Music Yesterday's news that REM was calling it quits after three decades came as a shock to fans and non-fans alike. Here was a band that we all grew up with (or, at least, those of us who grew up in the last 30 years did) that held on for so long, then dropped it out of the blue. I'm a huge fan of bands breaking up when they aren't feeling it, especially bands with a huge financial incentive to stay to...   More

Movie Reviews & Stories Pearl Jam Twenty is a Pearl Jam-approved Pearl Jam documentary. So you already know what to expect from it: Pearl Jam’s members will appear all humble and smiley; Pearl Jam’s peers will talk ab   More

Music Stories There are intangibles in Radiation City’s debut record, The Hands That Take You: Ghosts in the machine that cast dark shadows and shoot warm jetstreams across tracks like the skittering, electro-s   More

Music Stories Last May, Sage Francis was headed to Portland in support of his then-new album, Li[f]e—an excellent collection that examines death from every conceivable angle—when life kicked him in the gut. A   More

Album Reviews [PRE-GRUNGE] Upon dropping his band’s new album by the WW office, Old Growth co-frontman John Magnifico noted disparagingly that Out of the Sand and Into the Streets was recorded quickly and under    More

Top 5 On Sept. 24, 1991, the rock world changed forever. That’s the day Red Hot Chili Peppers released Blood Sugar Sex Magik. And, less notably, some Seattle hair band called Nirvana made its major-labe   More

Music Everybody knows the global economy is fucked right now. And anybody with common sense should be troubled by the great disparity between rich and poor in this country. I had a long conversation about this with a smart friend last night. We were sitting outside Valentine's and he summed it up real well: "I think shit is about to get really weird in this country," he said. "There are just too ma...   More

Music And it looks a little something like this. Man, album and tour promo videos keep getting more elaborate. I like this one. But then I like half naked men in wrestling masks and wet t-shirt contests. So I'm kind of the target audience here. Thanks to director Matthew Thomas Ross, for the linkage and good luck to these fine Portland bands on their tour.

Typh...   More

Music Just four videos today, none of which feature any special effects.












Laura Gibson, "Milk-Heavy, Pollen-Eyed"
I thought I had tired of all those "playing a song out in public" videos that La Blogothèque wrought years ago, but this one from Mason Jar Music—a creative take on what may be my favorite track from Laura Gibson's forthcoming record, ...   More

News If there's a Blazer season, and if said Blazer season begins on time—a prospect that is looking very grim indeed as of late—it's going to kick off against the Nuggets, in Portland, and the game will be broadcast on TNT. Don't you see what this means? If the m...   More