J.D. Kindel and the Eastern Oregon Playboys
Tonight at Liquid Lyrics – starts around 8:00pm (Friday February 26th). $5.00 at the door! J.D. Kindel & the Eastern Oregon Playboys, The Future Historians, and J.J. Hill
If you have not heard of J.D. Kindel and the Eastern Oregon Playboys you really need to stop by (tonight! if possible at Liquid Lyrics) and check them out. They hail mostly from Pendleton (Our friends over yonder) and put out a great CD last year called Campfire Pop Abstraction. I am stoked to have some old friends pop back into La Grande! Check out their myspace for samples and vids.
“Mind your tongue if you believe that Eastern Oregon is little more than
methamphetamines and rodeo. James Dean Kindle and the Eastern Oregon Playboys roll through town like a tumbleweed, dispensing their haunting sound (think Nick Cave from high desert country) along the way. The Pendleton-based band [...] proves that there just might be life beyond our precious city limits.” -Ezra Ace Caraeff, The Portland Mercury
They are playing with a few other folks including local J.J. Hill and Portland’s Future Historians in which Willamette Weekly said:
WILLAMETTE WEEK ONLINE [SOMBER POP] Hanging sad lyrics on happy hooks, Future Historians frontman Dave Shur can make your heart feel warm and broken all in a two-minute pop song. Backed by a quintet of polished Portland musicians, Future Historians made their first mark on Portland’s music scene with an impressive 2008 self-titled debut packed with seven slick-as-spit morsels of emotional rock, and have a new full-length set for release in April. The band tiptoes the line between pop and folk like pros by layering peppy, syncopated tracks with guitars, drums, trumpet, glockenspiel and keys. The future sure looks bright for these guys. WHITNEY HAWKE.
the quotes from the mercury and the WW made this band suddenly legit in my mind. definitely worthy of the praise.
Well, shame on the Portland Mercury for pidgeonholing Eastern Oregon as the land of meth and bucking broncs & then feebly attempting to break the ice by mentioning a decent band from these parts like it’s the first adventurous band in the state outside the Portland area they’ve ever heard of. We’ve known great groundbreaking bands have called Umatilla County home for eons…from the kids who founded Watch For Falling Records and hung out at the good ol’ Goodwin Station record store to the Pendleton Overground music conglomerate trying once again to reactivate the youthful music scene. It ranges from the many bands James Dean Kindle played with from Blue Is Cold to the Eastern Oregon Playboys; Ryan Beach’s 801 House basement gigs where locals opened for some serious international talent from Ryan McPhun & The Ruby Suns to Junius…to venues like Cadillac Jack’s and Great Pacific that gave bands a place to practice and play.
And along came Greg Johnson and Derek Wildstar who founded Gadfly Entertainment here in LaGrande…in its heyday from 2003 to 2007 they hosted many bands from Pendleton…and also Hermiston, Milton-Freewater and even Athena and Umatilla. Many of them were splinters of the great band Hoptow, and every time they played here in La Grande, a huge contingent of their fans and families would caravan along with them & pay admission and buy concessions and stick around for the afterparties.
And last night was no different at the Liquid Lyrics “comeback” show. Many of them haven’t played here since the summer and fall of 2007 and it was good to see some familiar faces. A sizeable number of their friends, fans and family came over once again and supported locals like J.J.Hill and Co. with equal enthusiam alongside the musicians they know over the hill. A great extended percussive jam session during the first set went on like Santana’s “Soul Sacrifice” on the Woodstock album…only ten times longer! And then J.D. Kindle on the squeezebox belting out some fervent alt.country that either coaxed the crowd out to the dancefloor or dropped ‘em to their knees.