatouille but I’m not about to pay good money for low-quality, high-transport, shelf-life shit when I’ve grown accustomed to selecting my own food from the vine 6
BANG! • september 15, 2010
or shaking dirty hands with the people who do it for me. As a person who once developed an allergy to tomatoes through over-consumption, I’ve been facing a sort of dilemma. “It’s been a bad fruit year in the Willamette Valley,” says Jack Richardson of McKenzie River Farm. “My main crop is blueberries and the early rains caused lots of fungus in them.” Similarly, Pershern has been struggling with low yields on her peach trees, the recent rains causing what fruits there are to swell and fall to the ground prematurely. Both farmers, to some extent, also have struggling tomato crops. Pershern’s tomatoes are many, but green, refusing in the dying lights to ripen. Richardson had the good fortune to plant tomatoes in his greenhouses before the season got too far behind. His outdoor tomatoes, he says, generally surpass the greenhouse yields by mid-July, but this year, the cooler nights are causing many of them to split. At Circle H Farm in Dexter, Sarah Hucka’s cherry tomatoes have chugged along, steadily but slowly producing for longer than expected. The hot weather that normally stunts growth never really arrived. No so, however, for the slicing, saucing varietals. Not yet, at least. Eating locally means catering to the whims of the environment more than the whims of advertising executives, however tempting the price, size, and availability of produce may be. It also means being flexible culinarily and diverse agriculturally. When farmers grow riskier crops, those more susceptible to weather fluctuation, eaters must also eschew certain foods, or at least we should. “Eat more beets” says Hucka. Eat what crops are available. Beets and greens at all three farms are plethoric. “The trick is to adjust your diet,” says Richardson, “or pay more for the stuff you really want.” While the year has been bad for fruit, “it’s been a good year for leafy greens, cabbages, broccolis, cooler weather crops.” “Farming is timing,” says Hucka, “this year everything is late, so we have to wait longer,” and waiting I have done. Still, the summer isn’t quite over. The Willamette Valley has been known to heat up in September and stretch a few last vestiges of warmth into October before the rains settle in. As tomatoes begin to color, even slightly, they can be picked and ripened indoors. Cherry tomatoes begin to saturate the markets with the hope that positivism will prevail. In the meantime, I’m going to keep eating spinach, doing sun salutations, and trying to grow redder tomatoes.
FEED ME, EUGENE!
local eats
with Meg
an Hinkel
MEGAN HINKEL
that's a giant burger but not Giant Burger
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’m a bit wary of meat substitutes. When a product tries too hard to replace the original, it often ends up being really, really gross, like vegan cheese. There are certain things that just can’t be replaced or alternatively duplicated. You can’t make a turkey out of tofu. When I became I vegetarian, I relinquished my expectation that I would ever have a genuine meat experience again. So when I was assigned to review Eddo Burger for this column, I shuddered with the lukewarm recollection of every vaguely not-unsatisfying veggie burger I’ve had. Long story short, the Eddo Burger is AMAZING! The tangy sauce! The flavorful, filling, non-greasy, delicious, hearty grain patty! Lettuce, tomatoes and a PICKLE too! I had the most authentic cheeseburger experience I’ve had since I actually ate a real cheeseburger. Except this time, it was vegetarian. And gluten-free. And made by a total hottie in a food cart in the parking lot of Eugene’s favorite dive bar. It was the best damn “burger” I’ve ever had. Which is a damn shame, since Eddo Burger is closing its flap and wheeling into storage for the winter! Cara Eddo, the proprietor and genius vegetarian mastermind, says the reason for closing up shop is for personal time, not because of business. She says she had great traffic from the bars and other neighboring businesses. (Way to go, Whiteaker!) Taking over her lease will be the Garbanzo Grill, another vegetarian/vegan food cart. It seems like these days you can’t walk a block in Eugene without seeing a food cart. If you did the festival circuit this summer, you may have noticed the omnipresence of the
Viva! Vegetarian Grill. And how about all that daytime business at Kesey Square?! Coconut Bliss has a mobile Bliss-bar unit called the Bliss Cart. And don’t forget the Cornbread Café! Eugene is a remarkably sweet place to be if you’re a hungry vegan/vegetarian pedestrian. Also, I’d like to give a warm welcome to all the new and returning students to the University of Oregon, where the only place worth eating at is the Holy Cow Café. The food is outrageously delicious, wholesome, filling and healthy. Try the bad-ass fresh cooked pad thai, the falafel, or some sag paneer! Their salad bar has a plentiful variety of organic greens and veggies, many of which are from farms right here in Lane County. OSPIRG is apparently supporting some controversial legislation: US Senate Bill 150. In sum, it’s a food safety bill, which seems okay, BUT the proposed restrictions and regulations, designed for large-scale industrial food producers (the bad guys, whose practices cause all those scary salmonella outbreaks you hear about on the news), would have a detrimental effect on small-scale, local organic farms (the good guys, whose practices benefit the earth, the local economy and your health). Read up, yo! farmandranchfreedom.org/food_ safety_bills_09 In the meantime, if you are concerned about the quality of your food, you can go to the Lane County Farmers Market and literally talk to the person who grew, tended to, and picked your vegetables. They’re really nice, and the vegetables are kaleidoscopically colorful, flavorful and nutrient-rich! Eighth and Oak, Tuesdays 10am-3pm through October 26 and Saturdays 9am-4pm through November 13. september 15, 2010 • BANG!
