Primer: The Bad Plus

Music Stories Formed: In 2000 in Minneapolis. Sounds like: Classically trained piano meets indie-rock drums meets jazz bass. For fans of: Blondie, Igor Stravinsky, Paul Motian, Flaming Lips, Abba, Joshua R   More

 

Wednesday, April 24, 2013 BRETT CAMPBELL

Culture Icons

Ten years of the Thermals

Music Stories Between the Exploding Hearts’ demise and Elliott Smith’s suicide, 2003 might have been a complete bummer for Portland music. Luckily, 2003 was also the year the Thermals released their debut   More

 

Wednesday, April 17, 2013 JONATHAN FROCHTZWAJG

Mic Check: Sparks

On sibling rivalries.

Music Stories For the first time in its 42-year, 22-album career, Sparks is playing Portland. The Mael brothers’ Two Hands, One Mouth tour—the hands being those of composer-lyricist Ron Mael, as deployed    More

 

Wednesday, April 17, 2013 JEFF ROSENBERG

Safeway, Here He Comes

Portland’s “Godlike Genius”-in-Residence, Johnny Marr, goes back to the new house.

Music Stories Johnny Marr is that rarest of all creatures: He is living, and he is legend.  After roaming the globe for a quarter century to briefly aid a dizzying litany of acts, his résumé reads like   More

 

Wednesday, April 10, 2013 JAY HORTON

Magic Fades: Saturday, April 13

Already Internet famous, a Portland duo makes moves offline.

Music Stories [SIMWAVE] “I bump fades when I fuck. So what?” says the muscular, shirtless man, digitally rendered as part of the virtual-world game Second Life, as he cocks his head to the side and spreads    More

 

Wednesday, April 10, 2013 MITCH LILLIE

Q&A: Melissa Meszaros, Slabtown Grrrl Front

Music Stories Pennsylvania native Melissa Meszaros moved to the Pacific Northwest eight years ago and began booking shows for Slabtown last December. Among her first brainstorms: a four-day, grrrl-empowering    More

 

Wednesday, April 10, 2013 AMANDA SCHURR

The Preferred Nomenclature

Dude, what’s Jeff Bridges’ band’s name?

Music Stories The Dude’s only connection to the music industry was as a Metallica roadie on the Speed of Sound tour. The band was, he informs us, a bunch of assholes. The Abiders, the Jeff Bridges band that c   More

 

Wednesday, April 3, 2013 MATTHEW SINGER

Primer: Alt-J

Music Stories Formed: In 2007 in Leeds, England. Sounds like: A poppy, sonically schizophrenic take on what it’s like to search for authentic folk in a world burgeoning with wobbly dubstep and cryptic trap m   More

 

Wednesday, April 3, 2013 BRANDON WIDDER

Vice Device: Monday, April 8

Coming in from the coldwave.

Music Stories [DARK SYNTHS] Even if you didn’t know the members of Vice Device play in a band together, you could probably guess just by looking at them. Seated in a booth at Liberty Glass in North Portland   More

 

Wednesday, April 3, 2013 JONATHAN FROCHTZWAJG

The Girls With the Golden Egg

When the folk gets going, Shook Twins get weird.

Music Stories The phrase that gets tossed around most often when publicists and writers talk about the music of Portland’s Shook Twins is “quirky folk.” It’s a simple enough descriptor that’s great to   More

 

Wednesday, March 27, 2013 ROBERT HAM