Parquet Courts: Friday, Jan. 18

The buzzing New York garage band doesn’t mince words, or chords.

Music Stories [GARAGE POP] Speaking with Andrew Savage is similar to listening to Parquet Courts, the New York-based band he fronts. Just as he does throughout the group’s debut album, Light Up Gold, the si   More

 

Wednesday, January 16, 2013 ROBERT HAM

Primer: Quicksand

Reunion

Music Stories Years active: 1990-95, 1997-99, 2012-present Sounds like: Hardcore at the dawn of the alternative era, when the production got bigger, the riffs beefier and the melodies hookier. Original members: A   More

 

Wednesday, January 16, 2013 MATTHEW SINGER

Cadence Fest: Sunday-Tuesday, Jan. 20-22

A legendary jazz magazine is reborn in Portland.

Music Stories In 2011, Cadence—one of the premier magazines in the country covering jazz and other improvised music—found itself at a deadly confluence of two rapidly drying streams: print journalism and    More

 

Wednesday, January 16, 2013 BRETT CAMPBELL

Diamond Minds

Dropping Gems gives electronic music a human pulse.

Music Stories When Aaron Meola moved to Portland in 2009, electronic music in America was still the province of chin-scratching Anglophiles and molly-whopped rave kids. Dubstep’s infernal wub had not yet in   More

 

Wednesday, January 9, 2013 MATTHEW SINGER

Sir Richard Bishop: Friday, Jan. 11

A former Sun City Girl gets in touch with his inner demons.

Music Stories [GENRELESS GUITARIST] Any list of the best guitarists of the last three decades will probably not include Sir Richard Bishop. Long-haired teens do not headbang in front of a poster depicting his   More

 

Wednesday, January 9, 2013 MITCH LILLIE

Primer: RJD2

Music Stories Born: In 1976 in Eugene.  Sounds like: An extremely gifted beatmaker who has a love/hate relationship with his drum machine. For fans of: Cut Chemist, DJ Shadow, Elliott Smith. Latest release:   More

 

Wednesday, January 9, 2013 REED JACKSON

Chelsea Wolfe: Sunday, Jan. 13

Ain’t no sunshine in this songwriter’s doom-y folk.

Music Stories [GOTHIC FOLK] It’s raining in Los Angeles, but Chelsea Wolfe doesn’t mind. “I kind of hate how it’s always sunny here,” says the lanky, darkly eyelined singer-songwriter, sitting in a co   More

 

Wednesday, January 9, 2013 JONATHAN FROCHTZWAJG

Man on the Run

For prolific experimentalist Pete Swanson, there’s no such thing as a vacation.

Music Stories Sitting down for coffee in the Ace Hotel lobby, Pete Swanson is quite a sight. He flew back to Portland the day before, returning home from New York, where the prolific experimental musician att   More

 

Wednesday, January 2, 2013 ROBERT HAM

Danny Corn: Friday, Jan. 4

An EDM lifer talks the past, present and future of electronic music.

Music Stories [ELECTRONIC] In the past 20 years, there have been at least three upswings in the popularity of electronic music: the rave/ecstasy period of the early ’90s; the big-beat and trip-hop explosion   More

 

Wednesday, January 2, 2013 ROBERT HAM

Primer: Keane

Music Stories Formed: In 1997 in Battle, East Sussex, England. Sounds like: A respectful embrace of modestly attractive thirtysomethings outside a well-scrubbed cafe in drizzling twilight as patrons mirthlessl   More

 

Wednesday, January 2, 2013 JAY HORTON