Deep Sea Diver

Deep Sea Diver at Bumbershoot, 2012

One of my favorite Seattle bands (actually, make that one of my favorite bands), Deep Sea Diver, will be playing The Earl on February 27 with one of my favorite Portland bands (actually, make that one of my other favorite bands), Radiation City.   Before setting out on tour, though, Deep Sea Diver recorded a set in Portland for Oregon Public Broadcasting, giving us an early taste of some of their new material. 

If that doesn't have you psyched, a) I don't understand you, and b) here's the title track from their forthcoming album, Secrets, to get you to the tipping point.

Typhoon

Typhoon at Terminal West, 2014

Here's a pretty impressive video of Portland's Typhoon performing in their home-town Crystal Ballroom, a great venue even if it's not air-conditioned and was punishingly hot the times I visited during MFNW (RIP) events in past Septembers.  Like almost every Typhoon song ever written, those in this video are mostly about growing up afflicted with Lyme's disease. 

Je Suis Bataclan

There's absolutely nothing that could be said here about the tragedy in Paris, so here are some great and totally unrelated songs by LA's Julia Holter, recorded in OPB's studio in Portland. 

Y La Bamba

Y La Bamba at OPB Day Party, MFNW (RIP) 2013 

Luz Elena Mendoza and her band Y La Bamba have a new album coming out, Ojos Del Sol, and here's a little preview taped on the rooftop of Portland's new Revolution Hall.  It looks like a cool place, but so many of its shows are sold out I wonder if it's just too small or really, really popular, or if Portland's just that enthusiastic about its music scene?

Calexico Does It With Neko Case

In Portland, no less.

The Weather Machine Meets the Crooked River

Among the many great bands not playing MFNW (RIP) this year are Portland's own Weather Machine. Here's a video of Weather Machine performing by the gorge at Oregon's Peter Skene Ogden State Park.

I've crossed that bridge behind them once before, back in 2009 during a February trip across the Cascades from Portland to Bend.  It's an impressive sight, all the more so because the terrain is generally flat land between snow-capped mountains until you cross the Crooked River and suddenly the gorge unexpectedly opens up beneath you.  Must have come as quite the surprise to the Oregon Trail settlers passing through the area. 

In any event, Weather Machine's second album, Peach, is out now, and you can buy the album here.

Summer Cannibals

We saw Portland's Summer Cannibals at Dante's during the first night of the 2013 MFNW (RIP), and when Springtime Carnivore emerged late last year, we were curious to see how they'd compare, vis a vis both Carnivore vs Cannibals and Springtime vs Summer.

Springtime Carnivores are a delightful and promising band, but I think Summer Cannibals could eat them for lunch if they so desired.

Meanwhile, Back In Portland . . .

The band Magic Mouth performing in what I think is Mississippi Studios.

Meanwhile, In Portland

Fun fact: the lead singer of the Portland band Thanks goes by the name Jimi Hendrix.

Broken Bells

Broken Bells at Center Stage, Atlanta, 2010

As hard as it is to believe, Broken Bells, the collaboration between James Mercer of The Shins and Danger Mouse of, among other projects, Gnarls Barkley, is still continuing.  We saw them back in 2010 at Center Stage, and here they are last summer in Portland's Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, aka The Schnitz.  

Meanwhile, Back in Portland

JD McPherson at The Bunk Bar, from 2012.

Portland

As previously foreshadowed, the idea was placed in his head back in the 90s to eventually move to the Pacific Northwest.  Inception.  But he never pursued that impulse and instead remained settled in the Southeast, first buying a condo and then later a house in Atlanta, and settling into a career serving clients along the Gulf and Atlantic Coasts.

He had started working for a new firm at the beginning of 2007, and one day toward the middle of the year, the owner of the company walked into his office unannounced and made him an offer: they had a large project that needed his help over in Portland, Oregon, and would he be willing to go out there for a couple of months and help out?  He was told that his skill set, such as it was, would make a good addition to the Portland office, and if it all worked out and everyone in the office got along, there was even the potential to permanently relocate out to Portland.

Even though the original vision was to move to somewhere near the Puget Sound in Washington State, in a startlingly short amount of time he found himself over in Portland, living in a Pearl District corporate condominium, working on the large Oregon project, meeting the office's Northwestern clients, and getting along quite well with the staff in Portland.  By the end of the year, an offer was made to relocate to Oregon, and they even offered to let him move to the Seattle office instead, if that was his preference. But by that time, he had already tasted enough of the Portland experience to choose Oregon over Washington.   All he had to do was sell the house in Atlanta.  

All this was just before the 2008 collapse of the real estate market.

