Eugene musical ensemble Mood Area 52 performs a new soundtrack to Buster Keaton’s astonishing comedy Our Hospitality live at The Hollywood Theater, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd. Thursday, March 26.
Our Hospitality is their first feature length Keaton film and the soundtrack mines mid 20th century ragtime guitar music. Mood Area’s own original material is interspersed with the group’s unique arrangements of tunes by John Fahey, Reverend Gary Davis, Leo Kottke and others.
The movie is a satire of the Hatfield and McCoy family feud. Set in the Old South in the early 1800s, Keaton built a genuine replica of an early steam locomotive for the movie, the Stephenson Rocket and also the very first bicycle called a Gentleman’s Hobby-Horse. Keaton’s penchant for meticulous detail is also with the period costumes and the different kind of pistols used at the time.
The band’s unique Americana/Nuevo Tango performs at a wide variety of venues around the state, from Portland’s Secret Society and Crystal Ballroom to the Oregon Bach Festival. Mood Area 52 has staged original film scores for FW Murnau’s silent Nosferatu; The Triplets of Bellville; Sunset Boulevard; The Voyage to the Moon and numerous Buster Keaton shorts.
The evening features Billy Barnett on fingerstyle acoustic guitar, Amy Danziger on cello, Jeremiah Harris on upright bass, Michael Roderick on accordion, plectrum banjo, vocal and cornet, and Kee Zublin on tenor sax.
The group is presenting Keaton the next evening at the coast in Newport as well at Café Mundo, 209 NW Coast St. so let your coast friends know.
Better still: join em there.