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S D I E! T! IS A WIC TAN ! TH D T OR YES INTE IMP PR THAT S IT I
BANG! • september 15, 2010
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by
Allihalla and Amelia Hart
TODAY'S EPISODE:
SHIT IN YOUR HAIR
Trash Weaves and Trend Feathers
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ou know what looks great? Putting stuff in your hair. You know why? 'Cause it's like taking a good thing and making it even better. Throughout history, humans have been fascinated by putting stuff in their hair. I mean, what else is hair really for, if not ornamentation? Once civilization had progressed beyond the essentials, we discovered our attraction to fashion. Putting embellishments in our hair has always been there as one of the most basic and essential parts of human fashion expression. Dating back to 1400 BC and beyond, Egyptians were so enchanted with hair decoration they took to shaving their heads and wearing elaborate wigs embellished many different ways—from wild perfumes to detailed headpieces. Romans, the original fashion forward party animals, also turned to wigs to satisfy
their desire for the most elaborate hairstyles. The natural look was unfavorable, and they would even make wigs from two contrasting colors of hair to reach that most unnatural extreme look that we seem to strive for even now. Now here we are in modern times. We've mastered wigs, only rarely do we spot the numerous wigs that are sported daily all around us. We can make hair virtually any color and almost any texture with various treatments. But this is the year 2010! The future is now. Get real! This is the year we traveled to in the movie Back to the Future. We're approaching the year of Blade Runner, and we're ready for the next level of hair embellishment. The idea and exhibition of shit in your hair undeniably hit Eugene in the form of hair feathers. It's a simple idea, they're relatively cheap and most anyone can clamp an exten-
sion crimp bead, those little guys that hold fast and tie a whole rainbow of feathery delights into even the most natural normal looking mane. The other key to the hair feathers’ success is that it won't permanently change your hair. Yes, we desire the extreme colors and textures to our hair, but not everyone wants to deal with the upkeep and hard work it takes to look good, with the penalties being roots showing, colors fading, cuts growing out, etc. With hair feathers, you can easily go from mild to wild, and then remove them all before you see the grandparents. You can try out just a couple behind the ear, tucked into your pony tail, or go for the whole head full and join your bird tribe of choice. Hair feathers are so easy and attractive, and appeal to such a broad spectrum of fashionistas, from moms and dads, college babes, even bank tellers. We've even heard of a full fu manchu moustache made of pheasant feathers. This trend has gotten so wild in the past few months! Which leads us to start questioning— What's next? Where do we go from here? What are the die hards to do? What about those of us who are so close to being rebellious teens we don't want what everyone else has? How can we be MORE cutting edge? We started joking about it, trying to one up each other. What else can we put in out hair? Lets use the same crimps on leather! What about ribbon? Spandex scraps? Could we try CHAIN? But could you wash such things? Would it look great? Duh! We started experimenting. We started grabbing anything we could reach and repurposing it into really extreme and excellent hair extensions. We also attached them to hair clips for the "sometimes" warriors and roach clip rockin' honeys, which are for sale at Kitsch and are great for test driving the look. So now what do we do? The Runway Masquerade fashion show was coming up, and we knew it was time to go all out. Sitting on the sewing room floor that night it was a revolution, a spandex sister bonding, a modern-day ritual (the kind without earth spirits and blood). Slowly, we began cutting tiny strips of leather and spandex and pulling strands of tinsel from the piles. Our trash weaves were being created from so many toss-offs, strand by strand, crimp by crimp. We wove so many pretty little treasures into our hair, and when
Kylie Queen of the Trash Weave
we finished we felt transformed. Our “Road Warrior Pony Trash” headdresses were complete and we knew we'd finally reached the next level. Hair Valhalla. Our new manes were the perfect accompaniment to the ALLIHALLA swimwear at the fashion show and we loved rocking them the following weeks in the everyday casual warrior babe setting. (And they fared well in the shower! No mold! No stench! Looks great!) Some people were as into it as we were, like Kylie, better known as Agent Orange of the Emerald City Roller Girl team, Andromedolls. She made an appointment with Amelia down at Dawn Baby Salon to get some exciting shit put in her hair before the championship bout (which the Andromedolls won). Strips of silver leather, twinkling tinsel, black fringe, and even some real deal actual hair extensions in flaming red went into her orange and pink mane. An hour later, Kylie was ready to be the Queen of the Trash Weave. If you have any topics you'd like us to discuss and probably make fun of, send an email to: Allihalla@bangpaper.com MissAmelia@bangpaper.com
september 15, 2010 • BANG!
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akin’ the scene like a record machine, i drank up my big ass pimp goblet of spritzer (Carlo Rossi Rhine + Talking Rain fruitarooti) while listening to a really interesting show on the Korean working class on Against the Grain. Then I got on my bike & on my way to the First Friday Artwalk ran into Cara, Amelia & Athena @ Eddo Burger. Athena works at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum, but she didn’t have any new information to tell me, but i did hear that the new Christophe Goodstein show is all about “the horror, the pain, & the destruction of the world.” The show will be running until December 5, & the artist will lead a gallery talk on Friday, October 15 at 5:30pm. I somehow missed the opening, but will be checking this out & letting you know all about THE HORROR. Then i ran into Mo Bowen of the Voyeur Gallery & tried to convince her to go to the First Friday Artwalk. Yona Riel has a show up there for the month of September. At first i thought it was coming from too foreign of a psyche for me to get into, primarily based on the Frida-like sculpture in the entrance & woman collage stylings, but as i took a moment to soak up the pieces, i began to recognize a very shadowy dream-world. i was particularly struck by the similarity in feeling & spacial structuring between Riel’s assemblages & photographs. I finally made it to Broadway & popped into The New Zone gallery for their Salon du Peuple show. This is the new stage of the old Salon De Refuses show, which featured the work of people who were rejected from the Mayor’s Art Show. However, the Mayor’s Art Show is no longer being culled together through the cattle call, which made the whole way of putting together the Salon De Refuses obsolete, so now you don’t even have to be rejected to be part of the Salon du Peuple. As far as i’m concerned, the last thing Eugene needs is more “anything goes” “free for alls”, & this showed in the Salon Du Peuple. That said, i was touched by Marlika O’Connell’s piece, “Cinnamon Bear Among the Little Fish.” There is an aggressive cartoon naïveté to her work, that reminds me of that scene in AKIRA when Tetsuo is being tormented by the psychic kids in the mental institution. Jon Hiltbrand’s “End of the Line” piece depicting a police raid on a seedy hotel in graphite was quite exciting as well.
