Music Stories The emotional high point of Why?’s latest EP, Sod in the Seed, comes near the close of the third song, “The Plan.” After a line...   More

Music Stories Formed: In 1991 in Umeå, Sweden.  Sounds like: Oceanic riffage thrown in a blender with free jazz and lots of bad Marxist poetry.  For fans of: Born Against, the Make-Up, the Blood Brothe   More

Music For me, Cool Nutz was an acquired taste. His delivery and lyrical approach have changed over the years, but in general his style is meticulous and impressionistic. He makes sure the listener hears every word in his raps. This isn't always a style that grabs the listener by the throat. Nutz won't go on a Tech N9ne style machine-gun verbal assault; he seldom chooses in-your-face subject matter (e...   More

Music Stories Among other nicknames, Cool Nutz has sometimes been referred to as “the mayor.” He remains, after 20 years of making music in Portland, the most visible face of this city’s hip-hop scene.    More

Album Reviews [HEAVY POP] Amateur Hypnotist opens with 3½ minutes of queasy, warped-tape instrumental fare. That shaky stretch of sound serves as fair warning to ye brave souls who dare venture beyond. Thoug   More

Music I am proud of Mike Coykendall for calling in a few favors! The Portland producer/sideman/singer-songwriter is so low-key and unassuming that although he regularly works with some of the biggest folks in the indie music world—M. Ward, She & Him, Blitzen Trapper, Bright Eyes—you'd never know it from the guy's low-key demeanor. Coykendall is, above all, a music geek—which is exactly why the...   More

Album Reviews [POST-HIP-HOP] The Chicharones are best experienced live. This isn’t likely to change, barring the release of a high-budget 3-D live show on Blu-ray, because so much of what makes the Chicharone   More

Music Stories I don’t do outdoor festivals. This has as much to do with my own pasty skin and aversion to large crowds as it does the with inherent disadvantages of seeing your favorite band’s music drift u   More

Top 5 Petunia & the VipersA Canadian “avant-country” act with a cult following up north that’s just starting to tour the U.S. regularly. Haunting, weird stuff. Ted Jones and the Tarheel BoysOn   More

Music Through some sort of mix-up or a really benevolent publicist, my tickets to see Fiona Apple were the best tickets I’ve ever had in my life. To anything. I mean, I’ve sat cross-legged on the floor and watched Calvin Johnson play a coffee shop; I’ve been invited to sit onstage to see friends’ bands play; I’ve crammed up into the front at standing-room-only shows. I've even pretended to be ...   More