The majority of the founding fathers of punk have passed on touring or are doing so with replacement members after embodying the “live fast and die young” lifestyle.
Fortunately, Los Angeles’ finest punk band, X, is still playing in top form with all of its original members.
On Friday, singer Exene Cervenka, bassist and singer John Doe, guitarist Billy Zoom and drummer D.J. Bonebrake returned to McMenamin’s Crystal Ballroom in Portland for a celebration of X’s 40th-anniversary tour.
Although X is touted as a punk band, it evolved to be so much more than that. With rockabilly and folk influences fueled by Doe and Cervenka’s haunting vocals, X made punk music more than a three-chord race to fill 120 seconds.
John Doe plays bass for X on the band’s 40th Anniversary tour. (Christopher Trotchie/Emerald)
Exene Cervenka sings with X at Portland’s Crystal Ballroom on Friday night. (Christopher Trotchie/Emerald)
The show began with rockabilly-infused takes on X classics such as “Beyond And Back” and “In This House That I Call Home.” Dressed in a black leather jacket, Doe played a hollow body bass guitar and roamed the stage, urging the crowd to engage with the music by waving his arms and smiling at the audience.
Guitarist Billy Zoom has returned to X’s lineup after taking time off to receive chemotherapy treatments for his bladder cancer. He played seated on a stool with his left leg propped up to support his guitar. Although he no longer stands in his signature power stance, Zoom maintains his stage presence by flashing wide-cheeked grins at unsuspecting audience members, making his blistering guitar solos appear effortless.
Craig Packham is touring with X as an extra instrumentalist, alternating between and drums and guitar. This allowed Zoom to play saxophone on the deep cut “Come Back To Me” and alternate solos with D.J. Bonebrake as he played four-mallet vibraphones on “I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts.”
D.J. Bonebrake, John Doe, Exene Cervenka and Billy Zoom perform at McMenamin’s Crystal Ballroom on Friday night. The band is celebrating its 40th anniversary.(Christopher Trotchie/Emerald)
Following a quiet moment between songs, a pounding bass beat shook the floorboards of the Crystal Ballroom. Downstairs at Lola’s Room, it was ‘80s Video Dance Attack night. Doe looked confused.
“Are they playing disco downstairs? Those motherfuckers,” Doe said with a grin. “We can be louder than that.”
Billy Zoom plays while seated during a performance at the Crystal Ballroom. He would also play saxophone during certain songs. (Christopher Trotchie/Emerald)
He followed through with his promise immediately. The band’s early punk material made a few appearances throughout the performance, including “We’re Desperate,” but this was when X perfectly shifted into material from its debut album, Los Angeles.
The songs hit with a force that few bands are capable of ever achievingand sent the audience into a minor frenzy. The mosh pit reached the outer layers of the Crystal as the band played “Your Phone’s Off The Hook (But You’re Not),” “Johnny Hit And Run Paulene” and the Doors’ “Soul Kitchen.” The crowd was comprised of a surprising mixture of ages: many looked as if they have been attending X shows since the band formed.
A girl in the front row who was likely younger than ten caught Doe’s eye. He spotted her and smiled before whispering in Cervenka’s ear. She turned and smiled at the young girl, thrilled to have such a young fan enjoying their music. Midway through the show, Doe looked at her and said, “There’s a young lady up here who is having the best Friday night ever.”
She wasn’t the only one having a great Friday night. One fan with a sweat-lined black baseball hat spent the majority of the night urging the crowd to come forward into the mosh pit. During the encore break, he yelled “John Doe is a mother-fucking legend,” with emphatic, inebriated pointing. “He changed everything,” he said.
Watching X perform provided the rare opportunity to see an original wave punk band put on a clinic of how a rock show is supposed to sound. The band’s music appears to have transcended the generation gap, which is the ultimate achievement for any band. X is a must-see show.
Punk rock erupted in 1977. As bands like The Sex Pistols, The Clash, Television and The Damned pushed the boundaries of what it meant to play fast and loud music, the genre’s counterculture appeal to societal outcasts and misfits sprouted a series of DIY punk communities across the world.
In Los Angeles, X was still three years away from releasing its highly influential 1980 debut album, Los Angeles. But with atypical chord progressions and John Doe and Exene Cervenka’s eerie intertwining vocals, X eventually earned notoriety as L.A.’s greatest punk band and was later considered one of the best bands in the world as its sound progressed from punk to include folk, rockabilly roots and a strong sense of storytelling. Rolling Stone lists Los Angeles as the 287th greatest album of all time.
On Friday, X will perform with its original lineup at McMenamin’s Crystal Ballroom in Portland for the band’s 40th anniversary tour. All original members will be present, including Cervenka, Doe, drummer D.J. Bonebrake and guitarist Billy Zoom, who is returning after a recent bout with cancer.
After 40 years, the members of X are far from exhausted with each other, their music or the punk culture they helped inspire in Los Angeles. In fact, Cervenka says touring is the most enjoyable it has ever been.
(Maggie St. Thomas)
“I like it more than ever,” Cervenka said. “It’s easier now because we know more who we are and we’re comfortable with everything that we’ve done. We don’t have to prove anything.”
Although the band has taken breaks from touring as X, the members have stayed close to each other over the decades. After X’s initial hiatus, Doe, Cervenka and Bonebrake formed a folk group called The Knitters. Cervenka and Bonebrake also played in Auntie Christ together, and this summer, Doe stopped at Portland’s Doug Fir Lounge with Bonebrake accompanying him. On Doe’s most recent solo album, The Westerner, he covered Cervenka’s song “Alone In Arizona.”
Zoom is returning to the lineup after battling bladder cancer. He previously fought prostate cancer, but for the time being, he is finished with all of his chemotherapy treatments. Cervenka said he has a “pretty clean bill of health, which is a miracle.”
She added, “[Zoom] is one of my absolute best, favorite people ever in the history of the universe.”
For the 40th anniversary tour, X has invited Craig Packham to be the band’s fifth member. He plays guitar and drums, which allows Zoom and Bonebrake to play saxophone and vibraphone, respectively, on certain songs. Cervenka is particularly excited about bringing “Come Back To Me,” which features a saxophone solo from Zoom and “I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts,” arguably the band’s best song, into their repertoire. These songs received their live debuts about a year and a half ago.
“It’s not like, ‘Oh we’re getting older. We’re slowing down.’ We wrote those songs in the early ‘80s,” Cervenka said. “We just couldn’t play them because we didn’t have the extra person. So we can do any song now … It adds more dimension. It adds more depth. I think people now are used to hearing things that are more quiet and conscious. They don’t always want to hear loud, fast, fun. We do that too — we do that really well — but we don’t just do that.”
Cervenka and Doe were married from 1980-1985, and they used to write all of X’s songs together. As a couple that wrote in tandem, they were able to explore an artform neither of them had much experience with. She recalled how they would often write songs separately, yet their ideas always seemed to sync perfectly.
