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Back in Focus

Shaken by cancer and complacency, Camera Obscura needed a change. They found it in Portland.


Music Stories
No one could ever mistake Desire Lines as anything but an album by Camera Obscura. All the identifiers are there: melodies meshing the chirp of ’60s radio pop and ’80s post-punk devilry, and t   More
 
Wednesday, June 19, 2013 ROBERT HAM

Primer: Come

Reunion Tour


Music Stories
Years active: 1990-2001, 2008, 2010-present.  Sounds like: Television and the Stooges-inspired darkness, with dueling, strained guitar lines turning into a lascivious, bluesy and slightly dr   More
 
Wednesday, June 19, 2013 ROBERT HAM

Album Review: Space Waves

You Can Ride A Beam Of Light Like A Musical Strum (Mindwave)


Album Reviews
Space Waves bassist-vocalist Sarah Bourland unwittingly sums up the entirety of her band’s second full-length a mere 25 seconds into the song “Underworld”: “Nothing’s quite wrong/But it�   More
 
Wednesday, June 12, 2013 ROBERT HAM

Darker Nights

Thirty years on, Kiwi cult legends the Bats are a ghost of themselves—and they’ve never sounded better.


Music Stories
When New Zealand’s Flying Nun Records first came to the attention of the international music scene in the 1980s, it was hard to believe such a wealth of talent could exist on one tiny island nat   More
 
Wednesday, June 5, 2013 ROBERT HAM

Outer Worlds #12: Matthias Schuster Comes To Portland

outerworlds

Music
I spent a fair chunk of time last week on Twitter having a back and forth with other music fans and writers about how Portland is, in the eyes of some touring artists, a flyover spot. Bands, particularly those from overseas, and hip-hop acts tend to skip right over our fair city and either head directly to Seattle and Vancouver, B.C., or don't even bother with the northwest at all. For fans o...   More
 
Thursday, May 30, 2013 by ROBERT HAM

Album Review: Ancient Heat

Under the Covers (Self-Released)


Album Reviews
[RETRO  DISCO]  Unlike other Portland dance acts, Ancient Heat isn’t simply influenced by disco music: This nine-piece ensemble is a living embodiment of the much-maligned genre. And   More
 
Wednesday, May 29, 2013 ROBERT HAM

Brew Views: Pieta

Revenge served cold.


Brew Views
In the first 10 minutes of Pieta, the latest feature from internationally renowned director Kim Ki-duk, a man in a wheelchair hangs himself, another loudly humps a pillow on his bed, and a third   More
 
Wednesday, May 29, 2013 ROBERT HAM

Larry Colton, Southern League

Jackie Robinson played for the Dodgers in 1947. Meanwhile, in Alabama...


Books
By all accounts, Birmingham, Ala., was the epicenter of the civil-rights movement of the ’60s. It was there that two of the most important moments in the fight surrounding segregation occurred:    More
 
Wednesday, May 29, 2013 ROBERT HAM

Brew Views: No

Say sí.


Brew Views
During the 1988 election in Chile that led to the ouster of Augusto Pinochet, TV advertising played as major a role in the political process as traditional campaigning: For 27 days, each side ha   More
 
Wednesday, May 22, 2013 ROBERT HAM

Album Review: Scout Niblett

It’s Up to Emma (Drag City)


Album Reviews
[HEARTBROKEN ROCK] Don’t be fooled by the picture on the cover of Scout Niblett’s new album, a photo-booth shot of a couple in full make-out mode. The heart of It’s Up to Emma is not a rom   More
 
Wednesday, May 15, 2013 ROBERT HAM
 

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