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Not unlike medieval painters, Hiltbrand showed everything that was happening in the scene. With the New Zone, i’ve found that there are shades & degrees within the spectrum of naive art, & that my favorite have been shows by children & people with autism. I then headed over to DIVA to see their show, “Do You Want to Ford the River” inspired by the classic educational video game “Oregon Trail”. I always loved fantasizing about cutting my way out west, shooting squirrels & losing my axle in the river, but the art at this show portrayed a very different feeling than i got from the game. Guilt. Apparently the artists of this show would not be the ones pioneering their way into hostile & inhospitable land, but there was an exception to this; Jamey Herman. Herman’s pieces mixed Pop art with industrial functionalism, all laid on an abstracted yellow base. His ramen packets BLEW MY MIND. Then it was off to Cowfish, there were some woodcuts by Perry Joseph, a broad selection of art by Richard Owens, some velvet paintings by Honey Vizer &
I was met with a very strong smell of solvents, which immediately makes me feel MEGA ARTED OUT! something that sounded like a Klezmer band playing. Joseph is a very accomplished print-maker, but I suddenly felt like maybe he was secretly a hippie while looking at his work this time around. Owens displayed an explosive, psychedelic cover for the Dropout, which was the standout piece, the rest did not leave an impression. Honey Vizer’s velvet 80s meets 60s paintings are very strong portraits of demonic females in day-glo, they need a bit more 2010 to truly stand the test of time, but i’m digging them. Meanwhile at MECCA, the Object Afterlife show was in full swing. This show was created from the Object Afterlife Challenge, where a specific piece of junk was selected for each artist based on their application. The artists then had to take this assigned waste material & turn it into art, which was then judged by various people. There was an impressive piece by Jud Turner, more of his critique
the hunt fo
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KATIE AABERG
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BANG! • september 15, 2010
of industrialism mixed with model train scenery styling. Erin Even knocked out a fun “Autonomous Graffiti Bot”, made out of an umbrella skeleton or something like that. Robin Selover produced a very satisfying piece of textile art called “Mounds” featuring barnacle-like crustacean forms, but the real winner in this show was Mother Earth, you know what i’m sayin’? Captain Planet in the house. Having seen the Salon Du Peuple, i was very intrigued by what the Mayor’s Art Show would bring. I’ve never been too impressed by the mayor’s art show in the past, there is always a higher quality of work being displayed in terms of craftsmanship, but generally, it is all quite safe, maintaining the status quo of Eugene & not doing what art should do, which is electrify & accelerate the populace. Upon entering the Jacobs Art Gallery i was met with a very strong smell of solvents, which immediately makes me feel MEGA ARTED OUT! The standout piece was Tricia Robinson’s “Franklin”, which projected the idea of expressionist Muppets on crack into my brain. Jud Turner had another train-scenery commentary on industrialism, as he says, “love the gears, hate the machine.” What’s kind of funny is that America is distinctly a post-industrial country, so the gears most people are familiar with now are bicycle gears. Maybe Turner is saying that bicycles are oppressing me. Annette Gurdjian had a fun piece called “Man With Horse & Two Strangers” which was almost there, there was a great disjointed quality to the figures. The best of show piece was “In Full Regalia” by Christina Dougherty, a full nude woman over gold Victorianisms rendered in red ink. The sanguine lines gave the figure a very classical feeling, & i was quite pleased to see a drawing be THE WINNER. Other stuff going on. I finally made it into OPUS VII, which is calling itself “An Art, Architecture, Design & Social Venue”. The space is very nice, big, well-lit & comfortable & is being divided spatially by the aforementioned themes. The art on display was very well done, but not very challenging or braincharging. Seemed like next-level waiting room pieces for dentists with better taste. I did dig these ceramic heads by Kim Murton. There was a fantastic display of photographs of Eugene, matching the old & the new in shots to display what Eugene was & is by Rowell Brokaw Architects. I don’t have a strong attachment to old or new Eugene, but i did change my mind about how much had been torn down in downtown. While Eugene might not have very many if any architectural marvels, i think it was a good idea to tear down most of the old buildings to make way for something new. Skullfly Tattoo is gone & in its place Abe Nobody is pulling together a tempo-
rary venue called The Gup on 690 Van Buren. He’s talking about music, art, everything, all inside of a Gup. Fenario is totally Fenario, but in its place the renamed Oregon Arts Alliance (formerly Oregon Crafted) has taken up shop. It’s a beautiful art gallery so i’m pleased it has been filled so quickly. Ink Thirsty Gallery has only recently come onto my radar & become a favorite & just like that, proprietor Richard Hofmeier is up & moving to Seattle. The current show there is work related to his crushingly mundane Cart Life video game, including some b&w pieces by yours truly. Between Ink Thirsty & The Voyeur, i was very excited to see what a couple of “proper galleries” could do in Eugene, but now that burden rests entirely on the shoulders of Mo Bowen & whoever else decides to have a go at it. I reckon that the Whiteaker could easily do with another gallery as could downtown. HAVE AT IT! CHECK IT: Chris Capuozzo’s art blog. http://www. intergalactico.com/blog AKIRA: Manga & Anime, you shouldn’t be allowed into the future without having experienced AKIRA. SOUNDTRACK: Das Racist “Shut up Dude”, Die Antwoord “$O$”, Janelle Monae “Metropolis” & “The ArchAndroid”
KATIE AABERG
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o Bowen runs the new Voyeur Gallery, next to Olivejuice. I was stoked to find that she is on the same page as me regarding the arts in Eugene, & even better, she has a gallery to use in this process. I was talking to her the other day about what’s happening in Eugene & she mentioned being interviewed by a Japanese journalism student who asked off the record, “If you’re from Chicago, you’ve got connections to San Francisco, & Portland is right there, why not do this in one of those towns?” Mo said, “That attitude is why i’m doing this here. If it’s just a given that this kind of gallery should be in those towns, it’s just a given, but in Eugene, you really change things in a big way.” I was asked the same thing when i moved to Eugene, & i’ve learned the same thing from living here. It’s not expected that you’re going to push in a certain way, so when you do, you make a huge impact. I realized this when me & my wife went to Sakura for our first dinner out in Eugene which was then managed by Tak Kashino & the place was mega bohemian to a degree neither of us had experienced in bigger cities. Of course, all of this action is met with some reaction & there have been whispers of “white artists creating gentrification”, which might make sense for my native Oakland, California, where i was even accused of being a gentrifying agent, despite having been born there, i asked Mo what she thought about the haters & what she’s trying to do with her gallery. “In regards to the ‘gentrification’... it's not even the case here. I'm not a big box company bringing in tons of money, i'm really just trying to create more of an art scene in a part of town that is considered artistic anyway. I just feel the artists in town could use a more serious & perhaps more challenging space to fill & an opportunity for them to teach classes & discuss their work at depth with the community. Anybody can throw some work up at a coffee shop & leave it, but this is different. Really an overall goal is to help artists ‘up their game’ so we can command more from ourselves as artists & the audience. In the future, i hope to be the space where artists can take their work to the next level in terms of showing, displaying & discussing their work. Paint the inside, outside, i dont give a fuck & really Sean, you've helped me express this idea more when you talked about artists having game. I like that. I hope to throw bigger events & include music & projections, performance pieces, etc. & i really hope to get my dark room up & running so i can provide a place for people to develop & print their film & geek out in the dark room for cheap rates. I want to inspire artists to take it to next level & really utilize my space, & educate with classes & i think Eugene is helping.”
