Oregon is untamed country, marked by rigidly parochial attitudes and self-absored hick-town pride. While best known for producing models of rectitude such as Senator Bob Packwood and Tonya Harding, this rustic backwater has become, of late, a spawning pool for a variety of snarling indie-rock cliques. Perhaps the most odly anomalous of them all is the Cherry Poppin' Daddies, a Eugene-based octet who've made a name for themselves by tearing through musical sets marked by furious bursts of ska, humping funk stews and brassy, intricate stabs at '40s swing. While it's surprising enough to learn that anyone in Oregon has heard of Duke Ellington at all, when a bunch of young, scroungy Oregonians cite him as an influence, it's little short of astonishing. And considering they they actually use the word "arrangement" when discussing their music, it's clear these Daddies are not only disenchanted with the three-chord-revolution routing that prevails up north, they also aspire to place felt musicality over didactic messagery. Will wonders never cease?

-- Johnny Whiteside