“We were renting a little house somewhere in a little neighborhood,” Cervenka said. “I’d be sitting in the kitchen writing and he’d be in the living room playing bass and kinda just zoning out with his instrument, and then I would go into the living room and say ‘I just wrote this.’ And he would just be playing the music for it already. It was weird. We had a very psychically-in-tune kind of thing going on always. We always have.”
The Los Angeles punk rock scene in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s was a tight-knit group. Bands like X, The Germs, The Circle Jerks, FEAR and Catholic Discipline banded together to create a community rarely seen in the music world. At first, the bands had a strong sense of humor and were not highly competitive as the music was raw and unpolished, according to Cervenka.
“We took ourselves seriously in the way that we thought we were pretty, I wouldn’t say important, but we thought what we were doing was necessary for society and for us, and it was what we wanted to do,” Cervenka said. “It was a time when you could do that. I mean, you could buy a 1955 car for $500, guitar for $100 and an amp for $50 and start a band…”
“People your age have no idea how much fun life used to be,” she said. “It was so much fun when you could rent a house with a couple of people and work a couple days a week and just have fun and be carefree and be wild and drink and have fun.”
In April, John Doe’s book titled Under The Big Black Sun: A Personal History of L.A. Punkwas released through Da Capo Press. It features first-person accounts from many of the major players in the L.A. scene, including chapters from Doe, Cervenka, Henry Rollins of Black Flag, Mike Watt of the Minutemen and journalists who covered these bands. It offers a diverse look at the entirety of the punk scene including the fun, the unfortunate and the fatalities.
“What John did with that book was really interesting because we did all these other books and oral histories where we were really shocked about what people would say and how different people’s perceptions were and their opinions of other people. It’s like, ‘That didn’t happen!’”
“So what his idea was, was to get people — and not everybody is around anymore — who are knowledgeable about an aspect of it, and address that aspect so that person could be trusted to say, ‘Well this is my overview of it. This is the area where I was most involved and what I saw, and how I interacted with people.’ They’re all very smart people in the book… All in all, it’s a very truthful book and very fact-checked.”
Despite being a prominent figure in punk’s history, Cervenka does not equate an outlandish, glamorous rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle to being successful. Instead, she prefers simplicity: “The measure of success is being able to have some freedom to pay your bills and go out to eat and go buy records or something.”
Cervenka is well aware of the band’s age and the band’s assorted health issues, beginning with Zoom’s cancer battle. In 2011, Cervenka was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, which she later declared a misdiagnosis.
“I’m always aware that this could be the last show. I used to tell myself that when I was younger. It was one of my ways to make sure I played a really great show,” Cervenka said. “If this is my last show, how do I want people to remember it?”
X has a strong legacy and is often called L.A.’s greatest punk band. They have a limited but passionate fan base, but the fans are X’s reason for touring.
“We’re very grateful that we can keep doing this,” she said. “When people say, ‘Did you think you’d still be doing it?’ No. ‘And how come you can still do it?’ It’s because people still care about us enough to come see us, which is phenomenal, and that makes us very happy.”
Cervenka’s goal for the future is simply to keep playing and strive for greatness.
“I like the idea that everything in life, for everybody, that your best work is still ahead of you,” Cervenka said. “That your best relationship is still ahead of you. That your best time, your best, most creative moment, your best poem — whatever it is — that it’s still ahead of you.”
It’s highly unlikely 2016 will be remembered as a good year for music by any measure. David Bowie, Prince and Leonard Cohen’s deaths are only the beginning of a long list of celebrities who have passed on this year.
Luckily, Seattle’s Car Seat Headrest has been the year’s saving grace in the music world.
On Thursday, Nov. 17, Car Seat Headrest returned to Eugene for a performance at WOW Hall that ended with a two-band cover of Talking Head’s classics.
Lead singer and songwriter Will Toledo is often regarded as the champion of the Bandcamp generation with his lo-fi, DIY sound. Toledo takes the band’s moniker from the makeshift recording studio he first recorded in: the back of his high school car. He self-released 11 albums as Car Seat Headrest prior to being signed by Matador Records, which released Teens of Style in 2015. The band’s newest album, 2016’s Teens of Denial, is easily one of the best of the year.
The show began with an energetic set by Eugene band Girls Punch Bears.
Naked Giants, a Seattle rock band with a psychedelic-punk edge, set a high bar to top with the middle performance slot. The band mixed a variety of ingredients including the loud-quiet-loud song structure of Pixies, the goofy dance moves and soundscapes of Devo, and the slacker attitude of Parquet Courts and Pavement.
Bassist Gianni Aiello wore a striped shirt tucked into his jeans and used his bass as more than a rhythmic instrument, rather, with a briefcase full of effects pedals, he used it to provide atmospheric sounds that complemented Grant Mullen’s never ending barrage of guitar riffs.
After Naked Giants set, Car Seat Headrest walked onto stage with Toledo resembling a youthful Roy Orbison in all black clothing and a black Fender Telecaster.
After a microphone failure during the first song of the night, the slow-burning “Vincent,” the band tried to push through the technical difficulties without vocals. Eventually, they had to stop and regather.
During the break, drummer Andrew Katz, a UO graduate, commented on the band’s history of encountering equipment issues in Eugene. During their last stop in town, a January show at Sam Bond’s Garage, Katz’s bass drum broke during the final song, and they couldn’t return for an encore.
Luckily, the technical difficulties were fixed quickly, but it gave Katz time to talk about growing up in Eugene. He claimed to have written a five minute speech about Donald Trump’s election, but he summarized the sentiment into a few sentences: “I know what you have here. Don’t change, Eugene.”
Within a matter of seconds, Car Seat Headrest proved how much it had grown as a band in the ten months since its last Eugene show. Ethan Ives has taken his lead guitar playing from a supporting pillar of the band’s sound into a full-fledged showstopper. Katz continues to be the hard-hitting drummer propelling the band forward, and Seth Dalby has bloomed into his role as the surefire bassist.
As a whole, they have transitioned from a Will Toledo led project into a band firing on all cylinders.
Will Toledo sings during a performance at WOW Hall.(Hannah Steinkopf-Frank/Emerald)
“Maud Gone” and “Strangers” were the only songs from Teens of Style, and both were fairly different from the recorded versions. “Maud Gone” was slowed down a bit, and without main synthesizer riff, Toledo delivered a yearning vocal performance.
With most of the set coming from the two Matador releases, fans of Toledo’s Bandcamp releases had to savor slower songs like “Sober to Death,” from 2011’s ambitious Twin Fantasy.
Teens of Denial’s “Fill in the Blank” found the crowd yelling in unison to Toledo’s vocals rallying cry of, “You have no right to be depressed/you haven’t tried hard enough to like it.” It was a cathartic celebration of anxiety and depression that energized the crowd for the rest of the night.
Much of Car Seat Headrest’s catalog thrives on themes of adolescent confusion and the catharsis that comes with that transitionary period of life. One such example is the sprawling “Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales.” The crowd again sang aloud to nearly every word of the song. After the song ended, Toledo and Katz noted that the crowd added an extra sing-along chorus. Despite momentarily throwing the band off, Toledo later said the crowd was “the best of the tour.”