BAD, BUT GOOD “Not bad meaning bad, but bad meaning good!” —RUN DMC
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’m not impressed by the Polish, i mean polish. You can shine something up, mechanize it, streamline it, synchronize it, metronize it, smooth it & call it wzorowy, but that’s all window dressing to the essence of THE THING. You can always tell a simpleton by their limited perceptive abilities, they are so easily charmed by the gloss & glitter that they cannot see what is underneath. This is why i prefer raw & straight forward things, like real Rock & Roll & early Rap music & underground comics. The Japanese have a concept called HETAUMA which means “BAD, BUT GOOD.” In America, this came up at the same time as & in the same manner as Punk, originating in the avant garde art like Expressionism, finding itself in mundane commercial cartooning like Basil Wolverton, erupting in the Kustom Kar scene with Rat Fink, tying itself to anti-establishment & acid in underground comix & then re-emerging on the TV screen with Gary
Panter’s “Ratty Line” designs for Pee Wee’s Playhouse. The energy is kinetic & the subject matter is grotesque, unfiltered & stream of consciousness, like an early John Waters movie. Before i knew what this Heta-Uma thing even was, i recognized it in artists like George Grosz, Gahan Wilson, Quentin Blake & even in the declining Charles Schulz. “At first glance Terry's cartoons appear to be bad art, but on close inspection, they are also good. Hence, they are heta-uma or bad-good. Terry believes that everyone starts as a "bad" artist & tries to become good. But simply becoming "good" is not enough. Artists who try too hard to become "good" emphasize technique over soul, & the life goes out of their drawings; their spirit fails to live up to their technique.” From the discussion of Teruhiko Yumura aka "King Terry" in Frederik L. Schodt's Dreamland Japan: Writings on Modern Manga.
The Voyeur 547 Blair Blvd. Tues.-Sat. noonish-9pm
september 15, 2010 • BANG!
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BANG! • september 15, 2010
by. I want people to feel like they aren't crazy for thinking something is wrong. I also get excited to expose people to ideas they haven't heard of, as well as hopefully providing some inspiration for people who are already radical. Z: It's totally ok to be pissed, or to be sad, about the world. The desire to live in a totally different world is healthy and real and cannot always be sublimated by Second Life or World of Warcraft, it sometimes needs to be expressed in fits of screaming. We are very excited to launch 'The Art of Dismantling', an ongoing interview series. Every month, we will be interviewing a different artist, musician, or writer that utilizes their gifts in an effort to instigate change. The interviews will be heavily focused on the artists’ political/social views, intentions, and how they feel about the impact the are or are not having in the world. www.theartofdismantling.blogspot.com
BLACKBIRD RAUM
Interview with Dante Zuniga-West
Blackbird Raum is a band from Santa Cruz, California, where they have become a prominent part of the downtown street life. They are well known for their influence on Gypsy Punk but are generally considered to be the founders of a new genre. Influenced by American string bands of the 1920s and Modern anarcho-punk, their music brings together rhythms of olde-tyme music with lyrics that reflect the sense of impending collapse of the current civilization that pervades much of green anarchist culture in modern times, as well as criticizing the human and environmental destruction caused by modern day civilization.
