Oregon Music News

There are a couple of guys in Portland who have been playing together for a long time. They are both guitarists. They call themselves Moon and Bike mainly because their names are Boone and Mike. Boone Johnson plays acoustic guitar and Michael Robert Swanson plays electric guitar. It’s an interesting pairing and brought into high relief when they just play as a duo. They released their first album as a duo last year…all instrumental. They’re not kids, but have a lot of fresh spacy ideas. Their combination of crystal clear acoustic and reverbed electric guitars is pretty unique these days. They recently played their first Portland Gig at Music Millennium and will be playing right here at Artichoke on December 3. Boone the Moon is here with me right now.

The Blue Cranes have a new album. That news is enough to make fans happy, but that’s not all… it is called Voices, individual collaborations with vocalists Holland Andrews, Edna Vasquez and Luz Elena Mendoza, Rebecca Sanborn, Laura Gibson, Peter Frederick, Gavin Castelton, Redray Frazier, Analisa Tornfelt and Laura Viers. It’s the best thing I’ve heard in years. Magnificent. A masterpiece. And if you know me, you know I don’t throw those words around lightly Blue Cranes’ Reed Wallsmith is in the Artichoke Café with me.

Shawn Levy has a new book, not one of his show biz blockbusters, but…get the concept, poems he wrote inspired by the obituary pages of the New York Times. That’s what it says on the cover. I am somewhat sympatico with him, although I’m not a poet, because I wrote all the obits on Oregon Music News for the first eight or nine years of our existence. Why did he do it? How has it affected him? What was the process? By the way, did you even know he was a poet. He’ll read a few during our conversation, including one on Sharon Jones. Happy to have Shawn Levy back with us.

Somehow, we’re getting closer to the holidays. Now in Oregon, one thing that always marked the holiday season was The Acoustic Guitar Summit holiday concerts. Terry Robb, Mark Hanson and our guest day, who has brought along his guitar, Doug Smith. Doug is one of the great fingerstye guitarists and of course, one of the founders of Acoustic Guitar Summit. They’ll be right here at Artichoke for two nights, Sunday and Monday December 5th and 6th and Doug will be here in the café with Tom May on Saturday, November 13. We missed these guys last year. It’s great to have them back. Let’s talk with Doug Smith.

It’s another in the long line of OMN Coffeeshop Conversations. For some reason, I never introduce myself. Perhaps because there’s a byline. So let me tell you that I’m Tom D’Antoni, Editor-In-Chief and co-founder of Oregon Music News and I love doing these podcast episodes. I hope they are as much fun for ypu and that you learn as much as I do about our guests. Today, She calls herself Stephanie Strange and her band Strange and the Familiars. She sings and writes but you wouldn’t exactly call her a singer/songwriter. There’s more going on than strumming and lyrics. They have an album release coming up and a gig at Jack London Review on Haloween. Meet Stephanie Strange.

Jim Brunberg is back with us in the Artichoke Music Café for another OMN Coffeeshop Conversation. His club, Mississippi Studios and concert venues, Revolution Hall and Polaris Hall are all open for live music. He’s been a lynchpin for organizations launched during the Pandemic to get federal money in order to survive. He has kept us all informed along the way and that’s why he’s here today, to give us his reading on how things are going and what the future may hold. His group Wonderly, with Ben Landesverk also has a new album. We’ll hear a tune from it at the end of our conversation. Welcome back Jim Brunberg

On Thursday, December 4, 2014, seven years ago today, we launched this podcast, spending time with Mary-Sue Tobin on our first episode. Today she is back on episode three hundred thirteen. Why? Because we like her, she’s always fun to talk to, she is very smart and knows her shit. She’s here to talk about the state of the Quadraponnes that fabulous saxophone quartet she helped found, about an upcoming concert with Ezra Weis’ band and a couple of albums that might have slipped through the cracks from Re-Birthing the Cool, Be Bop and beyond. But she could have had nothing in particular to talk about and still have been delightful. Let’s catch up with Mary-Sue Tobin

In the Artichoke Music Café with me is the co-founder of a new label which she and her co-founder Damon Bucher have launched. She goes by the name of Sappho. Her other name is Megan Andricos. She’s a long-time Portland club DJ and party promoter. The label is called Koritsi Komma which is Greek for Party Girl and they say it is “a dance music record label to raise the visibility of queer party music.” They’re launching with the release of the singles "Higher Love" (on Oct. 1st) and "All I Want Is You" (on Oct. 15th), with remixes by Portland producers Perfect Health and Natasha Kmeto. Those singles are from an LP, due in November You’ll like Sappho. Let’s meet her.

