"best-new-band"

Every Ballot Submitted for the 2019 Best New Bands Poll

Each year, we ask local music industry insiders to vote for the musicians they’re currently most excited about (and who haven’t placed in any of our previous Best New Band polls). And each year, we publish every ballot in order to maintain transparency.

Chanti Darling’s Debut Album Is a Dance-Fueled Vision of the Future

At Chanti Darling shows, dancing is essentially an act of communion. “I want to give people the opportunity to engage with the music on a more intimate level,” says Trü from behind a pair of impossibly dark shades in a Belmont bar on an impossibly hot day. “I set the intention [of dancing] very clearly. You’re on a date with them basically—you’re trying to woo them into fully engaging with you. I guess it is an act of charming.”

Check out Photos From Willamette Week’s Best New Band Showcase

This year’s Best New Band issue produced the most demographically and stylistically diverse list ever. So it makes sense that our accompanying showcase, featuring three of the finalists and held at Mississippi Studios on March 17, was also the most eclectic we’ve ever put on.

Willamette Weekend: Boxing Outside of a Bar, Portland’s Best New Bands and 10 Other Things to Do and See in Portland, March 16-18

Want to watch Irish people and American people beat the tar out of each other, in celebration of the greatest of Irish-American holidays? The Kells Smoker amateur boxing competition comes but once a year, in a tent by Kells Irish. There will be blood. (Actually, there probably won’t be.)

Here Is Every Ballot Submitted for the 2018 Best New Band Poll

Every year, in the spirit of transparency—and to make it perfectly clear that Best New Band is a poll, not an arbitrary list—we publish the ballots of every Best New Band voter.

The Members of Sávila Explore Their Mexican Heritage, and Their Place Within American Society, Through the Rhythms of Cumbia

In truth, Savilá is a band that can’t be neatly packaged into a brand or traced to a curated set of influences. But rather than feeling like some inaccessible, abstract mass, their music feels like a warm embrace—the communal equivalent of self-care.

Black Belt Eagle Scout Combines Grunge and Dream-Pop to Heal Wounds Both Personal and Ancestral

Katherine Paul has always had music to comfort her. She’s needed it often.

Pop Singer Frankie Simone Fights Homophobia With Songs That Might Soon Be Rattling Your Radio

If loving oneself is an act of political warfare, then Frankie Simone is leading the way into battle.

With Sunbathe, Maggie May Morris Makes Ennui Sound Like a Summer Breeze

When “California” is used as an adjective, it’s meant to imply a feeling of carefree breeziness. That is certainly an accurate way to describe the music of Sunbathe on its surface.

Wynne Is a Sharpshooting MC Coming Straight Outta, Um, Lake Oswego

Twenty years after Eminem invaded suburban CD players across the nation, it’s still a shock to see someone with blond hair, blue eyes and legitimate rap skills. As Wynne herself said in one of those viral videos, “They can’t let it go that I look like I came out of Frozen.”

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