Here at the Emerald, we pride ourselves on quality. Our special today: a hand-selected pairing of a musical album and an equivalent beverage to cleanse your palette.

For maximum enjoyment, share these pairings with a friend.

The Replacements’ Let It Be + Miller High Life

“The Champagne of Beers” is the perfect companion for the champagne of “power trash.” Known for booze-swindling shows (often fueled by cheap beer), the Replacements reached their apex with 1984’s Let It Be. The anthemic peaks of the album are only strengthened by the emotional disparity, creating one of the finest displays of what rock ‘n’ roll and beer should be about: a carefree good time that can make you forget your pain or serve as a familiar shoulder to cry on when no one is around.

The Mountain Goats’ Tallahassee + green tea

As cool fall mornings become the norm, a hot cup of green tea combined with the soothing Tallahassee will serve as a gentle wake-up call necessary to take the chill out of the day. You may need more caffeine, but it’s at least worth the “Old College Try.”

Red wine + Jens Lekman’s Night Falls Over Kortedala

Jens Lekman’s magnum opus is an album so unsubtle and sentimental, joyous in its sadness and heartbreaking in its joy, it can feel like Lekman is hitting you in the face with his feelings. So what better pairing than the official drink of indulgent sadness?

Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Cosmo’s Factory + White Russian

The “Caucasian” and CCR are the twin comforts of one of the great film characters of all time: the Dude in The Big Lebowski. If you want to get into the Dude’s mindset, this pairing should do it. Just whatever you do, don’t put on the Eagles.

Adele’s 21 + Long Island Iced Tea

You’ve been waiting for this moment all your life. You stride into Taylor’s like the man of the year, and over the radio come the mighty pipes of Adele, belting an anthem from the album that bears the name of the age you turned just two hours ago.

Harry Nilsson’s Nilsson Schmilsson and a piña colada

On track seven of Schmilsson, Harry tells a story of a girl, sore with belly pains, who calls her doctor. The doctor calls her “such a silly woman,” instructs her to put a lime into a coconut, and ostensibly has his credentials revoked. Relieve your belly ache with a sweet mixture of rum, coconut cream, and pineapple juice.

The Shins’ Oh, Inverted World and Deschutes Inversion IPA.

What better way to balance The Shins’ soft-spoken debut album and a punishingly bold brew from Deschutes? They’re simply made for each other, and not just because they’re both intrinsically Oregonian creations. Hold your glass up, as James Mercer sings. Toast to the essence of life – super dark beer.

LCD Soundsystem’s 45:33 + Gatorade

This
creation, commissioned by Nike, is a 45-minute long
track from LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy engineered to be an
optimal jogging soundtrack. It rewards the listener at regular intervals
with jams like the early cut of “Someone Great” off the 2006 album Sound of Silver. Not much more to explain here. Just remember to stay hydrated.

The Avalanches’ Since I Left You + margaritas

Since I Left You is the ultimate summer party album, filled with breezy vibes and samples telling you to “get a drink, have a good time now.” Drink some fruity margaritas with your friends and escape to an island paradise with The Avalanches.

Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago + hot tea

An apt album for cold and rainy days, For Emma, Forever Ago is just begging you to sip a mug of hot tea by the fireplace while you listen to it. Get into the fall mood with some tea and Justin Vernon’s soothing voice and simple acoustics.

The Hold Steady’s Boys And Girls In America + any beer you can find

Get ready for a night out on the town, drink all the beer you can get your hands on, and sing along to the Hold Steady’s infectious bar songs. Be the boys and girls in America that Craig Finn wants you to be and come together over drinking and forgetting about that next midterm.

Frank Sinatra’s Greatest Hits + San Pellegrino

If you’re feeling like taking it old school, listen to any Frank Sinatra album paired with a glass of Pellegrino. It’s a classy drink to match a classy artist.

Peach Kelli Pop’s self-titled album + fruit-punch flavored CapriSun

Burger Records sweethearts Peach Kelli Pop put forth fun, spunky and adorably youthful garage-rock jams. And what drink experience is more tied to youth than stabbing that yellow straw through a pouch of CapriSun?

