Nick Millward and his fabulous Riffbrokers have been providing sweet, crunchy audio candy to the NW for over 10 years now, from power pop to Americana. Nick explores the power and magic of the hillbilly spiritual on a great new song, available for free download. http://riffbrokers.bandcamp.com/track/leaning-on-the-everlasting-arms – Steve Stav
This is Definitely my new favorite website. Sheba is six years old and there are two hug pugs now. They have their own Facebook page, as they should… http://www.hugpug.com This video shows, from the HugPug website, you just how social pugs are. They groom each other constantly. A pug can never be a solitary dog. …
East Portland Blog asked me to write about “Supper’s Ready” by Genesis, but my heart really wouldn’t be in it today knowing that this clip of Louis Prima and Keely Smith exists. Prima was a combination Zelig/Lord of Misrule of 20th century music, with a career stretching from Louis Armstrong’s New Orleans to the LA …
Another reminder that St. Patrick’s Day is just around the corner. St. Paddy’s day in Chicago is a huge deal. Offices may as well close for two days due to low productivity on the day itself and the hangover time wastage which inevitably follows the next day. I never thought I’d miss those wild March …
Corin Tucker, once the siren of Sleater-Kinney, has a new band, the Corin Tucker Band, a new album, “1000 Years,” and, most importantly, a new hat. (Click here for Ken Tucker’s review): Meanwhile, ex-bandmate Carrie Brownstein has a new TV show with SNL’s Fred Armisen.
One of the legacies of World War II, with its enlistment of young men from across the United States for military service in Europe and the Pacific, was the integration of Southern rural culture – both black and white – into mainstream American life. The South, which had been largely isolated from the rest of …
Critic’s Roundtable, Part 4 (This conversation has four parts.) Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 Behold! http://www.villagevoice.com/pazznjop Look carefully and you’ll see a ballot from yours truly. Almost nobody else voted for my picks, but I expected nothing less. A few observations: those rascally Posies finished at 190, beating out, …
When you answer “Beatles” to the question, “Beatles or Stones?” it shows that you don’t understand the question being asked, and if you don’t get it in 2011, you never will. – East Portland Blog Critic’s Roundtable, Part 3 (This conversation has four parts.) Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 …
Critic’s Roundtable, Part 2 (This conversation has four parts.) Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 Tom is, as usual, generous, judicious and fair in his evaluation, and that’s why he always would have made a better rock critic than some of us of stronger, more strident opinions. But there are …
Portlanders take their food cart dining very seriously. Thus, when one of East Portland’s food carts was reported stolen yesterday, there was a hue and cry that crime and criminals had gone too far this time and taken the tacos right from our gaping mouths. That was yesterday. Today we’re happy to announce that the …
East Portland’s Lloyd Center Mall is a dimly lit, uncomfortably shaped and poorly designed mall. For that reason, this flash mob never finds the right place to strut their stuff while being heard and seen, but you have to give them an E for East Portland and for Effort. Still, the quarrelsome flamenco flash in …
“Weren’t Young Fresh Fellows more important in the grand scheme of things than Nirvana? And wasn’t Popllama more significant than SubPop? – East Portland Blog Critic’s Roundtable, Part 1 (This conversation has four parts.) Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 Through the 1980s a couple of different strains ran through …
This is for everyone who first heard of Jackie Wilson via Van Morrison’s “Jackie Wilson Said” but never got to hear the real Jackie Wilson. Here he is on The Ed Sullivan Show, January 21, 1962.
Mike Nesmith’s highest charting song, post-Monkees, was a surprisingly tender country ballad from 1970:
Thanks to Randy Rendfeld for this: The NPR interview with Colin Meloy of Portland band, the Decemberists, and their new album, The King is Dead (available as of 1/18/2011) may be heard here at the NPR website. And here’s Calamity Song, a nifty homage to Reckoning-era REM on the new album:
“What I find striking about this song is that it wasn’t written as a performance piece. Towser was famously challenged by his producer/manager Kit Lambert to fill up a blank 10 minutes of vinyl on their in-progress LP. He responded with this mini opera. I have vexed and divided feelings about the operas — mini, …
”It’s everything you love in a game, and your Mom’s going to hate it…” This is a very clever advertisement which will sell lots of Dead Space 2 units to teenagers. It’s interesting to look at in the wake of all the recent discussion of pop culture influencing people to act violently in real life. …
This lady should have won…
It’s all here, part of a contest of Newberry Award Winning children’s books each dramatized in videos of 90 seconds or less: “A Wrinkle In Time” In 90 Seconds from James Kennedy on Vimeo.
Note to criminals in Seattle: dress up in a green and gold suit before going on a crime spree, then everyone will think Phoenix Jones did it. Phoenix himself had to have been affected by popular culture because what rational adult would suit up and play Batman unless every movie had superheroes in them. Then …
An excellent Dengue Fever montage of sound check and live performance:
There are few experiences in life as exciting as attending a baseball game in October, when the outcome of a marathon season hangs in the balance. Despite the handicap of being a Giants fan of modest means, I had seen two such games in my life prior to last year. The latter, back in 2002, …
If we need to tell kids what math is useful as an adult, I would say percentages and how they relate to tipping and financing charges. Learn your percentages, kids. Take finance in college. Community Channel is the Youtube’s most popular Australian:
With Tragic Magic – Reflections On Power Pop Michael Chabon has once more proven himself to be my genius doppelganger, saying everything (and more) on a subject dear to me in a voice that is everything (and more) I’d hope mine to be. Being in the world with him at the same time removes any …
Not Van Morrison, but def. in the spirit of Van the Man… Thanks to BoingBoing:
”Rent” may seem like the most maudlin of guilty pleasures, on par with “Seasons in the Sun.” But, one of very few late-80s nostalgia vehicles, “Rent” hits the mark more often than, say, “St Elmo’s Fire.” Nothing evokes the 80s better than a musical about addiction, death, sex, mediocre art and moving Westward. Casual references …
I continue to choose not to speculate about the motives (or lack thereof ) or sanity (or lack thereof) of Jared Loughner. And I sadly wish I had been wrong in my speculation about the reactions of right and left to the cruel violence inflicted by Loughner and its sad aftermath. That there are those …