Sideshow Project from Grants Pass @ Club 66 in Ashland, Oregon
I went to my first show at the new Club 66 last night. My take is that Club 66 is the best venue for live music in Southern Oregon, period. The sound, lighting, and stage are all superior to other live houses in Ashland, Medford, and Grants Pass. If you ever went to Stillwater and found it to be too dark and/or too difficult to get near or see the stage, you’ll want to see the improvements that have been made to the Club 66 version of the place.
As you can tell, the members of Sideshow Project rotated instruments and vocal duties like they were playing musical chairs.
With no alcohol (yet) at Club 66, the place is very kid friendly
A friend was telling me that I would like Major Jones after happening upon them at Roscoe’s BBQ in Phoenix (between Ashland and Medford) one evening. So last night we headed up old Highway 99 to check them out. By the time they played Black Sabbath’s “Fairies Wear Boots” (about their fourth or fifth song of their nearly three hour set) I realized I had a new favorite local band to follow. Their original songs sounded great, and they covered Robin Trower, The Ramones, Cliff Burton-era Metallica (twice), Radiohead, AC/DC, and Motorhead.
(from left to right) Skinny, Matt, Travis, and Kelly of Major Jones
I had given up hope of recording video with a DSLR when the results from my D7000 were so underwhelming. I heard bad things about the audio with the D600 so I hadn’t even bothered to try. However, last night, just for kicks since I could set my camera on a table, I tried taking a couple of short video clips with the default settings and no external mic. The results came out better than my D7000 with an external mic! So now I have to consider actually trying to take decent videos with my Nikon D600 using something better than the default settings and with an external microphone.
Adrian Conner of Hell’s Belles doing Angus Young on her Gibson SG guitar
While in Eugene, I attended the Hell’s Belles and Zepparella show at the historic McDonald Theatre. There was no photo pit which made photography a challenge even with my photo pass. I’ll post some more photos from the show of Hell’s Belles here.
Wednesday night Witch Cult opened for a couple bands (Love Songs From the Hated and The Delta Halos) that I didn’t hang around for at Musichead in Medford. Witch Cult has a new drummer now, and the corpse paint is gone, but they still sound great. They are playing again Saturday night, December 1, at Musichead. The show is supposed to start at 5, but Core System Failure is opening for them so don’t expect Witch Cult to be on stage before 6.
