Youtube is alive with fantastic vids of Simrit Kaur performing at various places around the world. The Keeper (below) is a particularly arresting introduction to Simrit’s siren blend of trance-world-classical with alt-folk vocals. This music has texture and, when given voice in the right venue, will ebb, flow and echo around the audience, hypnotizing, beguiling, …
Pacific NW! On May 14, 15 and 16 the motherf___ing Afghan Whigs are in your general vicinity. Dates here – looks like the first Seattle show is sold out but Portland tickets are still available as is the last night of the whole tour on the 2nd night in Seattle – do not miss this …
I love this tune. Dig the guitar leads on the back end. Tents, a Portland band, claim to have shot this video in three days in their own backyard. I don’t know where the yard is, but by looking at the flat ground and the style of houses, my best guess is that this took …
One of the best parts of playoffs in the NBA is that teams step up their pageantry a notch. The banners are more plentiful outside the arena, the excitement of the crowd is more palpable, and the lights out introductions are astounding. In this case, the fans were all issued, in addition to T-shirts draped …
Most natives of Portland don’t need to be told that they live in a sea of natural beauty, but they may not be aware just how close some of the outdoor wonders are to their doorsteps. One of these is the Tualatin RIver National Wildlife Refuge, just off of Highway 99W a few miles southwest …
So Portland has a grammy-winning artist now. Portugal. The Man won folk/pop duo/group performance for “Feel It Still.” Portugal. The Man locks down pop/duo performance Portugal. The Man at Grammys 2018: ‘We’re All About Hard Work’
After the Portland Trailblazers’ win over the Indiana Pacers last Thursday night, comedian Cedric the Entertainer got up from his courtside seat afterward and took Coach Terry Stotts’ place at the podium for the postgame press conference: Thanks to the graciousness of the Trailblazers, I’ve been in that briefing room a couple of times. Usually, …
Company of Thieves is back after taking six years off. Their new tune, “Treasure,” is pretty cool and you can hear it below. The band had a music industry story you hear about in the movies – founding members Marc Walloch and Genevieve Schatz met on a train station platform in Chicago and bonded over …
For those who love seeing their literary heroes in the flesh and obtaining their signatures on the title pages of newly purchased books, Wordstock is a paradise rivaling any other such event in these United States. This year’s festival took place the Saturday before last over a three-block area of downtown Portland, and while it …
For those of you who didn’t follow the Portland Trail Blazers last season, their biggest story was their February trade for Jusuf Nurkic, the Bosnian Beast and the West Coast’s answer to New York Knick sensation Kristaps Porzingis. With his shooting and rebounding, Nurkic turned around the Blazers’ season, helping them to an 18-8 record …
Ken Stringfellow is coming to Portland with his new supergroup, Tears of Silver, on Wednesday night, Sept. 27 and to Seattle the following day, Sept. 28. There’s more info at the Facebook event page below. It will be a pop-up all ages show at a location which will only be revealed to ticket holders on …
Filmed in Portland, with city leaders and local residents appearing as themselves, this is a 1957 CBS movie presentation narrated by actor Glenn Ford which shows the supposedly orderly manner with which Portlanders would react when they found out Russian planes are on their way to drop a hydrogen bomb downtown. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Day_Called_X Here Is Portland’s …
Photos posted today in The Atlantic of wildfires in the West. Portland residents may be particularly interested in those of the Eagle Creek fire along the Columbia River. The first two, taken from the Washington side of the river across from Cascade Locks, are quite dramatic. https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2017/09/wildfires-rage-across-the-american-west/538977/ – Chuck Strom
The recent EP from Championships is a delight. It has six carefully crafted pop classics all written and sung by Cameron Heger, the Championships mastermind. Gifted as he undoubtedly is, Heger gets by with a lot of help from his talented friends. On his last recording, an eponymous debut in November of 2015, it was …
Austin’s self-described “freak parade,” Sweet Spirit, harnesses the force of their eight-piece band to create a high-energy, soulful, gritty, and just-straight-up-fun soundscape. Sabrina Ellis’ (A Giant Dog) standout vocals provide the anchor for the array of pop, rock, glam, soul, and blues that blend together seamlessly. St. Mojo, the sophomore album, came out on April …
Last Sunday, writers and activists gathered at Writers Resist, an event held in over 100 venues in cities across the nation to commiserate and find ways to respond to the unthinkable turn of events from last November 8. In Portland, about 600 people came to the Aladdin Theater to see Cheryl Strayed and other local …
The recent video above from Communist Daughter features a great new song reminiscent of the best of The National. Titled, “Balboa Bridge,” the song is about the namesake bridge in Balboa Park in San Diego, a lovely, bittersweet spot where I used to jog for exercise in my younger days. Definitely worth a listen. Communist …
The photos of Mt. Shasta were taken in the morning of Friday, November 11 on my way from California to Portland. Those of Multnomah Falls and the Columbia Gorge were taken on Saturday, November 12.
