Opening with a quote from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “Paul Revere’s Ride,” Pelican Ossman’s hardy tale “Hajj” begins on a somber note. Using minimal percussion to set the pace with acoustic guitar chords intertwined, the boy-girl duo pairs its voices together for the final component of the stark song.
You know how dancing on [...]

I’ve outlawed guilty pleasures in my life. As I believe honesty is the best policy, why not apply that rationale to my musical tastes? Consider that your warning for what you’re about to read…
There’s something special about pop concerts—and though I’m the oldest non-parent in the audience, that doesn’t bother me. Because not only [...]

Portland’s very own Badman Recording Co. is turning a dime. And they’re giving you free music to celebrate. This is my kind of party.
Badman has released a 12-track compilation, aptly titled Badman, Has It Really Been Ten Years?, which is available now as a free digital download on Amazon.com through Amazon.com’s “Fall/Winter seasons.”I don’t know [...]

I’m taking this opportunity to feature one of my favorite songs ever, from one of my favorite bands ever, whose presence in Portland was one of the few things I knew previously about the city, and thus was one of the main reasons I felt confident moving here.
Excessively bold intros behind us, I’m frankly [...]

If Pancake Breakfast’s show at East Burn resembled a kindergarten assembly before the set began—attendees sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of the knee-high stage, a coloring book being hawked at the merch table, the cutesy band name—by the time he reached the song where he howled like a coyote, it might as well [...]

Andy Combs: Animated bastard child of Ennio Morricone and J.R.R. Tolkien.
[WHIMSICAL POP STORYTELLING] Describing an artist’s songs as “all over the musical landscape” is one of the small clichés of music journalism—but for Andy Combs and the Moth, it’s not just apt, it’s literal. Combs’ songs are a landscape.
“It’s like the Enchanted Forest down near [...]

Surveying the characters of Decemberists’ frontman Colin Meloy.
When you think of the Decemberists, what adjectives come to mind? Rustic? Epic? Pretentious? Wordy must be toward the top. While Portland’s finest folk-rock act continues to branch out musically, its songs are still some of the most dense, bookish and elaborate narratives in pop music. After a [...]

The Gentry Sex by the Unit
(In Music We Trust)
Sex sells. And Hillsboro’s the Gentry takes that adage literally on its second album, Sex by the Unit. Driven by a New Waver’s sensibility for electronic hooks and spiked with ragged guitar licks covered in grime and Pop Rocks, the quartet’s latest packs a wallop into its [...]

Their really is nothing I love more than listening to a new record on vinyl. Unlike older record collecting friends of mine, I’m totally a child of the CD era—in 1984, I was hospitalized for approaching perfection—and spent a considerable portion of my teens perusing the used and scuffed aisles at Everyday Music with my [...]