There should be a law, or at least one of those don’t-wear-white-after-Labor-Day social dictums that prevents any human, no matter how merry he or she happens to be, from publicly playing Christmas music until…how about, December 15? Yeah, that sounds about right, giving those who love jingling and/or belling 10 full days of sugary music before the actual holiday.

The current acceptable practice is to begin pumping these glittery sounds through the speakers of stores, restaurants and car stereos about 15 minutes after Thanksgiving dinner has been completed. This is akin to playing “The Monster Mash” beginning in late September until the last mini-Snickers bar has been handed out.

Rarely does one make it late in life without a positive attitude. Even rarer is not just “making it,” but flourishing as the member of a 72-year-old gospel band that remains a mainstay of its genre.

In 1939 at the Alabama Institute for the Negro Blind, a young Jimmy Carter (no, not that Jimmy Carter) befriended a few of his fellow students who were similarly passionate about music. They soon created The Blind Boys of Alabama, which has become an internationally renowned gospel group that’s played with everyone from Curtis Mayfield to Tom Waits and even Ben Harper.

When I talked to Carter from his home in Birmingham, Ala., last week, he was enjoying a quiet day at the house, a rare treat for the founding member who’s got to be near his 80s (he politely declined to answer when I said, “Mr. Carter, may I ask how old you are?”).

Age has affected neither Carter’s love of music nor his desire to continue touring. But just how does he do it?

Outside Lone Pine Coffee Roasters, two grown men are playing with a bullwhip. After every crack of the leather echoes through the chalked-up bricks of Tin Pan Alley, the guys laugh. I figure these bearded guys are living out a late-in-life Indiana Jones fixation, and I have no problem with this. But it turns out these two guys are James Adams and Bernie Diveley, the songwriter and drummer, respectively, of one of Bend’s most intriguing new bands, The Rural Demons.

We head inside where guitarist Casey Corcoran is waiting on a cup of coffee and backup singer Moss (no last name – “It’s just Moss,” she insists) is knitting a “took,” which is what she calls a beanie because she’s Canadian. Back behind the counter of the shop, Kaycee Anseth, also a singer in the band, prepares said coffee. But all talk quickly turns to the bullwhip. There are plenty of questions – namely: why the hell would two grown men and members of an act that’s tough to describe, but the band calls “roots music with an apocalyptic spin,” be so fixated on this whip?

Changing from one performance venue to another can be a tricky thing, even for the most experienced music impresarios. While they may make a site switch in order to offer their audiences a more quality experience, not all their patrons are sure a change of scene is always a good thing.

Such is the case with Jazz at Joe’s, the regular concert series originally held at Just Joe’s Music retail shop south of town, then moved to the Cascade Theatrical Company, and now based at The Old Stone Church.

The first change from store to stage went smoothly. Just Joe’s (the store) was simply too small to hold an expanding audience. The theater-to-church came when Just Joe himself, Joe Rohrbacher, decided the time had come to move on to other things and turned his concert series over to native Scot, local computer whiz, inventor and funk musician (with his band Raise the Vibe), Duncan McNeill.

The members of Orgone are in Las Vegas, which seems like it would be the perfect spot for an eight-piece, dancefloor-conquering funk and soul collective to play four consecutive nights of shows. Well, yeah, that hasn’t exactly been the case.

Sure, this Los Angeles-bred band likes to party, or at least provide the soundtrack for parties, but Vegas isn’t really their speed, guitarist and co-founder Sergio Rios tells me late on a Friday afternoon. Soon, they’d be heading down for their third night playing in a casino lounge, where he says the stage is tucked behind the bar and the management insists that even the band must obey a dress code that forbids the wearing of hats. The shows have been OK – not exactly as raucous as their typical performances – but Orgone is mostly enjoying the downtime in their high-rise hotel.