Nathan Weinbender

There are only three guys in Rags and Ribbons – guitarist Ben Weyerhaeuser, pianist Jon Hicks and drummer Chris Neff – but you wouldn’t know that from listening to their music. Like their main creative influence, Muse, the Portland band makes a lot out of a little, specializing in big, dramatic, harmony-heavy rock that sounds like it requires at least a dozen people to pull off. Weyerhaeuser and Hicks met in a choir class at Willamette University, eventually starting their own a cappella group, an experience he describes as “hilarious and cheesy.”

I was obsessed with the Pixies as a teenager. And I mean, really obsessed, as in no-other-bands-matter obsessed. I still vividly remember putting on their 1989 masterpiece “Doolittle” for the first time – hearing Kim Deal’s surf pop bass line on the album opener “Debaser” merge with Joey Santiago’s glossy, glassy guitar, only to be sliced up like so many eyeballs by lead singer Black Francis’ yipping and yowling. It was love at first spin.

This time last year, the organizers of Terrain were toying with the idea of expanding the event into something grander than a one-night-only art and music showcase. And now that plan is on the cusp of becoming a reality: Currently in its seventh year, Terrain has been uprooted and moved to a new location, which will, following tomorrow night’s festivities, begin its transformation into the organization’s permanent space. Terrain’s four main organizers – Luke Baumgarten, Ginger Ewing, Patrick Kendrick and Diego Sanchez – have been working tirelessly since getting the keys to their new home a few weeks ago. Long housed in the former Music City Building, 1011 W. First Ave., Terrain now will be headquartered at 304 W. Pacific Ave., next to the train tracks in a century-old building that was once known as the Washington Cracker Co. You may have noticed the painted mural on the highest point of the building – “Home of SnowFlake Saltines” – which currently reads, thanks to a carefully placed banner, “Home of Terrain.”

I was obsessed with the Pixies as a teenager. And I mean, really obsessed, as in no-other-bands-matter obsessed. I still vividly remember putting on their 1989 masterpiece “Doolittle” for the first time – hearing Kim Deal’s surf pop bass line on the album opener “Debaser” merge with Joey Santiago’s glossy, glassy guitar, only to be sliced up like so many eyeballs by lead singer Black Francis’ yipping and yowling. It was love at first spin.

Conor Oberst has always been closely associated with teen angst. He started writing and performing music before he was old enough to drive, and his songs relied heavily on detailed, heart-on-the-sleeve lyrics that read like (and probably were, at one point) dispatches from a high schooler’s notebook. If you were a young social outcast in the late ’90s or early ’00s, you likely found a musical ally in Oberst, especially in his popular solo vehicle Bright Eyes. Oberst is 34 and married now, and although his warbling vocal style is still unmistakable, his newest batch of songs sounds – somehow – more grown up, more fleshed out.

When Sebadoh formed in 1986, it was just two guys and a four-track recorder. Twenty-eight years and many lineup changes later, and the band has basically come full circle. Lou Barlow, who started the band as a side project from his influential alt-rock band Dinosaur Jr., likens Sebadoh’s most recent recording sessions to its earliest ones: It sounds slicker – they have modern technology to thank for that – but it’s still a DIY project. “We didn’t have an engineer (this time), which is kind of a huge difference, because you’re talking about creating your own environment,” Barlow said. “In a way, what we did was more similar to the stuff we were doing very early on.”

It’s amazing now to think that Elvis Presley was ever regarded with anything but blind adulation, but his appearance on “The Milton Berle Show” in 1956 (the first time many audiences became aware of him) famously caused a firestorm of controversy. You’ve no doubt seen the black-and-white footage of Elvis suggestively swiveling his hips to a half-tempo version of “Hound Dog,” a move that sent the audience of adolescent girls into a screaming frenzy. Parents were outraged, decrying Presley’s performance as the downfall of decency in America, and critics unsheathed their poison pens to lambaste the future icon for steaming up their TV sets.

Spokane Civic Theatre kicks off its newest season tonight with a production of “Fiddler on the Roof,” one of the most revered and oft-performed shows in Broadway history. Like Civic’s last season opener “Les Misérables,” this is a sweeping historical musical that nobody seems to tire of, and it will no doubt succeed in the hands of veteran director Troy Nickerson. Premiering in 1964 with Zero Mostel in the starring role, the original production of “Fiddler” won a whopping nine Tony Awards and became the first Broadway show to exceed 3,000 performances. It was later adapted into a hugely successful, Oscar-winning film that replaced Mostel with Israeli actor Topol, who then became a sought-after Hollywood property. Even if you’ve never seen a stage production of “Fiddler” (or if you’ve somehow avoided the movie), you’re more than likely familiar with the story and can hum most of its songs.

You never know what you’re going to get with Gov’t Mule. The group was started by guitarist and vocalist Warren Haynes, previously a touring musician with David Allan Coe and the Allman Brothers Band, in 1994, playing a rambling blend of Southern rock and blues that immediately struck a chord with jam band aficionados.

Right before George Thorogood hangs up the phone, he recites to me a short, simple credo that he’s no doubt been throwing around for years: “Rock ’n’ roll never sleeps. It just passes out.” It’s clear that Thorogood is the kind of artist who embraces and thrives on repetition and nostalgia. His work relies heavily on reheated blues licks and revved-up covers of rock and country standards, and he says that he doesn’t mind playing the same songs for crowds night after night.

In the world of ‘Frank,’ quirky is as quirky does

Putting on a production of “Les Misérables” is a huge risk, for a lot of reasons. First of all, it’s been performed countless times in various capacities, and most of us can recite the beats of its story by heart. And the scope of that story is immense, stretching the course of several decades in 19th-century France. It’s almost entirely sung-through, and most of the numbers are notoriously difficult. It requires many elaborate sets and costumes, and you need a huge cast to pull it off.

Considering how many classics they cranked out during their career, it’s kind of amazing that Creedence Clearwater Revival only recorded music together for five years. Between 1967 and 1972, CCR released one hit after another – “Proud Mary,” “Bad Moon Rising,” “Fortunate Son,” “Who’ll Stop the Rain,” “Down on the Corner” – that are still among the era’s most recognized and frequently played songs. “That was quite a rocket ride,” said the band’s original bassist Stu Cook of their career peak. “Things were happening extremely fast, so fast, in fact, that we really didn’t have a chance to appreciate it.”

Last year, Interplayers Theatre began its 33rd season with a production of the Neil Simon classic “Brighton Beach Memoirs.” Directed by Michael Weaver, the wistful period comedy centered on the eccentricities of the Jeromes, a tight-knit Jewish family scraping by in Depression-era Brooklyn. This weekend, Weaver returns, along with two members of his original cast (Nich Witham as Eugene and Samantha Camp as Kate), to the Jerome household with “Broadway Bound,” the third entry in Simon’s well-regarded trilogy. (They’ve skipped over the middle installment, “Biloxi Blues.”)