Tagged: knwyrpdx

Another year, another birthday party for Elvis! I'm speaking, of course, of Portland institution John "Elvis" Schroder, known around town as "Downtown Elvis" for being one of the most... um... eyebrow raising Elvis impersonators you'll ever see. (Although between you and me, I think he's slowing down his performance schedule. I have only seen him twice since the Mercury office made its move to a building that practically sits on top of the Skidmore Fountain.) Elvis' tight bros at BarFly are throwing him quite the shindig on Wednesday (Oct [...]

Ron Mason Gassaway The Mudai Lounge Back when we first caught wind that the Mudai Lounge was ceasing to operate as a live music venue we were upset, seeing how the space within the Ethiopian restaurant had become one of the consistently great outsider venues in town. The room was cramped, the bar was limited, and the speakers were shredded, but the bands were sensational and the crowd would feel it; you got the vibe that you were walking into a 21+ house show and [...]

Praise Satan! Always pick up your spares! Now in its ninth season, the Portland Metal Bowling League is gearing up for yet another run of bashing pins and banging heads every Tuesday night at the AMF Pro 300 Lanes. Teams are compiled of four members and interested metal bowlers should contact the league for more information on joining their ranks. In addition to the headbowlers' ball (so proud of that one), there will be local metal bands playing on the lanes as well. [...]

Local band Youth may be impossible to Google, but discovering them is well worth making your search cache look like that of a pedophile's. The local quartet of Maggie Morris, Elec Morin, Stephen Leisy, and Matthew Hall hasn't been around long but they've made big moves fast, playing at some of the best venues around town and gaining a reputation for crafting subtly gratifying pop melodies without any of the shrouded pretense attributed to our city's recent influx of dream pop bands. Youth appear to have only three publicly available tracks, but the strength of those tracks has [...]

Tipster Gregory Day was kind enough to send us these photos of the famed Satyricon building meeting its ultimate demise at the hands of a demolition crew. While the punk rock landmark is now literally just a pile of rubble, you can always post your (hazy) memories here . Teary-eyed punks should not click the jump, because there are more photos there. [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

End Hits recently asked guitarist Jesse Gandy of the Whines to share a tune that's important to him. He shot back with a tip on an outstanding You Tube video of Bentonian bluesman Skip James performing the murder ballad "Crow Jane." Jesse's choice is another clear indicator of the bands' deep fascination with American blues music. After his piece, you can stream the A-side of The Whines' newest 7-inch, "Shootinhead." "I don't You Tube much but this is one I always come back to. It's nice to be able to [...]

Earlier this month we turned you on to the fantastic new Tunnels release, The Blackout . We were so impressed by Tunnels mastermind Nick Bindeman's string of influences that we've invited him back to share some of his favorites with you. Take it away, Nick. [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Local up-and-comers Psychic Feline have been popping up on a lot of great bills lately thanks to a fantastic cassette released earlier this year on High Fives and Handshakes . The release is punctuated by the excellent "Targets," in which the band sings with detachment of looking down the barrel of a gun against the track's hallucinatory 3/4 sway to great dramatic effect. On their new 7-inch (also for High Fives and Handshakes), the band's knack for weaving tremolo'ed guitar and pleasantly droning melodies [...]

End Hits recently caught up with our favorite mutant popsters Nucular Aminals to chat about their new full-length and 7-inch for K Records plus their upcoming tour with Psychic Feline . Read more about singer Robert Cometz's Frawg Pound Studios , a supergroup called Itchy Problems, and spicing your food with human remains after the jump. [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

For an upcoming feature on Group Doueh's show at Mississippi Studios next Thursday, I interviewed Sublime Frequencies co-owner Hisham Mayet. It was a great conversation and I'll post it next week. Aside from psyching me out even more for the show, I learned a lot about Mayet and his taste-making world-music label. First of all, when he's not on the road—that's about four or five months a year—Mayet calls Portland home. Second, Sublime Frequencies began as a field-recording project with an emphasis on video. Alongside audio, Mayet and co-owner Alan Bishop have been [...]

