Skip to main content- HE IS THE FUN BLAME MONSTER: After 10 rocky years in the band, Menomena multi-instrumentalist and co-founder Brent Knopf is leaving the acclaimed experimental-pop trio to pursue other projects. Knopf, 33, is spending the winter producing a record for South African artist Dear Reader, and plans to return to his solo project, Ramona Falls, later this year. Menomena’s other core members, Danny Seim and Justin Harris, will continue on with a planned spring tour with Paul Alcott of Dat’r filling in for Knopf, and have already started working on a new album. “I’m actually quite optimistic about Menomena’s future,” Seim says. “I was lucky enough to be in a band with my two favorite musicians in the world for 10 long years. And now I’m still lucky enough to be in a band with one of them.” Knopf also has nice things to say about his former bandmates (“I’m excited to see where Danny and Justin take Menomena,” he says), but is clearly excited about a life outside Menomena: “ It’s so invigorating to daydream new ideas.” See localcut.com for more on Knopf and the future of Menomena.
- BOOZE NEWS: Oregon’s Rogue Ales, which already boasts a pub in the Pearl, has applied for a license to open a retail store cater-corner from Green Dragon in inner Southeast PDX.
- CRAFTY HQ: Crafty Wonderland, the huge PDX craft show that took over a vacant storefront downtown for the holidays, is extending its time as a boutique. Until now, Crafty Wonderland has presented goods from local DIY’ers in the form of a twice-annual fair and one-off events. The organizers will now distribute goods daily at 802 SW 10th Ave. through the summer. Owners Cathy Pitters and Torie Nguyen worked with space owner Finnegan’s Toys to come up with a leasing arrangement they could manage. They credit an “overwhelmingly positive response from both vendors and the community” for their decision to stay put.
- ROLL ON: Last June WW wrote about then-62-year-old Parker Pettus’ efforts to establish a rollerdisk (a.k.a. roller frisbee) team in Portland. “I do not want to see the sporting love of my life fade away,” he told us. “I’m the last rollerdisk player, and after 20 years of playing the game I don’t want to see the game become extinct. ” Now he’s back to let us know he’s gotten permission from Portland Public Schools to use the covered playground at Chapman Elementary to hold rollerdisk meets this month and encourage prospective players. “It’s a sort of ‘build it and they will come’ strategy, which worked well in Field of Dreams, but might not bring results on a field of hard asphalt,” says Pettus, who has yet to find anybody willing to play with him. Get your game on (and save rollerdisk from extinction) by joining Pettus noon to 1:30 pm Sunday Jan. 16, 23 or 30. Info and videos at rollerdisk.org.
WWeek 2015