The members are: Caspian, on banjo, Mars, on mandolin and saw, David on washtub bass, Zack on accordion and KC on washboard. Greetings, Can you give us a brief explanation of who you are and what you do? C: Blackbird Raum uses American folk instruments and techniques to make what is essentially punk music. Our lyrics attempt to reflect our anarchist values, without feeling like a musical essay. We AREN'T pirates, alcoholics, or gypsies. What Goals do you have with your music and its impact on the world? C: I'm not greatly optimistic about any music's role in the destruction of "The Great Lie", but it is my personal goal to make music that validates a certain intuition: that the entire industrialized manner of living is without ecological or spiritual merit. There has to be a voice (musical or otherwise) that says, no, their value isn't what's valuable. This is a personal, rather than social, impact, mostly be-
cause that's what I believe is usually possible to achieve through music. Perhaps the bygone composers of Irish rebel songs would disagree with that, but I've yet to reach their heights. M: I also feel that making a personal impact on our audience is both possible and valuable. But it has been awesome to see our band contribute to larger goals and projects, especially through the zine distro we bring on tour and through playing benefits. D: Our band now has enough draw that we can pull people or money to various causes that we want to support. $6 at the door isn't really a lot of money to pay for a good show, but $800 might mean more to the defense fund for Native political prisoner John Graham. We've gotten to a point where we can throw a show that pays touring bands, fixes the window broken during our set, and still gets enough money to send half a year's worth of radical books and literature to prisoners. That feels really positive. We also have done shows where, by mixing it up, we can cross-pollinate audiences in a cool way. Recently, we played a set right before Ramona Africa gave a short talk, and having our fans see her speak and her fans hear us play was amazing. What message or messages are you trying to instill in your audience and listeners? M: I don't know if I am trying to instill a message. When I was growing up, listening to music that I could relate to emotionally was essential to my health. I get excited to make music that people who share similar frustrations with the world can relate to, and be inspired
What do you see as a connection between art and social change, and more specifically, your music and activism? Z: Music, especially music that is fun to dance to, is a lot like most activism—you go somewhere with your friends, expend a lot of energy, feel good about yourself, and in the end nobody else really notices. On the other hand, art can play a big part in informing 'cultures of resistance,' where, if you look at groups that have stuck together and kept up their fight for decades or centuries (IRA, indigenous resistance to the US), people who are still fighting and not snitching and hunger striking to death in jail are the people who have a shared culture, and that includes art and music. C: When someone comes up to us and says "My life is dedicated to stopping the wolf killings in Montana, your music means a lot to me," I feel I am doing something worthwhile, that it's hugely valuable to have someone out there who isn't just singing songs for people to do homework to. Clearly most of the kudos we receive isn't of this nature. It would be the highest honor to make music in perfect concert with the broader scheme of open rebellion. Unfortunately, it often feels as though many of the anarchists in this country are against each other more than they are against 'the culture': spiteful cliques battle against people who are too much like them for comfort, with shit talk, ridicule, and ostracization as arsenal. This state of affairs depresses me deeply and I constantly try to avoid this shit storm. Hopefully those who can see through this smog will stick it out long enough to share what they have learned, and something will be built out of this after all. What first led you to the decision to utilize your gifts as a musician as a tool for expressing your personal views on environmental, social, and political issues? C: As Derrick Jensen says, everyone has to use the skills they have to defend their community (both human and bioregional). For better or for worse, the main thing I know how to do is play the banjo and yell. M: I don't separate my views on those issues from my feelings about anything else. Music has always been a way for me to express feelings and ideas that are meaningful to me. The fact that our music has radical sentiment doesn't necessarily mean that it accomplishes much personal expression. It can, but that is something we have to actively put energy into.
scenes. A lot of people come to our shows, and they may not all know each other, despite their potentially similar interests. If some of them can meet, that's great. Also, I hope people have a good time. Dancing can be a really good way to get some exercise, and also it is good for the emotional health, as long as you are not making people feel unsafe, or like there isn't room for them to dance as well. Do you have advice for other writers, musicians, or artists who are creating politically focused art? C: The ability to create compelling music, and the ability to articulately express revolt are two difficult, and entirely separate skills. I hope we succeed at combining these, though I know at times we've been clumsy with it. I would say: bother to learn your traditions, both politically and musically, then break from them in whatever manner. Z: Who feels it knows it. What personal lifestyle choices have you made which reflect the views and opinions expressed through your music? M: For me, it feels good to have my lifestyle reflect my values as much as possible. But while those things are positive for my personal well-being, I don't feel they contribute much to larger political, social, and environmental struggles. Is there any hope for success? M: I have no idea whatsoever. Z: If the answer is no, would we stop fighting? How important do you feel it is for artists/ writers to communicate and discuss these topics and themes via their art and writing, as opposed to spending their time developing sustainable personal practices? Z: I don't see these as opposed, definitely keeping that shit bottled up is a seriously unsustainable personal practice, you'll go crazy. C: I save water by refusing to brush my teeth, this 'green' strategy works in absolute unison with touring in a band. Blackbird Raum will play in a town near you at some point in time. Find them online: blackbirdraum.com myspace.com/blackbirdraum
Ideally, what experience or impact would an audience member take away from your live show? C: I want people to feel emotionally cathartic, mournful for the state of the world, and like they just had a fucking blast. Crowd surfing is important. Z: Fortunately, we get to travel around the country making connections with radical people from different backgrounds and september 15, 2010 • BANG!
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PIRATE RADIO
Broadcasting from your face by Collin Gerber
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too; trying to get everyone to buy gold. Like ‘the world’s coming to an end, buy gold.’ And I feel like a lot of the songs are written from the perspective of the common man, and about the common man. Being the common man, you get fucked. Well ‘cause this common man wrote the lyrics. And he’s pretty fucked (laughs).
