Like all truly great stories, STEREO SALEM started with a simple idea.  To create a compilation that would celebrate the purity, excitement, and diversity of “local music”.  To Culture Shock, community is king, and there is nothing that beats more strongly within a vital community than its art and culture. Local music, still pure and organic, exemplifies a community’s heart and pulse, infinitely tied to the people and the region.  The music and art that a community creates, says a lot about the people who live there.  And to tell this story of the flavor, flair, and fire of a local music scene, we chose a seemingly unlikely protagonist: Salem, Oregon, including the surrounding cities that make up the Mid-Willamette Valley region.

And this is the story you now hold in your hands.  Insert the CDs into your player, and you will hear a true legend being told. You will hear an array of incredible, spirited, powerful music.   There is nothing I can say about how great this music is that you will not be able to hear with your own two ears. 

But this is merely part of the tale, for it is the story behind this great music that makes it even greater.

You see, there are those who, upon seeing this compilation, might wonder why Salem would garner such a celebratory collection.  After all, Salem is somewhat of an overlooked little sibling, standing under the shadows of two big, popular brothers, Portland and Seattle. Even our twin-sister Olympia (Washington’s Capital City) has been imbued with what can only be called “hip-chic”, and our cousin Eugene is almost legendary for its “earthy goodness”.  Surrounded by so many “spotlights”, Salem’s music is sometimes easy to disappear into the shadows of anonymity. 

But this seeming deficit is, in fact, Salem’s strength.   After all, spotlights of this kind tend to “define” a scene by stricter and stricter parameters. “Scenes” (local music regions with a certain ‘high intensity) have a tendency toward expectation and definition which tend to infuse the talent within them with particular “flavors”.  Rock journalists, both local and national, love to define a “hot music community” by their “sound”, be it the Manchester, Austin, New York or Seattle “sound”. However, for Salem, standing outside these very defined spotlights is exactly what has allowed the music to blossom in such creative and diverse ways.  For the Mid-Valley artists, having fewer specified expectations lauded upon it means having far more sovereignty and freedom to explore their creativity without limit.

This has sparked Oregon’s Mid-Valley to be home to one of the most exciting, dynamic, kinetic, varied and even addictive music scenes I have personally ever experienced. The music is sparkling, inspired, and potent; the performers are energized and full of life; the sounds and genres are wide-reaching and complex. 

In other, less pedantic words, it’s very very cool.

Moreover, it is also a young, burgeoning scene still on the rise, still seeking to find itself, and in the process, budding with so many diverse voices of brilliance and exuberance. The areas musicians have an independence to lead their passion for their muse in whichever direction it may lead.  It is in this spirit that a bluegrass group and a sonic-punk group can both thrive within this diverse musical audience, and be equally appreciated. 

Which, I imagine, is also why the music in Salem is so unflinchingly diverse. There is no “Salem Sound”. Yes, while Salem does have a storehouse of incredible artists in the rock, indie and singer-songwriter genres for which the Northwest is so well-known, Salem boasts talent in nearly all genres that span the airwaves.  Between hip-hop and trance, punk and metal, new age and jazz, Salem claims talent in all these arenas.  We have traditional Celtic, bluegrass, Latino, choral, experimental, shoegaze, harp guitar, psychadelica, garage rock, psychobilly, Sierreño, roots, blues, funk, and of course what we can only define as “unclassifiable.”  The Salem Sound is much like a Seurat painting, colorful, textured, and complete from far away, but made up of small, independent, differing points of vibrant color.  It is it’s variety that defines it.

It is, in many ways, the purest kind of local music community: one where everything gets out of the way of the creativity and innovation that is inherent within a true musician. It is not to say that the scene is static or the fans ambivalent; quite the contrary. It is just that there is no prerequisite to create music here. The strength of the “Salem Sound” is that there is no sound. It simply stands aside and lets the artists pursue whatever course their inspiration may take them. 

There is one and only one requirement:  You just have to deliver. 

Which brings us all the way back to STEREO SALEM.

This compilation is a celebration of what a few already know, and what many more will be pleased to discover.  As the subtitle to this CD says, this is truly Amazing Music from Oregon’s Mid-Willamette Valley.

However, having said that, this project is not a “Best Of Salem” collection.  In fact, it is merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg. (Icebergs, for audiences in the future, were large chunks of ice that used to float in the colder regions of the ocean before they all melted.) STEREO SALEM is a primer; a representation of a much larger pool of creativity.  There are so many more great artists and musicians in the Mid-Valley that we simply did not have space to include. So, we hope that by creating this disk of 40 amazing songs from equally amazing artists, you will get a sense of the near limitless talent and excitement that is brewing here in our Mid-Valley scene.   Karen, Dayna and I believe that, when you hear this, you will be intrigued and impressed and absolutely unable to rest until you hear more.

Most of all, we hope you will love the music.  We hope, in fact, that you will love the music as much as these artists love creating it, because in the end, that is what music should be; a direct relationship between creator and audience. Forget money or fame, hype or buzz.  Forget attitudes and personalities and styles.  Just open yourself up to the music itself and connect with it.   In many ways, this is the greatest asset of any local scene: that you can connect so directly and unabashedly without all the corporate mass marketing getting in the way.  It is YOUR music, a part of your community. So, just sit back and get caught up in it.  I assure you, you will not be let down.