Belle and Sebastian’s Write About Love + a mimosa

Belle and Sebastian’s style is unmistakably sophisticated. The Scottish baroque-pop band writes songs so sunny and bright that they make the perfect pairing to brunch-time mimosas with good friends.

Elliott Smith’s XO or Either/Or + Everclear

The late indie-folk songster Elliott Smith was a brilliant songwriter. Smith drew forth unimaginable emotion in every string he plucked and every word he sang. At times these heartbreaking songs can become way too much to handle, leaving the listener wanting to numb the pain. Big time.

The Flaming Lips’ Embryonic + a Bloody Mary

If there were ever an album that gurgled through the blood, brimstone and other grotesque things that enveloped it, it would be Embryonic. A gorgeously spooky album, this 2009 release predominantly focuses on the epic cosmic finale that awaits us all as the universe swallows itself whole and we’re left floating in whatever’s left. This demented, apocalyptic soundtrack pairs nicely with a Bloody Mary, served in a highball glass (with optional garnishes of human appendages). Consider this your final drink on this planet.

As far as shows involving a dude rapping over a pre-recorded vocal track go, Young Thug’s show at the McDonald Theater last Friday was the gold standard. I doubted him at first; he seemed tired, pacing the stage and only occasionally bothering to rap. But as the crowd ramped up and the stagehand handed him more and more styrofoam cups of god-knows-what, his voice and flow became increasingly unhinged. By the last song, “Best Friend,” from his recent Slime Season mixtape, he was decimating the microphone, jumping up and down as if putting out a fire.

Even when not at his peak, Thug is magnetic. He’s compared himself to a rock star, and indeed his moves seem more like those of a rock frontman than an MC – during “I Know There’s Gonna Be (Good Times),” he doubled over like Jim Morrison to shriek its second verse. He’s great at keeping the audience engaged, finding fun things to get them to “make noise” about: smoking weed, having downloaded Slime Season, and he can always fall back on a chant of “Free Gucci” (“that’s Gucci Mane,” one crowd member explained to his nonplussed friend.)

As with any rap show, it helped to know the songs. I was a bit daunted by the prospect of a Young Thug show due to the sheer size of his discography, but luckily this was an exclusively greatest-hits set. “Lifestyle,” “Stoner,” and “Best Friend” were all there, and all were rapturously received. It would have been nice to hear some of Thug’s weirder songs, maybe “Nigeria” or “Picacho.” But he gave the crowd what it wanted, and the audience thanked him with thunderous bouncing and nearly-incessant hand-waving.

Thug only played for about 45 minutes, which was disappointing given how much he’d been teased. Rachel West, a likable Portland singer who performed in a Ducks jersey, sang Thug’s Dej Loaf collaboration “Blood” before indicating Thug would be coming on after her. (She seemed to expect more people in the audience to know “Blood.” It’s a shame they didn’t because it’s a fantastic song.) And in the interim between opener Easy McCoy’s set and Thug’s, the DJ promised his imminent arrival at least three times.

The mere act of waiting for Thugger seemed to get people randy. I’ve never seen people get more intimate at a show, and I haven’t seen so much grinding since high school raves five years ago. (This makes sense, as much of the audience seemed high-school age.) This was also an unusually good-smelling show. Crowds with this many drunk bros tend to smell of bad breath and sweat, but it seems like they’d chosen this night to bust out the cologne.

A Young Thug show doesn’t seem like the place I’d take a date. Nor is it a place I’d take someone who had never heard of Young Thug and wanted to understand why he’s so eccentric and brilliant. But if you’re a fan, and you have a friend you love to drunkenly sing along with to “Lifestyle,” you could do worse than to snag a pair of tickets next time he’s in town.

by Emerson Malone, @allmalone

After an historic low from the Oregon football team last weekend, the state of Oregon is preparing for an historic high today, as those over 21 years old may now legally buy and recreationally use marijuana.