Toledo noted that Car Seat Headrest will perform a shortened version of the sprawling “Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales” on TV later this month. They debuted this slower, folky version of the song with Dylanesque delivery. It was met with almost as much adoration as the original.
The show ended with an encore of the Talking Heads’ “This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)” and “Psycho Killer” performed by both Naked Giants and the headliner. With Toledo crowd surfing and the crowd yelling, the night closed with a sense of unity in the room. Katz’s comment about Eugene from earlier in the night did not fall on deaf ears.
Car Seat Headrest and Naked Giants meet onstage at WOW Hall for a cover of Talking Head’s “This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)” (Hannah Steinkopf-Frank/Emerald)
The Replacements have a “terrible fucking history” with the city of Portland, according to bassist Tommy Stinson. As for his time in Eugene, well, he doesn’t remember ever visiting the city.
On Dec. 7, 1987, the Minneapolis punk band played a notorious show at Portland’s Pine Street Theater that is often listed as one of The Replacements’ worst — a stunning feat for a band that is as well known for its classic punk albums as it is for its shambolic “off-night” concerts.
On that night, singer and guitarist Paul Westerberg swung from and destroyed a chandelier, the band threw a couch out of a second-story window and they fumbled through an incoherent bash of incomplete songs — though no one seems to really remember for sure.
Seattle band Young Fresh Fellows opened the show. In a 2015 interview with the Emerald, guitarist and singer Scott McCaughey recalled the madness of the night:
“Both bands were out of our minds and wanton destruction was in the air,” McCaughey said. “We’d spent a lot of time together that year egging each other on and this was the culmination. Not that the ‘Mats needed any help sinking their own boat.”
The Emerald sat down with Stinson on Friday, Oct. 21 before he and Uncle Chip “Sippy Fly” Roberts performed in a Eugene living room on the Cowboys in the Campfire tour. In a wide-ranging interview, Stinson discussed the Portland incident, the upcoming Bash & Pop reformation and why Tim Kaine’s admiration of The Replacements is getting old.
Tommy Stinson sat down with Emerald arts and culture editor Craig Wright on Friday, Oct. 21 at the Greentree Hotel’s continental breakfast lounge in Eugene. (Hannah Steinkopf-Frank/Emerald)
In a word, Stinson described his relationship with Portland: “Awkward.”
“We fucked it up so bad in the ‘80s that I’ve always felt pins and needles coming through there after,” Stinson said. “I haven’t been in that shape that we were in the ‘80s, fucking shits and giggles and shenanigans and everything else since then, but it still makes you feel kinda like, ‘Damn. I hope I’m OK tonight.’”
On the original vinyl pressings of The Replacements’ 1989 album Don’t Tell A Soul, the words “Portland. We’re sorry” are etched into the record. Westerberg also wrote an apology song called “Portland” that first appeared on the 1997 compilation album All For Nothing/Nothing For All.
Despite the band’s long history of botched concerts, the Portland show stands out to Stinson today because he felt the concert was an instance where the band went too far and let the audience down.
“There were a few times in our fucking sordid past where we had remorse for being total fuck-ups,” Stinson said. “Once in a while you feel like an asshole, and we had that. I mean, I can’t speak for Paul [Westerberg, singer, guitarist and songwriter for The Replacements], but I can speak for me, and I can remember there are a couple places: Houston was one, Portland was one.
“We let everyone down and it was a thing you just kinda remember: I don’t want to do that again. I felt terrible. It was not fun. And it was part of a legacy that you don’t really want to be held to, but it’s there.”
On April 10, 2015, The Replacements returned to Portland for the first time since 1991 and shattered the Portland curse in triumphant fashion at McMenamins Crystal Ballroom. They harnessed the sheer brilliance of Westerberg’s songwriting and the reckless nature of the band during its ‘80s “Hayday” for the purest example of what a Replacements concert is supposed to be — loud, fast and verging on the brink of an imminent collapse.
Tommy Stinson performs at Barno’s Backyard Ballroom in Eugene. The show was supposed to be a patio performance, but due to the rain, the show was moved into the living room. (Hannah Steinkopf-Frank/Emerald)
After 21 years apart, The Replacements reunited for the 2015 Back By Unpopular Demand tour and played for the largest crowds it had ever seen, including a headlining set at Coachella. Even after two decades apart, the same issues that initially divided the band resurfaced.
“The ‘Mats, I think, we started out [the reunion] with a good intent,” Stinson said. “We had a lot of fun at first. I think the old problems that we had got right back in there. So that makes me say, eh. Maybe we should have stopped while we were having fun, it was still nice and cool, and everyone was stoked, rather than try to make more out of it than it was.”
“By the time we got to the end of that thing, Paul’s wearing these shirts and doing that whole fucking thing, and it’s like really? You’re whoring yourself out? We fucking just played for all these people,” Stinson said.
The Replacements currently have no future plans to tour or record.
In 2016, Stinson is aiming to connect with fans on a more intimate level with his Cowboys in the Campfire tour. He recently departed Guns N’ Roses after 17 years as its bassist, and now he is doing whatever sounds like the most fun. This tour has found him playing in basements, tattoo parlors and dive bars, to name a few.
“I’m not here to appease anyone,” Stinson said.“At this point in my life, at fucking 50 years old, I can do what I want, and I’m going to do what I want, and if I’m so fortunate that someone pays to see me do whatever I want, then I’m stoked; it’s great. If not, I’m still going to do it anyway.”
This is the second Cowboys in the Campfire tour, and the first to reach the Pacific Northwest. Roberts is Stinson’s ex-wife’s uncle, but he and Roberts have maintained their relationship after the divorce through a mutual love of cooking and music. Stinson called Roberts his best friend in the world.
“We just became tight, close friends, and he embodies a lot of what I love about a guitar player; that haphazard sort of balls to the walls kind of playing,” Stinson said.
Chip Roberts, Stinson’s ex-wife’s uncle, plays guitar on the Cowboys in the Campfire tour. Stinson called Roberts his best friend in the world. (Hannah Steinkopf-Frank/Emerald)
In Eugene, Stinson and Roberts were scheduled to play at Barno’s Backyard Ballroom, a back patio concert venue at a home in West Eugene, but an unexpected rainstorm forced the show into the living room.
Opening band ShiSho, a comedy-folk-punk sister duo who recently moved to Eugene from Kent, Ohio, was able to perform in the advertised back patio, but during its final two songs, the rain increased and the gear needed to be moved out of the rain. ShiSho is Vivian, 19, and Midge Ramone, 16. Despite both being teenagers, they have been in the band for 12 years.
After Stinson instructed, “If you’ve got a free hand, grab some gear!” the crowd of about 30 people moved the instruments and equipment into the living room. Without a working PA system, second act Rachel Dean & Tim Gray performed a beautiful acoustic set with one guitar, two voices and a captivated audience.