Fifty-one years ago Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs and Englishmen album was released. It was and instant classic. You may not know a lot of backstory but by the time you finish listening to this you’ll know a bucketful because with me in the Artichoke Music Café is the percussionist from that band. You know him, he’s in the Oregon Music Hall of Fame. It’s Bobby Torres who also played with Joe Cocker at Woodstock. As you may remember, Leon Russell played a huge part in the Mad Dogs band which was ad hoc at the time. So let’s go back to 1970 and find out what life was like with the mad dogs and Englishmen. All I have to do is push this little chromium switch. The tune at the end is "Afuebe" by Ghanaian Master Drummer Israel Annoh from the album of the same name, Produced by Bobby Torres.

Our guest today used to be a fixture in the music scene in Oregon…then he got married and moved to Victoria…that’s in Canada. Or maybe he moved first. I dunno. But whatever, that’s where David Vest lives now. And he’s won all kinds of national awards there. He is releasing his first recordings in three years. Two CDs, both live but very different from each other. One, recorded at a festival in Calgary and the other in a small club in Victoria. The festival is full of our favorite David Vest tunes, raucous boogie-woogie. The other is very subtle. I don’t think there’s a name for it yet The songs are familiar Blues tunes but the arrangements and the attitudes are…well it’s almost Chamber Blues. Mr. Vest will tell it best. And we’ll hear a tune from the club at the end.

From the friendly confines of the Artichoke Café once again. It’s time to try to understand what the hell is going on with our ability to go hear live music in person and find out what club owners are dealing with. Without clubs and concert venues, we’re sunk and sunk is not a good way to enjoy a live band. Neil Leeborg who is a co-owner of the Goodfoot Lounge is here. They’re open, although not with music every night as they used to be, and they were one of the first to require proof of vaccination. It’s been a tough road for Neil and other club owners. Let’s find out what might be in store for us.

This is a special episode of Coffeeshop Conversations @ Artichoke Music and one in a series of radio interviews I did thirty years ago. Still listening or reading? I’m grateful. I was doing a talk show for the American Radio Network when radio networks meant something. And it was before the internet too, in the days of newspapers and pay phones. I decided that I would interview people who I had always wanted to talk to. One of them was pianist/composer Cecil Taylor. He was world famous and little-known because of how his music sounded. Taylor was known as being as ferocious as his music, at least that’s what I heard. I was afraid he was going to eat me for lunch, so I used the weight of a commercial network radio show as leverage and asked Gary Giddins,probably the top Jazz Journalist in the world, in English anyway, and a friend of Taylor’s if he would join Taylor and I in a one hour live intereview. He said yes. And then I asked Taylor. Good move. He said yes, too. You’re about to hear the result. Please ex

Back in masks at Artichoke Café because the governor said to. She knows more about it than I do. Thankfully someone is here with me. His name is Noah Kite, he’s a singer, composer and guitarist who has a new album out this week called Drunk Lil’ Guy. In case you’re wondering, he is not the drunk lil guy. We’ll get into that. He calls what he does Chamber Folk which is just as good a musical concept as it is a marketing tool. Don’t get me wrong tho, Noah is a serious human, the songs, the music and his demeaner. His release gig is Friday, September 3rd at Polaris Hall with Sama Damas and Blair Borax. Let’s meet Noah Kite

Composer/guitarist Ryan Meagher is in the Artichoke Café with me today at yet another turning point in the long sad saga of trying to make and listen to music during the pandemic. He’s one of the folks who plan and execute the Montavilla Jazz Festival around this time every year. OMN is happy to be a sponsor. It’s the festival home for what we used to call “avant-garde” music. I don’t know if anyone has settled on a new name for it but you know what I mean. This year it’s Friday, August 20 to 22nd. Ryan will tell us about it, but since we do these a week or so in advance and since covid protocols have changed, please check with their website to find out if there are any changes. https://montavillajazz.org/ Meanwhile, I delayed turning on the recorder until we had talked baseball for a while, which we always do.