Medical marijuana dispensaries around Eugene are now extending their services to recreational sales, starting Oct. 1, when the law goes into effect throughout Oregon. Customers will be able to purchase a limit of seven grams (a quarter ounce) of marijuana flower and four clones (immature MJ plants).

“Based on the amount of [non-patients] currently calling in or trying to come in [for recreational weed], I’m thinking Oct. 1 is just going to go crazy for all of us,” said Jim Wymore, manager and budtender at Oregon Medigreen (570 Lawrence St.)

While buying bud is allowed, marijuana edibles, concentrates (such as hash, oil, and tinctures) and topicals (a medical lotion or essential oil to rub on your skin) cannot be sold recreationally, according to the Senate Bill 460 that Gov. Kate Brown signed into law on July 28 this year. This mandate expires on Dec. 31, 2016.

Beginning Jan. 4 next year, retail outlets can apply for recreational marijuana licenses from the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, the governing body that oversees and regulates marijuana sales and usage in the state.

This soon to be mature marijuana plant is known as “Power Nap,” due to its sleepy side effects. (Cole Elsasser) Photo credit: Cole Elsasser

Recreational marijuana sales will be taxed somewhere between 17 to 20 percent, until Jan. 4, when it’s hiked up to a 25 percent tax. A downside for people who don’t have a connection in the black market is an upside for schools, mental health, alcoholism and drug services and state police, who will receive some cut of the taxes (as written in Measure 91.)

Recreational shops won’t open until later in 2016, at which point some dispensaries, including Oregon Medigreen, will revert to being exclusively medical.

Depending on your preference, adults over 21 can now choose between sativa (the kind that makes you active) and indica (the much-less active) strains. For beginners, budtenders at several dispensaries around Eugene recommend that newcomers and the uninitiated should go for a strain of marijuana that’s high in cannabinoid (chemical compounds known as CBD) and low in tetrahydrocannabinol (the active chemical known as THC.)

The high-CBD/low-THC combination makes for a mild, relaxing high with low psychotropic effects that won’t be overwhelming.

Budtender Andrew Thatch at Twenty After Four Wellness Center (located at 420 Blair Blvd.) recommends the following flowers for beginners: Bubba Kush (indica, 25 percent THC) and Lemon Haze (sativa, 20 percent THC.)

Wymore suggests that the uninitiated try small amounts of different strains – the operative phrase being small amounts.

“You don’t have to look like the guys from Cheech and Chong and blow out a big plume of smoke that fills the room,” Wymore said. “Just take one or two small hits, give yourself a half hour to an hour and see how it really affects you.”

If you were lucky enough to get a sticker from Twenty After Four, you may redeem it on Thursday for a free pre-rolled joint while it’s open (10 a.m. to 10 p.m.). Twenty After Four has roughly 14 varieties of flower for recreational sale, says budtender Chris Miller.

* * *

by Daniel Bromfield, @bromf3

*Names of sources and strains have been changed to protect subjects’ privacy.

Ariel has just driven across town to make a delivery. She plops down on a couch in a dusty college living room and unzips her bag, surrounded by tapestries and posters of rock stars on the walls. She pulls out jar after jar in front of her buyer, who stares greedily at her wares as an unmistakable reek settles over the room.

Her wares come with colorful names like Beezlebud, Trinity and Dolly Dagger. For those unsure, there’s the signature “Ariel Mix.”

“I’ll take the Blue Dream,” her customer said, gingerly sniffing a jar.

This is a scene from the twilight of Oregon’s soon-to-be-bygone era of illegal recreational marijuana. These sorts of living room pot deals are likely to become far less common once the sale of recreational marijuana is legalized on Oct 1. In fact, Ariel’s friend Sebastian, another dealer who sometimes sells her wares for her, intends to stop as soon as it becomes legalized.

Ariel has no plans to quit anytime soon. She predicts there will still be ample demand for black-market pot thanks to legal recreational marijuana’s high taxes and prices.

“People are going to be paying 20 bucks or more a gram at rec shops,” she said, compared to her average price of $10 per gram. “[Plenty of] people who smoke weed in this town are poor college kids. The number of people that want weed won’t go down with legalization. And there’s always the under-21s.”