A new and imaginative microbrewery, the Labrewatory on NE Russell Street, has arrived on the scene in Portland. The owners, Chris Sears, Patrick Walsh, and Joe Watzig, invite larger brewers in the area to use their four-barrel system to experiment with recipes that would be more expensive to attempt on their larger-scale equipment. The Labrewatory …
Cheryl Strayed, whose memoir, Wild, became a successful movie with Reese Witherspoon, is a good storyteller whose online talks and Q&As never contain a dull moment. It was during one of my searches for her talks that I learned that she had resurrected her advice column, Dear Sugar, as a WBUR podcast with Steve Almond, …
Oregon’s Willamette Valley has some of the best wine country on Earth, especially if you’re into the Pinot Noir variety that Rex Pickett made famous with his novels Sideways and Vertical, the latter of which is set in Oregon. For those who live in Portland or are just visiting, most of the wineries are within …
The Golden State Warriors ended their playoff series last night with a 125-121 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers. Though the Blazers won only one of the five games, the widespread consensus is that they gave the Warriors all they could handle. Game 5 was no different than most of the other games, with the …
The news that Stephen Curry would play in last night’s Game 4 between the Portland Trail Blazers and the Golden State Warriors seemed a significant but not earth-shaking development, and when I checked the first-half score and saw the Blazers up by ten, I figured the game was over and that Curry would need at …
In Game 3 of the NBA West Semifinals last night between the Portland Trail Blazers and the Golden State Warriors, the Blazers did to the Warriors what the Warriors have done to the NBA for two years. Every time the Warriors made a run at the Blazers in the second half, even closing the lead …
The Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in McMinnville, OR, is about an hour off the beaten interstate track, but it’s well worth the trip. It is the home not only of Howard Hughes’s Spruce Goose, but also a remarkable collection of vintage airplanes and spacecraft, including V2 and Gemini Titan rockets. The Spruce Goose, in …
One should never judge a series by its first game, but with their 118-106 victory, the Dubs took care of business with a 20-point lead in the first quarter, never allowing the score to get close after that. Lillard and McCollum shot a combined 30% from the floor—they and the Blazers may have been a …
When I saw the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Los Angeles Clippers back in November, I wrote at the time that the Blazers looked better than expected, while the Clippers seemed to have more than their share of issues. I would have never predicted, though, that the Blazers would not only make the NBA playoffs …
Attention all you fans of punk pop, have you heard of the Subways? They’re an English punk pop trio and they’re coming to the Northwest this next week. Think New Found Glory meets the Runaways. They have a brand video out called Dirty Muddy Paws. Check it out here. They’re playing Seattle on April 27th …
Cameron Heger is a musician and dog lover from right here in our beloved Portlandia, Oregonia. After writing songs and playing drums in a few bands, this past year he decided to venture out on his own and see an entire musical project through from writing, to arranging, to performing. He enlisted his friend, Sam …