It’s lovely to be joined in the Artichoke Café today by singer, guitarist, composer and all-around great person, Mary Flower. She’ll be a part of a celebration here at Artichoke they’re calling Summerfest, Thursday through Sunday, August 26th through 29th with a full lineup of not only your Artichoke favorites but some folks you’d never expect like Coffeeshop Conversations favorites Darkswoon. Mary has a new tune, written during the pandemic which she will perform for us at the end of our conversation. We’ll also find out how she’s handling emerging again. Next week Ryan Meagher will be in the Café and tell us about how he and his compatriots have put together an exciting 2021 version of the Montavilla Jazz Festival. But now let’s turn our attention to Mary Flower.

You may not know it but our opening music is a tune called Ghost Jazz. The composers have kindly let us use it all these years. It was written by Keith Schreiner also known as Auditory Sculpture and today’s guest trumpeter, composer and educator Derek Sims. They called themselves Jazztronica in the early 2000s. Derek holds the trumpet chair in Mel Brown’s famed Septet, previously held by Thara Memory. He started the Portland Jazz School in September of 2017, is the Adjunct Professor of Jazz Trumpet and the Jazz Band Director at Portland State University. What I didn’t know before talking to him today is that he has returned to his Jazztronica period in his newest compositions. Let’s catch up with Derek Sims.

A newish band has emerged in the past couple of years called Outer Orbit. It’s made up of members of some of Portland’s top Soul, Funk and Jazz bands,...including Tyrone Hendrix, Damien Erskine, Sarah Clarke, Peter Knudson and Michael Elson. That’s what it’s always been like in Oregon. You have to be versatile to make a living as a musician. Galen Clark of Outer Orbit, Trio Subtonic and lots of other ensembles is with me in the Artichoke Café to talk about those bands and how he navigates between them. We recorded this a couple of weeks ago, before Outer Orbit’s breakout set at the Waterfront Blues Festival. So please excuse any out of date gig references, Next week Mary Flower will be sitting here and the week after Derek Sims. Let’s meet Galen Clark.

For a lot of people, the top musical experience of 2021 has been the new documentary by Questlove called Summer of Soul, built around a series of concerts in Harlem, New York City in 1969. I say built around because it adds political and cultural context to the music. The music is Soul, Funk R&B, Blues, Gospel, Latin and African, the panoply of Black music at the time. I say Black because the movie puts the music in context with the emerging Black consciousness. It is a deeply emotional experience. Bring klneenex. To talk about it, joining me from Washington DC is OMN National editor, author and investigative reporter Art Levine.

To round out our video series on couples who both play music, either separately or together (or both), it was always in our plans to have Stephanie Schneiderman, singer, songwriter and guitarist in multiple genres and her husband Tony Furtado, virtuoso on a variety of stringed instruments and also a singer. The pandemic got in the way, but we were able to start using video again a couple of weeks ago. They will talk to us and also perform on the Café Artichoke stage. Look for more video episodes soon! Produced and edited by Gary Furlow.

Occasional video episodes of Coffeeshop Conversations @ Artichoke Music are back! Before the pandemic we left our series with couples who are also working musicians, some together, some not.. Our last one was Reecca Sanborn and Ji Tanzer https://www.oregonmusicnews.com/sanborn-tanzer-coffeeshop-conversations222 At the time we had two more in the works and we finally recorded them a couple of weeks ago. Next time we'll end the series with Tony Furtado and Stephanie Schneiderman but today it's Jana Cushman and Rachel Elllis of Darkswoon. One of the first things we'll talk about is what is it that they call the kind of music they do? They've settled, at the moment on "Elrectrogaze." They'll also perform two of their tunes which will end up on their next album.