News
This review of Ira Glass' Portland appearance on Sunday was offered up by Stacy Carleton, a local high school teacher and WW reader. (Psst: We're really happy she used the term "chatterati.")

Sunday, Oct. 7, 2007 <...   More

Music Travis Smith is the man behind the name Mantis, a local knob-twister/programmer who is making downtempo trip-hop a good ten years after the genre's heyday. As even fans of the genre will admit, a lot of downtempo music can be boring, but Mantis breathes a little bit of life into this track with a bright guitar line ...   More

Music As fond as I am of instrumental music, I've always wanted a voice to sing with the Watery Graves. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate their contemplative, rainy-day music—it's the soundtrack for any given day in Portland, from October to May—but hearing Geneviève's beautiful French singing on top...   More

News Willamette Week's house band is pretty terrible. We gave it our best shot; WW Web Editor Ian Gillingham even had on his rockinest Eddie Bauer outfit in anticipation. But yesterday, under the grey Portland sky, we were rock stars! Well, that is we were playing the new game Rock Band to varying degrees of succe...   More

Music According to the bio on the Hush website, the Decemberist Chris Funk moved into the Mississippi neighborhood, started playing music out on his porch, and folks came on by and played with him. Sounds nice, but this is no improv jam. Funk and his various Parlormates have carefully crafted these instrumental covers...   More

Music
Oh, man, this song is outrageous. According to LocalCut Casey Jarman, these guys are kidding [ED: Not totally kidding, maybe, but definitely self-aware and smarter than I.C.P.], but one look at the pictures on their blog from their album release show at the To...   More

Music Portland's hip-hop scene seems to be literally exploding, as every artist in the city is working to promote his or her project, expanding the scene outward in every direction rapidly. That, paired with the sheer number of aspiring MCs, can be daunting for someone with a casual interest in local hip-hop to dive i...   More

Music Joe Haege from 31 Knots and Corrina Repp from Corrina Repp decided to make a band together, and that's just great. They gave it a go at this year's PDX Pop Now! festival, and they're getting ready to wow another audience at the Doug Fir this Sunday, September 16, with their sultry, muted incantations. These two ...   More

Music How refreshing it is to hear a fun, bouncy pop song about a lost lesbian love. “Mid-July” finds the Dirty Mittens channeling early Motown, and singer Chelsea Morrisey perfectly conveys the transition from forlorn lover to the state of (frustrated) acceptance after heartbreak. She starts out strong...   More

Music While it's a little late to call this the summer jam of 2007, I'm going to go ahead and do just that. The song is about how much these guys like girls or whatever, but who cares? Summer jams are about stupid fun, and this one takes the hyphy formula (whispery flow, simple beat, catchy hooks) and spices it up wit...   More