Food Reviews & Stories I'm always a fan of the surreal when it comes to drinking establishments. I like the kind of joints that inspire reactions like, "Whoa, where the fuck am I?" or "What year is this?" I hunt such bars the way other men hunt rare scotch. And Sloan's Tavern, with its telltale 18-wheeler cab jutting from   More

Food Reviews & Stories Easily the northernmost of North Portland bars at nearly a half-mile past St. Johns' tavern-cluttered strip—this bar's ’hood itself is among the most isolated in Portland—the Ranger is nothing less than an outpost. The walls are adorned with fine examples of taxidermy, antlers, dus   More

Music Maybe you have and maybe you haven't noticed that my blog "byline" hasn't been on Local Cut in a really, really long time. It's because I've moved. Back in August I split town--only in theory, and then, the Sunday before last, physically. I'm now the Music Editor of Baltimore's City Paper.

I wa...   More

Music [MINIMALIST POP] Dear Nora fans, rejoice! Though this isn't a proper reunion of the amorphous, Portland-born indie project, it's as close as we're likely to come. A decade after the lo-fi pop outfit's sole permanent member, Katy Davidson, and co-founder Marianna Ritchey parted ways—geographically and mu...   More

Music Stories [MINIMALIST POP] Dear Nora fans, rejoice! Though this isn’t a proper reunion of the amorphous, Portland-born indie project, it’s as close as we’re likely to come. A decade after the ...   More

Bar Reviews Columbia Boulevard—the mottled, industrial thoroughfare Chopsticks III (535 NE Columbia Blvd., 283-3900) calls home—will never have to fear being labeled “the new Mississippi Avenu ...   More

Music The inaugural Halleluwah Festival of Enthused Arts was epic. Massive to the point of absurdity. Indie-pop kids, noise-heads and music geeks of the hardest core were practically locked into the massive, industrial R.J. Templeton building, former home of Disjecta, for two sweaty, 14-hour days of musical maratho...   More

Music Stories The inaugural Halleluwah Festival of Enthused Arts was epic. Massive to the point of absurdity. Indie-pop kids, noise-heads and music geeks of the hardest core were practically locked into the massive ...   More

Special Section [MASHUP MASTER] It took less than a year for Girl Talk’s Gregg Gillis to become the face of the mashup subgenre. Essentially an elevated, wicked-clever form of DJ mixing, mashups were suddenly t ...   More

Special Section [EXPERIMENTAL FREAK-POP] The Dirty Projectors, the project of Brooklynite Dave Longstreth and a massive rotating cast of eclectic co-conspirators, is at the height of experimental indie royalty— ...   More