Selling pot is Ariel’s main source of income at the moment. Currently unemployed, she sells marijuana to repay her student loans at the University of Oregon, hoping to re-enroll in courses this winter. She generally picks up a half to a pound from her grower, making between $100 and $500 every five-day business cycle before she re-ups her stash.

Though most of her customers use pot recreationally, Ariel also sees a future selling to medical patients who can’t afford high-priced dispensary marijuana.

“Selling ganj is something I can feel good about doing in that the plant is, for a lot of people, an important medicine to have access to affordably,” she says. “I have always felt like if dealing was something I was going to get into, I wanted it to be worthwhile.”

Ariel isn’t completely closed to the idea of going into the legitimate marijuana business someday. She apprenticed to a grower over the past summer, learning the ins and outs of cultivating and harvesting pot plants. She could see herself growing for recreational or medical dispensaries.

The black market isn’t dying out any time soon, and dealers like Ariel are sure to give the state’s newest industry some serious competition.

All that touring with Todd Rundgren must have rubbed off on Dâm-Funk, because his second album Invite The Light is the sort of record Rundgren pioneered in the ’70s – frighteningly long, stuffed with ideas and designed for the listener to get lost in.

Musically, the similarities are few: Dâm-Funk makes a synth-heavy form of “modern funk” rather than pop-rock. But as with Rundgren’s classics Something/Anything? and A Wizard/A True Star, Invite The Light‘s titanic length (96 minutes) and ample moments of brilliance make it an inconsistent but thrilling rabbit hole to fall down.

Like Something/Anything, Invite The Light starts with the “hits,” including bouncy lead single “We Continue.” The high-speed car chase of “Surveillance Escape” is a left turn into more experimental territory, and it also introduces an unnecessary sci-fi plot that seems to function primarily to emphasize how “spacey” the music is. Loose concepts are common on funk albums, but unlike on Prince’s Art Official Age or Janelle Monae’s Metropolis series, Invite the Light‘s plot is never distracting, and it’s quickly jettisoned.

The best tracks here are the meditative grooves that aim for transcendence, like “O.B.E.” and “It Didn’t Have 2 End This Way.” One of the thrills of his debut Toeachizown was how the funk signifiers he employed didn’t function as expected. His grooves were funky, yes, but also stoic and deliberately beautiful, intended as much for listening as dancing. Invite The Light‘s standouts find this balance as beautifully as anything on Toeachizown, and their location towards the middle of the album makes digging them out a treat.

The more vocal-oriented songs here are less beautiful and distinctive, aiming more for dance floor oblivion than the layered experience Toeachizown provides. They also reveal Dâm-Funk’s biggest flaw: he’s not much of a lyricist. Most of his lyrics are mindless positivity that walks the line between infectious and daft. He talks in earnest about third eyes and the Illuminati, sometimes sounding a bit too much like a high-school stoner in the process.

He can usually get better results by handing the mic over to one of the many luminaries that dot this album. Nite Jewel’s voice sounds great over Dâm-Funk’s production, and it’s a shame she only sings on “Virtuous Progression.” Leon Sylvers-es III and IV add R&B gloss to “Glyde 2nyte.” Most interesting is Ariel Pink, whose irony-drenched vocals on “Acting” sour the relentlessly positive and sincere mood of the album just enough to make an interesting splash of flavor.

But no matter who’s on the mic, Dâm-Funk’s productions still sound like nothing else in any genre. His hallmarks are here in abundance: vintage drum machines, titanic bass and soaring jazz chords.  Funk is rarely this beautiful.  Though Invite The Light is the less essential and impressive of Dâm-Funk’s two full-lengths, it’s still a worthy addition to the canon of one of funk’s most distinctive talents – as well as the storied tradition of the inconsistent but ultimately worth-it double album.

Listen to Dâm-Funk’s “We Continue” below:

Dan Bejar is on the warpath.

