Music Generally, I regard the current trend of indie-rock remixology as something of a plague. Not just any plague, the sort with boils, puss, "bring out your dead!" and such. The Stars anyone? Architecture in Helsinki? (yeah, YACHT's were good there, but that's where it ends). I'd say it's a necessary evil if it g...   More

Music [UNPREDICTABLE] Even after an electronic remix album and an orchestral klezmer album, Mirah's just-born Share This Place is the strangest thing she's done yet. It features some of the same Black Cat Orchestra folks who joined her on the klezmer-ish To All We Stretch the Open Arm (here, they go by Spectratone ...   More

Music Stories [UNPREDICTABLE] Even after an electronic remix album and an orchestral klezmer album, Mirah’s just-born Share This Place is the strangest thing she’s done yet. It features some of the sam ...   More

Food Reviews & Stories A few months back, Acme—once a beloved venue for local indie upstarts—disappeared into an abyss. Aside from a few dance nights and odd rock shows in an acoustically horrible tent, the inner-Southeast joint was a shadow of its past. New owners have taken charge since, and, well, it st   More

Music So, it turns out I screwed this one up a bit, and lost track of my dates. I was hoping this track was going to get you fired up to see Mooodring tonight, assuming that tonight was the 13th and not the 14th. However, I've just been informed by an associate that keeps better track of these sort of things, that ...   More

Music A few hours ago, Mike McGonigal, proprietor of Yeti Publications and co-presenter of the Halleluwah Festival with Blackbird Presents, dropped me this year's lineup in an email. And...and, holy jeeze, they've pulled it off again. The first Halleluwah was one of my favorite, tripped-out, spaced-out, enthused times of last year, and, though it's slimmer (no Truman's Water, sigh), this is looking to be another grand ride. Damo Suzuki, Califone, They Shoot Horses, Don't They? and so much more, including an expanded lit program. I don't think I can give up the price right now, but I'll just say it'll be a steal.

Here's the word straight from McGonigal:


{ Friday 8.31.07 }
PANTHER
THE JOGGERS
CHOW NASTY
THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON'T THEY?
ALEXIS GIDEON
VALET
MODERNSTATE
Plus very special guests ...

Sublime Frequencies presents::
Niger: Magic and Ecstasy in the Sahel
a film by Hisham Mayet
{70 minutes}
A celebration of life in the Sahel region of Africa, this film
showcases many of Niger¹s venerable music styles. Tuareg Electric
Guitar trance rock, Bori cult dance ceremonies, Fulani Folk, and
Roadhouse Gospel Rave-ups are some of the segments included in this
latest "Folk Cinema" classic from Sublime Frequencies! Filmed in
December of 2004 on location in Niger, Hisham Mayet delivers a
spontaneous, raw, and inspiring collection of images, music, and
ceremony (again with a single camera presentation) from a nation mired
in poverty and continual post-colonial disappointment. Quoting from
Mayet¹s liner notes: "This is not music as commodity, this is music as
survival. There is a saying in Niger that goes, "when we die we know
we are going to heaven because we already live in Hell" well I think
its more like the purgatory that we all live in and they sure have
managed to transcend with an incredible natural resource: Music.
Dig it!"

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Music I think I've billed two shows like this already, but this time I'm not fucking around (I hope anyhow). To recap: Disjecta--the non-profit arts organization known generally as a music venue--is getting the boot from their rad, if acoustically rough, home at the Templeton building (the first building on your ri...   More

Music Maybe you thought you'd take a PDX Pop Now! dinner break at 7:20 tomorrow night. Makes sense: that's a pretty square time to eat, and Hooliganship is a pretty unsquare band in a mostly square fest (dig?). But, anyhow, the festival starts at six tomorrow...you can eat before you go (unless you're rushing from w...   More

Music [LEFT FIELD] Maybe Monday isn't the best night to host an underground, experimental-music showcase, particularly one that starts wicked late. But a new weekly called Humans' Night has been getting folks into the brick catacomb of Branx until damn near closing time, transfixing them with artists whose names you...   More

Music Stories [LEFT FIELD] Maybe Monday isn't the best night to host an underground, experimental-music showcase, particularly one that starts wicked late. But a new weekly called Humans' Night has been getting fol ...   More