ocal punk rockers Pirate Radio recently released their newest album Expendable. Well, about that, you have a song on this It has theme songs for workers and comnew album called “Humble Worker.” It’s mon people and commentary on life and social kind of a different pace and the longest justice—not to mention some lively, energetic song on the CD. Is that in reference again street punk and Oi. Veterans of the local scene, to the plight of the common man? Pirate Radio has played the Wandering Goat PR: It’s just about working your balls off, to the Wow Hall and John Henry’s and back people treating you like shit. Not being able again—many, many times. They know their to work, working too much, etc. Not having way around the local venues anything to show for it at the and around the workings of end of the week. All of the PIRATE RADIO quality punk rock, as is shown lyrics reference everybody, with THE BUSINESS in this album. Traditional you know, like the first line Sat. September 18, 9pm sounding street punk blends is ‘we’re the ones that you John Henry's with some elements of harddespise,’ like we’re the lower core and sing-along anthems class, everybody’s giving you to create an original sound, proudly bred on a hard time. Like these guys are delivery guys, the streets of our humble community. They or waiters, getting so much shit. Even the poor have shared the stage with bands like MDC, guy working at the McDonald’s counter, he’s Krum Bums, Swingin’ Utters and legendary just a regular dude, he’s not McDonald’s. Oi band, The Business, and will be joining The Business again at John Henry’s on Saturday, So is it worker pride, or recognizing how September 18th. Teren, John, Len, Jameson much it sucks? and Taylor express their opinions and convicPR: Well, it’s both you know, it’s your life. tions heartily on the album, and did so among The next part in the song is the immigrants; ‘in the backdrop of empty Hamm’s cans and Star the United States, we work all our life, straight Wars Xbox games in a sit-down interview. to our grave.’ They work just as hard as everyone else but they don’t get the same rates. What number album is this for you guys? PR: Well we had 2 different shitty demos; What are some of your biggest musical inone was two songs, one was six songs. And fluences, on this album in particular and as then we did, like, a ten song CD. And then we a band in general? recorded seven more songs to add onto that, PR: Rancid, a lot of the Clash. We all and released that album twice (laughs). This is, have major influences, but yeah a lot of Clash. like, our second real album, full length. We’ve been listening to a lot of Oi for influence on the mid-tempo stuff. Yeah, street punk. But How long have you been playing together? sometimes we listen to a lot of hardcore, and PR: We started summer of 2004, when write some hardcore songs. I don’t know, Bad us three were in high school. Then multiple Brains, Black Flag, a lot of that stuff too. From lineup changes, then more lineup changes and each different era we all have favorite bands we eventually got John and Len. We actually and shit. It’s kind of a nice mixture of everygot [singer] John from him doing karaoke at thing we all listen to. one of our shows. He wanted to come sing a cover, then he came on stage and it sounded You have a song on this album called good (laughs). Like Henry Rollins joining “Wreck ‘Em All,” and that’s also the name Black Flag. of your last album. Who are you trying to wreck all of? You guys often have politically and socially PR: (laughs) It’s about bums and freeloadcharged lyrics. On this album specifically, ers, people like that gettin’ in your face. I try what are some themes throughout? You to help people out when I can when somehave a song called “Dr. King,” and even one’s hurtin’. If I don’t have anything to spare, thank MLK in your liner notes. Why? quit begging. Some people will get aggressive. PR: He’s just the go to guy of the era for It’s also a direct reference to The Warriors passive resistance. Basically just unity. Every(laughs). I guess that’s really where it came thing is still an issue that he was fighting for. from. We were playing that game a lot when People need to start paying attention, there’s we wrote that (laughs). a lot more racism going on, just bigotry because of the new president. Basically addressFinal remarks? ing shit like that. Other themes in the album PR: We believe in social justice, but don’t would be just how broke everyone is right now, ask us for shit. We’re only here for the drink blaming it on different people. And fear tactics tickets. 14
BANG! • september 15, 2010
The Man Behind the Tail My night with Dove Machine by River Donaghey
D
ove Machine wanders into my house for our interview twenty minutes late, smoking a cigarette. His dark hair is falling around his face and spilling off his shoulders. The cigarette bounces slightly in his mouth, jutting out from his d'Artagnan facial hair. He's wearing the tail of a black fox—a real black fox, he lets me touch it later on—strung around his belt. It dangles lazily between his legs. I scowl at his burning cigarette. He finally realizes my hesitance with him smoking in my apartment. “Oh, sorry,” he grins, “I should have asked. Can I smoke in here?” I shake my head and he stubs the end of the American Spirit out on the sole of his cowboy boot. “It was done anyway.” And this is how I meet Dove Machine, the alter ego of Illinois transplant Britt Brady. He is the lead singer and guitarist of local anthemic indie rock band Circa Vitae. Circa Vitae, which also includes Thaddeus Moore, owner of Sprout City Studios, has released one album of polished, Broken Social Scene-esque music and is in the process of completing a second. Dove Machine is Brady's way to break out of Circa Vitae's specific brand of indie rock and indulge his industrial, electronic side. “I grew up listening to Nine Inch Nails and Depeche Mode,” Brady tells me, sipping a twenty-two of Oakshire's Espresso Stout. It's all he drinks. “In Circa Vitae, I don't get much of a chance to put down my guitar and feed my electronic side. I also love Dubstep, but only when it is really hard. You know, like Filthstep.” I may pride myself in a large wealth of music knowledge, but I can't say I know of any bands that call their music "Filthstep." Brady lists off some artists when I ask, and I have a sneaking suspicion that he is just making up names off the top of his head. I have never heard of any of them. The two tracks that Britt Brady plays for me, “Dreams” and “Reasonable Gangster,” are the first songs off of his upcoming debut release. They are streaming free on his MySpace and sound exceptionally well recorded, especially since he did the majority of the tracking in his bedroom. It is no wonder that Brady, an engineer at Sprout City Studios, cites My Bloody Valentine as a strong influence. I can see Brady laboring over each individual instrument track in the same way My Bloody Valentine's front man Kevin Shields obsessed over the distor-
tion and tone of every guitar on his albums. The name Dove Machine really suits the music—both “Dreams” and “Reasonable Gangster” feel distinctly electronic and organic, simultaneously. The affected drum beats and layers of synths mesh together into an ocean of digital noise, while Brady's voice balances it all out with a very human element. He has a beautiful mastery over his voice, and his vocals can shift from pretty and delicate to loud and abrasive almost instantaneously. The same voice, which makes Circa Vitae sound so distinctly like Circa Vitae, fits perfectly here, in a completely different setting and mood. I almost forget how skeptical I was when I heard that Circa Vitae's lead singer was recording a Nine Inch Nails-inspired album. Dove Machine gives him space to tackle darker themes, Brady tells me, quoting lines like “life is worth living, boy, if there's a fear of Hell,” from “Dreams.” “I grew up going to Catholic schools in Illinois,” he explains. “And I found that, as early as I can remember, my teachers tried to scare me into behaving with this idea of Hell. It never worked. I also broke my back at the beginning of this year while back in Illinois. I was trapped in a bed for weeks, wanting to come back here to Eugene. I had a lot of time to worry about my recovery and feel shitty about myself. This is the sort of stuff Dove Machine is all about.” Talking to Britt Brady, I begin to understand songs like “Reasonable Gangster,” whose title seemed ill suited to its serious, electronic groove. Brady's cocky, tongue-in-cheek attitude keeps the Dove Machine tracks from feeling melodramatic despite heavy themes. When he sings “I'm in love with disaster, I can handle it, though,” I can almost see him grinning through his Musketeer facial hair. Even after he tells me about his back injury and his manic depressive tendencies, Britt Brady can't help but joke around. “I made a MySpace for Dove Machine last night. I figured that there should be a place for the readers of this article to go listen to my songs. I hate MySpace, though. I wanted to write them an angry letter or something. It asked me to choose my genre but I couldn't. It had all sorts of genres to choose from but not one of them was Goth-Hop!” He laughs and then shakes his head in mock disbelief. You can listen to Dove Machine's songs and find info about his upcoming debut at www.myspace. com/thedovemachine. Come on, you have to at least go look at the site. He made it just for you.
