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BY JOHN GRAHAM
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Sky Cries Mary, Allon Beausoleil, DJ 3M Roseland Grill, 8 NW 6th Ave., 219-9929 8 pm Sunday, Feb. 7 $8.50 advance, $10 door To paint an abstract portrait of Allon Beausoleil would require a firm command of nuance and hue. Hot reds would slash through soothing blues, with ruddy browns bursting through delicate washes of near-invisible white. There would be misty impressionistic sweeps and sharp pointillist spots of piercing intensity. Above all, there would be a sense of contrast, of opposing tonal values leaning against one another in a tender balance of elemental simplicity--fire vs. water, earth vs. sky. This is, after all, a man who loves what he calls "the fantastic dichotomy and contradiction" of trying to open people up to new ideas by combining instruments simultaneously ancient (sitar) and futuristic (synthesizer). If you were to see him, with his multi-colored hair, double nose rings and a fringed '60s coat, you wouldn't guess that he's represented by the same music-industry law firm as Celine Dion, Van Halen and Third Eye Blind. He's the kid who listens to the oldies station but is more in tune with the music of tomorrow than some record-store employees are. It sounds like a complex intellectual conundrum, but it isn't. In fact, it's strictly a matter of broad tastes. "I just want to do everything I like," says Beausoleil, slumped comfortably in an easy chair. "I'm interested in so many types of music that I just can't help but do everything that I love." To properly represent this inclusive worldview, one corner of our musical portrait would display Allon on the sidewalk with his sitar, thoughtfully droning away. Trailing our glance across the canvas, we'd see him tweaking the knobs of his sequencer, pinching an electro-trance loop from the air and placing it alongside a funky beat. And in yet another corner, there's Beausoleil multi-tracking one of his psychedelic pop songs about turtles or falling in love with inanimate objects. With all these separate sights in one painting, is there any way a single observer can take it all in? So far, no one's been able to do it, but Beausoleil isn't too worried. "I like so much diversity [in audiences] that I couldn't really choose one in particular that I like best," he shrugs. "Like opening for Cornershop and the Dandys at LaLuna, which was sold out, as compared to playing for two hippies with a dog on Hawthorne--they're fully comparable." Perhaps one reason Beausoleil accepts so much sonic variety, slipping easily between the borders of the cliquey Portland scene, is that he was born 70 percent deaf. Excessive buildup of fluid in his young ears necessitated multiple surgeries involving the removal of his adenoids and temporary insertion of tubes in his aural canal. He doesn't remember the day when, at 31Ž2 years old, he heard fully for the first time, but, he says, "I have full remembrance of only hearing the sounds inside of my head for almost four years, only hearing the sounds of my heart pumping my blood. I thought it was soldiers." Today, similar sounds can be heard in his electronic compositions: Drum machines march sharply in step with the pulse of sanguine keyboards and a reverberating sitar. His is a unique quasi-psychedelic trip, but Beausoleil is quick not to take too much credit for the genius of his creations. He sees music as a continual movement in which everything is not only possible, but probable. He describes this theory of eventual invention as a "pregnant consciousness" that simply needs the right midwife to bring it out into the open. Unfortunately, many prefer to stay sheltered in the wombs of their chosen cliques; it's safe in those known environments. The problem is convincing them to leave their sanctuaries and learn to explore. "I think it's possible," Beausoleil says. "But it's something people can only do themselves, really. It's not like you can set out on a crusade.... Maybe people just need to go out and expose themselves to more music and art and cultures they aren't as familiar with. It might push their buttons or their boundaries a bit, and they'll open up." Obviously, this involves some risk. Although Beausoleil's surface persona is restrained and reflective--and he's a lover of nostalgic '60s pop--he's not afraid to go into unknown fields of inquiry. Unlike most transplanted ex-street musicians from Eugene, whose c'mon-people-now-smile-on-your-brother efforts at organic music never consciously ruffle any feathers, Beausoleil doesn't make blossomy background music for coffee shops and fern bars. Listening to his songs requires an active effort: Drugs are not required--active brain cells are. He also acknowledges that some may not like what he does. "I'm sure
there are some naysayers," he admits. "I think that's important. I don't
want to do something that's too smooth and non-offensive. If people
get offended, then I did my job. I'm not trying to offend people,
but I want to push them in one way or another."
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