Blog: opbmusic

It's been a minute or two since we've heard anything from The Minders . The long-running Portland act was reawakened by frontman Martyn Leaper (along with guitarist Andy Naify, bassist and former Shaky Hand Mayhaw Hoons, and drummer and former Shin Jesse Sandoval) last spring with the appearance of a new track ( "Needle Doll" ) on the PDX Pop Now! comp and later a handful of shows, including a stellar set during our MusicFest NW day party last fall. We've all been excitedly waiting for news of more new music from the band in the new [...]

The notion of Valentine's Day , at least as most of us know it, seems to be a polarizing one. I don't know if it's always been this way-- I don't even know how long this Hallmark version has been in full swing, but people tend to come down strongly on either the love or the hate side (the one other group of note perhaps being those that participate, but do it begrudgingly). Similarly, pop music was more or less invented for this love stuff, and one need look no further than the fact that 90% of all [...]

We're building something great at opbmusic, and you have a critical part in it, with your contribution . Every day, we're broadcasting 24 hours of music commercial-free, hosted by DJs in our Macadam studios. We have our ears open for new bands you'll want to know about, what's fun, surprising, and most of all what's happening in our thriving local music scene. We also feature studio sessions every week that you can stream online or hear on OPB Radio and opbmusic. Bands like Wild Flag , Other Lives , Blind Pilot , [...]

To say the least, Esperanza Spalding has gone a long way in short amount of time. Fresh off of last year's much deserved Best New Artist Grammy award, the Portland native returns March 20th with her third album, Radio Music Society . Meant as a companion piece to 2010's Chamber Music Society , the 11-track effort finds her combining the jazz and classical realms she's been exploring with something more along the lines of pop music. That pop sensibility is evident in this first single from the new record-- "Black Gold" [...]

As previously reported, The Shins (version 2.0) return March 20th with their first release in five years in Port of Morrow. We've already heard the first single "Simple Song," which arrives as a 7" on Valentine's Day. It's only fitting then, that the b-side be a languourous and romantic number like "September" ("Aint' she lovely bone and blood" is one choice line), which Mercer says he wrote for his wife. And all of those warm, ethereal tones you hear? As the video shows, it's the magic of analog. [...]

Current Rotation on opbmusic.org: 1. First Aid Kit: The Lion's Roar 2. The Black Keys: El Camino 3. Lost Lander: DRRT 4. Nada Surf: The Stars Are Indifferent to Astronomy 5. Sharon Van Etten: Tramp 6. Kathleen Edwards: Voyageur 7. Laura Gibson: La Grande 8. Gotye: Making Mirrors 9. Youth: June EP 10. Dr. Dog: Be the Void 11. Dropa: Glass House 12. The Roots: Undun 13. Craig Finn: Clear Heart Full Eyes 14. The Shins: Port of Morrow 15. Leonard Cohen: [...]

Sasquatch! has shown its cards and the 11th annual version of the music festival at The Gorge in George looks good from here. Good? Actually, it looks like a doozy. Beck, Jack White, and Bon Iver will headline the four-day festival taking place over Memorial Day weekend (May 25-28), and the rest is an impressive cast that seems to go on and on: The Shins, The Roots, The Walkmen, St. Vincent, Feist, tUnE-yArDs, Charles Bradley, The War on Drugs, Beirut, Alabama Shakes, Mogwai, Little Dragon, Shabazz Palaces and scores more. Portlandia also [...]

It's become an annual part of the annual music bacchanalia that is the SXSW Music Festival : NPR Music 's opening night showcase from the outdoor stage at Stubb's BBQ in Austin. This year's version happens March 14th and features a trio of acts worthy of just such a spotlight in Andrew Bird , Sharon Van Etten and The Alabama Shakes , all three of whom will be celebrating new full-length releases. Bird and Van Etten are the more known quantities, having gained big numbers of fans over the course of [...]

We're giving away tickets to see Dr. Dog , the Philadelphia-based psychedelic rock band on their stop in Portland. With their newest record, Be the Void , about to drop next week, the band's national tour brings them to the Crystal Ballroom , Monday February 13th. Purling Hiss is the opener. Want to get a pair of free tickets from opbmusic? Here's how you can enter to win: Send an email to opbmusic@opb.org with "Dr. Dog" in the subject line, your full name in the body of the email, and get this [...]

Airplay Chart for opbmusic, January 23-29: 1. Alabama Shakes: Alabama Shakes EP 2. First Aid Kit: The Lion's Roar 3. The Black Keys: El Camino 4. Lost Lander: DRRT 5. Nada Surf: The Stars Are Indifferent to A 6. Radiohead: The Daily Mail & Staircase 7. Leonard Cohen: Old Ideas 8. Sun Angle: Sun Angle EP 9. The Shins: Port of Morrow 10. M83: Hurry Up, We're Dreaming 11. Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings: Soul Time! 12. The Lower 48: Where All Maps End [...]

