Skip to main content- TABLE SCRAPS: According to the latest round of liquor license applications, shuttered Belmont bar Squeez will reopen as Roost; Sonic Drive-In continues to shun Portland proper, opening a new outpost at 15336 SW Highway 99 in Tigard; Ken’s Artisan Pizza will be open Sundays beginning July 18, giving the city’s British population one more opportunity to wait in an interminable queue, as is their wont.
- KEEP TALKIN’: After seven months off the air, Portland’s favorite radio talk jock, Rick Emerson, is launching himself back into the radio biz. This time, it’s on his own terms, with a pair of new online radio shows co-hosted with local movie reviewer Dawn Taylor. The stream-of-consciousness-ranting host of The Rick Emerson Show and his on-air crew were fired from KUFO 101.1-FM last October, after Alpha Broadcasting bought and switched the station to a more douchebag-friendly lineup. Emerson says the first show, a sort of “CliffsNotes for pop culture and news,” will stream for free, noon-1 pm weekdays on the locally hosted radio website pdx.fm. Asecond, longer, $6.95-a-month subscription-based show will follow immediately afterward at 1 pm on rickemerson.com, featuring guests and observations of daily minutiae. “It remains to be seen whether I am worth 32 cents a day,” Emerson deadpans. Both shows will debut Monday, June 21. The addition of RES to pdx.fm’s daily roster—which already hosts Cort and Fatboy—means the online radio spot now boasts most of KUFO’s former lineup...without the Kings of Leon interruptions.
- BRIDGE TO THE FUTURE: Sure, burying yourself in reams of Web-development code is fun, but even hardcore hackers like a good, ready-to-use application now and then. So when two major Portland-based projects took shape at the tech-crazy Open Source Bridge convention last week, even the most dedicated code junkies looked up from their MacBooks, refocused their eyes and took notice. First, developers Amber Case and Aaron Parecki unveiled a nearly-there version of GeoLoqi, a GPS-fueled augmented-reality application that will let iPhone and Android users tell their friends when they’re on the way to a party or check in on Foursquare without ever tapping on a screen. Meanwhile, the City of Portland pushed its extensive Civic Apps data-release program, goading Portland’s vibrant developer community into transforming that raw data into stuff we all can use—such as a citywide food-cart map, built with a combination of licensing data and good old foodie crowdsourcing.
- TUCKER OUT: Two-thirds of Sleater-Kinney has been pretty easy to follow since the seminal PDX punk group’s 2006 retirement: Carrie Brownstein blogs for NPR and Janet Weiss is rocking out with Quasi. Corin Tucker has been a bit tougher to track. On Monday we learned that her new group, the Corin Tucker Band—featuring her alongside the Golden Bears’ Seth Lorinczi and Unwound’s Sara Lund—will debut at the Aladdin Theater on Oct. 7. Image courtesy of Sub Pop.
WWeek 2015