“I really despise pop music these days,” he said in a recent interview after allegedly cutting the two catchiest songs from his latest Destroyer album Poison Season. The reason for his ire is likely 2011’s deservedly acclaimed Kaputt, which shot the former cult hero to indie stardom. The jazz and disco-flavored album was easy for fans to love because it sounded great and easy for critics to love because it focused less on Bejar’s impenetrable lyrics than usual.

Poison Season counters this by being of a class of record Bejar’s been making for decades: cryptic, word-drunk, occasionally musically interesting. The arrangements are more organic than Kaputt‘s, though that record’s shimmering horns remain. Loud guitars pop up sometimes. Piano is prevalent, as are creaky strings that evoke the same stately wonder as Bach’s ubiquitous “Unaccompanied Cello Suite No. 1” (look it up, you’ve heard it in movies).

There’s not much for fair-weather fans to latch onto. It doesn’t sound good in the background, and there are no transportive textures to float away on. Rather, Bejar’s words are front and center at all times. He’s a slippery wordsmith. Even after including no less than three versions of “Times Square” on the album, it’s hard to glean exactly what it means. Haughty words like “solace” might lead one to think they have to understand what Bejar is on about to appreciate Poison Season.

They don’t, and this is is where Bejar’s litmus test succeeds so well. Most of the people who will love this record are those intimately familiar with Destroyer and who know what to expect when they put one of their albums on. Bejar is deluded if he expects people to understand his lyrics. It’s the distinct images that count. “Stapled to the neck of the storm.” “The ice queen’s made of snow.”(“Archer on the Beach”) “In a windowless room on the outskirts of town overlooking the river.” (“The River”) These bits of imagery are all over Poison Season, and it’s up to the listener to fill in the blanks.

Where Poison Season fails in its fan-scouring endeavors is that the pop songs are the best things here. “Dream Lover” is fantastic, a spiky wall of guitars and saxophones that crescendos on cue as Bejar curses, “aw shit, here comes the sun” – and settles with a wave of his hand. The horn-driven “Hell” sounds like a Beirut song with Zach Condon’s troubadour romanticism replaced by Bejar’s bile. “Archer On The Beach,” an older cut he first recorded five years ago with ambient guru Tim Hecker, is presented here as a haunting piano ballad.

“Times Square” is interesting: the two alternate versions might have helped Bejar feel better about writing pop, but they don’t do much for the listener except tack an extra five minutes onto the record. The same applies to some of the deeper Side Two cuts, including the meandering “Bangkok” and the spy-movie bombast “Midnight Meet The Rain.” These tracks don’t scan as anti-pop, just unfocused. But it’s admirable of Bejar to continue making music he wants to make in the face of indie renown, which can be as destructive as any other kind of fame. If you’re a Destroyer fan, you’ll like Poison Season a lot. If not, know what to expect.

The easiest way to split up the Beatles’ career is into two parts: the early moptop days and their “art” period. Harder is figuring out which record marks the transition. Rubber Soul is the most obvious candidate, with its layered, sardonic songs. A more conservative choice is Revolver, by which time their evolution beyond “Love Me Do” was indisputable. But Help!, released fifty years ago today on August 13, 1965, is the first record to make the wealth of artistry they had yet to explore plainly obvious.

For one, their songwriting had grown by leaps and bounds. John Lennon, at that time the group’s best lyricist by a mile, was waxing more introspective. “Help!” is a plea of desperation that might sound like a love song until you realize it’s never explicitly addressed to a woman. “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away,” with its masochistic entreaty for “all you clowns” to gather around and make him feel like shit, continues the self-loathing of Beatles for Sale‘s “I’m A Loser.”

Their songs also grew in thematic complexity. “You’re Gonna Lose That Girl” finds John threatening to steal a friend’s lover if he continues neglecting her, but the glee in his voice makes it clear his motives aren’t altruistic. And a rapidly maturing George Harrison contributes a compelling portrait of a toxic relationship in “You Like Me Too Much.” His girlfriend keeps leaving and coming back; he admits he deserves to be left, but he’s too into her, so the cycle continues.