Portland's Neal Morgan steps out from behind the drumkit-- figuratively if not literally-- on his new drum & voice album In the Yard . These days the drummer in the bands of both Joanna Newso m and Bill Callahan, Morgan ups the experimental ante on his own sticking rigidly to a formula that, for all its implied limitations, achieves an unexpectedly wide sonic palette. Unsurprisingly for the drummer by trade, it's percussion (and HUGE percussion) that often takes center stage on the collection. What isn't as expected, however, are the vocal elements, which range from [...]

You didn't hear this from us, but an error recently on the Sasquatch website inadvertantly revealed a partial list of performers for this year's version of the annual festival scheduled to take place May 25-28 at the Gorge. These are all unconfirmed acts, in other words, but we only have to wait a couple of days to see the entire lineup anyway-- the announcement party happens this Thursday at Seattle's Neptune Theater and features Junip, Nada Surf's Matthew Caws, and The Physics. Nevertheless, it's fun to start to think about what kind of dream bill [...]

It's cold outside and it's been raining hard all day. It's also the tail end of a particularly exhausting weekend, and tomorrow's creeping closer each hour, promising to come too early. I keep thinking about my morning alarm--how it will rudely wake me from a sleep and force me into work and work pants and a coffee shop before 7:30 am. I hate Mondays. This is what I'm thinking about before Sun Angle gathers in front of the Rontoms fireplace. Made up of Portland music veterans Marius Libman ( Copy ), Papi Fimbres ( O Bruxo [...]

A quick Google search of the Hot Lake Hotel in Eastern Oregon will give you more than a few rabbit trails' worth of ghost-hunting sites, describing it as one of America's most haunted places. The twenty-member cast and crew of Laura Gibson 's new other-worldly video for her song "La Grande" had free run of the hotel's entire third floor for two days and nights, and while they did spend part of their nights running around looking for ghosts, they were unsuccessful in validating any of the Internet's claims of haunting. The group [...]

• 01 La Grande

Always a trio, never a quintet, Ben Folds Five-- Ben Folds , Robert Sledge, Darren Jesse-- have announced that they're back in the studio with an eye toward a late spring release. As Folds rather offhandedly put it on his Twitter feed : "It's happening fo sho - Day 1 in studio with Robert and Darren through March #NewBenFoldsFiveRecord". So there you go. As you may recall from your youth, BFF once serenaded us with piano-backed ballads of abortion drama (okay, just once), scoring a rather unlikely hit with "Brick" in 1997 from their second album [...]

M. Ward's return to the solo life is imminent-- that's music we're talking not romance. The Portland singer-songwriter has spent much of the three years since his last release collaborating as part of both a pair (She & Him) and a group (Monsters of Folk), but he'll be back to his old self soon with the April 10th release of A Wasteland Companion via Merge (and we can't tell you how much more excited we are for that title than if it were called A Heartland Companion ). It's said to be a [...]

Kindred spirits along the etheral throwback folk road, Fleet Foxes and Joanna Newsom were a natural pairing for the most recent edition of PBS' long-running Austin City Limits program. With setlists comprised largely of work from their most recent releases ( Helplessness Blues and Have One on Me , respectively), each showed why they're considered among the cream of the current crop. Watch the full episode below, or wait a couple of days and watch it in high quality television format on OPB TV this Saturday night at [...]

Top plays this week on opbmusic: 1. Alabama Shakes: Alabama Shakes EP 2. The Black Keys: El Camino 3. Kathleen Edwards: Voyageur 4. Laura Gibson: La Grande 5. Lost Lander: DRRT 6. M83: Hurry Up, We're Dreaming 7. Nada Surf: The Stars Are Indifferent to A 8. First Aid Kit: The Lion's Roar 9. The Shins: Port of Morrow 10. Radiohead: The Daily Mail & Staircase 11. The Roots: Undun 12. Various Artists: V/A: Friends & Friends of Friends 13. Tom Waits: Bad As [...]

Luke Wyland and Dana Valatka-- the duo that makes up Portland's colorful and frenetic AU -- have at long last announced their return. Both Lights sees the light this April 3rd on the Portland-based Hometapes label. It's their first full-length release in almost four years and third overall, and boasts an appearance from avant garde saxman du jour Colin Stetson-- if you've been listening here over the past month or so, you've probably already heard his presence on the fantastic first single "Solid Gold" (if not, we'd suggest you listen below and fast ). [...]

Etta James, the iconic singer perhaps best known for her definitive rendition of the song "At Last" died this morning in Riverside, CA following a battle with leukemia. She would have been 74 next week. Identified most often as an R&B singer, James' style and influence nevertheless spanned genres-- blues, soul, jazz, gospel and rock & roll included. She was inducted into both the Rock & Roll and Blues Halls of Fame and is among those credited with bridging the gap between soul and rock & roll. In addition to "At Last" her catalog includes a number of [...]