Events

Aaron Gibson is a singer-songwriter who has been creating music since childhood. Through the course of three albums, twenty four videos and ten singles – Aaron Gibson has evoked emotion and captured the imagination of listeners with his deeply personal songs. 

The Middle Eastern Dance Guild of Eugene presents its 16th Annual Fall Festival, featuring guest artist Lebanese Simon!

Join us at Whirled Pies on Saturday, October 12 for a full day of festival dancing, shopping, live music, and our gala evening show headlined by Lebanese Simon.

Visit http://medge.org/fa2019/ for more information on performance signups and workshop registration.

This year’s Fall Festival will feature workshops and performances by the amazing Lebanese Simon!  Join us at WhirledPies Downtown on Saturday, October 12, 2019 for all-day dance performances, live music hour, Gala Evening Show, vendors and workshops. 

ABOUT OUR FEATURED ARTIST:
Lebanese Simon was born and raised in northern Lebanon. With a natural passion for cultural arts, he found himself drawn closer to dance. Simon has traveled internationally to teach, perform and learn, and has had the privilege to study with the legendary Amani of Lebanon, Yousry Sharif, Lubna Emam and Inspiring Caracalla Folklore Dance Teachers Sammy Khoury and Francois Rahme.

His style of Lebanese Folk Dabke is described as strong, captivating, and deeply heartfelt. Through oriental dance, Simon reveals his personal creative approach, drilling combinations with a focus on technique and rhythms. Most importantly, he focuses on executing the moves yet staying emotionally connected to the melody and the story line. His versatility in dance has brought him very close to the heart of a wide range of audience and followers around the world.

Since 2010, Simon has served artistic director and manager for the Al Awtar Zaffa Group based in Houston, Texas. He is also the Executive Producer and Artistic Advisor of the yearly Gulf Coast Raks (formerly the Houston Oriental Dance) Festival. Settled in Houston, Texas, Simon is a Structural Engineer and enjoys horseback riding and great long walks in nature.

MVisit http://www.lebanesesimon.com to learn more about this dynamic teacher & performer!

Mike Clark – Drums and Vocals

Anthony Forcellini – Guitar and Vocals

Ryan Galas – Bass and Vocals

Dylan Shock – Guitar and Vocals

Since their beginnings in 2003, Eugene’s Uncle Stumbles have grown beyond the “first impression” of their name… over ten years later, the name Uncle Stumbles reminds us that each of us stumbles and trips every once and a while-and your friends cover your back. Uncle Stumbles plays late ’60’s style rock and roll with an Americana tinge. An honest exploratory music that draws from influences as broad as Frank Zappa, to Stravinsky to the Grateful Dead, Uncle Stumbles continues to impress and win over crowds wherever they play. Uncle Stumbles plays to the moment, whatever that may be, often surprising themselves in the process.

Drummer Mike Clark cut his teeth playing in Eugene back in the 90’s. Clark is one of those rare drummers that plays to the front of the music ala Elvin Jones and the Meters’ Joseph Modeleste.
Drums are a solo instrument in Mike’s playing, the beat and groove are trusted and implied in this unique style.

Anthony Forcellini has written the lion’s share of original material for Uncle Stumbles. Forcellini studied saxophone for 13 years including studying at the Berklee College of Music in Boston before switching to guitar for the Detroit area band Resurgency in the late 1980’s. Anthony is also the lead guitar player in the Garcia tribute band Cap’n Trips.

Ryan Galas studied music at LCC as well as playing in Figure It Out and Innerstate. Ryan’s bass playing is heavy on “linear” line playing in the style of Phil Lesh. He also plays upright bass in the roots group the Wainwright Brothers.

Dylan Shock’s first word was guitar. He has been playing for over half his life, approaching a musical intuition and vocabulary of one much older than his years. He started performing publicly with Anthony Forcellini in the Americana duo Dylan and Anthony.

Over the years, members of Uncle Stumbles have opened for the Cast of Clowns, Clinton Fearon, George Porter, The Zen Tricksters, The Bridge, Jefferson Starship, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and Quicksilver Messenger Service. They have also been involved in fundraising for community radio stations KRVM and KSOW-LP. Come on down and visit everyone’s favorite uncle sometime. You never know what might happen.

Cascadia Subduction Zone and PNW: Beauty and the Beast

With Doug Toomey, PhD, Professor of Geophysics at the University of Oregon

October 10, 2019 | 6:30-8:30PM; Doors open @ 5PM | $5 Suggested Donation
 

The identity of the Pacific Northwest is rooted in its landscape and seascape. The beauty and natural bounty that defines our collective home also comes with risks — earthquakes, wildfires, landslides, floods, and volcanic eruptions — that pose threats to people, built infrastructure, and the economic vitality of the region. In addition to natural hazards, climatic changes are impacting the health of forests, the severity of wildfires, the quality and availability of water, and the impact of extreme weather events. How society understands, accepts, plans for and mitigates these hazards is vital to a resilient and prosperous future, not only for Oregon and the Pacific Northwest, but the entire Pacific Rim.