Tommy Stinson wears a cartoonishly large cowboy hat to begin his performance at Barno’s Backyard Ballroom in Eugene. Due to the rain, the show was moved into the living room. (Hannah Steinkopf-Frank/Emerald)
At first, the crowd would politely part whenever Stinson approached, but after a few songs of Dean and Gray’s set, he made it clear that he was simply just another listener at the unorthodox venue — even if he was sporting a cartoonishly large straw hat and a black Western shirt.
By the time Stinson and Roberts took to the shag brown carpet stage at the newly declared “Barno’s Indoor Backyard Ballroom,” Roberts’s amplifier was working and he was able to plug in his white Stratocaster. This was the only amplified instrument of the set. Stinson sang without a microphone.
Although Stinson has spent the vast majority of his career playing bass, he doesn’t have a favorite instrument.
“Whatever you put in front of me I’ll fucking make noise out of,” he said.
This was especially true when he broke a string on his only guitar during “Not This Time,” the first full song of the night. After a brief pause, he spotted a red guitar hanging on the living room wall and asked for the crowd to pass it forward. Much like the living room itself, the wall guitar served as a sufficient backup.
With the borrowed guitar in hand, Stinson and Roberts resumed with a quick slide guitar lick leading back into the song. Stinson shouted multiple times for the crowd to “Get closer!” After spouting the command a few times throughout the night, one woman standing inches from Stinson asked, “How close do you want us to be?” He shrugged, unsure of the answer.
Roberts was likely a drink or two past prime functionality. At times he fumbled on the fretboard, but Stinson was steady all night. Together, the two covered a span of emotionally diverse material, from the rollicking 2015 single “Breathing Room” to the somber “Match Made In Hell.” The latter song concluded with Stinson fading out the song by whispering, “We’re a match, a match made in hell,” directly into Roberts’s ear.
Many of the songs came from Stinson’s solo albums with a few Perfect and Bash & Pop tunes tossed in. Roberts and Stinson also have some original material that will be on the new Bash & Pop album called Anything Could Happen, due out Jan. 20. Roberts and Stinson mentioned plans to release an album together in the upcoming year as well.
For “Zero To Stupid,” from 2011’s One Man Mutiny, Roberts played a modified pedal steel guitar. Stinson couldn’t prevent himself from laughing, citing the twinkling sound as a “giggle part.” As if on cue, when Roberts slid to a high note, Stinson busted out laughing and stopped playing. Roberts looked back with temporary disdain, fulfilling the onstage roll of the curmudgeon to Stinson’s cheerful leader.
After strumming the opening chords of Big Star’s “September Gurls,” Stinson stopped in his tracks when Roberts declined to play along. He quickly pivoted to the haunting “Nightime,” from Big Star’s Third/Sister Lovers. Roberts happily complied with this song choice.
Roughly 45 minutes in, Stinson decided to explore the house, venturing out of the corner of the living room. He moved to the kitchen and played the introspective Bash & Pop song “Nothing” to a captivated audience of about ten people that fit through the doorway.
“I’m not here to appease anyone. At this point in my life, at fucking 50 years old, I can do what I want, and I’m going to do what I want.”
To conclude the show, Stinson played a solo version of the Bash & Pop songs “First Steps” and “Friday Night Is Killing Me,” from the 1993 album Friday Night Is Killing Me. Midway through the latter song, he tilted his head back in anguish and said, “You fuckers better vote or you’ll be stuck with this fucking nightmare. I’m afraid for my life.”
Stinson is a proud supporter of Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine, and Kaine has publicly professed his admiration of The Replacements on multiple occasions, citing 1984’s Let It Be as his favorite album. But Stinson admits that constantly being bombarded with messages about Kaine’s fandom is getting old.
“Every fucking day I get like 20 texts from my friends going, ‘Listen to what Tim Kaine said about The Replacements today,’” Stinson said during the interview. “I’ve heard it. It’s sweet, and I get it […] but I’m having an issue with it right now, maybe because I have other Replacements issues. I don’t know.”
The plug to vote didn’t affect the performance by introducing politics into the mix. Instead, as sweat dripped down Stinson’s face during “Friday Night Is Killing Me,” his anguish seemed heightened. His voice was ragged and worn from singing without a mic all night, but the song’s conclusion echoed his sentiment and fear of a Trump presidency: Friday night is killing me, and I don’t want to die.
He attempted a brief reprise of “First Steps,” but before reaching the chorus, he stopped and said, “I need a moment,” overcome with a sudden surge of emotion. An unplugged amplifier served as a temporary seat before he walked out of the living room for a few minutes. He had nothing left to give; he left it all on the stage — or in this instance, the carpet.
While Stinson was out of the room, Roberts mingled with the crowd and thanked everyone for coming. Offstage, he is a cheerful man who had nothing but love for the crowd and for his nephew Tommy.
A small line started to form among the 30 or so concert-goers who waited in the living room for a chance to meet Stinson. Most conversations ended in bear hugs and selfies, and Stinson had the biggest grin of anyone present.
“That’s Tommy fucking Stinson,” one fan whispered in disbelief to his friends while waiting to meet Stinson. He had his arms draped across his friend’s’ shoulders who looked back and smiled, unsure of how to respond.
“His music is just so good,” Vivian Ramone of ShiSho said about Stinson. “It’s like he reached into Americana and ripped out the heart — and that’s Tommy and his little guitar, singing a song.”
Stinson sits on an unplugged amplifier at the conclusion of his performance at a Eugene house show. (Hannah Steinkopf-Frank/Emerald)
The next major project for Stinson is the upcoming Bash & Pop reformation.
Bash & Pop existed from 1991-1993 after the initial Replacements breakup. Stinson is the only original member involved, so it might sound strange for him to name the band Bash & Pop, but after sharing the new songs with friends, they felt a strong resemblance to the band’s 1993 album Friday Night Is Killing Me.
“No one said it sounds like a Perfect song [Stinson’s band from 1995-1998], or it sounds like Guns N’ Roses,” Stinson said with a slow chuckle. “So I said, ‘I guess I’ll call it Bash & Pop.’ That would be funny though, if I called it Guns N’ Roses.”
Much of the Anything Could Happen material comes from songs he and Chip Roberts wrote. The emphasis of the project was about making a live sounding album band album.
“I could be playing kazoo sitting on a fucking corner on a beatbox, and I’ll still find a way to have fun.”
“All of the drums, bass and guitar, were cut live in a short amount of time, which captures the excitement of a new song, which is kind of the only thing that I know how to do that excites me,” Stinson said. “The total opposite end of that is sitting in a studio for ten years making a record.”
While this may sound like a bitter jab at Axl Rose and the Chinese Democracy sessions, he said he holds no ill will towards Rose or his departure from Guns N’ Roses. He has seen the reunion lineup with Slash and Duff McKagan perform twice, and he enjoyed it both times.
“I’ve got nothing but positive things to say today,” Stinson said. “I think no matter what, it would have happened anyway at some point. It was inevitable, and it should have, and I’m glad for them.”
