Music Stories In 2006, Ben Parrish of the Portland- and Olympia-based record label Kill Rock Stars received a demo from a 31-year-old New York singer-guitarist named Marnie Stern. At the time, the label was bei   More

Music Uh, where the hell in Portland does Hutch Harris live? On the new single from the Thermals frontman's solo project Forbidden Friends, released to the Internet today through Kill Rock Stars and Pitchfork, Harris claims to reside on a quiet street "where the temperature is always 75 degrees" and it never rains. It must be the same place where Isaac Brock, the Decemberists and all the city's other uber-successful ...   More

Music Is Corin Tucker secretly a Twi-mom? Pitchfork has the details on Tucker's debut solo album, which is being credited to the Corin Tucker Band and features Sara Lund of Unwound and Seth Lorinczi of Golden Bears and Blue Giant. The biggest surprise (besides the already reported details that the record—featuring lots of acoustic guitar, interlocking percussion, and even cellos and violins—is ...   More

Music Look, Justin Ringle is trapped in a honeycomb! In the new video for their clip "Belly of June," the increasingly sprightly local hushed-folk band Horse Feathers share the stage with a number of book reading bumble bees. The clip expertly mixes live footage of the band with stop motion animation, which is smart: if they used real bees, somebody would get stung. Also, who do you think wins the game of ...   More

Music Corin Tucker spends most of her debut solo album, 1,000 Years, trying to distance herself from the shadow of her former band. It's not an easy task: Sleater-Kinney was, in the words of renowned rock critic Greil Marcus, "America's best rock band" before it went on indefinite hiatus in 2006. But while many songs on 1,000 Years feature acoustic guitars, brushed drums, and even cello, "Doubt" harkens ...   More