Desperately Seeking Salem

So I’m flipping through the online pages of the Statesman this morning–not generally something that gets my pulse racing — and I come across this story about a couple who is debuting a new band at the Space tomorrow night.

OMG it’s Frank Black of the Pixies!

OMG OMG OMG!

The new band is called Grand Duchy and it includes his adorable, ahem, Pixie-haired wife, mother of his children, on vocals.

Apparently Black met his future wife at a show in Eugene a couple of years ago while he was still touring as Frank Black and the Catholics. They started collaborating — on music, and then on the creation of three littlest fans who tour with them with the help of a “Rock Nanny.”

I have absolutely no idea why Black would be debuting his new band in Salem. The article doesn’t really answer that question… it is framed as a love story and a family yarn, and that’s fitting, considering the dominating meme in Salem.

But I do think we could come up with tons of reasons to choose the Space. It’s intimate, it’s a little rough around the edges, and it’s kind of an under-the-radar venue, making it a great space — har har — for experimentation and trying things out on crowds.

Congratulations, Salem, you finally found something to make me  skip watching LOST.

The collective energy of the Portland-based band The Thermals was greater than the sum of its three parts when they took the stage last night at Salem’s Grand Theatre.

And if you haven’t heard it yet, this is the real secret about the Cherry City Music Festival, which is happening right now, which has brought 140 bands to Salem this weekend:

The festival is one more sign to me of the power of comparative study.

It shows how good we have it.

Think about it. Doesn’t your life always seem a little awesome when you compare yourselves to others in the ways that matter?

When I was living in Munich, I would frequently see gigs like Pavement and Ani DiFranco in intimate venues — places that would have been sold out in minutes in the states.  I always knew how good I had it at those shows when I was standing about three feet from Ani’s frets and staring at her gnarly, righteous hands.

And The Thermals last night in Salem — they didn’t quite pack the place, but they gave off some inklings of what Oregonian writer Luciana Lopez talked about in the paper’s A & E section this weekend. She expects The Thermals to have a huge year.

One other sign:

My friend Insa, who is visiting from D.C. this Easter weekend, has tried three times to see The Thermals in our nation’s capital.

They always sell out their gigs at the Black Cat.

Lucky us.

We saw them last night in Salem, and had a parking spot right in front of the theater.

He introduced himself to me at the Space on Broadway NE in Salem and I didn’t believe it was his real name.

“Chance,” he said, holding out his hand.

Yeah, right, I thought.

“Is that your real name?”

So he pulls out an Oregon Driver’s license in which he is staring at me, sans fu manchu, sans big bushy mop of hair, and it says it right there: Chance Wiesner, 25, of Silverton.

Chance doesn’t look like he’s 25.

He looks like Jim Croce and Gumby’s love child — tall and lanky and wearing bright red pants and a breezy white button down shirt. He is a complete throwback.

I didn’t chat long with Chance, because within minutes, he stopped dancing by the bar at Salem’s living room-styled indie music venue and had taken the stage with a guitar, a mike, and a PBR that someone had bought him so he would play.

Chance is a former singer of the now-defunct Salem band Nodding Tree Remedies.

When he began to sing, it was clear he sings because he absolutely has to sing. He writes and sings his own songs, such as a haunting, grab-your-throat piece about “working in the plastic factory.”

There were six people in the room.

I’ve heard Chance does this most Tuesdays.

I’m not sure what happened to his band — word is it ended bad — but I’m sorry I missed them while they were around. Chance says he has a new gig with a band called Lust Wagon, and I’ll keep my eyes open for them.

Until then, will someone please give this guy a paying gig? I’ve never sat so close to brilliant on a Tuesday night.

UPDATE: Chance is now fronting the Salem band Lust Wagon, which can find on MySpace.

I can think of no better band to be a part of the Cherry City Musical Festival than Mecca Normal — the Vancouver, BC – based folk rock duo whose voice is soft and mesmerizing like Salem’s cottony cherry trees but with a seering political edge worthy of Oregon’s state capitol.

Mecca Normal, which this year celebrates its 25th anniversary, takes the stage tonight at Willamette University’s Cone Chapel.

They are just one of 112 bands coming to town this weekend for the festival.

112!

At at On Friday at 1:00 pm, one half of the twosome,  Jean Smith, will present “How Art and Music Can Change the World”‘ at Willamette University’s Montag Den.

Smith, a brilliant indie promoter and book author, spoke with me  about how to animate a music scene ahead of the group’s big splash in Salem tonight.

DSS: What is the greatest challenge right now in creating  cultural revolution?

Jean Smith: Typically the voice of the activist — political and cultural — is a voice in opposition. How do we find a way to define and present ideas for progressive social change when we are essentially not in opposition? Why is the voice against easier to find? Someone said to me the other day that the vote for Obama was really a vote against Bush.

I think that creative partnerships are a viable way to remain inspired — there is be a built-in sense of accountability. Doing things differently is actually how change happens. Academic and author Howard Zinn has talked about this — how our individual actions multiply to create significant change.

Jean Smith: Since the current downturn in the economy, I have begun encouraging people to not succumb to fear which can lead to depression and a sort emotional of paralysis. Maintaining and inventing methods of being that include creativity, healthy living and community – as opposed to negative behaviors and isolation — are enactments of social change — rising to the challenge of surviving these times.

At this juncture — with recent optimism surrounding new leadership and chaos in the economy — there is a need for cultural and political activists to find new voices.

For a long time opposition has been our expression. Now, it seems like what arises from the decline of financial structures and lifestyles many thought of as stable, will be defined by complacency unless there is a sense that people want to re-structure rather than cobble back together the house of cards that capitalism proved to be.

As soon as the government used socialist methods to prop up capitalism, capitalism was over. What now? Capitalism is only a concept — one that didn’t work – based in everyone being entitled to take possession of goods and services and then refuse to pay for them. That’s called greed and f**king stupidity.

Capitalism is not intrinsically hinged to democracy. As a specie,s we will evolve beyond electoral politics and take more responsibility for our ways of being, encouraging creative communities and reciprocal relationships.