The Bash & Pop tour will begin in January at Minneapolis’s 7th Street Entry. As for the continued longevity of the tour, Stinson said this band is comprised of a group of friends that understand each other personally and musically. He is hopeful this group’s chemistry is able to withstand the rigors of touring better than the first Bash & Pop crew; however, he is always looking for new ways to stay entertained.
“I don’t put all my eggs in one basket,” Stinson said. “I just fucking do my best with everything that I try and do, and have as much fun as I possibly can. That’s really all I know how to do. I could be playing kazoo sitting on a fucking corner on a beatbox, and I’ll still find a way to have fun.”
Watch the new video for Bash & Pop’s “On The Rocks” below:
When Tommy Stinson played on The Replacements’ 1980 album, Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash, at the age of 13, he was considered freakishly young to be in a band signed to a record label.
Now, as 50-year-old Stinson prepares for a Friday “Cowboys in the Campfire” tour performance at Barno’s Backyard Ballroom in Eugene, the performance veteran will be joined by relatable trendsetting openers: Vivian and Midge Ramone, sisters who recently moved from Kent, Ohio, to Eugene. They are currently 19 and 16 years old, respectively, and together they are ShiSho, a self-described comedy-folk-punk band.
Armed with an acoustic guitar and an accordion, the duo already have 12 years of experience to draw from. ShiSho’s first record label offer came from Filthy Little Angels Records when Midge was 5. Needless to say, she didn’t know what a record label was.
ShiSho has always had to be a team onstage. The sisters’ first concert together was in a cornfield at the Cornerstone Music Festival in Bushnell, Illinois. Bands tossed their names into a hat, and performance slots were raffled. When 5-year-old Midge found out they would be performing, her initial reaction was not one of excitement:
“Oh my gosh. I’m 5 and she’s 9,” Midge recalled. “So we got sunglasses to wear, so if we forgot the lyrics we could close our eyes and try to remember them. It was in the shade so it looked kinda dumb.”
“There’s also that panic of ‘Oh my gosh. Am I allowed to be up here?’” Vivian said. “It’s weird. Mostly just a mental block of panic. But it was super fun, obviously. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be up here 12 years later.”
Midge admits that she struggled to feel comfortable on stage for years. Now that she has learned how to separate reality from her stage persona, her confidence has grown.
“Stage presence definitely makes or breaks a show,” Midge said. “When Midge is on the stage, she can do whatever she wants. You have to separate yourself from how you are in real life.”
“She honestly has become a beast onstage,” Vivian said. Midge shyly laughed and smiled back at her older sister, a far different response than she may have given onstage.
ShiSho’s songs incorporate a bit of twisted imagery into seemingly innocent sounding songs. For example, “The Dead Milkmen Song” (feat. The Dead Milkmen) begins with a standard commute to work, but after hitting a punk rock girl, Vivian is warned “My friend, you’re screwed for all eternity.” The day grows continually strange as Vivian colors outside the lines of a Methodist coloring book (“Oh well I hope God wasn’t watching that time,” they sing) and their house burns down. For the climax, they go on an arson streak at a shopping mall.
ShiSho was almost forced to leave a Girl Scouts of America convention after performing “America Will Punch You,” a song about America freaking punching people.
Notably, ShiSho’s “It’s Coming To Get You — The Evil Clown Song” details the saga of fighting an evil clown doll that came to life and tried to kill them. After living in fear of the dreaded Christmas gift for years, the song details the night the clown came to life and tried to kill the sisters. Though written in 2011, the song may be altering society today:
“ShiSho unintentionally inspired a clown movement,” Vivian said about the song’s relation to the current “creepy clown” trend sweeping the nation. The sisters both agree that if they saw a clown in real life, they probably would just run.
In 2007, when Midge and Vivian were 7 and 10 years old, they began Magnetic Bunny Records, a record label for musicians under age 18. The goal of the label is to spread awareness for talented young artists making music.
“There are so many kids who are in authentic bands who are making really, really good music, and you just don’t hear about them,” Vivian said.
ShiSho is a project that set on having fun and making music. The sisters admit that they are close and rarely have quarrels that aren’t settled by the day’s end. Together on stage, they form a united front that aims to entertain as much as possible.
“I’m not in a band because I want to see myself on billboards or anything like that,” Vivian said. “I’m not in it for the money. Anyone who’s in the music industry for the money is absolutely crazy. I’m really in it to make friends, meet people and have fun doing something that I really enjoy doing.”
“I’m in it for the money,” Midge joked. “Gotta pay for college.”
Tickets for ShiSho’s performance with Tommy Stinson are available from Ticketfly.
Watch ShiSho perform “The Dead Milkmen Song” below:
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When Tommy Stinson played on The Replacements’ 1980 album, Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash, at the age of 13, he was considered freakishly young to be in a band signed to a record label.
Now, as 50-year-old Stinson prepares for a Friday “Cowboys in the Campfire” tour performance at Barno’s Backyard Ballroom in Eugene, the performance veteran will be joined by relatable trendsetting openers: Vivian and Midge Ramone, sisters who recently moved from Kent, Ohio, to Eugene. They are currently 19 and 16 years old, respectively, and together they are ShiSho, a self-described comedy-folk-punk band.
Armed with an acoustic guitar and an accordion, the duo already have 12 years of experience to draw from. ShiSho’s first record label offer came from Filthy Little Angels Records when Midge was 5. Needless to say, she didn’t know what a record label was.
ShiSho has always had to be a team onstage. The sisters’ first concert together was in a cornfield at the Cornerstone Music Festival in Bushnell, Illinois. Bands tossed their names into a hat, and performance slots were raffled. When 5-year-old Midge found out they would be performing, her initial reaction was not one of excitement:
“Oh my gosh. I’m 5 and she’s 9,” Midge recalled. “So we got sunglasses to wear, so if we forgot the lyrics we could close our eyes and try to remember them. It was in the shade so it looked kinda dumb.”
“There’s also that panic of ‘Oh my gosh. Am I allowed to be up here?’” Vivian said. “It’s weird. Mostly just a mental block of panic. But it was super fun, obviously. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be up here 12 years later.”
Midge admits that she struggled to feel comfortable on stage for years. Now that she has learned how to separate reality from her stage persona, her confidence has grown.
“Stage presence definitely makes or breaks a show,” Midge said. “When Midge is on the stage, she can do whatever she wants. You have to separate yourself from how you are in real life.”
“She honestly has become a beast onstage,” Vivian said. Midge shyly laughed and smiled back at her older sister, a far different response than she may have given onstage.
ShiSho’s songs incorporate a bit of twisted imagery into seemingly innocent sounding songs. For example, “The Dead Milkmen Song” (feat. The Dead Milkmen) begins with a standard commute to work, but after hitting a punk rock girl, Vivian is warned “My friend, you’re screwed for all eternity.” The day grows continually strange as Vivian colors outside the lines of a Methodist coloring book (“Oh well I hope God wasn’t watching that time,” they sing) and their house burns down. For the climax, they go on an arson streak at a shopping mall.
ShiSho was almost forced to leave a Girl Scouts of America convention after performing “America Will Punch You,” a song about America freaking punching people.
