Van collapse doesn’t keep band from tour dreams

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By Sean Moeller | Thursday, July 27, 2006 12:05 AM CDT | () comments

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Bright Red Paper performs tonight at Redstone Room, River Music Experience, Davenport.

A howling, “Nooooooooooo!” could be heard throughout the entire Mojave Desert this week.

The palms of hands thudding down onto a lifeless steering wheel might have joined the helpless cry, echoing out among the nothingness of oblivion and cacti.

Where the Portland, Ore., band Bright Red Paper lost a good van to natural causes was an uninviting place to spend any time in during the recent heat wave that made shadows and shade — still cooked up to Easy-Bake Oven temperatures — refreshing.

Here they were in 120-degree heat, with a van that had kicked the bucket, 60 miles from anywhere. A 90-minute wait for a AAA truck turned a simple nationwide tour into a real hassle.

“Our tow-truck driver, Jack, listened to our CD at full-volume on the ride back to Barstow (Nev.),” as band cellist Douglas Jenkins wrote on a tour blog hosted by hometown paper Willamette Week. “And, the next day, wearing a Bright Red Paper T-shirt, bought our completely out-of-commission van from us, while we rented two cars to continue the tour.”

Such glory and it was only week No. 1 for the predominantly instrumental band that fuses so much classical chop and so much arty, jazzy indie rock into an offering to unclassifiability.

The four friends, who started playing together as a group last May, work with many more globs of paint than a typical band. They can play coffeehouses, jazz bars, loud rock clubs and wine bars and never feel like a misfit.

“We’ve gotten some funny press in Portland about that recently,” Jenkins said Monday from the rental car. “They reviewed a show of ours and wrote something like, ‘I think that was the first time the band was paired up with bands that they should be paired up with.’ We get paired up with everything.”

It stems from the four individual parts that are singularly diverse, making a finished product that’s not homogenous, but a daredevil of styles. Jenkins came from a classical background — studying classical cello at the University of Hawaii for a year before getting burnt out on school and the island where he grew up. Guitarist Daniel Enberg was doing the indie rock thing, bassist Arcellus Sykes (originally from Keokuk, Iowa) was into jazz and drummer Eben Dickinson was a freak for reggae.

“I kind of knew right away that we’d be on the fast track to something good,” Jenkins said of the coagulation of influences and specialties. “Sometimes, we step on each other’s toes and we say, ‘Hey, you’re stepping on my toes,’ but most of the time, we try to make space for each other when we’re trying new things.”

One particularly memorable wine bar experience came at The Sapphire Hotel in Portland, once a traveler’s hotel and a brothel. An ominous sky leant a texture that accentuated their set.

“The whole sky turned an apocalyptic red — an endtime red. It was perfectly matching what we were playing,” Jenkins said. “I think everyone was thinking, ‘Are we in the promised land?’”

Sean Moeller can be contacted at (563) 383-2288 or smoeller@qctimes.com.

Bright Red Paper w/Rosalee Motor Revival and Quiet Bears

When: 8 p.m. today

Where: The Redstone Room, 129 Main Street, Davenport

How much: $5

Information: (563) 326-1333