Blog: End Hits

VALENTINE'S DAY PARTY: EROTIC CITY ( The Spare Room , 4830 NE 42nd) Hey, all you sexy mofos: The Spare Room is the place to drive your Little Red Corvette for a Valentine's dance fest by Erotic City, Portland's wonderful cover band of the Diminutive Purple One. It's Prince tunes all night, with more sexy dance moves than you can shake a crying dove at. COURTNEY FERGUSON LANGHORNE SLIM Bunk Bar , 1028 SE Water) Langhorne Slim just [...]

If you're not yet hot for Remy Marc's local DIY record/distro outlet Sweating Tapes , there's no better time than now to take notice. The label is releasing a series of compilations documenting the North American synth scene, and they're starting at home in Portland. Taking a curatorial bent like this makes sense for an imprint praised for the adventurous imports they distribute from avant Euro labels such as Phantasma Disques, Desire, and Mannequin, so you can bet that we're getting rather stoked for them to now tackle things stateside, city by city. There's definitely [...]

Akron/Family percussionist Dana Buoy recently released the first track from his upcoming debut solo LP, Summer Bodies . Buoy, whose real name is Dana Janssen, left New York back in 2009 for our neck of the woods, and this marks the drummer's first solo recorded foray in electronic indie pop. Made of warm and tropical tones, the track "Call to Be" is a minimally produced, yet exuberantly spirited taste of an album that was reportedly crafted in a jungle bungalow. It's also hopefully a hazy retreat from the distinctly nontropical rains we've got coming [...]

That right there is the very incredible Cate Le Bon , who, whenever she isn't playing around with horseys, makes excellent music. Le Bon's new album CYRK is flat-out terrific, a lightly LSD-dipped gambol through Velvets-y noir rock, cool Gallic pop, and pastoral British-Empire psychedelia. The Welsh musician comes to Mississippi Studios on Thursday, February 23 , and you'll be able to read lots more about her in the Mercury in a couple weeks. In the meantime, though, we're giving away a pair of tickets to the show! All you have to [...]

TOO SHORT, STEADY THE BOSS, DJ CHILL ( Roseland , 8 NW 6th) Three decades later and 19 full-length albums, Too $hort is still dropping rhymes about all of his favorite things... and if you don't know what those things are, stop reading now. Even if 45-year-old Todd Shaw never shook his pimpin' ways, he's still managed to maintain the respect of rappers past and present (Tupac, the Notorious B.I.G., Jay-Z). Plus he was $tylizing his name with dollar signs long before Ke$ha and Gene $immon$. Too $hort has his 20th album coming out later this month called [...]

The music of Portland duo Brainstorm circumnavigates the musical globe with total ease, marrying the sounds of both hemispheres and offering a modern, Northwest perspective on sounds from very far away. Brainstorm has just released a new EP, and The Mdou Moctar Covers (Music from Saharan Cellphones) is exactly what its title says: Two cover songs of Nigerian musician Mdou Moctar , whose music is most commonly distributed through Saharan Africa via cellphone—personal computers are rare, and vinyl melts in the heat! Brainstorm are big Mdou Moctar fans; one of the EP's tracks [...]

Menomena's Danny Seim records solo work under the moniker Lackthereof , and today he's released the 11th Lackthereof album for free over on Menomena's site . But this isn't just any old Lackthereof album. Seim recorded it in a single day, as part of the " Twenty Song Challenge ," a game that musicians play in which everyone goes off and writes and records 20 songs in 12 hours. They get together at the end of the day to play each other results. The finest record goes onto win the Grammy for album of the [...]

It's a story I always take to heart as I know how rotten I'd feel if some toothless bastard ran off with my guitars. Some things just aren't replaceable. But let's hope for better for S.F. band Dominant Legs, whose gear was stolen in Portland, Wednesday evening, a day after opening for Eleanor Friedberger at Mississippi Studios. Christian Blunda of the Mean Jeans, who was with the band at the time of the theft, explains: I'm fucking pissed about it. They lost 2 laptops, an ipad, their clothes, etc. We were at [...]

Taking place over two intense nights at the Alleyway on NE Alberta, Portland's first annual Ceremony of Sludge is collecting together some of the best upcoming metal bands around. PDX has grown a bit of a metal rep the last few years, and now some lesser known, though no less brutal acts get to take the stage and show off their head-banging, face-tearing, genre-spanning sounds. Friday, March 2nd, features Heavy Voodoo , Axxicorn , Avi Dei and Zmoke . , The next night, Saturday, will have Lamprey , Towers [...]

I'm pretty stoked for the February 21 release of the Tindersticks new album The Something Rain . The English band's sound has always been so cinematic, and their song "Frozen" off of the new album carries on that tradition. It's a hypnotic tune that reminds me of stretches of David Bowie's Earthling and David Lynch's Lost Highway , but made signature with singer Stuart Staples' haunted baritone. I wish I could tell you they were coming to the Doug Fir, but sad face emoticon, they only have European tour dates so far. [...]

