Combining an array of influences including John Coltrane, Frank Zappa and DJ Logic, local band Eleven Eyes transforms a cornucopia of sound into infectious compositions that overwhelm the limitations of any single genre.
Even the CD player in their tour bus defies the trappings of a defining style, shuffling everything from classical jazz to death metal.
“We’re sponges, we just soak everything in,” said trumpet player and founder Tim McLaughlin, who describes the band’s sound as “mind-altering electro funk jazz.”
As their new album receives finishing touches, one of the area’s more eclectic and promising young bands is set to play back-to-back concerts beginning with an all-ages show 8:30 p.m. tonight at the WOW Hall, opening for Boulder, Colo.,-based band The Motet. Tickets are $10 in advance and $12 at the door.
Eleven Eyes will follow that performance with a show Friday at Luna, at 30 E. Broadway. The show starts at 9 p.m. and costs $7.
McLaughlin originally assembled the band in 2002 for his senior trumpet recital at the University. Hoping to show his professors the range of music he’d been experimenting with outside of school, he composed music for turntables, horns, guitars and drums. Gigs at local jazz clubs followed, along with a performance at the Eugene Celebration. The band never looked back.
“It was just going to be a recital,” said JD Monroe, who handles turntables and electronics for the band. “It just kind of evolved from there.”
Along with McLaughlin and Monroe, the current lineup includes Matt Calkins on saxophone, Mike Pardew on guitar, Steve Weems on drums and Dave Trenkel on bass and keys.
The band was barely together for a year and had just gone through a pair of lineup changes when it released its first album, “Depth Perception,” in the summer of 2003. McLaughlin said the band has toured relentlessly since then, allowing it to test newer material in front of live audiences while maturing as a group.
“We are more comfortable as a band,” McLaughlin said, adding that the group was slightly more individualistic early on but is now concerned less with getting each member a solo and more with playing cohesively.
The band members’ time on the road has also made them more s pontaneous and adaptive with each show.
“We don’t make set lists anymore,” McLaughlin said. “We feed off the audience.”
McLaughlin dismissed the notion that the band is consciously pushing the limits of any particular music style.
“We just do what feels natural to us,” he said.
Intentional or not, the music of Eleven Eyes probes a combination of jazz, hip-hop and funk to create something they can certainly call their own.
The otherworldly effects heard on their recordings show up in live performances. Even the drums can be manipulated during shows through Monroe’s turntable station.
McLaughlin said the band hopes to release its next album in June and plans to continue touring around
the Northwest.

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