One major outside influence might have catalyzed this growth. The band met Bob Dylan in August 1964, as they were recording Beatles For Sale, and his influence is plain in a few spots. “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away” is a blatant Dylan pastiche (“feeling two foot small” is ridiculously on-the-nose). Even Paul sounds a bit Dylanish on the country-flavored “I’ve Just Seen A Face” – check out those “lai-da-da-dai”s.

But Dylan also introduced the band to pot, and it’s no coincidence Help! contains some of the “trippiest” material they had yet recorded. “Ticket To Ride” contains a contrast of ominous drone and a pop melody that presages their headiest work on Magical Mystery Tour (“Blue Jay Way”) and The Beatles (“Dear Prudence”). And George Harrison’s processed guitar on “I Need You” is one of the most beautiful sounds the Beatles ever recorded, especially as it tearfully lilts towards the end.

But the most prescient song comes second to last. “Yesterday,” a stunning, brief ballad, is Paul McCartney alone with a string quartet. It’s the first of a trilogy of sad, string-oriented songs the band would record, and it’s also the first song a Beatle would record alone. It’s also a compelling argument for the devil-angel John-Paul dichotomy; Paul’s speculation that “I said something wrong” is a mea culpa John would never own up to.

That said, these leaps down the rabbithole only represent a fragment of Help! There are still two covers, both solid but still filler. “It’s Only Love” is maybe the Beatles’ cheesiest ballad, and “Tell Me What You See” might be their dumbest chorus. But while Help! isn’t the most consistent album in the Beatles catalog, it’s crucial as a historical document — even more so because of the number of great songs on it.

Ambient music doesn’t get a whole lot of love: you’re into such extravagances as drums and vocals, it might be difficult to get into the formless compositions associated with the genre. But done right, ambient can transport the listener to somewhere familiar, nostalgic or completely alien. Here are some of the albums this decade that have successfully accomplished this feat.

1. Biosphere – N-Plants (2011). The eerie, mechanical calm of Norwegian veteran Biosphere’s eighth and best album is fitting considering its inspiration in the potential instability of Japanese nuclear plants. Coincidentally, it was released only months before the Fukushima disaster, and though this interpretation gives N-Plants added gravitas, it’s more than capable of standing on its own.

2. Donato Dozzy & Neel – Voices From The Lake (2012). Italy’s Donato Dozzy emerged as ambient music’s loudest new voice (though that may seem like a contradiction) with his masterful mix Voices From The Lake, recorded with countryman Neel. Split into eleven segments, VFTL is a single, flowing piece that demonstrates ambient music’s ability to spirit the listener away to wherever the producer chooses to take them.

3. Vladislav Delay – Visa (2014). Recorded in a two-week burst of inspiration after being denied a visa to tour in the United States, Finnish master Vladislav Delay’s Visa bristles with both anger and the awe of discovery—two things the man himself must have felt with so much free time on his hands following a major disappointment. Punishing 23-minute opener “Visaton” might make this a non-starter for some, but braving it to get at the ambient treasure later in the album is more than worth it.

4. Wolfgang Voigt – Ruckverzauberung 10/Nationalpark (2015). Wolfgang Voigt is best known for the forest-inspired Gas project (whose four albums are good to brilliant). On Nationalpark, a piece commissioned for the opening of a new nature preserve in Germany, he steps back into the woods. The result is an achingly gorgeous hour-long meditation that evokes a small-scale awe, and at times more reminiscent of psychedelia and baroque pop than ambient music.

5. Loscil – Coast/Range/Arc (2010). This is as ambient as it gets – six lonesome pieces of patient drone that barely develop over run-times that breach ten minutes. But the Vancouver producer’s seventh album forms an interactive, widescreen space for the listener to step into. It’s a head trip into a vast, pelagic wonder-world that seems to stretch to infinity in all directions.

Honorable mentions:

The Caretaker – An Empty Bliss Beyond This World (2011). Shining-loving noisenik Leyland Kirby reincarnates old swing records as fractured, eerie ambient.

Donato Dozzy – Plays Bee Mask (2013). One-half of Voices From The Lake remixes Bee Mask’s club track “Vaporware” and transforms it into a multi-part ambient suite.