My first experience watching Papi Fimbres play was two years a go at a sweaty, packed-out show at the Mudai Lounge. I remember looking around and noticing nobody was even sipping on their drinks. Instead, the crowd was bouncing up and down gleefully with their full-attention on the man jumping out of his drum seat chanting "O BRUXO!" O Bruxo has since gone on an indefinite hiatus, but the man behind the drums continues to make music with over a dozen other local acts. [ [...]

• Boomarm Nation - Paper/Upper/Cuts - ILLA KILLA YELLOW SPACE - (Album Sampler)

photo from William Joseph Gallery The Star's marquee in 1954. The hope is to rebuild it to its former glory. I stopped into the Star Theater last night for a quick glimpse of the new venue. It is indeed across the street from Roseland, in a building that you've probably overlooked but are no doubt familiar with. The Star is an appealing venue with some quirks, with a good stage and fine sight-lines from everywhere in the building. The sound was plenty loud, and clarity-wise it was probably [...]

Public Access Television isn't just for the preachers, psychics, call-in cranks, and boner-riffic hard rockers in their mom's basement. Here in Portland, Channel 22 is home to Experimental Half Hour , where some of Portland's more adventurous bands perform live thirty-minute sets amidst colorful, molten psychedelic video effects and green screen explorations. The bi-weekly program, which airs multiple times every week, has so far done ten episodes, the latest featuring experimental garage compatriots Blood Beach . For their set, Blood Beach performed both older sides from the bands EP and new tracks from their forthcoming full-length. [...]

And today in vaguely music-related news, Portlandia -you know, that sketch comedy TV show that has yet to officially air, but has already driven your rent up a notch- has a Facebook page . And for the next few weeks, the page will be curated by Claire Evans (roughly one half of local band YACHT ), as a collective study on the innerworkings of what keeps Portland... gulp... weird. In the words of Evans herself: Consider this an interactive Internet zine of Portlandian information; meet our weirdos and semi-notables, bone [...]

Elliot Smith at EJ's in 1998 I've always found it strange that bootlegging concerts hasn't become more prevalent in the internet age. Recording technology is more portable and easier to use, and online sharing is fast and efficient (forget waiting for the tapes to dub at regular speed, then dropping them in the mail-and shit man, when Jere Bear drops the 80-minute version of "Truckin'," that's a whole cassette right there). I have a feeling it has something to do with the way bands play-a lot less improvising, and near-facsimile sets-but that's [...]

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This past month saw the release of the debut LP from The Whines entitled Hell To Play . If you were lucky to catch their release show then good for you, because unfortunately I missed it. And now, in the WTF move of the century, their singer (Karianne) has decided to take off for Alaska just as her band picks up speed. Though the buzz is slow to build, Hell To Play is gaining some important fans, rumor has it that even Thurston Moore was quite impressed upon hearing the record while visiting Portland for [...]

Elliott O'brien EGGY Tape Releases Eggy Records , a local cassette-only D.I.Y. label, is releasing some of the best sounds around, including materiel by artists like Mattress, Orca Team, and the Woolen Men. After going through a package of cassettes that was sent here to the Mercury I immediately was struck by the quality of the releases on Eggy and also the simple fact that I didn't know much about who was behind it. So I decided to ask label head Rafael a few questions: [...]

These particular posters are from last year. Those available online from the current show don't do justice to what's there. Tonight marked the opening of the sixth annual The Art of Musical Maintenance show at the Goodfoot. The amount of work on display is staggering (281 in all), and the majority is great. All are screen printed by hand. A number of local bands (Modest Mouse, Decemberists, M. Ward, etc) and even local shows are available. Each poster is for sale, framed and unframed. The unframed posters average from $20-30, while the framed versions start [...]

[ We now have a new Q&A column focusing on local musicians and how they live, courtesy of the very kind Matt Caldwell. You are excited by this news. -Ed. ] Another April shower in May had just doused Mississippi street. Now a big, bright ball called "the sun" had broken through and lit up the place with glorious color. Singer and keyboardist Gavin Castleton , wearing a green military-style cap and black hoodie strolled up with his dog, Loomis. If you aren't familiar with Castleton, you probably will be soon. He's yet another local [...]