By George Winston “Hey Now Baby”I’ve been working on the 1949 version of this piece from Professor Longhair’s reissue album, New Orleans Piano, for 31 years, and I’m almost there (maybe). “Break on Through (to the Other Side)”From the Doors’ first album in 1967. This is the al

Mind-reading trio foretold Portland’s dance future. [DIRTY DANCING] Anyone who has ever heard the slinky, aggressive confidence of one of Strength’s “love jams,” or caught the Portland synth-disco trio at one of its too few and far between local shows, would expect its members to be cocksure, strutt

Mel Brown’s bassist takes the reins for his first record in over a decade. [JAZZ] Ask Portland bassist Ed Bennett about his songwriting inspirations, and there’s something funny about his response. “Horace Silver—the way he writes, he makes instant arrangements in the tunes themselves,” Bennet

p>Formed: 1981 in Huntington Park, Calif. Members: Tom Araya, Kerry King, Jeff Hanneman, Dave Lombardo Latest release: World Painted Blood, released in late 2009, finds Rick Rubin back as executive producer, Dave Lombardo on the drum throne and songs that balance hardcore and melodic song structures. Why you care: Face it:

The Estranged The Subliminal Man (Dirtnap) Autistic Youth Idle Minds (Dirtnap) MORE: The Estranged and Autistic Youth play a record-release show Sunday, Sept. 5, at Dunes with the The Free Radicalz, and the Bi-Marks. 9 pm. $5. 21+. John Isaacson is the artist behind LocalCut.com’s weekly Feedback column. E

On Saturday afternoon Matt Brown—Bladen County Records founder, man about town, and general bearer of good things—sent out the following email: Subject: Wavves tonite at bunk bar. 
1028 SE Water Ave. 
they play at 10:30. 
8 bucks.  
just one band. As the band would later relay, the show came into being only two

New York’s the Budos Band plays a super-tight, super-fly mix of afro-beat infused soul and funk that sounds a little something like this. The band is bringing those same funky sounds to Dante’s this Friday night in support of its new album, The Budos Band III (the music is more creative than the album title, we

Benjamin Starshine looks and sounds like a man who just stumbled out of a time machine. Hell! He was at the top of Mt. Tabor doing some yoga when we conducted this interview (think less Sting, more George Harrison). His bubble-gum psych-pop is nostalgic and refreshing with clean hooks and atmospheric freak-outs you can get

About a year and a half ago, I helped judge a high school battle of the bands for MITS, the Music in the Schools project. Aside from being a total blast, it introduced me to a few new acts to keep an eye on, with Starparty standing out. I’d write about the band at length [...]

Our comics and punk correspondent, John Isaacson, has been busy working on his first piece for WW’s print edition this week, but he managed to squeeze out a review of Punch and Ceremony playing Satyricon last Saturday as well. Appropriately, he sent this one in black and white. Links: Punch Ceremony As always, click t

Ah, the Old Town: Portland’s melting-pot of vagrants, geeks, frat boys, strippers and rockers. Join them all this Saturday for the second annual Old Town Block Party, in that parking lot over the road from Backspace and Davis Street Tavern, for a day of eating, drinking and dancing for a good cause. Last year, over 3,

Congrats to Starfucker for signing to one of this fine nation’s best labels, Polyvinyl. In fact, congrats to Starfucker on a lot of stuff. The Portland electroacoustic dance-pop outfit, in their own words, “wised up and took the power back.” It has dropped some management, dropped the silly Pyramiddd name,

Formed: 1985 in Melbourne, Australia Members: Frontman Neil Finn, bassist Nick Seymour, guitarist-keyboardist Mark Hart and drummer Matt Sherrod Latest Release: Intriguer, the June-released follow-up to 2007’s Time on Earth, which was the band’s first record in 14 years. Sounds like: the New Wave pop of Elvis Co

Blue Cranes buck expectations and make music for the people. Reed Wallsmith, Blue Cranes’ alto sax player, is still a little foggy. Last night his band played a house show in Ashland, and at 10 am, he hasn’t quite woken up yet. He talks about the show as if he’s describing a dream. “There were a [...

