Music On a tour that is selling out significantly larger venues like Lincoln Hall in Chicago and New York’s Bowery Ballroom, Kurt Vile gave Portland a true gift in performing at the Doug Fir. The relatively small space that sound engineer Mick Learn has turned into a sonic temple proved perfect backdrop for a band that’s hit a graceful stride and only going forward. Vile and band hav...   More

Music
Be it climate change’s current sun-drenched adaptation of a Pacific Northwest spring or the cloud-parting vocals of Colin Jenkins (Sex Life), but this track from Portland’s Rio Grands is a rooftop beer in the summer. ...   More

Music Coachella is an ancient Native American word that loosely translates to “obsessed with the past.” That not actually true, of course, but so it feels when one of the country’s largest, most shapeshifting festivals offers acts like Red Hot Chili Peppers, Blur, the Stone Roses, Moby, Wu-Tang Clan and Violent Femmes as top-tier headliners. They’ve done this before, and they did it agai...   More

Music Stories In 2006, Ben Parrish of the Portland- and Olympia-based record label Kill Rock Stars received a demo from a 31-year-old New York singer-guitarist named Marnie Stern. At the time, the label was bei   More

Album Reviews [PUNK ’N’ ROLL] When Portland garage-rock trio the Woolen Men signed with New York label Woodsist late last year, you could almost hear the city gasp. Would our beloved, punk-tinged lo-fi grou   More

Music Winston Yellen was probably right when he said any one of the three performers from last Sunday night at the Doug Fir could have played headliner. The choir-voiced frontman for Night Beds seemed honored to play, remarking that a previous show in Kansas attracted a total of seven people. Surprising, given the Nashville band’s recent compar...   More

Music Stories A suburban upbringing leaves lasting and vivid impressions that rival those produced by even the dankest of joints. Matthew Gonzales can testify. The Portland producer, known as both Lawz Spoken   More

Music Mark Oliver Everett, a.k.a. E, has experienced a Shakespearian amount of tragedy in his 49 years. But the Eels frontman only dwells for so long. His newest effort, Wonderful, Glorious, shows a stronger, wiser, thicker-skinned E, fastened to an infectious brand of optimism both lyrically and musically.  The trilogy Ee...   More

Music Stories Born: In 1975 in Detroit.  Sounds like: The musical equivalent of childhood wonder. For fans of: Highly conceptualized folk, choirlike vocal richness, unobtrusive biblical references, found s   More

Music Stories [BLEARY-EYED ROCK] It’s 5 am on election night, and Ryan Barber is just getting home from his job as sound guy at Kelly’s Olympian. The presidential race was called hours ago, and the Pony V   More