The Pistol River Concert Association is pleased to announce the appearance of Red Molly on Saturday, January 12, 2013, at 8 pm at the Pistol River Friendship Hall.

Americana trio, Red Molly, has been bringing audiences to their feet with gorgeous three-part harmonies, crisp musicianship and their warm, engaging stage presence since 2004.  The band consists of Laurie MacAllister (vocals, guitar, banjo), Abbie Gardner (vocals, guitar, dobro, lap steel guitar), and Molly Venter (vocals, guitar).  They perform original works composed by each of the group members, as well as covers of other songwriters including Hank Williams, Gillian Welch and Ryan Adams.  Their enthusiastic fans are known as “Redheads.”

Red Molly was formed late one night at the 2004 Falcon Ridge Folk Festival.  Three solo singer-songwriters were the last ones left at a song circle; they liked the way they sounded together and decided to form a band.  The name Red Molly is taken from a character in the RichardThompson song, “1952 Vincent Black Lightning.”

From the very start, the trio got attention with their lively, engaging stage performances.  They have performed on NPR’s Mountain Stage, prestigious festivals throughout the country and last year they were invited to open multiple shows for music legend Willie Nelson.

Tickets are $15.00 and are available at Wright’s Custom Framing in Brookings and at Gold Beach Books in Gold Beach.  Tickets may also be reserved online at www.pistolriver.com or by calling 541-247-2848.

Tickets now available to the public! Singer-songwriters Stephanie Bettman and Luke Halpin will combine their award-winning fiddle playing and lyrics with mandolin and guitar skills to create original folk, Amer icana and bluegrass during a Stagelights House Concert in Harbor on Wednesday, Oct. 10.

Tickets are $10 and seating is limited to 45 people. Tickets can be purchased at the Curry Coastal Pilot, 507 Chetco Ave. For more information, call 541-469-3123. The intimate concert will take place at the Chetco Cove Yacht Club, 16333 Lower Harbor Road at the Port of Brookings Harbor. A potluck with the artists begins at 6 p.m. Music begins at 7 p.m.

More info at www.stagelights.us

A portion of the ticket sales benefits Stagelights’ “Music in the Class” program.

Doors open at 8 p.m. and tickets are $8 for adults, $5 for 18 and younger. Tickets are on sale now at the theater box office.

The name Robert Wynia may be familiar to fans of Floater, a nationally recognized rock band with numerous top-selling albums, two Grammy Award nominations and mulitple sold out performances at the West Coast’s larger venues.Wynia is touring Oregon and California in May to support his solo album, Iron By Water.

According to the band’s website the band “create an atmosphere of open plains, shadowed woods and remote towns, and fills those landscapes with hook-laden melodies of obsession, love and hope for redemption,” according to a press release.It’s hard to label the band’s style. Songs on the band’s website at www.robertwynia.com include elements of alt-country, blues and rock, blended with a dash of the dramatic, ala Pink Floyd or The Doors (at times Wynia’s voice sounds eerily similar to Jim Morrision or Roger Waters).

Wynia has been voted “Favorite Male Performer” three different years in Eugene, and received “Best Male Vocalist” at the 2011 Portland Music Awards. Brookings is the band’s fifth’s stop in an 11-show tour that starts May 6 and ends May 16.

The Brookings show will open with Moonspoon, a local acoustic-jam trio featuring the singer/songwriter Luke Mathison, guitarist Jake Barttain and percussionist Keven Hutman (of Slow Children).

Brookings favorite rock group Slow Children – Caleb Moffit, Bryan Bacci and Keven Hutman – will play an acoustic set of their melodic reggae-rock originals. Slow Children has performed alongside Floater for many years in such venues as the Crystal Ballroom, The Rogue Theater and the House of Blues, but this is the first time musicians have played on the same stage in Curry County.

“We invited Rob and his band to play Brookings hoping that the success of Floater will bring out fans from within and around the community,” said Hutman.

Following Slow Children,   rastafarian-style acoustic singer/songwriter Even Dunn will take the stage performing under the name   Sequoyah Oregon.

