3 HAND STEPHEN
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  • The Baggy Red Pants and Other Stories show at the Rose City Book Pub

Welcome!  Hear music and see videos of 3 Hand Stephen and his band, The Tree People, and more!

listen to Stephen's newest song below, and on Spotify and Bandcamp:  I'd like to be happy                                   
see lyrics at I'd Like to be happy
above: Stephen performs his song Thomas live in concert at the Haven in Portland with his band, The Tree People.
  above: Stephen's song about Portland, Oregon's beautiful bridges.  photos- Leena LaVerne  drawings- Stephen Cohen 
                                                     below: Stephen and friends perform at the Rose City Book Pub
                                       If That's Entertainment
from the Human Voices album, originally released in 1984 as a cassette and reissued by Guerssen Records of Spain in 2009 as a vinyl record and CD
                                        above: Stephen performs at home with his 1 string thing instrument
                                     

                                                 below, 2 new recordings: Bridges of This Town and Why oh Why?
                         above: Stephen performs at the First Congregational Church in Natick, Massachusetts 

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Stephen performs on the West Coast with cigar box guitar and performs on the East Coast with piano virtuoso Joel Martin 
                                           
​                                                 below, 2  songs:       We Repeat Ourselves   and    Dollar Sign Blues                                      
                  Listen to We Repeat Ourselves on Spotify                                    Listen to Dollar Sign Blues on Spotify          

The Tree People, Stephen's band, are back! 
And happy to releaseThe Return of The Tree People 
click here to purchase the CD or cassette and click here to order the hardcover book of  lyrics, drawings, photos, written music, and stories about The Tree People. Download the album on Bandcamp  Listen to it on Spotify  below, the 1st 3 songs: 

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​The Closing List was published in the premier poetry magazine, Rattle. Click here to see the poem and hear Stephen read it.

3 Hand Stephen's new hardcover book, Baggy Red Pants and Other Stories, features short stories, poems, lyrics, and visual art. click here to order your very own copy!

Lyrics of The Closing List, Thomas and Let's All Root for the Home Team, and the title piece, Baggy Red Pants, are in the book.
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      book front and back cover drawings by Stephen Cohen                 

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Thomas is on the Human Voices album, recorded with Stephen's band             Let's All Root For The Home Team is on Stephen's The Three-Handed Man album   The Tree People in 1984 and reissued by Guerssen Records in 2009                 and on his real life and fiction album, inspired by real life experiences.               
                           3 Hand Stephen makes it rain with the help of rain ensembles playing his homemade instruments.
above:  Stephen performs WE REPEAT OURSELVES  with Maeve Stier and Dune Laila            Stephen performs at the Fountain Series                                          
 above: Tree person 3 Hand Stephen's song Breathing with the Trees is featured in a video created by tree person Rich Hinrichsen. 

below:  Breathing with the Trees 2023 Earth Day concert at Alberta Abbey 
below: The full KEYS FOR HOOPS benefit concert for the Natick,Massachusetts girl's high school basketball team (my son Oryx is the coach. Joel Martin- piano; 3 Hand Stephen- voice and guitar They traded sets and then closed with a set playing together.

below: Stephen's song Love, Love, is performed by the 2020 Be About Love Festival performers Stephen Cohen, La Rhonda Steele, Nicole Campbell, Christopher Shotola-Hardt and Terry Robb at the Blackfish Gallery in Portland.




​Where Do We Go?
features 2017 Music OMI fellows Stephen Cohen- voice and cigar box guitar, Yuan-Chen Li- piano, and Alberto Novello- electronics recorded at the Ghent, New York Art OMI Barn by Alberto Novello

photos are from Stephen's 2017 deFeniks Art Center residency in Mortsel, Belgium and 2017 Music OMI residency in Ghent, N.Y.


Where Do We Go? by 3 Hand Stephen
is available as a physical vinyl album
and a downloadable digital album follow Stephen on Bandcamp  listen to the album on Spotify
above: Ally the Cat features Stephen on voice and cigar box guitar                       above: Stephen honors Fred the pug using his 1 String Thing instrument.        
PictureStephen with his guitar and "sculptural percussion" instrument in the cover photo for his digital album, "The Three-Handed Man".