Notably, ShiSho’s “It’s Coming To Get You — The Evil Clown Song” details the saga of fighting an evil clown doll that came to life and tried to kill them. After living in fear of the dreaded Christmas gift for years, the song details the night the clown came to life and tried to kill the sisters. Though written in 2011, the song may be altering society today:
“ShiSho unintentionally inspired a clown movement,” Vivian said about the song’s relation to the current “creepy clown” trend sweeping the nation. The sisters both agree that if they saw a clown in real life, they probably would just run.
In 2007, when Midge and Vivian were 7 and 10 years old, they began Magnetic Bunny Records, a record label for musicians under age 18. The goal of the label is to spread awareness for talented young artists making music.
“There are so many kids who are in authentic bands who are making really, really good music, and you just don’t hear about them,” Vivian said.
ShiSho is a project that set on having fun and making music. The sisters admit that they are close and rarely have quarrels that aren’t settled by the day’s end. Together on stage, they form a united front that aims to entertain as much as possible.
“I’m not in a band because I want to see myself on billboards or anything like that,” Vivian said. “I’m not in it for the money. Anyone who’s in the music industry for the money is absolutely crazy. I’m really in it to make friends, meet people and have fun doing something that I really enjoy doing.”
“I’m in it for the money,” Midge joked. “Gotta pay for college.”
Tickets for ShiSho’s performance with Tommy Stinson are available from Ticketfly.
Watch ShiSho perform “The Dead Milkmen Song” below:
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On Oct. 21, Tommy Stinson and Chip Roberts will perform as Cowboys in the Campfire at a venue called Barno’s Backyard Ballroom in Eugene. The duo will perform at Bunk Bar in Portland the following night.
Stinson began his career as the teenage bassist for the now-legendary Minneapolis punk band The Replacements. He played bass for Guns N’ Roses from 1998-2016 until Duff McKagan rejoined for the current tour, and has also fronted the bands Perfect and Bash & Pop, the latter of which is set to release a new album in early 2017.
Stinson spoke with the Emerald to discuss the current tour, Bash & Pop’s new record and what lesson politicians can learn from The Replacement’s alcohol-fueled career.
Emerald: Do you remember anything about the 1985 show The Replacements played on campus at the University of Oregon’s EMU Ballroom?
Tommy Stinson: Nope (laughs). There’s probably a real good reason for that as well.
E: This time in Eugene, you’ll be performing a house show at a place called Barno’s Backyard Ballroom. What should we expect at that show?
TS: You’re gonna see two guys make as much racket as they can with two guitars and having a fucking laugh at it as well. We tend to have a lot of fun and people tend to respond to that aspect a whole lot.
E: Following the large-scale Replacements reunion tour and departing Guns N’ Roses, why did a stripped-down acoustic tour seem like something you wanted to do?
TS: I’m waiting on the Bash & Pop record to come out in the new year, and it got pushed back so far that I had to do something. I had to get out and work and keep myself busy so Chip and I decided to throw it together. We did the East Coast run, which was great, and had such a good time that we decided, “Let’s do that again in October and see how that goes.” So now we’ve got that, and I think we’re going to aim to put a record together to follow it up probably in the new year.
E: I have a friend who saw you play in a basement on this tour. What’s the most unorthodox venue you have played on this tour?
TS: We played poolside in Palm Springs at an unannounced kinda quiet under-the-radar kind of show. We originally had the day off, and instead of having the day off, we played for room and board and food and folly and they paid us, so it’s like, “Wow, that’s a good way to spend a day off.”
E: How do you compare a Guns N’ Roses stadium show to something like a basement show?
TS: My shows, I’m not playing for the boss. I’m not playing for anyone else. It’s our own thing and it’s gratifying in that way. We can do what we want, we can do it the way we want, and we don’t have to worry about any confines of someone else’s material, or any of that.
TS: That’s suspect to me (laughs). I don’t know if we need a vice president who’s favorite song is “Gary’s Got A Boner” (laughs).I don’t know. That’s funny to me. In all seriousness I think it’s fine. I joke around and think it’s kind of a funny bit.
E: Are there any lessons politicians can learn from The Replacements’ career?
TS: (Laughs). Hopefully learn how to not shoot yourself in the foot when you’re aiming for your head.
E: You’ve announced a new Bash & Pop record is coming out early next year. How did that album come about?
TS: I started recording the songs in a live format, a live setting, and now I’m laboring over them like I did with my solo records. And the sounds came together sounding more like a band record than a solo record, so we wanted a Bash & Pop record, so we called it that.
TS: Yeah. The pool ones. I think it will be fun to have some people come in and play pool with me. I like the intimacy of the whole thing. It gives people a chance to hang out with me and I get to hang out with them in return, and it’s kind of a goofy bit, but it works.
E: The one that caught my eye is the Tommy Stinson Wedding where you will officiate a wedding ceremony then play songs. How long have you been an ordained minister?
TS: A few years. I married my friends Dan and Kathleen like 15 years ago, pretty much to the day. I think that will be fun. That probably will be the funnest bit.
E: A portion of the proceeds of the PledgeMusic campaign will benefit the Timkatec trade schools in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Why did you decide to do that?
TS: They need a lot of help. They just got decimated with another hurricane and it’s just fucked up down there and they get very little help. It’s a country that really needs to get itself together and rebuild itself, and so this little school, Timkatec, it’s a trade school; they teach electricians, plumbers or whatever kind of things like that, and all those things are necessary to help rebuild Haiti. It’s a good cause, it’s a good thing, and I support it.
Tickets are available through Ticketfly.com. Watch a video from the Cowboys in the Campfire tour below:
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I’m prone to injuring myself in stupid ways. In eighth grade I tried to make a half court shot in basketball without warming up in 54 degree weather and, unsurprisingly, threw my back out and lost a bet. During a high school tennis match, I once hit myself in the knee with my own racket so hard that I couldn’t walk for a few points, but the most embarrassing injury I have inflicted on myself was on Sept. 16 when I threw out my back (again) buying tickets online.
To be fair, I had just purchased a pair of tickets for my dad and I to meet and receive an autographed book from one of my heroes, Bruce Springsteen, at Powell’s City of Books in Portland on Oct. 4. In a fit of excitement, I jumped up and pulled something in my lower back, but meeting Springsteen was enough to dull the pain for at least a few hours.
Almost 1,000 tickets were sold for the event at $32.50 each, and as many fans learned the hard way, the tickets sold out in a matter of seconds. The initial sale on Sept. 14 was rescheduled after an overwhelming amount of web traffic crashed ticketing website, Eventzilla’s, servers. After migrating to new ticket host Eventbrite, the final sale ended as quickly as it began.
On Tuesday, fans began lining up as early as midnight for a spot in line at Powell’s. By about 10:30 a.m., the line was already halfway up Couch street, curved around 10th Ave. Doors were set to open at noon, but the line began moving smoothly much earlier. The Boss had arrived early.
