Featured Stories I was down to my glasses and a pair of Superman boxers when I failed to answer in the form of a question. It was the Friday before Halloween 2006. I was one of the night's three Strip Jeopardy! conte ...   More

Music [NINJA ROCK] From a city with enough ninja-inspired rock outfits to lay siege on a small village (or a rock concert, à la Satyricon's Ninja Rock Festival last November) comes a mysterious band. A band that does the shtick right. A band that writes songs about the ninja lifestyle and battles colorfully c...   More

Music Stories [NINJA ROCK] From a city with enough ninja-inspired rock outfits to lay siege on a small village (or a rock concert, à la Satyricon's Ninja Rock Festival last November) comes a mysterious band. ...   More

Music [INDIE FOLK] Gena Gastaldi's just one of those approachable people. Onstage, she talks to audience members like they're all personal friends. When she walks into her neighborhood Stumptown, the baristas ask when her next show is and play albums they want her to hear.

Perhaps because of this amia...   More

Music Stories [INDIE FOLK] Gena Gastaldi's just one of those approachable people. Onstage, she talks to audience members like they're all personal friends. When she walks into her neighborhood Stumptown, the barist ...   More

Music When does local stop being local? When does it start?

Take "The Death Of Optimus Prime," for instance. It features two musicians: Singer/guitarist Gage Choat and keyboard player H.B. Telling. Choat lives here in Portland, and plays several instruments in    More

Music If As Cruel As Schoolchildren by Gym Class Heroes was the soundtrack for my winter in 2006, then Say Anything Is A Real Boy was the soundtrack to my winter in 2004.

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Music In my hometown, nobody had heard of any of the bands I listen to.

I'm from Fairbanks, Alaska, and people there would flip through my CD books or scroll down the Artist list on my iPod, and tell me, “I don't recognize any of these people. Oh, Cake! I've heard Cake!” Somehow, I came away ...   More

Music Hamell On Trial has this song about a friend of his who snorted a dead guy.

But we better start with background. Hamell On Trial is one man, Ed Hamell, a short New Yorker with a shaved head who wears a lot of faded black. He turns his scuffed acoustic guitar all the way up. He's from the anti-folk s...   More

Music [AMERICANA GOTHIC] At the Builders and the Butchers' CD release party earlier this month, the band walked out of Valentine's in the middle of its last song—and most of the audience followed. Around the corner at Voodoo Doughnut, the assembled crowd sang, “Find me, oh find me/ In the air, Lord, in the air,” to the late-night doughnut slingers and their patrons. Then it was back to...   More