Music briefing

Published 12:00 am Friday, January 3, 2014

Allman tribute hits McMenamins

Here’s something different: Brothers and Sister is a Portland-based group that focuses mostly on recreating the Allman Brothers Band’s 1971 classic live album “At Fillmore East.” (The “mostly” part of that sentence is there because Brothers and Sister tosses in a handful of other “predominantly Duane-era” Allman nuggets as well, according to its website).

For those unaware, “Fillmore” is one of the greatest Southern rock records ever made; heck, Rolling Stone magazine called it the 49th greatest album of all time in any genre. It was also the Allman Brothers Band’s breakthrough, released three months before guitarist Duane Allman died in a motorcycle accident.

Anyway, if Brothers and Sister’s aim seems oddly specific, consider its members’ résumés and give ’em the benefit of the doubt. Rose City legend Lewi Longmire and Viva Voce’s Anita Lee Elliott handle the guitar duties, and they’re backed by an all-star cast of Portland players: drummers Matt Cadenelli (who has played with Fernando) and Ryan Spellman (Quiet Life, Denver), bassist Tim Huggins (Moody Little Sister) and keyboardist Steve Kerin (Atomic Gumbo).

It’s quite a crew! See if they do the Allmans justice Wednesday at McMenamins in Bend. Details below.

Brothers and Sister; 7 p.m. Wednesday; free; McMenamins Old St. Francis School, 700 N.W. Bond St., Bend; www.mcmenamins.com.

The Mentors set to offend at Big T’s

Let’s start this brief out by saying very clearly: The Mentors are not for most folks.

The long-running trio is one of the most notorious “shock rock” bands of the past 30 years, right up there with GWAR, G.G. Allin and Marilyn Manson. They started in Seattle playing a primitive mix of lumbering metal, punk-rock aesthetic and intentionally sexist and violent lyrics.

The Mentors soon moved to Southern California and began their rise thanks largely to media and government attention paid to shock rock in the 1980s. Mentors lyrics were read in a congressional hearing, and the band’s lead singer, El Duce, appeared alongside GWAR on Jerry Springer’s talk show. El Duce promoted The Mentors’ music as “rape rock,” which isn’t funny, of course, but it was most certainly a shtick, and he was doing it to get people riled up and attract attention to his band.

Anyway, El Duce was famously killed in 1997 when he was hit by a train, just days after telling a documentarian that Courtney Love tried to hire him to murder Kurt Cobain. The Mentors have carried on without him — they now call their music “anthemic porno metal” — to this day.

As mentioned, The Mentors are not for most folks. But they are for some folks, and here at GO! Magazine we try to write for all folks, including those who’ll see The Mentors tonight at Big T’s in Redmond.

The Mentors, with High Desert Hooligans, E.F.A. and The Confederats; 8 tonight; $5; Big T’s, 413 S.W. Glacier Ave., Redmond; www.reverbnation.com/venue/bigts.

Tom VandenAvond returns to town

Last week’s Larry and His Flask shows are now shrinking in the rearview mirror, but the ramblin’, road-warrior roots music continues Saturday at Pakit Liquidators with a show by Tom VandenAvond, a California singer-songwriter and Flask associate.

VandenAvond is a skilled maker of dusty, downtrodden alt-folk-blues songs about women, whiskey and wandering … and sometimes all three. He’s also blessed with a perfect voice for such a career: perfectly gritty, enough to give his hard-luck tales weight, but not so much that it hinders his ability to carry a tune.

VandenAvond’s fifth record, “You Oughta Know Me By Now,” features playing by Larry and His Flask, and some members of that band will back him on Saturday. Opening the show will be likeminded local blues-punk band Blackflowers Blacksun.

Tom VandenAvond, with Blackflowers Blacksun; 8:30 p.m. Saturday; $5; Pakit Liquidators, 903 S.E. Armour Road, Bend; www.riseupinternational.com.

— Ben Salmon