Joe Carducci's "David Lightbourne and Outlaw Folk in 70s Oregon" (Holy Modal Rounders, Clamtones, Hurley, etc.)

Joe has new article on the 70s Portland "Have Moicy!" "freak folk" scene told through the strange experiences of one late participant and acquaintance of his. Read it in the New Vulgate.

Anyone have other interesting stories about this scene and these people? Are there worthy heirs to their legacy working today?

This looks like a great read! Thanks.

Only had time to glance at this article at work; looks interesting!

I don't have a particularly interesting story, just that I saw Steve Weber and someone else (?) do a duet set at a tavern in Portland back in the 90s and it was great. I ended up mailing a cassette of "Good Taste Is Timeless" to him because he no longer owned a copy. He promised to trade me a board tape of the show that night, but never did.

Dunno about Weber, but Stampfel still shows up from time to time, and Hurley's put out albums in relatively recent times. Heritage-wise, try Drakkar Sauna. who are sort of in between the Rounders and the Everly Brothers, but with some calmly beyondo meditative lyrics and music going wherever it wants to (esp the part of their native Kansas with an evening view of Oz), on Jabraham Lincoln--that's the main album I'm familiar with, but they've got several others. Also, Couch Forts, whom I recently described on Rolling Country as something like "Hand-painted snapshots of neurotic erotic mythology, and here's a show preview I wrote:
The present incarnation of Columbus, OH-based cosmic folk voyagers Couch Forts began during a local power failure, and their voices, fiddle, guitar and kick drum always light up the dusty barefoot sky in our living room. Of course, that's just the beginning and end of all things great and small, including needs and wants. So they juggle the romantic friction and static of ewes and eyes, koala bears and elephant shoes, exploding moons and floating oranges, letters and neroves, into bio-electric music of the spheres and steers.

I think that Viking Moses carries on this tradition, to an extent.

Stampfel was in my town for a screening of the Rounders doc, he did a short set and warmed up with "Row Row Row your Boat" which made me happy.
I ran into him at a Jimmy Johns (think Subway but with a more pleasant but still sort of nauseating smell) but didn't have the guts to approach him.

A glitch re putting this into prev post, but here's a link where you can download a bunch of Couch Forts songs for free (or just stream, if you perfer). Some are tagged "Couch Forts", others "Sufferbaby", but they're all by CF, those are just the titles of EPs
http://www.thesixtyone.com/couchforts.html#/artist/couchforts/songs

Are there worthy heirs to their legacy working today?

Kevin Bingo has kicked around the Portland scene for a while, first with Golden Delicious and later with his own Bingo project. The debut is from 1998 I think and is really great.

very cool article, thanks for linking. I was just at the White Eagle a month or so ago admiring the old Rounders flyers framed on the wall.