Pure Country Gold won’t just steal your beer and hit on your girlfriend—it’ll serenade you, too. [BAR ROCK] Pure Country Gold is one of the most explosive live acts in town. But the focus isn’t usually, as one might expect, on singer-guitarist Patrick Foss. “Jake is such a great performer to wa

Soft Metals The Cold World Melts (Captured Tracks) [OLD SCHOOL SYNTH POP] In the past few years, the synthesizer—conspicuously absent from many of the best songs of the ’90s—has seen an incredible resurgence. From the cascading, sci-fi synths that Timbaland stacked up higher than spaceships to the monstro

This weekend we asked Shane Danaher, Nick Jaina and photographer Bobby McHugh to catch some of the first annual Portland Folk Festival and report back here. We didn’t try and ask them to see everything—that would have been silly. Instead, each of them attended at their own pace and wrote about the festival in their

I can’t say I am intimately familiar with Trumans Water. The 19-year-old schizo-guitar-pop outfit, often billed as more Pavement than Pavement—wilder, less sensical, more angular—has spent most of its lifespan in relative obscurity, where it was safe from latte-sipping, Hummer-driving douchebags like me. But now t

Until I started touring, Utah was a land in league with Wyoming and Nebraska: A destination valuable as a piece of American frontier history but lacking any stigma for visitation. This changed, almost exclusively, because of a soft-spoken Utah based singer-songwriter by the name of David Williams. On one of our early D.I.Y.

The Lights are punk in the way I love punk rock music: They aren’t all spikes and leather or safety pins and green hair. They aren’t the kind of punks you know just from looking at them. They’re that rare group that’s “punk” because it just doesn’t give a fuck. The Lights seethe with intensity [...]

This just in! Creepy giant CGI/Paper Mache heart approaching Portland. The giant, blood-pumping muscle appears to be causing weather disturbances, time-lapse and Seasonal Affectedness Disorder. Accompanied by jazzy female vocals and catchy chorus. Do not—we repeat, DO NOT—attempt to touch the giant heart. Though apparen

“I went for a bike ride today in Portland and was attacked by children in tutus who were presumably my fans,” says the woman with the Crayola yellow curls topped with a nun’s habit and a clear vinyl dress with white electrical tape covering her nipples. Oddly enough, the strangest thing about the moment wa

Hey, look, it’s that Thermals video we were telling you about! Why thank you, Pitchfork!

It’s a special double-dose of Feedback Comics live reviews this week, as LC’s editors were a bit preoccupied last week. First, in a comic intended to run last Wednesday, John sets out to see the Bi-Marks in an unidentified basement. And in this week’s official installment, he heads to CLIT Fest for the Pun

I originally intended to sprinkle some quotes from my interview with legendary local musician and Dharma Bums leader Jeremy Wilson throughout an article about his new, eponymous Foundation and the issue of health care for musicians. But from the moment he answered the phone Tuesday morning, he started talking—even before

Back in the mid-aughts, Strength was the talk of Portland. The funk-electro-soul-pop group’s sound was fun but relatively earnest—despite the fact that strength began as an art school band—and there was a Michael Jackson/Prince vibe to what Strength was doing that was otherwise absent from the Portland music scene

On this mid summer’s edition of These Are the Days we’ve got new music from the Rainy States, Sean Flinn & the Royal We, and Wax Fingers, as well as great tracks from Arctic Flowers and Bellicose Minds. There’s also a conversation with Ben Johnson from the Rainy States about the band’s new record

There’s two sides to every story. [CASSETTE LOVE] Cameron Spies has obviously never left a cassette tape on his car dashboard during a heat wave. Sitting on the sidewalk along with four of his co-conspirators while the noise of the 2010 PDX Pop Now! fest rumbles in the background, the young musician and artist waxes rhaps

“Do You Believe in Love”Huey Lewis and the News’ first Top 10 hit—like much of Lewis’ catalog—manages to turn cheesy ’80s production into an overwhelming strength. It sounds like an awesomely Wonderbread version of Stevie Wonder’s “Living for the City.” “Walk

The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn wants to give you his shot. Hold Steady frontman Craig Finn isn’t bothered by people impersonating his cartoony, verbose vocal delivery. “You’re probably not the most original comedian if this is your material,” he told WW via telephone. “But there are a lot o