Grouper – AIA (2011). Reverb-loving Portland guitarist Liz Harris conjures a nocturnal stillness with her impressive 2011 double album as Grouper.

Oneohtrix Point Never – Returnal (2010). The inventor of vaporwave steps away from plundering ’80s infomercials to make sleek drones from his synth collection.

Jurgen Muller – Science Of The Sea (2013). Prankster Norman Chambers marketed Science of the Sea as a lost ’70s ambient record. It’s not, but it’s amazing.

Whether you’re a native or a college student staying here while your friends disperse, Eugene is the place to be during summer. This is in no small part thanks to the touring acts that come by during the hot months. These are just a few of the acts that will roll through the Emerald City this summer.

All shows are all ages unless otherwise indicated.

W.O.W. Hall

June 18: Joey Bada$$, every bro’s favorite boom-bap revivalist, performs with Southern rappers Mick Jenkins and Denzel Curry. Doors at 8, show at 9. $27 advance, $30 door.

July 10: Noise rockers Shellac, fronted by legendary audio engineer Steve Albini of Nirvana and Pixies fame, perform with the equally abrasive Shannon Wright. Doors at 8, show at 9. $13 advance, $15 door.

July 21: Veteran indie rockers and Eugene regulars Built To Spill play the WOW in support of their upcoming album Untethered Moon. Genders opens. Doors at 7, show at 8. $20 advance, $25 door.

August 13: Puppeteer and musician David Liebe Hart, best-known for his bizarre appearances on Tim & Eric’s Awesome Show, appears. Doors at 8, show at 9. $12 advance, $15 door.

September 15: Indie rock band Man Man, known for their eclectic instrumentation and unhinged sound, performs. Shilpa Ray, late of the Happy Hookers, opens. Doors at 8, show at 9. $15 advance, $18 door.

September 16: Pop punks Bowling for Soup, famous for their nostalgia-skewering hit “1985,” perform to celebrate their 21st anniversary as a band. The Dollyrots and Ivory Tribes open. Doors at 7, show at 8. $20 advance, $22 door.

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McDonald Theatre

July 17: Graham Nash, best known for lending his name to a certain ’60s psych-folk trio with two other gents named Crosby and Stills, performs. Doors at 7, show at 8. $46.

August 25: Post-grunge band Three Days Grace performs with Otherwise and Like a Storm. Doors at 7, show at 8. $27.50 advance, $33 door.

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Cuthbert Amphitheatre

July 23: Third Eye Blind performs with emo juggernaut Dashboard Confessional. Doors at 5:30, show at 7. $41 advance, $45 door.

August 8: Latter-day Sublime acolytes Slightly Stoopid perform with Dirty Heads and Stick Figure. Doors at 5, show at 6:30. $38.50 advance, $41 door.

August 28: In a strange turn events, the actual Sublime (albeit with Rome) performs at the same venue. Pepper and Mickey Avalon open. Doors at 5, show at 6. $40 advance, $45 door.

September 12: EDM kingpin Diplo hosts the Mad Decent Block Party, at which he’ll perform under his Major Lazer moniker alongside Brazzabelle, RL Grime, What So Not and a mysterious “more” that has yet to be revealed. Doors at 2:30, show at 4. $55. 18+.

Next Friday, the W.O.W. Hall will be hosting as good a showcase for Northwest metal as you’re likely to ever get–and with admission only $15, probably the cheapest. Portland folk-metal band Agalloch headlines, with Eugene’s YOB and Italy’s Ufomammut opening with their distinct brands of doom metal.

No discussion of contemporary Northwest metal would be complete without at least a mention of Agalloch. Led by multi-instrumentalist John Haughm, Agalloch has spent two decades honing their blend of neo-folk and black metal, which has garnered endless comparisons to the rainy climes of their hometown. (Pitchfork described them as “the perfect Portland band” for this reason.) A year removed from their latest full-length The Serpent & The Sphere, they’ve decided to hit Eugene for their first W.O.W. show on June 5.

