Music Maybe it's my obnoxiously catholic taste in music, but narrowing my favorites of 2012 down to a mere 10 was a Herculean task. The past year was filled with sounds that threw me sideways, broke my brain, or had me reaching for the heavens out of sheer bliss. The list I've been keeping since January of my favorites seemed to grow exponentially by the week. So, when thinking about compiling a to...   More

Music When anyone creates a list or starts a discussion of the best modern songwriters, there are a few names that are guaranteed to show up. One of those is John Darnielle. The man behind The Mountain Goats has the rare ability to cut right to the core of a subject—whether it be the f...   More

Music Stories Stuffed into a booth at My Father’s Place, the three men who make up the Woolen Men wear serious expressions as they talk about touring and their place in the continuum of Portland’s punk- and   More

Movies & Television Holy Motors snuck into theaters this weekend, skipping the usual tread of press releases and press screenings. Critic Robert Ham deems it the best film of 2012.
Critic's Grade: A
The end of the year is the time when studios truck out their most prestigious fare: films with fat ideas, big directorial talent, scenery-chewing acting and screen-filling spectacle. Yet with litt...   More

Music  If the fact that the Creative Music Guild has been in action for 21 years comes as a surprise to you, don't feel bad. Even though I have been familiar with the CMG as a group that supports experimental and avant garde music in the city, my best guess was that they were, at the most, eight years old. The truth is that    More

Movie Reviews & Stories The huge sign and marquee brightly announcing the Kiggins Theatre and its filmic fare (this week: Looper and Frankenweenie) to the drivers and pedestrians on Vancouver’s Main Street already look remarkably out of place. The    More

Music Stories Compared to spending a Friday night circling the streets of downtown Portland looking for a free parking spot, venturing 15 minutes north on I-5 and slipping into Vancouver’s city center at nigh   More

Music The timing was almost too perfect. The dust was still lingering in the air from the hype tornado that recently surrounded Death Grips, the thorny, aggressive hip-hop duo from Northern California. And just as the buzz had reached critical mass with the recent announcement that    More

Music Stories Born: In 1942 in Garnant, Carmarthenshire, Wales Sounds like: Pop music filtered through classical training and imbued with a confrontational spirit.  For fans of: Patti Smith, David Bowie, Bri   More

Music  News of any import is quick to spread on the web. But even knowing that, the number of outlets reporting on the return of Arthur Magazine was pretty surprising, especially for a print publication that focused on various strains of the counterculture: music, drugs, magic, underground comics, and organic gardening. Yet everyone from The W...   More