Robert Wynia:

Slow Children:

Cousin Elmo, left, and Rapp Brush

The band Jurassic Country, aka Brookings musicians Rapp Brush and Cousin Elmo, play vintage country and swing music – the kind that artists Buck Owens, Ernest Tubb, Gene Autry, Patsy Cline and Johnny Cash would approve.

The duo is finding that plenty of folks in the area love that style of music, too.

“This is stuff you’re not going to find on the radio – the good stuff,” said Rapp, 69, who sings and plays a 295 Epiphone, a guitar that is no longer made and is known for its “vintage” tones.“People are starving for this kind of music,” he said.

To prove it, Cousin Elmo, 64, uses the fingers on his hand to tick off the duo’s upcoming performances – one, two, three, four.

“We play about four gigs a month, and that’s just by word of mouth,” said Cousin Elmo, who is equally adept at playing 1976 Fender bass as he is six-string guitar.

The duo has played as many as 15 times in one month.The pair can be seen playing in the region at farmers markets, arts walks, local bars and the Brookings Elks Lodge. They play for free at local care facilities and are hired for private parties.

“People hear us at a gig and say ‘Hey, we want you to perform at our birthday party or retirement party’,” Rapp said.

The band’s image matches their vintage country music. Both don black cowboy hats, black jeans with large, shiny belt buckles, and striped Western style shirts and vests. Brush is the clean-shaven one, while Elmo sports a gray beard that sweeps down over the front of his wide collar. One expects them to mosey off into the sunset on their horses, strumming their guitars and singing.

Cousin Elmo says every performance is “like playing for your family. “It’s back porch music, like you’re at a family reunion,” he said. “People know the words and sing along.”

In fact, the pair recognizes many familiar faces in the audience whenever they perform.

“We have a very loyal fan base who have really turned into a family of about 30,” Rapp said.

Rapp performed publicly for the first time at age 21 in 1964 at an open mic night in the San Francisco area of North Beach. He was told by the club owner that if he would learn to sing using a microphone he would have a job.

“I didn’t follow through on that but, three years later, I started singing and playing guitar with bands in bars and clubs in southern Colorado and Wyoming,” he said. “The people in the mining camps were so starved for music that they would pass the hat around beyond the contracted (playing) time of 2 a.m. The bands would play until near sunup.”

Rapp, who’s retired, said he’s worked nearly 30 different jobs in his life, from selling vacuum cleaners to driving trash trucks to selling real estate. “I always took jobs that allowed me to play music on the weekends,” he said.

Cousin Elmo started playing music when he was a child, first with piano and then moving onto bass and acoustic guitar. As a young man in San Francisco, he played in several bands that opened for several well-known 1960s country and rock bands. (He refused to drop names).

He joined a touring band that took him south to Mississippi, Alabama and eventually Minnesota, where he lived for a few years before moving to the Rogue Valley and joining the Bandanna Band. In 1987, Cousin Elmo moved to Brookings, where he joined one of Rapp’s bands, which played gigs in Coos Bay, the Rogue Valley and Eureka, Calif.The pair played together in various country and rock  cover bands, but when the last band dissolved in 2002, the two decided to continue as a duo. The called themselves Jurassic Country, based partly on their advanced age and their shared love of vintage country music.

“It just seemed like the natural thing to do,” Cousin Elmo said.

They quickly realized that the style of music they love to play had many devoted fans in the region – and those fans are “not all old people,” Cousin Elmo said.

“When we play venues such as the farmers market at the port or at Harris Beach campground during the summer, you see the young people enjoying themselves,” he said. “That’s what makes it all worth it.”

Rapp is quick to credit the songs they play.“It’s purely the repertoire. People relate to the music; it’s what they grew up listening to.”

The San Francisco-based all-women rock/folk group Blame Sally, which stole the hearts of South Coast residents last year, will return to the Pistol River Friendship Hall on Saturday, March 24. Tickets are $15.

The band’s popularity has soared since their last visit, performing at the Great American Music Hall, taping a PBS special, and appearing on Mountain Stage. They are now touring to support their latest CD “Speeding Ticket and A Valentine,” which debuted at No. 38 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart, and hitting No. 16 on the Americana radio charts.