ALBUM REVIEWS
BANG!'s family guide to recorded music
MENOMENA Mines 2010, Barsuk menomena.com
I was up in PDX a few weeks ago visiting my mahollers when I got my first taste of a sea-salt-pistachio-cardamom brownie. It’s not such a far-flung or disparate concoction as it may seem. Certainly not so contradictory as McDonald’s new healthy “Go Active” meal (are you fucking kidding me) or gay African American republicans (deal with it Dennis Sanders). The brownie is delicious. It’s toothsome. It’s ambrosial. It’s just fantastic. That’s not really what this is about. This isn’t a review of a brownie that I had a few bites of and want more of now. It’s about Menomena’s new album, Mines, and how they continue to fuse different elements of music into a cohesive and energetically enjoyable unit. Yes, yes, it’s true that the band is made up of multiinstrumentalists but that’s not what makes their sound diverse yet unified. It’s the way they employ those ingredients that joins all those various influences into winsome and full indie pop. On the new album, Brent Knopf, Justin Harris and Danny Seim play everything from blues-rock guitar licks and hip hop drum kicks to classic pop piano flurries and honking saxophone. There’s a certain joyousness to the music, even in the downtempo moments. There’s a sense of playful lightheartedness. They clearly opened a window and shoved seriousness out. Not that they don’t take their music seriously but that they do it without ego. It’s light. It’s fun. A lot of the gaiety must result from their recording method. If you haven’t heard or read by now, the band uses a digital looping record-
IRON MAIDEN The Final Frontier 2010, EMI ironmaiden.com
The Final Frontier, the 15th studio album release from heavy metal masters Iron Maiden, plays as an opus for the 30+-year-old band and acts as a metaphor for the group, which has defined and redefined heavy metal since the foundation of the genre. Clocking in at over 76 minutes long, it is the band’s longest studio release to date. The imagery, lyricism and range of pace, sounds and tempos is unmatchable given their time span and the expectations the public has of groups who debut albums after reaching such a pinnacle of career length. Iron Maiden created a sound in the late 70s that would come to be known as the New Wave of British Heavy Metal and has not faltered from that defining style, becoming one of the most successful bands of all time, receiving little mainstream promotion throughout the decades. The album is in some ways a concept album, and in many ways a metaphor for the band’s experience, career success and length. It is roughly a story of space travel, interstellar battles and ultimately a return home, metaphorically representing the full circle of influence the band has created for music of the era to today, as well as their adoration of the support they have received around the world. It is a work of progressivism, and in some cases, calculated erraticism which surprises the listener and never feels dull or old. The album opens with a two-part song, “Satellite 15…The Final Frontier,” which is half soundscape, building up and setting the mood for the second half, “The Final Frontier” song. It immediately rips into an ageless sound, harking back to 1982’s The Number of the Beast, the debut of singer Bruce Dickinson’s endlessly influential voice and singing style, which has and continues to set the standard for heavy metal and power metal singers. The band plays with such a timeless and unforgettable rhythm as it relays into the next song “El Dorado,” led by the always powerful, never drowned out bass
er called Deeler that Knopf programmed himself. They pass a single mic attached to Deeler around and each member takes a turn recording a riff and looping it. It’s a very democratically constructivist approach that results in their effulgent sound. It might be similar to the way that salty, nutty, spicy, sweet confection was made. The cooks were just fucking around in the kitchen and decided to make a brownie, each adding their own randomly chosen ingredient. That’s pure speculation, though. All of the elements of this broad range of sound and fun are on display on the second track of the album, the Harris-led “TAOS”. At the start, a guitar wails backed by kicking drums then dies off so the space can be filled by gathering piano. The piano gives way to ringing cymbals and thudding drums that get some support from a bleating sax, only to be replaced by winding piano, before blazing back with the guitar and horns at the finish of the track. Meanwhile, Harris’s voice lifts, falls and rolls through self-effacing lyrics supported by soft, full vocal backing near the end. It’s really too much to describe here. I suggest you just give it a listen. “Five Little Rooms” is similarly diverse, though driven more by sax and break beat style drumming and supported by a rippling electronic sound that could be a theremin but is more likely Knopf playing the keys. Knopf, Harris and Seim create fun and diverse indie pop, omnivorously drawing from other genres and styles to create their own perfectly thick, happy and quirk-captained music. You can’t just cram a sheet of sea-salt-pistachio-cardamom brownies into your ears… well… I suppose you can but it’s gonna be a messy affair and you won’t get much out of it. Just listen to Menomena’s Mines instead. Leave the spiced chocolate ear for a special occasion. —JOSIAH MANKOFSKY
riffage of founding member and chief song writer Steve Harris. Even some of the slower seeming songs are not boring, and they don’t fall into the unfortunate category of “metal ballads,” but are still technical, progressive and enjoyable, and always pick up towards the middle or end into an energetic crescendo of riffs and solos. The album’s fifth song “The Alchemist” is classic Iron Maiden, beginning with a two guitar power riff, reminiscent of the “The Trooper” from 1983’s Piece of Mind album, tearing into two and three guitar head-to-head solo battles. The following two songs, “Isle of Avalon” and “Starblind,” have a slightly slower guitar pace, yet the drums maintain a Rush-like progressive unpredictability that keeps the pep of the song, and allows for the free forming of the lengthy solos. The album’s final three songs clock in between 8½ and 11 minutes, testing the stamina of the listener, as tempos change from one minute to the next, yet are all uniformly maintained by the familiar vibratoladen wailings of the king of heavy metal vocalists, and the classic bass cadence of Harris. Beyond the greatness of the music, the production value is quite good, as the album was produced by Kevin Shirley, known for his work with bands like Led Zeppelin, Rush, Dream Theater and Slayer. Additionally, the album artwork is impressive, as is expected with Maiden’s album art, depicting their classic band mascot Eddy the Head, this time as a sort of space explorer, zombie monster. Even included with the CD is a music video created for the song “The Final Frontier,” showing a space battle through CGI video imaging, featuring Eddy and an unknown human space warrior. Aurally, and even visually, this album is impressive and ranks highly in the catalog of the genre. There are simply not enough bands that can maintain tradition and classicism as well as Iron Maiden, never bending to the will of the mainstream or current trends. They know who they are, where they came from and what they have created throughout the years, and they understand that they owe it to their fans and to their own respectability to retain the sound that they helped innovate. This album does not disappoint, and gets better with every listen. —COLLIN GERBER
HOROSCOPES by Steven Jellybean Honeysuckle
Aries Mar. 21-Apr. 19: You should take up an errand of the tongue in the coming weeks. Venture up verbs, nouns and adjectives in conjunctions that don’t simply wash out along, blending with your breath in the slight breeze, but catch in the cavities of your ear canals. Redesign your diction.
