Ten Blog Items! M. Ward! Josh Martinez! BOAT! Shins! More!-- Local Cut

Ten Blog Items! M. Ward! Josh Martinez! BOAT! Shins! More!

March 27th, 2009 [1:35PM] Posted by: Casey Jarman | 2 COMMENTS

I’m still on Texas time, so it’s almost beer o’clock. That means you’re getting these updates fast ‘n furious. TECHNOLOGY ENGAGE. Annnnnd BOOM!

1. Merge Records dropping a for-charity covers record, which looks rad. Among the bands doing the covering? Quasi plays the 3Ds’ “Beautiful Things,” and the Shins tackle Tenement Halls’ “Plenty is Never Enough.” Death Cab For Cutie also covers Superchunk’s “Kicked In,” one of four Superchunk covers on the record. But the song I’m most excited about, though, is the New Pornographers covering criminally underrated southern punks the Rock*A*Teens’ “Don’t Destroy This Night.”

2. MTV tries to find a connection between LOST and Stephen Malkmus. With some success.

3. Tons of OPB news. First off, OPB is trying to take over Portland’s only all-jazz station, KMHD. They’ve got some news on this over at their site. As KMHD is the only station I tune into regularly (well, that and the occasional Breakout Show or Rick Emerson fix), I’m hoping something works out for the troubled FM institution.

Also, OPB got folk-pop giant M. Ward to do an in-studio session, which went up yesterday . Our boy Jason Quigley takes a couple of photos to mark the occasion. And Southerly is still working on that OPB song-a-week thing. Sounding good, homie.

4. Crappy Indie Music reviews the forthcoming Logan Lynn record.

5. VIDEO: BOAT covers Dear Nora at the Magic Marker anniversary show last month. Jeez that was fun.

6. The Joggers’/Shaky Hands’ drummer, Jake Morris, blogged his Austin adventures, which include video of a battle with a bee. I hate bees so much. He’s also a basketball fan, which I didn’t know. I did know that he looks good in a safari hat.

7. From Hush’s Vimeo site: Loch Lomond doing “Blue Lead Fences.”

Loch Lomond – “Blue Lead Fences” from HUSH Records on Vimeo.

8. Josh Martinez blogs about the Blazers:

My biggest wish, if i am to become famous, and rich, and better, is to become Portland’s Spike Lee, courtside smack talkin, drinking hard and cheering on my Blazers harder.

And has a bit of a Kanye moment while explaining that he should have been nominated for a JUNO. If it makes you feel better, Josh, I don’t even know what a JUNO is!

The Juno award for rap is a joke. Who votes for this? Canada’s music scene is 95% rock. The voters are aging hipsters and industry raisins, shriveled dried up grapes of waspish wrath. And they vote for the rap category, and haven’t the first idea who anyone is these days with rap. These are the people who can’t really decide which is a better pick for fan choice award: celine dion or Nickelback.

Ah, that explains to me what a JUNO is. A piece of shit!

9. Musician, author, LC tour diarist and former Portland Mercury music editor Adam Gnade has a radio show on PRA. He has this to say of tonight’s introductory episode:

I’m going to read some select sections of the regional history of the Chesapeake Bay (crtsy, Michener) and play some modern rock ‘n’ roll songs. I might also profess my love for the Ken Burns Civil War series and drop some Shelby Foote and F. Douglass quotes. I will definitely tell you all about how blue crabs moult–and that’s a promise.

It starts tonight at 8 pm. Tune in at praradio.org.

10. Lastly, an open letter to Robyn Hitchcock:

Dear Robyn,
Perusing your touring schedule, I noticed that you have yet to announce any Portland dates on your U.S. tour. This is really bad. I mean really, really bad. You’re touring Burlington and Ferndale, but not America’s greatest music city? You’ve got a couple of Portland dudes on your new album, Goodnight Oslo, and they want to hang out with you and show all their homies that they are friends with a cool British guy (and, you know, rock legend). As do I. Should you visit Portland, Robyn, I’ll buy the drinks. I am writing a formal letter of protest to Scott McCaughey, but I also wanted you to know. If you don’t immediately redirect your tour to the great Northwest (viva Seattle, right?), this thing will not end quietly, it will end with fire and tornadoes and (olay!) tarantulas. I’m not threatening you, I’m just describing a recent fever-dream.

Sincerely,
Portland.