In other news, the Toronto band Metric finally released the album Grow Up and Blow Away in 2007  Even though the album had originally been recorded in 2001, it was still one of his favorites of that year.

Raleigh Is the New Portland

For those of you keeping score at home, I'm still grieving and more than a little disappointed about the decision to scale back Portland's MusicFest NorthWest to a single-weekend, single-venue event that bears little to no resemblance to the week-long, multi-venue event of years past.  Not only did I really enjoy my time there, but after several years I was getting pretty good at navigating around the mammoth schedule and maximizing my experience.  In a way, the event even got tied into my sense of self identity ("I'm that guy who goes out and kicks MFNW's ass every year"), but now it's just some bleachers out in the sun for 18 bands on a mid-August weekend.

Before the announcement was made, I had already purchased tickets to Seattle's Bumbershoot for Labor Day Weekend, the weekend before the traditional start of MFNW (oh yeah, they changed the dates, too), so I still plan on visiting the Great Northwest on Labor Day Weekend, but instead of travelling from Seattle to Portland after Bumbershoot as I'd done in years past, I'll just be going up for Labor Day Weekend this year.  So what shall I do for that first week of September?

Today, the organizers of Raleigh, North Carolina's Hopscotch Festival released their initial list of performers, and it's pretty strong - Spoon, St. Vincent, Sun Kil Moon, Mastodon, Prince Rama, Mutual Benefit, and many more. What's more, I realized that, like the old MFNW, it's a multi-venue event but in downtown Raleigh instead of all over Portland, and that it's on the Thursday through Saturday after Labor Day Weekend.

So, theoretically, and I'm just spitballing out ideas here, I could return home from Bumbershoot on the Tuesday after Labor Day, take the 6-hour drive to Raleigh on Wednesday, enjoy the three days of Hopscotch, return home on Sunday, and be back at work the next Monday.

Okay, it's only three days, not six like MFNW had ballooned out to before the cut-back, but given travel logistics and new responsibilities at my new job, the schedule actually works better for me (I wouldn't have gotten back from Portland until the following Monday if MFNW had kept to their old schedule).  The venues seem to be more closely spaced and centrally located for Hopscotch than they were for MFNW (a lot of time was spent each night getting from one venue to another), and even though "only" 115 of the 155 or so bands for Hopscotch have been announced so far, the lineup is still pretty strong.  There's even headliner events planned for Raleigh City Square, similar to MFNW's Pioneer Courthouse Square concerts. 

So now I'm wondering, who really needs Portland, anyway?

RIP Roseland Theater (Portland)

Okay, maybe it's not the end of Portland's Roseland Theater but it's surely the last time rapper Action Bronson gets invited there.  As you can see in the video, he lit a joint on stage last Monday night and threw it to the audience, and then toked on one of his own. Security intervened, a shoving match ensued, the house lights came up, and the show was over.  

From what I could tell, he got further into his set then Panic! At The Disco did before the creaky old floor at The Tabernacle gave out Friday night in Atlanta.

I've been to a couple of shows at the Roseland, including Nacho Picasso, Chvrches, and Godspeed! You Black Emperor during last years' MFNW, and Reignwolf and Those Darlins' during MFNW 2012.  The audience was just as overwhelmingly caucasian at those events as that shown in this video (hey, it's Oregon). 

MFNW - Third Announcement

Atlanta's own Deerhunter will be playing the Crystal Ballroom on Wednesday, September 4th as part of MusicfestNW 2013.  This is the third line-up announcement for the Portland festival, following the prior news that Godspeed You! Black Emperor will be performing for two consecutive nights at the Roseland Ballroom, and Austra will be performing at MFNW for one night.

Alert readers will recall that Deerhunter will also be playing Bumbershoot, who have announced which bands will be playing on which specific days of the three-day festival.  Deerhunter are booked for Monday (Labor Day), September 2nd, so with any luck we'll have an opportunity to see Deerhunter twice in a three-day period.  

Cool.

MFNW - First Announcement

Godspeed You! Black Emperor will be playing two shows at the Roseland Theater in Portland, Oregon on September 6 and 7th as part of MusicfestNW 2013! 

Tickets go on sale May 31st.

AM & Shawn Lee, Again

Dude, I wasn't there. Here's AM & Shawn Lee performing at Oregon Public Broadcasting's studio back on September 14, 2011, just a couple of days after I left Portland and MFNW 2011 and a full year before I saw them up in Seattle at Bumbershoot.

Embarrassing confession of the day:  I caught myself not only singing along, but actually rocking out, to the canned music in Publix's Supermarket today, although in my defense, the song playing was The Style Council's You're The Best Thing That Ever Happened.