The pre-signed copies of Born To Run were distributed first as a check-in system. Fans then moved outside into the intermittent rain showers, and found a place in the line which curved around 3 street corners, covering 10th Ave., Couch St. and 11th Ave. The line then moved through the outskirts of Powell’s from the main entrance, up the stairs and around the entire perimeter of the second floor, and finally up to the Pear Room on the third floor where the line snaked through every aisle of the bookshelves.
A signed copy of Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography, ‘Born To Run’ which were distributed on Tuesday at Springsteen’s meet and greet. (Craig Wright/Emerald)
Luckily, the line was run efficiently and smoothly. Employees were walking the line to make sure everyone was okay, and one even passed out fun-sized chocolate bars and plastic bags to protect the books from the rain.
Armed police officers were present throughout the store and scanned the line multiple times. Fans were not allowed to hold jackets, books, or reach for their pockets while meeting Springsteen, and each step closer to the photo stage was more closely monitored. Powell’s employees carted books and jackets across the aisles to pick up on the other side and you were told to keep moving in a highly organized fashion.
As we walked to the front of the room and were able to peek around the corner, Springsteen was standing there on a little stage, as fans were ushered up to the stage and quickly escorted out. A line of Powell’s employees met fans to grab their phones to take photos, and as soon as they left the stage, the employees returned the phones and cycled back to take more photos.
The entire encounter with Springsteen was no more than 10 seconds. I was expecting to be a nervous mess, but the excitement overcame the nervousness. My dad and I kept looking at each other like little kids on Christmas morning. For weeks I had debated what I would say when we met, but there was no time, and all the unnecessary stress was for nothing.
All I was able to say to Springsteen was, “Thank you for doing this. It is an honor to meet you.” My dad said something similar, and Bruce thanked us for coming. We shook hands, posed long enough for a Powell’s employee to snap four photos of my dad and I with dorky grins and then were led to the exit by security.
Writer Craig Wright and his father meet Bruce Springsteen at Powell’s. After waiting for hours, there was enough time for a few photos and a brief hello. (Courtesy Craig Wright/Emerald)
Was it really worth driving nearly 250 miles round trip, missing two classes and waiting in line for almost three hours for the chance to spend few seconds with Springsteen? Absolutely. I was raised on his music, as so many others were, and the chance to look into his dark brown eyes and say thank you for the hundreds of hours I have spent listening to his music was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Springsteen is unquestionably one of the greatest live performers of all time. In August, at the age of 67, Springsteen and the E. Street Band set a record for its longest U.S. show, clocking in at three hours and 59 minute during a concert stop on The River Tour at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium. Days later, Springsteen beat that record by playing a 4 hour and 1 minute show in New York, marking the band’s second longest show ever — only surpassed by a 4-hour and six minute set in Helsinki, Finland in 2012.
Many fans demand the epic marathon sets whenever Springsteen comes to town, but for once, a 10 second cameo was more meaningful than an adrenaline fueled concert. The personal connection is something that not many mega stars allow access to, and it looked as if every fan who earned a ticket was thankful for the opportunity. It’s not often we get the chance to thank our heroes in person.
Remember John Belushi’s infamous stroll through the EMU’s buffet line in 1978’s Animal House? He overstuffs his tray with burgers, desserts, sandwiches and fruit in a scene that now serves as a time capsule for both how the old Fishbowl looked and what the University of Oregon’s residence hall foods used to be; both have now been completely remodeled and updated to fit modern times.
Each day, about 12,000 meals are served in the residence halls, totaling nearly two million meals yearly, according to Tom Driscoll, the associate director of housing and director of food services. With this scale of food production, many companies choose to select the “can-to-pan” method of pre-packaged corporate foods, but UO’s residence halls use local ingredients and make as much as 90 percent of meals from scratch.
Executive Chef Bron Smith recently purchased 5,900 pounds of blueberries from Confluence Farms in Junction City that he expects will be used in smoothies and yogurt parfaits for a majority of the year. The flour for pizza dough is grown in Oregon, most of the beef comes from Oregon farms and many more locally sourced ingredients are purchased from co-op farms.
“It stimulates a lot of the local economy here and keeps these guys intact,” Smith said. “Subsequently, we’re getting great product back. Product-wise, the core ingredients here are so much better.”
In April 2015, UO opened a 21,685-square-foot Central Kitchen at 1743 Columbia St., which was constructed for $7.05 million. The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design gold-rated building allows for the storage, preparation and preservation of food for Hamilton, Carson, the Living Learning Center and Global Scholars Hall, as well as other UO eateries such as Knight Library’s Daily Grind. The Central Kitchen also hosts the catering department, a wood shop and office and storage spaces. The vast majority of the building is kitchen-related and nearly all food served in the residence halls passes through this complex.
On the outside, the Central Kitchen looks like a nondescript warehouse, but the rear delivery dock serves as the first portal to the meticulously organized operation. Three doors segregate all incoming and outgoing items: One door is exclusively for incoming dirty dishes; one is for incoming food products; one is the exit for all cooked food and clean dishes. The separation ensures that clean and dirty dishes will never cross paths, reducing the chance for cross-contamination.
Food preservation and safety is closely monitored in every part of the Central Kitchen. The crew finished unloading the contents of a $25,000 delivery that arrived on Sept. 20, loading much of the contents directly into the walk-in deep freezer set to a constant temperature of -9 degrees Fahrenheit.
The rest of the delivery was placed into either the “thaw cooler” or “cooler,” two walk-in refrigerators adjacent to the freezer. This level of intricate organization ensures that food is always where it needs to be located and is safely stored.
This level of high-quality food has not always existed at UO.
“Students spoke with their feet,” Driscoll said about the major overhaul of the food system he helped initiate in 2000. When he began working at UO, dining halls offered buffet style food for every meal, similar to Carson’s buffet today. Driscoll and the food services staff went on to replace most of the buffets with restaurant-style catering.
Each section of the Central Kitchen contributes to a larger operation similar to other manufacturing facilities. For instance, the bakery prepares almost 30,000 items daily while an assembly line of workers fills tabletops with sandwiches. Elsewhere in the kitchen, one worker was hand-mixing macaroni and cheese while “skillet row” fired up its gas grills to sear chicken breasts.
“Most places have one [skillet], few have three,” Smith said. “It’s uber efficient.”
While further cooking occurs in each campus restaurant, the Central Kitchen allows a large portion of goods to arrive in a simple-to-complete state. This keeps wait times low and on-site preparation to a minimum.
Bron Smith, executive chef of the UO Central Kitchen. Smith has worked with UO since 2014. (Samuel Marshall/ Daily Emerald)
Despite increased preservation technology, not all food purchased for the residence halls is able to be consumed. In 2000, Driscoll arranged an agreement with Food for Lane County to take leftover food from each kitchen six days a week. The food is then distributed to families in need.
Freshman Chase Prosser, a romance languages major from Salem, said one of his favorite meals is the macaroni and cheese, but said that the portions are large.
“I don’t have a complaint at all, but if you could choose to have a smaller size, that would be good,” Prosser said. “I know there’s some people who don’t want all of this food, and they’d hate for it to go to waste.”
