Sound Stage

It's time to make my announcement .

I am moving to Portland to try my hand working and making things happen in a larger market. The move is taking place September 5th.

The music coverage will continue and we're working to make this change as seamless as possible.

Taking over the duties of the Tidings Cafe are Mike Oxendine and Mandy Valencia. Mandy is taking charge of the booking for Tidings Cafe performances immediately. Who's doing what exactly is still being hashed out. Both can be contacted on connectashland.com.

You can count on me continuing to attend shows and blog about them until I leave, as well as, assisting with the filming of the Cafes and writing the features. 

Friday night at 9 p.m.Delta Son is performing at the Caldera Tap House (formerly the Siskiyou Brew Pub).

Saturday in Medford at Musichead is Diamonds Under Fire. Check out this week's Tempo publication for the full deal on this three band performance.

OR

On friday or Saturday night you can catch the Frankie Hernandez Band at Four Daughters Irish Pub in Medford.

You can count on my take with some pictures of this week's outings.

Be safe and dance to the music.

A trip to Portland has left me with surprisingly little to say.

The night before my little journey, I saw one of my favorite local bands Musha Rig, an Irish drinking/punk-ish group that is always high energy and is fun to bounce around to. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned my love of bouncing.

This particular show at Stillwater was somewhat disappointing because the usual rambunctious group of people I see at their performances must have been at the Mystic Garden party. Yes, I also missed the Mystic Garden party, please, don't rub it in.

Unfortunately, for all of you, Musha Rig is taking August off from performing and you'll have to wait until September to partake in the drinking, Irish jig bounce around show.

This week is offering an abundance of choice in the music available. I know I have a couple tough calls to make about who to see... or maybe even make a hectic attempt to see it all.

Wednesday is the first all-Beatles open mic at the Wild Goose. Particpate or spectate, either way it will be interesting to see the local musicians who come out to pay homage to the Beatles with their renditions of the beloved songs. It's free and starts at 8 p.m.

--OR--

There's the weekly open mic night at Alex's where you can catch original tunes performed by local musicians and usually kicks off around 9:30 or so.

Thursday offers a couple more choices with Zepperela at the Applegate Lodge. This is an all female Led Zepplin cover band. I have heard rave reviews of what they do. This one is $10 in advance or $13 at the door. Check out previous blogs for a link to the site.

--OR--

Brynna Dean and Her Sympathetic Strings will be performing at Alex's. they are a new group that's worth checking out.

Of course Friday is First Friday and all you need to do is stroll around and listen for a beat to find some local musicians strutting their stuff for your listening pleasure.

A word of warning about these videos: Musha Rig is loud and Stillwater likes to have their sound blaring (sometimes painfully). I recommend turning your sound down and slowly adjusting it as you listen.

Michelle Bellamy has been putting together jam sessions she likes to call the Rogue Family Jam for a couple months now, where talented local musicians come  together to, well... jam.

Some of the faces to show up to Tease were Jeff Pevar, who really is a guitar master, Aaron Reed with his drum skills and killer vocals, Michelle Bellamy, who's always a joy, Frankie Hernandez with his humor and horn, Inger Jorgenson (I think that's spelled right) who was a powerful treat to hear for the first time.

Momo Smitt and Rich Mcloud brought in their hip-hop with a message. The likes of several bands were floating around the bar like Monk, State of Jefferson, Brynna Dean and Her Sympathetic Strings and so many more.

These Family Jams make for one fantastic night of music. I was thoroughly impressed with the caliber of musicians that came out to play. It's not a common occurrence to catch all these people together playing their music simply because they want to. Nicely done -- all of you that came out to play. The rest of you that weren't there, check out the videos at the end of this post to listen and see for your self what's been happening.

Tease is a nice place, I enjoy it in there. I didn't find the large pieces of furniture conducive to live music with little or no room to move around and several chairs facing away from the music. It is the sort of environment one might expect to hear acoustic, solo performances -- not full and rotating bands.

This coming week on the Tidings Cafe we will be featuring We Are The Unreal, a traveling group of hip-hop/indie/slam poets (which really did nothing to accurately describe what they do). They will performing live Friday, July 31 7 p.m. at the Toni Rene Gallery at 629 "A" street.

Remember to dance to the music and be safe.

Oh yeah, Have you joined connectashland.com yet? Interact with fellow Ashlanders, and share your ideas with us at the Ashland Daily Tidings. I know I could use some suggestions for the "Cheap Dates" column. Do you know of any particularly cheap things to do and food to eat in Ashland? How about live music shows to see? Musicians, feel free to to use the comment section of this blog to announce upcoming shows. You're reading it... don't you think others are too?

Wednesday night was a departure from my typical open mic outing with David Greco opening for The Rogue Suspects at the Applegate Lodge.

Deciding what to call Greco's music is a tough one. Perhaps alternative coffee shop with humor and heart. I'm sure that doesn't do him justice because I immediately have a flash back to "Smelly Cat". His music is much less annoying and enjoyable for a longer period of time. He also had percussion company with Blake (no last name available) sitting on a cajon and playing the snare and kick drum. I suppose you may want to watch the video at the end of this post and come up with your own genre identifier that more suitably tells people in a concise manner what he sounds like.

Regardless I like his tunes. View the previous blog post for a link to his website.

Indubious Q & A


This was a tough question and answer session to manage with at least four people contributing their thoughts. It may be amusing none-the-less.

What's the best and worst one hit song? This one got me a consensus with "It's Raining Men" as the worst and "Three Little Pigs" by Green Jelly as the best (yes, we sang that one, such a goodie).

What's the most annoying radio commercial? Any pharmaceutical company.

Favorite wee hours of the morning snack? Sing it with us... "We like to oote oote oote ooples and banoonoos...." That was fun.

That's what I managed with that session. I'll have more bloggy goodness for you by the beginning of next week.

Dance to the music and be safe.

 

The Purple Heart Band, a local cover band, played a few of their (by their I mean, their adaptation) songs at the Little Brown Jug in Talent on July 11.

This band is a lot fun with humor tossed in to their act. Hanging out and listening to them is an opportunity to listen to those old favorites, many of which you forgot you liked, and sing along. Most of their songs are up beat so you can dance around doing the twist, sprinkler or that one plug-your-nose and wiggle as you drop dance. What's that one called?

This band is an awesome idea for a night of familiars, drinking and goofing off.

As a venue the Little Brown Jug, formerly the Tally Ho, in Talent is a nicely set up venue. They have a decent sized dance floor, one of the largest bars (actual bar top space) I've seen around and even a couple pin ball machines. Give me some pin ball, Pac Man or Centipede any time over all the too-many-buttons what-do-I-do-now games.

I found the owners and bartenders to be gracious, hospitable and conscientious about their patrons' safety.

Coming up this week for shows to catch are... drum roll please....

Tomorrow, July 14: 1 p.m. Indubious brings their reggae-funk to the Tidings Cafe and at 7 p.m. at the Applegate Lodge... again, with San Francisco's David Greco opening for The Rogue Suspects (I'll be there). 

This weekend Friday through Sunday is Fever Fest 2009 kicks off its first year with three days of performances from local bands and bands from as far away as Seattle. Check out this week's tempo in the Mail Tribune for more info on that. I'll be checkin out some of these bands for sure.

Monday at Stillwater is Mystic Roots and Monk.