As is the way with silent things, you may not have heard about Slabtown’s month-long rock ‘n’ roll photo show and silent auction, but it’s time you did–’cause the Northwest-side garage-rock haven is wrappin’ things up this coming Sunday, Nov. 4, at midnight (that’s less than week away!).
Curator Howard Higgens (more commonly known as [...]

Act I.
When we were in Leicester in Paul’s studio recording “Become an Island” we watched this:

I don’t own a computer and I’m not up on new internet shit, so as far as I know this might be old and everyone might be sick to death of it. Regardless, I like it and hope the [...]

Since reuniting three years ago, things haven’t been the same for queercore punk band Team Dresch. The scene has changed—as the band discussed in this week’s WW—but the members’ lives are different, too. Singer-guitarist Jody Bleyle lives in Los Angeles, raising a family, while bassist Donna Dresch, singer-guitarist Kaia Wilson, and drummer Marci Martinez [...]

There are plenty of reasons to love Portland records stores (I like EM on Sandy specifically for used CDs, for instance). But Jackpot’s always been the store I turn to for the cream of the crop when it comes to new vinyl (or CDs); in fact, I don’t think I’ve ever left the Hawthorne location [...]

Ritchie Young is a troubadour. Like the European singer-songwriters of the High Middle Ages, the lyricist and leader singer for Loch Lomond tells a story with every song he writes. On the track “Song in ¾” from the band’s latest album Paper the Walls, Young’s lyrics are both linear and repetitive. He moves through [...]

[RAP] Late last month, some plain-looking fliers popped up around Northeast Portland: “DIGITAL UNDERGROUND, TONE LOC, U-KREW.” The first two names likely elicit a giddy, sentimental response, but it’s the third that stirs emotions for many a local hip-hop artist and old-school head. “They were the Run-DMC of Portland,” says Vursatyl of Lifesavas. “They had [...]

[ELECTRO-POP] Michele Wylen doesn’t know exactly how she came to be branded a dance act, but making her live debut opening for Liverpool-based electronic act Ladytron last October may have had something to do with it. Less than 24 hours after emailing the MP3 of her electro-pop song “Cruel” to a family friend, she received [...]

[QUEERCORE] Team Dresch has never been predictable. Since the Portland-based punk band formed 14 years ago, its four queer members have broken social and musical conventions with songs like “Hate the Christian Right” and “Fagetarian and Dyke,” using poetic lyrics and riffing guitars to jumpstart the ’90s queercore movement. After all this time, its activist-musicians [...]

[INDIE ROCK] Weathering everything from the demise of grunge to the demise of Elliott Smith, Jackpot Records—a quality-controlled haven of vinyl and CDs focusing on “the best of what an artist has to offer”—has been a vital part of Portland’s music scene longer than most transplants have been out of high school. A former clerk [...]