Most students seem to enjoy the food, and some would even prefer it to home cooking.
“It’s better than the food I usually have back home,” freshman Slade Chiakowsky said while finishing a breakfast burrito from GSH. “I actually really like it here. I would rather have this than food from home.”
Director of Marketing and Communications for University Housing Leah Andrews laughed when recalling her college meals, her favorite of which was a panini-pressed peanut butter and honey sandwich. College dorm food seems to have evolved over the years, and the attention to individual needs has significantly improved at UO.
When a student needs personalized accommodations, Driscoll offers to create customized dietary plans with students who may need special assistance.
“The way that we deal with allergies, I’ve never seen anything like that before,” Andrews said.
All UO food locations have the ability to accommodate gluten intolerance and have rigorous standards for ensuring no gluten can possibly be mixed in. Separate water and pots are used for boiling pasta, chefs wear new gloves when handling gluten free bread, and last year Barnhart purchased a waffle iron used specifically for gluten free waffles.
“I had a mom break into tears once when we went on a tour because her daughter had Celiac’s disease and they had been working so hard to keep their daughter healthy,” Andrews said. ”One of the biggest fears for this family was the health of their student when she went to school. So because of what we do, she can focus on her classes.”
All of this comes at a cost. For incoming freshmen in 2016, a standard double room and meal plan is expected to cost $11,897 for a full academic year.
“People have an expectation for quality,” Driscoll said. “It’s not free. There’s a cost involved, so people have to think about the cost versus the quality.”
As UO continues to evolve its food services and practices, the cost will likely continue to increase, but so will the quality. “We’re responsible for the well-being of a lot of people,” Smith said. “I’m proud to put my name on this stuff. That’s hard to say in some of these industries today.”
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On Saturday night McMenamin’s Edgefield venue hosted a stacked triple bill featuring Cage The Elephant, Portugal. The Man (the self-proclaimed “Lords of Portland”) and Twin Peaks. Held a few days after the summer equinox, all three bands were able to finish their performances before the sun had completely set, which conveniently complied with the venue’s 10 p.m. curfew.
Cage The Elephant is touring in support of its 2015 album, Tell Me I’m Pretty, produced by Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys. For the entirety of the performance, singer Matt Shultz jumped around the stage and involved the crowd while brother Brad Shultz (guitar), Daniel Tichenor (bass), Nick Bothrack (guitar), Jared Champion (drums) and former Portland resident Matthan Minster provided a thick sound tapestry, making the expansive lawns of the Edgefield feel like a much more intimate space.
The thumping bass of “Aberdeen,” the slick power of “Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked,” the gentleness of “Cigarette Daydreams” and the sing-along chorus of “Mess Around” showed Cage The Elephant’s versatility and its willingness to act more crazily than the whole audience. The show ended with Matt Shultz jumping over the security barrier to crowd surf while still singing, showing the strength of his vocals and his passion to deliver a show worthy of the ticket price.
Portugal. The Man entered the stage after being introduced by a hype man as “the only Lords of Portland” before beginning a set that featured an array of the band’s biggest hits. It also allowed space to sneak in instrumental covers of Outkast’s “So Fresh, So Clean,” and the Beatles’ “I Want You (She’s So Heavy).” The Portland natives put on a powerful show that felt as much like a Portugal. The Man-headlining concert as a Cage The Elephant show, much to the delight of the crowd.
Twin Peaks from Chicago began the show with a 30-minute set. The mellow rock added a nice introduction to Portugal. The Man’s set, as the two groups both similarly have the tendency to let songs explode into extended jams. Twin Peaks finished with a jam that elevated to a flurry of sound. After the show, drummer Connor Brodner tossed his water bottle to the crowd, and in response, guitarist Clay Frankel ripped of his shirt and tossed it to a collection of screaming girls in the front row.
Matt Shultz of Cage The Elephant screams to the front row during a performance at McMenamin’s Edgefield on Sat. June 18. (Craig Wright/Emerald)
Rhythm guitarist Brad Shultz of Cage The Elephant performs at McMenamin’s Edgefield on Sat. June 18. (Craig Wright/Emerald)
Lead guitarist Nick Bockrath and singer Matt Shultz of Cage The Elephant perform at McMenamin’s Edgefield on Sat. June 18. (Craig Wright/Emerald).
Matt Shultz dances during a performance at McMenamin’s Edgefield on Sat. June 18. (Craig Wright/Emerald)
Daniel Tichenor plays a bouncing bass line on “Aberdeen” at McMenamin’s Edgefield on Sat. June 18. (Craig Wright/Emerald)
Brothers Matt and Brad Shultz talk between songs during a performance at McMenamin’s Edgefield on Sat. June 18. (Craig Wright/Emerald)
Matt Shultz flips his hair during a performance at McMenamin’s Edgefield on Sat. June 18. (Craig Wright/Emerald)
Guitarist Brad Shultz screams while playing guitar during a performance at McMenamin’s Edgefield on Sat. June 18. (Craig Wright/Emerald)
Cage The Elephant guitarist Nick Bockrath solos during a performance at McMenamin’s Edgefield on Sat. June 18.(Craig Wright/Emerald)
Cage the Elephant drummer Jared Champion plays during a performance at McMenamin’s Edgefield on Sat. June 18. (Craig Wright/Emerald)
Cage The Elephant singer Matt Shultz uses his endless energy to entertain the crowd during a performance at McMenamin’s Edgefield on Sat. June 18. (Craig Wright/Emerald)
Daniel Tichenor (bass, left) and Nick Bockrath (guitar) meet at the left side of the stage during a performance at McMenamin’s Edgefield on Sat. June 18. (Craig Wright/Emerald)
Matt Shultz carries the microphone stand during a performance at McMenamin’s Edgefield on Sat. June 18. (Craig Wright/Emerald)
Keyboardist Matthen Minster grabs the microphone during a performance at McMenamin’s Edgefield on Sat. June 18. Minster was a Portland resident for ten years. (Craig Wright/Emerald)
Portugal. The Man was introduced as the “only Lords of Portland.” (Craig Wright/Emerald)
Portugal. The Man singer and guitarist John Gourley plays his pink Stratocaster during the band’s hometown set in Portland. (Craig Wright/Emerald)
Aaron Steel plays drums during Portugal. The Man’s set at McMenamin’s Edgefield on Sat. June 18.(Craig Wright/Emerald)
Zach Carothers plays bass during Portugal. The Man’s set at McMenamin’s Edgefield on Sat. June 18. (Craig Wright/Emerald)
Keyboardist Kyle O’Quin during Portugal. The Man’s set at McMenamin’s Edgefield on Sat. June 18. (Craig Wright/Emerald)
Zoe Manville provides backing vocals during Portugal. The Man’s set at McMenamin’s Edgefield on Sat. June 18. (Craig Wright/Emerald)
Guitarist Eric Howk played guitar from a wheelchair during Portugal. The Man’s set at McMenamin’s Edgefield on Sat. June 18. (Craig Wright/Emerald)
Watch the video for Cage The Elephant’s “Trouble” below.
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