Music Stories Kirk Kirkpatrick represents the old guard of Portland hip-hop. The turntablist known as DJ Wicked is old-school not just by tenure, having held down his Wicked Wednesdays night at various venues ov   More

Album Reviews [THREE-WAY] When Charlie Salas-Humara quit his one-man-band-turned-duo, Panther, in 2009, I knew it would only be a matter of time until he returned to the fore of the Portland music scene. And whi   More

Headout In a world without labor negotiations, the Portland Trail Blazers’ regular season would start on Thursday, Nov. 3. Meetings have been spun as “cautiously optimistic” when they haven’t been    More

Music Looks like Pink Martini, Storm Large and the MarchFourth Marching Band aren't the only Portland musicians rallying in support of some of the Occupy movement's biggest platforms. Today I received an email from Portland percussionist/visual artist extraordinaire Rachel Blumberg that she had formed a brand new supergroup—one that will probably never play a show (though we should probably encourage the Move Your Money group to get an actual band together).
Taking cues from Farm Aid and We Are The World—only on a slightly smaller scale—Blumberg has joined with Quasi's Sam Coomes, STLS/Kickball drummer Lisa Schonberg and drummer/songwriter Neal Morgan in a coalition of voices encouraging people in the local music community to stop using big banks. 
Why target musicians? The group explains in its press release: "Traditionally, many touring bands have held their noses and banked with bigger banks because of the accessibility of ATMs and branches across the country, but some credit unions take part in a co-op network that allows greater banking options while on the road, and some local banks cover ATM fee charges."
The group has built a website, moveyourmoneyportand.com, where members of the local music community can pledge to remove their money from the big boys and put it into a local bank or credit union (not that working musicians generally have a lot of money in savings—but every dollar counts, right?). Venues like Doug Fir and Valentine's; bands like The Thermals and Deelay Ceelay; And labels like Kill Rock Stars and Marriage have pledged to make the switch (or were already on board with a local bank or credit union).
The Move Your Money Project is, of course, operating on a national scale, and November 5 is being touted nationwide as "Move Your Money Day." But these four want you to go ahead and get a head start.
The collective's full press release, along with some stats that would be shocking if we didn't see so many shocking stats these days, are below the picture of their slightly nervous faces:

mymp    More

Music It usually happens about an hour after I send WW's music section off to the printers: I notice some super-awesome show that we totally missed, and I spend the whole week feeling awful knowing that we could have written up something cool instead of trashing on A Skylit Drive. It hurts. And it hurts extra-bad when the folks promoting the show actually email me well before print deadlines and I just ...   More

Music Earlier this month, Salon ran a brief but interesting piece noting the minor role music has played at the Occupy protests—in contrast to the protest song-heavy civil rights struggle—and asking if any great folk singers would emerge from the Occupy protests.    More

Music It's the internet age, so maybe the idea of a band seeming "too young" to have absorbed certain influences is a little old-school. Still, I'm shocked to hear a group that's below drinking age and still sounds like Big Star, the Posies, Weezer and Superchunk all wrapped into a semi-sloppy, warm mess of awesome.



Under the C...   More

Music Stories Wipe away his trademark face paint, and Tech N9ne is still one of the most fascinating figures in rap. He’s skilled enough to outshine Outkast’s Andre 3000 on Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter IV, busin   More

Bar Reviews The 100-year-old Star Theater (13 NW 6th Ave., startheaterportland.com) has been a strip joint, a burlesque bar and a speakeasy. Its latest incarnation isn’t the first time the room—with its imp   More

Music I recently heard a Shaky Hands song playing at Burgerville. I shouldn't have been shocked, considering the Shakies played Burgerville before the beloved Portland rock outfit went on its current hiatus—but it still took me a minute to reconcile what I wa...   More