But to Eugenites, Agalloch may not be as familiar a name as the one right under it on the bill. YOB is without question the greatest metal band Eugene has ever produced and a strong contender for the greatest Eugene band overall. Described as “one of the best bands in North America” by the New York Times in 2010, the doom metal trio is currently promoting last year’s four-track, hour-long Clearing The Path To Ascend, which Rolling Stone named the best metal album of last year.

Their touring schedule, which includes regularly playing for adoring fans in Europe, means they don’t come around Eugene much. (Their last hometown gig was in 2013.) Their upcoming W.O.W. show should thus provide a great, rare opportunity to see some of Eugene’s finest play on native soil to an audience that will no doubt comprise some of this town’s most devoted metalheads.

Opening the show is Italian doom metal trio Ufomammut, who share a label (Neurot Recordings) with YOB. They’re fresh off their seventh album, the ridiculously down-tuned Ecate, which dropped March 30 of this year.

If you’re not into metal, this is as good as any to start. Agalloch’s folk influences makes them a good entry point into the metal world for those whose tastes lean more melodic. YOB is simply a really good band, as well as an indispensable part of Eugene’s music history and culture. As for Ufomammut, they’re about as heavy as it gets, so be warned.

Doors at 8 p.m, show at 9 p.m.  $13 advance, $15 door.  All ages.

The Campbell Club and the Lorax Manner are taking applications for next year.

Located next to each other on the block of Alder Street between 16th and 17th Avenue, these venerable-looking buildings represent two of three co-operative housing options (the third, the Janet Smith Graduate Student Co-op, is reserved for grad students).

The standard rate for a room at either co-op is $398 per month, which includes food and internet. Tenants can move in at any time during the year and can get their deposit back within 30 days.

“The dorms are crazy expensive,” said Jarrod McClung, a current Campbell Club resident who has previously lived at the Lorax. “Here, it’s very affordable for everything.”

Both the Campbell Club and the Lorax are known for their activist leanings. In the early 1990s, the co-ops were a major center of operations for the grassroots environmental organization, Cascadia Forest Defenders. This is how the Lorax, which opened in 1990, came to be named after Dr. Seuss’ paragon of environmental activism.

To this day, the co-ops maintain an ethos based on social justice and activism. The Campbell Club regularly hosts house shows for organizations like Food Not Bombs, Black Mesa Indigenous Support and LGBT student groups. These shows have developed a reputation as safe party spaces for queer students, students of color and other marginalized groups who might have a hard time being harassed or fitting in at other parties.

“(The Campbell Club) offers a space to party,” said Lorax resident Kelsey Rankin. “I’m not constantly bro’d out on. It’s better than a lot of other party spaces because it’s a better space for people of color and different gender and sexual orientations to party.”

The Lorax hosts events, including art parties and the occasional concert. But according to Rankin, it’s more of a low-key environment.

“The general personality of the Lorax is more introverted,” she said. “It’ll just be people reading in the Vortex together or going to the river together.” The Vortex is the Lorax’s living room, known for its ability to “suck people into the most random conversation for hours on end.”

Both buildings are located in the heart of “Greek Row,” but the co-ops pride themselves as an alternative to Fraternity and Sorority Life often acting as a homogeneous environment.

“There are frats and sororities, which provide one type of community,” said Rankin. “Some people don’t fit into those communities, so co-operatives give that space for people who just want to live differently and together.”

This entails a lot of shared responsibilities. If you can’t handle a lot of work, the co-ops aren’t for you.

“On different nights, people cook dinners, do different cleaning jobs,” said Campbell Club resident Ellie Johnson. “That makes it a lot easier because when we’re working together on different jobs, we can maintain certain things about the house.”

But if you’re not afraid to get your hands dirty once in a while, the co-ops can be a great living environment for students of all backgrounds.

The Campbell Club has a capacity of 28, the Lorax 25. If co-operative housing appeals to you, you can apply at https://sites.google.com/site/scawiki/apply-now.

Follow Daniel Broomfield on Twitter @bromf3