In this talk, geophysicist Doug Toomey will describe how onshore and offshore research using arrays of sensors improves understanding of the seismic hazard of Cascadia and illuminates the dynamic forces that shape the PNW landscape.  Prof. Toomey will also discuss how the tools used for basic science are being repurposed to early warning systems for earthquakes and wildfires – the ShakeAlert and ALERTWildfire programs.  This merger of basic and applied research is catalyzing public-private partnerships that underpin the emerging Internet of (Wild) Things.

Doug is a Professor of Geophysics at the University of Oregon, where he is the Director of the Oregon Hazards lab and principal investigator for the Oregon components of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, ShakeAlert, and ALERTWildfire. He is a pioneer in the use of ocean bottom seismology to explore tectonic plate boundaries and has led scientific expeditions in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Mediterranean oceans, the Galápagos Archipelago, and the Oman ophiolite.  On a stormy day in the North Atlantic, when the deployment of an ocean bottom seismometer went badly, Doug was able to prevent a shipmate from losing several fingers.  Over twenty years later, they have 3 wonderful children, a beloved dog, never enough bikes, and they explore the PNW in an 87 Westy that Doug pretends he knows how to fix. His kids have been heard to say, “if we’re not cold, wet, hungry, and stranded, it’s not really an adventure.”

Science Pub Eugene is a monthly event that is open to anyone and everyone. No RSVP or scientific background required. Just bring your curiosity, sense of humor, and appetite for food, drinks, and knowledge! For more information or to sign up for our mailing list, email: sciencepub@omsi.edu.

An All Ages Dance and Costume Party with attractions:
Meet the GREAT PUMPKIN
Costume Contests
Dance Contests
Family Friendly
Fortune Teller
Face Painting
PRIZES!!
— Dance Like Everybody’s Watching! —

Disco Dance with wild abandon, Find out your Fortune, Get your face painted like never before, and…can you win a dance or costume contest?
Plus…at the appointed hour…will you witness the Great Pumpkin rise from the pumpkin patch again this year? Will you?

This jam is open to all acoustic instruments. We play a mix of bluegrass, folk, blues, and all around acoustic Jam tunes. Come enjoy!

Seattle, Washington might not be the first place that comes to mind when you think of country-tinged acoustic music. Remember, though, the city was born as a timber town and gateway to the gold rush. Since the days of the old (north) west, the loggers, miners, and mariners that built this town would fill time between work putting their tales to music.

On his debut LP Scattered Poems, Alex Dunn stakes his claim as the latest in a long line of hard-worn men and women making American music in this northernmost port. Written primarily in the quiet moments on a commercial fishing vessel in Alaskan waters, the record is filled with reflections on the many iterations of that primary preoccupation of the truly remote. “As cliché as it may sound, the overarching theme of this record is love” says Dunn. “Each song might be its own story, but it always comes down to love; love for my mother, for my grandmother, love for my family. Love for lovers, unrequited love, and love purely for this simple chance at existence. As my mother always said, ‘to love and be loved is all there really is’ (which is now engraved on my guitar strap.)”

Dunn came to music via cello and flute while in primary school, and while in college he played bass in a band with drummer Alex Westcoat (Pickwick, David Bazan), Sam Esecson (producer and engineer on Scattered Poems) and Colby Sander (dobro, electric guitar on Scattered Poems). Done with school, Dunn embarked on a ten-year adventure in Alaska as a commercial salmon fisherman. He taught himself to play guitar as a way to keep music in his life while at sea. “I started writing songs to cope with the long days traveling on the boat and sitting on anchor in remote areas of Southeast Alaska” tells Dunn. “Most of the songs from Scattered Poems were written aboard the fishing vessel over the past five or six years.”

As fishing vessels tend to lack recording gear, Dunn pulled into port to track Scattered Poems at Sam Esecson’s basement studio in the Ballard neighborhood (appropriately, Fishermen’s Terminal in Ballard’s Interbay is home for hundreds of working fishing boats, including the ones that Dunn himself has crewed on). In addition to Dunn on vocals and guitar and Esecson on drums and percussion, the record features a host of prominent Northwest musicians: Eli West (electric guitar, pedal steel, banjo, vocals), Anna Tivel (fiddle, vocals), Birch Pereira (double bass), Colby Sander (dobro, electric guitar), Bennet Pullen (bass), Dan Rainard (electric guitar), Dean Schmidt (bass), and Kevin Suggs (pedal steel).

An elegant, bittersweet record, Scattered Poems is as tender as it is timeless. Its particular charms resonate across generations, and if you told me that this was a contemporary interpretation of a nineteenth-century songbook I’d believe you. Melodic sawdust and salt air, Scattered Poems breathes with a sense of place, yet is imminently accessible and speaks to the universal. Spend some time with it, and you’ll find yourself enchanted.