TAURUS Apr. 20-May 20: Ogling our most adjacent
star for too long can make you feel like someone got a cat, put it in a bag and taped it around your head, like you got your hair soaking wet with cola and dipped it into a giant package of Pop Rocks. It can also blind you faster than masturbation. The suns gonna be around a bit longer. You don’t need to keep your eye on it and the exits.
Gemini May 21-June 20: The shelves at the old cu-
riosity shop are flush with a breadth of effects and favors, wangdoodles and whosawhats, fabrications and claptrap, crocodile tear tinctures and centaur-skin boots. There, you can buy just about anything that infatuates you, so long as you’re carrying the correct currency. Be careful handling the merchandise. You break it, you buy it… can you afford that?
Cancer June 21-July 22: Inhale deeply, hold it, ex-
hale. Taste anything funny? No? Take another down-reaching breath and let it sit in your lungs. What about now? Still no? Strange, because there are thousands-of-years-old atoms in that air you’re respirating. Atoms that likely bounced about the bronchi of Siddhartha, Pascal, Thomas Paine, King Tut, whoever. You’re lungs are chumming it up with historical heavies. Act accordingly.
Leo July 23-Aug. 22: Everyone could use a Dutch
uncle to talk them down off their self-styled pedestal. You are not as grandiosely great or as toweringly terrible as you think you are, and that’s just the facts, friends. Keep that in mind today… well… everyday, really. Tape your eyelids to your eyebrows and write it on their insides with a Sharpie so you won’t forget.
Virgo Aug. 23-Sep. 22: The edge of nothingness,
where property is abundant and competitively priced, is not so easily arrived at. You can’t just catch a flight, board a bus, hop a train, row a boat, push some pedals or thumb a ride to get there. You’ve got to get sideways, belly up to brain-breaking mania and hang on until it shakes you loose, and even then there’s still some hiking to reach that lacuna.
September 15, 2010
Libra Sep. 23-Oct. 22: With all that vitality and vim
of life afloat so thickly in the air, you should get a towel out, dampen it and hang it out to soak up as much of that buoyancy as it can hold. Then wring the life right out of it into a tall pitcher of cold cubed watermelon and bourbon. Serve chilled with a mint sprig for greatest flavor and affect.
Scorpio Oct. 23-Nov. 21: Your brain is but a Rube
Goldberg mechanism, a set of carefully lined up dominos that flick a lighter that ignites a flamethrower that lights a cigarette whose ashes tip a scale that lifts a platter that carries a neatly arranged idea to the surface of your thinker. It’s important to re-jigger those parts and add in new ones intermittently or you’ll be stuck with always the same theories.
Sagittarius Nov. 22-Dec. 21: Velveteen verbs are
right there on the tip of your tongue over the next couple of weeks. If you operate a telephonic business, you will be especially potent. If you don’t, put that dewy drawl to work. Talk yourself into a gig at NPR. Talk a butterfly out of its chrysalis. Train your dog. Keep your cake upright. Teach your embryonic child to speak while s/he’s still in the womb. Get to talking.
Capricorn Dec. 22-Jan. 19: Exercise your ability to
laugh more. I mean yuck it up. Chortle, chuckle, titter, giggle, guffaw, cachinnate; however you do it. Bust a gut even when things aren’t funny. Kidnapped? That’s a real knee-slapper. Pet lizard died? Hilarious! Dropped your ice-cream top down? Hysterical! Have more humor. Really, it’s the only thing worth having at all.
Aquarius Jan. 20-Feb. 18:
Summer’s almost over and it wants you to behave rashly and boldly, to speak adventurously, to foxtrot with fortune and debate daring. Get out there on that thin little precipice so that your toes curl over the edge and you can see pebbles jarred loose by your weight pinckling down the shear face. Be heedlessly adventuresome.
Pisces Feb. 19-Mar. 20: Feeling bored with the folk-
ways of the western world? Maybe you haven’t tried cultural appropriation yet. It’s quite popular. Just look at other cultures and take their shit. Go to the nearest Tibetan goods shop and get yourself some prayer flags and a brass bracelet with om mani padme hum on it. Get a tribal tattoo and some African war masks. Whatever. Just get connected with someone else’s roots.
Steven Jellybean Honeysuckle was born on a bed of dandelions plucked from your backyard on the vernal equinox. He reads only the verso pages of books and is a spendthrift when drunk but frugal otherwise. His teeth are almost all evenly aligned but are of exceedingly poor constitution despite brushing and flossing as directed. He once dug a hole in his backyard big enough to fill with water and do underwater somersaults and did so. His astrological accreditation is signed in watercolors and is currently lost in the mail. His favorite vegetable is brussels sprouts. He does not like snorkeling but enjoys the saltwater section of fish shops. His phone number was once listed as Hello, Ladies in the white pages of the phonebook. He has one of the largest and most extensive collections of Nick Van Exel basketball cards in the world and uses them as bookmarks. His grasp of science is extremely tenuous and the only thing he knows for sure when he gets up in the morning is that he’s got plans for you.
september 15, 2010 • BANG!
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