THE PHARMACY, THE SHIVAS, GHOST MOM, MYTHOLOGICAL HORSES ( Ella Street Social Club , 714 SW 20th Pl) Read our article on the Pharmacy . YACHT, LOVERS, JEFFREY JERUSALEM ( Wonder Ballroom , 128 NE Russell) According to the Mayans, we have less than a year before the apocalypse, so now is as good a time as any to (A) start thinking about what comes next and (B) immerse ourselves in hedonistic orgies. [...]

AP Photo Politico just posted Obama's new campaign playlist—I didn't know there was such a thing, but there you are—and it looks like Portland's own AgesandAges made the cut. Apparently our president enjoys rocking out to the massed chorale of their excellent song "No Nostalgia." Actually, this is a damn perfect presidential campaign song for Obama. Take a look at the lyrics: When I walk, there will be no Speculation, no act to follow And my words, they will be strong Find your [...]

Adarsha Benjamin The Pharmacy Another week, another Mercury music section to wad up in fury as you read the profoundly irritating news that Portlandia is publishing its own travel guide to Portland. Two friends growing up on Vashon Island start a band. That band becomes the Pharmacy , and the Pharmacy is here to disprove any rumors about rock and roll's supposed demise. LISTEN: The Pharmacy - "Dig Your Grave" Our [...]

The Right Place To Be EP by Adventure Galley VILLAGE FREE SCHOOL BENEFIT: HURRY UP, ADVENTURE GALLEY, FATHER FIGURE ( Mississippi Studios , 3939 N Mississippi) Since supporting education is vitally important right now, don't miss tonight's Benefit for the Village Free School (a cool nonprofit private school that focuses on freedom, responsibility, and community involvement), featuring the Thermals-infused super band Hurry Up! as well as bouncy sets from Adventure Galley and Father Figure. Go on—have some fun for the kids! WM. STEVEN HUMPHREY [...]

CD Baby reported a very good 2011 this morning on their DIY Musician blog . The report is decidedly heartening, bucking the trend of virtually every bit of other music-biz news, which typically indicates a dire state of affairs. That's not the case with the Portland-based music distributor (now owned by out-of-town company Discmakers), which reports a 13.3 percent increase in artist commissions and a 20.9 percent uptick in total number of titles that they carry. I admit that I was initially a little shocked to hear they've been doing so well, but it makes sense: People are [...]

Typhoon 's audio engineer, Paul Laxer , has just released a batch of "stem" recordings from Typhoon, which are raw tracks from the band's recording sessions that enterprising producers and DJs can now use to make their own new tracks. Pretty cool! DoublePlusGood has already done a very cool remix of their own ( check it out here ), and now everyone else can as well. The "stem" files are posted over on Typhoon's Facebook page , but Laxer and the band generously agreed to not require that you "like" Typhoon in order to access the [...]

Latest tracks by goldenBEARS THE GOLDEN BEARS, 1939 ENSEMBLE ( Bunk Bar , 1028 SE Water) Read our article on the Golden Bears . LOS CAMPESINOS!, PARENTHETICAL GIRLS ( Doug Fir , 830 E Burnside) Read our article on Los Campesinos! ELEANOR FRIEDBERGER, DOMINANT [...]

Portland's Greylag have been steadily and serenely building a fanbase in town, and 2012 is looking like it could be the duo's breakout year. The next few months will see the release of their debut EP, The Only Way To Kill You , as well as a spot on one of the better Sasquatch Festival lineups in years. Below, we've got the first single from the folk centric fellows, "Black Crow," in all its acoustic, harmonious glory. If you're not already riding the Greylag wagon, it's the perfect time to hop [...]

Tragic news came this weekend that Jaime Cooley passed away on February 4 at the age of 33. Cooley was a fixture in the Portland music scene for many years, having begun working at KNRK at the young age of 17 and working her way through the ranks up to Assistant Program and Music Director. Cooley was part of the unfortunate Entercom layoffs at KNRK in 2008, a very big loss considered how connected she was to local music. Cooley was the champion of tons of local bands and an absolute, pure lover of music. Her enthusiasm and [...]

1. Madonna last night: Partly great, partly terrible, musically worthless, totally worth watching. 2. MIA 's middle finger: What Sasha Frere-Jones said . 3. LMFAO : No. No. No no no. I do not accept this package. Return to sender immediately. 4. The two local release shows I caught this weekend— Laura Gibson 's and Lost Lander 's—were positively outstanding. The one I missed—Neal Morgan—sounds like it was just as good. 5. Lana Del Rey : Glad to see that SNL seems to [...]