‘Tis the slow season for touring bands, as evidenced by the Tour Diary section here on LocalCut. But Shoeshine Blue’s Michael Apinyakul was nice enough to send us this entry (in compact Readers Digest-style form) from the group’s recent December tour. Enjoy it well, because it’s the last tour diary of 2007!
Forces gathered against me [...]

It’s You Make the Call time again! The final (and what, third?) You Make the Call of 2007.
Vlix Saka Tor’s “Six Words” was sent to my email by the artist. It features a severe stutter and a condemnation of Reed College (I visited the Reed campus once and found it quite pleasant). Incidentally, Vlix [...]

Last weekend a handful of bands gathered for a small show at the Green House. The occasion? The return of Aviva Stampfer, singer/glock player in Hurah Hurah.
What all happened? IT the Living Colossus played the best covers ever, and managed to make Rhianna’s “Umbrella” not sound overplayed. Southern Belle got acoustic (even relying on a [...]

What do you do when the world gives you lemons? You make lemonade! What do you do when your roommate breaks your Polaroid SLR that’s too expensive to replace? All together now… you embark on a musical journey that could take you from house shows to opening for Cool Nutz (if Kissin’s “TMFC” (see his [...]

Mr. Charlie Byron Salas-Humara has a new album coming out on February 19th—his Kill Rock Stars debut as Panther. With that, there will likely be new music videos: But will they reach the high mark set by the legendary cardboard box video (shot by director Whitey McConnaughy) for Panther’s “You Don’t Want Your Nails Done?” [...]

We’d been wondering when we would hear tracks off of A Weather’s highly-anticipated (I don’t usually use that promo-slang, but I know we’re really excited, anyway!) upcoming Team Love album, Cove. Turns out all I had to do was ask, and boom, two tracks were in our inbox.
If I’m trying hard not to sound like [...]

Playing wide-ranging yet related genres from Death-Disco, Punk and Post-Punk to New Wave and No Wave, John Root can be found every where from the Crystal Castles after-show put on by Cute Alert to his regular DJ night at Tube. Self-described as “loving, lovable, lovelorn,” Mr. Root took the time to clue us into his [...]

At every record store I went to while in the UK, Portland bands received prominent placement. We’re not talking bigtime groups like the Shins, Decemberists, or even their beloved Gossip. No, we’re talking Chromatics, Shaky Hands and YACHT.
Before I left, YACHT had noticed and photographed the same trend. I didn’t go looking for it, but [...]

In this week’s Whatever Happened To… cover story, WW got in touch with plenty of Portlanders who haven’t been heard from in quite awhile. While Marv Ross, once-guitarist/primary songwriter for local sax-rock heroes Quarterflash, didn’t exactly disappear, his life-at-current isn’t all that indicative of his rockstar past.
There have been two constants throughout Ross’ life [...]