7:30pm $12 Adv. / $15 Door All Ages until 9pm
Reb & the Good News is a Portland based funk-pop, world, and soul group that brings optimism to the dance floor. Catchy horn lines and sultry vocals soar over grooves that you can’t help but move to. The band is led by vocalist and guitarist Reb Conner, whose songs reach for hope in a world under pressure. Her songwriting influences span many genres including afrobeat, jazz, cumbia, reggae, r&b and country, and she uses genre as a tool to portray emotion. Reb believes that through feeling deeply and dancing together, we can face all that we’re up against in this life. She is supported by her creative partner, sax and keys player Leon Cotter, (a touring member of the California Honeydrops), as well as some of Portland’s heaviest hitters: Cyrus Nabipoor on trumpet, Ross Garlow on bass, Kirk Kalbfleisch on drums and percussionist Carmelo Torres on percussion.
Reb & the Good News released their debut album “Wings” on May 11th 2021. This album is a culmination of a lifetime searching for Reb’s own voice in music. At 19, her love affair with music began by playing songs around a beach fire in her coastal hometown of Lincoln City. During a subsequent trip to Europe with a guitar, jazz was the music that most spoke to her, and she returned to the States to pursue an education. Reb went to music school at the age of 21 not yet knowing a major scale. With a lot of catching up to do, her education lasted all of 7 years, starting at LCC and finishing at the University of Oregon where she focused on Jazz guitar. Reb left her last collaborative project, High Step society in 2018, and moved from Eugene to Portland ready to tell her own story and bring her own aesthetic to life.
Alder Street is boot-stompin’, gritty, and bourbon flavored. The band draws its inspiration from a variety of sources, evinced by original tunes that break the mold of traditional bluegrass, and reprises ranging from Iron Maiden to Bill Monroe.
The band first formed for a benefit show from a hodgepodge of musicians living in Eugene’s infamous Campbell Club Cooperative on Alder Street.Over the years Alder Street blossomed in Eugene's infamous local music scene.
Alder Street's latest album, Americannibal, was relased in May 2014 at Seattle Folklife. It has been described as "a tight, polished study on the frontiers of contemporary bluegrass" - Eugene Weekly
Alder Street's line-up consists of Chris Kelley (banjo), Jesse Lawton (mandolin), Aaron Nelson, (bass), Ian Royer (guitar), Emily West (drums) and Jake Beckwith (fiddle).