This show will definitely be a sell out, so get your tickets early. Tickets are available  at Wright’s Custom Framing and Art Supplies in Brooking,s and Gold Beach Books in Gold Beach. Tickets may also be reserved online at www.pistolriver.com or by calling 541-247-2848. A $5 student discount or refund is available at the door with student identification.

PISTOL RIVER – The Pistol River Concert Association presents Special Consensus at 8 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 14, at the Pistol River Friendship Hall, 24252 Carpenterville Road.

Special Consensus is a four person acoustic bluegrass band that began performing in the Midwest in the spring of 1975. In 1984, the band initiated the Traditional American Music Program in schools across the country and began appearing on cable television and National Public Radio shows. As a result, the band has been featured in cover stories in Bluegrass Unlimited in 1998, 2005 and 2010 and several of the band recordings have received Highlight Reviews and appeared on the National Bluegrass Survey chart in that publication. In November 2003, Special Consensus received a standing ovation after the first band performance on the Grand Ole Opry at Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium. International tours have brought Special Consensus to the United Kingdom, Canada, Europe, Ireland and South America.

Tickets are $15 and available at Wright’s Custom Framing and Art Supplies in Brookings and Gold Beach Books in Gold Beach. Tickets may also be reserved online at www.pistolriver.com/tickets or by calling 541-247-2848. A $5 student discount or refund is available at the door with student identification.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMPYikmKHIU

www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6QKUTB81DE

Sol Flamenco

PISTOL RIVER – The Pistol River Concert Association presents Mark Taylor  with Terry Longshore and the Sol Flamenco Dance Company for two shows at the Pistol River Friendship Hall, 24252 Carpenterville Road.

Shows will be at 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 19, and 3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 20.Tickets are $15 and are available at Wright’s Custom Framing and Art Supplies in Brookings, The Book Dock in Harbor and Gold Beach Books in Gold Beach. Tickets may also be reserved online at www.pistolriver.com/tickets or by calling 541-247-2848. A $5 student discount or refund is available at the door with student identification.

Classical and Flamenco guitarist Mark Taylor is an international recording artist and performer. He was already a professional classical guitarist when he began traveling to Spain in 1987. He studied flamenco guitar in Granada, Sevilla and Jerez de la Frontera and Madrid. He returned to the United States to form the Aire Flamenco Dance Company and  The Mark Taylor Flamenco Quartet. He has performed as a soloist in Spain and the United States and appears regularly as featured artist with the Sol Flamenco Dance Company and The San Francisco Bay area’s Potaje ensemble, directed by Chus Alonso. He has also collaborated with Francisco Gaona’s stage productions of Romanceros Gitanos, Cante Jondo and Cantares by Federico Garcia Lorca.

Liz Bortolotto began her life as a flamenco dancer in 1999. Since then, she has danced professionally with Sol Flamenco, Mark Taylor Flamenco, Flamenco Arts, and Los Cuatro Vientos.Bortolotto trained primarily with Jose Galvan of Sevilla and artists Yaelisa, Emmy winning choreographer and dancer; Carola Zertuche; and Elaine Marlow. She has also studied with traveling artists such as Antonio Granjeros, Belen Maya, Pastora Galvan and Joaquin Ruiz. She recently returned from Spain where she studied with Flamenco dance teacher Manuel Betanzos.Joelle Gonzalves – performer, teacher, and co-director of Sol Flamenco – has performed throughout the West Coast with a variety of flamenco companies including Aire Flamenco, Los Cuatro Vientos, Flamenco Puro, Flamenco Arts, and was a featured soloist in Yaelisa’s Noche de Amor.

Gonzalves’ attraction to the art of flamenco began more than a decade ago while she was earning her degree in art history. This led her to Sevilla, where she began her professional dance training with Maestro Jose Galvan. She has studied with flamenco artists Joaquin Ruiz, Concha Vargas, Angel Munoz, and Antonio Granjeros. She travels to Spain annually to study with Manuel Betanzos and receives private dance training and coaching with Yaelisa in the U.S.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNBE9COh7GM