The Three-Handed Man has 5 reissued songs from the 1988 cassette of the same name. It was recorded by Doug Daniels in his Eugene, Oregon home studio way back when, and features Stephen Cohen- voice, acoustic guitar, and his original sculptural percussion instrument, with guest appearances by James Thornbury- harmonica on "The Dusty Old Freight Train", Joe Kasik- bamboo flute on "New England Leaves", and Kate Waterbury- voice on "This is a Test". Sadly, everyone involved in the album but Stephen has passed away in the last 11 years. They are all dearly missed.  download the album on Bandcamp  listen to the album on Spotify
above:  Stephen plays his original, homemade 1 String Thing instrument                above: musical sculpture and spoken word by Stephen. cameo by Ally the Cat
            above:  Stephen performs with pianist Yuan-Chen Li and vocalist Maeve Stier at the Classic Pianos Recital Hall in Portland, Oregon in 2018                                                                                                                                                                       
below:  What's Wrong  on miniature guitar        The Road West on acoustic guitar      below:  Read the lyrics and hear the original version of Stephen's song, 
 Atomic Clock  voice and cigar box guitar                  with Yuan-Chen Li on guqin:                                        Miniature Planet,   written during the 2016 election:                                                      
What's wrong, what's wrong with us people? Why do we hate, why do we make the same mistakes? Why does push come to shove, why can't we love?
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Stephen with Yuan-Chen Li at the Grant Street Studio in Portland.
​Stephen talks about 2 of his instruments and plays A Pug Named Fred and Interplanetary Chatter at the close of the Music OMI
Guerilla Improvisation Concert at the Basilica in Hudson, N.Y. :
Above: Stephen performs What Now? on               and the King of 1 String on
his original 
homemade musical sculpture          his 1 String Thing  instrument.                      
Miniature Planet                                                                                by Stephen Cohen                                      I saw a miniature planet, slowly spinning around,  I saw a miniature planet, slowly spinning around, with miniature sights and miniature sounds and miniature cities and miniature towns and miniature people with miniature brains and miniature cars and miniature trains and miniature houses and miniature planes and miniature clouds with miniature rain and miniature rivers and a miniature sea and a miniature forest with miniature trees. 
I saw a miniature planet, slowly spinning around,  I saw a miniature planet, slowly spinning around, with miniature sights and miniature sounds and miniature cities and miniature towns. There was a miniature election, with miniature selections and miniature choices with miniature voices in a miniature debate, with miniature candidates,  with miniature platforms and miniature stands and miniature minds with miniature plans. 
I saw a miniature planet, slowly spinning around, I saw a miniature planet, slowly spinning around, so I'm singing this song with my miniature guitar, and here we are. 
Ride the Train from Here was the closing piece of the 2017 Music OMI Concert in the Fields. Music OMI is an international artist residency, and Ride the Train from Here features Stephen with artists from Peru, Nigeria, United Kingdom and Germany:
Stephen composed Garden of Bees on a beer-can guitar he made as an Artist in Residence in Belgium, and later created this video: 
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Stephen used a beer can from a local Belgium beer for his hand-made beer-can guitar.
He composed the piece in a studio overlooking the bees, performed it in concert, then recorded it back in Portland.
above:  recorded at Stephen's residency at Jack Straw Studios in Seattle

Below: Stephen plays at the C.B. Gitty Juke Shack Stage in New Hampshire in 2017:                         Below: Ride the Train with Stephen on cigar box guitar:      
 below:           Stephen's first album, The Tree People, recorded in 1979 in a studio in the woods near Eugene, Oregon
                         and reissued in this century by record companies in Japan and Spain.        cover drawing by Stephen Cohen
      Stephen Cohen-voice and guitar, Jeff Stier- recorder, percussion and voice,, Rachel Laderman- flute, James Thornbury- electric bass, guitar and voice.         
​  Below: music videos created by Stephen with songs from the 3rd Tree People album, It's My Story: Legends of the Tree People and Living with the Animals:
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​30 YEARS AGO acoustic 
guitar with Oregon high desert sounds is an album of solo acoustic guitar pieces originally recorded by Stephen for The Golden Desert, a New Directions "enviromusic" cassette produced by Diz Greer in 1990, which features Stephen playing acoustic guitar and percussion, with Oregon high desert sounds recorded by Diz Greer.  download 30 YEARS AGO at Stephen's Bandcamp page
Stephen created this short film/music video/work of art, the Cistern Symphony, at Fort Worden, Port Townsend, Washington in 2012, with a team of musicians and artists during his Centrum residencies. It was shown at the AVI Festival in Jerusalem, Israel in December of 2016.
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click to see and hear:  

Stephen leading the parade at the Wilsonville Festival of Arts, playing a Khaen, a Thai mouth organ, while artist and educator Angennette Escobar plays Stephen's homemade gong. 

​below:        Stephen created his sculptural percussion instrument, which he could play at the same time he played guitar,  in the late 20th century:
Stephen is in his friend and bandmate Dune Laila's video, wearing bird and animal masks, dancing with Dune, playing with cards, and rolling dice.
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Stephen's released a children's album, Here Comes the Band, in 2006.  Click here to see and hear more about Stephen's children's music.
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"Here Comes the Band" painting by Christopher Shotola-Hardt
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Stephen with guest singers at the Long Island Children's Museum. photo by Ben Sussman
Above: Stephen's Baseball, Baseball video
"You Need to Get to Know Me" is from a 2001 Oregon Public Broadcasting Art Beat show featuring Stephen's residency at Wilsonville High School, where he assisted special education students, along with several music and art students, in creating instruments out of found and recycled materials, composing music and writing songs, producing a CD, Junk Jam, and performing at the Wilsonville Festival of Arts. 
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3 Hand Stephen
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phone: 971-275-7043
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