Rising pop-folk band Leslie & The Badgers at the Doug Fir this Tuesday

by Sam Sanborn on February 8, 2010

When you ask someone in Portland what music they listen to, more often than not you will get the same reply: “Pretty much everything, except country.”

Whether it’s culturally passé or whether it is just a widespread attempt to establish distance from one of America’s quintessential genres, this trend embodies a general inexperience with country and folk in their purest forms.

If you fall into this category, you could be missing out on something you might really enjoy. Luckily, there is a remedy.

The rising folk-pop band Leslie & The Badgers, with their canyon-country grace and sugary-sweet sonority, will be headlining this Tuesday at the Doug Fir Lounge. This group brings a true Americana style into the realm of folk-country, aptly dubbed “bourgeois country” by bassist Ben Reddell. Singer/guitarist Leslie Stevens, whose lyrics are so natural they often seem like spoken word, is warmly backed up by Redell, Travis Popichak (drums), Glenn Oyabe (guitar) and Charlene Huang (violin), who together create a straightforward literalism that is hard to ignore.

Listen to “Los Angeles”:

Leslie & The Badgers will be performing their latest LP, Roomful of Smoke, a tribute to the forest fires that ravaged parts of West Hollywood last year. For this album they teamed up with producer David Bianco, who is known for his work with Tom Petty and Bob Dylan amongst others, adding further credibility to their natural sound. Roomful of Smoke crosses the borders between traditional root-rock, country, folk, and Americana, creating tracks that are uniquely their own and are highly reminiscent of the esteemed producer they had the good fortune to work with.

Fittingly, local folk-rock favorites Quiet Life will be opening, yet another example of a group that blurs the lines between multiple genres, most notably indie-folk-Americana. If you are looking to open your eyes to a genre or two that you have written off, this would be the way to do it.

$8, 21+, Feb. 9, The Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E. Burnside, Portland, OR 97214, 503-231-WOOD

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Sam Sanborn

http://keysmelt.wordpress.com/ Sam Sanborn graduated with a B.S. in Political Science from the University of Oregon. After discovering the intricacies and internal workings of our political system, he decided to opt for a more creative track. While he has been published in a wide variety of magazines and journals for everything from poetry to science/tech reviews, Sam is happiest when writing about music in his beloved hometown.