Album Review: Pete Krebs and His Portland Playboys

Early Sessions (ELKO)

Music Stories [WESTERN SWING AT DUSK] It’s good to hear Pete Krebs’ voice showcased again. The former Hazel singer-guitarist...   More

 

Wednesday, January 11, 2012 CASEY JARMAN

The Prince and the Queen

Liv Warfield has sung in front of 80,000 fans. She’s glad to be home.

Music Stories In 2006, there was no brighter shining light in Portland’s music scene than Liv Warfield. The R&B singer could bait audiences by laying smoky nu-soul vocal melodies over her band’s underst   More

 

Wednesday, January 4, 2012 CASEY JARMAN

The Rise of the Know

While the rest of Alberta Street grows up, the Know has become Portland’s mecca for punk and hard rock.

Music Stories The Know’s barroom half is a ramshackle container for cheap beer. Its restrooms appear to idolize CBGB’s storied stalls. The adjoining show space might as well be a basement. The club’s ro   More

 

Wednesday, January 4, 2012 CHRIS STAMM

Bear & Moose: Thursday, Jan. 5

Two’s company for this Portland rock duo.

Music Stories   [STRIPPED-DOWN ROCK] Contemporary Portland rock acts seem to fall into two distinct camps: Groups that pile as many bodies as possible on the stage to create a maelstrom of sound and impac   More

 

Wednesday, January 4, 2012 ROBERT HAM

Album Review: Bridgetown Sextet

New Old Fashioned (Self-Released)

Music Stories [THROWBACK JAZZ] The title of this spiffy new CD accurately describes the local retro-jazzers, who bring a relatively youthful exuberance to 15 concise takes on vintage pre-World War II hits by    More

 

Wednesday, January 4, 2012 BRETT CAMPBELL

You’re The Best—Around!

The WW music staff picks their best albums of 2011.

Music Stories Music Editor Casey Jarman’s top 15 local albums of the year. This was the year Portland came face-to-face with its blossoming, narrowly defined international reputation for “keeping it weir   More

 

Wednesday, December 28, 2011 CASEY JARMAN

Home for the Holidays

Staying in town this Christmas? Here are six shows for you.

Music Stories It can be a thankless job playing shows on the holidays: A lot of your potential audience is home with family, and those who brave the clubs are often massively drunk. So why do it? That’s what    More

 

Wednesday, December 21, 2011 JONATHAN FROCHTZWAJG, CASEY JARMAN

Black Cobra: Tuesday, Dec. 27

A rising tide lifts all snakes.

Music Stories [BRINGING HEAVY BACK] Metal and other forms of heavy rock haven’t had this good a year since the 1991 heyday of Metallica’s black album and Guns N’ Roses’ Use Your Illusion I and II.    More

 

Wednesday, December 21, 2011 ROBERT HAM

Primer: The Blind Boys of Alabama

Music Stories Formed: In 1939 in Talladega, Ala. Sounds like: The wind on a warm summer’s night in the rural deep South, circa 1940-something. For fans of: Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, Blind Willie Johnson, Mahalia    More

 

Wednesday, December 21, 2011 REED JACKSON

Q&A: Dinosaur Jr.’s Lou Barlow

The underground icon talks band fights, blood and Henry Rollins.

Music Stories When a band chooses to reproduce one of its albums live in its entirety, usually it selects either the universally regarded masterpiece or a record representing a significant milestone in the gr   More

 

Wednesday, December 14, 2011 MATTHEW SINGER